Graham Wettone, 52
Retired police officer
I started doing nights in 1980. There was nothing open back then. Monday to Thursday, all of society went to bed at midnight. Even the television shut down. In those days you worked shifts on a four-week cycle. In the space of five days, your whole system and body clock was completely the wrong way round. I’ve had doctors say you shouldn’t eat at night, but I always took some sandwiches in or stopped by the kebab shop or the local fried chicken place.
It is physically demanding to try to stay awake all night. You are tired during the day and tired during the night. As I got older, I found it even more difficult to stay awake. By the time you get to the Monday, you’re a zombie. You forget appointments, you have to write everything down. The quieter nights were harder.
Graham Wettone: ‘The biggest problem was digestive – I had loads of stomach upsets.’
Unfortunately, you don’t get a chance to sleep during the day. The rest of society doesn’t expect you to sleep. In summer, everyone’s out in the garden, cutting grass; you’ve got the curtains pulled and the earplugs in.
On the flip side, I loved night duty. The station was ours; no hustle and bustle in the workplace. You could get things done. But I packed it in because it was having an impact on my health. The biggest problem was digestive – I had loads of stomach upsets. It wasn’t so much the heart problems or breathlessness the report mentions: I got checked for that, along with other colleagues. After 15 years of working nights, it was a bit of a relief when I stopped. I could almost feel my system saying: “Thank God that’s over, it’s back to normal now.” PC
Kathryn McLaughlin, 30
Burlesque dancer and fire performer
I have been working nights for about 10 years. The week gets later as it goes on. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, I get to bed about 5am. I have never found it hard to stay awake. When I was little, my mum used to take me to the doctors because I would be up all night reading. I have always been a night owl. Even if I’m not working I wouldn’t go to sleep until about 3 or 4am. I find it easier to do things that require more thought later at night.
I suspect some of the health effects tie in with the fact that, when you get in late, you are not inclined to sit down and make a proper dinner. I think it’s more about making choices to eat something sensible instead of just grabbing something on the go. I have my evening meal between 10.30 and 11pm. I go to the gym five times a week.
For me, this is actually a better way of living: I’m not somebody who functions well at 8 or 9am. When I had a job with more normal hours, I was always drinking Red Bull or eating cheese toasties on my way to work to reward myself for having got up. PC
Dr Zakia Akhteruzzaman: ‘The most difficult thing is no fixed times … it’s difficult to have a social life.’
Dr Zakia Akhteruzzaman, 32
General practitioner
“I worked night shifts on and off for three years when I was a junior doctor, but the worst time was four long months in A&E. It was disorientating. A&E totally messes up your body clock. You have long shifts – 12 or 13 hours – and you have no time to process anything. There’s no window in the main emergency room, so you don’t know what’s happening outside. I felt totally out of touch with the universe. The most difficult thing is that there’s no fixed times. One day you do 8am to 5pm and then 8pm to 8am for a few days, and then sometimes till 2am. So every day is different. It’s difficult to have a social life, and your body can’t adjust.
You feel very unwell and jetlagged. I could barely talk sometimes. I would be seeing a patient and taking down their history, and then would have to go to the toilet and cough up phlegm. Twice when I was on night shift I had to take time off as I was sick in bed. I remember feeling really guilty.
When we qualified, there were some doctors who wanted to do A&E, mainly because they enjoyed acute medicine and the associated adrenaline rush, but it wasn’t for me. I don’t see how you could have any work/life balance and work those shifts.
But as difficult as it was, I also remember it with some nostalgia. It sounds strange, but hospitals can be peaceful at that time. During the day, the patients are in the corridor and there are doctors huddling. But at night, it’s often just you walking along the corridors. We would have really deep conversations at that time – even discussing spirituality and deeper issues. I have never found that during the day. I think people feel a bit more vulnerable and open up more. Also, another positive thing is that at this time you really get a chance to bond. Sometimes the junior handles the shop floor while the senior is asleep or does some paperwork, and so the motherly nurses – especially on paediatrics – would look out for juniors and would make a bed and say: “It’s quiet now, get some sleep.” AG
Lucy Horsfall, 34
Senior cabin crew
I have been doing this for 11 years. It’s my job, and you just fight through it. The challenge is going through time zones. Coming back from Los Angeles, it’s dark and then you see the dawn rising through the clouds – and in the cockpit they say we haven’t even got to New York. I tell myself it’s still night, keep the window blinds down. I think that’s the only way I can deal with it.
