Speaker 1: We have the best jobs in the world.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love being parents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I love being a parent too.
Speaker 3: No, I was thinking of making pretzels. Yeah, that's one
Speaker 3: of your jobs acting. Yes, I love that too, But
Speaker 3: I was referring to hosting a podcast about sleep.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel like work. That's why I didn't think
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Point taken. You're right, it does not.
Speaker 3: But hey, whatever kind of work anyone does, getting quality
Speaker 3: sleep is important.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 4: I'm Katie Low's and I'm Adam Shapiro, and this is
Speaker 4: Chasing Sleep, a production of Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia in
Speaker 4: partnership with Mattress Firm.
Speaker 3: On this episode, we're taking the day off to explore
Speaker 3: sleep and work. I have so many examples of not
Speaker 3: getting enough sleep on some of the biggest work days
Speaker 3: of my life, and I want to learn how to
Speaker 3: fix that. Adam, do you remember when we were opening
Speaker 3: on Broadway. I used to count the minutes that I
Speaker 3: would sleep because Adam and I we made our Broadway
Speaker 3: debuts together in a musical called Waitress. And it's very
Speaker 3: important for your singing voice to get rest, but it's
Speaker 3: really hard to get rest when your anxiety is through
Speaker 3: the roof.
Speaker 4: Because you've got eight days to learn an entire musical
Speaker 4: and you're breastfeeding at the same time, and.
Speaker 3: You're opening on Broadway and you have a seven month old.
Speaker 3: So I remember distinctly one of those nights where you
Speaker 3: have a huge workday.
Speaker 1: I know so many people listening can relate to this,
Speaker 1: and you're.
Speaker 3: Just staring at the clock knowing that you're not getting sleep.
Speaker 4: I think our guests today are just like us in
Speaker 4: that they don't think of what they do as work,
Speaker 4: but they do know a lot about sleep.
Speaker 3: Sean Greenwood is with us and he's the Grand Poobah
Speaker 3: yes that's his actual title, and director of pr and
Speaker 3: Communications for Ben and Jerry's. Who doesn't love ice cream?
Speaker 3: And who doesn't love somebody that loves both ice cream
Speaker 3: and sleep?
Speaker 4: Also joining us doctor Christopher Winch. He has been a
Speaker 4: leader in the field of sleep medicine for more than
Speaker 4: twenty five years. A fully Board certified neurologist and double
Speaker 4: Board certified sleep specialist, doctor Winter advises individuals and organizations
Speaker 4: on sleep and personal performance. In fact, Chris works with
Speaker 4: a lot of professional athletes who won his advice on
Speaker 4: sleep so that they can be at their very best.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Chasing Sleep.
Speaker 5: Thank you Katie that it's great to be here. Very excited.
Speaker 5: I've heard ice creams involved.
Speaker 6: We'll be addressing Maslow's needs of sleep and ice cream today,
Speaker 6: so stay tuned, folks, tune in Katie.
Speaker 4: How am I going to make this podcast any shorter
Speaker 4: than six hours?
Speaker 3: There has never been two topics that speak further to
Speaker 3: my husband.
Speaker 2: That's it and his heart I am psyched about today.
Speaker 1: Chris, let's start with you.
Speaker 3: What does the research say about employees getting good sleep
Speaker 3: and how that actually affects productivity?
Speaker 5: It really runs the gamut. We certainly know that individuals
Speaker 5: who are involved in shift work, particularly sort of rotating schedules,
Speaker 5: can really suffer some significant health consequences, both in the
Speaker 5: short and long term. So if you work nine to
Speaker 5: five and have a pleasant work environment, and you're consistent
Speaker 5: with your eating and your schedule and getting some exercise,
Speaker 5: it can be awesome and probably helpful. If one thing
Speaker 5: COVID taught us is when you take schedule away from people,
Speaker 5: it can be really problematic from sleep. So I think
Speaker 5: that it really can run anywhere along the spectrum depending
Speaker 5: on what your unique work situation.
Speaker 3: Is as an actor. Sometimes i have a four am
Speaker 3: call time on a Monday, and I'm up at three,
Speaker 3: and then as the week goes on, later and later
Speaker 3: and later. I'm called into work on Fridays maybe at
Speaker 3: four pm, and I worked till three am.
