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Speaker 1: It's doctor Amantha in here from How I Work. For

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Speaker 1: the next four mondays, I'm going to be coming to

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Speaker 1: you with something a little bit different. It's a collaboration

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Speaker 1: with doctor Justin Coulson, who you might know as the

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Speaker 1: host of Parental Guidance and also from the Happy Families podcast,

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Speaker 1: a show which I personally love. Over the next four weeks,

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Speaker 1: Justin and I are going to be having a chat

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Speaker 1: about health and well being. We're going to be talking

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Speaker 1: about how to better manage stress, how to attain the

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Speaker 1: always seemingly out of reach work life balance, and how

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Speaker 1: to get more physical movement into every day. And today

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Speaker 1: we're going to be delving into the world of sleep

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Speaker 1: and some practical ways you can get more of it.

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Speaker 1: So we've heard it all before that sleep is vibe

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Speaker 1: for managing our stress, managing health, and basically being at

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Speaker 1: our best. But I know some people think about sleep,

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Speaker 1: particularly parents with younger kids, can think about sleep as

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Speaker 1: a luxury item. Justin, I know you've come across this

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Speaker 1: a lot in your work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sleep is not a luxury item. But let's just

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Speaker 2: be real about it for a sec. How often do

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Speaker 2: you kind of think, oh, the kids are in bed,

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Speaker 2: or I've just closed my computer. I've got all the

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Speaker 2: emails out of the way. I'm ready for tomorrow. And

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Speaker 2: now I just want some me time. I want some

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Speaker 2: brain dead time. I just want to zone out. And

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Speaker 2: you know what I might do. I might watch one

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Speaker 2: episode of that series that I've been really enjoying but

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Speaker 2: I haven't been able to watch it for the last

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Speaker 2: three or four weeks because it's been so busy. But

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Speaker 2: I'll just watched one episode. It's already ten o'clock at night,

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Speaker 2: maybe ten thirty, and you put it on and you're

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Speaker 2: watching it, and you go, oh, gee, I love this.

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Speaker 2: You're kind of falling asleep while you're watching it, but

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Speaker 2: you love the show, and then you think, oh, they've

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Speaker 2: left it on a cliffhanger. I'll just watch one more

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Speaker 2: and next thing you know, it's eleven thirty or twelve

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Speaker 2: or twelve thirty at night. I mean, I'm a keen cyclist,

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Speaker 2: and when the Grand Tours are on in Italy and Spain,

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Speaker 2: and especially the Tour de France, I so badly want

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Speaker 2: to stay up until one thirty in the morning and

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Speaker 2: watch every one of those stages. And we treat sleep

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Speaker 2: like it's Oh, I might take it off the shelf

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Speaker 2: and use it today. Oh no, I don't need it now.

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Speaker 2: We treat it like it's a luxury item, Amantha. If

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Speaker 2: I was to give what I think is the number

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Speaker 2: one parenting and the number one productivity hack, it would

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Speaker 2: be get enough sleep. I would put that above almost

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Speaker 2: anything else that I could say for being a good parent,

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Speaker 2: a good employee, a good person. Get enough sleep. Do

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Speaker 2: you want to react to that? Do you do you

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Speaker 2: disagree with me? Or are you right there with me?

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Speaker 2: What do you reckon?

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Speaker 1: I am right there with you, and I like while

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Speaker 1: I can't relate to staying up late watching cycling and

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Speaker 1: relate to binge watching Succession or White Loaders. And you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of sleep experts talk about the two essays

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Speaker 1: of sleep in terms of what your bed should be

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Speaker 1: reserved for. One of those ESS's is not screen. But

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Speaker 1: justin I think you know what these two s's are

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Speaker 1: that I'm talking about.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and I like both of them a lot.

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Speaker 1: In case you are puzzled if you are listening by

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Speaker 1: our sleep and sex. But sadly, a lot of us

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Speaker 1: do lots of other things in bed, particularly to do

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Speaker 1: with our mobile phones, and this is so bad for sleep.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious justin what's the most common piece of advice

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Speaker 1: you find yourself giving to people that are struggling with

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Speaker 1: their sleep.

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Speaker 2: Right now, A couple of things. Usually screens are involved.

