Speaker 1: Hello, how I work, Listener, I have some news. I
Speaker 1: wrote another book and I'm pretty excited about it. It's
Speaker 1: called The Health Habit and it's coming out on January nine,
Speaker 1: but you can pre order it now wherever you buy books.
Speaker 1: In The Health Habit, I explore cutting edge research into
Speaker 1: what we should eat, how to get fit, and how
Speaker 1: to sleep better. But the book is more than just
Speaker 1: health advice. Often the hardest part of being healthier is
Speaker 1: actually making new health habits stick. And the reason why
Speaker 1: you have trouble sticking to a new healthy habit is
Speaker 1: probably going to be different to why your partner or
Speaker 1: your best friend has trouble. So in the book, I
Speaker 1: help you assess what the biggest barrier getting in your
Speaker 1: way actually is, and from there, I help you design
Speaker 1: your own, personalized and actionable plan to change your habits.
Speaker 1: So if you are feeling stuck repeating the same habits
Speaker 1: and looking for practical solutions that will improve your health
Speaker 1: for good, then I promise you The Health Habit is
Speaker 1: your solution. My name is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an
Speaker 1: organizational psychologist and the founder of behavior change consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and this is how I work a show about how
Speaker 1: to help you get so much more out of the
Speaker 1: hours in your day. For the next few weeks, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be sharing a few extracts from the Health
Speaker 1: habit on how I Work. Today's extract is all about
Speaker 1: how to get a better night's sleep with the pre
Speaker 1: sleep task dump. It's ten PM and you're trying to
Speaker 1: get to sleep. But does your brain think it's the
Speaker 1: ideal time to remind you to stock up on dishwashing
Speaker 1: liquid to correct the error that you made on the
Speaker 1: sales chart for the presentation you'll be delivering tomorrow and
Speaker 1: use up that broccoli for dinner tomorrow night because it's
Speaker 1: looking so miserable and limp in the back of the fridge.
Speaker 1: You bet it does. Or perhaps your brain thinks that
Speaker 1: two am is the optimal time to be solving the
Speaker 1: world's problems. Mine definitely does. Sadly, I can also confidently
Speaker 1: say that the solutions I'm coming up with at two
Speaker 1: am are not going to help with anything except keeping
Speaker 1: me awake. According to the National Sleep Foundation in the
Speaker 1: United States, forty percent of American adults have trouble falling
Speaker 1: asleep at least a few times every month. The most
Speaker 1: common reason why people have trouble drifting off is because
Speaker 1: they're worrying about or ruminating on something. Historically, a lot
Speaker 1: of psychological research into the difficulties people have falling asleep
Speaker 1: has focused on the impact of ruminating on past events,
Speaker 1: events that ironically we have no control over because they
Speaker 1: have already happened. However, researchers have also found that people
Speaker 1: have the greatest trouble falling asleep at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the work week because they're worrying about what lies ahead.
Speaker 1: So perhaps it's the future keeping us up, unless so
Speaker 1: our past Associate professor Michael K. Scullen from Baylor University
Speaker 1: was curious as to whether thinking about the future deliberately
Speaker 1: before bed could help people get to sleep more easily,
Speaker 1: so he invited a group of fifty seven people into
Speaker 1: a sleep lab to find out. Before it was time
Speaker 1: for lights out, half the group were asked to spend
Speaker 1: five minutes writing it to do list of tasks they
Speaker 1: needed to complete in the next few days. What is
Speaker 1: known as a future focused list. And here's the instructions
Speaker 1: that they were given. We'd like for you to spend
Speaker 1: the next five minutes writing down everything you have to
Speaker 1: remember to do tomorrow and over the next few days.
Speaker 1: You can write these in paragraph form or in bullet points.
Speaker 1: All five minutes to think and write about tasks you
Speaker 1: have to complete tomorrow and in the near future, even
Speaker 1: if you are coming to you. The other half of
Speaker 1: the group were given similar instructions, except they were asked
Speaker 1: to think about activities that had been completed that day
Speaker 1: and during the previous few days. A small but important
Speaker 1: difference is here. A problem with past research that has
Speaker 1: examined strategies to help people fall asleep faster is that
Speaker 1: it has relied on self reporting, whereby participants estimate how
Speaker 1: long it took them to fall asleep. And you can
Speaker 1: probably imagine that this data is full of errors. How
Speaker 1: on earth can you know exactly when you fell asleep?
Speaker 1: It's like trying to pinpoint the exact time you were
Speaker 1: rendered unconscious by a magical spell cast by a wizard
Speaker 1: in training from Hogwarts. Instead of self reporting, Scutland hooked
Speaker 1: people up to a sleep monitor in the lab to
Speaker 1: obtain an overnight polysobnography recording, so researchers had an accurate
Speaker 1: read on how long it actually took people to fall asleep.
