What izzzzzzz sleep?

The joys and pitfalls of a nightshift job can be plentiful on both accounts, (stemming from my own eight years worth of experience).

It is often a joy knowing that every single day, I will be off work, free to do as i please, wether it be shopping, watching TV, playing video games, taking my two girls out to the park, venturing out to the cinema, or even a nice lunch or dinner out if the occasion calls. There can be numerous advantages to being available all day, every day, EG; come the festive season...normally everyone is at work and struggle to find the time to do their Christmas shopping. Uh uh...not me! After all what else would you do if you had so much "free time"?

Here is what (and here comes the pitfall) ...SLEEP!!!

People forget that, just because they have had sleep at a reasonable time, or the fact that they are up and about and working like most folk during the day, that some of us nightshift workers haven't had a wink of shut eye yet, because we do all of our "awake time" at night. We have our dinner at 3am and think nothing of it, we come home when it is light outside and the Sun is just rising, and we think nothing of it, and sometimes, sometimes, we EVEN come home and have that hard day (or night) at work I need a beer thing at 7.30am, not because we are alcoholics, but because that is our come home and relax time.

People neglect to remember that when it is time for them to get up and start their day, often it's time for us nightshifters to go to bed and get a sleep. However this plan is often foiled, especially when you have two girls, or boys, or dogs, or monkeys, or whatever?! There's the school run to do, the washings that need done, the ironings, the shopping, and before you know it, you have become a house-husband, or a house-wife, by day, and a paid worker by night. If I could say it was an alter-ego and treat it as a Clark Kent/Superman thing then it would be great, unfortunately that isn't how it is at all. 

Getting some sleep becomes such a chore at times that you can't even be bothered doing that, and before you know it you are living and managing (barely at best) on roughly two, to four hours sleep per day. I mean it doesn't help that you tend to have several cups of coffee to keep your caffeine levels up, so that you're able to stay awake to pick up the kids, and to make the dinner for your other half, because too much coffee followed by lying in bed trying to sleep is a big no no! You end up spending hours lying there with your mind swimming with ideas like, "did i leave the gas on?", "i need to remember to book an appointment with the dentist, for my daughter", "I wonder what we can have for dinner tomorrow night?", "Maybe i'll go to the shop in the morning and have a look about for new shoes because my current ones are done in?!"....... It becomes an impossible reality...

On that note, and the fact that I have again been awake having only had three and a half hours sleep today again, I'll leave you non-nightworkers with a thought...Have mercy on us!?