Welcome And Purpose

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 another episode of a Healthy Shift Podcast. You are more than welcome, and I appreciate you actually stepping into the room and joining the show with me. You might be driving, you might be out walking, whatever you're doing, I just want you to know I sincerely appreciate you actually joining the podcast once again for another episode. Today's episode's a really interesting one because one of the I I mean, I speak about sleep a lot, but I personally, well, I'll be honest with you. Lately, I've really struggled with my mental health, and it's been a real battle for me in the background. Now, a lot of people wouldn't know, but it has been a massive battle. And that brain just won't shut down and it won't wire down. So I've actually hit on something which has been absolutely superb. And today I want to share it with you in the podcast. Um, and it gives me an opportunity to actually talk about it in a little bit more detail because we have a lot of people that really struggle with sleep. But one of the main reasons, and in the famous words of Tom Coleman, if you create the environment, your body will take care of the rest. And this is a really such a true analogy, and it's something that I've looked at over and over again. With a lot of clients that come to me and they say, Oh, I'm just a poor sleeper, once we drill into where they're going wrong and we correct little things along the way, it's incredible just how much it actually fixes the whole overall sleep process. Now, I will be very clear with you on one thing. As shift workers, particularly those working in frontline health and also in emergency services, being wired but tired, or tired but wired is a genuine problem that a lot of people have. It's very difficult for us to shut down. Now, I want to be clear on this. There is a very, very big difference between going home, going to bed, exhausted and falling asleep, and getting and falling asleep and getting good, solid, restorative sleep. A lot of shift workers will wake up tired. They have that sleep, but they wake up tired. And they can even get eight or nine hours and still wake up tired. But there's a very, very good reason for that. And the main reason is because they're still in a sympathetic side of their autonomic nervous system. And they haven't learned how to actually switch it over into a nice parasympathetic state, which is our rest and digest side of our central nervous system. Coming home from work exhausted, climbing into bed, scrolling on your phone, rolling over and going to sleep and telling me that blue light doesn't make any difference, and going straight to sleep. That's because you're exhausted. Your sleep latency is very quick. And what that means is you go to sleep quickly, you are exhausted. And that doesn't mean that you're getting good, solid, restorative sleep. What it means is you're exhausted. Today, I want to talk about the person that comes home from work chronically fatigued, exhausted, and gets at sleep, but doesn't actually either stay asleep or wakes up tired. Because we need to be able to shut down those thoughts. Also, the person that comes home, lies in bed, thinks, I cannot wait to get to bed, jumps into bed, lies there. And then the committee meeting starts inside the head, and then everything starts going through it. So let's go through a strategy that I personally have actually hit on myself. It's making a massive difference to me personally, and it's something that I would like to relay to you to help you, particularly if you are someone who is going through some mental health battles and it's and this brain just continually ticks over, or if you wake up in the middle of the night, the brain is actually ticking over and you can't silence it. This will help you, I can promise you, because it's science-backed. And I want to talk about it. So, what I want to do is I want you to paint the picture here. I'm going to paint this picture. Before we go on, actually, can you do me a favor? The podcast comes to you, and this information all comes to you free of charge. And it's and I don't expect any money for it in any way whatsoever. But what I love is in the show notes is a text that is a link to a text that you can actually text me and tell me what you thought of the episode, if it helped you, or you can just send me a message and I get that. Now I can't see who it's come from, I can't see where it's come from or anything like that. I don't even see the number. But you're in a position where you can text and just pass the information on. It absolutely makes my day. It tells me that you've I'm actually heard, right? I know I can see so many people listening to it, but if you've got something from it or there's something that you'd like to hear, please can you do me a favor and just let me know? The other thing that you can do that is enormously beneficial is to actually rate it, or on Apple, you can rate and review. This helps other people to find the podcast, and rating it also helps it to be found as well, because it just falls off the off the chart, and no one gets to find it other than just my traditional listeners. Let's get it out there, let's share it, and let's get this evidence-based information out there for other people. All right, let's get on with it. So you've just walked in through the door. It's the end of the shift, and you know, like it might be coming home from night shift, and