Cheeky Run Club

How to optimize your Z's

• Anna Coldham • Season 4 • Episode 3

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Helloooooo Cheeky friends!

We had a lot to get through on today's show...and we were once again lucky enough to have sleep expert Dr Olivia Knowles on the show to chat through how to optimize your sleep pre race, sleep banking, how running impacts your sleep, napping, bedtime routines, caffeine, and how a few small changes can make a massive difference over time. Liv did her Bachelor and Honours of Exercise and Sport Science before going on to do her PhD. Her research in her doctorate explores the impact of inadequate sleep on strength training and muscle health in females. You can find out more about her business Sleep Ed here.

We then assess each other's efforts on the challenges we set last week and finally finish with a little announcement from Anna.

Sponsor shoutout: Kic has now added Marathon to their KICRUN training program repertoire for people wanting to build confidence and consistency in their running. You can use the code CHEEKYRUN for one month free. Thank-you to Kic for making this episode of Cheeky possible.

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts + Instagram, Tiktok, Phoebe's Strava + Anna's Strava, and join our Strava community 🩵

Music produced by Hugh Raper. Logo design by Michael Cotellessa. Podcast edited by Kiara Martin.

Anna-1:

Cheeky Run Club recognises that every day we live, work and run on Aboriginal land.

Phoebe-1:

We're proud to say that this episode is sponsored by KICK and their brand new marathon training program.

Anna-1:

Welcome to Cheeky Run Club, the social running podcast and community for your everyday amateur runner. Hello, Phoebe.

Phoebe-1:

Hello

Anna-1:

And hello, listeners.

Phoebe-1:

Last week we spoke with expert Dr Olivia Knowles on the relationship between sleep and running and how much the former impacts the latter, both positively and negatively. And today we are once again speaking with Liv, part two, to unpack on how you actually improve your sleep.

Anna-1:

We're

Phoebe-1:

then going to check in with each other on how we went with the challenges we set for each other last week. And we're going to give the listeners some insight into a big decision that Anna has just made about her training.

Anna-1:

dun dun!

Phoebe-1:

we? Yes. Um, but first we're going to kick it off as always with our best and worst run of the week, fresh off a very good run, I might

Anna-1:

Yeah! Oh my gosh, I love recording straight after a run, with coffee

Phoebe-1:

you can hear a pep in our step. Um, so Anna, tell me about, I want to hear about your best run or running related experience this week.

Anna-1:

Interesting. So, wow. I would never have thought you'd ask me that question. Gosh, you're crazy.

Phoebe-1:

Um,

Anna-1:

Um, my best run was this morning. Yes. So we are live

Phoebe-1:

the depths

Anna-1:

depths of the best running experience.

Phoebe-1:

that's huge. They're getting the real, like, almost in real

Anna-1:

I know this is I am after my best run of the week.

Phoebe-1:

was

Anna-1:

really cool. So our friend and Spanish correspondent Eleanor has just arrived back. She's here for a few months as I'm sure the listeners are very interested in. She came along for the run this morning and it was really, it was a nice. Morning weather wise it was cool, sunny. We just did a little few loops.

Phoebe-1:

in a suburb than

Anna-1:

started right really close to the MCG, the huge footy

Phoebe-1:

that was exciting. just kind being near there.

Anna-1:

just thinking about the D's. The potential premiership we could win next year. No, but we, yes, I was a little bit. Oh, we definitely couldn't. I purely think my best and worst runs at the moment. Uh, is my hammy happy? Is it not anyway? What was yours?

Phoebe-1:

about the sun on your face right now. Is that okay?

Anna-1:

Yeah. Am I glowing?

Phoebe-1:

You actually are wrong. Um. My best run of the week was on the weekend. We, my long run, which was an hour. Um, we did,

Anna-1:

Oh how times have

Phoebe-1:

I know. Oh my God. Well, that was part of what was nice was like how little pressure I feel like I have on my long runs now. Like mentally, my head space in long runs compared to where it was a few months ago. I'm not even like a month ago before the marathon. And obviously, you know, Like I said, it's an hour, so it's less of an effort. But even that was nice to be like, just kind of going to run for however long I want. And I ran, we ran with a big group, but I ended up running with mostly with Jenna and Mel and we just kind of ran at our own pace. And it was a beautiful day down the coast, running on the bay, like stunning morning, very still. And then I got to the beach. Go for a swim

Anna-1:

Oh, so nice.

Phoebe-1:

Yeah. And then, and

Anna-1:

have a lot of FOMO from that

Phoebe-1:

yeah, you were literally, I was like editing the podcast on Friday night and listening to the bit where it was like, you're like, no, look, I'm not going to go see a physio. I think I'm just going to focus on my rehab. And then like 10 minutes later, you messaged me being like, Yeah, I'm going to,

Anna-1:

to book

Phoebe-1:

I'm like, you lasted less than 24 hours

Anna-1:

my arm. But yeah,

Phoebe-1:

Um, um, but yeah, um, it was just a really lovely run and I was so happy to be feeling like, oh, I'm liking my long runs again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice.

Anna-1:

love it.

Phoebe-1:

What about your worst running related experience this week?

Anna-1:

My worst running related experience? Experience was a run itself being Tuesday morning. On the back of what you just said about the physio. I did indeed end up going to the physio on Sunday morning. Confession session.

Phoebe-1:

time.

