Tradie HQ - The Tradies Podcast
Tradie HQ - The Tradies Podcast
Episode #32 - Performance Through Health - Martin McPhilimey
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In this episode, Martin discusses building a unique framework for living a successful, fulfilling, and happy life with a healthy body and a performance mindset. His vision of helping clients prioritize health, success, and performance, Martin talks about how you find your purpose as a high performer with a sustainable and healthy lifestyle.
If you are keen to know the importance of health in your everyday tasks, listen to this podcast and there are a lot of important topics discussed.
About Martin McPhillimey:
Martin McPhilimey is an accredited and experienced Respiratory and Sleep Scientist, as well as an Exercise Physiologist and Behavioural Science Practitioner. With his qualifications, passion, and 15 years of experience in research, fitness, and training, Martin's mission is to create a world of high performing individuals with healthy minds and bodies.
Mentioned Links and References:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-mcphilimey-240a0537/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/m_mcphilimey?lang=en
Website: https://performancethroughhealth.com/
During the back, where there should be a cafe Randy Welcome to the trading HQ podcast. This podcast is brought to you by trading HQ, Australia's first co working and business incubator aimed specifically at trade based businesses. I guys welcome back to the trading HQ podcast. This is the first podcast in the new trading HQ facility and in the podcast room so I just listening to it now is a little bit echoey but that's alright, we'll we'll overcome that in subsequent podcasts. So today I'm fortunate enough to be with Martin McPhee who make philomene
Martin McPhilimey :perfect Yeah, you're spot on over every single person who usually here so that gets it wrong. First is
Unknown Speaker :good for initiation, the guy who we were connected by a mutual friend in Josh 40. So shout out to Josh Thanks, man. And Martin is The he's a senior respiratory and sleep scientist. And he's also also runs his own business, which will go into a bit more called performance through health. So welcome, Martin. And thanks for coming along, man.
Martin McPhilimey :Thanks for having me on the show. appreciate you bringing me on it.
Unknown Speaker :Thank you Now it should be good. I mean, it says we sort of had a bit of a chat off before and it was I explained that my wife Martha sort of has struggles with sleep and that sort of thing and and he's a celiac so has a bit of inflammation, that sort of thing. So once once I realized what your specialty was, I was really keen to, to get into a bit more because and then even since once you spoke about performance through health, also because part of what trading HQ is is also trying to push that holistic side of things, you know, we're going to have a gym, we're going to have, hopefully people like yourself, come along and give talks and that sort of things on on making sure that you maintain you your physical health. As well as your business health and because they are very closely intertwined. So maybe Mike First off, we can just get into your personal history. So you've only been out in Australia for a relatively short time.
Martin McPhilimey :Yeah. Well, I've been here for about four and a half years, was born in Coventry over in the UK. So pretty much the bank centre of England three hours from any ocean. So you can imagine what it was like when I moved here from a minus two degrees to 35 degrees in living on Scarborough beach. I was pretty, pretty happy. pretty stoked. Look, I've always wanted to live in Australia, massive fan of sports since the age of 10 years old and Sydney Olympics. My brother got the opportunity to go to Sydney to watch the British lions rugby team and then England win the World Cup in 2001. And that kind of cemented into me like I have this vision of going to live in Australia. So yeah, moved over here trained as a originally to the sports and exercise science degree and the Masters in that as well focusing on performance, nutrition and And also how we can improve the respiratory muscles to enhance performance or handsome recovery for exercise. And then went on to do a free year NHS graduate training program in sleep and respiratory sciences as a clinician looking at diagnostic treatment diagnostic in fact and therapeutic treatments for for sleep and respiratory issues. Hmm,
Unknown Speaker :you're right. And so what why the push into sleep? Was that a decision that you made consciously or you sort of fell into it or
Unknown Speaker :it I mean, it kind of led on from what I was doing, because in the research that I had, kind of learned the clinical skills to look at respiratory issues and in medicine, sleep and respiratory kind of come together because of things like sleep apnea. So people often have breathing issues during their sleep and so the doctors are usually intertwined. So that makes that your technicians and scientists also intertwined as well.
