Ink & Bytes
Ink & Bytes
Episode Fourteen: Night Shift Myths and Wellness Strategies
Think night shift workers are isolated and unhealthy? Think again. Drawing from my own experiences, I've dedicated this episode to busting the myths surrounding night shift lifestyles. Discover practical strategies for maintaining a balanced life while working unconventional hours. From the vital importance of sunlight for your complexion, circadian rhythm, to how blackout curtains can transform your sleep quality, we’ll explore tips that help make night shifts not just manageable, but healthier and more fulfilling.
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The nighttime is not a part of the day that we all particularly get to see and interact with. Most of the time we're asleep, because it's the time where we're supposed to be asleep, to recharge and get ready for the next day. The insects come out and chirp, fireflies can light up the night, the stars are the only glow outside of artificial lighting, and it can be a really peaceful or relaxing time of day in particular situations, or it can be really spooky, as nighttime is when our subconscious mind likes to play tricks on us and likes to make us all nervous. And there's a large group of people, myself included, that interact more with the nighttime than the daytime, and that is night shift workers. And there's a lot of stereotypes around night shifts that are just frankly incorrect. After I've been able to experience a night shift for the last few months in order to get money to keep supporting this new life that I'm living, I was able to see that a lot of the stereotypes are just wrong and made by people who either have never done it or don't really understand it. So in this episode of the Ink and Bytes podcast, we're going to be talking about some of these night shift stereotypes and start to give some tips on how to better balance a night shift lifestyle and, while night shifts might not be healthy because we're not meant to be living in a night shift life we're animals. If you go stripping it to the bare bones, we're supposed to be going during the day A lot of the things that you can do to make it healthier for you are really simple, so let's get into it. But wait before we get into this, because I always forget to do this. If you really like the podcast and you want more of it and you want more of it consistently, because I know I haven't been that active posting because it's been so busy for me recently feel free to head over to my Ko-Fi at ko-ficom slash worldbuilder. Feel free to support me there, which allows me to do this more and more confidently and give it more time that it needs and that I want to give it. Also, feel free to check out my blog and my website at the-world-buildercom, where you'll be able to find things such as my blog, my podcast that you're listening to now. You have more information there and some social media consulting, because I recently started my own social media consulting business and if you're looking for someone to help you with creating content. All the information's there. But anyway, enough of the housekeeping, let's dive into it and start talking about night shift.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of stereotypes in general and I'm not going to list them off here. I'm just going to pretty much list the ones that I've heard from people in my circle and just from the experience of others. A lot of the time when society looks at night shift workers, we're kind of seen as creeps, vampires, zombies. I mean we call ourselves zombies all the time, so I mean that's fine. But just in general, night shift employees are looked at no matter what industry. It could be night shift stocking at a retail store, or you can be a doctor working the night shift at a hospital with patients, and the public would kind of look at you in a way where you're not normal. You're kind of this I don't want to say subhuman, because that's way too extreme but you're like the second group of people that can't really fully integrate with society, because when you're active and you're doing things, things are closed, no one's awake, so you're kind of isolated. So it's really looked at as a lonely, depressing, unhealthy thing and really, while, like I said before, it's not healthy. It's also not completely isolating and depressing and a lot of night shift employees are actually some of the more healthier individuals, because if you're working the night shift, you have to be more conscious about your health than if you were in the day shift, because you don't have easy access to sunlight all of the time and you don't have easy access to food, so you have to plan ahead. So, honestly, night shift makes it so you have to plan better and be a more prepared adult over a everyday day shift type lifestyle. And that's not a slight to any day shift or any other type of shift, but it's just what I've noticed as I've been going through it. You have to be more prepared for the future when you're doing night. But with the stereotypes aside, let's talk about some things that I've done, that I've read, that I've researched, that have helped me and that make this a more manageable temporary lifestyle to deal with.
Speaker 1:First and foremost, get some sunlight in the morning, at least 30 minutes of just sitting outside or reading or simply just basking in the sun. Do it a few hours before you go to bed if you can, because standing in the sun can kind of activate your body a little bit and mess up your circadian rhythm. But it's important to get some sunlight every day or every other day, because, as you probably know if you're listening to this who does night shift you can get very pale and indeed look like a zombie, as everyone says night shift workers are. But if you get some sunlight in the morning, you get vitamins and you're able to get some color in your skin and kind of just combat only seeing the moon. I sit out on my porch and read my book for about 30 to 45 minutes and then I go inside, I eat and I get ready for bed again. Try to do it a little bit before you go to bed, cause you don't want to get too uh, awoke, awoken, you don't want to wake yourself up too much, but getting some sun every day or every other day can really keep your skin looking healthy and not pale Like I was for a long time.
Speaker 1:Secondly and this is probably the most critical thing you can do and I doubt it it's validity, until I experienced an event recently where I didn't have them but buy blackout curtains and make your sleeping space as dark as possible If you live in a house with a lot of windows or if your bedroom has a lot of windows, it's kind of harder. But make sure to get as many blackout curtains as you need for at least your bedroom and cover those windows. And if you don't have a door on your bedroom, they also make blackout like doorway things I don't know what they're exactly called but that stops access light from seeping into your bedroom from other parts of the house. If you have a door, that's even better. It makes it a lot easier. But make your sleeping space as dark as you possibly can.
Speaker 1:And this is because if your room is dark enough and it's pitch black or relatively close to there with no light bleeding in, you can trick your circadian rhythm to think daytime is nighttime. If you build your sleep schedule once you start building that out a little bit and basically without getting too deep into it, our circadian rhythm is our internal clock in terms of what time of day it is like when you should sleep for the normal life of day to day. When the sun starts to go down, we start to get tired because our body is getting ready to sleep. It's telling us it's time to go to bed. But when you're working overnight, when the sun goes down and the moon comes up. That is when you're supposed to get up. So tricking your circadian rhythm into thinking that night is day and day is night is a really critical thing in order to stay healthy and rested when you have to work night shifts and you're living a night shift lifestyle. I, like I said, I doubted the validity of this until recently, when I had to go over to another apartment and sleep because maintenance was being done on mine and I didn't want to take my curtains down, even if I was only moving right across the street for a night. So I had to sleep with the sun bleeding in, and it was a very unrestful and broken sleep. It basically felt like a string of naps tied together with a few moments of lucidity. It really wasn't that good. So make sure you buy blackout curtains and make it as dark as you possibly can.
Speaker 1:Eat healthy and consistently oh no, that's not news to anybody, but it becomes significantly more important when you're working at night because your body is going to be impacted in different ways than if it was during the day. You're going to get less sun, which already has a lot of impacts in of itself. So you have to eat healthy and consistently. So breakfast, lunch and dinner, or just eat your required amount of food a day, and this is also a really good way to learn how food works and to learn what eating healthy really is. But you just need the fuel. Just like blocking out your room and tricking your circadian rhythm is important just for being rested and somewhat energized in the morning.
Speaker 1:Eating healthy and consistently when you're working a night shift is the key to being full and conscious and not dizzy, tired, moody, all of the side effects that bad food can give you. And this comes with a little trick and I almost fell into it but do not rely on fast food when you're working the night shift Because, again, most places are going to be closed when you're working these shifts and if you start to rely only on fast food for your meals, you're going to feel like shit, quite frankly. And while fast food might not inherently be bad, as my brother always said, it's the quantity of the food that we're eating. So you can eat as much McDonald's as you want, but it's the quantity of it. I mean, like you can have a diet around fast food. You're not going to feel good. But it's the quantity, not the quality, or just fast food is inherently bad, still not good for you. But try not to rely on fast food. It just can lead to an expensive route and just you won't be feeling healthy.
Speaker 1:A lot of fast food chains focus on taste, not really nutrients, and you need nutrients to keep it going during the night shifts. Now I'm not saying never eat fast food because it's convenient. I mean it's fast food for a reason. But just try not to rely on it too much. It has a lot of negative health effects in the long run. Try to get into that. Meal prep a little bit, like I mentioned before, night shift teaches you or forces you to learn how to plan ahead.
Speaker 1:Napping is also relatively important. I personally am not a napper, so I don't really nap at all because I find it ruins my sleep. But there's a bunch of different articles out there that say nap intermediately through the night if you need to to keep rested. I again, I think this is personal preference, I don't think this is required, but if you're tired and you still have a long way ahead of you probably get like 30 minutes of sleep. Get power nap in there so you can recharge and keep it going. And finally, because we just talked about naps.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about sleep very briefly, and I won't hold you here long because really this is self-explanatory, we've heard it for so long, even though when you're in public education, like middle school and high school, they make you wake up at a third hours of the day or of the morning and you actually get a less amount of sleep than you probably should get when you're developing in middle school and high school. But anyway, that's besides the point. You should be aiming to get eight hours of sleep or seven hours of sleep a night. That is because REM and deep sleep are the two most impactful and rejuvenating sleep states and you want to not only feel rested, you want to feel energized, which goes back to the food. And if we're going to go all the way back to the beginning, you can't really achieve good sleep for long durations unless you have those blackout curtains, unless you're sleeping in your bedroom and simulated as close as you can to nighttime and trick your circadian rhythm, because it just will be broken sleep, and broken sleep is worse than no sleep sometimes. And it's just really important to get those eight hours because I've noticed in my personal experience I don't know if this is scientifically true or not. This could just be me. Again, a lot of this is going to vary depending on the person. This could just be me. Again, a lot of this is going to vary depending on the person. I'm more tired throughout the night shift of life than I am. If I was just low on sleep during the day, it's because it's nighttime. Your body wants to be sleeping during nighttime, but you can't. So try to get those seven or eight hours of sleep. You'll really start to see the difference. And that pretty much wraps up our discussion on night shift and the stereotypes and some tips on how to make it more manageable.
Speaker 1:And for those of you who are new, first of all, welcome. It's so great to have you. I'm very thankful that you've taken interest in this show.
Speaker 1:I just want to let all of the new enjoyers, new podcast goers, know that the Ink and Bytes podcast was specifically developed especially episodes like this, where it's just me talking to you. They were designed to be short 10 to 15 minute long episodes where you can get right into what's important in each topic and use what I talk about to hopefully better impact your life or further encourage learning, to find things that you can use. We also have longer form episodes, like my last episode where I sat down with my good friend, the archetype archetype architect and talked narrative development and narrative storytelling with Destiny, destiny 2. Those are your standard hour, 30, two hours, even that episode, two hours and 40 something minutes. Those are your standard episodes where you're going to have a guest and we're going to be having a conversation, very naturally, and you'll be able to easily tell that by the titles and by the length and just the descriptions.
Speaker 1:So again, if you're new, thank you so much for showing interest in the show and I really am excited to see how this show grows and develops. And if you really like this, like I mentioned in the beginning, check out my Ko-Fi $5 subscriptions there. I'm working on special episodes. Once that Ko-Fi has more interest in it, I'll start developing only episodes that people who subscribe to that can see, so on and so forth. But thank you to everyone who's been here since the beginning and welcome all new people and I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next episode. You.
