07 - Unlocking the Secrets of Sleep with Elaine Mitchell - Part 1

Welcome to Happiness, Health and Relationships podcast. If you're looking for inspiration on powerful healthy habits, you've come to the right place. I'm Angeline and I've been working with people for over 10 years in therapy and this podcast will cut through the myths and misinformation on healthy lifestyle.

I'll be interviewing experts in their field, providing top tips and motivation for six elements of living medicine. The six elements are reducing stress, exercise and fitness, nutrition, sleep, reducing addictive substances and how to master healthy relationships. Let's get started.

I'm really looking forward to our podcast today because I've been really struggling with my sleep just recently. So I'm really excited to introduce Elaine Mitchell, who is the project officer for the Lincolnshire Sleep Hub. And the Lincolnshire Sleep Hub is part of the Sleep Charity, which is a national charity.

It's an award-winning charity. So really looking forward to getting into some top tips and advice and lots of information today on all things sleep and what we can do to help us. So welcome, Elaine.

Thank you. So tell us a bit about how you became a sleep expert. I've known about the Sleep Charity for quite a while.

Vicky, the CEO, Vicky Beavers is a very, very inspirational lady who I met about six, seven years ago, possibly a little bit longer. She was very sleep deprived as a mother, an educator, worked in education. Her eldest son just did not sleep and she ended up hospitalised and going through lots and lots of issues just through her son not sleeping.

Consequently, she didn't get no sleep and the support out there was virtually non-existent. Obviously, the focus was on her child. There was no real focus on the mother not getting any sleep at all.

So Vicky did what she does in lots of situations, pulled herself together and created the Sleep Charity. Subsequently, years down, left education, continued with the Sleep Charity and it's now a multi-award winning charity and Vicky is also multi-award winning as well. I came on board working originally through my life as a coach, hypnotherapist, EFT and trainer, doing sort of team building for the team, CPD work and inspirational, motivational work with the team that Vicky had built up and also some wellbeing sessions with sleep practitioners and things like that.

So I was working subcontracts, that sort of thing and then noticed that they had got the bidding for the Lincolnshire Sleep Hub to work in the Lincolnshire area for three years, working with adults. So the project officer role and thought I would love to do that because it was it's working with clients. So it's face-to-face and it's also working with people who support adults in Lincolnshire.

So it was sort of double-edged for myself getting out there, being able to work with lots of different people, creating change really and helping and supporting people. So that's what I love to do. I love to help and support people.

Sleep Learning Curve obviously because I had to learn lots of nitty gritty bits about sleep and it is very, very interesting and also very quite complicated to be honest. Most people, if you don't have a sleep problem, it's not complicated. If you do have a sleep problem, it can be very problematic and complicated.

So yeah, learning lots. My sleep's improved no end since I joined the charity and it's absolutely fab. I love it.

I really love making a difference. Love that. I love that we're bringing this information because before speaking to you, I didn't know that there was specifically sleep support.

So there's so many people that are struggling with sleep. It's a crisis really because it impacts just about every aspect of our life, doesn't it? So I'm really pleased to be bringing this information that the support is out there really because it's awful. It's awful.

It's so frustrating if we can't sleep. We're waking up tired and we know the rest, that it just impacts everything. Relationships, our energy levels, then we can't think straight.

It's just, the list is endless, isn't it? Yeah, and I think very often we get to the crisis point before we actually realise we've got a problem because people will say, how did you sleep last night? And you'll go, oh rubbish. And then it becomes a bit of a competition, well I slept bad as well and it just carries on. But we don't get to any solutions in general conversations with other people.

Yeah, it becomes the norm, doesn't it? It just becomes the norm. Something else that we have to put up with and struggle through because there's so many different things that are impacting our energy levels already and our mood and all the rest of it. How do we know if we're getting enough sleep? How do we know if we're getting enough sleep? That's a good question.

And I suppose really you could define it on your waking time. So when you wake up in the morning, do you feel rested when you've woke up or do you still feel exhausted and tired and can't get your body or your mind going? Do you sleep for your optimal time and can you get off to sleep within a reasonable time of being in bed? We have this magic eight hour figure that is sort of bandied around everywhere. People say you need eight hours sleep but if you just look around the streets, everybody's different.

We've got people with different... Yeah, and it is working. There is guidelines. So for example, an adult aged 26 to 64 would need more than six hours sleep but less than 11.

So if you get in between that barrier, that six to eight, 11 hours, which the average is probably eight hours, if you get in around that and it suits you, then that's fine. I sleep for six hours a night. I wake up, as soon as I've done six hours, I'm awake.