Dan Bailey :Okay, and so how
Unknown Speaker :fast forwarding now I guess to being in Australia and in Perth, what what was the draw Behind starting your own company performance through health,
Unknown Speaker :seen what, every single day looking at the patient sort of patients that I see around about the age of 40 to 50 years old people are so focused on their business that they forget about that health, the health starts to deteriorate, and then all of a sudden, they can't perform as well at work, they kind of lose the motivation, they lose their drive to really continue to push. And I was for like, if you put your health first when you know, your 20s, your 30s and continue to focus on that it's going to allow more sustainable success performance. So the idea performance through health is to actually know put yourself first and then you're going to be able to sustain what you want and create your vision in a more healthy manner.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And I think it's insane that it's always that thing. It's always easier to maintain than it is to sort of get back, you know, so I think if we try and keep that focus on our health and our well being in life, so remembering that it's They are one does feed the other you know without being healthy and ultimately happy with how you are then that will transpire through to you or every element of your life but especially in business, but
Unknown Speaker :it all comes down to motivation image in the day, the biggest thing for success is having the energy and motivation to get up every single morning and drive now view, you hit your, you hit your 30s or 40s. And all of a sudden, you've got something like sleep apnea or celiac issues or you've got some kind of inflammatory issue that's leading to chronic disease. So your focus is taken away from that business, your focus is taken away from that and your health deteriorates in front of you. All of a sudden life becomes chaotic, and you're like, where do I go from here? The chances are that you're not going to be performing at work and you're not gonna be notified you can be so my my concept is to try and implement that how strategies back into people's lives so that they can they can be the better versions of themselves.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it's a pretty big, like negative feedback loop isn't it and when you when you're unhappy, you know that results. In sort of comfort eating, depression, yeah, and everything like that, and obviously, comfort eating, not exercising, you know, ultimately losing
Dan Bailey :the happiness in your image is
Unknown Speaker :it the the idea wasn't just from what I was seeing it was for my personal experience as well when I came over to Australia but now I've completed this massive program where achieved become the scientist, I've achieved my vision of what I wanted to do in 10 years time. So then come here and kind of be at the bottom of a small fish in a big pond right at the bottom of the hierarchy in a in a company that didn't really value me too much at the time, and I ended up getting on the booze all the time going out drinking partying all the time, and I didn't really have any kind of vision of where I was going. So that resulted in me becoming depressed, get into bad relationships going out all the time, not focusing on what I wanted to do. My health deteriorated. I ended up with an autoimmune issue related to stress and and i like it became chaotic and depressed. So I was like, okay, What what what, what did I do to get out of that and get to the point where I've got performance through health, I've got the vision of what I want to go and have that motivation and be happy with myself again, and essentially build a framework around that to help implement into people's lives to create a strategy.
Dan Bailey :Yeah. Right. And so what?
Unknown Speaker :What was the breaking point, I guess for you then because that's, I think that takes a fair bit of a fairly strong amount of self introspection, I guess. I think a lot of the issue sometimes is people don't necessarily realize that there's sort of spiraling out of control and then by the time they do they, they don't have the mindset to be able to change it. So what sort of things did you look for the indicators, I guess? There was
Unknown Speaker :a, there was a few significant moments really, I've always been an extroverted individual, always been enthusiastic, but I've always kind of looked outside for validation. I think young men do need to try to figure out where to eat Go fits in the world where they fit in the world sort of thing. And it gets to a point where you kind of have to realize and look inside and say, Okay, what am I doing? How is my life what I want or am I just going off what society says parents say culture say? And there was one point where I just got that emotionally abusive relationship with a woman who was gorgeous, fantastic, beautiful woman like now every man would probably fought their feet for like I did, but she was narcissistic and she was abusive. And it completely made me lose who I was as a man like I've never kind of had always been older. We struggled in relationships had some attachment issues to women and stuff apart from old things that happened when I was younger and stuff, but I didn't know that at the time, but that's what I've learned.
Martin McPhilimey :Yes.
