Six things every nightshift worker should do before 6pm
People have raved about morning routines for years, noting how small things like eating a healthy breakfast, reading part of a book, or even making your bed can have a significant impact on your life and overall well being. And they can!
But what if your morning is more like afternoon?
If you are one of the millions of Americans who works a night shift, you don’t have the opportunity to wake up at 8 am and start whipping up egg-white omelets. However, that doesn’t mean that you cannot come up with your own routine to help increase productivity, improve your mental health, and get a great start to your afternoon.
Here are six things you should make sure you do each day before 6pm:
1. Get outside!
If you work nights, your daylight hours are limited. Depending on when you leave for work and when you arrive home, there may even be entire days or weeks where you don’t get the chance to see any sunlight at all.
While this might not seem like a big deal, when you aren’t able to spend much time in the sun each week, it can be detrimental to your overall well being.
Spending time outside in the daytime has numerous physical and mental health benefits that you do not want to miss out on each day:
Serotonin release
Sunlight exposure causes the brain to release more of the hormone serotonin. Serotonin commonly referred to as the “happiness hormone,” is responsible for stabilizing your mood, providing feelings of happiness, promoting restful sleep.
Even just a few minutes in the sun is enough to increase your serotonin levels enough to boost your spirits and help reduce feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress.
Vitamin D
Spending time in the sun will also help your body produce vitamin D, a vitamin that maximizes your calcium intake, reduces your risk for osteoporosis, and supports your immune system.
While you can (and probably should) take a vitamin D supplement in order to stay healthy, the best way for you to receive the amount of vitamin D your body needs each day is to go outside in the sun.
Although you won’t be able to spend time outside in the early morning each day, you can still get all of the vitamin D you need by going outside before the sun goes down in the afternoon.
In fact, research shows that getting vitamin D is safer and more efficient when you expose yourself to sunlight later in the day.
As a night shift worker, it is especially important for you to carve out time to go outside before the sun goes down so that you can get the serotonin release and the vitamin D you need to stay happy and healthy.
Whether you decide to work in the garden, go for a jog, or walk your dog, you should aim to spend time outside each and every day before 5 pm.
2. Exercise
Although everyone knows why moving the body and getting a proper amount of exercise each day is important, many people don’t realize that the time of day when they exercise can be just as critical.
Many people advocate for exercising right when they wake up because it will keep them from putting it off or becoming too tired to exercise by the end of the day. While increasing motivation to exercise and preventing procrastination are good reasons to make sure you squeeze in a workout early, getting a jump start on daily exercise is especially important for night shift workers.
Although it might seem like exercising right after your shift will tire you out and make it easy for you to fall asleep, completing a high-intensity interval training or any other strenuous exercise can actually have the opposite effect.
This exercise can boost your cortisol levels, which can influence your sleep cycle and make it hard for you to fall asleep once your head hits your pillow.
If you want to take advantage of all the physical and mental health benefits that come from regular exercise, it is important for you to get your workout in before 5 pm so that your cortisol levels can return to normal and you can get a good day’s sleep.
Tip: Try exercising outside so that you can reap the benefits of good exercise and sunlight!
3. Spend time with positive people
While many popular morning routines call for solitude, many of us working nights experience significantly more alone time (especially on our days off) than our day shift counterparts. This is why positive social interaction is so important for us.
Let’s face it. We can’t always control the people we work with and some of those people can be downright negative. Getting time in with people who provide a positive influence can start your day out right.
Tip: Try to schedule afternoon outdoor workout sessions with that chronically happy friend to get all three of these life improving tips completed at once!
4. Journaling
There are many people who journal each morning when they wake up. Whether this is to help them plan out their day or to help them process their emotions, it is a great habit that allows them to increase their self-awareness.
If you work the night shift, taking the time to journal when you wake up each day can help you develop a better understanding of yourself. Taking just a minute or two to jot down your feelings and the things you notice about yourself can help you get a sense of how you function in response to different situations and stimuli.
How do you feel after exercising? How well do you sleep after drinking caffeine six hours before bed? What about after drinking caffeine four hours before bed?
Figuring out how you and your body operate will give you the insight necessary to make the decisions that will be best for you while you work nights.
5. Meditate
As a night shift worker, you are far more likely to suffer from mood and cognitive disorders, unhealthy sleeping habits, and high-stress levels than your day-walking counterparts. Practicing meditation is a great way to combat these issues and support your mental health.
There are countless mental health benefits that can come from meditation:
- Stress reduction
- Increased self-awareness
- Decreased anxiety
- Improved attention span and memory
- Improved sleep
Make meditation a habit and you will find that it is easier for you to regulate your mood throughout your day and get a healthy amount of sleep at night.
6. Skip the (early) coffee
While no one is pushing for you to go without coffee altogether, there are benefits to avoiding caffeine during the first 30 to 60 minutes of your day.
When you wake up in the morning, your body typically produces high levels of cortisol, while often thought of as “a fight-or-flight” hormone that can cause you to feel stress or anxiety it is a critical part of waking up and feeling alert. If you add coffee to the mix, it can act as a signal to your body to produce less cortisol resulting in you feeling less alert throughout the day.
While you don’t want to drink coffee too early when you wake up, you also want to make sure you don’t drink caffeine within 4–6 hours before you plan to go to sleep. It can take as many as six hours for caffeine to leave your body, and you don’t want your cup of coffee to keep you up when you finish your shift. Being strategic about coffee can help you reap the full benefits!
When you keep these six tips in mind, you will be well on your way to a happier, healthier, and more productive lifestyle while you’re working the night shift.
Night Shift Nutrition is a community focused on living your best life, while working nights. We do this by sharing our experiences and science based educations. The point is to not only survive working nights but to thrive! If this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of you can apply to join our facebook group or subscribe to our email list.
