How To Sleep Better! With Expert Dr Lindsay Browning - Virtually Anything Goes Podcast

Dr. Lindsay Browning joins host Lev Cribb on the Virtually Anything Goes Podcast Expert Series to talk about Sleep and Insomnia.

Unlock the secrets to better sleep and a healthier life with our special guest, Dr. Lindsay Browning, a renowned chartered psychologist, neuroscientist, and author. Dr. Browning shares her expertise on how poor sleep can lead to serious health issues like depression, heart disease, and even dementia. In this insightful episode, she reveals practical strategies for improving sleep through psychological therapy, behavioral changes, and addressing medical causes. Discover why you shouldn't settle for subpar sleep and how prioritizing rest can profoundly enhance your well-being.

We dive into the historical undervaluation of sleep and how recent research underscores its critical role in mental and physical health. From the rise of sleep-tracking technology to the impact of COVID-19 on our sleep habits, this episode sheds light on why getting enough rest is more important than ever. Dr. Browning also discusses the benefits of sleep for memory and cognitive function, emphasizing how adequate rest facilitates physical repair and memory consolidation. Whether you're struggling to prioritize sleep or curious about individual sleep needs, this conversation offers valuable insights for everyone.

Explore the modern challenges that disrupt our sleep, from stress and technology to lifestyle choices. Dr. Browning elaborates on how stressors and the addictive nature of social media can impair our sleep patterns. We also touch on the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) and the importance of good sleep hygiene practices. Finally, ponder the allure of ideal living locations and how our environment can influence our sleep quality and overall well-being. Tune in for a comprehensive guide on reclaiming your sleep and enhancing your health.

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Dr Browning’s book, “Navigating Sleeplessness”, is a trusted resource that has supported many with their sleep issues and concerns. And as a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, a member of the British Sleep Society and a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Dr Browning offers services and therapy sessions to individuals and companies, but is also a sought-after expert who regularly features on TV and Radio programs across the BBC and other outlets.

This episode is part of our Expert Series, where we speak to experts from a variety of different backgrounds, including Addiction, Mentoring, Eye Surgery, Sales, Communications, and even Magic! So be sure to subscribe and check out our other episodes.

Find and listen the audio-only version of this episode on your favourite podcast platform.

For more information on Dr. Lindsay Browing, visit https://troublesleeping.co.uk/

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Transcript

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 0:00

So people who don't get enough good quality sleep tend to be more depressed and anxious. They have a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, certain types of cancers, especially hormonal cancers, an increased risk of dementia. They have memory issues and their immune system might be compromised, just as a starter.

Introduction: 0:22

Welcome to the Virtually Anything Goes podcast. This episode is part of our expert series, and each episode features a new expert from a range of interesting topics. Throughout the series, you'll hear about sleep and insomnia, addiction, mentoring, crisis communication, sales, eye surgery and even magic. You don't want to miss what the experts have to share, so subscribe and follow this podcast now, and then sit back and listen in.

Lev Cribb: 1:00

Hello and welcome to the Virtually Anything Goes podcast. This episode is part of our expert series, where we will be discussing a whole different range of topics. We'll be talking about addiction, we'll be talking about communications, sales, eye surgery and even magic. Today, I'm joined by Dr Lindsay Browning, who's a chartered psychologist, neuroscientist and author, and she holds a doctorate in insomnia from the University of Oxford. Author. And she holds a doctorate in insomnia from the University of Oxford. Dr Browning's book Navigating Sleeplessness is a trusted resource that has supported many with their sleep issues and concerns and, as a chartered psychologist and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society, a member of the British Sleep Society and a member of the American Academy for Sleep Medicine, Dr Browning offers services and therapy sessions for individuals and companies, but she's also a sought after expert who regularly features on TV and radio programmes across the BBC and many different outlets. Dr Browning, very warm welcome to you and I'm absolutely delighted you can join us for this episode today.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 1:56

Thank you for having me. I'm delighted. Can't wait to have a good discussion all about sleep.

Lev Cribb: 2:00

Brilliant. I think it'll be really exciting. I can't wait for it. But before we get into that, if this is your first time watching the Virtually Anything Goes podcast or listening to it, stick around to the very end. At the very end we will have the Virtually Anything Goes question, where I turn the control over to my guests and they can ask me any question they like.

Lev Cribb: 2:17

I will have asked them enough questions from my side. They can ask me a question. It can be virtually anything. I don't know what the question is. I'll be just as surprised as you are, but the rule is I have to answer it. The only caveat is that once I've given my answer, I then also turn back to my guest and they also have to answer the same question. So we'll come to that right at the very end. And if you're not yet subscribed to this podcast and you like what you hear today, now's a great time to subscribe. Follow so you don't miss any future episodes. Okay, so with that, Dr Browning, perhaps I can start with this question. Is all insomnia and all sleep issues able to be solved?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 2:52

I would say a huge majority are. A survey came out last week by the Sleep Charity which showed that 69% of people with sleeping problems haven't spoken to a healthcare professional about it, and that just shows how many people just accept poor sleep and sleeping problems and think there's nothing they can do about it. My work with individuals, I work with people all the time who've had insomnia, really struggled with their sleep for 30, 40 years and thought there was simply nothing they could do about it, that they were just a poor sleeper. But there are absolutely things that people can do to improve their sleep and no one is just a poor sleeper. It's about finding why your sleep isn't as good as it could be and then putting those things in place to fix it, whether that be psychological therapy, behavioral changes or, if there's a medical cause, um, you know, investigating that and fixing that, whatever that might be.

