Speaker 1: 1:42

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.

Speaker 1: 2:19

Welcome back to A Healthy Shift podcast and, as you know, this is the show that is dedicated to helping you thrive in your shift working job, not just survive. I want to help you to dominate your unique shift working schedule. I'm your host, Roger Sutherland, and today I'm revisiting a topic that I get asked so much about or I get such good feedback. Now, last time I did this, I did it in three or even four podcasts over a series, and I'm going to combine it all into one for you, and that is help. I've got a night shift coming up. What do I do? How do I go about it? It's an interesting topic. It's a topic that I have actually moved out of my main keynote and I'm moving it to my how to work your roster workshop, which is part of the seminar experience. I would love you to have a look at the seminar experience. If you go to the show notes and click the link the seminar experience you'll find that it will take you to the webpage which tells you all about it and you can download the e-brochure. And the e-brochure is something that you can attach to your application and notify your health and wellbeing managers that I exist. I'm here to help you, the shift worker, to really crush it in your shift working world. And if you are someone who is a health and wellbeing manager or you work in the management space in a shift working environment, click the link and have a look at this, because it's really, really important to help your workforce to really thrive in a 24-7 shift working environment. You can't keep going on the way you're going on and you're going to get caught out with a lack of education which there is in your shift working environment. I'm changing that. I'm here to change that from this week, because what I'm doing is I've launched the seminar experience, which is a core keynote and a number of workshops that are attached to that core keynote, and it's called the seminar experience, with a whole heap more. Click the link in the show notes, go and have a look and I think you'll find that it's something that your workforce needs.

Speaker 1: 4:40

So let's get on with today's episode in particular, that is, night shift. Now the first thing that we've got to do is we've got to cover and we've got to let it know. Let you know, Night shift is the most impactful shift of them all. There is no other shift that impacts you as much as a night shift does, purely because of the circadian misalignment, and it is something that is unavoidable. Majority of our 24-7 shift working environments require us to work a night shift, so it is the most impactful on us biologically. It has real health consequences and we have to learn how to go into, go through and come out of this night shift. Now, obviously, this is going to depend on whether you do one night, whether you do three nights or whether you do seven nights. The theory is much the same. So take note, sit down, grab yourself a coffee and have a listen to this with your pen and paper and make these notes.

Speaker 1: 5:47

First of all, our primary focus has to be on sleep right, Super important Sleep. Nothing else We've got to focus on sleep in between those. That's got to be our primary focus because of the importance of having it, and it needs to be either a blockout week or a blockout period of time. It's not a time where we have to try and fit training in, try and fit getting the car serviced in, trying to fit in running the kids to school, et cetera. It's got to be a blockout. It's got to be something that we prioritize ourselves in this particular week. All right, so let's talk about what's the best way for us to go actually in to our night shift.

Speaker 1: 6:29

All right, so let's just assume, let's guess. Sorry, let's just start again. Let's say that I am going to start night shift tomorrow night. All right, so I've got today and tonight and I'm going to start night shift tomorrow night. So many people I know will stay up late the night before they go into night shift to prepare themselves to go into it. This is not the way to do it. You are adding another night of desynchronized circadian rhythm, another night of impactful missing out on sleep into your life. Do not do this. Get yourself to bed early the night before and get up early on the day of your first night shift. All right, so imagine you're starting night shift tomorrow night. You're going to get up at around about 7 am tomorrow morning. Now you might think, oh my God, that means I've got 16 hours before I even start. What am I going to do? Well, you're going to have to get up at around about 7 am tomorrow morning. Follow on, stick with me, get up at as soon as you can on that day. As soon as you wake up, get up open the blinds, get that daylight.

Speaker 1: 7:43

We want to synchronize ourselves with that normal day, the day going into night shift. The other thing that we do, which is super important, is we eat at normal diurnal eating times on that day. In fact, this is when we should always be eating breakfast time, lunch time and dinner time. Your circadian rhythm is primed to metabolize and store nutrients correctly and most efficiently. When you eat at the normal times, your circadian rhythm anticipates, it starts processes for it, which is why we get hungry at those times and then it metabolizes and stores those nutrients the way that we want it to do. Where we start to gain weight and we start to have problems is when we start eating outside of those normal diurnal eating times because of the circadian disruption that we actually have that we create in ourselves. One of the key indicators to our circadian rhythm, or key time cues, is nutrient timing. So the more regular that is, the more regular it keeps our circadian rhythm, the better we actually feel.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Now the next thing we want to do is earlier that day. We want to get some sort of movement and we want to keep busy during that day. That's the day that you get up, you go for a walk and you go to the gym, or you do your class, or you catch up with Jenny and you go and have a coffee, or you do whatever you're going to do, but you keep yourself busy during the day Before you go in that night. That is the time when you get yourself a short nap of 20 to 25 minute or in a 90 minute cycle, Right, so this will come down to and depending on what time you start work. Some people do 12-hour nights, starting at 6 pm or 7 pm. Some people don't start until 10 or 11. No matter what you do, you still eat at those normal times and try and get that nap before you go to work. Now, if you're blessed and you're one of these people, that starts later in the evening and you can get a 90-minute sleep in happy days. Do that Now.