the sun's starting to come up, the birds are starting, you know, they're morning chorus, and you know, the rest of the world is waking up. Cars are going, buses are going, you know, it's it's a busy time. And you are physically exhausted. Now, your bones feel heavy, your head feels heavy, you feel heavy, and your brain, well, your brain is still going a hundred miles an hour. You're looking at your phone, the message, the ding of the phone. Oh, you've got to have a look at that, got to get back to that message, got to do this. And you're going a million miles an hour. You're also still back at work thinking about that last job that you did, the last minute handover that didn't go quite right. You've got to think about the bills that have got to be paid, what's going to happen with the kids at school, lunches, and the fact that you've got to be back at work again tonight or this afternoon or in 10 hours, and you're tired, exhausted, but you're still wired because you've got so much actually going on. Now, if you're a first responder, a nurse, cop, you know this feeling only too well. So today, I'm actually gonna give you a physiological hack that is going to break that circuit and actually get the sleep that you have earned. We're gonna talk about EMDR sound science and how I use the Oslo sleep buds to help make this happen. Now, this is not a promotion for a product. Well, it is, but I'm gonna tell you why. All right. And I want you to perfectly, I want you to really understand how all of this ties in and how it works. It's really important. It's fascinating, it will make a big difference to you. Even if you are a retired police person, a retired person that's got mental health issues, this will help you. I promise you, it will make a big difference to you because of what it actually does on a scientific level. All right. So, first of all, let's talk about why it is you can't sleep. When you're on shift, you're actually in a high sympathetic arousal, or even if you've just retired or you've just come out. Now, this is your fight or flight. Your brain is always scanning for threats. And the problem is when you clock off and you get in your car to drive home, the brain doesn't have an off switch and it will stay in a state of high um hypervigilance. Now, for police, this is something that is common, right, in particular. And even nursing, you start hearing those beeps. And I'm sure as a nurse, and tell me if this is the case, because I'd be really interested, can you still hear those heart rate monitors and that beeping going even when you're driving home? I'm sure you can. I'm sure subconsciously it's still beeping in the background and you can still hear it. I'm sure. And then what happens is you lie in bed and then your mind starts this cognitive popcorn. It's just jumping from one stressor to the next. Now, what you do is you try and force sleep, but what that does is it actually creates more stress. Now, what we need to do is we're not to we need to stop trying to force sleep. And what we need to do is we need to start recruiting that nervous system and informing that nervous system that it's okay, it's safe, and you can go to sleep. Because this is how you actually create that environment, right? Now, this is where this EMDR audio comes in. Now, EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. Now, anyone that's suffered from PTSD and this is a therapy that's used, this EMDR. But what I'm focusing on is not the light side where your eyes are switching backwards and forwards. What I'm going to do is I'm going to focus on the audio side, which is specifically bilateral stimulation, right? So we've got audio tones that give you bilateral stimulation. I want you to think of it like this: the audio actually moves rhythmically from your left ear to your right ear and back and forth. And it's in your right ear one minute, then it's in your left ear, then it's in your right ear, then it's in your left ear, and it seems to be fading backwards and forwards from one side to the next. Why does this work? Well, I'll tell you. First of all, it actually taxes your working memory. Now you're thinking, no, I don't need anything else taxing it. Well, your brain has to spend a little bit of energy, which is just tracking that sound moving left to right. And what this actually does is it gives your brain something to focus on. And this leaves less bandwidth for those intrusive and racing thoughts. I'll give you an analogy. Your dog's barking and it's going crazy. What do you do? You throw at a bone. So the dog gets down on all fours, sits there, and starts chewing the bone. It's no longer barking. That's an analogy that I can use for that. Now, number two, what it also does is it increases that vagal tone. That slow and rhythmic movement at around 60 beats per minute stimulates the vagus nerve. Now, this is a brake pedal for your nervous system, and it tells your body the shift is over, you are safe, the body is safe, and it's safe to go into rest and digest mode, and we can go to sleep. So, how do we listen to this binaural beats? You can't leave your phone on your bedside table and listen to it that way. It's got to go from your left ear to your right, right ear to your left, and it's got to work that way. So you need headphones. But headphones are uncomfortable to sleep with, aren't they? Like, yeah, we can put headphones on, but who's gonna lie in bed and go to sleep with headphones on? Now, it might help you to