← The High Performance Podcast
The High Performance Podcast
Stop Obsessing Over Sleep: Why Your Morning Routine Beats Bedtime | Sleep Expert Reveals (E395)
00:56:46
Loading summary
Transcript122 lines
- [00:01]
Host
Stephanie, welcome back to High Performance.
- [00:03]
Stephanie
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
- [00:05]
Host
Look, we're very excited to welcome you back. Our audience loved the first conversation. This time we've also done our sleep diaries. So how did you find making your
- [00:15]
Damien
own sleep diary interesting?
- [00:16]
Host
Me too. And we're gonna reveal those towards the end of the conversation. And I'm looking forward to being assessed and judged basically for what my sleep is like. But look, you've written a book, and your book has been described as the book the sleep industry will not want you to read. Why would the sleep industry not want people to read your book?
- [00:36]
Stephanie
Your sleep is flexible. And I think it's easier to sell things when we tell people that it should be exactly the same every single night. And you need to achieve a certain specific thing in order to actually be okay as a human being. The reality is a bit different from that. And I think the problem with it. Cause obviously this happens in so many industries where we're told we need all these things in order to, you know, be fit and to be nutritionally perfect. But in the sleep industry, I don't think we know enough about sleep to fall back on. So when everyone is saying you need to get your eight hours and you're not getting those eight hours initially, what you think is, okay, well, I'm going to spend more time in bed or I'm going to get this particular supplement because it tells me it can extend my sleep time. And so the logic is duration is the most important metric, essentially, and it's not. But if we have this sort of false logic that, okay, I've been told that I'm not sleeping enough, so I need to find a way to sleep more, then all your behaviors are going to be around trying to get more. But the reality is you can't get more sleep if your body on that particular night has got what it needed. And that changes according to what your day was like, what kind of emotional or physical stress your body has been through. But if you're being taught that it has to be exactly the same, then you're going to be very anxious when that doesn't happen. And you're gonna lean on all these things to try to get your sleep perfect. And the reality is, if you are at that point where you are leaning on all of these rituals, trackers, supplements, all these weird things, hacks that you have to do to make your sleep good, then it's likely that it's not good and you're not going to make it good by doing those things. There is another way, the scientific way.
- [02:32]
Host
So you, you see, I feel like I've been lied to a little bit because I have become obsessed with my sleep, like utterly obsessed. And I worry about it all the time. But what I can't work out is why is an industry that I believe is there to help me to sleep better, actually not telling me the things that you're telling me, which is just be flexible and accept that some nights you have a bad night's sleep because that.
- [02:54]
Stephanie
How do you make money off that?
- [02:57]
Host
Right. You can't monetize flexibility, right?
- [02:59]
Stephanie
Well, not as well, I suppose. And I think the way that maybe we disseminate research is not quite right. You can't generalize research studies to an entire population, not the entire population has chronic sleep deprivation. Some people have a problem with the quality of their sleep. In fact, I would argue, based on 20 years of looking at people's sleep, that I've rarely come across somebody who's sort of actively, chronically depriving themselves of sleep. Not now. I think a lot of people know that their sleep is important. They want to get better sleep. But when we keep telling everybody, you are not getting enough sleep, the nation is not getting enough sleep, what do you do? You assume that the most important metric is length, duration of sleep, and so you therefore try to extend your sleep. So you look to the market to find anything that extends your sleep when the reality is, by biologically, you can't really do that. And also, ironically, the most important thing is quality. And until the quality is improved, you can't improve the duration anyway, even if it needs improving. So when people come to see us, we're not going, are you taking your magnesium? Are you tracking your sleep? Are you doing this, this and this? We go straight to the stuff that works. And it's not really any of that stuff. In my book, I talk about the pyramid of sleep influence, which is effectively trying to help you understand what is the base, what is the important thing, what's the most influential things. And all those tips, all of that stuff that we're told, the elaborate bedtime routine, taking every single supplement under the sun, everything, it's like the top 1 to 2% of that pyramid. The most important part, your sleep baseline is made up of something we've talked about before. Your sleep drive and your circadian rhythm, those things are important, but the reality is you can probably change those things. You can improve those things yourself without much technology. And it's not that I'm again, technology, because I think tracking There is something in having more data and being able to improve your health. I just think the way that we're throwing so much data at people without much knowledge of what it means is not ideal. As soon as you throw numbers at humans, we tend to make assumptions about numbers very, very quickly. So I just don't think trackers should have numbers in. We need to figure out a different way to show people trends and consistency and ways to improve their sleep that don't rely on them having a percentage each night. You're never going to get the same sleep each night. That's impossible. And you wouldn't want to, because you need that flexibility to be a healthy human being. I would love people to learn the joy of imperfect sleep. That variation is normal. And it's important that your morning is far more important. You can't fix the night with the night. You actually need to fix it 15 to 20 hours before. Because I think certain things are a bit more dangerous than you realise. Maybe not physically, but psychologically they are getting you into this loop of thinking that you have to have these external things in order to fix your sleep.
- [06:07]
Damien
So what are the dangerous things?
- [06:09]
Stephanie
If your sleep only works when everything has to be perfect, or when you try to make everything perfect with all of these tools, it's probably quite fragile and likely not as good as it could be if you just stuck to the most influential things that you can do. So it's not about what you're doing, it's about the way you feel about it and why you're doing it. So a lot of people, for example, take magnesium, and on its own, is that so bad, taking magnesium? Maybe not, but it depends what you're feeling about it. If you start to think, if I don't take this, I'm going to have a bad night, that's a problem, because you can sleep. We've been sleeping for millennia. We didn't before all this stuff came to be, and we did it quite well. There's not much evidence to show that. We used to get anxious and worry and optimize sleep the way that we do now with all this new data. So it really depends on what you're doing and the way you're seeing it. So there's some people out there that can track their sleep or track anything, and they just take it with a pinch of salt. For example, people tell me, I love to track my sleep because when it tells me I've had a good night, it makes me feel great. And I'm like, yeah, there lies the problem. If it tells you you have a bad night, what happens then? And the research shows that actually just telling people, lying to people and telling them they had a bad night will actually make them perform the same as if they had a bad night.
- [07:35]
Workday Ad
Could AI help you do more of what you love? Workday is the next gen ERP powered by AI that actually knows your business. We help you handle the have to dos so you focus on the can't wait to do's. It's a new work day.
- [07:49]
Walmart Business Ad
What's up? It's Sean Linda from Two Black Guys of Good Credit. If Managed Supply Runs is still on your to do list, here's your science upgrade. Walmart Business has a tech tools and services that make it ridiculously easy to stock up for your office or team. Think scheduled deliveries, multi user accounts and even IT setup. Bonus with a Walmart business plus membership you get free shipping, spend analytics and 2% rewards. Join the smart way to shop at business.walmart.com Terms apply.
