![[251] - Shift Shock: What I Wish I Knew When I Started Shift Work Artwork](https://www.buzzsprout.com/rails/active_storage/representations/redirect/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaHBCTk9JZlFVPSIsImV4cCI6bnVsbCwicHVyIjoiYmxvYl9pZCJ9fQ==--6c27a4e21f5f428385ec5b19d38d0e121aa56765/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsibWVzc2FnZSI6IkJBaDdDVG9MWm05eWJXRjBPZ2hxY0djNkUzSmxjMmw2WlY5MGIxOW1hV3hzV3docEFsZ0NhUUpZQW5zR09nbGpjbTl3T2d0alpXNTBjbVU2Q25OaGRtVnlld1k2REhGMVlXeHBkSGxwUVRvUVkyOXNiM1Z5YzNCaFkyVkpJZ2x6Y21kaUJqb0dSVlE9IiwiZXhwIjpudWxsLCJwdXIiOiJ2YXJpYXRpb24ifX0=--1924d851274c06c8fa0acdfeffb43489fc4a7fcc/AHS%20Podcast%20Cover.jpg)
A Healthy Shift
A Healthy Shift Podcast with Roger Sutherland
Shift work and night shift can be brutal—but they don’t have to be.
Join veteran shift worker Roger Sutherland, a former law enforcement officer with 40+ years of experience in Melbourne, Australia, and a certified nutritionist.
In A Healthy Shift, Roger shares evidence-based nutrition, health, and well-being strategies to help shift and night shift workers boost their energy, improve sleep, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
If you're ready to thrive—not just survive—while working shifts, this podcast is your go-to resource for a healthier, happier life.
A Healthy Shift
[251] - Shift Shock: What I Wish I Knew When I Started Shift Work
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Shift shock hits like a tidal wave when your entire life gets flipped upside down by irregular work hours. That overwhelming feeling when sleep patterns crumble, dietary choices deteriorate, and you find yourself constantly out of sync with everyone you care about isn't just uncomfortable – it's unsustainable.
As someone who's weathered almost four decades of shift work, I've seen countless colleagues fall into the dangerous trap of letting their occupation consume their entire identity. You start by declining social invitations because you're exhausted, then you abandon exercise routines, and before long, you're merely crawling from one shift to the next with no life outside your roster. This podcast episode reveals what I wish someone had told me when I started: you need meaningful activities and connections outside your workplace.
Creating balance requires deliberate strategies. We explore five powerful approaches to combat shift shock, starting with establishing consistent routines even when your shifts constantly change. Your body craves consistency even when the clock doesn't cooperate. We discuss transformative sleep improvements through complete darkness (if you can see your hand held before your face, your room is too light), the critical importance of daily movement, proper nutrition that focuses on fueling rather than just satisfying cravings, and maintaining social connections that ground you in reality.
Don't try to reinvent the wheel – seek guidance from colleagues who genuinely thrive rather than those merely surviving. Their habits weren't built overnight but layered gradually over time. With one in five workers worldwide now engaged in shift work, you're part of a community facing similar challenges. If you're ready for specialized support, consider joining our Shift Workers Collective where we share strategies specifically designed for our unique lifestyle. Start small, stay consistent, and remember: shift work may be unpredictable, but your health and happiness don't have to be.
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ANNOUNCING
"The Shift Workers Collective"
https://join.ahealthyshift.com/the-shift-workers-collective
Click the link to learn all about it
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YOU CAN FIND ME AT
COACHING
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Disclaimer: Roger Sutherland is not a doctor or a medical professional. Always consult a physician before implementing any strategies mentioned in this podcast. Use of this information is strictly at your own risk. Roger Sutherland will not assume any liability for direct or indirect losses or damages that may result from the use of the information contained in this podcast including but not limited to economic loss, injury, illness, or death.
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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.
Speaker 1:Enjoy today's show. Hello and welcome back to another episode of a Healthy Shift podcast. I'm your host, roger Sutherland, and today I want to talk about a topic that I've not discussed in any way whatsoever, and it's not a new one, but it's something that I thought today I might just talk about this. I want to speak directly to those of you who've literally just stepped into shift work, or those that are looking to step into shift work, or and to those who have been living it for a while but never really quite found your own rhythm, and what we're talking about today is something that hits really hard and really fast, and that is the topic of shift shock. Try saying that shift shock.
Speaker 1:So what is shift shock? First of all, if you've never heard of it. Shift shock is that overwhelming feeling when your body, your mind and your lifestyle absolutely get flipped completely upside down. And if you're a shift worker, you know what this is like. So if you've gone from a steady routine, a nine to five job, or you've been working somewhere where it's been really cruisy, with the weekends off, to nights awake while the world sleeps, suddenly you start missing family dinners, you're skipping social catch-ups, you're eating on the run and you're just feeling like you're constantly in this recovery mode, can't do anything. And most people don't expect this. They think, oh, it'll be all right, it'll just take me a few weeks to adjust. But I'm going to tell you the truth if you don't action, it is absolutely, definitely going to take hold of you, and it's going to take hold of you fast.
