Women reclaim your sleep. With Laura Kanadel

Laura Kanadel is a certified sleep counselor and the founder of the Sleep Institute in Copenhagen. She holds master's degrees in international business and politics and provides specialized sleep training for major international companies like Ikea.

Find more information at: thesleepinstitute.co 

010 Sleep

[Laura Kanadel] (0:00 - 0:29)

Also, especially for us as being females, it's also in our deep sleep that we regulate our hormones.

So, something that a lot of females are interested in is obviously whether or not we gain weight.

And to regulate our appetite and our blood sugar, we really need to get that deep sleep in.

We know from research that when we don't get enough sleep and when we don't get enough deep sleep, we increase our calorie consumption with about 30%.

[Nils Behrens] (0:29 - 1:45)

Welcome to HealthWise, the health and longevity podcast brought to you by Sunday Natural.

I'm Nils Behrens, and in this podcast, we explore what it truly means to be healthy.

Together, we will dive into topics such as medicine, exercise, nutrition, and emotional well-being – always with a wise perspective on what generally benefits us.

Differences between men and women manifest in various aspects of life, and sleep is so no exception.

Women's sleep patterns and needs are influenced by unique psychological and hormonal factors.

Understanding these differences is crucial for promoting better sleep health for everyone.

Laura Kanadel is a certified sleep counselor with master's degrees in international business and politics, specialized in training and development.

Laura is founder of the Sleep Institute in Copenhagen and has shared her expertise on sleep through numerous lectures, courses, and media appearances, including national TV and radio.

Her clients include major international companies like Ikea, Novozymes, and Matas.

And she also offers sleep consulting for private clients with various sleep problems.

And I say a warm welcome to Laura Kanadel.

[Laura Kanadel] (1:45 - 1:48)

Thank you so much, Nils. Thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure.

[Nils Behrens] (1:49 - 2:01)

Laura, it's my pleasure. It's our first English podcast, and my question is always the kind of same question I'm asking about Sundays.

And my question is, what does your typical Sunday look like?

[Laura Kanadel] (2:01 - 2:10)

So, speaking of the topic today, it's interesting because I do one thing on Sundays, which I don't do on any other day.

[Nils Behrens] (2:11 - 2:12)

Now I'm really excited.

[Laura Kanadel] (2:12 - 3:48)

Right. I basically do exactly the same thing every single day.

I never really change my routines too much, unless I have a party or an event that I go to.

Usually my weekdays and my weekends are usually very similar.

I always get up between 6 and 6.30 a.m. I make breakfast for my three kids.

I get them ready for their day.

I sit down with them. We talk about our day, what our plans are.

We usually do something fun as well.

And then we always plan our week ahead. So for us in our house, Sundays are for planning the week ahead.

And I think it's a good reminder for me particularly to think about if I dread, if I have that Sunday dread, meaning I'm really not excited about the following Monday.

I know I need to change something. So for me, Sundays are really for me to check in. Am I happy where I am in my life right now?

Do I dread the Mondays? Usually I'm happy and I'm excited. I'm really excited to get on with the week.

But if I have those Sunday dreads, that's usually a bad sign. So that's number one.

Number two, I have a very decadent thing that I do only on Sundays.

And that's my Sunday nap. So speaking of the topic today being sleep, it's interesting that you ask me about my routine on Sundays because only on Sundays do I do that nap because I don't have time to do it otherwise.

So for me, Sunday is like any other day except my Sunday nap.

[Nils Behrens] (3:49 - 3:50)

Oh, it's a Sunday nap day.

[Laura Kanadel] (3:50 - 3:51)

It's a Sunday nap day, yeah.

[Nils Behrens] (3:51 - 3:57)

I love it. I love it. So then let's go directly into it.

How come you're interested in the topic of sleep?

[Laura Kanadel] (3:58 - 4:04)

So sleep is an interesting topic because it's something that we all do, right?

[Nils Behrens] (4:05 - 4:06)

Definitely, we should.

[Laura Kanadel] (4:06 - 5:59)

We should and we are. We are biologically destined to sleep, all of us.

But for some reason, we're not very aware of this thing that we do for about a third part of our life.

And for me, the topic of sleep really became very relevant when my kid's dad started sleeping.

So during Corona, he started having trouble sleeping. We didn't know what to do.

It was terrible for him, really. We tried to get help. We went to doctors.

We tried to get information online. But there was really no solution for him.

The doctors just wanted to give him medicine.

But we knew that that was not really going to solve the problem, right?

So we started investigating sleep on our own and found ways of helping him, really.

And it became a bit of an obsession for me.

So like when some people become obsessed with training or exercise or marathons, sleep really became an obsession of mine because I realized that with very simple hacks, you can substantially not just change your sleep, but really change your life.

So sleep became interesting to me when we started having problems in our family.

And so that was the initial motivation.

That then led to me taking a degree. I became a certified sleep counselor.

And then I started the Sleep Institute, right?

And very briefly, I'm just going to tell you because the Sleep Institute, I'm very often asked, what does the Sleep Institute do?

It sounds strange. What is that even?

At the Sleep Institute, we do three things. Number one, we do one-on-one sleep counseling.

So if you have a sleep problem, you come to us and you get on one of our sleep programs based on your problem.

Number two, we do a lot of training and development for companies.

[Nils Behrens] (6:00 - 6:06)

Oh, interesting. But you're training the employees or the trainers in the company?

[Laura Kanadel] (6:07 - 7:25)

So we are really doing two things with companies. It is both an internal thing. So it's internally for staff.

It could be for shift workers, understanding how do you sleep?

How is your daily rhythm when you are a shift worker? It could also be two externally for customers.

So some companies, like for instance, Sundays, might have a particular interest in taking on the responsibility of sharing information on sleep.

Because sleep and sleep problems are very much linked to education.

If you're not educated, well aware of which mechanisms are improving your sleep, it's really a problem for you.

So bad sleep is basically lack of sleep education. So we help companies understand sleep.

And then three, I do a lot of what I'm doing now.

So that is being podcast, radio, TV, just to create awareness about sleep because we really need to re-educate ourselves.

Sleep is like food and exercise has been for the past 50 years.

We've had to re-educate ourselves, re-understand our understandings and beliefs regarding food and exercise and movement.

My projection is that's also going to be the way that we look at sleep for the next 10, 20 years, really.

[Nils Behrens] (7:26 - 7:53)

Yeah, I'm definitely from a different generation than you. In my generation, it was more sleep is something for a loser.

And so my mindset has changed, luckily.

But I would say in the younger generation, they are aware that sleep is important, but nevertheless, they have problems.

