135: Night Shift Wellness Revolution with Laura Timbrook

What happens when your work schedule runs opposite to the natural rhythms of the world? In this illuminating conversation, Laura Timbrook—international speaker, board-certified health coach, and the definitive expert in shift worker wellness—reveals the hidden health challenges facing those who work outside traditional hours and provides actionable solutions that actually work.

Laura draws from over a decade of experience transforming how businesses approach health for shift workers, sharing why conventional wellness advice often fails those working nights or rotating schedules. The digestive system functions differently at 2 AM versus 2 PM, even for veteran night shift workers. Sleep patterns, nutrition needs, and exercise requirements all demand specialized approaches that acknowledge biological realities.

Most alarming is the World Health Organization's classification of shift work as a "probable carcinogen," with research showing shift workers face a 60% higher risk of diabetes and consistently get 2-4 fewer hours of sleep than day workers. Yet Laura emphasizes that health optimization remains possible through targeted strategies and mindset shifts.

The conversation tackles common misconceptions about shift work health, explores practical solutions like two-meal eating patterns versus three traditional meals, and discusses how both organizations and individuals can mitigate health risks. For rotating shift workers facing constantly changing schedules, Laura reveals techniques to find patterns within chaos and establish health routines that actually stick.

Whether you're navigating shift work yourself, supporting team members with unconventional schedules, or simply interested in understanding how circadian disruption affects health, this episode provides eye-opening insights and practical tools to protect wellbeing when working against the clock. Download Laura's free night shift guide at lauratimbrook.com/nightshift to start implementing these strategies today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Boundaries with Shift Work Expert
• 5:39 Challenges of Coaching Shift Workers
• 9:52 Finding Patterns in Chaotic Schedules
• 16:31 Health Impacts of Shift Work
• 28:50 Misconceptions About Shift Workers
• 33:54 Corporate Wellness and Shift Work

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What if your health didn't have to take a backseat just because your schedule runs opposite of the world's? This week, on Breaking Boundaries for Entrepreneurs, I'm sitting down with Laura Timbrook, international speaker, board-certified health coach and the go-to expert in shift worker wellness. She spent over a decade transforming how businesses and individuals approach health outside the 9-to-5 model, and her insights are nothing short of eye-opening. Whether you're a night owl entrepreneur juggling multiple roles or supporting clients with unconventional schedules, this episode is packed with real talk, science-backed strategies and powerful mindset shifts. Real talk, science-backed strategies and powerful mindset shifts. And, yes, we talk about why shift happens and how to thrive. Anyway, Be sure to stay till the end to get your free night shift guide from Laura. Let's go.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Hello, I'm Jeffrey Mort. If you're like most entrepreneurs, you're busy taking care of business, yet who's taking care of you? If you're ready to take your energy and performance to the next level in your taking care of business yet who's taking care of you? If you're ready to take your energy and performance to the next level in your life and your business, then this podcast is for you, Because today you're going to start breaking boundaries of your mind, body and business with integrative health, and when you do that, your possibilities are limitless. I'm grateful you're here, Laura. Thank you so much for joining us on the breaking boundaries for entrepreneurs podcast. How are you today?

Speaker 2: 1:33

I'm awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Thank you so much for having me on yeah, wonderful, wonderful thanks for taking the time to to join us today and share some of your wisdom about being able to support shift workers. So tell the audience how is coaching shift workers a little bit different from coaching traditional nine to five clients?

Speaker 2: 1:52

Yeah, one of the biggest things and I never realized this when I started first going into a lot of corporate wellness. But one of the things when we're in corporate wellness and we're dealing with a lot of nine to fives, we don't really understand those barriers of I can't go to bed same time every night, or what do you know breakfast, lunch and dinner really look like when you work night shift. But when you start coaching these individuals, you realize a lot of times what we talk about mainstream health and wellness advice, going to bed at consistent time every night, you know, being mindful of our meal timing and prioritizing protein all great advice. But what does that look like on the flip side of the day? What does that look like when you know 10 o'clock is the time that we're maybe having a cup of coffee before we're going into work to start at maybe 11 pm or midnight? You know what does that mean when we get off of work at 6 am. So it's really this dichotomy and a lot of times as coaches, we would often say, well, just flip the schedule around.

