Forcing yourself to stay awake in order to sleep later and closer to your next shift may result in poor quality slumber.ĭuring times when you find yourself negotiating with your body to sleep, do not underestimate the power of resting – laying with eyes closed in a quiet environment. Consider the following approach: if your body is asking for sleep, give sleep to your body. Many nurses craft their sleep to fit their schedule, but this gets tricky with variable shifts. This one is plain and simple: you must sleep when you can and as long as you can to be ready for your next shift. Search Nursing Schools Now Schedule The Z’s I recommend giving yourself a week to see how your body reacts to the fluctuating sleep schedule, then insert a nice hot cup at a time where you need it the most and notice if it alters your sleep quality come rest time. Strategically plan your caffeine as it can make or break your rhythm. Hydrate your cells, keep your organs happy. Time to check a blood sugar? That reminds me, I should pee first. As a reminder to help you get your water in at work, attach a water and bathroom break along with a patient’s routine medication or treatment. If you find yourself peeing less than q4 hours, you could probably afford to increase your water intake. Hydration will help prevent you from feeling hung over when you wake up after sleep. Do not put yourself through this torture and save the bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes for your first meal after rest. Speaking of carb crashes, if you haven’t experienced a carbohydrate overload while sleep deprived, you’re in for a rude counter-awakening. Plus, the fiber makes for healthy bowel habits and there’s no carb crash. From spinach to zucchini, all-things-veggie are packed with vitamins and minerals that become depleted from alternate sleep. Make up for the lack of sleep regularity with mother nature’s greens. So let’s start with the basics: what you eat! Veggies, Veggies, Veggies Yet with this prerogative comes the need for creative time management with your meals, sleep, and off-time lifestyle in order to counterbalance an irregular sleep schedule. Needless to say, variable shifts give you the opportunity to become familiar with what the job looks like at all hours of the day and night. Any given week for a nurse with this schedule could like this: Of the different schedules nurses work in a hospital setting, variable shifts are arguably the most challenging. Is it sleep time? Is it work time? With a variable/rotating shift schedule, life fluctuates from week to week and from shift to shift, and things can get out of hand quickly.
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