Ever slept a full night — sometimes eight or nine hours — and still woken up foggy, heavy and completely drained? In episode two of the Shift Work Series, Sarah Woodcock goes a layer deeper into the exhaustion almost every shift worker knows but few talk about.

Sarah shares what it's really like coming off a late duty at 1am with a brain that won't switch off — the "tired but wired" feeling — and why disrupting your natural sleep-wake rhythm means you can sleep for hours without ever reaching the deep, restorative sleep your body needs. She unpacks the crucial difference between sleep and recovery, why your system can still be catching up three or four days after a run of shifts, and why none of it means something is wrong with you.

She also gets honest about what actually helps her: letting go of the idea that one good sleep fixes everything, respecting different kinds of rest, putting the phone down an hour before bed and stopping the doomscrolling, leaning on her weekly meal prep when everything else falls apart, and — above all — giving herself more patience and self-compassion.

If you've ever felt lazy or broken for waking up tired, this one's for you. You're not imagining it, and you're not alone.

Next episode: hormones — how shift work and hormone changes combine to make everything feel even more unpredictable.

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