So, but maybe to convince the generation of myself, why is sleep so important?

[Laura Kanadel] (7:54 - 8:29)

You're completely right. For Gen Zers and millennials, when you ask them in large, in questionnaires, when you ask them about their health and what they're mostly concerned about, sleep is always in top three.

That does not apply for the generations before.

So, you're completely right. For the younger generations, sleep is something that they're increasingly aware of and increasingly interested in as well.

We know from simple Google searches that there's a 200% year-over-year search on sleep, for instance.

[Nils Behrens] (8:29 - 8:40)

And what I found even more exciting is that when you look at the categories, what is the most popular music on Spotify, you know what it is?

Sleep music.

[Laura Kanadel] (8:40 - 8:44)

It's no surprise to me, really. I found it so interesting. It's something that is…

[Nils Behrens] (8:44 - 8:52)

Imagine we get to know each other in a bar and I'm asking yourself, what kind of music do you like?

[Laura Kanadel] (8:52 - 10:07)

Show me your Spotify, and then it's sleep, right? Right, right, right.

But it is interesting, and that is because there's so many wonderful things about sleep.

Sleep is really our underutilized superpower. If we want to perform better at work or in sports, we need to sleep better.

We need to make sure we get our deep sleep.

If we want to be bright and crisp and really understand something intellectually challenging, we need to get enough REM sleep.

So as we sleep, we enter very briefly… I'm just going to go through this very briefly.

As we sleep, we enter different sleep stages. Each stage is about 90 minutes.

To simplify, in the beginning of our sleep, we get more deep sleep.

And in this deep sleep, we restore ourselves physically. So our growth hormones go up to make sure that any DNA damage occurring in our bodies, we restore that.

And we basically go in there with small little cells and rebuild ourselves.

So the deep sleep is very, very important to have that physical restoration.

[Nils Behrens] (10:07 - 10:17)

That's why our grandmas always said that the early sleep between noon is the most important one, because in this time, we have this maximum deep sleep.

[Laura Kanadel] (10:17 - 10:19)

Exactly right. It's so true.

[Nils Behrens] (10:20 - 10:21)

Grandma was always right.

[Laura Kanadel] (10:21 - 11:06)

Our grandmothers were always right. And I will say also, there are some sayings out there like, any sleep you get before 12 counts double.

It's not really true.

But there's some truth to the fact that we generally need to have that sleep before 12 o'clock.

Also, especially for us as being females, it's also in our deep sleep that we regulate our hormones.

So something that a lot of females are interested in is obviously whether or not we gain weight.

And to regulate our appetite and our blood sugar, we really need to get that deep sleep in. We know from research that when we don't get enough sleep and when we don't get enough deep sleep, we increase our calorie consumption with about 30 percent.

So a short...

[Nils Behrens] (11:06 - 11:07)

30 percent.

[Laura Kanadel] (11:07 - 11:07)

30 percent.

[Nils Behrens] (11:08 - 11:09)

30 percent more calories.

[Laura Kanadel] (11:09 - 11:29)

I just want to put it out there. Anybody who goes through our sleep programs magically start losing weight.

And why is that?

That is because when we start sleeping, our blood sugar gets regulated and we're able to regulate our appetite more.

So we simply consume less calories. So that deep stage is very important for that.

[Nils Behrens] (11:29 - 11:34)

So maybe we should claim this episode not only as a sleep podcast, it's also a kind of weight loss podcast.

[Laura Kanadel] (11:35 - 13:04)

I'm just saying that that is what we see. We do see that without even trying, our clients do start losing weight.

Right.

And then to simplify again, we also in the last part of the night, we have our REM sleep.

In the REM stage, we do a lot of things for our memory.

That's where we store information in our memory.

It's also where we regulate ourselves emotionally. So we don't know why we dream, which is very interesting.

We do this weird thing sleeping for a third part of our life and we dream also, which is this sort of very wild concept.

Right. We lay down, we close our eyes and we enter a different world.

So we don't know enough about why we actually dream, but we do have certain hypotheses.

And that is that maybe we dream because it's a part of our emotional regulation.

It's a way for us to understand the world when we're awake.

It's a way for us to interpret what's going on and it actually helps us to regulate our mood.

So if we have, if we feel like we're in a poor mood and we, we suffer a bit mentally, make sure you get that REM sleep in because it actually regulates our mood.

And as a last sort of important little quote in regards to female sleep, we know for females that females are twice as likely to suffer from anxiety, twice as likely to self-report depression.

So for especially females, REM sleep is incredibly important.

[Nils Behrens] (13:06 - 13:10)

So there's a deep sleep, there's a REM sleep and the light sleep.

[Laura Kanadel] (13:10 - 13:22)

And then you have the light sleeps in between and this is even more wild.

So we have these light stages. Some research suggests that there might be 12 different types of light stages.

[Nils Behrens] (13:23 - 13:23)

12.

[Laura Kanadel] (13:23 - 13:26)

12. So it's incredibly sophisticated.

[Nils Behrens] (13:27 - 13:31)

So going in the night to the toilet, is this also a kind of light sleep phase?

[Laura Kanadel] (13:31 - 14:24)

It's actually a really good question, right? So what do you define as a light sleep?

There's many, many, many different stages of light sleep.

Some light stages just basically bridge the different cycles. Some of them are between being awake and asleep.

There's so many, if you go into a granular level, you could almost see light sleep as us sort of going further and further and further and further down into deep, deep sleep.

And it's also, light sleep is also bridging cycles. So there's so many different types of light sleep, but we don't really know.

And we don0t really know what the function of these sort of lighter sleep stages are, except that it actually bridges the other stages.

So sleep is incredibly sophisticated, incredibly complicated, and we don't know enough about it yet simply, which is interesting, yeah.

[Nils Behrens] (14:24 - 14:46)

Before we start to talk about the difference between male and female sleep, I have one quote from you in our pre-discussion, and I really would like to speak about this.

You said that we are in one of the biggest health crisis of our time, the lack of good quality sleep.

So can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

[Laura Kanadel] (14:47 - 15:38)

Right. So sleep is a biological necessity, right? But it has been increasingly compromised in our modern society.

In our part of the world, about 50% of us self-report getting poorly or not enough sleep during the week.

And almost a third of us actually get six hours or less of sleep every single night.

So at the Sleep Institute, we define having a sleep problem like one of three things, or all three.

Number one, lack of good quality sleep, but also quantity. What that means is, do you get enough sleep?

For males, that is having at least seven hours of sleep every single night.

For women, that's having at least seven and a half hours.

[Nils Behrens] (15:38 - 15:39)

Oh, even more.

