Latest / Luke's English Podcast / How to get your best night_s sleep - What in the World podcast_ BBC World Service(M4A_128K)

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How to get your best night_s sleep - What in the World podcast_ BBC World Service(M4A_128K) · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, how did you sleep last night? Were you
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: out like a light as soon as your head hit
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the pillow or was it a bit more tossing and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: turning with those racing thoughts.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: We've all been there. Well.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Experts have been looking into the different stages of sleep
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: for a really long time, and it turns out there
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: actually might be more stages of sleep than we originally thought.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: That's what we're getting into in today's episode.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We're finding out what happens to our bodies when we
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: go to sleep, why some people find out harder than
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: others to get to sleep, and some advice on how
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: to get a better night's sleep as well.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I'm at Krithruk and this is What's in the World
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: from the BBC World Service.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'm here with Caroline Steele, who has been looking into
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: all of the science behind the sleep. She's the gal
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: who's in the know. First off, Caroline, how did you
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: sleep last night?
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Not very well. It maybe took me like an hour
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: and a half to fall sleep, and then I woke
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: up hot, so I opened the window and then I
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: got worken up by birds and then the bins being collected. Yeah,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: so not a disaster, but I'm not feeling my best.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Oh no, sorry to hear that. But how do you
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: normally sleep? What kind of sleeper are you?
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I take a long time to fall asleep, and then
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: if I wake up, I take a long time to
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: fall back asleep. So i'd say in general, I'm a
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: bad sleeper, and I kind of feel like I'm constantly
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: on a quest to like work out how to fall
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: asleep better, but I'm not very good at it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like I can pretty much blame my head
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: done anywhere, and now I'll get to sleep.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, a bit of a skill. I don't mean to brag.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: I'm so jealous. And you fall asleep on a train,
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm always really jealous. Put their head in
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: their hand.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Kind of embarrassing sometimes as well.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you're the opposite of me. If I want
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: to fall asleep, I have to have this imask. I
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: have to have ear plugs as well. I take these
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: with me everywhere I go, and I use a lamp
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: to wake me up in the morning. That sort of
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: mimic sunrise, and I feel like that maybe helps.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Why is there such a difference? Sometimes then some people
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: filing it much harder than others to get to sleep, So.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: There's lots of different reasons. It's partly a genetic lottery,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: so there are thousands of different genes which influence how
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: easily we do or don't fall asleep, So it's partly
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: kind of the hand you're dealt when you're born. It's
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: also down to feeling safe. So if you don't feel
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: safe in that moment, it's really hard to fall asleep.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: So if you imagine trying to fall asleep with your
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: front door wide open, that would be hard, right. But
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: it's also down to how safe you felt as a child.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Some research shows that if you felt unsafe or when
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: neglected as a child, you're sort of you can become
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: wired to be super alert, which is a really useful
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: adaptation if you're growing up in an unsafe environment. But
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: when you're older, you're safe, you're tired, and you just
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: want to sleep. Well, it's not so helpful. And it's
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: also down to our mental health. You know, if you're
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: more anxious, if you've got sort of more racing thoughts,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: that's also been shown to keep you up at night.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: There is a lot of different factors affecting the coal
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: of the sleep. I want to talk a little bit
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: about the science behind all of this and what actually
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: happens to our bodies when we go to sleep.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: What do we know about that.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's quite hard to study sleeps. We don't
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: know everything, but we do know that there is a
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: collection of brain cells, a collection of neurons in the hypothalamus,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: which is part of the brain that's sort of responsible
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: for regulating our body function. And they're synchronized with the
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: outside world, so they're synchronized with when it's light and
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: dark outside, and during the day, when it's light, they're
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: more active, and they do things like increasing your heart rate,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: increasing your body temperature, and then at night they calm
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: down a bit, they become less active, your heart rate decreases,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: your body temperature decreases, all sort of in preparation for
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: you falling asleep. And then there's also this really interesting
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: chemical called a denozine, which basically builds up in your
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: brain as you're awake, as your brain cells are hard
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: at work, they make a denozine, and a denozine sort
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: of gives you this pressure and need to fall asleep,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: and luckily, once you do fall asleep, your brain sort
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: of clears it and you wake up the next day
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: feeling refreshed. But yeah, it's down to the build up
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: of adenizine and these incredible cells in your brain that
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: are synchronized with the outside world.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, we've been finding out what happens to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: the body when we don't get enough sleep. Jonathan tam
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: is a sleep doctor an expert. He sent us this,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Let's have a listen.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: Don't sleep during the night. You can't process the things
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: you've done during the day, you can't lay down the
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: memories of the new things that you've done, and you
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: may be more affected by any traumatic experiences that have happened.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: We know sleep is important for our immune system, so
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: if you don't get it, you may not be able
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: to throw off those pesky cold as easily, and you
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: may not respond to vaccines as well. During the day,
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: toxins can build up in our brain. These are removed
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: during sleep, and there's some evidence to suggest that if
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: they're not we may be more at risk for conditions
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: like Alzheimer's disease later in life. Quite apart from all
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: of this, your brain knows just how important sleep is,
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: and if you don't get it one night and the
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: next day it will make you feel exhausted to encourage
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: you to get more.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I know that you recently went to a sleep lab,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: right what happened there?
