May 29, 2025 • 15 mins
Text me what you thought of the show 😊
Shift work disrupts our body's natural 24-hour clock (circadian rhythm), affecting metabolism, hormones, and how we process food, which increases risks of weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease.
• Insulin sensitivity drops at night, making your body less effective at handling sugar during night shifts
• Cortisol levels remain elevated during night shifts, making fat storage around the belly more likely
• Hunger hormones (leptin and ghrelin) become imbalanced, making you feel hungrier than you should
• Rotating shifts that change too quickly or rotate backwards cause even worse disruption
• Avoid eating large meals between 9pm-6am to reduce weight gain and digestive issues
• Use bright light during shifts to stay alert, but dim lights after shifts to prepare for sleep
• Develop a consistent wind-down routine after night shift
• Use blackout curtains and consider melatonin (consult your physician)
• Keep meals, sleep times and activity consistent every day, even on days off
• Forward rotating shifts (days→afternoons→nights) are better than backward rotations
• Consider creatine supplementation to support mental clarity during night shifts
For more support, join the Shift Workers Collective private online community at ahealthyshift.com.
----------------------------
ANNOUNCING
"The Shift Workers Collective"
https://join.ahealthyshift.com/the-shift-workers-collective
Click the link to learn all about it
-----------------------------
YOU CAN FIND ME AT
COACHING
_____________________
Disclaimer: Roger Sutherland is not a doctor or a medical professional. Always consult a physician before implementing any strategies mentioned in this podcast. Use of this information is strictly at your own risk. Roger Sutherland will not assume any liability for direct or indirect losses or damages that may result from the use of the information contained in this podcast including but not limited to economic loss, injury, illness, or death.
_______________________
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
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 24-7shift worker for almost four
decades.
Through this podcast, I aim toeducate shift workers using
evidence-based methods to notonly survive the rigours of
(00:29):
shift work, but thrive.
My goal is to empower shiftworkers to improve their health
and wellbeing so they have moreenergy to do the things they
love.
Enjoy today's show and welcomeback to another episode of the
Healthy Shift podcast.
As you know, my name is RogerSutherland and I'm the host.
(00:51):
I love to bring evidence-basedstrategies to shift workers.
I really do to try and helpthem and I've helped literally
hundreds of people one-to-one.
But I just want to package anumber of things up today, and
that is how shift timing impactsyour health and what the
science is now showing us inrelation to this.
Now, I've been a shift workermyself for over 40 years and I
(01:14):
know firsthand how much shiftwork can literally knock you
around, not only physically, notonly mentally, but also
emotionally, and there's reasonsfor that.
So today we're going to talkabout something that's really
mentally but also emotionally,and there's reasons for that.
So today we're going to talkabout something that's really
important but it just literallydoesn't get enough attention,
and that is how the timing ofyour shifts can actually affect
(01:35):
your long-term health,especially your risk of things
like weight gain, diabetes andeven heart disease all very,
very common in our shift workingcommunity.
Now, this isn't just theory,guys.
There's a growing body ofresearch showing how shift work
is disrupting our body's naturalrhythm and how that disruption
(01:55):
can mess with your metabolism,your hormones and even how your
body literally processes ormetabolizes and stores the food
that it is consuming.
So let's break it all down intoplain language, something
that's really easy for you tounderstand.
First of all, what are circadianrhythms?
Your body runs on a 24-hourinternal clock.
(02:18):
Every day, 24 hours, same time,same.
It's just doing the same thingover and over again, and this is
called your circadian rhythm.
It's controlling things likeyour sleep, your hormones, it
controls your digestion.
It even controls your body'stemperature.
Now the problem that we have, asshift workers that are going
(02:38):
about this without knowledge, isshift work literally throws
that rhythm out of whack,because when you work nights or
rotate shifts quickly, your bodycan't keep up and it doesn't
know when to be alert or when torest, which is the very reason
why sometimes, in the middle ofthe day, you feel like you are
(02:59):
literally up and about, and thenyou can crash.
And then at night, you can feelthe same.
