In this episode, Mollie is joined by Professor Michael Gradisar, whose research is focused on sleep. Michael discusses what his research findings say about the use of technology and its impact on sleep, specifically video games. He also discussed the exciting new sleep conference, Wink, which he will be launching this year, and the importance of making scientific research available to the general public.
SHOW NOTES
💻 Michael’s background and how he came to be a sleep expert
💻 Why he created the Wink sleep conference
💻 What is the Wink sleep conference
💻 Who should attend the conference and what should they expect
💻 Sleep and technology
💻 Impact of video games on sleep
💻 Importance of getting scientific research about sleep directly to the people
💻 Sleep and teenagers
💻 How to properly use technology at night without negatively impacting sleep
💻 What is flow state, how to measure and control it, and finding a way to snap out of flow state
BIO
Prof Michael Gradisar has been researching sleep since 1998 and treating insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders since 2002. He developed WINK Sleep Online so that his novel treatments could be used by anyone on the planet.
EPISODE LINKS
Email: hello@winksleep.online
Website: https://winksleep.online
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wink_sleep/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/winksleep?lang=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-gradisar-ba2184b6/
Mollie McGlocklin 0:00
And welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast, really excited to dive in with my guest today. Uh, Michael, thank you so much for being here
Michael Gradisar 0:14
and thanks for inviting me. It's good to talk to
Mollie McGlocklin 0:15
you. Oh, you too. Uh, now I know you bring with you just a breadth of knowledge in this area around, uh, sleep optimization. So there's so much that we could dive into and yet a couple, you know, pieces of, uh, Focus for us or areas for focus, uh, in this conversation anyway, is one, um, understanding a bit more about the conference that you are, uh, you know, the creator of and leading and to looking at, uh, this conversation around tech and sleep. So to begin, uh, would love if you can share just a little bit about your background and how you came to be such an expert in this area.
Michael Gradisar 0:57
Yeah. I think it's one of those things when you sort of get into it. Early and you've been doing it for long enough that you sort of
eventually sort of think maybe I'm an expert. So just for the listeners, I started working in the area of sleep in 1998. So the 1990s, when the music was good
and, um, I guess
it got to a point where it was just like, you know, as far as being around and learning so much about sleep.
And then I was like, well,
you know, maybe I'd need to do my own sort of stuff because I guess what was happening is that I am from Adelaide Australia, and definitely being able to help people in my home state. But anyway,
He got to a point that I had the knowledge to be able to help other people. And, uh, clearly, you know, being able to sort of be on the internet,
there are ways to try to do that.
And I think it's for the university that I was working at, um, we were trying to do like, say, for example, an app for that sort of really just didn't progress. And, you know, and I was thinking, well, maybe I've just got to do this myself. Um, and I guess that's where it leads to the website that I started up, which is wink,
sleep.online.
And part of that was thinking, well, I've been to so many. Many different conferences and that's the thing. And this is why I'm glad that, you know, we're having this chat because
we're sort of being in these different bubbles. Um, black scientists
go to these sleep conferences, we see each other and we're not really translating it to the people out there in a direct sort of way. And I guess what I've noticed is that my research is not really getting through to the public. And you know, we'll talk about that a bit when we sort of talk about technology use and sleep. Um, so I thought, well, why don't I just do my, excuse me, my own conference and. You know, I try to sort of make it directly to the people. And, um, so yeah, we've got the, a winks sleep conference it's coming up on July 10th.
You'll be there as well.
Mollie McGlocklin 2:39
Yes. Very excited.
Michael Gradisar 2:41
Yeah. It's been really interesting because it's not lots of
sleep scientists coming along. It's, it's a lot of people
from a whole variety of backgrounds and I think that's really good because
it's a way to sort of directly get the
scientific findings and these new findings directly to people from different sort of areas that are working, you know, Optimization.
Mollie McGlocklin 3:01
Hmm. Well, what I just so acknowledge you for, uh, you know, not only your commitment in this area, but then, um, really, uh, translating that in a way that's helping to reach more and more people that might normally not, uh, you know, be, uh, coming across some of this information. Um, it's a tie value information, uh, more readily. So I really appreciate that. And, uh, so yeah, I think there actually could be a great point. What you made of who is attending. This conference. And so, uh, what, uh, what types of people would, uh, would it make sense for them to attend something like this? What would this look like? What can they expect when joining?
Michael Gradisar 3:41
Yeah, exactly. So,
I mean, we've got the details on our website, so we've got a tab there for conference, so people can definitely go in there. They can see
who's going to be presenting and what the topics are.
We've got a conference flyer that they can download and get more information there as well.
Um, but
I guess w when we look at different conferences, We'll come up with a theme and sometimes I'll sort of see these different conferences and go
there's similar people, but just the themes different. So what's really going on here. Are we trying to just collect the big guns?
And, um, one thing that I love when I go to conferences is that you've got the talks, you've got the big speakers and all those sorts of things, but then you've got these things called poster sessions where people that they're sort of researched didn't
make it to the big sort of stage. They can't sort of talk to people and get that great exposure. And usually they're sort of
PhD students and early career. The research is, and I love to sort of just going around and having a look at them. They stand in
front of their posters that really just summarizes their research, but you can have these really in-depth conversations. And
in some ways I feel very sorry for them. Cause it's sort of standing there hoping someone's gonna come along and talk to them
and that their research means something. Um, but I've really found that there's like these nuggets, like you can actually find some great research there.
Um, and it's really sort of fantastic tablets talk. So the theme of my conference is really focusing on those up and coming. Searches. So hence the theme is called the next generation
and
I've really worked with all of these speakers. So we've got 12 speakers from around the world. And, uh, I just want to sort of get,
not only the sort of research that's coming out, that's really novel, but it has some sort of
real world application. So I've mean something in the real world. Cause sometimes you'll sort of go to a conference and you'll hear the talk fantastic for our scientific
knowledge, but what does it mean for a person?
