shift work

How to Fight Fatigue in the Workplace

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In the previous blog, we described the ways that a lack of sleep can affect your safety in the workplace. Fatigue is a serious concern when you have to be sharp for work every day, and not just to do your job, but to keep yourself and others safe while doing your job. We determined that sleep is the only solution to fatigue. Any other efforts, like caffeine intake, are done in vain.

But for some people, sleep does not come easy. One-third of Americans claim that they don’t get enough sleep. Whether it be because of shift work, being on call, insomnia, or just burning the midnight oil, getting a good night’s sleep can be a real challenge.

Here are some tips for regulating a healthy sleep schedule:

  • Figure out how much sleep you need to feel your best (7+ hours) and plan ahead for when you need to wind down, get in bed, and wake up the next day.
  • Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
  • Have a bedtime routine to train your body how to unwind. Cues like taking a warm bath, putting on pajamas, brushing your teeth, and reading a book triggers your brain to know that it’s time to shut down.
  • Don’t confuse your brain by scrolling through your phone or watching TV late into the night. The light from screens interferes with your body’s ability to produce melatonin to help you go to sleep.
  • Exercise during the day, but don’t exercise in the evenings before bed.
  • Avoid alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco. These stimulants can interfere with your body’s natural rhythms.
  • Avoid large meals and beverages in the late evening.
  • Rid your room of distractions like sounds, lights, a computer or TV.
  • Make sure your bed and pillow is comfortable.
  • Keep the room dark and at good temperature.
  • Aim to wake up 15 minutes earlier than you usually do and see if you feel more tired the next evening. Oversleeping can be an issue.
  • Spend some time outdoors so that you feel more tired in the evening.
  • Make your animals (and children) sleep in their own beds.

How Your Sleep Schedule Affects Your Work Safety

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Fatigue is a major concern for safety in the workplace because it causes people to become distracted during their work day. In fact, fatigue can cost a company thousands of dollars per employee every year due to productivity losses and mistakes. Fatigue is mostly caused by simply a lack of sleep. Not getting an adequate amount of sleep every night absolutely kills productivity and has wide-spread negative impacts on a person’s life. At work, this can be extremely dangerous, as your capacity to do your job can deteriorate as much as 50%! 

The Circadian Rhythm  

Learning about the circadian rhythm can help you understand why you have dips in your energy level throughout your work day. Generally, there are 2 dips in alertness during a 24 hour period, one being 2:00-6:00 am and the other being 1:00-4:00 pm. This schedule of alertness and sleepiness is contributed by our biological clock and the ways we respond to light and darkness. Disruptions to our natural rhythm like shift work, being on-call, and insomnia have huge consequences on our productivity and alertness during the day.

How lack of sleep can affect your work day: 

  • Irritability– less patient and able to cope with problems that arise
  • Memory and learning problems – an inability to learn & retain new information
  • Vision problems – limited eyesight
  • Slowed reactions– inability to respond appropriately
  • Immune system issues – more likely to become ill
  • Bad decision-making – unable to reason
  • Distractedness – difficulty focusing on the task at hand
  • Difficulty communicating – difficulty speaking and expressing thoughts clearly
  • Pain – sore muscles and joints 
  • Clumsiness – more likely to fall and/or drop tools or equipment
  • Depression – general sadness
  • Headaches – can trigger migraines

Sleeping is the Only Solution 

Getting adequate sleep is a simple solution for avoiding fatigue-related losses and for becoming more healthy in general. Attempts to boost productivity in the post-lunch hours are mostly done in vain. Bright lights, coffee, energy drinks, and cold air have little to no effect in tricking the biological clock. The only thing that is truly effective is getting a good night’s sleep. Sleep is the only thing that can restore energy, reasoning abilities, and speed up your reaction time so that you’re not a hazard in the workplace. 

Exercise: Why Safety Staff Must Prioritize Working Out

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exercise

Working shift work or long hours can be tiring for both the body and the brain.

We’ve all heard the recent saying, “Sitting is the new smoking…” But exercising even just a little bit everyday can not only boost your physical abilities but your mental abilities as well.

Regular exercise has been shown to:

  • Reduce stress
  • Keep anxiety and feelings of depression at bay
  • Improve self-esteem
  • Improve our sleep

With all these benefits you would think we would desire to get up and move… But after a long day, or night at work, running or doing aerobics or even just walking around the block is the last thing you feel like doing.

Here are just a few incentives that may help to motivate you.

