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. I'm your guide, Roger Sutherland, and my goal is to help shift workers to really thrive and not just survive. I'm changing the way people go about doing things, and today is actually no different. In fact, it's an interesting one. I hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome aboard. The question is why daytime sleep never works and how can we fix it? Now, if you've ever finished a night shift and you've thought, I am wrecked. I will sleep like a rock today. And then you didn't. This episode is for you. Because daytime sleep doesn't fail because you're bad at sleeping. And I want people to really get a handle on and understand this. You're not designed to sleep during the day. Be very clear on that. It fails because your biology is working against you. So let's break this down quite simply, all right? Now your brain is wired. Your biological clock will have you awake during the day and a sleep at night. So light and noise, body temperature, hormones, all of them push you. They're pushing you towards wakefulness once the sun is up. Now, when you think about it, a lot of us, we're on night shift, working all night, it's dark, we're getting more and more and more tired, the sleep pressure's starting to really build up. And then we drive home, and what have we got? Sun coming up. What does the sun coming up tell our body? It's time to be awake. Now you might think, but I'm so tired and I go to bed and I sleep. But you've got to remember that light is suppressing melatonin and it suppresses melatonin and it's alerting your body, it's awake time. So while the sleep pressure puts you to sleep, that circadian misalignment wakes you up. So when you try to sleep at nine o'clock in the morning, your body isn't broken. It's actually doing exactly what it's designed to do. If you were working and sleeping overnight and working during the day, at around about nine o'clock is when your body, through light, would be actually priming you up to get you going. Right? So why would you expect it to be doing any different when you are on night shift and you are trying to go to bed and sleep? Because your body is still running on that diurnal biological clock. So think about that and take the pressure off yourself, all right? So the first thing that you need to understand is literally just to stop blaming yourself, all right? That's what I want you to keep in mind. Don't blame yourself. Let's work with this instead of working against it or getting frustrated, right? Now, here's where most shift workers get it wrong. What they do is they try to copy the night sleep rules for a day sleep. Same expectation, same timing, same setup, and that doesn't work. Day sleep has got completely different rules. And I'm gonna say this to you as rule one, and I want this tattooed on your forehead. Stop chasing seven to nine hours. Just stop. Don't give yourself that expectation. It is so disordered, and we need to change this. Those recommendations that everybody talks about for sleep, that you need to get seven to nine hours, are for our day walking friends. It's not for us. All right. We need to completely change, and that's why science on everybody that are the nine to fivers are actually getting their seven to nine hours and doing everything they can. So we, as the night walkers, the zombies, we think that we should be getting the same when we're trying to sleep during the day, and we don't, right? Because day sleep has completely different rules. Now, daytime sleep is much lighter and it's much shorter by nature. Most night workers would be lucky to get five hours, wouldn't they? Let's be honest. If you could get five hours, you'd probably be pretty happy. And then we have a short top-up nap later. If you are chasing seven to nine hours and you only get four hours, instantly you feel like a failure. Instantly you're at work talking to your colleagues and saying to your colleagues, oh Karen, I only got four hours sleep today. What do you do? Oh, Karen says I got nine hours. How did you do that? Oh, I took this and I took this medication and I take these sleeping pills. Yeah, good on you, Karen. You're actually not sleeping, you're unconscious, and that's why you're hanging off the counter here and you're half asleep. But if you were to aim to get that first sleep, let's just go to bed with no pressure and wait until we wake up. And when we wake up, just get up. Don't push on. Just get up and get out in the light. We are not supposed to be asleep during the day. It's that simple. So what we can do is take the pressure off ourselves so that we don't get frustrated, we don't get angry. If you get up and go to the bathroom and you go back to bed, because of course you're going to go to the bathroom, because that's what we do when we're on uh nights during the day. That's all we want to do. We seem to get up and have to pee. And there's a reason for that too. Because when we sleep overnight, there's a hormone that's released that actually suppresses that. Whereas during the daytime, that hormone is absent, and that's why we have to get up and pee. So, when you get up and pee, if you go back to bed and you don't go back to sleep, just get up, open the blinds, get up, get outside, have yourself a coffee, and sit outside and get the light. Take yourself for a walk, go for a swim, go and do something, just occupy yourself, do your meal preps for that night, keep yourself busy for the afternoon, and then go and get a top-up nap later. It's only got to be 20 to 25 minutes or 90 minutes. Remember, we sleep in 90 minute cycles. Expectation really matters. It's a psychological game trying to get sleep, and this is really, really important. Rule number two light control is a non-negotiable. Dark literally means dark. Now I've spoken about this. Dim is just not good enough. Okay? We