Real Girls Radio - EP 23: The science of sleep for ultimate health, happiness, sex & success

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

grab some snacks and chillax whilst we chat ABOUT...sleep, bitesize science behind sleep and how insanely important it is to our happiness, sex life and everything else! This episode will change your life!! Empower Online Coaching INFORMATION:If you quote REAL GIRLS RADIO you will receive 20% off of your coaching subscription *must enquire about online coaching before 25th December 2022 with a start date between 1st December 2022 and 16th January 2023*minimum commitment of 4 months coaching is required*must be over 18Go to www.empoweronlinecoaching.com and fill out your details & we’ll be in touch 💖Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/e-1-the-unheard-truth-of-millys-journey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the Acast Supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just hit the link in the show description to support now. This podcast episode is sponsored by Empower Online Coaching. Okay guys, so I'm sure lots of you already know, but I have worked with Emma, who was my coach when I was going through my weight gain journey. Emma, honestly, when I say it's a game changer, I am not even kidding. Just to have that accountability, support and educational guidance. It was honestly such a win. I loved it. Oh, thanks. No, I'm genuinely so proud of you.

Honestly, coaching women through their health and fitness journeys is genuinely one of my biggest passions, which is why I set up Empower Online Coaching in the first place. I was just fed up with seeing these cookie cutter plans and one-size-fits-all approaches in the coaching industry so I really wanted to reinvent the space and create the ultimate personalized health and fitness experience. So Empower Online Coaching is a safe and supportive place for women to get their guidance that they need to reach their health and fitness goals. Whether your goal is to lose body fat, improve your relationship with food, gain weight or build a bum, Emma and her team are your go-to girls. We're basically your in-pocket cheerleader hype girls who will

also educate and support you to your end goal. Everything will be housed on the Empower app where you'll get bespoke training programs, nutrition plans, food inspo, educational ebooks and so much more. You can log your progress every week through the check-in feature where you'll receive weekly changes, updates and personalised feedback. And you can communicate with myself and my incredible team through the in-app WhatsApp style chat day or night. But just remember, we aren't robots and do actually need sleep.

And we have an exclusive discount code for the Real Girls radio listeners. We've never actually done a discount code before.'re not no so this is very exclusive but if you inquire about online coaching before christmas which is 25th december for those of you who don't know and quote real girls radio you will receive a huge 20 off your coaching subscription. So go to empoweronlinecoaching.com, fill out your deets and quote Real Girls Radio for 20% off. I said Real Girls Radio. I can't guarantee that your bum's gonna look as good as my face but I will give it a good shot. Love that. Hello and welcome to Real Girls Radio. I'm Millie. And I'm Emma.

And we are both very normal real girls just like you. Here to talk about all things health, fitness and navigating your way through this crazy life. We're your new besties. We want you to feel part of our weekly chats and we're excited to invite you in to our exclusive girl gang. Grab some snacks and chillax whilst we chat. Woo! Hello, hello! We're getting straight into it. I wasn't even ready then. I was like, whoa. I've just literally pressed the start button and she's gone. I'm ready to go. Hello guys, welcome back. Welcome back. We're recording in a different studio. Yeah, I'm getting used to it.

I'm not sure. Cozy vibes. It is cozy vibes. Finding a studio that has availability has been a nightmare. And also we came here obviously wanting to record, like to film, as we usually do, and they don't have the cameras. I was so annoyed. I got here just a million he was like i have some really bad news i thought he was gonna tell me that we couldn't

even record oh my god no no no i would have lost my no no no um but yeah we're not we have no video cameras oh it's actually quite weird i don't like not being on camera on camera like i feel like yeah oh well it is what it is and we're cracking on we're still here giving you the all the content and the audio um but anyway today's podcast episode I'm really excited about yeah I can tell and there's notes on this episode I'm literally like an essay no I just sleep is a topic I'm very passionate about I just find it so interesting I remember when I studied sleep in psychology at A-level yeah I was like obsessed yeah yeah see I didn't do it at A-level I just did it at uni I didn't do it at A-level so I didn't

get that sort of intro to it I just went straight in with all the jargon yeah well yeah anyway i think well i am such like a believer of how important sleep is absolutely and i just find it very i think everyone should be yeah it really is hopefully we can change your minds on it after today's podcast um but anyway we'll start with our flop and our fly as always you can go first because i went first last time i think um actually quite topical my flaw is that my sleep hasn't been too oh my god that's quite unusual for you yeah um what's going on I think I mentioned it in the last podcast where like I'm trying to distract my brain from being alone in my thoughts so I'm like staying up really late working working and then like I just automatically expect my brain to switch oh that's so me sleep but like the weird thing is I know that's so stupid and I know that's not gonna work so it's

almost like I'm self-sabotaging myself but I think it genuinely is like being scared of being alone in my thoughts yeah no seriously I'm just trying to work do you tell your therapist this because I tell my therapist all the time yeah and she's like you just have to like you know do this do that and I'm like I can't like when I'm when I'm like every night I just find myself always on my phone like yeah distracting my thoughts all the time yeah I I used to be so good and strict with my bedtime routine but it's like very recently that I've not been but anyway my therapist actually helped me make a new bedtime routine which I'm loving kind of I guess this is gonna be my fly um I've got such a good bedtime routine now I'm loving it so I have to stop

working by 8 30 right which to a lot of people will probably still sound quite late but like I was literally working till like midnight but does that include scrolling on Instagram yeah it means like stop social media stop social media and stop working yeah yeah that's hard it is hard so I like turn off my computer put my phone away and I'll like have a shower do my skincare I do listen to a podcast while I'm like getting ready for bed um and then I make a hot drink yeah and put candle on journal read do you watch any like tv you don't watch tv no no like series or anything no not really but last week I did put Maiden Chelsea on oh yeah but it's just in the background oh yeah yeah I don't know I just can't get into TV

