Speaker 1: 1:18

Shift work can be brutal, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to a healthy shift. 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 rigours 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. Hey, hey, hey, it's Roger here, and welcome back to A Healthy Shift.

Speaker 1: 2:00

This is the podcast for shift workers who want to take control of their health and stop just surviving shift work. Now, today I'm going to be blunt, but I'm also going to be very honest, because people often ask me Roger, if shift work is so bad, why don't you just say it's going to kill us? And here's why Because saying shift work will kill you is lazy, it doesn't help you and it literally just scares you. And here is the truth. Yep, biologically, shift work is catastrophic. That's a fact. But it doesn't have to be diabolical. What makes it diabolical is what we, as shift workers, do or don't do about it. Now I want to talk about this and I need to go into this in great detail at the moment because there is so much rubbish out there that it just frustrates me so much and I see things on social media that really upsets me and I just I can't even be bothered calling it out or doing what everybody else is doing in relation to it. A I don't have the confidence with the social media to be able to put reels together to make them look any good. But the bottom line is, when I talk about the certain practices that I talk about and habits and I've run challenges and help people with simple habits and I've taken clients on and, well, I've coached hundreds of people and, without doubt, I am absolutely convinced that a lot of clients come to me and they wait and the envelope with the magic pill in it never arrives and they can't work it out and that is because there isn't one and you have to do the work around it.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Now, the point that I want to make in relation to this today, which is really, really important, is we, as shift workers, are self-sabotagers. Now, when I put simple strategies on social media and I get comments made or I get messages through my DMs on social media, with people saying to me oh, I can't do that, oh, you've forgotten what it's like. You don't realize this and you don't realize that. And that's where you're wrong, because I did shift work for 40 years and I can pretty much guarantee that any person that's actually listening to this right now will not have done 40 years of shift work. And if you have feel free to reach out because I'm happy to have a chat with you around it and all kudos to you as well I'll shake your hand because I know what it was like to do 40 years. A lot of you have not done 10 years. A lot of you have never done 15 years of shift work, and you're trying to tell me at this point in time that what I'm saying is not right or wrong, or that can't be right, or I can't do that, or you don't get it. And that's where you're wrong, because I do get it. And not only do I get it, but I can look at it from my own lived experience of 40 years. But I can also look at it from what science tells us in relation to light exposure, in relation to circadian rhythms, in relation to the impacts on our biological health eating, nutrition, hydration, all of those sort of things, and this is what I wanted to cover off on on today's episode, because this is really, really important and I really need you to understand.

Speaker 1: 5:38

I've tried to talk about this on social media but of course, the algorithm hates it. So what I'm doing is I'm stopping and I'm just going to go into this in a little bit long form, but I'm not going to bang on about it for too long here because it will just bore you. But I just want to be short and to the point. So saying shift work will kill you is absolutely lazy and it doesn't help you. And if I could literally do podcast after podcast here and I could tell you categorically if you do this, this is the impact on your health, this is what it's going to do. If you do this, this is the impact. And I could go on and on every single episode, but you've never heard me talk about the detrimental effects of working shift work and, in particular, night shift. What you do hear me do is you hear me putting together strategies for you to help you to optimize it so that you can. Now I've coached hundreds of people and I've also influenced a lot of people on social media and I get great feedback from people that are putting these simple strategies in place for the differences that they're making.

Speaker 1: 6:43

The one point that I do want to make in relation to research around shift work collectively it is diabolical and there's no doubt about it, but I want you to remember that this is a very, very emerging area of research and they're looking at things retrospectively now. And that is without education, that is without people like me reading journals, reading information that's being done by researchers and getting it out there. This is without me, people like Matt. I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but I am a massive advocate here for getting this information out, and whenever I talk to a researcher, a professor or a doctor or anybody that's an expert in their field, I always say it's so important to come onto the podcast and talk about their research and their expertise in an area, because when I do that, they're happy, because otherwise their work sits in a journal gathering dust on a library shelf and that's a waste of time. It's a waste of research and they get the opportunity to talk about it and talk about it passionately. And me talking to these people means I'm learning all the time. All these conversations go on in the background all the time.

