E43: Unraveling the Ties Between Sleep and Well-Being: Wisdom from James Wilson,"The Sleep Geek"

Surrender to the sandman and redefine your relationship with the night as James Wilson, "The Sleep Geek," guides us through the meandering world of sleep and mental health. This episode promises to enlighten you on why sleep isn't just a night-time routine but a crucial pillar of our well-being. James, with his vast experience working with organizations and sports teams, dismantles the one-size-fits-all approach to slumber. He warns of the perils in the pursuit of sleep optimization and invites us to honor our individual patterns for a life of balance and energy.

Peel back the covers on societal sleep misconceptions, as we examine the intricacies of sleep routines, the misunderstood practice of napping, and the dichotomy of being an early bird versus a night owl. This discussion isn't merely about the benefits of a quick siesta; it's about the profound effects our sleep schedules have on our health, and how tuning into our internal rhythms can pave the way for a more restorative rest. James also shares strategies for those who battle with the challenges of shift work, highlighting the importance of a consistent sleep schedule and the potential pitfalls one might encounter with sleep tracking technology.

Finally, we unwrap the consequences of erratic and excessive sleep patterns, recognizing that too much sleep can be just as harmful as too little. Tackling topics like the impact of alcohol and cannabis on our nightly repose, to the controversy of school start times for teenagers, this episode is a treasure trove for anyone eager to understand and improve their sleep. Let James's insights illuminate your path to a healthier, more vibrant life, ensuring each morning greets you with the promise of a day brimming with potential.

Podcast: Taking the Stress out of Sleep

Kipmate

The Sleep Geek

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome, james Wilson, the sleep geek. Give us a little introduction about yourself for the listeners, viewers.

Speaker 2: 0:06

So, yeah, I am the sleep geek. I'm a Manning Glasses who knows a lot about sleep. I'm a sleep practitioner and educator. I work mostly with organizations and sports teams helping their people sleep. There I've worked with people like AB Will Foose, like Pat Acks, I've worked with people like Mark Suspenser, coca-cola. I've worked with some governments and I've worked in sport quite a lot.

Speaker 2: 0:24

So I've been the sleep expert for quite a few football teams. I've worked with Lincoln City, geoff United, vovm United and, last season, westam, and I might not be the best sleep expert, but I'm very good at winning trophies. That's what I'd say. The teams I work with generally win something in the time I'm with them, working lots of sports. I've worked across like pretty much every sport you can imagine, and I do this because for me there's a problem. For me, my family made mattresses, so third generation mattress and bed manufacturers and I couldn't sleep. So I decided to do something about it in my mid-20s and I've been on a journey to improve my own sleep and also help other people get a better sleep since then.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Brilliant, brilliant, yeah, especially with just thinking. In Westam I won the first European trophy last year, didn't I All down to me?

Speaker 2: 1:06

obviously, that's it.

Speaker 1: 1:09

It's you that saved my job then. So, yeah, we've been trying to get this put together for a while, because obviously we're a mental health podcast. Now, going through my own thing, when I look back at it, the amount of sleep that I skipped, that I missed purposely, and then this was a problem because of the nature of my PTSD and flashbacks and things like that. But when I look back after 20 odd years now, I'm thinking that missing that sleep added to my mental health problems, mental health issues, and I'm not sure whether this is. Is it the pressures of society and what we've got on us that people miss sleep and then wonder why we're in this downward spiral.

Speaker 2: 1:48

I think there's a couple of things. I think as a society, we maybe don't value sleep. So there's four things we need to live food, water, bed and sleep. You can live long without food, then you can without sleep. And I think, as a society, if you weren't absorbing nutrition properly, you'd be an hospital. If you were not breathing properly, you'd be an hospital. If you're not sleeping properly, you get a. You know, it's sort of, and I think as we get older you can get this we need less sleep, which is not true and we build stories around sleep.

Speaker 2: 2:13

Or, on the other hand, I think as a society, we seem to think that poor sleep is a new phenomena that came about with the invention of the iPhone.

Speaker 2: 2:21

And you know I'm 43, tv was a problem for me, my dad's 73, the radio was a problem for him, and before that people were reading under the covers, and before that there was. There's always been things for poor sleepers that actually affect sleep, and I think sleep is the way it coexists with mental health. You know it is a foundation for good mental health, but also, if our mental health is struggling, then sleep is one of the first things to go and it's the part of wellbeing, I'd argue we don't understand very well and we try and sometimes approach it like nutritional exercise. We have very prescriptive advice around sleep and we think we can force sleep, when in fact actually sleep is something that I see my job as being like a horse whisperer and sleep is a booking bronco and my job is to sort of talk people to a place where they understand themselves better in terms of sleep and also what they can do to actually get better, better, keep.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Yeah, so much like well, my opinion is I think most people's opinion is now, each person's mental health is theirs, it's their individual, and you would say very much sleep. There's not one set pattern, there's not one set thing that we can say. So, everyone, what works for one, does work for another.

Speaker 2: 3:35

That's it and it's genetic, so I inherited my poor sleep from people came before me. There is in sleep, I'd say there's sort of different groups of people as poor sleepers that might be a complex issue like a sleep disorder, like a sleep apnea or chronic insomnia. There's poor sleepers where maybe there's something around their pre-sleep routine or their thoughts and feelings that's more easily addressable. And then there's sleep optimizers and actually probably what's become more and more apparent is people trying to optimize their sleep. They might be tracking their sleep. They might be getting up early because they want to do a hobby like exercise, and they're wanting to somehow tell their sleep what to do. They want to force their sleep at a time that works for them and I think that can be quite difficult for people and I think this individual I'm a poor sleeper. It's not fair. My wife's brilliant. That's just not fair. She can drink a cup of tea before bed. She's fun, balanced. That's what they do. She drinks cup of tea before bed and she sleeps. She sleeps really well and I have a cup of tea at five o'clock in the evening and I'm waking up at four in the morning and I think we've got to accept who we are a little bit. We've got to accept that actually this is you and stop trying to sleep like somebody else. And I think there's a lot at the moment in particular. There's a lot of podcasts. There's a lot of social media people on social media who are actually sleep experts talking about sleep in a way that actually just making people sleep worse, and I think that's a lot of my.

Speaker 2: 4:50

My whole mantra is taking us just out of sleep. How do we get you sleep better when you stress less about it? I don't want you to have sleep as your number one priority. I don't want you to be obsessed with your sleep Because as soon as you are, you start sleeping worse. I want you to understand and I want you to adapt and gently move towards better sleep, but actually accept that sometimes. I've got three kids, I've run a company, we have like everyone I am not perfect and there's a lot of sleep expertise and claim that from the moment they tried there their approach to sleep, they've never slept poorly again. And you can you can buy it for 99 pounds 99. That that that sort of stuff is not helping us when it comes to sleeping better. I think that's where we're at in society at the moment.

Speaker 1: 5:29

I totally agree. I think there's a lot of influences and I think I've fallen into that myself, and both myself and Seb have worked an awful lot of night shifts, you know, and we've got all these other influences and society's got all these other influences. I mean, for instance, I know myself I tried to get up the other morning and drive half past five in the morning, so I've gone to bed and all I could think of I need to go to sleep, I need to go to sleep, and that's in my head. It's in my head. Is that just something we can't help? Is it just a natural reaction?

Speaker 2: 5:58

It is. But I think you can work on it, and I think so. Even good sleepers have that when they've got an early flight, for example, and they've got to get up at like four in the morning, and first thing we do is we think I'll get to bed early. That's the worst thing you can do, Because the best thing you can do with that sort of routine is actually accept, Accept that you're gonna get less sleep that night because for some reason you've got to get up at half past five. So the first thing is accept symptoms, Don't go to sleep any earlier. Go to sleep, try and target at the same time. So when it comes to like sleep scheduling, you'll read like have a consistent bedtime, yeah, but actually what you should be doing is having a consistent, targeted sleep time. But if you're not sleepy, why are you going to bed? And when expertise is telling you have a consistent sleep time, it's a lack of understanding of sleep. We can't force sleep, so you can't make yourself go to sleep at nine to wake up at half five. If you're gonna do only go to bed at 11, that's quite a big move moving your sleep time, and I think it's in that situation. You go to bed at 11 and you might be trying to wind down. Before bed You'll be doing things that are relaxing to you. If that doesn't work, it might be that point. You've got to reset your brain. You've got to let your mind wander rather than wonder, Like what you were wondering. I wonder if I'll force sleep tonight because I've got a power five. So wondering is the enemy of sleep. Wondering when your mind's eagledy-piggledy, when you can, you know we have them fragmented, very strange thoughts and you're dropping off to sleep. That's what we want. That's the manner, the manner from heaven we're looking for when it comes to our sleep. So I think it's.

Speaker 2: 7:24

If you can't get sleep, if you're in bed for, say, 15 minutes, half an hour, and you're not asleep, then you need to do something like reset your mind. It might be, and that is quite individual, that's what relaxes you. I find a lot of people find listening to something quite powerful, because your hearing is your alarm system. So if you can relax your hearing, you can, you can. The rest of your body falls too, and but then there might be an acceptance. So the first couple of times that happens, yeah, you might get four hour sleep. But you're all right, because if you've done shift work, you've had four hours sleep before and you've performed.

Speaker 2: 7:52

So we don't have to beat ourselves up that story of failure that we often have as poor sleepers where well, I've got, I'm gonna be rubbish tomorrow I'll go, and you will already tell themselves that at nine in the evening we're already presuming we're not gonna sleep and we're already thinking about how we're gonna perform. We just talked about me working in football Last season we mentioned West. You know West Ham. We had exactly the same thing in a midweek game. There might be getting back to a hotel room at one o'clock. They might be getting a plane home that night and trying to sleep when they're landing in the morning.

Speaker 2: 8:20

And these thoughts of failure, these sorts of I won't sleep tonight because I've played last night and it's an irregular schedule, Well, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where an acceptance and an acknowledgement of who you are as a sleeper and then moving beyond that one night, is really powerful. And I think my problem was that I would fall into sort of a routine of two, three hours sleep. Do mongering waking up? Do mongering all day going to bed can't get to sleep. Two, three hours sleep, and what I do now is I wake up at three in the morning, because that's normally my problem, and to tell myself a more positive story. You know, I tell myself I can't solve this problem now. I can't. The wondering thought I have, the thing I'm wondering about. Sorry, I can't do anything. So some of it is maybe a behavioral cue, like music, Some of it is working with you on mindset and a lot of it is accepting, so it's accepting that.

Speaker 1: 9:15

So thoughts there for me. I'm gonna get part five and there's no way I can do it. But you did mention you mentioned routine. So everyone's routine is gonna be different then. Yeah, so how important is an actual sleep routine do you think to get into?

Speaker 2: 9:26

Well, clearly important because we you have that target sleep time in your head. So for me my target sleep time is somewhere between half nine and 11, because having a setting stone, because that works my sleep type. I'm more like a bit of an early middle. So think of your sleep type, chronotype. You know locks and owls. Think of it as a line and you've got locks at one end, owls on the other and you sit somewhere in that line and your target sleep time should work for you in terms of your body's natural rhythm. It preferably this is preferably as should your target at wake up time. So I target half nine to 11 for going to bed. I target half five to seven for waking up, not always, not always within that, but if I get seven hours sleep, six and a half hours sleep within those two windows of opportunity, I'm all right. I can get through the days with that sort of thing. So a target sleep time is very important. That's based on your body's natural rhythm, not you know now, some people, because you've mentioned shift work. I work a lot with shift workers and that's when you might be the best sleeper in the world, but your shift could be ruining your sleep. You're genetically a good sleeper but the shift ruin your sleep and this is where we might go out outside our windows. But for people who work in a nine to five people, who would generally sort of work in those hours, it's then looking at what you're doing around those things. So if you've got a hobby so for me, if I've got a hobby and I start, like, say, exercising at nine in the evening, that's not conducive to falling asleep in my window I might be thinking do I exercise early in the day? If you're at out and you're trying to get up at five in the morning because you've read those things on the internet about waking early makes you successful, well, that makes things very difficult because you will not be able to stick to that schedule and then you become a failure and that story of failure becomes you. But it's not, you're not failing, you just create a sleep schedule that doesn't work for you. So target sleep times are really important. And then that hour before bed, winding down, what activities are you doing? Are you winding up or are you winding down?

