Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - How can you get better sleep?

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

We chat to Dan Floyd the sleep psychologist from the better sleep clinic on sleeping hacks he has.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hits, with the Jono and Ben podcast. Thanks to Challenge, putting the service back into service stations. This week we've been trying to help poor producer Taylor because she's at the moment really struggling to sleep. But goes to sleep, then wakes up and can't get back to sleep. We've been giving blow-by-blow coverage of Taylor's lack of sleep and they said that long-form journalism was dead. I think we've brought it back.

But how was last night's sleep, mate? It was actually going really well until my bladder woke me up. Then I went to the toilet and then it was all go again. Like we said, so many people messaging, texting, getting messaged on Instagram and stuff trying to have a solution for you.

Mums, the mums have joined in. Grace's mum. Megan's mum. My mum surprisingly doesn't really care. We FaceTime all the time and she's in. Grace's mum, Megan's mum. My mum, surprisingly, doesn't really care. We FaceTime all the time and she's just like, oh, yeah, that again. That's probably all she's hearing from you. She's fatigued from that. She needs to go and have a sleep. You're right.

Well, someone who's going to hopefully help you out and also help all of us out when it comes to sleeping is Dan Ford. He's a sleep psychologist from the Better Sleep Clinic and he joins us this morning. Good morning. Good morning. Lovely to have you on. Nice night's sleep last night, was it?

Actually, I've got a shoulder injury. It's kind of disrupted my sleep for about the past week. Not a shocking night's sleep then, but you are a sleep expert from the Better Sleep Clinics in Auckland Christchurch in Wellington. All this week we've been talking about Producer Taylor who for the last four weeks has not really slept at all, has chronic fatigue, been diagnosed by the doctor

and getting a range of solutions from listeners as well. Everything from rubbing ginger on nipples to... That was your suggestion. Did you give it a go? No one suggested that. We don't know if it doesn't work then. Drinking cherry juice, white noise, there was a whole lot of different stuff. What can you recommend?

Well, it really depends what's going on. Chronic fatigue makes treating a sleep problem a lot more difficult. If someone's got a diagnosable sleep disorder, then we recommend that they'll probably have to work with a sleep specialist. How much of it is mental? It really depends. There's 80 work with a sleep specialist. How much of it is mental? It really depends. There's 80 plus different sleep disorders. So what you usually see is that the ones where there's people are sort of sleepless,

then they usually show up more on the mental health side. What do you use to go to sleep? If you're struggling to go to sleep, is there anything that you use as a little tip or technique that we can all take? I don't bother to really try. I know that the way that sleep works is if you don't sleep that well one night, in the next few nights your body will catch up. So there's no point trying.

You just go with the flow and let your body do its work. Oftentimes the disruption comes because people try too hard. So don't put pressure on yourself. Chill out. Because try too hard. Oh, so don't put pressure on yourself. Chill out. Because it is hard. When you know you've got limited time to go to sleep or you're not sleeping, you kind of can work yourself up a wee bit, right? Yeah, correct.

And then people end up wired. And, of course, it's all that effort that you hear the public sort of saying, oh, you know, do this, do that. You know, people just wind themselves up. And so that's part of treatment. And why, you know, treatment for something like insomnia, you work with a psychologist because you've got to understand sort of these vicious cycles that come up and get in the way of the person actually getting back to better sleep even even what you

just said though having that approach of like well I'm going to sleep at some point you know it's going to happen it might not be tonight anything you want to ask you want to ask Dan there Taylor um like I know you were saying that it depends on the typical sleep disorder and how that's 80 plus, so it's not as one answer fits all. But magnesium has been thrown around a lot. And I was just wondering if that actually has any solid backing behind it? It's probably the most used thing that I've seen the least evidence for. So overall, if it has any effect on sleep,

it's probably more through the path of calming someone down. But I mean, that's only part of the problem, right? When someone's got a sleep disorder like insomnia, there'll be an imbalance in their physiological sleep system. And then, of course, you might also see the person being stressed as well. So oftentimes, if you just work on being stressed, it doesn't necessarily change your sleep system. And so you're just calm and relaxed, but you're wide awake anyway. But it tends to help people with sore muscles.