close your shut your mind down and wire you're down, and then you can fall asleep and maybe your headphones come off. Yep, I get it. But I've got a better solution for you, all right? And that is the Oslo Sleep Buds. Now they're actually linked in the show notes so that you can go and have a look at what they are. I will tell you this. Back when I was shift working at approximately, I think, eight, nine, maybe even ten years ago, I purchased a pair of the Bose Sleep Buds. And the Bose Sleep Buds were life-changing. Now, they're Bose, they weren't cheap, all right? Make no bones about it. But they sit right in your ear. They're perfectly safe. If you're a side sleeper, it doesn't matter. They were noise cancelling and they just provided white noise. I couldn't believe the difference that these actually made. But you couldn't play audio through them, other than when I say you can play audio, you couldn't play streamed audio through them. What's actually happened is both stopped making the sleep buds, and the developers from Bose went across to Oslo and have developed the Oslo sleep buds. Now they look exactly the same, but they are so, so much better. And they're still being developed. And I want to talk about them because they really are incredible. Not cheap, and I'm gonna be up front with you there, but I've got to tell you, they're worth every single penny, every single cent that you spend on them. They are a hundred percent worth it. All right. So as I've said to you, you can't just play this through a phone speaker on your nightstand. All right, you can't. For bilateral stimulation to work, the sound must be isolated into each ear. Now, this is why I'm such a massive fan of the Oslo sleep buds, because the buds connect, you can pop them into your ear. If you're a side sleeper, you won't feel them. I guarantee to you, you won't feel them, regardless of your ear. They come with different sized um uh what would you call them? Um uh fittings that fit into your ear hole. Um, but the the bottom line is they sit within your ear so you can lie on your side. They're fantastic. Now, most earbuds are bulky and they'll fall out when you hit the pillow. The Oslo, so they're tiny and they're designed specifically for people who are side sleeper. This is perfect for us as a shift worker. Now, here is the game changer, and this is the game changer. With the new Oslo sleep buds versus what was the boast when I had them, you can actually stream your specific EMDR or bilateral playlist from Spotify via your phone into the Oslo sleep bud at a certain volume. So, what you would do is you would have this sound going into your ear at a particular volume that would drown out because the Oslo sleep buds are basically noise cancelling, and it would you turn it up to a certain level that it drowns everything out, and your brain has to concentrate on this sound going from left to right, left to right, left to right. And it's not quick, it's slow, but it's very, very it's incredible. I I can't begin to tell you how good it is. And then here's the clincher, and this is what makes it amazing. The Oslo sleep buds actually detect when you've gone to sleep and will turn off the streamer, and it switches straight to a low volume, depending on the volume that you've set, white noise, which also gives your brain something to focus on, a sound, so that you don't hear that hot water service clicking in and out, or the ducted heating clicking in and out, or the noises outside, or the car, or the bus, or or any trains or noises. I'm telling you, the Oslo sleep buds are something else. They really are. Now, what this does is it does two things it provides passive noise cancelling to drown out the neighbor's lawnmower or the bin truck, and it utilizes the benefits of white noise to keep your brain in a deep and restorative sleep state without the phone streaming all night. Because you know what it's like when you're listening to a book or a podcast or something, you can drift off, but then you wake up with that voice going, these don't. They actually switch over straight to a white noise at a different volume. I've got to tell you, they are mind-blowing. So good. All right, let's talk about it. Let's go through a routine that you can go through that will actually help you. Because if you want to maximize this, you can't go from work into your car, listen to your doof-duff music on the way home, jump into bed, and then go, right, sleep. I can't sleep. You need to follow a routine. So let's go through a bit of a routine. So with the transition, I highly recommend that people get changed out of uniform or scrubs or whatever at work. What this does is it tells your brain we are done. Now, I know you won't realize this, and a lot of people will go, oh, they'll chuck their jacket on and they'll run home or they'll do whatever. But getting changed actually gives you an opportunity to put a boundary in place between work and home. And it gives you an opportunity to relax on the way home. Get into the car and drive home with just a low music. We don't turn our Duff-Duff music up flat chat and drive home at speed where we've really got to concentrate. What we do is we keep the windows up, we keep the music low. Listen to something like, I don't know, even piano music or something like that, something that's calming. How important is sleep to you? It is really important. What we've got to do is we've got to listen, we've got to avoid listening to heavy radio or