  1. Give yourself a little reward. Maybe a healthy smoothie or perhaps you can watch that movie you have been thinking about. Over time your brain will associate the working out with the reward and you can simply stop the extra treat and feel good from the endorphin rush surging through your body.
  2. Put your work-out clothes or equipment in plain view. Even this simple reminder may cause you to “just do it.”
  3. Give yourself mini-challenges. If you are walking around the block, bet yourself you can do one more round… or if you are at the gym and doing 20 minutes on the treadmill, challenge yourself to do just 5 more minutes.
  4. Exercise with a friend or spouse. Having a partner definitely makes it harder to skip your exercise time. And you may feel a little healthy competition to “go the extra mile.”

But the biggest reward is your health. Knowing that whatever form of exercise you choose is going to make your body and mind work better is one of the best payoffs.

Research shows that when we exercise, blood pressure and blood flow increase everywhere in the body, including the brain. More blood means more energy and oxygen, which makes our brain perform better.

This better performance will pay off on the job as well as off. When our minds are sharper and our bodies more flexible we can think and move and work better then we could with a sedentary lifestyle.

If you need any more evidence to get moving here are some added benefits:

  • Exercise strengthens your heart.
  • It increases energy levels.
  • It lowers your blood pressure.
  • It improves muscle tone.
  • It strengthens and builds bones.
  • It helps reduce body fat.
  • You look better!!

And lastly, if you can’t get motivated for yourself, do it for your loved ones. They want and need you to be healthy and productive for a long, long time.

So get up, get on that bike, pick up that racket, grab those golf clubs but do something. Your body and brain will thank you.

The Shift Work Diet: 6 Ways to Start Eating Healthier

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shift work diet

Shift workers often have unpredictable, ever-changing work schedules. The amount of consecutive work days, length of shifts, work required during shifts and whether they are on days or nights are all variables that change and rearrange.

When you’re on an irregular schedule, it is hard to maintain regular beneficial habits such as exercising, getting adequate sleep (which we wrote about in a previous blog) and eating healthy, which is what this blog is going to focus on.

On a shift work schedule, it is easy to develop bad eating habits. This can include skipping meals, overeating, mindlessly snacking and/or eating at abnormal times. Due to these unhealthy habits, shift workers are at risk for weight gain, heart disease, indigestion, high blood pressure, constipation, diarrhea, etc.

But, why is it more difficult to eat healthy on a shift work schedule? From a shift worker’s perspective, here are just a few reasons:

  • It’s inconvenient. It’s quick and easy to run through a drive-thru and grab a #7 with a large Coke or to call and order your usual from the take-out place down the street.
  • You’re surrounded by people with the same eating habits. It’s harder to go against the grain and be the “healthy” one when your coworkers are stuck in a certain routine.
  • You get bored. If there isn’t a whole lot of action going on, it’s easy to grab a snack or two, and most oftentimes these are not healthy snacks. It’s a bag of chips, a dessert that someone brought, a Honey Bun from the local gas station.

There are many excuses as to why it’s easier to eat unhealthy on a shift work schedule, the health concerns remain. To avoid high blood pressure, heart disease, weight gain and more, you should focus on the foods you’re putting into your body. It’s never too late to turn things around and make a change for the better.

Here are six ways to start eating healthier on a shift work schedule:

  1. Plan ahead. This is crucial. Your preparation will set you up for a successful day of eating healthy. This looks like going to the grocery store with a list of healthy snacks and meals to prepare. This also looks like portioning out and setting aside these snacks and meals before work. If you cut up your veggies and divide up your snacks into individual bags and containers, they’re easier to grab-and-go when you’re getting ready to leave for work.
  2. Bring your own food. It is much easier to eat healthy when you know exactly what you’re eating. Most restaurants give a much larger portion size than needed. Additionally, restaurant food is often loaded with butter, sugar, sodium and many other ingredients that are not great for our cholesterol levels.
  3. Do your research. It would be unwise to assume that you will always bring your own food. There are times when we forget our lunch, or when we don’t have leftovers to pack. So, do your research. Find out what restaurants around your workplace have healthy options. Look up the menus to find out a list of good options to order if you do have to pick something up mid-shift.
  4. Learn to say “no.” This one takes discipline. If the kitchen at your workplace is always packed with sweets, if the vending machine is filled up with unhealthy snacks –– just say “no.” By saying “no” to these types of snacks, you’re saying “yes” to a healthier and happier you.
  5. Get some accountability. It is not fun to start a new way of eating by yourself. Ask your coworkers to join you! Or ask someone close to you to ask you questions and cheer you on in this process.
  6. Don’t think of this as a diet. A diet has the connotation that it has a starting and stopping point. Think of this as a lifestyle change. It’s not about a quick fix to lose the weight, but rather about choosing the way of eating for your life that is manageable and easy to maintain.

There are many ways to eat healthy and pursue a healthy lifestyle, even with a shift work schedule. Don’t let your schedule be an excuse to be unhealthy. Let it motivate you to prepare and plan ahead to be successful at eating healthier.