- [08:22]
Babbel Ad
Italiano if you've used Babbel, you would Babbel's conversation based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com acast spelled B A B B E L.com acast rules and restrictions may apply.
- [09:01]
Host
This is so Can I just tell you one thing about a sleep tracker for a moment? From a personal perspective, I've had an anxious week for some reason and maybe we could just talk a bit about why I'm so much more anxious at night when I wake up than during the day. And the things that like I don't know whether you get this, but I wake up and things seem so overwhelmingly bad and in the morning I'm like why did it. Why was it so scary at 2am and actually I feel I can cope with it now at 8am but if I I use a sleep tracker and the last three days is really interesting because I've been feeling really anxious. So I've woken up every night for quite a long period of time, like for a couple of hours. So we're now recording this on Thursday. So on Monday night I have 5 hours 10 minutes sleep, right? But my recovery was at 54% which on my sleep tracker is Yellow, So it's kind of like you're okay. The following night I slept for 6 hours, 18 minutes, but my recovery was at 63%. So yesterday I had a busy day and I felt great because I knew that, all right, I've had two anxious nights of asleep, but my recovery at 63 means that I'm full of energy. Today I woke up and my recovery after 4 hours and 37 minutes of sleep last night is a 15. This also tells me that like my heart rate variability is, it said is 40% lower than it is normally. And I've just like scoffed five biscuits before we do this record because it's now quarter past four in the afternoon and I'm in panic mode that I'm just gonna basically collapse at any minute. Cause my sleep tracker tells me that I'm badly recovered, haven't had enough sleep, and now I'm already scared that tonight at 2:00 clock in the morning, really needing sleep. As a dad and as a business owner and everything else, I'm gonna be wide awake. And those same things that aren't bothering me now will bother me at 2 o' clock in the morning.
- [10:56]
Stephanie
It's interesting, you'll sound like one of your patients a little bit. I listen to it all and then I think, oh, let's just wipe the slate clean and try and start. And it's interesting what you say about worrying more at night. We're not nocturnal creatures, which means that we are quite irrational at nighttime. And I do ask people, like reflect in the morning about what you were thinking. Because I bet you look back and think, well, that's ridiculous, why would you think that it's okay? But actually we're not really designed, as it were, to be up at night having these sort of intricate thoughts and detailed thoughts and trying to problem solve in the middle of the night. That's a problem for us. We're not very good at that. But the problem with these trackers is that that one sounds like it's really sort of emphasizing sleep duration to you, which is a problem anyway because actually your sleep quality and your sleep stages are important. But now I sort of see this trend with sleep trackers where they are talking about sleep stages, but the problem is they're not super accurate at sleep stages anyway. And also depending on what day you had, depends on what kind of percentage of sleep stage, for example, you're gonna have. And it also depends what kind of sleep you're gonna have in terms of duration. So your body is trying to adapt to whatever's happened to you during the day. Yes, you can make things a bit more consistent by anchoring your morning time and affecting your sleep drive and your circadian rhythm. But when you look at those things and you see all those numbers and those things telling you how badly everything was, you start thinking, well, I've got to change it. That's what you're thinking, I need to change this. And so then you start, potentially your mindset shifts during the day and your attention on your sleep. So your reticular activation system, your RAs and your brain stem, which helps you to be aware of certain things and to relax about other things and what you should be alert about, it starts to go off really about sleep because your behavior around your sleep increases. So at the very time when you're trying to relax and rest, that RAS system is trying to sort of wake you up and tell you, oh no, we want you to be alert because we see all your behavior that you're doing and everything you're trying to do around your sleep. So clearly this is something you want to be alerted by. You want an awareness about this. So let's give you this awareness.
- [13:18]
Host
So worrying about your sleep at 2 o' clock in the afternoon means actually when it comes to the one thing that you do want, which is a nice deep eight hours of sleep tonight, less likely. You're less likely.
- [13:27]
Stephanie
Way less likely because you're thinking about. Yeah, so micro, this is why. Micromanaging sleep.
- [13:32]
Host
But I thought the more we thought about sleep, the more we focused on it, the more we understood, the more
- [13:37]
Stephanie
we, the more sleep we would get. Yeah, no, I wish that was the case. But sleep is one of these biological, natural rhythms that happens without us interfering. Really what we need to do is, yes, get that rhythm and try to be consistent with some key behaviors.
- [13:53]
Host
But.
- [13:53]
Stephanie
But then actually we need to get out of our own way. We need to sort of teach our minds to actually stop thinking about sleep and then you're much more likely to get it. So yes, you're right. When people start to get sleep problems, they're looking at their trackers or they're looking online and they increase how much they do around their sleep, which is obviously a really natural, conscientious thing for us humans to do. But the problem with that is that the more you do that, the more you start to notice. Actually, it's taking me longer to get to sleep and actually it's reinforcing me getting up in the night and starting to overthink. And your sleep drive goes out the window. And your RAS is working on overdrive because it thinks that you need to be awake for this situation. So actually, the very thought of sleeping and thinking about sleep is pushing your sleep away. And then also your behaviors around sleep, usually because they're the wrong ones and they're not particularly influential on your sleep drive or your circadian rhythm. They're also not helping. So often they make it worse, not better. Like spending more time in bed when you're worried about your sleep. Well, think about it. If you're in a dark room and you're not sleeping, what's going to happen? With lack of stimulation around you, your brain's going to start up and then you're going to start worrying. And maybe it's not about sleep to start with. Maybe it's about all the other things that are happening to you. It doesn't really matter. Maybe it's just a song you can't get out of your head. But eventually it usually comes back down to, oh, my God, I've only got three hours left. What if I don't sleep? How am I going to perform at work tomorrow? The reality is we need to start managing our expectations and understanding. You've got so much evidence that you can perform on not very much sleep. What do you think athletes do? They're not all sleeping really well the night before a big race. In fact, I can pretty much reassure you that they are not. Because they are concerned about the race and their adrenaline is high and they're excited or nervous, it doesn't really matter. And sleep is going to be different. And that's totally normal. People ask me all the time, what can I do before a big event, like manage your expectations, because you are not going to sleep the same as you usually do. That's normal. And you're going to be okay. And teach people the opposite. I like to think of the little bit of extra sleepiness as okay. Well, maybe it'll calm me down a bit because I'm anxious about this thing that I have to do tomorrow. And when you're a bit sleepy, you're a bit less caring of things.
- [16:15]
Damien
You mentioned circadian rhythms. Would you just explain?