Speaker 2: The Hollywood schedule is insane. H It's not great, especially
Speaker 2: for the crew.
Speaker 4: Question is The Center for Disease Control says that thirty
Speaker 4: five percent of Americans don't regularly get seven good hours
Speaker 4: of sleep at night. I guess good is the key
Speaker 4: word there. Because you can get seven hours, it doesn't
Speaker 4: necessarily mean that it's been good sleep.
Speaker 2: But what effect does that have on our workplaces?
Speaker 5: Chris Well, the short term, you're more irritable during the day,
Speaker 5: you lack concentration, you make more mental errors, and we
Speaker 5: know this from tons of research. Just a couple days
Speaker 5: of limited sleep, you know, three nights of five hours,
Speaker 5: and you make three times more mental errors than you
Speaker 5: would without it. When the stats always like to throw
Speaker 5: out the professional basketball teams after a short period of
Speaker 5: limited sleep, you're making ten percent less free throws than
Speaker 5: three pointers.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: So if you look at any game that a team loses,
Speaker 5: add in ten percent more three pointers and free throws
Speaker 5: and they probably win the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a different game, Sean.
Speaker 3: Speaking of companies that have a great work environment, you
Speaker 3: have worked for Ben and Jerry's for thirty five plus years.
Speaker 1: Is this correct?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Nineteen eighty eight was the beginning, so I've seen
Speaker 6: a few pints.
Speaker 2: How big was it in the beginning when you joined
Speaker 2: there was.
Speaker 6: Just under one hundred people and now we're in thirty
Speaker 6: five countries.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: When people think of Ben and Jerry's, we think of fun,
Speaker 3: We think of creative product names alone, deliciousness, just the vibe.
Speaker 3: Is the workplace environment actually as fun as it seems
Speaker 3: from an outside perspective.
Speaker 6: It's a great place to work. It certainly is a
Speaker 6: unique business and definitely feel very fortunate right to have
Speaker 6: happened on It's the other thing is getting in thirty
Speaker 6: five years ago it wasn't as competitive as it is
Speaker 6: today that you go all right today, I'd never get
Speaker 6: hired here. They have standards.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: Speaking of taking care of your employees, have you done
Speaker 4: anything to promote over the years health and wellness amongst
Speaker 4: your employees?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Definitely. So we do have like a free health club workout.
Speaker 6: Jim Right next to me here. So you know, one
Speaker 6: of the things that we do actually give people is
Speaker 6: ice cream. So we get three free pints of ice
Speaker 6: cream a day.
Speaker 1: Yes, Adam, just quit being an he jumps.
Speaker 6: See Adam, you think now like all right, benefits, start
Speaker 6: weighing that out. But then we want to take care
Speaker 6: of people also, so we do try to balance out
Speaker 6: the three free pints a day and make sure people
Speaker 6: are taking care of themselves and being healthy. And another
Speaker 6: thing we do here for employee wellness is we have
Speaker 6: a nap room here at our headquarters in South Burlington.
Speaker 6: I'm sitting in there right now. I think you can
Speaker 6: see that the bed here next to me and if
Speaker 6: I can move this around is.
Speaker 2: Like, oh nice, you're there.
Speaker 6: I'm right there in the sleep room.
Speaker 3: So there's a little are those Ben and Jerry's sheets
Speaker 3: and Ben and Jerry's comforter a.
Speaker 6: That's a Ben and Jerry's blanket that's on the top there.
Speaker 3: It looks so cozy, So, Chris, this is big for me.
Speaker 3: According to a twenty twenty survey by career firm Zippya,
Speaker 3: thirty three percent of workers admit to napping while working
Speaker 3: from home. That's a third with so many people that
Speaker 3: are working from home at least part of the time,
Speaker 3: what do you think is going on. Do you think
Speaker 3: maybe that companies should be worried about occasion naps or
Speaker 3: is it a good thing.