Speaker 1: 10:00

This is not the time where we lie in bed scrolling, hoping that we're going to go to sleep. This is a time where we put the sleep mask on. We lie there, we do some breath work and we get ourselves into a really good state to actually fall asleep. We only need 20 to 25 minutes just to release that sleep pressure. Yep, you might be tired going through the first night, but you will sleep a lot better the next day between the nights, which is what we actually want. And that nap of 20 to 25 minutes or in that 90-minute cycle because we sleep in 90-minute cycles cycles will stand you in good stead to get through the night. So that's the first day going into the night shift. All right, going into the night. Now what do we do about navigating the week? How do we navigate this actual week of night shift? Well, the first thing I would say is just get through it. All right, we don't do anything else.

Speaker 1: 10:59

I want you to try and work out, depending on your shift schedule as well. Work out if you are a one or a two sleep person, whether you're a nap nap, nap, napper right. Whether you're a person that has two naps, whether you have a sleep and a nap, or whether you're someone who just has one big long sleep, this is very, very individual as to how people go about doing this. Some people I know me personally I would come home from work after night shift. I would sleep for about three, four hours and then I would wake, so I would just get up. I'd get up, I'd go for a walk, I'd get up out in the light, I'd wander around, do my personal jobs, do whatever I needed to do, and then I would have dinner and have a nap before I went back into work again, and that worked perfectly for me. It's really important that you work this out and I don't want you to put the expectations on yourself that, oh, I've got to get eight to nine hours sleep, because if I don't get eight to nine hours sleep, then I'm no good.

Speaker 1: 11:57

So people start to take medications around that we don't take medications for sleep between nights. When you take medications and you get medicated sleep, you are unconscious, you are not sleeping. I want you to have a look at the people at your work that tell you oh, I got eight hours sleep today. Oh, I slept really really well. Now have a look at them on night shift. They are the ones that are really struggling on the night shift, and that's because they weren't asleep. They were actually unconscious. When you take medicated sleep, you actually find Now when I say medicated sleep, I'm talking about people who take any medications to help them to sleep overnight shift a sleeping pill of some form.

Speaker 1: 12:42

It does not help you. I'm not talking about melatonin. Melatonin is something that you can take, but I will give you a footnote so that you understand around melatonin Melatonin needs to be taken two hours before you're due to sleep. Now you tell me whether it's safe for you to take melaton hours before you're due to sleep. Now you tell me whether it's safe for you to take melatonin while you're still at work, before you get to go to sleep. And that's the decision, Because if you take melatonin when you get into bed for your night shift sleep, you may actually phase shift your circadian rhythm and cause yourself all sorts of confusion in your system, which is why it makes it even harder to sleep again. All right, so keep that in mind no medications. And melatonin needs to be taken two hours before you're due to go to sleep. If you've got to drive, to drive home, that could be dangerous, so that's something that you've got to consider.

Speaker 1: 13:36

The next thing communicate with your householders what your expectations are. This seems simple, but communicate with people in your house. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to sleep here and then I'm going to get up, and then I'm going to do this and I'm going to go back and nap. That conversation can actually save you storming out of the room with your pillow tucked under your arm, yelling and screaming at people. It doesn't work. Just communicate. Just say this is what I'm planning on doing. Hey kids, hey Mrs, hey, Mr, I'm going to be on night shift. This is what I'm doing. This is how I go about doing it. This is what I want to do. Don't let them expect that, because you did it this way last time, that this is the way you're going to do it this time. Communicate it. Let them know what have you got. This is why I talk about the whiteboard and scheduling, so that you can put it up on the board. The next thing that I talk about is plan, nothing else during that night shift.

