#61 Surviving Night Shift: Tips & Tricks for Nurses with Sarah & Justine

Justine:
Hi. I’m Justine.

Sarah Lavonne:
And I’m Sarah Lavonne.

Justine:
And we are so glad you’re here.

Sarah Lavonne:
We believe that your life has the potential to make a deep, meaningful impact on the world around you. You, as a nurse, have the ability to add value to every single person and patient you touch.

Justine:
We want to inspire you with resources, education, and stories to support you to live your absolute best life, both in and outside of work.

Sarah Lavonne:
But don’t expect perfection over here. We’re just here to have some conversations about anything birth, work, and life, trying to add some happy to your hour as we all grow together.

Justine:
By nurses, for nurses, this is Happy Hour with Bundle Birth Nurses.
We’ve realized there’s a trend in our podcast episodes and people who listen, and one of the things I’ve noticed and Sarah has noticed is that people like tips. Tips and tricks for whatever. How to check a cervix is our number one still to this day, which is great. Because I think, audio-wise, I wouldn’t learn that way, but people really do learn that way, which I love.

Sarah Lavonne:
Hole in a bowl, yeah.

Justine:
Yes, so one of the episodes that I’ve been wanting to do for a while is how to survive night shift. And I feel like, and Sarah would attest to this, I don’t feel like an expert in much, or great at much, but I’m like… She’s rolling her eyes. But I feel like I’ve gotten night shift down, and especially because I am someone that has to flip from nights to day shift regularly, and then I have a kid, and I haven’t announced it yet, but I am pregnant, and so I have been just surviving here. And I managed my whole first trimester and didn’t die, and so I wanted us to talk about night shift.
I have specific reasons why I like night shift, and then I’d like Sarah to share why she liked night shift when she worked night shift, then we’ll talk tips.

Sarah Lavonne:
Talk about tips. You have a regimen-

Justine:
I do, I do have a regimen.

Sarah Lavonne:
… for your life, but I do also feel like you flip-flop. Sometimes you’re on this kick. And remember it was the big chia water and lemon and-

Justine:
Oh, I still do my chia water.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh, you still do?

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
It has remained.

Justine:
It has remained, good hydration.

Sarah Lavonne:
I want to know what things you tried that didn’t work, and then other things that did. Because I will say that when I worked night shift, which was like eight years of my life, I worked night shift actually through nursing school and did nursing school and night shift per diem at a children’s hospital, I don’t know that I was the most regimented, but I definitely have some thoughts.

Justine:
Well, why I like night shift, I want to share that because I think there’s going to be people listening that aren’t on their own yet, or haven’t started yet, and they know they’re going to it, so there’s magic on night shift. I think that-

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh, it’s the best.

Justine:
It’s the best.

Sarah Lavonne:
It’s the best.

Justine:
And I think there’s a different culture. You’re going to learn better on nights. You’re going to learn better with people that are just where you, were and then in their experience, and labor on nights is better. You can set the mood in labor rooms easier. It’s not as chaotic. I know everyone says there’s no management, which is good and bad, because it’s nice to have extra hands when you’re on day shift, but there is such magic to nights.
And I will say that for people with young kids, you don’t see your kid if you’re days. I had to do a few day shifts recently at my new hospital. And I leave at six and I come home at eight, and he’s not awake in the morning and then he’s about to go to sleep when I get there. And that’s hard on people.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
And so people used to tell me, “Oh, young kids. Night shift’s way better.” And I didn’t get it, and now I do, and so if that’s something that’s important to you too. There’s also the opposite of that. People are like, “Well, yeah, I’m around my kid, but I’m a zombie and I’m not a good person,” which I get that side of things too. And so I think you have to do what’s best for your family. But there’s tips to not be a zombie, so yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
I will say, hold on, because also let’s just disclaim that night shift is so hard on the body. I think we are going to be optimistic, but I want to be pessimistic for five seconds, because it’s the worst in many ways.

