Night Shift

So somewhere along the line, nurses on my unit were made to work 50/50 day/night rotation. I've heard its so that we can keep our skills up, whatever that means.
Bottom line: It sucks. I mean, the money is nice. But the toll on my body/sanity/social life is not.
The following is the Proby RN "Guide to Staying Awake through a Night Shift, while Simultaneously Keeping your Patient Alive and Not Pissing off Everyone in your Social Circle."

1) Stay up a little later than usual the night before your scheduled night shift. Wake up early-ish, say 9am. Do some stuff, laundry, cook, shower etc. Then sleep a few more hours, say until 5ish.
2)On way to work stop at gas station, buy snacks, preferably of the sugary variety. Forget about everything you learned in nursing school about dia-beet-us. Also buy those yummy Starbucks espresso drinks.
3) Get to work, scope out a busy/interesting patient assignment. This will help keep you moving, keep you awake til 7am.
4) Start snacking! Drink a coffee/soda early on in shift, and pretty much continue to do so until you have heart palpitations. Hook yourself up to the monitors and see that you are in bigeminy PVC's. No big.
5) Take a walk outside around 3/4 am when you are hitting a wall. This works especially well if its sub-freezing or blizzarding outside.
6) Turn on VH1's music countdown starting at 5am. Dance around while doing morning patient care stuff. Gotta keep that blood flowing!
7) Try to give a coherent report to day RN. Peace out ASAP. Wear sunglasses on the ride home and go to bed right away. Usually by 8am for me.
8)Do this a few nights in a row.
9)When switching back to days, go to bed around 8am. Wake up around 12/1pm. Try to be moving-chores, cooking, go for a run. Lying in bed will keep you sleepy. Go to bed your normal time.
10)Wake up the next day for a day shift starting at 7am!

See why this kind of schedule is so unhealthy?