Speaker 5: I think that in the past, napping was viewed as
Speaker 5: being universally weak. A decade ago, we built a place
Speaker 5: for Pittsburgh Pirates players to sleep, and I remember their
Speaker 5: one requirement was they didn't want to call it a
Speaker 5: napping or a sleep room because they said that sounded lazy.
Speaker 7: So they were taking steps.
Speaker 5: To provide a place for their players to get a
Speaker 5: little sleep, but they ended up calling it the regeneration room,
Speaker 5: which I always thought was great. My kid want Ime, asked,
Speaker 5: what's going on in the regeneration room. I said, well,
Speaker 5: if a player gets his arm ripped off sliding into
Speaker 5: second base, the scientists in there can regenerate an arm.
Speaker 7: And he believed that for years, which was great, good, perfect.
Speaker 5: But I think that more forward thinking employees or employers
Speaker 5: are looking at napping and saying, look, taking a fifteen
Speaker 5: minute nap to radically improve your performance in the second
Speaker 5: half of the day, that's an easy investment. And I'm
Speaker 5: going to tell you, there's nothing better than a fifteen
Speaker 5: minute little nap or you close your eyes in terms
Speaker 5: of the way you feel in the second half the day.
Speaker 5: So rather than getting this sort of subpar four hours
Speaker 5: later in the day, if you want to lay down
Speaker 5: and close your eyes because like you said, you're a parent,
Speaker 5: you got a newborn at home, or there's something else
Speaker 5: going on. I don't have a problem with that at all.
Speaker 5: And I think when you look at sports teams, they've
Speaker 5: really embraced that. And I think a lot of forward
Speaker 5: thinking companies are installing nap pods and places where their
Speaker 5: employees can sleep during the day. So, like Sean, you
Speaker 5: build a nap room, even if nobody uses it, you're
Speaker 5: sending a message out to the employees that you've got
Speaker 5: work to do, but your sleep is really important, and
Speaker 5: we're going to support that in any way we can.
Speaker 6: And it's nice to be able to offer it, right,
Speaker 6: And so we have this here at our headquarters for people,
Speaker 6: and I think it's exactly what Chris was saying, Like
Speaker 6: we've got folks who are new parents that all of
Speaker 6: a sudden have a newborn and that they're coming in
Speaker 6: and they have that look, right that's frazz old and
Speaker 6: hair is kind of messed up. And there, you know,
Speaker 6: it looks like they watch the Red Sox and Yankees
Speaker 6: play till the fourteenth inning and they and you talk
Speaker 6: to them, Yeah, baby was up. I didn't get much sleep, tonner.
Speaker 6: And so the idea of going whatever the reason is
Speaker 6: here to be able to have a spot set up
Speaker 6: for people to just say, go get there, have some rest,
Speaker 6: get back on your game, because you can tell right this,
Speaker 6: like what Chris is saying, it's not rocket science, Like
Speaker 6: you know, when people are not at their best, right right,
Speaker 6: that's a very easy thing to see when someone's like,
Speaker 6: I didn't sleep well and you go, yeah, you're coming
Speaker 6: across that way.
Speaker 3: Do you notice people feeling better if they've hit the
Speaker 3: nap room. Can you speak to any of the things
Speaker 3: Chris is speaking about in terms of your workplace.
Speaker 6: When you think of efficiencies, like for our manufacturing facilities,
Speaker 6: they are measuring constantly. They know when our mistakes made.
Speaker 6: That then leads to downtime, that leads to inefficiencies. Right then,
Speaker 6: I think another piece that is interesting. Right, we run
Speaker 6: our manufacturing facilities here twenty four hours a day. Who's
Speaker 6: going to last for which shift, And what if you
Speaker 6: get on the wrong shift. What if you get on
Speaker 6: the shift that's not where your strength is. All of
Speaker 6: a sudden you're struggling to make it through the whole,
Speaker 6: whether it's day or night. What if somebody gets hurt.
Speaker 6: We are certainly measuring everything that we can, right the
Speaker 6: saying you measure what you treasure. When it comes to
Speaker 6: business operations, you've got to do that, whether you're trying
Speaker 6: to cut down on ways, make less mistakes, protect your people.
Speaker 6: So I think it is really important stuff and to
Speaker 6: be able to apply that for all of us makes sense.