Speaker 2: 2:56

It's not as easy as flipping the schedule around, because one of the biggest issues that we see is our digestive systems when we're 2 o'clock in the afternoon, our digestive system is kind of at its height. Two o'clock in the morning, our digestive system, even though that's the middle of our quote unquote day, our digestive system is still not at its max. So if we were to have a hamburger at two o'clock in the afternoon and we had a hamburger at two o'clock in the morning, even though that's the start of our day, it's still not going to break down the same. The whole thing changes. And then we have issues with relationships and sleep. It's just, it's so much more than I ever imagined when I first started coaching the shift working professionals.

Speaker 1: 3:46

Yeah, absolutely. I can only imagine it's got to be a completely different dynamic to be able to make those adjustments for people. And so talk a little bit about, you know, the shift workers that have a consistent, like they've been working third shift for 20 years and then that's just their lifestyle compared to the shift workers like, um, you know, in my practice I've had firefighters that do a rotating shift, so sometimes they work, you know, three 12-hour days, um, and then they go back to their you know, quote unquote normal life. Uh, and talk a little bit about that and what you see and how that affects it. You know, is it harder to work with those people or easier to work with those people that are like half in and half out of that shift work?

Speaker 2: 4:29

Well, I think you're absolutely right. Rotating shifts is one of the hardest, not only to work with, but the hardest for them to really understand how they need to be eating, sleeping, managing relationships, all those you know pillars of health that we so often talk about. One of the interesting factors is is our bodies, our brains, we like repetition, we like patterns. So one of the things that we need to do is kind of figure out patterns within that chaos. What can we do to allow them to if they can't sleep? We'll use sleep as an example, because this is usually a big one For someone that works third shift and they've done it for one year, 30 years they pretty much have an understanding of okay, this is where I have to start getting ready to go to bed, this is what you know. They have a routine. Getting ready to go to bed this is what you know. They have a routine.

Speaker 2: 5:25

Rotating shift workers routine. Their routine is there is no routine. So really, with this, we're really kind of massaging and trying to figure out how we can manage things a little bit better. Sleep, like we were saying, can be really difficult because with sleep, how do you get seven to nine hours of sleep when you're sleeping one day and then the next day you're maybe sleeping a few hours later because you're rotating from day shift to night shift. Now this is where kind of understanding those patterns come in, because some night some rotating shifters, they'll have a week off, they'll have a few days off, maybe two or three days. So it's really preparing that body for that change. So one of the easiest ways to do it is find the pattern amongst the chaos, essentially, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 6:15

Yeah, it absolutely does. And then what do you do once you find that pattern? Do you work to optimize, like work with what you have and optimize those sweet spots in that pattern?

Speaker 2: 6:26

Absolutely. As health coaches, we often hear people say you got to meet the client where they're at. This is the prime example of meeting the client where they're at. You know, we often talk about sleep being optimal at seven to nine hours. What if seven to nine hours isn't even feasible in the first, let's say phase of all of this? We know, eventually getting them there would be great if at all possible, because you made a really good point firefighters. So we see this a lot of emergency response. And I'll even go one level by saying skilled trades are another big area where this happens.

Speaker 2: 7:07

What about those 36-hour shifts? No one talks about these and yet we see them amongst first responders, we see them in health care workers. I have a guy that is a union electrician 36 hours, you know. Granted, they're not common shifts, but they do exist. So if we're meeting clients where they're at and we have this expectation of what health looks like, we need to let go of what our expectation of health looks like and focus on moving that needle forward. How can we be you know, james Clear says it 1% better. How do we be 1% better? And I think that's one of the biggest things as health and wellness professionals is that? You know, we got to let go of our own biases when it comes to some things and realize it's not going to be perfect. But is there something we can do?