Not always wide awake, but I am awake and I know that's my time that I've done my restorative sleep, so to speak. Adults 65 plus, their time is more than five hours, less than nine. So theirs goes down a little bit more because we don't need as much sleep as we are mature in life.

And again, young adults, they need a little bit more. So six hours up to 11. So that's why teenagers like to spend a lot of time in bed.

But yeah, those are sort of like the ballpark figures, if you like. So if we can get people to get out of their head saying, I didn't get eight hours sleep last night, then that's absolutely fine. It's not a golden number.

It is an average number. It's a guideline. And it's about individuals working to what works for them.

If it's six hours, if it's seven hours, if it's nine hours. If any less than those other figures or any more, then that could be problematic and obviously have issues health-wise, especially if you're going less than your six hours on a regular basis. I like that because if we're expecting that we need eight, then we put more pressure on ourselves and then start to worry that, I'm not getting my eight hours and wake up.

And then that stresses us out, which then when we're going to bed, we're thinking, oh, I've got to get to sleep. I've got to, you know, and that's kind of counterproductive, isn't it? Because then we're not in a relaxed state. So I like that, that actually, if we're getting more than six, especially as we get into those mature years, like you so politely say, I like that, then that should be... But like you say, these things are individual, aren't they? They always are.

So when we wake up, if we feel rested, then that's a good sign. So let's think about the different things then that might be impacting sleep. I'm thinking things like shift work, maybe, that's got to mess with your body clock, so to speak, hasn't it? So let's talk a little bit about the things that mess with our... Is it circadian rhythm? Have I got that one right? Yeah, it is.

Yes. Yeah, it's your circadian rhythm. So, and I can tell you a little bit about your circadian rhythm if you want.

So circadian rhythm is our internal, our natural personal body clock. And obviously it's not 24 hours because why would it be simple? So we've devised a 24 hour clock to all live by, but we all are individual. And the average person's circadian rhythm is round about 24 hours, 15, 20 minutes.

So we're a little bit slower than a natural 24 hour clock. That's just how we are. And it's fine.

It's absolutely fine. But we can, obviously, we've got tools and techniques that we can work to the 24 hour because we live here. We live and we work in a 24 hour clock cycle.

So if we have to be at work for eight o'clock in the morning and we say, oh, my circadian rhythm wasn't right. I thought I'd come in at 8.25. We'd be in trouble. So we have to sort of like work to the normal clock that we all abide by, so to speak.

But yeah, your circadian rhythm is run by nature, if you want a better way of putting it. So we are ruled by the sunrise, the sunset, midday light, which triggers hormones in our brain, which then obviously release the hormones throughout the body to keep us going or to create sleep drive later on at the night, which is when the red light of the sunset creates the melatonin. So your morning energy, if you like, comes from sunrise, comes from the orange light of the sun, the sun rising.

So it's really important for everybody to look out of the window and see the light. See the light. Because that works, that keeps our body clock going, obviously.

And obviously you've got your food and everything that you do, the cycles that you do, the different times of day when you're eating meals and things as well, which supports all that system that is intrinsic in us. When you're a shift worker, however, that goes out of the window, doesn't it? Because we have to abide. We have to work to the shifts that we are given.

So if, for example, you are a nurse and you work evenings, night shift, you do a 12 and a half hour, 12 hour night shift, when you're getting home in the morning, seven, eight o'clock in the morning, whatever it is, you would then be seeing the daylight and you would want to go to sleep because you're exhausted. You're quite knackered, really. Because you're exhausted, you need to go to sleep.

But your body may well have seen that light and it fights against it. So it's really, really difficult for a shift worker to, unless they're taking control, unless they're taking actions to support their body and their job, then we tend to get a lot of shift workers are really brave and they power through and they'll not have as much sleep as they need because they can't sleep because it's light or the food that they're having isn't conducive to it. So it's about being able to support yourself as well and taking action.

And the Sleep Charity are, we do promote a behavioural approach. So we do say try and do everything you can to support yourself, to get that sleep and to get into that rhythm. So if you're a shift worker, say, and you need to sleep during the daytime, it's best to have a routine that you can stick to.

We're creatures of habit anyway, we like to have this routine, even if we pretend to rebel against them every so often, we've got that routine inside us. So create yourself a nice routine. Have your bedroom dark and cool and quiet as possible.