Anna-1:

It was actually someone that I hadn't been to before. because yeah, so the physio that I was going to, he is,

Phoebe-1:

so knowledgeable,

Anna-1:

And as you know, I'm like kind of obsessed with

Phoebe-1:

Yeah, you speak very

Anna-1:

yeah, yeah, but I was speaking to our friend Ollie who suggested maybe I try shockwave therapy. Um because apparently that can sometimes work on stubborn hamstrings.

Phoebe-1:

Anna is Googling,

Anna-1:

Live Google. What have I done?

Phoebe-1:

What, because you've now had your first round of it

Anna-1:

Yeah. So on Saturday morning, I had my first

Phoebe-1:

round of shockwave therapy, which Anna is now

Anna-1:

learning. So it's shockwave therapy is non invasive treatment that stimulates the body's natural healing process. It can relieve pain and promote healing of injured tendons. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It accomplishes this by releasing growth factors in the injured tissue.

Phoebe-1:

Wait, Wait, sorry, what was that last bit? Growth, releasing growth factors in the injured tissue. What does that mean?

Anna-1:

Yeah, so there's not a lot of blood flow to the tendons and it's literally this probe and it sends shock waves. It's almost sounds like a jackhammer.

Phoebe-1:

Does it hurt?

Anna-1:

it hurts so much. So

Phoebe-1:

much. Oh,

Anna-1:

Oh, I'm, um, anyway, so I had my first round of that on Saturday, which is why I went to this new physio because, the old one didn't do it. So I thought, I may as well just give it a go. And I don't think you're meant to see results for three to four weeks.'cause it promotes healing. So it takes a little

Phoebe-1:

God, tendons really force you to Practice patience, don't they?

Anna-1:

they do good for your character

Phoebe-1:

your character building. Yeah, it's character building. Your character

Anna-1:

is so big right now.

Phoebe-1:

great after this.

Anna-1:

I'm going to have a great personality.

Phoebe-1:

a great personality. Um,

Anna-1:

but yeah, sorry. I had that and then it was okay that day, but then pull that pretty sore. Anyway, back to the main part of the story. My worst run was Tuesday morning just cause my hammy just did not play ball.

Phoebe-1:

I didn't warm up and

Anna-1:

it just didn't warm up at all and then I just went to work and do you ever get in those moods where a couple of things go wrong? I mean, first world problems, really. But then you're just like, stuff everything.

Phoebe-1:

screw this. I'm quitting running.

Anna-1:

I hate this. Anyway. Now here we are 48 hours later and I'm like, I love this.

Phoebe-1:

love running. I feel amazing.

Anna-1:

What was your restaurant of the week? Oh, experience. How did we go in the

Phoebe-1:

worst running experience. Oh, kitchen. Yeah, I can't give you an update. They're pretty good. Actually, thank you to everyone who sent in recipes. But I'd already done my meal prep on the weekend by the time we, released the podcast and, you know, but I'll show you, I made, um, pasta. uh oh. Oh. This is the only photo I took. This is the bad part. That's,

Anna-1:

Oh my god,

Phoebe-1:

It's

Anna-1:

go on the Instagram stories

Phoebe-1:

No, I'm not showing pictures of you.

Anna-1:

my gosh,

Phoebe-1:

You're

Anna-1:

it's literally for the listeners because they can't see it right now. It is an oven tray with lined with baking paper with tiny little chopped pieces of charcoal. What is it?

Phoebe-1:

The eggplant and zucchini.

Anna-1:

was eggplant

Phoebe-1:

what happened? I perfectly cooked it. I was waiting for Sean to get home for us to make the pasta together, perfectly cooked the vegetables, which was my responsibility. And I turned the oven off, but I just left them in the

Anna-1:

the oven,

Phoebe-1:

and I didn't realize that it would stay so hot and just dry them out to a crisp. Um, I still put them in the

Anna-1:

them in

Phoebe-1:

I took a couple of that. Like ones out that weren't possible anyway, no

Anna-1:

out. Anyway, Merry Christmas! In relation to that, I, I feel like,

Phoebe-1:

it all comes out.

Anna-1:

I know, I feel like I can't not say this now that I've bagged you for doing that. So I was, you know, just fiddling around roasting some veggies on Monday night, went to bed. I've started doing headspace before sleep, which has been really nice anyway. So,

Phoebe-1:

so While dealing with your ham Is this a hamstring injury specific?

Anna-1:

This is just live

Phoebe-1:

is a

Anna-1:

Yeah. It's answering specific. They have that. They have a special edition.

Phoebe-1:

Runners with hamstring tendinitis. This one's for you. Now

Anna-1:

anyway, Dave, my husband comes to bed, wakes me up and you know that in between where you're not fully asleep, but you're in an altered state of consciousness? He was like, Anna, I just put Ted out to go to the bathroom and then as I was walking past the kitchen I thought it seemed quite warm in there. So I went in and you left the oven on with the roast

Phoebe-1:

With them still in there? You just forgot about them?

Anna-1:

Yeah, so had he not done that,

Phoebe-1:

Wait, so did you just totally forget about them? Yep. I was just

Anna-1:

I was just so relaxed from Headspace.

Phoebe-1:

HitsBase. So, hang on, I'll

Anna-1:

I can't blame that. So anyway, at least you turned the oven off. I didn't turn the oven off. Mine would

Phoebe-1:

still be, I'm not that much of

Anna-1:

today. No, well, luckily for us, our house is so old and nothing works properly that they were perfectly cooked, even though they'd been in the oven for about three hours.

