Sleep – Your Silent Superpower webinar 2026

0:00 Uh really cool to be um invited again to present on sleep. So for the sleep series this month, one of the one of the
0:08 things I'm really passionate about. Uh so really good to be able to do this and thank you for those that have already reached out. I've had a number of people
0:16 already reach out around a few different areas with sleep. Um and to so today's focus I'll I'll put the slide up in a minute. We'll check it all out. But my
0:25 area is applied. So applied research. um currently OC physical performance squadron. So physical so how do we
0:32 perform in a physical world? Um how do we use sleep to enhance our performance not only physically but mentally? So
0:39 today's let's bring this up.
0:52 Just move right.
1:05 Oh, we'll just get back to there. Okay, let's we we're getting it. There we go.
1:12 So, there um I'm hoping we can all see that. It looks like everybody can. So, today's presentation today is sleep,
1:19 your silent superpower. So, something I've become quite passionate about and I really think it is something
1:27 sleep is this it's this really cool thing. It's something we can tap into. You can go home and tap into it tonight.
1:32 And hopefully I'll give you some tools uh that what I present about today that you can actually take home tonight and use. And I really believe that it's
1:41 something it's changed my world coming from a strength conditioning performance world then doing my sleep research that I've changed the way I look at it and
1:49 the way it's enhanced my life. So a little bit about myself. So born and bread took it all boy. Um started as a
1:56 bushman before I joined the army. I joined in 94 um as a steward and I've been I think it's more going on 30 years
2:05 now actually involved with the military in and out. I had a period out of defense where I studied academically at Otago and Wintech. Uh worked in
2:14 professional rugby uh with Wetto the Chiefs uh in Japan had a 17 year association with um Samour as well three
2:22 rugby world cups. So the more I got into it, the more I learned about it that we can train hard, we can have we need to
2:30 um you know we have to deliver our cognitive function every day, but then if we don't sleep, we can't do that. Uh I've been involved in triathlon quite
2:38 heavily as well. Uh Joel endurance running, but my go-to now was swimming.
2:45 So as I've got older, I'm 54 now. Um that's one of my swims that was swimming the Cook Straight a couple years ago.
2:52 That's sort of the that's what I do on my my free time. So if I couldn't sleep well, I couldn't have the energy or
3:00 being in a well enough health estate to be able to do this along with everyday function and jobs. My day job at the
3:07 moment, so I'm OC physical performance squadron. That's uh Corporal Simon there from so in my day job, yeah, I look
3:14 after all the gyms, all the PTIs. So that's Army, Air Force and Navy from Burnham right up to Devport.
3:24 I started my I guess my academic career uh with Otago when I first left the army in 90 99. I went to Otago and did it's
3:34 changed now but it was a 4-year Otago Fizz degree. then started working in professional rugby and did a strength
3:41 conditioning masters at Wine and then that evolved when I come back to defense and worked for eight years in the human performance with Major Russo. Human
3:50 performance is now based in um Wudu but did my PhD and applied PhD based on sleep and performance in the defense
3:57 force and I was attached to the last six Jo courses that ran in Woodburn.
4:06 So like I said at the start, I come from quite an applied background and these are some of the backgrounds I've worked in. Um I target and the Highlanders I
4:15 got involved when I was at university and then the rest of these environments I've had um head or lead roles in
4:21 different professional teams. Um also done performance work with the police, with the special tactics unit and AOS.
4:30 uh done a lot of work with TG6 and also the Navy divers and then worked across all recruit depots in Army, Navy and Air
4:38 Force. And the cool thing is is that in a lot of these environments, sleep is it's you know it's utmost importance and
4:45 there's been a cool shift within defense that we can now actually put sleep on the table and talk about the benefits of it. It's not about being soft. It's not about being weak. We have this awesome
4:54 tool that can actually enhance us in our everyday life.
4:59 So the the way I always look at this is I come you know I have this um mix of elite sport environment as well as military having come through the
5:07 military um started as a steward then commissioned being an officer and then into the h human performance realm. So I
5:15 always look at how can we enhance human performance I'll always take learnings from an elite sport environment um bring
5:23 that into the military and human performance overall. So this sort of thing here we come into an environment however what's our requirement of our
5:31 daily operation what are our daily tasks so we come in and train people but then we need to orientate towards what is the
5:39 actual operational output we have to be we have to deliver um you know at short notice that we can get out there and do
5:46 so we have to be applied and practical and driven in the area that we're working towards
5:54 an applied approach means that I'm always looking for enhancements in performance. So looking at things like
6:01 always now I'm always developing programs around sleep but that's one tool in the toolbox a pretty big tool
6:08 but if we can enhance other areas of our performance you know we're laying this path that the more we put in place the better our performance will be overall.
6:17 So, you know, sleep there looking at types of compression garments. Um, you get tights, that's a, you know, a bit of a flash. Air flow compression garment,
6:25 ice bars, ice bathing, hot and colds, um, hydrotherapy, different cold compression, and then nutrition as well.
6:33 So, looking at what we put in, you know, what we our energyy's got to be input equals output. Uh but at the end of the
6:40 day, calories and being healthy overall and moving forward um what are we doing on a daily basis that enhances our
6:50 overall goals, outputs and what we want to achieve. And when I talk about what we want to achieve, it's not just in a
6:57 elite human performance world by no means at all. Um there's probably a lot of you out there that I've spoken to previously or on different courses and I
7:05 term it the corporate athlete. So in our world, the corporate athlete in what you do on a daily environment, how can you enhance what you do around these areas
7:14 here, your physical, your mental, spiritual, emotional, social, um, environmental, you know, the overall wellness that in your environment right
7:22 now, you probably want to get out, stay fit, stay healthy, but how do you operate the best you possibly can in your corporate environment with what we live in as well?
