PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN YOUR DAILY ROUTINE
Healthy from the Start Resources for Shiftworkers
Integrating physical activity into your daily routine as a shiftworker is key to boosting your overall health and managing fatigue – this can be achieved through brief high-intensity workouts or moderate-intensity activities like walking for longer periods of time. Be flexible and experimental to find activities that you enjoy and can practice consistently.
Navigating a shiftwork schedule can make participating in regular exercise a challenge, so it’s important to remain flexible and take a bit of an experimental approach. According to the Australian Physical Activity Guidelines, aiming for a minimum of 25 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise daily is ideal (1,20). The key to achieving this as a shiftworker is to adapt your physical activity to fit into your varying work hours, and balancing the type of activity to suit your needs, whether this is gearing up for work or winding down afterwards (50).
Shiftworkers often work longer hours than other people, and these hours usually fall outside of traditional waking and working hours. This means that fitting in an hour workout at the gym, or attending a scheduled exercise class can be tricky.
When figuring out how to incorporate activity into your daily routine as a shiftworker, consider these steps:
• Consider exercises that can be done at home or in your local area without equipment. Read about some examples of home-based workouts for a variety of fitness levels here.
• Consider when you’ll be exercising and what benefits you need – for example, you might have 30 minutes after your shift, in which case wind-down activities, like yoga or an evening walk will work best. Alternatively, you might have an hour before a shift, and an outdoor strength circuit could provide a good energy boost.
Sometimes, you’ll be too short for time to fit in a proper workout. In these instances, even 5-10 minutes of activity can be beneficial, and these short bursts can add up to big benefits. Try taking the stairs instead of waiting for an elevator, doing some bodyweight squats while you wait for the kettle to boil, or doing a stretching routine before jumping in the shower.
It’s also important to remember that, for those shiftworkers who have highly physically demanding jobs, you may not need to seek out additional exercise each day. Instead, prioritise your rest and recovery between shifts, and exercise regularly on your days off.