Speaker 2: 11:14

I would say one thing we all get a lot of us get wrong is we do that wind down routine dressed so we're still in our daytime clothes. We sat on the sofa and we'll think I'll get a bed and we'll start doing stuff. So you'll put the pets out. You'll empty the dishwasher. You'll go and look what washing you've got in the utility room. You'll go upstairs, you'll brush your teeth. You might take your makeup off. You'll get in bed. You'll have a chat with a person next to you Can't get to sleep and your body is literally screaming at you.

Speaker 2: 11:39

Make your mind up. Make your mind up, because I thought you were going to bed, so I gave you the sleep stuff and now you're waking up. I've given you quarters, all of your geling and you're buzzing now. So it's being beddy. So as you start that process, any time in that period you feel sleepy, you can go to bed. It doesn't have to be a setting stone time. It's listening to your body. Your body will tell you.

Speaker 2: 11:58

And a lot of poor sleepers, especially early types. They felt sleepy at half nine but they wanted to watch another Netflix episode. They wanted to stay up a bit later. That's fine, but except that you're not it's not like you're genetically a poor sleeper. You should maybe have a sink with your rhythm. Yeah, it's not fair.

Speaker 2: 12:17

Your partner might be an owl and you wanna be an owl because owls are sexy. Let's not beat about the bush. Owl is rock and roll, isn't it? It's rock and roll. An early bird like me no one's turned on by that. All right, grandad, what time are you gonna bed?

Speaker 2: 12:32

So it's a society where perceptions around sleep type that are interesting, because we also judge late types. Owls Early bird catches the worm. In the Bible there's loads of references to waking early and being godly. All this stuff feeds into our society and that owl might work really efficiently between 10, 11 in the morning and six, seven in the evening, but they've got to work between eight and four. These things are not helpful. So when we talk about wind-out routine, it's really important, but it's also important like putting that in the right place for you. It's not a magic switch, it's not like I can you know, if you wind down properly, you can fall asleep at any time. That's not true. You need to have built up your sleep pressure, your sleep drive, your sleep appetite and if you're trying to eat too early, you won't fall asleep Time and eat might within about a 90 minute window. That works for you. Then the wind down will work. You'll go to sleep and you'll feel like you've stayed asleep, and that's what we're looking for, which is going to help people sleep better. So I would say it's again that individual thing.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Sleep optimizers I talked about sleep optimizers and poor sleep. Sleep optimizers napping can really help your shift worker. Napping is brilliant, especially if you're a night shift worker, because the world is not conducive to sleeping in the day. It's too warm, it's too light. Your partner, your family, they don't care that you've worked all night and weren't sleeping the day. There's a list of jobs for you to do while I'm at work. That's what I really feel for shift workers. That's what they get.

Speaker 2: 14:18

And then so for that sort of person, pan up if you've not met your sleep need at night because of whatever it might be. It might be choice. It might be waking up early to exercise, it might be you've said poorly, it might be your work schedule means your sleep schedule can't be right. Napping are brilliant, but if you're sleeping poorly at night and you're napping in the day, then napping might be the problem, because napping steal the appetite Just like a snack at the wrong time. They're like having a packet of Chris just before you're about to have your tea. That's what a nap can do to some people. So timing's right the same with snacking. If you nap before 2pm and you nap for less than 30 minutes, it's less likely to affect your nighttime sleep. And it is just that being aware that a nap can steal sleep at night.

Speaker 2: 14:59

But for a lot of people napping really helps because the world does not allow them. I think, like for owls, for example, who are being forced to wake up early to work, or by a sleep dictator in their house who claims that they need to be up at 5 in the morning because still the person's up at 5 in the morning, napping can be really helpful. In that situation I'd address the dictator, I'd look to free yourself from those fascist regions. But napping yet can be great. But if you're sleeping poorly at night can be a problem, and we'll come back to it's about the individual. Lots and lots, I think, in this conversation.

Speaker 1: 15:36

I know at one point my favourite word was siesta, but I seem to have managed to get myself out of that and I don't know how. It's just on an afternoon about 4 o'clock, a bit of a place in the sun on the TV, and then I was asleep and I felt great and I managed to get out of that. Do you think that would have been me just catching up with sleep that wasn't getting in at night, or am I sleeping better now?

Speaker 2: 15:59

Probably could be that there is a natural lull between 1 and 3 and 5 and 7 and, as you just pointed out, the TV schedules put lots of programmes in those windows that are actually quite monotonous and quite you know what's going to happen. They're repetitive. You're watching them, you're probably thinking at least I'm not on place in the sun and by myself, as me and Mils would have an argument about this, that and the other. So I think it's really interesting. But I think my view in Japanese is if you feel like having one, have one if it's effective. So it's been quite relaxed about it. If it's effective at night time, sleep, stop it. If it's not, crack on.

Speaker 2: 16:36

I'm a bit older now but in my partying days, a disco nappin' a Saturday was one of the most beautiful things ever. I often, rather than be night of fun, I'll put the radio on a Saturday afternoon and I'll listen to it match and I'll be asleep in 20 minutes because we're really rubbish and it's boring. So I think we have triggers. I think you're right, I think we have triggers, but I think probably at the moment, yeah, you're probably a little bit sleep deprived and you're probably sleeping a little bit better and therefore, you know, or life is more busy, so your body's not letting you have that lull and therefore you're not napping that. That can be the way of looking at it. You know, there's not space in your life at the moment for a nap.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Could we have a little chat about what sort of effects of poor sleep or what you think of poor sleep do people come to you with, and especially if we can sort of look around the mental health side of things?

Speaker 2: 17:20

So I think we're poor sleep and I think this is one of the things that we all recognise when we sleep poorly. So often, a little bit at the start, poor sleep is not recognising poor sleep, so they think that the impact of poor sleep is not there. I get sort of in organisations. You'll talk to a CEO and they'll be like James I've heard about the short sleep gene. We can get fun off our sleep and be a winner. I've got that because I'm a winner, I'm running this company, I'm a winner. And then you're going to talk to other people in the company and they're like no, they're all over the place, they're emotionally erratic, they're making poor decisions, they're shouting at people left, right and centre. So I think actually sometimes it's maybe talking to people around you and getting their take on your emotional wellbeing.

Speaker 2: 18:01

I think sleep, in particular sleep, is about physical and mental recovery. It's improving our mental and physical health. Deep sleep which is early in the night, that is more about physical recovery. It's where we recover physically, where growth hormones release, where the physical parts of how sleep affects our body happens. We then have sort of stage one and two sleep which we don't really know what they're for. They're more like sort of connecting sleep. That actually makes up about 60% of our sleep, so it's roughly 20% deep sleep, roughly 20% REM sleep, although it does differ night from night on night and also person to person. And REM sleep is the really interesting one from a mental health point of view, because REM sleep is the part of sleep where we go through an overnight counselling session, where your brain will work through the emotions of the day.

Speaker 2: 18:45

We dream all the way through our sleep, our different sleep cycles and our different sleep stages. Sorry, but REM sleep is the one where you'll maybe remember your dreams, because maybe they're like nightmares, so you wake up and you remember them. Or often people remember sexy dreams as well, because they're waking up from the sexiness of the dream and they're having that sort of reaction of coming out and going oh, it didn't happen, what a shame. You remember dreams because you wake up near the dream and so that's often so. When people say I don't dream, you'll meet those, people say normally they're quite good sleepers and they're just not waking up night. So again, just put some context around it. Everyone wakes up three to six times a night. You wake up every night three to six times you need to be awake for five minutes to remember waking up.

Speaker 2: 19:30

So the difference between poor sleep and good sleep is actually often the quality, wise is not remembering waking up. If you've got good quality sleep, you probably not remembering those, those weightings. You got poor quality sleep. You probably remembering every single one. So that's always worth, I think, remembering around. Have I met my sleep needs? It's good quality sleep.

Speaker 2: 19:49

And so if you don't get that overnight counseling session because REM sleep is a stage of sleep where we most like to be woken it's easier to arouse someone from sleep during REM sleep. If we don't get enough sleep, it's REM sleep that suffers. And that's where I think you have that impact on your mental health and we all feel it, because I think when we're not slept well, everyone becomes more annoyed. You know you struggle to manage your own emotional resilience. So, slept well. People at work are fine. Your kids are fine, sleep poorly. You are often waiting for someone to come at you. You're like someone say something. Might be a colleague, might be a partner, might be a child, might be just a random stranger walking down the street. Mind your own business. But you can feel that, that you know when we sleep poorly, we really struggle to regulate our emotion and if we have that for a concert amount of time then you often have a crew in condition.

Speaker 2: 20:37

So if you have, like a mental health disorder, like something like bipolar, poor sleep will make it harder to deal with the symptoms of that mental health issue. When we are suffering from stress, anxiety, poor sleep will make it harder to deal with the symptoms of those conditions. When we've got depression, poor sleep makes it harder. But also particularly for things like depression and stress and anxiety, it's a co-occurring relationship. So poor sleep can lead to poor mental health and poor mental health can lead to poor sleep. We're understanding that better now. I would say 10 years ago if you went to your GP and said I'm sleeping poorly, their first thought would be you've got depression and they would often treat the depression with like antidepressants or even a talking therapy for depression, as opposed to treating the sleep issue. And some of the researches actually show if you treat the poor sleep with a co-occurring depression and insomnia, you actually have a quicker impact on the depression than treating the depression first. So it's quite interesting that that relationship we're starting to understand it better.

Speaker 2: 21:41

But I would say most people who are poor sleepers also struggle with their mental health, and I know I do. When I sleep poorly, I know I really struggle to regulate emotion. Me and my wife met working together. I was her product. She was a product manager for a well-being company. I was her product, creating a sleep offering, and people come and ask her has James slept well last night? What they're asking is can we say this difficult thing to James or is he going to struggle to deal with it emotionally? And I think that's no. That is a reflection of how poor my sleep has been at times. I think that is often a good example of his poor sleepers, what we are off the bat lip and trying to live with when he comes to our mental health.

Speaker 1: 22:24

I definitely would say that I'm guilty of being irritable if I've not had enough sleep and some of the long shifts back working the doors which actually it may work for me at the time, so because of avoiding sleep, but obviously the reaction isn't great, was it said? So you mentioned there about people with mental health issues or something. If they're prescribed anti-depressants or maybe sleeping tablets, what sort of effects is that having on their sleep? And then on to the mental health, because I'm a big advocate of whatever you put into your body, then there's going to be some reaction.

Speaker 2: 23:02

Yeah, and it is. And if you ever took anti-depressants you'll know that there can be a quite an impact on your sleep in the short term. Of some people then this sleep becomes a lot worse, which then makes sort of dealing with the change chemical changes caused by anti-depressants to be a lot more difficult. So I would say I have that report to be quite a lot around. First, taking anti-depressants, sleeping pills an interesting one, because actually sleeping pills don't give you sleep. What sleeping pills give you is the impression of sleep. What sleeping pills give you is sedation. Sleeping pills generally work on the part of the brain that alcohol works on and it knocks you out. So when people on sleeping pills they won't actually get REM sleep. So sleeping pills particularly affect the ability to get REM sleep. You might have seen recently Delhi Ali footballer talking about his sleeping pill addiction, talking about the trauma he'd live with, and for me the most heartbreaking thing about that conversation is Delhi thought that those sleeping pills were working and they were giving him sleep. But actually those sleeping pills weren't even giving him sleep, they were giving him sedation and he became addicted to the feeling of the sleeping pills and the sedative feeling that the sleeping pills were giving him but he wasn't getting sleep and so dealing with that trauma he had lived with and he was living, still living with meant was became a lot, lot harder because he wasn't getting REM sleep, and I think that's the that's the saddest thing about sleeping pill use is that we often think we're getting sleep here. It's not. It's not sleep, it's sedation, it's poor quality, and sleeping pills work for people who've always been good sleepers and have maybe gone through a short term event. So it might be a relationship breakup, it might be a bereavement, and sleeping pills remind your body what sleep can feel like, but feel like it's not actually sleep, it's feel like if you were long-term insomniac. Sleeping pills are like putting a plaster over a chopped off leg. It just does not work, does not give you the sleep it's they are. They'll counter productive, if anything, and in many days of life they're alive. You can buy them online. Even if you're not buying them over on prescription, you can get them online. You can get them on third parties and for me they are a problem. Sleeping pills are a problem that that, that, that that we create, in the same way that actually alcohol is, because I think again, if we are struggling with our sleep, we're still doing that.