7:34 Okay. So, sleep. Let's start drilling down into this thing called sleep. Uh when
7:42 quite sobering for me when I started my journey down this PhD and really getting into the sleep, you think, oh, your sleep is just this. This is what we do
7:50 when we go to bed. What I learned pretty quickly when I started doing hundreds of lit reviews around sleep is this. This
7:57 is a pretty sort of sobering stat to be honest. um up to 60% of the world's population suffer from poor sleep or
8:06 sleep deprivation and I'm going to talk about sleep deprivation later on but our body's smart in that we'll learn to cope
8:13 with things however as I've also delivered about a lot in the past with major reso is stress stress is stress if
8:20 we don't sleep properly um our body is sort of holding on to stress and then this can form and manifest in all sorts
8:28 of different ways and yeah like I said what quite what was sobering to me is that when we look at this, it's gosh,
8:35 it's quite scary how so many ailments can be tracked back to poor sleep. or one of the key indicators
8:43 from some of the things that you know people suffer with worldwide and I'm not going to list them off but you know yeah
8:51 it's poor sleep uh sleep deprivation poor quality sleep can really roll into and flow into our
8:59 life on an everyday basis um into different things that we suffer from okay so sleep let's move on a bit
9:07 further so sleep I would say is still an evol olving research area and I know there's going to be a few different
9:15 topics this month but again mine's very practical and applied uh research is always evolving around
9:23 sleep you know sleep quality timing of sleep I see there was some research come out recently that said uh being on
9:30 phones and the blue light from phones is not actually as bad as what has been made out to be and kids that are on devices till late in the evening you
9:39 know that doesn't affect their sleep you that that that's a pretty throwaway comment to make, but maybe for one or two kids, yes. But at the end of the
9:46 day, we you still know from your kids at home, if you put them in front of an iPad or a cell phone uh and then try to get them to sleep, nine times out of 10,
9:54 they're not going to sleep very well from around factors that I'm going to talk about. So, what do we know? There is a couple of things that we do know.
10:01 This is one of them. Better sleep. Uh and I'm not going to baffle you with sort of the the the science today, the of science. I'm going to keep
10:09 it pretty straight that you can take it home tonight and start using it. So, better sleep, optimal sleep, sleep quality will equal enhanced physical
10:17 performance. We know that. We also know, and this gets forgotten about, and this is what I've really tried to push more into the defense world, is that better
10:25 sleep, optimal sleep, better sleep quality will enhance cognitive function.
10:31 Cognitive function. So, the brain is just like any other muscle. So, if the brain can operate better, we can deliver better. We can make decisions better. We
10:40 can make more effective and safe decisions under pressure.
10:45 And at the end of the day, we can have improved health and well-being in our everyday lives. And then also in what we
10:52 need to deliver for those of us that wear a uniform and we get called, you know, um to a hot spot or the the
10:59 balloon goes up, we're ready to go and we can um deliver with what we need to do.
11:06 Love this picture. we all, you know, look at this and present you think, "Oh, I'd love to go and have a bit of a bit of a sleep now with the morning that I've had." Um, and this is a really
11:16 interesting one because when I present, uh, it's a bit hard to do now in this sort of forum, but I'll get people to put up their hands and say, "Who would
11:23 like to sleep better?" You know, 90% of the room puts up their hands. Yeah, I sleep poorly. Or who's trying to do things to uh, sleep better? You know, 90% of the room puts their hands up.
11:34 people will pay for I'm an Aura Ring user, you know, my Aura Ring or is it a smartwatch tracking your sleep or is it
11:42 a phone app? Um, or is it some sort of system you belong to? We'll pay for trainers. We'll pay for massage therapists. We'll go to the med center
11:51 and ask to go to a specialist because of a sleep issue. However, at the end of the day, sleep's free. We can go home and start
12:00 this tonight. we can start putting processes in place to audit our sleep and actually start tapping into this awesome area that we can get for free.
12:08 So we forget about this. So if we start to audit things, put things in, you know, into play that I'm going to talk about today, hopefully we can enhance our sleep.
12:19 Before we move into, you know, the crux of um giving you some tools today is I always ask this question, what is sleep?
12:27 Yep. Simple question. What is sleep?
12:31 Answers I would normally get is, oh, it's um something we do to recover. Yes, that is right. Oh, it's this that distresses us. Yes, that is right. Oh,
12:39 it's something. Yes. But at the end of the day, I think if we can grasp this concept, what is sleep? And this is in
12:47 simple terms, this is sleep here. Again, you're probably looking at this this graph going, what the heck is he talking
12:54 about? So, sleep cycle. This is a sleep cycle. And in a sleep cycle, um, sleep cycle goes, and I do state this,
13:03 approximately 90 minutes. So, one of those, I guess, trroths is approximately 90 minutes. And we should be aiming for four to five sleep cycles per night.
13:16 Hence, when you have an afternoon sleep, you shouldn't sleep for longer than 90 minutes because it takes a sleep cycle away. But what I want to what I'm the point I'm really trying to make here is
13:23 sleep is a physiological process. It's a physiological process. And if we can understand that and prep for that physiological process, we're going to be in a better place to enhance our sleep.
13:35 I'll explain this. That's a reference there for that. I'll explain this a bit further. So, I'm sure lots of you love to get up in the morning, come to the uh
13:43 triplef sessions here at Trentham Gym in the morning or you know the gym that you go to or wherever you're training in the morning. The alarm goes off, you get out
13:52 of bed. Um, you're in your t-shirt and your boxes or your nightwear or your nighty. You probably might put your jandals or your slippers on, go to the
14:00 toilet, and then from there, you probably walk straight to the car, get in the car, and go to the gym in your nighty or your sleepwear. No, of course
14:08 you don't. Um, you have a process. You You actually have a process for going to the gym in the morning. You would
14:16 possibly have laid your shoes out the night before. You've got your gym gear ready. you've packed your bag, um you know, you've sorted the kids, the dogs, everything else that needs to be done.
14:24 We do that for lots of other aspects of our life and the way we might do our physical training or our strength training or our whatever else we do, but
14:32 we treat sleep like absolute rubbish. Uh it's 10:00 at night. I'm sitting on my phone on the couch. All of a sudden, I look up and go, "Oh it's 10:00.
14:41 I've got that presentation in the morning." Or, "Actually, I've got to be at the airport. I've got to do this." I drop my phone. I brush my teeth. I go to bed. I wonder why I can't sleep because I've absolutely butchered my sleep.
14:56 If we can then start to audit our sleep processes, the way we look at sleep, these sort of things, you know,
15:05 hopefully it's not then a battle between a nice uh happy day shift and then we're at a battle with a night shift or even
15:13 worse, you know, when I do have to do a night shift. this sort of thing here.
15:17 You're just so totally messed up. Uh and hey, given some people like to work at night, but then how does it, you know, what happens when we get out of there?
15:26 And I'm quite a quite practical in this area too within the defense world. We are going to have to work nights. We're going to be on operations. We're going
15:34 to be on a field exercise. We're going to be on a course where we're working late. Um you might have to be somewhere and be on an OP. That's what we do. We
15:41 train for that. But it's how we prep for something. How do we do it? then a recovery period out of it. I think we can look at this a little bit more practically around than just winging it.
15:53 I'll just sort of lay this here before I get into to these um the tools for you.
15:58 But again, if we can sort out this process, if we can understand that physiological process of what sleep is, potentially we can help to inhibit some
16:06 of these things that happen here with um with shift work, which we are going to have to do. Or if you are a shift worker, I'm sure you've
16:15 you're dealing with some of these or these can become challenges in our everyday life.
16:23 Okay, so let's start cracking into this.
16:25 So I guess I term this the six tips or the six key bio hacks to better sleep.
16:31 Um biohacks. So the biosynthesis, the body processes or the body systems. How can we tap into a few things that can um
16:40 I guess get our body in a better position to sleep?
16:45 Six key bio hacks. So the first one here, sleep hygiene. So I'm sure that's a term people have heard and I've
16:54 touched on this in the past. So sleep hygiene is again that example I used around going to the gym. It's your process for sleep or the process to
17:03 prepare for sleep. What are we actually doing?
17:06 When we come to sleep, our body loves routine. Uh unlike going to the gym or going training, we try to stimulate and
17:14 get adaptation. We're changing training all the time to get adaptation to get adaptation with sleep. Body loves routine and it hones into that routine.
17:24 So setting your bedtime where you can as best as possible, keeping it the same, your wake time keeping it the same. Um,
17:33 and we should be looking for, you know, getting a good block of sleep, which I'm going to come to as well. But showering before we go to bed is a good trigger
17:40 point for the body. It, um, you know, we can subconsciously tell the body, okay, I've had my shower, I'm warming up now.
17:46 I get my nightwear on at the moment. You know, dressing gown on, slippers on, sitting in front of the fire, feeling quite cozy, starting to think about what we're heading to soon. Reducing lights.
17:57 I know in our house we always switch off the main light and we have sort of plume lights around. So not sitting in the dark but just taking away the glare on
18:05 the eyes uh and the bright lights if you have dimmers. So the higher the bright light the higher the component of blue
18:13 light. So what we want to do is reduce lights. A warm drink a warm drink in about about 90 minutes to an hour before
18:19 bed can actually help. Um and the warm drink actually a good a milk drink is actually good. a warm drink of milk. Uh
18:28 in milk has tryptophen which is a essential neo acid which can actually help you sleep and also it can help
18:35 release melatonin. And then as I mentioned looking at next day prep. So what can I offset now that I'm not going
18:43 to panic about when I go to bed or during the night I'm going to wake up and think oh bugger I forgot to pack this or I've got that in the morning.
18:49 And it might be a simple thing like um I don't know, I forgot to pack my snack, but you'll subconsciously worry about
18:57 that all night. So, have really good next day prep. The human body loves the routine when it comes to sleep hygiene.
19:05 And these key tips here. So, you know, if you can use an alarm clock or just use a watch. Um
19:13 darkness, using earplugs, eye patches, blocking up light. um trying to read
19:19 instead of being on devices, that set bedtime routine. Um keeping the
19:26 temperature cool and then also uh humidifier that you you can um puts moisture in the air, stops your back of
19:34 your throat drying out, your nose, your upper respiratory tract. But the process for sleep, set a process that works, and then stick to that process. Number one.
19:43 Number two, reducing bright light. So this was a the the major study of my PhD and we
19:52 reduced in barrack rooms the um the ceiling tubes. So the Kelvin rating from 8,000 Kelvin down to 3,000 Kelvin. By
20:01 reducing that the component of white light was reduced massively reducing the component of the blue light. Um, what we
20:09 found was over 6 weeks when we did this in barracks, those that were in the reduced light barracks, and you can still sit there and read, you can still do what you need to do, but because we
20:18 lowered the Calvin rating, the bright light in the room, those in those rooms
20:23 ran significantly better, uh, had better muscular endurance and better subjective well-being from pre- to post over 6
20:32 weeks. Significantly. So, we're talking about in the lounge, the kitchen, the hallways. Again, if you can use um
20:39 dimmers or just use lamps around or salt lamps are really really good as well.
20:45 So, this should be in the um in the bedroom as well.
