I been in the sleep industry for most of
my life I’ve always found that people
just take it for granted it’s not a
performance criteria who cares about it
right and I got really sort of
disillusioned about that whole process I
work for a big company my office was in
old Manchester I sort of had a bit of a
midlife crisis study talking to a local
football club seeing if they did
anything about recovery and stuff like
that I won’t mention the name of that
come that Club it just happened to be
down the road and while I was sort of in
dialog with him in all sorts of various
ways and suddenly I woke up one morning
and read the papers in those days and
suddenly this club had got a sleep coach
and looking after pampered footballers
tucking them in and reading bedtime
stories no doubt and so that’s how I
became a sleep coach in sports over
their 22 years I’ve been in it I work
with all different athletes of all
different age groups and genders across
the globe and always been fascinated by
a lot of the myths and misconceptions
there is no problem with the importance
of sleep but these things about eight
hours a day and just getting it at night
always fascinated me so during my road
through working with elite athletes I’ve
been able to cross some challenges of
how can we deal with that problem how
could we improve that how could improve
that and it was just basically looking
back at some of the things that we did
we’ve done before is passed as human
beings to imply that into the word sleep
so the first thing you want to do is to
get the word sleep and let’s think about
mental and physical recovery periods the
second thing I want you to do is in this
room there are Crona types and Crona
types basically identify your sleep
characteristic of whether you’re a
morning or a nighttime person those are
you old enough like me will have heard
the terms of like owls and larks
right now this is a little genetic twist
it’s not something you create now if
you’re an AML like me you will wake up
and always switch your alarm off it
never wakes you up
I’m always up ready to go I’m starving I
just want to get on with my day
you’re a PMO you like the evenings and
nighttime and if you lived about thirty
minutes away from sage then you were
still in bed this morning at 27 minutes
past 8:00 hitting the snooze button just
trying to grab every single minute so I
want to think in this room which Crona
side would you be I am NOT going to to
stick with some of the more conventional
things around sleep because as you can
see from the title it’s unconventional
so one of the really important things as
human beings is to understand the
circadian rhythms of the day so just tap
it in your browser take a look at some
images and get a better relationship
with it because that process of the Sun
going around our planet and us as human
beings with brains has not changed but
the world certainly has your
relationship with that is quite key to
recovery just a little bit of Education
up until the electric light bulb was
invented humans slept in a polyphasic
way and what that means is a multiphasic
way biphasic triphasic shorter periods
more often it was only when we invented
electric light that we started to sleep
monophasic Li which is just at night so
it’s kind of when you start looking with
athletes and their schedules and
everything else you’re trying to look at
how you can get through the day and it’s
certainly I don’t I don’t think I’ve
ever met anybody who gets eight hours a
day at night 365 days a year
never mind when you look at the
occupations and the 24/7 world we live
in so we certainly need to take a note
there because we’re moving further away
from that natural circadian rhythm the
second one is daylight saving time and
that was when in certain countries we
adopted certain countries never have
certain countries adopted it and then
went back to normal schedules and also
in different parts of the world you have
different relationships with light and
dark particularly in the northern
hemisphere so when you’re looking at
this whole relationship of how we get
from A to B these things can be really
important if you look at sleep in a
slightly different way this is an urgent
need graph you’ve got 48 hours there so
the black
it is night and the blue bit is day and
it’s a bit like a mountain to climb when
the Sun comes around and triggers you to
wake it’s not that you’re getting more
awake as the day goes on is actually
you’re just getting closer and closer to
your next opportunity to take sleep and
you’ll see there there’s a little moment
which is around between 1:00 and 3:00
which is the next human natural sleep
period maybe a siesta in certain parts
of the world this is a moment when you
should be going into some natural
recovery period if we hadn’t invented
life there’s another one around evening
between 5:00 and 7:00 which is another
place where you’re actually designed to
have some recovery like sleep and this
is this Paulo phasing approach and when
you look back to even the Victorians
they would go to sleep between 10:00 and
12:00 for a couple of hours will be 12
and 2 and then be awakened guns to the
neighbors and all of these sort of
things and and when we’re working with
like single-handed around the world