Speaker 1:So how does shift shock actually grab you? Well, shift shock creeps in through poor sleep, because we all get that. Bad food choices which come from the poor sleep. Emotional fatigue we're getting drained shift after shift after shift and that feeling of being completely out of sync with everybody else in your life. You start by saying no to mates because you're just too tired. Sorry, mate, I just can't today. I'm just coming out of shift, I'm too tired.
Speaker 1:You then stop going to the gym and then you start to fall into this trap of living only for your next roster or your next shift, and it isn't long before you start crawling from one shift to the next and suddenly your whole life revolves around the job and nothing else. And that, my friends, is really dangerous. Now you are more than your shift and if you're not careful, shift work will become your absolute identity. And this is exactly what happened to me very, very early on. So what did I wish I knew back then? I know, when I was lecturing recruits at the Police Academy in the early days and right up until probably five or six years ago, people would ask me what's the one thing that you really wish you'd known before you started shift work? And the answer I would never hesitate, and that is to have a work-life balance. Not the fluffy corporate kind, not.
Speaker 1:You've got to have a work-life balance. Go and find it. I mean real, day-to-day balance. You've got to have hobbies, you've got to have an interest. You've got to have something outside of your shift working job, something that holds you, something you're passionate about Spending time with people who are not on your roster super important to get away from work.
Speaker 1:You've got to do things that absolutely fill your cup outside of work, whether it's going surfing or whether it's painting, whether you like to cook or just walking the dog or going and watching your kid's footy match and talking to the other adults there. It's really important that you do that. You actually need that because otherwise you fall into this vortex of thinking that 99% of society are absolute nutjobs, and this is what actually happens. You need a reason to get out of bed on your day off. It's got to be something and not just the laundry or to meal prep for the next shift. It's got to be something that drives you and gets you up and about. This is super important because if you look at some of the young people around you in your shift working job that are spending all their time on their social media, posting pictures and doing things all everything around their job and communicating with each other all the time, or you're in WhatsApp chat groups goddamn WhatsApp chat groups. But if you're in these chat groups, how are you getting away from work? And this is the question you've got to ask yourself.
Speaker 1:I understand that sometimes you've got to have that for shift swaps, et cetera, but don't get involved in that chit chat around work outside of work. You really do need to put a balance in that, put a boundary between your work life and your home life. It is incredibly important that you do this, because otherwise you're not giving your brain any sort of rest from your job. You're living in it all the time and I can tell you from someone who can speak from experience. And when that's taken away from you and that can happen in an absolute click very quickly, all of a sudden you've lost everything at once, and that is the biggest problem for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:So how do we combat shift shock? What can we do? What is there that we can do? Well, here's five little strategies that you can actually employ to fight off shift shock.
Speaker 1:And particularly if you are a newbie in the job, what I highly recommend everybody does is to create a routine. Even if your shifts are changing all the time, your habits should never change. Anchor your day with the same wake-up routine and the same sleep hygiene, wind-down process, because your body absolutely loves consistency, even when the clock doesn't. So, regardless of the shift you're on, you've still got a proper wake-up routine and that's not roll over, grab your phone and lie in bed scrolling for an hour because I'm listening to my body. It's about getting up and getting on with the day, getting that light, getting outside into the daylight, getting that movement. It doesn't have to be to go to the gym to smash yourself, it's literally just a routine to get around, go for a walk, catch up with a friend, do something, just do something and have yourself some solid habits that are in place, things that you remember to do every single day because they just become part of life.
Speaker 1:The other thing that you've got to do and this is point two is you've got to prioritize your sleep. Now, when I say prioritize sleep and you think, yeah, good on you, rog, I'm hardly ever there, what about? We control some of the things that we can control, because I know and I see a lot of people and talk to a lot of shift workers, obviously, and what they do is they come home from work after their afternoon shifts and the next thing that they're doing is they're watching television until two, three o'clock in the morning to wind down. Let me tell you that is not winding down. Television stimulates, all right. Looking at your phone stimulates. What you need to do is you need to toughen up and literally have a practice in your routine of coming home, whether it's breath work, whether it's a meditation, whether it's just sitting in silence just for five to 10 minutes to just let it wash over you and then going to bed. That's what we need to be doing. We need to be prioritizing sleep.
Speaker 1:One thing that I've learned recently and I mean very recently, over the last week or so is we've actually got to the stage where we are totally blacking out our bedroom, and this has made such a massive difference to our sleep. Bedroom door closed, no LED lights, no clocks, no, nothing. Nothing in the room that casts any light in any way whatsoever. The room is literally pitch black. The improvement on sleep is phenomenal. I've got to tell you, and if you spend the money to completely black out your room, the benefit is enormous for you. So I highly recommend blackout curtains, quality earplugs, phones off or out of the room. You've got to make sleep a complete and utter non-negotiable for yourself and you've got to protect it like you would protect the last dollar in your bank account. It's super important that you really do have a sleep hygiene, a wind down routine. You've got to get rid of that blue light at night and get that sleep focused in pure darkness, and the rule of thumb to apply is hold your arm out in front of your face, turn your hand to face you and if you can see your hand, it is too light in the bedroom. It is that simple Hold your hand up and out in front of your face and if you can see it, it's too light. So do something about that.
