Speaker 1: When you go to a friend's for dinner and you
Speaker 1: get talking, or you go out on the land on
Speaker 1: a boat, or go outside anywhere on a walk and
Speaker 1: you just kind of relaxing and chilling out, and then
Speaker 1: you get back into the house.
Speaker 2: And look at a clock. You're like, oh god, it
Speaker 2: was like five hours late.
Speaker 1: And then I thought it was because the sun did
Speaker 1: not go down, and I did not realize because my
Speaker 1: brain didn't tell me that that wasn't normal.
Speaker 3: When most of us say on top of the world,
Speaker 3: we usually mean it metaphorically, as in being in a
Speaker 3: good mood or in a good place. But for Addie Scott,
Speaker 3: top of the world is a very real location that
Speaker 3: she calls home.
Speaker 1: You think of like Canada and North America on a
Speaker 1: map and go as far north as you can and
Speaker 1: west without getting into Alaska, and you find Anyuvik.
Speaker 3: Addie is a coordinator for Community Greenhouse in Innovook, Canada,
Speaker 3: a city located in the Arctic Circle. Because of its
Speaker 3: extreme north location and the tilt of our planet's axis,
Speaker 3: people who live there experience fifty six days of continuous
Speaker 3: sunlight every summer and about thirty days of polar night
Speaker 3: in the winter.
Speaker 1: So in the summer, I usually just like make sure
Speaker 1: that I try not to.
Speaker 2: Go outside past like eleven PM.
Speaker 1: And if I do, I get very confused and my
Speaker 1: brain's like, Kate, it's time to go to work.
Speaker 2: Now it's the morning.
Speaker 1: But it's great for waking up in the morning because
Speaker 1: it's just bright all the time, and in the winter
Speaker 1: mad it's hot to care a bit.
Speaker 3: In most inhabited places on the planet, we can rely
Speaker 3: on signals from the sun to let us know when
Speaker 3: it's time to go about certain parts of our day.
Speaker 3: So for Addie, who moved to Nuvik from Yorkshire, United Kingdom,
Speaker 3: the endless days and continuous nights were something she had
Speaker 3: to get used to.
Speaker 1: It's honestly, like I mean, it sounds like a cliche.
Speaker 1: It's nothing I've ever experienced before, and it's nothing I
Speaker 1: could have imagined before.
Speaker 3: It's a very unique thing that few humans will ever
Speaker 3: witness in their lives, and while whole populations have learned
Speaker 3: to thrive in this environment, it still comes with its
Speaker 3: own set of challenges. I also sat down with doctor
Speaker 3: Stephen Lockley, a neuroscientist an Associate professor of medicine at
Speaker 3: Harvard University to talk about what these unique and extreme
Speaker 3: day and night periods due to our minds, our bodies,
Speaker 3: and of course are sleep.
Speaker 4: We've not evolved as humans to live in constant darkness
Speaker 4: or constant light. We can override it with the use
Speaker 4: of electric light or light avoidance in the summer, but
Speaker 4: clearly there are still some anger effects of the light environment.
Speaker 4: It's not exactly the same as living further south, and
Speaker 4: so yes, we do find the further north you go
Speaker 4: there is a bigger risk to health.
Speaker 3: Despite the risk, people have figured out how to adapt,
Speaker 3: with evidence showing that humans may have first migrated deep
Speaker 3: into the northern hemisphere as far back as thirty thousand
Speaker 3: years ago. Today, we're going to look at what sleep
Speaker 3: is like in the Arctic Circle, a place with light
Speaker 3: and dark cycles that seem alien to the rest of
Speaker 3: the world and where the adaptability of its residents is
Speaker 3: a testament to the ingenuity of the human race. On
Speaker 3: this episode of Chasing Sleep, when the Sun doesn't sleep. Hi,
Speaker 3: I'm Anahad O'Connor, and this is Chasing Sleep and iHeartRadio
Speaker 3: production and partnership with Mattress Firm located two thousand miles
Speaker 3: north of Seattle, and with only one road connecting it
Speaker 3: to the rest of the globe. Nuvik, Canada is one
Speaker 3: of the most remote yet interesting places on Earth. Most
Speaker 3: of the Arctic Circle is so extreme that, despite some
Speaker 3: modern settlements, a lot of the land remains completely untouched.
Speaker 3: The wildlife found here is some of the most unique.
Speaker 3: The forests are dense and lush, the waters are clear
Speaker 3: and blue, the day lasts an entire season, and the
Speaker 3: nights are illuminated by the amazing northern lights.