sailors there’s lots of things that we
have to do you know what’s the
polyphasic manner so this sort of
approach needs to be taken on board if
you don’t get it right then you’re
completely out of sync in so many ways
and so there’s a real relationship
between light and dark and all that
really is is rather than being in bright
lights or daylight I’m just in diminish
like like just over there just operating
throughout a day that I’d probably
rather have a 12 hour exposure to light
rather than this crazy shift which is
about to happen at the end of this month
when we go from 16 hours in the summer
down to 8 and we go into the dark
seasonal affective disorder month the
consequences of these things also bring
you back to an addictive behavior and
that is supplements and caffeine and
energy drinks sleeping tablets all of
these types of things we start to do to
try and get through the day and they can
become addictive and it’s quite serious
in the in the UK population and around
the world as we’re using these things
just try and get through it what we tend
to do is look at some very simple things
some of the things I’d be engaged in
with professional cycling for example is
these are seven little key recovery
indicators
if you just touch base with these seven
areas you can add those up to a much
more greater aggregated overall gain in
your overall approach recovery some
would say paradigm shift in your
approach there’s two things there one
the krona type ‘button cycles if you’re
in a clinical environment tracking
brainwave patterns most academics will
look at a 90-minute period and then
benchmark that against another 90-minute
period and it’s all the phases and
stages of sleep now five 90-minute
cycles equals seven point five hours so
I use that as a way to encourage
somebody to stop thinking about sleeping
in hours and sleeping in cycles so
90-minute cycles and shorter 30-minute
cycles or less during the course of the
day and the way you can all do this
tonight just grab a piece of paper and a
pencil get old school constant weight
tone that’s the most important thing
apart from this circadian rhythms in our
world is that you have your most
consistent wait time now mine can’t be
eight o’clock because I’m an ami it’s
always got to be early and if I’ve got a
consistent wait time then what I can do
is chop my day up into 90-minute cycles
and it gives me some subconscious
timings of when I can go to sleep maybe
at 11:00 or 9:30 or 12:30 to am into
6:30 that’s mine their 6:30 constant
wait time at the bottom if I want to get
up earlier I go for 5 o’clock or 3:30 if
I want a duvet day I’ll go back into
another cycle between eight and nine
thirty if I want to boost my cycle
period I’ll go for something like thirty
minutes 20 minutes and don’t tell me you
can’t nap because I can find the way you
could Natalie I can sit right there in
front of you all and do it and you won’t
even know you can take these little
moments and for an AMA what’s brilliant
about this is when the summer comes
along I do not want to be going to bed
at 9:30 so what I do is have a short
appear between 12:30 and 6:30 which is
four cycles in six hours I put a little
30-minute one early evening late and
that means I like enjoying the evening
and most people get up in the morning
get through all the wait until there’s
only so many hours left and try to sleep
your recovery program starts from the
minute you
and it’s little moments every 90 minutes
to take the pressure off the nocturnal
sleep and build it in a different way so
let’s get back to school hands up if
you’re a p.m. ah whoa hands up if you’re
a Emma well okay
partners offices buildings teams if you
spot that the coach is an A Emma
strangely enough everything he’s
scheduled around an am as well if
there’s a lot of PMS in the office try
and get them to do things differently
what you can do with this Cronus I
please really learn how to minimize the
outside influences are gonna affect you
take advantage of your chronotype and
also be able to manage it better because
it will have an effect on you it’s a bit
like being it’s a simple graph this but
you know things are all about
communication there’s a 90 minute cycle
between 11:00 and 12:30
let’s think of it it’s like going
downstairs at the bottom of the stairs
is where the good restorative stuff the
REM deep sleepers now that means when
you’re down there is where you get the
good stuff it’s only 20 to 25% of the
time so the problem is is that you get
to the point of going into sleep and you
start wandering down the stairs then
it’s tossing and turning
you’re already just continue to
digesting food filling the bother
thinking about things partners noises
and everything else and there’s a great
danger you’ll just go halfway down and
go back up again and then have another
go because going down to the bottom is
where you’re in your most vulnerable
state so anything can trigger you out of
it you might lose it so you could spend
many hours sucking light sleep stages
and you don’t get all the full benefits
you can if you’re overtired
and they’ve got really bad schedules
you’ll get dumped at the bottom of the
stairs now
I did work for a very serious
manufacturer of bedding products and