Speaker 3: Sean mentioned workplace safety being a concern if employees don't
Speaker 3: get good sleep.
Speaker 7: Is that true, Oh, one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: It's not only workplace safety means so many more mistakes accidents.
Speaker 5: There's so many high profile Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valde's,
Speaker 5: and when you go back and read the reports of
Speaker 5: these accidents, there's always sleep deprivation involved and really really
Speaker 5: bad decision making that seemed great at the time. I mean,
Speaker 5: this is a very, very difficult thing to get around.
Speaker 5: And even though it's not a workplace accident, I'm sure
Speaker 5: Sean's very aware of the fact that individuals who are
Speaker 5: not sleeping well are less healthy. Then you start looking
Speaker 5: at the long term effects life shortening. And I don't
Speaker 5: think that's a pretty radical statement, right. It's considered a
Speaker 5: class to a carcinogen, particularly with breast cancer and women
Speaker 5: and prostate cancer and men. So they're missing more work,
Speaker 5: they're more sick, they're costing insurance is more like the
Speaker 5: health consequences. Just keep on giving when it comes to
Speaker 5: short changing your sleep. And believe me, I see plenty
Speaker 5: of people who say, look as long as I get five,
Speaker 5: I'm good. And these are people that are good until
Speaker 5: they die at fifty five. Everybody's standing around the funeral
Speaker 5: reception and can't figure out, Man, he was so active
Speaker 5: and he did triathlons and he was just so healthy. Yes,
Speaker 5: but he was rotting on the inside because he was
Speaker 5: always limiting the amount of sleep that he needs to get.
Speaker 5: So it's a devastating process, but it's a slow one.
Speaker 5: It's like rust. So you know, these smart gm the
Speaker 5: smart coaches, the smart CEOs always going to invest in
Speaker 5: sleep because they're always going to get that money back.
Speaker 3: And then some definitely it's an investment in your people
Speaker 3: and come on, It's like, what's more important than that?
Speaker 3: So Sean, tell me a little more about the nap
Speaker 3: room there of Ben and Jerry's. Do the employees there
Speaker 3: ever worry about whether or not they should use it?
Speaker 1: Do you have any rules in place?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Right, because I think people get concerned going, we can't
Speaker 6: do this, And I think what we feel like is
Speaker 6: to trust your people. We're not watching the clock for them.
Speaker 6: We trust our employees that they're getting their stuff done,
Speaker 6: and when they say, hey, I need to go recharge,
Speaker 6: this is their own time, and then we trust that judgment.
Speaker 6: So I think, you know, the only rule really is
Speaker 6: basically first come, first served. So when once people get
Speaker 6: to the nap room, they close it up, put the
Speaker 6: sign out saying I'm in here using it. We try
Speaker 6: to ask people limits about a half an hour.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the naps. The naps a snack, not a meal. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so yeah, thirty minutes. That's a great limit.
Speaker 6: I think that feels like that's the sweet spot for us,
Speaker 6: and so we try to encourage fans of napping at
Speaker 6: work who are working for us to say, get in
Speaker 6: here and find your spot when you need to, just
Speaker 6: one at a time. That's the rule. Only one nap, bring.
Speaker 2: One never done.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good.
Speaker 4: This has been a great conversation and we're going to
Speaker 4: pick it up soon more Chasing Sleep in a moment.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Chasing Sleep. We're talking about sleep and
Speaker 3: work with our guests Sean Greenwood from Ben and Jerry's
Speaker 3: and sleep specialist doctor Chris Winter.
Speaker 2: When you get hired.
Speaker 4: As a sleep coach, is that what you would call
Speaker 4: yourself when you were working with athletes?
Speaker 5: That's sort of offending every coach that I've ever worked with,
Speaker 5: because God knows, you don't mean like your pick and
Speaker 5: roll was terrible.
Speaker 2: The players aren't calling you coach in the hallways of that.
Speaker 7: Let me take over this practice here real quick.
Speaker 4: When you get hired for something like that, let's say,
Speaker 4: with the professional athletes, what is it that you typically
Speaker 4: do for them to get started with fixing their sleep schedule.
Speaker 5: The whole reason I started work with athletes is completely accidental.
