HSW 38 – Sugar Cravings and Sleep Deprivation.

Healthy Shift Worker Podcast Episode:

One of the most common struggles I hear from my shift working clients is this ongoing, relentless craving for sugar!

But why is that?  Why are shift workers notorious for craving (and eating) all of the sweet stuff – the highly refined carbohydrates that are neither good for our insides or our waistline?!

Well it all comes back to sleep deprivation, so in this episode I will be shedding the light on how lack of sleep effects our brain function, and how one chemical in particular, which causes us to seek out and eat foods which are high in sugar, is much higher in those who are sleep deprived.

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The Circadian Diet – What to Eat and When?

A Question I Get Asked a LOT in Clinic!

Food clock. Healthy food concept

One of the most common questions I get asked by shift workers in our student clinic at Endeavour College of Natural Health in Brisbane is – “What should I eat and when?”

This is a great question given shift workers rarely eat breakfast at “breakfast time”, nor do we necessarily eat dinner at “dinner time”.

I mean “breakfast” for anyone who happens to work 24/7 could be at 4am, or it may not be until midday – depending on your shift.

Given our body is carefully orchestrated by our natural circadian rhythms (the fancy word for our sleep/wake cycles), any variation from these rhythms can play havoc on our body temperature, blood pressure, mental alertness, hormone and neurotransmitter production along with countless other body functions including our gastrointestinal system.

This influence on our gastrointestinal system includes our metabolism, digestion, and absorption of nutrients from the food that we eat.

So in addition to what we eat, along with how much we eat, when we eat is also critical to our overall health and wellbeing.

This was illustrated in an 8-week clinical trial showing how eating mostly carbohydrates at lunch, and mostly protein at dinner, had damaging effects on glucose homeostasis (Alves et al. 2014).  This disruption to our blood glucose regulation can lead to an increased risk in the development of chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.

Which brings us to the “Circadian Diet”, or as it’s also referred to as “Chrononutrition”.

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