Lev Cribb: 3:46

But yeah, I would say most insomnia and sleeping problems can be resolved if people just go out and seek help I would imagine many of our listeners will love that answer, um, and they might also think well, actually, maybe mine's different, maybe there's some underlying things there, that but it sounds like we can get into quite a lot of those details and explore those, so we'll take a look at that. Would it be fair to say that sleep is one of the most important aspects of our health, but perhaps also one of the most underestimated and perhaps neglected ones?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 4:21

Absolutely. I mean, I graduated in 2006 with my doctorate in insomnia and back then it was almost 20 years ago sleep was really seen as an inconvenience. People your professionals, professionally, your CEOs, top people would really boast about how little sleep they got because the idea would be well, sleep is for the week, sleep is a waste of time and you should spend as much time awake as possible so that you can get things done. But of course, we know, and the more research happening and week by week there are more studies coming out which just show how vitally important sleep is, and it really is. It's our superpower.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 5:02

Getting a good night's sleep, of enough sleep for what you need, is vital for you to stay mentally healthy and physically healthy and it affects almost every single aspect of our life and people don't, some people still don't really understand how important it is is and you might get that because sleep it takes if you, you know, the recommendations are seven to nine hours for a working age adult is how much sleep we should be getting.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 5:30

That is a big commitment, if I we know that in going to the gym, exercise is important, but the recommendations are, maybe you know, exercise three to four times a week and vigorous exercise, but sleep is every single day. We have to spend a lot of time asleep and that is a big commitment. If you're juggling other things in your life like families, work, social life, hobbies there are lots of other things that we are faced with that take away that time. So, yeah, I'd love to talk about in detail why sleep is so important, if you want me to sort of give some examples now. Yeah, I'd love to get into you know in detail why sleep is so important, if you want me to sort of give some examples now.

Lev Cribb: 6:06

Yeah, I'd love to get into that. I'm actually keen to hear from you actually what you mentioned, that you know sleep used to be seen differently and perhaps as one of those kind of, you know, unnecessary luxuries kind of thing. Has that changed since you started and have you seen trends to kind of to the opposite of that?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 6:32

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 6:33

Since COVID, it's taken even more of a change, actually, because I think you know, for the whole world, covid gave us an opportunity to stop and reassess things and people have started to think OK, I want to prioritise my wellbeing, and sleep has become part of that, and people are now paying attention to the fact that sleep is important, which means that people are now starting to guess why the surge of electronic devices that can track your sleep have become so popular and all the.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 6:56

There's almost a magazine, newspaper, article every single day out about how important sleep is. So there is definitely a lot more information out there, but not everyone necessarily believes it or is that interested in it, in the same way that I would challenge everyone to know that healthy eating and exercise are important, but whether we choose to do that is another question. So I think that most people know that sleep's important, but whether they choose to actually go the extra mile and think well, you know that sleep is important, but whether they choose to actually go the extra mile and think well, you know it's important. Therefore, I want to make sure I'm getting enough sleep for me to be healthy. Is is the next step.

Lev Cribb: 7:34

It's like you're looking into my soul. We'll come. We'll come back to my sleep behavior, but you mentioned the kind of negative effects of not getting enough sleep or not getting enough rest for sleep. Can you tell us a bit more on what the impact on our bodies is for that, or maybe even our minds?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 7:47

Yeah, well, it's pretty much everything. So people who don't get enough good quality sleep tend to be more depressed and anxious. They have a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, certain types of cancers, especially hormonal cancers, an increased risk of dementia. They have memory issues and their immune system might be compromised, just as a starter. And if I was here giving you a, if I was a salesman selling you a pill, a supplement, and I said, if you take this supplement, it'll give you all these health benefits, then I'm pretty sure that all these listeners right now would be like oh yes, have that pill. But the great thing is, sleep is free. You don't have to pay anyone to sleep. You just have to lie down and and go to sleep and then you're going to give yourself a huge amount of health benefits.

Lev Cribb: 8:34

It's just, it's amazing yeah, I mean, I would imagine there'll be some listeners who who think, oh well, that sounds easy, but for me it is not that easy. I think we'll come into perhaps some of those aspects and the strategies that we, maybe we can, we can employ to kind of get better, more restful sleep. But I mean, I'll openly admit, as I just sort of alluded to, that it's only sleeping about six, six and a half hours a night. I love my time in the evening to, you know, just relax, clear my brain, sort of try and process the day before I go to sleep, and then you know, I'll go to, maybe to bed at one o'clock and I'll wake up at seven. Um, maybe a little bit longer at the weekends. I don't feel like I need more sleep and, yes, I'll catch up every now and again. But am I just kidding myself? There Is it? Is it a case of well, I will be asleep earlier if I went to bed, or do some people need?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 9:19

less sleep.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 9:21

So I think both of those answers are potentially true. So the scientific recommendations are that somewhere between seven to nine hours is appropriate for someone 18 to 64. But that's a range. It's like we don't all have the same sleep needs and that's the sort of general range for the recommendations. But definitely the range is is greater than that and somewhere between six to 10 is actually probably. You could well be within the norm.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 9:55