yeah I don't know what you mean so I the thing is with me like I think I've said this already on the podcast I think I have ADD so I have to like always be doing something right um so even when I'm watching series and stuff I have to be doing something and that's why I always end up just going on my phone when I'm watching series and stuff so I can't just like get into it into a series but I think if I just put my phone away I will be able to do that so I'm gonna just really try to do that do what you do I think having accountability is key so like you should tell someone who's who you're gonna like report back to you like i literally said to my therapist i work really well with accountability so i want you to hold me to this and check up on

me and like tell me off yeah yeah yeah okay but like oh i just feel like if you've had a good night's sleep everything is like exponentially better but then if you've had a bad night's sleep everything is exponentially worse fuck yeah that's so've had a bad night's sleep everything is exponentially worse fuck yeah that's so true so it's like why are you doing that to yourself just sleep it's not hard you do nothing you just lie that yeah so true like your phone will be there the next day yeah it's not like i don't know for me i'm always just checking refreshing things like something new is going to happen but it's just not an addiction yeah i mean we'll get into this with our sleep hacks on how to improve your sleep because the thing is i know all of this but i

still also know and relate to how hard it is to actually execute these things so i think it's so important for us to talk about it and remind us yeah go into like the actual detrimental impacts of not getting good sleep so that it kind of like signals to you like actually yeah i do need to do this yeah definitely so that's your flop and fly yeah i guess that can be okay cool yeah you so my flop um on the topic of therapy the i've been questioning my therapy what have you just done i just made a hole in my tights with my ring so i've just spilled coke on me you've made a hole in your time it's a good thing we did um yeah so I have been well recently before every therapy session I've just been questioning it like I don't need to do this right now I need I've got other things to do like I've got so much work to do like I shouldn't just be lying on my bed for an hour and talking to someone about my life like

I've got better things to do and it's so silly when I think like that because after every therapy session I feel like I needed that so much but it's always just the before and I'm like Millie putting time into yourself is the most important thing you need to do yeah work can be the second like priority like you need to be your own priority and I don't know why I'm questioning it a lot recently I don't know how how are you finding like your feeling after therapy like because I remember at the beginning like you were really emotional yeah the beginning was so hard now I don't cry as much at all in my therapy sessions it's more just understanding and like just talking but after I just feel a lot um of like I don't know I just feel very grounded and very like zen yeah very zen sort of like I've just had like meditation or like hypnotherapy or

something I I don't know if you get this but I feel like after I've had a therapy session like I feel really aware of my thoughts and I'm like I almost like take like an outsider perspective of my brain and my thoughts and I'm like yeah I understand why I do that and I get yeah yeah yeah yeah always and I feel very connected to like my younger self do you whenever like you do a lot of inner child work I do I very recently started talking about things from my childhood that I'd never touched on before. Oh, okay. So you're still quite early on learning about your younger self. Okay, yeah.

So I feel very connected to my younger self. So I just feel very like it's just me in this world and no one else. Oh, that's so lovely. But I'm trying to stop myself from questioning therapy. Yeah, no, you definitely don't need to. Because at the end of the day, like, if you're not putting yourself, your mental health first, like, how are you going to show up with your work? Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, so true. But my fly is, I went to a boxing class yesterday. Bloody loved it. Just my Friday night, going to a boxing class by myself. By yourself? Yeah, by myself. yourself? yeah by myself did you know anyone? no

didn't know anyone I love that yeah didn't know anyone and it was like me and like two guys and two other girls and it

honestly like this place called Jab it's just I've never had such a good boxing session before there are your abs hurting?

um not not yet not yet but I think she's like a swing in the chair i think tomorrow will be the dom days um yeah the days of dom the day of the ms that's it um but yeah just you whenever you're next in london and we have some free time we honestly need to go you'll absolutely love it which is never but one day oh yeah love it oh but i'm proud of you i'm proud of myself i'm gonna make sure i do it like once a week maybe we should

do a box off okay okay okay like be each other's punching bag yeah let's mangle out let's do it maybe not um okay right so let's get into today's topic yes sleepy sleep i'm just about to have some coke sorry you do that um so i actually found some really fun animal facts about sleep animal okay yeah you found some facts i found i've got six fun facts should we just fire them away yeah we'll take it in turns they're mine are all animal yeah interesting of course they are i don't know why okay so did you know giraffes can go weeks without sleeping and often sleep for less than two hours in a 24 hour period to be fair i've never seen a giraffe sleep no how do they sleep they go on the floor it must be standing up a lot of animals do you sleep standing up do they that's weird um my fun fact one in four married couples sleep in separate beds i learned that the other day it's called a sleep divorce

but they're not divorced they're not divorced but they divorce for their sleep okay because um they they find that sex is better if you're sleeping better. And a lot of the time people sleep better when they're not sleeping together. So true. So true. I can relate to that. Great fact. That's a good fact. Baby dolphins don't sleep at all in the first few months of their life.

Wow. I wonder why that is. One of the evolutionary reasons behind that. So those born blind have dreams that involve things such as emotion sound and smell rather than sight wow so blind people obviously still dream but it's just they don't see things which is mad that's so interesting um okay octopi octopus octopi, octopus, octopi. Plural. Octopi. Change colour when they sleep. How amazing is that?