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: What did you go through?
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: So I went to a sleep lab in Cardiff in Wales,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: which was really really interesting. They sort of have all
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: these rooms which are sort of designed for a perfect
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: night's sleep. They've got no windows, so there's no light
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: to wake you up. They're at the perfect temperature, so
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: everything's sort of in favor of you falling asleep, apart
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: from the fact that they put electrodes on your scalp,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: which isn't super comfortable. So I sort of had a
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: cap with electrodes attached to the skin on my scalp
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: to monitor my brain as I was falling asleep. And
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: so they're sort of looking for two things in particular.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: They're looking for alpha waves, which are a sign that
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: you're conscious and aware. So when your alpha waves sort
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: of disappear, it shows that you're falling asleep. And they're
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: also looking for signs of rapid eye movement, which is
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: one of the stages of sleep, so that can sort
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: of tell you at what stage of sleep you are.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I didn't fall asleep.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Oh no, I was going to say, you must have
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: fallen asleep, you're in a sleep lab.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I didn't fall asleep, which was really frustrating. I think
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: the added pressure of being like, I'm in a sleep lab.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I want to learn about my brain when I'm asleep,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: I must fall asleep. I just sort of lay there,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: really frustrated. But I got to see my sort of
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: brain graph afterwards, which was really interesting. I could see
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the alpha waves becoming more spaced out and sort of
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: less frequent as I was sort of drifting off, but
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: then I'd suddenly jolt back awake and the alpha waves
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: would be back. So yeah, it's a very frustrating, frustrating experience.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh my gosh. But we heard about those sleep
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: stages there with the RAM stage as well.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I wondered if you could tap.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Me through that a little bit more, because there could
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: be more sleep stages than we thought.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it sort of generally accepted that there are
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: four stages of sleep. There's light sleep, deeper sleep, the
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: deepest sleep, and then AREM sleep that's the rapid eye
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: movement sleep, which is what happens when you're sort of
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: dreaming and your eyes are darting all over the place,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: and we sort of cycle through those stages about once
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: every ninety minutes. But I interviewed a scientist from the
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: University of Oxford who's looked at people asleep in MRI
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: scanners and he thinks there could be as many as
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: nineteen different stages of sleep. Wow, Yeah, which is really interesting.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: And he thinks we don't sort of necessarily go through
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: them one after the others. We don't go one, two, three, four, five, six,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: We could go stage four, stage nine, stage twelve, stage two,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: and that there's sort of a many different routes into sleep,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: but for now, sort of more research needed.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: And what if you enter a different stage at just
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: so much later time than you normally would like? For example,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: probably lots of listeners can relate to coming back from
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a night out at three am.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Do we know what happens to the body then? Does
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: it go into a certain stage or what happens?
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Well, you'll still if we're talking about the four stages
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: of sleep, you'll still sort of progress through the difference stages.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: But if you have to wake up at a certain time,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: it might be that you end up sort of getting
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: yanked out of sleep at say a really deep stage
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: of sleep when you weren't really ready to wake up.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: So as well as getting enough sleep, it's great if
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: you can wake up at the right point in your
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: sleep cycle so you don't sort of feel that, you know,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: when your alarm goes off and it feels really jarring.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: That can be avoided if you can sync up with
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: your sleep cycle.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And I know you're not an expert, but you've been
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: through the journeys. You're still going through the journey. Do
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: you have any advice for getting a good night's sleep?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: What's helped you?
