Lifestyle Management – For those Who Work Beyond Regular Hours
From an evolutionary standpoint, human beings are ‘diurnal’ creatures, i.e. we are supposed to work during the day and sleep at night. Over the past two centuries and since the dawn of the industrial age and the invention of the light bulb by Edison, humans have been able to transcend this natural barrier, but at a cost to their health and wellbeing. Scientific discoveries, which have helped humans challenge the boundaries imposed by nature, have also allowed them to find out more about their bodies and make suitable adjustments to lead a healthy and long life.
We now understand that a major reason for the fatigue experienced by shift workers is the misalignment of our ‘Circadian Rhythm’, or ‘body clock’ in common parlance, with the local day-night cycles. This misalignment is similar in nature to jetlag-related fatigue and sleep deprivation experienced by globetrotting professionals, who change time zones when travelling. Circadian Rhythms in human beings are mostly coordinated by presence or absence of light and shift working changes the exposure patterns from the normal external cues provided by nature. This tends to alter our bodily functions, particularly impacting our sleep and wakefulness patterns, leading to fatigue and stress.
While sleep can be impacted even for normal workers for a multitude of reasons, for shift workers, sleep deprivation is the most commonly found disorder and a causal factor for various other health issues. A normal human adult needs to sleep for an average of seven to nine hours in each 24-hour period for a healthy life, i.e. almost a third of our day should be spent sleeping. It is not only the quantity of sleep that is important, but it is also imperative that we try and get six to seven hours of sleep at night or in dark conditions. Here are a few tips that shift working professionals can incorporate into their lives to mitigate sleep deprivation and for a positive impact on their lifestyles:
Stop using any electronic screen devices like TVs, laptops, mobile phones, tabs, etc. at least 30 minutes before going to sleep
Create the right bedroom environment – a dark room, preferably keeping extraneous sounds to a minimum.
If creating a dark or noise-free room is a challenge, use an eye mask or earplugs.
If you have difficulty sleeping in a silent room, use a white noise generator – the noise of the fan and the hum of the AC are good white noises for sleep. You may also use sleep music available on most music apps like Amazon Prime Music, Gaana, Youtube, etc.
Caffeine present in coffee, tea, and cola improve alertness and take about 30-40 minutes from the time of consumption to actually start having an effect. So plan your caffeine intake accordingly.
Your last caffeine intake should be at least five to six hours prior to bedtime
Eat a light meal before bedtime, preferably keeping fried and oily stuff to a minimum.
Try and keep a minimum of two hours between bedtime and exercise. Preferably exercise after you awake from sleep.
