The Virtuous Cycle of Exercise & Sleep

Rob Bell:
Hello and welcome to Sketchplanations The Podcast.

This is not a typical episode.

We're on our summer break at the moment.

We've been away for a number of weeks, and we'll be away for a few more, but we'll be back with you in August with our continuous stream of conversations for the curious minded around the wonderful sketches all to be found at sketchplanations.com.

But we thought we'd check in and just make sure everyone's all right, see how people's summers are going.

And even though this is not a true episode, the sketch that I want to headline with in this little check-in session is the virtuous cycle of exercise and sleep.

It's something, Jono, you and I have talked about quite a bit over the years, isn't it?

Because of the number of endurance events and stuff that we've done.

You know, the harder you train, the better you sleep, the more prepared you are to train.

And it just goes on and on and on.

It's great.

Jono Hey:
It's a joy.

It's one of these super simple things that just can make a massive difference in your life.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
And it's relevant now, I feel, because, you know, resting well over the summer is a good, we're on our summer rest.

Hopefully sleeping well through the summer.

I don't know if that's true or not, but I'll hopefully feel more rested by having a bit of a break from editing the podcast.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, I think I think about it a bit a bit like sharpening the saw.

You take the break, you sharpen the saw.

It's like if you sleep better, you're going to be able to exercise better the next day.

If you take a break, we're going to be raring to go with all of the next series of the podcast episodes come August.

Rob Bell:
Tommy, where's this most relevant in your life?

Tom Pellereau:
Probably when I'm on holiday.

Because on holiday, I tend to do a lot more exercise, more walking, more playing in the beach, more paddle boarding, more tennis, more golf, any kind of sports.

And so I do tend to sleep really well on holidays because we're doing a lot of sports and activities and adventures.

I am worse at it often during work, especially when work gets really busy, although I tend to sleep better because of the work in some respects.

But I try to get a bit more exercise during the week.

I'm not quite as good as you guys.

But on holiday, I will definitely be sleeping well through this cycle.

Rob Bell:
See, I've got a young kid now.

And so the promise of sleeping well is just completely out of my hands.

It's completely out of my hands.

Tom Pellereau:
Give it 10 years and you'll be fine.

Jono Hey:
Lovely.

Rob Bell:
Thank you.

Jono Hey:
The win to the zero to one year old.

Rob Bell:
I don't want to always moan about it.

And let me put, I've had a really great start.

My little girl was a fantastic sleeper very early on for a good six, seven months, but it's changed recently.

And so now there's a fear of going to sleep.

It's almost guaranteed you're going to be woken up at some point.

Tom Pellereau:
It's very light at the moment.

Have you got good blackout blinds for the windows?

Rob Bell:
They're in the posts.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, they're vital.

Because it's getting light at four and dark at 11.30.

It's sort of impossible for kids to sleep.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, it's getting them down, isn't it?

But I mean, the light most affects my sleep because of the cat.

Because the cat decides, right, it's time for me to get up and start being active at 3am because it's starting to get light.

Oh, man.

So, yeah, sleep.

Jono Hey:
Well, they've spent all day sleeping, so, you know.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
This is why, this is why.

That's not why we're on a break from the podcast.

Everyone needs a summer break, right?

Jono Hey:
I just sort of picture in your cycle, like it's going around like this and then it sort of chugs and then starts going the opposite way and rolls sleeping worse, exercising worse, sleeping worse.

Yeah.

Rob Bell:
Yep.

Yep.

Jono Hey:
Yep.

That's you at the moment.

One of the reasons I chose to do this sketch and for reference, the observation of it, I first came across in a book by Novak Djokovic.

Rob Bell:
Oh, really?

Jono Hey:
Called Serve to Win.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
And he talks about everything that he did in order to be the champion that he is.

And he's incredibly diligent with his diet and training, and lots of interesting things all the way through.

And obviously, he's been at the pinnacle of his sport for so long.

And I think, typically, it's really easy, or I don't know, there's a part of your life where you start to, you don't give the sleep side of this cycle as much due as it deserves in your life.

And so you might be doing lots of stuff during the day and working hard, and you don't...

Because sleeping kind of feels like you're doing nothing.

And he was very clear about, actually, a key part of his training is the better he sleeps, the better he can exercise and train the next day, which is the better and the better he's going to sleep.

And if you start exercising a lot, but stay up all night and you're not getting proper sleep, you're just breaking this whole cycle.

And so I think for me, the realization here was the importance of sleep.

And I think a lot of actually since then, I've read a lot more about sleep, and I think it's come a bit higher in the consciousness of people, like the importance of sleep as we've actually learned more about it.

But for me, definitely, I think I've undervalued sleep probably for most of my life.

Rob Bell:
Because there's no substitute for it, is there?

Jono Hey:
I don't think.

Coffee?

Rob Bell:
But that will catch up with you, right?

Jono Hey:
Absolutely.

Rob Bell:
There's no alternative.

Jono Hey:
You can't conjure up more hours in a day.

And you can chew off a bit extra here, but you're going to end up adding it on at the other end at some point.

Yeah, no, there's no substitute.

You're going to have to catch up at some point to prioritise it.

Rob Bell:
Yeah, exactly.

What I find quite ironic about this is we're having this conversation quite late at night in the middle of the week.

And Tommy's on mute.

Oh, that's how tired he is.

Tom Pellereau:
My go to bed alarm goes off in 11 minutes.

Rob Bell:
So we've got 11 minutes.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah, so I've got to go to bed.

Jono Hey:
It's funny, like I wrote in the little write up for this sketch, actually.

From doing this, I put an alarm on every night to remind me to go to sleep.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Jono Hey:
As a trigger to go like, oh, don't just sit around, you know, doing bits.

You get your sleep and then you'll be fresh and raring to go in the morning.

And I think actually after this sketch, I think, you know, Apple did a lot of stuff with their phones, for example, which included a go to bed alarm, just as you say, Tom, giving it a bit more of its due importance in life.

Rob Bell:
And loads of smart devices as well now that we wear, that are constantly monitoring our vital signs and telling us how much sleep we need.

I don't forget for a run or a cycle or a swim or whatever with my smart watch or my sports watch, activity watch, sports watch, what do you call them?

Garmin, basically.

Watch.

There are other brands.

My watch, yeah.

It tells me how much rest I should have before I go again.

And normally, it's like, right, three days.

Well, that's not going to happen, is it?

Jono Hey:
Yeah, exactly.

Rob Bell:
But thanks for the suggestion.

Jono Hey:
Does yours tell you about how well you slept?

Because, you know, if you would do, yeah, if you wear it while you sleep, it tells, you know, your sleep was 86 or your sleep was 95 or your sleep was 17.

I remember looking at that.

I sort of mentioned it to my wife every now and then, go, oh, look at that, only had a 72.

And she's like, well, do you need your watch to tell you that?

You just know how you feel.

Absolutely got a point.

Yeah, I do.

I do not need my watch to tell me that I'm tired.

Rob Bell:
Well, I really hope that our listeners are enjoying their summers.

Do you know what?

It might not even be summers.

Jono Hey:
It's true.

Rob Bell:
It might be their mid-winter.

We do have listeners all around the world.

At my last count, I think, oh, maybe I'm being overly ambitious here, but I think we're notching a hundred different countries that the podcast has been listened in.

Jono Hey:
That's brilliant.

Tom Pellereau:
That's cool.

Rob Bell:
Which is great.

That is great, isn't it?

Jono Hey:
Can you name a hundred countries after I've finished?

Probably now is not the time.

Rob Bell:
Antigua, Australia.

Tom Pellereau:
A huge number start and end with an A.

That's what I do know.

Jono Hey:
I can't think of it anymore.

Austria, I think.

Rob Bell:
Angola.

Jono Hey:
Okay, we can't think of more.

Rob Bell:
What can you do?

Could you do the 50 states in alphabetical?

Tom Pellereau:
Jono could, sure.

Jono Hey:
No, not in alphabetical.

I think I could get there.

Rob Bell:
East-West.

Jono Hey:
Yeah, sort of.

I'd picture myself working my way across a map.

Probably get there.

Rob Bell:
I did that on the plane once with my dad.

Back to the holiday theme.

We did it and we named all 50.

That was great.

That was a nice little...

It'd probably be great for him passing a good half an hour, having me shut up with a pen in my hand and a piece of paper.

Jono Hey:
It's turning to your mum later.

I managed to keep him quiet by doing all 50 states.

Rob Bell:
Oh, that one.

Jono Hey:
Lost it half an hour.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes.

Rob Bell:
Nice one.

Tommy, you often do massive drives across Europe, don't you?

In the summer, on your holidays.

How do you keep your kids quiet in the back?

If that is a thing that you would like to do, I don't know.

Tom Pellereau:
Two methods.

One is iPad, which are amazing.

And dad, can I have Wi-Fi?

Dad can have Wi-Fi.

And that is just the most amazing thing.

And now we've started reading.

So they'll take it in turns reading, which is kind of cool.

Rob Bell:
What, reading out loud?

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

Rob Bell:
To the car?

Tom Pellereau:
In the car.

So we'll have a book and they'll kind of, and Sarah will have a go.

Whoever's not driving will also have a go.

And that works.

It doesn't obviously last that long.

But that's quite cool.

Jono Hey:
Just invented the audio book.

Yeah.

That's brilliant.

Rob Bell:
Pellereau family audio book experience.

Tom Pellereau:
Yeah.

And between the four of us, our reading is all pretty similar, actually.

The youngest is almost the best, you know.

Rob Bell:
Should you take guest slots on that?

I'd love to come along and do a chapter.

Tom Pellereau:
Yes, come and join in.

We're doing David William's Slime at the moment.

It's great.

Rob Bell:
All right.

Tom Pellereau:
Great.

Rob Bell:
Whose choice was that, yours?

Tom Pellereau:
Jack's.

Rob Bell:
All right.

Tom Pellereau:
I like that one.

Rob Bell:
I like that.

I love the idea.

That's great.

Jono, do you have similar?

I feel this could be useful to certain listeners.

Do you keep the kids entertained in the car?

Jono Hey:
Pictionary.

Rob Bell:
On long trips?

Jono Hey:
Yeah.

Audiobooks.

Get stuck into a long audiobook that everybody enjoys, which is not always easy to find something that everybody wants to listen to.

But usually, I think that's the best for us.

I mean, we drove to Denmark one summer and back, which is quite a long way, and we listened to, I think it's 23 hours and 59 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Right.

Yeah.

And that was great.

Tom Pellereau:
I really loved it.

You got home and the last hour, they were just driving around London, because they had to finish the book.

Rob Bell:
Yeah.

Because once the holiday is over, we cannot come back to this.

This is a holiday feature.

Yeah.

Well done.

Well, listen, I hope, listeners, you are all enjoying your, let's just call it July's, whether that's what I got hung up on last time, summers or winters.

Your July's and into August, we will be back with you, and normal service will be resumed in August.

But we hope that whatever you're up to, you're enjoying yourselves, and thank you again for listening.

Until then, go well, stay well.

Bye bye.

Jono Hey:
Bye bye.

See ya.

Rob Bell:
All music on this podcast series is provided by the very talented Franc Cinelli.

And you can find many more tracks at franccinelli.com.