And so hence why this was. An opportunity to sort of go, here's some really cool research and what are the
implications? How does it really help people?
So when people look at it, they'll see all these different sorts of topics, but in terms of themes, we've got a, really a theme on sleep and mental health.
So for example, sleep and depression is something that we've been looking at with our own research and others have been looking at their research as well.
Um, and it's not just really the connection between the two, but what happens when you provide a treatment like CBT for insomnia? And what does that do to depression symptoms? Or,
you know, if you've got teenagers that have a delayed circadian rhythm or
body clock, you provide something like light therapy, what happens to their
depression symptoms?
And, um, we've got a, you know, a theme of technology use and sleep. So
along with that really we've, we're looking at some of these talks looking at big data, what we call big data. So in other words, when you've got these sort of consumer devices,
or you're able to sort of get in the background and be able to scrape data.
Um, and so we're having a look at the different sorts of Katy rhythm patterns of video games from different countries and around the world.
Uh, we've got, uh, one,
uh, talk, that's looking at the interaction between mothers and babies. Um, and what sort of interventions parents are most likely to use with their infants in a natural sort of setting, you know, you, they get bombarded with so many different sort of
ways of helping their infants, but what are they
actually trying? What do they find useful and so forth? Um, and. There's also a focus about how we do interventions, not just for the individual, but also if you are going into schools
and you're trying to sort of help teenagers. So for example,
time management and evening, what sort of effect does that have? And furthermore,
even when it comes to mental health services.
So
for instance, mental health services, as you can imagine, especially after the last year, there's
a huge wait for trying to get in and seeing someone.
And so there's this application or this potential for actually doing sleep therapy. While these kids, uh, waiting on a wait list. And what does that do for example, for their depression symptoms. So
we're really trying to cover a whole range of different types of
ways
that sleep can really help us, regardless if you're a sort of a parents,
adult, teenager, or anything like that, whether you work in an organization, that's a government or you're in private practice or something like that. So hopefully something for someone really is
our aim for that.
Mollie McGlocklin 7:56
Wow. Okay. So a number of things are, um, being. Covered in this conference. And, and so my assumption then is that this could really be for anyone that's looking to go deeper into this topic of, uh, you know, sleep, understanding it more. And if they're having challenges with their sleep, the, uh, the commitment is that they can walk away with some practical, um, you know, uh, takeaways, but that are really grounded in research that, uh, that they can, uh, you know, delve into further. And bring it into their own life, um, if that's accurate.
Michael Gradisar 8:32
Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And so hopefully
it, you know, for those people that really sort of think, okay, I want to sort of learn more so I can help my own people that I'm helping, but that's really what we're trying to aim for.
Mollie McGlocklin 8:44
Amazing. Okay. That's awesome. And I, and I'm loving what you're sharing too about, um, all of these different implications and the, um, effects of this, you know, quite a long list, um, of the elements under, I love the sleep and mental health connection. Um, and then, uh, that gaming element, that was very, uh, a cool one as well. Uh, so, so what would this look like for people so they can join in, uh, and then learn more throughout the course of this conference, uh, and then are there ways for them to work with, um, uh, anyone through Winker? Are there, um, aspects for them, if they're really struggling with their sleep and then want to, uh, get more guidance from people that they respect and that are really, um, you know, uh, uh,
Michael Gradisar 9:31
Yeah, great questions. They really,
um, I think so what it's going to look like is that obviously you have to do this online. We've got speakers from around the world.
Um, we're going to try to do it live, but we've got a backup that will, we will have the recordings.
And so for each speaker, they're going to be doing like a 15 minute presentation and then there'll be, uh, five minutes for question time and that'll be live as well. So the idea will be that people can sort of in the chat, there'll be a zoom chat
that they can ask their questions
and I'll be basically. Chairing each of those sessions, and I'll be able to
ask the presenter, we've got a question here about blah, blah, blah. And so that we'll be able to do that.
And
naturally we don't want people to be up for 12 hours or, or completely during the nights, obviously these are going to be
recorded as well. Um, so people will have access to those for 12 months, those recordings, so they can always go back to it. So if they're sort of
thinking, ah, you know, I've just seen a client
and I remember there was something about this in one of those talks, they can go back to that. So that's hopefully handy. Yeah. I guess the other thing was that, um,
and I sort of am a little bit playful, but when I used to go to some of these
conferences, I used to love going to all those sorts of sponsors and just sort of seeing if I could Nick, one of those, you know, pens or post-its, you know, when you're, when you're a PhD student, you know, free. Shit's awesome.
Um, we've got some sponsors and the sponsors, uh, have been able to provide a price, a door prize, basically. So people that also come along for the conference, we're going to randomly pick some of these people too. Receive a prize. So we've got some Nenets
for example, who
are from the U S and they've got a Nanit camera in floor stands. So this is really useful for,
you know, if you have a baby or an infant of your
own, or, you know, someone else, or even if you want to do research in this area, you know, it can be a handy sort of, uh,
uh, tool, uh, some knocks as well, who provided the sleep robot. I think you might've even,
Mollie McGlocklin 11:23
yeah, it's actually sitting over here.
Michael Gradisar 11:27
There you go. Yup.
Um, so they're providing one of the sleep robots, um, chili pad as well. Um, and I think it's going to be useful for you guys in the, in the Northern hemisphere, cause we're going into our winter.
And so the whole idea is that this goes onto the mattress. So they provided me with one to try out. And the whole idea is that it really tries to just call the person down directly.
