How to sleep better after nights - The Derbyshire Benevolent Trust

Getting to grips with shift work can be one of the most challenging external aspects of the job for new recruits. Naturally, it is more difficult to stay awake when your body clock is telling you it’s time to sleep, and harder still to get to sleep when the rest of the country is starting the day. But it is really important to get sufficient rest during your late shifts, as fatigue can lead to mistakes and errors of judgement.

Here are our four tips to help you get a good amount of rest after a night shift.

Eliminate caffeine intake 4-5 hours before end of your shift

Caffeinated drinks such as energy drinks, teas and coffee can be a useful boost to your energy levels at the start of a shift – but too much can lead to the dreaded palpitations and head chatter as you try to get too sleep. To get a good amount of undisturbed rest, you should aim to eliminate your consumption of all caffeine products around 4-5 hours before the end of your shift and switch to water or decaffeinated teas during this time.

Eliminate light from where you are trying to sleep

Blue light, which is found in natural sunlight as well as from your phone and devices, can disturb your circadian rhythm and sleep cycle. Consider using blue light blocking glasses on your drive home from work, avoid the temptation to spend time checking your phone after your shift and ensure that you use blackout curtains or blinds which will reduce the amount of light coming into your bedroom.

Create a bedtime routine

If you participate in the same routine every time you go to sleep, your brain is likely to get you to sleep far quicker after a night shift by repeating that routine. By participating in repeated patterns, your brain will automatically send the signals that tells your body it is time to go sleep. Make sure you create that routine – whether it is reading a few pages of your book, taking a shower, or watching an episode of a TV show that you’ve already seen before – if you repeat that pattern every time you sleep at night your brain will quickly send those same signals when you do the same thing after a night shift.

Set boundaries

It’s also a good idea to let people know what hours you’re working and when you will be sleeping, so they know to leave you alone. Explain to your partner and children why it is important that you are not disturbed so that they understand and become less likely to interrupt your sleep. Ask those who live with you to refrain from doing any noisy activities while you sleep like vacuuming, washing dishes or watching TV loudly. Put your smartphone on “Do Not Disturb” mode so your screen won’t be lighting up frequently with new notifications.

We hope these tips help both new recruits and serve as a pertinent reminder for those who have been in the job for a while now. Let us know if you have any more tips to add!

I’ve not received a password reset email?

Be sure to check spam folders, Some email providers may consider the email to be a spam email and automatically file it into your spam folder.

The email is not in my Spam folder?

Some email providers may have very strict spam blocking in place. If this is happening you can add our email address to your ‘white list’

To do this please follow the instructions in the below links, by choosing your mail provider and adding the email: “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” to your whitelist.

AOL

Add the “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” to your AOL address book:

Click the “Mail Options” menu and select “Address Book”.
Inside the “Address Book” window, click the “Add” button.
Inside the “Address Card for New Contact” window cut and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the “Other E-Mail” field.
Make our From address the “Primary E-Mail” address by checking the associated check box to the right of it.
Click the “Save” button.

If the mailing is in your SPAM Folder, you can open the email and click the “This Is Not Spam” button.

Gmail

Add the From address you want to receive mailings from to your Gmail Contacts List:

Click “Contacts” along the left side of any Gmail page.
Click “Create Contact”.
Copy and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the primary email address dialog box.
Click “Save”.

If the mailing is in your SPAM folder, check the box next to the mailing and click the “Not Spam” button along the top.

Hotmail/Outlook/Live

Add the From address you want to receive mailings from to your Hotmail Safe List:

Open your mailbox and click “Options” (upper right hand corner).
Click the “Junk E-Mail Protection” link.
Select the “Safe List” link.
Copy and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the dialog box titled “Type an address or domain”.
Click the “Add” button next to the dialog box.

If the mailing is in your “Junk E-Mail Folder”, open the email and click the “Not Junk” button.

You should also check that the mailing’s email address is not in your Blocked Senders list. You can find your Blocked Senders list by following the directions above and going to “Blocked Senders List” instead of “Safe List”. If you see the mailing’s from address on this list, select it and click the Remove button.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Add the From address you want to receive mailings from to your Thunderbird Address Book and configure your Junk Mail Controls to white list your address book.

Add an address into your Personal Address Book:

Click the “Address Book” button.
Make sure the Personal Address Book is highlighted.
Click the “New Card” button.
Under the “Contact” tab, copy and paste “admin@derbyshirebenevolenttrust.com” into the Email dialog box.
Click “OK”.

White list your Personal Address Book:

From the main drop down menu, select “Tools –< Junk Mail Controls..."
This will launch the Junk Mail Controls window that has two tabs: Settings and Adaptive Filter
Under the Settings tab, update the “White Lists” module by selecting Personal Address Book from the pull down menu and then check mark the box next to “Do not mark messages as junk mail”.
Click “OK”.

If the mailing is in your junk folder, right-click the mailing and choose “Mark –< As Not Junk".[/vc_column_text][/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title="Netscape Mail" tab_id="1498728551530-a54d18f1-2c51"][vc_column_text]Set up a filter to redirect the mailing you want to receive into your inbox:

From the Edit drop down menu, select “Message Filters”.
Click “New”, and give the new filter a name (e.g. “Whitelist”).
Change the drop down on the left to “sender” and the one in the middle to “is”.
Copy and paste username@domain.com into the box on the right.
Make the bottom two drop downs “Move to folder” and “Inbox”.
Click “OK”.
Make sure that your new filter is located at the top of the Message Filter list so it is run before any spam filter.

Outlook 2003/2007

Add the address you want to receive mailings from to your Safe Senders list:

On the Tools menu, click “Options”.
On the Preferences tab, click “Junk E-mail”.
On the Safe Senders tab, click “Add”.
In the Add address box, copy and paste in username@domain.com and click OK.

If you are using a different version of Outlook you can add the mailers From address to your Address Book. This can be done by opening the email, right clicking the From address, and selecting “Add To Contacts”. You can also access your Address Book via the tools drop down menu.

Yahoo

Set up a filter to redirect the mailing you want to receive in your inbox:

Open your mailbox and click on “Mail Options” (upper right hand corner).
Select “Filters” under the Management column.
Click the “Add” button on the Filters page.
In the “From header:” row, make the drop down “contains” and put the mailer’s from address username@domain.com in the box.
At the bottom of the page Click the “Choose Folder” pull down menu and select “Inbox”.
Click the “Add Filter” button.

If the mailing is in your Yahoo Bulk Folder open the email and click the “Not Spam” button. You should also check that the mailing’s email address is not in your “Blocked Addresses” list. You can find your “Blocked Addresses” list by clicking “Mail Options” and then clicking the “Blocked Addresses” link under the Spam column. If you see the mailing’s from address on this list, select it and click the “Remove Block” button.

Others

The most common way to whitelist an address is to add it to your address book, white list, or safe list. There is no universal way to whitelist an address, so if this is not an option, you will have to consult the help section associated with your email application. They should have instructions on how to whitelist an address there.