How to Fast When Doing Shift Work – Intermittent Fasting Shift Work

Are you doing shift work or stay up throughout the night but still want to do intermittent fasting? Check out this article about how to fast when doing shift work. It’s the guide to intermittent fasting Shift Work.

Is Shift Work Healthy

It’s estimated that about 15-20% of the population is engaged in some form of shift work and they’re often working at nighttime. That’s quite a lot and it may be problematic for someone wanting to stay healthy.

In 2007, the IARC classified shiftwork that involves circadian disruption as a group 2A carcinogen, which means it’s “probably carcinogenic to humans”[i]. A review published in July 2019 concluded that there’s only limited evidence to support that link[ii]. However, it’s safe to say it’s not helping you be healthier. Rotating shift work is also associated with increased risk of heart disease and metabolic syndrome[iii][iv].

Shift work creates irregular sleeping patterns and circadian rhythm mismatches, which are linked to insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, leptin resistance and Alzheimer’s[v][vi].

The best advice would be to try and get a different job but obviously, that’s not practical and possible for most people. I’ve done some shift work as a waiter in college and my father is a police officer who regularly works at nights. So, I know what it feels like and I want to help you fix some of the side-effects of staying up late.

Intermittent Fasting and Shift Work

First of all, the biggest dangers of sleep deprivation and shift work on your healthy come from it stressing out your body and brain. Even just a single night of sleeping less than 6 hours gives you symptoms of pre-diabetes and reduces cognition[vii]. This can predispose you to weight gain, because of insulin resistance and making poor food choices, as well as neurodegeneration because of inflammation and oxidative stress.

Conversely, fasting and ketosis can help you alleviate a lot of the negative side effects of sleep deprivation and circadian mismatches. In a fasted state you produce ketones and go into autophagy which both provide neuroprotective effects on the brain[viii]. They basically fuel the brain especially when it needs it and thus prevents neuronal stress.

Poor sleep, jet lag, and shift work are mild forms of traumatic brain injury or TBI. It’s been shown that the brain activates autophagy in response to TBI as to deal with the stress and start healing the damage[ix]. Ketone bodies and ketogenic diets are also now being used to treat brain injuries and concussions[x]. Sleep deprivation is a form of TBI or concussion.

Therefore, if you’re doing shift work, you have insomnia, you’re sleeping at irregular hours, your deep sleep quality is low, you’re chronically sleep deprived, you’re traveling across multiple timezones or misaligned with the circadian rhythms, then fasting and the ketogenic diet are one of the best tools for protecting you against the damage. They also lower the negative symptoms.

How to Fast When Doing Shift Work

Regardless of when you work or sleep, you should always try to not eat at night. That’s just going to derange your circadian clocks even further and causes additional metabolic stress. Instead, you want to always stay in a fasted state or supplement with some additional ketones like MCT oil or exogenous ketones. It’s going to help deal with the neuronal trauma and energy crisis in the brain.

Having some ketones present in your bloodstream before you experience sleep deprivation will help to reduce the potential neuronal damage and blood sugar issues. That’s part of the reason why people tend to need less sleep on a ketogenic diet or while fasting as well.

When doing shift work, it would be better to consolidate your fasting window slightly later into the day and prior to shift work. This will still enable you to get a short fast during the daytime and also satiates you for the coming night.

It would be more miserable to start feeling hungry in the middle of your shift and especially bad if you just say fck it and start eating some junk food as a coping mechanism. Keep in mind that your willpower and decision making are greatly reduced when you’re sleep deprived or stressed out.

Intermittent Fasting Shift Work Mitigation

In general, I suggest having at least a 4-8 hour eating window every day pushed into the evening. You should definitely stay keto and have your last meal either immediately while going to work or 2-3 hours before.

Having ketones in the blood will be very useful and therapeutic. It’ll also make you feel subjectively better and have less appetite, which is exactly what you want. For that, taking either a little bit of MCT oil or exogenous ketones would be awesome. Other than that, some wild-caught fish is great for the omega-3 fatty acids that also protect the brain, meat for the satiety and protein, and some vegetables like cruciferous to trigger the Nrf2 antioxidant defense system. This will help to not only lower oxidative stress but also makes you more resilient against it through hormesis.