Um, so we've got one of those and we've also got some sleep hemp tea from hemp, Australia, and, uh, also copies of, uh, my book called helping your child. The sleep problems. So this is really for
parents who have a school-aged kid, um, who have, who has a sleep problem and really just like a self-help manual for parents to sort of know what to
do. So hopefully there's a lot for everybody there.
And, um, there's different ways that they'll be able to learn new things that can help them and their clients.
Mollie McGlocklin 12:20
Wow. That's a lot. That's amazing. Uh, what's been your experience with the, uh, with the chili pad or the Uhler?
Michael Gradisar 12:27
Yes.
This time I had it, I thought, oh my God, this reminds me of the sensation of me wedding myself, but I don't feel warm, you know? Um, but then you sort of get used to that and definitely, uh, over our summers in Australia, you know, we can get damn hot here. Um, it was really helpful. Um, it wasn't noisy as what I was expecting and saw some of
the reviews for. Um, but, uh, I've sort of seen as I get older, I get warmer and this is just like a great way to do it. And
my PhD was in sleep and
yeah. Some near in thermoregulation, so I totally get the science behind it and why, why you would want to directly call the person down and make this sort of environment around them cooler. So it helps to really sort of dissipate the heat from their body as well. So, yeah.
So you've got one as well.
Mollie McGlocklin 13:15
Yes. Yes. Um, and I had been hesitant for quite some time because I was, uh, you know, we were my fiance and I had been, um, digital nomads for about three years. So we were traveling internationally and we, you know, backpack carry on. Uh, so tracking sleep in different locations. Basically, you know, uh, packing an Uhler or what have you is a little challenging. Uh, so I had purposely not gone that route for quite some time and then the pandemic happened. Uh, so then I, you know, was grounded for a longer period of time and did test it out. And, uh, in alignment with that traveling pension, um, I definitely now I'm hooked. I can certainly say, like, I actually have some traveling coming up and I swear, I am literally strategizing, like, could I say. Send an Uhler there. Like, it was just ridiculous. So yeah. Big fan of those options for cooling mattress pads, you know, it's, some people lean into eight mattress or, or at least, um, certainly in America and, uh, the new bright beds, um, for some of the five-star hotels to have even more up-leveled options. But yeah, we'll certainly be seeing more of that for sure. So, uh, it's great to hear your feedback on that. Um, and, uh, going deeper into this. Topic of sleep and technology. Uh, we'd love to hear more about, uh, your expertise. I mean, I know this is, uh, this is big topic and you've got a lot of knowledge and yet, uh, what are some of the things that you're seeing that are, or frameworks that are important to think about sleep in technology? Uh, you know, just kind of giving you a little bit of the floor on that topic.
Michael Gradisar 14:52
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for that.
And I'll probably at this point, even get your listeners to sort of think about almost like, what are some of the effects that they know about sleep. Even technology, like,
you know, what are the things that come to mind? What are the do's and don'ts, I mean, even if you want to sort of throw a and donut me, um, just to sort of
give that sort of start off in that impression about what people are learning about sleep and technology.
Mollie McGlocklin 15:13
Yeah. Well, okay. So for one, um, a number of people will be curious of their, their sleep is not working. That's a big category and yet where do they begin? They want to make some investments on, uh, you know, going in deeper on tech, where do they. Start, where is, uh, where is it worth investing and where is it? Uh, you know, just not going to really yield a high return. Uh, and certainly I was, uh, the, um, CS, uh, right before the pandemic and the sleep tech area was insane. Uh, and I'm sure you've seen just, I mean, it's of course ridiculous this area that you could invest so much money into. So how to make sense of what really from, um, from your background. And all your training and understanding of what really makes the difference in sleep. Now, I know this is a big topic because this is a big area, but what are some of the, you know, a framework for people to be thinking about the so that they're, uh, investing wisely.
Michael Gradisar 16:13
Yeah.
And I'll probably put a twist on it because really,
you know, rather than sort of go sort of big and what sort of big sort of, uh, types of, uh, sleep tech that they can get to improve this sleep. It's more like, okay, what do they already have access to? That might actually be. Hopeful for sleeping. So we'll see what this, um, you know,
Jimmy provides, but definitely, um, I mean, our research has really been looking in the last 10 years at what is this effect of
technology use, you know, what we already have on sleep. And so,
um, that's the, I guess the value of being able to be someone
who was a researcher you're independent and you get to sort of choose what you
want to do. And, um, so one
time I thought, yeah, I'd love to do a theme of just looking at how does say video games. How does a video games affects. Asleep and,
you know, back
then, you know, when I've got my job in 2005, there was only
one really good, well, really good study experimental study. And it was in
Japan
and they gave, uh, Japanese, uh,
young people,
either mental arithmetic to do, um, in the evening or play a violent
video game.
And in both situations, um, they only took about two or three minutes to fall asleep after doing that. But the issue was that it had a fatal floor in this study because instead of them going
and doing it. Sort of activity in the hour before bed. Like we always here, it was more like putting them it's a bit like three hours later. And as you would know, if you staying up three hours later, you're going to be
incredibly sleepy. You're going to fall asleep regardless of what you do.
Yeah. So we really didn't have an answer about what was going on. So I thought, okay, well, let's do a study, let's get some
teenagers into our sleep laboratory
and we'll feed them pizza and then we'll get them into their bedroom. And then, okay, here you go. Here's call of duty for this is going back quite some time.
So they either did that on one night or they came back. And they would watch, uh, March of the penguins, you know, that documentary.
Yes.
I think that's interesting enough if people want to
find out how to fall asleep, watch that because we had a third of the teenagers fall asleep while watching that for an hour.
Um, and I think it's got something to do with Morgan Freeman probably you've got that sort of voice, you know?
