Here are some tips that may help you get a good sleep:
- Maintain proper “sleep hygiene.” Have a routine that you do before you go to bed, whether it’s at night or in the morning. If you can decompress from your shift on your way home, you’re ahead of the game.
- Use your bedroom only for sleep and sex, nothing else. It’s not for TV watching, working or anything else.
- Blackout curtains are your friend if you’re trying to sleep during the day. Your body needs the dark to know it’s supposed to sleep. Some nurses wear sunglasses home from night shift and don’t turn on any lights at home. This is an attempt to trick the body into thinking it’s nighttime.
- Turn off phones. This is hard for some people in this world of instant communication. If you’re a parent, you might worry about not being available if your children need help, but your sleep time should treated as if you were at work. Try to have an alternate person to be called if there are any problems. If that isn’t possible or you’re just not comfortable with it, perhaps get two phones. One phone is for everyone to call you, and that’s the one you turn off. Your other one, maybe a separate cell phone, is your emergency phone. No one has the number who doesn’t need it. Work doesn’t have it, your mom doesn’t have it, your friends don’t have it—just the school or daycare.
- Stop treating sleep as the last thing on your to-do list. Sleep is important. You need it. How can you be an effective nurse if you’re too tired to think?
Sources:
http://www.journalsleep.org
I like to work at night…but before my night shift I have list to do after that I also have list to do….I need a lot of time to do everything I want …
And after some sleepless days and nights I just turn off .. …Most of that tips are great but…If I go to sleep after that I feel sorry fot hte things I was able to do for that time…and when I do sth instead of getting some health sleep I feel sorry for not having my nap…. 
We must learn to listen our bodies they know the best what they/we need 
You’re right! We must learn to listen to our bodies. The biggest problems occur when we forget that part.
You are absolutely correct. Sleep is a vital part of our well being. I have worked nights for the past 5 years, often having to work extra hours on spur of the moment. It makes things twice as hard when people don’t understand that you NEED sleep – and don’t bother to take into consideration that just because they slept all last night doesn’t mean that you did. I can’t tell you the times that I have ignored phone calls only to have the person that has called 15 times come bangin’ on my door at 10am instead of leaving a voicemail!
I have found that making sleep a priority is a must, the day of my first night shift being THE most important! That first day of sleep sets the tone…it can make or break the remaining 3 days. I always go to sleep earlier, to get in some extra sleep. On mornings when I am driving home, I drink a product I have found to be extremely helpful…..Neurosleep. After my commute, I’m ready to conk out! I have met quite a few nurses who like to have an alcoholic beverage before bed, to help them wind down. I read an article once detailing the dangers of this: first, it will eventually require more to do the same job-leading many to become inadvertent alcoholics, but secondly, it doesn’t offer a quality sleep. Rethink the drink!