beds and I always found this fascinating
is that when you want around the world
we can sleep on anything anywhere
anytime
I speak people falling asleep in this
conference room in front of me I see
people falling asleep on trains planes
cars sofas everywhere right so this
whole relationship with what you sleep
on is something I’d like to investigate
with it and you certainly can’t coach
professional Mountaineers to take their
big fat mattresses and their whole
bedroom environments up on the side of a
cliff the one thing you’re going to do
is I’m going fast now is one of the most
ideal positions to sleep in his fetal
right now is bent arms shoulders nicely
folded with bent arms right we want a
nice posture lines right the way through
here but sickly because we’re looking at
devices all the time
so thinking mental and physical recovery
if I take that position in that fetal
position so you can see me I’ll go on
the floor hopefully you’ll be able to
see it but if I adopt that position on
the floor in a fetal position you see
this dirty great gap now I’m on my left
side
because it’s on the opposite side to my
dominant side the right that means I can
protect myself which is good for the
brain there’s that big gap where you put
pillows as soon as you start to move out
of that position because the pressure
builds up with this nice orthopedic
matters is our long take the pillow away
my head’s twisted to one side and raised
so then I go to this position and push
the pleura way again still twisted and
raised I don’t like that so I’ll go to
my back and I’ll lie on my back hunt for
the pillow shove it under my head block
off the Airways start both dreams and
then I’ll go back over here and grab the
pillow now all of that stuff is a
complete waste of time right if this is
just something to give you an example in
there is a bed
that is an elite athlete sleep I just
want to show you I am a mesomorph
profile which I’m 183 and about 80
kilograms right there is some little
layers there is no go faster mattress in
here right but if I just get on that in
a fetal position where are you gonna put
that pillar musically aligned
everything’s released underneath me
there’s no place for a pillow so it
doesn’t matter what position I get into
I’m always nicely balanced and just like
I said before is if you want to go to
the bottom of those stairs you really
need to think about ticking boxes now
the one thing that’s always fascinated
me is are we actually designed to sleep
with other people because I don’t know
if you sleep on your own opposite side
to your dominant side you can sleep
anywhere on the mattress curled up left
side right side you have a single space
as a children single mattresses and then
when you get a regular sleeping partner
you end up in a double which is only 2
foot 3 each not three foot or 90
centimeters maybe a king-size that
sounds good that’s only two foot six
each so you were actually sleeping
together in less space than you had as a
kid it’s not surprising that when you
get a regular sleeping partner is that
you end up with this situation it
doesn’t know how madly in love you are
you will turn away from each other into
your own little space so if you’re both
right-handed one of you is turning onto
the wrong side so with your partners
maybe we haven’t got to this particular
point
we’re tracking technology we’re doing
lots of things be careful of tracking
your sleep data because if you’re not in
a super king mattress you’re into
smaller bed that’s going to affect how
you sleep if you’ve got a partner that’s
right-handed like you one
used on the wrong side right if you’re
all of these little factors if you don’t
know about circadian rhythms if you
don’t know all about these facts then
really tracking your sleep is irrelevant
I don’t know how much an elite athlete I
won’t mention any names but let’s talk
top elite athletes how much REM sleep
have they ever got in their lives we
don’t know how long have they slept for
we don’t know because we’ve never
tracked it so a lot of this information
can be misguided there’s nothing wrong
with it but be careful get some of the
basics right I don’t know whether we’ve
reached a point where I would be in the
bar find somebody attractive go over and
use the do you come here often could I
buy you a drink
and then I’d certainly spot mmm there
left-handed I’m right-handed a match and
then I go do you like breakfast and go
yeah and I go oh because I want to pee
Emma because the mornings are for me I
want to get up I want to smash
everything in the house and I’ll give
them a smoothie or a cup of tea and then
they start their day in the evenings
they look after me if you got to Emma’s
nothing happens in the evening if you
got to pee Emma’s painting the earth so
I don’t think we’re gonna get to that
point where you actually choose a
partner but I tell you what as life goes
on if you’re not thinking about these
things then they start to have more of
an impact not only on your mental health
and well-being but your own personal
performance and everything else that you
do see if you want to eat well you want
to exercise well don’t forget the third
pillar which has never been explored
really that well called sleep thanks for
listening [Applause]