Yeah, exactly. So, um,
anyway,
the results surprised us because, uh, the
D the time taken to fall asleep. And we mentioned with EEG. So, you know, a quite accurate way of them trying to fall asleep.
Um, it only took four minutes longer to fall asleep after playing call of duty compared to watching March of the penguins. So that really surprised us and it really got me going, okay, what's going on here?
And then
I guess we went back to the drawing board and when, okay. Well,
people in teenagers don't really do an hour of gaming before bed. They'll probably play for many hours, so let's just up the dose.
You know, let's give them a dose of say 15 minutes before bed and. 150 minutes before bed.
So we did that,
uh, again, measured, uh, EEG after we gave them pizza and their video game and new violent video game. And again, it only took a few minutes longer to fall asleep after playing
115 minutes of this video game. And I should sort of say around this time we were sort of
trying to work out also, what was the
mechanism linking technology use in the evening and sleep.
And for those two studies, we were trying to, we had this idea that it's. Quite alerting, you know, you've got this
arousal.
And so we were measuring my heart rate to see if that was going to pick
up anything. And we weren't finding that heart rate was really increasing or anything like this.
I mean, furthermore, we couldn't see that there was an effect on the time taken to fall asleep. So we went, okay, well maybe this isn't the mechanism.
Maybe it's all of this stuff that people are saying about the bright light from the screens.
Um, and sort of just to sort of give a bit of background, we've been doing bright light therapy, uh, for circadian rhythms for
a decade before that. So we know that it can be effective in changing circadian rhythms.
So we thought, okay, let's have a look at the scientific literature. And we were really surprised. So this is in 2012, that there was not one single scientific study
that had tested whether having a bright screen in your face for an hour before bed effected your sleep. They had tested whether affected
melatonin, but not necessarily measured sleep. So
we were the first group to be able to. Measure that.
And so we, again, we got teenagers in, you know, lots of pizza with them. Hello, these studies you've got to sort of bring them in. Yeah,
exactly. And then, um, and so what we did is that we gave them a bright iPad in their face for an hour before their usual bedtime.
Um, on another night it was completely dim and on another night and keeping in mind, this was back in 2012. So apple hadn't invented their night shift mode. So we had to gel break these
iPads to be able to put on F dot Lux, which.
Margaret ERF and Lorna Herford events. So,
and they were really cool cause they were sort of
involved and we were consulting with them when it came to performing the study. So anyway,
um, if we compare the sort of bright screen versus the dim screen,
the difference in the time taken fall asleep was a few minutes. So it was less than 20 minutes and all of these different sort of conditions and
we're going okay, so now it's not the bright screen. What the heck is going on here. And
I guess with all of these studies, We were doing what
one
would think you should do, which is to really make sure that we have the person go to bed as their usual bedtime
and provide all this stimulation just before bedtime.
The idea Bailey being that, that rolls over and people have
difficulty falling asleep
and we thought, well, maybe that's not what it is. And we know that another mechanism is this idea of a sleep displacement. So the idea is that we just continue playing or doing something and then we're pushing sleep away.
So, all right, well, let's just do something different. We'll bring in teenagers, feed them pizza, get them into their bedroom and go,
here you go. Here's a brand new video game. Go for it.
You know, see what happens.
And we thought, okay, if we do that,
how are we going to be able to tell the reason why some of them play for
ages and some of them turn it off at the right sort of time. So we went back into the scientific literature
and we were trying to explore anything at that point that might sort of
basically explain this.
And so there were a few variables that we're looking at and one of them was
basically risk-taking. So
the idea being that you've got these rewards that you're chasing, which sounds very much like what happens with video games and so forth. And then you've also got the consequences of
taking risks. So
that's exactly what we did. We got these teenagers in,
we managed to try to sort of give them all of these different
questionnaires. Two weeks later, they came into the sleep lab. We gave them this game,
crunched all of the data. And what it showed was that it wasn't the reward chasing. It was actually the consequences of taking risks. So
people have to sort of keep in mind, we were giving them a questionnaire.
That's not talking about the consequences of not getting enough sleep as the consequences
of all of these other sorts of behaviors.
And then
two
weeks later, we have a camera in their room just watching when they're going to turn off the
video game
and these things were related.
And so what it was suggesting is that the
less
that teenagers cared about the consequences of taking. The more likely they were to keep playing video games.
So, you know, the flip side of that is if you care about the consequences of your behaviors, you're more likely to have that sort of self control.
And you know,
these, these teenagers that really didn't care about what
the consequences were of risk taking, they would play until one o'clock in the morning and they fully were told beforehand, we're going to wake you up at seven o'clock in the morning and take you to school because of these
were done on school night.
So for the first time, we really will
finding. Something where technology use
could affect sleep, but it wasn't the sort of usual ways people were thinking about this. So we then went on a little bit of a journey to sort of explore what is it about
people
that might sort of explain this? And, you know, we also work with teenagers and we also work with adults and so forth for so long. And we keep hearing stories, say, say, for instance, from parents about, you know,
I'll say, you know, you've got five minutes, you've got to turn it off and they'll And then 10 minutes later, the parents will come in and say,
oh, Time to get off. And they said, you didn't give me a warning
and they'll say, yeah, I did. And then you go, okay. So what's happening is people and there is scientific literature behind this. And the concept is called flow. The whole idea is that you get into an activity and you're just
totally in a zone. You lose track of time. You're totally immersed. Now people can get it knitting. They can get it
like reading a book,
but people can also get it playing a video game. So we thought we'd try to measure short, you know, skip all the pizza sort of stuff. Uh, it was flow that really did higher on this ability to get into a flow state,
they would turn the video game off like an hour and a half later, like, well, past compared to those teenagers that were lower in flow, but that particular study that's when we started to learn something that was a bit odd,
which was that
in order to stay in flow, what
you need to do is the task has to be. Not boring
and it has to be not too challenging. So you're in this sort of nice sort of zone.
say, yep.
are just getting into a zone
that to cut it off. Long story predict, like if they were
midnight
And so the idea was that we wanted to see, you know, is there something helpful that we can do here? Can we actually
manipulate flow? You know, can we bore them to sleep?