Speaker 1: It's basically like real life Nannia is the best way
Speaker 1: to describe it.
Speaker 2: So after I.
Speaker 1: Finished my masts, I didn't know where to go, so
Speaker 1: I threw a dot at a map and this was
Speaker 1: the closest place it landed.
Speaker 2: So here I am doing the things.
Speaker 3: Wow, So you really did that and decided, Okay, that's
Speaker 3: where I'm headed, And how did you figure out how
Speaker 3: you were going to get there and prepare for it
Speaker 3: and make a life there.
Speaker 1: I actually just kind of zoomed in on Google Maps
Speaker 1: and was like, wow, there's like really nothing there, and
Speaker 1: then kind of zoomed in a little bit closer and
Speaker 1: then found the names of the towns like surrounding it,
Speaker 1: and then just looked for like volunteering and job opportunities
Speaker 1: to travel and then found a place working with sled
Speaker 1: dogs and working with them and email called them was like.
Speaker 2: Hey, do you guys have sled dog training jobs? Is
Speaker 2: that a thing?
Speaker 1: And they said yeah, And I worked for them for
Speaker 1: like eight months, left on a road trip, and then
Speaker 1: got a job at the Greenhouse.
Speaker 3: So while it must be pretty amazing to be surrounded
Speaker 3: by so much beauty, how do you handle the unique
Speaker 3: times of total light and dark that come with living
Speaker 3: in Annivik.
Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing really, Like in the summer, it
Speaker 1: happens so fast that you go from darkness to like
Speaker 1: twenty four hour daylight basically. So I know, officially it's
Speaker 1: twenty four hour daylight for one month, but the sun,
Speaker 1: even though it sets a little bit, is still light
Speaker 1: for like three months either side of that.
Speaker 2: It's really really cool.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, you have no idea what time
Speaker 1: it is any time of day, and if you're really
Speaker 1: bad at wearing a watchhalk keeping your phone on you
Speaker 1: like I am, you're just like Beth but wondering the
Speaker 1: whole time. You have no idea what time is going
Speaker 1: for a walk with the dog. I'll hanging out with
Speaker 1: some friends and you'll look outside and be like it's
Speaker 1: still light. Maybe it's ten pm. Maybe I'll go to
Speaker 1: bed it's like five am, and uh, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the next day.
Speaker 2: Oops.
Speaker 3: So that's constant daylight and then the opposite happens in
Speaker 3: the winter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the winter is twenty four to seven darkness. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of amazing because you get the northern lights
Speaker 1: the whole time, Like in the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: you'll be like walking to work to do this.
Speaker 2: Is amazing lights in the sky. Wow.
Speaker 1: So I think I in terms of like sleeping, the
Speaker 1: winter is so much easier just because it's dark all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: It's kind of nice. But in the summer, we play
Speaker 2: Operation Nighttime in my house.
Speaker 1: Because you guys have to like just close all the windows,
Speaker 1: all the cuts, put like copboard onto block out the light.
Speaker 1: At like ten pm, just run around the house play
Speaker 1: Operation Nighttime so you can sell my God.
Speaker 3: So I'm guessing Operation Nighttime is a technique for adapting
Speaker 3: to the constant light. So can you walk us through
Speaker 3: exactly what that looks like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when it hits ten pm. I have a
Speaker 1: little alarm on my phone to remind me to do it.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I just yeah, I have no idea that it's
Speaker 1: that time.
Speaker 2: And then go around and we have like blackoutlines on all.
Speaker 1: Of the windows, So me and my housemates we go
Speaker 1: around and like cover room each We just go and
Speaker 1: pull them all down. And the most important one I
Speaker 1: always forget is to close my bedroom cuts.
Speaker 2: So when I go into my bedroom, it's dark.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just remembering to do it, sitting a
Speaker 1: long and pulling those blackout clients down, making a night time.
Speaker 3: It sounds like a great way to recreate night and
Speaker 3: also a pretty interesting reminder of just how important the
Speaker 3: darkness is to signaling sleep mechanisms in our brains. But
Speaker 3: prepping the house is one thing. What's it like to
Speaker 3: work in this environment?
Speaker 1: I mean, gardening is very seasonal anyway, but it's more
Speaker 1: extreme here. So the gardening season now starts in May
Speaker 1: when it gets warm.
Speaker 2: Enough because we just get the light back then.