Phoebe-1:

Oh

Anna-1:

Um, sorry, back to your worst

Phoebe-1:

my worst is not actually cooking related. It's gym related. I went, took myself to the gym on Wednesday morning. Was really proud of myself. Um, and I actually should have done another one of those kick programs because I'd actually was just, was like, I wanted to do my own thing. Cause I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do, but then there were kind of people hot near the things that I wanted to use and I was too nervous to like go over and use them. And then as I told you guys that when I joined you for coffee afterwards, that I was using them. Kettlebell to do deadlifts, which I kind of thought was fine, but then apparently it's not really if it's like quite a heavy kettlebell And it's hurting you back when you're doing it And so I was already feeling like a bit of a like God, why don't I know how to do this stuff and then to top it off? I was like smugly bought out my protein

Anna-1:

Oh my gosh!

Phoebe-1:

My protein oat milk that I'd bought with me these like little mini

Anna-1:

um, It was a carton, it looked like a

Phoebe-1:

They're like little cartons, but they're really good because they've got 20 grams of protein in them. I've only just discovered them and I've added them to my weekly shop that I order online. And then I hand Anna's like, give me a look cause you like double checking my protein

Anna-1:

Yes, because

Phoebe-1:

I'm like,

Anna-1:

history tells us that

Phoebe-1:

Whatever

Anna-1:

content you have in your head is never quite what's on the box. Yeah,

Phoebe-1:

in your head is never quite what's on there. Um, like how much protein did you think this had in it? And I was like, 20 grams. And you're like, it's got three grams of protein in it. And I had actually, they delivered the wrong one. They delivered, they've got some that are just normal chocolate milk, not protein chocolate milk. And so then I just felt like even more of a fraud. And I was like, why do I even try? I've just gone and fouled the gym and I'm drinking

Anna-1:

funny.

Phoebe-1:

plain chocolate milk. And I like protein police over here, like fact checking all my, but no, it was good. It was good to check and good to know, but it was, I have good hard

Anna-1:

pack

Phoebe-1:

Um,

Phoebe:

For our main topic this week, we are once again welcoming Dr. Olivia Knowles, our cheeky sleep expert, to this time discuss strategies for improving your sleep. A reminder that Liv has done her PhD in how sleep restriction impacts females when exercising. She's also worked for 10 years as a high performance coach with elite athletes, Corporate and everyone in between more recently with a sleep education business, Sleep Ed. The next 25 minutes is jam packed as we discuss things like how to optimize your sleep pre race, especially when you're traveling, different chronotypes, sleep banking, how running impacts your sleep, napping, bedtime routines, caffeine, and how a few small changes can make a massive difference over time. Hope you enjoy as much as we did.