heavy podcasts or heavy music. We want to be calming our mind. Now, we also need to put a buffer in place. We need to get home and then we need to have zero blue light. We need to dim the lights, have a small protein-rich snack, right? Something small, like I have Proat's, and then go and have a nice hot shower. The hot actually brings the heat to the outside of your body, and then as you cool when you get out while you're wet, it actually cools your body and signals to the body to sleep. Then what we do is we get into bed. Now, I then pop in my Oslo sleep buds, and then we fire up the bilateral stimulation playlist, the EMDR playlist. Now, I've actually linked my playlist that I use in the show notes for you so that you can actually just open that and use that. It's got like 10 or 11 hours of EMDR that will just play. Now, you're not going to be awake for 11 hours, but it just gives you 11 hours of it until you go to sleep, and then the Oslo sleep buds will just switch over to the white noise. So we want to put that on. And then we want to lie there, and while that is playing backwards and forwards in the darkness, we want to just focus on breathing in for four seconds and breathing out for eight seconds, breathing in for four seconds and breathing out for eight. Whatever you do, we need to control that breathing. Control it. And the outward breath through the mouth as an audible sigh needs to be louder. Sorry, needs to be longer than the inward breath through the nose. All right. So what we want to do is we want to just spend that five minutes just practicing that slow nasal breathing. Feel the breath move into your body at a count of four, and then just feel it leaving your body and the stress leaving your body to a count of eight. At the same time, I want you to feel the sound moving from your left ear to your right, from the left ear to the right. Now, another important point for me to make for you is this. Do not try and stop your thoughts. Your thoughts are going to come. But then what you got to do is just let them float off, but come back and go, oh, I'm not focusing on the breath. Oh, I'm not focusing on the audio. And then when the next thoughts come, just let it go. Don't fight the thoughts. Don't fight it. Just let it drift off. But just go, oh, I need to focus on the breath again. This will exercise that pathway and make it so much stronger. Now, as the sound starts to tax your brain as it's going left and right, you'll feel that wired feeling start to completely dissolve. And it does. Trust me. Let the Oslo's take over afterwards. As you go to sleep, you won't realize because you'll be listening to the EMDR, you'll be doing your breath work, you'll go to sleep. And then when you wake up, it'll just be white noise. It is incredible. I can't begin to tell you just how good it is. Now, that's what I highly recommend for anybody that is wired, tired but wired. Anybody that wakes up tired, if you've had even if you've had seven or eight hours sleep, if you're waking up tired, then this is a reason. Now, this the link to the playlist that I use is in the show notes. And the link to the Oslo sleep buds is also in the show notes as well. When you see the the Oslo sleep buds, you'll look at them and you'll think, oh, is it worth the money? I'm going to be categorically very clear with you. As a shift worker, if you don't have a set of quality earbuds like these that can play that EMDR sound to wind you down and then switch over to white noise, are you even a shift worker? Like seriously. You've got to do this. I highly recommend it. I don't talk about anything as strongly as I would talk about the mantle sleep mask and the Oslo sleep buds and creatine. The three things that I would talk about for shift workers massively. But these Oslo sleep buds are literally next level incredible. Shift work is hard enough, it really is, without fighting your own biology all the time. And we live continually in this sympathetic side of our autonomic nervous system. And we do, it's important that we flick it over to this parasympathetic side and close these loops and actually calm ourselves down. We need to use tools. I know it sounds like I just push products, but I'm going to be quite clear with you. Shift workers need all the help that they can get. They do. It's not normal to sleep during the day. Make no bones about it. It is not normal to have circadian misalignment. Let's be clear on that as well. You need all the help you can get. You need to control temperature, you need to control dark, and you need to control sound. And the only way that you can do that is with products and technology. It is clear that's it. All right. And I want to be quite clear with you that that is something that you have to do. All right. And you do. Invest in your rest, invest in your sleep. Because you cannot pour from an empty cup, especially when there's people's lives that are depending on you being sharp, alert, and are looking for the best of you all the time. Okay? Don't forget, the links are in the show notes. If this helped you, can you please do me a favor? Share this podcast with a colleague who may be struggling with sleep, that may be struggling with their own routines and um and really wired up with some poor mental health, maybe. I'm Roger Sutherland. I really want you to try this and sleep well. I'll talk to you 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 ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.