If you're getting significantly less than six hours or needing more than 10, then that would worry me. Now, we can all get by on less sleep. Our bodies do adapt and we. There are certain times in our life when we have to get by on less sleep than maybe is ideal, especially when we've got new children, young babies, we've got a new job, we are juggling work and doing an open university course in the evening. We all have seasons in our life when we simply can't get seven to nine hours in bed because we're just too busy, in which case we can survive on less sleep than that, but it's the same as we can survive on eating junk food. We can survive not exercising. Surviving isn't the same as thriving.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 10:42

So just because you are going through life and you feel okay. I mean, I would feel okay if I spent the next month not exercising, but I know that if I did exercise regularly I would feel great. And I think that if you are restricting yourself to less sleep because your work or your life means you can't get more, then okay, that's where you need to be right now. But if you're restricting yourself because you're wasting time and you're not prioritizing sleep and you're just scrolling through social media for two hours for no good reason, then maybe changing your priorities and giving yourself a bit more opportunity to sleep, you might wake up feeling, wow, I could survive on six, six and and a half hours, but with seven and a half eight I feel amazing. So I would challenge you to maybe give yourself the opportunity to have more sleep and see if it makes you feel better and if it does, fantastic, go with it. And if you don't feel any better, then maybe you don't need that much sleep and it's not anything to obsessively worry about yeah, that makes sense.

Lev Cribb: 11:42

And I mean, can we look at sleep as a sort of as a tank where you can catch up again? You can, you know, I've, you know, for as long as I can think, for certainly several years, been doing, having this, this sleep pattern, um, but anybody who has this phase that you mentioned, they go through certain phases you just can't commit to more sleep. Is it possible to catch up on what you've missed out, and how long? How far can that go back? And, you know, can I catch up on two, three missed nights sleep, or a week or a year? How does that work?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 12:16

That's a great question, and if there was an absolute, categoric answer to that, people would use that, you know, because everyone will want to be as efficient as possible. But let's talk about how sleep affects alzheimer's as the example for this. Now, when we fall asleep, our brain does a whole host of different important tasks while we're asleep, which is why it gives us all those benefits. And one of those things that our brain does while we sleep is to physically wash away amyloid plaques from our brain. So inside our brain we have these sticky wash away amyloid plaques from our brain. So inside our brain we have these sticky substances called amyloid plaques, which are kind of like gunk and they kind of build up in our brain. And when we're asleep, channels open up from our spine and allow cerebrospinal fluid that was in our spine to physically wash over our brain, physically spring cleaning your brain. Now that's we've seen this in neuroimaging. It's amazing to watch. Now, dementia, alzheimer's disease, is associated with a buildup of amyloid plaques and if you don't get enough sleep over the long term, these amyloid plaques don't get washed away. You get a buildup of them and you develop Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 13:22

Now, of course, one day or two days or a short amount of time of not getting enough sleep isn't going to be the end of the world. So the example I'd like to give, to sort of explain it like that, is your bathroom. Now, when you're busy, you're really stressed busy. You've got, you know, young kids juggling a job. Cleaning your bathroom isn't the priority on that day, and that's okay. And maybe you don't clean your bathroom for a week, maybe you don't clean it for two weeks. After a month it's starting to get a bit icky. What if you didn't clean your bathroom for six months or a year? My goodness, at this point your bathroom would look horrendous.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 13:59

This is kind of how our brain works. A day or two of not getting enough sleep, yeah, kind of how our brain works A day or two of not getting enough sleep. Yeah, we haven't cleaned those amyloid plaques away, but we're going to catch up if we get enough sleep later on. But if we're consistently not getting enough sleep for weeks, months, years, you can imagine the build up and the and the damage that we're doing to our brain. So, yes, we can, we can catch up to some extent. And if, if we couldn't, then basically every new parent on the planet would have all of those things because every new parent on the planet has, you know, a year or two maybe per child of pretty poor sleep, um, but we don't want that to be going on forever, because we do need to give ourselves enough time to sleep so that our brain can do that task as well as all the others that it needs to do when we're asleep fascinating that, um, and I hadn't realized that actually, and I mean, are there?

Lev Cribb: 14:48

are there? I suppose you know people might say, well, okay, I I don't sleep a lot and and I I don't know about time, as I they, you know that develops over time. Are there any early warning signs that we can, maybe not for alzheimer's, but, you know, in general for this kind? Of just clogging up.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 15:03

Not good enough sleep.

Lev Cribb: 15:04

Yeah. Are there particular warning signs of them? Perhaps rings under your eyes? Is there anything else we can sort of from a memory perspective gauge or kind of observe Absolutely?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 15:13

So it's much harder if you are having long-term a little bit too little sleep, rather than if we went on an overnight flight somewhere and we didn't sleep that night.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 15:23

The next day we would know it and we would feel extremely tired and we would be exhausted and we'd know we hadn't slept the night before. But if you have cumulative sleep deprivation, your body kind of can get used to feeling sluggish and tired, but signs are maybe just not feeling as energized during the day. Maybe you're eating not so great foods, because when we don't get enough sleep we tend to choose less healthy foods and we tend to eat a bit more. So maybe you're putting on weight and not really understanding why. Maybe you're having micro sleeps, when your eyes feel heavy and you're in a meeting and you suddenly think, oh my goodness, maybe you just fell asleep. Then those are signs that maybe you are fatigued, sleep deprived. Even if you got enough sleep last night, maybe cumulatively you're not really on average getting enough sleep and give yourself the opportunity to catch up and see how much better you feel.

