The Wellness Scoop - Bite-Sized: 4 Tips For Better Sleep

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

We’re joined by Guy Meadows, physiologist and leading sleep expert, to discuss his simple tips and habits that we can implement on a day-to-day basis to improve our sleep. Here’s a brief recap: The importance of prioritising sleep Why we should strive for regularity How sufficient exposure to natural light during the day helps us sleep better at night Why blue light inhibits sleep Daily habits that promote our drive for sleep and quality of sleep Why consistency is the key to better sleep Guy Meadows: ‘The Sleep Book: How to Sleep Well Every Night’ https://sleepschool.org/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online, and sign-up only takes a few minutes.

Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hi, I'm Ella Mills, the founder of Deliciously Ella, and this is our podcast, Delicious Ways to Feel Better. This year we've launched a new format with these short 10 to 15 minute bite-sized episodes which will hopefully give you everything you need to know in a really digestible practical format and each month we're going to be having a resident expert join us to delve deeper into one topic and the topic for February is sleep. So during February we're going

to be joined by Dr Guy Meadows, a physiologist who is a leading expert in the space of sleep. Guy founded the Sleep School which is a team of global sleep experts with over 10 years of experience. They use evidence-based and clinically proven education and tools to help everyone with chronic sleep issues to sleep better every day. Guy is also a published author and in his book, The Sleep Book, How to Sleep Well Every Night, he shares his method, blending mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to help readers sleep better naturally. So we've taken a really foundational look at sleep over the last three weeks with Guy. We've looked at why sleep has such a huge impact on our physical and our mental health. We've looked at the links between what we eat and our sleep.

And we've looked at mindfulness, stress and our mindset on sleep. And today, I'd love just to finish off this Bite Size series on sleep with Guy on four tips for better sleep every day and Guy I wondered if we could start with that and what are the things that we can start to implement on a day-to-day basis that will really start to change our sleep and hopefully really improve it yeah so I think number one for us at sleep school and this has been our kind of mission for a long time, is prioritise sleep in your life. I think if you're going to make any sort of changes with sleep, you've just got to set that intention. I see sleep as a really important part of my

health, you know, my wellbeing, enabling me to move me towards what I value and, you know, sort of move me towards my goals, etc. So just ring fence it and go, I'm going to prioritize it, I'm going to, you know, sort of spend a little bit less time on my digital devices, I'm going to sort of try and get my biological sleep need every single night. So that's number one, I think. Then, you know, I've spoke about this on other episodes that we've done, you know, another really big one, but incredibly simple is just keeping that regular timing, going to bed, getting up at the same time, you know, most days of the week. If you can do it seven days a week, that's absolutely fantastic. Your sleep will love you for it. Your body will love you for it. It's, you know, it's just, it's so good because it keeps your body clock on time.

But, you know, don't beat yourself up if you can't. If, you know, just do it as much as you can, because I realise there might be some shift workers, you know, sort of listening. And, you know, if you do shift work, well, then just try to keep that irregular pattern as regular as possible. If we then think about, you know, I've mentioned before to you that we often say that the night time is a reflection of our daytime. So if we think of some of the simple stuff that we can do in the daytime, and you touched on it a moment ago, light. Light is absolutely fundamental to sleep and our mood. And actually, you know, some really core habits that I have is that I will make sure that I get two

sort of little walks and they're only sort of, you know, 10 minutes each around a local park, but I get those in, you know, get away from my desk and, but also to get the light in. But then I also have a little light therapy lamp on my desk as well. And I get sort of 15 minutes of that. And this is because light is fundamental to helping synchronise our body clock to the time zone that we're on. So when you get light, especially in the morning, I always talk about 10 minutes at 10am, that basically sets you up for a better night's sleep, you know, the night to come. So... And why is that? It's because what's happening is

we've got these 500 million year old light sensitive cells in our eyes, which are detecting how much blue light is in the environment, i.e. blue sky or sunlight. And we've evolved to live on a planet that rotates between light and dark. And so what happens when the sun comes up, that sunlight is hitting our eyes and it's informing our body clock that the day has begun. And that starts every single biological process. It kicks start the biology, which enables, you know, sort of digestion and all of the other daytime activities. And then as we go through the day and it begins to get dark, that inhibits cortisol, activates melatonin, and that's then we're moving into the nighttime phase. And so we want light to light up our days to synchronize it us to this time zone, but also to help everything to stay on time. And so is that the challenge with technology

is effectively looking at loads of screens late at night is tricking your mind to think it's still daytime instead of the fact that actually it's getting dark outside? Exactly. Yeah. And that's, you know, if we look at the real basics, we are still, our physiology is still pretty much, you know, sort of caveman. Yeah, exactly. We're still very much in tune with the rise and fall of the sun. You know, we love a good sunset and that does so much for us biologically. And then what happens is we suddenly stick ourselves in front of a mini sun. And, you know, if you're super simple, if you're sat, you know, in front of a light emitting device within the last two hours before going to bed, that will reduce the production of melatonin,

delay sleep onset, reduce sleep quality. So, you know, it doesn't mean you have to go and sit in a dark room, but just from two hours before going to bed, you know, just think about, OK, you know, I'm going to start darkening down. I'm going to switch off the overhead, switch on the side lamps. I'm going to reduce the brightness down on my phone, my TV, for example. But also schedule your blue light filters as well. There's no excuse these days.

