[317] - Why You Can’t Catch Up on Sleep, But You Can Bank It

The idea of “catching up” on sleep with a long lie-in sounds helpful, but it actually disrupts your body clock. In this episode, I explain why it backfires and share a simple plan to stabilise your sleep timing across nights, early starts, and rotating shifts. You’ll learn how to anchor your wake time, use light and movement to reset your clock, nap strategically, and bank sleep before tough runs.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why weekend lie-ins disrupt circadian rhythm
• How a drifting body clock drives cravings, low mood, and fatigue
• The anchor habit of a consistent wake-up time
• How morning light and gentle movement act as time cues
• Short power naps that support recovery without harming night sleep
• How to bank sleep before nights and early starts
• A practical daily timing plan for shift workers
• A calm pre-sleep routine that improves depth and consistency

If you want help building a sleep plan that fits your roster and your energy needs, use the link in the show notes to get in touch.

Subscribe for new episodes, and please leave a rating and review—it helps more shift workers find the show.

Learn more at ahealthyshift.com.

Chapters

• 3:17 Why Catch-Up Sleep Fails
• 4:55 The Body Clock And Chaos
• 8:15 Consequences Of A Late Lie-In
• 11:25 The Consistent Wake-Up Fix
• 14:25 Power Naps Without Rhythm Damage

