Tag: insomnia

Sleep? Nah who needs that?

Sleep, who needs that?

I do….

In my endless search for something relevant to chat about, I have today stumbled upon the topic of sleep. As I am just not getting enough of it.

Insomniacs of the world unite and lift those drowsy heads.

I know my problem, well I think I do. I am a shift worker of 30+ years now, and in 30 years I’ve never been successful at managing the transition from working nights to doing the day shift. It’s now 06:20 on Monday morning and I finished my long run of night shifts at 6am last Friday, 72hrs ago. I’m about to go into work to start another “productive “ week.

So I’m finishing at 6am, I sleep until about 1pm and then I’m up, do what I have to do and then head for bed about 10pm feeling sufficiently tired and all prepared for a good night sleep. That isn’t going to happen tonight though is it? A little voice in my head decides that at 2am it is a good time to wake up, and wouldn’t you know it, I’m now wide awake.

I’ve been a tad stressed lately as well and that contributes, I’ve had some medical issues develop that are also compounding things but in the greater context, I’m struggling to understand just what the issue is. Oh, and physical activity has also dwindled somewhat lately.

At 2am I fish out my headphones and put Spotify on my phone to listen to some relaxing sounds that guarantee to have me asleep in minutes, excellent, I’ll have some of that.

Two hours later and I am still awake, what I have just listened to sounds vaguely similar to the music you’d expect to hear in a funeral parlour, at times I felt as if I was the cadaver just lying there for my family to inspect. Weird, so I won’t be using that again!

Sometime between funeral introspective time and daylight I must have drifted off for a while, as I was woken with a cup of tea and my wife questioning why I had headphones on. Last night was not much better as we had a windy night here and one of the neighbours gates was banging about causing me to wake up, just as I’d drifted off. I’ll casually mention that today to him with the polite suggestion that if it is not sorted out, my cranky self will probably nail the F***er shut so it doesn’t happen again. I’m sure he will sort it out, once again restoring neighbourly calmness and balance.

Over the 30 years or so of working shifts, I have tried probably, every way of trying to transition from nights to days, and it just doesn’t work, for me at least. If I get up too early to try and force my body to tire early, the wife says I get cranky, if I don’t sleep on the first day of transition at all, I apparently become one of the living dead. I just can’t win.

I’ve probably answered my own questions in the paragraph above, and I requote:

I’ve been a tad stressed lately as well and that contributes, I’ve had some medical issues develop that are also compounding things but in the greater context, I’m struggling to understand just what the issue is. Oh, and physical activity has also dwindled somewhat lately.

There it is. How do you manage that transition, as I’m all out of ideas? I can address some of the above but I just need to manage my days better to achieve things, but work gets in the way. Shift work is a silent killer in my eyes, as Johnny cash once sang: “I l owe my soul to the company store”

And to quote another song, “ I can’t get no sleep”

I’m knackered.

Have a super day. Sleep well.

I can’t get no sleep

3am in the morning and I’m wide awake. Damned annoying as I know what the cause is. It’s been an issue that has pestered me in excess of 30 years now and it’s called –

Shift work

Says it all

I’ve been working shifts in my job for about 35 years now and I still haven’t come across a way to get your body to adapt to all the changes that shift work burdens upon you, and number one in that list is insomnia.

Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder where people have difficulty sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep for as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, and a depressed mood. It may result in an increased risk of accidents of all kinds as well as problems focusing and learning.

Wikipedia

As if you need it explaining to you. Now I don’t suffer from permanent insomniac conditions, mine is purely based around the segment that involves night shifts. My shifts cover 24hrs and are on a five week rolling cycle. They involve three main sets of shifts and those shifts are 0600-1400hrs, 1400-2200hrs or 2200-0600hrs and at weekends they are either 0600-1800 or 1800-0600.

I have just finished a run of 11 consecutive night shifts after one of my coworkers has been taken ill. And that’s the problem. I finished at 0600 yesterday morning and deliberately did not sleep beyond 11 am as I’m now having to swing back to daylight timings, as I now have the weekend off before transferring on to the early mornings shifts from Monday. I was suitably tired last night, in fact I was all day, but I resisted the urge to nod off as I wanted to try and fool my body clock in to getting back to normal habits. But my body clock doesn’t work like that and isn’t having it.

Over the years I have tried many ways to try and evolve my body clock to understand when moving from Night shifts to day shifts. I’ve tried not sleeping at all, but that results in irritation to all those around me, and a general malaise that is unproductive and non conducive to a friendly peaceful atmosphere. I’ve tried the couple of hours in bed routine but that again is problematic as you fall in to such a deep sleep, so quickly that whoever is tasked with waking you up undoubtedly gets both barrels and you don’t speak for the rest of the day getting labelled as a miserable old git. Or you can just go to bed and wake up when you feel fit to, as I did yesterday and here I am now, in a blacked out bedroom putting my thoughts into this post, quietly as my wife sleeps beside me.

I’m totally wide awake and ready to go. But I don’t want to go anywhere…just yet.

I know I will pay the price later today by feeling tired and tempted to take a nap, however I have to resist that temptation and try to get back to a normal sleeping pattern tonight.

I must apologise in advance to all those individuals who I will meet today who think “He’s a miserable old git.” If I’m nodding as we talk it’s not that I’m bored it’s just I’m lacking the one item you have probably had plenty of.

Sleep.

I can’t get no sleep….(to quote a superb tune)

I can’t get no sleep

There you go. I said it was a great tune.

Peace and plentiful sleep to you all. Stay safe.

Sleep? Maybe, maybe not

What are you doing this evening?

To be honest I’m not really sure. I suspect as I have work tomorrow it will be shower, and to bed. I’m currently reading some Charles Dickens book that I should have read years ago, so I suppose I will do that until I feel tired and then drift into a lovely deep sleep.

Now that’s not going to happen is it? My brain will wake up when I go horizontal and throw silly questions into the night such as, “Why do penguins live in the cold?” And “Why are there so many stars in the sky?” And lots of other irrelevant observations. So I’m probably planning an interrupted nights sleep and I’m going to wake in the morning miserable as sin and like Alf Garnet on acid (he’s a miserable sod from the 70s who was a tv character)

So that’s my evening sorted.

Not jealous are you 😂

Have a super day.