[Laura Kanadel] (15:39 - 16:37)

Yeah. So the interesting thing about this, and I think that is, if there's one take from today's podcast, I hope this is going to be it.

Women fundamentally need more sleep than men, right?

Women, we need 20 to 30 minutes more sleep than men, depending on where we are in our cycle, where we are in our life cycle, where we are, whether we're hitting menopause, whether we're pregnant.

Women go through so many bodily changes, and our sleep really needs to change based on where we're at.

And I find that we don't talk enough about this, and I really want this information to come out.

Women need more sleep. Fundamentally, as a ground principle, if you get up at seven o'clock in the morning, your wife or partner, if she's female, needs to get up at 7.30.

So my wife is always standing up much later than me, but she's also going to bed much later than me.

All right.

So her chronotype might be B, then.

[Nils Behrens] (16:37 - 16:39)

I don't know. Yeah, definitely differs.

[Laura Kanadel] (16:39 - 17:10)

So that's the number one problem. Lack of quantity, so enough hours spent.

The second way we can define having a sleep problem is our inability to actually fall asleep easily.

So if we lay in our beds, and we toss and turn and toss and turn, and we have a hard time falling asleep, our rule of thumb is, are you tossing and turning for more than 15 to 20 minutes?

That's a symptom of having a sleep problem, right? You should never spend more than 15 to 20 minutes falling asleep.

[Nils Behrens] (17:10 - 17:11)

20 minutes.

[Laura Kanadel] (17:12 - 17:20)

I would say 15 to 20 minutes. Never spend more than that.

If you do that, you need to address that as a sleep problem, because that's too long spent in bed, right?

[Nils Behrens] (17:20 - 17:30)

All right. So I normally take less than five minutes, and then— You are awesome.

Yeah, but my ring is always complaining, then it says that I'm maybe too exhausted.

This is why I'm— Right.

[Laura Kanadel] (17:30 - 18:12)

That's the sleep efficiency, right, right, right, right, right. That's a more granular level for people who are really interested in sleep and for people who track their sleep like you do.

Sometimes our tracking devices can remind us that we are actually falling asleep too quickly, which could be a symptom of us being over-exhausted.

That's one way of looking at it. I have certain different perspectives.

But the last part about how to define you having a sleep problem is if you have a hard time having sleep continuity, meaning if you get up at night, we all get up five to seven times at night.

That's very normal.

[Nils Behrens] (18:12 - 18:13)

Get up or wake up?

[Laura Kanadel] (18:13 - 18:32)

We wake up. So we wake up five to seven times during the night.

However, if you wake up and you start remembering that you get up or you're awake for several hours, that is also a sleep problem.

That's something you really need to address. So we all wake up at night.

If you don't remember, that's a good sign.

If you remember, that's a rule of thumb. That's a bad sign. So you need to address that.

[Nils Behrens] (18:34 - 19:07)

Yeah, it's quite interesting to define when you really remember.

So in my time when I was training for marathons, sometimes I was getting up early in the morning and I had everything prepared in the corridor.

And so I put on my clothes.

I was really totally asleep. And I really had the feeling after one kilometer, I was really just wake up.

But this is a different story.

So let's go into the difference between male and female sleep. So you said already women need more time.

So what are the other differences?

[Laura Kanadel] (19:08 - 19:49)

So as we now know and understand, sleep is a very important part of our overall health.

However, there are differences between men and women. And we don't talk enough about this.

I'm really excited that we do today. They're due to a combination of differences in our biology, right?

Our hormonal makeup, but also social factors.

So I'm going to see if we can try to address all three areas.

First, we need to recognize that women need more sleep. We just understood this.

Women need, and we say this again, 20 to 30 minutes more sleep than men every single night as a rule of thumb.

[Nils Behrens] (19:50 - 20:45)

Sorry to jump into this. When you look at the percentage of deep sleep, REM sleep, and light sleep, they're normally recommendations.

So I personally, from my experience, have the feeling that women have more light sleep.

Why am I saying that? Because it's pretty hard to wake someone up in the REM or deep sleep phases.

And I have obviously a feeling that just a single noise, I don't know, not an intense noise is enough to wake up my wife.

When I compare it, my parents are still making jokes about it. How do you say it?

A tree was falling on our ground and not even this wake me up.

So it's pretty hard to wake me up in general. So is it true that women have more light sleep?

And this is maybe also the reason why they need more sleep.

[Laura Kanadel] (20:46 - 22:19)

So this is a very interesting discussion. So as women, as we age, right, we hit perimenopause, menopause as well.

And when we hit this stage of life, in general, our hormonal makeup looks different.

And one of the things that is very different is that our cortisol levels go up.

And what that means for our sleep is that we generally have more cortisol, more stress hormone in our bodies, which means we wake up very easily.

So if you look at melatonin being the sleep hormone, which makes us fall asleep, cortisol is our stressor that makes us stay alert, stay awake, wakes us up.

It's very important to have both, right? But if you have too much cortisol, you are generally closer to the woken stage.

Typically, your cortisol increases in the late part of your sleep just before you wake up.

So typically somewhere between two and four, your cortisol level starts rising.

So for many women, they find that when they hit menopause, they often wake up between two and four and they have a hard time going back to sleep.

And that's primarily due to the fact that their cortisol levels are just simply higher.

So it's interesting for women, and we're going to talk about this a bit later.

It's very, very important for women, specifically as we hit menopause, to start implementing de-stressing rituals and practices in our lives simply because we simply have too much cortisol, right?

[Nils Behrens] (22:20 - 22:35)

So you would say that normally when you speak with sleep coaches, it's obviously the same that rituals are quite important.

And you would say that for women, it's even more important due to the fact to de-stress at the end of the day.

[Laura Kanadel] (22:35 - 23:48)

Completely right. So we have, and we're going to talk a bit more about that later, but we have two differences, I would say, in sleep problems.

Sleep problems related to men and sleep problems related to women.

Very often, but for most of our clients being female when they come and see us, it's usually due to problems related to stress.

That's, I would say, overall is the number one issue. For men, it's actually lack of movement.

So their lifestyle is typically so... Most of our clients are men above 40, and 70% of men above 40 are overweight, as an example.

Many of them are suffering from sleep apnea.

They generally have a poor lifestyle. So for men, it's typically very much lifestyle related, so very physical.

We often put them on a regime where they have to move, not just move more, but move a lot more.

Men are built to simply move and to exercise much more so than women. For women, it's completely different.

For women, it's a lot more about de-stressing, creating rituals for themselves, where they can balance themselves and their hormones, especially as we hit perimenopause and menopause, right?

[Nils Behrens] (23:48 - 23:50)

Okay. So I interrupted you.

