[315] - Let's Sabotage Your Sleep - 5 Proven Steps

Most shift workers are unknowingly wrecking their sleep—and it’s fixable. In this episode, I break down the most common sleep mistakes and turn them into simple habits you can repeat on any roster. Early daylight, movement, a caffeine cut-off, skipping the nightcap, and real stress care become a toolkit you can rely on to improve sleep depth, energy, and recovery.

What You’ll Learn:

• How early daylight resets the circadian clock
• Ways to build sleep pressure without the gym
• The 12 o’clock caffeine rule that protects sleep
• Why alcohol fragments REM and deep sleep
• Simple wind-down routines that actually work
• Stress practices that calm the nervous system
• Five common sleep sabotages—reversed
• How to set routines for rotating rosters

If this resonated and you're ready to fix your sleep, book a one-to-one assessment call using the link in the show notes.

Subscribe so you never miss a new episode, and please leave a rating and review—it helps other shift workers find the show.

Learn more at ahealthyshift.com.

Chapters

• 3:16 Welcome And Episode Setup
• 4:02 Why Early Daylight Matters
• 6:06 Move Daily To Build Sleep Pressure
• 7:22 The 12 O’Clock Caffeine Rule
• 8:46 Alcohol Isn’t A Wind Down
• 9:46 Manage Stress Before Bed
• 11:09 Five Sabotages Recapped
• 11:29 Coaching Invite And Closing

Transcript

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. It's Roger here. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today I want to talk about sabotaging your sleep. I know you're a good sleeper. Let's sabotage it. I'm joking. Of course I'm joking. But I'm going to show you how you sabotage it, right? And I'll give you five proven strategies to sabotage your sleep so that you can work backwards from there. So instead of telling you what to do, I'm going to walk you through the five or five proven steps to completely sabotage it. Yeah, that's right. If you want to feel tired, you want to feel cranky, foggy, miserable, and gaining weight because sleep, proper sleep, is what helps us to control our weight because it helps to control our hunger and satiety hormones. I want you just to follow these five steps. But of course, I'll also share how to flip them around so that you can start sleeping properly again. So let's get straight into it. Short one today. Number one, lack of early daylight. Totally underrated. This one is a killer. When you wake up and spend the first few hours of your day indoors, especially under this artificial light inside, which is the most unhealthy light ever, your body has no clue what time it is. Now you might think I'm in bright light. But you're inside. And inside light's about 500 lux, regardless. And it's such an unhealthy light. It hasn't got enough blue in it, it's got zero infrared in it, and it's just so unhealthy for you. Your brain relies on daylight to reset your body clock. So if you don't get that early light, your body doesn't know when to wake up or even when to wind down. And this sabotages our sleep. So if you're constantly waking up groggy or you're struggling to fall asleep later, this could actually be the clue. Alright. So if you're not, if you don't want to sleep at night, lounge around in bed, roll over, hit that snooze button, and stay inside. Even 10 to 15 minutes of morning daylight can make a massive difference. And I highly recommend that you get up, you hydrate, grab your coffee, go and sit out on your back step or go and sit out on your back deck in the daylight, and this will help you to sleep at night. Believe me, it works. So instead of sabotaging your sleep, get outside early. Take your coffee out with you, stand in the daylight. Let's let the body know that it's daytime. Step number two, let's really sabotage it. Lack of movement. Here's a suggestion for you. Sit around all day and barely move. Because your body never builds up enough sleep pressure this way. You need to earn your sleep. That doesn't mean smashing yourself in the gym. It can be as simple as walking or stretching and or doing even just a little bit of body weight resistance work. Movement helps to regulate your body temperature, it helps to regulate your hormones, your mood, and without it, your body doesn't even know when to rest. Have a think about it. If you haven't moved at all, the body thinks it's resting anyway. So what's the point? So if you want to sabotage your sleep, absolutely do nothing at all. But if you want quality sleep, get early movement every single day. Step number three caffeine within nine hours of sleep. And here's one that most people ignore. I have a rule in place at 12 o'clock. It's called the 12 o'clock rule. No caffeine after 12 o'clock. If you're on day shift, stop at 12. If you're on afternoon shift, stop at 12. If you're on night shift, stop at 12. It's simple. It's so easy to remember, and it will make an enormous difference. What a lot of people don't realise is the less caffeine you have, the less caffeine you need. Caffeine has a half-life of about five to six hours, which means that even if you have your light last coffee mid-afternoon, half of that is still in your system when you're trying to fall asleep. And I know you might say to me, and I've heard this hundreds of times, but Rog, caffeine doesn't affect me, I can fall asleep just fine. Sure, you can fall asleep, but the quality of your sleep is a disaster. Because caffeine stops you from getting into that deep and restorative sleep that your body so desperately needs. So if you want to sleep well, start cutting caffeine at least nine hours before your bedtime. Remember the 12 o'clock rule. Stick to that and you watch what happens. Step number four, you're gonna hate me. Alcohol to wind down. Now this one's a sneaky one. Because a lot of shift workers tell me they love to have a drink to help them to fall asleep. Yeah, alcohol might knock you out quicker. It is a relaxant, but it destroys your sleep quality. It literally fragments your sleep. You do wake up more often. You know this, you've been out on the gas and you've had to deal with it. You know that you end up going to the bathroom, you end up waking up all the time. It's the worst sleep ever. And it doesn't help you. You do not get proper REM Street sleep, and you will wake up feeling like you've been hit by a bus. No shit. You know this. It's not a wind down, it's a numbing down. So if you want to truly relax, swap that drink for a proper routine. Have a shower, reading in some low light, do some breath work, you'll find it so much better for you. And the fifth and last step that I want to mention is not having a stress management practice. And this is enormous. If there's one thing that impacts shift work sleep more than anything else, other than circadian alignment, is stress. We underrate this. So if you go to bed with your mind racing and you're thinking about work, your family, your next shift, what Jenny's doing, what yeah, school, book week, the kids, husband, wife, oh my god, everything's going on, all that work I've got at work. How on earth can your body finally relax? How does it feel safe to go to sleep? You cannot, and it's too much to ask your body to fall asleep from 100 miles an hour to zero in 30 seconds. And yet we do this. We come home pumping music, shower in an ensuite that's got the light on, then we climb into bed, scroll on our phone, then roll over and go, right, that's it, sleep. Your body doesn't know, it hasn't caught up. You do have to slow down first. You need to create the environment. When you do that, your body will take care of the rest. Whether it's journaling or breath work or meditation or even just sitting in silence, just help to find a practice that helps you to switch off yourself. Because if you don't manage your stress during the day, I can guarantee to you it's going to show up the second that you hit the pillow. No doubt. So there you go. There is five proven steps to sabotage your sleep. Skip the early daylight, just don't move. Drink your caffeine late, use alcohol to relax, and just completely ignore your stress. Do those, and I promise, your sleep will be garbage and you will feel like rubbish yourself. But if that hit home for you, and if you're tired of feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and you're ready to actually fix this, then all you gotta do is go down into the show notes and click the link there and book a one-to-one coaching assessment call with me. If we're a good fit, I promise you I will change this. I'll help you to build a routine that actually works for you, one that gives you control, confidence, and helps you to become the master sleeper, even as a shift worker. Thanks for listening to a healthy shift podcast today. I want you to take care of yourself and I'll chat to you soon on the next one. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released. It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on. If you want to know more about me or work with me, you can go to ahealthyshift.com. I'll catch you on the next one.