- [16:19]
Stephanie
So in the simplest way, we're like, well, we've got a giant clock that sits in our brains and your body loves to run to time. And so there's certain quite influential activities on that clock. One of them, one of the most influential things, is your exposure to light. Doesn't necessarily have to be natural either. And depending on what time of day it is, you can really improve, you know, how you feel, but also depending on what time of day it is. For example, having light too late at night, and for long periods of time, you can actually delay your sleep onset because it's so influential on that timing. And your sleep wake cycle is one of those circadian rhythms. And you have others as well, like temperature, mood regulating hormones, appetite regulating hormones. They're all on this clock. And the timing of certain behaviors, like, for example, when we eat, when we get up in the morning, they actually really sort of set the pace for your circadian rhythm. So you can actually, if you're all over the place and you get up at different times every day, you eat at different times, you move your body at different times, you will continue this sort of cycle of feeling quite chaotic, not really having any predictability about your mood, how you feel when you feel awake, when you feel sleepy. But if you're quite consistent about a few key things, like when you get up, when you expose yourself to light, when you move your body, and when you eat, no matter what you want to do, you don't have to do what I tell you to do, but just be consistent with your own pattern, you will start to notice, you'll feel a bit superhuman because you will be predictably alert in the morning. A bit like I know one of you felt after doing the sleep diary, or both of you felt when we did a bit of an intervention. So you can make yourself, without any of these external things, feel a lot better. But unfortunately, we love a quick hack. I always get asked, even now, journalists are saying to me, can you give me like your top three hacks? And I'm like, oh, God, I don't want to make it seem like these things are hacks. It's biological, it's happening already. There's a few ways you can influence it and just keep it going.
- [18:29]
Damien
But without it being a hack, is it possible to reset our circadian clocks?
- [18:34]
Stephanie
Yeah. So with people who have quite significant circadian clinical differences, so you can have an extreme morning type and an extreme evening type. Most people think they're a morning type or an evening type, but the reality is it's usually our own behaviors that are affecting whether we feel a morning type or an even type light, for example, what you're doing in the evening, if you're working and, you know, looking at bright lights all the time because you're extending your day, eventually your sleep will be delayed. And a lot of people say to me, oh, it's when I get my best ideas and Things like that, and they might be right, it's true. But in most cases I find that actually if you reset them a little bit by getting them to stick to a specific get up time, getting them to expose themselves to quite bright light in the mornings at specific times, it depends on who you are and what you want out of your day and what timings you want, then you can actually shift it quite quickly. So in those people, most of us, you can just get up at a very specific time to start with. It will be tricky for you, especially if you're all over the place, but eventually you will start to notice, you will be feel like a morning person because you're, you feel like you're waking up just before your alarm. If you've ever done that before, you start to do it more consistently. But there are people out there that have delayed sleep phase syndrome or advanced sleep phase syndrome and they are extreme morning types and even types. We're talking about people who can't get to sleep until 3 or 4 in the morning and they cannot get up before midday or 1 1pm they're quite rare. But even in those cases we can use that sleep scheduling so we can effectively set their morning times and we do it gradually and we can use bright light, we use light boxes to help shift their circadian timing. So if we can do it in those individuals and it is hard for them to do it, then it's actually much easier for people that live probably in the average circadian timing windows. It's just that most of us struggle with that because it means being consistent and it probably means shifting around a few of your activities during the day, which most of us don't want to do.
- [20:43]
Host
See, there's something very interesting that's unfolding in this conversation which is that you're constantly talking about consistency of wake up time, not consistency of the way that you go to bed. Yeah, but I'd think about like sleep candles and lavender bath oils and actually the hotel I stayed in last night put a nice little bag of lavender on the bed along with the breakfast menu. Lovely.
- [21:06]
Stephanie
Yeah, lovely.
- [21:08]
Host
Taking a bath, you know, foot rubs, all of those sorts of things. So is that not where we fix our sleep by getting everything really?
- [21:16]
Stephanie
It really isn't. It's actually if you're doing those things to try and improve your sleep, they will not work. The only time those things will work or you have the perception that they're working for you is if your sleep drive is intact and it's strong and your sleep drive starts in the morning. So the moment you get up in the morning, your sleep drive starts. It's like a gaze.
- [21:39]
Host
How would you describe a sleep drive?
- [21:41]
Stephanie
Like pressure. Like, the more time you spend awake, the more pressure you build to sleep. So I love that, because the irony being that you need to spend more time awake, which is what everyone is afraid of, in order to sleep. Eventually, you will sleep. It's impossible for you not to sleep. We need to be more aware of that. Cause I think a lot of people are afraid, especially when they have significant sleep problems, that they will lose the ability to sleep. And that's really sad. And that's what really fuels that anxiety. Your routines that you do in the evening. I'm not saying that they're not nice, that they're not relaxing. Relaxation is really important. Relaxing in general is incredibly important. It facilitates that process. If you've got a lovely, strong sleep drive and the timing of your morning and your day is more considered and consistent, then when you relax, you will fall asleep quicker. You will have all the benefits that you want. But if you start with your evening routine, very likely you are gonna start to get anxious because you're gonna start to think, why are these things working for everyone else? Cause that's what we all think when it's pushed at us so much. But they're not working for me. And what happens is people think, oh, it's inherently a me problem. I'm the 1% that can't be fixed. So by the time someone comes to me, it's really sad because they're like, I have tried and everything, and they go through everything with me. And I'm like, you haven't. Because we've got these key things over here. But they're just so different from what they're being pushed and marketed and what
- [23:09]
Host
tends to be the things that they've done that they feel should have solved their problems.
- [23:12]
Stephanie
So the first things they say is, I have great sleep hygiene. Have you heard that term before? I've heard the term, yeah. It was supposed to be a term that was made up to help people understand some key things that might help with their sleep. But that has been extended to so many different things. And also, just because things impact or affect sleep, that doesn't mean when you have a sleep problem, reducing the temperature in your room is going to suddenly fix all your problems. The only reason that fixing the temperature in your room might work is if it was the problem in the first place. You said it too cold, you had a sleep problem, you fixed it. And that logically, most people are going to do those things before they go to the doctor and then be told, oh, I think you should take this list of sleep hygiene and do all these things. How many people do you know who sleep well, who go through a list of 20 things before they go to bed or during the day to make their sleep?
- [24:06]
Host
Like that, you know, when you put it like that, like, let's think about it. In any other walk of life, if you want to drive the kids to school really well, you don't sit there nervously at the wheel going through a checklist of 20 things that you're about. You just get in the car and safely drive them to school. Or if you want to have a really nice evening with your mates at a restaurant and you want to make it amazing, you don't all sit there and go, right, guys, these are the five things that we're going to do as a team to make this meal really good. You just kind of relax and enjoy the dinner. And it's really weird, isn't it, that we're so obsessed with this thing that we think is the font of all happiness and health, which is our sleep, yet we're.