To what colour? Well, I was googling it because I found this fact and I was like, wow, I need to know more. Apparently, they can change colour according to like the thing that they're on. So for example, if an octopus is on like a green plant under the ocean, it could turn green. Yeah. Must be like for like a camouflage. Yeah, protection, yeah. An octopus is on a green plant under the ocean. It just camouflaged. Yeah. Must be for a camouflage. Yeah, protection. Protection.

So interesting. That's very interesting. Sleep deprivation will kill you more quickly than food deprivation. Wow. So then starvation. Yeah. Mad. That's crazy.

Koalas sleep up to 18 hours a day oh yeah i like that in australia um i love how you're so animal people couldn't think i'm an animal um sleeping on your front can can aid digestion i didn't know that i find it quite hard to sleep on my front after my um boobs yeah oh god yeah i can imagine i wouldn't do that i still do it quite hard to sleep on my front after my um... Boobs, yeah. Oh god, yeah, I can imagine I wouldn't do that. I still do it. You don't want them to pop or anything? I don't think they're gonna pop.

Ew. Okay, my last animal fact. I'll shut up with that animal fact now. Sea otters sleep holding hands. Oh, that's really sweet. Adorable. Do you think they get clammy hands? Probably.

Okay, my last one. You'll never dream about someone you haven't already seen really yeah so everyone in your dream you have seen in your life even if you think they're strangers your brain has processed them as like you know they've sort of consolidated them and put them in your dream that's so strange i had the weirdest dream the other day can i just really quickly tell you okay quickly it was so weird there was this horrible smelly child living in my house and i was looking after it it wasn't no it's like a you know like in a horror film you get these like evil like scary looking children like really smelly it's one of them and i was looking after him and

then I found that he was throwing away all the food that I was giving oh it was all in the bin bag so I realized he had like an eating disorder and I helped the smelly little child overcome his oh my god when he did he stopped smelling smelling like where does the smell come in i don't know i know could you smell it in yeah that's so weird yeah dreams are weird so you you know this is another fact everyone dreams every night but a lot of people just don't remember them i wonder why yeah i'm not sure and you have like so many dreams in one yeah like in one yeah we can go into that right anyway like we were saying at the beginning of the podcast i genuinely don't think there is any better feeling than getting a good night's sleep like i would honestly pay so much money

to wake up feeling refreshed energized every single day honestly i don't remember the last time i had like a really good night's sleep really I don't know what a good night's sleep feels like because when I either oversleep and I feel tired or I end up sleeping I feel tired wow okay well I know for sure when I've had a bad night's sleep because I don't know when do you know when you have a good night's sleep yeah like last night the last few nights since i've been doing this new bedtime routine i have been sleeping so much better when i wake up after having a bad night's sleep i feel ill like yeah my eyes will be red and yeah heavy and like i just look bad yeah i certainly mean like your eyes look sunken and like puffy and like genuine we'll go

into this and the effects of like sleep deprivation on your metabolism your appetite but like i feel ravenously hungry all day long when i'm when i'm tired it's horrible it's the worst feeling ever um but yeah i think in today's society sleep deprivation is so prevalent like i actually think the majority of people are sleep deprived and it's just becoming like a living norm but this is why we need to talk about the actual effects of sleep deprivation because it's so much more like damaging than people even think so firstly sleep deprivation massively impairs your cognitive function yeah so you're gonna hugely

you're gonna find it so hard to concentrate bad memory difficulty concentrating it also massively affects your immune system which i think probably why we're a bit run down yeah um but yeah you're gonna have slower recovery you're gonna get unwell more often yeah massively affects fat loss appetite metabolism muscle building yeah which we're gonna delve into in more info yeah heart health you're gonna be at greater risk for high blood pressure stroke and heart failure it actually massively accelerates the um rate of aging absolutely Absolutely, I can tell. And then the obvious one, your mood. So if you're tired, you're going to be more

irritable, your anxiety will be heightened. Agitated. Low mood. Anxiety. Do you think it affects your sex drive? 100%. They've done lots of studies, especially on men, and they notice that men who are sleep-deprived have a significant drop in their testosterone levels.

So yeah, it affects everything. Literally everything in life. Yeah. And like, essentially, being awake is a catabolic state. Is that right? Yeah. Catabolic. Yeah, because being asleep is anabolic

it's building you up yeah why it's so important to actually get a good night's sleep and prioritize your sleep health if you're trying to build muscle because when you're asleep that's when your body is doing everything like replenishing all the cells it's like digesting the food it's like doing everything that it can't do in the day yeah so when you don't sleep it literally you're like you're breaking yourself up yeah you're breaking it down so when you're sleeping it's going to be boosting your immune system and repairing the muscles that you've built in the gym and it will be replenishing your skin cells optimizing your brain function improving your memory yeah it's just yeah super important and the effects

of sleep deprivation are just not wanted like i don't know anyone who would actually want any of these things no but yeah i mean one topic in particular that i find fascinating and there's so many studies done looking at the um link between lack of sleep and fat loss right yeah yeah yeah um and this is like something i try to talk to my clients about so much to prioritize why they need to be getting more sleep um so there was a meta-analysis done and a meta-analysis is when you have like a group of research projects all coming into one and then like you basically round off like a whole conclusion from these meta-analyses um and they basically found that participants who were sleep deprived only less than seven hours a night so that's not even that much really when you think about it i would i would say majority

of people are getting less than seven hours a night yeah um so they deprived them of sleep for um less than seven hours and they found that these participants consumed 385 calories more per day than those who had more than seven hours sleep. Which if you're in a calorie deficit, that could add up to an additional 2500 calories in a week. So it can really like knock you out of your deficit if you're trying to lose body fat just by getting less sleep um and there was another study which was posted in the canadian medical association journal and they had two groups they assigned one group to getting 5.5 hours of sleep and another group to getting 8.5 hours of sleep every night for two weeks um they all slept in the lab so they could look at other variables and they all had their calories cut by 680 calories per day now

this study blew my mind those who slept for 5.5 hours a night so the sleep deprivation group lost 55 less body fat and they lost 60 more of their lean body mass so they lost less body fat and they lost a lot more muscle so it was kind of like their body was prioritizing burning muscle over body fat and both groups had exactly the same calories all the variables were the same apart from one group was getting three hours more sleep a day. So it has such a big effect on your body composition. Should I tell you my study? Yeah, go ahead.