When it comes to the number of calories, then you definitely don’t want to eat above your maintenance. When sleep-deprived, your body is more prone to storing the food as fat because of cortisol. Therefore, a mild calorie deficit is better. I mean, don’t just stop eating more just because of being stressed out or feeling sorry for yourself. Instead, take advantage of it and be happy to lose a few pounds. Every obstacle is an opportunity if you just change your mindset about it.

Even coffee and caffeine can be helpful. I think most shift workers are already drinking some coffee, maybe even during their shift. That’s fine and I think it will also help to mitigate some of the neuronal stress on the brain by stimulating autophagy and ketones. This is where Bulletproof coffee or MCT coffee can be useful – it has the caffeine to boost wakefulness and the fats for ketones. However, you should probably drink it only at the beginning of your shift as to not keep yourself up after finishing work.

Keto and Fasting for Shift Work

Fasting and the ketogenic diet are probably the only practical strategies for dealing with shift work and sleep deprivation. A high carb diet would actually exacerbate the damage because the brain would be dependent on solely glucose. That would lead to more neuronal inflammation and oxidative stress. So, keto is probably the best diet for shift workers.

Here are some of the things to recover from shift work and sleep deprivation:

• Continue Fasting – As I said, you want to push your eating window slightly later into the day so you could have more ketones and less hunger during the night. Then you want to stay fasted throughout and continue fasting in the morning. You’re probably going to go to bed after finishing work, so don’t start eating at that point yet. Just go to bed fasted so you could still get some autophagy and growth hormone during sleep. If you were to fast all night and still have breakfast and then go to sleep, then you’d again promote fat storage and more inflammation. Instead, allow yourself to continue fasting throughout the morning until the afternoon when you wake up.
• Stay Keto – When you wake up, you want to stay in ketosis and have some food that promotes ketones like the ones I already mentioned. Ideally, you want to fast for at least 16 hours before breaking the fast or up to 18-20. Doing OMAD after shift work is probably not optimal because your body is less capable of handling it at that point. Just eat 2 keto meals with some MCTs and protein.
• Exogenous Ketones – Ketone salts can elevate your ketones a little bit and also give you electrolytes. That’s perfect and I think shift workers may benefit from taking exogenous ketones much more so regular people. You could even take them at night to suppress appetite and increase cognition.
• Take Turmeric – Curcumin the active compound of turmeric has many anti-inflammatory properties[xi]. It can help to deal with oxidative stress, fatigue, and joint pain. That’s why loading up on some turmeric the night before can build up your body’s tolerance against sleep deprivation. Taking it the day afterwards will also mitigate the inflammation. I like to either make Turmeric milk at dinner or consume ½ tsp of turmeric mixed with hot water. Add some cinnamon and it’s like cacao.
• Have Salt Water Next to Your Bed – Waking up in the morning releases cortisol and that would be even more exacerbated by shortage of sleep. Sodium and electrolytes help to lower cortisol and balance hydration. Have a glass of water with ½ tsp of sea or rock salt next to your bed. Drink it right after waking up before even getting out of bed and you’ll mitigate some of the stress response.

How to Stay Healthy When Doing Shift Work

In addition to diet and fasting, you want to get really good at several things to stay healthy while doing shift work. They are polyphasic sleeping, taking naps, managing stress, some form of meditation, and exposing yourself to hormetic stressors like the sauna and ice bath.

Not only shift work harmful because of circadian disruption and sleep deprivation but it also keeps the person under constant exposure to the blue light from LED lights and fluorescent lights. This suppresses melatonin and may interfere with its proper release whenever the person is trying to sleep[xii][xiii].

To be able to fall asleep faster after finishing your work you want to start wearing blue-blocking glasses when going home. Even when it’s already sunny outside, this will help you start producing melatonin regardless of daytime. Then, when you hit the sack, you’ll still get some recovery and autophagy.

I think shift work of any kind is one of the worst jobs for your health but I also admire the people doing it because they help to keep the society going. Hopefully, this article has some valuable information about mitigating the negative side-effects.