Speaker 1: 7:54

I've established contact with these people and I can ask them questions so that I get a better understanding, a better handle on circadian rhythms, on blue light, the impact that light has on us. I read books. I've got some fantastic books that I can highly recommend to people to read to get a much better understanding on circadian rhythms and light exposure and blue light exposure and how to improve your sleep, and I'll be doing a post in relation to that. In fact, I might even just go through and do a podcast as a bit of a book review to help people to understand which ones will be the good ones. So the first thing that I wanted to say to you today and this is it is I did not walk out of school and just start preaching strategies that are achievable or completely out of touch with the reality, and I'd like to think that a lot of you really understood that, because this is not who I am.

Speaker 1: 8:49

I did live it. I was a cop on the front line for over 40 years. I did the night shifts for my entire career, not for a small portion of it. For the entire 40 years I did the rotating shifts and the night shifts. I did the early starts While I was at the canine unit. I was being called out at 2am, 4am, 3am, finishing at 1am, getting called out again at 4am. I've done all of that at the same time as being married and raising young children. I've done all of that.

Speaker 1: 9:21

I absolutely wrecked my health until I realised that something had to change, and it wasn't until I'd done a really good period of time in the force that I actually realised that I've lost myself here. It got serious. I was starting to suffer. I can talk about this quite openly. I had a medical check done at under 40 years old as in under 40 years old, and my PSA, which is the protein in your bloodstream, was very high in relation to prostate cancer. So I've got an enlarged prostate which was throwing high readings. Now I've had biopsies on that and there's been no issues around it. But hello, shift work and prostate cancer and prostate issues right, because this is what happens, and in females, the same thing happens in breast cancer and shift work is directly linked to both of these. So we've got to do something about it and this is really important Now.

Speaker 1: 10:26

I, at 35 years in the police and at 55 years of age, returned to study. I've got to tell you it was challenging. I did evidence-based nutrition because everybody around me was gaining weight and looking awful and I thought it's got to be nutrition right. So I studied evidence-based nutrition, not YouTube theories, not influence with 2 million followers on Instagram that are absolute tosses, but real science. And what this did was it taught me how to read research properly, to look at data critically. And then when I combined that knowledge with my own lived experience, that's when it all really started clicking. And this is how I help researchers to understand the realities of shift work compared to what they're actually seeing in the science, and I can combine both.

Speaker 1: 11:21

So over the last six years, I've literally invested tens of thousands of dollars and I mean tens of thousands of dollars getting educated in this space. I want you to understand and here's a fun fact about a healthy shift, so that you know I have never once in six years taken one cent out of this business myself for me, out of this business myself for me. Every single cent that's come into this business I have reinvested in education or tools or equipment to help this business to run, but I've never once taken $1 out of the business to actually spend on myself for anything. So I've never drawn a wage on it and every cent that's come into this business has been reinvested into education, because I want to become the go-to authority in this area not a researcher, but someone who understands the research and has lived experience, and this is really, really important to me. Now. I've trained with some of the best and I've mixed it with experts, researchers, other coaches.

Speaker 1: 12:31

I've worked really damn hard to make sure that when I speak, I'm speaking from truth, not an opinion, not a guesstimate from the actual truth. Now, you may not be able to follow that, and I totally understand that, but I can tell you that this is what the science tells us is the optimal way to go about it. That, but I can tell you that this is what the science tells us is the optimal way to go about it. And I would never say to you on night shift oh, you only get half an hour sleep and then you got to get up and go. I understand, I do understand all of that, but what we do do is we make plenty of mistakes outside of that right. So we need to be really working hard on that. So, no, the bottom line is I am not just a retired cop with a loud voice. I've absolutely worked hard and I've earned the right to say what I say. And here is what I know Too many shift workers are wrecking themselves, not because of the job alone, but because of what they are doing around it Poor sleep habits, chronic fatigue, absolutely appalling food choices, living on energy drinks and sugar during night shifts and that's what makes our shift work an absolute killer.

