Insomnia
How do you cope with insomnia? I don’t mean taking prescribed pills which can cause addiction, but my roster is sometimes 7 days of flying with a night flight in the middle followed by early flight the day after. I go to sleep after the night duty with having trouble to fall asleep then in the evening. I tried 10mg melatonin capsules and it helped a little. Do you have some other tips or negative experience with melatonin? |
Never did find a solution, best I could do was practise good sleep hygiene
No naps through the day No caffeine 8 hours before bed No long lie ins No food later than 3 hours before bed Exercise at least once a day Avoid phone, laptop, tablet etc in bed. |
I did realize how much my sleeping patterns were damaged when i was forced to take three months off work. After about a month i was able to sleep through the night for the first time in years. Thereafter i did try the sleep hygiene thing, although it was rather about having a fixed pattern of behaviour in the hours before sleep, assuring i was not interrupted by outside influences (difficult with a family) and calling in fatigue for every unhealthy roster pairing.
Still suffered some sleep problems though, which kinda cured itself by joining a carrier with a fixed roster pattern, five earlies (easy for me as a morning person), three off, five late (hard for me) and four off, rinse repeat. No night flights. To have a few days to shift my sleeping pattern between blocks really helped, as well as being in either early or late mode for a whole block of duties. Exercise, if at all possible outside, reducing my alcohol intake as well as trying not to get stressed about stuff i have no influence over seems to help. |
trying not to get stressed about stuff i have no influence over seems to help. |
I think what 750XL has suggested us a good starting point, but it is really about working out what works for you. Also some background reading on sleep might help you devise a plan, 24 Hour Society by Dr Matin Moore-Ede I seem to remember was a good book.
THE UK HSE has some sensible guidelines on sleep hygiene and alertness as follows: Hints and tips for shift-workers |
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