Speaker 5: I was looking at it as a research project, and
Speaker 5: one day in two thousand and seven, the San Francisco
Speaker 5: Giants called and they said, we have a lot of
Speaker 5: trouble with our travel and our scheduling.
Speaker 7: Can you help us.
Speaker 5: I'm like, sure, but understand what you're getting. I have
Speaker 5: no experience doing this at all. We started working together
Speaker 5: and they won three World Series and span five years.
Speaker 7: And if you look in that first World Series, just by.
Speaker 5: Being smart about the way we traveled them during their
Speaker 5: I think that was against the Texas Rangers, if I recall,
Speaker 5: they annihilated them because they really paid attention. They had
Speaker 5: their manager, Bocie was really into this kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: First thing is there's sort of a micro and a
Speaker 5: macro thing happening. The micro is every player, just like
Speaker 5: every human on this earth, has got a sleep story
Speaker 5: to tell. You've got any sleep problem you can imagine,
Speaker 5: I mean feeling like you get nervous before you pitch
Speaker 5: and just feeling like you don't sleep well.
Speaker 7: So there's all kinds of things. So that's the micro.
Speaker 7: The macro is, how is.
Speaker 5: The team sort of scheduling itself as they travel. The
Speaker 5: athletic trainers and the strength and conditioning coaches, and they're
Speaker 5: there hours before the players get there and hours after.
Speaker 5: So the organization is trying to figure out how can
Speaker 5: we support the sleep of our entire move towards a
Speaker 5: World series ring and so it's really just about culture.
Speaker 4: Sure, Chris, can I just throw in this? Could you
Speaker 4: not work with the New York Giants?
Speaker 5: Just throwing that out there, Okay, I do not work
Speaker 5: for the New York Giants at this time.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, let's just leave it that way.
Speaker 5: That's a podcast episode right there. So picking the time
Speaker 5: when we're most able to be productive as an actor,
Speaker 5: as an ice cream manufacturer, as an athlete, as a
Speaker 5: school teacher, whatever you do is everything.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting.
Speaker 3: Whenever I get a call back, whenever I have like
Speaker 3: a chemistry read for a big job that I'm up
Speaker 3: for and it's like that's going to be at six pm, I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, no, you know.
Speaker 3: And whenever they're like your audition is at eleven thirty
Speaker 3: or like, you know, ten thirty am, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be peak. I'm going to be like
Speaker 3: have up and all my cylinders firing and just really
Speaker 3: in the zone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Famous scientists had this great quotation.
Speaker 5: It was something like, for everything we do, our bodies
Speaker 5: have a peak and a troth.
Speaker 7: So there is a perfect time for Katie to read
Speaker 7: for the.
Speaker 2: Part John, are you a morning person or night person?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm a morning guy, but I will you know,
Speaker 6: I still go I hate sat in front of Chris,
Speaker 6: but I'm one of those guys like, oh I got
Speaker 6: five I'll manage tomorrow.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: It'll be like twelve thirty at night when stuff is
Speaker 6: winding down, and then five thirty six, I'm up and going. Right,
Speaker 6: it's rusting from the inside.
Speaker 3: Wait, it's okay, so you're a morning person, but your
Speaker 3: lax on, like, whoops, I only got five hours of sleep.
Speaker 3: Do you notice yourself how important that good sleep is
Speaker 3: before you have a big meeting or have to make
Speaker 3: important decisions.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think. I mean, i'd say for the company,
Speaker 6: we definitely have that feeling like people seem to be
Speaker 6: so much more creative when they're rested, and when you're
Speaker 6: trying to be innovative around that and people are not rested.
Speaker 6: I think it's very much. That's pretty clear. And then personally,
Speaker 6: I think feel the same way. And for me, a
Speaker 6: lot of times, it feels like it's not that it
Speaker 6: wasn't trying to get good sleep. It might be like
Speaker 6: you didn't make it all the way through. It feels
Speaker 6: like that was interrupted. It just wasn't as effective, right,
Speaker 6: as being able to put your head down and be
Speaker 6: done all in a run.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about sleep schedules. How important, Chris is a
Speaker 4: schedule for sleeping? How do you kind of go about
Speaker 4: making one?
