December 14, 2024 • 40 mins
This week on the Health Hub, Dr Alex Bartle talked about the factors that can disrupt sleep over the Christmas season - and how to move past them to get a good night's rest.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yesperon. Welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage
and thanks for your feedback on politics. By the way,
if you've missed any of the hours you want to
catch them, go to iHeartRadio and look for the Weekend
Collective and we get our podcasts sections loaded as soon
as we can after the show has finished. By the way,
just looking forward to the final hour of the show
(00:52):
from father o'clock, it will be our final session with
the folk from Harbor Asset Management talking about the changes
that are being made to Key we Saver that they
can invest more in private asset investments, which sounds sort
of like sounds harmless enough, doesn't it. But we're gonna
have a chat with Shane Sley about that after five
o'clock and be taking your course. But right now we'd
love your calls. This is the Health Hub and we're
(01:13):
talking about sleep and my guest is what is a
regular guest on our show. He's a director of Sleep
Well Clinic, and it's Alex bartle Gaday. Alex.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
How are you going?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Good e ten? Good to see again? How are you
sleeping these days, we're not so good in the hot weather.
That does make it more difficult, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Do you actually I've said this to you before, of course,
that the pressure. Do you ever lie there struggling to
get to sleep and think, oh gosh, I'm the sleep doctor.
I can't get to sleep. Everyone else might be. It
must be started.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
It has happened, and I know sort of what to do.
I don't always do it, but I know, I mean,
I know what I should be doing. Yeah, and it's
actually not a few nights ago, I was getting into
a bit of a situation. It was getting to one
o'clock in the morning, and I sell and he was
taking in that tingly bit. You know, I think I
really need to go to sleep, and fortunately I fell
asleep very quickly, now, you know, getting up fifteen minutes
(02:02):
out of bed, reset back into bed. It's really works
very well for me. If I've got something on my mind.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, what about the heat. How are you coping with
the heat?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Right, I mean keeping windows open, barring your fan out
of the hot or hot air side of the house,
so you draw air in from the cool side of
the house.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, because sometimes that's an idea for I mean, actually
we just have the fan on us circular, which gives
a sense, and luckily we've got one. It's actually quite
quiet and it's got about twenty eight speeds.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
A bit of white noise. Of course, this doesn't matter.
That's possibly a bit helpful as.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, as long as it doesn't go clunk clunk, clunk,
cluk cluk. I think that's the problem with ceiling fans.
Actually they doesn't take long before they start rattling away,
isn't it true? So yeah, that's right. The thing with
a fan to keep your house cool is actually not
too it's actually when ours get used to get really hot.
(02:58):
In the days before we renovated and got it properly insulated,
I used to point a fan out the window of
the hot room so it would suck air and from
the cool side of the house. That's exactly right, which
doesn't feel, you know, lostical.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
But if you think about it, it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
The other thing, the main thing is if it's a
hot day like this, close your jolly curtains in your
bedroom at sort of this time of afternoon so that
the bedroom doesn't heat up too much. Now, so closing
the curtains is a really good move.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
At what temperature? What are the temperatures that are hard
to sleep at? And what temperature should you because some
people will be lucky enough they've got a conditioning. Yeah, yeah,
and you wouldn't want to overdo that either.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
The word is sixteen to eighteen degrees. Maybe up to
twenty degrees is okay. Once you started getting excuse me
above for twenty three twenty four, it starts to become
And of course if you're in America often they have
their motilions and what have you, and the hotels at
that sort of temperature anyway, so they do keep it
very warm, too warm.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, what about getting a custom talk because imagine people
who live in Singapore, remember the days before econditioning, people
must have got acclimatized to sleeping in warmer temperatures. How
much do our bodies actually get acclimatized. Because where I'm
going with this is that I wonder if there's a
case for actually letting yourself get a little bit of
(04:19):
climatized because the body can adapt.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You can absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
I worked in New Guinea for a while and the
only air conditioning we had was in the outpatients part
where I was working and where my billit was only
had a fan. And I can tell you the people
who worked actually in the hospital that had air conditioning
fared much worse than I did. After about two months,
I got quite used to the heat.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Two months. So it sounds like a tough two months.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
It does help to climatator. You just sweat more.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Initially, I think, yeah, we'd like your calls on this,
if any questions you've got around getting to sleep, and
of course we've got some particular issues we like to
chat about, just to give a focus for the conversation
with Alex Bartell from sleep Well Clinic. But you can
give us a call anytime from now eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty. You can text on nine to nine
to two. Actually, there is something we were discussing before
(05:14):
the show outs about what you've been doing some work on, right,
and that is it's something that always sounds like it's
not to be taken seriously. The first time a caller
called in with this problem, I was like, oh, this
sounds a bit weird, but you had been doing a
bit of work on restless leg syndrome.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, it certainly is a huge problem for a lot
of people, about ten percent of the adult population or
the population generally, because children get it too. I can
have this condition. It's largely genetic. It's a brain thing,
so it's thought to be and there's much more complicated
than this, but the basis is that it's low brain
iron that leads to low dopamine levels and that results
(05:53):
in this funny leg problem.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Low brain iron, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Rather than serumone. Serumone is what you measure when you
take blood sample. Yeah, you don't take brain iron. But
then when they've done autopsis on people who have had
terrible restless syndrome, you find that the iron content in
the brain is lower than it should be.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And there's something that they've actually there's a name for
restless leg syndrome, so it sounds like it's something to
be taken more seriously, right.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Absolutely, they call it Willis eck bomb disorder because willis
in there's a medical thing a circle of Willis after
the name of a think He was a seventeenth century
physician who first described and the eck bomb is a
Danish physician who described it very actually in ninety forty five.
So they thought, just give it a serious name because
it does upset a lot of people. People commit suicide
(06:39):
because of.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So what wow? So what do I mean? You haven't
got it? I'm guessing. I'm guessing. So how do you
understand it feels? For people? From my wife gets it.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Sometimes when it's mild, it tends to come and go.
You might have you know, a few days or nights
with it, and then it comes on in the evening
or a few stationaries on a flight. Particularly if you
see someone walking up and down the aisle on a
flight to Sydney, you know they've goddresses syndrome because they
can't sit still. They need to move their legs. You know,
it comes on in the evening.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Is that a pain? Or restlessly?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Is exactly that? So it's a trickling, prickling electric sort
of needles type of thing that moves makes you want
to move your legs and moving it gets rid of it,
but of course soon as you stop again, it comes
back again. So it's a you know, people have to
just keep on walking around and they can't get rid
of the jolly thing.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Does panadol or eurofinel.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Now, unfortunately, the traditional treatments for it that's been used
for the last two decades. It's very very effective, initially
fantastically effective initially is now almost banned because it's creating
what they call tolerance. In other words, you need more
and more of it and a thick conditional augmentation, which
is when you need not only it gets worse, but
the condition itself gets worse, and so you're creating a problem.
(07:59):
One of these, well, the dopamine agonists's things like rope
pin role, promo pixel, those are the two main mons
or a penrole is probably the most commonly one used
in New Zealand. It's fantastic. It works like a miracle,
but then it starts not to work, and it can
be ten to fifteen years later that it starts to
develop that then you're stuck with it. You're needing more
and more of the drug, that the condition is getting
(08:21):
worse and worse. You've got to try and withdraw from it.
And it's not easy because it's funny. It's strange that
that's not funny. Nothing's funny about it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
But how when we first had our conversations about sleep,
to me, you know, to the average person, unless you've
got maybe the odd problem you snore, You've got a
bit of steamer. But it seems that sleep generally should
be so natural and easy, and yet as you get
a little bit older, it's to me actually the psychology,
because I'm quite aware of when I do different hours,
(08:50):
the psychology of getting to sleep. I literally it's almost
a meditative state. I've got to get myself into because
I'm if I'm ticking over thinking of X, Y and Z.
I've got to find a way of going how in
a minute, where's that? And I know when I find it.
But then I become aware of when I'm in that
sleep zone and I wake myself up again. You know,
I'm like, oh, yes, this is good. I'm getting into
(09:10):
that space. Don't think about I thought about it again.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
I hear that all the time. I basically, you have
to allow yourself to go to sleep. You can't make
yourself go to sleep. So I must go to sleep.
I'm got a busy day tomorrow. Must go to It
could just make you worse. You have to calm yourself
down so that brain doesn't get in the way of
this automatic process that says head down sleep. You have
to allow yourself and often that requires confidence. Sleep really
(09:34):
is a lot about confidence that people who go to
bed and go to sleep, they don't even think about it.
You know, when you're a teenager, you probably just put
your head down and went to sleep.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Oh and I'm on the couch at seven thirty pm
at night. I can go to sleep at the drop
of the half. I've dinner. It's like, you know, just
fly sort of thing. If only someone could pick me
up right, I'd be through to nine. So we'd love
your calls. I wait one hundred and eighty ten eighty
if there are any issues you've got with sleep and
we're going to cover a range of things. My guest
(10:02):
is Alex Bartel, and he as a director of Sleepweld client.
By the way, where do people how do people get
in touch with you? Apart from just googling Sleepworld clinic.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah, there's probably sleep well clinic dot got on in
Z eight hundred two two seventy five three three.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So what is the most common thing that people generally
see you for?
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Sleep out, snoring and sleep out near Yeah, And second
is insomnia.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
And then there are these other odds andes which are
fascinating sleepwalking, night terrors, eating in the middle of the night,
all sorts.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Of eating in the middle of the night, eating what
while you're asleep?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeap?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
What so getting up and going raiding the fridge and
not knowing you've done it.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
It's called sleep related eating disorder. And they don't know
about it. They're in non ram they're in a sleepwalking mode.
So they get up and they go and read the
fridge and they go back. So they wake in the
morning and sink, oh god, I'll be netted again, you know.
And they've got chocolate bars soften and chocolate biscuits. But
I've had one person who has put marmite on a
steak and they tried to eat it. Another person who
(11:00):
tried to eat the cat food. So they know them
what to eat, and they know where the fridge is
and they can do that. But the exactly what there is,
oh my goodness. But usually it's chocolate biscuits or cake
or something.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Mama's on a steak does sound like something where you
have to run past al brown? Is there something in that?
It does sound strangely like it might sort of work
and quite I don't know in somnia then, so what's
the is are there? Well? I think I know the
(11:30):
answer this question that there are sometimes a physiological reason
why people have insomnia. It's not just the fact that
their job's bothering them and that they can't switch off
and they are things on their mind.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Well, there are two things, I mean in so many
of The other word for insbody, which I always think
is helpful for a lot of patients to come in,
is hyper arousal disorder. So it's a buzzy brain basically,
and they're just either wake in the middle of the
night and they can't go actually because their mind starts racing,
or it's it happens when they go to bed. And
as I say, exactly the description you gave was right.
(12:00):
You go to bed, your line there reading a book.
You think I can go to sleep. Now you put
the book down and a ping on goes your brain
instead of bang goes to sleep. So this think you know,
I'm trying to go to sleep doesn't work. You have
to lay yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Actually, there are I imagine this is just from my
I think I've become more aware of thinking about how
I get to sleep, and it's all your bloody faults.
But you're probably the reason that sometimes I don't get
to sleep because I think, I think Alex would say
this and oh no, I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Go again.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But I have I do have one little trigger that
helps me get to sleep that i've I only use
it sparingly, like because you have discussed on this show
not wearing a watch, right, Yes, and I do wear
a watch when I go to bed, and it's it's
you know, it's got one where the dials blow and
if I wake up sometimes I will check it, but
(12:51):
it's like it's I keep it in reserve because the
signal I give my brain when I really want to
go to sleep if I wake up in the middle
of the night, as I take my watch off and
I put it on the floor, and somehow that knowing
that that watch is not going to be there for
me to is my superpower. But I always sleep with
it on if I get a good night's sleep. But
every now and again I take it off, and somehow
(13:12):
it just tells my brain, you know, the watchers on
the floor. You don't have to worry about it any longer.
You don't have to worry about the time. Who cares
go to sleep?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The reality is it doesn't matter what the time is
when you wake. Everybody wakes at night virtually, so waking
is actually a very normal thing to do. Most people
go back to sleep so quickly, within two or three minutes,
and have no recall they've worken. So waking up is normal,
and so basically it's but if you wake up and
then look at the clock, it often has that emotional
impact on you. Oh no, it's one o'clock. I'm awake.
(13:40):
I shouldn't be. Yes, you should go back to sleep.
Stop fretting about it. But the problem I look at
the I've got o'clock by my bed, and I can
look at it and say, oh great, it's one o'clock.
I've had two hours sleep. That's fantastic. Or it's five o'clock.
Oh I've got another hour to goo. That's brilliant. So
I can go back to sleep easily. So some people
doesn't like me. It doesn't bother me to look at
the clock, but a lot of people it does bother
(14:01):
and just getting rid of the clock is often the
number one thing we are people to do.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Okay, we'd love your calls eight hundred eighty, ten and
eighty If you're having a trouble getting a decent night sleep.
If you've got any anything you want to run by
Alex Bartell and we'll take your calls eight hundred eighty
ten and eighty text nine two nine two. It is
coming up to twenty one past four news talks. He'd be.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Hang on the missile too.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I'm again to know you better, yes, Chrismas and as
we trend and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm
Tim Beverage. This sounds like a good song to get
to slip too, actually, I must say, and that's suitable
for the show because this is the health up of
my guests. Dtor Alex Bartele is the director of the
(14:51):
Sleepworld Clinic. We're taking your calls eight hundred and eight
ten eighty any questions you've got around getting a good
night's sleep, and we will. If you want to jump
on the blower, you'll be first in the queue. But
we've got a few texts here to get to Alex.
So let's get into this one. Hey, boys, love the show.
We're winning already. Here we go, just on my way
for my third night shift in a row as a firefighter,
(15:14):
and here we go. The first two have been horrendous
for running around town all night and not being able
to sleep in the daytime. How long do you think
it takes to recover from a couple a couple of
full nights sleep or shifts. I guess he's saying, yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I mean, in the past, we'd used to teach that
two full nights of sleep eight hours eight nine hours
of sleep will recover any form of sleep debt that
you might have accrued. It's not thought that now we
know that it's probably going to take six to seven
days to actually get over that if you want to,
which means, you know, if you're back on shift again,
then it really doesn't give you enough time to recover.
(15:54):
But you know, allowing yourself to settle and as soon
as you come home, just not trying to get straight
into bed necessarily if you're not still wired from a
you've been racing around, dealing with the accidents, and so
just allowing yourself to calm down a little bit, making
sure you get into a cool You've got a cool
environment that you come home to, curtains drawn, lights down,
(16:16):
so prepare yourself. You can have a snack when you
get home, but keeping it cool and dark, and just
trying to allow yourself to just calm down a bit,
but give yourself a bit of space. Don't think I
need to go straight to bed and go straight.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
To say because I mean, as I've shared, I do
a couple of shifts. But the people I really think about,
people who working in the health system, who do ten
or twelve hour shifts and then they I'm not sure
exactly how it works because they're not always on night
shift and they're not always on day shift. It's sort
of but that does sound to me to be pretty
punishing sort of schedule, doesn't that.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
I'm not sure what this caller what a shifts is,
but a lot of the file servers to twelve hour shifts.
They do two nights, two days for off.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
See.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Actually, if you're going to do shift work, it's probably
not a bad shift pattern.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I think they can sleep at the station too.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
They have clearly this die together, and they're often pretty
horrific things they're dealing with too, so it can be
quite emotionally challenging to come home after one of those events.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
MM, and here's another one here. So are we offering
advice on that, No, we're just saying how long it takes? So, yeah,
six or seven days, so it is problematic. I've always
had the theory with my shifts, if I sleep a
bit before the shift and a bit after that, it
averages out. But to be honest, it, you know, still
still has its moments and been a bit of a struggle. Okay,
(17:34):
here's one says bottle. Oh okay, here we go, bottle
of wine and two zopper clone, zopper plane zoppolar caine.
What's the word zopper clone? Okay, out for eight hours?
Been doing it for twenty years. I don't think we
want to prescribe that that would Normally that would worry
you a bit, wouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
It would?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yeah, I mean certainly it's going to knock you out.
There's no question. Alcohol is very sedative, and zopper clone,
added tod it is going to make you more sedative.
But quality of sleep will be awful. You'll probably be
gnoring like a trooper. And because you and the actual
sleep quality, you're not getting any of the proper sleep
cycles that you should be having. So, you know, twenty
years you obviously started when you're a young person. Do
(18:17):
it for another ten years and I think you'll start
to regret it. So it's not ideal.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, I mean that's that's main which is worse than
zopper clone or the wine. I'm going to go with
the bottle of wine alcohol.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yes, I mean that's part of the problem. It's not
going to very relatively safe medication. In fact, it's just
that it is so jolly good for many people that
people get a bit hooked on it. That's the downside,
and then it starts not to work, of course, as
with most of the sleeping medications, but it's pretty safe.
I'lohol or not.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I've got a mildly mischievous question, and because of the
time start of the show, I'm going to ask it
in a polite way. But sometimes when you know, when
couples have a nice time together, yes, that can can
lead to a good night's sleep, quality hugs and cuddles
and all that sort of thing. Is there something that
are just to be said for quality nookie before sleep time?
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
And why is that?
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well, physiologically it is to do with the love hormone.
I guess we call it oxytocin, and oxytocin particularly with
the organism, tends to release oxytocin and then that's very
relaxing hormone. So you're very likely to sleep better.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Oxytocin sounds like something you could get prescribed, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I don't. I'm sure they're working on it.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Well actually, well, I guess just because it's a chemical
and we must know what oxytocin has made. Of course,
they've got a name of which which the name must
be reflective of some of the compounds that are in it.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Absolutely so. I don't know whether it's artificially made or not.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I don't know what other sort of things is it
a sense of is it simply just Oxytocin can be
generated by other things, like a sense of satisfaction having
had a great day or something, and you're feeling.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Like, yes, absolutely so. I mean it is a but
it's particularly skin contact cuddles that something are particularly powerful
for producing oxytocin.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Okay, so that that's even why if you know, when
if you're just having a hug, and you know, if
your kids are having trouble sleeping in the end and
they just want you to lie next to them and
they just snuggle up, then that helps them because and
that clicks in that sort of is it a hormone.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Or a hormone?