And this is because of thatdisruption to that circadian
rhythm, because your bodyliterally doesn't know where
bout and then you can crash.
And then at night, you can feelthe same.
And this is because of thatdisruption to that circadian
rhythm, because your bodyliterally doesn't know where
it's supposed to be at in timeor space.
It definitely doesn't know whento eat or what to do with the
food when you give it to it.
So when you eat, it's confused.
(03:21):
Why are you eating at this time?
This is a problem.
It doesn't know what to do orit's got to fire the systems up.
By the time it's confused, whyare you eating it this time?
This is a problem.
It doesn't know what to do orit's got to fire the systems up.
By the time it's fired thesystems up, the food's already
passed through and it's beenstored because it wasn't needed,
and this is the problem.
So what is research telling us?
Well, in 2023, there was areview in the Lancet that
actually looked at multiplestudies and found something
(03:44):
pretty shocking, and that isthat night shift workers are at
a much higher risk of developingtype 2 diabetes, obesity and
cardiovascular disease.
And here is why Because yourinsulin sensitivity drops at
night.
What this means is, when youeat during a night shift, your
body doesn't know how to handlethe sugar as well as it does
(04:06):
during the day.
Your cortisol levels will stayhigher at night.
That's your stress hormone.
Even though you don't feelstressed, your body is stressed
because it's out of sync, andwhat this does is it makes it
easier for your body to storefat, and it gets stored where
Around your belly.
Ever noticed the weight gainthat's gone on around your belly
(04:28):
since you started shift work?
Nod, that's right.
And leptin and ghrelin, whichare both our hunger and satiety
hormones, get completely out ofbalance, and what this means is
that you feel hungrier, evenwhen your body literally doesn't
need more food.
It is making you feel hungryand that's literally hormonal.
(04:52):
And this actually gets worsewith rotating shifts and
especially when they flip toofast or rotate backwards, and
I'll talk about that shortly.
So I'll give you a real-lifeexample, because I can remember
during my 30s, when I was onfast rotating rosters days,
nights, split shifts, twilightshifts, all over the place and
(05:14):
what I was doing was flipping mymeals and I was eating during
night shifts.
Well, I was sleeping during theday, so surely I'd have to eat
at nine.
And this is what we do, don'twe?
I was barely sleeping and Icouldn't understand why I was
gaining weight, despite being sogoddamn active just in my job
At the time.
(05:34):
I was a dog handler, veryactive but I couldn't work out
why I was gaining weight and whyI was freezing up.
My body was just freezing up ina really bad way.
The truth is, my body wasfighting against me.
It didn't know if it waslunchtime, if it was bedtime or
what it was, if it was whateverit was in between.
But now I know why, and thatmeans I can help you to learn
(05:59):
too.
So what can you do?
You might not be able to changeyour shifts, but you absolutely
have to take responsibility andcan reduce the impact.
So what you need to do is youneed to time your meals
carefully.
Try avoiding big meals between9pm at night and 6am If possible
(06:21):
.
Try and fast from 9pm at nightuntil 6am in the morning.
This will reduce weight gainlike you would not believe, and
if you're a female, ladies, Ican tell you categorically this
will make an enormous differenceto your gas, bloating and
digestive issues that you allseem to suffer from on night
(06:43):
shift as well.
If you need to snack, if youneed to have something, just
stick to a light, high-proteinsnack instead.
Just cheese, a couple of piecesof cheese with a few crackers.
Have a Yopro yogurt with someprotein powder in it, something
like that, just a protein shake,something light, that will slip
(07:04):
through your system reallyquite easily.
We certainly don't eat a mainmeal between 9pm at night and
6am in the morning.
The next thing we need to do iswe need to use our light to our
advantage, because bright lightany time during your shift will
keep your body alert.
But you've got to start turningyour lights down when you
(07:26):
finish so that it starts to windyou down and get you ready for
sleep.
On that, getting ready for sleep, you need a wind-down routine
after night shift.
You need a routine because ourbody thrives on routine.
