I’m a nurse working shifts and sometimes 5 days without a pause and I still don’t know if I’m gonna take one of the 2 9 to 5 jobs my hospital system has offered. I’d earn less money, but I’m already 45 years old and I don’t know if I should call it quits and settle for a regular job 5 days a week and free weekends for the rest of my working life. Hustling in nursing is ok if you are in your 20s or 30s but in my 40s? I don’t see it.
I like the extras I get for working shifts but it’s taxing. I’ve been doing nursing for 6 years already and neither do I know how difficult is the transition going to be.
I worked rotating shifts for a few years, and currently work really odd shifts for ~3 months at a time.
After the rotating shifts, and in between the odd shifts I work now, I transitioned back to a regular day cycle pretty quickly; usually within a few days.
If you can take some PTO before starting your new role, consider going to sleep shortly after sunset, and leaving the shades up so you can wake with the sun for a few days. Try not to use bright house lights in the evening, and try to not to use an alarm clock to wake up, just use the sunlight.
Doing this gives your circadian rhythm a hard reboot which makes it much easier to transition back to a more socially common day life.
