Supplements Are Not The Foundation

Light Diet And Circadian Reset

True Darkness For Deep Sleep

Movement As A Daily Anchor

Muscle As Your Metabolic Engine

Whole Foods Beat Takeaway Habits

Circadian Fasting And Hunger Control

Social Connection To Lower Stress

Nature Time For Nervous System Calm

Eight Basics Before Any Supplement

Subscribe Rate Review And Website

SPEAKER_00 1:41

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. Now I have a question for you. Have I lost my way? All right, because no one is reviewing the podcast at all. No one is rating it, and the listens are cut down by half at the moment. So, for those of you that are listening, or if you haven't listened to an episode for a while and you are now listening back to one, can you do me a favor? Let me know what it is, what it is, because I've got to tell you, the social media engagement podcast has been one of the passion projects of mine. Social media interaction and everything to do with social media kills me at the moment. And it's made it really, really difficult. So the podcast is something that I have always enjoyed doing. And now it has tanked, and it's tanking really bad. So if you're someone who listens to it and you haven't rated it, I would beg you please to rate it and let me know that you still want me to do it, or it's going to be another project that I'm just going to shelve because there's literally, well, that no one's listening to it. Um, and it's getting down to the stage where the numbers are dropping. And I'm up to about 360 episodes of the podcast now. Um, it's a lot of episodes. It's a lot of work. I'm eternally grateful to everybody who is actually listening to it. What do you want to hear? What do you want to know? What is it you want the podcast to deliver to you? Um, there's so much content in this podcast. In fact, if you started episode one and you work your way through, you'd actually be thriving in every way of shift work. But of course, you can't do that. And I get that. There will be some people that started at the beginning and are still working their way through it and probably listen to most episodes. And if you're one of those, let me know. I'll send you the straitjacket. Honestly. But anyway, look, I really wanted to um uh talk about that. I'm gonna keep these episodes short and sweet. I'm gonna shorten the episodes down so that they are a little snapshot from now on, um, other than if I do any interviews. And I haven't done any interviews for a while, and there's reasons behind that, and I will get back to them. But um the thing is, I want to keep these short and sweet. So let's get into today's. Today's episode's a really important one, and it's an episode that is actually coming out of my DMs on social media because a lot of people ask me about certain supplements. And one thing that people have forgotten is supplements are that, they're a supplement. And a lot of people are trying to put a band-aid on an amputation with a supplement. They don't have all of the basics right, and when they don't have the basics right, what actually happens is by taking supplements, you think, oh, this doesn't work, but it's because you haven't got the basics right. So before you buy any supplements at all, A, from the outset, I'm going to tell you I literally only recommend three supplements to people, and every one of my clients starts off on these and they get the difference out of it. There's nothing to do with sleep. Sleep is the most important pillar of your health. But the supplements that I recommend are vitamin D, fish oil, or omega-3s, because if you're a vegetarian, a vegetarian, you can get algae oil, which covers those omega-3s as well. And the other one is creatine, incredibly important for shift workers. In fact, it's incredibly important for everyone and females in particular. But what I wanted to go through today was the eight things that you have to get right before you put your hand in your pocket to spend any money on supplements. And the good thing is, these are all free, every one of them. It's just a matter of making an informed decision, all right? So let's get to the first one. This is the thing that where most shift workers go wrong and go wrong in a very, very big way, and that is they don't get their light diet right. Now you might now no, no, no, no, no, you're not gonna sit there and eat a bowl of smashed up light globes, all right? That's not what it's about. That's certainly not gonna help. So what we need is we need daylight. Now, I say day light. Now that doesn't mean inside with light, and it doesn't mean inside under artificial light. This means daylight because of what daylight actually delivers to us. Now, daylight delivers really, really good spectrum of light to our body, but most importantly, it's got that 480 nanometers of blue light in it, which resets our circadian clock. Now, this actually helps with our hormone timing, it helps with our metabolism, and it helps with our energy regulation. And one of the main reasons why shift workers feel so out of sorts is literally because they don't have their light diet right. They're getting light at the wrong times during the day or night, and it's not giving their circadian rhythm a position to anchor, and that biological clock is still running. And what you're seeing and doing doesn't match with the biological clock, and this is what we call social jet lag. All right. So the way that we restore this is we get morning sunlight, morning daylight, okay? So as early as possible when you get up. Now I'm not telling you to set an alarm to be up at 6 a.m., right? But we do need to be anchoring it at roughly the same time every single day. And this is what will make you feel better. We need to get as much bright daytime light outside during the day as is possible. So we don't just get up, go for a little walk, and then camp on the couch for the whole day. We need to take breaks and get outside. Even me here in the studio, I will go outside and sit outside for five, 10 minutes at regular intervals during the day so that I'm actually getting daylight. Because this is what tells my circadian rhythm where it's at in time and space. So getting outside, getting outside underrated. Daylight on your skin, sunlight on your skin actually helps with the production of melatonin in the body and also helps to re-anchor that clock ready for the night. So that's light. That's the first one. The second one, darkness. We need to get darkness. Now you might think, well, we sort of have to, we turn the light out. No, what we need is complete darkness because darkness actually triggers our sleep biology, right? It when there's no presence