Justine:
Well, it’s a carcinogen.

Sarah Lavonne:
It is.

Justine:
It’s like a level two carcinogen, meaning it can cause cancer.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, you live less years.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, you live less years. And it’s like for every year that you- I don’t have that numbers in front of me. I did not prep for that piece of this podcast. But for the number of years that you work nights, it shaves off a certain number of months of your life, or something crazy like that. And so night shift is very hard. I think also, what I find the hardest is just the lack of understanding from the regular world of what it takes to be on nights. Even I remember my landlord calling me at 10:00 AM and being like, “It’s late.” And I’m like, “No, I just went to bed.” Or you call me at one, and I’m between shifts. I’m like, “You’re literally waking me up as if I’m calling you at 1:00 AM, and I tried to tell you this.” People just don’t get it.
And so that’s where I think also the camaraderie comes in on nights, because night shift, your people get it. It’s like you’re speaking this whole language and you’re in it together. And I always had the 5:00 AM stare. I have pictures of it we should post, because literally, it was like mouth open, glazed over eyes of, “I’m nauseous, I want to die, and now I have an hour and a half before I’m wrapping up the day-

Justine:
Before you have hope.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, then there’s hope.

Justine:
6:30 is when the hope comes.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, yeah. The final wrap up. But I would hit a wall almost every day, and people would laugh at me because I’d get this, I can’t function, on my face. But also, you go to breakfast in the morning with your girls or we’d go get pitchers of mimosas down the street in LA at the griddle cafe with the best pancakes ever, and you hang out, where I would hang out till like two, three in the morning with some of my night shift friends, and you just get it. I was home by four, and it wasn’t a big deal because it was my one night off just like it was with them.

Justine:
Right.

Sarah Lavonne:
So I think that it creates community and camaraderie. Hopefully you like your people, but also the world doesn’t get it. And so if you’re listening as a non-nightshifter, just take a sec, step back, and realize how much it actually takes and also offer some understanding. I think about even when we first started offering physiologic birth, now, for business reasons, we have to offer it at 8:00 AM, but we realized that that’s an issue. And when we first started, we offered a 3:00 PM.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
So what was it, 11 or something?

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
We’ve done classes that late because it’s so hard to navigate for people that are on nights, that you end up taking the shaft when the rest of the world functions differently.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
It sucks. But also it’s beautiful.

Justine:
There is sucky parts. And I think I went from nights when I was a new grad, to days pretty quickly. It was like 11 months in and I was like, my house looks like a meth head lives in it. Eric and I, my husband at the time we lived together. We were both nights and I was like, one of us has to figure our lives out, because we were in that, we’re just going to be vampires. We work all week.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
Which is a strategy. So, then I went to days and my house looked the same. So I was like, it’s not the night shift. So I went back to nights because I was like, I prefer it. When you mentioned for dayshifters listening, giving a report at 7:00 AM when you’re getting off at 7:00 AM is so much harder than when you’re getting off at 19:00. Your brain doesn’t work the same.

Sarah Lavonne:
No.

Justine:
And so having some grace for that nurse that’s giving you a report after they’ve literally haven’t slept in 30 hours. Nightshifters joke that people just think night shift keep them alive. That’s your only job. But sometimes it’s like, yeah, they’re alive, I have to go.

Sarah Lavonne:
They’re alive. And I really did bust my ass the whole night.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
And now it’s a different layer of tired. It is a different tired. I’m sorry. No dayshifter, that’s such a good point, no dayshifter could ever try to compare. No offense, you’re tired too, but your nightshifters are more tired.

Justine:
We’re all tired.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, everyone’s tired. Everyone’s overworked. Everyone is suffering.

Justine:
We’re still trying not to step on any toes, but it’s different. It’s just different.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, but it’s true. It’s so hard. It’s so hard. And as a dayshifter, I really appreciated the nurses who were like, just go home. I’ll read. I’ll read it. You’re fine. Just go. Just drive safe. Or I love when the dayshifters come in and they’re like, it’s perfect sleeping weather. And they’re like, getting us all amped up to go sleep. It’s so nice. Like, oh, thanks.