Speaker 1: And then in September is when we start to get
Speaker 1: what you call the average day with like a normal
Speaker 1: sunset sunrise kind of thing. But that's when it starts
Speaker 1: to get really cold here through the summer. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm working in the greenhouse. The plants love the twenty
Speaker 1: four hour daylight really crazy.
Speaker 3: So I'm curious how the plants respond over there to
Speaker 3: these periods of extended sunlight and darkness.
Speaker 2: Veggies especially.
Speaker 1: You'll look on the back of a seed packet radish
Speaker 1: does normally be like one to two months to get
Speaker 1: a fully grown radish for the good old salad.
Speaker 2: Here it's like three weeks. Wow, everything grows crazy.
Speaker 3: Fast, incredible. So the plants love the summer, But what
Speaker 3: does life look like for the people here with such
Speaker 3: dramatic shifts and seasons.
Speaker 1: Honestly, you really recognize the shift in people's like behavioral.
Speaker 2: Patterns, which I find really interesting.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in the summer, people are like active, going
Speaker 1: for a walk. You spend like so much time on
Speaker 1: the land and like you're out as much as you
Speaker 1: possibly candy, And we're in a delta here too, so
Speaker 1: there's so much water and lakes and rivers, so people
Speaker 1: are often at like in canoes on a boat, and
Speaker 1: you just spend as much time outside as you can
Speaker 1: all like, yeah, it's amazing. And then as you like
Speaker 1: shift into getting colder and then in the so everyone
Speaker 1: basically just hibernates and.
Speaker 3: Does crafts, does crafts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, keep yourself busy during the like the winter months.
Speaker 1: That's a traditional thing as well, Like crafts and making
Speaker 1: things is a very big winter tradition, especially for the
Speaker 1: women appear too, because there's just less hunting and less
Speaker 1: gathering you can do on the land. That's true of
Speaker 1: people's like natural rhythms too. When it gets really cold outside,
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, conserve the energy.
Speaker 3: So what about holidays or celebrations. Is there a way
Speaker 3: that everyone ushers in these huge seasonal changes.
Speaker 1: So as soon as the sun rises for the first
Speaker 1: time in a month January sixth this year, and we
Speaker 1: have a massive sunrise festival, so everyone comes out. Only
Speaker 1: rises for like maybe thirty seconds, so it's still really dark,
Speaker 1: but everyone comes out and celebrates and we have like
Speaker 1: fireworks and everyone makes food and we hang out and yeah,
Speaker 1: because the population is very small, so it's like three
Speaker 1: thousand people, and the same thing in the summer, we
Speaker 1: have like winter markets with the town. So there's always
Speaker 1: like a really big celebration in the winter and the
Speaker 1: summer just of like hey, this is the longest day
Speaker 1: of the whole year technically, and this is the first.
Speaker 2: Sunrise of the year.
Speaker 1: Let's celebrate these things because it's amazing that we get
Speaker 1: light back all like the light then goes away.
Speaker 3: And what about the people there who've lived there for
Speaker 3: decades or centuries. Have there been any ways that they've
Speaker 3: been affected by this kind of living?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I know, maybe not even just Canada,
Speaker 1: but across the entire like circumpolar and circum Arctic globe
Speaker 1: that does a thing called midnight summer craziness.
Speaker 2: So people people do.
Speaker 1: Go a little bit lupylo and in the summer just
Speaker 1: because you just don't sleep as much. But I know
Speaker 1: that in the past, and this is speaking just from
Speaker 1: general knowledge that people generally who were indigenous and lived
Speaker 1: on the land were really good at just following the
Speaker 1: animals and living with their families and kids are just
Speaker 1: playing out at like five am, like two am because
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter. So people have more of like
Speaker 1: a nap culture and kind of just sleep whenever.
Speaker 2: They want to.
Speaker 3: So do you feel like you've adapted to this, like
Speaker 3: your circadian rhythm, for example, has adapted to this, or
Speaker 3: is it something that's still jarring for you after several years.
Speaker 1: Of living in this Actually I kind of like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you've got used to it for sure.
Speaker 3: And what about your sleep quality? Do you notice the
Speaker 3: difference in your sleep when it's extended periods of sunlight
Speaker 3: versus extended periods of darkness?
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 1: At the beginning, Yeah, Like in my first maybe six
Speaker 1: months here, it was pretty difficult. But then I learned
Speaker 1: about operation Nighttime in the house. I've like really taken
Speaker 1: that to heart and employed that thoroughly.
