Best Moment: The One Thing You Should Never Do Before Bed: Dr Cheri Mah

00:02I am someone that tells myself that I sleep with something playing. I grew up with a radio in my room so when I'm as an adult now I'm always looking to play something as I fall asleep. Is that going to hurt my sleep quality? I would say if you're accustomed to this I would say that's fine to continue to do so. I am not a fan of having the TV on and having the bright light exposed um, to you in that hour before bedtime because it also can just be very psychologically stimulating. But like you said it's a radio or it's a podcast that you feel is helping you relax then I'm a fan of it. Do you think Di oversea will help people relax? It might it might help you at least think about your sleep a bit more and challenge you to do maybe one one change tonight. We consider that to be a scientific endorsement of the podcast. Um okay so I've got sound down. You are a fan of the white white noise machines?

00:53I am because sometimes there's external noises like a garbage truck or construction that you're not always able to control. So if you can at least mask over it temporarily, that can sometimes be helpful to keep individuals more asleep during the. nighttime and there's even some now that are adaptive so if the door slams then the volume temporarily increases and then will decrease. So there's almost these smart white noise machines that are that are coming out on the market. So that's from a noise standpoint and earplugs are going to be helpful if you're traveling when you're at home, you can obviously use those to dampen down any external noise from a from a temperature standpoint. You want it to be cool.

01:29I think this is an area that a lot of people can benefit from, because they often sleep in much warmer temperatures than what we know is probably more conducive to sleep, which is cooler. 60 to 67 degrees has been shown to help individuals stay asleep and fall asleep that may be frigidly cold for some, but you have to find the temperature that's right for you. I would say decrease your temperature by say one degree or two degrees every couple of days and then you can find the temperature that works well for you. And there's even technology now where there's mattress covers that can help you regulate temperature from a. Much cooler to warmer, so if there's differences in bed partners, that's a way that you can actually accommodate both of their preferences. so that's about 16 to 20 Degrees Celsius.

02:16What about when I shower or I bath because often I go and have a shower then I get straight into bed after yes? Is that good or bad? I would encourage you to shift that timing a little bit earlier into the night. So an hour and a half before you are planning to go to bed, I would shift your shower because when you are taking a hot bath or hot shower it increases your core temperature, but when you fall asleep your core temperature drops so you don't want that competing signal to be right before bedtime.

02:49But if you back that shower up an hour and a half that should be sufficient time that we think potentially there's. An augmentation of helping that drop in temperature, and some smaller studies have shown that that can help decrease the time to fall asleep and also enhance deep sleep which has implications for muscle recovery, regeneration and you get more of that in the earlier part of your night so it's an easy fix just to tweak the timing of your shower and your hot. Bath to be just an hour or two before bedtime, not right before bed so it's a strategy too if you have difficulties winding down and relaxing to implement that hot shower hot bath earlier in the evening. One of the problems I also have when I sleep sometimes is I I.

03:33I hear people say you've got to, you can't eat like three or four hours before bed however, I sometimes, you know, I sometimes get home at 10 PM and I get home hungry as hell at 10 PM and then sometimes if I order food for example, it might come at like 11. okay. which means that I end up eating at 11 and then I really see it in my sleep scores, um. I think as well that I'm someone that tends to fall asleep later. Again, this might just be me telling b s to myself, but that's what tends to happen and I know I'm not supposed to eat before bed, but I'm so hungry. So is there anything that I can eat before bed that won't disrupt my sleep but will get rid of the hunger?

04:10Yes, the preference is not to have a huge meal right before bed that's fried, fatty, um, you know really heavy sitting in your stomach that hour right before bedtime so if you're able to time them be strategic, then that's obviously the preference, but I'm okay with you having a pre sleep snack and a lot of times for my athletes, that means we'll go for something like 50% of a complex carb and like 50% of a lean protein. So for example cereal and milk is an easy one. cereal, yes.

04:38cereal and milk of course we want something that's whole grain and not you know, necessarily a sugary, you know, cereal. But cereal and milk is an easy one, that's many people have access to or cottage cheese and fruit, or 100% whole wheat crackers and peanut butter and the reason why is because I don't want you waking up in the middle of the night being hungry, or even trying to fall asleep and you feel like you're hungry, but we want something that's slow digesting through the night because ideally you're going to be sleeping 7, 8, 9 hours during the night and we want it to. Be able to get you to the morning time and then you will fuel when you wake up. So a pre sleep snack can be a great strategy if you're coming home late and you want to obviously be able to fuel before bed, or if you have a really early dinner and you're hungry before bedtime. Yeah.

05:24that happens sometimes as well. Sometimes I'll eat dinner at about five PM yep and then I get to about 10–11 PM and I'm still awake and I'm starving. Okay. so what's a pre sleep snack that you think you can grab for some. nuts? Okay. yeah. Does that work? Yeah. Yeah, nuts have protein in them. Um, yeah, you can grab a good nut mix maybe you can partner that also with like some yogurt too. Raspberries. Raspberries, yeah, blackberries, yeah and some yes, a a protein and carb in there and those are good, good pre sleep snacks.