My airline is very good. It gives us the correct rest. You get allotted a break time on the long flights and you have a bunk you can sleep in. The minimum rest is three hours. That really helps – you can actually fall asleep. The hardest part is at about 2.30 or 3am, when you start getting really cold. That’s when I get most tired. It’s a really heady feeling when we land in the morning. But an hour or two later you get a real crash and start to feel sick. Diet-wise, it can be tricky. You’re craving sugar through the evening, eating chocolate or whatever’s around. You’re eating dinner at 3am just to get a sugar hit.
I suppose you could get depressed if you worked on your own through the night. You could start thinking about things. But I have got a team around me. We’ll have a chat, a cup of coffee, and if one person’s tired we’ll go and do something like cleaning: it’s just a little thing, but it takes your mind off it.
I’ve never had anything wrong with me, other than tiredness and jetlag. When I come back from maternity leave I’ll still be doing night shifts, but I’ll be part-time – two or three long-haul flights a month. PC
Alex Lester, 57
BBC Radio 2 DJ
I’ve been doing night shifts for 26 years and I’m still alive, so hopefully it’s all right. It just turns your day on its head, that’s all.
The downsides are mainly social. I play a lot of music, and I’m always looking out for new stuff, so I get invited to a lot of concerts, and I have to say: “I’m sorry, but unless it’s a Beatles reunion with all the original members I won’t be able to make it.” They say: “The band are on stage at 9.30.” And I go: “Er, I’ll have been in bed for two hours.”
There are upsides, though. I don’t get stuck in the rush hour. I don’t get stuck in crowds, so during the day I can do things while everyone’s at work. My Christmas shopping is usually done before everybody else’s.
During the first few months I had a bit of trouble sleeping. There’s this figure eight hours that’s been plucked from somewhere, and when I started working nights I would go to bed thinking, “I must get my eight hours!”, and then lie awake all night worrying about getting the amount of sleep I needed. People worry far too much about that, but your body will tell you how much you need.
Once you are doing night shifts on a permanent basis, your body clock sort of adjusts. So I’m now a nocturnal creature. I tend to go to bed at 7.30 in the evening and then get up at one in the morning and go to work. Then I’m back in bed again by about six in the morning and tend to be asleep until 10 or 10.30am. That’s the way my body clock works. I’m hoping that it won’t have any long-term health effects. I’d have thought I would have noticed it by now if it did. TM
Simon Matthews: ‘There’s a different atmosphere at night; it’s nicer.’
Simon Matthews, 48
Freelance lorry driver
Night working is a damn sight easier than day work. At night, there’s far less traffic on the road, especially in the summer. There is something peaceful about it: you’re totally on your own, with nice open road most of the time. Serenity is a good word. There’s a different atmosphere at night; it’s nicer. People aren’t so stressed. Probably because the rest of the world is sleeping.
I don’t do many nights any more because I’m semi-retired, but I never really had a problem staying awake. Your body clock seems to be set so that it wants to shut down around 2.30 or 3 in the morning. Your body temperature goes down, but I don’t really ever seem to want to go to sleep.
The longest stint of night shifts I have done, without day shifts between, was eight weeks. I was carrying chilled food products. It was a similar journey every night, from Taunton up to Oxford, down to Southampton and then back to Taunton. I felt as if I was permanently in a different time zone. It affects your head. You feel totally out of sorts coming off nights and then having to live a day life for two days, and then going back on to nights again. I imagine it would have very detrimental effects on you, especially mentally PC
Torgeir Fotland, 33
Former psychiatric nursing assistant
I did this temping job in Oslo in 2010 and 2011. There were three of us working from 10pm to 8am, making sure that patients were asleep and taking care of them if they needed to get up. We were just waiting there in case something happened. That made it harder to stay awake. The others brought in their computers or were in front of the TV or reading. They had some sort of activity which occupied them privately. I was a bit miffed, thinking: just sitting here looking at a wall, I might fall asleep in five minutes. I was working with guys who had done it for decades. They had their routine. I spent a lot of time on YouTube – I don’t know how people survived this job before the internet.
