Blue Light & Beyond with guest Roger Sutherland

Blue Light & Beyond with Roger Sutherland

Here we go with our old friend Roger Sutherland with this supersized season 3 opener!  Thank you for 2 good seasons so far and this one will get us ready for another successful season in 2025!

In this enlightening episode of All Clear Firefighter Wellness, Travis welcomes back fan-favorite Roger Sutherland, an expert in shift work health from Melbourne, Australia. Roger shares his journey from a 40-year police career to pioneering health and wellness for shift workers. They dive deep into the critical issues caused by shift work, including sleep disruption, the impact of blue light, nutrition, and supplements. Roger provides practical solutions including low glycemic index diets, the importance of melatonin, and essential supplements for shift workers. This must-watch episode is packed with actionable insights for all emergency service professionals looking to improve their health and well-being.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:48 Roger's Retirement and New Ventures
02:09 Challenges of Shift Work
05:39 Mental Health in Emergency Services
12:50 Impact of Blue Light on Sleep
28:46 Solutions for Better Sleep
37:14 The Impact of Blue Light on Daily Life
37:41 Safety Glasses for Firefighters
38:18 The Importance of Melatonin
39:39 Shift Workers and Gut Health
40:48 Low GI Diet for Shift Workers
49:49 Supplements for Shift Workers
55:30 The Risks of Unregulated Supplements
01:03:39 Conclusion and Resources

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Transcript

We have a good friend of the show. We got Mr. Roger Sutherland with us. How you doing my friend? 

Oh, I am fantastic. And for those that are listening to this. Yes, I'm Australian. I'm from down in Melbourne, Victoria at the very bottom end of Australia on the Eastern coast. So thank you so much for having me back on the show, Travis.

Oh, no worries. And you were one of our most popular episodes. This is back when we were audio only. Now you can see my ugly face and I'm having a conversation. You're always wonderful to have on. And if you're not listening to Roger's podcast, a healthy shift you need to be it just a ton of good stuff in there, but I know you have had one major change, in your status since you since you were here last and you've talked about on your podcast you're retired now.

So you get to sit around and, sip coffee in the mornings and do all that fun stuff. I'm assuming you're doing absolutely nothing, right?  

You you would be assuming wrong, but let me just say this. I've gone from, I've just retired to give people a bit of background. I was in the police here in Melbourne, in Victoria.

We have state police only here. We don't have local police and things like that. And I was a member of Victoria Police for 40 years. I started in August of 1984 and I retired in August of 2024 at 40 years and four days. Very happy to be here. Have put the organization behind me to be perfectly honest with you, Travis.

It's very difficult now working in when you've come from so far along that journey, it's a very different job now. And I think once I recognize that my values no longer align with. The organizations, I think it's time to move on. But five years ago, I started,  I recognized that there was big problems with shift work.

With health and wellbeing like massive. And I think if you were to look back in your time, you would realize that.  What education did you have around how to optimize your life around shift work? And I'd be pretty sure that I could say that the answer would be none. Because we don't get any education around how to go about shift work.

And I honestly thought that the nutrition was the problem because everyone was gaining weight and you will have seen that in your time. And to the listeners that are listening to this, they will have heard. Or they would have seen and observed in their own workplace that everyone seems to gain weight.

So you would think it's got to be nutrition. And while that's right, it's actually so much more complicated than that. So what I have done, I returned to study nutrition, and now I work with shift workers one on one. in coaching them to absolutely optimize their life around shift work.

And I can coach with empathy and support and understanding having done shift work for 40 years, raising a family, having children. My, my children are both in emergency services. Now, my son in law is in emergency services. My partner, Melissa is in emergency services. We are all a very big emergency services family here, but we I recognize that there's more problems, meal timing, body image issues things like that cause us a lot of issues.

So I thought.  I'm going to go off and start my business, a healthy shift and start helping shift working. I health and wellbeing workplaces in the health and wellbeing. So I go into workplaces and run keynotes and I also coach shift workers one to one to help them to literally thrive, not just survive in their shift working lives. 

So I know you said, law enforcement retired you've totally shifted gears, but. Oh, totally. But would you say once a cop, always a cop? Once a police officer? Never out. Yep. 

Never ever out. It would be exactly the same with you, Travis. I don't think we always should hang on to that as our as part of our DNA.

I think it's very important. You, the job never leaves you. And I think you should be always proud of what you've actually achieved and done in your time in the services, because you personally, you've done amazing work with what you're doing, but here you are now with a podcast and doing the work that you're doing now, trying to bring education to the newer generation of firefighters so that they understand What is required because you didn't get that you're trying to be the person that you wish you had when you first started and I think  We have to value once a cop, always a cop.

Once a fireman, always a firefighter. It never leaves your DNA and you should always be proud of that. But sometimes it's time to move on and reflect on it. And and that's where I'm at now. But it doesn't mean that I don't still see No seatbelts. I still see people speeding.

I still see people that I look at and go, what's he up to?  We're always going to say that. But it's nice to actually take the amygdala of my brain offline and just relax now as well. That makes a big difference.  

Sometimes you around here, we jokingly you retire with a gold watch and some PTSD.

Sometimes that's about all you take away with you. But once you have it ingrained in you to help other people, you never change. And 

I totally agree. I also, we do retire with a gold watch and PTSD and we all do in some form. Some people it impacts very heavily, other people it doesn't impact or doesn't seem to impact as much or they don't recognize, but they do.

I know a lot of people that have left policing that are friends of mine that have left policing that say, no, I've got no stress. I'm fine, but they can't sleep. That's stress. You're not, there's problems with a lot of things that you're doing, lifestyle behaviors, and we'll talk about that later.

But there's a lot of things that cause a lot of grief to say that you've walked out without impacting  is rubbish. We all have that part of it impacted, but G it's nice to just take it offline for a while. And but it DNA and we should be proud of that because it has taught us a lot. It's told us a lot 

For sure.

And I, and I still have a quite a few years, not a quite a few, but I'm down to single digit years before I'm retired. And, I've had some really stressful stuff happen in the last year or 2, some cases that have been very trial some I've had to work through it. And I know you've.

I've seen things that you've had to work through as well. And the big thing that I've learned and I was talking to another to another firefighter and he made the comment that it's okay to be broken. It's okay to say I'm not okay, but you have to pick yourself up and you have to try to move forward and try to fix yourself as best you can. 

And I was very much impressed by that thought.  

