How do you maintain health & frugality with shift work?

The other day, a reader left this comment:

One of the challenges of shift work, especially shift work with no regularity, is eating well and frugally. I’ve always found this difficult and no doubt many people struggle with this. So often I would swing from exhausted to rested….it got tricky to plan ahead. I’d be curious how other people deal with this frugally and healthily.

Having been a nurse for 25 years, I still haven’t completely succeeded in this realm. Having a family and sticking to those healthy work/eat/rest routines even when my personal routine is off is definitely helpful. I’ve also found it helpful to simply acknowledge this challenge and not just feel that I’m failing.
Any tips or things you’ve learnt?

I feel this in my bones! The irregularity of a nursing schedule is kind of wild to deal with.

And though I’m new to being a nurse, I will say that the two years of nursing school also had a wild and unpredictable schedule; every single week was different in some way.

(Which is, perhaps, a way of training us for hospital shift work life!)

One of the things that is hard for me is that I live in two different worlds. When I am in hospital world, I do almost nothing related to my non-hospital world, and obviously, the opposite is true.

So it’s a very binary way of living; I am either in work mode or other-life mode.

This means it’s really challenging to have any type of consistent daily habits.

For example, a healthy morning routine that would work on a non-hospital day is most certainly not going to work on a hospital day.

Or…I can work out on non-hospital days, but there is NO time to do that on a hospital day. I don’t usually even find time to do my PT exercises on work days. 

Note: before we get to how I manage, I do want to acknowledge that I am still quite a newbie to this lifestyle, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

I also want to acknowledge that this odd lifestyle is fairly manageable for me because my only kid still at home is 19! It would be far different if I still had small children at home. 

Hospital Mode

My way of dealing with this is to expect myself to do little besides eating, working, and sleeping when I am in hospital mode.

In hospital mode, I:

• get up
• make breakfast
• pack my lunch
• go to work
• come home
• eat a quick bite
• shower
• go to bed

and repeat it all over again. 

The main healthy thing I do in hospital mode: I prioritize sleep. I try to be in bed by 9:00 pm so that I have time for eight hours of sleep before my 5:00 am alarm. 

The main frugal things I do in hospital mode: I eat breakfast at home before work, and I pack snacks and a lunch. This is also a healthy habit, because I make breakfasts, lunches, and snacks that include produce, protein, and whole grains. 

And that’s it for hospital mode. I put zero pressure on myself to do anything other than what I listed above.

Non-Hospital Mode

Laura Vanderkam often points out that you don’t have to do something every single day in order for it to be a habit.

For instance, a person who goes for a run a few times a week is a runner, even though they don’t run every day.

So, that’s the attitude I try to bring to my non-hospital days. I can’t do things seven days a week, but I can do them on my non-work days.

For instance, can I do a workout every day? Nope, but I usually can fit in 3-4 workouts a week.

Basically, when I’m not at work, I do all the things I don’t have time for on work days.

I:

• go for walks
• do gym workouts
• grocery shop
• meal prep
• write blog posts
• do laundry
• clean my house
• do online schoolwork

When things go well, and I manage to use my non-hospital days wisely, I feel well-prepped to go back into hospital mode again.

I mostly get into trouble when I end up with a long string of shifts; for instance, sometimes I’ve done a three days on, one day off, three days on kind of thing, and woo, there is not enough time to rest and prep in the middle of that!

So, that’s usually when things go off the rails a little more for me. 

Also: if it’s been a long string of shifts (especially night shifts), I usually take it a little easy on the first day off, and by the time 24 hours have gone by, I’m ready to get back into the swing of my usual productivity. 

And on the sleep front, I try to maintain a semblance of a work sleep schedule even on my days off; I try to only vary my sleep wake times by maybe an hour. 

Nothing is ever the same

Because no two weeks are the same, I have to maintain a rather flexible mindset about when I do things.

I do not have consistent workout days or grocery shopping days or cleaning days or laundry days or ANYTHING days! 

I just do my best to fit in the healthy/frugal habits on my days off, no matter where they land in the week. 

The routine-loving part of me that wishes I could establish something more consistent. But then I remind myself that I have been living like this for several years now, and I am making it work.

I manage to feed myself decently well, I fit in enough exercise, I maintain my blog, I get enough sleep, my house is decently clean, and so on.

Good enough is good enough, even if there’s seriously no weekly routine! 

And while I can’t manufacture more hours in the day, I do optimistically hope that I will get even better at managing this lifestyle once I have more practice at it. 

To sum it up:

• On work days, I do very little aside from working and prioritizing sleep/healthy food
• I take it kinda easy the first 24 hours after a string of shifts
• I fit healthy/frugal habits in on my days off
• There is nothing consistent about my weeks; I fit things in where I can, and I call it good enough 

I know I am not the only one dealing with an inconsistent schedule, so:

What advice would you add to mine? How do you handle an irregular schedule?