Speaker 1: 8:01

Absolutely, and you know, just sharing that client story you're bringing me back. I know firsthand exactly what that was like. I worked for one of the nation's top electrical contractors as a foreman and sometimes we would have to adjust our shifts. Sometimes you would do a day shift during the week and then go to a couple of nights and then back to a day shift. And going way back before I even owned my my electrical contracting business, uh, there was a time when I worked for another contractor that we were doing um it, it just it's frustrating to even say it we were doing seven, 12 hour shifts and the commute was an hour and a half. So we were driving three hours round trip, doing 712s for, you know, months at a stretch, and it was total zombie land, like you know, working around heavy, heavy equipment, operating, you know, operating equipment, working with live electricity. It was so dangerous and you know I could, I could feel the detriment. I didn't know if I was coming or going, I didn't know if it was day or night and I was just, I was so fatigued and burnt out, I couldn't focus, I couldn't concentrate and it was just so dangerous. But in the name of profit, we kept pushing on, and that's you know.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So that kind of leads me to a couple of other questions. What does? And I knew when I was doing this, I knew it wasn't healthy for me. I can feel it in every cell of my body that this is not leading me in the right direction and it's going to take a lot of course correcting to be able to unwind the damage that I'm doing to my body, the actual physical cellular damage. Even back before I was a health coach, I knew this, I could just feel it. Back before I was a health coach, I knew this, I could just feel it. So you know what. What can you share? And what does you know the the global health authorities say about shift work and the detriment that that does to our health?

Speaker 2: 9:56

Oh man. Well, there's a few things here. So if we look at the statistics when it comes to rotating shifters and we're going to focus on for a minute for rotating shifters so two to four hours less sleep than the average day shifter. So if we know, folks are only getting about five to six hours of sleep, two to four less than that for a rotating shift worker. On average, I could tell you when I work with rotating shift workers we're about four to five hours of sleep. So it's like, okay, we already know there's that.

Speaker 2: 10:28

We look at diabetes 60% increase in diabetes between rotating shifters and day shift. So from the health, we know this is all here. Now, what does that all mean when we break it apart? Well, a lot of times when we're looking at stuff like diabetes, we can look at diet. You know, a lot of times rotating shift workers don't have the best diet. What's open at two o'clock in the morning when you haven't packed?

Speaker 2: 11:08

We talk about health and wellness and we talk about just buy healthier foods, make healthier options. For a lot of these folks it's not that simple. It's not as simple as you know, being able to hit a Whole Foods. We also have to understand is that a lot of the time, the environments we live in don't exist in the environments they live in. So let's take someone that might live in northern Texas, western Oklahoma. There's not a lot out there, so being able to find a Whole foods might not even be possible, where a lot of their stuff is coming from walmart.

Speaker 2: 11:50

So what is food that we're looking at? And then on top of there, there's a flip side not a lot of them have time to prep. Think about what, back when you were working, would you have had any time to meal prep? Even if it was a priority, it would be exactly. It would be almost impossible. So what are the simple things that we can do to make it easy and I think that's what we have to start doing is trying to find not the perfect solutions, just something a little bit better. We did a workshop on gas station nutrition in a couple of our facilities that we were working in and that was really mind opening, really learning what they would normally grab and what we could grab. So it's kind of again meeting them where they're at what's available, not always just talking about what's perfect.

Speaker 1: 12:40

Yeah, absolutely, gas station nutrition. That's funny because I lived it for years and now that you know I'm where, I am in the health coaching space and I have three teenagers and when they say, hey, can we stop at the gas station for some food, and I always laugh and joke with them saying there is no food at the gas station. There is no food there. Maybe you'll find a banana or an apple or something along those lines, and that's probably, you know, the best thing in there is a bottle of water and some, hopefully fresh fruit to be able to, you know, give the body the nutrients that it needs. So, on the aspect of health and the seriousness of shift work, can you share a little bit about the position of the World Health Organization on shift work?

