Zombie Night Shift Survival

Many folks bodies just can't adjust to night shift as well younger folks generally require more sleep, its a physiological issue. They suffer indigestion, sleep disorder, constant fatigue and mood swings. We have no line haul drivers under 40, most are over 50.

 

The problem with irregular otr is it takes my body anyway, about three days to adjust to the flip flop. I will do it for varying reasons plus know matter how tired I am, my Elog says I'm all good. I'm not sure age plays a big role. Sometimes that bunk just feels like heaven at 5:30. Might even feel better than that if I didn't have a ticking time bomb mounted on my dash.

 

My current just has us working 7 out of 14 days 12 hour shifts once I became a supervisor one of the first things I did was convince management to let us do straight days or straight nights. We do a short week and a long week 36 hours first week second week is 48 hours, so one week is Monday, Tuesday on, off Wednesday and Thursday, back to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Your then off Monday, Tuesday on Wednesday and Thursday, off for a 3 day weekend. I personally love have weekdays off over weekends being old now lol. But thankfully its fixed now, it used to be were every time you came back to work it would flip talk about no life. Overall if I'm able I would prefer to do as much of my driving as I can at night, easier to get miles in that way and just keep on trucking.

Biggest thing I have found for helping staying up on nights is to keep yourself busy as you can then only snack if I ever ate a heavy meal on midnights I was done for.

 

bean to cup
3 stoks
24 hour playlist
study constellations
hammer down thru cities
park under the rising sun
best day ever

 

might want to consider half a Starbucks next time.....

 

Careful, don’t #### yourself

 

I need at least a few days to adjust to runs that take me through the graveyard. The first night driving a few weeks ago I just couldn't keep my eyes open and pulled into a rest area; fortunately, one spot left. Set the alarm for one hour's time, slept through it and got up three hours later. Dispatch wasnt happy at all.