Hypothalamus. Yes. Okay, so there were some researchers and they basically had some lesions. They made some lesions in the lateral hypothalamus. Obviously, this isn't in humans. I think this is in rats. Is this like a hole? Yeah, a lesion. Yeah, like a, I don't know what sort of device they use but there was something and it

put a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus which is just a part of your brain and it made the rats completely like avoidant of food and like they weren't they didn't like the food like they they basically lost loads of weight and then they made a lesion in the ventral medial hypothalamus which is quite close to the lateral hypothalamus part and it made the rats like obese um really like lethargic like eat loads like ravenous and they basically concluded that these two parts of the brain are controlling appetite so and we'll go into like renin andptin as well. But the lateral hypothalamus is the hunger center and the ventromedial hypothalamus is the satiety center. But the hypothalamus is indicated in like the sleep-wake cycle, which is our circadian rhythm.

Yes. So obviously if our sleep-wake cycle is disrupted, then our hypothalamus is going to be disrupted, which means our appetite is going to be disrupted. I find this so interesting. Yeah. So like we were saying in that study where participants if they're sleep deprived they lost more body fat um no they lost less body fat and more muscle not only does it directly affect your ability to lose body fat but it also indirectly affects it by having like a huge role on your hunger

hormones leptin and ghrelin so leptin is basically a hunger hormone which is secreted in our fat cells and its role is to decrease hunger yeah and then ghrelin is actually in your stomach lining and that increases hunger and both these hormones kind of work in like an opposite direction to each other um so when you're sleep deprived your ghrelin levels in your tummy will increase making you hungrier but at the same time your leptin levels go down which makes you feel less satiated for your meals so if you're not getting a good night's sleep both of these hormones are working against you and I can say myself I feel these effects so much like genuinely if I have not had a good night's sleep I just feel ravenous I don't feel fill up and I'm just like hungry and like no like whether

you're on a fat loss phase or not like it's just not nice to feel hungry all day um so yeah especially if you are trying to lose body fat one of the best things you can do to help you with your goals is just to make sure you're getting plenty of good quality sleep absolutely so I'm just reading notes on my grand and leptin my university notes oh did you did you do a whole module on it a whole module the psychology of appetite which is really really annoying because I learnt so much. But now this is like two years ago. You just forget so much as well. Which is really quite sad.

Because it really was such an interesting thing to learn about. Okay, so. We're now going to touch on the circadian rhythm. Which, I mean that word does sound quite like, what the fuck is that? Yeah. It's quite complicated but it's actually a lot less complicated than you think so our circadian rhythm is our body's clock and we can like train our circadian rhythm based on well we can train it but it's also like heavily

impacted from lifestyle factors and environmental things yeah so our circadian rhythm is our sleep wake cycle so our body will wake up naturally at a certain time and it will go to bed naturally at a certain time so everything is kind of like centered in the suprachiasmatic nucleus yes and this is the kind of like control center that signals your body to release certain hormones to help wake you up in the morning and also release certain hormones to help you wind down so that you can get ready for bed um so melatonin is the one to wind down and then cortisol is so basically what happens is when your eyes perceive light in the day that will activate a signal that will travel down to a nerve which will then signal to your brain to release cortisol

and what cortisol does is it helps to make you alert and alive and wake up i feel like a lot of people think cortisol is really bad and that you never want it but it's actually a really important hormone yeah um it's just when it's just regulated yeah it's just making sure you're regulating it to like help you. Because yeah, if you get like a spurt of cortisol in the morning, it's going to help you wake up and feel alive and feel great for the day. It's the body's natural caffeine. Exactly. You don't need no coffee. You don't need no coffee.

And then on the other hand, the other side of it, like when you want to start winding down, this is why it's really important to actually start to switch off lights. Because light is one of the most impactful kind of stimulating sensors to these brain centers. And as soon as your body kind of starts to register that lights are being dimmed and it's getting closer to bedtime that is when your body will start to produce melatonin which is really really important for helping you actually get a little bit sleepier get a bit drowsier and actually start to get into that bedtime routine so what you're doing in your environment in the morning and throughout the day and at nighttime has a huge impact on your circadian rhythm. And they have found in studies that those who are better able to like kind of regulate and help your circadian rhythm to get into that cycle. Waking you up in the morning and going to sleep at the same time every night, which in turn is going to help you sleep better.

Yeah. And that is kind of like my first point on things you can do to actually get a better night's sleep um so we got some tips to actually give you some tangible advice on how to sleep better the first one is going to be to get more light during the day they actually say to like the first thing you do is literally go outside get that like direct sunlight straight onto your skin yeah that's exactly what you need to wake yourself up straight away yeah and so much sunlight in particular super important obviously it's hard in winter isn't it yeah but that's why the lumilite's really good yes i yeah i absolutely love my lumilite i need to set it set it up again oh you just exposed yourself

um but yeah definitely try to get more sunlight during the day not only just for like your sleep white wake cycle but also gets the vitamin d yeah and it's just nice to like get up get out that fresh air also helps wake you up as well i like it um my second tip which is something we both need to do, avoid the screen. Yeah. I genuinely think, guys, this is probably the number one thing you can do to improve your sleep. Yeah, I agree. If you take one thing away from this podcast, just try to remove screens and phone time before you go to bed.