Speaker 1:Step number three to combat shift shock is to get up, get out and get your body moving. Even just 10 minutes of walking or even just doing some stretching and holding your breath and doing some breath work can totally reset your nervous system. Now you don't need to flog yourself and you don't need to bash yourself senseless in a gym. Just get moving. Those that move succeed. Get up, get out, walk every single day. It will change your life and your body will thank you for it. Getting outside in that daylight is something that is super, super important for you to do. Daylight is everything.
Speaker 1:Number four is nourish your body. When you go to make what I would call a poor food choice, ask yourself if this is going to fuel you, whether it's nourishing or whether it's just going to give you a spike and a crash. Yep, delicious, I understand. Some foods are incredibly delicious Carbohydrates and fats together Super delicious those chips, the chocolates, lollies, jenny's cake it is delicious. But is it going to nourish your body properly? Fuel your body, not just your cravings. You ask a hell of a lot of your body as a shift worker, so give it some respect in return. Prepare some grab-and-go's, some meals that are easy and something that actually supports and maintains energy. And I've always said eat majority in the morning and then start to lighten it off during the afternoon and go for low GI foods from three o'clock onwards to keep your blood sugar stable and prevent cravings in that later shift. That will make an enormous difference to you. Cravings in that later shift. That will make an enormous difference to you.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's really important in the last one is to stay social, and that's not on social media, that's literally going and sitting with a friend and having a coffee, having a chat and just shooting the breeze doing whatever you're doing outside of your job. Really really important. Don't drift away from those friendships. Reach out, book that breakfast after night shift. I speak about that day when you're coming out of night shift. One of the most valuable things that I ever did was to commit and organize to catch up with someone on my recovery day coming out of the night shift, because it forced me up and out of the house and kept me occupied and stopped me from just lounging around on the couch. It makes such a big difference. So book it in beforehand, don't wait and do it on the day, because then you've got that to look forward to. You will look forward to it. You might drag your sorry butt up and out of bed to go and do it and hate yourself for it, but, geez, you will really benefit from it.
Speaker 1:The other thing is don't isolate yourself completely from a party. If you've got to go to work on night shift, go and spend a couple of hours there and just socialize and then go on. Yes, it's incredibly hard, but you're still maintaining your social connections. It's something that's really important that you don't just alienate and isolate yourself from it. Even just a quick check-in call with a mate make a phone call it can really help, because if there's one thing that's really, really important, are the relationships that you have with friends, partner, family, whatever. It's really important. So keep those things in mind.
Speaker 1:The one thing that I do want people to be very careful of is to be careful of taking advice from people that are senior to them, that are working in those roles and they don't look right as far as the information that they're actually giving. Have a look and seek out the people who are really thriving. Ask them what they do, ask them how they went about it, and you know the people, the ones that are up and about. They look like they're healthy. They look like they're in good shape. It's no good asking people in the workplace that are tired all the time, that are really struggling, that are taking medications to sleep, that don't think that sleep is something that's important and start asking them for advice. Think about it. Look for the ones that are up and about, and why are they up and about? What are they doing? Ask them questions, work through it. You don't have to do everything that they do at once, because they didn't.
Speaker 1:They have been laying and layering and layering all of these habits, one on top of the other, until they live the way that they live now, and this is something that's really important. If people knew what I did every single day. Now there's no way would you keep up, you would not maintain it, you wouldn't do it. But I've been layering all of these habits over years until they just become life, and that's why I thrive. Now, the one thing that I want people to really remember is is this a really, really good support unit, and you're not alone in this. Here's the thing this work is really hard, but you're not meant to do it alone, and it's a brotherhood and a sisterhood of other shift workers that you're actually with. And I can tell you now that society tells us that one in five people are now shift workers in the world, and those figures are insane.
Speaker 1:And this is the exact reason why I've built the Shift Workers Collective, which is a place where shift workers like you come together to learn strategies that actually work, to cut out all of the rubbish that is outside of shift work, that's not relevant to shift work. Certain supplements that people take are great for normal people no good for shift workers. Things that shift workers need to do are no good for normal. We've got to separate all of it, and I've done this with the Shift Workers Collective. It's a place where you get to learn to share wins, to ask questions, ask questions. You've got access to me and support each other in real time. We talk all about sleep. We talk about nutrition, mental health issues, routines, but we also just talk real life and it's amazing what people do and how they get up to it. It's a worldwide collective Because this job might be incredibly unpredictable, but your health and your happiness should never be unpredictable. We're not just surviving anymore. What we're doing is we're building lives that we can actually thrive in, even on the weirdest of rosters.
Speaker 1:So if you're feeling shift shock right now, just know I get it, I've lived it. But you don't have to stay stuck in it. Start small, stay consistent and if you're ready for real support, come and join us in the Shift Workers Collective. You'll find the link in the show notes. You'll find a group of people who get it and are us in the Shift Workers Collective. You'll find the link in the show notes. You'll find a group of people who get it and are here to help you rise above it. And thanks for listening to a Healthy Shift Podcast. Avoid that shift shot. I'll catch you next time. 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.