When it comes to day shifts, you know how to manage work-life balance productivity, and health. However, the night shift is a completely different story. Consider it like the day starting, when the moon shows up. A hectic job that is associated with many risks. That’s why you need productivity tips. And, if you are looking for some great tips, then you are in luck as we have got a lot of them for you in the Top 10 Productivity Tips for Night Shift Work in 2024.
The Risks Associated With Night Shift Work
Contrary to day shifts, there are a lot of health risks associated with night shift work. Since a night shift is your 24 hours turned upside down, it’s essential to know about these, so that you know what you are dealing with and why you actually require these productivity tips for night work.
- Misalignment of inner clock
- Deficiency in vitamin D
- Higher probability of prolonged sickness.
- Lack of sleep
- Imbalance in lifestyle.
A. Misalignment of Inner Clock: You must be familiar with some people not needing alarm clocks to wake up on time. That’s because, over the years, they have learned to align with their inner body clock (some of them don’t even need clocks at all).
However, when it comes to night shift work, this inner clock is disturbed and your body reacts negatively, often resulting in sleep deprivation.
B. Deficiency in Vitamin D: There are many food sources containing vitamin D, salmon, tuna, caviar, mushrooms, yolk, herrings, soy milk, yogurt, orange juice, and orange juice. However, sunlight is the best source of vitamin D. Period!
Long story short, night shifts can result in vitamin D deficiency, which can lead to inflammation and osteoporosis.
C. Higher Probability of Prolonged Sickness: Night shifts can totally affect your sleep, disturbing your biological clock. This causes a lack of sleep, which can result in prolonged diseases, for example:
- Diabetes.
- Metabolic syndrome
- Cardiovascular diseases.
The main reason for this is an inadequate sleep schedule.
D. Lack of Sleep: according to research night shift employees get an average of 2 to 4 hours less sleep than experts recommend. It’s obvious, that being awake during night is not natural and as a result, you are likely to be affected by these diseases.
- Obesity.
- Heart problems.
- Gastrointestinal problems.
- Metabolic issues.
- Cancer (not all of them)
To conclude, sleep deprivation and deficiency are both risky and need you to pay attention as soon as possible. For health issues, you must go to a doctor. However, for increasing efficiency, we recommend using productivity monitoring software during your night shifts.
E. Imbalance in lifestyle: Social interactions at 10:00 PM on leaves is fine, but every day? You can forget about your good health. As per the research, when you know you are about to go to work, you can’t relax and social interactions can deprive you of energy and over time, destroy your physical and mental piece.
Staying Healthy and Productive During Night Duty: Productivity Tips That Work
Now that you are familiar with risks associated with night shifts, now it’s time to learn how to counter them, eliminate them and focus more on work and social life. Let’s get straight into the useful productivity tips for night duty workers and employees.
- Expose yourself to light.
- Prepare your room for day sleep.
- Eat properly.
- Yoga and meditation.
- Get melatonin supplements.
- Keep your mind occupied.
- Task scheduling
- Drink plenty of water.
- When you want to go home, you go home
- Use a productivity monitoring software
1. Expose Yourself to Light: When working a night shift, you are already depriving yourself of morning sunlight, which is bad for your health. However, you can stop this health issue to some extent by exposing yourself to bright artificial light.
- A tip here is that the lights get dimmer as you get closer to your goodnight time.
2. Prepare Your Room for Day Sleep: If you have to stay awake at night, you have to sleep during the day. Although caffeine helps you stay awake. Too much coffee at this time will also deprive you of your sleep. Here are a few tips to prepare your room.
- Close the curtains.
- Switch off the lights.
- Block other sources of light.
3. Eat Properly: Well, you are not allowed to neglect your health because of the night shift. Eat healthy and at the right time. I.e., breakfast and lunch at home. Dinner at the office.
4. Yoga and Meditation: These are good to keep the mind and body balanced and relaxed. This schedule is good for health, especially to keep yourself functioning well during night shifts.
5. Get Melatonin Supplements: When you naturally sleep, your body generates this hormone. However, the situation here is that you are working, when you were supposed to sleep. In such a case melatonin supplements can be very helpful. However, consult with your doctor first.
- You won’t even need this if your on a night shift work from home
6. Keep Your Mind Occupied: One of the ways to stay focused during your night shift is to listen to audiobooks, podcasts and mp3s. This is essential to do since night shift can have a negative impact on brain functioning.
7. Task Scheduling: Just like office work, this also keeps your brain functioning well during night shifts. If your tasks are not monotonous, you will be more efficient.
- This is also one of the good productivity tips for working from home.
8. Drink Plenty of Water: Another one of the productivity improvement tips is to have a large water bottle during your night duty. Water has many benefits, so drinking it at regular intervals during work is essential. For example, it maintains body temperatures, which is a high need for night shift employees.
9. When You Want to Go Home, You Go Home: One of the best productivity tips is this. Like we mentioned before, social gatherings at night will suck up your energy. So, a good health tip here is to make any excuse, go home and take any remaining sleep you may need.
10. Use Productivity Monitoring Software: To keep track of your productivity during the dark hour, we recommend using productivity monitoring software such as DeskTrack, which helps you stay efficient and productive all the time.
Conclusion
With that, we conclude our blog, Top 10 Productivity Tips for Night Shift Work in 2024. To summarize, we discussed the health risks of working night shifts and then gave you some tips to stay healthy and productive during this unusual work time.