[Laura Kanadel] (23:50 - 23:50)

Sorry.

[Nils Behrens] (23:51 - 23:54)

Sorry for that, but I'm so curious.

[Laura Kanadel] (23:54 - 24:59)

Yes, so interesting. So one issue that we need to look into when we look at female sleep is our hormonal fluctuations.

So women experience hormonal changes throughout their lives.

It's their menstrual cycle. It's their cycle of life, right? As you have perimenopause, pregnancy, breastfeeding.

There's so many different female body, let's say, stages or seasons.

And each season has its own set of hormonal makeup. And that has a huge impact on our sleep.

And vice versa, the hormones affect the sleep, but even more so sleep affect the hormones.

And I think that's something that we really need to understand here.

For instance, I give you PMS, premenstrual syndrome, being the seven to 10 days before women get their period.

Many women, and this is a great example, experience that they are tired.

Being tired is the number one symptoms of PMS. Okay. Right?

[Nils Behrens] (25:00 - 25:02)

I thought that something was much more painful, but okay.

[Laura Kanadel] (25:02 - 25:32)

So being tired. But the interesting thing here is, and there's a large study being done in the US where they looked at PMS symptoms and sleep.

And there's a correlation between women sleeping less or having trouble sleeping before they get their period, meaning during PMS.

So is PMS and being tired a sign of PMS?

Or is it a sign of lack of sleep? What we need to understand here is that women before their cycle need more sleep.

[Nils Behrens] (25:32 - 25:35)

So they need more sleep, but they don't get.

[Laura Kanadel] (25:36 - 25:54)

But they don't, because we don't fully understand this. So we don't fully understand the fundamental principle of women before their periods and during their periods that we need more sleep.

So are we tired because we're PMS and we have our period?

Or are we tired because we simply don't get enough sleep?

[Nils Behrens] (25:54 - 26:05)

Okay. When you normally be a woman and normally you need seven and a half hours of sleep, that means in the PMS phase you normally need maybe eight hours.

[Laura Kanadel] (26:06 - 26:54)

So this is something which is the complicated part about sleep.

And I guess also sleep research and specifically sleep related to women and their cycle.

When it comes to sleep specifically, it's very individual.

There are very clear recommendations for pregnant women. Pregnant women is maybe better because with PMS it's still completely under-researched.

But with pregnant women, I think it's maybe easier to understand.

For pregnant women, one of the symptoms of, let's say, symptoms of pregnancy is that many women feel incredibly tired.

Are they very tired because they're pregnant? Or are they very tired because they don't get enough sleep?

The recommendations for pregnant women is between eight to ten hours. Although most pregnant women don't get that.

They sleep the same amount as they did before they got pregnant.

Do you understand the difference?

[Nils Behrens] (26:54 - 26:55)

Totally.

[Laura Kanadel] (26:55 - 27:43)

Right. So we need to fundamentally understand one thing. And that is that female bodies change over a lifetime.

And over this lifetime, we enter different seasons. And during these different seasons, we have different needs of sleep.

And I will say this is a good rule of thumb.

You need to just generally sleep more as much as you can.

And as a minimum, half an hour more than your partner.

If you do that, you're at least halfway of solving the problem.

Especially when it comes to you feeling tired and lethargic, which is a sign that a symptom many women self-report when they're in their period during PMS, when they're pregnant, when they're breastfeeding, in menopause, and so forth.

So in general, females just need more sleep.

[Nils Behrens] (27:43 - 27:52)

Okay. So this is number one was the biological aspect. The number two is the hormone aspect.

And number three?

[Laura Kanadel] (27:52 - 29:25)

Is the societal aspect. And I think this is very interesting.

But it's interesting because the way that we've structured societies are in such a way that most women have professional careers.

Most women study at university to the same degree as men.

In fact, in some studies, now more women are going to university compared to men.

So there's a lot of societal changes right now.

But when it comes to household work and what we call the mental load, women still work far more in the home than men do.

So on average, women work 10 to 15 hours of unpaid work in the home, more so than men.

Simultaneously, women also self-report.

60% of women who suffer from stress, for instance, say that their stress comes from problems in the home.

Men are less than half of that. So women do work a lot more in homes.

They have a lot more mental load, which have an impact under sleep.

So when we look at studies on what stresses them, what they think about just before they fall asleep, mental load, stuff in the home is a huge part of that.

So a way for women to actually sleep a bit better and feel less stress is by men actually participating a bit more in the work at home.

So sorry, guys.

[Nils Behrens] (29:26 - 29:46)

Yeah, yeah. So I totally understand what you mean. So in my case, I can say I was always responsible for the kitchen.

I would say this is already a big relief. But in general, I don't see. So I'm not overweight.

I'm not moving enough. So I would say I'm not in your statistics.

[Laura Kanadel] (29:47 - 30:01)

You're not in my statistics. You're just good. And I will say one thing, which is always a fun fact.

And I always bring this up because it is fun.

But for every hour that a woman sleeps more, the likelihood of her having sex the following day goes up by 14%.

[Nils Behrens] (30:01 - 30:04)

So maybe this is a new theory.

[Laura Kanadel] (30:04 - 30:24)

Yes, I think that this is something that I think that we really need to talk about. Everything is interlinked.

But even sex drive for women.

When we sleep, we feel like having sex. And we will have sex when we sleep.

So I think let your wife, your sister, let them sleep.

It's good for everybody, basically.

[Nils Behrens] (30:25 - 31:01)

Happy wife, happy life. It is what it is. But it's really fascinating for me to understand how different it is.

And so I would really like to go a little bit more into that.

So that means when we speak about the problems we've seen here right now.

So someone is coming to your institute.

And then what are the solutions you are providing for them? So is it that you invited the couple?

Or what are you doing normally?

What are the normal steps when you have a consultation with some female clients?

[Laura Kanadel] (31:02 - 31:16)

So when they come at the Sleep Institute, they're put on a sleep program based on… I can tell you very briefly how the program works.

But then I've actually brought 10 microhabits.

[Nils Behrens] (31:16 - 31:17)

Oh, I love microhabits.

[Laura Kanadel] (31:17 - 31:20)

Microhabits, which are really easy to implement.

[Nils Behrens] (31:21 - 31:23)

Are they only for women? Or can I also learn something?

[Laura Kanadel] (31:23 - 32:49)

Also for men. But I have brought some habits, which I will give some examples for women.

But they're also very much…

They're also implementable for guys. But there are some specific things that are more important for men compared to women.

But I'll come back to that.

So very quickly, just what happens when they come to the Sleep Institute. They solve a questionnaire.

And based on that questionnaire, we define what their problem is.

