The long shifts can be exhausting, physically and mentally. RMN Chloe shares what she does to ensure she gets through her 12-hour shifts efficiently!
Hello guys and welcome back to my channel!
My name is Chloe if you are new here, and if you are I would love you to hit that bright red subscribe button down below.
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So, today I have got for you another video, it's sponsored by the lovely people over at Nurses.co.uk - they are a careers website built for nurses by nurses.
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• What does a Mental Health Nurse do?
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On top of all the job opportunities they have on their website, they also have a load of great blogs and resources which is perfect if you're a student or a qualified nurse, so, as always, I will have all their links in the description bar down below.
Without further ado, we're gonna jump into this month's video which is all about how to survive 12-hour shifts - or if you're like me, my long days are actually 12 and a half hour shifts.
If you’re new around here, I am a mental health nurse; I'm pretty newly qualified, I've been qualified about nine months now and I work on a ward.
My normal shift pattern is two long days a week and then two short days a week, or if I'm on nights I'll do either three or four nights a week, all of which will be twelve and a half hours long.
I have actually done a whole video on how to survive night shifts, if you want to see that video I will link it up there!
But today we're gonna talk about how to survive sort of twelve and a half hour shifts in general because they're pretty intense.
So, with all that said I'm gonna stop rambling and just jump straight into the tips!
Get a good night’s sleep beforehand
Now the first thing I'm gonna suggest might seem pretty obvious, however, it's something that's easy to forget and that is to get a good night's sleep.
It seems obvious I know, but I think a lot of people forget how early they're getting up.
So, for me to get up for a long day I need to be up at half past five, which means I need to be asleep by half nine if I'm gonna get a full eight hours sleep, so realistically, I need to be getting into bed at about nine o'clock to make sure that I'm asleep for half nine to get the hours I need.
But, let's be honest, it is so easy to get distracted and the next thing you know it's like 10 half-10 and you're like ‘oh my god, my alarm goes off at 5:30, I'm gonna be exhausted!’
So that's definitely a really important piece of advice, especially if you're new to doing 12 and a half hour shifts.
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It just makes sure you give yourself enough time to get the amount of sleep you need, so if it takes you half an hour to get ready for bed then you need to start that process at half eight to make sure you're in bed for nine and asleep for half nine.
You've just got to work out what works best for you, but getting into a routine is gonna really really help you out.
Maintain good sleep hygiene
Something else that's really important for sleep, and it's something we tell patients all the time, and that is good sleep hygiene.
If you haven't heard that phrase before it's all about getting into the habit of doing things that are gonna help you sleep, not things that are gonna keep you awake.
So the best things for this are to avoid caffeine as much as possible before bed - so for me personally, I try and avoid caffeine after about 4p.m., easier said than done at times but avoiding caffeine for those few hours before you go to bed is gonna really really help you get a good night's sleep.
Also, avoiding screen time as well phones, laptops, TVs; they all emit blue light which messes with your body's circadian rhythms, which is kind of like your natural sleep-wake cycle, so if you're laying in bed looking at your phone for half an hour and then wondering why you can't fall asleep it's probably that.
Another thing that's really important for good sleep hygiene is to follow a pattern.
You always need to train your body into falling asleep earlier, and one of the best ways of doing this is to avoid lie-ins.
Now, I know some of you probably aren't gonna want to hear that, but if you have a lie-in it will knock your whole sleep pattern out because then you're gonna struggle to fall asleep early that evening, meaning you're not gonna get enough sleep that night and you’ll get up early the next day and be really tired at work.
So, although sometimes it could be super tempting to have a lie-in if you've got a day off, it isn't gonna help you in the long run, in fact it's gonna make you sleep worse which is gonna make you even more tired.
There's obviously loads of ways that you can have good sleep hygiene but those for me are the three most important things - avoiding caffeine, avoiding screens and trying to get into some kind of routine, which is difficult when you work shifts, I know it is.
You've got earlys, lates, long days, nights; it's really really hard to get into a routine, but if you're super tired getting an early night it's gonna be much better for your sleep pattern than having a lie-in.
About this contributor
Registered Mental Health Nurse
I qualified as a Mental Health Nurse (RMN) in August of 2018 and started as a newly qualified nurse shortly after. On top of nursing I juggle creating content for both my YouTube channel and blog.
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