IS MY WORK SCHEDULE AFFECTING MY HEALTH?

How can a shift schedule affect your health? How can I minimize the negative affects my shift has on me? Can I tweak my schedule with my employer to create a win win situation? Our team at Predictive Safety will answer these mysteries and uncover other tools you can use to adjust properly to shift work.

Every employee needs between 6-8 hour sleep a day. Any schedule that doesn’t offer that opportunity of sleep does harm in the long run. Harvard Medical Schools sleep medicine division states that a variety of potential harmful effects of sleep deprivation are usually associated with increased stress, increased blood pressure, impaired blood glucose and increased inflammation.

There are many ways you can minimize the negative effects of working shift work and the following are just a few:

Anchor sleep- when you go to sleep every day go to bed around the same time every day. This will get the body used to the routine and you can do it for night shift as well.

Phase shifting is the practise of staying up a little later before night shifts. An example would be working day shift Monday and Tuesday and going to sleep at 10pm both nights but when you are off Wednesday and Thursday stay up 90 minutes later each night. That way your first Friday night shift would not be so much of a strain on the body.

Natural herbs can be used to help the body rest or awaken its system

Karen Grieve states that Rosemary and Basil are good herbs for keeping you awake and alert. And keeping these herbs in essential oil or fresh won’t just keep the car fresh but they could keep you awake and save your life.

Do you need an herb to help you fall asleep? Dr.Christopher hobbs writes that herbs high in tryptophan help you fall asleep best. The list includes: St. John’s wort,quinoa,spirulina and soy.

Sleep hygiene is also important and referred to in our previous blog so just remember no bright lights before bed and no coffee 4 hours before sleep.

So, in the end you have come to the realization that the field you have chosen requires shift work and you have followed all the advice from Predictive Safety and others so what now. The last step might be hiring an industry expert like predictive safety to tweak your current schedule for optimum performance without disrupting the culture or workforce. Life is too precious to live fatigued.Untill next time sleep well my friends