I’m a nurse and I don’t do night shifts. The few times I did it I earned a 150% differential but it’s not worth the money: I’d go back home and have to use noise cancelling headphones to sleep, 'cause people are loud, I’d wake up rested at 04:00 pm, but completely destroying my circadian rhythm. I’d need a whole day or 2 to recover my regular rhythm because otherwise I’d be a zombie.
I hear my coworkers who do night shift complaining about this same issue, but they still pick up night shifts, which I don’t understand.
To me it was impossible to have something akin to a life while working night shift, but I’ve met some people that only do night shifts: the housewife that only works 4 nights shifts per month, the single mother or young wife or husband who work 14 night shifts per month and have the next 2 weeks for him/herself…
I don’t understand why they do it. It’s extremely taxing and not worth it imho.
But if you do, how do you have a life? And how do you keep yourself healthy?
A long time ago I worked from ~10pm to ~6am. I would wake up at 9pm and inhale some food before taking off. When I got home I would eat my “dinner” and then see everyone else waking up to start their day. I would typically hang out and take care of human existence stuff until like 1pm at which point I would go to sleep.
I was single and living with family at the time so it didn’t mess up my social plans too often since my gamer buddies all kept terrible hours anyways so on my days off I would just play all through the night with them.
I actually prefer being awake while most of the world sleeps. I find it oddly comfortable knowing most people aren’t out and about. It almost feels like a weight off my consciousness at night.
But if you require social planning flexibility having flipped sleeping hours with the rest of the world can be a really big problem.