20:49 So, a key thing that happens here is the suppression of melatonin in the bright light environments. And this can be quite vicious in that if you're working
20:58 late and you're stuck under bright lights. I've seen it a lot in rest homes, emergency wards, emergency rooms,
21:05 barracks, uh in um hostels and universities where they have the bright light. And that's the vicious cycle of
21:11 modern society is that a bright 18 8,000 Kelvin tube can run for about 8 cents
21:19 versus a 100 watt bulb running for 30 cents. So there's a bit of a vicious cycle here. There's a lot of technology coming in at the moment with um chips
21:28 and different things, but you want to ensure that you reduce the bright light.
21:33 We don't suppress melatonin and we need that melatonin to be released in the body about 50 40 to 50 minutes before sleep.
21:42 So, this is what we deal with here, you know. Um if you can set up your house, if you're building a house with the
21:50 lower with the chips, you can get reduced lights. You can also get um places like uh Dixers JB Hi-Fi have the
21:59 apps where you can reduce the light. You can set into a warm glow. Really really recommend those. They're really really good. But an environment like this
22:06 picture here should be avoiding this in the 90 minutes before bed. Reduce that bright light.
22:13 Here's another key one for you. Number three, get off devices. So again, research is evolving. Let's call it
22:21 evolving. Um, but there's still enough research to show us that being on devices suppresses your melatonin and we
22:29 need that melatonin to be released like I said 30 to 40 minutes before bed. Uh, you should be setting your phones or
22:38 devices to a night mode where possible if you are using it in the evening, but playing it safe, getting off devices um,
22:46 at the least 90 minutes before bed um, a couple of hours if you can. Uh yeah, and
22:52 it's not just so the screens have a high component of again bright light, blue light. It stimulates you. The tricky
23:00 thing here is it stimulates you subconsciously. So you don't know what's happening, but it's happening. And um it's also the stimulation that you get,
23:08 the endorphins that get released because I'm scrolling. I'm looking at something.
23:11 Oh, one more chapter. Oh, one more episode. And we just get into that vicious cycle and we dig ourselves a hole. So, yep. Pads, iPads, definitely
23:21 for your kids. Get them off nice and early. Get them set onto those night modes. I guess in a modern world, it becomes really, really tricky because
23:29 everything we have is on our phone. This takes planning. So, your apps for uh Uber Eats or booking my session at the
23:36 gym the next morning or looking at a train schedule or looking at my bills, you know, it it it's we're all grown-ups. there's definite benefits
23:44 there, but being stuck on a device late at night is not the way to go. Uh, also with uh gaming and different things like
23:52 that, yeah, there is uh I think a lot of the LED the bright TVs, they're all sort of changed a little bit now, but you still get that stimulation factor where
24:00 you're going to stimulate yourself quite significantly by gaming leading to the evening.
24:06 Just a note for you. Hurricanes, I'm not actually a hurricane supporter really, but Hurricanes won the Super Rugby title just recently. Talking to some good
24:15 friends still working in um Super Rugby, and this was as late as last year. Um gone from my days when I was working in Super Rugby, but the issues were
24:24 drinking and drunkenness and staying out late. Some of the biggest issues in super rugby were players staying up gaming because they had rankings
24:32 worldwide and they were sitting up to all hours getting two hours sleep coming back to training. So there's other areas there that can be quite vicious. Number
24:40 four, reduce artificial light in the bedroom. I've sort of touched on this, but we want to have that dark as dark an environment as we can to sleep. So,
24:49 drapes, clocks, phones, TVs. Uh, 100% shouldn't I recommend don't have your
24:56 phone in the bedroom. Again, vicious cycle in that everything's on it.
24:59 However, you can still do it. I know in our house, we have all our phones down the hallway on the breakfast bar. We can still hear all the alarms, but that's where they stay at night.
25:10 So, when I first joined the army, these sorts of things, you know, the the the um the room was like a Christmas tree with these everywhere.
25:18 your phones. And if you're doing this, I recommend 100% you uh don't want to have a TV in the bedroom because again, like
25:25 I've said, oh, one more episode or one more this and then it just goes on and on and it stimulates you. Um, also a TV,
25:34 a hair dryer, if something flashes on your phone, um, you get a message.
25:40 Research shows us that a even a 20 to 30 millisecond flash of bright light in the middle of the night in the dark is enough to interrupt our sleep quality.
25:49 So reduce artificial light in the bedroom.
25:54 Number five, bit of a tricky one at the moment with winter, but keep the bedroom cool.
26:02 Couple of things with this. our body temperature goes up at night and that's um you know that it that goes up to kill
26:09 bugs, kill germs. It's a natural process that happens. Um so that's the first thing. The second thing is we sleep
26:17 better we are when we're slightly cooler or it's cooler because again our body temperature goes up but our bodies like
26:23 fresh air and natural air flow and you just think back to a time you got stuck in a stuffy room. Um, there was no fans,
26:32 it was hot, you know, you get a dry throat, your nose dries out, your upper respiratory tract. If you can keep that fresh air, um, that still has a bit of
26:41 moisture in the air and keeps coming through, it will help you sleep better.
26:46 But the natural air flow is good for us, you know, keeps the lungs in good nick versus being in a stuffy room. Uh, I
26:53 start to dry out, I get a headache, it wakes me up. Also, the layers on the bed. This is a key that I I I really I
27:00 really like and I have this set up in, you know, my house and set up for my kids is have a layering system. So, especially in winter, yes, we're going to get we had a couple of cold nights.
27:09 Gosh, last week I was searching for another blanket, but um have it set up if we know it's winter, have your, you know, your um your sheet, your duvet,
27:18 and then have another blanket or another duvet at the end of the bed or somewhere where you can quickly pull it up. Don't preempt it and think, "It's going to be
27:26 freezing tonight. I'll go to bed with three duvys and then wake up in a big sweaty mess and then you can't get back to sleep. So, think about the layering
27:33 system on the bed and play with it uh and see what works.