need dark, pitch black. We need blackout blinds, a roller blind, we need a face mask, we need something. There's got to be no cracks, no glowing clocks, no fine phone lighting up the room, no LEDs, nothing. I've said this before. Hold your arm out at full length in front of your face. Turn your hand to face you. If you can see your hand, it's too light. What light does is it shuts down our melatonin really quickly, even just a tiny little amount. And if your room isn't dark, then your brain won't stay asleep. It's as simple as that. The other thing, rule three, temperature will be comfort every day of the week. I've learned, and I know, I'm 61, but I've learned recently that if I wake up in the middle of the night and I can't go back to sleep, I kick the dunas off and I get cold. I get cold and I go to sleep. And then I tend to pull the duner over afterwards. Getting cold and dropping your body temperature is actually a signal to your body to go to sleep. So you'll find that if you're in bed and you're tossing and turning backwards and forwards, just take the blankets off and lie on top of the bed and get cold. And as your body temperature drops, you'll go back to sleep. Strange, but true. And when you understand the science behind that, you'll understand why that actually works. It's something that definitely works and something that you should really do. Your core body temperature needs to drop to stay asleep. Because during the day, your natural diurnal biological function is to heat your body. So we need to cool it. And that's what tells it. So cool the room, cool your bed, lighter bedding. Works really well. If you wake up hot, your sleep will fragment every time. You want to go back to sleep? Cool yourself down and you'll go back to sleep. Rule number four. And I'm not sorry for this one, but caffeine timing. We're not avoiding caffeine. And I've never ever said you can't have it. What I'm doing is I'm trying to reduce the intake of it so you don't need so much of it. And I always say the 12 o'clock rule. I'm not anti-caffeine, but timing does in fact really matter. Because if your shift ends at 7 a.m. and you're still slamming down white monsters at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning, then what you're doing is you are pushing that stimulation straight into your sleep window. So set a caffeine, cut off time. The best rule ever to apply is 12 o'clock. That's simple. If you're on day shift or you're on afternoon shift, cut the caffeine at 12. If you're on night shift, cut the caffeine at 12. Just cut the caffeine at 12, no matter what shift you're on. Always 12. Simple. And then you will sleep better. And when you sleep better, you need less caffeine. It really is very simple. That one change can add one more sleep cycle, which is another 90 minutes. And rule number five listen up. Winding down still matters. Have a sleep hygiene, a sleep routine. Because most shift workers are finishing their shift wired, jumping in the car, driving home with the doof-doof music going, and then jumping, getting home, looking at their phones, having something to eat, climbing into bed, lying there looking at their phones. They're so wired up from the shift. And yet you expect your body to go to sleep. You've got to inform your body that he's safe and able to go to sleep. Adrenaline, screens, driving, that noise, all that stimulation, the light. And then you say to the body, roll over, go to sleep. Oh, you're not going to sleep. No wonder. How have you cued your body to going to sleep? Is the question that I would ask. Not by being up for so long, because you will go to sleep with the sleep pressure. But what you need to do is you need to stay asleep. And that means you need to inform your body that it is safe and it can go to sleep. Wind it down. You still need a buffer, 20 to 40 minutes to wind down. Same routine. In the same order every time. Shower. Or eat. Shower. Darkness. Breath work. Lavender spray. Quiet. Outlook a light. Every time. Because what you're doing is you actually teach your brain a pattern. This is what we're doing. And what do we do after that? We sleep. Bang. And you'll teach it. And that will literally create a pattern for your sleep, and it will help. And one last thing that matters more than what a lot of people realize is stop trying to live like a daywalker on days off. Flipping backwards and forwards destroys sleep pressure and rhythm. You don't need to stay fully nocturnal, but you do need some form of consistency. Small shifts, not full flips. Daytime sleep is not about hacks, it's about reducing the friction. Dark. Cool. Taking that sleep anxiety out. Shorter targets for sleep. Don't even set a target. When you wake up, get up. Better timing. Less self-judgment. That's all I say. And they're the simple habits that you can put in place that are going to help you, particularly around your day sleep. And I'm flipping this. I've spoken about this on recent podcasts. Don't aim for seven to nine hours. That advice is for a day walker. You are not a day walker. You are a shift worker with a disrupted circadian rhythm. Just sleep when you can, get as much as you can, and then get up and get on with it. Because it's different for you. Apologies. It's different for you. So there, what you need to do is you need to adapt to that and adjust to that. Stop taking advice from doctors and people who are telling you things that are suitable for a day walker. It's not you. Okay? Simple. Alright. Well, there you have it. That's today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Dark, cool, shorter targets, better timing, less self-judgment. If daytime sleep has been failing you, it's not because you're weak. It's because no one taught you the right rules. And once you play by the right ones, it gets a lot easier. 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.