Travis,  this is a really key conversation to have in today's day and age because I follow  A lot of psychologists and I've gone through my own journey as well. And I believe I've come out of the other side of that.  PTS is an injury. I don't care what anyone says.

It's actually an injury. It's caused by work, but it's like injuring yourself. And please don't people get offended by this, but it's like injuring your ankle. When you injure your ankle, you will recover from it. Now you may never walk exactly the same again, right? You might have a little limp. You may actually it may be painful, but you will walk again and it's exactly the same with PTS.

And when you end up with PTS.  I'm a firm advocate advocator for changing it from PTSD  to  PTSI as an injury. And the reason why I say that is because disorder has this connotation of you're broken, you're no good. And I think a lot of organization, not think, I know a lot of organizations now, and I can promise you that this is exactly what happened to me.

Once I was diagnosed with PTSD. That was it. I was done with the organization. They want nothing to do with you. You are broken. Yep. We might've broken you, but you're broken. You're no good now. That's so unfair. So unfair from an organization that exposes us. Yes, we sign up to this, but  we need with rehabilitation, you can literally come back to a role and do something within that organization.

And I liken that to with the ankle where you've hurt, you've injured your ankle, but you will walk again, but you may not quite walk the same. You can still go back into policing or as a firefighter. And you may not be the person on the end of the hose or running into the building, but there's still a really important role that you can play with your experience in that organization. 

Without cutting you off and literally just dissing you, which is what organizations do now. They just diss you out. And I think we need to be a lot better at that and this conversation. Putting your hand up and going I'm just not okay. And I'm not sure why. And I, we also have to look at our colleagues because our colleagues also. 

are suffering without us even without them realizing that they are suffering and I've called a few colleagues out saying have you ever realized that you do this or that this is happening or how do you feel about that and they've not realized until they've investigated it and started to realize that there's something going on there.

It isn't until you step out and look in that you realize, Oh my goodness me. And every single person that you follow  is big on social media now, or has written books all say,  I.  Didn't realize just how bad it had got until I stepped out and looked back in and then I realized that my behavior was uncool  

One thing and I can speak for the united states I can't speak for how things are happening in your part of the world But I know here that mental health has taken a front seat when it comes to okay things aren't right They do the debriefings things like that and there is a lot of support But unfortunately, I think at some point we get to the point.

Okay, you're broken This is all we can do But if the individual if we make the effort to seek that additional Support that additional treatment, whatever it is for each of us that can really help us regain, like you said, 90 percent of where we were. And that's a conversation. I think a lot of people aren't having, but I'm glad to hear that you're doing good in your retirement and life is being being kind to you.

So very kind. It's been very kind to me now. I've got a as I said, I can get live vicariously through my daughter and my son in law who was still going through it and very passionate about the job and what they do. Of course we call it the job. So they're very passionate about it.

It's like you having a son that, was to join and be very passionate. When you retire, you will live vicariously through their stories and what they're doing. The one thing you have to stop saying is back in my day, we would never have done it like that because that's what we tend to do because it's a different generation that they're coming in.

Like what we say is, oh, it's just not the same in 20 years time. They're going to be saying the same thing. It's just a different generation. And we have to accept that.  

Yeah. And, I have a son who's 13 and I jokingly tell him, please don't go into the fire service fund,  get some education, do something better.

But whatever he wants to do, I'll support him a hundred percent in it, but, we talk about, and we had this conversation a little bit before we started recording, the generations are changing. The landscape is changing in emergency services across the board and a large  factor that I think that's impacting young people and even us older farts as we're moving into is social media. 

We're glued to our phones, our computers, our tablets. We don't put them down. It, there is a mental impact for sure. From cyberbullying and, trying to keep up with whatever the latest trend is and, that has a very negative impact.  I know that one thing that you've been doing some research in that kind of links into that is the impacts that it has on us physically in our sleep.

And, the blue light and, all these things we see coming, we're starting to see the impacts of LEDs and things like that. I did want to see if you would be willing to talk about that a little bit about what you've figured out and learned about about those impacts are having on us and how that can be negative. 

I could talk about this for as long as you want, but let me just cover off very quickly on this. I think it's really important going back to your 13 year old son to Travis in Australia, your 13 year old son would not be allowed to have social media here. Cause we've just passed legislation here in Australia that Under the age of 16, you are not allowed to have social media.

So you're not allowed to have Instagram, no Tik Tok, no Facebook no X, no anything you're not allowed to have any social media at all under the age of 16. And the reason why they brought this in is to prevent this bullying and this severe impact that it's actually having on people before they've got the maturity to manage it.

It's quite a control. It's quite a massive control in my opinion, but I can see why, because I know we have problems. Now, what I want to talk about in relation to blue light, which we are learning more and more about with the impact that it's actually having is, and I'm just going to go quite simply back to. 

Our caveman days. And when we go back to caveman days, we literally had light and dark, and that was it, there was nothing else. There was no light you could turn on. And if you did turn a light on, you wouldn't be turning electric light on. You would be turning on a a flame. You'd be lighting a flame and you'd be getting that orange red hue out of that.

No blue light in that at all.  And our circadian rhythm was quite healthy.  Very healthy. And we would sleep. And in fact, it was funny because most people used to sleep in two lots overnight. I would sleep one session, get up and they'd be up during the middle of the night, and then they would go back and sleep again and then be up and awake during the day, getting early light.

Now, one of the biggest problems that we have today, and let's just put shift workers aside just for a minute.  Is the exposure to that blue emitting light that we have absolutely everywhere that blue pump led which is in those lights above our head in those energy saver led lights it's also coming out of our television that's coming out of our everything that's white that we look at every single light that we look at is white emitting a spectrum of blue light into our eye, which is upsetting our circadian rhythm.

Now I want to explain this, which is really important for people to understand. We have a circadian rhythm that runs on a 24 hour cycle every single day. Circadian, which is circa DN, which is about a day, which it runs every single day, regardless. And it responds  to light. Now we have always thought that it was responding to just light, but we've since learned that there's ganglion cells in our eye that only registers blue and that's all it registers.

And it's a particular spectrum of blue, which is at 480 nanometers, which is that visible blue. And it's in fact the blue, believe it or not, which is the color of the sky. When there's not a cloud in the sky, it's that blue.  So when the eye registers that color blue, it thinks it's daytime, so therefore it shuts down the production of melatonin through our pineal gland.