So obviously that could be difficult during the day if you've got family members who are at home, if you've got streets, if you live in an urban area where you've got obviously street noise and things like that. Perhaps you've got elderly neighbours who have the television on really loud in the daytime. So it's about having sort of like your blackout blinds and your blackout curtains.

If you need to close your window, then maybe you need to have a fan on to keep your room a little bit cooler because we do sleep better when the room is cooler. And then obviously quiet. So maybe get yourself some earplugs or there's lots of headbands around now that you can get that have got speakers in.

So you could perhaps play something that is going to relax you. And then obviously you may want to put earplugs in or an eye mask, a blackout eye mask that you could pop on. So in effect, you're actually creating that darkness, you're creating your evening routine.

When you're coming home from your shift work, if you can wear sunglasses just to dull out that sunlight, and even if it is quite dull because we're heading into winter and it is quite dull, if it's safe to do so, try and wear sunglasses if you're driving home so your brain isn't getting that reaction to the daylight that is out there. And obviously take into account what you're actually eating. If you're going to come home from a full shift, have a big fat dinner, what you would normally have as your evening meal, then you're not going to be able to get straight to sleep because your body's full.

So it's about what would I normally have? We have what we call sleepy snacks. So you could have something that is going to create melatonin and support your body to relax and get to sleep. Maybe have like a warm bath that you perhaps used to do when you were younger, when you were a little one.

And we had routines, we had bedtime routines. So as parents would give us a warm bath, that's your relax time, read a book, get yourself in bed. And as we become adults, life gets in the way, doesn't it? So we don't always create those routines.

But having something like that, especially if you're a shift worker, really does help and support you. And again, shift workers have a higher instance of stress levels and accidents and things like that due to exhaustion. And that often happens when they're going into changing a shift.

So the best thing to do is if you've done your final night shift is have a short nap round about 90 minutes to a couple of hours. Have that before midday. Then at midday, start your day as a normal day.

You're just starting a couple of hours later. And then eventually, probably a day or two, you will get yourself back into the normal routine that we crave. Shall we say.

And then it all starts all over again. Now, that sounds like good advice. I'm sure it's quite tricky for shift workers, really.

But you were mentioning there some sleepy snacks. So I'm really interested to hear what are the sleepy snacks that we can eat and what time do we need to have the snacks before we want to go to sleep? So we would advise not to have a heavy meal, obviously, straight before bed, because when you're going to bed, your body is rejuvenating. Your body is repairing itself.

That's what sleep is all about. That's why we need to sleep. Generally speaking, two to four hours before bedtime, you don't want to be having anything really heavy.

However, a lot of people do like to have something to eat and a lot of children like to feel that they've got, they've had something before they go to bed. So we would recommend what we call sleepy snacks. They all contain melatonin or tritophan.

I always say that wrong. Tryptophan, that's the word I wanted. And that's an amino acid that promotes sleep and relaxation.

So we're helping and we're supporting our internal clock by eating these foods. So things like almonds, oats, dairy products, cherries, bananas, low sugar cereals. So anything that's not got your additives of sugar and no heavy carby foods.

So avoiding alcohol, caffeine, high carb bread, pasta and rice because they cause energy crashes as we know. So it's about working with the foods that will support us. For example, I like to have like a little picky plate.

So I'll have some almonds, Brazil nuts, walnuts, not my neck, it sounds like I have a blow, don't it? Just a couple of each one with a little bit of cheese. And cheese is a bit of a question really. Because there's the old wives tale, isn't there? That you can't have cheese before you go to bed because it gives you nightmares.

And it doesn't. That is literally an old wives tale. And it came from Charles Dickens.

Because when he did Ebenezer Scrooge, Christmas Carol, Scrooge blamed the cheese that he'd eaten on the three visitations. So that got passed down multiple generations. And we now avoid cheese before bed.

Whereas that is a good sleepy snack to have. Isn't that amazing that that can get passed down from a TV show? So what about maybe some Greek yogurt with that? Because I'm thinking nuts and seeds, we need them, don't we? As women as well in particular. What about a bit of natural yogurt with that? Maybe a bit of a sweetener like, I don't know, a couple of dates to sweeten it up a little bit.

How would that go? Yeah, I would say bananas or cherries to sweeten it up. Cherries are amazing. And cherries, they are a little bit expensive, aren't they? But cherries are fab.

And they are really good for helping as a sleepy snack. So yeah, I would go with a little bit of yogurt, a little bit of seeds and nuts, like you say. And then maybe some cherries and banana in there.

And we could get the frozen ones. They're a bit cheaper, aren't they? Frozen cherries. Yeah, that sounds good.