And so we thought, yeah, we'll try to do that. We'll try to find a video game.
We'll just have it, have it on normal difficulty on one night,
just have it on
boring difficulty on another
night. And we struggled to find a video game where we
could manually Manipur. Light the difficulty
and we thought what's going on here? This is so odd.
And what we found out is that, uh, there was, uh, artificial intelligence now embedded in
video games that game developers were doing, and it was called dynamic game balancing.
And so you don't have to worry about manipulating
your difficulty level. They'll do it for you.
And the whole idea is this is supposed to be a really cool thing. You don't have to worry about it, but the problem is that now game developers were understanding this.
The psychology behind people's behaviors,
understanding flow, and wanting their users
to be able to continue using their products. And so
we were starting to see that there was this interaction between what game developers would purposely doing
and technically vulnerable people,
you know, fast forward now to
that Netflix, um,
documentary. I don't know if you've seen it, the social dilemma.
Yes.
Mollie McGlocklin 26:57
Yep, absolutely.
Michael Gradisar 26:59
Yeah. I sort of read that when I watched that it was like, yes, exactly. This is exactly
what we found when we were doing our video game study, that there is this manipulation. And, but there are certain people that are vulnerable to it.
And the whole idea is that they will just continue using
whatever
product it is, whether it's going to be YouTube, Facebook, video games, and so forth.
So I guess over this 10 years of
research was we're really sort of seeing that those concepts of
this being a very stimulus. Lighting type of thing. Isn't necessarily explaining why people are using technology and it might affect their sleep. It's not the
Bryce cream, even
the last month or two someone did test Apple's iPhone
night shift mode. The difference in the time taken to fall asleep, whether you use that or not was like 30 seconds,
it's not working. Doesn't do anything. So people
have this myth that it's this blue light that's coming from screens and it's just apps. You'll see it anywhere, like, you know, spend a week in looking around for sleep and you'll find. On that sort of stuff, but the research is not actually getting to the people.
Hence why, you know, we want to sort of do these sort of conferences and try to get the science directly to people.
Um, so
really now to sort of
answer your question, which I know it's taken quite some time, but
Mollie McGlocklin 28:14
no, this is great.
Michael Gradisar 28:15
What we're finding now is that combined with our clinical experience, where
what happens
is the parents are sort of saying to teenagers,
no more technology use in the hour before bed and no technology in your bedroom. And so what happens is that the teenagers go to bed
and they've got nothing and they've just got thoughts. And that's what seems to happen is that if you don't have
something to distract you, you're just going to automatically have these thoughts that pop into your head because there's no visual stimulation, there's no auditory stimulation. And people are just having these background thoughts coming to the forefront of their head.
And we know that from insomnia, that if you've got these sorts of things, and this is what we hear from teenagers, this is what we've heard from. Adults
is that you start to plan and you start to worry about what's going to happen the next day or what you've got to do. You reflect
on your day and how crap something was. And
maybe you're interpreting it a different way this, this time.
And then you start to catastrophize about your sleep as well. And this is exactly what was happening. So
again, we went back to the scientific literature and there were just a couple of studies that were just missed in some sort of ways. And if you put them together, Whether it was telling a bit of a story, which was, if you look and ask teenagers, what do you use as a sleep aid, something to help you fall asleep.
Then they were saying watching TV or reading a book,
listening to music,
um, being on their phone,
et cetera. And this was a study that was done back in 2006, that this was
done and it was completely missed. And then you look at another study. I think it was CA it came out in 2014 and there were following people up.
Over time.
And they were seeing whether they were developing a sleep problem
and whether they were changing their technology use. And what was happening is that it wasn't the fact that people were
increasing their technology use and then developing a sleep problem. It was the other way round. They were developing a sleep problem
and
then their technology technologies was increasing and that matched
our clinical experience. It was basically, we were seeing in a clinic, sometimes that teenagers were saying, well, if I'm going to take hours to fall asleep,
I might as well be doing something. So we then did a study a couple of years ago, and we asked teenagers,
do you use technology use to distract yourself from worries? And we found that at least 62% of them said, at least sometimes.
And
now that we're starting to get some of that information out at conferences and so forth, what we're also hearing from other people say, for example, in South Korea, is that teenagers are using technology use social
media, YouTube. Biggest one that comes up, um,
that they're using that in order to calm themselves down and distract themselves from not only worry, but also from negative feelings and thoughts.
So
people have been told for so long
don't use technology and in alphabet don't use bright screens. Now I wouldn't necessarily advise
using video games up until the
point that you're going to fall asleep. Um, I wouldn't necessarily say, you know,
don't have a fully bright. Screen in front of your face. Definitely try to de stimulate
as you approach sleep,
but think about what you're using and try to make sure that you go to your natural
bedtime, your natural sleep time.
If you know what that is, be aware of that and make sure that you're
trying to fall asleep around that sort of time, but
potentially you can watch TV in bed.
You know, you can listen to music in bed, you can read in bed. So
the 1970s sort of thing from. Know Dick boots and saying
that you only use the bed for sleep and sex. Um, it sounds like no, you can actually watch TV. You can do these sort of pleasant
activities, um, that not only will distract you from all of these worries that you've got on,
but
it could help your entry
in getting into sleep. So that's
my long-winded answer.