It's just such a simple thing. And is there a difference between a TV or is that just a silly question? No, it's not at all. So all of them have LCD screens. So these incredibly bright light screens which are releasing blue light. It's called blue light because it's the same wavelength as blue sky. And that's why it's so stimulating for us, helping to boost, you know, sort of our level of alertness. But the biggest one is proximity. We hold a phone really close to our eyes and there's kind of no room. The light can only go into our eyes. A TV is a little bit better because it's, you know,

a bit further away. It depends how big your TV is. But, you know, simple things is try not to be staring super close at a light. And that's why we benefit much more from a side lamp, which is generally a bit more orange in wavelength. It's generally the light is going downwards, so it's not going directly into our eyes. And that's why I always talk about, you know, having a print book and a side lamp. It's going to be better for us than a light emitting device. And do blue light glasses work? I'm always keen to stress that it's, you know, everyone has jumped on blue light. It's not just about the blue light.

It's about all light. Blue light filter glasses can be very useful. So you might want to wear them. And these days they're a little bit more, you know, sort of fashionable than they used to be. So that's kind of a bonus. And we might suggest that for people who are doing shift work, for example, having to be exposed to large amounts of light working at night, but then trying to sleep in the morning. So that could be a good use, for example. But, you know, otherwise, just try and reduce down the brightness, try to put on your blue

light filters, all these small things that will make a big difference. And are there any other things in our routine that really support better sleep every day? There are endless amounts. You know, it's again, movement. I spoke about how I will go for a little walk. I do that because one, it's good for being outside in nature. That's a bonus. Also just means I'm getting a few steps under my belt. I also, you know, I love exercise. I do lots of exercise. That's going to be really helpful. We know that exercise increases our metabolism. That increases the byproducts called adenosine, which I've spoken about on other episodes that we've done. And that's that drive to sleep.

And so what exercise does is it increases the speed at which we fall asleep and the depth of our sleep. So from that perspective, it's a huge benefit. But then also exercise is fantastic at mopping up those stress hormones that might be running around our system. And so that's going to sort of help promote better sleep as well. And any particular exercise or just going for a walk is great. Yeah, I always get, you know, people want specifics. And, you know, the research is very clear. Any exercise is better than none at all. I realise that some people don't like exercise. So do stuff you like.

If you can get someone else involved, there's a level of accountability and it's probably going to make it more fun as well. And actually the research is really mixed. You know, there's research recently which said that, you know, menopause or women benefit from resistance-based exercise. Although they did, you know, it was more than aerobic, but they still benefited from aerobic exercise. So, you know, you could really get specific, but I just say move and move, you know, sort of for enjoyment. It means that you're more likely to do it on a regular basis. Absolutely. And any other day to day tips, tricks, must haves? Yeah, I think having a regular wind down routine is absolutely crucial. And just the habit of a routine, a ritual is really great because that's your body clock literally goes, oh, they're doing those activities again. Oh, and it sort of begins to associate those activities with that time of night with falling asleep. So that's, you know,

really beneficial. But within the Sleep School app, we've got a program called the Sleep Essentials, which is for people who don't have a clinical issue with their sleep, but they just want to sort of improve it. And a big part of that is about having a really great wind down routine. So you might do, there's lots of research now which shows that, for example, doing gratitudes can be really good for sleep. And that's a lovely thing to be doing, just to creating a little bit more of a positive mindset. It might be some basic stretching. You know, there's again, research showing that, you know, we're not talking like power yoga or anything. And I have a yoga mat in two places in our house, one by the telly so that at least I'm not just sat still so that I'm sort of doing something of value whilst watching, getting a little bit of movement. But also I have one by my bed because you're about to lie still for a long period of time.

And if you've been sat still at work for a long period of time, you might have aches and pains. And so just stretching out a little bit can be super helpful but whatever you do for your wind down just see if you can make it you know activities that you enjoy activities that are are calming and relaxing and that's if you repeat it every single night that will create the sort of foundation for this really healthy sort of sleep habit which is going to move your brain and body closer towards sleep. I was going to ask that, does regularity with this routine help signal to your brain, oh, okay, this means it's bedtime. In the way that we do often for children, you know, lots of us have very similar routines we do with our children to symbolise to them, you know, before bed, we have a bath and then they might have milk, read a bedtime story with the lights

a bit lower, etc. Just doing that for us as adults work. I mean, I used to say that my children didn't stand a chance, you know, because it's sort of like, you know, that journey from they might have active play and then they've got their dinner time and then they've got quiet play and then we're having the bath time and every single phase of that routine was a little sort of notch a little milestone for your body clock to sort of go oh we're on that journey towards sleep and you're absolutely right we do it with our our children and yet as adults we kind of forget it and and actually I always love when know, when we work with new parents, I go, actually, having children is an opportunity to re-inspire, to reinvigorate your own healthy sleep habits and to get them back on track and to get some regularity and routine. Because, you know, we've got this incredible body clock that I've spoken about already, and it's just a creature of habit.

The more you can keep it on time the better. And when we go against it, we cause something called social jet lag, which is where we confuse the internal timing as a result of keeping irregular activities. So a regular sleep-wake cycle, irregular work timing, eating timing, light exposure timing, they cause it to become out of time. And that affects everything from our appetite hormones to our energy levels, to our weight levels to our weight to our sleep for example absolutely love that so in a nutshell the best thing we can do is be consistent absolutely yeah thank you so much for that guy it's it's actually just incredibly inspiring to know that something that feels simple like sleep is such a building block for our well-being and that there's actually lots of simple things we can do to to sleep better every day and to know why that may really really change how we feel and our

vitality and if that has been helpful we also have some brilliant brilliant sleep content on our app feel better alongside our mindfulness our exercise and our recipe content so you'll find all four pillars of health there it's called feel better by delicious siela if you don't have it at the moment and you'll find it on the app store on google play or you can just sign up on our website delicious siela.com and we will see you back here next wednesday for another bite-sized episode have a lovely day, everyone. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads.

Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's b-o-b at l-i-b-s-y-n dot com.