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, Actually that is quite Actually that's interesting to know,
actually that because I think a lot of the time,
especially on a hot nights, to be honest, nobody wants
to hug all it. You know, you don't want to
get it. Keep away from me, it's stinking hot. But
then you're you're depriving yourself of the oxytocin.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Well except for you. You know, if you stay too
close together, then you are going to sweat like anything,
and it's not going to help you sleep. So yes,
move apart if you're very hot.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Okay, I've got I'm not sure if you're going to
have an opinion on this one, but I'm going to
run it up the flagpole because those people listening also
might have an opinion on this. This person, Alvin says
tilting the bed, didn't say which way is going to
tilt it, of course, and body orientation north south. And lastly,
(21:03):
blue light from led screens. I'm thinking he means avoid
the blue light from the laid screen. Yes, ah, Actually
I have heard people do talk about oh, which way
is your bed facing? Is it facing east or west
or all this sort of thing. And there's a part
of me that thinks, you know, I mean, if a
(21:24):
compass can react to the Earth's magnetic you sort of
intuitively you think, surely the Earth's magnetic field and orientation,
it effects of the moon, affects the tides and all
these sorts of things, so that the homeopathic and beveragere
doesn't really exist. If he did, that would be going,
oh yeah, body direction has to have something to do
with it.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Well, it's the old feng Shui idea, I think concept
which has been going for thousands of years, and a
lot of it. I mean, yes, you're quite right. I
mean there's almost certainly some magnetic impacts on things, but
it's so meniscal compared with if I'm stressed or if
i've you know, things going into your household or whatever,
(22:03):
that will take over. So yes, there's probably minor improvement.
I think most of the minor improvement is that you
feel better about it. You know, I've been told that
I'm going to sleep better if I have the bed
put here by the window, or something. So yeah, so
I'm more likely to see about forty percent of anything
to do with sleep is placebo response, you know, and
many of the things people got sleep on the bottle
(22:24):
as long as you've got sleep on the bottle, it
will help about forty percent of people go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Actually, that's an interesting one because the placebo effect itself
and they still I mean, there's still research going on
as to how effective it is. But in a way,
getting informed as to your medicine is in fact useless,
is not very helpful because if there's a placebo effect
that's possible, then it almost argues for the parts of
(22:51):
your life that are best left or lived in ignorance,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Well, yeah, I mean I guess that's right, because this
thing that's pretty harmless is chemical or the thing you
buy from the health shop is harmless, but it's helping
me sleep, So why don't I use it? But I'd say, well, fine,
if you need to use it, it's often quite expensive.
But if you need to use it and you get
to sleep, it's not to do you now go for it.
That's fine, But there are other ways in which we
could do without needing to use medication.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Because I was in a health food shop or with
a friend and my friend was looking for some melatonin
and I was thinking, how I don't think you can
get melatonin in New Zealand. And anyway, the woman at
the counter of the said, oh, yes, we have melotonin
and went over to the homeopathic sort of thing and
said and said, we've got it here. I thought, I
(23:38):
didn't think you could sell it here. She said, oh, yes,
we can. And I said, thirty c does that mean
that that's been sort of diluted one one hundred and
thirty times? And she looked at me like i'd she
looked at me like a broken wind in the shop. Actually,
but I didn't want to ruin the party for my reason,
for my friend who actually if they believed it was
(24:03):
going to get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
So right, yeah, but what can you do? I mean, basically,
there are many other ways of having melatonin in our
bodies apart from taking it by tablets. And even the
manufacturers of Cicadian, which is the two milligram slow release product,
which is you can buy on the script here, you
can get on script even they said it really made
very little difference or no difference to all under fifty
(24:26):
five year olds, so it's actually only designed for older people.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So that's melatonin.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, melotonin.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Why wouldn't it make any difference for younger people.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Because we've got so much melotone in ourselves. And you
know if you have some meltone at night and then
you reading your iPhone or something, you immediately destroying the
melotone in anyway. And also it goes into your gut,
has to go first pass through the liver, goes into
your bloodstream, then crosses a blood brain barry into your brain.
You need it in your brain. H quickest way into
your brain is through your eyes.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And we know how to get that. We're going to
touch on that after the break, actually, because it's probably
the most repeated bit of advice I've used from having
a chat with you Alex on the show. I we
eight one hundred eighty ten eighties. The number tixt nine
two nine two will be back in just a moment.
It's twenty five minutes to five news talks.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
He'd be he sees you and your sleep then and
in those when you're doing he knows that you've been
fud so they're good for goodness.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
That's welcome back to the wee Can Collective. This is
the health AUP. My guests, doctor Alex Barber. We're talking
about getting good good night's sleep, and a whole lot
of them there's there's so many issues around it, Alex.
I got lots of texts on this. By the way,
if you want to jump the que of the text,
you can give us a call on E one hundred
and eighty ten eighty. Um. What about cramp? Is this text?
What do you do? Yeah, cramp when you're sleeping, Alex.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, Well, cramps is different to the rest of SEK syndrome,
so the two can often be mixed up. Cramp so
it's a muscular spasm, of course, and the things that
may help that. For example, magnesium is supposed to help that,
so I would say that that's something worth trying, but
it's often a assault type efficiency. Possibly. I know we're
told to be careful of too much salt because of
(26:09):
hypertension and medical issues, but perhaps a lack of salt
is traditionally one of the things you need to make
sure you're having a little bit of. But magnesium is fine.
But of course you can get magnesium in food stuff
as well, So again I want, rather than taking medication
as such, a having a good diet with some magnesium
in it, like nuts and certain fruits. I'm not a nutritionist,
(26:31):
but I know you can get it from food.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Now before the break, we're talking about malatone and how
you naturally produce it, and that is the I've had
a chat with my wife about this when we went
for a walk, and because she would go with the
dark glasses on, and I just sort of said, well don't.
I'm quoting our sleep specialist that if you want to
(26:56):
get a good night's sleep at night, it's melatonin and
the way to get that is to generate serotonin by
exposing yourself to light, to take the shades off. Right,
And there is something in that, doesn't it?
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Absolutely yes, But it's not just bright shiny light. I
mean that's not Our ancestors didn't know anything about glare,
so we don't like glare.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Now what is clear then, Well, it's.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Things like tilt slab buildings and concrete slabs.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And urban environment. Urban environment not so much reflections of
the sunlight off the sea.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Well, off the sea, I would wear protection older sunglasses.
If you're skiing, i'd certainly wear sunglasses. Oh yeah, so
it's all glary. But if you're going for a walk
through the local park or gardens, you know it's shaded
blue green light, which is our natural environment. And what
our ancestors have been in for thousands of years. That
blue green light hits your writtener has to hit your eyes.
If you block the eyes with sets with sunglasses, then
(27:47):
it's not hitting you rerittener. Okay, so it's not skin.
Skin is vitamin D, but it's eyes for serotonin. It
goes into your brain. It's alter the size of your
pupil one of the things it does, of course, and
you know that you go outside, the pupils clamp down.
If you go outside and put your Sonny's on. Of course,
pupils just stay where they are. You've done it for them.
So when you forget your son is, they're very slow
(28:08):
at clamping down, which it needs.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Oh well, I'm really sensitive to light.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
You've often created that problem by wearing sunnys all the time.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well, the other thing is as well is that I mean,
this is more of an eye thing. But if you
find it hard to tolerate and tolerate just being out
in the garden because you're wearing sunglasses all the time,
you actually there is a you do lose your tolerance
to bright light if you're always sticking such trades.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
That's exactly right now, I'm not Don't get me wrong,
I'm not anti sunglasses. I think yeah, particularly for people
with making a degeneration, glaucoma, cataract, all those sort of
medical things. But if you know, if you don't have
those things, then when you're going for a walk through
the local woodland and parks and what have you slip
them off. Let that blue green light hit your retina.
It goes to the middle of the brain, suppresses melatonin,
(28:53):
so it wakes us up, but also starts producing serotonin.
And the more serotonin we produced in the day, the
more melatonin it converts to at night.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
There is something useful there for shift workers as well,
isn't there, Because again, I mean relates to my own situation,
but anyone is a shift worker. I imagine those When
you get up, if the first thing you do, apart
from having maybe a banana and a glass of water,
is to go for a walk in the outside air,
that sort of does help, doesn't it, because one that
(29:21):
wakes you up, even if you're feeling a but CD.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Yeah, no, no, it's a good idea to get outside.