And there seems to be a little bit of evidence for restless leg syndrome, which is a different sleep disorder. What about melatonin is another one that people talk about as well? So melatonin is really, so really what it is for your body is just a signal for that it's nighttime and it's time for your alertness levels to start dropping. So it's not actually going to typically make you fall asleep. That comes from a different part of your sleep system. But melatonin is just, you know, it's kind of opening up the window for the right time to sleep for you you'll get your best sleep if you sleep in line

with that but of course if you're a shift worker you guys are kind of on an early shift right you don't have to listen to it um so so you can override that so but that's really what it's for and so that's why when people got chronic insomnia often they say oh you know it doesn't make any difference to me when i take melatonin but if you're a normal sleeper you take melatonin two hours before you go to bed um you might feel drowsy dan can we fire another one at you sure if i if i have a bonds sleep session on the weekend bank up a lot of sleep saturday sunday does that help me through monday friday oh there's there a little bit of research. I used to be in the military and I used to sort of do stuff like that.

And technically, yeah, possibly. But it probably, you know, over time, it probably tend to throw out your sleep system. So sleeping in and that sort of stuff tends to actually throw things out. So are you pro sleeping in or anti sleeping in? Look, the most important thing people can do in all of sleep medicine is get up at the same time.

So don't vary it by more than an hour. Because, I mean, you go overseas, you get jet lag, right? And jet lag and the feeling of fatigue and malaise that comes with that, that's actually just because you're changing up the time, like the light-dark cycle outside. And that's what you'll do when you get up, you know, two hours later on the weekend. You're changing up the time, like the light-dark cycle outside, and that's what you'll do when you get up two hours later on the weekend. You're changing up that cycle for your body. It disrupts your body clock, and then your body clock makes you feel yuck.

What about, because you hear these things on Instagram, that snoozing's really bad, you know, just get up when your alarm goes because you can put yourself back into a sleep cycle, and you're a bit groggy when you snooze. What do you think about that? We tend to suggest that you don't have to leap up out of bed the moment the alarm clock goes on but what we say is you stop lying there because of course the more you're lying there, the more chance you just sort of keep dozing and the more you

doze, then the longer you sleep and the longer you sleep, it affects how sleepy you'll be later on. Does the 20 minute power nap work? Yeah definitely, i mean if we're working with shift workers and that sort of stuff we'll say have a short nap if you need to if you're especially if you're really sleepy during the day um have a short nap you know 10 minutes is often enough for people yeah but a lot of people with insomnia um you know they're just not sleepy at all like they're not sleepy during the day and they're not sleepy at night. And so telling them to take a nap is not going to really be helpful.

And what's the perfect amount of hours to sleep overnight? Because you hear some people do 10, some people do, Dwayne The Rock Johnson does like 30 minutes or something crazy. What's the ideal? Well, the ideal is what you probably will read these days. They sort of say seven to nine hours, right? It's kind of like different people have different shoe sizes, right? You can't expect everyone to wear a size six.

But on the other hand, it's going to vary, and there'll be some variances across the lifespan too. So usually when they say seven to nine, I think that a 30-year-old plus would sort of be in that 7 hours, maybe 6 1⁄2 to 7 1⁄2 range. And then if you're in your 20s, you might be more like 8, 8 1⁄2. And then certainly if you're in your teen years, then you'll be more talking about minimum 8, probably more like 9 plus.

Yeah, so it changes across your lifespan. If you're 70, hey, you might get you know five and a half might be normal um for some 70 year old just depends it's probably quite hard for you to diagnose over the phone but or be sort of something taylor could try um if she's if she's got chronic insomnia then um then really it's probably working with a sleep specialist but one thing could be just stabilizing that wake-up time if it's not stable. And then often it's actually about spending less time in bed, less effort to get to sleep.

Because it's actually the time you spend awake during the day that builds up the drive or the need for sleep. So actually, you know, the more time you spend in bed, the less time you're up and active. The less you're up and active, the less sleepy you are the next night. Really fascinating. Thank you. Everyone, why don't you start?

You've got so many questions on sleep. We'll keep this interview going. Dan Ford from the Better Sleep Clinic. We really appreciate your time and your expertise this morning. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers.