# Jet lag/ changing work shifts



## Defeat The Curse (Jun 30, 2011)

any advice would be appreciated.

switching work from 7 pm to 7 am ,,, and i always stay on that schedule, every day i sleep 9 am to 5 pm..

but changing to 7 am to 7 pm work, so like living in the opposite side of the world i live in now.

Anybody have experience with making the transition not so rough?


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## Andros (Aug 26, 2009)

Defeat The Curse said:


> any advice would be appreciated.
> 
> switching work from 7 pm to 7 am ,,, and i always stay on that schedule, every day i sleep 9 am to 5 pm..
> 
> ...


Wow!! Your pineal gland and circadian cycle will really be messed up. Some people say taking melatonin helps but I know little about it. I would be afraid of the melatonin messing up the seratonin.


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## bigfoot (May 13, 2011)

Happy to chime in, I just went the opposite direction. Was working from 1pm-11pm, then briefly switched to 9pm-7am, and now back to 12pm-10pm. In a month or two it'll be back to night shift for a long while. Definitely hard on the body.

There doesn't seem to be any easy way around it... the schedule changes are not fun. How long have you been working the night shift? I would imagine the longer on a shift, the harder it is to change. Been eating smaller meals more frequently here, put up blackout curtains, turn a fan on when sleeping for background noise, and bought an eye mask to use.

We have been using melatonin (Source Naturals sublingual 1mg) off and on the last few months; maybe once or twice a week. It definitely works. Everything I've read says that taking more isn't necessarily any more beneficial (less is more). The body doesn't make much of it to begin with, I think 1mg is already about 3x what you make naturally. I had no idea about the seratonin-melatonin connection; will have to research it more. It can also affect other medications from what I've read, but the low dose of 1mg or less should be pretty minimal. Take the melatonin about 30 minutes before going to bed.

It won't knock you out, but helps ease you into a deeper sleep, or so it seems.


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## Defeat The Curse (Jun 30, 2011)

thanks, i'm going to go buy sublingual 1mg melatonin..

I have 3 mg tablets, but i like the less is more idea.

I don't know if i should just stay up 36 hours the time i switch or try to ease in it?


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## bigfoot (May 13, 2011)

When I was on my "weekend" (whatever days those happened to be), I would try to stay up as late as possible the night before I went back in to work. For example:

Sat - sleep regular hours
Sun - get up AM, up all day, stay up all night
Mon - sleep AM & early PM, go to work late PM

Some days this meant I was up for 24 hours straight (or more), just to be tired enough to fall asleep in the morning and get about 6-7 hours of Zzz's (if lucky), putting me back into the work week and weird sleep/wake rhythm. Coming off my last day of night shift, I would usually get home a little after 7am, try to stay up for an hour or two, then crash in bed for a few hours, then get up around noon and (try to) have a normal day and start to the weekend.

There are folks at my work who actually enjoy being up all night and prefer it to day shift. I have to wonder if their bodies are just wired differently and if they were ever "morning people" to begin with. No matter what, it's brutal for the rest of us.


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## Defeat The Curse (Jun 30, 2011)

well this is it, i'm on my last night shift, i get off at 7:30 am

Usually i go to bed at 9:30 am and wake up at 5:30 pm....

So i'm still kind of confused on what will be best but i think i'm going with this plan:

Get off work at 7:30 am get home at 8 am .. go to bed at 9 am and wake up at 11 am ... so nap 2 hours, then stay up all day and pass out at 9 pm tomorrow night and take melatonin, benadryl and magnesium

And somehow have to rework the times i take my Armour...

Guess i'll just start taking it when i get off work like i would if i was waking up.


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## Lovlkn (Dec 20, 2009)

Defeat The Curse said:


> well this is it, i'm on my last night shift, i get off at 7:30 am
> 
> Usually i go to bed at 9:30 am and wake up at 5:30 pm....
> 
> ...


I think that is a good idea - sending positive vibes your way for the next 48 hours.


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## Defeat The Curse (Jun 30, 2011)

Lovlkn said:


> I think that is a good idea - sending positive vibes your way for the next 48 hours.


ha! next 48 hours, i'll probably feel like crap for a month regardless.

Hate to think what this will do to my adrenals .. along with me in the middle of titrating my armour up.

Today was a dose raise too, i'm probably doing too much at once, but that's how it has to be, and life doesn't show mercy.

Today i moved up 1/2 a grain.... added 1/4 dose to mid day and late evening doses so now i'm up to 2 and 1/4 grain total Armour for the day.

3/4 grain morning 4:00, 3/4 grain mid day 10:30, and 3/4 grain evening 3:30

So hope i'm closing in on my stable dose ...

had anxiety past two days of work first half of day and raise heart rate, then crashes in the after noon.... so my adrenals are probably jacked right now from all the stress and medicine change


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## bigfoot (May 13, 2011)

I saw on another forum that someone who worked the night shift was trying to stabilize their hormone levels. The advice given from forum members was that working at night was not going to help things whatsoever, and to find a different job or shift if possible. Unfortunately, many of us aren't in a position to do something like that (especially with the present economic situation).

Another approach I've heard of is to just stay on your night shift schedule on your days off. I suppose if someone's single and/or doesn't have kids this could be a possibility. Anyhow, hope you are feeling okay and the med increases are going as well as possible.

hugs6


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## Defeat The Curse (Jun 30, 2011)

Yea that was definitely the only way to do it... sleeping during the day even on days off... really strict ... i slept 9am to 5pm everyday ...

as far as now.. I'm on day four of day life... been waking up at 5:30 am and having crashes later in the day which have moved up an hour every day that passes so i expect today ti feel terrible at six pm

Its been very rough... just started last night actually being able to sleep decent... been trying to get out in sun often and exercise regularly.

i just made another med increase today so now I'm on a total of 2. 1/2 grains..

had labs drawn this morning at 8:30 and without taking morning dose of meds so no false high t3... so we will see how that goes.

i work saturday and sunday my first dayshifts... I'm nervouse about it... i hope the jetlag crap feelings are reduced by then... thats three more days.. they say it takes a day for each time zone you change and ihchanged twelve whole hours


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## bigfoot (May 13, 2011)

Hopefully the melatonin helps you a bit with adjusting.


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## Defeat The Curse (Jun 30, 2011)

I took the melatonin the first two nights and i think i forgot before last night.... Last night i actually slept and only woke up like 3 times..

Hopefully tonight i only wake up twice... it's getting better every day.

there's no magic cure or way to speed up the process..

It takes a day for every time zone.. and since i flopped 12 hours that's 12 time zones.. Meaning my body wont be exactly right for 12 days most likely..

All though i did read it's a day for every time zone and half when traveling west to east i think .. so i don't know which way i'd be traveling to compare it to jet lag, which is what it is..

It's your body and circadian rhythym lagging to be in sink.

Last night was terrible though before i went to bed, i had my first migraine i think and was nauseated and felt terrible.

Tonight is much better, it's 6:30 pm as i type this and i thought i would have hit my feel bad moment by now.

The first day i felt terrible at 3 pm, second day it hit at 4 pm, third day at 5 pm... so i figured today it would be 6 pm. but so far so good i guess.

when i was night shift my deepest sleep would be from 2 pm to 5 pm .. which is the hours before i wake which they say is when you sleep deepest i think.. so that may explain some things for why i felt bad those hours the worst.


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