The Effects of Schedule Changes.

I had a long talk with one of my coworkers today about our new hours at work. We went to the graveyard shift, 11p.m.-7:30a.m., and she's having a very hard time with it. I've been trying to give her some advice on how to cope with the sudden switch but she's trying too hard to manage it all. She was telling me she's been having a hard time setting up new eating habits because she hasn't had a decent meal it a couple of weeks because she hasn't been sleeping and that's made her appetite wain away. She told me she needed to take sleeping pills a couple of times because the warm milk didn't work and darkening her bedroom at 2p.m. was getting 'just too weird' for her because she knew it was sunny out and she wanted to be out in it, not sleeping or worse, trying unsuccessfully to sleep! I told her the best advice I could give her is to eat when she's hungry, sleep when she's tired, and get out for awhile in the sun to keep her internal clock in sync as well as to get the healthful benefits of the sun. We'll see if she can last by fighting herself all the way instead of compromising for what she needs.