Speaker 1: Scullin found that people who wrote there to do list,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a to done list focusing on the past,
Speaker 1: fell asleep significantly faster, and in addition, those who included
Speaker 1: more specific details in their to do list fell asleep
Speaker 1: more quickly. The reason the intervention was so effective is
Speaker 1: that our minds are filled with countless thoughts that, if
Speaker 1: left unchecked, conspiral, out of control, and wreak havoc on
Speaker 1: a good night's sleep. It's akin to unleashing a pack
Speaker 1: of excitable Jack Russell puppies at the dog park, each
Speaker 1: with liver treats tangling from their tails. The result a
Speaker 1: frenzy of adorable chaos, although in the case of your thoughts,
Speaker 1: not so adorable. When I spoke to Scullen about his research,
Speaker 1: he explained to me, there are so many people who
Speaker 1: tell me that they can can feel really sleepy during
Speaker 1: the day, but the moment their head hits the pillow
Speaker 1: when they want to go to sleep, that's when they
Speaker 1: feel more alert than ever. One of the key reasons
Speaker 1: this happens is because after finally switching off the lights,
Speaker 1: for many of us, it's the only time that we
Speaker 1: are without distractions, especially those of the digital variety and
Speaker 1: those distractions. Yes, you smartphone, highly effective at keeping all
Speaker 1: our worries, ruminative thoughts, and the unfinished list of things
Speaker 1: we still need to do at bay. When you remove
Speaker 1: all those distractions, guess what you're left with? A tsunami
Speaker 1: of stress. If you don't do anything to combat it,
Speaker 1: then your mind's just going to cycle through it skull
Speaker 1: and points out and at first glance, it seems like
Speaker 1: our brain is doing something bad to us. If you
Speaker 1: have an unfinished task, it stays at this heightened level
Speaker 1: of arousal. But really our brain is doing us a
Speaker 1: favor because it's like you did not finish this. We
Speaker 1: don't want you to forget it, so your very kind
Speaker 1: brain keeps you awake by continuing to remind you what
Speaker 1: you still need to sort out. As our brains have
Speaker 1: evolved over hundreds and thousands of years, they unfortunately didn't
Speaker 1: anticipate the twenty first centuries demands where we could be
Speaker 1: working at any time of day. For a lot of us,
Speaker 1: we never truly switch off. I know while I was
Speaker 1: working on this book, even when I wasn't typing at
Speaker 1: my computer or conducting an interview or reading research papers.
Speaker 1: It was constantly in the back of my mind and
Speaker 1: would frequently pop into the front of my mind, almost
Speaker 1: always at opportune times, such as when I wanted to sleep.
Speaker 1: The trick to circumventing this problem is simple, write it
Speaker 1: all down. Scullen says that when we write something down,
Speaker 1: we signal to our brains it's okay, stop reminding me
Speaker 1: because it's been offloaded. And as an added benefit, when
Speaker 1: we write things down, we often move from rumination into
Speaker 1: solution mode. And the more specificity we can apply when
Speaker 1: adding down unfinished tasks or thoughts, the more at peace
Speaker 1: our brain will feel, and thus the more likely it
Speaker 1: is we will fall peacefully and easily to sleep with
Speaker 1: not a single Jack Russell puppy in sight. Put this
Speaker 1: into action. Step one, thirty minutes to one hour before bed,
Speaker 1: grab a pen and paper. Please don't grab your phone,
Speaker 1: as it's too tempting to open up digital distractions that
Speaker 1: will suppress what's on your mind, thereby defeating the purpose
Speaker 1: of this strategy. Step two, write down all the things
Speaker 1: you didn't finish today and the tasks you need to
Speaker 1: complete tomorrow or in the next few days. And remember
Speaker 1: the more specific the better. For example, instead of noting
Speaker 1: down create presentation for meeting, you could instead write one
Speaker 1: collect data from report X, Y, and Z. Two, present
Speaker 1: the data in graphs or charts. Three, insert the graph's
Speaker 1: charts into a PowerPoint presentation for write commentary on the data.
Speaker 1: Step three. If some of your unfinished tasks involve thinking
Speaker 1: about solutions, feel free to write those down two. Step four.
Speaker 1: While Scullen's experiment ask people to spend five minutes on
Speaker 1: this task, don't worry too much about how long it
Speaker 1: takes you. If you're done within two minutes, great, and
Speaker 1: if it takes you twenty minutes, that's fine too. Step
Speaker 1: five repeat nightly. If you found today's episode useful, then
Speaker 1: I guarantee you will love my new book, The Health Habit.
Speaker 1: Search for The Health Habit wherever you get your books,
Speaker 1: and pre order your coffee today. Thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: part of your day with me by listening to How
Speaker 1: I Work. If you're keen for more tips on how
Speaker 1: to work better, connect with me via LinkedIn or Instagram.
Speaker 1: I'm very easy to find. Just search for Amantha Imba.
Speaker 1: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
Speaker 1: the Warrangery People, part of the cool and Nation. I
Speaker 1: am so grateful for being able to work and live
Speaker 1: on this beautiful land and I want to pay my
Speaker 1: respects to elders, past, present and emerging. How I Work
Speaker 1: is produced by Inventium with action support from Dead Set Studios,
Speaker 1: and thank you to Martin Nimba who did the audio
Speaker 1: mix and makes everything sound better than it would have
Speaker 1: otherwise