There are four protective factors that we can use to think about shift worker mental health: sleeping, eating, exercising, and socialising. This episode focusses on the first two, sleeping well and eating well.

We discuss how working shift is more than just 'sleeping during the day and working at night', and how you're constantly fighting your body clock throughout a shift. We learn about how your circadian rhythm (your sleep/wake cycle) works, how it's affected by shift work, and how that in turn affects everything in your body: your energy levels, your alertness, and even your nutrition. We then look at some ways shift workers can work with their bodies to make eating and sleeping around shift work that little bit easier.

Experts featured in this episode:

• Helen McAdam, retired Social Worker and Working Well in Wellington program instigator
• Dr. Jade Murray, Monash University (sleep)
• Associate Professor Maxine Bonham, Deakin University (nutrition)
• Linda Hunt, Working Well in Wellington Project Manager
• Julie, Graduate Nurse at Central Gippsland Health
• Scott Rebecca, Manager: Health Services and Wellbeing at Saputo Dairy Australia

About Make the Shift:
Make the Shift is a podcast produced as part of the Working Well in Wellington Toolkit, a toolkit designed to help shift workers and their employers develop and implement ways to ensure their mental health. For more information about the project, and to download the toolkit, visit maketheshift.org.au.

To find out more about the development of the Working Well in Wellington project, take a listen to the bonus episode of this podcast: Behind Working Well in Wellington. You can also listen to the full interviews with our experts in your podcast feed.

This podcast, and the toolkit, was produced by Wellington Primary Care Partnership, and funded by WorkSafe's WorkWell Mental Health Improvement Fund.

This podcast was recorded and produced in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, on the traditional lands of the Gunaikurnai and Bunurong peoples.
Audio production by Jet Streamer (jetstreamer.com.au). 
Voiced by Chris Plumridge.

For more episodes, search for "Make the Shift" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts.