LIFE LAB 7th MARCH 2023

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it is the lunchtime lifestyle lab with me and Eve High knife hi Dougie how are

you I'm fantastic looking a bit Glam today what's going on well I decided to put on a frock just for you Dougie dear

oh that's nice oh no well it's not true really is it no I'm going to work after

this um yeah I do have a gig I have a private party I'm gonna go sing some songs for some lucky people up in the mountains

nice I know yeah um don't expect that usually on a Tuesday I know it's a lucky

one um I think it's a birthday party so I'm very much looking forward to that but I've been more looking forward to

this and coming in and talking to Dougie yes so how we how we been have you spent

your week doggy I'm so incredibly busy um I just can't keep track of everything what have I been up to

um yeah I've been walking quite a lot I've been looking after the kids I've been working I've been singing and

um thank you very much to you I've been getting our recording of our show up

online so that people can have a listen in if they miss the live bit well guess

what the one that I uploaded last week I uploaded to the wrong YouTube account which has got no subscribers because

it's not actually uh the one we use so I'm in the process of sorting that but

well it's not a bad thing really it was our first show it was yeah but it was good it was brilliant of course it was

we were wonderful expect nothing else now um so from the first of this month you

started your 28 day challenge I did yeah I started with a group of people doing the 28 day Step Challenge because you

know how important I think movement is absolutely and so I'm on a mission to see as many people as possible move

their body so I run the 28 day Step Challenge every month great group on board I have um people in Australia I

have people in America people in Spain people in UK and yeah they're all stepping and what we do is we count our

steps every day with a little bit of nudging and cajoling and encouragement

and pushing from me and obviously it's up to them really isn't it to get out and move their bodies but it's lovely to

have a group Community where we can all hold ourselves accountable and get out there moving so yeah that's going really

really well so far this month I run that every month on the first of the month I think sometimes we get a little bit

lethargic we get tied up in work we get tied up with our commitments and we

forget the most important thing and you know what the most important thing is Dougie

you oh not me personally absolutely you personally and everybody else out there

you are the most important person in your equation can I just say how

inspirational you are because last week

I made a start now I kind of on the first I

I only did about 2 000 steps if that so um I

wasn't a good start but the following day I yeah I'd made a conscious

Target of ten thousand steps okay made twelve thousand nice and done roughly

the same well around about 10 to 11 000 ever since so I'm on course yeah you

see we spoke about this last week didn't we and I really think if you're into your Fitness at all you

should get some type of Fitbit Apple watch step counter on your wrist because

it's so motivational it's what I call the secret ingredient to keeping you motivated because if you don't know

where you are of what you've achieved yet during the day or what your target should be well we we drift we

but if you get that Fitbit on your watch on your wrist yeah it's fantastic it

does help it does help so if you hit like 6 000 and you think well I'm only one or two blocks away from hitting 10.

it's a great motivational tool yeah last night you see yesterday I went um I went

up the mountain and I had to for a technical issue that we needed to sort out and um that last bit of cigaria

where where I told you about where one of our transmitters is really steep yeah Steep and in fact my dog loved it but

I'm I had to go up twice because I left my phone in the actual transmitter so so um

so that's not a bad thing behind good exercise but when we got back I still

said to me dog right we're going for our stomp to the port and back so um that's what we did and we made 13 000 yesterday

so that's all right you see Dougie that I'm super proud of you and I am I'm

surprised proud of you because it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to think

that I didn't even have to drag you by your ear you did it yourself I'm so chuffed that's just how inspirational

you are you see because I don't know if I'm inspirational or if you're just terrified well there is that as well

there's a bit of each there bit of each but um I was really pleased with them with the way things are going and ah

in addition to that I haven't given up the booze completely but I have not touched a drop during the

week okay so just for the weekend little treat wine with me dinner nothing too

crazy but you know and that's what makes it a treat isn't it if you don't indulge

every single day and if you look forward to it on a Friday after rather than it becoming a crutch every single day of

the week when we look forward to it on a Friday just to have a few just to wind down it becomes a different

um it becomes a different presence in our life absolutely but uh like we spoke about again last week I was kind of

depending on it every single day so it wasn't even a treat anymore it was just par for the course so yeah things like

that being more mindful about our movement uh counting our steps a little bit more mindful about what we're drinking and eating all those things add

up to a healthier wealthier in health you so well done Dougie I'm delighted well I think the

main motivator was how much I'm Gonna Save well there's that yes yeah you're saved

you'll save money and time and you'll add time and energy to your um to your

body and your life speaking of which I was up at 2 30 this morning because I

needed to drive my other half I didn't say better half my other half to the

airport so it was up at 2 30 this morning we left at three got him up there and I was back in bed at 10 past

five and I thought it would be interesting yeah and it took me ages to fall do you know what happened I got

back into bed and I had cold feet yeah and you know when you're just too tired to get up and get a hot water

bottle so I was kind of raging with my feet but um I thought it would be

interesting today because we want to talk about all things Wellness don't we so I've had an awful night's sleep and I

have a big big day ahead of me I thought be interesting today if we touched on the topic of sleep and how really

important and under um valued It Is by many people because

it's the unsung hero I think in our Wellness you know it's so significant so

I thought it'd be a nice little chat while I'm here dozing off my eyes are closing let's try to perk me up with a

little chat about sleep today if you'd like to talk about sleep sleep doggy would you well absolutely I mean I um I

don't sleep all night ever I mean I I wake up about three or four times a

night usually for a trip to the bathroom yes because being of a certain age uh that's part of the course

not much you can do about that but um yeah uh I I'm also terrible at going to

bed early yeah and I in fact this week because I've done a bit more exercise

I've been like really quite knackered at times yeah but the energy levels will

I know will get better but of an evening I mean my dog's the same

he's like yeah in the bed he's like yeah thanks for the walk but yeah switch everything off now and um we you know we

we've had a couple of early nights which have been fantastic and it does make a difference Floyd will be working with

his natural rhythms and he won't be fighting them and he'll be working with daylight and night time

um and he'll be wanting to go sleep at the right time us as humans we put all types of obstacles in our way to going

to bed early but it's important to keep in mind as well you've heard of the expression night owl and early bird

right there are night owls and there are early birds so some people in fact are

designed and will be more productive to get up early in the morning and work um from early hours other people it just

doesn't work no matter how much fight nature you might well be naturally a

night owl so in fact forcing yourself to go to bed early although you think it's the right thing to do if you're

naturally an ital it might not be so go with what your gut tells you from a productivity point of view but what if

you've got to get up early in the morning I mean quite early I mean sometimes I'll I won't go to bed till two and um and I'm up again at eight

yeah it's not ideal no it's not because you're not getting enough sleep right quite simply and sleep is crucial

restorative sleep is crucial with regard to fighting illness with regard to

having a long and Healthy Life Believe It or Not people who sleep better live longer it's as simple as that and the

science proves it so if you're not getting enough sleep you need to address that six hours however might be enough for

you there's no rules or regulations as to how many sleep hours you should have generally speaking they say between 7

and 9 hours so if you're doing six you might not be far off your seven but it's down to you

and you know it's something that you just need to become more aware of and understand more your sleep requirements

a lot of us don't give it the credit that it's due we squeeze it in between

the lines we ought not do that we ought to give it proper attention and back to the Fitbit or the step count watch you

can monitor your sleep on there because you might go to bed and what you feel is

eight hours sleep might not be it could be eight hours of really bad quality sleep that's not giving you the

restoration and the new renewed energy levels that you need to be super healthy

and fit and productive and happy and in a great mood the next day right it's a lot to do with I mean there's an

awful lot to sleep then and we think I can't sleep with me with me uh watch

thing on really I can't sleep without all right no oh fair enough I've tried that I've tried it and it's just no it's

not happening okay well we won't insist then because we want you to get a good night is there another way

to monitor your sleep no I don't realize not that I know of I just follow my little my little heart up

thingamajigging me on my on my on my um I think you just know you know when you wake up in the morning you know the

whole thing of putting the foot on the wrong side of the bed if you're cranky if you're not feeling energized when I

wake up in the morning I'm ready to get up out of bed it doesn't cost me anything because I've had a good night's

sleep keeping in mind that I had insomnia for 14 years chronic insomnia

and it cost me a lot of energy it was very very stressful period in my life

um and then when I quit alcohol I started to sleep my goodness and if anything is going to

deter me from picking up a glass of wine it's the gift of sleep I've given myself so I go to bed I fall asleep I have

seven and a half hours sleep which is 5 90 minute Cycles because your cycle

should be approximately 90 minutes I think that goes from awake to light sleep to Deep Sleep to REM and then the

cycle goes around again and again I'm not going to get into the science of it because I'm not qualified to do so but

it's you know that's your sleep cycle it's about 90 minutes and you need about five of them and that is a solid good

night's sleep so imagine that I for 14 years lay in bed raging twisting turning

um stressing anxiety worrying up down in

and out of the bed and I also had what is the worst possible thing you can sleep with

I was gonna say a snoring husband oh boy I've I've I've I've come under Fire for

that many a time it's it's such an Affliction to the person themselves who's snoring because it means they

ain't getting a good night's sleep well you know I mean I I very rarely hear myself no you won't hear yourself but I

and so it's it's it's reacting to the to the snoring but as for the partner involved my God the amount of times I

wanted to stick something in my husband's eye you can see my face right now can't you

yeah yeah so um yeah the snoring the snoring partner yeah let's let's move on

from that before I started to have I've had Partners before who wore earplugs so

I was kind of okay there yeah because it wasn't that bad but I mean it would have been affecting me and my sleep no doubt

but um but yeah earplugs there you go that's the way forward yeah no it is they are honestly I think a lot of

people do tend to just they go in separate bedrooms yeah and we don't talk about it out loudly but if it's got to

the point where you're you know it's affecting your relationship and your mood and how you feel about your partner

just go towards go to a different bedroom because your sleep is more important than the painful torture of

sleeping in bed with a sleeping partner just leave them there let them wallow in their snores find yourself a lovely

space and have a good night's sleep that's my advice sounds like good advice Bay radio hello how are you it's Dougie

here the lunchtime lifestyle lab you've also written down my name and you've spelled it correctly yes that's not

usual people call me Niam and I just go with it now because it caused me too much anxiety you know 48 years of people

getting my name wrong if you're gonna get agitated by it further it's I've given in it's yeah it does look like

on the end but uh yes anyway where were we we uh we we started talking about

sleep didn't we because I had a really bad night's sleep last night I went to bed early enough had a lot of problems

falling asleep because I was anxious because I knew I had to get up very early I think 2 30 a.m to drive my house

been to the airport so obviously having anxiety a little bit of stress worrying about sleeping in not hearing the alarm

means it's more difficult to fall asleep so I finally nodded off and the alarm

went off and it must have kind of gone off it goes against your your natural

um circadian rhythms so it went off in the middle of my sleeve oh geez where am I

and um drove himself to the airport came back and again like I was saying earlier trying to fall asleep with cold feet so

anyway I'm in one of those moods where I know I've had a bad night's sleep and it's it's interesting because now that I

do sleep well again I'm so aware of how it affects me the next day if it doesn't if I don't I really worry about it I'm I

embrace my sleep so much sleep glorious sleep and I think it's a great one to

talk about because um a lot of people aren't aware that sleep is so essential to our health and

wellness it is um bad sleep or or you know unhealthy

sleep or not the great restorative sleep that you're getting is going to cause all the plethora of illnesses down the

line you didn't know that did you a lot of people don't that it can cause coronary disease it can cause obesity it

can cause depression it can cause um high blood pressure just because you're not sleeping right and why is

that because this time that we sleep is the time that our body recuperates and

restores itself after a busy day we can't it's not just about nodding off

and switching off it's actually about recovering on a cellular level about our bodies you know getting over getting

over what they've been through that day and getting ready for the day ahead so you're seven and a half hours eight

hours sleep is crucial to your health and well-being it affects your immune system it affects your metabolism and

like I said earlier yeah your mood so if you wake up after not having enough sleep it might just be why you're so

cranky or you're not getting on well work or you had an argument or you're you know a little bit impatient with the

kids you know have a little think about well did I have a good night's sleep yeah so but it's like you say it can

vary from person to person as to how long you you actually absolutely I think there's loads of um things you need to

consider and it's about finding your own you know requirement I think genetics come into it age certainly comes into it

and how active you are as a person will come into it if you're very lethargic and you don't move an awful lot it might

be that you don't need as much sleep if you've you know if you participate in exercise every day and your muscles have

been pushed to the limit on it on a regular basis you're going to need more sleep I think as well it depends on what

you've been up to long term so you know if you've had a really busy

month it might be that you need a couple of nights longer sleep again it's about

Rejuvenation restoration um and respecting your body giving it

this listening to it that it needs the sleep it desires and that it craves so

yeah have a good listen to your body um it's sometimes easier said than done

right oh yeah we need to get a good night's sleep let's just go get an eight hours night's sleep but there are issues

at play as to why we might not be getting a good night's sleep um I don't know about you doggy you

might um have you said that you have an inter interrupted sleep people of a certain

age like yourself and myself there's no question that we're gonna have to pop up in the night to visit the loo

um but there's certain things you can do to avoid that um drink less you know maybe have a cut

off point at seven o'clock and say right no more liquids after seven o'clock which is a problem if

you're out late or if you know you're having a couple of drinks with some friends but yeah try your best to limit your intake of liquid after seven

o'clock and that will certainly help you having to jump up and down to do the Lou run

um the other thing that is is important when it comes to your sleep is getting enough daylight and getting

enough night time light yeah so the balance between daylight nighttime light

and natural light and synthetic light because that affects your natural rhythms so if you're sitting in the dark

all day your body isn't quite used to knowing well is it bedtime yet so yeah

get out in the outdoors as much as possible have your windows you know daylight Windows have your windows open

fresh air all those things to give you a natural Rhythm as to when it's bedtime and that'll help you nod off easier

um yeah that the whole stress situation is always an awful

um I'm going to use what word can I use a fecker can I say that when it comes to

sleep acceptable I tell you what stress is stress murder sleep and therefore we

have to find ways of managing our sleep or at least if you're in a stressful situation or you have a stressful life

or you have a stressful job find ways of managing your stress pre-bed time okay

so have a nice routine where you know your lights are low I'm talking candles

I'm talking a bath before bedtime to maybe regulate your body temperature the whole thing of devices and social media

blue light screens Netflix loud music all that stuff just knock it on the head

give yourself the best nicely and I'm not seeing you have to you know have hours and hours of this before bed you

can give yourself a 45 minute or a 30 minute routine before bedtime just to wind down to relieve stress and that

will give you a more solid camera and natural rhythm of a night they do say

keep your devices out of the bedroom they do but who does yeah true you know only I need mine for a wake-up call no

don't it's an alarm it's an alarm clock is a myth and you know it get yourself

an alarm clock an actual alarm clock sure good old what is this the

Dark Ages pop to the market and get yourself a good old-fashioned vintage alarm clock stick it I mean there's

means in ways yeah because what happens is we grab our phone in the middle of the night if we're unsettled at all and

it's too enticing yeah you know it's really difficult not to look at that notification or not to read that message

and then that message leads to another message or leads to thought processes you know it's it they're not the phone

it's again a murders sleep I mean I I have it beside my bed I'm but I'm very

lucky in that I don't wake the night usually so I don't need to reach for it um but yeah first thing in the morning I

grab it and I see what's going on and what I've missed I'm working on it tell you what actually

um you know this whole thing about gathering information um there are vast vast areas of land

which which house all our information um and they're talking about water being

used for these cooling systems that is creating a water shortage everywhere in

the states mainly but um it's really weird because I was watching a film last night

film that I think I might have glanced at back when it came out in the 80s

film called Brazil it's Terry Gilliam from Monty Python he he directed it and did all the animation

stuff for it as well but it's like an orwellian um almost prophecy if you like you know it

was like them saying you do realize that all your information is going to be gathered and that's going to be worth

currency and it's going to be all it's gonna be power whoever's got all your information and

that's exactly what they predicted then in the 80s and it's exactly what's happening now it's the weirdest movie to watch but

it's slightly dystopian and um and the whole bit about gathering

information on everyone they predicted that in the 80s when this

film came out and it's actually happening and did it make it Twitchy did it make you Twitchy before bed well it

actually made me think oh yeah that's exactly what they said was gonna happen

and it is happening so no I don't I don't actually pick up my phone um unless it's just set the alarm and

the reason I use it and I don't I don't look at my phone overnight if I wake up I won't pick it up and I all

notifications and things noises are off because they drive me nuts anyway but um

the the thing I do like about my alarm phone is the fact that it starts off

really gently oh because if there's one thing I hate and it's it's an alarm that goes

like that you know really it makes you go oh sugar yeah what the heck is that oh yes my alarm but no this one it

creeps up really gently and slowly and then you hit snooze and then the next

time it gets louder and slightly louder and slightly louder until it goes come on what are you doing that I like yeah

that's right because an old vintage alarm clock would certainly be quite an aggressive wake up wouldn't it yeah yeah yeah well mine is quite

um quite um subtle as well having said that my natural sleep pattern is

literally seven and a half hours on the dot really yeah and that's why last night is a funny one because I had to

get up in the middle of the night come back and try to sleep well again but yeah I have seven and a half hours solid

sleep can't sleep any longer honestly I just can't my eyes wake up on the button usually you know and then the alarm goes

off it's interesting um so yeah no maybe the Vintage alarm clock is not for you then I can imagine

you're just waking with this dress probably wake up and then throw it against the wall yeah um but uh yeah no

I don't like a a rude awakening shall we say yeah but I mean I think we do need to be very aware that we were able to

sleep soundly we were able to wake up and we were able to function quite normally without having a phone beside

our bed for quite a long time weren't we um so there's no harm if you are having any Disturbed sleep to consider maybe

just leaving the phone outside the notificationing is really interesting as well and if you just YouTube you know

there's so much help online how do I set turn off

um alter notifications on my phone mine are all off from 10 o'clock in the

evening of Honor off permanent I have no Bing Bings yeah no Bing Bings but I literally don't I have no no screen

notifications nothing from 10 o'clock because if anybody needs me and certainly for my business as WhatsApp I

went I will have a message to say if you need me after 10 call me because it's got to be urgent right if somebody needs

me after 10 p.m so yeah the notification thing is is important because those Bing Bings in the night not oh no funny and

it's interesting because my step challenge at the moment it's an it's run on WhatsApp so we communicate on

WhatsApp and I have people from all over the globe so I have people posting their steps in the morning at somebody else's

night time so we need to be careful with the Bing Bing so I always have a conversation with the people in the group beforehand make sure your

notifications are off yeah so that the Yanks aren't annoying annoying the Aussies aren't annoying well ton differences I

know I know yeah no I've I've fallen foul to that in the past I've got to say hi to Mike hello Mike he said he's never

heard of the film Brazil but he's just checked it out online and Rotten Tomatoes give it 98 which is the highest

he's ever seen that's how good it is that's that's how well it it'll blow you away I mean it's it's such an old film

but um but yeah it's it's worth checking out but just for the fact that you're like oh my God this is really happening

and the interesting thing I suppose is that my I don't know what class a movie it was but it might have been classified

as sci-fi back in the day well it was but you know I don't know I suppose part of it's it's got a certain amount of a

certain element of comedy about it but also a bit of a warning you know a bit of a

but it's a look you know pay attention to this this could happen and it is

Imagine what's going to happen in the future the movies we're watching now that we imagine to be unrealistic or Ott

