DOCTOR Night Shift Routine | TIPS on How to Survive NIGHT SHIFTS | How to Sleep Better

What is going on everybody? Welcome back to my channel. For those of you who are new around here, my name is Michael AKA Dr. Cellini and I am a fifth year interventional radiology resident. Now on today's video, I want to talk about night shifts and how I survived them because after all, I start my last night shift block this month, which means I will be doing two weeks of night shifts. And since I have about five years of experience throughout residency doing many different night shifts, I thought I would give you all my tips and tricks on how I survived them. So let's go. So like I said, I have about five years of experience doing night shifts every year throughout residency. It started during my surgery intern year in which I had to do two months of night shifts one month each time. And that was quite the learning experience for me. Let's just say that was my first time doing night shifts ever in my life. And for the whole month I was on nights, I was pretty much miserable and a zombie because I just wasn't doing it right. And I had no idea how to do it right. No one told me. I just kind of woke up one day and started nights. Now I'm currently a fifth year resident, which means I only do about two weeks of night shifts a year now, which is nice, but they are much more manageable this time around because I've developed these kind of tactics and tips to help me sleep better and just kind of overall feel better while working night shifts. So when this video comes out tomorrow, I will be starting my night shift block and I will go into the hospital at 8 PM and I will finish on Sunday morning at 8 AM. So I work 8 PM to 8 AM shifts every day until Sunday morning at 8 AM. So as you can see, I have a nice week ahead of me. So like I said, I wanted to give you all my tips on how I survived these night shifts because after all, they can be brutal adjusting to a completely different schedule that you really aren't supposed to be on. But let's get into it. So the very first thing I do before starting any night shift block is a day or two leading up to my night shift. I will try to stay up as late as I possibly can. So basically since I start my nights this coming Sunday or tomorrow when this video comes out on Saturday night and on Friday night, I will try to stay up extra late to kind of get me in that schedule set. So Friday night I will try to stay up till about two or 3 AM and then sleep in throughout the day on Saturday till like 11 or noon, which is super hard for me as you know, because I wake up at like 5 45 or 5 30 on just any day throughout the week. Like I don't have to be at work till one today, but I still woke up at 5 45 because I don't know. I just like to get up and do work. So Saturday I try to push it a little more and I'll stay up till about three or four again and wake up throughout the afternoon around 12 or one. The hope is that I kind of slowly get into this night shift schedule without just going cold turkey into Sunday night. I've done that before and it is not fun. However, what usually happens for me and what may happen to most of you all, especially if you'd like to wake up early like I do, is that on Saturday night I end up just staying up super late until like three or 4 AM and then I'll just wake up at like 9 AM on Sunday and then I'll be dead tired before my shift even starts on Sunday and I'll essentially stay up like 24 hours, uh, for my first shift. I don't know why that always happens to me. For some reason I just cannot sleep in for the life of me and usually that first night shift is pretty terrible. My next tip is a little secret I've learned along the way after doing my night shifts in New York City and that is grab yourself a little sleep mask because this will do wonders for you. I, the first sleep mask I ever got, this is the first one I ever got like five years ago and it's coming apart at the seams now. I think these are like 10 or $12 on Amazon, which is nothing crazy, but I like this one because it has little cups for your eyes. I've tried the other masks where they're, you know, kind of smush your eyelashes against your face and I don't really like that. So this one has always worked for me and it has like nose covering too so it covers the, the light coming in through the bottom of your eyes as well. So I like this one. This has always been my tried and true eye mask. So I recently got sent this one a few months ago. I'm not sponsored by this company. I think they just felt bad for me because I'm in residency and wanted to send me a night mask. But anyways, so I've actually used this one now one time and I probably won't ever be using that one again because one, it's worn out and two, this one is just far superior and I'll tell you why. For one, it has this nose covering here that doesn't allow any light to come in and that's especially good when you have a big nose like I do and none of these usually ever fit. So the next thing I love about this is it's like a cool material, like a cool fleece material. I don't know if you guys can like see that. It's also cupped in so it doesn't hurt your eyelashes. But the best part about this mask is for people who like to listen to music while they're sleeping or like a podcast or whatnot. So it actually has a built in Bluetooth speaker that go in both sides of the temples. So like right here and right here. So it'll play music or like ASMR