Once you put a routine in place, it starts to recognize that
(07:51):
routine and will wind down withyou.
But when you go to bed, we needblackout curtains, not a
darkish room blacked out.
And it might help for you totake a small amount of melatonin
coming out of night shift foryou to go and sleep.
That is after you've consultedyour physician and got a quality
(08:14):
melatonin, and we don't takemore because it's not a sleeping
tablet, it's a darknesssignaler.
So we just take around abouthalf a milligram to one
milligram and to give you anexample, around about half a
milligram to one milligram andto give you an example,
naturally, your body onlyproduces one milligram of
melatonin.
That's all it needs.
(08:34):
So I think the body will knowbetter than you buying more.
All right, and we've got toreduce these screens before bed
because it's inhibitingmelatonin.
Now the other thing that we needto do is we need to be
consistent wherever we can.
If you're on nights, we need totry and keep our meals, our
(08:56):
sleep times and our activity atroughly the same time every
single day, even on our days off.
If we do that, it cues ourcircadian rhythm.
The three main zeitgebers ortime cues for our circadian
rhythm is light, movement andnutrient timing.
If you keep those roughly thesame time every single day, you
(09:21):
will find that your body willreally respond well, will really
respond well.
The other thing that I would beconsidering if I was you,
because I use it is to considercreatine, because we've got some
really good new research thatsuggests that creatine might
actually help support yourmental clarity and wakefulness
(09:42):
during those long night shifts.
But I'm going to cover more ofthat.
I've covered it plenty of timeson socials, but I'm going to
cover more of that as we getmore information around this.
But it's really importantbecause creatine is shown to be
less in females, naturally, thanit is in males.
So it's more important forfemales to supplement creatine
(10:03):
than it is for males.
But the more that we supplement, the more chance it's got of
crossing the blood-brain barrierand going into our brain and
actually bolstering up ourcreatine levels in our brain.
If you're not on creatine,you've got to question why Every
single person on this planetshould be on creatine every
single day.
(10:25):
Now let's just give a quick tipabout these rotating shifts.
If you are in a role or you arein a position where you can
advocate for forward rotatingshifts, now what I mean by
forward rotating shifts is itmeans you go from days into
afternoons, into nights.
(10:46):
So you're going in a forwardrotation You're advancing.
Some people do days, nights,days off.
That's okay.
That's called a forwardrotation.
Where we have problems is whenwe do a backward rotation Hello,
quick changeovers where we dothose afternoon shifts into day
shifts.
If someone died and put me incharge, they'd be banned
(11:10):
immediately for the impacts thatthey have on our health.
They are savage and they don'thelp our health in any way
whatsoever.
Your body will adjust muchbetter on a forward rotation
than it will on a backwardrotation and it helps to
gradually shift your naturalrhythm instead of leaving it
(11:32):
with absolutely no idea whereyou're at Now.
To wrap this up, because it'sonly a short episode, shift work
isn't going anywhere and formany of you it's not a choice.
It's actually a calling and Iacknowledge that.
But we don't have to justaccept the health risks as part
of our job and I want to beclear on that as well Because
(11:55):
with the right strategies andthe right support, you can shift
your health in the rightdirection, even while the clock
is working against you.
I've helped literally hundredsof shift workers just like you
to unpack all of this withsimple strategies that suits
your lifestyle, not genericinformation stuff that suits
(12:16):
your life.
We look at your home life, yoursocial life, your work life and
we unpack that and simplify itwith simple strategies.
This is not about dieting.
This is not about countingmacros and weighing yourself for
photos and everything else.
This is literally about justputting simple habits in place
for the enormous impact that itactually has, because the reason
(12:38):
why you're heading in the wrongdirection is because you're
doing it all wrong, but youdon't know because you haven't
been educated.
Now I can help you to unpackall of this with my one-to-one
coaching.
There's a link to my coachingpage in the show notes, and I
encourage you strongly to dosomething today before it gets
(12:59):
out of control, because once itgets out of control, it's such
an overwhelming battle to findyour way back now.
If this episode helped you, canyou do me a favor?
