Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse: The Science of Sleep for Musicians

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: [00:00:00] They see 10 to 13% performance improvements the next day just by sleeping. There's no additional practice, you know, no, no special thing that they did. It's just simply they, they slept.

Noa KAGEYAMA: Welcome to the Bulletproof Musician podcast, where you'll learn how to practice more effectively and perform better under pressure with insights from expert musicians and the latest research in performance psychology.

I think we all intellectually understand that sleep is important, but I think our knowledge of this is often in a more abstract general sense, and we may not truly appreciate how much of our moment to moment or day-to-day experiences are being affected by sleep or the lack thereof. There are, of course, a lot of books and podcasts and resources out there that are devoted to the topic of sleep, but your specialized focus in performance is the one that I'd be really curious to explore today.

And there are two things, maybe this would help to frame our conversation, but there are two things [00:01:00] that I think most often people ask me about and can be most frustrating for a musician, and that's number one is where practice doesn't stick. It's like we put in the time, often many, many hours, and things just don't seem to stick the way that we expect them to, or we don't tend to progress as quickly as we would like to.

And the other is this gap between practice and performance. You know, with the Olympics going on now, we see instances where athletes perform at their best or maybe even better than they have before. They set personal bests, personal records, Olympic records, world records, and so forth. And then there, on the other side of things, are people who are frustrated because they've worked really hard for this for four years, their entire lives, and inexplicably don't perform at the level that they're capable of.

And that's something that I think we can all appreciate in musicians as well. And so that, that falling short of our true abilities on stage is the other element that tends to come up a lot. And so there are obviously a lot of factors that play into this, [00:02:00] but I'd love to explore the role that sleep might play in each of these two key areas.

And I'm not, not sure where exactly to start, but wherever you'd like to, to start is totally fine.

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. So, you know, I think it is important to kinda start from the basics. And I think it's actually important to understand the foundation why sleep is so important. I think once people understand that sleep, what sleep is actually doing, everything else kinda clicks into, to s- to, to place.

So first thing first is, you know, how many hours sleep we need. The General rule of thumb is 7:00 to 9:00, and that's according to the National Sleep Foundation and the CDC. And I, I wanna be clear, it's not the time in bed scrolling your phone. It's actual sleep. And actually, young adult and teenager do need a little bit more, probably closer to 9 and, and 10, in order to have the, the best [00:03:00] quality, quantity of sleep.

A lot of people ask me this question, you know. They say, "Ooh, I, you know, with-- I feel fine on just five hours. Why do I need to try to sleep longer?" Well, first of all, true short sleeper is actually incredibly rare. We're talking about 1 to 3% of the population, and these are the group of people who genuinely thrive on just five, six hours, and it's genetic, a-and they have absolutely no consequences of just having that five hours sleep every day.

They're very lucky. And, um, so you know, if you think that you're one of them, statistically, you're probably not. And also, I wanted to point out that, uh, feeling fine and functioning at your ceiling is very different. And we adapt to sleep deprivation, and we kinda stop noticing how impaired we actually are.

So once you actually get more sleep, extend your sleep, then you're like, [00:04:00] "Oh my goodness, I, I, I can actually function at, at this level when I have that much sleep." So, so that's kind of basic number one. The, the second foundational kinda sleep science is the two processes, the two biological processes. So, so the circadian rhythm or the process C, and, um, the sleep pressure, process S.

Process C, the circadian rhythm, is really what, um, tell us when to wake up, when to fall asleep, and the strongest stimulus is the sunlight. So the sunlight in the morning kinda enter our eyes, stimulate the, the master clock o-of the brain, the su- suprachiasmatic nucleus, and that kinda trigger the whole activation of different wake neurons in, in the brain, and that kinda set the circadian rhythm.

And as the night goes, uh, I mean, the, the surrounding [00:05:00] environment gets darker, it kinda releases the stimulus, and in a way, kinda releases that brake. So the brain start to release melatonin, uh, from the pineal gland. So imagine on stage with the stage lighting at 10:00, um, that really can affect y- your brain's ability to, to releases melatonin, or if you're on your phone, you know, that the artificial lighting really can a- also delay the release of melatonin.

So that's the circadian rhythm. Process S, uh, is the sleep drive. So imagine it like, um, a, um, sleep pressure gauge or filling your bathtub with water, is really, you know, about h- the, the longer you are awake, the higher the pressure. So at one point, you just can't stay awake anymore. And just one fun fact, caffeine works by blocking adenosine receptors, so it [00:06:00] temporarily actually reduces the pressure.

