4 Tips to Pulling Off an All-Night Work Schedule

It’s day 5 of my night and day flip that I wrote about last week. So far it’s been a struggle, probably one of the greatest challenges I’ve faced this year (besides taking a painful 4 day break from my girlfriend) and I’m still working out some kinks. While the switch is still fresh, though, I figured that I would share some tips with you for getting into the night-shift successfully.

I guess this means that I have succeeded in switching. I wake up around 2 PM, go to work at 10 PM and stay up and work effectively (for the most part) until 6 AM. In a future post I’ll be able to share some of the awesome benefits I’m experiencing that I didn’t realize would happen when I started, for now I’ll just stick to transition tips, though.

1. Drink Lots of Fluids

I think that the number one thing that is keeping me awake and helping to ease the transition is the drinking of a lot of fluids. Coffee, tea and energy drinks have been added to my list for obvious reasons, but I’ve found it’s also important to keep drinking a lot of water and fruit juices (apple juice is amazing).

Fluids not only help physically with hydration (for getting oxygen through your blood stream), but they also give you something to think about, other than the fact that you’re really tired. Having to get up once every couple of hours for a new drink, like to make tea or pour coffee, also breaks the concentration and gives me a minute to ‘stretch’ my eyes. I’ve even gone to the gas station to pick up a drink so that I could get out of the house for a bit.

Tonight, I tried a fruit-juice run, and I love it. Haven’t felt this awake all week (though it could be more that I’m getting used to the switch than that the fruit juice is working). Some people claim that apple juice helps pretty well, but that may just be a rumor.

2. Schedule Showers for Night-Time

This has been my sleep-savior every night so far. At around 4 AM I start getting increasingly tired, and at first I couldn’t figure out what to do to snap out of it (the first couple of nights I just slept off the fatigue, lol). Then I found a trick: if I switch my showers to sometime around 4 AM, it gives me a 20 minute window to get my mind off of my computer screen or papers and onto other things, like a mirror or shower wall.

The warm water also increases the blood flow, which means that oxygen is getting around more efficiently (to my brain), which wakes me up a bit. By the time I’m done, I feel clean, my mind feels refreshed, and I’ve stopped yawning.

3. Play Background Music

My first night I thought that this would be a good idea, but I did it all wrong by playing instrumental music. While this helped me concentrate on my tasks pretty well, it also made me extremely tired. It simply wasn’t engaging enough to make me stay awake.

Now I put my Zune Library on shuffle and listen to any number of the 3000 songs I’ve purchased recently. If something comes on that I like, it gets me excited, and songs that have faster tempos cause my heart rate to go faster. Also, if at some point a song comes on that I know the words to, I can stop for a few seconds and sing along, which if you haven’t figured out already, helps me to break my concentration for a second (long enough to get refreshed).

Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Ernie Halter, The Script, and my old roommate, David Story.

4. Stretching, Running, Breathing.

It feels kind of funny running in a circle in the middle of my living room, but when it’s 20 degrees outside, I feel that it is well worth the strange feeling. Running, stretching and breathing exercises really help with staying awake. Seriously (and it might help get you in shape too! Double Win!).

Running gets a bit of adrenaline going, plus increases the heart rate. Stretching gets out the tight spots in your body and leaves you feeling refreshed. Breathing exercises are helpful for getting as much oxygen into the body as possible – which gets rid of yawns (again, that’s pretty important).

5. Get Some Sleep!

I know I said four in the title, but this one should go without saying. This article isn’t just about how to stay up all night long, it’s about transitioning to a night-shift work schedule. To be a successful transitioner, your best bet is to get a full day of sleep. Don’t be the hero and skip out on a day of sleep, that’s not healthy.

If your body is tired, it is saying that it needs rest… that means you need to rest. If you want to just stay up for one night, then this obviously won’t work (just catchup on your sleep as soon as possible afterward). But if you are planning on staying up every night for a while, then you need to make sure you aren’t up during the day.

And with that, I am now going to get to sleep myself. Do you have any tips to add to this? Have you tried any of these and had similar (or different) results?