Unknown Speaker :And I remember just being so so so down in it locked in my bedroom in Scarborough, where I didn't have any access to Wi Fi and my phone didn't even get signal. It's just me and my thoughts that I actually was suicidal. And for Martin Potter, how like you've never had had any thoughts like this before, you need to take a look at yourself. And that was the kind of the moment where I thought, alright, what am I doing, and I kind of just realized that I've lost I've lost who I was I lost kind of separate myself from, I guess the spirit of who I was the person who's physically healthy, a scientist, edge, self education, driven, all those things, all those values that were part of me, had had gone out and I've just become this person who just was was a wimp in front of women, drinking all the time, didn't really have no purpose in life. And I think there's a lot of men out there that are struggling with that at the moment. And that's also I want to integrate everything I've learned into into helping other people as well.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, definitely. And that's that sort of story, I think, is the that's the best way. You know, it's I I consider trading HQ. I mean, it is probably another example of that, you know, everything that I want to do in terms of trading HQ is so that I People don't make the same mistakes that I did in business, you know, through my experience in as running a trade based business and that sort of thing. So I think that, you know, when it comes from a source of authority source is someone who's been through that, like, there's that that's great. And it's, it's great for you to share it, you know, and actually want to help other people not make the same mistakes or if they are, you know, to be able to get out of them. So who did you have much of a you'd wouldn't have had much of a support network and I get to that stage and
Unknown Speaker :that was the that was the issue. So not always depressed, suicidal, at a time I was dating as dating a girl and that girl turns out that she was a prostitute I had no idea I was kind of just completely naive to it, but everyone around me knew knew. Yeah, so I was like, I did not trust anyone around this the abusive one, which is just before and so you can see the relationship issues.
Martin McPhilimey :And I look back and go What the hell like just Yeah, I was driven by by by one thing only, I think to be honestly I don't think there's any fault until you Good, I'll probably probably go for you. But look, I'm not.
Unknown Speaker :That's a having a network and having your community is a big part of performance of health. It's the third part in the hierarchy, or the framework that I've created. Because there was no support network, there was maybe one or two friends, I remember, out of all the people that I kind of knew I put a list in my phone of like, ones that were high value not trusted, and ones that didn't. And I kind of just kept myself away from appointments away from everyone. And then those who come to me to ask how I was and how I was feeling, I'm like, Okay, well, I'll trust these people slightly, and started, probably over a year's debate, kind of realizing who were true friends and who were the ones who were just surface level kind of, let's just party and let's just take advantage of modding that sort of thing was what it felt. I thought, yeah.
Dan Bailey :Because how old would you How old? were you then? 27. Yeah, yeah.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And you just spoke about the framework. Did you want to explain that to us. He's the framework the economy. Yeah. So
Unknown Speaker :over the last I guess free for years ever since like kind of being at rock bottom, I just kind of started reading the psychology started reading back into how the savage Caden being a person who's getting University he was like, What do I do money, you know how to read books, you know how to sign up stuff. So I kind of created my way I look back on my life and reflect and said, What did I actually do? So in this in this hierarchy, which is basically like a pyramid at the very bottom, it's physical health. Now, I think every man should be strong should be able to move and also should be flexible and but also have solid nutrition and solid sleep. So they're like the fundamentals, build your disciplines. And if you can build your disciplines and you can basically start to get a bit more confident yourself. When you're more confident stuff. You can kind of start to focus on your mindset you're looking at how are you coming from a scar space or an abundance place and CERN in terms of what you can contribute to the world? Do you know exactly what drive is and what drives you looking at your You know, you're looking within looking at your own psychology or what what sort of triggers, you want to build your self awareness, all that sort of thing. And once you've got that kind of mindset, you can then start to try and share that to the world in some way. And when you start to share it authentically, you'll start to build people of similar like, like minded people. So you can build your network of individuals. And then they learn communication skills, learn how to communicate who you are, how to kind of the art of influence, all that sort of stuff that you'd like in business and solid leadership. And then you can become a leader of that tribal network if you've made to form your vision. So the kind of the first step is to get into physical health and into sort of a place but then the, the idea is to actually be able to form a vision that you can move towards. So you know, that you can have a sense of direction that keeps you going and kind of when you get on to that process, you start to form a you start to feel that you've got some purpose.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I think yeah. So discipline is probably one of the one of the biggest things when it comes to anything really especially especially physical well being, obviously, like you need to, you need to have the discipline to get up out of bed in the morning or, you know, to take yourself to the gym and that sort of stuff. And I think a lot of a lot of the sort of the paradox around discipline is that typically those people that are disciplined don't always need to draw back on it, because, you know, they've implemented I think, coming which book it was, I think it might have been atomic habits. I think, James clear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great book. Yeah. Where he goes into that, that exact fact that the point that you know, if you aren't disciplined, and you set these, these good habits, they just become having a bit of income habit, obviously, and you don't actually need to draw on your discipline because it's just something that you do.