On work days I always get a good 7-8 hours, but if I’m not working I very rarely manage more than 3-4, it’s as if my brain feels like it’s wasting the day. I’m one of those people who can operate comfortably on very little sleep. I use a sleep cycle alarm that is supposed to wake me when it senses I’m only sleeping lightly or something, no idea if any of that stuff’s real/helpful but it can’t hurt. I also maintain a healthy weight (I used to be overweight) which keeps pressure off my neck and reduces snoring & breathing interruptions, that definitely helps with feeling rested.

Once in a blue moon my body decides to sleep about 9 hours longer than planned to catch up on missed sleep, but I either rarely feel particularly tired or I’ve been doing this long enough that I don’t remember what being properly awake felt like 🤷‍♂️

I sleep better with lights, noise and distractions than without; without gives my brain time to think about things like elections, exactly how much time I have left to sleep before I have to get up for work, what troubles I’ll face at work the next day, etc. I slept so much better during the days than I do during night.

edit: For some reason my client decided to post this as I was in the middle of typing a sentence. Edited to actually finish the post.

I have an inconsistent schedule which includes night shifts. Ive never slept well, and whiskey+doxylamine=sleep, most of the time

I did this for a year and a half, and I never fully adjusted. I worked 4 10 hour days from 10pm til 8am.

One thing that helped a lot was to go to bed straight after work. Then I’d wake up, go do stuff/work out/be social, then head into work again. The only thing that threw a monkey wrench into this for me was the 3 day weekend, where I’d find my body fighting to return to a normal schedule.

I’m unresponsive to blue light, so I can sleep anytime

Yes, same for me.

I’ve been working nights for about 20 years and it was easier when I was younger. Now that I am in my early 40ies I find it more difficult to just go to bed and sleep.

Some weeks I can keep a steady schedule, sleep during the day and feel well rested, but other weeks I can’t get more than a few hours during the day and feel miserable when I work.

However it’s also changing with seasons and things I do during the weekend. I tend to sleep less in summer because of the heat and the light. Also I go camping during the weekends and have to sleep during the night, then switch back to day sleeping during the week. It’s much easier in winter because it’s always cold and dark and I just stay home.

So, it varies a lot for me.

If you’re having trouble getting a restful sleep, try segmented sleeping.

I slept better for the 15 years I worked nights than I have since I switched back to working days. Never had a problem falling asleep, never used blackout blinds or anything like that just always found it easy to get in a good 8 hours.

When I wanted to switch my sleep schedule I would do what another commenter called a reset where I would basically just stay up for 24 hours, be over tired then go to sleep at a “normal” time so I could switch back to day time waking hours for a weekend. Then in reverse I would usually have a nap from 20:00 - 00:00 then wake up and stay up the rest of the night before going back to sleep at my usual work time to flip back the other way.

Get a white noise generator app; I use TMSoft’s White Noise, which lets me put together my own mix. I generally make one with some pink noise (like white noise, but pitched differently and for me it does a better job screening background noise); then, because that’s just a straight sound which can get irritating after a while, I put in a rainstorm over the pink noise. Then I add in some thunder, which is useful in helping my sleeping brain ignore bass notes like garbage trucks and vacuum cleaners. That takes care of interrupting sounds, and also helps nudge my brain into sleep mode when I turn it on.

The other thing for me are both blackout curtains and a sleep mask. The sleep mask because the blackout curtains aren’t quite good enough; the blackout curtains because I have to take off the mask to pee during the day and don’t want to get assaulted by the sun.

Phone off silent, obs.

As much as humanly possible, I try to put everything in my day during the 2pm-6pm but when I can’t, I do what I call “resets”. The day before I need to be awake during the day, I will stay up for about 16-20 hours and then go to bed around 2am. It’s essentially resetting my sleep schedule, so of course it occurs mostly during weekends. It’s an extremely unhealthy way to change sleep schedules and should be used sparingly, but it’s effectiveness can’t be beat.

I had to get a sleep mask because I can’t put up blackout curtains in my apartment. Works well enough for me. But also, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a mutation on my DEC2 gene, because I only sleep 4-5 hours a night (or day, technically) and feel just fine, so I’m not sure if that helps or hinders my abilities during my waking hours.

Yes it never gets better. If anything only worse. If you do somewhat adapt to at least rise quickly or on demand then you have trouble going back to sleeping in again. The only benefit is nights pay more, so make sure they pay you more.

I second light blocking curtains and I personally sleep with a fan to drown out noise. I also take melatonin about an hour before I lay down, I used to take ambien but I couldn’t handle the side effects anymore. I usually feel pretty well rested, at least enough for my shift.

Vitamin d helps with sleep. When I worked 3rds. If I didn’t take it… I would wake up after 4 hours…

I worked 12 hour night shifts for a couple years. It was fine for me but falling asleep is sort of my superpower. You may want to get some blackout shades if your room gets to bright in the morning. Also, keeping your body on the night shift time on your days off can help with sleeping.