Nightshift

For most of my career in health care I have worked night shift. Work 3-4 nights, off 5-7 days. It has given me a lot of time with my family as well as worked with my personal rhythm, I’ve always been a night owl. But lately the charm of night shift has started to fade. I don’t enjoy sleeping during the day as much and if I wake up I can’t go back to sleep. With a puppy in the house that means I sleep around 4 hours during the days I’m working. I need around 6 to feel like myself. 

Lately I haven’t been feeling like myself. There’s a lot going on in my emotional life and I feel like I’m trying to figure out what is important to me and where I want my life to go from here on.

I’m starting to think that maybe my many years of nightshift work is coming to an end. Maybe I need to be a “normal person” and work during the day and sleep during the night. 

There are many benefits with nightshift work but research shows it shortens one’s life. I always said “If I die at 89 or 84 what does it matter, I’ve spent a lot of time with my kids.” And this is still true. But as my youngest just started school and I realize that the benefit of being off during the week and having time with him will be no more. Instead I will be loosing weekends with my children when they are off as I work every third weekend. 

I love how the hospital feels at night. The energy in the building is so different from the day. It’s like a blanket has been placed over the whole place. There is not as much hustle and bustle, less staff, less set times to keep track of, meaning more time for the families I am caring for. I can spend an hour helping someone with breastfeeding. Or at times sit for a while with a newborn in my arms so that their mother can sleep. It’s a privilege to not always be stressed when working with health care, I’ve spent years rushing every shift. Now I’m at a place where nights are calm, rushing is an exception, not the rule. And work is very mundane for me. 

Maybe it’s nightshift, maybe it’s just my place of employment, maybe I’m just changing and need something else. We will se how long I will continue on this path of a nightshift worker, it’s been a good run.