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. My name is Roger Sutherland. As you've heard, a veteran law enforcement officer. I was a police officer here in Melbourne, Australia, um, for a period of 40 years and I did 24-7 shift work for that entire time. Uh I recertified as a nutritionist when I was 55 because I thought people gaining weight, there's problems, it's obviously got to be nutrition. Well, I certified as a nutritionist, and over the last seven years I have deep dived into all sorts of the issues that are go around shift work. Recently I took a European holiday from Melbourne, and to get anywhere from Australia, it is basically a long haul flight. And I flew Emirates to fly to Rome. So I did a uh long haul leg or an ultra-long range, I believe they call it, from Melbourne to Dubai, and then I took uh I was in transit for three hours and then I flew to Rome. And we did the reverse a month later. We flew with Emirates, and I'm gonna say this quite categorically. I could not speak more highly for the cruise on those two flights. Now, I'm gonna be brutally honest here. I look at cabin crews with a completely different eye to what majority of people do, because I'm looking at it as what could possibly be, or I would argue, could long haul flights be the most brutal of all shift work jobs. And I would argue yes, particularly because of what I have understood, learned, what I watched, what I saw. And I didn't want to be that creepy guy that was sitting in the seat watching all the cabin crew, but honestly, I was watching how you went about what you were doing because I was thinking of it biologically and the impacts that it's actually had on you. Now, when I got back, I was so highly impressed. And I admit I had a conversation. I was standing at the back of the aircraft, stretching my legs at one stage, and I was approached by one of the cabin crew, and I had a conversation with them, and I'm not going to identify who they are, but I was highly impressed. Um, it was just a really lovely exchange, and we spoke for about 45 minutes. Well, he said hello, and I probably spoke for 45 minutes because I was just fascinated and I wanted to help as much as I can possibly help. So, what I've done when I got back here, I actually put a QA out on my social media to ask any long haul for a series of questions and answers. What are your biggest battles? And what I've done is I have combined all of those and I have created this podcast to guide cabin crews with advice to help them because I know that you get your e-learning packages. I understand that. But the first thing that I want is I really do want people, everyone listening to this podcast, to get a bit of a handle on what it is that goes on for these cabin crews. We from the outside, or anyone that's got a friend who follows their friend on social media who is cabin crew, thinks that they have the most glamorous job in the world because one week they're in Rome, then they're in Melbourne, they're in New York, next minute they're in Paris, and they're taking all the photos. But I know better because I know how difficult it is to get there for that photo because it is brutal. Let's go through a few of those things and let's go through and flag what cabin crew actually go through to get to and to come from a flight. It all looks glamorous, doesn't it? It looks fantastic. And I'm gonna say this I think Emirates uniforms, I think they look spectacular. I think the girls look amazing and the guys do too. And I'm sure the people that are listening go, oh God, we hate that uniform. I understand, I get it. But as a perspective, as a uh client or as a passenger, I think it looks great. And I think you girls and guys look fantastic, always smiling, always made up, and then there's the pressure of the uniform. Now, getting to the flight, boarding passengers, post-flight, what do you deal with? Let's have a look at that. So it all looks very glamorous, but let's be brutally honest here so that people understand. For cabin crew to get to a flight, they have to be at an airport at a particular time. And it's generally two to three hours before the flight actually takes off. Keep that in mind. They have to get from home to there. When they're I'm talking about from the home in Dubai, and they have to get through a gate at a particular time. And if they don't, then there's discipline. There's none of this, oh sorry, I'm five minutes late, bad luck. It's bad luck, and then there's discipline. All right. So that is an enormous anxiety and pressure that is put onto those cabin crew. So how do you think that impacts on their sleep going into it? Then they have to go through and they sit down and they have meetings where they discuss the flight, where they're going, what they're doing, all the passenger requirements, who's on board, who's not, what's going on, um, and all of those sort of things. So they have a meeting with the cabin managers and all together. And then they have to go and prepare the aircraft for the flight. They're already on the aircraft long before you are. While we're sitting around tapping our feet, playing on our phones and whinging and complaining about the fact that we've had to go through security. Remember, they've had to do all of that as well and get there first. So they get there first, and there they are standing there as we finally get boarded and start walking down, and then they're standing there smiling and showing everyone to their particular seats. Now, I want to talk about that particular activity in itself. For God's sake, people, get yourselves ready so that when you get to your seat, you can throw your bag up and sit the hell down. Honestly, the people that stand there fussing around and going through bags and trying to get themselves sorted and shuffling around and standing in the oil, you are holding up that aircraft. Get your shit together and get on the plane. Get it ready before you get on the plane. Stand there in the lounge, get your stuff organized, get your headphones out, get your pillow, get your blanket, get whatever you need, but get it out and get it ready so that you aren't fussing around. Get on the plane and get into your seat. Did I just hear a clap from my cabin crew? Because I gotta tell you, I find it the most frustrating thing ever when people are just standing there fussing around. So let's move on from that as well. They board passengers, they're on the flight, they have to sit in the jump seat, they have to prepare the aircraft for takeoff. And I want people to understand as well that is a very stressful time for cabin crew. While they sit like they've got everyone ready, seat belts, chairs in the upright position, trays, blah, blah, blah. Takeoff and landing is an extremely, extremely stressful time for all the crew on the plane, from the pilot right the way through to all of the cabin crew. If anything's ever going to go wrong, that is when it will go wrong, and that's when they have to jump to action immediately. So they are on at that time. Believe me, they are on. And I want you to remember that these cabin crew are not just glamorous waitresses. These people have gone through a high amount of training to get to where they've got to. They've had to learn all the safety procedures, all the emergency procedures. They've had to learn everything as well. So while you just think they're just glamorous waiters walking up and down bringing you tea, coffee, water, and some food, remember the training that they've gone through to get there as well. Really important that people note that and the pressures that they are under through that takeoff and landing. They have to be there to guide because you know you're going to be hysterical if something happens and you need a calm head in a storm, all right? And they are going to be it. Let's talk about what they have to deal with through the flight as well, and also the entire time. Now, I wore a uniform for 40 years, and I know that as soon as a uniform appears, everyone's looking at it. They're looking at how you look in the uniform, they're looking at how clean the uniform is, they're looking at whether you've iron the uniform. Now imagine what it's like when you've got 300 or 400 people sitting there just looking directly at you all the time. All the time. How's that for pressure? All right. So you might look glamorous. They look glamorous, don't they? But everyone's looking. Oh, are they clean? Is the uniform tidy? Yes, Juice's carrying a bit of weight. He's not very in very good shape. Imagine that. This is what people are thinking as things are going along. And that is pressure personified for them as well. They're in the public eye, they're walking through and they're wearing uniform and everyone's looking at them. And body image is another thing that they have to cope with and deal with. Males, females, all of them. As they're walking through, they're feeling