Justine:
I never had that.

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We have a lot of those nurses.

Justine:
Okay, so my regimen, as Sarah said, I have been trying to perfect this for a while, but one of my biggest things, and I put this link already, this is going to be in our notes, is my sleepy time link. And I’ve shared this on Instagram a lot, but the biggest thing for you to know is that you need to not wake up in REM. You have to wake up between your REM cycles. And usually about every 90 minutes, we go through a cycle, so the minimum you want to sleep is 90 minutes on the minimum, and you should sleep more than that. You should try to sleep at least three plus hours if you’re not flipping. But that’s going to be my biggest advice to anyone, is to figure out your sleep cycles and to not fall asleep in REM.
But I want to back up, that shouldn’t have been my first one. I learned that nightshifters are kind of toddlers in the sense of wake windows, and it is more important for us to sleep as close to the start of our shift as possible, then stay up all night the night before and wake up at noon. So, for example, if I work on Tuesday night in 19:00 and it’s Monday night and I’m like, I’m going to stay up till three A.M. and wake up at noon on Tuesday, I’m just going to try to suck it up, so then I’ll sleep. So then I wake up at noon on Tuesday, and then I’m not going to bed now until Wednesday at nine A.M, right?
Versus, if I just wake up at my normal time, I go to sleep at my normal time on Monday, wake up at my normal time on Tuesday and nap, and I try to wake up at five P.M., when I go to bed, my wake window has been five hours less. And it’s just better for your mental health and your circadian rhythms if you decrease.

Sarah Lavonne:
I had no idea any of this.

Justine:
This is a new thing on my journey. So, you are a toddler and we need to decrease our wake window, so that’s one tip. So we’re decreasing our wake window, meaning the day before a night shift. I don’t want to be awake for a long period of time. It’s better to give it in spurts, have a chunk awake, five hours awake, 90 minute nap, four hours awake, three hour nap.

Sarah Lavonne:
No, you’re not going to get the same amount of sleep in theory. You’re just going to be awake less. By the time you go to sleep on Wednesday morning at 8:00 AM, you haven’t been awake for 24 hours. You’ve been awake for 16 hours.

Justine:
Okay, so that one long stretch of being awake.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, is more detrimental.

Justine:
Just shove it as short as possible. So even if, let’s say I didn’t work the day before, and I’m going to either take a nap from 11 to two, or I’m going to nap from one to four.

Sarah Lavonne:
One to four is way better.

Justine:
It’s better to nap from one to four because it’s later in the day.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yes. So my going is, I’ll wake up at seven with my kid like normal, and then when he goes down, I go down. People with kids will know when you say you’re going to take a nap, you’re going to go down. I go down at around two, so I sleep from two to five, is my goal, before night shift. And then there are going to be people listening, like “I can’t get a nap,” because they have little kids or whatever. And I just want to say to you, please try in any way to get that nap just for your own life. And whether that’s, can you hire a nanny?

Justine:
I feel like this is the same advice that I would give a new parent, and they say sleep when the baby sleeps, and then everyone makes fun of that.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
But also there’s a layer of, we sort of make excuses for things. And I’m like, I would say that now with my business. There’s no chance I could nap. There’s no chance I get a night off. If I were to make a choice that this was the top priority of my life, that the dishes, the laundry, even potentially going to the gym or the meeting, could I push the meeting? There is a layer of, you have to prioritize it as if your life depended on it, because it kind of does. And then…

Sarah Lavonne:
Your life and other lives.

Justine:
Yeah, no, totally. And how much worse is your job with the five A.M. stare? It’s horrible. So I think that is just a prompt to, before you make an excuse that you can’t do it. I’m sure there are people that can’t do it. I’m sure you’re like, I’ve literally tried everything in the book, but before you’re like, oh, I can’t do it, and throw your hands in the air, just go “what would it take for me to make this a priority?”