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 hello everybody. Welcome back to a healthy shift podcast. I'm your host, Roger Sutherland. As you know, an evidence-based, certified nutritionist, shift work coach. Now, today I want to explain something that so many of you get wrong. So many shift workers get this part wrong, and this is literally what causes majority of the problems on why you feel so tired, why you feel so brain fogged, why you just can't get going and feel so totally unmotivated. People tell me all the time, I'll just catch up on my sleep on my days off. Uh-huh. And that is the problem. And I get, I totally understand why that you would think that. It obviously feels logical. You're tired, you're getting to bed late, you'll get more sleep later, and then everything will fix itself because I've got to get my seven to nine hours. And this is so disordered, and this is what creates a lot of problems and sends exactly the wrong message. It just doesn't work like that. You cannot catch up on sleep the way that you might think that you actually can. And when you try and you actually have that lie-in, you'll find that you'll actually make things worse. But you can bank sleep. That's right. You can bank it, and that changes everything. So let's break it down today in a simple and a very, very practical way for you. And by the end of this podcast, you will know exactly what to do after a run of night, early shifts, or long stretches where that sleep hasn't gone well, that overtime slaughtered you, and you've got home late, and now you're in a pickle and you want to try and catch up on sleep. So let's go through the first step, why you can't catch up on sleep. I want you to remember this, and we've talked about this hundreds of times. Your body runs on a clock. Now, your brain actually anticipates and expects light at certain times, movement at certain times, food at certain times, and sleep at certain times. That rhythm is built within you. It's built inside all the time. It's running on the same clock time clock. Now, when you sleep in because you feel wrecked, what you actually do is you confuse that clock and you push it completely out of position. No light hitting your eyes, no movement. You're delaying your first meal. And you shift your body into a later rhythm. Your eyes are closed, you're sleeping, and you're pushing it back later. But then your next shift doesn't wait. And the next activity doesn't wait for you because you've still got to get up early the next day, or you've still got to go into night shift, or you've got to switch back to those normal hours, or you've got to be in a certain place at a certain time. And now your internal clock and your roster are completely out of sync. And this is why catching up creates more chaos. You are not restoring order by actually catching up on sleep. What you are doing is you are shifting your rhythm even further out. And the downstream effects of this show up very, very quickly. While you feel like it's a good idea to lie in and have a little lie-in, and you get up and you think, oh, I really needed that. Thank God I listened to my body. I'll guarantee to you later in the afternoon you feel groggy and your appetite is all over the place and you're craving sugar and you feel completely unmotivated to train and your mood drops, and then you struggle to fall asleep again that night. So even though you slept more hours, you didn't actually help the system. What you did was you actually confused it. Now, how does this circadian disruption build? Well, when your wait times keep shifting backwards and forwards, your circadian rhythm stops trusting your pattern. It has nowhere to actually anchor itself to. And this is vital. This means that your hormones are not lining up with your sleep. Your energy rises and falls at the wrong times, and your digestion completely goes out of sync. And your sleep pressure, that thing that helps you to not only fall asleep, but stay asleep, gets weaker. So you lie awake more, you toss and turn more, and then you think you're behind on sleep. So what do you do? You try and catch up again, and the cycle gets tighter. This is why so many shift workers feel stuck. And it's not the hours you're missing, it's the time in chaos. So many people I know that work on the two two-day shifts, two-night shifts, four days off cycle really struggle with going to sleep the night before their first day shift. Put your hand up. I know so many people struggle to go to bed and sleep properly before their first day shift, after a few days off. And the reason for that is because you've been sleeping in the day before and the day before that. And what you've done is you've actually phase shifted your circadian rhythm. So when you actually have to get that 4:30, 445 alarm to get up and go to work, you've woken yourself up right in the middle of a deep sleep cycle. And that is what is causing you the problem. So here's the fix a consistent wake-up time. Rog, I'm a shift worker. I know, I get that. But here's the simple and the boring and the most powerful answer. You've got to wake up at roughly the same time every day. Now, I don't care that you've got overtime until 12:30, one or two, get up at the same time. Don't push your circadian rhythm back. You're not catching up on sleep, you're causing yourself more problems. Even after that bad sleep, even after that late night, even when the temptation to stay in bed is super strong and that snooze button, bang, there it is. The snooze button. What I want you to do is get up. Get up, open the curtains, get that daylight, get outside, get that natural light into your eyes. Move your body a little. Wander around the garden, go for a walk around the block, do something. Because this fixes a lot more than what you actually think. What you'll do what you've just done is you've let your internal clock lock into that pattern. Your mood lifts, your appetite actually steadies, your energy evens out, and sleep, it becomes even easier at night because you are now working back in sync with your rhythm and not against it. Now let's be real. Rog, shift work is really hard on sleep. And some days your tank is empty. You finished at 2 a.m. and you got home and you slept, and now Roger's telling you you gotta get up at 7. If you need a topping, a top-up, don't sleep in. Here's your power theory don't have a short nap. Just 20 to 30 minutes. That's all you need to do. No longer. Just 20 to 30 minutes just to release that sleep pressure without pushing your body clock around. This will not impact on your sleep at night. It will give you a circuit breaker and it will keep you alert during the day. But it doesn't disrupt your rhythm the same way as a long morning sleeping does. Think of it as a safety valve. It helps with the cost. So here's where the magic happens. Now you can't catch up on sleep, but you can bank it. This means going to bed earlier on days when you know you have a tough run ahead. Now, shift workers should think of sleep the way athletes think of hydration or nutrition. You load it before the stress hits. Now banking sleep builds a buffer, it reduces the cognitive hit you take during the nights or the early starts. It will help to make you more alert. And it's a strategy which is used in research and elite performance settings all the time. And it's simple. Don't push your bedtime till later. Actually bring it forward. Even 30 to 60 minutes extra for a few nights can actually make a huge difference long term. Your body can work with this because it supports your circadian rhythm instead of breaking it. And this is the real catching up on sleep. It's just done before the deficit and not after it. So here's a simple strategy for you as a shift worker. A clear plan that you can actually use right away. Look at your roster and pick a wake-up time the same time every day and protect that, roughly around that time. 6 30, 7 30, thereabouts. Let this be your anchor and have everything else revolve around that. Number two, once you wake, get outside within 30 minutes. Light resets your body clock. It tells your body to suppress the sleep hormones. It tells your body to get you up and about and elevates cortisol for you to get going. Move your body early. Even just a short walk round the block will help and make a difference. What you've done then is you've hit another one of the key light givers or the key time givers that our circadian rhythm needs. Number four, don't sleep in to catch up. But use a power nap as your master stroke. And then bank sleep before heavy shifts. Go to bed earlier, not later. Going into night shift, go to bed earlier. Get a good solid night's sleep. Start banking sleep knowing that you're not going to sleep properly going through the nights. This will make a big difference. And number six, make sure you keep a calm and pre-sleep routine. Use the same routine every time you go to bed, and you will be keying your body into ah, this is what we do when we go to sleep. Dim the lights. Slow everything right down. Let the body wind down. Have a hot shower. Let the body cool so you're ready for sleep. These steps help to stabilize your rhythm. It will help to keep your hormones so important, keep them steady, and to give you a better sleep quality over time. And when your rhythm is ready, everything else feels easier. Sorry, when your rhythm is steady, everything else feels a lot easier. Your energy, your mood, your hunger, the PBs in the gym, and your recovery will all improve. So I want you to remember this. Feeling tired doesn't mean that you're behind on hours. It often means that your rhythm is completely out of alignment. And you can't repair that by sleeping in. But what you can do is stabilize it with a steady wake-up time, with morning light, with movement, and sleep banking. And if you want help working out a sleep plan that fits your roster and your life and your energy needs, I can absolutely help you with that. And there are links in the show notes to get in touch with me. I want to say thanks for listening. Take care of yourself and make your next shift a healthy shift. But don't sleep in. 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.