- [24:41]
Stephanie
We've turned it into a performance.
- [24:42]
Host
Absolutely turned it into a performance.
- [24:43]
Stephanie
But I can understand that because of how we can turn other things into performance. Like originally tracking was more for running, right? And if you do track your run, it's likely that you can probably improve your run with various metrics. But with sleep actually getting out of its way because of the fact that it is that natural, biological thing, even if all you learn from listening to this podcast or reading the book is that if you do nothing, you're going to be okay. That would be wonderful, because at the moment, I just see people worry so much about all this stuff. Ever Since I was 19 years old, I got to do something really amazing, which is have one of those gap years at university where you go off and do a placement. And I got to go and work at Harvard Medical School sleep labs, and I was taught Quite young at 19 about your circadian rhythm. And suddenly I was like, oh, so I don't need to worry when I don't sleep that much on one particular night. And, you know, my sleep will always recalibrate and it's actually quite flexible. And you. My REM sleep is going to increase when I need more emotional support, and when I've been working out of the gym, my deep sleep might increase, and I haven't got control over that. And so I just need to not worry about this. And, yeah, there are a few key things like we talk about that can influence it, but otherwise, it just happens, and I don't need to worry. It's just one less thing for me to worry about. And so from a very young age, I didn't have to do that. And as my career went on, I started to think, what's the difference between me and all these other people? Because I am not having these issues. Of course I get sleep issues every now and again. You know, I've had surgeries and, you know, I got sick, but I've never worried about my sleep. And that's when I realized I was like, wow, I. I don't. I don't wake up in the night, and I don't go, oh, my God, it's 3:00am I've only got three hours left. And that's when I realized that is what I needed to do, is to help people understand that you just take it away, take it away, pluck it out of the worries that it doesn't need to be there. So you don't sleep tonight. What's the worst that's gonna happen? Sometimes I don't sleep when I'm overexcited. Nothing is wrong. I'm just overexcited. And I have loads of ideas, and writing the book was exactly one of them. And I was pregnant at the time. Of course I couldn't sleep. I was too busy, like, getting excited about what I was writing and growing some bones. But I wasn't worrying about it. And so it didn't carry on for a long time.
- [27:05]
Host
So if we're not worrying about it, is it okay to wake up and in the middle of the night, go downstairs, have a glass of water, maybe look at our phone for 10 minutes, or stick something on the telly, and then eventually go back to sleep?
- [27:17]
Stephanie
Yeah, that would be absolutely fine. If things start to happen quite repetitively and you start to notice patterns that are impacting you during the day, that's when I would say, we need to step in. You need to maybe see someone about it or go through some sleep retraining, which is effectively what people do with me in clinic. And all that means is that something's become misaligned and we just need to get you back on it doesn't mean you have to live like a nun for the rest of your life and never do these things. Yes. If you woke up purposefully every night and you watch TV for two hours, your body's gonna get used to you doing that and it's going to wake you up to say, hey, it's TV time. And probably you're not getting up at the same time every day, and you're not. Not napping during the day, so you're not overcompensating. Your drive will build up and you won't be able to do those things every night if you're being consistent about the right things. So if every now and again you did that, especially when you had something the next day and it was stressing you out and that was calming you down, going downstairs and watching the television. You know, traditional, even traditional sleep training taught me that I wasn't allowed to tell people what they could do at nighttime in terms of, you know, you mustn't watch TV because screens are not good for you, blah, blah, blah. And I was thinking, I'm dealing with this very highly anxious patient who is. He's got horrible sleep problems. Like, they. They're under the impression that something terrible is going to happen to them and they're not sleeping. And of course, that turning into sleep deprivation because they're just getting more anxious about it. And you're telling me that they have to lie in the dark or sort of, you know, go downstairs, but don't do anything. Like, I need them to be able to relax a little bit, especially if they're doing some of those key things that keep their sleep drive strong because they're so much more influential. You're likely to override all this with a strong sleep drive. And that attitude of, okay, my sleep can be a bit varied and I don't need to worry about. You will get back on track.
- [29:10]
Damien
So take us into a virtual surgery with you, Steph, that somebody might be listening to this, that they're hearing the message about, don't worry about sleep. You will find it, you know, removing anxiety, stripping it back. What are the killer questions that you would ask that our listeners could maybe ask themselves?
- [29:29]
Stephanie
I guess, how. What do they feel they need to do to sleep? That's probably the first question. And if they answer with anything other than, I don't feel I need to do anything, I don't know what to do, like, it just happens, then that's a good place to start. And then I start finding out what some of their worries around, what they have to do around their sleep. Like, why do you feel you have to do that? So you take this supplement. Okay, tell me more about the supplement and how do you feel about it and what happens if you don't have it and what happens when you have a bad night on the side? Supplement. And you know, what if you don't take it? And then they start to tell me more. And from that I start to understand a bit more about why they're anxious and what those underlying beliefs are. I think also, like, what. What is your goal here? Like, why, why are you worried about your sleep? Because obviously most people that come to see me are worried about their sleep. Why are you? Why? What is it? And usually they'll say, well, because I've been told that sleep is really important and da da, da, da, da, da, or I need to understand, is it because you are starting to feel, physically or biologically, you feel like there's something wrong? And why is that? Is it because you are feeling drained during the day? Tell me, tell me more about how you're feeling during the day or tell me more about how you're thinking about this. Basically, I like to try and tease out how biological it is or how physiological. You know, what's happening, what are the side effects for you that are physical and what is happening in your mind about this? Like, how are you thinking about it? So I think that's probably the first thing I would get people to do is try to differentiate between the fear or what you feel you should be doing because somebody has told you that that's how sleep works. And then also, what are the side effects? What are you gaining? What do you want here? And if somebody's saying to me I want to feel more refreshed in the morning, then, okay, I start to help them understand what they can do to potentially feel more refreshed. And we have to exclude a bunch of other stuff because there is so much other stuff out there that's going to affect how refreshed you feel, from your nutrition to how much you move to your mindset about things. There's so many things, but I think that's the first thing they need to start to understand. Is it the fear of not sleeping or is it that they really do feel like there's something physical wrong with their sleep and how that impacts them? I think that's the first thing.
- [31:52]
Host
Well, I'll tell you what then. Let's try and make the next five or ten minutes the most valuable for anyone listening or watching to this. Who. Maybe they want to revolutionize their sleep. Maybe they just want to improve it slightly. Maybe they want to not worry about it. Right, so where do we begin? What's the sort of the first thing that you want people to understand about how they can get themselves into a great sleep routine or rhythm.