Is it a falling asleep problem? Is it I get up at night problem?

Is it I don't sleep enough problem?

What is the problem exactly? And based on that, we create solutions.

So we completely do a 180 on their daily lives.

And for a month, they have to follow a relatively rigid program.

That goes for when they get up, when they go to sleep, when they eat, when they exercise, when they get daylight, how much they move, how little they move, when to get light, when to get darkness.

So it's fairly rigid.

And that is because we are fundamentally a biological clock. And sleep is very much input based.

So what we do during the day has significant importance for how well we sleep at night.

So really, it's a lifestyle change. And that's the very inconvenient truth here.

Unfortunately, it's much easier to take sleep medication.

But it's so tough. We can actually improve our sleep just by changing our lifestyle.

It's just very hard to do, right?

Because you have to change almost everything, especially if you have an unhealthy lifestyle.

[Nils Behrens] (32:50 - 32:51)

Yeah, I could imagine.

[Laura Kanadel] (32:51 - 32:55)

Yes. Well, you're a good example. You're not a part of the group.

[Nils Behrens] (32:55 - 33:57)

No, no, but what I would say in general, so for example, so I would say, especially when you are in an industry like I am, you have to go out all evening.

And then, especially when you look at having late dinner, having maybe also alcohol.

So I'm really trying as good as possible to avoid it now, but especially during the week.

But nevertheless, there are occasions where you have to drink something, where you have to go not at your regular time into bed and things like that.

And everybody has a situation like this. Some people have it more often, some people less often.

But especially when I'm then going to bed after midnight, I'm normally not having my alarm clock at the same time to go to the gym early in the morning.

But nevertheless, it is when you start to skipping the gym, then you are starting to skip the exercise.

And so I couldn't totally understand.

So I'm really excited now to hear the 10 habits.

[Laura Kanadel] (33:58 - 35:28)

Yes. So first, before I start with the 10 micro habits, I just want to mention that obviously, this is very rigid and may come across as very rigid system.

However, it's something that I really encourage everybody to follow if they have a sleep problem.

If there is no problem, if you are very good at balancing things out, if you sometimes go out, but you can very quickly get back to your regular schedule, there is no problem.

Right. But if you start sleeping poorly and that interferes with your life, your lifestyle choices, your exercise, food, the amount of sleep you get, and it is something that goes on for a long period of time, I strongly suggest to implement some of these habits because it can get you back on track.

So it's a little bit like I often say it's a little bit like gaining weight.

If I weigh five kilos too much, I need to for a period of time to get back on track.

I need to consume less calories and exercise more.

I cannot have an ice cream once in a while when I'm back on track and I kind of feel like, okay, I'm where I'm at.

I am where I should be. I can start having an ice cream once in a while, having some dessert.

So it's the 80-20 rule, right? 80% of the time, let's try to follow some sort of routine, some sort of plan.

20% of the time, let's live a little.

If you're in a period of your life where things are sort of a bit hectic and stressful, then maybe it's a good idea to implement some of these habits.

[Nils Behrens] (35:29 - 35:30)

Okay, I'm ready.

[Laura Kanadel] (35:30 - 35:42)

Let's start. So the first one is what you basically mentioned is to set a regular sleep schedule, which includes seven or seven and a half hours to about nine hours of sleep every single day.

[Nils Behrens] (35:42 - 35:55)

The interesting thing about that is I think one of the biggest mistakes I have experienced is that the people saying, okay, I'm going to bed at 10 and I stand up at 6 a.m., so eight hours sleep.

[Laura Kanadel] (35:55 - 36:07)

Hmm, yeah, well, and that's complicated because sleep efficiency is something that we don't talk enough about, and that is time spent in bed does not necessarily mean actual sleep.

[Nils Behrens] (36:07 - 36:07)

Exactly.

[Laura Kanadel] (36:08 - 38:00)

Right? And it's a very fine balance with everything when it comes to sleep. It is very individual.

You need to experiment with your own body and yourself to figure out what is my optimal time in bed compared to my optimal sleep efficiency.

Meaning if you spend too much time in bed, your efficiency goes down. You might get poor quality sleep.

You might actually just sit there and you start getting rituals of just laying in bed and tossing and turning and not actually sleeping.

On the other hand, if you spend too short time in bed and you don't spend enough time there, you don't get enough quantity.

So like with everything, it's really balanced and you need to sort of trial and error and make sure that you figure out where your body's at.

So it is an individual trial. Unfortunately, it's very hard to say something sort of as a standard, but a good rule of thumb is try to go to bed and get up at exactly the same time every single day.

That also goes for the weekends.

The reason why this is important is because there's a term called social jet lag, which means you get up, go to bed at different times all the time.

Your body understands that as an irregular daily rhythm. And that really did increase our heart rate.

It makes us more stressed. There's even trials and research based on shift workers, specifically female shift workers.

And female shift workers have a 30% increased risk of breast cancer by going to bed and getting up at different times.

So it's really, really bad for our health to live in this constant social jet lag.

Especially if it can be prevented. If you have a work that requires you to do so, like a nurse or a doctor, that's a different thing.

But if it's just because you're a bit lazy and you don't just watch a bit of Netflix, it's not very good for your health.

So that's number one.

[Nils Behrens] (38:01 - 38:16)

Number one. So I have on my iPhone a certain time when it goes from the regular mode to the sleep mode.

So it's always in the week.

It's always at the same time. On the weekend, not.

But now I have to change it also on the weekend, same time.

[Laura Kanadel] (38:16 - 38:40)

It is the same time, man. And it's very hard.

But I will say, again, going back to the 80-20, if you feel like you are well balanced, you don't feel tired, you get enough sleep, there's not really a problem to address here.

It's only when you find that you're exhausted, you're tired, you don't get enough sleep, not good quality, then you maybe need to do some micro changes in your life to improve what you can improve.

[Nils Behrens] (38:40 - 38:40)

OK.

[Laura Kanadel] (38:40 - 38:42)

OK, number one.

[Nils Behrens] (38:42 - 38:42)

Number one, check.

[Laura Kanadel] (38:42 - 39:24)

Number two, and this is might be a bit controversial, but I strongly recommend melatonin.

So melatonin is a miracle hormone and we simply don't talk enough about melatonin.

And I encourage all our clients to take it.

We produce it ourselves and it is released in our bodies in darkness.

Unfortunately, as many things in modern societies, we don't get enough darkness.

So our bodies don't release enough melatonin for us to be able to get the good quality rest that we need to do.

So melatonin is number two. I really encourage everybody to take it.

[Nils Behrens] (39:25 - 39:25)

How much?