And that melatonin we are learning is now severely impactful on our biological functionality over the night and the day.  So once as soon as our eye registers that blue light again in the daytime.  Instantly shuts the melatonin down. Now, if you think about it  at night with no blue light, with no lights, what we think is  there's no blue light.

Our eye doesn't register any blue light. So what it does is it starts producing melatonin and melatonin. While we think melatonin is actually the sleep hormone, it's actually not, it's a precursor to sleep.  But what it does is melatonin because the body can't see other than just register that light because the body can't see  melatonin notifies the rest of the body.

It's dark outside. We need to shut down. We need to start repairing and we need to start looking after our body detoxifying, going through cell regeneration, releasing that human growth hormone, growing, flushing our brain, getting everything working fine. And this is the trigger that melatonin forms. We've also learned that we don't actually process and store nutrients the same when melatonin is elevated in our body. 

So  at night, optimally  we need zero blue light. Now researchers will tell us quite categorically that blue light doesn't impact sleep latency at all.  And sleep latency is the time that it takes for us to go to sleep. And in fact, it's only about seven minutes. So lying in bed, a lot of people will say, I'm going to go to bed and I'm going to lie in bed and I'm going to look at my phone until I relax and go to sleep. 

And if you think about it,  you've got your phone and you're holding your phone about four to six inches away from your face, and that blue light is going straight into your eye, right? All the time. And you can put filters on your phone. And it doesn't make any difference. Those Apple filters and also on the Android filter, though, there's still blue light in those, and it's still that bright blue that's going into your eyes.

So for people thinking, Oh no, I put that filter on. So it doesn't work.  It doesn't,  I'm protected. You're not. And research shows this quite categorically. Now, while you might relax and go to sleep. Some people relax and go to sleep. Some people are severely impacted by what they're actually absorbing off the phone, not by lies,  by what they're looking at on social media.

They're checking the emails. Emails are coming in from the boss at work. Jenny is having a problem with her husband and you're involved in the conversations with that. All sorts of things. And that can delay it because it stimulates our brain and causes us not relax to go to sleep.  Now, where does this cause a problem with melatonin?

And the way this causes a problem with melatonin that I really want people listening to this to understand  is while you may go to sleep, Your melatonin is non existent or nearly really poor in your system, which is why people don't sleep well and they wake up  quickly after they can go to sleep. 

Melatonin is actually our free radical scavenger in our body and what that means is melatonin actually runs through our bloodstream and is  actually scavenging those oxidative stress, which is cancer cells in our body, and it's destroying those. So in the absence of melatonin, we are actually leaving ourselves vulnerable to cancer.

And in women, ever since the invention of the incandescent light,  And then fluorescent light and then blue pump LED light, which are energy efficient. What we found is breast cancer in women has increased by over 50%. And in men, it's increased prostate cancer as well. Why it impacts on there, I don't know.

But it also causes problems for cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke. The impacts are enormous. So while we can go to sleep, absolutely the impact on our melatonin and not having melatonin producing while we are sleeping when our body just so counts on it is significant and causes us massive problems biologically.

I know, when you're talking about the cancer aspect of it, our nonprofit, North Carolina Firefighter Cancer Alliance, we've looked a lot. At the numbers  of firefighters versus the general population when it comes to the cancer rates and some of them you're talking double or more.

And even in, in women, there's one study that shown there's about a thousand percent higher risk in women for developing some form of cancer.  We know we're getting exposure to from PFAS in our gear, from the stuff that we absorb from the fires and the things around us, but these other factors we don't always think about.

We know if we don't sleep enough, it'll wear us out. It's not good for your heart. It's not good for your mind. But what you're saying, Honestly makes a huge amount of sense. And I know that in my case, personally if I mess around with my phone or my tablet before I go to bed, it's not good, but it actually got to the point with me that I had to shut off notifications because I would get a, a dang every time there was something on my news app and I was like, I can't do it.

Because it messes with your mind to the point that you can't sleep. You're worried about stuff that you have zero control over. And it's a double edged sword that will cut you very quickly. 

Oh, and we feel, and don't get me wrong here, Travis, but one of the biggest problems that we do have as well is that FOMO, we feel like we're going to miss out. 

But does it really matter? What control have we got over it? Do I really have to, how many people do you hear say, and you probably do it. And I know I do it. I'll just check my phone before I go to sleep. What is the benefit?  What is the benefit of doing that? I know people in my circles now that have their phone on do not disturb or on airplane mode, 20 hours at a 24 hours a day now that it's on airplane mode.

No notifications, no, nothing. Okay. And then they turn it on, get their email get their notifications, clear their notifications, deal with their social media, put it back on airplane mode, respond to the emails while it's on airplane mode. And then what they do is next time they turn it on in 24 hours, that will send those emails out.

Those emails, the responses will go out. Nothing is that urgent. We think it is, but I can tell you the impact that it actually has on our body by inhibiting that melatonin at night is enormous. Now we are in a position today in society where there is actually healthy lighting.  Now, our workplaces haven't caught onto this yet.

But they will in time, they're going to be forced to because I can promise you that in the next,  I know you're not going to believe this, but I want you to timestamp this right now, but I feel that in the next five years, majority of lighting in houses will come with a hazard on it. And the hazard will be dangerous if used at night. 

Lighting  dangerous if used at night because of the blue spectrum in that light. Now people will say, I don't have any blue. It's all white. The white is the blue. That's the blue coming in. We have companies now and in the, in America, you are very blessed and very fortunate with great companies that are producing fantastic Healthy lighting globes that you can swap globes and bedside lamps.

Lighting in your house to circadian friendly lighting, because here's the absolute catch for you, which will blow your mind. And I learned this from Dr. Martin more.  Bless him, who is a lecturer at Harvard in Boston around and he's known as the light doctor and I'll hold his book up here as well.

It's called the light doctor. I highly recommend everyone reads this book. It's written to the layman. So everyone will understand it.  If our body doesn't register blue light, it still thinks it's asleep.  But if it registers blue light, it thinks it's awake. Now, what I want to do is I want to say this to you.

We are now in a position, there are companies in America that are producing light that has zero blue in it. No blue at all,  right? And that light  that's lighting workplaces and circadian have put these lights into some of the fortune 500 companies. Those people don't even know that it's light. Even though they're in light, there's no blue light in it and their body doesn't think it's  awake.

It still produces melatonin. It still goes through its normal detoxification, even though the person's awake and they're working. Because they're not exposed to any blue in the light at all. The body still thinks it's asleep. How do you think they sleep when they get home beautifully, as long as they don't expose themselves to any blue light, they go to sleep.