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, so it's like, just anything that gets repetitive I think it's but by the age of three, by the age of 35 95% of your habits are ingrained into your into your nervous system, essentially. So like, there's still time for for most people and you can still change but if You're able to do small form small little habits start small you can for me, it's looking at sleep. Most people don't have a discipline around their sleep, people just thinking, Okay, I'm tired, I'm just gonna go to bed now, not really paying attention to what time they go and sleep, what time they get up in the morning. But if you can just make small little habitual changes over time, eventually it just becomes a part of your psychology deep within your nervous system. And it's just what I do every single day, it becomes an unconscious competence in terms of like you have no, you'd have to worry about the energy that goes into it. But to start a habit, if you're looking at Newton's first law of motion is like anything that is not emotional, anything that needs inertia, it needs a lot of energy to go into it. So same with habits. Getting started is the hardest thing. But then when you start to realize and get the reward, you got a bit of motivation. And then the next thing you know, you've got momentum, and then by the time you're 21 days, 28 days, whatever the science says whatever the literature says, it becomes mastery. And once you're at the level of mastery, then it just becomes possible. Have you
Unknown Speaker :second nature? Yeah. So that's a good start on the sleep side of things. So what are the common things that you see around people who have poor sleep or get poor sleep?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. So the the number one core issue with everyone sleep is stress. We live in a society where it's constantly on the go. We've got 24 hour shops, we've got online shops, we've got internet, people are trying to work harder. People are trying to do more and it's difficult for people to switch off it's your family or friends you got money issues financial service, you got a job security, especially like obviously with what just happened. Yes, stresses me It's his his massive at the moment, but no one's paying attention to how to de stress and how to recover, how to relax How to Know switch the body and mind off so that you can get some good sleep and people just And mind's racing at nighttime, as I care while I can't sleep, I can't sleep in that period of time leads to psychological insomnia. That's probably the primary thing that I'll see when people in terms of having sleep issues. It's not the primary thing I treat because it's more of a psychological issue. Although I can support people with that sort of stuff, definitely refer people that sort of stuff. But then a second one's pain, pain. Yeah, especially traders, like how many traders have shoulder issues, hip issues, back issues, and it's not going to cause huge sleep issues, but you lying on your side, you have to roll over and you have to
Unknown Speaker :sort of sleep Yeah, yeah. So how did so when you've got disrupted sleep? What so just run through a types of sleep that you've got, you know, I mean, I don't know much about it, but I know there's like REM and that sort of thing. You know, that's what people always refer back to Yeah. What are the different stages of sleep and if you are having a disrupted sleep, what what net effect does that have on the quality of the sleep of that night?
Unknown Speaker :Okay, so you You've got what we call non REM, which is non rapid eye movement, and then rapid eye movement sleep. And then within non REM, there's actually three stages. So stage one, two, and three from light sleep all the way through to deep sleep. And then you've got REM sleep. And as typically you'll go through 90 to two hour cycle this way, okay, stage one, partially stage two, and then you might go into stage three for a long period, and then you might get a little bit of RAM and it kind of jumps in and out between stage two, stage three. But the majority, the first half of the night is spent stage recently. And that sleep is more to do with the body recovering in terms of medical repair, releases of testosterone growth hormone, if you had a hard day at work and you're feeling sore, your body is going to repair and it's also going to clear out your brain as well. So it's going to clear all the metabolic waste from the brain brain activity to reduce the risk of things like dementia and all that sort of stuff as well. But then you've got REM sleep, which is primarily for emotional control and motor regulation in terms of learning skills, and typically memories as well. So if you've got poor sleep or poor quality sleep, let's say you've got a bit of pain going on, you got to continue have shoulder problems. Or if you've got something like a construct of sleep apnea, which we can go into, then you're not going to get into those deeper stages of sleep. So you're not going to feel as refreshed and your body's not going to repair and recover as much. So you've got to perform and function as well the next day.
Unknown Speaker :So again, that's that's that sort of negative feedback loop whereby the fact that you've got an injury is preventing you from getting the sleep that will help repair that injury. Potentially, yeah,
Unknown Speaker :it's going to take you a long longer period to repair. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously it's case by case. Yeah, yeah. But um, if your body is not able to get into that more risk on recovery, its deepest age sleep. And certainly, we know that when people have lack of sleep, that it takes them longer to recover from illness, it takes the immune system goes down. And yeah, it is more likely chance that you're going to get injured. Wow.