Speaker 3: When I talked about the challenges that Addie faces with
Speaker 3: doctor Stephen Lockley, he reiterated the extremely important role that
Speaker 3: our eyes play and what the perception of brightness or
Speaker 3: darkness does in our brains.
Speaker 4: So the first thing to think about is what's happening
Speaker 4: at the eye as opposed to what's happened in the environment.
Speaker 4: It's the eye that detects the light to tell the
Speaker 4: brain whether it's day or night, which then in turn
Speaker 4: resets our circadian clock or twenty four hour clock, which
Speaker 4: then in turn tells the brain when to sleep, when
Speaker 4: to be awake, when to eat, and so on and
Speaker 4: so forth. The environment doesn't always match what happens at
Speaker 4: the eye. If you're in constant light, when you close
Speaker 4: your eyes, you create a light dark cycle at the eye.
Speaker 4: So the brain doesn't see constant light because you close
Speaker 4: your eyes.
Speaker 2: To go to sleep.
Speaker 4: So in that situation, closing your eyes then helps to
Speaker 4: reset our Cicadian clock.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a brief message from our
Speaker 3: partners at Mattress Firm, and now back to chasing sleep.
Speaker 3: Light or lack thereof, obviously plays an important role in
Speaker 3: not just the quality of our sleep, but the timing
Speaker 3: of it as well. We see effects on sleep from
Speaker 3: the sun and the lights in our homes, even the
Speaker 3: light from our cell phones. Addie has to black out
Speaker 3: her entire home every night when it's constant daylight. So
Speaker 3: what about the opposite of that, What sort of challenges
Speaker 3: would we see in our sleep living in constant darkness.
Speaker 4: Modern day? Obviously we have electric light, we have man
Speaker 4: made light. In the past, there may have been firelight
Speaker 4: or gas light, and so it would be unusual to
Speaker 4: be in complete darkness for that entire time. And again,
Speaker 4: if you create a light dark cycle through whatever source
Speaker 4: of light, you're providing a time queue to the brain
Speaker 4: to tell the brain when it's day or night. Now,
Speaker 4: there are scenarios that are similar to what you've just described,
Speaker 4: and for a lot of my career I've studied the
Speaker 4: impact of blindness on Cicadian rhythms and sleep.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 4: So if you don't have eyes, or if you have
Speaker 4: an eye disorder which completely stops any light perception, then
Speaker 4: your brain is essentially in constant darkness. And in that situation,
Speaker 4: individuals have a disorder because they can't in train, they
Speaker 4: can't synchronize their daily clocks to a light dark cycle,
Speaker 4: and they in fact run on their own internal time,
Speaker 4: and that causes problems when you're trying to live in
Speaker 4: a twenty four hour world. So there are scenarios where
Speaker 4: people do live in complete darkness, but we always have
Speaker 4: to keep in mind what the environment is and then
Speaker 4: what the retina and what the eye is receiving. And
Speaker 4: so most of us still live in a light dark cycle,
Speaker 4: even if we're at those extreme northern latitudes.
Speaker 3: Got it, And I'm curious what role does melotonin play
Speaker 3: in all of this. It seems like melatonin, from what
Speaker 3: I understand, your body produces it based at least in
Speaker 3: part in light signals to the brain.
Speaker 4: With internal melatonin. Your natural melatonin doesn't need light or
Speaker 4: dark to be released. It's released automatically by the circadian clock,
Speaker 4: and so the clock sends a signal to the pineal gland,
Speaker 4: which is where melatonin is released from, and that will
Speaker 4: happen on a twenty four hour pattern even though there's
Speaker 4: no light dark cycle. So in the blind people I
Speaker 4: was talking about earlier, they still have a daily signal
Speaker 4: or a daily pattern of melotonin. It just can't be
Speaker 4: synchronized to the light dark cycle. But if you have eyes,
Speaker 4: if you can detect light, then melatonin cycles so that
Speaker 4: it's maximum at night and minimum in the daytime. It
Speaker 4: isn't a sleep hormone, which sometimes people often think it is.
Speaker 4: It's a darkness hormone, and so it tells the brain
Speaker 4: it's night now. In humans, that means go to sleep,
Speaker 4: and so melatonin means go to sleep. In humans, dark
Speaker 4: and sleep go together. And so what that melatonin signal
Speaker 4: does it helps the brain tell the difference between night
Speaker 4: and day. Now, if you shine a light at your
Speaker 4: eyes at night, then your melatonin will be stopped. So
Speaker 4: when the brain sees light, it thinks daytime. It suppresses
Speaker 4: your melatonin. It makes you more alert, it increases your
Speaker 4: heart rate, it increases your temperature because naturally the only
Speaker 4: time you would see light is in the daytime. So
Speaker 4: when we expose ourselves to light at night, we're confusing
Speaker 4: the body clock, we're confusing the brain because light means day.