27:39 So, fans where you can. You possibly don't want an industrial fan like that, but um play with a fan. Find a fan where you can get a little bit of air flow in
27:47 the room or maybe a bit of a fan before you go to bed just to get the air flowing around the room. can be tricky when we go to hot countries when we do have to travel.
27:58 Uh air conditioning, air conditioning um dries us out. So it takes all the
28:05 moisture out of the room and then dries out your nose, your throat, and because of that, you know, you can upper respiratory tract can crack. You're more
28:14 susceptible to bugs. What I actually recommend in hot countries to keep your bedroom cool is you can put the air con on if there's no other way, but open the windows so you still get a bit of
28:21 moisture in there. You think it works against each other. At least you have a cool room that's still got some moisture in it.
28:28 Yeah. And hopefully we get a better sleep. Number six, reduce caffeine from 12:00 p.m. So, I
28:38 saved this one for number six because um like Wolverine there, you know, if we can swipe this away, it's to me this is
28:45 another huge win that's free. We can start this today. So, yeah. Now, we should not be having coffee again. this afternoon. And you know, I'm sure some
28:53 of you are thinking, "Oh, yeah, great, Dave. Um, I'll be having three before the end of the day." Um, I'm a massive coffee drinker, but by lunchtime, I have
29:01 my last coffee. Why is that? Because it's a stimulant. So, it's a neural stimulant. Stimulates our brain, stimulates our nervous system, and it
29:11 also has, you can class it like drugs, a life and a halfife. So caffeine will still be floating around your system um
29:18 four to six hours after you've consumed it. So if you're drinking caffeine and coffee into the evening, you think you
29:26 have your last coffee at 8:00, you know, midnight early hours of the morning, it's still rolling around. If it's 10:00, it's later. And this can be um be
29:34 quite a challenge to us. It's a um like I said, a neural stimulant, a melatonin suppression, and it also dehydrates us.
29:42 And we want to be well hydrated, which I'll touch on quickly soon. When we do go to bed, there's this way off between being well hydrated but not being up
29:51 peeing all night. But you want to reduce that caffeine. And again, this is another thing where where I've presented in the past, I've had people put their
30:00 hands up and, you know, made up a bit of a story about, oh, I'm involved in a research group and we've got these devices that it's looking like it's
30:07 guaranteed it will help your sleep and you'll get, you know, reports and we can track your sleep. who's interested in joining, but it's going to cost you about $600 for your device. Most of the
30:16 room put their hands up when I say I can tell you something. The next thing I'll tell you is free, but you'll probably all laugh. And then, you know, I say, "Stop drinking caffeine from lunchtime.
30:26 Make that your last coffee." And it's like, "Oh, God." Yeah, right. But 100%, you know, I thought this is huge. Try and give this a crack and you can start this today.
30:38 I know we love our coffees. They are good. Caffeine is actually um has some positive benefits. It's it's a fat it's
30:46 fat soluble. So it breaks down fat in your bloodstream. So in the morning it can actually break down fat and give you energy for the day. And the other thing we should consider is energy drinks.
30:57 Keeping in mind um energy drinks have a high component of caffeine. Um which
31:04 again we're all adults here and I'm not anti-energy drinks. Just be well aware that like we've, you know, we we do in
31:12 um nutrition presentations, be aware of how much sugar is in orange juice, is in Coke, is in Power Aid, is in what foods that we eat. Yes, high sugar, but do you
31:21 need a kick? Um yeah, I I would be honest and say I would tend to recommend only use them if you have to and go for
31:28 sugar-free because you know what's happening in there will help. And a thing I say with caffeine as in, you know, I do mean this is 100% I think
31:38 you'll get benefit if you cut caffeine and stimulating drinks from lunchtime.
31:43 However, let's be realistic. If you're uh I don't know, you've had to travel with the kids or you're with a team or you've been on a sports trip or you're
31:52 driving a truck back from somewhere and you know you've had a hell of a day and you've still got 2 hours home and it's night and you're not leaving till 7:00 in the evening and you're feeling quite
32:00 tired. You're better to go to the gas station and get a coffee and an energy drink and get home safe than be dead in a ditch halfway. So, you know, that's
32:08 the reality of again the applied practical side is horses for courses. But caffeine can start this today.
32:16 Hopefully, you give it a crack and start getting into it.
32:20 When we look at sleep, what if we do wake in the night? So, let's again look at the practical side
32:28 of this. What's actually happen? And I and I'm not immune to this. I um I wake up in the night and I've tried these things. So if you do wake up, couple of
32:36 practical tips. What I think is just wait four to five minutes. So quite often what happens is we wake up.
32:45 We want to go back to sleep. We turn over head on the pillow. We're telling ourselves go to sleep, go to sleep. The more we go to sleep, the more we're telling ourselves, I can't go to sleep.
32:53 You then start to panic. I've got to drive in the morning. I've got that presentation. I've got to talk to the boss. Oh, I'm in charge. we start to panic. So what I recommend is get up and
33:01 reset. So like I said the routine our body is really smart in that we should um with the routine the body will
33:10 associate bedroom with sleeping. So if get up leave the bedroom uh don't turn on all the lights. In our house we have
33:18 I'm not into fune but we have salt lamps down the hallway and in the lounge. So, I can actually get up, go to the lounge,
33:25 um, find my book like I've got there. If something's bugging me in the middle of the night, I'll get up and I'll write some notes about it or I'll write a little list that I need to come back to
33:33 in the morning. Uh, if it's I don't know, I've already woken up. Sometimes I'll just go and read. I'll always have a book handy and read a book under a
33:41 just a light, a lamp. And then what I often find is I can hardly get through a paragraph and I'm already nodding off. I go back to bed and I sleep.