So they reversing it really well. Now you think. As a firefighter, you do a 12 hour shift. If you don't get called out rarely, and you are in circadian friendly lighting at night, you would just sleep  no problems. And then you would thrive during the day because your body has literally been going through that sleep cycle without.

You actually being asleep because the body hasn't seen any blue. It's mind blowing where it's going. And we're a long way behind Dan here in Australia, cause we don't have them available as yet. They're coming, but you've got them available in America now.  

So that, that is a very true thing that you say.

I built a house about four years ago and just about everything in the house is LED. It looks beautiful, nice and bright. But boy it can mess with you at two o'clock in the morning. Sometimes you turn on light, get to the bathroom and it's blinding and you can't go back to sleep after that. 

We'll see.

And that's why there's products now from companies that we in our, in my house, because of the knowledge that I've gained now, when I go to the bathroom, when I wake up in the middle of the night, because let's face it, I'm 60. So I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. But when I wake up and I walk into the ensuite into the bathroom, I have a zero blue light that is a central light that just comes on.

And what that means is when I walk into the ensuite to go to the bathroom, that sense of light comes on, there is no blue in it. So what does my body think? It's still asleep. It's still asleep because it hasn't seen any blue at all, but I can see because all of the other colors are there, right? So there's no blue, go to the bathroom, go back to bed.

I go straight back to sleep because there's no brilliance of light overnight at all. Now, this is Cheap. It's 20 us dollars and I carry it when we go away on holiday. When you go and stay in a hotel and you get a bit disorientated when you wake up, cause you're not sure where you are, where the bathroom is.

It's pitch black. Cause you've got those blackout blinds.  We take it with us so that when we move, when we get out of bed, the light comes on, but it's zero blue. So it doesn't disturb anyone. So you walk to the bathroom, go to the bathroom, come back, get back into bed. Off the light goes, that's it. 

It's the best thing ever. 

So sleep hygiene from what you're discussing is a huge issue. And here in the U S there are different fire schedules that people have. Sometimes it's 24 on 48 off. There's different variations of that, but  when you're on shift, you don't have control of what's going to happen at two o'clock in the morning.

You got house fire, medical, whatever.  But when you go home,  And you're sleeping in your own bed with your spouse or, whatever the case is, you have a hundred percent control of what's happening. Situation. What can we do to maximize our sleep on the nights that we have control over? 

The first thing that I want people to really understand, particularly your firefighting community as well.

If you can see your hand in front of your face, like if you can hold your arm at half the length of full arm length away and you can see your hand, it's not dark enough in your bedroom to sleep, right? So you're not going to get good restorative sleep. So what's the solution to that? We need  A sleep mask.

And we really should this, the evidence and the science behind wearing a sleep mask with total darkness is phenomenal. Right now I'm not pushing any particular product here. I'm just saying getting a sleep mask is absolutely ideal. Now I recommend the Manta sleep mask because that's just a company that I've tried all of them.

And I just love the Manta sleep mask. And that's available. If people want to go to my website and have a look, they can have a look at the Manta sleep mask, which I recommend.  But we need to be wearing a sleep mask because we don't want to be opening our eyes. Any ambient light is actually going to trigger our circadian rhythm.

So we need to stop that. Now, I know people are going to laugh at this, but once the sun has gone down, whether it's summer or whether it's winter time, regardless of what time zone you're on. We must block that blue light. We need to have zero blue light globes in our house or light. Now I run in our lounge room.

We run just a salt lamp, right? Do you know those salt lamps? Those orange salt lamps. That's all we run at night.  Very popular. But I just run that because it's zero blue. It's got no blue in it. And also we have zero blue globes that, so we don't have any blue light. Now, do we watch TV? Yes, of course.

I watch TV cause I'm human, right?  And And of course what are you doing? If you're not watching SEAL teams on the TV, you've got to be able to watch, all the good American stuff. But I also wear the blue light blockers, which I've just put on, which block out all blue light.

Now you can get these as a fit over that fit over your normal glasses. Cause you know, you wear glasses, but you can get them that fit over yours. And you just wear these and you become very conditioned to wearing these blue lights net blue light blockers. Now these ones here are Swanwick. Again, Swanwick.

It's an American company. This is available. Science backed, evidence backed, blue light blocking. Now scientists will look at it and go that blue light blockers don't make any difference to you falling asleep and they are 100 percent right. But what it's doing is it's protecting that melatonin production, which is what we need to protect that cancer.

While your firefighters are being exposed to what they're wearing, that's touching them from their uniforms, from their kits, from gases and chemicals, from fires, etc. While those free radicals are running through the system with no melatonin to combat that.  And if you think about your firefighters that are awake during the day, they're awake at night, no melatonin.

What is actually combating these these free radicals running around the system? There is nothing. So  blue light blocking glasses, super important. Get into bed. If you're one of these people that has to check your phone, and I do, I can't help myself, right? I put my fit overs. I just grabbed my Swanwick blue light blocking fit over glasses.

And I put them on and I'll look at my phone. There is zero blue light coming through those none. So my eye thinks it's dark. My body, my  hypothalamus right now thinks it's dark because it can't see any blue at all. So therefore it starts to secrete melatonin, which is our body's, as I've said before, it's our body's lifeguard.

And this is what we're learning more and more about. And you will sleep better wearing blue light blocking glasses in the evening after dark. And while people are on the station, I can see in years to come, people sitting around in the stations wearing these, or they'll have circadian friendly lighting in the stations at night.

So  as soon as it goes dark, this lighting just automatically switches over to zero blue. It still looks the same. No one notices it, but it switches over to zero blue. And then during the day, when the sun comes up, it has blue enriched. More than the 20 percent to make sure that your firefighters are getting their blue light internally during the day to make sure that they're getting the right blue light.

This is the key to health and wellbeing for us. Our shift working community today is circadian friendly lighting. And if you think about your firefighters,  you can't control what you're doing when you go to work because you go into an emergency department in a hospital, blue ritual light. You take your patient in, blue rich light, you're out of fire, street lighting, blue rich light, truck lights, LED lights in the cabins, lights coming from headlights, the local cop shining his torch in your face, this is all blue rich light, this is, you can't control that.

But you can control that with blue light blocking glasses, individually, if you really value your health. Now, your colleagues might want to call you out and call you a ning you look like Bono from U2, but you know what, there's merit in that and people will get used to it because I know quite a few people that wear them regularly. 

But at home,  as you said, going back to your original question, we are in positions where we can control this light. We can put zero blue lights in overhead.  Because what you don't realize is those blue pump LEDs that are energy efficient that you've put in your house, that you were told this is energy efficient.

This is bright light. This is energy efficient. This is so good is actually literally killing you because it is confusing your circadian rhythm to the stage where it's not sure whether you're awake or whether you should be awake, whether you should be asleep. And this causes a lot of our sleep problems.

Replace all those LEDs with circadian lighting  or turn them off at night. And you will find that things will really improve because the research is extremely strong around the impacts of those.  And in workplaces where we save on the energy efficiency, the heat that they generate, we spend on the air conditioning to keep the goddamn joint cool.



Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you can't win. It's one or the other. No, my luck, I put the blue blockers on and I would fall asleep. That's, 

isn't that the goal?  

Yeah, 

but Trevor, if you're in the station, if you think about it, if you were in the station and you were between jobs or you're working and you've got your blue blockers on and you're sitting around, the boys are playing pool or on a hang on, they're firefighters.

What are they doing? Polishing the truck or they're playing PlayStation. Is that what firefighters do  

or watching judge duty or 

watching judge duty? Yeah, that's right. They're watching TV. But if you're sitting there with your blue blockers on while you're doing that, at least you're giving your circadian rhythm a chance.

You're giving it a chance, no jobs. You go to, I'm sure you've probably got rules in place that if there's no job, the, you must rest, recline, sleep, do whatever. It's going to help you to sleep and get quality sleep. There are things that are available, but the bottom line is, I think the best investment that anybody can possibly make is in a sleep mask today and blue light blocking glasses and wear them after dark at every opportunity that you can.

Now, you don't want to be a firefighter looking at the LEDs on the back of a truck through blue light blocking glasses, trying to work out whether you should flick this switch or that switch, cause it can be a bit confusing once you take the blue out. Let's do go a bit funky, like really funky.

And it shows you how much blue there is in everything that we look at. Like traffic lights, the green, red, and there's no blue traffic light. But when you put blue light blocking glasses on and you look at a red Amber or a green traffic light, it's amazing. The difference in the colors because there's no blue in them.

Cause you can't see it. Blue light blocking glass on the way home.  

Yeah. I was going to say, you have to relearn some of that, but on the job you get safety first. So sometimes you gotta take them off, to, to do your job, but. 

Of course. I would love to see These manufactured into safety glasses for people like firefighters, even if it was to reduce an amount of blue.

But of course you can't reduce all blue and then have people function like, you put these on everything to look like it was on fire. You know what I mean? 

You need 

your naked eye to be able to see certain things. But what I'm saying, what the message out of this, Travis, I think, which is really important is control what you can control.

While you're at work. I don't want to hear people arguing with me. Oh, I can't wear those while I'm a firefighter because I can't see. Don't wear them then. That's the message. Don't wear them then,  but wear them at home and put them on when you're going to lie in bed and look at your phone at night because it won't impact on that melatonin.

It makes a big difference to your melatonin production. People will say, Oh no, but I can go to sleep. That's great. But melatonin is the issue now. We need natural melatonin or supplemental. Supplemental melatonin is very good as well for people to help particularly shift workers to help them to get back into a sink.

That's another conversation as well.  

So in addition to blue light, I know another topic that you are very passionate about when it comes to sleep and rest and recovery is food. What we eat, and beforehand, I was telling you how my wife has started cooking with things like kefir and including probiotics and pancakes and the cheese we eat and things like that.

I know that seems really weird, but I promise you it tastes great. But you've been on a kick lately talking about low GI foods. Yeah. Impacts that has.  

Yeah. Massive. Yeah.  I can tell you now what your wife and you were doing all credit all power to you for doing that to people that go, Oh, that's weird.

They're the ones walking around with digestive issues in their gut. If there's one issue that shift workers have.  A lot of is gut health issues. And the reason being is because of this desynchronized circadian rhythm and we are forcing it to digest food when it's not ready to digest food. You will find that the healthier that your gut flora is, which is what you and your wife are working on, the healthier your gut flora is, The less susceptible to problems through immunity you become.

So you become with you end up with a much more robust immune system. You probably haven't had a cold since you've started doing that. You don't get the sniffles. You don't suffer. You don't get the, all sorts of issues. You don't get the gut problems once you rebuild that. And you will, you'll rebuild that over time.

So all power to you with that, but.  I'm on a massive thing at the moment and I and I'm looking at a researcher to actually research it as in, to have some science behind it. I honestly believe that us shift workers on an afternoon shift. Now you do days or nights, the police and paramedics are doing afternoons and and night shift. 

I honestly believe that if you are from 6:00 PM right the way through to 6:00 AM that as shift workers, we should be eating a low gi. diet. Now, why would that be so important? Now, low GI, when we eat highly palatable carbohydrates and fats, which we are attracted to on night shift, chocolates and chips and cake and anything out of the vending machine, things like that.

And we're attracted to that because we think our body is actually searching for energy. But what happens is it spikes our blood sugar and then our blood sugar crashes. And then we repeat and then it spikes us. We feel great. And then we crash. And this repeat cycle all the time means that we are consuming more calories than what we actually need to. 

Now, if we were to go down the line of having low GI.  foods, which are foods that are low on the glycemic index. And I'm not going to go into them here cause a lot of people won't understand them, but I will steer you in the direction of a great resource. But if we go low GI foods, it's a slow release into our system.

Now there's a double  shotgun here, a double barrel shotgun here. Because the first thing is  it doesn't peak our blood sugar and then crash. It keeps our blood sugar stable, but also low GI foods are foods that digest a lot slower. So it keeps us feeling fuller longer. So therefore we don't tend to eat. 

And then have to eat again and then have to eat again and then have to eat again because it keeps us stable. And I think the best rule for us is to eat normally during daylight hours. As shift workers eat normal breakfast, lunch, dinner, very important that we eat on breakfast, lunch, and dinner time.

But I think from that dinner at night, 6 PM, right the way through until 6 AM, we really need if we need to eat and firefighters are busy people overnight. So you need to have some form of sustenance. I would just be searching for lower GI foods because it will just keep your blood sugar a lot more stable.