Unknown Speaker :And so what I think, again, not across the exact statistics, but I heard something the other day about the percentage of people that probably do suffer from sleep apnea. And it's pretty big guy. But yeah, I know like back years and years ago when I first heard about it, it was sort of something that you'd attribute to and you know, a man in his mid 50s overweight sort of, you know, like everyone's granddad snoring on the couch and you know, stop breathing for a while and that was sleep apnea, but it can be a fairly short timeframe as well coming in
Unknown Speaker :it's the the opinion on it in the medical world is slowly starting to change. And I personally think we're, we're, we've got it completely wrong. Not completely wrong, but majority of it quite wrong. The typical pattern you look at, you'd say like someone who is large neck 50 year old male, balding, big waist, you can look at him and current snores when he's breathing. and have a look at sleep apnea. And yes, I can probably point at them go look, you probably have Yeah. And but but we're seeing more and more people who were slim build non obese, even women who would typically have an obstructive sleep or sleep apnea or APNIC events breathing issues with during sleep, which is making their sleep poor. So my take on it is that I do believe there's enough literature for me to say that I have a hypothesis that stress causes it as well. And I'm not gonna bore you with all the science of it. But essentially, if you can't relax, you can't if you're not recovering throughout the day and stress has continued throughout the day, you get a lot of hyperventilation you breathe a lot during the day. So I think that at nighttime, you under brief, and the breathing is pretty much almost the same as as having obstructive sleep apnea because there's less pressure in your airways. And obstructive sleep apnea is basically you the upper airway just behind your throat kind of collapses. Yeah. And you kind of start choking in your sleep. Your levels for the body has to release a bit of adrenaline, which is stress to try to make you breathe. And just keep completing continues to happen throughout the night. And it can happen from anywhere from 10 times and how much I've seen 150 times now.
Dan Bailey :Yeah. And
Unknown Speaker :so with the with the sleep apnea, how, obviously that's a symptom of sleep apnea is poor sleep quality. What's what would be, is it just is a some sort of test you can have done that will
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, look, if the first thing you probably do is you would screen yourself. Just know, if you're snore, then there's been big indicators that you might have obstructive sleep apnea, especially if you snore and you're overweight. Now, if you snore, you're overweight and you've got daytime sleepiness and you feel tired in the day, but it's 95% chance that you've got something going on in your sleep. Then you can think of small things like you know, you have to go to the toilet quite often during the night. It's you bit as you move different to what it was five or 10 years ago. It can have an impact on your mood and it can make you more grumpy or more angry, more aggressive, that sort of thing. But we can do sleep studies. So there are kits that you can take home and you can wear or if you've got private health insurance you can actually come into a lab and we can get that tested and we can get that knocked out.
Unknown Speaker :So with the lab does that kid would you guys test my you'd have someone come in for the night and they would sleep and you'll monitor them overnight and brain patterns and the whole works?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, yeah. So we pretty much look at everything. So we look at the people can come in, they'll stay in the hospital bed for the night and have their own room. We're measuring brainwave activity, measuring breathing effort in terms of the chest and abdomen rising and falling, measuring airflow coming out of those oxygen levels, limb movements, heart looking at the heart as well while they sleep in to see whether their hearts getting having any issues. So it's a it's the highest level of study. You can have it in this business, or home based studies which are just as just as just as good buddy. We can identify sleep apnea without but it's like never right in the comfort of your own home rather than rather than in the lab.