Speaker 2: 25:17

Mental health. We often move. We often turn to alcohol. Alcohol is a sedative. So when people I think shift workers do use alcohol quite a lot I work a lot in the NHS. You meet a lot of people in the NHS because they're how erratic their shift patterns are that they will be using alcohol as a as a sedative. You meet people who think it's fine you know I've when people find out what I do well, be it like an event or like a dinner party.

Speaker 2: 25:37

And so about our James normally a bloke, you know, honestly, and our James, I don't need your help. I drink a bottle of wine every night and I sleep fine. That's not good, you know. That's not sleep, that sedation and and sleep and alcohol is a drug is amazing when it comes to sleep because it sedates after about four hours and it stimulates after about seven. So if you've ever had a skin full and then woke up at like, gone to bed at like one, two and woke up at five at morning and thought, why am I awake? I feel shattered, alcohol, that's what he does. So it's not, it's not a drug that that helps us when it comes to our sleep at all. That's bad news that's bad news.

Speaker 2: 26:09

That's just all that but at this point I will, I will, I will make the point that I am not anyone's mum and I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to help you understand.

Speaker 1: 26:18

That's, that's important to realise yeah, I mean that's, that's perfect what you've said there. Yeah, and I know I can only speak from me on experience. Really I'm not mental effects, but both me and Sebel admit that. But after an hour shift I used to take tins of tins of I think it was red stripe at the time to try and get to sleep after a long night shift.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Oh, dear any of you quit the common and and that's. And I'd say this thing is like one bottle of one can, two cans. You're right. It's when it gets to four, five, six that it becomes a problem, because alcohol can give you a little bit of a relaxing effect and it's one of those things a lot of sleep experts will say don't do it. I will sometimes have a have a. They'll have a whiskey when they get home if I've had a stressful day, or sometimes have a beer or a glass of wine and and to try to help with that relaxation process I think lots of people do.

Speaker 2: 27:03

It is when it becomes like a bottle that and you're doing it because you're trying to get to sleep you know that that is when it can become. It can become a problem. And when you talk to people who live with alcoholism and they're recovering, often the thing that's drives them back to to drinking again is actually the, the, the impact it has on their sleep from, from stopping drinking in it and and it come, I think, again it's. It's. They're often getting lots of support around the way that that the, the support network, perceives living with with you know, a addiction, like they'll be addicted to alcohol, but they're not getting much support on the sleep and and and it's some easy support, some easy tips to them as they're, as they're being supported around around the addiction would be incredibly helpful, because the research does show that one of the biggest drivers of of going back to alcohol is is is poor sleep.

Speaker 1: 27:49

What do you say? This is very similar in relation to cannabis as well. It's not something I can do. I'll be honest if I stand there, somebody that's smoking it's. You know, I have to go get a sandwich or something, but I was speaking to someone recently and saying it with the guests that we had lined up and mentioned yourself, and they went oh well, I have to. I just have a. I have a joint on a night before I go to sleep and because it relaxes me, it lulls me. But is this the same as the alcohol?

Speaker 2: 28:13

It's a sedative, so it locks you out and I would say a lot of poor sleepers do try weed as well. It's something that people try, and for the same reason. Now, obviously, the CBD and and it's a, it's a. It comes from the kind of you know the cannabis plant, so we do produce cannabinoids naturally within within CBD. They take out the THC, so take out a bit that gets you stoned and there is a little bit of research that shows it can help the body process cortisol. So cortisol is brilliant for waking up, rubbish, for going to sleep, if in simple terms, and and like CBD can help that.

Speaker 2: 28:43

But but THC is you're knocking yourself out. It's not proper sleep, it's not, it's not conducive to healthy sleep routines and you're waking up more than likely incredibly groggy the next day and struggling to actually get through the day, get to get to sleep time. A bit wired you go. What if I were people using, using weed, is the getting through this, this sort of cycle of groggyness in the morning, whiteness at night, the cannabis it helps the whiteness at night but actually creates the drug ogness in the morning and you're not getting a REM sleep and you're not getting the, you know, but you're getting more deep sleep, but the REM sleep has been quite affected by the cannabis use. Less, less research of cannabis use, obviously because it's illegal in the state, starting to a lot more because because of how it's being made legal. It'll be interesting to see how that that that lies there are people looking at. Can you extract a certain amount? Can you take a certain amount? Can it be helpful around THC? But at the moment the research would say no, it's not.

Speaker 1: 29:37

It's not conducive to a good night sleep so you mentioned groggyness on the morning there and I think that ties in perfectly with with teenagers. And again I will say that I do do some research for these podcasts, honestly, and some of the reading I've done or some of the research I've done is sort of alluded to teenagers being on the. Because of the hormone changes they move on to a different sleep cycle and then we're forcing them to get up at seven, eight o'clock, go to school and practice. But then we've also look at the, the mental health in teenagers, which can be we can have a lot of sort of worse effects because maybe they've got that life experience to handle them. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 30:18

yeah. So I'd say I actually led the largest teen sleep project at the time as a practitioner, where I work with the sleep charity, and I was a poor sleeper as a teenager. I were horrible, like it was. I was incredibly poor and I was a academy footballer at 15 and only lasted three months. Because I didn't sleep for three months and a lot of it was around the scheduling of these sorts of things like the, the practice in the evening, but then also getting up early. And this was when, you know, 25 years ago, when people were starting school at nine off nine. Now we're starting school at eight off eight.