my life I’ve always found that people
just take it for granted it’s not a
performance criteria who cares about it
right and I got really sort of
disillusioned about that whole process I
work for a big company my office was in
old Manchester I sort of had a bit of a
midlife crisis study talking to a local
football club seeing if they did
anything about recovery and stuff like
that I won’t mention the name of that
come that Club it just happened to be
down the road and while I was sort of in
dialog with him in all sorts of various
ways and suddenly I woke up one morning
and read the papers in those days and
suddenly this club had got a sleep coach
and looking after pampered footballers
tucking them in and reading bedtime
stories no doubt and so that’s how I
became a sleep coach in sports over
their 22 years I’ve been in it I work
with all different athletes of all
different age groups and genders across
the globe and always been fascinated by
a lot of the myths and misconceptions
there is no problem with the importance
of sleep but these things about eight
hours a day and just getting it at night
always fascinated me so during my road
through working with elite athletes I’ve
been able to cross some challenges of
how can we deal with that problem how
could we improve that how could improve
that and it was just basically looking
back at some of the things that we did
we’ve done before is passed as human
beings to imply that into the word sleep
so the first thing you want to do is to
get the word sleep and let’s think about
mental and physical recovery periods the
second thing I want you to do is in this
room there are Crona types and Crona
types basically identify your sleep
characteristic of whether you’re a
morning or a nighttime person those are
you old enough like me will have heard
the terms of like owls and larks
right now this is a little genetic twist
it’s not something you create now if
you’re an AML like me you will wake up
and always switch your alarm off it
never wakes you up
I’m always up ready to go I’m starving I
just want to get on with my day
you’re a PMO you like the evenings and
nighttime and if you lived about thirty
minutes away from sage then you were
still in bed this morning at 27 minutes
past 8:00 hitting the snooze button just
trying to grab every single minute so I
want to think in this room which Crona
side would you be I am NOT going to to
stick with some of the more conventional
things around sleep because as you can
see from the title it’s unconventional
so one of the really important things as
human beings is to understand the
circadian rhythms of the day so just tap
it in your browser take a look at some
images and get a better relationship
with it because that process of the Sun
going around our planet and us as human
beings with brains has not changed but
the world certainly has your
relationship with that is quite key to
recovery just a little bit of Education
up until the electric light bulb was
invented humans slept in a polyphasic
way and what that means is a multiphasic
way biphasic triphasic shorter periods
more often it was only when we invented
electric light that we started to sleep
monophasic Li which is just at night so
it’s kind of when you start looking with
athletes and their schedules and
everything else you’re trying to look at
how you can get through the day and it’s
certainly I don’t I don’t think I’ve
ever met anybody who gets eight hours a
day at night 365 days a year
never mind when you look at the
occupations and the 24/7 world we live
in so we certainly need to take a note
there because we’re moving further away
from that natural circadian rhythm the
second one is daylight saving time and
that was when in certain countries we
adopted certain countries never have
certain countries adopted it and then
went back to normal schedules and also
in different parts of the world you have
different relationships with light and
dark particularly in the northern
hemisphere so when you’re looking at
this whole relationship of how we get
from A to B these things can be really
important if you look at sleep in a
slightly different way this is an urgent
need graph you’ve got 48 hours there so
the black
it is night and the blue bit is day and
it’s a bit like a mountain to climb when
the Sun comes around and triggers you to
wake it’s not that you’re getting more
awake as the day goes on is actually
you’re just getting closer and closer to
your next opportunity to take sleep and
you’ll see there there’s a little moment
which is around between 1:00 and 3:00
which is the next human natural sleep
period maybe a siesta in certain parts
of the world this is a moment when you
should be going into some natural
recovery period if we hadn’t invented
life there’s another one around evening
between 5:00 and 7:00 which is another
place where you’re actually designed to
have some recovery like sleep and this
is this Paulo phasing approach and when
you look back to even the Victorians
they would go to sleep between 10:00 and
12:00 for a couple of hours will be 12
and 2 and then be awakened guns to the
neighbors and all of these sort of
things and and when we’re working with
like single-handed around the world
sailors there’s lots of things that we