Speaker 5: I think it's important because a brain loves a schedule.
Speaker 5: So I'm a neurologist. That's sort of my background is
Speaker 5: I'm a brain doctor. And when you think about the body,
Speaker 5: everything the body does, making red blood cells, digesting something,
Speaker 5: eating a pretzel, I mean, everything that's happening in your
Speaker 5: body is scheduled. There's nothing accidental about anything. All these
Speaker 5: things are happening kind of behind the scenes. But sleep,
Speaker 5: when you went to bed and when you woke up
Speaker 5: is a little window we get into our circadian rhythm.
Speaker 5: And so one of the things that we can do
Speaker 5: to really regulate that rhythm is to sleep on a schedule,
Speaker 5: eat on a schedule.
Speaker 7: There was a great study.
Speaker 5: Where I think they gave somebody a candy bar, but
Speaker 5: we could substitute a pint of ice cream chubby Hobby,
Speaker 5: and if you gave it to the same person at
Speaker 5: the same time every day, versus we just give it
Speaker 5: to them at random time time. There's a massive metabolic
Speaker 5: consequence for the random pint eaters that you don't see
Speaker 5: in the people who eat their pint every day at
Speaker 5: three o'clock in the afternoon, because the body knows it's coming.
Speaker 5: So when we create a sleep schedule, we're automatically creating
Speaker 5: a schedule of the same wake time every day, probably
Speaker 5: influencing when we have breakfast. So that first part of
Speaker 5: the day is really important for setting the tone for
Speaker 5: the next twenty four hours. So I'm not here to
Speaker 5: judge any schedule, but the less random we can make it,
Speaker 5: the better in terms of when you look at all
Speaker 5: the health consequences of things like shift work, it's not
Speaker 5: the shift work, it's the randomness of the schedule. Okay,
Speaker 5: it's three am. What are you doing for two weeks?
Speaker 5: I'm on the line for another two weeks. I'm sound
Speaker 5: asleep in beds. It's like being on a jet that
Speaker 5: is literally flying around the world continuously. That's what your
Speaker 5: body is experiencing. So as much as we can, we
Speaker 5: want to eliminate that as much as possible.
Speaker 4: I also wanted to talk about real quick about competitiveness
Speaker 4: and motivation.
Speaker 2: How does sleep factor into that.
Speaker 5: Sleep's huge when it comes to motivation, and in fact,
Speaker 5: when you look at young people, that's a big tip off.
Speaker 5: Your body needs sleep like it needs oxygen, food, and water.
Speaker 5: So if it's not getting it, your body doesn't care
Speaker 5: about your job, or your family, or your hobby or
Speaker 5: your pretzel business, because all it really wants to do
Speaker 5: is sleep. So once that's satisfied, it can now go
Speaker 5: to that second tier of motivations. But we've got to
Speaker 5: satisfy this primary need before we can move on to
Speaker 5: do other things in our life. And that's good, that's survival.
Speaker 3: If you're able to schedule your sleep and get on
Speaker 3: a routine. Have you noticed that athletes and how their
Speaker 3: competitive nature and how they can succeed.
Speaker 1: Does that go up?
Speaker 3: And does that translate for anyone who may be trying
Speaker 3: to be more productive or may be trying to better
Speaker 3: themselves at work. Get ahead at that promotion, get that gig.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I don't think there's any argument. That was a
Speaker 5: big thing with the Phillies last year when they were
Speaker 5: in the World Series, like should we stay over and
Speaker 5: sleep or should we get out of town quickly and
Speaker 5: get back to Philly, And really thinking about sleep as
Speaker 5: a modifiable variable towards better performance than whatever we do.
Speaker 5: I'm not a huge sports fan, but I like the
Speaker 5: idea of let's fix the sleep in this unit, and
Speaker 5: then we can look at all the statistics that are
Speaker 5: being kept about them and see if they improved.
Speaker 7: So it's like a big laboratory.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's really interesting that to work with people who
Speaker 4: are constantly and publicly.
Speaker 7: Measured, absolutely measured.