Spending time outside is hugely important, and we do it
very badly. Really at the moment. And as you know that,
I mean if we travel overseas, you go to Sydney
or go to Asia, you go on holiday, you spend
more time outside. So we train quite a lot more
quickly if we spend time outside than if we do
come home and spend med cooks. Going east is always
(29:46):
going west is always much more difficult when you're traveling, sorry,
going east is much more difficult.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So as soon as you say going east is much
more difficult than going west, it makes me think of
that whole sleeping direction thing again as well. Why is
it easier to travel in one direction not the other?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Well, because the sunlight, the sun is traveling around. And
so if you go to Perth, for example, which you
say five hours delayed, then you go in to bed
west going west. Heah, So if it's eleven o'clock in
New Zealand, it's actually four o'clock in the morning there,
so you're going to go straight to.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Sleep, all right, Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
If it's eleven o'clock in Perth, then it's actually only
what is it six o'clock here?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
And again, if you're flying to London, doesn't really matter
whether you go east or west because you're on the
other side of the it's the destinations pretty much totally intopodan, doesn't.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
It absolutely, But spend time outside as we do when
we go over size, we tend to spend time outside.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Okay, just before we go to our caller. There's a
doozy of a question on text here which I've been
meaning to ask. I'm not sure if I have yet,
and it's come up a few times. In grounding mats
grounding sheets. I don't know if you've come across this,
but it's it's it's about being connected to the earth,
(31:02):
and so people have these sheets which can do the earth,
which means that they put apparently there is something about
the electromagnetic or something about the human body, and people
use these grounding Do you know anything about grounding mats?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
No, I know the mats that you use that have
got lots of spikes or you know, nodules that you
see lyon, and that seems to be quite helpful. Whether
that's what they are, I'm not sure, but it would
be the same sort of ideas of putting in the
right direction, I guess. But being connected to us, I mean,
I'm all in favor of that in terms of I
was very skeptical about things like forest hugging and you know,
(31:37):
tree hugging and forest bathing. I'm really in favor of that. Now,
why's that because it's you're in the right environment, blue
green light.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Okay, yeah, no, I did. I do remember this now.
I talked to it about it with John Cameron because
there was a study on some medical journal thing and
he put it in context that said, if they were
really a thing, there'd be much more than one study
that suggests that possibly something's happening. Yeah, so, but yeah, right,
let's go to stew good E again.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, good right, Yeah, Hi, I'm wearing sunglasses most of
my life. I'm on my mad sexties. I don't need
glasses to read, whereas a lot of my peers do,
in fact, even younger. But I do have problems sleeping.
(32:31):
So is it because I'm wearing sunglasses.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Well, let's put it this way, if you were, if
you didn't wear sunglasses during the day, you would produce
more serotonin eur in the day, which would then convert
to meltonia to help you sleep better at night. Your
interesting point about your eyesight's very good, which is brilliant.
I do worry about a lot of screen time for
youngsters and how that may be impacting on eyesight for
(32:55):
the future. That's not my field, but I've been interested.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I don't do that.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, you don't know.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
That's not that, But you're saying that younger people do
and their eyesight's failing. I don't know that it's to
do with any do with sunglasses. I think it's more
to do with just constant screen time, which you don's okay,
all right, okay, all the.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
People why age you're wearing glasses to read?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Maybe is that just genetics something?
Speaker 4 (33:23):
I don't wear glasses for reading or driving. Actually, so
I'm in there.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
You go, you and Alex You're you're not alone, thank you. Yes.
Somebody of us asked just on the insomnia that makes
you eat person, saying what is it that actually causes
people to have that sort of insomnia? Is it something
you can do to avoid it? In other words, what
(33:49):
makes people do it?
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Right? There are two eating disorders in the night. One
is sleep related eating disorder, which is like sleepwalking. So
anything that controls sleepwalking is usually the first two or
three hours, three or four hours of the night usually
exist is a genetic background usually, so you've might have
been a sleepwalker on right terror in the past. It's
triggered by fatigue or stress. So if you want to
(34:11):
reduce the instance of doing these things at night, then
reduce stress or fatigue, which means getting better sleep. I
guess there's another one called night eating disorder, which is
actually slightly different. It means that you wake in the
middle of the night and you and you have this
this feeling you have to eat something before you go
back to sleep. It's a little bit more a bit
of an OCD type consideration. So it's there, but they're awake,
(34:37):
they just need something to eat in their tummy before
they can get them theirselves back to sleep. So it
becomes oh, really, oh that's in the middle of the night.
That's night eating disorder.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
It's not me having a peanut but a sandwich at
ten thirty.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Because no, no, no, that's in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's just a lack of discipline on Actually, what is
it that gives people sort of night You know, people
have a snack craving sort of and they've had a dinner.
I mean sometimes they've had a good dinner and things.
But if I think peanut but a sandwich.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I'm like, okay, it's look. I talk about this all
the time because a lot of people do have a
meal and then in the evening they snack for me.
I think, why do you do that? You've just had
a meal for heading's sake. Well, it's probably because you're
a bit tired. When we get tired, it also has
hormented your brain called liptin and grilling and liptinoils drop,
crillinals rise, and brain needed something, So.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I should just go to bed instead.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Yeah, I mean you don't actually need it, it's your
brain is telling you and it becomes habit.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Of course, I think i'd probably be about to kilo. Anyway,
We're going to be back in just a moment, eleven
minutes to five, News talks. It'd be the news talks.
It be yes at eight minutes to five, not much
time left, but Tom squeezing a quick call. Jeremy Hello,
Jeremy Hello, can you hear me?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Ye?
Speaker 5 (35:49):
I'll just turn you.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
That's a good idea.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
I just my question relates. So I got the back
end of what you're talking about with serotonin from light?
Is that only from natural light that you can get
that that serotonin or is the man made lighting options
that I don't know, maybe a sill of question, but
is there other ways to get that in?
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah, there are blue light producer that you can get
special glasses for example that blue produces blue light which
is very good at suppressing melatonin producing serotonin. The thing
I like about outside light is that you do a
bit of exercise in a lovely environment, whereas you know glasses,
blue glasses and blue light boxes do similar thing, but
(36:32):
they're you know, you're sitting in an office or sitting
at home doing it, So yeah, they would they would
be similar.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Is that Chris, you're stuck inside for your job at
Jeremy and you're thinking there's got to be a way
of getting some blue light here.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
Yes, it was more for a family member. So if
you know, predominantly inside and like you know, with not
bright lighting most of the day and they've got real
trouble sleeping, I was wondering maybe they could be of assistance.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean we do use blue light glasses
in the morning. We actually have those available which people
use if they if they're really unable to get out
for half an hour walk in the morn morning, then
blue light glasses work very well, and of course you
should you change them over to amber colored glasses at night,
which are blue blockers, so it blocks the blue light
in the evening. So these glasses are good for that
(37:18):
context for people maybe like your friend, who actually can't
spend time outside for whatever reason. You know, they've got
busy lives, they've got family, whatever, a lot of reasons
why people can't get outside, No.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Trouble. Where would you get blue glasses from? Are they just?
Are they just sort of blue bluish lenses. They know
they produce blue light, They produce them, they convert the light.
That's because actually that's interesting that you mentioned that, because
I think there are a lot of office spaces where
people think that the blue light is the villain. But
in fact, if you're in an inside office environment, then
(37:54):
you shouldn't be running away from the blue light because
it's nothing theoretically.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
I mean, computers, of course have got a lot of
blue lights, so that theoretically is actually not unhelpful. But
you know, the outside, because it's varied, it's not just
blue light. I mean outside is blue and green, and
those are the wavelengths, that area of wavelength that does
you so good apart from being outside.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, that's interesting. So in an office environment, you shouldn't
be freaking out about the blue light from your screens
if you are working during the day. In fact, a
funny thing is if you're a shift worker, you need
to stay awake anyway. I mean, God, I'm surrounded by
screens and when I'm doing night work. So actually, that's
(38:35):
that's interesting because I think there's this general sense of
rule of thumb for the public, like all blue light's
the devil, but actually blue lights your friend during the day.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, you know, in the end,
so blue light generally outside is always ideal.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Hey, that's pretty much it. We've only got about a
minute left. Alex. Thanks so much for coming on the
show this year. Have you got anything interesting plan for
Christmas or you're taking a bit of time off?
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah, a bit of time off over Christmas is have
a bit of a break. I'm coming in to see
you guys again on the fifth, I think it is.
I'm back in January.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Oh, okay, that'll be Is that in the Morning show
or something that'll be with Francisca A good stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
That's nice. Yeah, So we're just saving up to spend
a bit of time overseas.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Oh oh really, anywhere you can share with us. You
don't have to share of course the end of next year.
Our end of next year. So you're saving up for
the big trail. Absolutely. Oh you and Me's which continent?
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Well, we would have spent at least ten days in Spain,
which much about.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
At this time of year in the winter as our
autumn time. Perfect time.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Family in England of course, my family is mainly in England.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, okay, And if people want to catch up with
your connect the sleep Well Clinic.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Sleep Well Clinic in excellent, Thanks Jim Having.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Thanks you too, you too. We'll be back shortly with
Smart Money. This is news talk Z. It'd be Shane
Solly is going to be with us and we're talking
about the changes that the government making to the key
we saver providers, allowing them to increase their private asset investments.