Speaker 3: Another thing I wanted to ask you, which I find
Speaker 3: really fascinating, is there's been some literature more and more
Speaker 3: in recent years, looking into this phenomenon of bi phasic sleeping,
Speaker 3: where you know, before the dawn of electricity, people went
Speaker 3: to bed very early, as soon as the sun set.
Speaker 3: In many cases, you know, they may have woken up
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night to do all sorts
Speaker 3: of things by candlelight, or to do some agricultural work,
Speaker 3: and then would go back to sleep until the sun
Speaker 3: came up. Do you have any thoughts on this phenomenon.
Speaker 4: It's very interesting observation and whether we've you know, what
Speaker 4: we've done to change our behavior in modern times. And
Speaker 4: first of all, we have to think again about light sources.
Speaker 4: You just said people got up to do things by
Speaker 4: candle light, Well, that wouldn't have a very big impact
Speaker 4: on your Cicadan rhythms.
Speaker 2: Or sleep.
Speaker 3: Ah, that's a good point. So even in a bi
Speaker 3: phasic sleeping cycle, you would still need a source of
Speaker 3: light for any period or being awake. It's not like
Speaker 3: this would be effective to get up in the middle
Speaker 3: of the night, say, and try to be productive in
Speaker 3: complete darkness.
Speaker 4: So these are low levels of light which have minimal
Speaker 4: impact on your circadian rhythms and alertness. If you expose
Speaker 4: people to a longer night, their melatonin profile lengthens, And
Speaker 4: so what the melatonin signal does in the brain is
Speaker 4: tell the brain how long night is. In the summer,
Speaker 4: you will have a shorter scoto period, a shorter night period,
Speaker 4: and produce melatonin for a shorter time. Then in the winter,
Speaker 4: as you expand the night, your melatonin profile expands and
Speaker 4: gets longer. So humans still have the capability to change
Speaker 4: their biology based on season through this change in melatonin.
Speaker 4: And what probably happened is if you don't have electric
Speaker 4: light to stay up, you would go to bed earlier.
Speaker 4: You could all try that yourselves, don't turn an electric
Speaker 4: light on after dusk and see if you go to
Speaker 4: bed earlier. I suspects you probably will if you've gotten
Speaker 4: nothing to do but lie in bed in the dark,
Speaker 4: the chances are you're going to sleep for longer. And
Speaker 4: we override each and every day on natural biology by
Speaker 4: having access to light after dusk and no light after
Speaker 4: dusk is normal. We would never see substantial amounts of
Speaker 4: light after dusk with a natural light dark cycle. So
Speaker 4: all of it is changing our biology. And in fact
Speaker 4: what's happened is all of us are shifted later than
Speaker 4: we should be. We all go to bed too late
Speaker 4: based on the natural rhythms, and we all probably sleep
Speaker 4: less than we would have done in the past, at
Speaker 4: least based on that natural cycle.
Speaker 3: So bi phasic sleeping was likely the natural result of
Speaker 3: the day night cycle in a world with little or
Speaker 3: no human made light sources. And as we evolved and
Speaker 3: built electric light, and we began using light sources like
Speaker 3: our smartphones, we fundamentally changed our day night cycle. I
Speaker 3: guess that really shows just how incredibly impactful perceptions of
Speaker 3: light and dark are on our brains. But I am curious,
Speaker 3: are there other aspects of our biology that can be
Speaker 3: disrupted by these types of extreme day night cycles.