the pressure from that as well. I've got no doubt about it. The other thing that I want to acknowledge as well is while we look at all those people, you've got to remember you all work in an environment where you have managers, supervisors, and uh colleagues that you work with. You know as well as I do that you don't all get on as well. And you don't, it doesn't all just absolutely click like a well-all machine. There are people that you don't feel like are pulling their weight. There are managers that you just can't, they've got really weird ideas and you can't work out why they're doing what they're doing. They have to deal with that as well. And remember, you can't get away from it. You're in a combined steel tube for a probably 14 or 15 hours, and you're having to work under that as well. So they're dealing with that at the same time. Now, that's just what we're looking at, all right, and what they're dealing with. But then we've got to get to what they're dealing with biologically as well, what they're dealing with physically, going through those time zone changes, the nutrient timing, when to eat, what to do, how to go about it, the light exposure, which is having an impact on them biologically as well. How do we go about this? And this is what I want to actually address today to help people or to help the cabin crews to actually understand from a perspective of someone who gets it, right? Someone who has been through a lot of this as well. So that is addressing the cabin crew. I want to congratulate Emirates. I've actually written quite a lengthy email into Emirates on the back of the two flights that I had to acknowledge how good the crews were and to give positive feedback to the managers and also to the crews. They were outstanding. They were just happy, they were up and about. We just landed a really good crew, and I thought that was it from the roam to Dubai league, but my goodness me, then we had the next league. And long haul flights are difficult, and they did it and they crushed it again on the next flight and a completely different crew. So it just put Emirates very high for me. I won't fly any other airline. I'll just say that quite categorically. I think if I can get anywhere with Emirates, I'll be going with Emirates from here on in. So that's that. Right, now let's move on. Let's look at this as to what we can do to support the Emirates cabin crew staff. Let's look at what works biologically. Now, I want you to keep this foremost in your mind. All right. Sleep, light, nutrient timing, and movement. Now, these all are the priority. These are all the things that you have to think about straight away. Sleep, light, nutrient timing, and movement. Your circadian rhythm, which is your biological clock, your 24-hour biological clock is ticking every 24 hours it's running and it is responding to sleep light nutrient timing and movement, all right, as main what we call zeekgevers or time cues. When you get those right, no matter how you are feeling, your body is just responding to the data that we're putting into it. And those four are the key datas. So if you feel great, you've got all of those right. Sleep, light, nutrient timing, and movement. If you are feeling awful, brain fogged, fatigued, feeling terrible, then you've got them wrong. And I want you to go back, I want you to write down sleep, light, nutrient timing, and movement. Now, in a perfect world, we sleep overnight, we get light, daylight. Early in the morning, we eat breakfast at breakfast time, lunch at lunch time, dinner at dinner time, and we move during the daytime and we don't move at all at night. And that gets us feeling amazing. Think about when you're on holidays, what you're doing, you're getting all that daylight during the day, you're getting that proper sleep overnight, you're eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the normal times, and you're getting movement during the day. And while you're doing that, that is what is actually sustaining you and keeping you absolutely on fire. That's why you feel good. Now, once one of those, two of those or a few of those start to go out of sync, that's when you start feeling awful. And this is when you start to get this dizziness biologically, ladies in particular, you start to suffer even more. And the thing is, this is where we end up with the problem. So I want you to keep those foremost in mind as we go through. So they are our underpinners. So, how can we work with these to support our cabin crew? Because as much as I want to be able to answer this categorically for you all the way through, and as much as people hate it, it actually depends on what is the answer, right? So the advice that I'm going to give today is actually like generic, standard information. I'm hoping that one or maybe two of you might pull something out of it, or that you all might pull just one little tip out of this that might literally just change your cabin crew life forever, so that you can thrive in your job because that's what I want to see you do. Now, to be clear, this is generic, but I do coach and I have coached long-range and ultra-long range cabin crew over a period of time. And I've achieved some fantastic results with them as well. Because when we look at their situation and what they're dealing with, and we start to structure their particular flights with what they're doing, we look at the flights that are coming up and we start working with how we can manipulate that sleep, that um nutrient timing, that light, that movement, and get all of that working for them, they start to feel better. And over a journey, they start to learn exactly what to do, and then they are now doing extremely well with what they're doing. Now, there's a link in the show notes for this. I do coach people, it's a free call, it's obligation free that we can have a conversation and I can look at your situation and see if there are areas where I think I can help you with one-to-one coaching. So we'll just go with that. Now, let's address the first one. Now, what I've done is because of the social media questions that I put out, I got an awful lot of responses. When I say an awful lot, I got a fantastic amount of responses from people. And what I've done is I've sort of combined them all into all of these steps to answer all of the questions for people. And because there was a lot of common themes in it. Instead of reading them out and answering them, I'm actually going to cover them all off in here. So if you sent me a question, I want to say thank you so much. You'll find your answer is in this. Number one, let's talk about the time zone changes. Brutal, right? This is an interesting one because a lot of people, and I was asked, should I start my home time or should I move to the time zone of the place that I'm in? What a great question. Like it is, it's a challenging question for all of you. You're not sure. And I'm going to say it depends. It would depend on how long you were in a layover for. So if you were going to be in a layover for three or four days, I would literally be swapping to the new time zone, ASAP, and going with the new time zone. And there's a reason why I say that. And the reason why I say that is because only 3% of people adapt to staying on another time zone in another time zone, if that makes sense. You can't do it. It's like people who do a permanent night shift. You adapt to it, but you don't actually biologically your body doesn't adjust to it because you've only got to get any sort of light or any sort of movement or any sort of um uh uh nutrient timing eating out of sync, and you're triggering your circadian rhythm and creating biological chaos. Now, if you were the crew that flew us to Melbourne and you were only in Melbourne, I think for a day and a half, I would 100% stay on Dubai time. That's what I would do. But you've got to have a hotel room that is perfectly blocked out, that you can stay in darkness on Dubai darkness, and you've got to then get light, and I mean bright blue stimulating light during Dubai daytime while you're in Melbourne. Is this possible? Not really. It's very, very difficult for you to be able to do that, and that causes a massive problem because you've only got to get any light and it starts to create biological chaos in your system. Now I know that Emirates crews will come to Melbourne and then they catch up with each other on Dubai time. I'll meet you for lunch and Dubai time, I'll meet you for dinner and Dubai time, I'll meet you at whatever. And you go with that. And I can understand that if you're on a short layover. But if you were getting there for two or three days, it'd be a quick nap and it would be getting into the time zone of the place that I was in. And then I would be then going back on uh Dubai time or going back on that time until I got to Dubai and then reshifting back into that time. I know that sounds difficult, but the