Coaching Offer And Real Life Rosters

Why Caffeine Feels Like Energy

Half Life Stacking And Hydration

Caffeine Changes Sleep Quality

The 12 O’Clock Cut Off Rule

Energy Drinks Tolerance And Recovery

Subscribe Review And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 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 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. Today, a very important topic: caffeine and shift work. No, I'm not here to take your caffeine away. So stay tuned and learn all about caffeine and shift work and how you can best use it and when we need to stop using it. All right, so first of all, welcome to the show. I'm your guide, Roger Sutherland, as you know, veteran shift worker of over 40 years with Victoria Police here in Melbourne and Victoria. And I've made it my mission to support shift workers as much as I possibly can by combining what the current research tells us around topics and being in a position to be able to apply that to a practical and lived experience. All right. So I don't just stand there as a researcher and go, this is what you do, and you're sitting there going, no, no, no, no, that doesn't work at all. Because generally it doesn't. So what I do is I look at the research and I think, how can that work or how can we make this work in our actual, actual real life shift working environments? Because everyone's different. Everyone's on different rosters, everyone's coping with shift work differently. Some people are single and their life is so much more simplistic. Some people are married with kids, husbands, wives that are non-shift workers, they're trying to balance everything around. It's very complicated. It's an extremely complicated thing. And all I'm trying to do is I'm trying to bridge it so that you can take bits and pieces out of everything that I do to find what works for you. But remember, this is not bespoke. This is literally general information for everyone, for you to be able to listen to and take bits and pieces out of it. However, I will tell you this I do coach shift workers and I coach you where I meet you, where you are actually at. In your life, your social life, your home life, your work life, no matter what your roster is, what your home life is like, what your social life is like, I meet you where you are actually at and help you. And if this is something that you would like, or something that you think I really do need to get some help for some longevity, because in fairness, you're not educated on how to go about doing shift work. And I basically simplify it right down for everybody. Everyone that I've worked with, I've simplified it right down, and people have gone, I can't believe how easy it is or how simple it is. And the reason why you're listening to this podcast is because you want to learn. You want to learn as much as you possibly can because you weren't taught. And I'm here to do that. So you can reach out. It's a free 15-minute phone call, uh, sorry, Zoom meeting, and that's it. There's no obligation at the end, but I will show you how I can actually help you and assess to see if we would be a good fit for coaching moving forward. And if you go to the show notes and go down to the bottom, you can actually book it. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, all coaching is done online through my um through online uh through Zooms and conversations and things that we do, and it makes such a big difference to all shift workers, and everybody walks away going, Oh my God, I wish I'd done this years ago. It makes such a big difference. The goal is to give you more energy outside of your job. All right. Let's not worry about what happens inside the job. That's up to them to educate you, although I'm trying to reach into this space. But what I'm trying to do is to give you, the shift worker, more energy outside of your job. Because when you are thriving outside of your job, it's so much easier to go to work and work and be more productive while you are actually at work. All right, that's enough said. Go into the show notes, book that meeting with me. It's with me personally, and you and I will have a conversation. No obligation. Let's get on with today's episode: caffeine and shift work. Now, if you're a shift worker, I know that caffeine is part of the job. Honestly, I'm not here to take caffeine off you. But you do need to understand what it is actually doing to your brain and what it is actually doing to your sleep. Because most people think they're using caffeine, but I will tell you this in reality, caffeine is using you. There you go. That's been said. So thanks for listening, and I'll catch you on the next show. No, only joking. It's important to understand this. Right. Let's start at the very beginning so that you understand. As you're sitting there slamming Daniel White Monsters, or you're drinking your third cup uh coffee for the day, let's understand what caffeine actually does. First of all, I want you to remember this first and foremost. Caffeine does not give you energy. All right. It's very clear that you need to understand this. Getting up and having that caffeine in the morning is not giving you energy. I know you think it does, but this is the first thing for you to understand. It doesn't create energy in the body. What it does is it actually blocks a signal. And that signal is called adenosine. Now, adenosine builds up in your brain. It's a chemical, and it builds up in your brain, it runs around in your bloodstream, lands in the brain, and the longer you're awake, the more adenosine builds up on your brain. And it is one of the main drivers of sleep pressure, which is that pressure that you feel to go to sleep. Hence why you don't drive when you're chronically fatigued, because it can actually give you micro naps. We've got to be very careful. Now, the more adenosine you've got in your bloodstream, then the more tired you feel. What does caffeine do? Well, caffeine actually imitates the adenosine molecule and it blocks, it goes to the adenosine receptor and it blocks adenosine from attaching to that receptor on the brain. So your brain can no longer see how tired you actually are. That's how it works. You feel alert. But the only reason why you feel alert is because you can't see. Your brain can't see how tired you are. But something about your physiology has changed. That fatigue is still there. All you've done is it's like turning off the warning light in the car. It's like driving along and the fuel light comes on and you think, oh, and it's flashing on the dashboard, and you hit the okay button and that fuel light goes off and you just keep on driving. It hasn't changed what's going on in the engine. You're still running out of fuel, but what you've done is you've just turned the warning light off. And this is where people think that they're actually beating biology. You're not. What you're doing is you're delaying it. And it will always come back because once that caffeine wears off, it falls away from the adenosine receptor, and all that adenosine flushes into