Help Navigating Late Shift

[akela9]

Hey, all. Long time lurker, first time topic maker.

I manage a little pub in my hometown and we've just lost some staff so I will be covering some closing shifts next week (and additional weeks, until we can get someone trained up to replace our old staff.)

I just came off of my very first W30 and have decided to extend the program, 'cause I can't see any logical reason not to.

Here's the deal:

I’m nervous about bartending next week (and following weeks) and how it will be royally screwing with my schedule. Am looking forward to the work itself, I’m just having a hard time figuring out the healthiest way to get enough sleep, when to eat, and all that jazz. I also don’t know what I should *do* with my schedule, exactly. I’ll have a late night (9 p.m. to 3 a.m.) Mondays and Fridays, but only those two days, unless something weird happens. Having the shifts spread out like that is hella awkward. Not to mention I have to get book work done during the day, somehow, after those shifts. (Saturday will be the bad one as the banks close early so I gotta work late, but be up and around to get all that other crap done by 11:30 a.m.) It’s not the end of the world, and I realize it’s only two days a week, but it’s still awkward. Do I keep the same schedule, even on nights I’m not working, or do I try to keep my schedule closer to “normal” EXCEPT for the nights I AM working? Anyone have experience with this?

P.S... I've read some of the popular "shift work" articles, but that isn't really what this is. Sorry if I'm just being obtuse, but would welcome your feedback. Cheers!  

[SugarcubeOD]

Sounds like it's going to be a difficult road for a while.

I'm more worried about your sleep than your dietary intake to be honest. My recommendation would be to eat within an hour of waking on all the days, regardless of when 'waking' is (later on late nights, earlier on regular days) and then eat template meals 4-5 hours apart throughout your waking time... your days may be extra (super duper) long so you may end up with more than three meals. That's okay. Work on getting the 4-5 hours and then on the late shift nights, if you do need to eat again late at night, I'd try for as small a meal as possible... It might be really hard to keep eating within an hour of waking on Tuesday and Saturday, but you really want to keep those hormones regulated to sleeping/wake time and as you say this isn't forever, I would think it would be most beneficial to try and keep the 'regular' routine as much as possible and then just patchwork those two days until you can go back to full days... hopefully you can hire and train as quickly as possible so you're not stuck like this... that type of broken up 'shift work' is really not healthy and should not go on for long periods of time... if you need to prove this to a boss or owner, look up your state's shift work regulations (often very easy to find for nursing) and then hire those newbies as quick as you can!

[akela9]

Thanks, SugarcubeOD. I appreciate the feedback and suggestions. ((Hugs))

I will focus on keeping the 4-5 window between meals and if I need an extra snack or something, I'll allow it, but keep it small. I will also try to keep my other days as "normal" as possible (although this will be hard because of the sleep thing) but will do my best and try to get my 7+ hours in. 

I'm still *really* struggling with eating breakfast which tells me my hormones are still not where I'd like them to be. I'm only on day two of my second round, so I think I will make this a top priority. (I'm just not hungry first thing in the mornings and often mildly nauseous.) 

Things to work on. I'm hoping this round will be even better then the first one, despite this late night work nonsense.