Can you please share it with acolleague or someone who you
really care about, who worksshifts?
Oh, and if you want moresupport, come and join us inside
(13:23):
the community of shift workersthat I've built online and it's
called the Shift WorkersCollective.
It's my private onlinecommunity just for shift workers
just like you, and you'll finda link in the show notes or, if
you like, go to ahealthyshiftcom.
That's ahealthyshiftcom andyou'll see all the information
(13:46):
there.
There's a link up the top.
Thanks again for listening.
Please, I beg you, look afteryourself and remember a healthy
shift is a better shift.
Thank you for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to subscribe so you get
notified whenever a new episodeis released.
(14:08):
It would also be ever sohelpful if you could leave a
rating and review on the appyou're currently listening on.
If you want to know more aboutme or work with me, you can go
to ahealthyshiftcom.
I'll catch you on the next one.
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 24-7shift worker for almost four
decades.
Through this podcast, I aim toeducate shift workers using
evidence-based methods to notonly survive the rigours of
(00:29):
shift work, but thrive.
My goal is to empower shiftworkers to improve their health
and wellbeing so they have moreenergy to do the things they
love.
Enjoy today's show and welcomeback to another episode of the
Healthy Shift podcast.
As you know, my name is RogerSutherland and I'm the host.
(00:51):
I love to bring evidence-basedstrategies to shift workers.
I really do to try and helpthem and I've helped literally
hundreds of people one-to-one.
But I just want to package anumber of things up today, and
that is how shift timing impactsyour health and what the
science is now showing us inrelation to this.
Now, I've been a shift workermyself for over 40 years and I
(01:14):
know firsthand how much shiftwork can literally knock you
around, not only physically, notonly mentally, but also
emotionally, and there's reasonsfor that.
So today we're going to talkabout something that's really
mentally but also emotionally,and there's reasons for that.
So today we're going to talkabout something that's really
important but it just literallydoesn't get enough attention,
and that is how the timing ofyour shifts can actually affect
(01:35):
your long-term health,especially your risk of things
like weight gain, diabetes andeven heart disease all very,
very common in our shift workingcommunity.
Now, this isn't just theory,guys.
There's a growing body ofresearch showing how shift work
is disrupting our body's naturalrhythm and how that disruption
(01:55):
can mess with your metabolism,your hormones and even how your
body literally processes ormetabolizes and stores the food
that it is consuming.
So let's break it all down intoplain language, something
that's really easy for you tounderstand.
First of all, what are circadianrhythms?
Your body runs on a 24-hourinternal clock.
(02:18):
Every day, 24 hours, same time,same.
It's just doing the same thingover and over again, and this is
called your circadian rhythm.
It's controlling things likeyour sleep, your hormones, it
controls your digestion.
It even controls your body'stemperature.
Now the problem that we have, asshift workers that are going
(02:38):
about this without knowledge, isshift work literally throws
that rhythm out of whack,because when you work nights or
rotate shifts quickly, your bodycan't keep up and it doesn't
know when to be alert or when torest, which is the very reason
why sometimes, in the middle ofthe day, you feel like you are
(02:59):
literally up and about, and thenyou can crash.
And then at night, you can feelthe same.
And this is because of thatdisruption to that circadian
rhythm, because your bodyliterally doesn't know where
bout and then you can crash.
And then at night, you can feelthe same.
And this is because of thatdisruption to that circadian
rhythm, because your bodyliterally doesn't know where
it's supposed to be at in timeor space.
It definitely doesn't know whento eat or what to do with the
food when you give it to it.
So when you eat, it's confused.
(03:21):
Why are you eating at this time?
This is a problem.
It doesn't know what to do orit's got to fire the systems up.
By the time it's confused, whyare you eating it this time?
This is a problem.
It doesn't know what to do orit's got to fire the systems up.
By the time it's fired thesystems up, the food's already
passed through and it's beenstored because it wasn't needed,
and this is the problem.
So what is research telling us?