the brain, and that's where we end up with those micro naps that can kill us if we're driving. Now, caffeine is absorbed very quickly. You can actually feel the effects, and you know when you first get up in the morning, remembering you're hydrating before you're caffeinating, aren't you? You make sure you get that 500 mil of water in first because your body's craving that more than the caffeine. And in fact, that will get you going a lot more than the caffeine will, um, in more ways than one. Anyway, the peak levels of caffeine hit at around about 60 minutes. You'll feel it within 15 to 45, but it peaks at around 60 minutes. But the real issue is literally how long it stays in your system. Now, the average half-life of caffeine is around about five to seven hours now. This is what we know. Now, what that means is after five to seven hours, no matter what you've drunk, you still have half of that in your system. After another five to seven hours, you still have a quarter of it in your system. So it stacks. Now, let's layer this into shift work. You're not just dealing with caffeine. What you're doing is you're dealing with the circadian disruption on top of this as well. So 14 hours later, you've still got a quarter of that caffeine in your system. It's important to understand this. Caffeine and sleep. And this is where it really matters. Because caffeine doesn't just make it harder to fall asleep. What it does is it actually changes the structure of sleep. And research shows that caffeine reduces that deep restorative sleep that we need. Why do we need it? Because this is when the physical repair actually occurs. This is where the brain flushes. This is where it gets rid of the toxins. This is where it signals repair functions. What it does also is it reduces that slow wave sleep. And that's where the recovery occurs. It can also disrupt REM sleep. Now, this is where your cognitive and emotional reset occurs while you're sleeping. So you might fall asleep, no doubt about it. I know heaps of people that can have an affogado or they can have an espresso after dinner, and then off they go to sleep, no problems at all. But the quality of sleep is worse. And this is the exact trap that shift workers fall into. I can sleep after caffeine, yes, but you are not recovering properly. So how late is too late to drink caffeine? And this is where people get it so wrong. We have new research, recent research, that shows that caffeine can impact on subsequent sleep up to 8.8 hours later. That's almost nine hours. And let's say, let me just say that the researchers research this impact from just 107 milligrams. Let me tell you what 107 milligrams of caffeine looks like. It's like one small strong coffee or a standard instant coffee in 250 mil of water. That's one, one coffee. And how many of those are you having? Keep that in mind. 8.8 hours, almost nine hours later for one coffee. Now let's look at pre-workouts. Most pre-workouts have around about 200 mils of caffeine in it. And just to be clear, that's the only active ingredient in a pre-workout that is actually giving you any benefit at all. Because there is research that shows that caffeine is enormously beneficial for um training and adaptations in training as well. Very, very important. Not very important, but it's enormously beneficial. That's why I laugh when I see people taking non-STEM pre-workouts. And I did a podcast on this. Non-STEM pre-workout, what you've done is you've taken out the only ingredient that serves any purpose in a pre-workout at all. And that's caffeine. Keep that in mind. Now, 200 milligrams of caffeine in a pre-workout. Research shows that this impacts on subsequent sleep up to 13.2 hours later. Think about that. 13.2 hours later. So if you're training after work and then trying to sleep, you've already made that harder before your head's the pillow. Now that's not a discipline issue. That's actually biology. So that you understand. Now that you understand how caffeine works on the brain and the impact that it's actually having, you might say, oh yeah, I can take my pre-workout. Yeah, no worries at all. And I go to the gym after work. I do an afternoon shift, take my pre-workout, go to the gym, finish in the gym, go to bed. Yeah, I sleep, no problems. But you wake up. Or you're not getting that deep sleep. You don't get that slow wave sleep. You don't get the REM sleep, you don't get the deep sleep. This is all very, very important to help you so that when you wake up, you wake up refreshed and recovered. So here's how I simplify this. What I do is I put in place a 12 o'clock rule. It doesn't matter what shift you're on, stop caffeine at 12. So if you wake at 6 a.m. for day shift, finish at midday. If you're on night shift, cut it at midnight. It's really simple. It's non-confusing, and it's a really simple rule to apply. No caffeine after 12. The 12 o'clock rule. This gives you a buffer. And what it does is it's respecting how long caffeine actually stays in your system. So how can we use caffeine properly? Because caffeine is not the enemy. It's very important part of our shift working life purely because of how it functions on our brain. Caffeine is not the enemy, but poor timing actually is. So if you use caffeine early in your wake-up window, not right across your whole shift, and definitely not close to sleep, also understand this. Those zero calorie energy drinks, they're not giving you energy. Remember this. Zero calorie equals zero energy. 160 milligrams of that white monster energy drink is not energy. What it is, is it's just blocking the adenosine receptor. Yep, and I know you go, oh yeah, I know, but it tastes good. It does taste good, but it's extremely expensive. Caffeine. It's stimulation. There's absolutely no fuel in it at all. None. I can't call it an energy drink because there's no energy in it. It's got zero calories. Calories are energy. Caffeine doesn't give you energy. I've just explained to you. All it does is blocks the adenosine receptor. All it does is blocks the fatigue signal harder. And the more you rely on it, the more your tolerance builds, which leads to needing more. Which means it impacts on you more, and then you need more of it. It impacts on you more, and then you need more again. And then it becomes a massive problem. So here's the real truth, and this is the part that most people don't want to hear. Keep this in mind. The less caffeine you drink, the less you need it. Because your sleep improves, your recovery improves, your baseline energy comes up. And when you do use caffeine, it actually works instead of just keeping you functional. Because the more caffeine that you have, the more tolerance to it you build. And that's where you've got to be super careful with caffeine. I hope this episode helped you. I really do. You don't need to quit caffeine, but you do need to really seriously respect it because you're not beating biology, I'll tell you right now, you're just borrowing from it. And eventually, it collects. Thanks 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.