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Most shift workers are unknowingly wrecking their sleep—and it’s fixable. In this episode, I break down the most common sleep mistakes and turn them into simple habits you can repeat on any roster. Early daylight, movement, a caffeine cut-off, skipping the nightcap, and real stress care become a toolkit you can rely on to improve sleep depth, energy, and recovery.
What You’ll Learn:
- How early daylight resets the circadian clock
- Ways to build sleep pressure without the gym
- The 12 o’clock caffeine rule that protects sleep
- Why alcohol fragments REM and deep sleep
- Simple wind-down routines that actually work
- Stress practices that calm the nervous system
- Five common sleep sabotages—reversed
- How to set routines for rotating rosters
If this resonated and you're ready to fix your sleep, book a one-to-one assessment call using the link in the show notes.
Subscribe so you never miss a new episode, and please leave a rating and review—it helps other shift workers find the show.
Learn more at ahealthyshift.com.
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ANNOUNCING
"The Shift Workers Collective"
https://join.ahealthyshift.com/the-shift-workers-collective
Click the link to learn all about it
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YOU CAN FIND ME AT
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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.
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Episode Transcript
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, and24-7 shift worker for almost
four decades.
Through this podcast, I aim toeducate shift workers using
evidence-based methods to notonly survive the rigors of shift
(02:04):
work, but thrive.
My goal is to empower shiftworkers to improve their health
and well-being so they have moreenergy to do the things they
love.
Enjoy today's show.
And welcome back to anotherepisode of A Healthy Shift.
It's Roger here.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
(02:27):
Today I want to talk aboutsabotaging your sleep.
I know you're a good sleeper.
Let's sabotage it.
I'm joking.
Of course I'm joking.
But I'm going to show you howyou sabotage it, right?
And I'll give you five provenstrategies to sabotage your
sleep so that you can workbackwards from there.
(02:47):
So instead of telling you whatto do, I'm going to walk you
through the five or five provensteps to completely sabotage it.
Yeah, that's right.
If you want to feel tired, youwant to feel cranky, foggy,
miserable, and gaining weightbecause sleep, proper sleep, is
what helps us to control ourweight because it helps to
control our hunger and satietyhormones.
(03:09):
I want you just to follow thesefive steps.
But of course, I'll also sharehow to flip them around so that
you can start sleeping properlyagain.
So let's get straight into it.
Short one today.
Number one, lack of earlydaylight.
Totally underrated.
This one is a killer.
When you wake up and spend thefirst few hours of your day
(03:30):
indoors, especially under thisartificial light inside, which
is the most unhealthy lightever, your body has no clue what
time it is.
Now you might think I'm inbright light.
But you're inside.
And inside light's about 500lux, regardless.
And it's such an unhealthylight.
(03:52):
It hasn't got enough blue in it,it's got zero infrared in it,
and it's just so unhealthy foryou.
Your brain relies on daylight toreset your body clock.
So if you don't get that earlylight, your body doesn't know
when to wake up or even when towind down.
And this sabotages our sleep.
(04:13):
So if you're constantly wakingup groggy or you're struggling
to fall asleep later, this couldactually be the clue.
Alright.
So if you're not, if you don'twant to sleep at night, lounge
around in bed, roll over, hitthat snooze button, and stay
inside.
Even 10 to 15 minutes of morningdaylight can make a massive
(04:35):
difference.
And I highly recommend that youget up, you hydrate, grab your
coffee, go and sit out on yourback step or go and sit out on
your back deck in the daylight,and this will help you to sleep
at night.
Believe me, it works.
So instead of sabotaging yoursleep, get outside early.
Take your coffee out with you,stand in the daylight.
Let's let the body know thatit's daytime.
(04:58):
Step number two, let's reallysabotage it.
Lack of movement.
Here's a suggestion for you.
Sit around all day and barelymove.
Because your body never buildsup enough sleep pressure this
way.
You need to earn your sleep.
That doesn't mean smashingyourself in the gym.
It can be as simple as walkingor stretching and or doing even
(05:20):
just a little bit of body weightresistance work.
Movement helps to regulate yourbody temperature, it helps to
regulate your hormones, yourmood, and without it, your body
doesn't even know when to rest.
Have a think about it.
If you haven't moved at all, thebody thinks it's resting anyway.
So what's the point?
So if you want to sabotage yoursleep, absolutely do nothing at
(05:41):
all.
But if you want quality sleep,get early movement every single
day.
