Audra Starkey - Too Tired to Cook: The Shift Workers Guide to Working (And Surviving) in a 24/7 World

Too Tired
To Cook

The Shift Workers Guide To Working
(and Surviving) In A 24/7 World

Audra Starkey

Copyright 2019 Audra Starkey.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

You should not undertake any diet/exercise regimen recommended in this book before consulting your personal physician. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be responsible or liable for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions contained in this book.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-1875-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1876-1 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 08/01/2019

Contents

Shift Work:

Unless youve worked it yourself,

you can never gain a
true appreciation

of just how hard it is.

Audra Starkey

Dedication

This book is dedicated to you, my fellow shift worker, who gets up tirelessly and goes into work every day while others are still sound asleep in bed. And no matter where you are in the world or what line of work youre in, you are most likely plagued with overwhelming feelings of exhaustion, disillusionment, and poor health due to the irregular hours you work.

Quite simply, you are doing what most people would not, or could not do, often at the expense of your own health.

If the quote on the previous page resonated, rest assured, you are not alone. After sharing it on my Healthy Shift Worker Facebook page a few years ago, it generated over 4 million organic views, 42,000 shares, 19,000 likes, and over 1,000 comments.

It quite literally took on a life of its own, to a point where forty thousand people from around the world decided to share it too. To put this into context, thats the capacity of the entire Gabba (a cricket and football stadium in my hometown of Brisbane, Australia).

So despite what others may tell you, shift work is not easy. Its hard. Really hard.

Incredibly, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2015), almost two million Australians work shift work, along with 20 percent of the worlds workforce. This equates to nearly 0.7 billion workers worldwide, which represents an enormous part of the global economy .

Quite simply, we need shift workers, but more importantly, we need you to be healthy.

Its why I wrote this book: to provide you with some help and guidance when others may put you in the too-hard basket and tell you to just quit your job.

Instead, Ive got a better idea. Why dont we focus on educating ourselves around shift work health? Focusing on solutions; tips and strategies to support you, which is exactly what this book does.

So from one shift worker to another, I want to help you to tackle this shift-working role the best way you can because most people dont want to quit; they just want to learn how to become the healthiest versions of themselves, despite working 24/7.

Audra

I studied anthropology at the University of Colorado where I learnt how the foods we ate over the thousands of generations of culture and tradition enabled survival of the human race. Our adaptation to climate and food were all about ancient wisdom passed down through the generations.

My focus has always been food, but over the decades Ive learnt that food was not the only ingredient that helped in the survival of the human race. Sunlight, sleep, water, connection and magnetism to name a few, were all important for existence and perpetuation of the human species.

Life was simpler then. You went to bed when the sun went down and got up when it rose; There was no scheduled work day - you werent isolated at a desk staring at a screen all hours of the day and night. The TV didnt exist so time was spent with loved ones communicating and telling stories. Cars were not a thing so walking was the only mode of transport. The only stress was if there was a predator nearby where you had to make a decision to flee or fight the stress was but an instant in time, not a whole year of pressure. All the things that were needed for human health mentally and physically were at our finger tips; we naturally lived in a rhythm of life.

Enter 2019.

Wifi, EMFs, smart phones, social media, poor diet, chemical agriculture, overburden of chemicals, continuous stress, sleepless nights, climate change, all-nighters, lighting to keep you awake, stimulants, medications, no sun, no exercise and basically all the things that our evolutionary body has never had to handle. Throw in shift work and all that comes with it and our evolutionary bodies fail to thrive, unless we become aware and make changes to rectify the situation.

We dont have modern bodies that can deal with these enormous modern day changes, but rather we have evolutionary bodies that need the right ingredients in order to be well, energetic and vibrant.

Think of it this way. A plant needs sunlight, water, soil and nutrients in order to grow and thrive and if it is a food-bearing tree, it needs these ingredients to produce its produce. Take these elements away and it will wilt and die. We also need ingredients that will help our evolutionary body thrive - sunlight, sleep, food, water and connection are the fundamentals. If we are not thinking about these important elements, we fail to recognise all the aspects that may be causing physical and mental illness.

Our evolutionary body has adapted to night and day, sunlight and darkness, real foods and movement. Our circadian rhythms are not just about sleep and waking but they also dictate many systems in our body including the endocrine system, blood system (including the heart), brain and nervous system, digestive system, musculoskeletal system and the immune system. In other words, our circadian rhythms are the bodys master clock that is set by the rising and setting sun.

Thank goodness our bodies are forgiving and resilient! Do the wrong thing by it by eating junk, having a screen in front of your eyes at night, a lack of sleep, not drinking water and not exercising and you will probably get sick. Change those parameters and the body will, in most cases, bounce back.

Audra Starkey in this wonderful book Too Tired to Cook addresses action steps for the shift worker to take, but these are not only for shift workers. We all need to hear these messages; they are simple strategies that support the evolutionary body.