have to do you know what’s the
polyphasic manner so this sort of
approach needs to be taken on board if
you don’t get it right then you’re
completely out of sync in so many ways
and so there’s a real relationship
between light and dark and all that
really is is rather than being in bright
lights or daylight I’m just in diminish
like like just over there just operating
throughout a day that I’d probably
rather have a 12 hour exposure to light
rather than this crazy shift which is
about to happen at the end of this month
when we go from 16 hours in the summer
down to 8 and we go into the dark
seasonal affective disorder month the
consequences of these things also bring
you back to an addictive behavior and
that is supplements and caffeine and
energy drinks sleeping tablets all of
these types of things we start to do to
try and get through the day and they can
become addictive and it’s quite serious
in the in the UK population and around
the world as we’re using these things
just try and get through it what we tend
to do is look at some very simple things
some of the things I’d be engaged in
with professional cycling for example is
these are seven little key recovery
indicators
if you just touch base with these seven
areas you can add those up to a much
more greater aggregated overall gain in
your overall approach recovery some
would say paradigm shift in your
approach there’s two things there one
the krona type ‘button cycles if you’re
in a clinical environment tracking
brainwave patterns most academics will
look at a 90-minute period and then
benchmark that against another 90-minute
period and it’s all the phases and
stages of sleep now five 90-minute
cycles equals seven point five hours so
I use that as a way to encourage
somebody to stop thinking about sleeping
in hours and sleeping in cycles so
90-minute cycles and shorter 30-minute
cycles or less during the course of the
day and the way you can all do this
tonight just grab a piece of paper and a
pencil get old school constant weight
tone that’s the most important thing
apart from this circadian rhythms in our
world is that you have your most
consistent wait time now mine can’t be
eight o’clock because I’m an ami it’s
always got to be early and if I’ve got a
consistent wait time then what I can do
is chop my day up into 90-minute cycles
and it gives me some subconscious
timings of when I can go to sleep maybe
at 11:00 or 9:30 or 12:30 to am into
6:30 that’s mine their 6:30 constant
wait time at the bottom if I want to get
up earlier I go for 5 o’clock or 3:30 if
I want a duvet day I’ll go back into
another cycle between eight and nine
thirty if I want to boost my cycle
period I’ll go for something like thirty
minutes 20 minutes and don’t tell me you
can’t nap because I can find the way you
could Natalie I can sit right there in
front of you all and do it and you won’t
even know you can take these little
moments and for an AMA what’s brilliant
about this is when the summer comes
along I do not want to be going to bed
at 9:30 so what I do is have a short
appear between 12:30 and 6:30 which is
four cycles in six hours I put a little
30-minute one early evening late and
that means I like enjoying the evening
and most people get up in the morning
get through all the wait until there’s
only so many hours left and try to sleep
your recovery program starts from the
minute you
and it’s little moments every 90 minutes
to take the pressure off the nocturnal
sleep and build it in a different way so
let’s get back to school hands up if
you’re a p.m. ah whoa hands up if you’re
a Emma well okay
partners offices buildings teams if you
spot that the coach is an A Emma
strangely enough everything he’s
scheduled around an am as well if
there’s a lot of PMS in the office try
and get them to do things differently
what you can do with this Cronus I
please really learn how to minimize the
outside influences are gonna affect you
take advantage of your chronotype and
also be able to manage it better because
it will have an effect on you it’s a bit
like being it’s a simple graph this but
you know things are all about
communication there’s a 90 minute cycle
between 11:00 and 12:30
let’s think of it it’s like going
downstairs at the bottom of the stairs
is where the good restorative stuff the
REM deep sleepers now that means when
you’re down there is where you get the
good stuff it’s only 20 to 25% of the
time so the problem is is that you get
to the point of going into sleep and you
start wandering down the stairs then
it’s tossing and turning
you’re already just continue to
digesting food filling the bother
thinking about things partners noises
and everything else and there’s a great
danger you’ll just go halfway down and
go back up again and then have another
go because going down to the bottom is
where you’re in your most vulnerable
state so anything can trigger you out of
it you might lose it so you could spend
many hours sucking light sleep stages
and you don’t get all the full benefits
you can if you’re overtired
and they’ve got really bad schedules
you’ll get dumped at the bottom of the
stairs now
I did work for a very serious
manufacturer of bedding products and
beds and I always found this fascinating