[Laura Kanadel] (39:26 - 39:32)

So I take a bit. I recommend at least 0.5 to 1 milligrams.

[Nils Behrens] (39:33 - 39:54)

I think 1 milligram is a maximum which is officially allowed to take in Germany.

So officially, so that means it's what does it mean?

It mean when you have, for example, a capsule and it says this capsule contains one milligram.

So the police won't come in the moment when you take two or three capsules, correct?

[Laura Kanadel] (39:55 - 40:17)

Right. That's exactly right. I take a bit more, but obviously I follow the official recommendations and I will not recommend officially for anybody to take more than one milligrams.

But I do take a bit more myself. Three, order your 24 other...

[Nils Behrens] (40:18 - 40:30)

Maybe just to interrupt because I know what kind of question is coming now.

To the melatonin, is there something which is important to know about melatonin or can I buy any melatonin which is available?

[Laura Kanadel] (40:30 - 41:28)

That's really a very good question. I prefer the sprays.

So I like melatonin sprays because it's easier for me to dose the amount that I think is necessary.

And also the absorption is quicker because you basically spray it in. It doesn't have to go through silicone, doesn't have to go through complicated capsules.

You just spray it in and it absorbs a lot quicker.

That's just because I'm the type of person who if I have to do it one hour before, it's just my own personal ritual, I might forget.

So for me, I like to do it just before bed.

Usually when you take capsules, the recommendation is 40 to 60 minutes before going to bed.

I do it almost just before I go to bed, so that's why I prefer the spray.

So it's really depending on how your evening ritual is.

If you're very structured, then by all means, please take the capsules.

Just make sure you take them 40 to 60 minutes before going to bed.

[Nils Behrens] (41:28 - 41:52)

The interesting thing about the capsule, I think it's not available on sprays, but maybe I'm wrong, is that the slow release melatonin is only available in capsules.

So slow release means the spray is, like you said, immediately in your body.

The capsule slow release could mean that the melatonin level is in a more constant way in your body.

[Laura Kanadel] (41:53 - 42:03)

Right. That's exactly right. You are right.

I look forward to the sprays being able to do that.

Having the slow release and the fast release in one spray, but you are actually right. Ideally...

[Nils Behrens] (42:03 - 42:04)

Maybe you should combine it.

[Laura Kanadel] (42:05 - 42:17)

Maybe, maybe, maybe. That's actually not a bad idea. So the slow release and the quick release in one capsule is really preferred.

I like the quick ones, but that's sort of a personal preference.

[Nils Behrens] (42:18 - 42:19)

All right. Number three.

[Laura Kanadel] (42:19 - 43:15)

So number three is a little bit in regards to melatonin as well.

To make sure that we get enough melatonin in our bodies naturally, we need to get enough daylight and enough darkness.

So that is to honor this 24-hour daily cycle of light and darkness.

And here it means make sure to get enough daylight in the morning and make sure to get enough darkness in the evening.

You told me something very interesting about your home at home. That is that you have red lights.

Is that correctly understood? Yeah, yeah. And I think that's a very resourceful thing to do to actually know, okay, I get too much light in my house.

Red lights are a really good choice because obviously you don't want to be sitting in darkness completely at home looking into the wall.

So having red lights is a really good way of going about that.

[Nils Behrens] (43:16 - 43:33)

And I think what is also important to say when you say start your day with daylight.

So especially in Copenhagen, it's even worse than in Berlin, that when you're in the wintertime and you stand up six o'clock in the morning, there's for sure no sunlight.

So that means…

[Laura Kanadel] (43:34 - 43:40)

Yeah, I use light lamps actually. So light lamps are a great tool.

[Nils Behrens] (43:40 - 43:49)

So light lamps doesn't mean, okay, the lights in my bathroom are pretty bright. So they're not bright enough.

We need really daylight.

[Laura Kanadel] (43:49 - 43:56)

Specific, you can Google this and you can buy them on Amazon.

I have no relationship with any of these companies.

[Nils Behrens] (43:56 - 43:57)

And they're quite affordable.

[Laura Kanadel] (43:57 - 43:58)

They're quite affordable. They're very cheap.

[Nils Behrens] (43:59 - 44:00)

50 euros, something like that.

[Laura Kanadel] (44:00 - 44:49)

Even less, yeah. And they make a huge difference. What's important here, and this is a funny story.

So we've had not just one, but many clients come back to us and say, Laura, I sit there and I'm looking in this light and it's so painful.

And I realized that for many people, they think having these light lamps stand around means that they have to look straight into the white light.

Basically, having a light lamp is have them in different locations in your home.

Have them when you're standing there making breakfast. Just the fact that you get that into your eye, you don't have to look into it even.

You just have to have them around you in your space within the first hour that you wake up.

So you don't have to look into it. Just have them around while you're eating breakfast, cooking breakfast, making lunches for your kids, brushing your teeth.

I have them everywhere in the house.

[Nils Behrens] (44:50 - 44:52)

Good, good idea. Next one.

[Laura Kanadel] (44:52 - 45:52)

For exercise. As we all know, exercise is very important, of course.

But what we need to talk more about is when we exercise.

Exercise, we cannot be exercising in the evening just before bedtime.

What happens when you exercise is obviously the adrenaline goes up, the cortisol goes up and also our body temperature goes up.

So there's this thing, this famous afterburn that we sort of talk about on a conceptual level.

But what that really means is that our body temperatures have increased and we need to lower it.

So for us to actually be able to fall asleep, our body temperature needs to go down a bit.

Otherwise, we can't fall asleep.

So if we've done really strenuous, hard exercise just before bedtime, our bodies have a hard time going to sleep simply.

Adrenaline is pumping. We have a hot body.

That's the opposite of what we want. So I really recommend to get your exercise in hard, strenuous exercise before 12 o'clock.

[Nils Behrens] (45:52 - 45:53)

Before 12 o'clock.

[Laura Kanadel] (45:53 - 45:54)

Before 12 o'clock.

[Nils Behrens] (45:54 - 46:05)

Ah, that's pretty hard. So I'm doing sometimes exercise in the lunch break instead of having lunch.

But then I'm finished around, let's say, two.

[Laura Kanadel] (46:05 - 46:27)

Yeah, two is fine. The reason why I'm saying 12 o'clock is because we don't know what our halftime for this afterburn actually is.

It's very individual.

Like with caffeine, alcohol, we don't know how quickly our body's lower temperature.

So it could be anything from two hours to eight hours. We really don't know.

[Nils Behrens] (46:28 - 47:11)

So if you're somebody who has a high afterburn and goes on for many, many hours, it might actually affect your sleep even when you go to bed at 10 p.m.