And it's so much easier said than done. But just try and tell yourself, like, nothing is going on during those hours that you're, like, searching on your phone. Like, you really do not need to do that. I really actually think it is helpful to actually create some sort of physical barrier to you going on your phone. If it's right there and that's your bed, like, how easy is it? Yeah, exactly. Just reach over and on your phone if it's right there next to your bed like how easy is it yeah just reach over grab your phone I think the best thing you can do is actually like put your phone

on charge outside of your bedroom or set a time like like I have 8 30 now where I'm not going to be working like actively on social media and you just stick to it like put your phone away I also think you need to look at the reason why you're going on your phone like so Emma and I identified this because we're trying to distract our thoughts and we don't want to feel like lonely in our thoughts you know if that is the case journal write down your thoughts like get them out on papers that you're not like stuck with them in your head because I think and for a lot of us we do just distract ourselves so much on our phone like that is why it's there for a distraction so you need to just like confront what those thoughts are yeah whether

it's go to a therapist talk to someone about it you know like there's a lot more to it than you think yeah millie you're so right like have you guys ever just been on your phone like doing something and then you're like on the home page like wondering what app to go on there yeah literally what haven't i checked in a while it's because people are just so afraid of being alone in their thoughts absolutely but obviously it is harder said than done so my kind of like option to make it easier for you to eventually get rid of your screens before bed is to use blue light blocking glasses i don't personally have do not own these but i do have the thing on my phone where like i put it on nighttime mode and

i make the light more yellow um because blue light is um going to actually like make your body produce more cortisol wake you up whereas yellow light or like more dimmed lights can offset that yeah a little bit so if it's obviously not the best but it's not the best but if you feel like you absolutely can't put your phone down at least um make your screens more yellowy or put the nighttime setting on or there is an app which i've heard about called Flux which you can download on your computer your phone your laptop and it will like remove blue light and make it like a little tone so that it's not missing blue light into your there's also yellow light glasses as well which is like a similar thing to blue light blocking yeah like I think you know some people like to maybe like watch tv to help

them wind down but again that's blue light but if you put some blue light blocking glasses yeah it does it does make a difference i think also tip for me is to get like essential oils or lavender sprays because i don't know what it is but it really just makes me calm yeah and like just get into that sort of like okay bedtime mode i think even like to add to that I think it's more like having like a ritual because your body's then like recognizing that this is part of the day where you do like wind down yeah like I've got the this works sleep oh yeah nice I've got that as well do you yeah I just like spray on my pillow before I get into bed and like doing like that ritual lighting a candle yeah the candles do help as well I think it i just like spray on my pillow before i get inspired and like doing like that ritual

lighting a candle yeah the candles do help as well i think it's just like sets you up to like start winding down and know like okay it's bedtime now another one which i think a lot of us need to start doing have a caffeine curfew yep 12 it has a 12 hour life it's yeah we i do not have caffeine past 12 p.m i can't do you know no no no no see the thing is if you're like me i can knock back the caffeine i really can i can have a lot of coffee and not really feel the effects of it but you're right like coffee and caffeine will stay in your system a lot longer than you're even aware of so if you're drinking coffee or any kind of energy drink later on in the day that is going to affect your sleep whether you feel like it's having an effect on you or not um so i would yeah recommend 12 if possible but then just have decaf after yeah

that's what i do i just have decaf i mean decaf still has a little bit i know but it's better than it's yeah yeah we'll meet in the middle okay so can I say a fact yeah give us give us your fact you love a fact um wait sorry what was the fact wait what are we talking about which made me think about the fact I think we were talking about blue light blocking glasses no we're talking about something else screens tv oh I know so apparently what's the most important thing for you to do so obviously our sleep um nighttime routine is really important but we actually shouldn't force ourselves to sleep at a certain time we should actually force ourselves to wake up at a certain

time so that's where our circadian rhythm is like apparently ignited at this first like in the morning yeah in the morning so even if you're so say if you're like you know you're going to bed at 10 but you're not tired it's actually a lot worse for you to to force yourself to go to sleep at 10 because you'll be tossing and turning and like the quality of your sleep is going to be a lot less than if you were to just wait until you're tired like get up do something move around whatever make your body tired then allow it to sleep so even that could be one in the morning whatever but then if you force yourself to wake up at let's say seven eight yeah that that's night's sleep is not going to be

good at all it's going to be really short but the quality of it is going to be better and also if you wake up earlier then you'll be going to bed earlier so that's like training your circadian rhythm and like your sleep-wake cycle to be more at a time that you want it to be so this is from a sleep specialist apparently yeah that's interesting i mean that could lead us on to talking about the five stages of sleep okay which yeah i think actually understanding yes the different sleep stages is actually really important for understanding how like when to when it's good to wake up as well yeah and how it's not about how much time you're in bed it's actually about the quality which is so important yeah um so according to

different sleep scientists there are four to five sleep stages but in my opinion i would say there's five i'm not no sleep expert but yeah let's go um and they occur in a 90 minute cycle and research has shown that a good night's sleep consists of five to six of these cycles and this actually like i was saying it explains why sleep quality is more important than sleep quantity because say if you're in bed for like eight to ten hours but it's disturbed sleep where you're waking up like every couple of hours then you're you might not ever actually be getting in stage four deep sleep or REM sleep which is where you get the really like rejuvenating repairing effects of sleep deep deep sleep so if you're waking up and actually not having a full cycle you are way more likely to fill up wake up feeling rubbish um okay so we have sleep stage one which is light sleep where your muscles start to relax

