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SOM MINI CPD - Sleep Health & the Role of OH Professionals with Werner Stipp · The SOM Podcast

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  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by orchid Live. Find out more
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: at orchidlive dot com. Hello, and welcome to the SO podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Steve Randall, and this episode is one of a
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  Speaker 1: monthly series to help you as an occupational health professional
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  Speaker 1: with your CPD as. We invite specialists to share an
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  Speaker 1: overview of some of the topics you've told us you'd
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  Speaker 1: like to find out more about.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm vanished. I'm a consultant in occupational full time.
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  Speaker 2: My connection with them is I'm part of the special
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  Speaker 2: interest group in sleep, which is very beneficial, very engaging,
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  Speaker 2: and I actually believe in sleep health to improve employee performance,
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  Speaker 2: and I think the occupational as professionals a lot of
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  Speaker 2: leverage to improve worker well being with sleep assessment and
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  Speaker 2: interview techniques.
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  Speaker 1: Excellent. Well, welcome to the SONG podcast. And I think
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  Speaker 1: this will be kind of a dual interest really because
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  Speaker 1: there will be many OH professionals listening to this who
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  Speaker 1: perhaps are working fairly long hours, so sleep is perhaps
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  Speaker 1: an issue for them personally, but also for those that
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  Speaker 1: they work with. We know how important good sleep is
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  Speaker 1: and there is a big difference, isn't there between just
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  Speaker 1: getting sleep and having a certain number of hours and
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  Speaker 1: actually having good sleep.
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  Speaker 2: I think, as you say, do this inverse relationship between
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  Speaker 2: stray who work hours and sleep ol and it basically
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  Speaker 2: fixt you all your general health as well as sofety
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  Speaker 2: as in socio critical jobs with in sleep. But it's
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  Speaker 2: almost like machine learning that your brain as it solves problems, etc.
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  Speaker 2: To work up fridge the next day. But I think
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  Speaker 2: a lot of employees are in a start of decompensation
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  Speaker 2: because of pressures of life, of travel, et cetera. So
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  Speaker 2: I think the okay professional can step in and provide
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  Speaker 2: some economic and circadian advice to them.
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  Speaker 1: We'll talk about exactly what h professionals can do and
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  Speaker 1: some practical steps they can do, but just to dig
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  Speaker 1: a little bit deeper into the importance of sleep and
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  Speaker 1: where we're kind of going wrong with it, because that
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  Speaker 1: deep sleep, that rem sleep that really helps to make
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  Speaker 1: sure that everything is optimized. I see this as almost
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  Speaker 1: a cycle where if somebody is stressed in their job
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  Speaker 1: or in their life generally, they then don't get good sleep,
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  Speaker 1: and then if they don't get good sleep, that just
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  Speaker 1: exacerbates the issues that they're having during their waking time.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, I think I was involved in a government
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  Speaker 2: grant which we're actually test adapt and where whi's like
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  Speaker 2: a vicious cycle. If people are stressed a sleep words
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  Speaker 2: and their performance and the ability to deal with organized
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  Speaker 2: their day is less. So in terms of the deep sleeps,
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  Speaker 2: I think there's one reference where it says the gangling
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  Speaker 2: cell cells or the support cells of the neurons in
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  Speaker 2: your brain. It does like almost like a pump action
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  Speaker 2: to wash out all the street stress because each day
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  Speaker 2: you get a lot of frustrations, et cetera. So you
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  Speaker 2: go through five cycles, which we call the Opradian cycles,
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  Speaker 2: each lasting about ninety minutes, the different stages of sleep
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  Speaker 2: and then ending up in dreams sleep where the room
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  Speaker 2: sleeps git longer and longer by the fifth cycle. So
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  Speaker 2: with each cycle you wash out that stress ements. So
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  Speaker 2: by the end of the night all the streets moments
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  Speaker 2: or washed out in brackets except when you got PTSD
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  Speaker 2: close brackets. But then in that last room sleep is
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  Speaker 2: almost like the machine learning of your emotions how to
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  Speaker 2: deal with stress responses, and that's the time when you
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  Speaker 2: when you dream. Just reading a bit into it by
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  Speaker 2: okalth professionals, they can do it do it easily. I
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  Speaker 2: think just gives you that ability to improve well being
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  Speaker 2: of people in unemployment. And it's you know, one can
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  Speaker 2: say efficial physiology. You're metabolone, you your genetics, everything. But
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  Speaker 2: if you manage it optimally, then I think you can
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  Speaker 2: spend that good working quality of working life with the
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  Speaker 2: balance of you know, with family life as well.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, and obviously there are you know, some people
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  Speaker 1: have insomnia or other sleep related issues. But aside from that,
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  Speaker 1: on a more general level, some of the things that
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  Speaker 1: maybe we do. I mean, you mentioned sleep hygiene earlier,
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  Speaker 1: things like going to bed and getting up at a
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  Speaker 1: regular time. How important is that? And also you know,
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  Speaker 1: people will often say, oh, I didn't sleep well because
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  Speaker 1: I was doing this, that or the other, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: I'll catch up later, and they think that they can
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  Speaker 1: then have a much longer sleep, for example, at the weekends,
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  Speaker 1: and that will put everything right. From burning the candle
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  Speaker 1: at both ends during the week I mean those bad practices, I.
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  Speaker 2: Think they're they're catching up on sleep over the weekend.
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  Speaker 2: That's a sign of the compensation. So it's actually like
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  Speaker 2: like a like a mortgage. You can pay off a mortgage,
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  Speaker 2: but but sleep did you actually can't play off so
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  Speaker 2: if you lose cumulative sleep loss over the week, you
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  Speaker 2: actually can't pay it back over the weekend because it's
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  Speaker 2: still a fixture else badly. And in terms of us
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  Speaker 2: sleep duration or regularity, I think the real SAPID questionnaire
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  Speaker 2: is usually if you you're still in the green, if
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  Speaker 2: you if you within an hour of going to bed
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  Speaker 2: and making up, for example, if you have it is
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  Speaker 2: going to be a ten ten pm. It's not all
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  Speaker 2: right to go to bed eleven pm. But if it
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  Speaker 2: goes to beyond that, our students to fix actually your
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  Speaker 2: your growth hormone secretion and your melatonin secretion. So as
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  Speaker 2: we know, meltonin is a is a very strong antioxidant
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  Speaker 2: in viture in Deegal studies, which which reduces important in
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  Speaker 2: reducing cancer risk and inflammatory response inflammatory response as a
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  Speaker 2: knock on on metabolic disease like heart disease, trake, et cetera.
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  Speaker 2: So so that's why a regular sleep pattern is very
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  Speaker 2: important as well as sleep duration. He UH stands for timing,
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  Speaker 2: which is the midpoint of sleep, So one should actually
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  Speaker 2: always be a step between two IM and four A
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  Speaker 2: which is the midpoint if you clock up enough hours
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  Speaker 2: of sleepless eight hours, but you are awakened that a
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  Speaker 2: point of sleep. I think studies demonstrated the fatuble performance.
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  Speaker 2: So actually, if you over sleep the weekend, you should
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  Speaker 2: ask your question the question should you try to your
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  Speaker 2: life differently? Yeah, so it's actually like a long term
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  Speaker 2: approach I think is sleep by gen we say normally
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  Speaker 2: try you need to do it, persist with it for
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  Speaker 2: three weeks at least and it will show effected one
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  Speaker 2: immediate effect issue by week one.
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  Speaker 1: And how about obviously a lot of our listeners will
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  Speaker 1: work with people who do shift work that can really
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  Speaker 1: mess with your sleep. I guess it's different whether you're
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  Speaker 1: doing a permanent night shift for example, as to whether
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  Speaker 1: you're doing shifts that change from time to time. And
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  Speaker 1: obviously a lot of health professionals, particularly in hospital settings
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  Speaker 1: do shifts. Getting that regularity of a sleep pattern can
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  Speaker 1: be quite challenging. What advice would you have for oh
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  Speaker 1: professionals who are working with those sort of clients.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we know, we know that the employers are a
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  Speaker 2: lot of time not not very tolerant in terms of
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  Speaker 2: their operation, especially like what we think of that with
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  Speaker 2: the shift pattern on the workers, and it's sometimes difficult
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  Speaker 2: to change operationally for the employers, there's there's a little
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  Speaker 2: benefit in in advising people how to adjust on shift
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  Speaker 2: work with with light exposure, but as there's a very
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  Speaker 2: small segment, like like offshore workers with the wait two
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  Speaker 2: weeks on two weeks. Often if I let's say that
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  Speaker 2: the older person over fifty and they know they're going
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  Speaker 2: to do nights, I think you can have a bit
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  Speaker 2: of adjustment with light. But we know twenty percent of
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  Speaker 2: the workforce they do shift work, so so but they're
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  Speaker 2: no advice forward in shorter shifts, have enough time between
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  Speaker 2: shifts to rest. And I think mostly what we see
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  Speaker 2: in well adapted shift workers, they they get back home
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  Speaker 2: after a night shift, I don't immediately go to bit.
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  Speaker 2: They worked a while until I get very sleep and
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  Speaker 2: they know you have a good period of quality sleeping
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  Speaker 2: crowded than coming back from work sleep work up. And
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  Speaker 2: so we see that that works works well. So I
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  Speaker 2: think the train driver prop population, we see a lot
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  Speaker 2: of older drivers and they tolerance to shift work is
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  Speaker 2: very good. Well, when we get other employees where they
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  Speaker 2: work dies for for a long time and suddenly it
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  Speaker 2: changes and they're required to do shift work, and it's
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  Speaker 2: very difficult put into debt.
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  Speaker 1: So if an OH professional is working with somebody, maybe
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  Speaker 1: they've they've already established that sleep is an issue for
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  Speaker 1: the person that they're working with. What are the sort
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  Speaker 1: of first practical steps that they can work with with
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  Speaker 1: that person to you get them to have better sleep
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  Speaker 1: in terms of the hours that they sleep, maybe the
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  Speaker 1: mattress that they're sleeping on and that regularity. How can
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  Speaker 1: they start to improve somebody's sleep patterns?
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  Speaker 2: All right? Yeah, you think like like in all Okaals assistance,
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  Speaker 2: where we first exclude the red flags or the treatable
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  Speaker 2: things like like narcolepsy or obstructive sleep up now, which
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  Speaker 2: which has a huge I think eight million people in
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  Speaker 2: the UK is suffering on it. There's a good reference
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  Speaker 2: in Royal College of Psychiatry where they look at whether
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  Speaker 2: there's a Lincoln Sleep hygiene and that's a good way
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  Speaker 2: to just start interacting with or with a potent and
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  Speaker 2: follow them up. We know it's not the ones of
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  Speaker 2: advice you need to persist with it, but with for
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  Speaker 2: for a few weeks and see what what is the response.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: This podcast is sponsored by orchid Live. Orchid Live is
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a specialist occupational health software used by a number of
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: some members to run every aspect of their occupational health operations.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: They hold healthcare records for over one million UK workers
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and work with both in house OH teams and OH providers.
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  Speaker 1: You can find out more at orchidlive dot com.