Speaker 1: 13:41

And what do we do? We just shrug it off and say, oh well, that's shift work. No, it's not. That is actually your choice. Now you don't have to do it like that, but you do have to take control, and that starts with five things. And before I go into that, I want to tell you shift work's not the problem and your employer's not the problem, but you actually have a responsibility to manage yourself and make a choice. If shift work's not for you, it's not for you. If you can't do it, you can't do it. It's no good complaining about it, because I can guarantee, guarantee to you that no one's coming to save you no one. So if you're sitting there waiting for your boss to fix things for you, you're a fool and they're not going to do it. You need to take control and manage yourself.

Speaker 1: 15:37

So let's get into those five things to start off with and there'll be no surprise here to anybody that's attended any of my seminars or to anybody who has done or listened to me for any period of time and it's going to be my five pillars of health. The first one is sleep. Sleep is imperative and it must be your number one priority. Stop wearing it as a badge of health. The first one is sleep. Sleep is imperative and it must be your number one priority. Stop wearing it as a badge of honor. Stop complaining and filling yourself with caffeine that you can't sleep. Stop getting the wrong light diet and then complaining that your sleep is not working for you. When you create the environment, your body will take care of the rest, and there is always a clue in poor sleep as to why you are sleeping poorly. And if you're waking up tired or fatigued, then you're not doing everything right beforehand to get to that stage. And that's all I'll say.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Nutrition Nutrition is something that it's tough and I totally understand it, but preparation is everything If you prepare and work through simple strategies around food, and this is where I talk about things like loading your food front-end loading your food during the day and lightening it up later on. For your metabolic health Research shows this is categorically clear that we just need to front-load majority of our calories and give our body a chance to digest it during the day and then lighten it up and then basically go low GI later on in the day, after three o'clock. I've talked about this and this is something that's really, really important that we start paying attention to. And then the overnight fast, which is very important as well, and it's not about oh, I can't fast. The question is, you need to ask yourself how can I fast? How can I go about it? What is there that I can do? What is it that you know that will help me to fast overnight? Because this is what you need to know, not, I can't do that, because that's just a cop-out. What can I eat? That's what we need to know. What can I eat? How can I go about it? Because I need energy overnight, not, oh well, I'm just going to eat. Because this, because what you're doing is you're actually biologically killing yourself, literally.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Hydration we underestimate the value of hydration as a shift worker and the importance of it Incredibly important. Hydration is incredibly important for our fatigue. It's also incredibly important for our immune system and to keep everything moving through our system when our digestive tract is under stress. So we need to make sure that we're keeping ourselves properly hydrated. Movement Shift workers you have to move. You have to get movement. You've got to get outside and get that daylight and get moving. These are cues for your circadian rhythm. So you've got to get out and get that movement. You've got to make time. You don't have to go to the gym and smash yourself in the gym. Take yourself for a walk around the block. That's all you need to do. Just get that gravity doing its thing, get some fresh air and get vertical and start moving in a forward motion, because that's all you've got to do.

Speaker 1: 18:48

And the thing that I'm learning more and more and more about as a veteran and looking at the research, which I wish I'd understood so much earlier, is we have to learn to manage our stress, and I think one of the best ways that I've learned to manage stress is definitely through meditation, but through breathwork, which is pretty much a meditation anyway, but through breathwork, and I'm thrilled to announce it in August I'm actually going to go and learn to be a certified breathwork facilitator so that I can run breathwork sessions to help people, because it is incredibly underrated. It's something that we have to do. So let's learn how to breathe properly so that we are managing our autonomic nervous system much better, because we are a mess. A lot of us, as shift workers, are a mess. Our body is under stress purely just by shift work, and then we're adding further stress to that by the roles that we're actually playing, and then we don't do anything about getting ourselves back into that nice, comfortable, rest and digest parasympathetic side of our autonomic nervous system. So those are the pillars, and you can't ignore any of them. You have to crush all five of them, because every one of those plays a key role in your health and when you give them the attention that they deserve, shift work literally stops becoming a death sentence. It becomes something that you can manage and in fact, you can even thrive in it. So let's talk about some other specifics of what is so important, and I'm going to talk about blue light.