33:49 What I find with writing the notes is, and a lot of people have said this to me, in the middle of the night, it's just because we're half asleep, the body
33:57 temperature's up, we're quite heightened in that we have a, you know, you can get that panic response. So, if you write down what's annoying you, then you can
34:04 go back to it in the morning. You know, nine times out of 10, you go back to it and look at that list and think, "Oh, is that all it was? I'm not actually even
34:12 too worried about that." Um, so it is actually a really really good way just to do that. When you've done it a few times, you sort of start to not panic. I
34:21 already sort of touched on that warm milk. Yeah. With the tryptophin and the um melatonin that can be released. Bit of an old wife's tail, but I have tried
34:29 it. Obviously, if you don't like milk, it won't work so well. You can put a bit of hot chocolate in it, but that does work.
34:38 Okay. Working long shifts. Uh, and I've done a fair bit of work with this with um different organizations, different
34:47 people in defense. And really close to home recently, my wife um I live in Blenhham. She works in the wine industry. She's a lab tech. So for about
34:55 the last six years, she's drawn the short straw uh and has she's a lab technician, so runs the lab at St. Clair and she's been on night shift. My
35:04 daughter has recently gone into a job where she's a vet nurse. She's a intermediate vet nurse now. VSA down in Christ Church and they have to um you
35:13 know when you're paying $20,000 for a operation on your dog, they damn well sure make sure there's a qualified vet nurse to look after them there during
35:21 the night. So she's having to do night shifts. So I've had to really come up with plans for my own wife and my own daughter. So some of those plans uh and
35:29 we've found it really really works where you plan and prep. So plan and prep ahead. Like I've said, plan your meals in your hydration. Don't just take it
35:37 for granted. Treat it like you would a normal day shift. So, what are you going to have for morning tea? What are you going to have for your lunch, which might be your dinner, you can call it,
35:45 and I'm not getting I don't really care if you want to eat cereal or, you know, porridge at night. That that's your lunch time. You know, it's just making
35:53 sure that you have a good nutritional meal. Um, so plan your meals in hydration, stretch, and do some mobility
36:01 in the night. Don't sort of sit and get lazy all night. actually keep the blood flowing around your body. What I also recommend here is, you know, have your
36:10 family, your kids, your pets, your dogs, and laundry planned and sorted. Don't walk out the door to go on a night shift and then be thinking, "Oh crap,
36:18 actually, I've got to sort the dog. I've got to sort the kids in the morning.
36:20 I've got to do the laundry." Do a bit of prep so at least you can get home and you know things are in pro in place, the processes are there so that you can do
36:29 what you have to do and then get into bed. um plan some recovery and I find
36:36 this really really helps because it freshens the body, doesn't make you feel so worn out and sometimes when you're really really overt tired or over
36:44 fatigued we don't sleep that well either. So look after yourself you know when you do get a day off is it the pool the spa massage uh even wearing
36:53 compression tights or compression calf skins to work to ensure that you uh you can get through that at night quite nicely.
37:02 gradually start your shift in your sleep routine, your circadian rhythm. So, if you know you've got a period of night shift coming up, um look to shift this.
37:12 So, you know, some people can just go cold turkey and switch the routine to nighttoday routine, but what works really, really well is just start
37:20 staying up a little bit later. So, you know, shift your bedtime by an hour or a couple of hours if you can if you know you've got something really important
37:28 coming up. So that by the time you start that night shift and again depending what you know night shifts um are
37:35 different times 7 till 7 7 at night 7 in the morning sometimes midnight to 8 whatever it is but try and graduate
37:42 towards that start time of work out and set to the routine and where you can mimic your daytime meals at night.
37:51 So, we don't we we we should be trying to eat like our our lunch, which would be lunchtime, in the middle of the
37:59 night, wherever that fits on what your night shift is. Don't wait until you finish your shift. Go home and have a big breakfast and then try to sleep
38:07 because we're probably going to feel a little bit uncomfortable. At the same time, the next point there, avoid caffeine energy drinks in the early hours of the morning. as you're starting
38:16 to get tired, as I said, maybe wear your compression tights to enhance blood flow or go for a walk in the fresh air to wake you up, rather than using energy
38:24 drinks where you're going to want to get home and then go to bed, but you're going to be a hell of a stimulated and unable to sleep. So, we want to prep for
38:31 that as best we can. And with the food, you know, it to me there's no difference in in, you know, eat your healthy meals.
38:40 You can eat breakfast food during the night. There's no issue with that. It's just that you wouldn't necessarily wouldn't wanting to have a a hot curry
38:47 at 6:00 in the morning than trying to go home and sleep at seven. So, just thinking a little bit smarter like that.
38:53 Um, get home and shower and get into bed in the dark. A big thing here. And block daylight with glasses and drapes where possible. So, I've recommended this a
39:01 bit to a few different units that I've worked with that have to do shift. I know why do you um do shift work, their instructors, and I sort of recommended
39:09 to them. And what I've recommended to people is where you can orientate those night shifts so that you get home and get in bed before the sunlight comes up
39:18 just so you don't get the cuz the circadian rhythm then switches once the daylight comes up and we get really really stimulated
39:25 um with what's happening with um the bright light and everything. So what we want to do is get home, have that shower, get into bed if you can have a
39:33 shower at work if that's possible. Get home and block out Yeah. As I've said before, earplugs,
39:41 eye masks, and drapes is a really good thing if you are a night shift worker and this sort of thing here. So, that was how my wife would drive home from
39:49 night shift and that's how my daughter drives home from night shift. I've schooled them up, put your hoodie on, um, get your sunglasses out to just help
39:56 try and block those UV rays um, and the lux coming from the sun that's coming up in the early hours of the morning to stimulate you. Get home, get out of the sunlight, and get to bed.
