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Hello and welcome to your guide to relationships and family life as a night shift worker. This is a six-part series, so today we're just looking at part one: understanding your new normal.

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Before we begin, let me introduce myself. I'm Haley Nagi, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I have experience working with couples, families, individuals ages 4 to 65. I've worked with a variety of people, people on a variety of different issues, and I've actually worked with quite a few night shift workers.

I specialize in family systems and relational issues, so this is something that we'll be focusing on and talking a lot about throughout the series, as not only does your night shift work impact you, but it impacts the people around you as well.

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I really like to focus on understanding family systems, relationships, relational dynamics, and how to make changes within those systems. So let's see what we can do.

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The agenda for part one is just to look at a few different topics. Again, this is part one in a six-part series, so you're not going to answer everything today, but you will have a good framework for where to begin.

So today we're looking at the impact on relationships, common challenges and patterns, setting realistic expectations and goals, and creating your support network.

1:28 - 2:04
The impact of night work on relationships. The first thing you might notice or experience is that it might be difficult to find times to communicate or connect with others.

You know, a majority of people have typical jobs where they work during the day, and then they have their afternoons or evenings free. For night shift workers, it's the opposite. You might be working at night to early hours of the morning and then have the rest of the day free.

And so, trying to find those times when we can still connect with people and talk with people and we're on opposite shifts, that might be something that you might run into.

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If that's the case, it can lead to isolation, it can lead to feeling lonely. And so getting to think about how to manage those feelings as well as trying to figure out how to be able to better build those connections.

And then lastly, this might produce anxiety. You might notice that you would have to choose between connection or your health. Would I have to compromise sleep in order to maintain these things? Would I have to compromise something else that would negatively impact me?

And so we're going to look at some of those things here today.

2:38 - 3:26
Common challenges and patterns. These are things that were a little bit mentioned on the previous slide, but conflict could come up.

If I'm having trouble finding time to connect with people, they could feel frustrated with me. If we don't have enough time or carve out time to communicate a problem about a problem or talk about something that's really important, that could build and lead to conflict.

Another thing that could occur is exclusion. There could be the feeling that you are left out or excluded from events or activities.

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If my friends or family only host things during certain times of the day when I'm sleeping, or if there's a party at night and that's consistent, then I could start to feel excluded from those things. And I might not be able to attend those things.

So that could lead to conflict that comes up for both sides. You know, someone might feel, "Why can't you attend anything?" And I might start to feel like, "Why can't you accommodate me?"

So going along with that, isolation. And whether it's isolation from the exclusion or isolation that you might be feeling yourself or doing yourself.

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If I get to a point where I'm feeling exhausted or I'm overwhelmed and exhausted, at some point I might stop trying to make it work.

Same with friends or family, right? It can be a very fine line between what others are willing to give or do and what I'm willing to give or do. And so when that stops or just feels like too much, something you might consider—and we'll move to the next slide—is setting realistic expectations and goals.

So for yourself, you might first identify some of these things. When I'm shifting into this role, or if I've been in it and I haven't considered this before, what do I think will change?

5:08 - 5:48
What can I reasonably do? If we're talking about my schedule being 8:00 PM to 7:00 AM, I'm probably not able to attend a party at someone's house and then go to work.

But that's for you to get to decide—what feels like a reasonable, realistic thing for you? And with that, you'll need to identify boundaries for yourself.

So thinking about it, maybe it's helpful to write them down and have them somewhere tangible. But what are the things that are really important to me and that I prioritize?

5:48 - 6:30
And so if it's important that I get six to eight hours of sleep every night, that's helpful for me to know that that's something I'm pretty firm on.

Identifying these boundaries that can't be broken, and then you keep those in mind when you're making plans. If my friends want me to attend this thing but it's really going to get in the way of my sleeping six to eight hours, is that something I'm willing to compromise on?

My boundaries tell me that it's probably not.

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And so this leads us to the third thing—focus on one or two things that are really important to you.

And so if it's really important that you attend all of your niece and nephews’ birthday parties, those tend to be during hours when you might be sleeping. Those occur less often, and therefore they might be something that you can be flexible with once in a while.

Again, you get to decide what the top one or two things are for you, and then really focus on those and see if your boundaries might get to be a little bit more flexible there.

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But having that base of what your goals are, what your boundaries are, it kind of helps you to answer some of these questions and what is realistic or not.

And then lastly, creating your support network. Humans are wired for connection, and so in order to thrive when we have a different work schedule, or just thrive in general, we need support systems in place.

Sometimes you might be able to find this with your friends. Who are the people that are consistently there for you and able to support you even when something different is shifting or something difficult is going on?

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Thanks for joining me for part one! Up next, part two: Building Strong Family Connections. See you!