Speaker 2: 13:28

So, yeah, the interesting thing is, when we were looking at the World Health Organization, this is kind of something that jarred me and really made me realize how detrimental this is. So when we look at it, it's really the World Health Organization has actually recognized shift work as a carcinogenic and not a possible carcinogenic, saying it may or may not happen. They use the word probable. That, to me, kind of really woke me up and it's like that to me kind of really woke me up and it's like we understand the detriments of this and we don't talk about it. And I'll be honest with you, I'm not on the side of we shouldn't do it. I'm on the side of health and wellness professionals. How can we stack the cards in their favor? Because here's the crazy thing, and this was something that when I first started getting into really understanding shift worker, I always thought people have worked shifts because they had to. And it's interesting, when I was in corporate wellness, we would often talk about um, oh, the term just left my mind Um, it'll come to me in a second, it's right there, I can feel it. Purpose we always talk about purpose and in corporate wellness, we're always talking about the need to find purpose. When we work with our shift workers, so many of them have purpose. They knew they were going to be a doctor. They knew they were going to be a firefighter. They knew they wanted to be a diesel mechanic. They love what they do. So how do we tell them, even though you love what you do, it's not good for you and stop it? That's not healthy.

Speaker 2: 15:19

And here's the other crazy part. I always thought people worked night shifts because they had to. Yet when I started working with night shifters, there are some of them that would rather not, but there's also a really large population that love it. One guy said to me he goes, he could never be a day walker. That's what night shift workers call us that work during the day that they could never be a day walker. They love their job. It's just trying to kind of make the puzzle pieces all fit, and I think that's something we need to look at, not telling them they have to get a new job or they have to work standard shifts, because some people, as crazy as it is, they like the rotating shifts. So what can we do as wellness professionals, as organizations, to support them a little bit better, to help reduce the rates of cancer and cardiovascular disease and metabolic conditions.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Yeah, sure, and you know the the mindset of of those night walkers, we'll call them. You know there were some, some benefits that I could. I could see and feel for that when I was working, not even, you know, complete night shift, but you know had to be in at an earlier hour, so maybe you know my commute would start at three, 34 o'clock in the morning. There's no traffic on the road. You breeze in in three quarters of the time, so it's much easier. The rest of the world is sleeping when you work in a night shift. So your phone's not ringing, your email's not pinging, you know you're, you're not having all of those distractions, people aren't bothering you, especially when we were doing retrofits in a store, for instance, back in the day we were doing relamps and BJ's wholesales. Nobody's in the store, so you have the whole place for yourself. The workflow is more efficient, but to the detriment of the health. I'm just curious.

Speaker 1: 17:09

From my position I knew that it wasn't healthy for me and, honestly, ultimately that's what pulled me out of that industry was my health got so bad that I just couldn't. I couldn't perform the work anymore and I couldn't do that. And that was, of course, thanks to ending up with COVID and I went into health coaching full time after I healed myself. But I'm curious if you've ever had a client. Now, I know you wouldn't tell somebody that they need to like quit their job, but have you ever had somebody realize on their own accord that their job was so unhealthy that it was like a losing battle and their health was going to keep declining so that they chose to change their job and get their circadian rhythm back?

Speaker 2: 17:52

Yeah, and I think that absolutely it's a difficult conversation to have. Most of the time, like you said, they know, they know and they don't see the flip side of that. What would life look like? What are some possibilities? As we're kind of utilizing some brainstorming, what would it look like, you know, would a day job work for them? Or maybe we're looking at changing the industry.

Speaker 2: 18:17

Having that conversation, there are some folks that just don't adapt well and I think this goes back to really understanding our own biology. You know, one of the interesting things is and I know I'm a big fan of Dr Matt Walker and his studies that he has done on sleep and they have done when he wrote the book, there was a study being done of them trying to find someone that could be productive at less than six hours of sleep or seven hours of sleep. They studied over 10,000 people. They couldn't find anybody. I still believe people are out there. I just don't think they're getting the right folks.

Speaker 2: 19:01

And the reason why I'm going to say this is when we look at humankind through history, let's go back through evolution and everything like that but let's kind of land in the spot where we're living, in huts, kind of in nature, right, we have to protect ourselves from the animals and other tribes coming in or other folks. You're going to always have the night watch. They're always going to be there. So I have a hard time thinking that throughout time we've lost some biology of having a night watch. I think they're there.

Speaker 2: 19:40

I just don't think they're the people we're studying, because they are a very unique set of people and they're the ones that, even though we know cardiovascular disease, diabetes, circadian rhythm disruption, they seem to skate by. And here's the crazy thing is a few of the folks that I would kind of, really kind of determine would be almost like those true night shifters. Their stress level is so mellow, nothing like how we are. And we see it. We see it with some guys from the military and some women through the military. It's just, it's kind of wild. I think we just need more research on these groups of people.

Speaker 1: 20:22

Yeah, that's, that's. That's an interesting concept and yeah, absolutely It'd be. It'd be interesting to get those people that are optimized for night work in a group and kind of study and see, know, the sunrise, sunset, that, um, you know, those people that are having the health issues have actually underlying root causes that are already going on, and then this is just the icing on the cake for them and it pushes them over that edge and then now they start to have, you know, cardio, cardiometabolic and, uh, metabolic disease and dysfunction and things like that. You know, when I was back working some of those long shifts and not getting enough sleep, I came across something that they introduced in Beijing, china, in some of the airports, and these are sleep pods. These are actually soundproof pods that you can go in and there's benefits in there for health, like you can play binaural beats or sleep music and you can go in and actually get even if it's non-sleep deep rest. You can go in there and reboot for 45 minutes in between flights or for an hour if you have an hour, and I always wondered, like, how beneficial those would be for the shift workers.

Speaker 1: 21:52

You know, in my position on a construction job, just like, all right, I've reached my limit.

Speaker 1: 21:57

I'm operating at a dangerous level here.

Speaker 1: 22:00

I just need 45 minutes of sleep to reboot, like what it would be like to go slip into one of those sleep pods for 45 minutes on a job site, come out refreshed, have your productivity levels be, you know, 10, 15, 50% better than they were an hour ago and then get back at it Like that would be so refreshing. But of course you know corporate industry would never go for that. They would laugh at the just you want to do what you want to take a nap while you're on the clock. Are you out of your mind? Like they would never go for that. But you know, I feel as though, when it comes to, you know, the health aspect in corporate wellness, I feel other countries are so far advanced than China, I mean than the United States. You know China, for instance, with these sleep pods in Beijing and I'm trying to recall the country and you may know this already that actually changed the work week from. I think they went from like a five-day work week to either a four-day or a three-day work week.

Speaker 2: 23:04

Yeah. So I don't know if they're still doing it. It was France that did it. Where they were doing it was Fridays, they were off. Somebody I was. I was saying this to somebody a couple of years back and they're like, yeah, they kind of stopped that. I don't know if it's true. So if you have any French listeners. But funny story with all of that is I used to work in the life science field, so we used to work with Sanofi often and they're based out of France, I believe it was Sanofi, and yeah, we couldn't email them on Friday because they were always off. So but yeah, I think that kind of went away a little bit.

Speaker 2: 23:43

But yes, to your, to your point absolutely, and to your point also talking to. I mean, can you imagine a heavy machine, this getting out of the? You know the, the machines, and being like I gotta go sleep in the nap pod? I mean there would have to be a cultural change here too, because one of the interesting things and you kind of alluded to it in in kind of talking about that is we have this grit culture essentially, where if you're not burning yourself out, if you're not working to the max, it's kind of like you're not doing enough. You know and I see that a lot in the skilled trades we have to understand that our health is important. We have to understand the safety risks. You know, it's not just as much as I can take a Red Bull and get back on that machine if you're exhausted.