the thing is, it is more difficult for you to stay on Dubai time while you are away. That is the answer, right? Because of the way your body responds. Remember, light, nutrient timing, movement, and sleep, all right? So that's an interesting one. And it's one that we it's a difficult one to answer, but I would say anything under probably 18 hours, 18 or anything under 24 hours, I would be staying on Debye time. Anything longer than that, and I'd start strategically napping. Um, and we'll talk about napping, uh, but I'd start strategically napping to get onto that time zone. Plus, you've got the glamorous job, haven't you? Right? You can get to go out and take the photo in front of the Eiffel Tower or in front of the Coliseum or, you know, at the uh Empire State Building in New York. You want to be awake to do that and you want to look awake doing that. So that's why I would say anything longer than 24 hours, I'd be shifting into that time zone. That would be me personally understanding what I know myself. And the reason being is because it's almost impossible to avoid the light cues or the time cues that will cue your circadian rhythm, and this is why we suffer. Now, sleep during flights is another question that I got, and it was common. I want you to think of this as well. And I'm going to use this scenario at the very beginning of this. You've been on a long haul flight and you've been busy. You've been serving your passengers, you've been uh feeding, you're doing whatever. On a majority of ultra-long haul flights, there is a dinner service or a meal service, which is towards the end of the flight, and then you go through and you are stimulated by, you know, serving food, serving coffee and tea, serving everything, getting everyone woken up, um, going through and then going through, picking up the rubbish. Next thing you're going through, you're picking up the blankets, headsets, you're trying to get all of that done, get it out of the way. And then it's trays in the upright position, seats in the upright positions, seat belts on, windows open, and then the cabin goes dark, right? And the captain says prepare the air. Aircraft for landing. So you go through the aircraft and you start going through and making sure that everyone's seated, all baggage is out of the way, that the aircraft is back and in a safe place for it to land. If there's any turbulence or any problems, then we aren't having obstacles flying all around the aircraft. I know how it works. I know what you're doing. You're going through and you're cleaning all that, and it's fantastic. And then what you do is when the when you've done everything that you've got to do there, you then get to the stage where it's time for you to sit in the jump seat, put the seatbelt on. What do you do? You take a deep breath, you go, ah, because you got yourself ready. There's nothing more for you to do, or nothing more that you can possibly do. And what's the first thing from that moment on that wants to happen? Your eyes want to close. Your eyes want to close. You want to sleep. And why is that? It's a routine that you've gone through. You've gone through a whole routine and then you've darkened the aircraft, it's gone quiet, everything's fine, everything's good. Nothing for you to think about other than obviously you've got to stay awake because of the emergency procedures and it's a risky time for you. But that's when you want to sleep. And the reason being is because you took that sigh. What you've done is you've informed your body it's safe and it's relaxed and it's the end, and there's nothing more to think about. This is exactly the process that you need to go through to go to sleep on the aircraft. You need to have a routine, and then you need to practice something like a breath work to go to sleep. Eye mask, earbuds, something that's routine for you to go to sleep, and then that deep physiological side to go to sleep. Now I'm going to talk about a few products and things that will help you with this. But of course, you get anxiety, right? Because you have a, you know, you're worried about whether you're going to wake up after your break. You're worried because you can't sleep, but you've still got 14 hours to go and you've only got an hour and a half break or a two-hour break. And I understand it depends, depending on the range of the flight, as to how long the flight's going to go for, as to how long your break is going to be, how many bunks there is, how many staff are on board, who gets the break and when. One of the biggest issues that you have, I know, is here's your break, but I'm not tired it yet. Bad luck. This is your break. If you don't take a break now, you're not going to get a break. And that is a real problem. And this is another issue that the airlines do absolutely need to address. They need to structure these breaks for staff at times when they either should be tied or could be tied. And I know that's a logistic nightmare for any cabin managers. I understand. What I'm saying is it's something that does need to be looked at. And I think Qantas are looking at this with their project Sunrise. I know a researcher that's been working on this and strategic breaks for staff and wellness and movement and things like that. And it's really, really important that this occurs. The point that I'm making about the sleep during flights is if you have a routine that you stick to every single time you want to go to sleep, your body will respond to that. Now, what you got to do is you can't go down into the pods and climb into bed and lie there and go, right, now I've got to sleep. Because it won't happen. It just will not happen that way. As you know, some people are great at it. Some people can stand on their heads in the corner, no problems, and sleep. But you need a routine if you're one of those people that struggles. The other thing that you can do is to get deep rest non-sleep, DSNR, right? Uh NS, right? So you can go and do that. Um, sorry, D R N S. You can go and get deep rest, non-sleep, put an eye mask on, lie there and breathe and say, I'm just going to relax. And you might find that you just literally go to sleep then. All right. So keep that one in mind. You need a routine. And then you need a routine, like you want to make sure that in your sleep during the flights, this is something that I spoke to the cabin um uh member about when I spoke on the flights. That when you get your rest, I want you to keep this in mind as well. Number one, you sleep in 90 minute cycles. All right. So if you have two hours to sleep, allocate an hour and a half to sleep. If you have half an hour break, allocate 25 minutes and sleep. You sleep up to 30 minutes is a great nap, right? No longer than 30 minutes because you'll go into a deep cycle. And then 90 minute cycles. Keep that in mind. Because we do have what we call an ultra radian rhythm, and that rhythm goes in three hours. And this is why, if you wake yourself up at a two-hour mark, why you wake up wishing you had never gone to sleep because you are so groggy. But if you wake up on the 90-minute cycles, you'll wake up well because you're waking up between cycles. I know this is difficult to manipulate, but you can master this. And particularly because you're doing it all the time. You can look at the clock and go, right, I've got a two-hour break. I'm going to nap from now until such and such a time. Set your alarm in your earbuds. I'm going to talk about that. Set your alarm in your earbuds. Get up and dress yourself up, get yourself organized, back on deck, and you'll find that you will thrive so much more than you do trying to wake up after being asleep for two hours. That will make a big difference, right? So take the anxiety out of it. Not, oh, I've only got three hours I've got to sleep. Just say, I'm just going to lie here and relax and just have a break. How lucky I am. Look at the gratitude. How lucky I am, I get to lie down. Because I've got to tell you, those poor suckers sitting in those economy seats are sitting there with a in an upright position trying to nap as well. So why not lie there and go, oh, I get to lie down. How grateful I am, I get to lie down, put the sleep mask on, just lie there. Focus on your breathing. A really good breathwork practice to look at for this is four counts in, hold for seven, and then eight counts out, right? So four counts in, hold for seven, eight counts out. Now when you breathe in, it's through the nose. So in through the nose for four, hold for seven, and then through pursed lips, like pursed lips, like you're blowing a kiss for a count of eight, and keep repeating that, and you'll find that you'll just drift off and go to sleep because you're informing your body it's safe and ready for sleep. So keep that breath work practice in mind as well. Now, here's one that I know you all suffer from, and it's something that I, as a shift worker, suffered from