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, that’s a great question. And again, we’re trying not to step on any toes. We know we don’t know every circumstance, and I feel very fortunate that my husband is a nightshifter, and we just protect each other’s sleep. I feel very grateful for that. Because I work with so many moms that are like, I think maybe it’s worth you paying some money to hire someone to come in the house. I would have to, I’d have to figure it out. I would make some sacrifices to figure it out, because sleep is so important if I have to be night shift for this long of a time. So that’s the sleep wake windows. So again, my routine on a night that I work is going to be, I wake up a normal time, seven A.M. and I nap. And if you can nap with your kids, I think I get my best naps With Nathaniel, we just nap.
My room is so dark, and the sound machine and cold, and he loves it when he gets to nap with me and we just nap for three and a half hours. But I’m lucky that he’s a four-year-old that still wants to nap. Because I like to nap. So I think that it’s helped. It’s rubbed off on him. We are nappers in my home. So napping. When you’re napping, this is harder in the summer and harder in general, but napping or sleeping after your shift, body temperature is important. Do you know the best temperature to sleep at?

Justine:
It’s like 68 degrees?

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, 65 to 68 degrees, which is very cool.

Justine:
That’s the O.R temperature. That’s the temperature of the O.R. Right? And that’s what they say for newborns.

Sarah Lavonne:
60. Oh yeah.

Justine:
Yeah. It’s like 68 to 72 or something.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah. So, that’s pretty cold, especially in our hot months and summer months. And my electricity bill would be through the roof if I was trying to get to 68 every night. But making sure you can get your temperature down in any way. So again, the lowest I’ll set it in the summer is 72 at night, just because I’m worried about my bill. But you can do fans, and then there’s special pillows you can buy that’ll help cooling. There’s special blankets that are more cooling. The fabric of it. Are you using this fuzzy blanket? You’re going to wake up sweating. It’s just not ideal.

Justine:
So you want to be cozy but not cold. I don’t know about you, but those of you in the Arctic lands of the world might be fine with that. But me in 68, I am bundled. Yeah, I will die. I have no stamina.

Sarah Lavonne:
I’ve been hot in your apartment a lot. You’re a cold girl.

Justine:
I like to be toasty. And the girls in the office, I’ll walk in there and I’m like, Ooh, it’s so nice. I was warm in there.

Sarah Lavonne:
And maybe that’s good for the day, but at nighttime, you can wear more pajamas possibly, and a bigger blanket. But if you’re waking up from either your nap or your post-shift sleep sweating, or kind of clammy, that’s an area to look at. How can I reduce my body temperature here, and honestly, do the thing that you need to do. I feel like so often we’re so bad at taking care of ourselves and being like, I’m fine. I got five and a half hours. Well, what if you could have got seven and then you would’ve felt much better.

Justine:
You’re in hibernation like a bear in the winter.

Sarah Lavonne:
And then speaking of bed and bedding, buy the good stuff. It’s so worth having a better comforter, better sheet. I can’t say enough about that. You are a professional adult and you deserve better. You deserve better. When we go to a hotel and we’re like, these are the best. I want my bed to feel like this. And then we go home to our college sheets, still they’re scratchy and it’s like, no, come on. And just put it on your list of things you want and then make it a goal. Yeah, that’s important. The bedding is important.

Justine:
I agree with that. That and the bed. I remember midnight shift. I had some old Kia bed from college, and I remember it was one of my big adult purchases. I was working nights and I remember calling my mom and having to justify that I think I need to spend $2,500 on a mattress. And my mom was like, that sounds like a great investment into your life. I was like, I know, but it was so expensive. And I was like, well, I’m working very hard. It’s an entire paycheck, but at that point, what’s it worth? And mind you, there’s memory foam toppers. I’ll say that my cheaper mattress with a really nice $300 memory foam topper people, they come and stay at my house and they’re like, oh my God, this bed is amazing.

