Thriving Through Shift Work

Speaker 1 0:00

The evidence around shift work is overwhelming of how bad it is metabolically for us . But you know what ? It's time that you started taking control of what it is that's actually going on , and there's so many different ways that you can go about doing it . No one is coming to save you . You have to do this yourself . If today's episode stings a little , then I'm talking to you . Shift work can be brutal , but it doesn't have to be . Welcome to a healthy shift .

Speaker 1 0:38

My name is Roger Sutherland , certified nutritionist , veteran law enforcement officer and 24-7 shift worker for almost four decades . Through this podcast , i aim to educate shift workers , using evidence-based methods , to not only survive the rigors of shift work but thrive . My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and wellbeing so they have more energy to do the things they love . Enjoy today's show . I would like to warmly welcome you to today's episode of a healthy shift podcast . My name is Roger Sutherland and this podcast is here to help you , the shift worker , to thrive and not just survive while dealing with the rigors of shift work . Now , the evidence in relation to shift work is overwhelming as to how damaging it is for us metabolically . But do you know what ? I'm a firm believer that we can actually thrive , and not just survive , while performing shift work . Now , when I spoke to my mentor back on July 1st in 2019 , and I asked him Martin McDonald , is your course going to be a good course for me to do to educate shift workers around nutrition ? And his response to that was oh , i've got better advice than that . The advice from him was just tell them not to do shift work . Now , look , i understand that . But my argument to him was yeah , but you flew from the UK and your plane was flown by a pilot that was on shift work and your drinks were brought to your table by a flight attendant . And you're not only that , but your bags were put on the plane and you were checked in and people have looked after you . You've had taxi drivers driving you , and I think it's an unfair comment to make , given that people have to do shift work , and you are another one .

Speaker 1 2:43

You're listening to this because you're looking for tips and tricks around shift work , and I am looking at the current state of the evidence and combining it with my own knowledge around what it's like to do shift work . I've done shift work for almost four decades , so I totally get it . I live in a shift working environment , my children are shift workers , and not only that , but my partner works in a shift working environment as well . So I'm well read , well understood around what works and what actually doesn't work for shift workers . I returned to study to learn and understand around nutrition for just evidence-based nutrition , with everything . It's given me an opportunity to actually learn how to read research papers , and from those research papers I've been able to look at the research and what the research is telling us and then try and apply it into a shift working environment . And you're lucky because you've got me to actually do that for you . It's not a matter of some researcher just telling you that this is how you go about it with absolutely no idea . I get it , i totally understand it , and I won't try and put anything in place that I know doesn't work . So this is where we've arrived today . So now I've got clients , and I've had numerous clients for a number of years now that are now off and absolutely thriving instead of just surviving around shift work .

Speaker 1 4:15

Now there's no doubt and no argument at all that circadian disruption causes us all sorts of metabolic problems . We literally do not digest food as efficiently overnight , and yet we continue to put food in overnight and then make excuses of oh , i just couldn't stop myself . Well , let me just say this to you You're making that decision and you know what . No one's coming to save you . You have to make these decisions for yourself . Now you can literally sit in shift work if you want and winch and moan and complain about having to do shift work , how tired you are , how it's so hard to meal prep , how it's so hard to get going and sit on the couch there and watch Netflix and just do all the wrong things at the wrong time .

Speaker 1 5:05

Or what you can do is you can take control of your life and start focusing on the fact that you get to go to work , you get to do a job that you wanted to do , you get to help people if you are working in frontline health or emergency services , and the other thing is we need to really focus on the positives , and what we need to do is we need to start taking control of those things that we can control Now I talk about this quite often control the controllables . One of the biggest problems that shift workers have is when we are in a position where we're able to control something we don't . We still flounder in the old situation of oh I'm the shift worker , oh I'm tired . Well , get a grip . All right , because if you start putting simple and very , very free strategies in place , then what will actually happen is you will start to feel better , you will start to gain momentum and you will start to just literally dominate your life in every different aspect . But only you can do it . There is nobody coming to save you . I am going to guarantee to you 100% that if you are sitting there waiting for motivation to walk in through your front door , you are going to be horrendously disappointed because it's not coming And what you need to do is you need to get off the couch and you need to get out and walk around the block looking for motivation , because that's literally how the motivation comes .