stage two which is where your brain waves start to slow down you can still be woken up easily but you're like semi-conscious yeah um stage three is where you start to enter deep sleep so where your brain waves start fluctuating stage four is deep sleep where you're very hard to wake up and this is actually where like growth hormone starts to um be happen yeah happen what's the word i'm looking for um tissue growth repair starts to begin and then stage five REM sleep is rapid eye movement sleep which is where you dream and your body is actually completely paralysed. Which is so interesting. I think, I don't know if this is right,

but I think that is because when you're dreaming, it's like a self-protection method to stop you like flapping around. But when I dream, I've definitely woken up where I've been like hitting someone or like I'm crying. Like I'm genuinely crying. Or like I scream. No, actually me too. Yeah. Well, when you're crying or screaming or which one? I've had nightmares and I wake up like crying and hitting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like I found myself like swinging my arm or something. Maybe we're in stage four sleep then. Maybe we're not in the paralyzed state. Yeah, true. But yeah, so as I was saying, i think it's important to understand those five stages because in order to get a good quality night's sleep apparently you need five to six of those 90 minute cycles um and another thing that i found every night yeah five to six of those 90 minute cycles 90 minute cycles. So we go through cycles? Yeah. So what happens is your body goes through stage one to five.

And then when it's finished that cycle, it goes straight back into sleep. Really? Okay, I didn't know that. How interesting. Oh my God. When I was at uni, I learned that it was just like REM sleep, then you wake up. No, no, no. Stage one, two, three, four, five, 90 minutes, and then you go again.

That's mad. So the least amount of times you can wake up in the night the better your sleep yeah so i guess like when you do wake up say if you're going for a wee or something you're obviously not going to be in your REM sleep you're going to be in like your more conscious sleep because your body's recognizing oh it needs a wee exactly yeah but that's another good point i and one of my tips not to drink too much water before going to bed you know what's very interesting and I don't know if this is just me or if this is like a common thing when I was underweight I woke up so much always going for a wee always and some other people have also messaged me saying the same thing

in their dms and I was like oh my god like this is a reoccurring problem that people are having like I want to know the reasoning behind this is there a correlation between being underweight and needing wheeze in your sleep I would actually like to suggest that it's something else I think it's probably your body being hungry and that's what's waking you up and then when you wake up you feel like you need a wee so you go but actually if you were well fed and not hungry your body probably wouldn't wake you up for a week. It's probably just that you wake up hungry and then you're like, oh, I need a wee. I'm going to go. Rather than your body waking you up.

And it's theory, yeah. It's my theory. I'm going to look into that. But interesting. It is interesting. Another tip is to be cool. Temperature wise. Yes, yes.

Be cool, be green. The optimal temperature for your room and your environment is 20 degrees is it which is actually quite cold that is cold but yeah thermoregulation strongly influences your circadian rhythm again um and when it's time for your body to rest there's an automatic drop in your body temperature um to actually help regulate and initiate sleep so if the temperature in your environment stays too high then it's a bit of like a physiological contrast and it can really stop you getting a good sleep my circulation in my feet is so bad so i always have to wear socks when i sleep if my feet are cold my entire body is shivering cold

and that stops me from sleeping but it's like you have to get the good optimal like temperature lots of people because I enjoy listening to sleep podcasts and I know like a lot of there are a lot of like sleep experts you like go the extra mile and like will invest in all these crazy devices like a like a mattress which will like regulate your body temperature and like radio waves like wait yeah like all this crazy stuff which like fair enough like what works yeah but like I just can't I'm no I just want to make it as like easy as possible all I need is some sleep socks and sleep mask it can't be bad I do listen to some sort of like

sleep music as well we can get on yeah because I've listen to some sort of like sleep music as well. We can get on sleep. Yeah. Because I've been loving that. It really does zone you out. Yeah. I think that's another reason why it does zone me out because it distracts my thoughts. It shuts my brain from racing. Yeah.

Okay. Let's talk about that now then. Okay. So right. Remember to be cool. Remember to be cool. Not too hot. Not too hot.

We do like to be hot and spicy, but not too hot. Not a bedtime. Not a bedtime. not too hot not too hard we do like to be hot and spicy but not too hot not a bad time not a bad time um right yes so yeah sleep music sleep podcasts i have been loving i have been listening to brown noise and pink noise wow i don't know the difference but is that raincoat noise maybe i know they have never knew those yeah i knew there's white noise which doesn't actually help me see well you know you're on the airplane there's lots of white noise i have to block them out with my um airpods i don't like it no i found that brown noise and pink noise it kind of sounds a little bit like ocean waves crashing a little bit okay but it's just like a steady

like sound I just like sleep stories oh do you yeah because that helps me imagine things as opposed to like making up scenarios in my head about my own life right okay because I'm sure we all do that yeah um so yeah that's what I. Because it's kind of like going into like a different world. Dream world. Yeah. No, I need to have just like some weird, weird sounds. It can be quite eerie at first. But like, guys, I guarantee you.