Speaker 2: 24:36

It's interesting because, going back to the book by Matthew Walker why we Sleep, he talks about that if someone was to sleep less than seven hours for 11 days, they would have the productivity level of someone that was legally intoxicated or something. I might have the thing slightly skewed, but essentially, can you imagine Now every heavy machinist that works the night shift. Tell me one that's getting seven hours of sleep and yet they're getting into their rigs, their excavators or cranes and they're running these jobs and they're not sleeping, but yet you would never let somebody come in with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 and run that machinery. But we're doing the same thing here and we just have to start taking sleep seriously and we have to start acknowledging how we can do it. Is it changing some of these shifts out, some of these high rotations? You know what does that look like, but it's really about having those conversations. So essentially, there's a cultural shift that has to happen, as well as an organizational shift.

Speaker 1: 25:56

Yeah, sure, I completely agree, and in some industries they have actually stepped in and put regulations in place, just not in the construction industry.

Speaker 1: 26:05

But if you look at public safety and the Department of Transportation, you know an over the road truck driver can only drive so many hours before he is mandated to stop and take a break and uh, and then continue.

Speaker 1: 26:16

So you know, maybe we're trending in the right direction. But uh, I think that you know the corporations have profit over people, like many corporations do, um, where they're just not looking at the overall wellbeing. And in you know, large companies, especially like the one that I worked for years ago, employees are disposable and when you know, when somebody gets burnt out and has health issues, off they go and they just put somebody else in their place and they're not looking at, you know, the overall well-being of humanity. They're looking at the bottom line of the project and you know, can we bring it in under budget and, you know, early on schedule. So it's typically where they're looking at. So share with me some of the misconceptions about shift workers and talk to our audience about you know, some of the things they may hear out there in mainstream media about you know.

Speaker 2: 27:10

Misconceptions of shift work. Yeah, I think the first one is the go to bed the same time every night. That's kind of one of the biggest ones that are out there. And when we look at mainstream health and wellness advice and sleep, I have to apologize, my allergies are a mess. So if I sound a little weird, I'm coughing, you know why. But when we look at that, right, if you go to any sleep organization and you type in get better sleep, the first thing that comes up is go to bed the same time every night. So when we're talking to people and we're like just go to bed the same time every night, if our clients can't do step one, they're not going to go to step two, they're going to stop and say healthy doesn't work for me and move on elsewhere. So that's one of the biggest misconceptions. The other big misconception we have is a lot of times we set up these diet and nutrition plans and we set up breakfast, lunch, dinner. Now, if I'm a rotating shift worker and I talk about this in the healthcare field as well, because we do the same thing with medication Breakfast, lunch, dinner this is what you're going to have for breakfast, lunch, dinner those of us that work nine to five. Okay, that's pretty, pretty explanatory.

Speaker 2: 28:26

Let's think of somebody that is a rotating shift door Breakfast one week is 8 am Breakfast. The next week is at 5 pm, when they're getting up. What do they eat? Do they eat dinner with their family or do they eat their breakfast? These small questions that they have, and oftentimes, here's the crazy thing is, they're not going to ask because they feel dumb. They feel like it's something they should know. And the second part of that is, a lot of times we don't ask if there's any questions or we don't really allow them the space to ask these. And it's kind of the point where, well, they don't really allow them the space to ask these and it's kind of the point where, well, they don't understand my life. They'll never understand it, so why even bother asking them? We have to start having these conversations.

Speaker 2: 29:21

One of the things I ask a lot of my clients is because I have client calls all day. I work in corporate wellness. Some are shift workers, some aren't. I need to know what their day looks like. Sometimes I'll ask if I know I'm working in health care. What are your shifts? What's your day look like? We have to understand that before we go spouting advice, because this will allow them the opportunity to say, hey, you know, on those days I'm working night shifts what does that look like? And then to to that breakfast, lunch and dinner point.