40:10 Okay, probably common to some of us shared living. How do we get on in shared living?
40:16 So 100% this is a factor in the military. But also, you know, for those that don't or don't have to go into
40:24 these environments, think about what you do on a camping trip away or, I don't know, you're heading away with a group to run a half marathon or the cycle
40:32 event around Lake Talpo or, I don't know, to a gardening show. You stay in a room with a bunch of people that you don't know. Well, you you know, but you haven't been that intimate with them.
40:42 Uh, someone starts snoring, we all get a crap sleep. You know, how how can we plan around that? So, let's plan ahead.
40:48 things like that. Have earplugs. Take ear plugs, have them in your backpack so you can actually pop some ear plugs in and get a bit different sleep. Get a
40:54 good sleep. Your eye patches. Um, come up with some almost like, you know, we love it in defense where we say
41:02 business rules. So, come up with um agree the night before. Well, I get up at this time. What do you guys get up?
41:08 I'll get I'm getting up early or I won't be up at that time. So, here's a plan.
41:11 you know, pack your bags um pack your bag, your day bag and your clothes and have them laid out in another room or just outside the door if possible or
41:19 have them at the end of your bed so you can grab and go. Um or have, you know, everything packed in your bag so you can go down to a shower block and get changed. And you have an agreement around sleep timings and quiet times.
41:31 And in barracks, I've seen this a lot where if you just go around your barrack room at night or a hostel and turn the lights off at 7:00, it's a different
41:39 place if the lights on are still on at 10:00 cuz everyone thinks, "Oh, everyone's still awake. I'll just be noisy." But as soon as I walk around and turn off all the lights, it goes really
41:48 quiet. Create a positive sleeping environment. And we can come up with the idea of, you know, sleep pods. How do I
41:55 create my sleep my little area in a sleep pod? The Navy's really good at this. they'll just about sleep anywhere with what they do on ships. Um, and
42:03 think about others. So, actually, yeah, put a bit of thought into that. So, couple of ideas like this. If you're in a barrack room or you're sleeping somewhere different, you know, can you
42:11 create your own sleep pod? It can be as simple as taking some pegs, pegging a blanket up or finding a sheet and just blocking out the light.
42:24 Be prepared. Like I've said, be prepared. Pack well. have everything ready to go. Uh, and this will enhance,
42:30 you know, my ability to go to a night shift, to get home, to do what I need to do.
42:37 Recovery. I really want to touch on this. I put all these up. So, I think we don't look at recovery enough. And
42:45 again, like I said, when I come from an applied side, if you recover well, you're going to sleep better. Uh, if
42:52 you're not hungry in the middle of the night, you're going to sleep better. If you're relaxed, you're going to sleep better. If you're hydrated, you're going to sleep better. So, you know, and and
43:01 if you're fulfilled, you're going to sleep better. So, if I've had a great walk in the park, you know, and I've had a cha great chat with my wife, my husband, my partner, I've enjoyed the
43:08 sun go down, I've been at the beach, whatever it may be, if we can put some of these, I'll just term it recovery in place, it will enhance our sleep. So,
43:17 again, setting a process that the body's in good nick, we look after ourselves really well. Um, and it transfers
43:24 through. Also, with injuries, there's nothing worse than having, you know, something uh throbbing away in the middle of the night or it niggles every
43:32 time I turn over or something else is going on. So, if you can address it, um get ice on different things. I find this
43:40 is a really an injury prevention as well. However, this is almost wellbeing, you know, um well-being prehab as well.
43:47 Look at, you know, I challenge you to look at something like ice bars, regular massage. you know, it doesn't mean setting up an elaborate setup. Get into
43:55 a river or lake. Refresh yourself um in that you feel relaxed and if you can,
44:02 you know, over the day relax, go into the evening relaxed. Again, it should help support that sleep.
44:11 Be creative. So, again on a side thing here, this is where I did a tour. This is at my wife's work, St. Clair Malra. I
44:18 was having a tour and these are the um wine bins that they put um the handpicked wine into. I saw those and I was getting all excited because I
44:26 thought that would be such cool ice baths. Um and I challenged them to do one during the harvest. You know, separate ice baths that people can just take their boots off at smoker time and
44:34 get their calves in there. Um I don't know that may not necessarily help you sleep, but it's a damn good way to help recovery and keep people fresh over the day. So there you go. There's an idea.
44:45 um be creative around how you can enhance a recovery environment in the workday to enhance again into that sleep.
44:55 This has probably been thrown at us a lot over the years, but sleep um and recovery alcohol. So, sleep and alcohol, how does this work?
45:06 Yeah, it's not good. So, I'm not going to tell you to suck eggs here, but there's a few things that happen here.
45:12 So when we drink alcohol, we get very dehydrated because we have the need to pee. So we're flushing out all the
45:19 fluids from the body. Uh we get metabolic stimulation. So again, our body starts to work overtime to work out the alcohol. Uh we get excited. We're talking to people. We're jumping around.
45:30 We're doing what we need to do. Quite often too many drinks. I have a late night. I'm having a great time. Um and
45:36 it cuts into our sleep as well. So because of that, it also um messes
45:44 really badly with your circadium rhythm, your heart rate, and then once that's messed up, your sleep quality, your HRV,
45:52 all goes out the window. And it can take quite a few days to come back for that.
45:55 And then, yeah, we're up constantly in the middle of the night needing to go to the toilet. So, nothing wrong with a few drinks. Just monitor what you do. Uh and
46:04 if it's a celebration at the end of a big event, hey, all good. I'm going to have a bit of a crappy sleep, but then I'm back into a good routine getting
46:11 prepped for my next week. So, I'm not saying don't drink. We just need to really manage when we do and don't decide to have drinks.
