I've worked strictly overnights back in my NYC EMS days. They didn't allow over 16 hours straight as a rule w/o 8 hours off. I've found that your body wants to sleep at night no matter how well you try to acclimate to that nigt schedule. I tried sleeping for 5-6 hours after the shift. I tried getting 1-2 hours after work and then a few hours before going in. I tried staying awake all day and getting a aolid 8-9 hours on my off days. No matter what I tried, I always hit the wall at around 0100-0200 regardless. In addition, I always felt like crap from 1100-1700 or so, no matter what I did to change my sleep patterns. We're not nocturnal creatures by nature.
I've worked in a 24/48 system with mandations resulting in frequent 36/36 or 48/24, with a heavy call volume. The only thing you can do is sleep most of your free time away, otherwise you'll burn out real quick. It's no kind of lifestyle I'd ever do again.
Now, I do the 24on, 24off , 24on, 24off, 24on, 96off. The four days in a row definitely helps reset my rhythms. I find that the more hours before midnight that you sleep, the better quality that sleep is. For example, I find sleeping from 2130-0530 much more restful than 1200-0800, or 1000-0300 much better than 0200-0700.
Stay off of the computer, it'll keep you awake and engaged when you would otherwise have dozed off. Stay away from bright lights after normal bedtime hours whenever practical. Keep your bunk room pitch black and cold for the best quality sleep. If you're like I was, and hed to sit on street corners, go in the back, pad the cot with blankets, turn up the A/C, cover your headn and eyes with a perp hat (skully), to block out the light. We used to hide behind the bathrooms at the park; it was dark there as well, and kept us out of the public eye. I got real good at hearing only my unit identifier over the radio, and sleeping through everything else. Calling us twice and then hitting the tones before call # three helped, for sure. The "no radio response" CAD message would get me to key up if all else failed, so that I could still take the job. As far as EMS that runs out of stations, if you work in a system that mandates you to wake up with the morning tones to give report, try and change that and start a pass on book to log any discrepancies. If you get hammered at night, you can still be functional the next day if you rack from 0400-0830, like I did this morning. If I had to get up at 0700, I would have felt much worse.
Also, don't look down your nose at people that come in to work exhausted. More often than not, pulling these extra shifts is a matter of financial survival. That's the EMS lifestyle. They pay you just enough money where you can live decent with a 70 hour workweek due to OT. After a while, your living expenses and revolving debt increase to match your new norm, the 70 hour set point, so now you have to do 70+ hours just to maintain.
I've worked in a 24/48 system with mandations resulting in frequent 36/36 or 48/24, with a heavy call volume. The only thing you can do is sleep most of your free time away, otherwise you'll burn out real quick. It's no kind of lifestyle I'd ever do again.
Now, I do the 24on, 24off , 24on, 24off, 24on, 96off. The four days in a row definitely helps reset my rhythms. I find that the more hours before midnight that you sleep, the better quality that sleep is. For example, I find sleeping from 2130-0530 much more restful than 1200-0800, or 1000-0300 much better than 0200-0700.
Stay off of the computer, it'll keep you awake and engaged when you would otherwise have dozed off. Stay away from bright lights after normal bedtime hours whenever practical. Keep your bunk room pitch black and cold for the best quality sleep. If you're like I was, and hed to sit on street corners, go in the back, pad the cot with blankets, turn up the A/C, cover your headn and eyes with a perp hat (skully), to block out the light. We used to hide behind the bathrooms at the park; it was dark there as well, and kept us out of the public eye. I got real good at hearing only my unit identifier over the radio, and sleeping through everything else. Calling us twice and then hitting the tones before call # three helped, for sure. The "no radio response" CAD message would get me to key up if all else failed, so that I could still take the job. As far as EMS that runs out of stations, if you work in a system that mandates you to wake up with the morning tones to give report, try and change that and start a pass on book to log any discrepancies. If you get hammered at night, you can still be functional the next day if you rack from 0400-0830, like I did this morning. If I had to get up at 0700, I would have felt much worse.
Also, don't look down your nose at people that come in to work exhausted. More often than not, pulling these extra shifts is a matter of financial survival. That's the EMS lifestyle. They pay you just enough money where you can live decent with a 70 hour workweek due to OT. After a while, your living expenses and revolving debt increase to match your new norm, the 70 hour set point, so now you have to do 70+ hours just to maintain.