Working at night, what is best?

[Barnabas]

Imagine you work from 11 pm to 7 am

What is best, to sleep 8 hours from 2 pm to 10 pm?
Or to sleep 8 hours from 8 am to 4 pm?

[MikeH]

Sleep 11pm to 7am.

[Winston]

Tough one. Can't you sleep on the job?

[Winston]

Damn!

[rah]

Gee who gets 8 hours a sleep a day? I'm lucky if I get 6 and a half.

When I worked 3rd shift I found I had to wind down after work so it was impossible to fall a sleep right away. (midnight to 8) So I found it was easiest to sleep around 11 to 6. This is also better for my social life because I was available in that 6 to midnight time span.

[Ming]

On a more serious note...
Granted, everybody is different. Some people can grab 3 or 4 hours of sleep at any time, and their bodies don't demand a specific pattern for sleep. Others need a specific number of hours at the same time every day if they are to function at their best.

If you are one of those people, 2pm to 10pm has many advantages over the other.
First, you are well rested for work. Second, if you have things to do, you can do them during the day after work while everything is open. If you sleep during the day after work, it's hard to take care of non working things. Also, on your days off, you can stick to the same normal sleeping pattern and be ready for a night out on the town, while still enjoying much of the day as well.

[Japher]

When I worked graves I slept from 11am to around 6pm.. Mainly because I need time to unwind after work, I could have breakfast and dinner with my wife, and the garbage man came in the morning. So, he never woke me up because I wasn't asleep yet.

[Blaupanzer]

I worked grave in a railroad roundhouse while going to college. I'd go home, shower, go to school, go home and sleep from 3 - 10 on shool days. I worked two weekend days and had to school day nights off. Plenty of time for homework, but no real time for a social life. The trick was sleeping a little less on workdays and a bit more on days off. I observed that this works a lot better for person in late teens, early twenties than it does for people in early forties or later.