And I'm Spent
I am totally exhausted. I think I need a weekend to recover from the weekend. Really, I probably got enough sleep for most normal people who sleep during nighttime hours. But since I work night shift, I have to sleep during the day so that I can stay up all night. Everything always gets messed up on my off days though, because I try to sleep during the night so that I can be awake during the day to be productive or do fun stuff around town. When I'm trying to flip flop back and forth is when I start feeling all out of whack and exhausted. For example, after working Thursday night, I came home and slept till about 5pm. Then, I went back to sleep around 3am (after drinking alot), but the next morning I woke up at 8am. I pretty much stayed on a daytime schedule, waking up around 9am everyday through today. However, I would take a nap in the afternoon, and not go to bed until 2am every night. Today, I did not really get to take a nap, but now I have to stay up until at least 4am so that I can sleep tomorrow to work tomorrow night. And I'll probably sleep a good 12 hours, and still wake up feeling tired tomorrow afternoon. Crazy huh?
In light of my recent exhaustion, I started looking up a few articles related to shift work, sleep deprivation, and the effects of those on the human body. From what I have read, the verdict is in, and the eight ball says: "outlook not so good." So here are a few interesting articles I found, for your reading pleasure: what nurses say about working night shift, recent research (which I find a bit scary), statistics, and sleep strategies for shift workers. Turns out, there's quite a bit of information on the subject. As I was reading, I started self-diagnosing (a common thing for medical personnel to do) and realizing some of the effects that I've noticed pertaining to myself, such as: always feeling tired, lack of energy/motivation, moodiness (getting really annoyed at things that don't usually bother me), being hungry at weird times, headaches, difficulty concentrating, blurred vision, and even some hallucinations (not severe, but I'll see things out of the corner of my eye, that disappear when I look directly at them).
On a happier note, two great things happened today. The first one was that in celebration of Thanksgiving week, we went to Plymouth, MA to see the spectacular Plymouth Rock, visit a re-creation of the Plimouth (no, this is not a typo) Plantation, and see the Mayflower II, a lifesize replica of the original Mayflower. Plymouth Rock was basically, well.... a rock. It was maybe the size of a small coffee table with "1620" engraved on it, resting in the sand at shore level, and enclosed within a columned shelter. If that really was the rock where the pilgrims first set foot on this land, then I guess it was cool to see. If they somehow prove one day that it's not, then I wouldn't be surprised. The Mayflower II was interesting to look at, and to think about how crappy it must have been to endure such a voyage on such a small ship. However, it was totally crammed with tourists and only took about 15 minutes to walk around. The Plimouth Plantation was the most interesting of all. They had a very in-depth museum inside, which was very educational. Outside, they have built this whole historically-accurate village, complete with livestock and actors who play the parts of pilgrims and Indians. You could walk in and around all of the houses and buildings and ask questions of the actors, who would remain in character all the time. Even though it was kind of hokey, I enjoyed it, and in retrospect, wish we had spent more time there.
The second good thing that happened today I think I'm going to have to keep you in suspense about, because it's really Dave's news to tell. So now you can all bug him to blog (haha!)
The next five days I'll spend repenting for the five days that I just had off by working Wednesday and Thursday (of course), visiting my sister in Providence on Friday so we can have our own little Thanksgiving shindig, and then working Saturday and Sunday. You can all thank my lovely manager for that schedule. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
In light of my recent exhaustion, I started looking up a few articles related to shift work, sleep deprivation, and the effects of those on the human body. From what I have read, the verdict is in, and the eight ball says: "outlook not so good." So here are a few interesting articles I found, for your reading pleasure: what nurses say about working night shift, recent research (which I find a bit scary), statistics, and sleep strategies for shift workers. Turns out, there's quite a bit of information on the subject. As I was reading, I started self-diagnosing (a common thing for medical personnel to do) and realizing some of the effects that I've noticed pertaining to myself, such as: always feeling tired, lack of energy/motivation, moodiness (getting really annoyed at things that don't usually bother me), being hungry at weird times, headaches, difficulty concentrating, blurred vision, and even some hallucinations (not severe, but I'll see things out of the corner of my eye, that disappear when I look directly at them).
On a happier note, two great things happened today. The first one was that in celebration of Thanksgiving week, we went to Plymouth, MA to see the spectacular Plymouth Rock, visit a re-creation of the Plimouth (no, this is not a typo) Plantation, and see the Mayflower II, a lifesize replica of the original Mayflower. Plymouth Rock was basically, well.... a rock. It was maybe the size of a small coffee table with "1620" engraved on it, resting in the sand at shore level, and enclosed within a columned shelter. If that really was the rock where the pilgrims first set foot on this land, then I guess it was cool to see. If they somehow prove one day that it's not, then I wouldn't be surprised. The Mayflower II was interesting to look at, and to think about how crappy it must have been to endure such a voyage on such a small ship. However, it was totally crammed with tourists and only took about 15 minutes to walk around. The Plimouth Plantation was the most interesting of all. They had a very in-depth museum inside, which was very educational. Outside, they have built this whole historically-accurate village, complete with livestock and actors who play the parts of pilgrims and Indians. You could walk in and around all of the houses and buildings and ask questions of the actors, who would remain in character all the time. Even though it was kind of hokey, I enjoyed it, and in retrospect, wish we had spent more time there.
The second good thing that happened today I think I'm going to have to keep you in suspense about, because it's really Dave's news to tell. So now you can all bug him to blog (haha!)
The next five days I'll spend repenting for the five days that I just had off by working Wednesday and Thursday (of course), visiting my sister in Providence on Friday so we can have our own little Thanksgiving shindig, and then working Saturday and Sunday. You can all thank my lovely manager for that schedule. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
posted by Bean at
2:15 AM
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