Staying active and awake at work

There is a standing joke here at the hospital…

Q: “What is the difference between a night shift worker and an elephant?”

A: “5 Pounds”

(Insert “haha, funny funny” here) Now while some may find offense to that, I DO work the night shift, and I have to say, in a lot of cases I tend to agree!  The night shift staff- NOT just nurses- are some of the most unhealthy people around!!  For one, if people stopped dying at 2 am or having “life threatening blisters” (seriously, someone came in two weeks ago because a BLISTER the size of a DIME on her finger was so PAINFUL it constituted an emergency) we would be able to be asleep like a normal person… Which is what studies have shown best for our bodies.  Since that isn’t possible, the hospital stays open 24/7 therefore needing a 24/7 staff, and that would be us. 

The hospital doesn’t slow down until around 3 am… What food places are open at 3 am? Certainly not our cafeteria… Although, the food there is sometimes scarier then what I actually see in the ER… *Shudder* ….The answer is crappy ones… Also UNHEALTHY ones… Most of which involve mouth watering milkshakes which seem to be a common favorite probably because eating dinner through a straw is fast and easy, but also the sugar gives off enough of a high to get you through the rest of your shift.  So unless you plan ahead and bring your food you are pretty much up the creek without a paddle.  Even if you do bring your food, the chances that you are going to be able to sit and eat it without someone coming in for chest pain…AKA…heart burn…. are slim.

I do not want to be an elephant-cheetah maybe, elephant no… So, I have taken it upon myself to start a ritual of doing these few things EVERY HOUR I am at work.  They add up, and you don’t even feel it…until the next day…

10 push ups (none of this girly crap either…. Give me a real push up!)

10 sit ups (face the wall if you are in a skirt… No one likes a tease!)

10 jumping jacks (again, this isn’t Baywatch, face the wall)

You can finish this in under a minute.  EVERY one of us has 1 minute every hour, don’t lie (and if you don’t, you are probably already super skinny and fit from all that running around you’re doing!!)  If you REALLY TRULY do not have a minute, do twenty of everything next hour… I put my favorite song on my iPod and just do them without thinking-and they really add up… Let’s do the math (brace yourselves…. I am an English girl… Adjectives over Algebra any day!)

Normal Person Schedule (5 days a week, 8 hours a day):

                10 Push ups= 80/day, 400/week, 20,800/year

                10 Sit ups= 80/day, 400/week, 20,800/year

                10 Jumping Jacks= 80/day, 400/week, 20,800/year

(Totally checked with a calculator, just to NOT embarrass myself)

I would venture to say that the above is more then a lot of us do weekly, let alone without ever noticing we are doing it!  The first few days you will probably be sore because let’s not lie, 80 push ups is no joke… But with practice comes perfection and soon you will be upping everything to 20/hour!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am 3 hours into my shift and I have some catching up to do… By the end of the summer I want the above referenced joke to be:

Q: “What is the difference between a night shift worker and an elephant?”

A: “A Big Butt”