46:21 A key thing here I just wanted to touch on. So, the um dehydration within the body and I think dehydration is a big factor when we talk
46:30 about sleep because if we're stiff and dehydrated, I'm not comfortable when I lie down and go to sleep. A 1% drop in
46:37 body weight dur during a period of high physical activity can equal a um 7%
46:44 reduction in performance and cognitive function. So being dehydrated not only physically impairs you, it cognitively impairs you. Remember that brain is just like another big muscle in the body.
46:55 What I quite often see though is 1%'s nothing. It's, you know, I'm seeing big drop offs and it's not uncommon to have,
47:03 you know, a 14% drop off. So, or we're losing more body weight than that during big and I'm talking about in a chronic sense. So, not over time. You know, some
47:11 people are probably wanting to lose lots of body weight, but in that chronic, sorry, in the in the acute phase, we have had a high level of physical
47:20 activity. I get dehydrated. I'm going to get a drop off of physical performance, but also cognitive function. And again,
47:28 there that optimal hydration will um support the way we sleep. Again, this is a bit of a personal thing in
47:36 that, you know, we say 2 to three liters a day should be your standard that you should drink. If you're physical, we should be aiming higher for that, four
47:44 to five. Yes, we're very different. You just may need to play with what's good for you.
47:52 Okay, optimal sleep. Let's start to sort of draw this all back together now. Um, so
47:58 we've had those six bio hacks. you know, how can I then start to put these into play? Um, what should I be aiming for?
48:05 So, this outlines it here. I think the ideal is 8 to 9 hours. That is the absolute ideal. I think a a realistic
48:13 target should be 8 hours sleep. 8 hours sleep per night. That's a I think a very good target to aim for. The actual that
48:22 I'm seeing is probably more around seven seven hours is what people aim for. And what I'm seeing in defense and with a
48:30 lot of people I work with is the current is probably 6 to 7 hours in reality is what people are actually getting.
48:36 When we talk about sleep deprivation there's you know I I put a question to
48:43 you now. What do you think the level of sleep deprivation is? The clinically um recognized level for sleep deprivation.
48:52 I'm sleepd deprived if I'm sleeping on or about this number chronically every single night. That number or that time frame is that there 6 hours per night.
49:04 If you sleep on or about 6 hours per night, that's classed as sleep deprivation. So it inhibits optimal
49:11 physical performance, optimal cognitive function, and my ability to do what I need to do. So the ideal 8 to9 target 8
49:20 actual seven current 6 to 7 sleep deprivation 6 hours per night.
49:26 So hopefully we have learned a little about this now. Well you know what sitting on our phones all evening and
49:35 after we've learned a lot today hopefully everybody's going to be thinking cool. I won't go home and do this tonight. So I challenge you don't go home and do this tonight.
49:47 So starting to conclude here a little bit when we talk about sleep we've learned a couple of things today and I think these are three key things to take away
49:56 improving our sleep enhancing our sleep better sleep quality we'll get enhanced physical performance enhanced cognitive
50:03 function and we'll get better circadian rhythm and melatonin release leading into better sleep
50:11 if we can nail our sleep hygiene and you know go away and have a look at this um I can make this presentation available or I can you know put out some
50:19 information on sleep hygiene but there's lots of it out there. It doesn't have to be one. There's not like a golden bullet exact set routine of sleep hygiene, but
50:28 you know what are some of the key things within sleep hygiene that work for you.
50:31 But if you can audit your sleep hygiene, again, get off devices, have some rules in the house if you need to have that.
50:39 Um, put your phone down a certain time in the evening. Set your alarm early. Do your planning early so you're not on your phone late into the evening. And
50:48 coffee from lunchtime. try and cut it from lunchtime and remembering at the end of the day
50:57 sleep is free. So you can go home tonight, you can put some of these things in place, you can audit what you're doing and sleep is free. It's there for the taking.
51:09 Okay. So just we'll have questions in just a tick, but so I like to think you know I do um live and breathe what I
51:17 what I practice. So I swam the um FO straight March last year and so that's
51:25 sort of the crazy stuff I do. That was my last swim to complete the New Zealand triple crown, cook straight, length of lake tailbo, fo straight and I'd planned
51:33 it for months, had my booking. Um there's a set season and work within the networks that I have and I got offered.
51:40 Oh, Dave, you can I based at the Invagago Army Hall and I thought, "Yeah, this is awesome. Saves me a little bit of money. I'll stay at the hall. There was some spare rooms there." The day
51:48 before I left to go, I was like, "I hope I haven't mucked up here. I should have just booked a hotel room and done it that way." Um, and I was starting to
51:56 panic a little bit. Then I thought, "No, hang on. Let's just practice what I preach." I got to the army hall. Um, they knew we were coming. It was all good. We had a couple of set rooms that
52:04 I think were the computer rooms. They'd moved the computers aside. Me and my wife were there, a couple of mattresses on the floor. Um, so I went into
52:12 practice. We found some blankets, covered the windows, had our eye patches, had um my earplugs, had the mattress on the floor, and had the best
52:22 sleeps ever for two nights. had the greatest sleeps. So, it just confirmed to me if I actually just didn't panic and practice what I preach, I could do
52:30 it. Two days later, um swam the FOBO, great success, got it done. But just by
52:37 not panicking and putting my sleep in process. That's squeezing up, ready to go. 13° water to the start line,
52:46 swimming across. I didn't see any sharks that day, luckily.
52:51 Yeah. So sleep your silent superpower.
52:56 I hope you've enjoyed that. Um my challenge to you now is go away and involve your superpower.