Unknown Speaker :And what about those the different apps and that sort of thing that around you have much faith in them? And I mean, this is not the whoop strap or the aura rings and yeah, and apps. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker :sort of thing. Look, I think the they're slowly starting to improve. But if if I'm to look into the scientific literature compare into what I do in in a lab, what I was talking about earlier with you stage one, sleep, stage two and stage three, I mean, stage one sleep, which is basically just identifying when someone's been the way that someone's been not moved for an X amount of period of time, they'll probably say, Oh, it's probably in stage one sleep now. And they'll probably just have it on algorithm every 90 minutes to go through that cycle that I talked about earlier. Yeah. So it's kind of guesstimating from your heart rate and your movement. So it's probably about 80% accurate of saying, okay, you are asleep and you're awake. But when it comes to actually looking at your deepest stages of sleep, which is stage free sleep is only probably about 40% of my career. Yeah. So you're 5050 you flip a coin on it and go, okay, it was stage three, it wasn't stage three. So they get in there, but it's not quite not quite there yet.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And so what are the what is the clinical recommendation around the amount of sleep you should get? Assuming that you're getting a good night's sleep by?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, yeah. I'll give you getting good quality sleep, then seven to nine hours is what we're going to say typically for for everyone, there's some people who can survive on less, if you think it's you, it's probably not, it's probably about 1% of the whole population. It's genetic factors that cause that. But I don't like to put people off not getting seven hours, I say, for me is a six hour minimum. Because at the moment, I'm probably aiming for about six because I know my period of my life where I'm trying to make a pivot in my business where I'm putting a lot more effort into trying to move forward and perform better and be more productive, but that's only going to be for a short period. I'll bring it back to that seven to nine hours to make sure that I recover. So you've got to, you got to be able to be self aware in terms of within your body, how you feeling physically and mentally. And that's where going back to the you know, things like looking at it when you when you exercise and do movement and that sort of stuff is it makes you more bodily aware because people who don't exercise not really pay attention to how they feel to you not you're not in tune with their bodies. But yes, as a minimum, I'm going to say seven to nine hours of an average note.
Unknown Speaker :And if you were Say, say you were doing like me personally, like I yeah, I'd like to aim for between seven and nine. But sometimes obviously, it's a lot less. Today is a classic example. I had a lot to do last night had to get up early this morning and that sort of thing. Am I able would you know having a midday nap be of benefit, you know, is it? What is the timeframe? So I've heard again, I've heard lots of different conflicting stories and different techniques about you know, having a strong black coffee and then then slaving for 15 minutes and You know, waking up full of veins, I just couldn't say that.
Unknown Speaker :naps is definitely beneficial. We get in less than six hours. Yeah, we know from the evidence out there like, Look, if you don't get if you don't get more or less more than six hours a night, you're increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, a lot of chronic issues or chronic health issues. However, if you were to have a 30 minute nap earlier on the day, we cannot we also see the literature that actually that it improves. So naps are beneficial for people who have less than six hours but if you're going to have a nap, I wouldn't recommend having it around after two three o'clock in the afternoon, just because the way the body works in terms of initiating sleep is that we actually get we, the energy we use when we when when we're working throughout our days is that broken down into a molecule that basically helps our brain switch off. So that gradually increases throughout the day. So then we start to feel tired. Now when you have a nap it really juice is that chemical in the brain so therefore later on at night protect your
Dan Bailey :ability to fall asleep. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker :yeah. And but that's essentially what caffeine is doing caffeine is artificially reducing how that chemical which called adenosine affects the brain, right? So it makes you feel more
Unknown Speaker :and what so with that in mind, what are the best things people can do? leading up to bedtime that will help ensure a good night's sleep obviously, routine is a big one isn't
Unknown Speaker :routine is always the first thing that I would say to everyone. So a lot of people write books on performance coaches and stuff, talk about morning routines, and how that can set your day up. Having an evening routine can really, really really kind of change because sleeps a behavior. It's a brain state, a process and a behavior. So if you have consistently similar things that you do each night, and that might be when the sun goes down, you're dimming down the lights, and then you might be having your dinner and he might be slow to turn into a point you might only have one lighting on in a room and then you might Have some kind of tea or something that's just continuously every night you're doing repetitive, that kind of psychologically ingrained into your mind that now it's time to go to sleep. So for example, me being a loving sports and loving activity, I particularly like to do some kind of relaxing kind of yoga, a little bit of some common breath work, especially if I'm really stressed. And then I'll listen to some light music but all the lights have been dimmed down on to have the candle on. And that's what I'll go to if I'm struggling to sleep because I'm stressed I'll go to that pattern. And I'll continuously do that and eventually you'll find that your sleeps going to improve so much.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. So in what about