Speaker 1: 20:24

At night. Now we hear all about phones, and I can tell you categorically that the blue light from your phone is not statistically significant enough to actually impact on your sleep. That's it. It's not. So you might say, oh, I can look at my phone. I can lie in bed with that phone six inches from my eye, with a blue light blasting into it, and I can sleep, no problems at all. That is sleep pressure. That's doing that and you will go to sleep. But you'll wake up because, once that sleep pressure's gone, your circadian rhythm's out of line because of the blue light, because you're sending that blue light signal into your ride to tell your body that it's daytime.

Speaker 1: 21:08

But it's really so much more important because you need to understand that melatonin is your hormone. It is released in the absence of blue light. Now, melatonin doesn't just tell your body that it's dark outside. It's actually a free, radical scavenger, and I've done a whole podcast on this. Now. This means it fights off oxidative stress, which is linked to aging and even cancers. While you sleep, melatonin goes around as a scavenger and is literally scavenging cancer cells in your body. And here you are lying in bed with your phone, looking at your phone because you're addicted to it, actually inhibiting that melatonin, that cancer scavenger. So, yeah, you might scroll your phone and still fall asleep, but what about your melatonin? You've just suppressed it. And what is the cost of this one long-term? And this is not just for shift workers, this is for everybody. All right, Everybody Melatonin. We are learning more and more and more about melatonin. It is a lot more important than what you actually realise.

Speaker 1: 22:19

This unhealthy light at night that we're getting in our workplaces must be addressed. Blue light in hospitals, operating theatres, in control rooms, anywhere this blue light, this white light which has got the blue spectrum in it, has to be addressed Now. This is your responsibility because it's an occ health and safety issue and you need to be addressing it. It is your right to expect and you are entitled to healthy lighting at work. Your employer knows that its current lighting is unhealthy and that's a fact. They do know, they've been told, they've been warned and there's books that are written on it, there's research papers that are written on it and the light that you're experiencing in your hospital at night is actually killing you. It's that simple and your employer is doing that to you and needs to be addressed, and it needs to be addressed ASAP.

Speaker 1: 23:14

And if you want to learn more about that lighting, I highly recommend that you get hold of the book by Dr Martin Moore-Ede and it's called the Light Doctor and have a read of that. It's got about 240 scientific references in the back of it. It's an amazing book and it's written to the layman so that you can completely understand exactly what it is that light is doing to us and how it's impacting on us and why there is such an escalation in cancers and problems in human health around this lighting, since certain things have occurred along the way and you will then further understand this, but you as an employer, have to address it and put it up the line that the lighting is hazardous in the workplace and mark my words. Write this date down today. Write the time down, write the date down. I am telling you now that light globes within five years will come with a warning on them hazardous if turned on at night. Now you might laugh, but I will tell you that light globes that have been produced today will come with a warning on them hazardous if turned on at night. And there's a very, very valid reason for this. Okay, let's leave that one behind, because that is a whole can of worms in itself, and this is not being a conspiracy theorist or being a nut job. This is fact and I think people need to just have a really good hard look at the book the Light Doctor and learned a lot about it from the man that actually discovered the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the human brain, which is the light center, the main circadian clock in the body.