So today we're going to talk more about strategies for how to improve your sleep. us some, some tips and tricks for how we can improve our sleep? Yeah, so I think the first thing that's really important to establish is an ideal environment for your sleep. So we encourage people to have or be sleeping in an environment that is cool, dark, quiet, and comfortable. So if we start with cool, ideally you're sleeping in a room that's between 16 to 19 degrees. If you've got Dunas and things like that, that's an option that you could pull on, but you know, that's the reason why we struggle probably to sleep more in summer because it's too warm. We haven't really touched on circadian rhythms in our body clock much in the first episode, but, our temperature needs to drop for us to actually fall asleep. So being in a cooler environment is going to allow that to happen. The second thing that I mentioned there was it being quiet, so making sure you don't have too many external noises. You might wear earplugs if you're, travelling for a race or something and you're in a hotel so having things in your sleep toolkit, they're going to help. The next one was it being dark, so having block out blinds or using a sleep mask, things like that. So not being stimulated by light that will then wake you up. I get that when Sean, my boyfriend, someone texts him and his phone light turns on and it's over the other side of the room and it like, wakes me up. Oh really? It'll wake you up? Yeah. Yeah. It kind of really sends a delight. We are all, as humans, very sensitive to light. Particularly No. Shh. Sorry. It's not that special. Sorry honey. Sorry. It's actually a human thing. Particularly artificial light. So, in terms of light, we need to view a lot of, light in the mornings to help stimulate our wakefulness system, but even just the smallest amount of artificial light from whether it be your TV, your phone, your computer, whatever it might be at night can distract your sleep. Absolutely. Are there things, this one, is there effects? Your quality of sleep in terms of all your likeliness to fall asleep in terms of like when you choose to go for a run or when you choose to eat. We're all obviously super busy. We, we run, but we also have many other aspects of life. Is there anything to keep in mind to make sure we are getting a good quality sleep? Absolutely. So in terms of exercise, we actually know that exercise improves sleep quality. So that's a great thing. If you're already out running, you're probably actually already increasing your likelihood of a better night's sleep anyway. But in terms of the proximity to sleep, if you're someone that's running late in the evening and, that's really close to your bedtime, that can disrupt your sleep. So for people who are in that scenario, we try and get you to maybe delay your sleep time a little bit later, so that you're not trying to finish your run and then, you know, get to bed 30 minutes later or something like that. Or run earlier if you can, but obviously that's hard around work, you know, study, whatever that might be. So timing can be a factor in terms of the exercise timing. Meal timing can also be a factor as well. We try and encourage people to have their large dinner meal at least two to three hours before they go to bed. So they've actually got time to digest that food, and allow that bodily system to work as opposed to conflicting systems. you know, trying to digest food and sleep at the same time. So if you can push that to, two to three hours before you sleep, then that's ideal. So if you're eating or exercising close to bed, does that impact your ability to fall asleep or the quality and depth of the sleep that you have? Potentially both. And why is that? When you go into sleep, you're trying to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. So you're trying to relax, you're trying to calm yourself down. Whereas if your body is busy trying to, digest food, think about things the next day that you've got on, that sort of thing, that's activating your sympathetic nervous system. So that fight or flight, response and you're actually in a more active state, I suppose. So those two things are conflicting. As a runner, if you were off going to a race and, you were flying overseas somewhere or driving and you weren't able to stay at home, what would you do to prepare to ensure you have the best possible chance of getting a good night's sleep the couple of nights before the race? Yeah, so I'd make sure that you're, again, it comes back to that environment, so have things in your tool kit that you can use, a sleep mask, earplugs, things like that, so that you can create the ideal environment. often we would get our athletes to, if we're traveling interstate and staying in a hotel or something, travel with your pillow, um, so that you're at least in a known and familiar environment and, you know, So, um, I'm going to be talking about sleep and how you can sleep with that level of confidence. Because that's something you can easily travel with. You might not be able to travel with your whole mattress, but you can take a pillow on a plane. Things like that. So, Apart from your sleep environment, my second most important tip would be setting consistent sleep and wake times. And that's so that you can align your sleep patterns with your body clock. And the way the world functions, so that you're sleeping when it's dark, outside and you're waking when it's light when you're actually going to be eating things like that So if you can set a consistent sleep and wake time, that's really ideal And there are going to be days where you have to get up a little bit earlier or you have to stay up a little Bit later, but if you can try and keep that within a single Sleep cycle so within 90 minutes and not trying to push it out beyond that then that's probably best as well. If we were to start a marathon training block or just say, let's rewind five months or four months before we started training for Berlin, is there anything that you can do to help us get to that point? Obviously there are so many things to balance and prioritize, but, in terms of sleep, would you, if you were to sign up for a Mara, um, obviously probably not, they're getting pregnant, but in a couple of months, just say, come on in the hospital. All right. Would you put things in place? To foresee challenges that you may have, and ways that you can get around it. is there any sort of tools that you use to try to combat that and prepare yourself as best you can? Yeah, so sleep banking is a really great tool as well. It's something that we use with a lot of shift work as well. Is that a thing? Yeah. If you know you're going into a period of sleep deprivation, If you can try and extend your sleep in, the week prior to that block of sleep deprivation that you're about to have, that will probably help you actually cope with the sleep deprivation when you're in it. Yeah, so sleep extension is a great tool to not only improve your ability to cope with sleep deprivation, but sleep extension can also be used just to improve performance generally. Wow, so it's almost a bit like carb loading. Absolutely. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. You know, 30 minutes a night, an hour a night, two hours if you can. Great. But that might be not achievable for some people, but if you can extend your sleep then that will improve your performance as well. And that includes napping. Yes. So whether you're just increasing your general night's sleep by 15 to 30 minutes, or if you're adding a nap in during the day, all of those things add up to a greater total duration of sleep. Okay. When you nap, what happens, I feel like I often nap for a very short amount of time, like 20 minutes, but I feel super restored afterwards. Yeah. What goes on there? Yeah, so. What is going on? When you nap for that short period of time, you've really only entered the light stages of sleep that we mentioned in episode one. And so you're getting the restorative effects. You're getting at a boost in alertness, reaction time, your arousal is heightened. So you're getting a real boost in energy from just that short nap. On the flip side, we would also recommend maybe a 90 minute nap because that means you're getting a full sleep cycle. So you've gone through all the stages of light sleep and deep sleep and random sleep and come out the other side. What we don't recommend is that sort of. 45 to 60 minute nap because you're then in the middle of a sleep cycle and you are going to wake up and kind of shit. Right. So either have a quick 20 minute nap and even if you don't fall feel like you've fallen asleep properly even if you're just like dozing you actually probably are still in those light stages of sleep. So either a 20 minute nap or a 90 minute nap go with one or the other. That actually makes perfect sense because as you Pheebs were just saying that quite often after a nap you wake up and you feel so refreshed. I, without a doubt, feel awful when I wake up from a nap. I feel so tired and as if there is no way I could possibly actually get up. But maybe it's because I feel like if I do nap it's probably more to around like 45 minutes an hour. So maybe that is why because I'm smack bang in the middle of the sleep cycle. Yeah, yeah, absolutely will be and there's another interesting another tactic that you can use is a coffee nap or a nappuccino. Oh, I was gonna ask you about this. Yeah, so a nappuccino is when you have a coffee and then you have your nap. Yeah Yeah, so you're essentially getting the benefits of both caffeine and napping at the same time. Now, the key is obviously to not just sit on your coffee like you would after a run and sit on it for 45 minutes. You try and drink that coffee in about five minutes, have your sort of sleep environment set up and ready to go, go down for your nap, be really strict on the time. So 20 minute nap, alarm goes off, you get up, you might need to sort of do some pushups or some side abs to get that energy back. But, It takes sort of 30 to 40 minutes for the coffee to kick in. So you're waking up from your nap. It's giving you a boost of alertness plus you're getting the caffeine here. I do this with tea sometimes. It's great. It takes off your caffeine, doesn't it? It's powerful. Liv's like, ehhh. I always say it will make me happy but still, yeah, it's great. Whatever works for me. Um, even if it's for sleep affect. Phoebe's just in the corner being like, I'm just going to have a tea, Gino. I mean, not tea. I stuffed it up. You were trying to ruin it. No! Okay, I wanted to ask you before, you were saying you could bank sleep before, can you or can you not catch up on sleep? If you miss a lot of sleep, can you make up for that the next week by sleeping much more? Or is that just like, darn, you've missed that sleep? Yeah, so when we go into a state of sleep debt, you can try and, regain that sleep by extending your sleep in the following week. It's not going to half the same. effect in terms of you are going to have, you know, performance or Yeah, other things. Just say you wake up to go for a run and you feel pretty tired, but you still sort of go through the motions and get up because 6 a. m. or whatever the time is. And then once you start running, you still feel really tired. For you personally, I know it's all individualized, but is there sometimes where if you are still feeling really tired, you just call it quits? Or are you someone that, even knowing everything that you know, you still think it's okay to keep pushing? Yeah. So it probably depends where you are in your, you know, your training phase and things like that and your goals and your aims. but I think that there's absolutely a time and a place for you to stay in bed and keep sleeping. And there's also a time and place for you to maybe get up, but reduce the intensity of your run and things like that. Absolutely. Yeah. Do you think that after these two episodes, everyone that listens to cheeky is going to sleep in one day? I was going to ask about what you do when, so I reckon sometimes my trouble is that I understand that sleep is very important and I think I'm a good sleeper when I'm in bed, but I struggle to prioritize it. As someone who struggles taking this seriously as I know I need to do, like, what do you do when you're working with people who you're like, you actually need to take this more seriously. Yeah, I think it's obviously understanding the impact that it's having on your body and your ability to function day to day, firstly. so there's an education piece there. And the second thing is also understanding that you don't have to make these drastic changes all at once. You don't have to try and increase your sleep from six hours to eight hours all in one go. If you can just increase it by 15 hours, I'm sorry, you didn't increase that much, you simply need, as long as you're sleeping for 22 hours a day, if you can increase your sleep by 15 minutes in a night, that's going to have an accumulative effect over time. So if that's just 15 minutes of less scrolling on your phone and over a week, you're going to have added two and a half hours. of extra sleep and that's going to build over time. I know that I am guilty of, you know, you go on your phone to set your alarm in bed and then all of a sudden 10 minutes has passed. And I often get quite annoyed at myself because I'm like, what have I been doing? I've literally just been wasting time. There are these great things called alarm clocks. Yeah, So trying to eliminate the technology from the bedroom is also a great place to start, right? That's hard for some people, but if that's what you need to do to try and improve your sleep, setting a consistent and relaxing bedtime routine is also a really important part of sleep hygiene and improving your sleep. So, yeah, if you can Instead of, getting into bed and just scrolling on your phone, if you could instead have done your 10 minutes of stretching, read a book and then, yeah. And then go to sleep. Yeah. I mean, humans are creatures of habit and we love routine. So your body will then adjust to that routine and say, okay, this is my getting ready for bed routine. Your brain starts to recognize that pattern. So if you can start doing that night on night, it's actually going to improve your ability to get to sleep as well. Yes, when I was in high school, especially year 12, I really struggled with sleep and I'd lie awake for hours and hours and I ended up seeing a sleep, psychologist, sleep therapist, and I don't know, I guess they do an assessment of things like that. Like, what's your routine? And I just remember that was like the biggest thing was like, get a routine. And I've now had the same pre bed routine for almost 15 years of like exactly what I do when I have my Camelot tea. Yeah, yeah. It's, I'm Camelot tea. Um, or a hot magnesium sometimes. And then I start off like reading but sitting up. And then I, I'm not really reading like a book that I'm really enjoying, but then I switch to a book that I've already read before. So it's like not, stimulating in my brain. And when I do that, I change time, like lying on my side and no joke within 60 seconds, I'll fall asleep and I'd have to wake up and turn off my light. Like whenever I wake up. Is the chamomile tea in bed or do you have that before? Yeah, sometimes before, sometimes before, but like, uh, sometimes I'm in that like half now. And