of any light whatsoever, the body goes, okay, so it's dark, we need to elevate and release melatonin. So this is when the melatonin release actually occurs. It's when our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system, actually downregulates into a parasympathetic side, which is the rest and digest side of it. And this is where all of our cellular repair occurs. This is where the brain detoxifies. This is where melatonin being released and running through our body is an antioxidant, the most powerful antioxidant, which is actually hunting down, attacking, and eradicating cancer cells in our body at the same time. Now, the way we restore darkness is obviously we've got to reduce artificial light at night as much as we can. I've spoken at length about changing the lights in our own house. We have zero blue light in our house now after dark. The difference is enormous. You don't eat as much, you don't snack, you're ready for bed by nine o'clock, you sleep, you sleep really well, you get good restorative sleep. Don't underestimate the impact that artificial light at night has. Your bedroom needs to be pitch black. Now I don't mean dark, I don't mean darkish, I mean pitch black. That means the LEDs, those little LED lights on your TV that you got in your room, for whatever reason you've got a goddamn TV in your room. I want you to remember your bed is for three things. They all start with S. But one is sleep, the other one is sickness, and the other one starts with S and it's very pleasurable. And that's all your bed and bedroom is for. We don't lie in bed watching TV because what that does is it actually sets us up for poor sleep. Full stop. We need to have a dark bedroom, we need to avoid screens before bed as well, all sorts of screens, any electronic screen. I'll give you a little hint too. Hold your arm out at full length, turn your hand to face your eyes, and if you can actually see your hand, it's too light. And you need to be doing something like using a sleep mask or getting blackout blinds and totally darkening your room. As I said, all those LED lights that are providing light in your room, they need to go. Get rid of them, cover them, do whatever you got to do. You will be amazed at the difference it makes by just getting rid of any light in your room at all. It makes a huge difference. That's number two. Number three is we've got to get moving. We're gonna get movement. This activates our metabolic signaling in our body. Remember, we have three main zekevers, which are what actually triggers and sets our circadian clock, our internal biological clock. One of them is light, and the another one is movement. Now, what this does is it activates our metabolic signaling, it helps with our glucose regulation, it's incredibly important for our cardiovascular health, and it actually helps us with inflammatory balance in our body as well. Sitting around is not good for us. We need to get moving. How can we fix this? I highly recommend, particularly shift workers, that you get up as early as possible and before your brain realizes what you're doing, get out and go round the block for a walk. And this will be life-changing for you. I know you can't see it and you think I can't do that. Yes, you can, and it will make a massive difference to you. Just get out and do a walk in the daylight so that you're getting that blue light in your eyes, you're getting all the other light on your skin. Even daylight has infrared in it, which penetrates through your clothing and activates cell metabolism, which is really important for energy production and things like that. It makes a big difference getting that infrared. Move frequently, and we've got to reduce this sedentary sedentariness, flopping on the couch and scrolling. It is not doing us any good in any way whatsoever. The next one we need is we need to maintain muscle mass, lean muscle mass, which is muscle loading, all right? This is our body's metabolic engine. Remember, the more lean tissue we have, the more we can eat, the more we metabolize and metabolize well. Actually, muscle loading or resistance training literally helps us with insulin sensitivity. It helps us with strength. You want to be someone who can flip that mattress, you want to be someone who can move that bed or move that furniture. You want to be able to pick up all those shopping bags and carry them all in at once. Super important. Lots and lots and lots of evidence around resistance training and the importance of resistance training. I need you to understand it doesn't mean you've got to put 120 kilos on your back and squat it, all right? It just means resistance. So you can do body weight exercise, you can just grab a one kilo dumbbell or two kilos, anything. But by bending those muscles and using those muscles, it actually increases that insulin sensitivity, which means we burn the glucose out of our bloodstream, stops it from getting parked as body fat. It helps us to remind our body that we need that lean muscle. You do not want to be the person that's got the chrome rails on either side of the toilet to help you to get up from it. You want to be able to stand up and you want to be able to walk comfortably, and you don't want to have issues if you fall or you have problems like that. All right, because I'm telling you, once you lose it, it's very, very hard to get back. The way we restore this is we do resistance training, we can do body weight exercise, and we start with lighter weights, and we can actually build up to it because the more we build up, the more muscle we actually build. Remember, the more lean tissue we have, the healthier we are. And not only that, but the better we are in our brain, our body, all around. And it just helps us to be fitter for longer and the more we can eat. The next one is our nutrition quality. It's easy to reach for Uber, it's easy to get takeaway, but it's calorically dense and it's full of rubbish. This really does provide biological building for us if we have good nutritious food going into our system. It assists us with cellular repair, it helps with energy production, it helps with hormone synthesis, it proteins in it actually break down and sense proteins. They're the building blocks of our body. It is incredibly important. I want you to look around at people and when you see overweight people and try and convince yourself that they ate too many fruits or vegetables. Never. You cannot eat too many fruits and vegetables in your life. You're not no one, no one on this planet got fat eating fruits and vegetables. All right. It's simple. It's it's the other rubbish that people are actually eating. Highly processed, um, high