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 rigors of shift work, but thrive. My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and well-being so they have more energy to do the things they love. Enjoy today's show. And welcome back to a Healthy Shift podcast. My name is Roger Sutherland, and I am your tour guide in your shift working journey. Something I want to talk about today. I get asked a lot of questions, and I'm learning more and more and more about this particular topic. And what is the best way to go into, go through, and come out of the dreaded night shift? This is an important topic because I think science is wrong. And I'm actually challenging scientists in the background and researchers at the moment with my own hypothesis around why I think that what information they're giving people around how to go into through an outer night shift is wrong. And it's been accepted really well by the people, and they want to do further research in this area. Now, there's a very good reason for this because I didn't realize, but over my journey, I've actually been putting this strategy in place, and it worked for me and worked exceptionally well for me, and it will work for you too. One of the things that we need to be really careful of in relation to going into through and out of night shift, and my attitude has always been get in and get out of night shift as quickly as you can with the minimum amount of circum disruption. And we tend to find that research shows and a lot of apps and things like that as we as we go through and we phase shift into particular areas. Like for argument's sake, there's apps for when we travel, and it's to help us to avoid jet lag, which is literally just social um jet lag, but it's to avoid jet lag. And what it does is it gradually phase shifts us into the new time zone of the area that we're actually going in to holiday. And then what it does is it phase shifts us into that so that when we arrive at the destination, our circadian clock has already been moved. And with it being moved, it actually gets to the stage where when we land in where we're going, we're actually ready to get up and go. Now, I've spoken about this topic numerous times on the podcast around when we travel, what's the best way to beat jet lag? And there's a really simple way to beat jet lag, and that is when you get to the new destination, is you hit all three of the main zeitgeivers or zeitgebers, which are the time cues to our circadian rhythm, and that is to get early daylight. So get up at the early time when you're in your new destination, get early daylight, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the normal times, and to get movement. And if you think about it, that's generally what we do when we hit a new time zone. Because when we hit this new time zone, we we're excited about the new destination. We get up, we get out, we go and have breakfast somewhere. When we have breakfast, we're moving all day because we're out to a guiding and looking at everything that we want to look at. And then we've got breakfast at breakfast time, lunch at lunch time, dinner at dinner time. And then when it starts to get dark, we're exhausted because it's the end of the day, and we go to bed in the dark and sleep. And if you think about it, that just makes sense as to why our time clock then goes, okay, here's a new time zone. I want to live in this time zone. Now, this is where it gets tricky for us shift workers, and the reason why it gets really tricky is because of this. We tend to go into and out of night shift with one, two, three, or for some people, seven nights of night shift. I still would argue that through the seven nights of night shift, you're still better off following this theory. And you know why I say that? Because that's exactly what I did, and it worked exceptionally well for me. One of the biggest issues that we have as shift workers is not having enough energy to do the things that we want to do on our days off. And the reason why we don't is because of this circadian disruption, and it's because we are uneducated as to how to go into, go through, and come out of our actual night shift. And I'm here to change it. And I have been coaching hundreds of shift workers over the last five years, six years, and I've literally been teaching them a whole new way of going into, through, and out of night shift, and it has changed their lives. In particular, it's changed the females' lives. And the reason being, the less circadian disruption that females have, then the less impact there is on their infradian rhythm, the menstrual cycle, which means that they get into and get out of night shift without having the complications that females tend to have on rotating shift work. Now, as a general rule, science will inform that we should phase shift into the night shift and then phase shift out of it. And I dispute that. And my hypothesis is very clear on this, that I honestly believe that we need to get minimum disruption. And how do we go about achieving this? Well, the first thing that I wanted to say was on the day that you're going into your night shift, I think you need to be going to bed at your normal time the night before and getting up at the normal time. Now remember, sleep regularity is a lot more important than the actual quantity of sleep that you're actually getting. All right. So to make that quite clear, we've got to stop chasing this eight, nine hours sleep because that's what science tells us we actually need for health. It's far more important for us to be getting up at the same time and bonus points for going to bed at the same time every day for regularity in our circadian rhythm and circadian system. And by doing this, what actually happens is we are in a position where we tend to sleep better at night and we get good, solid, restorative sleep. The way we catch up on sleep is to go to bed earlier. And I've got a golden rule around that, and I've spoken about this a number of times. Next time you're sitting on the couch with your partner, husband, wife, or or your best friend, and you are contemplating do I go to bed or watch another episode of something on Netflix, I want you to ask the person that you're sitting with if they would set an alarm for 4 a.m. to get up and actually watch the next episode of whatever it is that you're watching. I guarantee to you the answer will be no, because no one's gonna set an alarm at 4 a.m. to get up and watch something that is already on Netflix that you can watch at any time. Have I made my point? You can watch it anytime. It's gonna be