Speaker 5: Yes, we can easily show that if you're more of
Speaker 5: a night out like you, you're the guy that I
Speaker 5: want to come in in the eighth inning on that
Speaker 5: West Coast game because it's actually two am. Oh, you're
Speaker 5: the picture that I want because you're a night out.
Speaker 5: Why would I want the morning person coming in. You've
Speaker 5: already kind of gone to sleep in your brain.
Speaker 2: I've never thought about that.
Speaker 7: So those are the easy things to show.
Speaker 1: Wow, this, this is so fascinating.
Speaker 3: Can you talk Chris before we go that. Have you
Speaker 3: noticed a big difference with everyone working from home since
Speaker 3: COVID and for example, a lot of people having their
Speaker 3: office in their bedroom. Let's say, can you talk to.
Speaker 5: This Yes, I think that is a real double edged
Speaker 5: sword there for the individuals who are sleep deprived and
Speaker 5: spending an hour and fifteen minutes commuting each way. It's
Speaker 5: been a godsend to them, sure, because the commuting was
Speaker 5: something that was an obstacle to getting the right amount
Speaker 5: of sleep. The darker side is the lack of sort
Speaker 5: of body movement and the ability to sleep whenever you
Speaker 5: want to now, So now I don't have to be
Speaker 5: in the office, I could just sleep in. I think
Speaker 5: when you start to lose what we call our zeitgibbers
Speaker 5: or time cues. When do you eat, Where do you eat,
Speaker 5: where are you getting sunlight from? All the things that
Speaker 5: let you know you're in a different place and time
Speaker 5: during the day. As you start to lose those, sleep
Speaker 5: can become extremely deteriorative. You can do it, You just
Speaker 5: have to be smart about how you structure your day
Speaker 5: in a way that's the healthiest.
Speaker 4: Sean, Are you guys at Ben and Jerry's working from
Speaker 4: home now more often or are you back in the
Speaker 4: office more.
Speaker 6: At the beginning of the pandemic we were full everyone at
Speaker 6: home and over the last I think probably since a
Speaker 6: year ago in November, so probably eighteen months or so,
Speaker 6: we've been office reopened, but still working in a hybrid model.
Speaker 4: For you working from home were you getting more sleep
Speaker 4: or did it sort of infiltrate the work, infiltrate.
Speaker 2: Your bedroom in your home, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: you're getting lesslie.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think the latter, right. I think I've found like,
Speaker 6: all of a sudden, you usually when you're at the office,
Speaker 6: you would say, oh, it's hitting like five six o'clock,
Speaker 6: I want to wind up and head home and have
Speaker 6: dinner with the family. And at home, I was in
Speaker 6: our attic, made my office space, and there'd be so
Speaker 6: many nights where you just be sitting there, working away,
Speaker 6: working away, working away, and all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 6: seven pm and you're like, there was just no sense
Speaker 6: of time. I think all of a sudden, having work
Speaker 6: at home full time, it was just really easy to
Speaker 6: kind of keep that going.
Speaker 4: Sean and Chris, thank you both so much for your
Speaker 4: time and your expertise, and for talking to us about
Speaker 4: ice cream and sleep, and for not working with the
Speaker 4: New York Giants.
Speaker 3: I have to say too, thank you both so much
Speaker 3: for coming on Chasing Sleep today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 7: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've never felt like I could use the
Speaker 3: biggest bowl of ice cream and a nap.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 2: I mean, how great did that sound?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 4: I got to get to Vermont and visit that factory.
Speaker 4: That's one thing.
Speaker 3: It's a productive workplace, which is my happy place, A
Speaker 3: workplace environment that involves a gym in encouraging wellness, environment
Speaker 3: with good sleep, a nap room. I've never felt more
Speaker 3: supported in my trailer in my life.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I don't judge you for it either.
Speaker 3: You remember, in our last episode on sleep and creativity,
Speaker 3: we learned that a short nap in the middle of
Speaker 3: the day really helps with memory consolidation and can really
Speaker 3: boost not only your creativity but your productivity. And it
Speaker 3: sounds like more companies are waking up to that fact.
Speaker 3: You know, everyone listening. I am not a sports fan.