I'm still waiting for those flying cars they're expect they were promising us I mean you know it was when I was a kid I

thought the year 2000 was going to be space suits and and we'll be driving around in flying cars and everything is

not happening I was not far off yeah but I mean it'd be handy as well to have a flying car and

you can an automatic driving and then we can sleep can't we yeah well yeah I was old enough I trust them I was almost

asleep myself in the car on the way home um last night and you were driving I was driving yeah I know the motorway you

know and I was very alone on the motorway there wasn't a lot of traffic so I had the radio on volume up volume

down window open window closed all that just to keep me because yeah my body was saying go back asleep girl oh thank

goodness you didn't we are just about coming to the end of the lunchtime lifestyle lab and uh what can we add

well we were talking about sleep and I think it's really important really briefly because I know we'd only we only

have a couple of minutes left to pull out a couple of the tricks that we might have up Our Sleeve as to how to have a

good night's sleep I'm listening these are all obvious but they're all really important so let's just say we need to

lower our body temperature right and the way we can do that that's not difficult at the moment well yeah but you don't

want to be cold either do you the cold feet and the cold fingers so lower your body temperature if possible with a warm

shower or a warm bath before bed and that's going to de-stress you as well because obviously we need to be

de-stressed before we go to bed a schedule is important if we can go to bed at a regular time every day because

if you're all over the place your body doesn't know what's going on your body clock is skewed so try your best to have

some routine and like I said earlier try to experience daylight and darkness during the day again that's going to

assist your body clock and your natural rhythms to understand what time bedtime really is

yoga meditation mindfulness all those lovely tools we can use to help us

remain calm and have a good night's sleep there's apps like headspace cam

things like that if you're struggling download an app and see if that helps your tolerance what's what's headspace I

don't know this it's one of these meditation apps so you'll have nice voices and wonderful calm music before

you go to sleep just to help you switch off from all the chaos that you experienced during the day another great

tip is stop napping ah I know I'm guilty well you know it's

a little cat nap maybe but they do say if you're having difficulty sleeping at night knock the nap on the head so

consider that if it's not affecting your night's sleep don't worry about it nap away um breathing uh before you go to bed you

know the whole counting sheep thing it's kind of that's kind of like rhythmic breathing one sheep too

four sheep in and out so rhythmic breathing it just calms you it focuses your mind it calms you into a point of

where you're about to doze off um try to exercise don't just sit on

your backside all day long because you're not going to be tired are you so try to get out get some fresh air

stretch your limbs have a walk go for a run go to the Sea let the air you know

the air blow through your hair and all of that and it will it will Tire you out

they do say fresh air makes you tired and there's a reason they say it be comfortable in bed I might sound

obvious but if you have too many blankets too few blankets if your pillow ain't right if your mattress is Lumpy

all that is going to affect your sleep guess what I did this weekend see how my life has changed Saturday

instead of going out and getting a bit wobbly

um I went out and bought some new pillows yeah and I've had the best sleep this

week it's so good it's so obvious amazing I know I know so obvious go out everybody and treat yourself to a nice

pillow today and help yourself sleep well yeah there's loads of things we can do and we know it you know spicy food is

going to interrupt our sleep too much sugar is going to interrupt our sleep caffeine too late in the day is going to

interrupt our sleep it's all obvious but it's nice to come here together have a chat about it and remind ourselves so

that hopefully people can take a little bit of what we've spoken about today and apply it to their lives if they're

struggling at all with sleep oh and get rid of the snoring if you can if you can knock that one on

the head ASAP um but listen guys if any of you have any questions suggestions for the show

if there's something you'd like to discuss please please drop us a WhatsApp because otherwise it's just me and Dougie talking about what we feel like

talking about and we'd like to know what you'd like to know so give us ideas questions and anything at all keep in

touch with us here in Bay radio so that we can give you what you want to hear and finally

um if um my dear listener wants to know more about you they can go to your walk

your way well walk your way well yeah um I'm on Facebook and Instagram I'm very active on Facebook so just look for a

walk your way well I have a Wellness Community there and I have a page and this is all all nationalities right all

nationalities we've come from everywhere and anywhere we're from all corners of the globe mostly we just like to talk

about being well in ourselves and that's something I can chat quite freely about

and happily about so yeah join my community or just drop me a line on walk your way well and uh lovely lovely

lovely being here again Dougie as always on lifestyle love learning to live the

Limitless life that you love yay [Music] see you next week see you next week

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