that's a great example of how effective a routine can be, especially if you are, you know, having herbal tea, you're eliminating the caffeine. involved there. Um, you're doing something that's relaxing. You're not having, you know, the bright blue light that's coming, emitting from your phone and things like that. Yes. Yeah. Oh, can we talk about caffeine? Oh yeah. Cause I mean, everyone knows caffeine has an impact on your sleep, but like practically what does that look like? And How do you know if you should be trying to cut back on your caffeine? Yeah, so caffeine has a half life of about four to six hours. So if you have a coffee at, four o'clock at night, you've still got half of that caffeine in your body if you're trying to go to bed, at nine, ten o'clock at night. So that's going to really disrupt, your ability to get to sleep. So if you can make sure that you're having any caffeine you have a minimum six hours preferably closer to nine or ten hours before you go to sleep, that's ideal. So that, one or two o'clock is kind of my preferred cut off for Yeah, having a coffee. I've got a question because I know that in the past you've worked with professional athletes and then I know now you're working with, um, The common man. The common woman. Corporate type. Obviously, a lot of the people that you're working with now, they are probably amateur runners and amateur athletes in whatever sport that they do. What are the main differences and challenges that you face? that you see between, working with the professional sports people and then the, yeah, people who work full time and then are doing sport just for fun on the outside. Yeah. The biggest thing is probably just a lack of time that they, that,, your everyday person has to dedicate to being able to prioritize their recovery and their sleep and their nutrition and things like that. An athlete has time that can be dedicated for them to, you know, get the recovery in to go to, to go to bed earlier or sleep in a little bit later if they need that, things like that. So time is understandably a barrier, but it's also about trying to adjust, as you said, just by small amounts so that you can try and improve your overall outcomes. Yep. So I guess in a sense, does that mean that as an amateur athlete, you almost need to be more patient than an elite athlete with your progression in all facets of sport, whether that be like loading performance and that kind of thing, just because you are juggling so many other different aspects of life. Yeah, absolutely. More patient and probably more organized too, so that you actually planned out your day so that you are, you know, you've got your nutritious lunch packs, you've got your sleep schedule down pat, things like that. Absolutely. Yeah. How does stress impact your ability to fall asleep Yeah. I mean, stress and that sort of ruminating is going to affect obviously your ability to fall asleep in particular. So in that scenario, we'd be trying to give you strategies to help, you not be ruminating or be anxious before falling asleep. So it might be,, using what we call worry time. if you're someone that spends a lot of time thinking, overthinking things when you're getting into bed, about that it's just being on the day that's coming up, setting aside 10 minutes. Prior to you actually going to sleep, where you write down all your worries, all your thoughts, all your to do lists, things like that. So that when you get to bed, you can be like, it's okay, I've thought about it all this hour, I've written it down. Or different breathing techniques, meditation seeing, if you are someone that sees a psychologist, psychologists are really well trained in sort of sleep strategies around breathing and meditations and things like that as well. So, being able to speak to someone like them about how you can improve. sort of settling that anxious mind. Yeah. Those sort of techniques. Yeah. Do you have any final questions? Yeah, I do. Give it to me! Um, what would you say is the most common mistake or misconception, mistake that people make or misconception that people have about sleep? Um, the most common misconception is probably that it's not having as big an impact on them and, you know, their function and behavior. Yeah, undervaluing it. Yeah, absolutely, undervaluing it. in terms of the mistakes people making, probably, you know, what we talked about, setting that environment right, setting the right routine, and being consistent with your sleep and wake time. So those are probably the three big bang for your buck areas that people can be improving their sleep with the most easily. Are chronotypes a thing? Like slowly being let out? Really? Can you tell us about those? What are they? Like people who are like, oh, I'm a night owl. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. can't fall asleep till later. Yeah, yeah. So, um That's absolutely a thing and you can doubt, you can shift it, um, to a degree. I mean we force, we force kids at school to get into a schedule of, you know, turning up to school at, you know, what at 8 30 a. m in the morning or you turning up to work at nine o'clock, whatever it might be. So, we do the way society functions means you have to operate within certain hours, but there are certainly people who function better earlier in the morning, or function better later at night. And that also impacts their optimal sleep time. And does that also, that's optimal sleep time. Do you have then an optimal awake time where like you could do your best workouts or something like that? Yes, absolutely. And so if your optimal sleep time is. 10 p. m. And you know your optimal sleep duration is eight hours then for you waking up at 6 a. m. Should be absolutely fine for you to get up and do exercise and things like that. Absolutely. Yeah. Wow. That is so interesting. Um, and so earlier this year you founded Sleep Ed. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what your goals are with Sleep Ed in the future? Yeah. I think I'm really passionate about sleep and improving people's sleep. And I think a lot of it is about education and things we've talked about today. And so really it's, um, a, speaking and presentation service where I can speak to athletes or corporate businesses or students, whoever it might be, about how sleep works and how sleep can improve their performance, their productivity, their health and wellbeing so that they can be living better lives, really. Yeah, it's just a bit of a passion project of mine. Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much. I have one final question. This is a big disagreement in the house. In this house? Sorry, in my house. Will you get better quality sleep if you have a furry canine resting against your leg or not? I say yes. My partner David says no. I say no. Um, if the furry friend is not waking you up in the middle of the night, then that's probably okay. But if he is, then it's It's probably disrupting your sleep quality. Okay. So we probably have to do an experiment and let the fairy friend sleep with us to see. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You better give her stage. And that is all. And on that note. No. Thank you so, so much for joining us. Yeah, that was so interesting. I was thinking what we need to do next time, post baby, maybe. Give the listeners a chance to submit questions. Yeah. Yeah. People have so many questions off the back of these. And I think that could be really fun to get you back on. But yes, thank you so much for your time. It's been great to have you. And we are very excited to meet your little bean. Yeah, I'll experience real estate deprivation. All research will be out the window. Thanks so much We'll see you soon. Thanks. Bye.