Sounds pretty harmless, so we're going to dig into that
after five o'clock with Shane Solly. We take your calls
(40:13):
as well, a little bit of Christmas music to ease
you into the news. Back soon.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
The bushels of for more from the Weekend Collective.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Listen live to news talks it'd be weekends from three pm,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talk SEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yesperon. Welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage
and thanks for your feedback on politics. By the way,
if you've missed any of the hours you want to
catch them, go to iHeartRadio and look for the Weekend
Collective and we get our podcasts sections loaded as soon
as we can after the show has finished. By the way,
just looking forward to the final hour of the show
(00:52):
from father o'clock, it will be our final session with
the folk from Harbor Asset Management talking about the changes
that are being made to Key we Saver that they
can invest more in private asset investments, which sounds sort
of like sounds harmless enough, doesn't it. But we're gonna
have a chat with Shane Sley about that after five
o'clock and be taking your course. But right now we'd
love your calls. This is the Health Hub and we're
(01:13):
talking about sleep and my guest is what is a
regular guest on our show. He's a director of Sleep
Well Clinic, and it's Alex bartle Gaday. Alex.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
How are you going?
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Good e ten? Good to see again? How are you
sleeping these days, we're not so good in the hot weather.
That does make it more difficult, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Do you actually I've said this to you before, of course,
that the pressure. Do you ever lie there struggling to
get to sleep and think, oh gosh, I'm the sleep doctor.
I can't get to sleep. Everyone else might be. It
must be started.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
It has happened, and I know sort of what to do.
I don't always do it, but I know, I mean,
I know what I should be doing. Yeah, and it's
actually not a few nights ago, I was getting into
a bit of a situation. It was getting to one
o'clock in the morning, and I sell and he was
taking in that tingly bit. You know, I think I
really need to go to sleep, and fortunately I fell
asleep very quickly, now, you know, getting up fifteen minutes
(02:02):
out of bed, reset back into bed. It's really works
very well for me. If I've got something on my mind.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, what about the heat. How are you coping with
the heat?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Right, I mean keeping windows open, barring your fan out
of the hot or hot air side of the house,
so you draw air in from the cool side of
the house.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, because sometimes that's an idea for I mean, actually
we just have the fan on us circular, which gives
a sense, and luckily we've got one. It's actually quite
quiet and it's got about twenty eight speeds.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
A bit of white noise. Of course, this doesn't matter.
That's possibly a bit helpful as.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, as long as it doesn't go clunk clunk, clunk,
cluk cluk. I think that's the problem with ceiling fans.
Actually they doesn't take long before they start rattling away,
isn't it true? So yeah, that's right. The thing with
a fan to keep your house cool is actually not
too it's actually when ours get used to get really hot.
(02:58):
In the days before we renovated and got it properly insulated,
I used to point a fan out the window of
the hot room so it would suck air and from
the cool side of the house. That's exactly right, which
doesn't feel, you know, lostical.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
But if you think about it, it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
The other thing, the main thing is if it's a
hot day like this, close your jolly curtains in your
bedroom at sort of this time of afternoon so that
the bedroom doesn't heat up too much. Now, so closing
the curtains is a really good move.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
At what temperature? What are the temperatures that are hard
to sleep at? And what temperature should you because some
people will be lucky enough they've got a conditioning. Yeah, yeah,
and you wouldn't want to overdo that either.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
The word is sixteen to eighteen degrees. Maybe up to
twenty degrees is okay. Once you started getting excuse me
above for twenty three twenty four, it starts to become
And of course if you're in America often they have
their motilions and what have you, and the hotels at
that sort of temperature anyway, so they do keep it
very warm, too warm.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, what about getting a custom talk because imagine people
who live in Singapore, remember the days before econditioning, people
must have got acclimatized to sleeping in warmer temperatures. How
much do our bodies actually get acclimatized. Because where I'm
going with this is that I wonder if there's a
case for actually letting yourself get a little bit of
(04:19):
climatized because the body can adapt.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
You can absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
I worked in New Guinea for a while and the
only air conditioning we had was in the outpatients part
where I was working and where my billit was only
had a fan. And I can tell you the people
who worked actually in the hospital that had air conditioning
fared much worse than I did. After about two months,
I got quite used to the heat.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Two months. So it sounds like a tough two months.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
It does help to climatator. You just sweat more.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Initially, I think, yeah, we'd like your calls on this,
if any questions you've got around getting to sleep, and
of course we've got some particular issues we like to
chat about, just to give a focus for the conversation
with Alex Bartell from sleep Well Clinic. But you can
give us a call anytime from now eight hundred and
eighty ten eighty. You can text on nine to nine
to two. Actually, there is something we were discussing before
(05:14):
the show outs about what you've been doing some work on, right,
and that is it's something that always sounds like it's
not to be taken seriously. The first time a caller
called in with this problem, I was like, oh, this
sounds a bit weird, but you had been doing a
bit of work on restless leg syndrome.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Yeah, it certainly is a huge problem for a lot
of people, about ten percent of the adult population or
the population generally, because children get it too. I can
have this condition. It's largely genetic. It's a brain thing,
so it's thought to be and there's much more complicated
than this, but the basis is that it's low brain
iron that leads to low dopamine levels and that results
(05:53):
in this funny leg problem.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Low brain iron, yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Rather than serumone. Serumone is what you measure when you
take blood sample. Yeah, you don't take brain iron. But
then when they've done autopsis on people who have had
terrible restless syndrome, you find that the iron content in
the brain is lower than it should be.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And there's something that they've actually there's a name for
restless leg syndrome, so it sounds like it's something to
be taken more seriously, right.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Absolutely, they call it Willis eck bomb disorder because willis
in there's a medical thing a circle of Willis after
the name of a think He was a seventeenth century
physician who first described and the eck bomb is a
Danish physician who described it very actually in ninety forty five.
So they thought, just give it a serious name because
it does upset a lot of people. People commit suicide
(06:39):
because of.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So what wow? So what do I mean? You haven't
got it? I'm guessing. I'm guessing. So how do you
understand it feels? For people? From my wife gets it.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Sometimes when it's mild, it tends to come and go.
You might have you know, a few days or nights
with it, and then it comes on in the evening
or a few stationaries on a flight. Particularly if you
see someone walking up and down the aisle on a
flight to Sydney, you know they've goddresses syndrome because they
can't sit still. They need to move their legs. You know,
it comes on in the evening.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Is that a pain? Or restlessly?
Speaker 4 (07:15):
Is exactly that? So it's a trickling, prickling electric sort
of needles type of thing that moves makes you want
to move your legs and moving it gets rid of it,
but of course soon as you stop again, it comes
back again. So it's a you know, people have to
just keep on walking around and they can't get rid
of the jolly thing.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Does panadol or eurofinel.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
Now, unfortunately, the traditional treatments for it that's been used
for the last two decades. It's very very effective, initially
fantastically effective initially is now almost banned because it's creating
what they call tolerance. In other words, you need more
and more of it and a thick conditional augmentation, which
is when you need not only it gets worse, but
the condition itself gets worse, and so you're creating a problem.
(07:59):
One of these, well, the dopamine agonists's things like rope
pin role, promo pixel, those are the two main mons
or a penrole is probably the most commonly one used
in New Zealand. It's fantastic. It works like a miracle,
but then it starts not to work, and it can
be ten to fifteen years later that it starts to
develop that then you're stuck with it. You're needing more
and more of the drug, that the condition is getting
(08:21):
worse and worse. You've got to try and withdraw from it.
And it's not easy because it's funny. It's strange that
that's not funny. Nothing's funny about it.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
But how when we first had our conversations about sleep,
to me, you know, to the average person, unless you've
got maybe the odd problem you snore, You've got a
bit of steamer. But it seems that sleep generally should
be so natural and easy, and yet as you get
a little bit older, it's to me actually the psychology,
because I'm quite aware of when I do different hours,
(08:50):
the psychology of getting to sleep. I literally it's almost
a meditative state. I've got to get myself into because
I'm if I'm ticking over thinking of X, Y and Z.
I've got to find a way of going how in
a minute, where's that? And I know when I find it.
But then I become aware of when I'm in that
sleep zone and I wake myself up again. You know,
I'm like, oh, yes, this is good. I'm getting into
(09:10):
that space. Don't think about I thought about it again.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
I hear that all the time. I basically, you have
to allow yourself to go to sleep. You can't make
yourself go to sleep. So I must go to sleep.
I'm got a busy day tomorrow. Must go to It
could just make you worse. You have to calm yourself
down so that brain doesn't get in the way of
this automatic process that says head down sleep. You have
to allow yourself and often that requires confidence. Sleep really
(09:34):
is a lot about confidence that people who go to
bed and go to sleep, they don't even think about it.
You know, when you're a teenager, you probably just put
your head down and went to sleep.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Oh and I'm on the couch at seven thirty pm
at night. I can go to sleep at the drop
of the half. I've dinner. It's like, you know, just
fly sort of thing. If only someone could pick me
up right, I'd be through to nine. So we'd love
your calls. I wait one hundred and eighty ten eighty
if there are any issues you've got with sleep and
we're going to cover a range of things. My guest
(10:02):
is Alex Bartel, and he as a director of Sleepweld client.
By the way, where do people how do people get
in touch with you? Apart from just googling Sleepworld clinic.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Yeah, there's probably sleep well clinic dot got on in
Z eight hundred two two seventy five three three.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So what is the most common thing that people generally
see you for?