Step number three caffeinewithin nine hours of sleep.
And here's one that most peopleignore.
I have a rule in place at 12o'clock.
It's called the 12 o'clock rule.
No caffeine after 12 o'clock.
(06:03):
If you're on day shift, stop at12.
If you're on afternoon shift,stop at 12.
If you're on night shift, stopat 12.
It's simple.
It's so easy to remember, and itwill make an enormous
difference.
What a lot of people don'trealise is the less caffeine you
have, the less caffeine youneed.
Caffeine has a half-life ofabout five to six hours, which
(06:25):
means that even if you have yourlight last coffee mid-afternoon,
half of that is still in yoursystem when you're trying to
fall asleep.
And I know you might say to me,and I've heard this hundreds of
times, but Rog, caffeine doesn'taffect me, I can fall asleep
just fine.
Sure, you can fall asleep, butthe quality of your sleep is a
(06:47):
disaster.
Because caffeine stops you fromgetting into that deep and
restorative sleep that your bodyso desperately needs.
So if you want to sleep well,start cutting caffeine at least
nine hours before your bedtime.
Remember the 12 o'clock rule.
Stick to that and you watch whathappens.
Step number four, you're gonnahate me.
(07:09):
Alcohol to wind down.
Now this one's a sneaky one.
Because a lot of shift workerstell me they love to have a
drink to help them to fallasleep.
Yeah, alcohol might knock youout quicker.
It is a relaxant, but itdestroys your sleep quality.
It literally fragments yoursleep.
You do wake up more often.
You know this, you've been outon the gas and you've had to
(07:33):
deal with it.
You know that you end up goingto the bathroom, you end up
waking up all the time.
It's the worst sleep ever.
And it doesn't help you.
You do not get proper REM Streetsleep, and you will wake up
feeling like you've been hit bya bus.
No shit.
You know this.
It's not a wind down, it's anumbing down.
(07:53):
So if you want to truly relax,swap that drink for a proper
routine.
Have a shower, reading in somelow light, do some breath work,
you'll find it so much betterfor you.
And the fifth and last step thatI want to mention is not having
a stress management practice.
And this is enormous.
If there's one thing thatimpacts shift work sleep more
(08:16):
than anything else, other thancircadian alignment, is stress.
We underrate this.
So if you go to bed with yourmind racing and you're thinking
about work, your family, yournext shift, what Jenny's doing,
what yeah, school, book week,the kids, husband, wife, oh my
god, everything's going on, allthat work I've got at work.
(08:39):
How on earth can your bodyfinally relax?
How does it feel safe to go tosleep?
You cannot, and it's too much toask your body to fall asleep
from 100 miles an hour to zeroin 30 seconds.
And yet we do this.
We come home pumping music,shower in an ensuite that's got
the light on, then we climb intobed, scroll on our phone, then
(09:01):
roll over and go, right, that'sit, sleep.
Your body doesn't know, ithasn't caught up.
You do have to slow down first.
You need to create theenvironment.
When you do that, your body willtake care of the rest.
Whether it's journaling orbreath work or meditation or
even just sitting in silence,just help to find a practice
(09:21):
that helps you to switch offyourself.
Because if you don't manage yourstress during the day, I can
guarantee to you it's going toshow up the second that you hit
the pillow.
No doubt.
So there you go.
There is five proven steps tosabotage your sleep.
Skip the early daylight, justdon't move.
Drink your caffeine late, usealcohol to relax, and just
(09:45):
completely ignore your stress.
Do those, and I promise, yoursleep will be garbage and you
will feel like rubbish yourself.
But if that hit home for you,and if you're tired of feeling
exhausted and overwhelmed, andyou're ready to actually fix
this, then all you gotta do isgo down into the show notes and
click the link there and book aone-to-one coaching assessment
(10:08):
call with me.
If we're a good fit, I promiseyou I will change this.
I'll help you to build a routinethat actually works for you, one
that gives you control,confidence, and helps you to
become the master sleeper, evenas a shift worker.
Thanks for listening to ahealthy shift podcast today.
(10:28):
I want you to take care ofyourself and I'll chat to you
soon on the next one.
Thank you for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to subscribe so you get
notified whenever a new episodeis released.
(10:51):
It would also be ever so helpfulif you could leave a rating and
review on the app you'recurrently listening on.
If you want to know more aboutme or work with me, you can go
to ahealthyshift.com.
I'll catch you on the next one.
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