Optimized Sleep Protocols For Night Shift Nurses

Transcription

1 - Healthy Nurse HQ - Optimized Sleep Protocols For Night Shift Nurses AN INTRODUCTION TO SLEEP OPTIMIZATION AND CIRCADIAN RE-ALIGNMENT

2 SECTION ONE Why Do You Need To Optimize Your Sleep When Working The Night Shift?

3 The Sleep/Health Connection In the short term, sleep deprivation can cause damage to your body. Over time this damage can lead to chronic health problems and negatively impact your quality of life. Below is an image from Healthline showing the potential impact that sleep deprivation can have on your body.

4 How Your Weight Is Affected By Sleep

5 How Your Weight Is Affected By Sleep

6 How Your Weight Is Affected By Sleep

7 How Your Weight Is Affected By Sleep

8 How Your Weight Is Affected By Sleep Infographic courtesy of Sleep Genuis Prioritizing Your Sleep Health There's a reason we recommend all of our nurse clients get their sleep sorted before tackling nutrition and exercise for weight loss. It can be the key that unlocks everything else for you in terms of finally losing the weight you want. If you make improvements in your sleep health, than all of the other pieces will begin to fall in place: Your body's hormones will stop fighting against your weight loss efforts. Your levels of energy and motivation will explode and you'll be excited about getting stuck into a new exercise program. Your body will be better able to tap into fat as an energy source, which will multiply the effectiveness of both your nutrition and your exercise plans.

9 SECTION TWO The Sleep Protocols Explained

10 Sleep Protocols Why Do These Protocols Work? Studies have shown that using schedules similar to the ones we share at the end of this report can increase your sleep duration by more than an hour each day. An hour of extra sleep each day. That s huge! The reason they work is because they regulate your light exposure and shift your circadian rhythm to a more optimal timeframe. Essentially you re encouraging your body to move your biological sleep time from night to morning. Along with light manipulation, you re also taking advantage of strategic napping, sleep rituals, caffeine and melatonin to further strengthen & support this circadian shift.

11 Sleep Protocol Elements Elements Of The Protocols When you come to the protocols at the end of this report you ll notice the use of some abbreviations. Those are explained below. BL - Bright Light can be used intermittently from the beginning of your shift through to about 4am. This helps stave off the release of melatonin into your system, delay the onset of sleep pressure and help you remain alert through the night. It can also be used on your days off if you don't want to sleep quite as late as you normally would when you're working C - Caffeine can be consumed in the first part of your shift to heighten your alertness. You should then avoid caffeine later in the shift so as not to interfere with the quality of your sleep when you get home. What most people don t realize is that caffeine has a half life of 3-7 hours depending on your metabolism. So even if you don t have enough caffeine in your system to stop you from falling asleep, a cup of coffee after midnight can potentially leave enough caffeine in your system to affect the quality of your sleep.

12 Sleep Protocol Elements where possible, a nap is strategically used before your shift to relieve some sleep pressure and bank some REM sleep which will boost your performance on shift. As a night shift nurse you should always look for opportunities to nap, regardless of how much sleep you ve had a nap can be both restorative and preventative. WD - the Wind Down. Winding down after your shift is an important factor in how quickly you fall asleep and how long you stay asleep. The first step in the wind down begins as you re leaving work. You should drive home wearing sunglasses to limit your exposure to the morning sunlight. This is the second part of managing your light exposure, and works better when combined with the Bright Light exposure mentioned above. The combination of Bright Light during your shift, and light blocking glasses at the end is crucial in shifting your circadian cycle which is very strongly regulated by your light exposure. M - Melatonin can be taken on the morning after your first shift to help get to sleep on that first morning and lock the sleep schedule in place for the rest of your roster.

13 Sleep Protocol Implementation How To Use These Sleep Protocols We've provided three different examples of how to structure your sleep. Two of those are for nurses working the 11pm - 7am shift: one for part-timers and one for full-timers. The third schedule is for nurses working the 7pm - 7am shift six or seven days a fortnight. You need to understand these are 'ideal' scenarios - in a perfect world this is how you'd structure your sleep around your shifts. You re not going to be able to follow this to the letter every day. But the more days you can have where things are close to this setup, the better your sleep and your health in general are going to be. Days Off You'll see each schedule begins with the days off. These schedules assume you're about to start working night shift and you're going to use those days off to start the transition in your circadian timing. On the day before your first night shift you can use some light therapy late in the afternoon to delay the production of melatonin. It's not marked on the schedule but you can also have a cup of coffee later in the afternoon than you normally would to further delay your sleep onset.

14 Sleep Protocol Implementation Working The Night Shift The goal for each night shift is simple. You're going to use caffeine and bright light exposure early in the shift to delay your melatonin production and increase your alertness through the night. Then on your way home from work you're going to make sure you limit your exposure to the bright morning sun by throwing on some sunglasses and wearing them until you get home. Once home, you're going to use your favorite sleep ritual to continue the wind down process, remaining away from bright light before you finally head to bed. If you're happy to take melatonin it can be used on the morning you get home from your first shift. But generally speaking you don't want to use it every day. The light exposure management should be enough to promote the natural production of melatonin at the right time for your sleep schedule. You ll notice in the Wind Down section that 2 hours have been allocated. Obviously you can go to sleep as soon as you like. Some people just take longer than others to wind down hence the two hour period.

15 SECTION THREE 3 Sample Sleep Protocols For Night Shift Nurses

16 6pm 8pm 10pm 12am 2am 4am Sleep Protocol 1 Part Time Schedule Shifts Worked 11pm - 7am 6am 8am 10am 12pm 2pm 4pm Night Shift 1 Night Shift 2 Night Shift 3 Night Shift 4 Night Shift 5 Night Shift 6 BL C - Caffeine BL - Bright Light < Sleep > < Sleep > CBL BL > End Shift WD/M < Sleep > < Sleep > BL < Sleep > BL < Sleep > BL CBL BL > End Shift WD/M < Sleep > WD - Wind Down M - Melatonin

17 6pm 8pm 10pm 12am 2am Sleep Protocol 2 Full Time Schedule Shifts Worked 11pm - 7am 4am 6am 8am 10am 12pm 2pm 4pm Sat - Off Sun - Off Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Mon Off Tue Off Wednesday Thursday Friday < Sleep > BL < Sleep > CBL BL > End Shift WD/M < Sleep > < Sleep > BL < Sleep > BL CBL BL > End Shift WD/M < Sleep > C - Caffeine BL - Bright Light WD - Wind Down M - Melatonin

18 Sleep Protocol 3 Full Time Schedule Shifts Worked 11pm - 7am 6pm 8pm 10pm 12am 2am 4am 6am 8am 10am 12pm 2pm 4pm Night Shift 1 Night Shift 2 Night Shift 3 Night Shift 4 Night Shift 5 Night Shift 6 BL Start Shift Start Shift Start Shift Start Shift Start Shift Start Shift C - Caffeine BL - Bright Light < Sleep > < Sleep > CBL BL > End Shift WD/M < Sleep > < Sleep > BL < Sleep > BL < Sleep > BL CBL BL > End Shift WD/M < Sleep > WD - Wind Down M - Melatonin