all the time. And that is the sleep prior to flights, right? Because it creates sleep anxiety. You're worried, is the alarm going to go off? You've got 10 alarms set. It's a really bad time for you to try and sleep. Imagine that you're flying out at 1 a.m. or 3, or you've got to be at the airport at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m. for a flight, and it's 10 o'clock at night, and oh my God, I've got to go to sleep, and the alarm might go off. I want to ask you this. Sleep anxiety is serious, right? And it's a massive problem for a lot of people. But when was the last time you actually missed a flight? When was the last time you missed an alarm and didn't make a flight? It rarely, rarely ever happens. And if it does, what's the worst thing that can happen to you? Yeah, you get disciplined. I'm sorry, it happened. We create massive anxiety in our own minds. But majority of us, 99.9% of the times, we never, ever sleep through the alarm and we get to the airport on time. Think about it, it rarely ever happens, right? But we create all this anxiety around it and it stops us from actually sleeping. We're worried about alarms. It's a bad time for us to try and sleep. The one thing that I do want you to remember is this you can't catch up on sleep, right? So you can't. So when you miss out on sleep, you can't catch up on it because what you do is you create more biological chaos by trying to catch up. But you can bank sleep. So if you have a flight at one o'clock or three o'clock, and you know, oh my God, I'm gonna get up at one or three. Oh my God, I can't sleep. And you're trying to go to bed at nine o'clock at night and it's not gonna happen. What you should be doing is in the afternoon, the day before, is just having naps, a nap of an hour and a half, a nap of 30 minutes, starting to get starting to bank some sleep, starting to put some sleep in the bank before you get to that sleep anxiety stage. Now, I use Oslo sleep buds. I use a sleep bud that actually has an alarm in it. So I put it in the ear and it plays a white noise, and I use EMDR sounds, which actually go left to right, left to right, left to right. It's like a binaural sound that actually calms the brain and puts you to sleep. But because I've got the sleep buds in, the alarm goes off in my ears straight away. And I can't ignore it until I get up and take the earbuds out. So you don't sleep through it. It's actually going off in your ear. I highly recommend the Oslo sleep bud. They're not cheap, but they are incredible. And you could use them on the flight, you could use them at home, particularly for those naps that you're having before a flight, where you're worried whether you're going to wake up or not because the alarm goes off quietly in your own ear, right? Nobody else can hear it, and you haven't got 10 or 12 alarms going off one after the other to make sure that you get up in time to go. Now they're on my recommended product page. So if you go to a link in the show notes, a healthyshift.com, and then you go to recommended products, you will see Oslo sleep buds. You can get them anywhere in the world. They ship to anywhere in the world. I can't talk about them more highly. And once you get used to using them, they will play your podcast, your audio book, they'll play whatever sounds you want. And then when you go to sleep, they actually flick over and they play just a white noise, which keeps calm and asleep. And you can set the alarm for whatever time you want the alarm to go off, and it just goes straight into your ear and wakes you up. They are awesome. Trust me. Oslo, OZLO Sleep Buds, and they're on my recommended products page on the website. Okay. Um, we need to use napping as a superpower, as a cabin crew. So learn to just nap. Learn to how you can close your eyes and nap for 25 minutes. Up to 30 minutes or in 90 minute cycles. I want you to remember that forever from now on. All right. Up to 30 minutes or 90 minutes. Because if you try and wake yourself up after an hour, you're in deep sleep, which is why you wake up so poorly. Start banking sleep before those long haul flights that have to take off at one, two, or three o'clock in the morning or when you've got to be at the airport at that time. Because banking sleep is going to stand you in good stead. You can't catch up. All right, keep that in mind. It's really important that you do. Right, nutrient timing. Now, food timing. What foods to have and what foods to avoid. That's what I've been asked as well. Nutrient timing. I want you to remember important. You are thinking to buy time. You're thinking home time. So eat according to breakfast, lunch, and dinner in those home times. Now, when I say eat according to, that doesn't mean you have to have breakfast at breakfast time, lunch at lunchtime, dinner at dinner time, and those particular foods. Your body does not know what all it sees is protein, carbohydrates, and fats coming in. It doesn't know what you're eating. It doesn't care what you're eating. It just wants proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. So what we want to do is we want to make sure that you're eating on the times of your home time. This will help you with your digestion. It will help to stop and prevent that gas and bloating that you get by eating out of sync. So if you get to the stage where you are eating at the wrong times, your body is not prepped and primed and ready to actually metabolize and store those nutrients properly. So it creates you more problems. So what I want you to do is set your clock to your home time and make sure that you're eating at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time. Your body is primed and ready for foods at those times, and you'll find that they actually go through a lot better. And what foods to avoid? It's the typical and it's the usual. We want to make sure that we are avoiding ultra-processed foods because of the problems that they actually create in our system with gas and bloating, all right? So what we want to be having is high protein and fiber. And if you look at what the airlines are feeding the passengers, that's pretty much, well, I know you probably look at the food and think, oh my God, I couldn't possibly eat that. But they're feeding their passengers, and I looked at this, they're feeding their passengers high protein and fiber to keep people full. That's what they're doing. That's what you need. We want to be reducing ultra-processed foods, right? That's it. Take out the ultra-processed foods and eat higher protein, higher fiber, and um, and avoid ultra-processed foods during flight. Even just a nibble of something like that can cause you all sorts of problems. And every lick or every bite is actually going to the hips on nights if you're eating out of sink. Remember that. Very important. Ladies, this is for you, this part. Females, female cabin crew. Now, I'm not a female, I'm gonna make this quite clear. But for the last seven years, I have coached numerous females and have got such an understanding and are very, very well read in female health. I'm gonna make this quite categorical. Shift work and long-haul flights are harder for females than it is for men. And there's a reason because a female has an Inphradian rhythm and a male does not. And the Inphradian rhythm is that 28-day cycle that females deal with every 28 days. And I'm talking about females, I'm talking about menstruating females here. All right. It is a lot harder for females because once that circadian rhythm goes out of whack, that Inphradian rhythm goes out of whack as well. That menstrual cycle counts so heavily on a synchronized circadian rhythm. So when one goes out of whack, the other one can go out of whack as well. And this is the reason why a lot of cabin crew have trouble falling pregnant as well, because of the um the desynchronized uh infradian rhythm and circadian rhythm. Everything's got to be in the right place at the right time for that to happen. And it causes biological chaos. The other thing that I want to talk about when it comes to females to help females to understand more as well, quite apart from that menstrual cycle, which has fluctuations of hormones through the whole month, which causes problems. Having a synchronized circadian rhythm helps to support the proper fluctuation of that. And when the infradian rhythm is out of whack, then you can get hormonal releases at wrong times, causing even more problems. But as if that isn't enough, ladies, you have got a compromise digestive tract as well. And I think it's important that you understand that as a female, internally, you are very different to a male because you have a less acidic stomach, and your stomach empties slower than it does with a male as well. You have a longer digestive tract. So therefore, food sits in that digestive track longer. And in fact, research shows that food takes up to and around approximately 14 hours longer to transit through a female than it does through a male. Is it any wonder why females suffer from gas and bloating? They've got food sitting in their digestive tract a lot longer than males do. All right, so keep that in mind and I'll talk about what there is that we can do about it. The other thing that females have is they have a longer colon as well. And that colon empties slower. The other thing I want you to remember as well, which is really important, is males, where are their reproductive organs? External. Where are the female reproductive organs? Internal. Where are the digestive tract? Internal. And in fact, the colon is basically occupying exactly the same space as the uterus and female reproductive organs. So is it any wonder that when you've got a colon and digestive tract that empties slower, that is suffering from gas and bloating, sitting right next to a highly agitated female reproductive system for at least, you know, a few weeks or a week of the um cycle, is it any wonder that there's problems? So, what is there that we can actually do about this, ladies, to help you? Because it's important. And this is what I help my female shift workers with. What you do need is you need much higher hydration than normal, particularly while you're doing long haul flights. If you have to go to the bathroom all the time, so be it. But keep drinking a lot of water because that is what's going to keep everything moving through that compromised digestive trait, particularly through that luteal phase of your cycle, that final two weeks before the menstrual bleed. All right. Very, very important that you keep that water keeping everything moving through. This is a time when females suffer from, and you will know by a desynchronized circadian rhythm that you you can be constipated or you can end up with diarrhoea, or vice versa. It can cause all sorts of problems. And this is the reason why this actually happens, because of that compromised digestive tract. One thing that you can do, and one thing that I highly recommend to female clients is to get something like a metamucle, which is a psyllium husk that you can mix in water and have a teaspoon of that every day to keep this digestive tract moving. Now, the good thing about a cillium husk is it's actually what we call a soluble fiber. And that soluble fiber actually absorbs water in the system, forms a gel, and moves through the system really well and keeps everything moving. It will keep you regular, it will keep everything moving through you, and it will help to reduce this gas and bloating. It is not a fiber that will actually cause that gas and bloating like an insoluble fiber does. It's really good, highly recommended. A lot of my clients use Metamucil, which is just a commercial brand, but it helps enormously. There's another thing that we can get here in Australia in our pharmacy as well, um, that may actually help you females as well. And it's called Mintek, M-I-N-T-E-C, Mintek. It's sold at the local pharmacies here. And the reason why I suggest this is because it's um peppermint oil at exactly the right amount. It's at like two milligrams of peppermint oil. And it's the actual capsule is enteric coated. So, what that means is it passes through the stomach and it releases the peppermint oil, which is very calming on the gut, on the lower gut for females. It really does help. Um, so you can look up and see if you can get something that's equivalent or speak to a pharmacist in Dubai or where you are and see if you can get um a something like MinTech. Have a look at it. Um, look it up on Google, Chemist Warehouse here in Australia and Mintech, M-I-N-T-E-C, and see if you can get something that's equivalent with 2% uh peppermint oil. Really good. Now, the other thing that I want to move on to, um, sorry, ladies, before I move on from that, I see you. It is an incredibly difficult job for you girls to do. And I know it looks glamorous, but I see you it is very, very difficult for you to do. But I hope that helps you to be seen and also helps you to understand that you're not going crazy. It is literally a biological issue that you have purely by circadian misalignment impacting on your Inphradian rhythm and a compromised digestive trap, which I bet you haven't heard before either. Okay, so keep that in mind. Um, and movement. Another thing, too. If you're starting to get gas and bloating and you're starting to feel ordinary, drink a lot of water and keep moving around the aircraft. Just pretend you're doing something and just keep walking around the aircraft, and you'll find maybe gravity might help to do it with that movement, that gentle rocking of your digestive tract as well by walking might actually help you at the same time. Stress, it's a tough, tough job, but you are seen, right? Stress actually of coming into land, taking off, dealing with passengers, nuisance, um, keeps your cortisol elevated, it creates. Inflammation, it creates gas and bloating. If you suffer from gas and bloating, we need to be looking at your stress levels. If you're not sleeping properly, we need to be looking at your stress levels. There are strategies you can put in place, but stress needs to be managed. It's one of the reasons why you get to that jump seat when the plane's coming into land and you relax because you actually have gone through a cycle. You take that deep physiological sigh, you're informing your body it's safe, and the body goes, okay, let's sleep. That's the problem. All right. Breath work is the key. Now I know there's numerous breathwork facilitators in Dubai. I'm actually a breathwork facilitator as well. But we can go through strategies to actually help you to teach you how to upregulate. So when you're feeling really tired, how to upregulate. And when you are feeling um uh really heightened, how you can actually downregulate for sleep. It's once you've learned how to do it, it's free because your nose is attached to your face and you can breathe all the time. All right. This helps to lower your cortisol. It will take a lot of IBS and digestive issues out of your gut as well. It will help you to relax. It will definitely help you to sleep. All right. Um, the sleep during a flight I've actually uh I've covered. Um, the other thing that I wanted to say in relation to sleep during a flight was that not tired, um, but you're not on a legal break. What do you do? Like, I'm really, really tired. What can I do? How can I go about it? And the thing that you've got to be doing there is, as I said before, about um if you've got gas or blowing, is to move around the aircraft. You need to be in that galley with the bright blue light, that light, white light that's in there. You need to be in that galley, you need to be engaging in a conversation. Go and have a conversation with a passenger. Like, not while they're sitting, but you see passengers standing at the back. I had a fantastic exchange with one of your crew, and it meant the world to me as a passenger that they took the time to just stand there and actually have a chat for a minute. Now, I don't know. They may have been struggling themselves asleep, and that conversation just got them through 15 minutes. But have a conversation. If someone's standing at the back, wander around, wander around the aircraft. And I know it's the last thing you want to do. But if you're really struggling with sleep, you've got to do something, right? You've actually got to do something. So do something that's going to really help you. Okay. So that's another one. Um, you can also manipulate caffeine over those times as well. Now, we don't keep slamming caffeine to stay awake because it's going to impact on our sleep. But 40 milligrams of caffeine every two hours can actually help to keep, um can actually help to keep sleep at bay, you know, stop the fatigue, just enough, but it won't impact on sleep later. Now, what's 40 milligrams of caffeine? I would estimate that the coffee that you serve on the aircraft, one of those over a period of about two hours, I think would be pretty good. Just enough caffeine to keep you going, but not enough to impact on your sleep. But you wouldn't want to be doing that, you know, you wouldn't want to be slamming three or four of those towards the end of a flight just to stay awake because you will end up staying awake when you want to sleep. It will cause you a big problem. All right. So, yeah, one of those coffees, probably about 40 milligrams of caffeine over a period of about two hours, just sip it. Or fill it up with cold water as well and just sip on that over a period of time. So you're getting the hydration as well as um the caffeine going into your system. That will help. The other thing that I want to talk about as well is um exercise and what's it do and when, because you don't look as good as you girls do and you guys do without exercising, and it's a challenge all the time, all right? So I want you to keep in mind to take the pressure off yourself when you are on an ultra-long haul and you've reached a destination. That if your PT tells you that you've got to get this session in and smash yourself senseless, well, you need a new PT, all right? And I'll tell you why. Timing with exercise is imperative, it's really, really important. I don't tell people, I tell people that you should not exercise on the way home from night shift, which means you shouldn't be exercising after a long haul flight. All right. The reason being is because there's a risk of injury. Your whole circadian rhythm is out of sync, and not everything is timing in the right way. Your hormones are not in the right place at the right time, doing the right things. Your circadian rhythm is out of sync and you run the risk of injury. And nothing's worse. If you get an injury from training, it's going to cause you more problems. Guilt is a massive problem because you're out of routine and you can't train. So you feel like you've got no um, you start to feel guilty about the fact, oh my God, I haven't trained. Let me tell you, when you go to the gym and you do one session, you you don't turn into a bodybuilder. So missing one session doesn't mean that you're going to lose it, right? So, what is there that you can do? Right? So, what can you do? When you're on a layover, this is what I'm talking about. When you're at home, you're back in sync and you've got your own gym, your own areas, you know what you're doing. But I'm talking about on a layover. So, what can you do? Well, I want you to be kind to yourself and your body to start off with. How are you feeling? One thing that you can do, which has enormous benefit all round, and I mean enormous benefit, is just to get a walk in daylight. Just go for a walk. You'll have your runners, you'll have your shorts, you'll have a t-shirt, go for a walk, right? Just go for a walk in daylight wherever you are. Even if you just walk around the block 10 times in the daylight, that will really help your body. Think daylight movement, you'll have water or something. There's nutrient timing. That's going to reset you to where you are and what you're doing. Or if you're trying to start to buy time, just go and do it in the dark. All right. Or wear sunglasses or whatever, something along those lines. But go for a walking day. It's such an underrated exercise, walking. And it will help you to de-stress, it helps you with your breathing. You can focus on your breathing while you're doing it. And another exercise that I would talk about, which I think is important for people who do your job, and that is what we call list training, low intensity, steady state training. Now, this is underrated. Because of that flight that you've done overnight and your desynchronized circadian rhythm, you will have elevated triglycerides in your bloodstream, right? Now, elevated triglycerides are fat in your bloodstream, and your body elevates those for energy overnight, right? Now, you've got to burn those because if you don't burn those, they're going to park as body fat. One of the things that I would highly recommend that you do is in the hotel gym, it will have a stationary bike and it will have a treadmill. Set a treadmill at what I tell you to do and set a bike at what I tell you to do and do it for half an hour, 30 minutes. It's not even hard. It is super easy for you to do, and it just burns those triglycerides. It just burns that fat out of the bloodstream. Now, this is where that fat burning zone myth comes from, all right? So we're just going to burn the fat out of the bloodstream, and it's called list training. Now, this is the formula for how you actually work it out. You start with 220 and then you minus your age off that, right? So 220 minus your age in years. Whatever your age in years is, you take that off, and then you hit equals on your calculator. And then what you do is you then go multiply or times by 0.65 equals. Now that should give you a number around about 120 to 12627, depending on your age, right? That is your fat burning heart rate. That is where you're going to burn the triglycerides out of your bloodstream. All right. 220 minus your age equals times 0.65. That is 65% of your maximum heart rate. Now, jump on a stationary bike or jump on a treadmill and set it to get your heart rate to that 121, 122, or whatever it is that the number came up at, and maintain that for 30 minutes. Now you'll hardly sweat and you'll hardly puff. And in fact, you can have a conversation on the phone, no problems at all, and you'll think, but I'm not really doing anything. Yes, you are. You're burning all of that fat out of your bloodstream. You will be amazed at how much better you actually feel by just doing that half an hour of exercise. You'll feel like you've accomplished something and you actually have. And then you can go to sleep because you've burnt the fat out of your bloodstream. It won't park. You'll relax, you'll sleep better, and it's not stressful on the body in any way whatsoever. So keep that in mind. Walk or a list session on the treadmill or stationary bike. The reason why I say on a treadmill is because it's really hard as a younger, fitter person to get your heart rate up and maintain it at that rate, bearing in mind that you've got to have it around about two or three beats either side of that. Any more and you start burning carbohydrate. Any less and you're burning proteins, carbs for um, sorry, carbs and fats for energy. All right. So you want to make sure that you're actually just in that zone and you'll just burn the fat out of your bloodstream. And you'll be amazed at how much better you feel burning that, I'm gonna use the term, that rubbish out of your system. So much better. All right. Now, the next one is when to sleep post-flights. I had a few people say to me, uh, what do I do if I land in the morning at like five o'clock, six o'clock in the morning? What should I do then? Well, once again, this is gonna come down to depending on how long you're in a port in a layover for or a port, I don't know whether you call it a port, but in a layover. If you're if you're trying to start on Dubai time, then you've got to manipulate, look at your time as to where you are comparing that to Dubai time. You'll have a darkened room, a lightened room, get your light, get the darkness, get whatever you've got to get to suit that. But if you're going back home and you land at six in the morning and then you're getting there, you want to go home and you want to have yourself like a remember 90-minute cycles. I would go home and sleep for 90 minutes or 180 minutes. So for 90 minutes or for three hours, and then I would get up and go out in the daylight and go for a walk. Yes, even if it's 35 degrees, go outside and just have a walk around. Let your body feel that heat, see that light, that blue light, that daylight, get some movement and remember to only ever eat on breakfast, lunch, or dinner time, and that will make a huge difference to how you're feeling. So we want to become a superpower napper, right? So that we can learn to nap as a shift worker. Napping will change your life. Just learning to nap very quickly, like up to 30 minutes or in a 90-minute cycle, will make a really big difference. Change your mindset. Those early morning flights that you have from a 1 a.m. to a 3 a.m. that you've got to be at the airport at that time. I've spoken about the earbuds and the alarm and banking sleep. I think this is something that's really important. But what I want you to do is to think when when and how to sleep. I'm just gonna go and lie down here and I'm just gonna have a nap and then I'm just gonna get going. The more sleep anxiety, oh, I've got to get sleep because I've got this long haul coming up. Oh, I've got to do. You might find that if you don't sleep properly, when you do get your break on the plane, you might sleep really well for that 90-minute cycle. That's what you want to relief that sleep pressure. We've got to take the anxiety out, oh, I didn't get to sleep, I didn't get to sleep. And start thinking about, I'll just go and lie here, I'll just have a nap and then I'll just get up and get going. You've got to take the anxiety out of it. When you take the anxiety out of it, it will change your life and it will make an enormous difference. All right, we're nearly there. Okay, we're nearly there. So it's a we it's an early morning flight, 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. The Oslo sleep buds or a sleep bud that has an alarm in it. You've never slept through. So don't think you're actually going to. And it's not because of the anxiety, which is the reason why you haven't slept through. Your body actually just doesn't let you. So use the buds, relax in it, and say, I'm just gonna lie here and nap until I get up. You'll go to sleep, the alarm will wake you up. You get up and get going as per you normally would. All right. Keep that in mind. That's the way to go about doing it. But learn to bank sleep before that time. During the day, nap for half an hour, nap for 90 minutes, learn how to sleep mask, pure blackness. Relax into it, breath work, have a nap, learn how to go about doing this. I can help with that. All right. Now, the other thing that I want to talk about as well, which is really important, is you must stay on top of your physical checks. You must go and see a doctor regularly and get your blood work done every six months. This is super important that you do this, all right? Because blood work is the mirror into the body, all right? Because of this circadian misalignment and everything else that's going on, regular blood work, particularly for you ladies, may actually show low iron, which brings fatigue. It may actually show low vitamin D. Yes, I know you live in Dubai and you got lots of sunshine, but who actually gets out in the sun? How much sun are you getting? I regularly take vitamin D. Even living in Australia here, I take vitamin D every single day, 365 days of the year, to make sure I've got it covered, right? Regular blood work is really important because it's early detection of a lot of things. Like, ladies, low vitamin B, it will cause fatigue. Low vitamin D will cause fatigue. Low iron will cause fatigue. Get on top of that blood work and we can manipulate over the top of that to help you to bring those levels back up so that you feel so much better. Girls, the other thing that you do need to be really on top of is you must be keeping on top of your breast checks, all right? All the time. If there's one thing that circadian misalignment does cause is breast cancers. We know this from research, and you need to keep right on top of self-examinations around breast checks all the time. Don't think, oh, I'm only 24, so I'm immune to it. Stay on top of it. Circadian misalignment causes biological chaos. We know it causes breast cancer. And guys, prostate checks as well. Not so much when you're younger, but keep an eye on it. Um, it is really, really important. So this is why it's important that we keep on top of these bloods with all this circadian misalignment as well. I'm not trying to terrify you. I'm just making you aware, ladies, breasts get those checked all the time. And guys, get those prostates checked. Not so much as much as the women, but for some reason, shift work, circadian misalignment impacts breast cancer enormously and also impacts on prostate cancer as well. Right? And always remember that poor sleep and not being able to sleep may actually be masking an underlying issue as well. Research is very clear and shows that what may be a poor sleep or people think is a poor sleep could actually be shift work sleep disorder. It could actually be sleep apnea. There could be a lot going on that is causing the poor sleep. So don't discount it and get it addressed because it's something that's really, really important that you stay on top of. Don't just think, oh, I'm just a poor sleeper. There could be a very, very good reason to get that addressed. Get it looked at just to discount anything that may be causing problems for you. The second last topic is medications. We do not, under any circumstances, take medications for sleep unless it is prescribed by a doctor for shift work sleep disorder, which has specific medications for it. But we don't just go and get hold of sleep medications to sleep. And I'm going to tell you why. Because when you take a sleep medication or you take a sleeping tablet, you're not actually asleep. You are unconscious. And your body is not going through the rest cycle and restore restoration that it needs to go through. You're unconscious. So going out and taking a medication to sleep, you're not actually sleeping. And have you ever noticed that the people that are actually taking medications for sleep are always the ones that are so tired. And that's because they're not sleeping, they're unconscious. Really important. That brings me to my next one. Melatonin. What do we do with melatonin? I will tell you this melatonin is something that can be used and it can be used really effectively, but you really have to know how to use it. You really have to know how to use it. Taking melatonin on a flight for a three-hour nap is an absolute no-no because you will throw your circadian rhythm further out. It could cause all sorts of problems. Melatonin, you need to know how and when to use it optimally. A good time to be using melatonin, and I want you to remember this as well. Melatonin is a signaler of darkness to the body. It is not a sleeping pill, right? More is not better. We want a low, low, low amount. Start on half to one milligram as a maximum, right? Your body to sleep naturally only produces half a milligram of melatonin. So you don't need 10 milligrams to try and knock yourself out to sleep because it's just a signal of darkness to the rest of the body. All right. That's all melatonin does. So the way that you could actually use and manipulate melatonin would be when you're on a layover and you want to stay in Deby time. You could use melatonin effectively then to sleep, but you want to have a sleep mask on. You don't want to be taking melatonin, then lying there scrolling on your phone, getting blue light in your eye, sending a mixed signal. Because what will happen is your body will see the blue light and will inhibit melatonin production and therefore it'll keep you awake because it's thinking it's daytime. So what you want to be doing is taking melatonin to stay in line with your Debye time for your layover going back. That is a time when you could use melatonin to help you. Other than that, I wouldn't be taking anything else at all because you are literally not sleeping. What you're doing is you're unconscious and it's not helping your body to go through its natural detoxification cycles and things like that. You're causing problems. Don't do it, please. It's something that's really, really important. Let's talk about a few supplements that will help you. And I will say this before you take any supplements, please seek your physician's advice. I don't know what medications or supplements you're already on. All right. So this is very generic and it's just what I would recommend in your situation. So go and get your blood check first as a priority and then have a look at this. Because as a shift worker, we end up with higher levels of triglycerides. I would have, I'd be taking omega-3s, which is either fish or an algae oil. If you're a vegetarian or a vegan, you could take algae oil and you need to be taking 2,000 milligrams of combined EPA DHA. Now, what that means is you look at the bottle and you take, you look at the EPA content and the DHA content, and you get it up to 2,000 milligrams, and you take that daily, every day. Because of your desynchronized circadian rhythm fluctuations, you'll have elevated um triglycerides in your blood. And also omega-3s are extremely good to help you with your um it just helps you with your brain health, cardiovascular health, heart health, everything. Very, very good. Vitamin D, 2000 IU every day is what I would be taking if I was in your situation. 2,000 IU every single day. Take that every day. Watch the difference it makes to how you're feeling. It'll improve your mood, it'll improve your fatigue. Vitamin D is totally underrated for what it needs. You don't need to be taking it with anything, just take the vitamin D. So take the vitamin D, take the omega-3s every day. The menstruating females, please, one thing that's really important and why I said to you to make sure that you keep get regular blood work is keep an eye on your iron levels and your vitamin B levels as well. Both of those, combined with vitamin D, will actually lead to chronic fatigue. So keep an eye on it. Menstruating females do suffer from low iron because of the blood loss and the iron that gets lost through the blood through menstruation. So top it back up. Make sure that you are topping it back up and keeping an eye on those sort of things. And if your iron is low or vitamin B, then you can be getting shots or you can be taking supplements to help you with that during that time. Another thing that I would be doing from a personal level, um, as someone who is working in a confined metal tube full of people coughing and spluttering all the way there and back, and you know what I'm talking about, and you're all nodding, I know, is I would be taking zinc piccillinate as well. Now, zinc, not just any zinc, I take zinc piccolinate, it's the the most best absorbed, and I would be taking 15 milligrams of that every single day, regardless. I've been taking 15 milligrams every day for the last, I think, probably eight years, and I haven't been sick at all. And I imagine that with the