Speaker 2: 30:48

If we wanted to improve our kids mental health, if we want to improve the obesity epidemic that we see in teenagers, if we want to improve exam results, the, the one simple thing we could do is start school at ten in the morning. There's research to show it. There was a guy who went into a school in the tea, in tea side. He was a chronobiologist. He actually moved the school day to start at ten. Their exam results went up by 45 improvement in mental health. It would now point out in 10 years ago, maybe even 15 years ago. It's a simple thing we could do, and it's, it's we are. Our teenagers become more more late types, become more night owls not certain why, but we think it's around the hormonal changes and we are forcing, like to give an idea, um, a teenager, get up at six to get school for eight is like me at 43, getting up at four to get to work for six. That's what we're doing to our teenagers. Uh, it's, it's. It's frustrating because I think a lot of things in sleep get talked about more than than this issue, and this issue is is significant in the states. Even worse, teenagers go to school at seven or seven in the morning. Like what on earth? Like ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. It's. It's a drum that I bang, it's a desk that I bang, and it's.

Speaker 2: 31:55

It's not something that people are eager to change. Parents claim that teenagers coming home earlier will mean that they're, that they're wouldn't, that they're on their own in the house. Parents say that teenagers won't, won't get off school, so they'll, they'll be missing school teachers, like often, like the, the, the schedule that they've currently got. But it's, it's. You know, I think it's one of those things where we might look at it in 20, 30 times and look back and think what on earth are we doing? You know it's that damaging to our team's health. I think we'll look back and think like, what on earth are we doing?

Speaker 2: 32:26

And the easy thing is to change the school time. I think a lot of the time the people should be advocating aren't? I think a lot of people sort of like talk about when we're giving. You know, I do it. I go into schools and talk about sleep. We work with it. The study I led was in schools with existing sleep times and we improve things. But it would have been far easier just to change the school sleep time. We don't spend money on training staff and getting charities in and all that sort of stuff. We need to actually change the school start time and that might be doing myself out of work, but we need to change the school start time because that is what is really really important here. We keep hearing about it.

Speaker 1: 32:58

We keep hearing people bang on about trust the science, believing the science, but we don't believe in the science when it doesn't suit the government yeah, it does.

Speaker 2: 33:06

Is that too controversial? No, I think on this, that is exactly it. I think it's like my step kids are going to school in Barnsley. My step daughter was in the citizenship class doing sleep and they blame it, kids for not getting up early, you know? Basically they're saying you should be using your phone before bed, you should be getting up at the, you should be going to bed at this time. Like telling teenagers to go to bed at like 10, half 10, they can't go to bed at that time. They are not sleepy at that time. The problem isn't their phone use. The light the phone gives off is minimal. It doesn't affect your circadian rhythm like we thought it did.

Speaker 2: 33:37

The research is changing and if they, this phone can be a really important tool to them sleeping better because you could have stuff on there that's really helpful. There's meditation apps, there's things on YouTube, there's Spotify playlist. It's not the phone that's the problem. It's the choices that we make, and if we can encourage our teens to make better choices, then they're more likely to get asleep. If we just go, don't use your phone, they just think so do you. I'm using my phone and don't listen to you.

Speaker 2: 34:05

So I think there's a lot of stuff around this where, when we're educating our teens, education we're giving them is too prescriptive, it's from adults who don't remember what it's like to be a teenager, and it's not taking into account their lives, their lives, and it's also just totally ignoring the fact that we start in school far too late. My stick is the earliest. I think the start now is 20. By state, it was eight o'clock Still too early. You know. Stop blaming the kids for something that the system creates. It's not their fault. I really feel for teenagers on this. I think we blame them for using the phone. We're on at them all the time. Stop using your phone, stop using devices. Yeah, I'll be for bed. Get off your Xbox, get off your PlayStation. But that's not the biggest problem here. The biggest problem is school start times.

Speaker 1: 34:50

I mean, it's pretty relevant at this time of year, with us changing the clocks as well, and I just I mean personally, I just don't see any point in that at all. Now, about yourself. How was that? You know, we say we keep gaining an hour. Are we losing an hour? Are we just forcing that?

Speaker 2: 35:07

So we don't gain or lose an hour. So the clock change we just added. We still slept the same amount of time. We woke up an hour. The clock was a different. The clock had a different number on it. That's what happened.

Speaker 2: 35:17

So when we talk about this, it's quite interesting. I've seen a lot of stuff. So in America it was this weekend, weren't it? And in the UK it was a weekend before.

Speaker 2: 35:24

And what people want is they want it to be consistently, they want it to be the summertime because they'll get more light in the evening and that's lovely and it's nice. Actually, there are some arguments. I saw a chronobelogist who actually he's the first chronobelogist I've seen. So chronobelogists will be someone who's an expert in the circadian rhythm and he's the first expert I've seen to actually advocate for constant day-like savings. So the summertime, constant British summertime, if you were in Britain, and he was making the point that actually having light at night it's good for our wellbeing. We can spend time outside, we can spend time with our families. I think that's the strongest argument I've seen for sticking to constant summertime. However, what we are now our standard time, or is more like earlier in the day, now, as a lark I could argue that, getting day like half past three in the middle of summer, it will not be conducive to me staying asleep.

Speaker 2: 36:35

I think a lot of us come at this argument based on our sleep type and, and I think we've seen more and more the research shows, the more we work in line with the earth's natural rhythm and our own internal natural rhythm, the better our wellbeing is, whether it's our sleep, whether it's our mental health, whether it's our diet, whether it's our exercise. No, exercise, exercise with your natural rhythm more like to get more out of it. Eat with your natural rhythm more like to get more out of it. Sleep with your natural rhythm, more like to get out of it. Your mental health then improves.

Speaker 2: 37:45

So I think it's a really interesting conversation. It would be better if we stayed in one time, and it's one of those a bit of like have a hill, cv burp, let the two sides fight it out amongst themselves, and I think I would be more inclined to stick to how we are now. But I'm less passionate about that as an argument than I am about things like school start times, prevalence of sleep apnea, lack of support for chronic insomnia within the NHS. These things to me are far more important than what time it says an o'clock.

Speaker 1: 38:13

Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, I totally agree with that.