there the next day. So what you can do is just turn it the hell off and go to bed and catch up on the most important pillar of health that we have in our life, and that is sleep. And the way we catch up on sleep is we actually go to bed earlier to catch up on it. We don't sleep in. Sleeping in phase shifts our circadian rhythm and causes us all sorts of problems. So let's talk about the going into, going through, and coming out of night shift. A lot of you that are listening to this podcast will probably only do maybe one, maybe two, or three nights of night shift. There will be those of you that do seven, but the shifts are shorter. But let me just be clear that if you're doing anything less than three nights of night shift, four, then this is the way that you should be actually doing it. And I would highly recommend that you get your pen and paper because I'm going to go through this as to how the best way to go in and out of it is, or come back to this eight and a half minute mark where I'm about to start going through the steps of how you can go through it. So, day shift. Sorry, the daytime going into your first night of night shift. I want to be very clear with you. You do not stay up late the night before going into a night shift, and then get up later so that you're phase shifting yourself into your night shift. What you've just done is you have literally just added another circadian disruption. And we know categorically in science that any form of circadian disruption has a great impact on us biologically. So why would you add another night of circadian disruption? The key is to go to bed early the night before and get up early on the night that you start night shift. I know I can hear your voices already saying to me, Oh, but I'll be really tired going in the night of night shift. You will find that when you condition yourself to doing this, when you get up early, knowing that you've got night shift, you will then be able to power nap in the afternoon. And for those of you that say, I can't power nap, you need to learn to relax so that you can power nap because power napping is your superpower as a shift worker. So what we do is we get up early on the day we're going into night shift. I don't care what time you start night shift, this still works. So you get up at seven o'clock. When you're getting up at seven o'clock, you go have breakfast at breakfast time, you do your hydrate, you do your caffeinate, you get up and you get out in the early light. Take yourself for a walk around the block so that you're getting that light. Imagine that you've just gone on holiday, right? And you are getting to a new destination, you're getting up, you're excited about it, you're gonna go and get lights, you're gonna go to the gym that day. That's the day that you hit your biggest lifts and you really hit it and go well. And then what you do is you eat at the normal breakfast, lunch, and dinner times before you go in for that night shift. Now, depending on what time you start, depends on what time you can actually get your nap in. I want you to remember this. We nap up to 30 minutes. We don't nap longer than 30 minutes unless we are napping for 90 minutes, which is almost considered a s what which is actually a sleep cycle. So, what we want to do is nap up to three minutes, uh thirty minutes. Don't go and nap for an hour because when you wake up, you're waking yourself up right in the middle of a sleep cycle, which is where you get that sleep inertia that makes you feel absolutely dreadful. Up early, eat at normal times, early daylight, and then have a nap in the afternoon for up to 30 minutes. All we're doing here is just releasing the sleep pressure. Then the next thing is you're going into your night of night shift and you do your night shift as optimally as you possibly can. Are you gonna be tired? Yeah, of course you are. And the reason why you're gonna be tired is because you have a disrupted circadian rhythm. But let me just ask you this question. When you and the girls or the guys are going out clubbing or you're gonna go out at night, did you phase shift into the night that you went to the club? You did not. So that's my analogy of it. It's just a late night. Night shift, just treat it as a late night. And then when you get home from that shift, we go straight to bed. We don't dilly-dally around. It's not a day to get the car service. We need to organize to have the kids dropped at school and everything else done for us. We go home, we have our hot shower, we climb into bed, we do our deep breathing, and we sleep. But what we do is we just consider it a nap. Don't try and think, oh, I've got to get my eight hours sleep. Now, the reason why I say this to you is because this rule that you've got to get seven to nine hours of sleep, or what science shows is optimal. I want you to remember this. You are not designed, or should you be sleeping during the day in any way whatsoever. So don't try. Consider it a nap. One of the biggest problems with the science around this seven to nine hours is it means that when you are doing night shift, you think I've got to get eight hours. So you start popping medications or using things like wrist of it or sleeping tablets to sleep. And I want to be quite clear with you. While you are on those medications, you are unconscious, you are not sleeping, and your body does not go through those normal sleep cycles. It's dangerous for you to take those medications during the day. Because while you're taking them during the day and you are unconscious, when you actually go to go to work that night, you haven't had sleep. Your body hasn't gone through its normal sleep cycles. So, therefore, have you ever noticed that the people that use rest of it or use any sort of medications to sleep with are the ones that are hanging off the counter at work because they can't function on night shift. It's because they haven't slept. So let's change the thinking. Let's completely change the thinking around the sleep between night shift and let's go to bed and call it a nap. Because once the sleep pressure is gone and you wake up, get up. Just get up and just get out in the light. Get out in that daylight and trigger your circadian rhythm and let it know it's daytime. Go about your personal jobs, do your meal prepping, go do the shopping, do whatever you've got to do, get out in that light and keep moving around. And then before you go back to work and eat at the normal times, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then before you've got to go back to work, just lie down, put your sleep mask on, do