But, you know, it's not a, a, um, a good fix because the half-life of caffeine is short. It's about four hours, and you get that rebound. So that's a, a, a temporary solution, but, but not, not for long term. So those are the kinda two, two main fun- foundational sleep science that, uh, I wanna kinda discuss with your audience first, because once we understand that, I think everything else would, would, would clicks in.

Noa KAGEYAMA: I don't wanna divert you from where you're going, but so the, the seven to nine-hour recommendation or guidelines for sleep, is that something we know relates to the general population, or is it more for... Is it also relevant to high-level performers seeking, like you said, the sort of ceiling of what's possible for us, like peak performance?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. Seven to nine is for the general population, [00:07:00] and I would say for high performers, like athletes, I work with athletes a lot, and I do say nine, 10 is definitely better than the seven hours of sleep. Um, a- and Tom Brady is well known for sleeping 12 hours a night, you know? So yeah, I def- definitely if you can get more is probably better.

But I think most importantly, we're not really kinda fixating on that number. It really has to be also how you feel clinically or, or, you know, uh, when you perform, when you practice, how you feel, rather than just, "Oh, you know, I sleep eight hours. Uh, that's, that's, that's good enough." You have to kinda also put in, add, uh, some other information, how you perform.

Are you learning, uh, you know, pretty well? Uh, are you having pretty good, uh, emotional control? All that.

Noa KAGEYAMA: Anecdotally, one of the things that people sometimes say, you know, people who have sort of convinced themselves that they don't [00:08:00] need to sleep a lot, is, um, they describe trying to sleep more- Uh-huh

whether it's, you know, going from six hours to eight hours or something like that. Uh. And then sometimes they'll describe- Interesting ... that they feel worse or they feel more tired when they do that. Like, is there something to that, or is there just a, an adjustment period where they just need to get used to sleeping more, or how would you-

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. I think it, it, it really depends on the exact- scenario. Um, if you're not sleepy and trying to force yourself to go to bed, it's a very frustrating experience. Um, so one of the, the main teaching for ins- insomnia is go to bed when you're sleepy. Uh, because you're going to bed when your sleep drive, process S, is at the peak, uh, and also align with your circadian rhythm when the melatonin is rising, for example.

You know, it also depends on if, if you're exceeding your, your wake time. So wake time is r- really critical because [00:09:00] that's your anchor for your circadian rhythm. So for example, on the weekend, a lot of teenager try to catch up with sleep because on weekdays they just don't sleep enough because their school start time is really early.

So that weekend when they kind of go beyond their wake time, you know, sleeping until noon, for example, while that's, I think for a teenager is important because catching up sleep is better than not having enough, because truly, I think teens are really, um... I, I would say it's a public health crisis in terms of teens, uh, deprivation.

80% of teens are not sleeping enough because of school start time and some other biological factor. But that three-hour extra on the weekend really can give you, um, that, that side effects of going beyond your circadian rhythm, that misalignment, almost like jet lag, basically. So, so that may be the reason why someone may say [00:10:00] that, "Oh, when I sleep longer, I don't feel as good."

Noa KAGEYAMA: There are a number of things that I think I'm gonna wanna ask about in more detail, like jet lag- Yeah ... and circadian rhythms and so forth. But I wonder, you know, if we take a look at each of those, um, kind of basic things, learning and performance, I wonder if we could get into some more details around the learning.

In terms of not just the impact of sleep on learning, but like- Okay ... how can we maybe utilize naps or how we structure our learning sessions around sleep to get the most out of our learning or our practice sessions or study sessions, um, whatever amount of sleep that we might be getting. Mm-hmm.

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Definitely there are practical strategies for a performing artist, and I, I do think that telling people, "Just sleep longer," it is not practical because sometimes there's a lot of different constraint. Like, you know, curtain time 10 and we really cannot fall asleep until, like, past [00:11:00] midnight, you know? So, so I think, um, there are definitely strategies.

Strategic nap is definitely one of them. A quick nap, 20, 30 minutes nap can be really helpful in terms of improving your cognitive performance. It's not as restorative as longer naps. So longer naps meaning Um, 30 minutes, uh, up to, like, three hours. Because longer naps, then you're hitting these kind of more restorative sleep stages, like the deep sleep or s- stage three sleep.