Speaker 3: I don't care about sports, but I found so many
Speaker 3: of the things that Chris talked about. Even when talking
Speaker 3: about sports, we're so easily comparable to a common job
Speaker 3: that it all still applies. It's like whether you have
Speaker 3: a big game or a big meeting, that sleep is
Speaker 3: so important, Which brings me to my next point, which
Speaker 3: is my friends who say.
Speaker 1: Five hours a night is all I need.
Speaker 4: It's not a good thing to say five hours is
Speaker 4: all I need.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: In fact, you know, let's not listening to your body's
Speaker 4: cues or to nature's keys to just be four five
Speaker 4: hours a night.
Speaker 3: And like Chris said, it's you might not see it
Speaker 3: like a rust inside and the amount of sleep you
Speaker 3: or wedding is affecting your decision making and your day
Speaker 3: to day and your health.
Speaker 4: I also felt inspired that fifteen minutes is enough. I
Speaker 4: always think like, I can't nap. I don't have an
Speaker 4: hour and a half in the middle of the day
Speaker 4: to just like shut it down, you know, But it
Speaker 4: doesn't have to be an hour and a half. It
Speaker 4: could be you could just pop into that Ben and
Speaker 4: Jerry's nap room, go to bed fifteen minutes, and you
Speaker 4: wake up refreshed.
Speaker 3: How about that Ben and Jerry's nap room. I feel
Speaker 3: like it was so cozy. The Ben and Jerry's blanket
Speaker 3: is divine.
Speaker 4: And I think whether you're talking about being at Ben
Speaker 4: and Jerry's or working with big sports teams, all these
Speaker 4: things apphy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you're an employer and you have employees,
Speaker 3: I kept thinking about Adam, like you with all your pretzel.
Speaker 2: Employees driving around.
Speaker 3: Making sure like, oh we got rest like someone who
Speaker 3: did a really hard shift the day before that might
Speaker 3: have ended really late, really.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't be doing the next morning.
Speaker 1: And I just need to schedule all my auditions for
Speaker 1: the morning.
Speaker 4: I mean, you really should, you really should. I wonder
Speaker 4: if there's a Broadway that does shows at eight am.
Speaker 1: Oh, I used to love the matiname Ah, you'd have.
Speaker 2: Seven tonys at this point.
Speaker 1: Obviously. Who knew work and sleep they really go together.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 4: I've always known that. I've just always waited for my
Speaker 4: bosses to catch up.
Speaker 3: Oh, we have another good topic next week. According to
Speaker 3: Nielsen IQ, Americans spent.
Speaker 1: Over a billion dollars a.
Speaker 3: Year on melatonin alone. And that's just one of the
Speaker 3: sleep supplements on the market.
Speaker 2: Really, I don't even know what the other sleep supplements are.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's like magnesium which you can take in pill form.
Speaker 3: There's also like cama meal tea, or there's tons of
Speaker 3: supplemental things that people do and use in order to
Speaker 3: get a better night's sleep. And we're talking about something
Speaker 3: they call the holistic health triangle, which is actually nutrition, fitness,
Speaker 3: and quality sleep.
Speaker 2: Oof. I got one of those.
Speaker 3: I can't wait for this episode, and we would love
Speaker 3: to know what you think of this episode, so please
Speaker 3: give us a rating and review on your favorite podcast
Speaker 3: app we take them to heart.
Speaker 4: Or hit us up on our socials. I'm on Instagram
Speaker 4: at Shabby.
Speaker 3: Shaps and I'm at kat q Low's on the Ground.
Speaker 4: And don't forget to follow or subscribe for future.
Speaker 3: Episodes until next time. Hoping you're living your best while
Speaker 3: sleeping your best.
Speaker 4: Chasing Sleep is a production of Ruby Studios from iHeartMedia
Speaker 4: in partnership with Mattress Firm. Our executive producer is Molly Sosha.
Speaker 3: This show was written and produced by sound up brands
Speaker 3: Dave Beesing, Jason Jackson, and Michelle Rice.
Speaker 4: Chasing Sleep is hosted by Katie Lows and Adam Shapiro.
Speaker 1: That's Us. Thank you to our partners at Mattress Firm.