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Speaker 2: I have to I mean, I don't have a problem

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Speaker 2: with screens, but I do in that sort of Let's

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Speaker 2: say that the thirty to sixty minutes before sleep, like

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Speaker 2: they really we've got enough scientific evidence now to say

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Speaker 2: this is a challenge. But waking up as well. That first,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to say, first fifteen minutes. If you can

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Speaker 2: spend the first few fifteen minutes of your day not

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Speaker 2: looking at your device, the day just feels different, your

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Speaker 2: energy feels different, and you can kind of get on

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Speaker 2: with things. You'll just be a better I think you'll

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Speaker 2: be a better person. But the other thing that I

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Speaker 2: say all the time, Amantha, is if you can't get

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Speaker 2: to sleep without the narcotic of the screen, which is

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Speaker 2: kind of ironic because research shows that it stimulates the brain.

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Speaker 2: But if you feel like you need that screen, I

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Speaker 2: just say to people, pick up a nonfiction book. There's

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Speaker 2: this great author called doctor Amantha Imba. There's another guy

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Speaker 2: called justin Coulsen. We write these nonfiction books and usually

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Speaker 2: at that hour of the night, the brain responds differently

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Speaker 2: to that kind of input and it helps you to

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Speaker 2: go to sleep. Really bed, as you've said, is for

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Speaker 2: those two essa's, and when we remember that, we end

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Speaker 2: up having a much more filling relationship with our partner,

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Speaker 2: and we also end up having a much better and

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Speaker 2: more productive life and relationship with everyone around us because

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Speaker 2: we've had enough sleep.

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Speaker 1: I love what you said about not going straight to

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Speaker 1: your mobile phone when you wake up, and what I've

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Speaker 1: been reading a lot about lately is the importance of

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Speaker 1: getting natural light soon after you wake So this can

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Speaker 1: be as little as five minutes of natural light. And

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Speaker 1: obviously this is a bit more difficult in the winter

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Speaker 1: because obviously in Australia where we're recording this from, we

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Speaker 1: are about to head into winter where it is darker

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Speaker 1: for longer. But what we know from a lot of

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Speaker 1: scientific research is that if we can look at natural light,

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Speaker 1: the sun rising, the daylight, it helps reset our internal

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Speaker 1: body clock, which means that when bedtime comes around, we

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Speaker 1: will feel sleepy at the time that we need to

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Speaker 1: feel sleepy to get a good amount of sleep. So

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Speaker 1: a hack that I love is either getting outside just

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Speaker 1: for a quick walk five or ten minutes, take the kids,

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Speaker 1: or if the morning is just too crazy to do that,

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Speaker 1: at least try to be near some natural light, whether

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Speaker 1: that be like a window in your home, or perhaps

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Speaker 1: if you're working from an office, when you get to

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Speaker 1: the office, just try to get some natural light. It

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Speaker 1: helps immensely in setting yourself up for where you need

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Speaker 1: to be body clockwise.

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Speaker 2: Some people are hearing what you're saying in Maantha and

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Speaker 2: saying this is a special form of torture. I can't

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Speaker 2: imagine doing it myself, let alone trying to get the

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Speaker 2: kids out of bed in the morning for it. And yet,

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Speaker 2: like you said, so much evidence for it. We specifically

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Speaker 2: move to the coast so that we could be near

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Speaker 2: the beach and have those mornings watching the sunrise, and

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Speaker 2: we make sure that we do it several times a week.

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Speaker 2: It's really hard to do it, but oh my goodness, gee,

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Speaker 2: it feels good. There's a saying that I share with

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Speaker 2: parents all the time, and that is that nature is

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Speaker 2: fuel for the soul, not just ours but our kids.

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Speaker 2: So whether you're listening to this as a parent or

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Speaker 2: you're just listening to it as a I'm a person

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Speaker 2: who wants to make the most of my life. Nature

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Speaker 2: is fuel for the soul, and there's something really special

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Speaker 2: about that early morning calm that comes as the sun's

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Speaker 2: rising and the light is not so bright that you

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Speaker 2: can't really look at it. There's just something beautiful about it.

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Speaker 2: And I love how you've linked that to how we

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Speaker 2: sleep and our ability to get to sleep. I'm also

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Speaker 2: thinking specifically in a parenting context, but it applies to

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Speaker 2: all of us. There's all this stuff around sleep high giene.

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Speaker 2: Sleep high gene means you want to make sure that

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Speaker 2: temperature is right, you want to make sure that it's

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Speaker 2: dark enough, that it's quiet enough, all those kinds of things.