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's so many different things you can do. I
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: guess it's kind of it's worth working out what it
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: is that's stopping you from falling asleep. So it could
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: be your environment, which is great if you can change it.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: So you want to be in a dark room, so
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: if you're not in a dark room, get an eye
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: mask like me. You want to be in a quiet space.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: If it's not quiet, I would recommend using ear plugs.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: You want it to be a good temperature, so about
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: nineteen degrees, which I know is really hard if you're
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: somewhere it's hot and it's summer. I'm struggling with that
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: at the moment, so I'm using a fan and leaving
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: my window open, but with that comes extra noise, so
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: it's difficult. If you're someone who's kept up by anxiety
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: and racing thoughts, it's a good idea to try and
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: do something before bed that will distract you from those.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: So the sort of research shows that, you.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: Know, doing things like reading a book that takes you
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: into another world or chatting to a friend or something
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: like that could really help. And then not doing things
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: like drinking caffeine that can make a huge difference. So
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: caffeine is incredible. It blocks the receptors in our brains
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: for a denizine, which is the chemical I mentioned before
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: that sort of builds up and makes us feel tired.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: So it can really help if you're feeling sort of
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: symptoms of sleepiness, but then it can stop be falling
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: asleep later. So avoiding things like caffeine, avoiding alcohol, which
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: also disrupts your duration and quality of sleep as well.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, well let's bring in the expert on this.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: We've got some sleep tips for you.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: All you've heard from Jonathan tam the Sleep Doctor, A
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: little bit earlier. Let's bring him back see what his
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: tips are.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: We can help sleep by trying to help our body clock.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: You can do that by getting up at roughly the
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: same time every day and seeking light when you do,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: but avoiding it later into the evenings. You can also
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: get into trouble if you spend a lot of time
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: in bed awake, at which point you might start to
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: associate your bed, bedroom, even the act of trying to
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: sleep with wakefulness. So if you are having trouble with
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: your sleep, it's important only to go to bed when
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: you start feeling sleepy, to not have a rigid bedtime.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: And if you do find yourself lying in bed awake
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: for long periods, then simply get up, go somewhere else
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: and do something else until you feel sleepy. If you're
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: choosing to do other things in the bedroom, like reading,
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: watching television, even working, try and take those things somewhere
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: else and save the bedroom for sleep and intimacy with partners.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: But through all of this it's important to recognize that
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: sleep isn't something you can try to do. It's something
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: that comes to you, and if it doesn't, well, some
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: times you just have to give yourself a bit of
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: slack and let it come to you. Now. A couple
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: of bad nights here and there are part of life.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: But if you find yourself sleeping badly for more than
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: three months, it's definitely time to the adopter.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: So I know you know you went on this personal
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: mission for this documentary. Has your sleep improved since then?
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: How you discovered more about your sleep?
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: At least since then.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: I've definitely discovered more about my sleep, and my sleep
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: has improved, but not for probably the reason you'd think
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: it it would. So I every morning I wake up,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I have a coffee, and then sort of throughout the
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: day I'll have a couple of decaf coffees. I normally
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: have a decaf coffee before bed as well. And I
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: went to replace my coffee pods a couple of weeks ago,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: and I realized that my decaf pod was sat box
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: of pods was sat where my caffeinated pods should be,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: and my caffeated pods was sat where my decaf pods
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: would be. So for the last three months and while
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: making this program and while going to the sleep Lab,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I've been waking up having a dcaf coffee wondering why
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I still felt awful, and then just before bed drinking caffeine,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: so I'd say, really pay attention to what coffee you're drinking.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: So yeah, since I fixed that, I'm sleeping much better.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: But not for any reason other than you know, realizing
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: I made a really stupid mistake before.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Oh well, at least she got there in there.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: Got there in the air. Yeah. Three months of bad
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: sleep just due to accidentally putting my caffeinated pods in
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: the wrong place.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Caroline, thank you so much for coming
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: on chatting all things sleep. I learned a lot and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I hope you get some good sleep as well. Thank
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: you all try. I don't know about you, guys, but
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I'm taking notes of all of those sleep tips.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: It's been so useful. What's helped you guys get a
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: better night sleep in the past? Comment below.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: We're going to read all of them, like and subscribe
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to You've been watching What in the World from the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: BBC World Service.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I'm at Kriffrouke and we'll see you guys next time.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Night