Health and Wellness in the Workplace

As some of you know, I work night shift.... At a pretty stressful place. We handle your worst day, everyday.

12 hour shifts are a bitch on the body, now add being on a rotating schedule, and working at night, we are screwed when it comes to health and wellness. It's 12 hours of sitting, stressing, and eating. We have a tendency to start this job and just gain weight. It is also bad for marriages and relationships. Most of my friends here are divorced, are getting divorced, are separated, or just single because this job tries to kill us daily. It's not just the stress of handling emergency after emergency... It's the stress of having to be a part of your co-worker's lives, even if you don't want to. Having to deal with the drama in their lives on top of every caller's drama, and God knows I have my own. And NO ONE in here knows how to friggin whisper. I don't need any more drama on top of what I already have.

To combat the stress and bad health here, I like to get my people involved in my love for yoga. It isn't always pretty or flowing. It doesn't happen as often as I would like... but we do it. We will get together at my house, or in the call taker room... We enjoy the talking, laughing, stretching, quietness, and all the happiness and stress relief that a class brings.

Tonight, we dealt with an emergency that isn't a normal occurrence. Someone may not make it through the night. Someone's brother/son/husband/friend may take his last breath tonight, and I took that call. My friends and co-workers took that call, and a hundred others just as bad. This is the reason I do yoga, live yoga, and teach yoga. This stress is the reason I want to share my knowledge with my co-workers.

At the end of a night like this, we need the tools to breath, to let go, to flow until the bad leaves our brains and hearts. We may not be able to let go completely this time, but each time after the first, we let go a little more. It doesn't mean we forget, but we are able to cope without over eating, smoking, drinking too much, etc. Yoga does this for me and I hope I can help my friends see that. I hope they look at me and say, "that's what yoga looks like, and I want to do it too."

Until next time,
Namaste