Speaker 1: 14:30

This is not the time for you to say, oh, I've got a specialist appointment that I had to make. Oh, I had to get the car service because that's when it was booked in for. Oh, I've got to take little Johnny to school. Do you know how dangerous that is? You're putting your own children in the car and driving them to school after a night shift when your body is doing absolutely everything it possibly can to put you to sleep. Have a think about the dangers of actually doing that, because it's really bad.

Speaker 1: 14:59

So then that's it. We just get home. We don't stop on the way home and do an F45 or go to the gym. Sleep must be the priority. All right, Remember that Sleep's priority all the time. Go home, sleep, get good, solid sleep and, if you then feel like it, go to the gym afterwards. The benefits for you going to the gym after night shift and before sleeping there is none. It's just not going to help you. Your body is not going to work properly and you run the risk of doing a serious injury because your body is already stressed and you are stressing an already stressed body. So that's it. Going through the days between nights, just get through it. All right, that's the next thing that we do Right Now.

Speaker 1: 15:47

Our next step what's the best way for us to come out of the night shift? Now? If you do one night, it makes it fairly easy, right. But if you're going to do more, then I've told you how to go into it. I've told you how to go through it. But when you have your last night, this is how we go about coming out of night shift, and this is life-changing for everybody that I have coached. Once I start doing this, this is where life completely changes for them.

Speaker 1: 16:20

First thing that you got to do is you go straight home, straight home. You eat, shower, go to bed and get that sleep. Now you're going to set your alarm now for either three hours or four and a half. Remember, I said we sleep in 90 minute cycles. Most people will set it for four and a half because by the time you get to there, you're in a routine. But those that are only doing one or maybe two nights, three hours may very well be enough. Remember, we want to get back into our normal diurnal or daytime routine as soon as we possibly can. As soon as the alarm goes off, you've got to get up, right, You've got to get up. You've got to stand up, you've got to open the blinds and you've got to get that light in your eyes. You will not spontaneously combust, Even though you feel like you might, you won't. I can promise you that won't happen.

Speaker 1: 17:12

The next thing you do is you turn around, face your bed and you rip all the sheets and the blank, the bedding, off the bed and you put the sheets in the washing machine and you give the sheets a good wash and put them out on the line. Why do we do that? We do that because who doesn't love climbing into fresh sheets after they've been washed? Right, Everybody loves to climb into fresh sheets and that's going to help you to sleep. When you go to bed that night, we get up, we hydrate, we then caffeinate, we then get out in the daytime, in the daylight.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Now, this is a really, really good day to actually get up, get out, go for a walk, but prior to starting that night shift, organize to catch up with a friend or family, to commit yourself to go out for lunch that day. I know it hurts, but it will set you up really, really well as you move forward from this night shift. So you've got to get up and you know you're going to strip your bed, you're going to put it out on the line, change your sheets and then hydrate, caffeinate, go for your walk and then you've got to go and catch up with Jenny for lunch. As much as you begrudgingly do it, it's going to help you no end by sitting outside, getting that light or being stimulated and keeping you occupied for that period of time to stop you from flopping on the couch under artificial light, watching the TV and dozing, which is going to cause you all sorts of problems coming out of that night shift that will impact on your sleep. You will have to ride those waves of oh my God, I feel like I'm going to go to sleep and keep on going on that day. So that's it.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Then we go to bed around about 10 pm. We have no alcohol, no screens. We go through our routine, we relax and we go to sleep, and you'll find that you'll sleep through that night and that is the way we come out of night shift. We get up again early the next day, at 7am, and then we go through and repeat Early light, early movement, eating at the normal times and away you go, and that is the optimal way for you to go into, go through and come out of night shift. Now, everybody's different and I totally understand that, but this is the best and most optimal way for people to go through it that I have found by coaching clients and also the feedback that I get from social media about people that have followed this protocol have found it so much more efficient than their late night, the night before, going into night shift and sleeping half the day and spending the day on the couch and not sleeping properly during the week, and then the day they come out of night shift they're lounging around all day flopping on the couch, napping and not doing very well at all. Try it this way. This way works. I can promise you this way works and you will start to really, really thrive on the best possible way to go through night shift.

Speaker 1: 20:14

All right, so that's it for this episode. I hope you've really enjoyed that and I hope you'd also got something out of that to help you. I know it's a topic that I've covered before, but it's a topic that I've covered before, but it's a topic that needs covering over and over again to help any new listeners to understand the best way to go into, go through and come out of that night shift with minimum disruption to your circadian rhythm. Please rate and review, share it and I'll catch you on the next one. 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.