It's generally more fibrous food so it keeps us feeling fuller longer. You will feel so much more better and you won't have the potential to continually be snacking and it gets rid of those cravings. That people have, the, Oh, I've got to have sweet. Oh, I need chocolate. Oh, blah, blah, blah. We don't need that.

What we need is we need to have low GI foods and a stable blood sugar. It keeps us feeling so much better.  

And in, in, I think it goes beyond just firefighters, but obesity. Blood sugar issues. I'm not going to say necessarily diabetic, but you have a lot of folks that are creeping into that pre diabetic a lot of beer guts and things like that, that really do take away from your ability to number one, do your job.

I'm not the Adonis that I appear to be, I promise. I,  we had one guy say one time that when you look at someone, their physical condition is their resume. Do they take care of themselves? Do they exercise? Do they do the basic things? And for me, no, I'm not lifting weights and doing all that, but I try to make it a very regular practice to move around, to do some yoga.

Don't judge me if anybody from work's hearing that. And the meditation and the things like that, okay. It's part of it, but if we're not caring for what we're eating.  And there's a thousand ways, whether it be carnivore, keto pick your diet, that there's something to be said for all of them.

There, there's a grain of truth in every bit of it, but I think you just hit it real hard right there when you were saying our body knows when it's time to eat and not, and pick the right stuff to put in it.  

Totally.  Research is quite clear, Travis, as well. It tells us that shift workers  on average don't actually eat more than our day walking friends.

So why is it that shift workers put on weight? And this is the million dollar question that's trying to be answered by science. Because we don't tend to eat more. So why is it we put on weight? And I'll tell you, one of the main reasons is because we eat when melatonin is elevated in our system overnight.

And when we do that, our body doesn't absorb it. digest and store nutrients in the same manner. We've got less insulin to shuttle. We're insulin resistant. We,  it floats around our bloodstream and it just ends up getting parked as body fat, which is why, when we look at our shift working community, even though they feel like they're reading exactly the same thing. 

What's happening is we're gaining weight. So why are we gaining weight? And this is the million dollar question. And I've honestly believe that one of the main reasons that we can solve this problem is to stop this eating overnight or to switch to low GI from, 6 PM to 6 AM. So that we're only having small, low GI meals now to help people out without going into great detail.

And I don't want to confuse people. Okay. Because eating is simple. All food's good. Nothing's bad. And I don't care what anyone says. The dose is the poison, right? So if you have a lot of something, it's going to cause you a problem. I hear people say sugar's as addictive as heroin. Absolute rubbish. Sugar is sugar and we can have sugar.

Just the dose is the poison. Too much is going to cause you problems. Salt too much. He's going to cause you problems, but we need all of it. So nothing's bad. Yeah.  We can fix a lot of problems by just making sure that we eat at the times that our normal day walking colleagues eat at. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Because your body, your circadian rhythm, is primed to digest food at breakfast time, lunch time, and dinner time. It's not primed to digest food overnight. Even though you're awake, It is not primed to do that. So we need to avoid that. But if you have to make sure that it's something that's high in protein and it's something that's low GI as far as carbohydrates go so that it actually stabilizes our blood sugar instead of spiking it and crashing because the spike in blood sugar overnight is a massive problem because we don't have sufficient insulin to shuttle it to the cell.

And we're insulin resistant overnight because melatonin has told them that our body's asleep. I really think we can make massive headway in relation to helping our shift work community by just educating people on when to eat, not so much what diet is. We all have to eat and whatever we eat, it is our diet. 

End of story. We associate diet with. losing weight. It's not about that. It's about diet. It's about what you actually eat. And I really honestly feel that if people were to stick to eating at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time and not eat overnight,  huge difference on the impact that it will actually have on you metabolically.

And you were quite right in what you say, when you say, oh, we see these beer bellies and we see people gaining weight and I don't want to say that they're diabetic, but Travis, I'm telling you, they are actually heading to diabetes and they are pre diabetic. End of story. And the incidence of cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes in shift workers.

Is well documented. So why is this happening? Because we are eating overnight when we're not supposed to be. 

And two parts to that. I think one of the, one of the critical things that I learned was through our mutual friend, Jeff Ash, about intuitive eating. It's just, understand why you're eating. 

While you're eating now, and when you get that packed up or unpacked, depending, that will help you deal a lot with what you're talking about. But this brings up a question for me. One of the things that I've learned from talking to nutritionists that our department has brought in and different people through the podcast and things like that Americans, and I'm pretty sure it's, any developed country, we all are nutritionally deprived on some level.

And. Because we just eat garbage. A lot of food just isn't as healthy. And a lot of folks are saying, take a one a day vitamin, take it, don't, you don't have to get the most expensive, but just that one is. Is like that silver bullet to help level things out. But if we are taking vitamins and supplements and things like that, is it better to take them like in the morning when you get up with breakfast or take them in the evening before you go to bed, so that your body has time to break them down or is it first of all, can that same camp.

Yep. First of all, I agree with you that I think as a shift worker with our generally poor diet, I think it's really good to take a one a day multivitamin to cover off on those micronutrients that we don't get from eating good whole foods because we don't, we just don't eat all those good home. You can go to McDonald's and go, Oh I'm getting carbohydrates.

I'm getting fat. I'm getting, yeah, you're getting a lot of sugar. You're getting a lot of rubbish that.  Trans fats in it as well. You're getting a lot of problems, right?  So what I think the best thing that we can do is we can actually take a multivitamin. There's three,  three main, actually there's four, four main supplements that I recommend that our shift working community take.

Let's just go through the first one. Your multivitamin, I think, is enormously beneficial to help to cover off on copper, iron, all of those magnesium, all of those little things that we don't get in our diet. So at least you're getting something. Something right. And I think that's beneficial in the morning with food, it would be the best time to give you, let it go in and be absorbed because some multivitamins need to be absorbed with fat become body fat to become they're called fat soluble vitamins.

So they need to be absorbed. I think that's one thing that's really important. I think the other thing that's really important for a shift worker to take is vitamin D. Incredibly important for a shift worker to take vitamin D as a supplement because we just don't get enough sunlight on our skin, full stop.

And in the wintertime, and I would imagine in North Carolina as well, who's going to get out in the sun during the winter?  If the sun's high enough in the sky, let's just forget that. Cause we can't get vitamin D properly from food at all. We just can't in the levels we need it. Now the recommended daily intake is only around 400 IU.