Unknown Speaker :phones, blue light and that sort of thing. That is a story. You know, when we build our house as an electrician or went through and put these particular light switches on that have a little blue ring around them and you know, so that you can find them in not only to have my wife, listen to an article about blue light and me having to subsequently go in and disconnect them or
Dan Bailey :get a good night's Did I do that for a reason or that unnecessary?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it's pretty clear that blue light blue light causes issues in the body is controlled by the sun, light and darkness essentially, it's okay. Okay ribbons never on a 24 hour clock. Every 12 hours of cortisol should be higher melatonin should be higher or lower. The body produces melatonin when it starts to get dark. And Melatonin is what helps us kind of remain asleep, right we've got adenosine which causes the pressure to get asleep and melatonin helps initiate and remain asleep as well. blue light or at nighttime when you're trying to produce that melatonin, it kinda delays it, and it can play it from anywhere between an hour to three hours. So you could be on a different time zone essentially if you're if you're using the screen continuously at nighttime in the evenings. So that's why I'd recommend I recommend an hour an hour before especially if you are struggling with sleep and being asleep scientists. Often when I'm giving advice, they can't cut your life. must be so boring. It's like that, like I tried to stick to it as much as I can. But I know even though you're on your phones, or you go watch a movie or you go some way, go nighttime and knock sticks out all the time you want to improve your sleep. And one of the first things I would say is make sure an hour before your bed, you putting your phone off, but also in a different room. Now, the reason why I say that is because psychologically, how can you say that you're 100% willing to go to sleep and switch off your day? Have your phones by the side of your bed? Because it's there for a reason? Right? Yeah, unless it's your alarm. If it's your alarm, go and get an alarm clock
Dan Bailey :still put in the other room? Yeah. Helps you?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, get out of bed then. Yeah, exactly. So there's two reasons. There's one reason is that actually, you've accepted that no one needs to contact you. You don't need to go onto social media. You don't need to check your phone. You're willing to hundred percent switch off right now to go to sleep. And it makes a huge difference. But number two in the morning, yeah, if your mom's in a different room, you've got to get up out of bed and you've got to go go to the go to go get your phone. Yeah.
Dan Bailey :Yeah. So
Unknown Speaker :he's just mentioned in melatonin now. Melatonin can also be supplemented counter because that's my wife was given that and she does take it to try and help with her sleep. Is it is that a test you guys can do as well? Is there a test? Do you cover that when you come in for a sleep analysis? Is there a way of measuring the melatonin being produced in the body?
Unknown Speaker :There is a way of measuring it. So there are blood tests that we don't do in our clinics. There the sleep physician might order order melatonin test but if now you came to me through performance through health into coaching and I suspected that you've got low melatonin, then there's no I can get a blood test fruit for him and get one for the internet for a doctor over in Sydney that will that will help and I've had a client which I suspected had a low melatonin because he suffered with insomnia but I thought it was to do with stress levels because cortisol which is Release when we're stressed actually reduces melatonin, right? So they should be on opposite scale. So when cortisol is high in the morning melatonin should be low. Cortisol gets you active gets you moving gets you fired up, ready to go. Melatonin is the opposite. So those circadian rhythms going up and down. I suspected that she was training very, very hard as an athlete in the evenings that her cortisol levels are so high that she wasn't able to produce the melatonin to help her to go to sleep. So the little melatonin test and we took a blood test or it's a saliva test, just a saliva midnight, send it off to come back and it was pretty much non existent there was hardly any melatonin there. So for her perhaps then obviously this initial changes were to try and move the train in but if we can't then it might be supplemented with some melatonin.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And what about the other there's a few other drugs out there I think I think one of the I don't know if it's if we can have it here but CBD obviously the
Unknown Speaker :it's a obviously see, CBD is difficult one because it's it's so new in terms Have the science getting hold of it you know we've we've everything that happens. There's always someone that tries it is always some a coach or somewhere or someone who is able to get hold of it first and start saying I implemented this and it started working. And the science always backs it up. So as a scientist, I can't say there's enough evidence to suggest that it actually improves sleep as anecdotal evidence of what people have said, whether it's the placebo effect or wherever it is actually kind of relaxing, then myth, there might be some there might be some good evidence out there. Like I would say that if number one CBD in this country is illegal, so now I'm not going to recommend anyone to go to get CBD in source illegally. But if you able to get hold of it through a medical practitioner and they advise to use it for sleeping improves, then great. That's fantastic. There is literally some literature that's just come out of UW a where they looked at using marijuana for insomniacs actually did improve that sleep But we know that in the long term that sleep reduces the amount of REM sleep that you get. So it can be detrimental to things like memories, emotional regulation, and that's what you might if you think of someone who's a marijuana smoker, they might have issues with that short term memory and yeah, and emotional regulation and separating themselves from from the colleagues and peers and stuff like that. So it might be due to the effect it has on sleep.