How to sleep after a night shift

After a night shift, you're trying to sleep at the time your body clock has set aside for being awake, and on nights it rarely catches up. Across six studies of people on permanent nights, fewer than 3 in 100 had a body clock that adjusted completely ¹.

So sleeping in the day is going to feel like a fight some of the time, but there's still a lot you can do. Go to bed as soon as you get home, sleep in a room that's properly dark, and keep a few hours of your sleep in the same slot every day, days off included.

During your shift

Start at work. Get as much bright light as you can during your shift, most of all from midnight to 4 in the morning ². Light at night helps move your body clock later, toward the hours you sleep ². Where you have a say over the lights, keep them bright, and spend your breaks in the brightest room you can find instead of a dim break room.

Coffee helps you stay alert at work, but it also breaks up the day sleep that comes after ². If you finish at 7, I'd make midnight your last cup.

On the way home

The morning sun works against you on the way home. Bright outdoor light after a night shift is a big reason night workers' body clocks usually don't shift to fit their day sleep ².

For at least your first week on this plan, get a ride home if you can, because while your body clock is shifting later, its sleepiest point can land right on your drive home ². If you're getting a ride or taking the bus or the train, put on dark sunglasses before you walk out of work and keep them on until you're home with the curtains shut ³. However you get home, leave the errands for later so you're in bed sooner ⁴. The school run can't always wait, but keep it as short as you can so you get less of that morning sun.

Go to bed as soon as you get home

Since your body clock probably hasn't switched over, it only gives you a short window before it starts trying to wake you up ⁴. So the more of your sleep you get before 2 p.m., the better rested you'll be ⁴. Go straight to bed when you get in ⁴, by about 8 if you finish at 7, and sleep as long as you can ⁵.

You'll probably want to unwind and watch an episode first, but that hour comes out of your best stretch of sleep, the part before 2.

When the kids get home from school at 3, the house gets loud. Going to bed at 8 means you've had about 7 hours in bed by then, and most of that time came before 2. You won't have been asleep for all of it, so add a nap before you go back in if you can, even a short one on the couch after dinner or right before you leave. A nap before work adds to your total sleep and may help you stay alert overnight ⁴.

Make sure everyone at home knows your sleep hours the same way they know your work hours, so nobody comes in at 11 to ask you something ⁴. Put your phone on do not disturb so it can't wake you ⁴. Earplugs or a white-noise machine help block out a noisy house in the middle of the day ⁴.

How to make your bedroom dark enough for day sleep

Aim for a room so dark you can't see your hand in front of your eyes ⁴. An eye mask is the quickest fix ⁴, but some people find theirs comes off while they sleep ², so it's worth fixing the room too.

Put blackout curtains or shades on the bedroom window ⁴. If you rent or can't hang anything, thick black plastic taped over the glass will make a bedroom completely dark ². It isn't pretty, but it's cheap.

Do the bathroom window too if you can ⁴. Daylight wakes you up ⁴, and a trip to the bathroom at noon shouldn't put you in full sun.

What to do on your days off

Plenty of people on nights want to flip back to days when they're off, so they can be with their families ⁵. The trouble is that switching from nights to days and back every week can leave you in a constant state of jet lag, so it's better to flip only partway ⁵. I'd keep your days off as close to your work days as your family can live with.

Keep about four hours of your sleep in the same slot every day, work days and days off, and fit the rest around it ⁶. If you finish at 7, make that slot 8 a.m. to noon ⁵. Your work-day sleep already covers it. On days off, stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. and sleep until noon or 1 ⁵, and you still have the afternoon and evening with your family.

In a lab, sleeping the same four hours every day seemed to hold part of people's body clock to a 24-hour day, even when the rest of their sleep moved around ⁶.

To get to that 3 or 4 a.m. bedtime, sleep a shorter stretch the morning after your last night, about 6 hours, so 8 to 2 ². That's meant to leave you tired enough to fall asleep around 3 or 4 on your first day off ².

Giving up your mornings on days off may be the hardest part to stick to, because that's when family and friends want to see you ². Together with the bright light at work and the sunglasses on the way home, it's meant to leave your body clock partway between nights and days ².

Your family may need you on day hours anyway. If so, don't make the switch by staying up all day, either after your last shift or before your first night back ⁵. Either way you end up awake for too many hours in a row ⁵. Get a few hours of sleep after that last shift, and take a nap before you head in that first night ⁴.