So what does it sound like? Shall I play it? Yeah. Okay. Give the listeners a little taste. Genuinely, it sounds a little bit odd at first. But like, I feel like it hypnotizes me yeah hypnotizing is that's what it that's yeah oh oh so it sounds like cars

interesting wow so that how loud do you have that like a medium because that sounds like if I open my window I just that'd be the cars on the on the road you know what the weird thing is and I don't know what's going on here but sometimes if I wake up in the night and my um playlist is going I've I've clocked out of hearing it and I can't hear it even though it's playing and it's almost like it's so like deep in my brain that like I can't hear it for real it honestly sends me into the deepest sleep trance it's like a chance I'm loving it so I do recommend it that's just on Spotify Spotify I just put the playlist yeah have you had calm so I would get calm but it's just like I don't have another subscription coming from a bank account you know I mean yeah oh my god we should do a podcast on how to be

more like financially savvy that would actually be very very useful podcast for me as well and me yeah we should do that yeah guys if you want to hear a financial episode yeah that's no yeah that's no um okay so yeah that's what we listen to. Yeah. Even just like if you are struggling to like move away from your laptop, your phone, your TV, listen to a podcast, something without screen. That's still better than, you know. It is better than just, yeah. Watching TV or whatever. Or keeping yourself up in your thoughts.

Yeah. So I know a lot of people are going to ask about what a lot of people ask me about um sleep supplements and what supplements are good okay yeah yeah of course as always um supplements are literally supplementary but not not you know absolutely essential i would absolutely recommend a good quality magnesium supplement. So magnesium is actually the number one mineral deficiency in our world. And getting your magnesium levels up can instantly reduce your body's stress load and improve the quality of your sleep. So I absolutely recommend taking a magnesium supplement i recently be taking um

cbd droplets on my tongue have you yeah because it was just sent to me and i thought you know what i'm gonna try this out and it does i don't know if it's a placebo or not i really don't but it does make me more tired okay it just makes me more just zen i've never taken i've been taking it for a week so you know i'm not sure if i've had like the full benefits from it but i'm gonna continue doing it that's another supplement yeah cbd another one that i've um i've been taking for a while is 5htp oh yeah that's a serotonin i feel like the majority of people who go to buy a sleep supplement just think it's like a magic pill. And they're like, oh, yeah.

Yeah. Without doing all the other things that we're talking about. I can guarantee you if you do all of the other tips that we're giving you. You wouldn't need it. Then you won't even need it. Yeah. But they do help. Okay.

Another one is black out your room. Yeah. Like blackout blinds. Yeah. Oh, my God. My new curtains are so blackout i i can't wake up in the morning really yeah like i have to have a little bit of it open otherwise i literally can't wake up it's so important because what we were talking about you know your circadian rhythm your your

eyes aren't the only sensor that can like send signals to your brain your skin can actually like pick up light so if you've got any sort of like light coming in your bedroom that can throw off your circadian rhythm and like wake you up and like stop you getting into a deep sleep um and i like i know for me if i go to a hotel and there's like a little bit of light i'm like no no i need to like black that out goodbye i'm not too badly affected by that. But it is funny. It's interesting that one. Another one is to make your bedroom a place where you sleep and have sex and that is it. Yeah.

Yeah. True. Like don't. True. Don't work in there. Don't work in your bedroom. Don't work in your bed. No.

Don't eat in your bedroom. Yeah. I don't eat in my bedroom. Don't chill and just hang around doing weird shit in your bedroom don't chill and just hang around doing weird shit in your bedroom use it for sleep and sexy time and yeah

talking of sexy time for those of you who are in our relationship and sexually active having an orgasm is extremely beneficial for producing hormones that are going to help you sleep so endorphin releases so i guess morning sex isn't good well i mean it will like perk you up i guess yeah but you don't want to be falling back asleep again no no but yeah they've

done lots of studies on people who have sex before they sleep. And they found that having an orgasm before you sleep can help you wind down and feel more relaxed. See, I wonder what the evolutionary reasoning is behind that. You know what I mean? We always... Why do we always talk about evolution? Because that is literally where it comes from. That is like the reasoning behind everything that our bodies do. Yeah.

It's all evolution. I'm trying to think. I can't. It's the adaptation, like the human adaptation. Maybe it's so then is the sperm more likely to reach the air? Activate. Or like sleep? I don't know.

Well, yeah. Maybe if you're in, yeah. I guess when you're sleeping, that's when the body's, all the sex hormones and all the hormones are like doing its thing. Maybe. Maybe. Who knows? But actually, I think this whole having sex before you go to sleep,

it actually has that like opposite effect as well. Not opposite effect. What am I trying to say? It's like if you're having sex before you go to sleep and you're sleeping better you're then going to have a better sex life because your hormones are going to be optimized yeah having a good night I was going to say this there's a correlation because obviously if you have shit sleep your sex drive is going to go and then if you're having sex before bed you're going to be promoting sleep so you're basically sleeping and having sex all the time

they go hand in hand time they go hand in hand yeah they go hand in hand that's what i'm trying to say yeah and i don't know about you but i feel like girls are more protective and um aware of their sleep than guys so girls if you're struggling to get your boyfriend or your mom to go to bed at a reasonable time or your girlfriend then just highlight to them how getting a good night's sleep is going to optimize your sex hormones and their sex hormones so that you're going to be feeling in the mood yeah you're like look we have to have sex so that we can sleep and then i'm going to want to have sex you more because i'm well rested so then that's why people actually don't sleep in the same beds

this is what the sleep divorce is about yeah that's mad I mean my sister I hope she doesn't mind me saying this hi Anna but her and her boyfriend actually have separate bedrooms even though they live together I mean yeah

