Working shift work can be challenging. But with some useful tips and  tricks, the strain on your health and relationships can be reduced. Health  advice for shift workers centres around staying physically healthy,  maintaining a good diet, and maintaining connections with your family and friends.

Shift workers account for 15% of all workers in Australia. The highest level of shift workers is in the Mining, Hospitality, Healthcare and Logistic industries, but there are many more that work across a 24-hour roster. Shift work can often have unseen benefits, such as higher wages, not wasting time in peak hour traffic and you get to avoid the crowds at the shops. To be an effective shift worker, planning is required to maintain good health.

15%of Australian work shift work

Humans have an inbuilt rhythm that helps us know when we are hungry, tired, need to move and need to slow down. The natural sleep-wake cycle, our circadian rhythm, affects our heart rate, digestion, and brain activity. That means we do not function the same at night-time as during the day. We need to adjust our habits to suit, especially on night shift. While working shift work can be demanding, having a plan for positive health makes creating a healthy work-life balance seem within reach.
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How to achieve balance

‍Plan. Plan. Plan. The hardest and most challenging thing to do is plan. But that is because you do not have a plan yet. Let us plan our time, plan our food, and plan our health.

Plan our time

Work out if your time design plan will be digital or physical. There are many online diaries and phone apps such as My Shift Planner, Shift Worker or MyDuty. You could also create a planner on the computer and print it out, or purchase a paper or whiteboard planner. This also depends on how detailed you wish to be. Some people are so detailed they have an hour-by-hour colour-coded breakdown of work, play and sleep. Others prefer a more general view, such as work times and social activities. To get started, pick what you think might work for you and over time you can increase or decrease your level of detail.

Plan our food

Maintaining a healthy diet when you are feeling tired and working crazy hours can be difficult. Too often we reach for pizza or burgers as a fast meal or use a sugary snack or drink as an energy pick me up. These foods are fine as a treat, but they traditionally lack fibre, healthy proteins and all the vitamins and minerals we need to fuel our bodies daily. Every day we should plan to eat at least 5 servings of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit and reduce our salt and sugar intake.

Planning our food can occur in two major ways, meal planning and meal preparation. Meal planning aims to have you think ahead about your meals. Coles and Woolworths both have recipe ideas that can build a shopping list, and there is also an enormous range of phone apps. This means you can pre-plan your daily food intake to ensure you are getting adequate nutrients and able to pick meals within your budget.  

The second part is meal preparation. This means having a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly cooking session and then storing your homemade food in the fridge or freezer. This could mean cooking a vegetable-packed curry, stew, or bolognese sauce for dinners; pre-chopping salads and vegetable sticks for lunches or making breakfast wraps in advance. Once you have the containers, this can be done as effortlessly as cooking a double batch of your favourite meals and freezing half. Actively planning your diet ensures you are consuming a healthier diet, which will help with feeling fuelled.

Plan our health

Planning your health should include your sleep, exercise, and emotional health. You will need to be proactive and be available for these 3 key health factors in your life.

As a shift worker, having superior quality sleep is important. Poor sleep results in lower cognitive function, weaker immunity, weight gain and many chronic health conditions. Planning sleep time to ensure you are still getting seven to nine of sleep in a 24-hour period is important. Creating good sleeping habits is important. This includes ensuring you have a good relaxation routine, limiting caffeine intake, no screen time in bed and where possible reducing external noise.

The benefit of exercise is overwhelmingly clear, with benefits that include better-quality sleep, a stronger heart, improved mood, and better brain function just to name a few of the amazing effects. Planning exercise into your daily routine does not mean expensive gym memberships, it can mean walking around the neighbourhood, using outdoor gym equipment or online home exercise routines such as 28bySamWood or PeachesPilates. If you have never exercised before, start slow and build up. Most importantly, ensure you have blocked exercise into your planner, even 3 lots of 10 minutes are fine each week!

Being available for your emotional health is just as important as the other areas of health and can safeguard you against feeling isolated and prevent depression. Make time in your plan to see your friends and family, call mates you have not chatted to in a while, volunteer in the community, relax, and regularly engage in activities you find enjoyable. This could include listening to music, going to a movie, or playing an instrument.

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Takeaway

Maintaining your physical health, a good diet and connections to your family and friends while shift working takes some planning. With ongoing adjustments, you can aim towards a healthier life.