Speaker 2: 29:57

One of the crazy things and it's not everybody, but one of the crazy things I've noticed with night shift is two meals and a snack is usually the better way of eating for a lot of them. So if you're working like a true night shift, you might be having your two large meals before you even go on shift, and then maybe that two, 3 am, maybe having a yogurt, an easy to digest protein, something like that. When we come home, maybe having another small snack. But a lot of times people are going right to bed because we stop. We I shouldn't say we stop we forget that a lot of times. That circadian rhythm also controls our digestion. So if their schedules are flipped, that means our digestion is flipped and we have to accommodate for that as well.

Speaker 2: 30:43

And exercise is another big one. We talk about getting those cardiovascular hitting the weight training. All of that Super great. Getting those cardiovascular hitting the weight training, all of that Super great, super important. But what about the ER room nurse who has spent all night running around and now she's got to hit the gym either before she goes to work or after she goes to work. She's exhausted. Let's talk about more restorative work for her. Maybe it's not about weight training because she's been lifting patients all night for the last 12 hours. Maybe for her it's focusing on some yoga, some yoga nidra we talked about that non-REM deep sleep and stuff like that. That's really important. So we have to look at this more on what does their life look like, instead of just what we know is healthy.

Speaker 1: 31:33

Yeah, sure. So exactly back to where we started is meeting that client where they're at, because nobody's well, I shouldn't say nobody's the same, but they can all fit in different buckets for sure, and they're done with their shift or before their shift. But that construction worker that's, you know, in a trench running a hand shovel for 8, 12 hours. You know they've got their exercise right there and they're the ones that really need to chill out and stretch or do some, you know, some zone two cardio or something like that.

Speaker 2: 32:13

Yeah, I love the fact you brought up the security guard, because I think we often overlook the security guards, the transportations that are more sedentary. Security guard can be kind of fun, because the interesting thing with security guards is a lot of times we can put this fitness inside their rounds and stuff like that, especially if they're at a manufacturing facility and they have to get up and walk around the facility. They have to get up and walk around the facility. Transportation is another super fun one because you know they're more in that 10 hour bucket, like you were saying before. But then afterwards what does that look like? You know it's funny. A lot of transportation drivers utilize Planet Fitness for their gyms because they're all over the place. Well, this is a great way you can get your shower, you can get your fitness. Well, this is a great way you can get your shower, you can get your fitness. There's so many easy ways that we can kind of habit stack some fitness that it becomes really fun.

Speaker 1: 33:05

Yeah, that's amazing and I didn't even make that connection there. But yeah, the you know, those global franchises that are all over the world are all over the United States. For people that are traveling internationally whether it's by airplane or you know, an over-the-road truck driver or something like that that's a perfect point and they can shower, they can be around people, which is important too, because some of those jobs you know, like a single security guard, spends his days sleeping and he spends his nights in a booth waving people through a gate, like he's missing that human connection. And then, of course, same thing with the truck drivers. They're just in their truck, of course they're surrounded by people on the road, but they're missing that human connection and conversation and things like that. So that's a great way to get that in. Let's shift the conversation a little bit, because the podcast does have a healthy percentage of listeners that are actually health coaches as well. So what advice would you give a wellness professional who wants to work in corporate wellness or with organizations but doesn't know where to start?

Speaker 2: 34:05

Yeah, so you know, when it comes to corporate wellness. So I've been in corporate wellness for about 13 years now. One of the things is last year I started a course called the Corporate Wellness Blueprint where really we were kind of breaking down what corporate wellness looks like. So you can check out my website, laura Timbrook dot com. Check out that course. We have courses on shipworking as well. Really important when we're looking at corporate wellness is we really have to understand what is corporate wellness, what it looks like today, because I can tell you, corporate wellness five years ago, corporate wellness today, totally different landscape. So it's really important to kind of understand and really kind of look at how you want to integrate it into your current practice. So it's really kind of understanding a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 35:01

Very good. And, of course, it leads me to the question if you're working with shift workers as a health coach, does that mean that you need to adjust your schedule? Are you seeing more clients, like early in the morning or late at night?