Speaker 2: 38:16

So we've been focusing on too little sleep or people not gaining enough sleep. Is there any such thing as too much sleep? Definitely, when it comes to sleep and like we talk about you're catching up at the weekends, you can't catch up on your sleep there. It don't work like that. Your body will try and give you better quality sleep if you slept poorly. Your body will try and give you a little bit more sleep if you slept poorly. But actually having erratic sleep, inconsistent sleep, can be quite damaging. So there's a lot of there's quite a lot starting to get more and more research about the impact of erratic sleep. So you might get five hours in the week, then at weekends you get 10 hours, for example, some of this research and these took two groups. One group had five hours in the week, all for six weeks, so five hours every night for six weeks. The other group had five in the week and five at the weekend for the same six week period. The impact on things like liver and kidney function was quite significant for the group who would add more sleep by having that long line at the weekend, by having that oversleeping at the weekend, you'd seen people actually physically start to stuff I would hypothesize, because they're major organs, have been shut down mode for too long. So if you're having consistent sleep, if you're getting six and a half hours, for example, every night, your body knows all these jobs it's got to do. It's got to repair physically, it's got to clear your brain of newer toxins, it's got to work through the stress of the strains the day before. Your brain is more active during the night than it is during the day. Well, if it's got six and a half hours, it's done that job, it's done that work. If you then have 10 hours at the weekend, that sleep is pretty much like junk sleep. It's poor quality sleep. Just putting it into shut down mode for longer. You'll feel more lethargic when you actually do wake up. So often we'll find we have more sleep at the weekend but feel worse. That's because your body's struggling to get into wake up mode and I think I'm not against the lying. But you start to get to more than half two hours. Your body starts to struggle with it and I know this is why, when I do my seminars and webinars, this is the point where everyone thinks oh, I thought you were all right. You're a bit of a dipstick, aren't you Telling me not to lie. I'm not down with that and again, I'm not your mom. If you want to lie in, crack on and I get it like. My wife is a good sleeper and she challenges me quite a lot on the basis and I agree with her. No, she's helped me improve as a practitioner.

Speaker 2: 40:22

People who sleep well and if they're lying at weekend and for their wellbeing that feels good. Stop telling them not to, because that works for them and she's right. So if you sleep well, I remember your question while you listened to this podcast. But if you sleep well, you having a lie it might not be an issue for you. So you can ignore me All the stuff you're talking about. If you sleep well, you can. If it works for you, it works for you, I'm happy for you. If you sleep poorly and you're having a lying, and particularly if you sleep poorly in the week you're having a lying, then it could be that lying that's causing the problem.

Speaker 2: 40:50

Erratic sleep scheduling does cause issues. That's why shift work can be quite difficult. When I work with shift workers, we have an acceptance of that. We're not going to pretend it doesn't happen. We know it. We can go online and read the impacts on our health of shift work. Normally we shift what you get in an increasing salary or increasing wage and it's you know, I'm there to help you in the life you're living, not the life you could have.

Speaker 2: 41:14

And I think we have to address, like we have to address, the erraticness of sleep. So one of the things I do with shift workers is rather the consistency of sleep time. You have a consistency of behaviors. Before bed you do the same thing. So I had a shift worker I worked with who was what's the same episode of Big Bang Theory before bed, because that actually, like that said to his body time for sleep now.

Speaker 2: 41:34

So I think erraticness can be difficult. It does impact. Oversleeping Definitely does impact on our health, I think as well. Bear in mind when you look at the research, if you're always sleeping, it could be a sign of, like, underlying mental health issues. It could be saying that, as you've got physical health issue towards the end of our life, we do sleep a lot. So when people are asking questions like how much sleep do you need and say like, well, if you have less than this amount, you're gonna die, or more than this amount, you're gonna die, just bear that in mind that there are that a lot of this data is general population. It's not you and it's working out what works for you, and being consistent is a really important part of that.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Lots of thinking about that for a little seven minutes After the lifestyle's we've led and the work's up Still lead, still, yeah, well, you're just still doing that. So I'm away from that. So what I think what we're doing here is we're basically saying it's individual, isn't it how they're any? Are there any signs or signs you are on the wrong path with your sleep? Any standout signs? People could listen to the podcast and think, right, I need to sort this out really.

Speaker 2: 42:38

So I would say definitely sort of consider have you made your sleep need? If you're meeting your sleep need, then you're probably you're all right. So it's not like. One of the issues I have like with tracking sleep, for example, is people are tracking asleep in self-fulfilling prophecy and often the track is very inaccurate and it's just you just create. If you're poor sleep, you shouldn't be tracking your sleep because it's just telling you something you already know you you're not sleeping very well. But there are these ways you can sort of like you can, you can measure it, like light touch and the way people who I work with I get them to consider. So what we do, we have we have three questions. I ask with three, with three answers. First question is how long did it take you to fall asleep when you went to sleep last time? And that is if it's less than five minutes. So people said to me James, brilliant sleeper, fall asleep. Excuse me, my head, it's a pillow. That's not. That's not a good sleeper, that's someone who's sleep deprived. That means you haven't met your sleep need in the days previous. So if you fall asleep in less than five minutes, if you can't remember falling asleep, that's that's a bit of an issue if you are sleeping. If it takes you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, you might be sort of going into sleep. I will use the word insomnia that I don't particularly like that word, because I think we we've stretched the meaning of insomnia to to to an extent that it just describes a bad night's sleep, and actually chronic insomnia is more than that. But less than 30 minutes on a consistent. So more than 30 minutes to go to sleep on a consistent basis, that means you probably you've got something to address that it might be you're going to bed too early. It might be you're not winding down properly. It might be you've got something you're live to address. You might be going through something that you need to work through. So that's the first question. Less than five minutes, we're going to look at sleep defecation. More than 30 minutes we're going to look at is there some changes to your, to your behaviors we need to look at.

Speaker 2: 44:12

Second question we ask is how many times do you remember waking in the night? As we said, you wake three to six times a night. If you can't remember it at all, brilliant best. I love it when I can't remember waking up at night, that's like I wake up and I'm like come on, james, you've had a good night's sleep there, so not waking up at all, that's great. One or two times, that's fine, you know, that's all right. It's not not into the world more than more than three or more.