is that when you want around the world
we can sleep on anything anywhere
anytime
I speak people falling asleep in this
conference room in front of me I see
people falling asleep on trains planes
cars sofas everywhere right so this
whole relationship with what you sleep
on is something I’d like to investigate
with it and you certainly can’t coach
professional Mountaineers to take their
big fat mattresses and their whole
bedroom environments up on the side of a
cliff the one thing you’re going to do
is I’m going fast now is one of the most
ideal positions to sleep in his fetal
right now is bent arms shoulders nicely
folded with bent arms right we want a
nice posture lines right the way through
here but sickly because we’re looking at
devices all the time
so thinking mental and physical recovery
if I take that position in that fetal
position so you can see me I’ll go on
the floor hopefully you’ll be able to
see it but if I adopt that position on
the floor in a fetal position you see
this dirty great gap now I’m on my left
side
because it’s on the opposite side to my
dominant side the right that means I can
protect myself which is good for the
brain there’s that big gap where you put
pillows as soon as you start to move out
of that position because the pressure
builds up with this nice orthopedic
matters is our long take the pillow away
my head’s twisted to one side and raised
so then I go to this position and push
the pleura way again still twisted and
raised I don’t like that so I’ll go to
my back and I’ll lie on my back hunt for
the pillow shove it under my head block
off the Airways start both dreams and
then I’ll go back over here and grab the
pillow now all of that stuff is a
complete waste of time right if this is
just something to give you an example in
there is a bed
that is an elite athlete sleep I just
want to show you I am a mesomorph
profile which I’m 183 and about 80
kilograms right there is some little
layers there is no go faster mattress in
here right but if I just get on that in
a fetal position where are you gonna put
that pillar musically aligned
everything’s released underneath me
there’s no place for a pillow so it
doesn’t matter what position I get into
I’m always nicely balanced and just like
I said before is if you want to go to
the bottom of those stairs you really
need to think about ticking boxes now
the one thing that’s always fascinated
me is are we actually designed to sleep
with other people because I don’t know
if you sleep on your own opposite side
to your dominant side you can sleep
anywhere on the mattress curled up left
side right side you have a single space
as a children single mattresses and then
when you get a regular sleeping partner
you end up in a double which is only 2
foot 3 each not three foot or 90
centimeters maybe a king-size that
sounds good that’s only two foot six
each so you were actually sleeping
together in less space than you had as a
kid it’s not surprising that when you
get a regular sleeping partner is that
you end up with this situation it
doesn’t know how madly in love you are
you will turn away from each other into
your own little space so if you’re both
right-handed one of you is turning onto
the wrong side so with your partners
maybe we haven’t got to this particular
point
we’re tracking technology we’re doing
lots of things be careful of tracking
your sleep data because if you’re not in
a super king mattress you’re into
smaller bed that’s going to affect how
you sleep if you’ve got a partner that’s
right-handed like you one
used on the wrong side right if you’re
all of these little factors if you don’t
know about circadian rhythms if you
don’t know all about these facts then
really tracking your sleep is irrelevant
I don’t know how much an elite athlete I
won’t mention any names but let’s talk
top elite athletes how much REM sleep
have they ever got in their lives we
don’t know how long have they slept for
we don’t know because we’ve never
tracked it so a lot of this information
can be misguided there’s nothing wrong
with it but be careful get some of the
basics right I don’t know whether we’ve
reached a point where I would be in the
bar find somebody attractive go over and
use the do you come here often could I
buy you a drink
and then I’d certainly spot mmm there
left-handed I’m right-handed a match and
then I go do you like breakfast and go
yeah and I go oh because I want to pee
Emma because the mornings are for me I
want to get up I want to smash
everything in the house and I’ll give
them a smoothie or a cup of tea and then
they start their day in the evenings
they look after me if you got to Emma’s
nothing happens in the evening if you
got to pee Emma’s painting the earth so
I don’t think we’re gonna get to that
point where you actually choose a
partner but I tell you what as life goes
on if you’re not thinking about these
things then they start to have more of
an impact not only on your mental health
and well-being but your own personal
performance and everything else that you
do see if you want to eat well you want
to exercise well don’t forget the third
pillar which has never been explored
really that well called sleep thanks for
listening [Applause]
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