carb, high-fat um foods that are just insaturated fat, just not good for you. We need to be very careful. The more nutritious food or nutrient-dense food that you eat, the more you crave of it. You turn your gut around. The reason why you're craving all those highly palatable carbohydrates and fats is because that's the way you've conditioned your gut. All right. So we need to change it. To restore this, we have whole foods. All right. We want protein and we want fiber and we need to reduce those ultra-processed foods in our diet. I'm not saying you've got to eliminate them, I'm saying you've got to reduce them, all right? Remember, 80% nutritious, 20% soul food. The next one is our hunger and fasting, because this helps to activate our metabolic switching, right? So, what we want to do is by actually going through this eating and then fasting through periods. And I'm not talking about doing intermittent fasting, particularly on night shift. We need to be eating during our daylight hours, which is really important. And evidence is very supportive for metabolic health that we front load all of our calories during the day. More calories at the beginning of the day, less calories later in the day, and we need to fast overnight. We need to avoid this constant grazing of food, eating snacks all the time, eating foods all the time, and not eating nutrient-dense foods. Nutrient-dense foods at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time, the normal day walker times are going to make a huge difference. And I will say this and quite clearly, we need to maintain at this overnight fast. We need to stop eating overnight, even as a shift worker. And if you want to know how to structure the overnight fast, you can go to my website, which is a healthyshift.com. And on that website, if you scroll down to the um through the page, about three-quarters of the way down, you can download my circadian fast ebook. It is free. You can get that, and you can actually learn how we structure the overnight fast and why it's so important. Another thing that's super important for us, and the next one is social connection. Don't underestimate the importance of a social life. Now, I'm not talking about going out, partying, and clubbing and all the rest of it. It's literally just that social connection. This literally helps to regulate our stress physiology. It's super important. It's extremely good for our mental health. It's actually really good for our immune resistance because we're around other people all the time. And it's really good for longevity. All these blue zones have a very, very strong social connection, whether they're out walking during the day, working during the day, whether whatever, a lot of that. Not sitting at home, scrolling on your phone. That is not a social connection. All right. That is not doing you any good. And if you think it is, then you are kidding yourself. If you think, oh no, this is my downtime, I need this, you've got a problem. Don't use that as an excuse. Have a look at yourself. Zoom out and have a look at yourself and see if you think that you're doing the right thing. The way we restore a social connection is we actually have meaningful relationships. I talk about people, certain people in your life, that if they, if you look, here's a good example. If you've got people in your life that when the phone rings and you look down at Sam calling, and the first thing you think of is, oh God, you don't need that person in your life. It's that simple. What you do is you just untie the boats. Very, very simple. Just untie the boat. You don't have to tell them you don't want to borrow them anymore. Just untie the boats. Just gradually disappear out of their life and leave it at that because you will be so much better for it. Share activities, do things together, not just sit there and scroll or text each other across a table, for God's sake, right? So go out, go and do common things that you actually enjoy doing and reduce the isolation of being on your own. Nature. You're ready for the happy clap aside? The original human environment, right? Really important. That green light. You've never seen anyone go out for a walk in a forest and then come back and want to kill someone. All right. It doesn't happen that way because of that green light and yellow light that's around people. Green light is very, very soothing on our uh autonomic nervous system. It helps to put us into a really nice, calm, parasympathetic state. Not to mention the fact that there's really good oxygen in the air around forest or in nature. It's excellent for our nervous system regulation, super important and very, very good for our immune function because of the uh microbes that we pick up while we're out and about. And it's really good for our psychological health. And I don't have to tell you that, you know this. Anyone that's out and about and walking around knows damn well that when you've been out for a walk and you've been out for a hike in nature, how much better you feel all around. So the way we restore this is we get time outdoors, we get natural landscapes, we get reduced artificial environments, and we feel heaps better. Now they're the eight. That's all you got to do. And as you saw and heard, most of them are free, other than the food that you've got to buy. Everything's free: daylight, movement, green light, you know, all of these things, social connection, they're all free for you to do. And I highly, highly encourage everyone to actually look at these. I'm doing a post on social media, which has gone out now. And this post actually talks about what you need and why. And you can save it and work on these things. Don't lose sight of what's important to you and your health if in as a shift worker, if you are not someone who is engaging in all of these things that I've talked about. Don't go out and buy supplements or walk into a pharmacy or or anywhere, drugstore or whatever it is that you're out doing out no matter where you are in the world. Don't walk in because there are rows and rows and rows of colored bottles of supplements that will all promise to do something. I will tell you this: if you don't have those eight basic things that I just spoke about then in place, you're gonna have a massive problem. And you will it you will be just literally throwing money away. Now, this is really important. That's it. I'm wrapping it up today. Get those eight things right, save yourself a fortune on supplements. You know why? Because you won't need them. They're garbage. All right, thank you for listening. I really appreciate you, and I will be talking to you on 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.