- [32:15]
Stephanie
So the first thing I would say is you need to forget about your evening routines. Like liberate yourself from everything that you have done before. Start as if you're a newborn baby and you don't know what you're doing or anything like that. So take away all the things that you think you need to do for sleep. That's the first thing I'd say. And the second thing I'd say is we need to start with your morning routine. And then I would go into that. So your morning routine would be you want to try to get up as consistently a time as possible. So not just at the weekdays doing one thing and then at the weekends letting it all go.
- [32:53]
Host
Why can't you just chill till 10am on the weekend?
- [32:56]
Stephanie
Because that's when things get disregulated and you'll start to feel wobbly. And the real sort of impression of that is, you know how on Sunday evenings, I don't know if you've ever had those Sunday night blues or people talk about the Sunday night blues or what happens is they start to not be able to sleep that and it's usually because of all the random sleep routine they've had during the weekend.
- [33:19]
Host
I have so many people that say I never sleep well on a Sunday night. And I've always thought it's because they either don't like their job or there's a big week ahead. But it's probably because they've allowed themselves a lion. Right, on a Sunday morning. But a lion's lovely though.
- [33:31]
Stephanie
Yeah, but why do you need the lion? Is it because sleep is usually the lion is a reflection of how inconsistent your patterns are. Not that you're not getting enough, enough sleep, but I think that's where people start and then they worry. So they want to extend their sleep out and the only time they can do that is at the weekends. But if you start consistently getting up at the same time every day, you will start to notice that you feel more refreshed on a regular basis without having to do much else. Your body loves predictability. So even when you have a bad night, if you were consistently getting up at the same time every morning, the likelihood is on that odd day, you might not even feel that different because your body want. It's like, oh, you get up at this time every day, so you want me to start increasing, increasing your cortisol, those weight hormones. You want me to feel awake and refreshed. You usually move your body at this time. And you eat at this time, so you want to feel hungry and you want me to basically start all your wake mechanisms up. But when you don't do that, or you lie in bed, or maybe you're not even sleeping, but you're just lying there with the curtains closed, it's still quite dark, your body doesn't really know whether you want it to start up or not. Your body starts getting confused. So that regulation, that get up time is going to make you feel better. Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't feel like you needed the lie in? I'm not saying lying in your bed and enjoying your Sunday morning is not something you can do, but if you feel you have to rely on that in order to get through your week, then something is wrong. It's not because you have an early get up time during the week, it's because it's inconsistent. So, and most people have to do that for work. And I just think it's so sad that the only thing that gets us up is, is work. And then when you've got an opportunity to live your weekend, you want to spend it in bed. That's not right. We, you know, we need to sort of change our expectations and think, you know, the morning person who gets up and goes for a run or feels really good and wants to enjoy their family in the morning, that should be the normalizing thing. Not it's normal for us all to lie in until we're feeling a bit better. But actually a lion usually makes you feel worse and it doesn't make, it doesn't change your sleep, it doesn't make anything better. You don't, you don't catch up on sleep and feel better for it.
- [35:35]
Damien
So is this advice appropriate for teenagers as well?
- [35:38]
Stephanie
So teenagers are slightly different in that they need more sleep and they tend to have a slight delayed sleep phase. So for that time when they're teenagers, they tend to go to bed later, get up later and need a bit more sleep. And that's a real pain for parents because, and for school, because school isn't really designed to be on that schedule. So it is a bit trickier with teenagers. And my own really, really advice around teenagers is to sort of try to still, there still needs to be some consistency, some rhythm, but at the end of the day, you know, society is really against them. And so if we clog up their weekends and the time when they do get an opportunity to rest, that's not ideal. So I would actually say like less extracurricular activities and just Helping them to recover. Essentially, if the get up time has to change, it's still better to have some consistency in the new change. So for example, it would be better to have two separate get up times which are consistent. So you do one thing three times a week and you do the other thing four times a week rather than every day. Have it all over the place. Do you see what I mean? So any consistency is better than none, that's for sure. So even if three or four days a week it can be the same. That would be helpful, but. But society is really against teenagers and I don't have the answer for that because it's not really fair on them and they're sort of, you know, I know I'll struggle when Anda becomes a teenager because I will. I'm a morning person and I really want to have that consistent morning wait time for everyone to feel great. But I know that they are doing a lot of work in their brains as teenagers and they're developing and so that's probably the only time where this would be slightly different. But I still believe that any consistency is better than none and that obviously playing video games all night or right up until the point where you're sleepy is not too ideal just because of the amount of information that's going in. So there still needs to be some kind of buffer, but it just doesn't need to look like elaborate routines and things like that.
- [37:43]
Host
Everyone has that friend who does things the hard way. You know, the one sticking with an old phone because it still works. Look, I used to be that person, right? Especially when it came to overpaying for wireless. Then I switched to Mint Mobile. It has the same coverage and speed as my old provider, but at a fraction of the cost. Mint Mobile gives you premium wireless unlimited talk, text and data without the high price. Keep your own phone and number, activate with ESIM in minutes and start saving right away. With a seven day money back guarantee and customer satisfaction ratings in the mid-90s, it's easy to see why people stick with Mint. Ready to stop paying more than you have to. New customers can make the switch today and for a limited time get unlimited premium wireless for just 15 bucks a month. Switch now@mintmobile.com HPP that's mintmobile.com HPP upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan required 15amonth equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only over 50 gig may slow when network is busy. Capable device Required availability, speed and coverage varies. Additional terms apply. Cmintmobile.com
- [38:53]
Workday Ad
Could AI help you do more of what you love? Workday is the next gen ERP powered by AI that actually knows your business. We help you handle the have to DOS so you can focus on the can't wait to dos. It's a new workday.
- [39:07]
Walmart Business Ad
AI is transforming customer service. It's real and it works. And with Fin, we've built the number one AI agent for customer service service. We're seeing lots of cases where it's solving up to 90% of real queries for real businesses. This includes the real world complex stuff like issuing a refund or canceling an order. And we also see it when Fin goes up against competitors. It's top of all the performance benchmarks, top of the G2 leaderboard. And if you're not happy, we'll refund you up to a million dollars, which I think says it all. Check it out for yourself at Fin AI.
- [39:39]
Host
Okay, so, so the number one thing we're offering for people is drop all the things you do the night before. The number two thing is get yourself a consistent wake up time. But then you're also saying are you be intentional with what you do after you wake up? So getting up at the same time but lying in the dark for an hour actually confuses our body. Right. So what should we do when we wake up first thing?