Anna-1:

You probably all remember, earlier in the year, we told you about kick program for people wanting to build confidence and consistency in their running. Whether 3K or smashing a half marathon.

Phoebe-1:

Well, we are very excited to let you know that they have now added Marathon to their training program repertoire. You can use the code CheekyRun, which is also in in the show notes, to get your first month free.

Anna-1:

All right, I

Phoebe-1:

the moment we've all

Anna-1:

I know, I've been looking forward to this all week, hand me a phone, show me your sleep data.

Phoebe-1:

data.

Anna-1:

so we're gonna do a little recap we obviously set challenges last week, Phoebe's in relation to sleep, because we found out that she's not getting enough, and myself in relation to rehab, because I had slackened off a little. So my challenge was to do, My rehab exercises every day this week and your challenge,

Phoebe-1:

to send me a picture

Anna-1:

and I had to send you a picture, which I still haven't sent you yesterday's photo, sorry.

Phoebe-1:

Yours who didn't send me it over the weekend. You started on Monday. Uh, yeah.

Anna-1:

yes. Okay. I, I didn't take

Phoebe-1:

Did you do rehab over the weekend? I

Anna-1:

I did, but I didn't take any

Phoebe-1:

yeah. No proof. No proof in the pudding. No

Anna-1:

proof, no pudding.

Phoebe-1:

proof. No pudding. Maybe you'll have to try it again next

Anna-1:

Okay. I'll yeah, I'll do it for another week and be sending you

Phoebe-1:

you have been doing it every day.

Anna-1:

I have been, well you'll find out in

Phoebe-1:

out in a second.

Anna-1:

your challenge was to get

Phoebe-1:

to I had to get six and a half hours sleep a night.

Anna-1:

yeah, I really hope you've done it. You haven't done it. Six hours, 28.

Phoebe-1:

off.

Anna-1:

So I'm looking at her or a graph and she's averaged six hours and 28 minutes of sleep

Phoebe-1:

week. Pretty good. Step up.

Anna-1:

Step up. What was it last week?

Phoebe-1:

Five

Anna-1:

Oh, okay.

Phoebe-1:

So yeah, that's half an hour better.

Anna-1:

it's literally, so last week she had five hours 58 and yeah, we wanted half an hour and she's, you've nailed it. Six hours and 28.

Phoebe-1:

it. That's actually,

Anna-1:

is a great effort. Well

Phoebe-1:

So maybe this week I'll try for six hours forty

Anna-1:

And so how are you feeling? Are

Phoebe-1:

I feel amazing. Um, no, I just said that, but I, I do

Anna-1:

no, I feel

Phoebe-1:

I feel really good right now post run. No, I think I feel, I think I feel better. I think I feel more energized. Yeah. That's good. Wow. Yeah. Well, there's a live experiment, but I'm going to try and get it.

Anna-1:

You look great.

Phoebe-1:

going. I'm glowing. I'm going to try and get up to 6 hours 45 minutes next week, I

Anna-1:

Okay, so are we doing it again this week?

Phoebe-1:

I'm going to do that.

Anna-1:

To 6. 45? So, okay, let's be specific because my understanding was six and a half hours meant six hours and 30 minutes at

Phoebe-1:

get two minutes leeway either

Anna-1:

Okay, so it could be,

Phoebe-1:

very hard to 43

Anna-1:

43 to 6. 47, or 6. 43 plus. Yeah, you don't have to. Okay. Awesome.

Phoebe-1:

And then how did you go?

Anna-1:

So as we just discussed, I didn't send you photos over the weekend. I honestly just wasn't in this. Uh, I wasn't in the mindset of taking selfies when I was doing

Phoebe-1:

I was doing my read. Weird.

Anna-1:

I don't know why I didn't think to take a photo of myself.

Phoebe-1:

need to take a photo of myself. Lie, you always take selfies when you read. I've seen you out there.

Anna-1:

yeah, in the gym. You know what? That is funny because on Tuesday I was in the gym and I thought I need to take a selfie. And I was so self conscious and I was trying to be so subtle taking a selfie to send to you.

Phoebe-1:

you sent me from like really low?

Anna-1:

I thought, Oh my gosh, if anyone's watching me, I don't know. Credit to anyone who can just take selfies. Just willy nilly. I. I'm just not one of those people anyway, so I did it every day, apart from I didn't do it on Saturday, which was the day that I got physio, and got the shockwave therapy. It was feeling a bit angry.

Phoebe-1:

and I.

Anna-1:

I was almost a bit scared to do it

Phoebe-1:

Yeah.

Anna-1:

I didn't do it that day. So, I mean, I guess I haven't completed the task. So I actually am enjoying having this accountability. So let's do it again for

Phoebe-1:

do

Anna-1:

I'm excited.

Phoebe-1:

do it again. All right. Love it. And I know we wanted to, I thought we should give the listeners a bit of an update because you've been, you've had a bit of a running, dilemma over the last week or so you've been going back and forth on and that you finally made a decision around, and I thought there might be other people who have experienced the same uncertainty, so we should shed some light on

Anna-1:

Yeah. As the listeners probably aware, I'm slightly obsessed with my running coach, Ellie. No, I just think she, I just think she's so cool. Um, she's a really good runner herself, but she's also a really, lovely person and I really like having her, as someone that I can reach out to for guidance and

Phoebe-1:

I feel like people are going to be able to see where this is leading now. You're like, but.

Anna-1:

is leading me, I, uh, have noticed, just with my hammy and everything, I am not someone who is good at listening to their body. So when I have been getting a running program from her. It's almost as if no matter how my hammy feels, if it's written in the program, I do it because I almost, I don't, I don't know. feel like a bit of a failure if something's written down and I haven't done it. So I just, I just do it, which is obviously something I need to work on going forward. If I, want to be able to get to a marathon start line, is, To obviously do your running program as a user, as a guide, but Be able to back away or pull back a little bit if something's a bit sore or you're not feeling great. Um, anyway, and then I've felt this, added sense of pressure because I feel like I'm either doing what's on the program, which then maybe is like aggravating my tummy a little bit. And then so that's not a good scenario, obviously, and it's also not fun because it's not fun being in pain, or then if I listen to my hammy, then I'm not doing what's on the program, and that's not to say like she's very, she's obviously modifies everything. It's not as though she's like, you need to do this. It's purely just me.