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Sleep out, snoring and sleep out near Yeah, And second
is insomnia.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
And then there are these other odds andes which are
fascinating sleepwalking, night terrors, eating in the middle of the night,
all sorts.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Of eating in the middle of the night, eating what
while you're asleep?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeap?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
What so getting up and going raiding the fridge and
not knowing you've done it.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
It's called sleep related eating disorder. And they don't know
about it. They're in non ram they're in a sleepwalking mode.
So they get up and they go and read the
fridge and they go back. So they wake in the
morning and sink, oh god, I'll be netted again, you know.
And they've got chocolate bars soften and chocolate biscuits. But
I've had one person who has put marmite on a
steak and they tried to eat it. Another person who
(11:00):
tried to eat the cat food. So they know them
what to eat, and they know where the fridge is
and they can do that. But the exactly what there is,
oh my goodness. But usually it's chocolate biscuits or cake
or something.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Mama's on a steak does sound like something where you
have to run past al brown? Is there something in that?
It does sound strangely like it might sort of work
and quite I don't know in somnia then, so what's
the is are there? Well? I think I know the
(11:30):
answer this question that there are sometimes a physiological reason
why people have insomnia. It's not just the fact that
their job's bothering them and that they can't switch off
and they are things on their mind.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Well, there are two things, I mean in so many
of The other word for insbody, which I always think
is helpful for a lot of patients to come in,
is hyper arousal disorder. So it's a buzzy brain basically,
and they're just either wake in the middle of the
night and they can't go actually because their mind starts racing,
or it's it happens when they go to bed. And
as I say, exactly the description you gave was right.
(12:00):
You go to bed, your line there reading a book.
You think I can go to sleep. Now you put
the book down and a ping on goes your brain
instead of bang goes to sleep. So this think you know,
I'm trying to go to sleep doesn't work. You have
to lay yourself.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Actually, there are I imagine this is just from my
I think I've become more aware of thinking about how
I get to sleep, and it's all your bloody faults.
But you're probably the reason that sometimes I don't get
to sleep because I think, I think Alex would say
this and oh no, I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Go again.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
But I have I do have one little trigger that
helps me get to sleep that i've I only use
it sparingly, like because you have discussed on this show
not wearing a watch, right, Yes, and I do wear
a watch when I go to bed, and it's it's
you know, it's got one where the dials blow and
if I wake up sometimes I will check it, but
(12:51):
it's like it's I keep it in reserve because the
signal I give my brain when I really want to
go to sleep if I wake up in the middle
of the night, as I take my watch off and
I put it on the floor, and somehow that knowing
that that watch is not going to be there for
me to is my superpower. But I always sleep with
it on if I get a good night's sleep. But
every now and again I take it off, and somehow
(13:12):
it just tells my brain, you know, the watchers on
the floor. You don't have to worry about it any longer.
You don't have to worry about the time. Who cares
go to sleep?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The reality is it doesn't matter what the time is
when you wake. Everybody wakes at night virtually, so waking
is actually a very normal thing to do. Most people
go back to sleep so quickly, within two or three minutes,
and have no recall they've worken. So waking up is normal,
and so basically it's but if you wake up and
then look at the clock, it often has that emotional
impact on you. Oh no, it's one o'clock. I'm awake.
(13:40):
I shouldn't be. Yes, you should go back to sleep.
Stop fretting about it. But the problem I look at
the I've got o'clock by my bed, and I can
look at it and say, oh great, it's one o'clock.
I've had two hours sleep. That's fantastic. Or it's five o'clock.
Oh I've got another hour to goo. That's brilliant. So
I can go back to sleep easily. So some people
doesn't like me. It doesn't bother me to look at
the clock, but a lot of people it does bother
(14:01):
and just getting rid of the clock is often the
number one thing we are people to do.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Okay, we'd love your calls eight hundred eighty, ten and
eighty If you're having a trouble getting a decent night sleep.
If you've got any anything you want to run by
Alex Bartell and we'll take your calls eight hundred eighty
ten and eighty text nine two nine two. It is
coming up to twenty one past four news talks. He'd be.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Hang on the missile too.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I'm again to know you better, yes, Chrismas and as
we trend and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm
Tim Beverage. This sounds like a good song to get
to slip too, actually, I must say, and that's suitable
for the show because this is the health up of
my guests. Dtor Alex Bartele is the director of the
(14:51):
Sleepworld Clinic. We're taking your calls eight hundred and eight
ten eighty any questions you've got around getting a good
night's sleep, and we will. If you want to jump
on the blower, you'll be first in the queue. But
we've got a few texts here to get to Alex.
So let's get into this one. Hey, boys, love the show.
We're winning already. Here we go, just on my way
for my third night shift in a row as a firefighter,
(15:14):
and here we go. The first two have been horrendous
for running around town all night and not being able
to sleep in the daytime. How long do you think
it takes to recover from a couple a couple of
full nights sleep or shifts. I guess he's saying, yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I mean, in the past, we'd used to teach that
two full nights of sleep eight hours eight nine hours
of sleep will recover any form of sleep debt that
you might have accrued. It's not thought that now we
know that it's probably going to take six to seven
days to actually get over that if you want to,
which means, you know, if you're back on shift again,
then it really doesn't give you enough time to recover.
(15:54):
But you know, allowing yourself to settle and as soon
as you come home, just not trying to get straight
into bed necessarily if you're not still wired from a
you've been racing around, dealing with the accidents, and so
just allowing yourself to calm down a little bit, making
sure you get into a cool You've got a cool
environment that you come home to, curtains drawn, lights down,
(16:16):
so prepare yourself. You can have a snack when you
get home, but keeping it cool and dark, and just
trying to allow yourself to just calm down a bit,
but give yourself a bit of space. Don't think I
need to go straight to bed and go straight.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
To say because I mean, as I've shared, I do
a couple of shifts. But the people I really think about,
people who working in the health system, who do ten
or twelve hour shifts and then they I'm not sure
exactly how it works because they're not always on night
shift and they're not always on day shift. It's sort
of but that does sound to me to be pretty
punishing sort of schedule, doesn't that.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
I'm not sure what this caller what a shifts is,
but a lot of the file servers to twelve hour shifts.
They do two nights, two days for off.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
See.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Actually, if you're going to do shift work, it's probably
not a bad shift pattern.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I think they can sleep at the station too.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
They have clearly this die together, and they're often pretty
horrific things they're dealing with too, so it can be
quite emotionally challenging to come home after one of those events.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
MM, and here's another one here. So are we offering
advice on that, No, we're just saying how long it takes? So, yeah,
six or seven days, so it is problematic. I've always
had the theory with my shifts, if I sleep a
bit before the shift and a bit after that, it
averages out. But to be honest, it, you know, still
still has its moments and been a bit of a struggle. Okay,
(17:34):
here's one says bottle. Oh okay, here we go, bottle
of wine and two zopper clone, zopper plane zoppolar caine.
What's the word zopper clone? Okay, out for eight hours?
Been doing it for twenty years. I don't think we
want to prescribe that that would Normally that would worry
you a bit, wouldn't it.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
It would?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yeah, I mean certainly it's going to knock you out.
There's no question. Alcohol is very sedative, and zopper clone,
added tod it is going to make you more sedative.
But quality of sleep will be awful. You'll probably be
gnoring like a trooper. And because you and the actual
sleep quality, you're not getting any of the proper sleep
cycles that you should be having. So, you know, twenty
years you obviously started when you're a young person. Do
(18:17):
it for another ten years and I think you'll start
to regret it. So it's not ideal.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Well, I mean that's that's main which is worse than
zopper clone or the wine. I'm going to go with
the bottle of wine alcohol.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Yes, I mean that's part of the problem. It's not
going to very relatively safe medication. In fact, it's just
that it is so jolly good for many people that
people get a bit hooked on it. That's the downside,
and then it starts not to work, of course, as
with most of the sleeping medications, but it's pretty safe.
I'lohol or not.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I've got a mildly mischievous question, and because of the
time start of the show, I'm going to ask it
in a polite way. But sometimes when you know, when
couples have a nice time together, yes, that can can
lead to a good night's sleep, quality hugs and cuddles
and all that sort of thing. Is there something that
are just to be said for quality nookie before sleep time?
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
And why is that?
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well, physiologically it is to do with the love hormone.
I guess we call it oxytocin, and oxytocin particularly with
the organism, tends to release oxytocin and then that's very
relaxing hormone. So you're very likely to sleep better.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Oxytocin sounds like something you could get prescribed, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
I don't. I'm sure they're working on it.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Well actually, well, I guess just because it's a chemical
and we must know what oxytocin has made. Of course,
they've got a name of which which the name must
be reflective of some of the compounds that are in it.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Absolutely so. I don't know whether it's artificially made or not.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I don't know what other sort of things is it
a sense of is it simply just Oxytocin can be
generated by other things, like a sense of satisfaction having
had a great day or something, and you're feeling.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Like, yes, absolutely so. I mean it is a but
it's particularly skin contact cuddles that something are particularly powerful
for producing oxytocin.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Okay, so that that's even why if you know, when
if you're just having a hug, and you know, if
your kids are having trouble sleeping in the end and
they just want you to lie next to them and
they just snuggle up, then that helps them because and
that clicks in that sort of is it a hormone.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Or a hormone?