Speaker 1: 25:03

Now, early light is also extremely critical, and this is when we do want to get that blue light in the morning. The sun does more than help us to wake up. It literally cues your circadian rhythm. It regulates our hormones. It sets your mood. It actually helps us to synthesize vitamin D, which we can't get from food. It's good for your sleep at night and we've got all the science in the world to prove this. So whenever you can get outside early and get the sun on your skin, do not underestimate the power of sunlight on your skin. There is so much, so much in sunlight. There is the green light in that, which is good for regulating our nervous system. There is the ultraviolet, which is fantastic for killing bacteria. There is the infrared, that heat that you feel from the sun, which is stimulating mitochondrial energy, helping with cell regeneration, helping us with soreness and pain in muscle. There's the blue, which tells us it's daytime. There's the yellow and also green, which is also stimulating and telling us it's daytime. It's really important that we actually get this sunlight into our eyes every single day.

Speaker 1: 26:25

We're also now starting to hear more and more and more about chronomedicine, which is something that's really important to understand. It's not just the medicine that you take and what medicine you take anymore. It's actually coming down to when you take it, because the time of day matters in accordance to your circadian rhythm. It's not just a matter of just oh, I'll just take this daily. When you take it can be really important to how effective it actually is. Vaccines are more effective in the morning. Some surgeries have much better outcomes depending on the time of day that they're done. We're learning so much more about our body's internal clock, which affects every aspect of our health. Heart surgeries much better outcomes when they're done at a particular time of the day. It's really interesting and it's a really exciting emerging area of science and the book by Professor Russell Foster Time, life, lifetime, lifetime I think it's called Lifetime is an excellent book to read and it talks all about this and the importance of when we take medications and things like that around our circadian rhythm and around reproduction and everything. It's just so important Now.

Speaker 1: 27:43

This is why I do what I do. This is why I read. The whole area fascinates me and I can bring this to you. I give you simple, science-backed strategies that work along with your human biology and not against it. And if you don't take this seriously now, you might not get a chance to later, and that is just how real this actually is. I need people to understand these simple strategies that you can put in place. Once you start trying it, you will start to gain momentum, because, let's be honest and I want you to take a really good hard look in the mirror at yourself How's what you're doing now going for you?

Speaker 1: 28:27

It's no good complaining about weight gain and complaining about illness all the time and things like that, and you've got no energy and you're chronically fatigued when you're not doing the simple things that we need to actually do. I know you think, oh, I'll just have a sleep in and catch up on sleep. That sleep in is actually causing you more problems. It's actually desynchronizing your circadian rhythm worse and makes you tighter. I can't get up early. I've only had five hours sleep. Get up early. It's not working for you by staying in bed and sleeping. So get up early and get going. Have yourself a 20-minute nap. Later on in the day You've got 20 minutes to scroll on your phone. Take that 20 minutes to close your eyes. It'll make such a huge difference to your life. Trust me, it really, really will.

Speaker 1: 29:14

Now, while I'm helping and supporting people, I'm going to give this a plug as well, because you now don't have to do this alone either. I've created the Shift Workers Collective, which is a private community that I've built to educate, support and to cheer on shift workers who want to do better. This is where I will share the latest evidence-based tools to help you to live healthier, longer and with much more energy, even on night shift. I will teach you in there the optimal way to go about doing shift work. Not just nutrition, not everything else outside that you see on your social media. This will all be shift work specific. So here's what I want you to do Go back to the show notes and scroll down to the bottom and click the link because there's a link to the shift work collective right there and join us inside the collective, because you will a link to the Shiftwork Collective right there and join us inside the collective, because you will get access to practical tools, real conversations from real people and a community that not only gets it but will actually get you, because you don't just have to survive shiftwork. You can actually thrive, but only if you start taking responsibility for your light, your sleep, your food, your movement and your stress.

Speaker 1: 30:38

So thanks for tuning in. I'm Roger Sutherland. This is A Healthy Shift and I'll catch you with more evidence in the next episode. 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 a healthyyshiftcom. I'll catch you on the next one.