So I explained already in the German podcast that I made the experience that I went to have yoga every Monday evening, late at the evening.

So that means at 8 p.m. And for me, it was so nice and relaxing, especially this situation afterwards and everything.

And then I've tracked my sleep and I've seen that every Monday night I had really poor sleep.

So that means even something like yoga, not intense yoga, but just the exercise itself was enough to harm my sleep.

[Laura Kanadel] (47:11 - 48:20)

Right. So if you get your heart rate up, that's a bad sign.

So I would say anything more strenuous than taking a walk, even a brisk walk is a bad idea.

For me also, I can see it on my Oura Ring straight away.

The second I do intense workout, for me also even yoga, it affects my sleep right away.

And it is because of this increased body temperature, the adrenaline is pumping.

You mustn't forget. And that's something that we, I think, fundamentally have forgotten just a little bit.

We are biological creatures, right?

So back in the days, we would go out, we would hunt, we would need this adrenaline discourse to go out and find food.

We would do that when we would wake up. The testosterone was pumping.

We would come home, we would eat, we would digest, rest, go to sleep. That would be our cycle, right?

And we would follow the light of the sun and the darkness when the sun would go down.

Now we have the privilege, let's say, of being able to do what we want at all times because we have light, we have all these services available to us.

So it's, we have to kind of think back on how we are originally sort of built.

That's how we should be acting.

[Nils Behrens] (48:21 - 48:21)

Okay, number five?

[Laura Kanadel] (48:21 - 49:50)

Yes, our sleep environment. This is something that people think is a very sort of generic statement, but it is a hugely powerful tool.

So sleep environment matters.

What that means is in your bed, you're allowed to do two things.

You're allowed to sleep and have sex, nothing else. That means no phones, no screens.

That means no food. We have clients who eat in their bed. No entertainment because we are...

I would even say not to read. Okay. I recommend people to ideally not read in bed.

You can do, as a rule of thumb, two things, sleep and have sex, nothing else. Okay.

Ideally, your sleep environment should be dark to have this optimal release of melatonin.

Two, it needs to be cool, about 18 degrees, and it needs to be somewhat quiet.

So make sure there's not sharp sounds coming in because it might wake you up.

And when I talk about this, I say, look at the rituals that we are habitual ritual people and creatures.

Imagine trying to fall asleep on your dining table. They'll be incredibly awkward to you. It almost seems impossible, right?

The same goes for our beds. Our beds should be a place of resting, relaxing, maybe having sex.

That's basically what we should be doing there, not doing all kinds of different things.

So sleep environment really matters. It's a hugely powerful tool. Okay.

Six, caffeine. Caffeine.

[Nils Behrens] (49:51 - 49:52)

Caffeine. Okay. Let's have some caffeine.

[Laura Kanadel] (49:52 - 50:13)

Caffeine. We have a few more things to go, so I'll try to hurry up a bit.

In terms of caffeine, caffeine's halftime is very individual, a little bit like the afterburn.

You either burn half it in two hours or 12 hours. I have a very, very slow caffeine burn.

So for me, if I drink coffee after 2 p.m., it really affects my sleep.

[Nils Behrens] (50:13 - 50:15)

2 p.m. is my deadline.

[Laura Kanadel] (50:15 - 50:51)

We're very similar there. What I usually say to clients is try to experiment with this on your body.

Try having your last cup of coffee at 9.

Try having your last cup of coffee at 12, and try having it at 3 p.m., and see what happens.

Because caffeine halftime is very individual, especially, and I will say this for women, as you hit menopause, cortisol goes up.

And what caffeine basically is, is it's a cortisol spike.

It gives you that body's extra punch. So if you are a woman going into menopause, you really need to look into your caffeine, because caffeine increases cortisol, okay?

[Nils Behrens] (50:51 - 51:19)

Quite important. And I really want to say, especially all the people which are having espresso after the dinner, for me, it is really totally ridiculous.

And the argumentation is always that they're saying, I have no problems with that.

But define problems. Falling asleep, or that you're sleeping all the way through, or having a good sleep quality.

I'm pretty sure that most of them are not tracking their sleep.

And if they would track, they would see that it is not a good idea.

[Laura Kanadel] (51:19 - 51:57)

Which brings me to seven, which is alcohol. If we knew how bad alcohol was for our sleep, we would stop drinking, simply.

We know from science that it reduces sleep quality with up to 40%.

Let's say that again. Alcohol reduces sleep quality with up to 40%.

For me, when I track my sleep, it goes down 20 basis points.

So it is really impacting, especially for women. Again, women and men are different.

For women specifically, alcohol is extra bad, especially as we hit perimenopause and menopause.

We might actually think it's good for us, because it helps us with sleep.

[Nils Behrens] (51:57 - 51:58)

To fall asleep, yeah.

[Laura Kanadel] (51:58 - 52:04)

Exactly. With sleep onset, meaning we fall asleep. But if we measured and tracked our sleep, we could see how bad it was for our quality.

[Nils Behrens] (52:04 - 52:10)

I make an experience by myself. So everyone started to drink during corona. I stopped, so totally.

[Laura Kanadel] (52:10 - 52:11)

Oh, that's awesome.

[Nils Behrens] (52:12 - 52:38)

So that means I haven't had any alcohol for two months.

Then it was the birthday of my wife, and we had a glass of champagne.

I think it was maybe two glasses, but not more.

And then, due to the fact that the Oura Ring is looking what is your regular condition, it really, like you said, my readiness, my day condition drops by 50% just because of these two glasses of champagne.

[Laura Kanadel] (52:38 - 52:58)

Yeah, and I think this is incredibly confrontational. So we really need to know this. Alcohol is not good.

It does not help you fall asleep. It makes you pass out, but it actually reduces your quality.

So alcohol is really counterproductive.

I would say anything between, let's say four to six hours before going to bed, you should not be having alcohol.

[Nils Behrens] (52:58 - 53:00)

Day drinking. Let's go back to day drinking.

[Laura Kanadel] (53:00 - 54:15)

I've been quoted for that, saying let's start day drinking.

And then eight, this goes back to the whole discussion of women and cortisol. Stop, always be working.

What that means is women are working professionally, and we also work at home, which is fine in principle.

If you don't have a problem with that, there is no problem.

However, we mustn't forget that as we age, for women, our cortisol levels, they do go up.

So we need to be incredibly mindful of our cortisol because cortisol is counterproductive for our sleep.

It really destroys our sleep. So women need to start implementing alternative rituals before bedtime to help them with their always be working mindset.

The most powerful tool, which is backed by science, which seems incredibly generic and silly, is journaling.