I would so do that I think I would do that yeah some some days and then i guess as well it stops you getting into that like routine like boring like getting to bed like good night like yeah and then people never actually having sex because it's just like a routine the novelty is just so not there anymore yeah whereas if you have like scheduled nights you're in bed together it's like oh special time we're together in bed you know what that means yeah maybe yeah maybe this is going to increase to more than one in four people yeah let us know if you try it yeah we'd love to know

um okay one more one more tip from emma one more tip i have so many tips here but i just think you know we don't want to take up your entire day people gotta sleep yeah you gotta get some sleep um okay this one people probably aren't gonna like me but i'm gonna say anyway if you booze you lose oh i was gonna talk about alcohol yeah so they have found that if you booze you lose did you make that up yeah i just i love it um they have found that if you um are having alcohol in your system close to bedtime your rem sleep is significantly disrupted yeah and they have found studies where like your body quite literally won't get any REM sleep or deep sleep when you are drunk or when you've got alcohol in your system and this actually explains why people feel so hungover it's because their

sleep it's because their body hasn't gone through the rejuvenating like cell reproduction yeah like stages of sleep to actually feel good the next day so if you're drinking a lot or like having alcohol a lot and you're feeling really sleep deprived it's probably groggy because of the alcohol so if you want to start improving your sleep i would recommend to cut back on yeah it's like whenever i'd come back from like i don't know a night out and i would like completely pass out and i'd wake up and be like why do i feel so sure i had like nine hours sleep last night all this stuff but it's literally because that was not nine hours sleep that's probably like a covenant of three four yeah and not even deep sleep as well yeah no REM sleep so people are very like there's like a huge

misconception around that they think they're getting the sleep because they just pass out and then they wake up and they're like oh but no you're not getting that sleep darling no sorry that's all that's a lot of information on sleep yeah okay quick round up the tips so I forgot what order I did them in but get more sunlight during the day um avoid screens or get blue light blocking glasses um have a caffeine curfew be cool be cool we'll remember that one magnesium or 5-htp yeah just a good nighttime routine like some sort of ritual or like the um sprays or candles stuff like that black out your room no light make your bedroom a place to sleep in sex only yes and sexy time before bed it's a good idea but not too long you don't want to go fast

if you're gonna have sex maybe just like get your partners come to bed a bit set a timer yeah it's an alarm. Right, stop. That's time now. Go outside for walks in the morning or exercise first thing in the morning. Also, you know another thing? Eat enough because food does help you sleep. And also, like I said, when I underate, I had such shit sleep. It was because my body was so fucking starving. Yeah, for sure. So eat enough.

I would actually say something good to eat before bed is something high in protein and not too sugary. Yeah. So like... You want something that's like slow releasing. Yeah. Oats is a good one. Yeah, like protein powder with some oats.

That would be great. Lovely. Or some Greek yogurt with yubus, yalus. Yubus, yalus. You can maybe try out the sleep soundtracks that we said about that's it i actually think guys if you start implementing these into your life it's gonna change your life it's gonna change no seriously it will it will because also it will because it will help you think more clearly you're gonna be coming up with some crazy ideas which

will probably change the world yeah literally you're going to be able to concentrate better perform better at work better in the bedroom yeah you're going to be motivated for everything you're not going to be hungry with ghrelin and leptin all over the place you're going to be a morning person imagine being a morning person we all want to be a morning person get up smash that day be like our mood is going to be so good you're going to be so so happy you're gonna be one of those people who walk into a room yeah you're gonna brighten up yeah yeah so true like what she had yeah i've had eight hours sleep that's what i've had and then you'll be like fuck like all these people be like fuck oh my god i need eight hours sleep that'll be they'll be losing you'll be winning yeah you'll be three steps ahead there'll be be two steps behind. Yeah. Five steps behind. There'll be boozing and losing.

Yeah. You'll be sleeping. You'll be winning and grinning. I just had a visual of you grinning in your sleep. That's why I do that all the time. No, seriously, guys. I actually think you need to make it your new year's resolution to improve your sleep because then everything else in your entire life will be better yeah we've got this guys I'm in it with you yeah I'm in it with you I'm fully supportive yeah let us know which of these sleep habits and tips

you're going to start implementing into your life and also let us know if you notice a difference yeah we'd love to know because i genuinely would love to know yeah like let's make this like a little research project the real guys radio research project on sleep let's get ourselves on google scholar let's have a published research paper on this imagine if we went so far to like make a university degree we're not gonna limit our potential here we're gonna do it join the sleep club we're gonna get an obe for the best research project 100 on sleep anyway guys we're gonna love the episodes oh quote oh quote fuck yeah i've got i've got one i've got a great topical one um okay i actually said i was gonna say my therapist said this to me the other day but she didn't i actually said it but it just came out in therapy

sometimes the most productive thing you can do is being unproductive yeah so like i always used to feel so bad and guilty if i wasn't being productive 24 7 yeah but like actually the most productive thing you can do is switch off and be unproductive because that is going to reignite your spark once you've had a bit of chill time absolutely um kind of related not really sort of when you get tired learn to rest not quit i quote. Yeah, there's no quitting. We just need to rest. If you never quit, you will always get to your goals. Like, just don't quit.

Just have a rest. Rest is so key in everything. Workouts, it's key in life. It's everything. We need the rest. You can't go, go, go, go, go all the time. And I'm learning that as well. With my fucking brain.

You fucking learned that shit, right? God, I'm sorry. I need some sleep. I'm getting groggy. Anyway, I love you guys. I really hope you found this episode helpful. Really sorry that we haven't been able to record it. I'm actually quite annoyed.

Yeah, I feel like this would have been good. But I mean, I do have riptides. Millie has coke on her. So maybe it's better this way anyway I need a wee I need to wrap up we're gonna go wee all right bye