Speaker 1 6:39

Set yourself a target , walk around the block . Set yourself your next target Walk for 20 minutes . The next target walk for 30 minutes . Just get movement in , don't categorize it off . I don't like the gym . You don't have to go to the gym , all right . So stop making that excuse . As well , you can walk out your front door , turn left , walk to the end of the street and turn left again And walk to the end of that street and turn left again And walk to the end of that street and turn left again , and you wouldn't believe it , but you're actually going to walk back past your front door And you've walked around the block . Now you can make a phone call .

Speaker 1 7:20

You can listen to music I can recommend a fantastic podcast for you to listen to as well . You can be productive and learn . You can listen to books . There's plenty of things that you can actually do . Let me just go through some of the strategies that I talk about on my Instagram , social media or through the previous 60 episodes of this podcast that are free of charge for you . That will cost you nothing to help you to get motivated so that you can take control of your shift-working life . Now you might think I'm tired . I can't get going .

Speaker 1 7:57

One of the biggest problems is circadian disruption . Are you getting up early and getting daylight ? Oh , but I work late . That's right , but you can't sleep in . It doesn't work . That's why you're left feeling worse and worse and worse all the time . You need to be getting up and going to bed at roughly around the same few hours every night , every morning , getting up , every night , going to bed . If you do this , you are actually triggering your circadian rhythm into a cycle of . This is when we're awake , this is when we're asleep , and your body will function so much better internally . Now you might say , oh , but I want to have a sleep in . That sleep in is actually costing you , because the longer you sleep in and get up , you throw in your circadian rhythm further out of sync . Now let me just remind you getting up early and getting light comes at how many dollars ? Zero dollars . That's the first one .

Speaker 1 9:00

The second one that I suggest that you do is when you get out of bed is you walk straight into the kitchen . You feel a big tumbler full of water cool , warm , whatever you want to do and you drink that to start off with . That will make an enormous difference to your life and you drink . Just by doing that , you are rehydrating yourself because you haven't had water for an extended period of time . And can you remind me how much does the water cost ? That tumbler full of water probably cost you 0.0001 of a cent , and you didn't have to walk far to go and get it either . All you had to do was walk into the kitchen . Now , if you're a person that fills the kettle and makes yourself a cup of tea , you've run the tap anyway , so you might as well have filled a tumbler and had a big glass of water to start off with .

Speaker 1 9:50

Once you've done that , then make your coffee , have your caffeine Important to get the caffeine in as a shift worker at that particular point in time . What'll happen is you've got up early , you're gonna get your coffee , and then you're gonna go outside and you're going to get daylight . Now , you're not touched your phone by this point either . And what does that cost ? Zero . Give your brain a chance to wake up and register that you're awake and that the world is a wonderful place , and you start looking at nature , looking at whatever , anything other than looking at your goddamn phone . Because when you're looking at your phone , that's where you're gonna see the messages , that's where you're gonna see the emails and that's where the social media is gonna start upsetting you . So ignore that . Now .

Speaker 1 10:39

The next thing that you can do is go outside and take your coffee and just sit there In the daylight and let that light hit your eyes . Now we're not talking about sitting there and staring at the sun . We are literally talking about sitting there and looking outside , just having your eyes open and being outside . That light is approximately 10,000 lumens of light or 10,000 lux of light . That's broad daylight . That is what triggers our body that , oh , it's daytime , here we are , this is what we need to be doing And get outside and get that light . Then , once you've done that , take your software , walk round the block .

Speaker 1 12:16

Our circadian rhythm runs on three main Zeekeepers to tell it where it's at in time and space . And the first one is light tick . We've already accomplished that by stepping outside with our coffee . The next one is nutrient timing , so we've put water into our system to start off with and we've ticked that one as well tick . And the third one is movement . So those three Zeekeepers are the three Zeekeepers that tell our body where it's at in time and space . The triggers That movement of walking around the block will get you feeling better . Oh , but I get tired towards the end of the day . That's exactly what you want , so that you sleep properly at night .

Speaker 1 12:59

Now the other thing that we need to do is shift workers as well , talking about sleeping properly at night . We need to focus on that properly . We need to get our shit together and focus on sleep and make it our priority . We get out of work , we just gently go home , we leave the lights low , we don't touch our phone again . We listen to relaxing music on the way home . We don't touch our phone Again . Let me say that we don't touch our phone . We don't need to . We're not missing out on anything at all . We walk into the house , we just have ourselves a slight snack or something like that . We go in , we have our shower in the dark , nice hot shower so that the body is hot , so it cools to go to sleep and then get into bed , spray your pillow with a bit of lavender , get yourself comfortable , use your eye mask , do whatever you've got to do , but set your routine so that you are literally ready for bed , because if you follow the same routine , your body will follow that as a trigger for going to sleep .

Speaker 1 14:05

Caffeine we need to stop using caffeine almost up to eight hours before we go to bed . Now . This is what the evidence is supporting . The evidence is set and if you go back and listen to my podcast on caffeine , i make it very clear Insufficient sleep brings caffeine consumption . We drink a lot of caffeine to overcompensate for the lack of sleep , and then what happens is that starts to impact even further on our subsequent sleep moving forward , and so we have to break into that cycle . Guess what ? again , it's free to actually break into that cycle . All you've got to do is stop drinking caffeine eight hours before you want to go to sleep . Do you think you're going to get tired ? Yep , why do you think you're going to get tired ? Because you need sleep and then you'll sleep properly , and when you do sleep properly , you won't need the caffeine . You wouldn't believe it , but that's literally what happens . Less caffeine , better sleep means less caffeine required , and you can actually literally almost wean yourself off the caffeine because you don't need it .

Speaker 1 15:13

The other thing alcohol before sleep . No , as much as you think it's sedative and it helps to relax you to go to sleep , alcohol severely impacts on that deep , restorative sleep that we need . If you're a person who tracks your sleep , you will notice your heart rate is elevated after drinking alcohol and that alcohol is actually impacting on that deep and restorative sleep and that REM sleep which is so vitally important for us , for our memory and shuffling our memory around . So , please , no alcohol and what is that ? That's free too . That's going to save you money . All right , then , what we do is we write down three things when we go to bed at night , and those three things have got to be three positive things about what we're grateful for in the day . Oh good on you , rog , happy clapper stuff . Well , let me just say this to you This is very , very well researched .

Speaker 1 16:14

When you start acknowledging the things that you're grateful for every day , no matter how minded they are and I use

Shift Worker Life Control

Speaker 1 16:20

one before just walk to the kitchen tap , turn the water on , fill a glass and drink it , how far did you have to go ? How good is the water that you had ? You don't have to go far to get any of these things . All right , it's free . That's something to be grateful for . Be grateful for the fact that you've got a door that you can close behind you and you can go into your own house , your own domain . So be grateful that you've got a comfortable bed to sleep in and that you've got a job , because you can focus on all of the negative stuff if you wish , and if you do that , your brain will be wired to look for the negative , and that's a fact .

Speaker 1 17:02

We have what's known as a reticular activating system in our brain and what it does is we can't possibly process all of the thoughts that are going into our head every single day . All right , what we do is we start focusing on the positive , on the good , on the things that are happening . So , therefore , when we do , we actually then start to notice all of the good , because we start looking for the good and the good is really good . The bad starts to disappear and if you really bogged down in talking to work colleagues about work and it's causing you grief and stress and you're getting caught in a loop , untie the boat and let them drift , because what happens is the more time you spend chewing all of that over , the worse it's actually going to be and it's not going to actually make any difference .

Speaker 1 17:57

You can't make a change . You're not going to make a change . All right , management are going to do what they're going to do . What you need to do is you need to worry about numero uno . You worry about yourself and what yourself is doing and look after your own health and your own well-being . Now , everything that I've mentioned so far is free of charge . When clients come to me looking for coaching . I'm convinced that some of them come to me and then , after 10 to 12 weeks , they're leaving because they're disappointed that they didn't get a magic pill . I'm here to tell you quite categorically there is no magic pill .

Speaker 1 18:37

Some of the simplest and most basic things that we can do as shift workers are the things that will really benefit us moving forward Scheduling things out , scheduling out our meal planning , scheduling out when we're going to get some exercise or movement , scheduling out when we're going to do our meal prep , scheduling out when we've got to take little little Audrey to Calisthenics , scheduling out a date night so that we've got date night there set aside so that we can actually catch up with our partner and debrief the week . We need to do all of these things . These things are really , really important and they're free . Everything is free but you have to take control and you really really do have to start putting little steps in place Now . You can go right back through my social media , my Instagram , you can go right back through all of these podcasts and listen to all of the little tips and tricks . But if you're listening to these podcasts looking for where you can purchase a magic pill or a supplement or something . It ain't there because there isn't one . And even me at 58 or nearly 59 years of age are still having to work my way back . Now I'm just going to give you a little example .

Speaker 1 19:55

Three months before COVID here in about October of 2019 , i took a photo of myself in the gym because I thought I looked pretty good . I had really big shoulders , i looked just strong , fit and well . I looked really good . Then COVID hit and every excuse under the sun hit me . Now I live in Melbourne , in Victoria , so therefore we were locked down and gyms were closed for the best part of two years , so we weren't able to get to the gym . But the gyms have been open again for now over 12 months , but I couldn't find my way back .

Speaker 1 20:30

I've been trying to work on the business , i've been trying to do a whole heap of things and I couldn't find my way back . It was an excuse . The bottom line is it wasn't a priority . It's not that I wasn't motivated to do it , it's just that I was motivated in other areas to do other things . But now I'm shifting that to being motivated to look after myself , because I want to be there for my grandchildren . I want to be there for my children . My father died at my age now , which was well in about 12 months time . When my father died , so he was 59 . I don't want to be like that . I don't want my children to remember me for that . I'm taking control of my life .

Speaker 1 21:17

And what I did to find my way back was I started with a PT . I found a good PT , someone who I trust , someone who I know is good at their job , and I worked with a PT once a week and that's all I was doing . Then I started a coachmark carol program and I did two or three days or two days , and then I didn't get the third done and then I did two . Instead of being critical of myself , i looked at it that I was doing the PT session and I was doing another day . Then I was doing two days . I actually found myself in the gym today , just going into the gym to go and do . I just did 24 sets on arms , biceps and triceps , the classic bro splits , perfect . But today's not even a training day , it's a Sunday and the time I record this and what I've done is I've actually just gone to the gym and just smashed out 24 sets . Do you know why ? Because I wanted to . I've done everything that I had to do last week . I've hit my steps . I've actually done the three workouts that I was required to do .

Speaker 1 22:20

But what I'm saying here is , if you don't set too big an expectation on yourself , you actually find yourself wanting to do more , and this is what I've spoken to with Mark Carroll on this podcast . Set your expectations low and just do three days a week . You'll find that when you do get to those three days , you'll either do extra on those days or you'll find yourself back in the gym on another day because that's what you miss . Okay , i know that's brutal . It really is very brutal , and it sounds like I'm lecturing today , but I just want you to understand . No one is coming to save you . You've just got to start And if you think that you're 40 or 50 and it's too late , you are not too late .

Speaker 1 23:05

You've got plenty of your life left to live . I've got plenty of my life left to live . I was in the best shape of my life at 55 , 56 years of age And the majority of you listening to this haven't even got to that yet . All right , and you can still get there , and I was right in the middle of working the most brutal sets of shift work myself . So you can do this And all you've got to do is start putting simple things in place . You don't have to make great big lists of everything that I do every day , just simple lists . Start off Sky before screen , hydrate before you caffeinate , get that movement , get early light And get that movement in every single day And try and get to bed And get up at the same time or approximately the same time every day when you can control it . Now , i know this is not controllable all the time , but ask yourself if you're being honest with yourself and not actually doing it when you should be doing it yourself . All right Now , as shift workers , we're not going to grow , we are not going to develop And we are actually going to get worse and worse and worse in health-wise Researchers are doing research to make it better for you . I'm here to break that down and apply that to you in a shift working environment from someone who's done it for almost four decades . I'll leave you with that today .

Speaker 1 24:36

If you find any benefit out of this podcast , i really do beg you if you could please share it with your friends , share it with your colleagues , share it onto your Insta stories , tag me in it , put it on your social medias . It really does make such a big difference to the reach of the podcast . I love it when you do share it and tag me in it , because it does give me such a thrill And I also know that I will be reaching more people with the podcast as well . And , if you're so inclined , i would be ever so grateful if you could actually just rate the podcast , if you could give it a rating five stars . I'd love it if you could give it five stars . And if you fan just off an extra 60 seconds on Apple Podcast , you can actually write a small review so that others that are looking for a podcast can also benefit from it .

Speaker 1 25:27

I want to step down off my podcast now . I want to say thank you so much for you for listening , but by golly I know

Podcast Host Thanks Listeners

Speaker 1 25:33

that if it really hurt today , then I was actually talking to you . Thank you for listening . If you enjoyed this episode , be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released . It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on . If you want to know more about me or work with me , you can go to ahealthyshiftcom . I'll catch you on the next one .