Sarah Lavonne:
Is that your bed in your guest room?

Justine:
Hell yeah, it is.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah. No, it’s a great bed.

Justine:
Okay. So yeah, on that note, I did the sleep number thing where I paid over the year with no interest. And yeah, that was a big moment for me when the sleep number came.

Sarah Lavonne:
Do you like your sleep number?

Justine:
Oh yeah. I love my sleep number.

Sarah Lavonne:
Okay. I got a sleep number.

Justine:
You don’t like it?

Sarah Lavonne:
And I put a memory foam topper on it, which is so sad.

Justine:
That is sad. You should just switch the room. You should just have your sleep number in your guest room.

Sarah Lavonne:
I really should, because I hear it under the memory foam trying to adjust, trying to figure out its life. But I just have it at a hundred, and then I put the memory foam on it. I couldn’t figure out my settings and I felt like I was waking up with a sore back. But now that you’re saying that maybe I need to give it another chance. Because I did spend a lot of money on that. And they say it’s really good.

Justine:
Yeah, we’ve had it now for seven years, and I don’t see myself bringing it up, but that was another.

Sarah Lavonne:
What’s your setting?

Justine:
That’s a really good question. My setting is an 80 and my husband’s setting is a 50. So that’s nice too because you can change it, and then be different. Yeah, he likes really soft. I’m a belly sleeper, so I need it a little bit harder. But one thing is they have an app on the sleep number, and so you can see how many times you toss and turn. You can see how your breath rate, how long it takes you to fall asleep.

Sarah Lavonne:
I forgot about all that. I remember being into that.

Justine:
So then we go to the topic of accessories. Some of the accessories that you can have and use are earplugs and eye mask or both. I will say I’ve been an earplug user for a long, long time, because if I hear anyone snoring, I want to die. But the eye mask, I’m on and off. There’s an eye mask that I’m going to link for the show that I really, really like, but I keep losing it. I’ve bought four now, so eye masks are hard for me to keep track of.

Sarah Lavonne:
So they just get sucked into your house.

Justine:
Who knows if my kid steals it, maybe I take it somewhere? Right now I’m looking around my room and I’m like, I wish I knew where that was, but I have blackout shade, so it’s not a huge deal. And so that’s your next one, of having blackout curtains and creating a dark room. Sarah’s room is the exact opposite of what you would want to be a nightshifter in. All the light in the world.

Sarah Lavonne:
Well, I am not a morning person, and so I need to wake up for these early freaking meetings. And so now I wake up to the sun, literally, I wake up on my own at seven 45 to eight o’clock every single day, and I blame the sun. Mind you, that was an issue for a while, because I don’t ever go to bed either, because I’m working late. So I definitely have some sleep hygiene to work on, but there was a little bit of strategy to that. Got to figure out a way to get up.

Justine:
And they say, you should do that, and you should go in the sun right away when you wake up. Things like that. Okay, water and food. You need to drink more water during the day. We typically drink water during the day and we sleep at night. But when we work night shift, maybe we drink some water during the day, but then we’re using it up all night, and we’re not replenishing during the night shift because we’re busy working, and then we’re just behind. You’re behind on your water when you wake up. And so a lot of times when you wake up at that hangover feeling, it could be fixed with water. And as Sarah drinks as right now. So we need more water. And son setting a goal for yourself. My goal is 60 ounces before I go to sleep for my nap, and then I’m just continually drinking water. I feel lucky that I love water. It’s my top drink. And so I feel very lucky for that. I know it’s hard for people. And if that is hard for you, is there ways for you to flavor your water? Sarah has a.

