HSW 59: Better Sleep and Anxiety with Midwife Tomi Warren

Healthy Shift Worker Podcast:

This week we head all the way to California to chat with one of my Better Sleep Program clients – Tomi Warren, who has been working shift work for 11 years as a Midwife.

As a Midwife, Tomi often works with mum’s and babies in emergency situations so being able to make complex decisions quickly and decisively, all whilst working in a stressful environment is absolutely critical.

In this episode, Tomi shares her personal story of how ongoing sleep deprivation was having such a negative impact on her health and ability to make decisions, to a point where she even began to experience hallucinations.  This eventually manifested into a severe anxiety around being unable to get sufficient sleep – a Catch-22 which led to feelings of hopelessness and depression.

Tomi’s heart warming story of how she managed to turn her life around by reducing her anxiety and improving her sleep (and health), is absolutely inspiring.

Links mentioned in the podcast:
Audra’s Better Sleep Intensive Program – https://www.audrastarkey.com/case-study

HSW 44 – Happy Nurses & Midwives with Carmen Barry.

Healthy Shift Worker Podcast:

Are you a nurse or midwife?  If so, then you’re going to love this episode as I had the pleasure of chatting with Carmen Barry, a nurse based at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne who has been involved in the rollout of a pilot program called ‘Happy People’.

The Happy People program is an initiative designed by workplace wellbeing advocates, Happy Body At Work, to help improve the mental, emotional and physical health of shift workers.

Carmen shares what it was like being a part of the 6-week pilot program including some of the things she and her fellow nurses learnt along the way to help with energy, mood, stress, and sleep.  According to Carmen, the program also instigated a healthy bit of “competitiveness” amongst the various nurses and wards, making it not only an informative project but a fun one too which is a huge bonus when you’re running on little sleep!

Links mentioned on the podcast:

The Royal Women’s Hospital Article

Carmen’s Email

HSW 43 – Happy People Pilot Program with Sharon Richens.

Healthy Shift Worker Podcast:

Happy People Program? How good does that sound?! Considering a happy workforce is always going to be way more productive when morale is high, and staff are feeling well, my first impression when I heard about this program is that it sounds too good to be true!

Just to put things into context, when I posted a link to an article on my Facebook page titled – ‘Pilot Program Launched to Support Hospital Shift Workers’ there was an overwhelming response from shift workers all over the world.

Like myself, they also wanted to know more about this program, so in today’s episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Sharon Richens from Happy Body At Work, who is heading up this pilot program based out of Melbourne, that is designed to support hospital shift workers.

Sharon shares with us some of the specifics of how this pilot program worked, how it was delivered, who was involved, and some of the key industries that she hopes to extend the program too – in other words, not only to nurses and midwives, but to an array of different shift workers from various industries.

What I love about this amazing initiative, is that this program is all about YOU, the shift worker, and provides personalised tips on how you can take care of yourself whilst working in what can be at times, and incredibly challenging occupation.

Links mentioned on the podcast:

Happy Body At Work website – https://www.happybodyatwork.com.au/

Sharon’s email – sharon@happybodyatwork.com.au

Royal Women’s Hospital Article mentioned on the podcast