That's just to survive. Just to survive. So 2, 000 IU of vitamin D every single day. I take summer, winter. I'm in Australia. We are still very vitamin D deficient, even though we get a lot of sun because we are conditioned to slip, slop, slap, hats on, sunscreen on, long sleeves, protect ourselves from the sun because it's dangerous.

So we don't get the vitamin D synthesis, which we get from the sun.  So I suggest 2, 000 IU of vitamin D. The other thing that people should be taking as well is two grams of combined EPA DHA fish oil. Or if you are a vegan or a vegetarian, you should be taking a an algae oil. What we need to be doing is we need to be taking that because shift workers have naturally high levels of triglycerides, which is fat in their bloodstream, and they suffer from cardiovascular problems. 

Fish oil is the solution to that. Omega 3s are the solution. So you should be taking two grams combined EPA, DHA of Omega 3s. And that's going to help with that. And here's the other one. And those gym bros that are listening that train on the station at night will know, but creatine is enormously beneficial for people who are going into extended periods of wakefulness.

Hello, firefighters out there that are on their 48 hour shift or their 24 hour shift.  Take creatine at 10, 10 grams a day.  10 grams, mix it into your smoothie, drink it, put it in your coffee. I don't care what you do with it. Just get it in. It actually helps with your brain function in those extended periods of wakefulness.

It may be the difference between throwing the wrong switch on the truck at the time. You know what I mean? Creatine, so creatine at 10 grams a day for extended periods of wakefulness. Also Omega threes at two grams a day to help with your cardiovascular set up with people with high cholesterol.

It's going to help with that vitamin D at 2000 IU because we just can't get it from our food. And the last one is that multivitamin. The rest of it is all rubbish. The rest of it is absolute rubbish and it's not regulated enough. We don't need to be taking anything else. That's all we need  as a shift worker.

Really important. 

I agree a lot with what you're saying, but I'm going to push back just real gently on one. So my personal physician, he is a, I'm not a doctor. I don't play one on two.  On TV. That's it. But one of the things that he has really been pushing and probably the last, I would say five years is co Q 10. 

Oh, yes. CQ 10. So my doctor will, you ask him, Hey, what vitamin should I take? Can't tell you there's not enough science to back it. You ask him about anything. Oh, there's not much science to back that. But the minute you start talking about cellular function, cellular regeneration, energy.  Yep.

Optimization on a cellular level. Yep. He mentions CoQ10 and he, Dr. Roy Croft will talk forever about that in a good way. Yes.  And I've included that in, in my handful that I take in the morning of supplements. And I have personally, maybe it's just my mind, but I feel like there is a better operation. And I think.

I, I recover better. And I think on a sailor level, particularly for firefighters, when you start dealing with sailor degeneration from the exposures and things like that is a little extra thing that might just help support 

you. 

Yeah, exactly. And it might not work for everybody, but Hey, it works for Travis and I encourage folks to look at it.

And worst thing is you're wasting your money and you'll pee it out and you don't need it.  

Yeah. Oh, 

look,  

I think one thing that's really important for people to understand when it comes to trying to take supplements as band aids to fix problems that we don't. And that's generally Oh, you've got to take magnesium.

Handful of nuts a day is going to help you with magnesium. That's all you need. Just make sure you're doing that or have your Brussels sprouts or, get your leafy greens in and you can get magnesium. We, as a community are very deficient in magnesium as well.  People take magnesium to try and help them sleep while they're lying, looking at their phones with blue light. 

Come on,  get serious. Yeah, that's right. But I think, when you talk about CoQ10 as well, I think it's important, but make sure you're getting a quality and make sure you're taking the research dose as well. Don't just, 



I talk about ashwagandha, I love ashwagandha for myself. I take it every single day.

And I love it for myself.  I know some people that take it don't notice any difference at all, but you know what? You've got to have all your ducks in a row before you start taking those things as well. Make sure you're getting the basics right. You're getting your sleep, right? You're getting you hydration, right?

You're getting your nutrition, right? You're getting, you're managing your stress properly and you're getting some form of movement every day. There's my five pillars. And I think people need to make sure that they're absolutely crushing those five.  Before they start looking for supplements to fix problems that are not going to help because they're not getting the basics right now, that's something that's really important.

So ashwagandha, CoQ10, these are, everyone's got their own pet one, but the only thing that I do say to people when they're taking a supplement, please for goodness sake, make sure you're getting a quality because it's an unregulated industry. So make sure you're getting a quality tested supplement and make sure that you're taking it in the dose that is actually recommended by the by the science, by the research that, it does this and it does that.

Oh, okay, I'll take one. I don't notice any difference. No, mate, you're supposed to be taking three. Oh, didn't realize that. And read the bottle, read what the bottle says, because the bottle might say it's three a dose. To get to the, whatever the thing is. So this is where people have to be extremely careful with, Oh, this doesn't work, show me which one you're taking.

No, cause that's rubbish.  And I think  melatonin is a classic for this because melatonin is available everywhere, particularly in the U S but research is very clear. They've done research on melatonin, which shows that even in the same bottle.  Some pills are less than half of what they say and others are two and a half to up to 10 times more in the same bottle.

So you can imagine how different it is across, sometimes it works really well, sometimes it doesn't work at all. Why is that? It's because the efficacy of what it is awful. And this is a problem. 

Yep. And one of the things, like I said, I'm not a doctor. Talk to your physician, talk to your health care professional, because when they draw your blood to do your physical every year that you should be getting, and if you're not getting it, you should say, Hey, what should I take?

Hey, this is what I'm taking and follow their. Their advice on that, but I'll tell you,  I'll tell you another one that will get you in trouble at least here in the States. I don't know how it's viewed in other places, but I know that medical marijuana is starting to become a thing. Yeah, for firefighters, that's not necessarily going to be a thing because that can impact your ability to.

The function, but CBD oil different extracts and different preparations of it. People use that to calm your nerves. If you've got a bad knee there's not a lot of FDA approval and a lot of science behind that. Now, yes, it's a naturally occurring thing.  I'm telling firefighters, be careful of that because that'll get you in trouble on a drug test if it's the wrong stuff.

And you could be out of work real quick. So you got to be careful on some of these supplements too. 

You bet you do. And not only that, what about the athletes that are taking it when all of a sudden they come up with a test and WADA or WAC them as well? Do you know that the world anti doping authority You've got to be very careful what's put in a lot of these supplements and things like that, because it is, it's a multi billion, trillion dollar industry, the supplement industry, you don't have to drive anywhere, drive around the corner anywhere and there's a supplement store.