your breathing, and relax for about half an hour. That's the best way. And then go into the next night or night shift. This is if you've got two nights, and if you've got three, repeat that day again. And if you've got seven, repeat that again. And there's a reason for this. Because the day that you're coming out of night shift, this is a day where you come home at that time, at the normal time, shower, get into bed, and as soon as you wake up or set an alarm for three hours or four and a half, again, we sleep in 90-minute cycles. As soon as that alarm goes off, get up, get out of bed, strip the bed and put it in the washing machine. And the reason why we do that is because it stops us from getting back into it. Open the blinds and get daylight. Go and hydrate, caffeinate, go out in the daylight. And that is the day that you organize to catch up with a friend and have a brunch. And this keeps you occupied right through until the evening where you will be absolutely exhausted by that stage. Because you've only had minimal sleep, three hours or four and a half hours. By the time you get to seven or eight o'clock, you're ready for sleep. Hello? Isn't this what we want at this point in time? Yes, it is. And you will find that you will not only go to sleep, but you'll stay asleep. And the reason being is because you were exposing your circadian rhythm to that blue light in between those nights. So your body thinks, oh, it was just a late night. Again, let me go back to the scenario or the analogy that I used about the nights when you were having late nights going to a club. You didn't phase shift into it, and you certainly didn't phase shift out of it. What you did was you just had a late night, went to the club, and then the next night, because you were exhausted, you went to bed early and you slept, and you slept right through again. Keep that in mind because this is the principle that I'm using for people to go into, go through, and come out of night shift. You will find that you will sleep so much better on that night coming out of night shift because you got up early and exposed yourself to light. You will also find that you will sleep better on that night coming out of night shift because of the blue light exposure that you were getting during the days in between your nights. And the reason being is because your circadian rhythm is going, oh, okay, so it's daytime, we're in the right time now. And it just is confused. But as soon as you start putting it back into that dark time on that night coming out of night shift, it goes, oh, okay, here we are. It's dark time, it's time to go back to sleep. And then what will happen is you'll sleep through. So many clients that I've had that do this phase shifting into night shift and phase shifting out. And then they find that on their third or fourth, the third day coming out of it, they're waking up and they're lying there awake from one o'clock in the morning until four. No wonder because you've been knocking yourself out or you've been trying to sleep all day in between the nights, and you have literally phase shifted your circadian rhythm. Let's not do that. Let's start thinking of sleeps between nights as naps and just release the sleep pressure and then go in and do the next night, and let's work on giving ourselves more optimal time coming out of our night shift in our days off. You've done the nights, you've got the money in the bank. Now let's enjoy spending that money during the day instead of flopping on the couch because we feel so average. Remember, shift work is severely detrimental to your health massively. But I can tell you one thing for sure that shift work is more detrimental without the education of how to go about it. And I'm here to change that. And what I want to do is I'm combining my 40 years of what I've done to help you today with education on how to do it. All I ask is try it. Just try it. Try getting up early on the night you go into night shift. And when you get tired in the afternoon, go and have a nap. And then go into the night shift. And when you go to sleep and you wake up, don't get frustrated and think you need to take medications. Get up and get out of bed, go and get the light. Hydrate, caffeinate, eat at the normal times. Eat at normal times. Remember, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, not outside of that. Otherwise, you are confusing your circadian rhythm even more. Get that daylight, have a nap, go in for the next night, but then you've got to get up as soon as you wake up coming out of the night shift and get on with the day outside in the daylight. We don't crawl out of bed and crawl to the couch and sit there watching Netflix all afternoon. The lighting inside your house is not good enough. Now I hope this helps. If you've got any any questions in relation to this, please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions. The one thing that I ask you to do is to try this because you will find that this will make a massive difference to you in how you function on your days off. It's not about how we function on our nights, it's about how we function on our days off. And let's face it, we all really want to thrive on our days off. Because if we're just thriving in our time at work and we're not giving anything back in our days off, then what's the point? We go to work to earn the dollars to enjoy our time off. We can't just crawl until we get to leave because you're going to go back into that same toxic environment again, and we need to change this. I want you to thrive on your days off. It's one of my mantras in my business, giving you more time to thrive in your days off. Everybody wants that. You want it because you are sick and tired, I'm sure, of really crawling from one shift to the next. The key to thriving in shift work is to get up at approximately the same time every single day, and you get bonus points for going to bed at the same time the night before. I know we can't always do that, and that's why they're bonus points. But if you want to catch up on sleep, go to bed earlier and catch up on the sleep, but still always, always get up at approximately the same time. Okay, anything to do with that, feel free to reach out and message me. That's today's podcast. I hope you got something out of it. And if it's really got your thinking, share it. Share it onto your your own Instagram stories, share it with your friends, let everybody know about it. I want to say thank you very much for listening, 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 ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.