Well, in 2023, there was areview in the Lancet that
actually looked at multiplestudies and found something
(03:44):
pretty shocking, and that isthat night shift workers are at
a much higher risk of developingtype 2 diabetes, obesity and
cardiovascular disease.
And here is why Because yourinsulin sensitivity drops at
night.
What this means is, when youeat during a night shift, your
body doesn't know how to handlethe sugar as well as it does
(04:06):
during the day.
Your cortisol levels will stayhigher at night.
That's your stress hormone.
Even though you don't feelstressed, your body is stressed
because it's out of sync, andwhat this does is it makes it
easier for your body to storefat, and it gets stored where
Around your belly.
Ever noticed the weight gainthat's gone on around your belly
(04:28):
since you started shift work?
Nod, that's right.
And leptin and ghrelin, whichare both our hunger and satiety
hormones, get completely out ofbalance, and what this means is
that you feel hungrier, evenwhen your body literally doesn't
need more food.
It is making you feel hungryand that's literally hormonal.
(04:52):
And this actually gets worsewith rotating shifts and
especially when they flip toofast or rotate backwards, and
I'll talk about that shortly.
So I'll give you a real-lifeexample, because I can remember
during my 30s, when I was onfast rotating rosters days,
nights, split shifts, twilightshifts, all over the place and
(05:14):
what I was doing was flipping mymeals and I was eating during
night shifts.
Well, I was sleeping during theday, so surely I'd have to eat
at nine.
And this is what we do, don'twe?
I was barely sleeping and Icouldn't understand why I was
gaining weight, despite being sogoddamn active just in my job
At the time.
(05:34):
I was a dog handler, veryactive but I couldn't work out
why I was gaining weight and whyI was freezing up.
My body was just freezing up ina really bad way.
The truth is, my body wasfighting against me.
It didn't know if it waslunchtime, if it was bedtime or
what it was, if it was whateverit was in between.
But now I know why, and thatmeans I can help you to learn
(05:59):
too.
So what can you do?
You might not be able to changeyour shifts, but you absolutely
have to take responsibility andcan reduce the impact.
So what you need to do is youneed to time your meals
carefully.
Try avoiding big meals between9pm at night and 6am If possible
(06:21):
.
Try and fast from 9pm at nightuntil 6am in the morning.
This will reduce weight gainlike you would not believe, and
if you're a female, ladies, Ican tell you categorically this
will make an enormous differenceto your gas, bloating and
digestive issues that you allseem to suffer from on night
(06:43):
shift as well.
If you need to snack, if youneed to have something, just
stick to a light, high-proteinsnack instead.
Just cheese, a couple of piecesof cheese with a few crackers.
Have a Yopro yogurt with someprotein powder in it, something
like that, just a protein shake,something light, that will slip
(07:04):
through your system reallyquite easily.
We certainly don't eat a mainmeal between 9pm at night and
6am in the morning.
The next thing we need to do iswe need to use our light to our
advantage, because bright lightany time during your shift will
keep your body alert.
But you've got to start turningyour lights down when you
(07:26):
finish so that it starts to windyou down and get you ready for
sleep.
On that, getting ready for sleep, you need a wind-down routine
after night shift.
You need a routine because ourbody thrives on routine.
Once you put a routine in place, it starts to recognize that
(07:51):
routine and will wind down withyou.
But when you go to bed, we needblackout curtains, not a
darkish room blacked out.
And it might help for you totake a small amount of melatonin
coming out of night shift foryou to go and sleep.
That is after you've consultedyour physician and got a quality
(08:14):
melatonin, and we don't takemore because it's not a sleeping
tablet, it's a darknesssignaler.
So we just take around abouthalf a milligram to one
milligram and to give you anexample, around about half a
milligram to one milligram andto give you an example,
naturally, your body onlyproduces one milligram of
melatonin.
That's all it needs.
(08:34):
So I think the body will knowbetter than you buying more.
All right, and we've got toreduce these screens before bed
because it's inhibitingmelatonin.
Now the other thing that we needto do is we need to be
consistent wherever we can.