CBD is still not legal here in Australia. I went to Canada in October last year was horrified at the amount of legal marijuana. People were just smoking it in the street. The place stinks, right? I was just so horrified by, I don't smoke, I don't even drink, but and that was something that I gave up.

We can talk about that. But the thing is I just, marijuana impacts on sleep, nicotine impacts on sleep, alcohol impacts on sleep. So while you're taking it to relax, it's actually impacting on your sleep. There's evidence behind the impacts that these things have. While people feel like they need alcohol to relax, Alcohol is actually severely impacting on your sleep. 

And people don't get that. Nicotine, I know, and I don't know whether people in your industry, but it came to light for me a short time ago that people are actually  using nicotine patches and nicotine gums to stay awake at night for cognitive ability to stay awake. And I'm thinking, what are you doing?

That is, it is literally suicidal because you are playing Russian roulette with your body.  Nicotine is not good for our body, full stop. Now, I'm not talking about smoking cigarettes. We know the impact of that, but just because you're not smoking doesn't make the nicotine okay.  

The chemical is not cool at all. 

It's not.  Why people would voluntarily do that is beyond me. I don't smoke. No, I don't smoke. Oh, but I take nicotine to stay awake at night.  What? 

Say that out loud. And the other thing that, that concerns me and I've had friends that have gotten into this is, Oh there's a new, there's a new supplement and we'll take that supplement because it's going to help me lift heavier. 

It's not steroids, but it's. Insert, some weird stag horn, whatever.  And none of that's regulated and it makes hot laps around the department. Everybody's trying it. Some, Oh, it's great. So I'm like, yeah, don't see anything. And they'll blow a massive amount of money to get this stuff. And I just,  

Blows my mind.

It absolutely blows my mind. And I see people that, that say to me, what do you think of this stack? And they sent, they showed me a picture of their stack of vitamins and minerals that they're taking and majority of it's absolute garbage. And even the brands that they're taking are less than ideal. A long way less than ideal.

And I think the most important message for people to get out of all of this supplement talk is that  nothing is FDA approved, right? It's none of it is regulated in any way whatsoever. That pre workout that you're taking, who knows what's in it. That those supplements that you're buying, who knows what's in it.

It's not like the pharmacy medication that you're taking, which is all regulated. It's got this much in it, each tablet, right? Those supplements don't. And some of them have got a massive amount in it. Some of them don't. And I think anyone that says it's awesome, they might've got a good hit that might work well for them.

You've got to have a conversation, got to have a conversation with.  Your your physician around what you're taking as to how it might impact with you biologically really important. 

Dr. Jill Joyce, I think I think she's a friend of yours. Oh, fabulous. 

Yeah. 

Go back and listen to our older episode Pop Tarts and Chocolate Milk.

She talks about that. So all you need for pre and post workout, don't overthink it. Yeah, there's a ton that we could keep talking all day. Yeah, they could. Yeah. About this, but Roger, I want to tell you, thank you so much for taking time to hang out with us. I am going to have you back.

I've got some projects I'm working on and if folks want to find you, where can they find all out about Roger Sutherland? Yeah. 

And I think.  Thanks so much. And I'm deeply grateful to be on this podcast with you. And to reach into your firefighting community or anyone that listens to the all clear podcast in the U S or worldwide, which we've learned is happening is wonderful.

And thank you so much for the opportunity. If there's anything that I've said, that's resonated with you you can go to my website, which is a healthy shift, all one word, a healthy shift. com. And I'll see you there. Not au, but just com, although au will take you there as well. And on there, I've got.

Like nine different resources  your firefighters can download, which are all free eBooks that they can download, which have all different strategies around an optimal strategy for shift work. The low GI one that we spoke about is there as well that people can download that. We've also got. Blogs that are written there that people can read the blogs and learn and understand around shift work with that.

And I've got my own podcast, which has got, I think about 200 episodes there now which has snapshots. I don't waffle like I've waffled today. I, they generally 15 to 25 minutes, just a good commute length, bite size, bit longer than social media to give you a bit more insight into certain strategies.

I'll stay on top of all of the shift work sites for people. If it's new, it'll be on my website. If noting or worth having, it will be there. I've got recommended products that I do highly recommend. To help shift workers. We are a very unique breed. We do need support. Unlike the normal public that don't, just eat properly and get good sleep.

We can't eat properly and get good sleep. It's not that easy for all of us.  We need a bit of support so we can certainly help our firefighting community with that. And that's the website, podcast, Instagram at a underscore healthy underscore shift. And I'm on, I've got the YouTube channel, the social media, I don't do a lot on the other stuff, but yeah, a healthy shift on, on that.

Instagram. And I'm now really hitting LinkedIn a bit harder now too, cause I want to go off into the corporate world with my own very exciting project that I've got for 2025. So keep an eye on that. 

We'll look forward to it and we'll get you back in and talk about it once you once you let the horses loose on that one.

I'll absolutely be letting, I'll be coming back to you saying, Hey, Let's talk about this. 

Who is this Roger fella? No. Yeah, 

who's it? Yeah. Who's that? We don't know who that is. But thanks so much again for having me. And I really appreciate it. 

And I'm going to do you one solid. I'm not going to give you a dad joke because you've already before last time, but, Roger, I think you're probably going to be our last episode of this season and we're getting ready to start season three ourself in January.

So it's, it, things, great things are happening and we just see wonderful. 

And we appreciate you too, Travis. I know that putting together a podcast and finding guests and organizing, coordinating it and getting people to come on and share their knowledge. You're doing this, not for yourself. You're doing this to help your community of people.

And I want to say on behalf of the listeners that we appreciate you actually doing that as well, because it's really important work.  

Appreciate it. So Roger, I appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. And like we always say here on All Clear, light your fire within.

  That's a wrap for this episode of All Clear Firefighter Wellness. Your host and producer Travis McGaha thanks you for tuning in. Remember the views and opinions shared by our guests may not always reflect those of the host or the team, but we're all here to spark important conversations for firefighter health and wellness. 

All Clear is proudly supported by the North Carolina Firefighter Cancer and Wellness Alliance. If you enjoyed the show, share it with your crew or someone who needs to hear it. Head over to allclearpodcast.  com to leave us a message, catch up on past episodes, or treat yourself to our signature All Clear Blend Coffee, your new morning hero in a cup.

Thanks for listening, stay safe out there, and we'll catch you next time on All Clear Firefighter Wellness.