Speaker 2: 44:34

Again, I'd have some concerns about the quality of your sleep. Why are you waking up that many times? What you're being triggered by, is it temperature? Is it alcohol? Is it caffeine? Is it stress and anxiety? Is it that you're going to bed too early? Is it that you didn't wind down properly before bed? Is it? Is it that you've got the wrong duvet on? Is it your partner makes you hot? Is it your partner's snoring? Is it? Your mattress is a bit uncomfortable.

Speaker 2: 44:53

So we would start, we start investigating that if it's more than three times on a regular basis, so that's a good indicator of poor sleep quality. And then, if you're all working a normal schedule, it would be how do you feel at 10 11 in the morning? Because at 10 11 in the morning you should be your most alert and active, so you feel all right at that time. Yeah, yeah, you're playing. No sleep, you're all right. If you don't, then that again, I'd start looking at why. What? What's happening? Are you having eight hours and you maybe, um, you're lethargic all day. You might have sleep apnea, you might have another sleep disorder. Is it the things we talk about? Waking night, is it that you've that? You've wound down properly? There's things to start investigating if you're feeling lethargic at that time.

Speaker 2: 45:31

If you're a shift worker, it's probably more looking how you feel, depending on your shifts, four or five hours after waking up. But I think with shift workers it is a lot harder because it no, I don't tell you to it can be a life of lethargy when you're awake and it could be quite difficult. And that's where you know if, if your shift workers feeling this lethargy, that's where naps can be incredibly helpful and I would, I would advocate for them strongly. Um, because it might be you can't get more sleep in the one block, so you might be getting them from a night shift. Don't go straight to bed. Wind down for a little bit, go to bed. You might get four, five hours and then you can fill in with naps later in the day. No, so I think it's it's.

Speaker 2: 46:05

It's those three things. One how long did it take you to go to sleep less than five minutes. Bit of sleep deprivation. Five minutes to 30 minutes, we're all right. More than 30 minutes, bit of bit of, maybe starting to look at if it's consistent. Is that insomnia, waking at night, none at all brilliant. One or two times, it's all right. More, three or more, we might need to look at what's happening there. And then, how do you feel at 10 11 in the morning? Feel, feel, feel horrible, feel all right, feel great, you know. And look at those three things.

Speaker 2: 46:32

So when I'm working with people, either using a tracker I'll get them to to do this alongside it, and I think that's quite powerful. And, and really I, I, when I'm working with people one on one, I wouldn't ask that question every day, I'd ask them a couple times a week because, because the more we think about our sleep, the worse it gets. So my whole thing about taking us just out of sleep, over track it over measure it, obsess with it, make, make it your number one priority. That don't work. That makes us sleep worse. It's, it's. It's it's having an awareness of our sleep and our individual sleep and then understanding what tips and tools we can use to actually get better sleep well, yeah, a lot, a lot to think about for us.

Speaker 2: 47:07

I think so yeah absolutely three basic tips and tools for our listeners consistent wake-up time. Consistent wake-up time is important, so so, like being as consistent as possible, that drives consistent sleep time because you build your sleep appetite during the day consistently, understanding your sleep type. So what are you are our, where you on that line between owls and larks motor is in the middle, with a slight preference when we over watch your 90 minute window off the back of that. So your target of sleep time is in that time and then, and then winding down for the for the hour before get ready for bed. Start that wind down.

Speaker 2: 47:40

Don't watch crime dramas. Don't watch the news. Don't watch question time. Watch comedy. Watch repetitive tv like placing the sun. Watch trash tv watch. Watch married. At first sight it makes you feel better about yourself because you're not them. All that stuff's great. And then, if you're waking and I follow the 30 minute rule if you wait for 30 minutes and I and your back mind is one wonder, like one is wondering about how the stuff that the world is so in it. Yeah, try and reset your mind. Listen to something. Might be a spoken word book, might be a podcast that's not too boring, not too interesting, might be music that you feel emotionally connected to, and I think the the one thing I'd leave you with this. There's two things statements that I would say good sleep comes from emotional and physical security. So think about how can I make myself more emotionally and physically secure and you might be rubbish at sleeping, but you're brilliant at being tired. So don't think about tomorrow, because tomorrow always comes and you always get through tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 48:32

Excellent thank you. Yeah, so you mentioned before we started recording about you've got a podcast coming up yourself.

Speaker 2: 48:39

I have. It is called taking us just out of sleep, surprisingly, and you can get it on Spotify, apple, your favorite podcast, favorite podcast app, and then he's talking about some of the stuff he talks about. He's talking about how you work out sleep need. It's talking about which, though? About waking night. He's talking about sleep dictators and who it, who it who, or what is it that's stopping you sleeping. Is it your partner? Is it your pet? Is it your kids?

Speaker 2: 49:03

So easy, practical, short podcasts that that get you know as a as a, I run a company called kit mate, where that's a company where we go into companies. That's where a digital tool and then my whole, my whole way of working is about getting getting to the problem that's stopping you sleeping as quickly as possible and addressing it. So we try and create short content. We try and give people the stuff that will actually work. I'm not there to ask you 25 questions about your whole life.

Speaker 2: 49:30

Now. If you're struggling to get to sleep, here's some tips. If you're struggling to about waking in night, here's some tips. Why do we need a consistent wake up time? What might be stopping you sleeping? Is it that person who you love? But for a little bit of a sleep dictator and they they are. You need freeing from those changes. You need to. Basically, you need to blame somebody for a conversation, a compassionate conversation, with your partner if that's your problem and I'm the man you can blame, so that don't worry about it. Listen to a podcast. This fella says you need to stop telling me what time to get to bed. Weren't me, I love you. He says you're a digstick. That that is what that's. What the podcast for is to help people sort of the simple stuff that we're getting wrong takes just out of it. Understands ourselves better, understand the things we can do to get better sleep perfect, perfect.

Speaker 1: 50:14

Well, yeah, I'm a big fan of podcasts, obviously, and especially when I'm driving, fully enough to keep me awake. I think that's a good place to wrap up. We will put that link in your in the podcast information so so then people can link through to that. James, thank you very much for that. I know that's going to be a really good listen for people, and thank you for your assistance. Sleep well, yeah, thanks, james cheers buddy.

Speaker 2: 50:35

Thank you.