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah, Actually that is quite Actually that's interesting to know,
actually that because I think a lot of the time,
especially on a hot nights, to be honest, nobody wants
to hug all it. You know, you don't want to
get it. Keep away from me, it's stinking hot. But
then you're you're depriving yourself of the oxytocin.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Well except for you. You know, if you stay too
close together, then you are going to sweat like anything,
and it's not going to help you sleep. So yes,
move apart if you're very hot.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Okay, I've got I'm not sure if you're going to
have an opinion on this one, but I'm going to
run it up the flagpole because those people listening also
might have an opinion on this. This person, Alvin says
tilting the bed, didn't say which way is going to
tilt it, of course, and body orientation north south. And lastly,
(21:03):
blue light from led screens. I'm thinking he means avoid
the blue light from the laid screen. Yes, ah, Actually
I have heard people do talk about oh, which way
is your bed facing? Is it facing east or west
or all this sort of thing. And there's a part
of me that thinks, you know, I mean, if a
(21:24):
compass can react to the Earth's magnetic you sort of
intuitively you think, surely the Earth's magnetic field and orientation,
it effects of the moon, affects the tides and all
these sorts of things, so that the homeopathic and beveragere
doesn't really exist. If he did, that would be going,
oh yeah, body direction has to have something to do
with it.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Well, it's the old feng Shui idea, I think concept
which has been going for thousands of years, and a
lot of it. I mean, yes, you're quite right. I
mean there's almost certainly some magnetic impacts on things, but
it's so meniscal compared with if I'm stressed or if
i've you know, things going into your household or whatever,
(22:03):
that will take over. So yes, there's probably minor improvement.
I think most of the minor improvement is that you
feel better about it. You know, I've been told that
I'm going to sleep better if I have the bed
put here by the window, or something. So yeah, so
I'm more likely to see about forty percent of anything
to do with sleep is placebo response, you know, and
many of the things people got sleep on the bottle
(22:24):
as long as you've got sleep on the bottle, it
will help about forty percent of people go to sleep.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Actually, that's an interesting one because the placebo effect itself
and they still I mean, there's still research going on
as to how effective it is. But in a way,
getting informed as to your medicine is in fact useless,
is not very helpful because if there's a placebo effect
that's possible, then it almost argues for the parts of
(22:51):
your life that are best left or lived in ignorance,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Well, yeah, I mean I guess that's right, because this
thing that's pretty harmless is chemical or the thing you
buy from the health shop is harmless, but it's helping
me sleep, So why don't I use it? But I'd say, well, fine,
if you need to use it, it's often quite expensive.
But if you need to use it and you get
to sleep, it's not to do you now go for it.
That's fine, But there are other ways in which we
could do without needing to use medication.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Because I was in a health food shop or with
a friend and my friend was looking for some melatonin
and I was thinking, how I don't think you can
get melatonin in New Zealand. And anyway, the woman at
the counter of the said, oh, yes, we have melotonin
and went over to the homeopathic sort of thing and
said and said, we've got it here. I thought, I
(23:38):
didn't think you could sell it here. She said, oh, yes,
we can. And I said, thirty c does that mean
that that's been sort of diluted one one hundred and
thirty times? And she looked at me like i'd she
looked at me like a broken wind in the shop. Actually,
but I didn't want to ruin the party for my reason,
for my friend who actually if they believed it was
(24:03):
going to get a good night's sleep.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
So right, yeah, but what can you do? I mean, basically,
there are many other ways of having melatonin in our
bodies apart from taking it by tablets. And even the
manufacturers of Cicadian, which is the two milligram slow release product,
which is you can buy on the script here, you
can get on script even they said it really made
very little difference or no difference to all under fifty
(24:26):
five year olds, so it's actually only designed for older people.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
So that's melatonin.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah, melotonin.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Why wouldn't it make any difference for younger people.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Because we've got so much melotone in ourselves. And you
know if you have some meltone at night and then
you reading your iPhone or something, you immediately destroying the
melotone in anyway. And also it goes into your gut,
has to go first pass through the liver, goes into
your bloodstream, then crosses a blood brain barry into your brain.
You need it in your brain. H quickest way into
your brain is through your eyes.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
And we know how to get that. We're going to
touch on that after the break, actually, because it's probably
the most repeated bit of advice I've used from having
a chat with you Alex on the show. I we
eight one hundred eighty ten eighties. The number tixt nine
two nine two will be back in just a moment.
It's twenty five minutes to five news talks.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
He'd be he sees you and your sleep then and
in those when you're doing he knows that you've been
fud so they're good for goodness.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
That's welcome back to the wee Can Collective. This is
the health AUP. My guests, doctor Alex Barber. We're talking
about getting good good night's sleep, and a whole lot
of them there's there's so many issues around it, Alex.
I got lots of texts on this. By the way,
if you want to jump the que of the text,
you can give us a call on E one hundred
and eighty ten eighty. Um. What about cramp? Is this text?
What do you do? Yeah, cramp when you're sleeping, Alex.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Yeah, Well, cramps is different to the rest of SEK syndrome,
so the two can often be mixed up. Cramp so
it's a muscular spasm, of course, and the things that
may help that. For example, magnesium is supposed to help that,
so I would say that that's something worth trying, but
it's often a assault type efficiency. Possibly. I know we're
told to be careful of too much salt because of
(26:09):
hypertension and medical issues, but perhaps a lack of salt
is traditionally one of the things you need to make
sure you're having a little bit of. But magnesium is fine.
But of course you can get magnesium in food stuff
as well, So again I want, rather than taking medication
as such, a having a good diet with some magnesium
in it, like nuts and certain fruits. I'm not a nutritionist,
(26:31):
but I know you can get it from food.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Now before the break, we're talking about malatone and how
you naturally produce it, and that is the I've had
a chat with my wife about this when we went
for a walk, and because she would go with the
dark glasses on, and I just sort of said, well don't.
I'm quoting our sleep specialist that if you want to
(26:56):
get a good night's sleep at night, it's melatonin and
the way to get that is to generate serotonin by
exposing yourself to light, to take the shades off. Right,
And there is something in that, doesn't it?
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Absolutely yes, But it's not just bright shiny light. I
mean that's not Our ancestors didn't know anything about glare,
so we don't like glare.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Now what is clear then, Well, it's.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Things like tilt slab buildings and concrete slabs.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And urban environment. Urban environment not so much reflections of
the sunlight off the sea.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Well, off the sea, I would wear protection older sunglasses.
If you're skiing, i'd certainly wear sunglasses. Oh yeah, so
it's all glary. But if you're going for a walk
through the local park or gardens, you know it's shaded
blue green light, which is our natural environment. And what
our ancestors have been in for thousands of years. That
blue green light hits your writtener has to hit your eyes.
If you block the eyes with sets with sunglasses, then
(27:47):
it's not hitting you rerittener. Okay, so it's not skin.
Skin is vitamin D, but it's eyes for serotonin. It
goes into your brain. It's alter the size of your
pupil one of the things it does, of course, and
you know that you go outside, the pupils clamp down.
If you go outside and put your Sonny's on. Of course,
pupils just stay where they are. You've done it for them.
So when you forget your son is, they're very slow
(28:08):
at clamping down, which it needs.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Oh well, I'm really sensitive to light.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
You've often created that problem by wearing sunnys all the time.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well, the other thing is as well is that I mean,
this is more of an eye thing. But if you
find it hard to tolerate and tolerate just being out
in the garden because you're wearing sunglasses all the time,
you actually there is a you do lose your tolerance
to bright light if you're always sticking such trades.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
That's exactly right now, I'm not Don't get me wrong,
I'm not anti sunglasses. I think yeah, particularly for people
with making a degeneration, glaucoma, cataract, all those sort of
medical things. But if you know, if you don't have
those things, then when you're going for a walk through
the local woodland and parks and what have you slip
them off. Let that blue green light hit your retina.
It goes to the middle of the brain, suppresses melatonin,
(28:53):
so it wakes us up, but also starts producing serotonin.
And the more serotonin we produced in the day, the
more melatonin it converts to at night.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
There is something useful there for shift workers as well,
isn't there, Because again, I mean relates to my own situation,
but anyone is a shift worker. I imagine those When
you get up, if the first thing you do, apart
from having maybe a banana and a glass of water,
is to go for a walk in the outside air,
that sort of does help, doesn't it, because one that
(29:21):
wakes you up, even if you're feeling a but CD.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Yeah, no, no, it's a good idea to get outside.
