#154 Sleep Better and train your Clock with Professor Russell Foster BSc PhD FRS
The Doctor's Kitchen Podcast
Dr Rupy Aujla
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2022
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why do we sleep? It seems like such a luxury, an evolutionary oversight, a privilege some might say? But on today’s episode with Professor Russel Foster you’ll learn about why sleep is having a renaissance in both the way we think about it as a means to health as well as how the workforce should embrace it for enhanced creativity and productivity .
Russell Foster is Professor of Circadian Neuroscience, Director of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi) and Head of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford. His latest book “Life Time” is a fantastic dive into everything circadian clock related and I absolutely loved it.
Today we talk about:
What Circadian rhythms are
Sleep pressure
Why we sleep and what happens when we sleep
The concept of circadian ‘entrainment’
How the visual system interacts with the brain
The suprachiasmatic nuclei (SNC) as the master clock
How to figure our your chronotype
Sleep, shift work and mental health
Chronotherapeutics
Professors Russels top 10 tips for ‘entraining’ your clock
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is sponsored by Holland and Barrett's The Wellness Edit Podcast. The fifth series of |
| 0:05.6 | The Wellness Edit is out now. The prior four series are obviously still available to stream, |
| 0:10.8 | and this season I am a guest on the podcast. You can hear me chat to host Dr. Gemma Newman |
| 0:17.1 | about the connection between our diet, our mind, the importance of gratitude, and what wellness |
| 0:23.2 | means to me. You can also go back and listen to a whole back catalogue of interviews with guests |
| 0:28.9 | including Ella Mills, Dr. Rungan Chatterjee and Emma Gunns. Listen to the podcast on the Holland |
| 0:34.8 | and Barrett website, HollandandBarrett.com for a slash podcast, or search The Wellness Edit to |
| 0:40.8 | listen wherever you get your podcasts. Dr's Kitchen. Recipes Health Lifestyle |
| 0:49.1 | And it's not rocket science. Basically, do you feel that during the day you're able to function |
| 0:55.2 | at an optimal level? Are you able to perform the tasks that you need to perform at a level that |
| 0:59.9 | you're happy with? That's the key area. But also I think you can get a suggestion about whether |
| 1:07.6 | you're sleeping sufficiently by asking, well, do I need an alarm clock to wake me up in the morning |
| 1:12.5 | or somebody else? Do I oversleep extensively on three days, like the weekend and particularly |
| 1:17.9 | when I go away on holiday? Does it take a long time to wake up? Do I feel groggy? Is there lots of |
| 1:22.9 | sleep in there? Do I feel irritable? Are tired and fatigued when I'm awake? Do I crave an act |
| 1:30.0 | during the day? Do I use caffeinated drinks to drive the wake state throughout the day? And do my |
| 1:36.2 | friends, families and colleagues say you're more irritable? You're showing loss of empathy and you're |
| 1:42.3 | doing stupid and unreflective things. Now, if it's no tool of that, you're probably getting the |
| 1:46.8 | sleep that you need. Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. To show about food, lifestyle, medicine |
| 1:56.2 | and how to improve your health today. I'm Dr. Rupi, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition |
| 2:04.9 | and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. |
| 2:08.9 | Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to |
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