How to work at night and keep your mind

But first, let's figure out what is more in such a schedule - a unique night romance with daytime bonuses or echoing loneliness with not very pleasant consequences for your loved one? At the same time, you can almost unbiasedly answer the question "do I really need it?".

Don't get up in the morning. Awareness of this increases the degree of mood every day, especially if you are an owl. And after a couple of weeks, it dissolves all the hatred for the alarm clock, because it often manages to wake up before it starts playing.

Everyday tasks are solved easier and faster than usual. You can go to the barber shop, get a bank card or stock up on groceries at the supermarket without queues and traffic jams — most people are still at work at this time.

In this "shadow" work is more productive — there are much fewer distractions. There are few cars outside the window, neighbors sleep in an embrace with punchers and cats, relatives also do not interfere, messages stop coming in bundles to the telegram. The silence is such that you can only hear the noise of the refrigerator...

We work remotely, but I suspect that working in a half-empty office and meeting five-day colleagues in the morning is a special pleasure.

It turns out that the working time is the same as that of colleagues, but there seems to be more free time - especially if you do not sleep for a long time.

On a weekend or before a shift, you can go to the cinema, find time for hobbies, calmly cook a meal or even have time to visit friends for a while. It's hard to imagine how all this can be done in the morning before work.

Who am I kidding, everyone understands why we are here. They pay more for night shifts — this is stipulated in the article of the Labor Code. A very nice addition considering that the number of working hours and labor efforts is the same as during the day.

Professionally, you grow faster at night. The circle of colleagues who can be disturbed by work issues and seek help is noticeably reduced. And before you wake someone up for a particular problem, you'll think three hundred times whether it's worth it. Therefore, you have to rely only on your own strength and immerse yourself in solving a variety of tasks on your own.

At moments when you are alone and you need to make an important decision, you feel like Batman looking down on the night city.

After the vacation, I had to work two weeks in the day shift — from nine in the morning to nine in the evening, also two in two. And I noticed an interesting point. During the day, time flows differently — you physically feel every hour. In the morning, it takes more time to get into a working mood, at two o'clock in the afternoon you want to have lunch, at four, productivity is noticeably reduced, and from six in the evening you are already waiting for it all to finally end.

There is no such thing at night - until the sun rises and the birds begin to chirp outside the window, time does not seem to be felt and does not affect you. Therefore, you can often sit without getting up from your laptop for several hours in a row and not even notice it. Apparently, this is the night magic.

The waking mode at night is not physiological for our body, therefore, any violations of hormonal processes are possible: first of all, heart problems, excess weight, falling mood... It is not for nothing that the Labor Code prohibits minors and pregnant women from working at night.

Without sunlight and vitamin D, pimples, circles under the eyes and other zombie signs appear out of the blue. And the eternal lack of sleep has a bad effect on the work process itself: if you don't have a good rest before the shift, drowsiness begins to cover you and you think worse.

It is quite obvious that if you are drawn to sleep around ten in the evening, when the night shift is just beginning, then it will be difficult for your body to cope with such a regime.

Employees of the standard schedule all week they have been making Napoleonic plans for Friday evening and the weekend. To spend time with them, you have to look in advance for someone who can replace you, and coordinate this with your superiors — after all, night shifts are not tied to a standard working week. And if it didn't work out, then personal life and carousing with friends begins to suffer.

But that's not all. To go to nature with a tent, you have to say a firm "no" to sleep right after the work shift and sleep on the way — in a car or train. It's not always possible to get enough sleep, but if you miss such trips, then life is not a joy. Therefore, you gather your will into a fist and compromise so that life does not fly by you. It's getting shorter every day.

Night is a time of temptations. This is especially true of food, when in an hour at three in the morning you catch yourself thinking that it would be nice to eat. At the same time, you don't feel like cooking buckwheat at all, but you want to order a pizza or a burger for the promotion. And add another coke, please, but only without sugar!

According to British scientists, daytime sleep burns 15% fewer calories than nighttime. Therefore, it does not do without consequences. Personally, at first it cost me ten extra kilograms and a large box where I put clothes that no longer fit me in size.

Of course, after a while I figured out how to live with it, changed a pack of chips for porridge and returned to my usual form.

In addition to affecting physical health, night work also hits "on the head- the level of serotonin, the very hormone of joy, decreases. Sometimes I wanted to give up everything altogether — it seemed that life was passing by, and you were watching it as if from the sidelines. I wanted to be "like everyone else" and become a normal person again.

In addition, if after the shift it was not possible to sleep for at least seven hours, unpleasant effects increase - apathy, an incomprehensible and unreasonable feeling of anxiety and even fear.

At such moments, when burnout is already knocking on the door, a change of schedule or vacation helps to recover. Personally, I was saved by cycling and walking around the city on a sunny day.

If you still haven't changed your mind about working at night (run, fools), then we'll figure out how to minimize the harm to the body, stay sane and not lose productivity.

You must sleep at least seven hours. Hiding behind thick curtains, earplugs in the ears and silent mode on the phone, because other people's day is just beginning.

On the first day off, try to wake up early and not go to bed very late, so that the next days will pass in the usual human mode.

If you live only at night, you will not become a vampire, but you will completely disappear from the radar of society. But before the shift, on the contrary — it's better to sleep late so that it doesn't "chop" during work.

Everything is banal here: chicken, tuna, buckwheat, legumes and vegetables. It's hard to fit in with the nocturnal desire to order a combo of three pizzas, but if your abs cubes and buttocks elastic from a sedentary lifestyle are dear to you, you will have to try.

There is nowhere without coffee at night, but it is better to do without it for the last 2-3 hours of the shift, and I recommend eliminating energy altogether — it is expensive, sweet and ineffective, almost like soda. And according to my dentist, they are very harmful for teeth — to cover the treatment, no extra charges for the night shift will be enough.

To work comfortably and productively - add atmosphere to the workplace to your liking.

One of my colleagues, a great connoisseur of neo-noir and synthwave stylistics, designed his "sychevalnya" in the appropriate style: a neon light around the monitor, RGB colors on the system and keyboard. In such an atmosphere, it is much more pleasant to work than under a boring lamp — a real blade runner sysadmin.

To tune in to the working mood and solve routine tasks with a spark and drive, I listen to groovy songs. And if there are dumbbells in the access area, then you can use them to overcome drowsiness.

From time to time — at least once every 2-3 hours — it is useful to rest a little or even "stick" for 15 minutes - this is a real reboot for the brain, and after that you feel much better.

Summing up the mini-summary, despite the fact that there are fewer minuses on the list, the consequences of them are heavier. Whether you are ready to take such risks is your choice.

If you work more productively at night, you feel this unique night atmosphere with your soul, if you are more comfortable at night, there are no mental and health problems yet, and in general you are an optimistic twenty-year-old introvert owl - the night shift is just for you. The main thing is to listen to your heart and to have it periodically listened to by a doctor.

If drowsiness still overcomes, it is difficult to be alone with yourself at night, on weekends it is not possible to do everything in time and in general a constant headache - it is better not to torment yourself and choose a more suitable schedule.

Author: Eliza Gilmourd

11.07.2021