Nuggets On
health and wellness
Rest, Sleep and recharge
Matt Dixon speaks at length about the criticality of rest and rejuvenation. He specifically speaks about some of the qualitative and quantitative considerations around having a restful night’s sleep to be effective in our functioning on a sustained basis in our various domains of life.
Sleep - The Swiss army knife of wellness
Matt speaks about the role of sleep in the wellness trinity – Diet, Exercise and Sleep. He goes onto say that not only is sleep one of the three legs of this trinity, it is possibly the foundation on which the other two rest. He specifically comments on the trade-off between a healthy night of sleep and early morning exercise (a trade-off that a lot of early morning runners end up making)
Morning Larks and Night Owls - a hard wiring
Matt speaks about why the “morning person” and the “night person” are not behavioural choices but often hard-wired into us. He says that there might be a wiggle room of around 30-45 mins to move the clock against our type but fundamentally it might be hard to change the wiring. He also traces this variation in sleep preferences to evolutionary phenomena on why this phenomenon might have benefited a tribe as a whole.
Sleep, Music and the Beatles
Matthew speaks about how some of the songs of The Beatles (such as Yesterday and Let it be) were conceived of in Paul McCartney’s dreams. He also speaks about the role of sleep in the context of building complex motor skills (learning an instrument, flying a plane, performing a surgery etc). He says that practice makes it perfect only when it is combined with the right doses of sleep.
Deleterious impact of Devices on sleep
Matthew speaks about the impact of blue light emitting devices (TV, Phone, Tablet, Computer etc) on sleep patterns. Apart from reducing the number of hours of sleep, he also says that it comes in the way of the restorative Non Rapid Eye Movement sleep and the impact sometimes can last several days. He also speaks about regulating the torrent of anxiety that hits us during the night or first thing in the morning.
Getting back to sleep when wide awake
Matthew shares his perspectives on the thing that a lot of us grapple with. The situation when we are trying to fall asleep but are not able to sleep. The more we try, the harder it gets. Then it gets into a vicious loop leading to significant frustration and anxiety. He also speaks about the brain being an associative device and suggests actions to ensure that the brain doesn’t associate lying in bed with staying awake.
Managing your energy
Darleen speaks about how we need to take care of physical, mental and spiritual energy in these times. Atul Bhandari and Sahiba Singh also share their perspectives around how some leaders can think about staying healthy and productive in these times.
Stress and Depression
Alisa speaks about some of the mental health challenges of Entrepreneurship. She says that stress is the child of a start up and depression is the child of stress. She says that Founders are depressed 30% more than their counterparts. She shares some suggestions on how Founders can combat this.
Criticality of recovery
Michiel speaks about the criticality of rest and recovery for a leader to be effective. He speaks about how the recovery period could actually spark some creativity and new possibilities.
