Last Saturday (July 26th), Boyle Arts Festival hosted a talk by neuroscientist Declan Lyons on "Understanding Sleep".
(Declan is a sleep researcher at University College of London).
And since sleep is an important aspect of clients overall health and wellness, I made sure to grab a ticket.
Now, I'll be honest - some of the science-y bits went over my head a little (they use fish to study sleep for humans, etc)
But there were 2 main things I took from it -
Enriching vs Autopilot
He talked about “enriching activities” (pretty sure he used a slightly different term) vs “autopilot” when it comes to your sleep requirements and being able to conk out at night.
Essentially, enriching activities require a lot more mental stimulation and increase your sleep requirement.
Whereas autopilot activities don't need you to switch on as much, therefore, they don't increase your sleep requirement.
So the days you’re highly engaged in enriching activities , you will have a higher sleep requirement since your brain was getting plenty of use. Theese tend to be the nights you wipe out as soon as you hit the pillow.
And then the autopilot days where you're just going through the motions, doing tasks/jobs that don’t require huge amounts of brain stimulus can be the ones where you end up staring at the ceiling while finding it hard to switch off.
(Stress and anxiety can also play roles)
So it can be helpful to avoid too many “autopilot” activities in the evenings - like scrolling your phone while Netflix plays in the background.
Because that is likely not going to increase the need for sleep enough along with the effects of screens/lights before bed.
And even if you had an autopilot day, you can still increase your sleep requirement by engaging in enriching activities in the evening, like socialising (we all know it can be tiring), or something that gets your brain working.
Fitbits/Activity Trackers are likely poor sleep trackers
Activity trackers and wearables, like Fitbit, Garmin or Whoop, have become big business over the last number of years.
And they're gone from simply tracking your steps, to telling you your heart rate, sleep patterns, your recovery state, and more.
But...
They probably aren't going to be reliable when it comes to REM and restorative sleep. Or how “recovered” you are.
Yes, they can track how still you were during the night and give an estimated sleep time/cycle.
But without actually monitoring brain activity, they won’t be able to accurately tell you your REM sleep.
(They’re handy to track steps, sleep duration and maybe heart rate).
In general, though - I always tell clients that sleep is a valuable tool when it comes to recovering and feeling good (energy & mood) along with helping you make good food choices.
Plus, it saves you from having to survive on coffee just to get through the day.
So you can do simple things like:
- Set a bedtime for each night and stick to it
- Avoid screen time for 30 mins at least before bed
- Have a wind-down routine, especially if you work an intense/stressful job
- Keep your room as dark as possible
- Avoid caffeine late in the afternoon/evening
And make sure you get some mental stimulus in during the day to increase your sleep requirement.
So, if you're exercising and eating better to stay in control of your waistline, don't forget to get your sleep in check too.
You'd be suprised how big of a player it is in your overall health and fitness.
Have a good one,
Colm