Yeah. And if, like, say, you've got kids that have problems sleeping, you could make them like a cherry smoothie, cherry and banana smoothie to go to bed in. Or whip them some sort of little dessert up, like you say, with yogurt and things.

Make it into a bit of a treat so that they can have that and get to sleep. What about de-stressors then? Because, you know, if we've had a stressful day, then we might, our mind might be swimming all over the place. We might be worrying about tomorrow or, you know, something at work, or we might be having difficulty with a colleague or something, you know, there's something on our mind.

Is there, because I know there's some apps out there. So I don't know if you recommend any apps or any, I don't know, gentle music and things like that. What do you think on that front? I think whatever works for the individual is fabulous.

And I think we've got to remember that everybody is individual. So yeah, there's loads of apps. There's like Car Map is the one that most people know.

There's loads of what you can, you can even just go on like YouTube and doing a search for Yoga Nidra is fabulous. And there's hundreds of Yoga Nidras out there. And people, when they hear the word Yoga Nidra, I think that they've got to be bendy and they're going to be doing some salutations or down with dogs or whatever.

But Yoga Nidra is basically a deep, deep relaxation. So you would pop your headphones on, lay on your bed and listen. And that talks you through a full, really deep body relaxation, which is very restorative.

And it helps you to relax and ultimately get to sleep. You do need to, we wouldn't sort of, I wouldn't advocate for one specific person or app because I think it's very much a personal choice. And you've got to go with a voice that resonates with you.

You've got to go with a tone that resonates. Some people like to be like rah, rah, rah. Other people need to be really relaxed and have that voice to get them in that space.

So it's for each individual what they require. So some people like music. There's apps out there where you can get just sound.

So there's white noise, brown noise and pink noise. So I think most people have heard of white noise. White noise is sort of like your vacuum cleaner in the background or your fridge in the background, that that does have the peaks of the volume.

So it would go sort of like higher and lower and higher and lower. Whereas the orange, sorry, the brown and the pink noise, that is more monotone and that one pace. Interestingly, that tends to work more with adults as opposed to the white noise tends to work more with children because they need that variation.

Whether that is something to do with how our hearing is affected as we mature, I don't know, but the more monotone one is more effective for adults. Where can people access that? I've never heard of brown noise or pink noise. Yeah, you can just do a search on one of the search engines and you'll be able to get that up.

So you can buy like machines or you can get recordings of it and that sort of thing. Cool. Yeah, I like the sound of that.

Yeah, and there's also sort of like audio books as well. A lot of people like to listen to an audio book. I know my son listens to, there's one app what he's got and that relates to, it's people reading stories but they've all got the same sort of tone of voice.

So it helps you to relax more as opposed to putting the energy in there and the different annotations with regards to what's happening in the story. Yeah, brilliant. Okay, that sounds great.

So what about, because this stuff is so important, isn't it? Because if we are struggling to sleep, it can really impact our mood and go even further into really impacting our mental health. This stuff is really important, isn't it? Tell us a little bit about that, the impact on mood, if you can. Yeah, I mean, it is a vicious circle, isn't it? Because if you've got a low mood, probably not sleeping too well.

If you're not sleeping too well, it has an impact on your mood. So it is totally a vicious circle in there and poor sleep does impact mental health and mental health impacts poor sleep. So because again, you've got worry, you've got stresses, anxieties, maybe you've got medication in there that has an impact on your sleep as well and you're going to be overwhelmed by everything.

So sleep hygiene is something that we can all sort of really control. Sleep hygiene is a term that just basically means having that routine and having a bedtime routine and having the space to sleep, looking after your own space and where you are and how you can sort of work towards that. Pay attention when you're having any mental health issues or anxiety or stress, pay attention to the time of day that you're waking up, what you're actually doing, because a lot of people who have those issues, if they don't have to stick to a routine, such as going to work or any responsibilities like caring or anything, then they can tend to just stay at home and not do anything.

Maybe they're tempted to not open the curtains, maybe they're tempted to not open the door and go out into the back garden or go walk or whatever. So that has an impact on the circadian rhythm, obviously, like we talked about earlier. They're not seeing those three elements of light, they're not creating the desire to sleep at night because they're not expanding any energy and they're also not receiving those signals to the brain for the hormones release and everything.

So that was a great part one of our two-part special with Elaine Mitchell, the sleep expert from the Lincolnshire Sleep Hub. It was packed full of top tips and advice. Can't wait for part two, which is coming soon.