exposure that you guys are getting on a plane in that confined space all the time, colds and flus and all sorts of issues, you'd be catching everything. Zinc is one of those things that is just like a buffer. It's almost a shield against those things. And I don't get sick at all. Touch wood, right? So I would be taking zinc, pickle, and eight, um, because I think that's another one that's really important to just help bolster that immune system to people who are constantly exposed to people just coughing and snorting and hacking and disgusting on the plane. Oh my God. Anyway, let's let's not think about that. But yes, zinc piccolinate, it will help. It's like a shield and it will help to buffer that as well. Don't worry about your vitamin C's and your and you're getting enough of that from foods, right? Don't worry about your vitamin C's and horseradishes and all the rest. Zinc will change your life. Trust me, it's really good. Like, really good. The other one that everyone needs to be on, and we want to talk about this at length. When I say at length, I'm not going to go into it. We've already gone on over an hour here, but I just want to talk about is creatine monohydrate. Now, everybody should be on creatine, particularly you girls, you should be on creatine. Please don't go, oh my God, I've put on weight because I'm on creatine. It's water. It's weight. It's not body fat, it's a bit of water, and that will subside in time. Creatine literally drags weight into water into the cell. And when it does that, for every molecule of creatine, it takes three molecules of water. So you will gain a little bit of weight, but you're not gaining body fat. All right. Now, creatine is the energy currency of the cell, right? It helps to manufacture energy in the cells. This will help you with energy. It will. And it will also, it's super important for just overall women's health and also for us to help us in so many ways. All right. Creatine is the most researched and ethically safe supplement that there is out there. Everybody, you can't get it from enough of it from food. You'd have to eat an exorbitant amount of red meat to get creatine, a sufficient creatine. It's an important supplement to supplement every day at three to five grams. Every day. And here is a life changer for you. I experimented on my last European trip with superdosing creatine prior to the long haul flight. I'm well aware of the evidence around cognitive function and how it helps to with your brain function while you are in an extended period of wakefulness. Hello, cabin crew, right? An extended period of wakefulness. So when you are going to go on a long haul flight, I would be taking 0.35 grams per kilogram of body weight of creatine over the course of the day leading into, through, and for the day coming out of that ultra-long haul or long range flight. Now, I'm going to repeat that so that you understand this because creatine creates energy. Caffeine does not. Caffeine actually inhibits sleep, but creatine creates energy for you, right? That's its role in the body. So while you're taking it every day at five grams, because your body will be used to taking it every day and it saturates the muscle and it works really well. I would be upping prior to an ultra-long haul or a long haul flight where you know you have an extended period of wakefulness. You're going to be awake for a while, 0.35 grams per kilogram of body weight. And you can take it in doses throughout the day to get it in. Watch the difference it will make. I actually took it for two days before my long haul flight. Through the flight, I was dry shotting it with water. And also coming out of the flight, I was um I took it for two days afterwards. And I came through jet lag really well. Like really well. Quite apart from the fact I know how to manipulate uh water, um daylight, sleep, um, nutrient timing and movement. But that really helped and helped enormously. Okay, so keep that in mind. Creatine going into a long haul flight, superdose it, superdose it through the flight and out and keep that going. Yeah, you'll get a bit of water. It's a bit of water. It's not going to kill you. It doesn't make you look bad, it just fills your muscle and makes your muscle look good, right? Look good. That's what it does. So that's what I did. Just try. Even if you try 10, 20 grams, try 20 grams two days before the flight, through the flight, and the day out of the flight, or while you're on the um layover and back, and then just drop back to the five grams again after that. Make a big difference. Okay. Um that's it. One more thing I want to talk about is recommended products. If you go to my webpage, ahealthyshift.com, on there is a recommended products page. The manta sleep mask is something that you should have, or a sleep mask you should have in your bag all the time. It is pure darkness. It is a fantastic sleep mask. It is expensive for a reason. It is the best. I highly recommend the Manta Sleep Mask Pro. The reason being is because you can sleep on your side, you can sleep whatever. And you ladies with your eyelashes, your eyelashes won't touch them, right? It's got cups around your eyes. Oh my God, it is just absolutely fantastic. It is life-changing. That's the first product. The second product that I would look at as well is I would be looking at the Oslo sleep buds, which I spoke about before. They are actually on the recommended products page as well. Highly recommended. And the reason why they're highly recommended is because of the the white noise. You can listen to a podcast bore you out of your brain or listen to some useless text to bore you out of your brain to go to sleep. And as soon as you go to sleep, it senses that you've gone to sleep and swaps over to white noise, and you can set an alarm that just goes into your ear. You will not sleep through it. Trust me. That's why I'm here now. Anyway, you won't sleep through it. And another product that I would look at, and I'm not sure how you would go about getting them where you are, but the enhanced sleep gummies, all natural. All natural. Let me repeat that. They are all natural. They're not a melatonin, they are not a um a medication, they're an all-natural said uh sleep aid. Oh my God, they are fantastic. And my partner uses them most nights. Very calming, puts you to sleep, keep you asleep, relax you. They are absolutely fantastic. All right. So there's another product that I would look at. Um, and you know, another thing that's really important when you're home and when you are trying to sleep, no matter where you're trying to sleep, I want you to remember this. You need a good, comfortable bed. You need a good bed. Invest in rest, right? Invest in your bed. It is so important that you have good bedding and a good bed. A sleep mask. We need um, we got a block light, no light. So a sleep mask. That's the easiest way of going about it because blackout curtains are hard. Um, sound, the Oslo sleep buds, which is what I recommend. Don't try earplugs. You can hear your heart beating, it's shocking, right? So try the Oslo sleep buds, you'll find them fantastic. And the temperature needs to be cool in your room to sleep. It needs to be 18 to 20 degrees. So that is what's going to help you to actually sleep by being cool. Cool, dark, quiet is where we sleep. Invest in that. That is what's going to help you to sleep. And the Oslo sleep buds come in a beautiful little pouch that you can actually have um and carry with you. They don't take up no room in your bag. Your mantis sleep mask will take up no room in your bag. Get those and it will change your sleep life. Anyway, that's it. Again, I want to say thank you so much for listening and getting through to this stage. It was going to be a half-hour episode. There was a lot to talk about. There is so much more that I could talk about around this. I just want you, cabin crew, to feel seen. You are seen. I honestly believe that you could have one of the most difficult shift working jobs that there is on this planet without any doubt whatsoever. And as a female, it is even more difficult. And I want you to know you are seen for everything. Um, I appreciate you. Um, if there's anything that I can do, please do not hesitate to reach out. If you got anything out of this podcast, even if you've got one tip that has helped you out of this podcast, can you please just message? You can message through the show notes, just message through there. Let us know what helped, how it helped you. Um, and I hope I've covered all of the questions for you. And um I'll catch you on the next flight. And I'll be the one that'll be just sitting there watching, not creepy man watching. I'm actually watching to see how you're going about it. And I'm going to be watching for changes this time. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you on the next one. 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.