- [39:59]
Stephanie
So the most influential thing on all of this is light. So the more light you can get, the better. And I appreciate that. It's winter right now, for example, and you probably can't get a lot of natural light. So a bit of artificial light is not going to hurt you, especially first thing in the morning. In fact, if you could flip your day on its head, you know how we always get all the technology out just before you go to bed? Like everything is on, there's so many lights on that you have to switch off. If only we could do all of that first thing in the morning, like dancing around the house. Get the music on, get your technology out, do all your scrolling, do it in the morning, do it in the morning. Much better for you. That will help you get up. It will do exactly the same thing as it does for you in the evening, which isn't ideal because it's too much information all the time. But that light, light exposure is really going to help first thing. It's going to be more influential in the morning space. So really, really try to expose yourself to more light. Most of us are not getting enough light in the morning, especially in wintertime in places like the uk. So light exposure, moving your body, so actually getting up and doing something, you don't have to do all your, all the best exercise first thing in the morning. You might like it if you did that, but you don't have to do that, but just moving your body so your body knows this is time for it to start getting engaged and, you know, start all those wake mechanisms. And eating is quite helpful as well because of your appetite regulating hormones being on that clock when you're eating, your body knows that you don't want to be sleeping. So all those things are like little mini ways of helping your body to understand, oh, you want to be awake. And then the more you're consistent with the timings, the more over time you start to notice that you are more predictably, you're in a better mood and you, you feel more awake at specific times. And you can learn things about yourself. When people tell what kind of person they are, but their routines are all over the place. I'm like, that's not real. I need you to be consistent about your behavior and then you can tell me about your sleep and your wake time and then I can learn something about you. But right now, there's a reason that you feel completely chaotic. It's because your behavior is all over the place. But those are the most influential things, especially first thing in the morning. That would be quite helpful. And even if you don't like to eat breakfast, because I know there's a thousand diets out there and I'm not about to argue with you about what diet you should be on for sleep. Don't worry about that. It's more. If you don't like breakfast but you like to eat your lunch, then try to be a bit more consistent about when that time is and your body will start to really pull in line with you. And it's a lovely feeling. People often say to me in the first sort of week of trying to retrain their sleep. This is all the kind of thing we would speak about in those first weeks. They often say, okay, my sleep hasn't improved yet because sleep needs a bit of time to do that, but I'm starting to feel really good in the morning and I feel like I've got so much more time and energy, but my sleep hasn't changed yet. And I'm like, yeah, because you've made something a bit more predictable about your day and your brain's starting to learn when you want it to feel the way you do. So it's not always about what just happened to you in your night's sleep, hence why blaming it is not ideal. And then what happens when you blame it and you think, I've had a bad night's sleep, I'll have the chocolate cake for breakfast and I won't go for a run and I'll cancel all these activities and I'll stay with really still and rested for the whole day because I'm trying to encourage my sleep to come. And actually that's the worst thing you can do. So actually being more deliberate about your day and enjoying your day and forgetting about the night and being more considered and consistent during the day, I wish we could all do that more and not cancel our activities and have the social time and see your friends in the evening and stop worrying about your sleep. And then I promise you your sleep will realign itself. It takes a bit of time. People want, people want it to happen in three days.
- [43:35]
Host
So if people start waking up at the same time getting some light and some movement first thing in the morning, how quickly?
- [43:43]
Stephanie
A couple of weeks. Couple of weeks. I would say a lot of people, much quicker, but a couple of weeks I give them.
- [43:51]
Damien
So as a takeaway for anyone listening to this brilliant conversation, Steph, you use an acronym, awake. Would you tell us about it?
- [43:57]
Stephanie
So I love the acronym because AWAKE is what we need to concentrate on. So, so be more awake. But this is what it stands for, this is what I've written in the book. So accept variation. So this idea that we really need to accept that imperfect sleep is actually quite normal, that you can't have a specific amount of hours, even if you're an eight hour sleeper, which we are not all, you can't have that every single night. So you've got to accept that and that will really help with your expectations around it. Wake up at the same time. So that W stands for wake up. And it's all about just being more consistent about the wait time. A lot of people seem to think, and I understand why, because it's in sleep hygiene, go to bed at the same time. But actually you don't need to worry about that. You actually need to think more about going to bed when you're sleepy. But the one thing you can control, and this is the bit where you can control a bit of your sleep, is wake up at the same time every day. Avoid chasing your sleep. So this is where you stop the clock watching, stop looking at your clock at night, stop trying to catch up with sleep. It's actually Better to be more consistent with.
- [44:55]
Host
My sleep tracker says you're now one hour, 48 minutes in debt. And so I try and catch up with. With the dead.
- [45:01]
Stephanie
Yes.
- [45:01]
Host
Or my wife Harriet will very often go, I need to go to bed early because I only had five hours sleep last night or whatever. So she's already deciding at 2pm that she needs an early night whether she's sleepy or not.
- [45:11]
Stephanie
Yeah. And the reality is you can't really do that. You have to start from the morning. Okay. So trying to catch up is not ideal. It's probably not going to work, but even if you do, it's probably not going to make you feel better. The only time that would work is when you had a really consistent sleep routine and then you had a whole night, for example, stripped away from you because you had to get up for a flight, for example, or something like that. And then because it's so unusual, you might actually be able to have a nap and recover some of that sleep and it not really impact anything because you were so good at your sleep routine before. You're so consistent with that morning routine. That probably would work. But in most of us, because we're so variable and all over the place, it's probably not going to work for you. The beauty of your sleep is that it recalibrates itself. So it's quite good at knowing, oh, Jake hasn't had as much sleep tonight, so tomorrow night we're probably going to increase his REM or his deep sleep because he won't have got as much as he needed. And the duration of your sleep might not even change. So that's how incredible your sleep is. But the fact that we're always so focused on the metric, I'm not saying duration is not important, but I'm saying it's not the only metric. And also it's not one you can control anyone anyway. So try and focus more on equality and those sleep behaviors. But yeah, avoid chasing your sleep. Keep your daytime strong. So k keep your daytime strong. And that is all about doing that light movement, eating quite consistently. Be more deliberate. If you want to chase a routine around your sleep, chase the day one, not the night one. Get rid of the night ones and chase the days. That's more important. Be more considerate about your day and expand how you define success. So that's really important. It's just understanding and, and being okay with the idea that sometimes, even if you've had eight hours or whatever you see as the right sleep for you, you might not wake up feeling Refreshed, you might get four hours and feel really refreshed. You might. You know, there's so many. There's so many things. But we have to define our expectations of our sleep differently if we're going to ever be okay. Because it seems like we're sort of creating this epidemic of really getting people anxious around their sleep. And that's a whole other problem. Extreme anxiety. That's what's happening. And that's harder to fix. Way harder. So if we could just expand how we define success in sleep, then we'd probably stop worrying, you know, in a world where we're having to worry about so much at the moment. So, yeah, awake, it's just a little acronym to help you. But if you can just remember, I just need to focus more on being awake and less on the sleep, you probably would start sleeping well with the a few weeks.
