Welcome to my blog. Here at Harmony shift I help shift workers have more energy, stamina, nutrition, and positivity. As some of you may know the name of the site has changed. I will be transitioning to the same website address soon, but I wanted to make sure everyone who subscribes to my channel had a heads up and can bookmark the change. Here in the near future, this site address (ironbugfitness.com) will no longer be used or be active. I will be changing it to Harmony Shift. Please be aware of the changes so you can still have access to my blog, me, and all the information I provide. I will be putting out courses, webinars, and a podcast in the future as well, so stay tuned for some exciting things in the next year.
On another note, let’s talk about meal timing and shift work. If you’re a shift worker, you probably already know it can be challenging to manage your schedule, know when to eat, how much to eat, when to sleep, how much to sleep etc.
Our bodies are amazing at telling us what time it is based on a few things like:
- Exposure to light
- Timing of meals
- Social interactions
- Body temperature
Your gut also knows when to digest food based on what time it is, for example, at night, your gut is resting and restoring, and it is typically NOT ready to take in food. Eating at night can lead to weight gain, gut issues, hormone imbalances, and a higher risk for heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. So, WHEN you eat while working shift work is truly just as important as WHAT you eat.
Here are my 3 tips for managing your eating schedule when working shift work.
- Try to follow your typical day shift meal schedule. This helps to communicate to your body what time it actually is along with keeping your circadian rhythm in check. Whenever you wake up for your shift, try to eat at the “typical” time you would normally. For example, if you wake up at 3 in the afternoon for a night shift try to have a light snack and then eat dinner when you normally would on your day off.
- Try to minimize eating between midnight and 6 A.M. Remember your gut wants to sleep too, so it can digest and recover and repair like the rest of your organs. Having big meals throughout the night leads to a lot of health concerns. Try to have a light snack during the night shift if you feel hungry. There is some information on probiotics and night shift gut health I can cover next time if you want.
- 3) Have a light breakfast before bed. So, when your night shift is over, try having a light breakfast before going to bed to communicate with your body (again) what time of day it is, and two, it will help support a good quality sleep, so you don’t wake up from those hunger pangs.
Some great snacks that are nutritious for shift work could be apple slices, nuts, seeds, veggie sticks, plain yogurt, hard boiled eggs, and maybe fruit cups without syrup.
A study done on overweight nursing professionals working night shift found that night workers tend to eat at irregular times, carb intake was higher on their days off, however carbs were higher later in the hours for both days on and days off. According to this study in sciencedirect.com, night shift workers had a 25% higher risk of being overweight and a 17% higher risk of obesity, and the study concluded this was in part by wake-sleep cycle disturbance. Night shift workers tend to have snacks and meals as a strategy to stay awake.
These snacks and meals consisted of mainly fats, carbs, sugar drinks, which have the most harmful health effects. Due to night shift workers nutrition patterns consisting of low protein and high carb meals this effected their sleep patterns and duration. Another study found that this relationship between diet and sleep were found to be bidirectional, meaning that shorter sleep durations stimulated cravings of high energy dense foods such as fats, carbs, sugar.
It was very interesting the percentages of this study. Now granted it was conducted in a city in Brazil with nurses at a major, large hospital, but still it was a study conducted on shift workers.
The percentages that I found interesting:
Use of medication 56.4%
Use of alcohol every 15 days 36.4%
Regular exercise 71.8% said No.
Works 36 hours 84.6%
Reason working nights 43.6% stated care of the home and/or children.
Married 64.1%
Post Graduate Level education 41.0%
Less than 7 hours sleep 74.4%
Reported poor sleep quality 79.5%
Conclusion
Now you can see how important sleep and diet is for shift workers. Watch your fat intake, carb and sugar intake and time your meals accordingly. This will put you on the right path for success.
Until next time, “Improving Health, Achieving Happiness.”
Darren
“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
Harmony Shift 