So journaling is incredibly powerful because it makes our thoughts, it helps us to take our thoughts and put them down on a piece of paper.

And this very simple act of thoughts on a piece of paper really helps us with de-stressing.

So all these things that we're thinking about just before going to bed, just by the act of writing them down is tremendously helpful.

[Nils Behrens] (54:15 - 54:19)

So regular journaling, not gratitude journaling or something like that, really?

[Laura Kanadel] (54:20 - 55:08)

It is whatever stresses you. So if you're the type of person who lays down things, mental load.

Oh, I need to remember cake for birthday on Saturday.

Oh, I need to remember my husband. He has this event on Thursday.

Oh, I need to remember to write that email.

If your thoughts are more like a to-do list, your journaling should be a to-do list. Write down Saturday.

It gives you peace and quiet just by actually writing things down.

Are you a type of person who are more like the word thinker?

My mother, I had this bad conversation with her. I feel like we're not in a good place.

I'm really sad about it. It's a different type of journaling. It's more like what is my emotional being?

Where am I at right now? That's a different type of journaling.

What your thoughts are like before going to bed, that is the type of journaling you should be doing.

[Nils Behrens] (55:08 - 55:12)

No, I love it. I love it. I'm always doing it when I'm on exciting journeys.

[Laura Kanadel] (55:12 - 55:12)

Right.

[Nils Behrens] (55:13 - 55:37)

So that's really cool. It's really cool. And so, for example, when we climbed Kilimanjaro, I had a journaling.

And then 10 years later, I made a recording of the journaling and I sent every day my journal notes to my friends which were with me.

So it was, for me and for them, a little, yeah, second journey.

[Laura Kanadel] (55:38 - 58:09)

I really like that. I really like that. That's a really interesting way of re-experiencing.

So your journaling was more like a re-experience, a memory or like a memoir. And I simply love that.

Nine, a little micro habit, you track.

You do it yourself. I do it. I strongly encourage everybody, especially if you have a sleep problem or even if you just want to improve your sleep to start tracking your sleep.

The reason for that is when you get the data black and white, it is so confrontational.

I don't care how you do it, whether it is analog.

You write it down on a piece of paper or whether it's an Oura Ring or an Apple Watch.

Just start tracking. You are what you measure. And you cannot change something if you cannot see the patterns in your inputs.

So how your lifestyle is during the day. When you start seeing that that glass of red wine that you thought was your sleeping pill, when you see that it's actually destroying your sleep, you will start changing.

It's very hard to change things if you don't actually know what's going on.

So start tracking your sleep. It is such a powerful tool. And I'm happy that you do.

Right. And then 10. And that goes back to the whole talk about sleep and female sleep.

And I call this habit reclaiming your sleep as a woman.

We really need to be much more self-aware of the fact that for us as females, and we need to be empowered here by ourselves, we need to know that our sleep is different.

So we need to know where we're at in our life cycle, where we're at in our life season, where we're at in our period.

And we need to understand what that means for our sleep.

And vice versa, how that sleep impacts the different life cycles that we're in. So reclaiming our sleep as females is something that we really need to start doing.

I mean, one might say Scandinavian, progressive woman. And even in your workplace, start talking to your colleagues about, listen, I've slept really poorly, or I'm hitting menopause, I need more sleep.

When we start opening up about these conversations, the world will change and the world's view on these things will change.

So it is our job as women, stage one, to reclaiming this and start educating our environments, our families, our colleagues, our workplaces, our societies at large.

[Nils Behrens] (58:10 - 58:21)

I love it, I love it. And this is maybe one of the reasons, I think one trend, again, coming from the US, from America, it sounds a little bit sad, but it's called sleep divorce.

So that...

[Laura Kanadel] (58:21 - 58:23)

Yes, so true. Oh, God, yes.

[Nils Behrens] (58:23 - 58:41)

That means that the people are speaking about their separate bedrooms.

And I think if it is like you said, if there's no other way to reclaim your sleep, then do it.

Yeah.

[Laura Kanadel] (58:41 - 59:02)

I mean, I did not sleep with my husband for years. We did not sleep in the same bedroom.

For me, at least, and for him as well, sleep was number one.

It's very hard to make sound, healthy choices in your everyday life if you don't sleep.

That goes for your mood, that goes for your productivity, your performance, your health.

Sleep is number one and should be.

[Nils Behrens] (59:04 - 59:08)

I think we have to come to an end. We are already much longer than I thought.

[Laura Kanadel] (59:08 - 59:09)

I'm so sorry about that.

[Nils Behrens] (59:09 - 59:25)

No, no, no. It was really exciting and I've learned a lot and I really love your 10 habits.

Nevertheless, when you have now as a final opportunity to give last advice to your listeners, to our listeners, to your customers, what would it be?

[Laura Kanadel] (59:26 - 1:00:18)

Consistency. Like with anything being food, exercise, movement, consistency is key.

Meaning find a routine that suits you and your lifestyle, which improves your sleep.

So whatever works for you, which helps you to sleep better, that's the way to go.

So don't try to aim for things that will never happen because they're just simply too hard for you to reach.

I told you about this yesterday.

I have a client who really struggles in his sleep program and we put the goal too high for him.

So we're going to lower our ambitions a little bit.

I wouldn't even say lower the ambitions, but just individualize it just a little bit more and look at what is he actually able to do.

Which will make him consistent in his sleep habits. So consistency is key.

Whatever works for you to improve your sleep, do it.

[Nils Behrens] (1:00:19 - 1:00:35)

Excellent. I love it. So if you want to learn a little bit more about Laura, about your work, they can visit your website.

The address of the website is? sleepinstitute.co So that means it is not in Danish or is it?

[Laura Kanadel] (1:00:35 - 1:00:46)

It's in English and for everybody, you can go on there. Everything's in English.

I'm happy to talk or find me on LinkedIn, Laura Kanadel.

I'm always happy to have a conversation, especially about sleep.

[Nils Behrens] (1:00:47 - 1:00:48)

We will put it in the show notes.

[Laura Kanadel] (1:00:48 - 1:00:48)

Awesome.

[Nils Behrens] (1:00:49 - 1:00:54)

Thank you very much. It was amazing and yeah, hope to see you again.

[Laura Kanadel] (1:00:55 - 1:00:56)

Hope to see you soon. Bye Nils.

[Nils Behrens] (1:00:56 - 1:01:02)

Bye bye. Do we have a favorite supplement?

[Laura Kanadel] (1:01:03 - 1:01:15)

My favorite supplement speaking of today is melatonin. I cannot say this enough.

I strongly encourage everybody to start taking melatonin.

[Nils Behrens] (1:01:15 - 1:01:41)

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