- [47:46]
Host
Amazing. Thank you. Can we talk about our sleep diaries that you asked us to keep?
- [47:52]
Stephanie
So I wanted to find out how you slept in the first week before we made any changes. So you were asked to track your sleep, if that's what you do in any way that you do it. Not necessarily using a tracker. Do all the rituals as usual. If you take magnesium, if you do certain things before you bed. Sorry, before you go to bed, how did your sleep go and how did you feel about your sleep? How much time are you spending thinking about your sleep?
- [48:18]
Damien
Well, the first week I found myself over the last 18 months being really militant about bedtime, what time I go to bed and getting there at the same time. So around 10 o' clock and then read when I get into bed and then try and sleep after that. So my anxiety about sleep probably starts around 8 o' clock ish in the evening where I start getting quite fixated on it of making sure that I'm in bed.
- [48:49]
Stephanie
Okay.
- [48:50]
Host
So I'm totally not anxious about sleep.
- [48:52]
Stephanie
Okay.
- [48:53]
Host
The I sometimes don't like it when I feel tired or I haven't had enough sleep. Like today when I'm thinking, Blimey, I'm a 15 recovery thing. So any anxiety that I do get when it comes to sleep is feedback that's being given to me. Buy my wearable tech. Right.
- [49:07]
Stephanie
Okay. So you're tracking it.
- [49:09]
Host
Yes, but I don't. In the evening, you look at it, start getting worried about, oh, I better go to bed, I better go to bed. My thing is that since we've had kids, I've become a really light sleeper. I used to be a deep sleeper. Now the tiniest Noise in the house wakes me up. And in the spirit of what you believe, I'm actually quite relaxed with that because if my house is on fire or my kid is being sick or there's a burglar trying to get into my daughter's bedroom, I actually don't want to be a very deep sleeper. I'm the person in the house who should be alert and ready to, in my opinion. But that does mean I wake up a lot in the night. And normally it takes me about half an hour, 45 minutes to get back to sleep. And I will pick up my phone and look at it and my wife will nudge me and say, please, that's shining in my face, even though I have the brightness on minimum. And I go under the COVID So look at the phone.
- [49:55]
Stephanie
Do you nap in the day?
- [49:57]
Host
So, yes, this was. We recorded this right around Christmas, and it was really indulgent for us because we were napping during the day because we could. Because the kids were off and we would watch a Christmas film in the afternoon. And I'm actually quite a napper. I actually think you can build an empire based on napping. So I will steal 20 minutes on the train to London or home. I will sleep in the back of a car. If I'm traveling somewhere, I will go and lay on the bed in the middle of the afternoon and just have a little siesta. I do like doing that. One of my biggest challenges is that when we go to bed, I am so tired about half eight, nine o'.
- [50:34]
Stephanie
Clock.
- [50:34]
Host
And I think that's why I'm not anxious about sleep, because I fall asleep really easily. But what often happens is I fall asleep. Harriet remains awake. And even the process of her quietly turning off the TV half an hour after I've fallen asleep wakes me up, and that's then another hour for me to get back to sleep.
- [50:49]
Stephanie
So it's interesting. So you think you're ready for sleep and you're good, good sleep, because you can fall asleep at the beginning, but you can't maintain it.
- [50:58]
Host
Whereas Harriet wants to watch some telly, chill out a bit more, but then when she goes to sleep, she's asleep. So quite often I said to, in the morning, I couldn't sleep last night. She's like, why didn't you wake me up? I'm like, I tried. I literally tried to wake you up and tell you that I couldn't sleep. But I think that's also part of the thing that people are struggling with, is when you get a partner and you get married. Like the luxury of sleeping in your own bed all the time has gone right. Plus I'm now nearly 50, so I definitely wake up for a pee every night, which I didn't do when I was younger. So there's all these little things.
- [51:31]
Stephanie
Yeah, there are. And do you know what? There's nothing wrong with anything you've said or anything that you do. Yes. I can see how you could make a few changes that would probably improve your sleep maintenance so your ability to get through the night. One of them being trying to avoid napping during the day, which to start with would probably be a bit of a struggle. And it's nothing you need to do, but it's just if you want or want to change your expectations or want a different type of sleep, there are ways and means you can do it. Do you need to though? I don't think so. Not if you're unhappy with it and you're happy with the way that you are. I think trying to stick to something that isn't right for you, like you said, is not going to stick anyway. It might help and improve your sleep in the short term. And I've seen that before when trying to impress certain things on people that actually, you know what, their sleep is not bad and their expectations of their sleep is fine. But yes, I could probably see how we could improve it. So in the second week I asked you to try and think about sleep a little bit differently. So understand that it is allowed to be varied, that you don't need to worry about getting a certain amount of hours each night. Stop tracking, forget about all the rituals and focus on a few key things you can do in the morning that we've already discussed. So how did you feel about that?
- [52:48]
Host
It was better. It was actually really nice to not wear a tracker. And what was also really interesting is my 13 year old who also wears a tracker, didn't wear it.
- [53:00]
Stephanie
Okay.
- [53:01]
Host
And she slept better.
- [53:02]
Stephanie
Interesting.
- [53:02]
Host
She said that she was kind of chilled because she wasn't wearing it. Yeah.
- [53:05]
Stephanie
Okay. So the point of this experiment was not to make your sleep different because the reality is in such a short period of time I would want you to do these things for longer. What I wanted to do was find out how you would feel. So how did you feel about your sleep in the two weeks? Because I've got data which shows that, yeah, you didn't, you felt, you didn't feel think about sleep that much. But in the second week it feels like you didn't think about sleep even more.
- [53:33]
Host
No, I didn't consider. I tell you what was nice in the second week is that I knew that you wanted us to wake up at a specific time, get some light and get some movement and, and that actually was really instrumental for the rest of my day. Because my wake up time was half six, I decided to go and do like a spin on the peloton for 30 minutes. So by 7am I'd been in a light gym, spinning my legs around and I felt like that was the game changer for me. I kind of felt like I'd won the day. I thought, whatever else happens after 7 o', clock, I've got up at specific time and done a bit of exercise. And you're right. That then removed any anxiety and made me think even less about what time I started sleep.
- [54:10]
Stephanie
And what, what was your energy like throughout the day and going to bed at night?
- [54:14]
Host
Yeah, the energy was improved from that consistent wake up time.
- [54:17]
Stephanie
That's interesting.
- [54:18]
Host
Yeah.