If you're on nights, we need totry and keep our meals, our
(08:56):
sleep times and our activity atroughly the same time every
single day, even on our days off.
If we do that, it cues ourcircadian rhythm.
The three main zeitgebers ortime cues for our circadian
rhythm is light, movement andnutrient timing.
If you keep those roughly thesame time every single day, you
(09:21):
will find that your body willreally respond well, will really
respond well.
The other thing that I would beconsidering if I was you,
because I use it is to considercreatine, because we've got some
really good new research thatsuggests that creatine might
actually help support yourmental clarity and wakefulness
(09:42):
during those long night shifts.
But I'm going to cover more ofthat.
I've covered it plenty of timeson socials, but I'm going to
cover more of that as we getmore information around this.
But it's really importantbecause creatine is shown to be
less in females, naturally, thanit is in males.
So it's more important forfemales to supplement creatine
(10:03):
than it is for males.
But the more that we supplement, the more chance it's got of
crossing the blood-brain barrierand going into our brain and
actually bolstering up ourcreatine levels in our brain.
If you're not on creatine,you've got to question why Every
single person on this planetshould be on creatine every
single day.
(10:25):
Now let's just give a quick tipabout these rotating shifts.
If you are in a role or you arein a position where you can
advocate for forward rotatingshifts, now what I mean by
forward rotating shifts is itmeans you go from days into
afternoons, into nights.
(10:46):
So you're going in a forwardrotation You're advancing.
Some people do days, nights,days off.
That's okay.
That's called a forwardrotation.
Where we have problems is whenwe do a backward rotation Hello,
quick changeovers where we dothose afternoon shifts into day
shifts.
If someone died and put me incharge, they'd be banned
(11:10):
immediately for the impacts thatthey have on our health.
They are savage and they don'thelp our health in any way
whatsoever.
Your body will adjust muchbetter on a forward rotation
than it will on a backwardrotation and it helps to
gradually shift your naturalrhythm instead of leaving it
(11:32):
with absolutely no idea whereyou're at Now.
To wrap this up, because it'sonly a short episode, shift work
isn't going anywhere and formany of you it's not a choice.
It's actually a calling and Iacknowledge that.
But we don't have to justaccept the health risks as part
of our job and I want to beclear on that as well Because
(11:55):
with the right strategies andthe right support, you can shift
your health in the rightdirection, even while the clock
is working against you.
I've helped literally hundredsof shift workers just like you
to unpack all of this withsimple strategies that suits
your lifestyle, not genericinformation stuff that suits
(12:16):
your life.
We look at your home life, yoursocial life, your work life and
we unpack that and simplify itwith simple strategies.
This is not about dieting.
This is not about countingmacros and weighing yourself for
photos and everything else.
This is literally about justputting simple habits in place
for the enormous impact that itactually has, because the reason
(12:38):
why you're heading in the wrongdirection is because you're
doing it all wrong, but youdon't know because you haven't
been educated.
Now I can help you to unpackall of this with my one-to-one
coaching.
There's a link to my coachingpage in the show notes, and I
encourage you strongly to dosomething today before it gets
(12:59):
out of control, because once itgets out of control, it's such
an overwhelming battle to findyour way back now.
If this episode helped you, canyou do me a favor?
Can you please share it with acolleague or someone who you
really care about, who worksshifts?
Oh, and if you want moresupport, come and join us inside
(13:23):
the community of shift workersthat I've built online and it's
called the Shift WorkersCollective.
It's my private onlinecommunity just for shift workers
just like you, and you'll finda link in the show notes or, if
you like, go to ahealthyshiftcom.
That's ahealthyshiftcom andyou'll see all the information
(13:46):
there.
There's a link up the top.
Thanks again for listening.
Please, I beg you, look afteryourself and remember a healthy
shift is a better shift.
Thank you for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to subscribe so you get
notified whenever a new episodeis released.
(14:08):
It would also be ever sohelpful if you could leave a
rating and review on the appyou're currently listening on.
If you want to know more aboutme or work with me, you can go
to ahealthyshiftcom.
I'll catch you on the next one.
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