Lev Cribb: 16:19

Yeah, makes sense. I suppose there's an element of observing yourself and, I guess, admitting to it to a degree as well, saying, well, yes, I am noticing those things and tying it back, and maybe in some cases it isn't obvious. To other people it might seem well, yeah, I know why. That is because I'm not getting enough sleep, I just can't do anything about it. But it's really fascinating that. And are there any other benefits, beyond obviously not feeling tired and what you explained about what happens in the brain, of getting more sleep or napping anything that we perhaps aren't aware of, like, for example, the Alzheimer's examples you gave? Are there any other benefits that we can learn from that we don't maybe know about?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 17:02

Yeah, well, when we sleep our brain does tons of different things, and two major things that we do is our body physically repairs itself and also we process things that we're learning. So we sort of store things that we've learned to our long-term memory storage. So therefore, people who are very, very physically active and learning lots of new things tend to need more sleep than perhaps the recommendations or the average. So you look at professional athletes, for example, olympians they'll sleep much more than seven to nine hours because they're creating a greater sleep need, because they're physically so active, they need longer time at night asleep to physically repair their body and also they're learning and processing these new skills. Maybe they're learning diving techniques or tennis techniques.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 17:51

And the more physically you are, the more physically active and the more mentally you're learning, then the more sleep you need. So it may be that if you're in a particular time of life when you're more physically active or you're doing something new and challenging, you might need a bit more sleep than you did a year ago when you weren't so physically active. So again, our sleep needs change, change across the year and we also change depending on our age, because the older we get we tend to need a bit less sleep, but also what we're doing. So don't just have a number that you think. Well, when I was 22, I needed this much sleep. That's me forever, because it will change. Just like if you started running marathons, you'd need an awful lot more calories. Similarly, you'd need more sleep.

Lev Cribb: 18:37

It's interesting because I get I'm assuming from what you're saying is that there is that for the high performance athletes, athletes, example, they will go through a intense, well several intense phases, I'm sure, um of learning new things and, as you say, new techniques and so on, and that's probably quite apparent and quite compressed and quite active. Is there an element of these changes, of perhaps not the kind of memory consolidation element, the kind of learning element, um not being as apparent, that it's as quick as it used to be? There must be quite a creeping process over time where perhaps it's not as apparent and you just look back and think, gosh, five years ago I could remember everything my podcast script or whatever. I could have just done that, and now I don't. Is that a creeping process or are there obvious signs that it's all of a sudden happened? I'm assuming it's a.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 19:29

Yeah, we can all get used to feeling a bit rubbish If our diet starts to get worse and worse. We may not notice the change and we'll just realize that we've been feeling quite sluggish and without much energy for a while. And if we then change our diet we'll feel oh my goodness, I feel so much better. Or similarly, if you've been getting by on a certain amount of sleep and you increase it, you might feel gosh, I didn't realize I wasn't feeling great before. Some studies have shown that if you deliberately with athletes, say they deliberately sleep several hours more than they would normally before a sporting event, they have reduced times, they have greater accuracy, they have improved stamina. So getting more sleep before something can actually affect how well you do in that race. And then sleeping more than you might need or you might think you need after it's going to help your body repair and and move on for later I suppose you can liken it and you know, as an example.

Lev Cribb: 20:28

This is you know, if you've never worn glasses before and you've put it off for a while, and you get your first pair of glasses and you put them on, you think well I mean it's like watching TV in 4K. I didn't realise how bad it had got. That was my experience, I'm assuming. Maybe I need to improve my sleep and just see what difference it makes. It would be interesting to see.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 20:47

You've got nothing to lose really other than an hour or two.

Lev Cribb: 20:50

Yeah, no, very good point. Very good point. You're absolutely right. I mean, where do dreams come in to all of this? Are dreams just a byproduct of sleeping and all that activity? Do they just occur or do they play an active role in our sleep?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 21:04

That's a great question. So some people I see people all the time who ask me questions and some people say, oh, I never dream and everyone dreams. It's just that you'll only remember dreaming if you wake up from within a dream really, because our dreams, we just forget them really quickly. And if you have woken up remembering a dream, it's amazing how quickly, within a minute or two, that dream starts to fade away. But yeah, we think that dreams have a few roles, one of which is emotional processing.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 21:35

So not only are we going through life remembering facts and figures and learning skills, but we're also coping with what life throws at us, and maybe it's financial worries, maybe it's, you know, dealing with friendship issues, maybe it's deciding to want to change jobs or, and all these emotional things we're faced with. We think our dreaming sleep is our brain's way of processing what's going on and also, potentially, a way of our brains practicing for potential problems in the future. And one of the most common dreams that people have are things like turning up for work without wearing any clothes is a surprisingly frequent dream. Or turning up for an exam and you haven't revised, or turning up for work and you haven't done your presentation. And those dreams, those nightmares, as they were, are our brain's way of trying to give us a situation that we might be faced with and practicing how we might deal with it, Although, hopefully, not many of us have turned up for work without wearing any, clothes, but it's a very common dream.

Lev Cribb: 22:39

Yeah, it's fascinating. I'm sure we could spend a whole hour talking about dreams and how it works and what they mean. I heard something the other day and please tell me if this is sort of you know, just made up. But is it right that when there is a recurring dream, that it's our brain's way of trying to process or getting us to process a situation? Whatever that might be might not be related to what we see in the dream and it's recurring until our brain has sort of made sense of that? Is that right?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 23:02

So PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. So if someone's been in a terrible car accident or had some kind of trauma, one of the very, very common things that happen after that are repeated nightmares, reliving the trauma in that event, not just a nightmare about anything, but literally you will repeatedly dream about that car crash. And yes, we think it's the brain's way of trying to process that trauma. But the trouble is with PTSD is that when you have this dream and you're going through the car crash again, your brain's trying to process and emotionally deal with it. It's too distressing. So what happens is you wake up because your body says, oh, I can't deal with this dream, it's too bad. So you don't actually get to the end of figuring it out. And so, therefore, the next night you have the dream again because your brain says, no, no, no, we have to figure this out. You're in the dream, it's too scary. You wake up.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 23:54

So, actually, ptsd, your brain sometimes can't do it all for you at night and that's why talking therapy during the day can be really helpful, because it gives you a place to talk through that trauma during the day sufficiently so that your brain can do the rest of it at night.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 24:11

And there are other examples of thing called the nightmare re scripting theory, which is used in PTSD, which helps you to practice mentally imagining the dream during the daytime, to sort of come to to, just to keep practicing it so that when you're asleep your brain knows what to do. And during the day, if you're having these nightmares the nightmare re scripting theory it encourages you to imagine the scary situation but then change it into something less scary so that you don't wake up in the middle of the dream. And the more you practice it during the day, you're kind of creating those new neural pathways. Then when you have the dream at night, your brain will be able to change it to the nicer, less scary ending, helping you to finish the dream deal. Your brain will be able to change it to the nicer, less scary ending helping you to finish the dream deal with that trauma fascinating yeah ptsd is fascinating.

Lev Cribb: 25:01

Yeah, it is, and and we'll come on to um, which I think is what you're alluding to is the sort of cbti, the kind of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia? Um, because it's, it warrants its own question and section of this. I'm just wondering you touched on it at the start of the podcast in terms of the changes over time and how we see sleep, has there been, over time, changes in behaviour and, I guess, circumstances that affect our sleep? I'm thinking like technology or lifestyles, have those kinds of things affected us, and have they changed over the last two, three decades perhaps?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 25:42

Yeah, there's two major changes that I think that have affected our sleep over the last couple of decades, and one of which is absolutely technology and the other is stress. So both those things can affect our sleep. So if I start with stress, when we are anxious, if we're stressed, we're worried, then what happens is our fight or flight mechanism, our adrenaline, our cortisol, our stress response, becomes heightened. And if we are stressed, then sleep becomes harder Because, biologically, when we're very, very stressed, falling asleep is not a great idea. If we were in a situation right now when there was something really really scary happening, like maybe a gunman came into the room or a wild animal or a fire, if we were really tired and we're like, oh, there's a gunman, there's a fire, oh, I'm really tired, I that I'm just gonna fall asleep, then we'd be dead because we need to respond to the threat. So what happens is, when we are stressed or anxious, um, our, our alertness goes through the roof because our body and our brain thinks we can't go to sleep. This is a peril situation. We need to stay awake and, of course, over the last you know couple, couple of you know decades, life's pretty stressful, especially at the moment. I mean, we have financial worries, we have world issues, we have political issues, we have global climate issues. We have all sorts of worries that people are faced with, as well as a change in the way our society functions. You know, there are a lot more, a lot more pressure on everyone to maximize their time. People don't sit around just walking places and just taking time. They don't spend time making food. Everything is now yesterday. I need this done right now. There is no time and space to relax, so everyone is a lot more stressed, which means, generally speaking, we can find sleep a lot more difficult because of that stress.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 27:42

And then the other side of it is technology. So and that sort of they sort of link into each other. But the more technology we have, the less switching off time we have. We think technology is great because it'll give us time, but actually it less switching off time we have. We think technology is great because it'll give us time, but actually it's just takes our time. And things like scrolling through our phones I do it, everyone does it. But how many of us wake up the next morning and think, oh, I'm so glad I spent that hour and a half scrolling through TikTok, you know, before I went to sleep, none of us think that. And yet that's what we do. And again, kind of link with the stress thing.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 28:17

We're so busy during the day sometimes we think, oh, we just need a bit of time for us.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 28:22

We get into bed and we think, oh, I'll just just go on my phone because I've been non-stop all day, I just need some down time.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 28:29

But you're just taking away from your sleep by doing that. And not only is technology just stealing our time and often because it's very addictive, it's not intentional, we just think, oh, my goodness, where did that last hour go but also the light physically impacts our sleep as well your phone in bed, either just before you go to sleep, or if you wake up at two, three, four in the morning and you feel a bit awake and you just reach for your phone, then that bright light that's coming from your phone because our phones are in essence a kind of torch you're shining at your face that is biologically, physiologically, suppressing your melatonin production, meaning it's harder to go back to sleep again. So, yeah, I would say the whole way the world has changed has put a huge amount more pressure. We're trying to get more done and not having enough time to sleep, we're stressed, which means it's harder to sleep, and physical light and technology means that that's stopping us from being able to sleep.

Lev Cribb: 29:30

So it's a perfect storm. Yeah, and I guess it's not just the light. I'm assuming it's the things that we look at as well, something that engages the brain and keeps us visually entertained, that will have an effect as well. It's really interesting how interconnected everything is, because we have a podcast with Sam Hall, who is a communications expert, and he gave this example of crisis communications and what happens when they go into crisis war room, as they call it, when something has happened and they need to kind of, you know, for a period of two, three days, try and mitigate against the, the, the fallout. And one of the points he said is you have to remember to go to sleep, because you know there's no point in staying up with mugs of coffee for two days in a row, because at some point you'll need to make a decision on what's next and if you haven't had enough sleep, you're probably not in the best position to make that decision.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 30:20

And we have another Sleep deprivation means that you're much more likely to take risky decisions. So, actually that's even more terrible situation, because if you haven't slept enough, you're going to go. Oh yeah, let's just press the nuke button or whatever.

Lev Cribb: 30:39

You're much more likely to do that if you haven't slept, which is the last thing that we all need, indeed, indeed, and we've got another episode with professor Derek Haim, who is an addiction expert professor, and he he talks about obviously, addictive behaviors and aspects and you just mentioned in terms of that element of addiction for social media and and scrolling and kind of videos and things like that, and again, that impacts sleep as well. So it's interesting how that's all sort of interconnected as well it's. It's, it's fascinating, um, can can technology help us sleep better, or is it really just on the far end of avoid at all costs?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 31:14

well, it depends how you, what you're using it for. So let's talk about the example of, like someone with an eating disorder, someone with anorexia, obsessive measuring your weight isn't helpful. However, if you're somebody who's maybe put on a little bit too much weight and then, oh, I need to be a bit more careful, I need to just track my weight within reasonable so I can get myself a bit more healthy, in which case weighing scales are great. But for the person with anorexia, weighing scales is not helpful. So if you're someone who hasn't really been prioritizing their sleep, then actually something like a sleep tracker that you might be wearing a watch that just doubles up as one anyway, then actually that might be able to help just give you a bit of a nudge of actually you know what.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 31:58

You thought you were getting six and a half hours sleep a night, but actually it's more like five and a half to six, if you really look at the truth. And then that might make you think, oh, yes, gosh, I didn't really realize that I better prioritize my sleep. Whereas, if you're using sleep technology because you're so worried about sleep and this is kind of where insomnia and CBT come in If you're so concerned and you think, oh my goodness, I really have to make sure I get the right amount of sleep, otherwise I'll get cancer and dementia and diabetes and heart attack, you know, and, oh my goodness, and you're so stressed. Then obsessively tracking your sleep can actually just increase the stress levels and make it even harder to sleep. So technology can be great, but it can actually be harmful, just as um.

Lev Cribb: 32:44

Any technology, any, anything can be used to an extreme and not be helpful yeah, I mean, we touched on a few things, didn't we, in terms of, you know, stress and technology and so on, but I suppose there will be elements of health-related elements as well, whether that's how the body develops over time, things like perhaps the menopause. I was talking to somebody today who has Parkinson's who said they struggle getting restful sleep. I guess I'm assuming CBTI may not help with that. Are there elements that are related to our physical health that make it more difficult to overcome that?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 33:21

Yeah, absolutely so. When somebody realises that they're not getting good quality sleep, that maybe they're giving themselves the opportunity to sleep but the sleep they're getting isn't great, either because they can't fall asleep or they keep waking up, or they just wake up feeling unrefreshed, it's important to find out what's. What's the problem, and something like Parkinson's disease can be associated with periodical limb movements and restless legs, and sometimes REM issues, rem being rapid eye movement, that part of sleep. If there is something affecting the quality of your sleep, then CBT-I, which stands for cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, which is a talking therapy talking and behavioral therapy to improve sleep, isn't the number one answer. What if your sleep is caused by a thyroid issue or an iron deficiency, in which case those need to be fixed. If your sleep is caused by sleep, your sleeping problem is caused by sleep apnea, thyroid issue or an iron deficiency, in which case those need to be fixed. If your sleep is caused by sleep, your sleeping problem is caused by sleep apnea, which is when someone repeatedly stops breathing during the night, which is an incredibly underdiagnosed issue and it really should be addressed. People think, oh, my partner snores, it's really loud, that's so annoying for me that they snore, but actually the partner who snores. Loud snoring can be a sign of sleep apnea, which is actually very dangerous because it means that you repeatedly stop breathing during the night, meaning the quality of your sleep is terrible. You might think you slept for seven, eight, nine, 10 hours, but you might have woken up hundreds of times during the night in that time, meaning you'll feel exhausted during the day. You might be at risk of falling asleep at the wheel. It causes a great strain on your heart. It really needs to be fixed and, again, cbti is not the solution for that. What you need is to find out why you're stopping breathing and maybe something like a mandibular device to keep your lower jaw open, or nose strips or a CPAP machine might be what you need For those people who lie down in bed and they want to sleep, but they just can't.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 35:26

Their brain just won't switch off. Or people who wake up at two, three in the morning and their brain again is just whirring and they just can't fall back to sleep again. For those people, cbt-i is an amazing solution, but, like those 69% of people who haven't spoken to a healthcare professional about their sleeping problem, often people don't want to because they think oh, I don't want sleeping pills, I don't want to speak to my doctor because all they'll do is give me sleeping pills, and I don't want that. The reality is, worldwide, cbt-ti is the gold standard treatment for sleeping problems and it doesn't involve any medication. It is a solution that helps you to figure out how to calm that busy mind, how to make sure that you can fall asleep and stay asleep and get refreshing sleep but, it won't fix all sleep issues of course?