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Speaker 2: But something that's often overlooked, and we've got some pretty

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Speaker 2: cool studies about it, is research into consistency of bedtime.

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Speaker 2: So you're talking about that morning thing with the sun

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Speaker 2: coming up and resetting your circadian rhythm, your body clock.

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Speaker 2: Researchers are found and I'm talking specifically about kids here,

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Speaker 2: but it applies to adults as well. If we can

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Speaker 2: make sure that we're going to bed with it about

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Speaker 2: thirty minutes of our usual bedtime consistently greater sleep duration

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Speaker 2: and higher quality sleep. So if the kid's bedtime is

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Speaker 2: eight o'clock, you're on going to bed between seven forty

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Speaker 2: five and eight fifteen. More often than not, those late

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Speaker 2: nights blow it apart. And for you as an adult,

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Speaker 2: work out what time you've got to get up and

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Speaker 2: then count back the hours. Again, sleeps not a luxury

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Speaker 2: item if you need your eight hours and you've got

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Speaker 2: to be up at well, for me, because I'm a

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Speaker 2: bit silly somewhere between four and four thirty, that means

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Speaker 2: bedtime's got to be around eight thirty at night or

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Speaker 2: you turn into a pumpkin, like you just can't function

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Speaker 2: long term. One or two days, no problem, but long

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Speaker 2: term it's a disaster zone. It is.

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Speaker 1: And on the flip side of going to bed at

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Speaker 1: a similar time, you know, we talked about morning exposure

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Speaker 1: to light, but also waking up at the same time

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Speaker 1: every day is huge and I think that people really

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Speaker 1: underestimate this, like I liken this to. You know, travel

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Speaker 1: a lot for work, and sometimes that will involve crossing

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Speaker 1: small time zones, like going from Melbourne where I'm based

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Speaker 1: to New Zealand where there's a two hour time difference,

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Speaker 1: and I know I always underestimate how much that will

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Speaker 1: mess with me, Like it's only two hours.

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Speaker 2: It knocks you around so much.

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Speaker 1: It really does. But then you think about how a

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Speaker 1: lot of people behave with their sleep, Like they might

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Speaker 1: get up at say six am or six thirty am

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Speaker 1: to get to work or to get the kids out

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Speaker 1: the door in time to do school drop off and

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Speaker 1: then get to the office. But then on the weekend

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Speaker 1: things are a bit more chill and it's quite easy

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Speaker 1: to sleep in till eight or nine am. That is

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Speaker 1: pretty much like flying to New Zealand every weekend and

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Speaker 1: then returning and getting jet lag on Monday. And no

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Speaker 1: one likes jet lag. So try to wake up at

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Speaker 1: the same time every day. You'll feel a whole lot better.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. I do the same New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: Perth sometimes to Asia with my travels, and I find

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Speaker 2: that that two hour time zone is really really hard

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Speaker 2: to take. Just recently, my family went on a cruise

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Speaker 2: and we headed through the Pacific to Hawaii, and every

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Speaker 2: day or every second day, depending on how much ground

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Speaker 2: we traveled across, we had to keep on changing our

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Speaker 2: clocks by one hour and by the end of the week,

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Speaker 2: we'd done four or five of those changes, and I

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Speaker 2: was a basket case. I just I was so sleep

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Speaker 2: deprived because I lost an hour every single night, and

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Speaker 2: it reinforced me. If we want to be healthy, if

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Speaker 2: we want to be happy, if we want to be balanced,

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Speaker 2: if we want to be good employees, if we want

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Speaker 2: to be good parents, if we want to be good partners,

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Speaker 2: we need to get our sleep.

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Speaker 1: We absolutely do. Justin I've loved hearing your tips for

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Speaker 1: a better night's sleep, and I'm thinking we'll hopefully both

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Speaker 1: sleep well tonight after having such a fun chat about it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I love yours as well. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: work a little bit more consistently on that light shower

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Speaker 2: in the morning. Such a great idea, And I got

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Speaker 2: to get screens out of my bedroom. I needed that reminder.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode of How I Work was produced by Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: If you would like more tips on how to live

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Speaker 1: and work better, head to Amantha dot substack dot com

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Speaker 1: to sign up for weekly and practical tips to get

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Speaker 1: better at life. And if you're not a subscriber of

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Speaker 1: How I Work, simply click subscribe or follow and you

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Speaker 1: will get episodes every Thursday,