Speaker 2: 35:15

How does that work into your coaching practice.

Speaker 2: 35:18

I'm totally a day walker and I support night shifters. The funny thing is is sometimes the earlier appointments work for them, oftentimes the later appointments. It's really difficult because, especially if they're a night shifter, they're waking up, they're trying to spend time with their family. You talked about it earlier on in the podcast or just actually a second ago about those relationships. Relationships are really pretty important for them. So a lot of times later is later is harder, earlier is better, but oftentimes they'll schedule appointments with me at two o'clock, three o'clock in the afternoon on a day they're off, or something like that. In the afternoon on a day they're off, or something like that.

Speaker 2: 35:57

One of the hardest problems they have is that they work in the night shift but the world runs in a day shift, so a lot of times there's events that they have to go to and things like that. So, yeah, you could totally work with night shifters and rotating shift workers and still work a daytime job. I will tell you, sometimes you have to get creative with maybe it's using more email than face-to-face video talks. Phone calls have been a huge comeback for me, where people are like can we just have a phone call for like 15 minutes? Yes, I would love to have a phone call for 15 minutes so kind of adjusting that. But if any coaches are interested in working with some of the night shift and some of the struggles that they have, you can go to lauratimbrookcom slash night shift and there's a coaching the night shift free guide to better sleep for your shift workers.

Speaker 1: 36:48

Oh, that's amazing. So generous of you, thanks. Thanks for bringing that to the audience and I'm sure they're going to check that out. So that's lauratimbro Timbrook. T I M B R O O, kcom. Yep, excellent, awesome, laura. Well, thanks for having a conversation with me today about shift work and, uh, where can people find you? You have a. You have a website. We talked about um, tell the audience the name of your podcast and the best social platform to find you on.

Speaker 2: 37:13

Yeah, so Laura Timbrookcom, google me, I'm everywhere. Um, my podcast is called the shift health coach podcast, where season three we actually really went into health and wellness coaching a lot on the business side. So if you're a health coach, you want to learn about that, go to season three. Season four we just started up here in January. This is going back to the roots of the shift worker. So if you want to the roots of the shift worker, so if you want to see some of the things that they struggle with, some of the things on how you can integrate it, the Shift Health Coach podcast will give you all of that. And connect with me on LinkedIn. Linkedin is my big area, so jump over on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram, but LinkedIn is where I'm most active.

Speaker 1: 37:55

Yeah, I would imagine being in corporate wellness. Linkedin is the platform for you and is your podcast on YouTube as well.

Speaker 2: 38:08

So my podcast is not on YouTube. I have a small YouTube channel, I. I am one of those people I just video to me is really difficult, so no problem all audio. But the fun thing is, you can tell Amazon Alexa to play the shift health Coach podcast and it pops right up.

Speaker 1: 38:19

I love that. That's great advice. All right, laura, thank you so much for being here today on the Breaking Boundaries for Entrepreneurs podcast, and we'd love to have you back on the program sometime.

Speaker 2: 38:29

Absolutely you let me know, you call, I'll come. Awesome, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 38:32

All right, bye now. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 38:34

All right, bye now.

Speaker 1: 38:40

Well, there you have it. I know you enjoyed the conversation with Laura Timbrook today and be sure to check out her podcast, the Shift Health Coach Podcast, especially season four, the April 4th episode, unlocking your Subconscious Mind, where Laura and I also had a conversation over there on her platform, and be sure to go to lauratimbrookcom and get her book Shift Happens. You can also find that on Amazon, but on her website you'll also find her shift work guide that you can download there, and we appreciate you tuning in to the Breaking Boundaries podcast for entrepreneurs. Be sure to share this episode or any of our episodes with those you feel it can serve and subscribe so you don't miss a show and we'll see you next time. Take care everybody.