Lev Cribb: 36:15

No, of course, and you touched on a few things like can you give us a bit more of a flavor, and especially for those listeners who think, oh, didn't realize cbcr was a thing, um, sounds like I could benefit from it. Can you give us a sort of practical insight as to how that works, what it goes through and, just you know, make that a bit more, um, visual for them?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 36:32

so most people who come to see me will say I've tried everything. I've had insomnia, sleeping problem for years, months, years, whatever. And I've done sleep hygiene. I've eliminated screens before bed, I've eliminated caffeine, I've got a wind down time, I've got a new pillow, I've got a sleepy spray, I've tried a weighted blanket. I've literally tried everything.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 36:55

Cbt is not. It's like it's not the same as those things you haven't tried. Cbt it's a bit like if you break your leg, healthy eating and exercise as good as those are, they really are. Healthy eating, exercise, brilliant. If you broke your leg, they're not the solution. In fact, exercising on a broken leg is a terrible idea. You need a cast on your broken leg. Cbti is like a cast on your broken leg. Good sleep hygiene. You're eliminating caffeine, all those things. They're all great, but if your sleep is broken, if it's really broken, those things aren't going to fix it, in which case CBTI is scientifically validated.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 37:38

There's thousands of studies to show how incredibly effective it is and it works by helping you to unpick the things that you're doing that are maybe not helping your sleep. One very common one is spending way too long in bed, your sleep. One very common one is spending way too long in bed, people with sleeping problems if you go to bed and you can't fall asleep or you wake up in the night, people will often go to bed much, much earlier. Or they'll say well, I won't get up at 7am because I only just fell asleep, so I'll let myself sleep in until 9, 10, I'll cancel my morning meetings and what happens is you start spending an enormous amount of time in bed not sleeping, which means that actually you're getting more and more anxious, more frustrated, and you're doing it with the best intentions because you want to improve your sleep.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 38:25

But actually by doing that actually you're making things worse. So CBTI involves changing. It tells you when to go to bed, when to get up, what to do when you can't sleep, gives you relaxation techniques. We look at sleep hygiene, but the reality is most of the people who come to see me or someone with sleeping with really severe insomnia, they're not having 10 cups of coffee before bed. I mean, people know to eliminate that. So as much as we can say oh, make sure you're not having too much caffeine If your sleep's really broken, I'm pretty sure that's one of the first things that people will eliminate anyway. But CBT-I just gets looks at it in a much greater detail, it's really effective.

Lev Cribb: 39:09

Yeah, it sounds fascinating and I would imagine that many people don't know about it. Many people, I'm sure, will know about CBT. Or perhaps some folks have come across CBTI and thought, yeah, therapy's not for me, thanks. I'd rather see what else is possible.

Lev Cribb: 39:22

but actually, run out of options perhaps. So that's really fascinating and I would, from what you've told me here now, would encourage anybody to follow that path if they haven't gone down that route before. Outside of CBT-I, and maybe just as a sort of starting point, are there specific or certain strategies or tactics that somebody can start with today before they embark on CBT-I which they clearly should, but small things that people can start with today we spoke about in the prelude to this, about, of course, calming music and so on. Are there certain elements that people can just start trying today, who perhaps haven't tried everything yet?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 40:07

So if you're someone who's not really getting enough sleep, then really look at how you're spending your time. And the point is, exercising doesn't take up a lot of time, does it, whereas sleep you have to give yourself. You dedicate an extra half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half to allow yourself to sleep each night. And if you're not doing that because you think, oh, it's a bit of a waste of time, I'd really encourage you to just try it. Just try allowing yourself to have a bit more sleep regularly and see how that makes you feel. Try allowing yourself to have a bit more sleep regularly and see how that makes you feel, because just not scrolling through your phone before bed means that you will literally have more time to be able to sleep. So that's the first thing. If you know that, you know I'm not here to tell you, you know you think. Well, I already know that, I know that sleep is important. I'm trying, but I can't fall asleep Then for those people, I would say consistency of bedtime, wake time, is probably the most important thing. To start with, because we have our circadian rhythm, which is our internal 24 hour clock, and that's the thing inside of us which tells our body what time it is and why we get jet lag. So if you've been to another country, your body will still be in one time zone, but you're in another country and you'll feel tired or awake when you should be sleeping or the other. So having consistency in your bedtime wake time, helps to strengthen your circadian rhythm, and lots of people we don't really realize how strong it is. But actually if some nights you're going to bed at 10 and then other nights you're going to bed at one in the morning, that's a three-hour time difference and if you traveled somewhere with a three-hour time difference you would experience jet lag. And yet we do this to ourselves. During the week we might try and go to bed early and then at the weekend we'll stay up late and party with our friends and sleep in in the morning. But actually, if we can be consistent and have a fairly regular bedtime seven days per week and a regular wake time seven days per week and that's horrible if you don't have to get up at the weekend, but you know that regular wait time can really strengthen your circadian rhythm and help you fall asleep more easily at night and wake up feeling more refreshed in the morning. And then secondly, lifestyle wise light. So we talked about how screens can affect our sleep negatively by flooding us with bright light in the evening, which means that we don't produce melatonin.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 42:30

But actually, especially in modern life, lots of people don't get outside and I don't know about you, but myself, when we're recording this, it's half past one in the afternoon. I haven't left the house yet, and that's terrible because we need to leave the house. If we don't leave our houses, we seek out outside bright day, bright, bright, daytime sunshine, so that we can tell our bodies the difference between night and day. Because if we stay indoors and with modern life, we don't need to go outside, we don't need to go to the office, we don't need to go and even go shopping, because we've got, you know, internet shopping delivery. So just come to our door, we don't need to leave the house, which means we just have the same light levels during the day and our body needs to have brightest light in the middle of the day to help us feel awake, and dim light in the evening, as we would have done, naturally, when we were cavemen evening, as we would have done naturally when we were cavemen to know it's nighttime.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 43:40