Sarah Lavonne:
I hate water. It’s a running joke in my family that my mom. I think my mom, I blame my mom fully, bless you mother, that every issue was, “well, you must be dehydrated. Have you had water? Have you drank? How much water have you had today?” No, she’s absolutely, she is right in many ways. But also we grew up on the equator and at 10,000 feet, so dehydration, people got, that’s a part of altitude sickness, because you’re closer, and things evaporate so much quicker by air. It’s fun fact, I get out of the shower, I’d brush it. I have pretty thick hair, and within 20 minutes, fully dry. Whereas here, an hour. I put in a ponytail. It’s never dry for days. It’s molding in there. I’m just kidding. And so I grew up with very much a water, “where’s your water?”
Me and my sister still, we’ll find each other saying that to each other and we’ll roll our eyes. Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. So I have learned that I hardly ever drink straight water. Sparkling water, flavored water, water mixes. There’s one at Target. Maybe I’ll link here. That’s a more natural, less artificial sweetener thing. But I’ve started doing the mocktail thing, omg. Life-changing. I love it. I’ll do a large Mason jar, put some water in there, mix in the moon juice, magnesium powder. I have a liquid probiotic. I’ll put in a shot of pomegranate juice or cherry juice for antioxidant. Anything else that I have, L-glutamine. If I am sore, I’ll sometimes do vital proteins. If I haven’t had enough protein or for my collagen, oh, I dump in eight greens in there sometimes. I mean literally everything I could find because I’m so much better with liquid vitamins. And then I mix-y mix with an ice, and then I pour a can of sparkling flavored water on it, and, chef’s kiss, a little bit later, I have had an entire liter water, and that’s how I stay hydrated.
So I do one of those a day, and then if anybody knows me, they know that I always have six beverages going. I think it’s because of the water anxiety, but also I never drink regular water whatsoever. So a sparkling water, a Celsius, a tea, a I drink bubblers now, which those are life changing.

Justine:
I’m a bubbler girl.

Sarah Lavonne:
Less caffeine. I know. Thank you. Rachel Bubbler plus your Celsius.
No, no, no, no, no. I have a regimen for that. If I do coffee, I can do coffee bubbler. If I do Celsius, it’s Celsius only, I’m being mindful. No more than 200 milligrams a day, et cetera. So there are other ways to get your water in as somebody who is very conscious of her water intake. If you hate water.

Justine:
All the supplements that you put in. That’s so you. I’m going to put them all in and I’m going to be so productive in this one liter of water. Exactly.

Sarah Lavonne:
And then imagine I’ll fall asleep or something, or I’ll wake up and there’s a little bit that’s been sitting out overnight. You best believe I’m going to drink it. I’m like, that’s an expensive water.

Justine:
Expensive water, yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
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So another thing on the water and food would be food. And there’s tips and tricks I’ve learned from people. I try to stop eating and drinking caffeine at three A.M. Mind you, if it’s a crazy night and it’s 3:20, and I just missed it. I was so busy, I’m probably going to have the caffeine. But by general rule round three, I want to stop any of that. I typically have my caffeine dose around midnight. It’s kind of like it gets me going until my 5:00 AM.

Justine:
You’re saying during night shift?

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah.

Justine:
Oh, so you can go to bed in the morning?

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, so I can go to bed in the morning.

Justine:
That is, I would get a quad shot. I’m just going to be anecdote girl, this one, I would keep derailing us, but here she goes, what you got? This is how my brain works. I would get a quad shot over ice from Starbucks every day. So it’d be quad shot over ice in a venti cup with caramel drizzle whole milk, and a splash of half and half. Although, pre-COVID, I would do that myself, and I would sip on that ish the entire night, and I would literally be having it. I know.

Sarah Lavonne:
How watered down was it? By the end?

Justine:
Well, it was fully warm ish. By the end, people are like, the milk went bad. I promise you. The milk never went bad. The milk does not go bad. There’s so much preservatives in that stuff.

Sarah Lavonne:
She will leave milk on her porch for three hours.

Justine:
No!

Sarah Lavonne:
It only came three hours ago. We’re good. It’s fine.

Justine:
It’s totally fine. It’s always fine.

Sarah Lavonne:
Freaks me out.

