Bonus Video: Sleep

Esteban Fernandezlopez says:

Great question. Night shift is a special situation because you’re asking your body to be awake when its circadian clock is naturally pushing toward sleep, and then trying to sleep when your body is naturally pushing toward wakefulness. So I would modify a few of Kert’s recommendations rather than trying to follow them literally.

**1. Protect total sleep first.**
The goal is still roughly 7–9 hours of sleep per 24 hours. It does not necessarily have to occur in one block. For many night-shift workers, a main daytime sleep plus a pre-shift nap works better than trying to force one perfect 8-hour daytime sleep.

If you get home in the morning, I would generally prioritize getting to bed fairly quickly rather than filling that time with errands and chores. Daytime sleep is already more likely to be shorter and fragmented, so protect that window.

**2. Make daytime look like nighttime.**
Blackout curtains, an eye mask, earplugs or white noise, a cool bedroom, and minimizing interruptions become especially important.

**3. Think “caffeine early in my waking period,” not “no caffeine after 1 p.m.”**
Kert’s 1 p.m. cutoff makes sense for someone sleeping around 10–11 p.m., but obviously not for someone who works overnight. If you work nights, caffeine at the beginning and early part of the shift can be useful. I would try to stop it roughly **5–8 hours before you plan to sleep**, depending on how sensitive you are to caffeine.

**4. Naps are useful.**
A planned nap before a night shift can significantly improve alertness. If your schedule allows it, a 60–90-minute nap, or even a longer sleep period before the first night shift, can help. A short 15–30-minute nap during a break can also improve alertness if your workplace allows it.

Just remember that some people are groggy immediately after waking from a nap, so give yourself a little time before driving or doing anything that requires quick reactions.

**5. Use light strategically.**
Bright light during the first half of your night shift can help your brain stay alert. As you approach the end of the shift and your upcoming sleep period, reducing bright light can make it easier to transition toward sleep.

If you are extremely sleepy driving home, though, driving safety takes priority over trying to manipulate your light exposure.

**6. Permanent nights and occasional nights are different.**
If you permanently work nights, keeping your daytime sleep period reasonably consistent can help your body adapt.

If you rotate between days and nights or only occasionally work nights, completely flipping your biological clock back and forth usually isn’t realistic. In that situation, I’d concentrate more on protecting sleep, strategic naps, caffeine, and light rather than trying to become completely nocturnal.

**7. Be careful with large meals overnight.**
I would generally eat a normal meal after waking or before work and use smaller meals or snacks during the middle of the night rather than eating your largest meal at 2–4 a.m.

**8. For agility, pay attention to when you train.**
Whenever possible, I would rather see you train your dog after you have slept than at the end of a long night shift.

Agility depends heavily on reaction time, decision-making, coordination, timing, remembering a course, recognizing what your dog is doing, and giving cues at exactly the right moment. Those are all things that can deteriorate when you are sleep deprived.

That doesn’t mean you can never train after work. But after a particularly poor sleep day or a difficult night shift, I would consider making that session easier, such as foundations, conditioning, simple skills, or something your dog already understands, rather than choosing that day for complicated sequencing or something where your timing really matters.

I learned this one the hard way. Years ago, I tried to go straight from a 24-hour shift in the emergency room to a dog show to run my Rottweiler. I ended up falling asleep on the ground and actually missed my run. Looking back, even if I had managed to stay awake, there is no way I was in a good state to memorize a course properly and then handle it well.

The same applies to trials in general. If you know you are going to compete after working nights, I would put a lot of emphasis on getting as much sleep as possible beforehand and using naps strategically.

So the short version is:

**Protect total sleep → make your bedroom dark, cool, and quiet → nap strategically → use caffeine early rather than late → use light strategically → and whenever possible, do your most demanding agility training after sleeping rather than after being awake all night.**