- [54:19]
Stephanie
Okay. So Damien, what about you? How was your sleep in the first week and how did you feel about sleep?
- [54:24]
Damien
My sleep was fine generally in that first week, but I feel the second week when took on your challenge, I noticed I relaxed a lot more at bedtime. So I stayed up and watched tv. Even though it might be close to midnight when we were finishing watching a program, I felt more relaxed going to bed. Still got up at relatively similar time. I think the bit that I struggled with was almost like the tiredness of waking up. I don't know what you used the term to describe it before. When you talk about that grogginess when
- [55:00]
Stephanie
you first wake up, that sleep inertia.
- [55:01]
Damien
Yeah, that sleep inertia. I had more of that, that. But once I'd got through that sort of, that fogginess, my energy levels were higher. But I think it was the lack of anxiety about going to bed. I mean, just for context, I don't use any trackers at all because I'm quite obsessive and I worry that if I get into my head that I need to have a, I need to be sleeping at a certain time or a certain level. I know that that just feeds on itself and creates more anxiety. So I deliberately don't do that. But be more relaxed about the bedtime was helpful.
- [55:37]
Stephanie
And what we did, I mean, we did it for a really short period of time and all I wanted to do was see if I could change your mindset rather than anything else. But I think one of the most key things is that sleep didn't probably change that significantly better. Or worse. And that's another really important point to make, that all these things that we might do, like taking magnesium, tracking your sleep, they weren't significantly making your sleep better either. And I think that's quite interesting.
- [56:04]
Host
Yeah, I think you. I think you're totally right. It's the biggest thing was just relaxing about it, so not even worrying about whether your sleep was better or not. In fact, in the second week, I wouldn't even know really whether my sleep was better or worse, would you? Because I wasn't thinking about sleep. And that's, I suppose, brings us back to the title of the book. Think Less Sleep More Sleep More More.
- [56:24]
Stephanie
Yeah. I think also just to add that if you're doing any of these things like sleep tracking and it works for you, then that's so fine. Like, this isn't about trying to shame people into not doing things or saying certain products are not good. I just don't think like that. I just think we're all so unique and that if people just understood more what are the main influences of sleep, then they can make better decisions for themselves and they can feel better about it and spend their money wisely and just do the things they enjoy, take the supplements you want to take, but there's no fear around it and there's no, oh, my God, if I don't take this, something bad's gonna happen. That's the most important thing for me, I think.
- [57:03]
Host
You've been so full of vital, valuable advice. The biggest lesson for me. I'll be interested what yours is. The biggest one for me is we can control everything, but actually, it's our body that decides in the end. So if we need more REM sleep or more deep sleep sleep, our body will do that for us. We can't make that happen or not. Actually. We're kind of out of control.
- [57:22]
Tommy John Ad
Right.
- [57:22]
Host
Of what happens when we close our eyes.
- [57:24]
Damien
Yeah. I was telling a friend of mine about your book over Christmas, and the bit that used it as a line last time, and you've used it again here, is that even the most chronic insomniac will sleep. And I think when you realize that this is a natural state, I think relaxing about it, I think what you're brilliant at doing is explaining your body. We need to relax more.
- [57:46]
Host
And if you don't sleep, you'll still be okay.
- [57:48]
Stephanie
Yes.
- [57:49]
Host
Wonderful. Thank you so much. And by the way, I know that you're a new mum, so the phrase sleep like a baby never has there been a greater lie in mankind than sleep like A baby.
- [58:00]
Stephanie
So true.
- [58:00]
Host
How's your sleep?
- [58:01]
Stephanie
Thanks, guys. Yeah, it's all right. But, yeah, as you can imagine, when my baby doesn't sleep, I am not sleeping.
- [58:08]
Host
Yeah, but that's fine.
- [58:09]
Stephanie
It's fine. It's gonna. This too shall pass.
- [58:12]
Host
There you go. Stephanie, thank you so much.
- [58:13]
Damien
Thank you.
- [58:14]
Host
Thank you, Damien Jay. I love it when someone comes in and they say to us that the whole industry around sleep is basically feathering their own nest. And it sort of feels new when you speak to Stephanie, that they're not necessarily doing everything they can to make our lives better, they're doing everything they can to monetize our sleep. Therefore, they can run successful businesses. And what Stephanie's really saying can't be marketed because it's, be flexible, get up at the same time every day, move and get some light in your body. And almost that is more valuable than all the other things that we've all been doing to try and be perfect sleepers.
- [58:50]
Damien
Yeah. It reminded me of, like, I remember hearing somebody say years ago that supermarkets can't sort of market fruit because. Fruit.
- [58:58]
Host
So, yeah, you can't market an apple, so they have to make a product out of an apple.
- [59:02]
Damien
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So they sort of dress it up. And I think the key message that she was saying there is that, like, when it's not adding up, start taking away. And I think that idea of just stripping the sort of the apps, the trackers, and all the other things from it and sometimes just removing the anxiety. You know, not all data is good. You know, especially when we don't necessarily
- [59:22]
Host
understand it, but also trust our bodies more. I thought it was really interesting what she said about if you need a certain type of sleep, your body's gonna make sure you get that. You can't force yourself to have more REM sleep. It's just gonna happen when you go to bed in the evening. And I think not trying to chase perfect sleep. I'm definitely guilty of it. My wife's guilty of it. We think about the hours, we think about the kind of sleep that we've had. We constantly asking ourselves if we feel tired or not. And I think the message from Stephanie that just relax with the whole thing and let it go a bit, I think is really powerful, and I hope for our audience there was some really good stuff there.
- [59:55]
Damien
Yeah, definitely. It was a brilliant interview and based on a brilliant book. I'd really encourage anyone if they're having any questions around sleep. Go now. Let be what Steph described in her initial interview. Be a Sleep Explorer.
- [60:08]
Host
Yeah, great. Right. I'm off to bed because I'm knackered.
- [60:14]
Workday Ad
Shipping, billing, admin, payroll, marketing. You're managing all the things so why waste time sending important documents the old fashioned way? Mail and ship when you want how you want with stamps.com print postage on demand 247 and schedule pickups from your your office or home. Save up to 90% with automated rate shopping. That's why over 1 million small businesses trust stamps.com go to stamps.com and use code podcast to try stamps.com risk free for 60 days.
- [60:44]
Tommy John Ad
Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy John Underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day. There's zero chafe thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands and their innovative horizontal Quick Draw Fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to tommyjohn.com today for 25% off your first order with code comfort. That's tommyjohn.com comfort Tommy John comfort perfected
- [61:18]
Workday Ad
could AI help you do more of what you love? Workday is the next gen ERP powered by AI that actually knows your business business. We help you handle the have to dos so you can focus on the can't wait to dos. It's a new workday.