Spending time outside is hugely important, and we do it
very badly. Really at the moment. And as you know that,
I mean if we travel overseas, you go to Sydney
or go to Asia, you go on holiday, you spend
more time outside. So we train quite a lot more
quickly if we spend time outside than if we do
come home and spend med cooks. Going east is always
(29:46):
going west is always much more difficult when you're traveling, sorry,
going east is much more difficult.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
So as soon as you say going east is much
more difficult than going west, it makes me think of
that whole sleeping direction thing again as well. Why is
it easier to travel in one direction not the other?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Well, because the sunlight, the sun is traveling around. And
so if you go to Perth, for example, which you
say five hours delayed, then you go in to bed
west going west. Heah, So if it's eleven o'clock in
New Zealand, it's actually four o'clock in the morning there,
so you're going to go straight to.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Sleep, all right, Yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
If it's eleven o'clock in Perth, then it's actually only
what is it six o'clock here?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
And again, if you're flying to London, doesn't really matter
whether you go east or west because you're on the
other side of the it's the destinations pretty much totally intopodan, doesn't.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
It absolutely, But spend time outside as we do when
we go over size, we tend to spend time outside.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Okay, just before we go to our caller. There's a
doozy of a question on text here which I've been
meaning to ask. I'm not sure if I have yet,
and it's come up a few times. In grounding mats
grounding sheets. I don't know if you've come across this,
but it's it's it's about being connected to the earth,
(31:02):
and so people have these sheets which can do the earth,
which means that they put apparently there is something about
the electromagnetic or something about the human body, and people
use these grounding Do you know anything about grounding mats?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
No, I know the mats that you use that have
got lots of spikes or you know, nodules that you
see lyon, and that seems to be quite helpful. Whether
that's what they are, I'm not sure, but it would
be the same sort of ideas of putting in the
right direction, I guess. But being connected to us, I mean,
I'm all in favor of that in terms of I
was very skeptical about things like forest hugging and you know,
(31:37):
tree hugging and forest bathing. I'm really in favor of that. Now,
why's that because it's you're in the right environment, blue
green light.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Okay, yeah, no, I did. I do remember this now.
I talked to it about it with John Cameron because
there was a study on some medical journal thing and
he put it in context that said, if they were
really a thing, there'd be much more than one study
that suggests that possibly something's happening. Yeah, so, but yeah, right,
let's go to stew good E again.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, good right, Yeah, Hi, I'm wearing sunglasses most of
my life. I'm on my mad sexties. I don't need
glasses to read, whereas a lot of my peers do,
in fact, even younger. But I do have problems sleeping.
(32:31):
So is it because I'm wearing sunglasses.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
Well, let's put it this way, if you were, if
you didn't wear sunglasses during the day, you would produce
more serotonin eur in the day, which would then convert
to meltonia to help you sleep better at night. Your
interesting point about your eyesight's very good, which is brilliant.
I do worry about a lot of screen time for
youngsters and how that may be impacting on eyesight for
(32:55):
the future. That's not my field, but I've been interested.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I don't do that.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, you don't know.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
That's not that, But you're saying that younger people do
and their eyesight's failing. I don't know that it's to
do with any do with sunglasses. I think it's more
to do with just constant screen time, which you don's okay,
all right, okay, all the.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
People why age you're wearing glasses to read?
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Maybe is that just genetics something?
Speaker 4 (33:23):
I don't wear glasses for reading or driving. Actually, so
I'm in there.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
You go, you and Alex You're you're not alone, thank you. Yes.
Somebody of us asked just on the insomnia that makes
you eat person, saying what is it that actually causes
people to have that sort of insomnia? Is it something
you can do to avoid it? In other words, what
(33:49):
makes people do it?
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Right? There are two eating disorders in the night. One
is sleep related eating disorder, which is like sleepwalking. So
anything that controls sleepwalking is usually the first two or
three hours, three or four hours of the night usually
exist is a genetic background usually, so you've might have
been a sleepwalker on right terror in the past. It's
triggered by fatigue or stress. So if you want to
(34:11):
reduce the instance of doing these things at night, then
reduce stress or fatigue, which means getting better sleep. I
guess there's another one called night eating disorder, which is
actually slightly different. It means that you wake in the
middle of the night and you and you have this
this feeling you have to eat something before you go
back to sleep. It's a little bit more a bit
of an OCD type consideration. So it's there, but they're awake,
(34:37):
they just need something to eat in their tummy before
they can get them theirselves back to sleep. So it
becomes oh, really, oh that's in the middle of the night.
That's night eating disorder.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
It's not me having a peanut but a sandwich at
ten thirty.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Because no, no, no, that's in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's just a lack of discipline on Actually, what is
it that gives people sort of night You know, people
have a snack craving sort of and they've had a dinner.
I mean sometimes they've had a good dinner and things.
But if I think peanut but a sandwich.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I'm like, okay, it's look. I talk about this all
the time because a lot of people do have a
meal and then in the evening they snack for me.
I think, why do you do that? You've just had
a meal for heading's sake. Well, it's probably because you're
a bit tired. When we get tired, it also has
hormented your brain called liptin and grilling and liptinoils drop,
crillinals rise, and brain needed something, So.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I should just go to bed instead.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Yeah, I mean you don't actually need it, it's your
brain is telling you and it becomes habit.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Of course, I think i'd probably be about to kilo. Anyway,
We're going to be back in just a moment, eleven
minutes to five, News talks. It'd be the news talks.
It be yes at eight minutes to five, not much
time left, but Tom squeezing a quick call. Jeremy Hello,
Jeremy Hello, can you hear me?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Ye?
Speaker 5 (35:49):
I'll just turn you.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
That's a good idea.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
I just my question relates. So I got the back
end of what you're talking about with serotonin from light?
Is that only from natural light that you can get
that that serotonin or is the man made lighting options
that I don't know, maybe a sill of question, but
is there other ways to get that in?
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah, there are blue light producer that you can get
special glasses for example that blue produces blue light which
is very good at suppressing melatonin producing serotonin. The thing
I like about outside light is that you do a
bit of exercise in a lovely environment, whereas you know glasses,
blue glasses and blue light boxes do similar thing, but
(36:32):
they're you know, you're sitting in an office or sitting
at home doing it, So yeah, they would they would
be similar.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Is that Chris, you're stuck inside for your job at
Jeremy and you're thinking there's got to be a way
of getting some blue light here.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
Yes, it was more for a family member. So if
you know, predominantly inside and like you know, with not
bright lighting most of the day and they've got real
trouble sleeping, I was wondering maybe they could be of assistance.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean we do use blue light glasses
in the morning. We actually have those available which people
use if they if they're really unable to get out
for half an hour walk in the morn morning, then
blue light glasses work very well, and of course you
should you change them over to amber colored glasses at night,
which are blue blockers, so it blocks the blue light
in the evening. So these glasses are good for that
(37:18):
context for people maybe like your friend, who actually can't
spend time outside for whatever reason. You know, they've got
busy lives, they've got family, whatever, a lot of reasons
why people can't get outside, No.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Trouble. Where would you get blue glasses from? Are they just?
Are they just sort of blue bluish lenses. They know
they produce blue light, They produce them, they convert the light.
That's because actually that's interesting that you mentioned that, because
I think there are a lot of office spaces where
people think that the blue light is the villain. But
in fact, if you're in an inside office environment, then
(37:54):
you shouldn't be running away from the blue light because
it's nothing theoretically.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
I mean, computers, of course have got a lot of
blue lights, so that theoretically is actually not unhelpful. But
you know, the outside, because it's varied, it's not just
blue light. I mean outside is blue and green, and
those are the wavelengths, that area of wavelength that does
you so good apart from being outside.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, that's interesting. So in an office environment, you shouldn't
be freaking out about the blue light from your screens
if you are working during the day. In fact, a
funny thing is if you're a shift worker, you need
to stay awake anyway. I mean, God, I'm surrounded by
screens and when I'm doing night work. So actually, that's
(38:35):
that's interesting because I think there's this general sense of
rule of thumb for the public, like all blue light's
the devil, but actually blue lights your friend during the day.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, you know, in the end,
so blue light generally outside is always ideal.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Hey, that's pretty much it. We've only got about a
minute left. Alex. Thanks so much for coming on the
show this year. Have you got anything interesting plan for
Christmas or you're taking a bit of time off?
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Yeah, a bit of time off over Christmas is have
a bit of a break. I'm coming in to see
you guys again on the fifth, I think it is.
I'm back in January.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Oh, okay, that'll be Is that in the Morning show
or something that'll be with Francisca A good stuff.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
That's nice. Yeah, So we're just saving up to spend
a bit of time overseas.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Oh oh really, anywhere you can share with us. You
don't have to share of course the end of next year.
Our end of next year. So you're saving up for
the big trail. Absolutely. Oh you and Me's which continent?
Speaker 4 (39:34):
Well, we would have spent at least ten days in Spain,
which much about.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
At this time of year in the winter as our
autumn time. Perfect time.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Family in England of course, my family is mainly in England.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, okay, And if people want to catch up with
your connect the sleep Well Clinic.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Sleep Well Clinic in excellent, Thanks Jim Having.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Thanks you too, you too. We'll be back shortly with
Smart Money. This is news talk Z. It'd be Shane
Solly is going to be with us and we're talking
about the changes that the government making to the key
we saver providers, allowing them to increase their private asset investments.
Sounds pretty harmless, so we're going to dig into that
after five o'clock with Shane Solly. We take your calls
(40:13):
as well, a little bit of Christmas music to ease
you into the news. Back soon.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
The bushels of for more from the Weekend Collective.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Listen live to news talks it'd be weekends from three pm,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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