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's that sort of goes into the next point that I was going to, excuse me cover. Obviously, if you drink too much, you get sleepy. You know, so what what effect does drinking alcohol or taking sedatives that's not really you're not getting good sleep there is that
Unknown Speaker :it is different. So you've obviously got those drugs, typically sleeping pills, which don't really put you into a state of sleep like you just said, they sedate you. sedation is different to sleep. The process that your brain goes through is completely different. So yeah, people are struggling because they've got anxiety or they can't sleep. So again insomnia as a you might be and I think typically probably over prescribed by GPS there's a lot of psychological support that people can have first but the the we were around cyclists about going to see a psychologist it was common person at the moment is economy we're starting to break through in psychology I think people are starting to realize they can have more power than it than it needs to but benefits in
Dan Bailey :therapy sort of thing as a stigma stigma
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, so there's a lot of stigma that psychologists get oh now I've got something wrong with you know, we all for all of us got stuff wrong with us. All of us need to talk all of us need to communicate more. But sleeping pills Yes. Maybe if you're if you need them to function the following day as a short term sort of solution, then yes, but if you get stuck on them, and especially if you're getting benzodiazepines, which are very can be physically addictive. Then you can you can end up on down a bit of a negative rabbit hole. Yes, sure. Alcohol so alcohol is obviously you Fantastic want to talk about in a tradies trade show. Now I'm a rugby player, so I'm partial to a good drink myself. And,
Martin McPhilimey :but people
Unknown Speaker :have this kind of idea that it's good to have a nightcap, it relaxes you, which it does is a depressant. So number one, when people drink a lot, they feel depressed. And number two, anything that goes down has to come back up again. So it might help you get to sleep because it might depress you or relax you. But what's going to happen you're going to get rebound. And we're going to happen is essentially, you're going to get really poor quality sleep, what we call sleep fragmentation where your raveling going smooth transitions from stage to stage three, stage one, it's kind of chopped up into small little segments that makes the quality sleep really poor. So you can't get into those deeper stages of sleep. So around about midnight, one, two, you probably find yourself waking up quite often. And you do if you've had a few beers and stuff like even by around about one, two to three or four o'clock. You kind of work your way. Waking up over time to thinking God God had a terrible sleep. Yeah, yeah, we need to go the toilet. Oh, yeah,
Dan Bailey :yeah. All right. So
Unknown Speaker :let's maybe we can just sort of recap on the ways people can improve their sleep. So number one, and again, this probably transfers through to just about every aspect of anything is routine and consistency.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah consistency. So consistency in the time you get to bed consistency in the time that you wake up, I would say more focus on the time you wake up, right? Because Because if we get up at the same time every single day, and we're doing similar things every single day, the adenosine load that I was talking about earlier, is going to be roughly about the same amount every time we go to want to go to sleep, so it's going to set you up to feel tired roughly the same time each night. Now if you go into bed, you know 30 to 45 minutes to an hour at different time, then that's okay. But just make consistently getting up at the same time each morning, which I think most people do, but when they get to the weekends, all of a sudden, that changes. Yeah. And that can throw people's patterns out. So they come to the Monday and on Mondays a little bit later as well. And then a Tuesday still feel a bit tired. But if you can keep it consistent in the same time each morning, then you're setting yourself the crane, the brain and body both crave order, essentially,
Unknown Speaker :yeah, I've had I've heard something before about in order to find out what time you should wake up. Is it is is there any study behind that? Because I have heard that and I don't set your alarm. And whatever time you naturally wake up like that's,
Unknown Speaker :that's that's probably actually a reasonable hypothesis or a reasonable suggestion to make really is that if you if you don't, if you don't set an alarm, and you hit the sleeping all day, there's potentially an issue. If you set an alarm and you happen to press snooze, and test news and press snooze, again, you're probably not getting enough sleep. So I mean, I don't really have to set an alarm and because I'll just wake up a similar time every day. Every morning especially in the summer, yes, the sun's over here. Yeah bit coordinators call it the six half five and it's like well you know to leave your blind open the slight little bit and you're awake and awake out yet. But yeah, I would say that's a that's a good recommendation to make is that if you if you set an alarm that's later on the scene not late to work