Mollie McGlocklin 32:21
Yeah. Oh my goodness. So much was just said there. And I so appreciate all of that. Actually. I just did a, uh, IgG live, sleep spotlight earlier today. And with. Um, uh, the author of war on sleep and he was speaking to, uh, his own pension for watching TV before bed and how it really works for him. Uh, and I think there's so much to be explored about, um, some of these hard and fast rules that had been kind of, uh, out there and, um, and often, or not often, but there are times when it seems to be providing more and more anxiety for people now, trying to get it right enough. I can't have this in here and, uh, Yes. I know, certainly. So, you know, um, for people that know my story, uh, part of my interest in this area is that I had gone through my own period of insomnia. And certainly part of my thing is a good girl, uh, element to, to my way of being, and trying to get it right. And so I would try to get it right with, okay, so I'm going to do this strategy. And I was like, I was going into battle for bed. Uh, you know, and so that can just be a particular challenge for people that are dealing with that way. Being, uh, and, and some other folks. So I appreciate you, uh, really, you know, the stringency by which you, uh, are experimenting and then seeing, wow, okay. This is defying what we would think. And so let's go deeper. The why of this. And I was curious if you could, um, just quickly, uh, define a little bit for people newer to this concept of flow state, and how do you measure that? Is that more esoteric or is there, um, that physiological response and, and then what can we do to start to notice? Are we going into that. Stay to modulate that a little bit more about that.
Michael Gradisar 34:04
Yeah. Yeah. So in our experiment, what we did in people obviously keep in mind that you can't sort of necessarily do this
to this sort of level, but we certainly would measure people's perception of their flow state. So we have to make sure that we find certain questionnaires that have stood up to scientific
testing.
Um, so that's one way that we find out about their flow state
maybe.
And I'm not sure if people can really access their own data and this sort of way, but we also measured heart rate. So heart rate. It will also show your flow state. If you're in flow state, you're quite calm.
You know, things are going quite well,
but if you start to get bored or you're
super challenged,
what we found is that after about 150 minutes, so this is beyond one of our earliest studies around
that sort of time when people were bored enough. That's when we started to see heart rate, start to get out of that flow state and it actually started to increase. And so people are, I guess, being more aware
that, ah, okay, well this is not working for me.
And. It was interesting that this increase in heart rate was meaning that's when they were going to actually try to go to bed and stop for the
video game.
So
I think for people it's, it's really being more aware
of your
doing that. I mean, we tried to sort of snap these people out of the flow state by having a one night, just the video screen there to be able to play
on a second night, we had a
clock
right below
and we weren't telling them that we're doing this or anything like that, but it made no difference. So.
Unfortunately, even having a clock there in front of you won't do it. But one thing that did happen is that when we were trying to
measure their own perception of their flow state, during this whole time of video gaming,
we did have a speaker and we would ask them a certain question and one out of 10. And it really was interesting because it did snap
them out of that flow state. So we couldn't measure flow state that way, but it was snapping them out of it. So people can probably think about, again,
I need to go to bed at roughly around this time. Careful. I don't get trapped by flow.
I maybe I need to set a couple of alarms ahead of time before I engage my activity.
So I don't get trapped. I mean, people
reading a book,
most people will be fine, but there's some people that will read until 3:00 AM in the morning. Yeah. Because they're just absolutely engrossed.
Um, so it's, it's some sort of method that you could use to sort of externally sort of snap
you out of it, even if it's a, you know, a bed partner or someone else like that, that can just sort of say it's this sort of time. So you were just aware of it as
well.
So. I mean that sort of hopefully practical tip for people to use.
Mollie McGlocklin 36:33
Oh, that's, that's great. Absolutely. Um, we do have some people listening that, you know, lean into the gadget side of things. Uh, and so things like the leaf, um, uh, L I E F so kind of like that continuous monitor, but for, uh, HRV and heart rate, uh, you know, starting to notice, uh, certain interesting trends, even for myself, I would see certain, uh, you know, Netflix shows that I would think would just be nice. Sitting relaxing. Nope. Turns out for me, I'm getting stressed, I'm getting whatever and really engrossed in the, whatever the, the family is now there's the divorce. And now I'm, I'm getting buzzed because my HRV is dropping or whatever. Uh, you know, it's just so fascinating. And how, uh, I think some of these, uh, pieces of tech are interesting cause it's, um, uh, we actually did a podcast with, um, with the leaf and they had made the argument that we're notoriously, uh, challenged at our ability to spot. When we're going into some of these states, whether it's a stress response state or otherwise, certainly this flow state. Uh, so, uh, the possibilities of what could come about from a behavioral perspective where, um, you know, being more attuned to these, uh, pieces of data. So verily really interesting. Okay. So this is, um, an element of, uh, what some of your findings have been in this area of sleep and certainly more to come. Um, so, uh, more to come meaning that if they were to. Um, attend the sleep conference, which I absolutely recommend anyone listening, um, that you do that, and this is an annual conference too. Right. So if they're listening later on, they can join next year's presumably.
Michael Gradisar 38:12
Yeah. Well,
I'm making this up as I go, to be honest,
Mollie McGlocklin 38:18
it might evolve and might take different shape, but certainly, uh, checking out, um, that offering. Cause it's exciting. I will certainly be there at this one, uh, looking forward to more and one of the things that we've seen on this, um, High cast is that people, uh, really interested in what people are doing in this, in this world of sleep. So they want to know, well, what are these people doing? Uh, so, so for you, and I'm sure this evolves, but, uh, for you, where are you at right now on our first question, which is what does your nightly sleep routine look like?
Michael Gradisar 38:47
Yeah. It's not the best.
Um, and I'll say that because, um,
it's interesting, once you get in the area of sleep, you reflect back. And
I remember being put to bed now as a
kid and just.
