When getting vitamin D levels tested, many shift workers show up as being ‘deficient’.
In other words, they fall short of fitting within what’s deemed to be the healthy range.
However serum vitamin D, is simply a proxy marker for sun exposure.
Clinical trials have found vitamin D supplementation provides little to any meaningful health benefits.
It’s the sunlight, along with it’s related factors, which are responsible for the beneficial effect on human health.
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I’m not going to be very popular for sharing this post, but I’m going to share it with you anyway, because I do what I do because I CARE.
This means telling you things that you don’t necessarily WANT to hear, but NEED to.
So, if you’ve got into the habit of relying on caffeine to ward off your tiredness, in lieu of prioritising your sleep, over time, this can lead you down a very slippery slope.
A slippery slope towards developing a chronic disease like Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM).
One of many health conditions, sadly, that shift workers are prone to developing.
This can be due to myriad of reaons, but I’m going to touch on TWO KEY AREAS.
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Whenever we’re feeling sick, run down or our energy is low, we often resort to eating heavy foods such as chicken soup.
Whilst this may work for some, when we’re unwell, we often lose our appetite.
Our body essentially sends us a signal “not to eat”.
Yet we think we need to eat to have more energy.
Whilst elements of this are true, the reality is most of the population is overeating – especially when working 24/7. This has led to many experiencing weight gain, dysregulated blood sugar, gut issues etc.
When we get sick, we often can’t keep food down.
So is this really the body’s way of helping you to heal? To remove food from your stomach in order to utilize the maximum amount of energy for healing?
Because digesting heavy food depletes energy resources essential for healing.
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Did you know there are a zillion things that can contribute to us getting sick?
Well, maybe not a zillion, but certainly many … some of which are mentioned in the list above.
Thankfully, our bodies have an incredible in-built system designed to keep us healthy.
It’s called our Innate Immune System.
However, it needs us to make good diet and lifestyle decisions in order to support it.
If not, it’s unable to help you to thrive.
Could you be unknowingly poisoning yourself?
It might sound like an odd question to ask as none of us would ever want to intentionally harm ourselves, however, I remember back in my early 20’s when I was new to shift work (and eating crap food) – I went from being quite lean to becoming quite puffy.
By some miracle, I didn’t really gain much weight, but my face and hands became swollen and I was always bloated.
What I didn’t realise at the time, was that I was slowly poisoning myself by eating toxic foods containing refined sugars and inflammatory fats that were leading to systemic inflammation.
Besides sapping our energy, chronic low-level inflammation can damage blood vessels, weaken our muscles and cause absolute havoc on our hormones!
Ouch! As if shift work isn’t hard enough?!
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