Justine:
Yeah, a hundred percent. And then meats, whatever. You’re going to cook off all that. I have a stomach of steel.

Sarah Lavonne:
That’s true. Not sushi though. Not raw sushi.

Justine:
No, no. Definitely there is a line drawn with sushi.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah. So those are some of my tips. So just to round that out. Okay, so I will give you my last tip, but no one agrees with me. I haven’t found a person that’s similar to me, but I would rather do one night on one night off, one night on, one night off.

Justine:
Oh, no, honey.

Sarah Lavonne:
I know, everyone says that. And the reason is because I can-

Justine:
Oh my gosh.

Sarah Lavonne:
So I will do my night, say I work Sunday night. I’m waking up Sunday morning at seven, having my midday nap, which is literally the best time of my week. I look forward to my naps. I have a nap coming up on Friday, and I cannot wait. I just get to go to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. I am so excited. So I have my midday nap. I go to work, and then I get off at seven. I actually get off at seven. I’m six 30 A to seven P, six 30 p to seven A. I get off at seven, I’m asleep by eight, and I wake up at noon, and then I have the rest of my day, and then I go to sleep at 9:00 PM and then I wake up at seven, and then it’s just like, it’s good for me.

Justine:
Do you struggle throughout the shift? Do you hit a wall where you’re like, I might die right now. And how do you feel about napping during your break?

Sarah Lavonne:
Oh, I can’t nap during my break. That’s a good question. A lot of people you’ll see will nap during the break. I feel much worse and then I’m freezing. If I do either of those things, mind you, my unit, we don’t get very many breaks. It’s probably once a week you get a lunch break. But when we do, I can’t nap. And I’m the one, it took me 15 minutes to fall asleep and now I’m only napping for 15 minutes.

Justine:
And then you’re anxious about it the whole time you’re asleep.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah. Am I going to wake from my alarm?

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
Is it now, is it now? I have hit more walls being pregnant than anything. But before then, no, no walls. But honestly, if looking back in my history, I was the teenager that literally pulled all-nighters multiple times a week with my friends watching movies. I was like, that prepared me for this. Just my non-sleeping and being okay, and going to school the next day. I was always meant for night shift. Do think I’ll stay night shift forever? No, because right, it does take years off of your life, and day shift is nice for ;longevity, but it’s a long day to be gone. Seven to seven is long. In both directions, but day shift, it just feels really long in my opinion.

Justine:
Yeah.

Sarah Lavonne:
You’re not missing anything.

Justine:
You can’t do anything.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah. You can’t do anything. So yeah, hopefully that was a little hopeful for people that are going into night shift, just starting night shift. I will say the people that get migraines on nights and it’s so hard. Yeah, get a day shift. You have health reasons causing you to need to go to days, do whatever necessary, leave the hospital, go to a different unit, it’s going to be okay. You shouldn’t hurt yourself more physically to try to make it work, but it’s doable. You just have to set some boundaries and have some needs and vocalize your needs. You need to protect your sleep.

Justine:
Your routines, it sounds like your routines. Or develop your routine.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah. Develop a routine, write it down. And you have to be a little selfish of that. I have to sleep. Why do

Justine:
Why do we have to call that selfish?

Sarah Lavonne:
Well, I think that’s just a way for people to relate to it. Because they feel selfish. Like, “sorry.”

Justine:
Right. I think most people would feel like, “I’m being selfish.” You’re not. You have an important job to do. And it’s not like you can show up sick or hung over or not on your top brain for your job, and we do all the time, but how much better you feel when you show up like, all right, I’m ready to go. I can give what I can give during this shift. I’ve set everything else aside. I have the energy, I have the fueling. I’ve taken care of myself so I can show up, give the 12 hours and then clock myself out and be done with it. That just is such a better way to live. But I’m hearing from you. First of all, I needed some better routines. My routine was just like be a vampire. I went through seasons. I remember when I first started, I remember being like, there’s no way to survive this other than I’m just nocturnal.
And so I was like, I need a hobby. Because my hobby before becoming a nurse was just working and studying. So I learned to sew, and I made Christmas ornaments for people, and I made these DIY headbands, and then I eventually started taking on unit projects that yes, I didn’t get paid for. Not bitter at all. I took them on myself. And so I would be up all night and I remember the sun coming up in the morning and being like, okay, it’s 8:30. I’m going to go to bed now. That’s not a wave to live, to be honest.

Sarah Lavonne:
No, it’s not.

Justine:
That is not the solution. So if you’re feeling stuck, that’s the only way I’m hearing from you particularly there is another way, that is not how I ended up doing it in the future. Mine was a 12 to one. Oh my god. Funny story. This is totally a side note. My sister was in town. This is before me and my sister were actually friends. In fact, we went through a season where we were trying, but it was not going well in our relationship. And I was working nights and she was in town, and I was like, okay, I need you to get me out of bed at noon.

Sarah Lavonne:
You’re hard to get out of bed.

Justine:
Oh my gosh. Seriously. And she heard the mission. It was like, all right. And I said, no matter what, if I fight you, I don’t care what you have to do. You have to get me out of bed. And when you’re so tired that you truly feel like you’ve been hit by a bus, there’s something laying on top of me and I cannot move. I can’t even breathe, and you can pay me enough money. You could be dangling everything I’ve ever desired.

Sarah Lavonne:
It was probably in the middle of your REM.

Justine:
It was, a hundred percent, yes. If I would be more intentional with that, I’m sure that would’ve helped me. So she came in and I’d been hit by a bus and she’s like, hello, being all nice, whatever. She finally turns on some music, and the lights were already on, and then she whips off the covers and I’m like, whatever. At one point, she tried everything. She started lifting my body out of the bed and had moved my legs so they’re hanging off the bed, and now I’m halfway off the bed, half asleep. But now I can’t help but laugh because I’m like, A for effort.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, for sure.

Justine:
She knew the mission and it was mission accomplished, and it eventually got me out of bed. But I think that that is such a good analogy for how hard night shift is and how hard it can feel when you’re waking up in the middle of REM.
You do have to flip your clock. Again, just so much compassion for our night shifters. And at the same time, once again, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. And so, we would love to hear your insights of other things that you have done to wake up. I know for me, having a morning routine and being awake long enough before my shift rather than, even now I have some early morning Europe meetings, and I literally roll out of bed 10 minutes before I brush my teeth, wash my face. And hair in a bun, still in my pajamas. No bra. Here’s what you get. That’s not a great way to start your day in general just for life, whether you’re day shift or night shift. And so having some sort of semblance of a morning routine, that’s a whole nother episode.
But I do have a tip on this, and this also was taught by my sister, but my sister turned on the black and white mode on her phone, and it significantly makes it less appealing. And there’s this setting on iPhones where you can triple tap. So then I also turn that on, that if you triple tap, it turns your phone into gray. And once it’s in grayscale, I kind of don’t care anymore.

Sarah Lavonne:
Interesting.

Justine:
There’s another tip. But for me, it’s the infinite scroll, and the wind down because I typically work literally from morning until night, and I’ll close my computer and be like, oh, okay, it’s 11, it’s midnight, it’s 2:00 AM. You should go to bed now. And then it does take me an hour to sort of get outside of work mode in my head and not be worrying about the million things going on.

Sarah Lavonne:
Yeah, you want to veg out.

Justine:
Yeah. I would love to just veg.

Sarah Lavonne:
Thanks for spending your time with us during this episode of Happy Hour with Bundle Birth Nurses. If you like what you heard, it helps us both if you subscribe, rate, leave a raving review, and share this episode with a friend. If you want more from us, head to bundle birth nurses.com or follow us on Instagram.
Now it’s your turn to go and find one new sleep related regimen to enhance your sleep, especially if you’re on night shift. We’ll see you next time.