type stuff. Whatever you want to listen to that helps you go to sleep. Maybe like some white noise, which is what I usually like or you can listen to dubstep if that helps you go to sleep. So whatever you want to listen to, you can listen to here. So that is from let's just sleep. It was on Amazon. I actually checked this morning and it's not on Amazon anymore. So you may have to go to the website. Let's just sleep.com if you're interested in this. So that's that again, not sponsored, just like the product. So my second secret or tip to surviving night shifts is a little something I like to call earplugs. Now, like I said before, I did my first night shifts ever in Manhattan during my surgery internship. And for some reason, even though I was on like the fifth floor, people always decided to do like construction and jack hammering about 9am when I first laid down to go to sleep. So that was super exciting and I would literally never sleep because they were always doing construction outside my window and I was pretty miserable until I can't open this until I got these little foam earplugs. I've used different ones in the past. I'll show you. Hold on a sec. I've always used these in the past. These like super cheap. They're basically like free from home Depot. You can also get a huge bin of them from like any retailer or you can order like 200 pairs on Amazon. I actually got these free on my flight to South Africa for my honeymoon. They just kind of gave us these. I never wore them, but it's a super little cute carrying case and I don't like to reuse these earplugs very often because that's kind of gross. So if you get like a jar with whole like a hundred different ones, you can use a different one every night if you want so you can be nice and sanitary unlike me. Oh, and I live in a one bedroom apartment with Andreana and when she is not at work, sometimes she's home during the day like cooking or whatnot or watching TV and I just put these bad boys in and I don't hear anything that she does so she doesn't distract me between this and the eye mask. I'm out. So the next tip I have for you is when you come home off of your night shift because it's oftentimes difficult to kind of wind down from being on night shift and when you come home and it's daytime outside and the sun's out, it's hard to kind of get in the mode that you need to be going to sleep right now. So some people also like to make themselves some tea or some like chamomile tea which kind of helps you just relax and get in the mode of sleeping. What I usually do, I will come home around 830 or 9am and I don't eat anything before I go to bed. What I usually will do is just relax on the couch for about 20 or 30 minutes and brew myself some tea and just kind of relax and sip on it until I get sleepy. Sometimes you just need to sit in a dark room and just sip on some nice warm chamomile tea or whatnot and kind of get you in that sleep mode like I always keep mentioning. So the last tip I have for you is that you must commit to the night shift. I know this sounds silly because you know, obviously you're committing to night shifts, but no you must commit to the night shift because that's the only way to really survive the night shift and not be dead tired throughout the whole shifts or the whole week you're on nights. So this is actually my biggest problem because I always fail to 100% commit to nights. And what I mean by that is I have FOMO at baseline or fear of missing out FOMO and sometimes I will wake up even though I go to bed at about 9am, I will still wake up at like 2pm and get five hours to sleep because I feel like it's daytime and I should be out and like doing things and I don't know, I feel like I'm missing something sleeping the day away. So it sounds ridiculous, but that's just how I feel sometimes. I feel like if I'm home during the day, I should be doing something, not just wasting it sleeping. The other issue I have with committing is that for some reason when I wake up from a night shift, I don't eat breakfast. I'll just have like normal dinner, which sounds ridiculous because I'll just stay on that like nighttime eating dinner schedule. So when I wake up, I usually have like coffee, maybe like a banana or something. And then at like 6.30pm before I go into work, I'll have like actual dinner. And then my meal schedule is always off the whole time. I'm on nights as well. I don't know why. I think sometimes it's easier because sometimes Andrana will meal prep and have dinner in the fridge for me. And technically I should be eating that at like 6am. But I mean, who wants to eat like meatballs at 6am? Not me. So my meal schedule is always screwed up on nights because I cannot for the life of me, commit to the night shift life. So I think I'm going to try to go full force this month and focus on changing my meal habits as well as my sleep habits. Get on a rigorous strict schedule so that I'm not dead tired the whole month. I'm on nights. And if you made it thus far through the video, I want you to comment below, commit to the night shift. That way I know who my true subscribers are. They always watch the videos through and through. So on that note, I hope you guys enjoyed some of these tips on how I survive my night shifts. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below as always, make sure you smash that like and subscribe button and follow me on Instagram. If you don't already, otherwise I will see you all on the next video.