Long they're awake for an hour or so, you know, but that was just normal adhere.
My parents, you know, at the other end of the room,
sorry, that was our end of the house,
listening to TV. I could actually hear the whole TV show and all that sort of stuff. So I think I've always had that
with me.
And so it does take me a long time to fall asleep,
but, uh, settling now, you know, um, I'm an academic, so I've got lots of responsibilities and lots of things going on there. So, you know, spinning a lot of plates and,
you know, a few of them are crashing down again. But, um, after that, you know, Just trying to also build up wink, you know, doing that after hours and trying to sort of spend a bit of time on that, but
I've, uh, quite fortunately got two fantastic family members. Obviously my wife is, you know, sort of saying,
what time are we going to try to, you know, start to watch our shows.
And, um, and then I've also got a pug who,
I don't know, for some reason I seem to be his sleeping tablets, so I'll be at the computer and he'll then suddenly come and sit
down next to me and I'll feel a nudge. And he's looking at me with those chocolate brown eyes. I'm like,
oh, Okay. Yes. That's really hard to say no to that sort of stuff. So they protect me from flow. I'd probably have to say. And, um, after that,
yeah, certainly we, we go and we watch our
shows and that's our sort of way to sort of wind down at the end of the night and we happen to be watching
a Danish show. So, uh, the killing, you know, oh, series.
Mollie McGlocklin 40:21
Oh, I haven't seen that.
Michael Gradisar 40:23
Yeah. We watch the American vision, which is fantastic. Um, but
it's really interesting when you don't understand Danish. Um, You have to read the show, you have to know what's going on. So many times I noticed this and this is why I certainly do recommend watching shows or TV
is that sometimes I'll say to my clients, you know, down a bit low, have the brightness down a bit low, and you might get to that
point where you don't want to keep watching it, but I don't tell them what happens afterwards, but they
you know what? I'd shut my eyes. And I thought I'll what happens, but you know, when, when it's Danish, routine at the moment.
Mollie McGlocklin 41:09
you can just have the volume
you'll listen to it. So go with that. And will inevitably say a week later,
listened to it. And then before I know it I'm asleep. And so you would miss out on a lot of stuff. So that's a nightly
That's amazing. Okay, good. And I, I really do again, appreciate to you being someone so in this arena for so long and, um, uh, kind of providing a new way of looking at this topic of television, uh, you know, what type, what does a nightly routine consist of? Um, and it doesn't necessarily have to be. This like, perfect. I always say that to, you know, in this conversation too, around, um, uh, you know, the light stretching, yoga music, like this whole lofty thing of what it should look like, um, or some of these ideas that we might get of, uh, what we think it's a perfect nightly routine should look like and actually, uh, really leaning into what you're sharing, uh, can be really, really relaxing and ritualistic and, yeah, that's awesome. Um, Okay, so, so that's your nightly sleep routine and, uh, what would we see on your nightstand or that could also be your proverbial nightstand or any, uh, items that, uh, we might want to be aware of or ambience, uh, kind of any call-outs for you that are important in your, uh, wind down routine? Uh, in the evenings?
Michael Gradisar 42:20
Yeah,
I would say that, um, I mean, I came from, uh, you know, sleep and ThermiVa semi regulation background. So I guess I'm always aware of the temperature. I'd have to say, um, As strange as that sounds, it's not necessarily, well, I guess you can use objects. We've already talked about the chili pack.
Um, uh, certainly over the summertime, I was really making sure that,
you know, the air temperature was really cool. So that was going to help us try to fall asleep. Cause you're
basically that transition from the heat, from your body to the cooler air, that's going to be something quite helpful. And if you're too hot, that's going to make it difficult to fall asleep. Yeah. Now
that we're coming into winter time, um, I can't really put my foot up to the screen right now. I'm not that flexible, but, um, Having just some good stocks and knowing when to sort of put those on and when to take them off. Um, and, uh, a call out to, I think they're called dash Mayan, um, is,
sounds like it. If you were to say it in English, it looks like dogs, may Jan
uh, whoever developed, um, some comfortable sleep wear. So I got to wear that for the first time last night and it's
insanely comfortable. I don't want to take it off.
I'm wearing it right now, actually, but I'm not, I'm gonna show you. Um,
but, uh, and I think, um, what are. I was really impressed with these guys with was that they consulted semi regulation, scientists, sleep scientists, textile
scientists, and then they knew what to do. And then they've said about making their garments and their pajamas. So for me, I'd say temperatures are
an important thing, but if I did not have a device to watch something with, I would be left there with my thoughts and I would have to, um, make sure that I put effort into just enjoying that time.
You know, it doesn't have to be negative. You can actually just. Think about good things that have happened, or just even like
goals and fantasy sort of
dreams that you want to sort of achieve, you know, you can actually sort of twist that around and make more of a positive association.
Mollie McGlocklin 44:11
Love that. Okay. Uh, and, uh, just, just because of your background, I'm curious, uh, your thoughts on, uh, things like mouth taping or any of those practices. If you have any, if you lean into that or if you, uh, for you, it's not, uh, doesn't really make the difference.
Michael Gradisar 44:30
Definite mouth breather. I would not sleep if I did that.
Um, so I, I don't really, I've actually questioned some, some people sort of in the sleep apnea area, like, okay. You're probably wanting to
strep my mouth up to know that if I have to breathe through my nose, I'm going to have to have a C-PAP. I'm not, I'm not going for that sales pitch. I'm not, I know what you're doing. The tech companies doing it and now you're doing it.
So, um, yeah, for me, nothing like that, nothing like that. Okay.