Phoebe-1:

Yeah. But it's good that you have that self awareness to be like, I know that while I've got that program, it's either going to be a source of guilt and

Anna-1:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I messaged her the other day, just saying, just for the moment, I don't want to be coached or get a program because my main focus is, being able to run pain free, but also just live day to day pain free. I like sitting down, recording the podcast or, you know, going for, Dinner with friends. I need to be able to do that and not be so fixated on how my legs

Phoebe-1:

feel.

Anna-1:

Um, cause it just becomes quite consuming. So I've yet decided to just put a pause on it for a little while. I'm hoping that maybe, you know, with this shockwave then over the next few months. I was like, Oh, sort of reassess and hopefully can join back in, in the new year. But I just think for now, that's not where my priority lies. And it was funny. I've said to, a couple of friends, I felt really sad. Chatting to her and sending that message. I almost felt like I was like breaking up

Phoebe-1:

Yeah, I know.

Anna-1:

and I was trying to pinpoint why exactly I was getting so sad because I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's not as though it's a fake. Forever thing.

Phoebe-1:

yeah, the end

Anna-1:

end of the day, it's a Google sheet.

Phoebe-1:

That you're paying

Anna-1:

Yeah, but I'm paying for exactly. I'm like, wait, I'm paying for this. but I think it's, I think it's a few things. Cause you're letting go of, you know, that constant pursuit of progress and getting better. and I think that is what I find hard. And I also just think like at the end of the day, I just absolutely, I froth running and doing sessions and getting my heart rate up and I just love that stuff. So I think that's why I found it quite upsetting. But yeah.

Phoebe-1:

sounds, I mean, I think, I think all the reasons that you did it for a very sound and sensible and like not, as you said, it's not going to be forever. It never is. These things are

Anna-1:

don't Yeah, exactly,

Phoebe-1:

time will get better and then you can, you know, Reassess like in the next month, a couple of months. And, um, of course she'll be back. And just, so you think you'll go back to her when?

Anna-1:

Yeah, yeah, I think so. And even, it was funny, even this morning,

Phoebe-1:

was my first

Anna-1:

run, not on a,

Phoebe-1:

Oh my gosh. How did that feel?

Anna-1:

was actually really nice because I thought, Oh, I'll see how my hammy goes and if it's sore, I'll just stop and then just walk back. And I just, I was like, Oh, I've never actually allowed myself the thought to do that, which is so weird. But I was thinking, I actually can just run for, Yeah.

Phoebe-1:

Totally. Yeah.

Anna-1:

like

Phoebe-1:

I feel like if one thing's gonna help you, like, learn to listen to your body, it's gonna be no one else telling you what to

Anna-1:

what to do. So you

Phoebe-1:

to be, like, brutally honest. Maybe that's something we can start checking in on a bit more over the next couple weeks on the podcast, is like, What was your self given program this week? Like how did you decide? What did you think about and how did you decide when to run and when not

Anna-1:

When not to, yeah. It actually will be, I mean, luckily for me this morning my hammy was okay, so I think it will be a real challenge for me, which I'm excited to do because I actually, I need to do it. Yeah. in the future when I do start running with friends and it's sore. to actually say no, I'm

Phoebe-1:

stopping. I'm going to stop and, and yeah, walk back or yeah. Yeah.

Anna-1:

Yeah. So watch this space.

Phoebe-1:

for sharing.

Anna-1:

worries. I think

Phoebe-1:

that's it for this

Anna-1:

is it. I hope that the

Phoebe-1:

the listeners have enjoyed hearing and learning more about sleep with Liv. Thank you again so much, Liv, for all your wisdom and wise words. Wise

Anna-1:

words. Wise words and wisdom.

Phoebe-1:

of wisdom.

Anna-1:

The WWW.

Phoebe-1:

I think I'm going to take a lot of those strategies into my sleep this week. Hence, hopefully, getting up another 15 minutes.

Anna-1:

Yeah, I was even, I was speaking to my dad and he was saying it's actually really interesting learning more about sleep because it's something that we do for so much of our life, but we don't really know. Um, so

Phoebe-1:

so,

Anna-1:

yeah, I feel like we were both just sponges. I love chatting to her. It was so interesting.

Phoebe-1:

Yes, usual,

Anna-1:

if you're happy to, please follow us on Instagram or

Phoebe-1:

you're not happy to, don't

Anna-1:

Don't worry. Yeah.

Phoebe-1:

good. At

Anna-1:

Run Club. It makes a real difference. to us and is super helpful. If you have any feedback or anything, our inbox is also always open. Um, give us a five star rating if you like, or four stars, but preferably five.

Phoebe-1:

five. Uh, definitely no lower than four.

Anna-1:

And

Phoebe-1:

we have merch updates are going to be coming very soon. We're

Anna-1:

know!

Phoebe-1:

in the final stages of designing the merch and it looks sick. Yes,

Anna-1:

very cool. Alright, we will be in your ears next week. Bye!

It kind of really sends a delight. We are all, as humans, very sensitive to light. Particularly No. Shh. Sorry. It's not that special. Sorry honey.