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

0:01The Diro of the CEO has brought you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive .com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings were very not available in all states.

0:32I'm something 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 to you in that hour before bedtime because it also can just be very psychologically stimulating. But if 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 Daria Vaseo will help people relax?

1:05It might. It might help you at least think about your sleep a bit more and challenge you to do maybe one change tonight. We consider that to be a scientific endorsement of the podcast. Okay, so I've got sound down. You are a fan of the white noise machines. I 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 night time. And there's even some now that are adaptive. So if the door slams then the volume temporarily increases and then will decrease.

1:43So there's almost these smart white noise machines that are coming out on the market. So that's from a noise standpoint and ear plugs 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. I 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.

2:19I 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 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. What about when I shower or a 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.

2:58So 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. But 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.

3:38And 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 hear people say you can't eat like three or four hours before bed. However, I sometimes get home at 10pm and I get hungry as hell at 10pm. And then sometimes if I order food for example it might come at like 11.

4:17Which means I end up eating at 11 and then I really see it in my sleep schools. I think as well that I'm someone that tends to fall asleep later. Again this might just be me telling BS 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? Yes the preference is not to have a huge meal right before bed that's fried fatty, you know really heavy sitting in your stomach that hour right before bed time. So if you're able to time that be strategic then that's obviously the preference.

4:54But I'm okay with you having a pre -sleep snack. 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 on milk is an easy one. Serial? Yes. Serial 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 many people have access to or cottage cheese and fruit or 100 % holy crackers and peanut butter. And the reason why is because I don't want you waking up in the middle of night being hungry or even trying to fall asleep and you feel like you're hungry.

5:31But we want something that's slow digesting through the night because ideally you're going to be sleeping seven eight nine 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 that happens sometimes as well sometimes I'll eat dinner at about 5 pm. Yeah. And then I get to about 10 at 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?

6:05Some nuts. Okay yeah. Does that work? Yeah yeah nuts have protein in them. Yeah you can grab a good nut mix maybe you can partner that also with like some yogurt too. Roseberries. Raspberry's? Yeah fruit. Yeah and some yes a protein and carbon there and those are good good pre -sleep snack.

6:29If you're someone running a business today that means you're probably operating in a world that doesn't sit still. Tariffs and trade policies are dynamic customer expectations shift constantly and the pace of innovation is relentless. So your margin of error is becoming increasingly smaller making decisions without full visibility across your business is not only risky but it inevitably slows down everything and I see it all the time businesses with the right ideas but they're stuck because they're spread across five systems that don't talk to each other. Many of my companies now use our sponsor NetSuite by Oracle which has an AI powered business management suite that allows you to see your business more clearly.

7:06Everything from financials to HR to operations lives in one place so instead of chasing information you've got it all in front of you. It operates in real time so you can forecast with assurance spot problems before they even become problems and generally move faster without blind spots. If your business is generating seven figures or more there's a free ebook that's worth your time reading. It's called Navigating Global Trade 3 Insights for Leaders and you can download it now from NetSuite .com slash Bartlett that's NetSuite .com slash Bartlett I'll link it below.