Into sort of like the CBT sort of stuff, you understand thoughts and behaviors, you know, how powerful the behaviors can be.
yeah, I think that's the sort of key thing there.
Mollie McGlocklin 45:08
Absolutely. Great. Uh, okay. And, um, so then the last one would be, uh, what has been one of the biggest changes to your sleep game or biggest kind of, uh, biggest aha moment for your, uh, individual results with your sleep
Michael Gradisar 45:24
strangely TV in the bed? I'd have to say. Um, we
had, you know, Before we had all these streaming services, we had a massive TV,
like the old CRT ones, you know, there's big blocky ones in our bedroom. And I think
it not only does it help to distract yourself from your thoughts, but it's just a nice,
it's, it's making a positive association with bedtime.
You know, it's not as negative fearful battleground or anything like that.
Um, so, you know, and for me, I've been saying, you know,
you can have a TV in the bedroom, like for over a decade and people, even,
you know, some people that I work with say, you should. It be saying that,
but now fortunately, you know, we've got the daughter and I can say, yes, see science says you can do it. So I'd have to say that one.
Mollie McGlocklin 46:07
Nice. I'm sure a lot of people will be very happy to hear that one. Uh, and actually normally when asked this question, um, but I feel like, uh, just from, uh, your immersion in this area, curious if you have any recommended, um, books for people to delve in deeper on, on the topic of sleep or things that you think are really, um, kind of a Seminole worker flagship, uh, Books that people should go in deeper on or that they shouldn't go into on, or that you don't, uh, that you don't like as much either one.
Michael Gradisar 46:37
Yeah.
Um, well actually I didn't get to read, you know, uh, sleep books. I have read some of them. Um,
I I'm more so reading the sort of sleep journal science stuff, um, unless it comes to the holidays, but I'd have to say obviously, Matthew, Walker's why we sleep has been, um, and an important one to sort of really get out there and the importance of sleep. Um, people might not know it now. It's necessarily, but, uh, Alice Gregory who's over in London, in the UK, she has got a book called nodding off and she certainly consulted a huge array of sleep scientists. Um, and it's really about sleep across the lifespan as well. So it's not just for adults. It's also about developmental, um, changes in sleep, which can be fantastic. Um, so those, uh, great at understanding sleep a nice foundation, but if you want to help your sleep patterns, You can't go past overcoming insomnia by Colin SB, who is one of the insomnia goobers, basically what he does in clinic thing teaches you in that book. So I'd have to say that, you know, if I had to recommend a book for someone experiencing insomnia, I'd say that one. Um, it doesn't necessarily cover if you've got a issue in your circadian rhythm mistiming, if you're falling sleep late, waking up late or vice versa. So I guess, yeah, we need to have a book that does that at some point.
Mollie McGlocklin 47:59
Yes, absolutely. Maybe that's a calling. Uh, that sounds great. Well, okay. So one, uh, you've provided, I mean, I just got pages of notes that, of what you just shared. So I'm sure you've piqued some interest for people. Um, and certainly, uh, you know, attending, um, the upcoming conference or, um, various offerings that will be coming, uh, in the future after that. Uh, and how are, uh, what are some of the best ways for people to stay, uh, aligned and attuned to what you're creating? And it sounds like. You're really, um, uh, your aim is to go in deep on this area to make this applicable, um, and, uh, accessible for the masses. So this is really an exciting endeavor. Uh, so what are some of those ways for people to follow you?
Michael Gradisar 48:43
Yeah,
I think, I think you're already
doing that. You know, you're sort of like leading that sort of way because,
um, the idea is that we have a blog and, you know, so you can subscribe to our newsletter. We've got over 70 blogs there and sometimes it's like a topic sometimes it's like, we did this study. So we're trying to get those sort of study findings, what they mean in the real world and what you can do about it to the people. So, you know, that's all freely available. If you do subscribe, sometimes I'll tell you what you can do step by step, which you won't necessarily get. If you're just reading the blogs.
And if you're more curious about stuff, we've got a download section, so
you can actually download some of our actual studies go to the source. And that's what I'm always trying to profess is do your own research, get multiple sort of sources, newspapers. Scholar, et cetera. So, you know, that's one way to do it. And if you are a health professional as well, you want to get into this area, we're starting to develop our online courses for training. So, you know, for some of the, I'm basically trying to teach him what I think is really the
essence, the sort of
get rid of all the fluff. These are the core things you need to know in order to be able to help people sleep. So we've got like a brief behavioral therapy for insomnia course. That's up
there.
Um, we've also now developing the cognitive therapy. Uh, cool. We're going to do one for teenagers. So using circadian rhythms know how to provide bright light therapy, melatonin to change this Acadian rhythms. And really there's also a membership there. If people are interested for learning more about it, especially health professionals. Our plan at the moment is to sort of have
almost like another membership for people where
they can actually go in there and learn about their own sleep and learn about these sort of factual aspects about sleep, these sort of mini videos and really. Trying to also tap into
providing online programs for people that
are going to be able to sort of go, okay, I've got difficulty falling asleep, go to that program. I've got difficulty
waking up during the night go to that program. So
we've got lots of plans
available, but just go to winks, sleep.online, hopefully book, market, and hopefully subscribe. And you'll just keep in touch.
Mollie McGlocklin 50:52
That is perfect. Yeah, definitely recommend, uh, getting on that newsletter. Um, I've certainly seen some great, um, pieces that you've put out. And, uh, and excited that there's a real, um, uh, drive behind this to make this, uh, uh, something that people can really begin to delve into more, no matter where you're at in your sleep, no matter what you're struggling with, um, making that available. So appreciate the work you're doing. Thank you so much excited to attend your conference and, uh, and just thank you so much for taking the time
Michael Gradisar 51:23
and thanks for having me on the show. Awesome.