So, yeah, go outside, maybe what's a really great idea and of course you know I'm preaching, you know, do what I say, not what I did today. Before you start work, leave the house, you know. Just go outside, go for a walk around the block and then come back in again. It's going to give you a psychological distinction between I was at home and now I'm going to do some work. If you work from home, it's going to give you that psychological distinction which will help your mental health, and also that bright light exposure of just walking around the block before you start work is going to help give you a boost to feel more awake during the day and it will absolutely help you sleep better at night. And if you can go outside at lunchtime, I'm going to go out after this and if you can go out for a walk later in the day. The more outside time you can get, the better it will be for your um, for your energy levels during the day and also will help you to sleep better at night as well. It sounds.

Lev Cribb: 44:37

It sounds. I mean, first of all, it's a good, good case to to get a dog by the sounds of it, um, but also I mean it sounds like society and technology and all those things have evolved much quicker than biology. Our bodies are, you know, um, and it's just overtaken everything and there's so many aspects that you know, as you described, it, make perfect sense, um, and you think back and how it must have been a long, long time ago, but everything has just overtaken that and our bodies haven't changed with that, at least not yet perhaps, but absolutely fascinating, and I really appreciate you being on, because we could talk for hours more. Unfortunately, we haven't got much more time, but really, really interesting insights and really appreciate you sharing that with us. We are now at the point where we're not quite finished yet, but we do have the virtually anything goes question.

Lev Cribb: 45:23

This is where I turn the control over to you. I've asked you to prepare a question for me. I've asked you plenty now and I don't know what the question is, but I have to answer it and once I've given my answer, I'll then turn that question over to you as well and you have to answer it as well. It's my safety net, but go ahead. What is your virtually anything goes question?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 45:41

Okay, Well, if you weren't living and currently we're in the UK, but if you weren't living where you are where would you go to live, and why?

Lev Cribb: 45:51

We talk about that a lot at home and we have moved around the world quite a bit, my wife and I, and we always think about well, should we move again at some point, maybe when the kid's at university or something like that? Definitely somewhere warm, definitely somewhere light. I think we are much more warm than cold people. But then I mean, we always thought about Australia. It's too far away from family. We love being close to family and friends. Plus the wildlife there can be very strange.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 46:26

Deadly.

Lev Cribb: 46:27

Deadly? Yes, exactly. So maybe not Australia? It's a great question because we haven't yet got an answer to that. We do talk about it a lot.

Lev Cribb: 46:36

I think it would have to be somewhere nearby, but somewhere warm. That excludes england most, most of england anyway. Um, yeah, you caught me out there. Um, I think I think no. Well, I mean, we, we, we spent some time in dubai and we, we love dubai, um, just because it is reasonably near, it is warm, but then there are some downsides to it as well.

Lev Cribb: 47:03

Somewhere like that, maybe the south of France that's where my father was for a long time and it is a lovely place. In the absence, we'd just have to brush up on our French, I guess, dust that off a little bit but I think somewhere warm and light and where there's outdoor life and maybe all the things actually you described. There. You know where you can get out, where it is normal to get out, where there is perhaps a slightly different pace of life. I think that holds a lot of appeal. But of course, you know in the northwest of England where we are. It's always sunny anyway, it's always warm, so there's no need at all to move away from here. But no great question. I need to keep working on that answer because we haven't quite figured it out ourselves yet. But what about you?

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 47:55

Well, I guess a little bit cheaty, but we did used to live in Singapore for a couple of years and my soul, my heart and soul are still there. I just loved it so much. I think you would love it there If you liked Dubai, but it had some tweaks. Singapore is just the most incredible country in the world. The weather is just consistently 21 to 29 to 32. Amazing. The food is spectacular, absolutely incredible food. The people are amazing and also the first language is English, so it's easy, but you can learn. Mandarin is the second language, so you get loads of Mandarin practice. I can do toddler Mandarin, but, yeah, I just. It's breathtakingly beautiful. The food is incredible. Yeah, it's amazing. I'll move back there in a heartbeat.

Lev Cribb: 48:48

I would agree with you. I spent five months there working there, and I can wholeheartedly agree with everything you said People, food, the weather, the city in itself is amazing and yeah, in fact, maybe, maybe the distance isn't so important, maybe we can go to singapore again. Um, no, great great, that's a, that's a great chat, and I love singapore as well. Um and uh. So we've covered reasons to get dogs, reasons to move to singapore, um, and reasons to sleep, and sleep well. Um, dr branding, this has been so fascinating and I've been looking forward to it. Everybody here in the office will tell you, I've been looking forward to this for weeks because it's such a fascinating topic. I really hope it's been helpful for our listeners as well, and thank you so much for being on this episode.

Dr. Lindsay Browning: 49:33

Thank you for having me.

Lev Cribb: 49:34

And, of course, thank you to our audience as well for listening. If you like this episode, do subscribe. There course, thank you to our audience as well for listening. If you like this episode, um, do subscribe. There's more fascinating topics coming up and if you haven't listened to the previous episodes, do take a look at those as well. But thank you in the meantime for listening to this one and we'll see you again soon on another episode.