Night Shift Gets More Energetic With Melatonin

You watch the sun low above the horizon, listen to the birds in the back yard and the noises of your neighborhood waking up to another beautiful day, a day you won't get to see much since you just came home from your night shift and are about to get in bed for a good day's sleep. Your schedule is upside down, and your body is straining to keep up with the change from a natural rhythm, sleep doesn't come when you need it, energy is not there when most necessary, so you have to work out a routine that will let you do your job, get enough rest and be able to have some life in between. A lot of people are naturally energized in the early evening, but within a few hours they relax and are ready to doze off. Working nights, however, you don't have that opportunity and you need to fight the tiredness so you can stay alert and performing your duties well. One of the typical aides in helping you stay awake is caffeine, but drink too much of it and your body will feel shaky, your mind won't be able to focus and when your shift is over, falling asleep will be a challenge. Instead of that fourth cup of coffee, try taking vitamin B12, drinking cold water, doing a quick set of invigorating exercises or taking a brisk walk outside. Avoid your workplace being overheated, the air getting stuffy and having full stomach after a heavy meal since that will make you sleepy and you'll have a hard time staying alert. Towards the end of your sift it's good to start winding down to have less trouble falling asleep. Since your natural production of melatonin for sleep gets interrupted by a reversed sleep pattern, you will most likely need to resort to some tricks to help you fall asleep in the middle of the morning. On of effective ways is to take a melatonin supplement, which combined with a calming herbal tea should help make your body think it's time for bed. Other tricks to use are to darken your bedroom as much as possible with heavy curtains or blinds and to use a machine making ambient noise to cover the outside noises. Adding aromatherapy by keeping lavender potpourri or spraying chamomile mist on your pillow won't hurt either. No matter if you sleep at night or during the day, interrupting your sleep makes for a much less relaxing and rejuvenating experience. As much as people tend to not bother other at night, during the day it's perfectly acceptable, so you have to try and avoid that. Tell everybody in your environment that you are working nights and not to call you or drop in on you in the hours you plan on sleeping. When you go to bed, turn your phone ring down or off and consider disabling your doorbell to avoid being awakened by a telemarketer or a courier trying to drop off a package for your neighbors. If you do your best to get enough sleep, you should still have the evenings before heading to work to yourself and grabbing dinner with friends or going shopping at the mall should be no problem whatsoever.