You’re fine until midnight, even sociable. Two comes, three. And then you become cold. You’d be sitting there at 4am, saying: “This is not good for the health is it?” “No, definitely not.” “How long are you intending to do it?” “A while. Better pay.”
For me, it was a temporary thing. But looking at my colleagues, the regular staff, they had a routine. They had done it for 20 or 30 years. I don’t think that can be good. You miss out on life; you don’t really see people; you are on the outside of society. I’m on the same bus as everyone else, but they’re going to work and I’m going home. They look fresh and I look like I just killed someone. I couldn’t do it for long without thinking: what’s going on out there in the world? PC
Dan Doherty: ‘The atmosphere in a 24-hour restaurant can be … interesting.’
Zdenek Honsa, 35
Engineer
I have just changed jobs so as not to work nights. For 18 months I worked as an engineer on the London Eye – mostly maintenance, fixing things that had broken during the day. I worked a 12-hour shift, 8pm to 8am. I didn’t find it hard to stay awake, but it used to take a week to get back to normal. It doesn’t surprise me that there may be long-term health effects. I hope I didn’t do it for long enough to matter. I felt very tired. If I got five hours’ sleep that would be really good. Sometimes it would be four or less, and often not in one go. I also noticed that my digestion went quite funny.
It was nice to get to see the city at night though. It was quite special on the London Eye. Even the commuting was quite nice in the dark. Going over Waterloo Bridge was lovely. And I could see my son during the day more. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t do nights again. But sometimes you can’t pick jobs. PC
Dan Doherty, 29
Executive chef at Duck and Waffle 24-hour restaurant
It’s surreal, that’s the only way I can describe it. Working an eight-hour shift from 10pm to 6am is so much more different from eight hours in the day. I do both throughout the week – post-midnight dining is an integral part of our business – and so my body is in a permanent state of jetlag. At 2am, you get more celebrities; footballers on one table, Made in Chelsea on another. There’s also travellers on different time zones and couples on dates. It’s always strange because all the signals that normally dictate you leaving a restaurant – catching the last tube, the waiters clearing up – don’t apply and the atmosphere can be … interesting.
I do like it, but if you don’t plan it properly, not seeing sunlight can have an adverse affect on your personality – it’s not normal, is it? It goes against everything our bodies do. I’m more spaced out. You eat too much, the same way you do when you travel, and it can make you feel gross. You’re constantly dull-eyed and because I mix it up and it’s not routine, my sleeping patterns are entirely random. My wife works normal hours and I try to cook when I get in so we can at least have breakfast together but even that’s hard – I want sausages and mash after a night shift ends at 6am, not eggs or pastries.
The upside? Sunrise is the most beautiful time to drive through London. NI
Peter Collins, 33
Spacecraft engineer
I work as part of what we call the flight control team at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt in Germany. I’m currently working on a mission called Gaia, which is a star mapper. It was launched in December and is travelling to a point which is 1.5m km from the Earth in the opposite direction to the sun. From there, it will map our galaxy, the Milky Way.
My particular area is the power and thermal systems on Gaia. I have to make sure the spacecraft’s got enough power; that the solar array is working as it should; the distribution of the power through the spacecraft’s working; and, on the thermal side, that everything is in the right thermal ranges.
In the first few months after the mission has launched it’s quite intense. The first few days are critical. Once we’ve launched, for the week following the launch, we’re in 12-hour shifts. So you’re often working through the night. For those four or five days you basically just eat, sleep and work. You get into just working and not really knowing what time of day it is.
It’s totally worth it for me, but then I don’t have to do it for years and years and years. We have what are called spacecraft controllers, who come in when the mission is up and running. They have to be there the whole time to make sure the spacecraft is working. They’re on their own in the control room overnight, day in, day out, night in, night out, which must be tough. I wouldn’t say they’re odd, but it’s not something I could do, because of the loneliness. Personally, I think it’s being on your own for the whole time that would have an effect on your health; it’s losing touch a bit of what’s going on around you because you’re so focused on work.
In my case, I don’t think working nights has had a lasting effect on my health, but during the period that I’m doing it I would say my home life was affected, in that all I was doing was going home to eat, sleep, get up and go back to work again. My wife does a similar job, elsewhere at ESOC. It will be the same for her in a couple of years when her mission launches, but we both understand that it’s only a short-term thing. TM
Is functioning evening shifts negative for you?
