I work shifts, and for about a year my sleep was a mess. I have it mostly under control now, so I wanted to share in case anyone else is in the same boat. The hardest part was not the night shifts themselves. It was the switching. A run of nights, then a day off, then back to days. My body never settled into anything. What helped, and this took a lot of trial and error: Blackout curtains. I know everyone says this, and I ignored everyone for months. They were the single biggest improvement. Summer mornings here get bright very early and I was waking up at five without realising why. A fixed anchor sleep. Instead of trying to shift my whole schedule around, I keep a few hours that are always sleep no matter what shift I am on, and adjust around those. My colleague suggested it and it made a real difference. Eating at consistent times, even when the times are strange. I used to skip meals on night shifts and then eat everything at once when I got home, which wrecked me. Not doing errands on the way home from a night shift. I used to stop at the shop, the post office, whatever, because I was already out. Then I would get home too alert to sleep. Now I go straight back and do errands after I wake up. The other thing that helped was talking to people who work the same pattern. There is a lot of practical knowledge that never gets written down anywhere, and most of what actually worked for me came from someone else mentioning it in passing. One more thing for anyone new: it does get easier. My first few months I genuinely thought I had made a mistake coming here. That feeling passed once the sleep sorted itself out, and looking back a lot of what I thought was homesickness was mostly exhaustion. Anyone else on shifts? Would love to hear what works for you, especially around the day-off recovery, which I still have not cracked. #nightshift #workinginjapan #filipinos