Speaker 4: Yes, so the Cicadian clock, the twenty four hour body clock,
Speaker 4: controls much more than sleep and so we know that
Speaker 4: the clock will control many hormones. We've mentioned melatonin, Cortisol
Speaker 4: is another strongly circadian hormone. But the patterns of your performance,
Speaker 4: your mood, your immune function, reproductive function, metabolism, both glucose
Speaker 4: and lipid metabolism, bone metabolism, many of these body systems
Speaker 4: are controlled by your cicadian clock in the brain and
Speaker 4: also cicadian clocks that we have in the periphery. And
Speaker 4: so if you have disruption of the clock, mainly through
Speaker 4: a change in light dark cycles, then all the other
Speaker 4: body systems that are controlled by the clock will also
Speaker 4: be disrupted. And so if we use shift workers as
Speaker 4: an example of cicadian disruption, we find that shift workers
Speaker 4: have a much higher risk of things like heart disease,
Speaker 4: diabet eat is depression, some cancers because of these different
Speaker 4: body systems that are interrupted. When we try and reverse
Speaker 4: our cycle, then stay awake at night and sleep in
Speaker 4: the day the many shift workers do. Now, if we're
Speaker 4: thinking of an environment where the environment is twenty four
Speaker 4: hours of light, remember again, when you go to sleep,
Speaker 4: you close your eyes and create a light dark cycle,
Speaker 4: so there won't necessarily be much in the way of
Speaker 4: circadian disruption if you keep a stable sleep pattern. So
Speaker 4: if you are in Alaska and you go to bed
Speaker 4: at the same time every night and turn the lights off,
Speaker 4: close your eyes, put on an eyemask, and then wake
Speaker 4: up at the same time in the morning, that will
Speaker 4: provide the signal to the clock to keep your rhythms
Speaker 4: properly synchronized. The other thing that people do experience, though
Speaker 4: with twenty four hours sunlight is an activation. Light, as
Speaker 4: well as shifting the clock, can also be a stimulant.
Speaker 4: It stimulates a brain, it makes you more alert, and
Speaker 4: so sometimes people will report in the summer where they
Speaker 4: have these very long days feeling very active, not needing
Speaker 4: much sleep, having quite a good mood. And then when
Speaker 4: we have less of that light, we may not feel
Speaker 4: as happy or have as much alertness. So there's two
Speaker 4: effects of light. If you like, light synchronizes the clock,
Speaker 4: but it also helps maintain your alertness level.
Speaker 3: The mechanisms behind how light and darkness affects sleep are fascinating.
Speaker 3: It's the retina that sends signals to the brain to
Speaker 3: release hormones and melotonin. I wanted to get Steven's advice
Speaker 3: on how to use this knowledge to our advantage in
Speaker 3: getting the best sleep possible. So I asked him, what
Speaker 3: are some things we can do to improve our own sleep,
Speaker 3: whether we live in the Arctic Circle or in the
Speaker 3: continental the United States or anywhere else.
Speaker 4: So I think again, the key is light, and I
Speaker 4: keep going back to light. But it's such a powerful
Speaker 4: biological impact on our sleep. Cadian rhythms, your melotonin rhythm,
Speaker 4: your natural melotonin rhythm comes up at about two to
Speaker 4: three hours before sleep. And so if that melotonin rhythm
Speaker 4: is the signal of darkness to the brain, having as
Speaker 4: much darkness as you can two to three hours before
Speaker 4: you go to bed is going to preserve that signal.
Speaker 4: You do that every day, you'll start to shift your
Speaker 4: body clock a little bit earlier, which means you'll fall
Speaker 4: asleep a little bit quicker, you'll have better quality sleep,
Speaker 4: you'll sleep for longer. Doing something relaxing is of course
Speaker 4: very good to help calm the brain down, but it
Speaker 4: needs to be something which doesn't involve much light. If
Speaker 4: you're going to read, read a real book with a
Speaker 4: dim bedside lamp. Don't read from an iPad, don't read
Speaker 4: from a phone, don't read from a laptop, because that
Speaker 4: light is alerting you. People find that relaxation techniques meditation,
Speaker 4: particularly yoga, can be helpful for sleep, but again they
Speaker 4: need to be in a dim environment if possible, a
Speaker 4: warm bath is helpful. Need to lose heat in order
Speaker 4: to fall asleep, and so warm bath or a shower
Speaker 4: again without much light, it would be helpful. Take that
Speaker 4: time out to have that little bit of time for yourself.
Speaker 4: Those sorts of things will help you fall asleep.
Speaker 3: That's all for this episode. Join me again next week
Speaker 3: when we learn about the sleeping habits of the people
Speaker 3: who studies sleep itself. We want to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Leave a rating a review for our show on your
Speaker 3: podcast player of choice. You can find me on Twitter
Speaker 3: at Anahad O'Connor. Until next time, Hoping you're living your
Speaker 3: best while sleeping your best. Chasing Sleep is a production
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio in partnership with Mattress Firm. Our executive producer
Speaker 3: is Molly Sosha. Our EP of post is James Foster.
Speaker 3: Our supervising producer is Keia Swinton. Our producer is Sierra Kaiser.
Speaker 3: This show is hosted by me Anahad O'Connor.