But the problem with longer naps is sleep inertia, so meaning that you wake up with that grogginess. Um, there's a, a, a very interesting study looking at, um, medical residents, you know, what happen when they're wake up in the middle of the night from a call or something, a- and then they measure their performance output.

And what they found was that they're not performing at their baseline until one hour [00:12:00] after sleep or long nap. So that's important, so meaning that you should definitely not sleep three hours right before your performance. I think that's not a good idea. But short nap can be potentially very helpful. But one thing about nap is that it can take away that sleep pressure, and that can therefore affect your ability to fall asleep at night.

So just kinda have to be careful about that. And I would love to talk to your audience about the function of different sleep stages, because I think that can be pretty relevant for performers. So when we fall asleep, it's not a, a solid event, you know. Uh, we actually go through different sleep stages and, and nowadays we have sleep tracking devices, Apple Watches.

We know that, that pattern, right? Uh, the sleep stages that we, we cycle through throughout the night. So when we fall asleep, we [00:13:00] go through light sleep, so stage one and two, uh, and then stage three, which is your delta sleep or deep sleep, and then you have your dream, REM sleep. And that 90-minute cycle, we actually have about four to six times of that.

I would say for performers, it's so important to have stage two and three sleep because of motor skill consolidation. Say, when you practice a, a passage or a piece of choreography, you're encoding that skill during that stage. And, and that's through a, a brain activity called sleep spindles, and it directly link to how well a motor skill get stabilized and refined.

And stage three sleep, or deep sleep, it helps to coordinate that whole process. Uh, it actually provides that slow rhythmic slowing, that timing that allow- those spindles to fire in [00:14:00] organized way. So they kind of work together. You need both stage two and three sleep. And in one study from, I think 2013, they looked at pianists, uh, uh, uh, and they do a sleep study looking at the effect of sleep on their performance.

So what they found was that they see 10 to 13% performance improvements the next day just by sleeping. There's no additional practice, you know, no, no special thing that they did. It's just simply they, they slept. So sleep is where techniques get wired in, in the brain. So, so that's number one. Two is the REM sleep.

So REM sleep is so important for memory consolidation and emotion processing. Basically allows you to keep the memory of the experience, uh, while reducing that emotional charge attachment to it. So when [00:15:00] people are sleep deprived, uh, when you look at functional imaging study of the amygdala activity, which is...

Amygdala is your brain's kind of threat response center. The activity actually increased by around 60%. So if you're underslept, you're... If you're going into au- audition, your brain is more reactive, more threat se- sensitive, and less regulated. So sleep isn't just recovery, it's really where techniques get strengthened, emotion balance get restores.

It is, it's really important for performers.

Noa KAGEYAMA: Can you say more about the relationship between sleep and emotional reactivity? I don't know that that's something that we think about very much, like, strategically. Like, I think we know that when we haven't slept as much, we're a little bit more reactive to things emotionally- Mm

and stress feels different and so forth. But, but yeah, it... What you were starting to say [00:16:00] there was interesting and intriguing, and I wonder if it had ramifications for, or implications for when we should be prioritizing sleep, in particular whether before or after performances, whether they went well or whether they went poorly and so forth.

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. So I mean, this kind of bidirectional relationship between sleep and, and mental health, we see that actually in, in all kinds of performance study. So definitely in athletes, first responders, performing arts, students of different levels, high school student, undergrad, medical students. The finding is always very similar.

It, it always show a dose respo- dose-dependent response, so meaning that the more sleep deprived they are or, or more subjective daytime drowsiness they have, the, the level of- Depression and anxiety symptoms kind of go along with it, you know? So it's almost like that sleep [00:17:00] deprivation is that drug or that substance that cause de- uh, depression, anxiety.

I, I think that's really important to recognize. And I wanna kind of point out another study, 'cause a lot of the performance studies in, in any domains, any groups, always look at what happen when we don't sleep enough. We have a few study looking at sleep extension. So there's this really, um, important sleep extension studies in NCAA athletes, and what they did was very simple.

Basically, they asked them to sleep three hours longer for s- six or 10 weeks. I can't remember now. And what they found was that they, their reaction time, their accuracy and mental health is better, so less depression symptom, less anxiety. And that effect actually persists even beyond the sleep extension period.

I was kinda preparing for this talk. I looked it up as, uh, you know, if [00:18:00] there's any study like this for a musician. There is one. So there is one study from last year looking at the effect of sleep extension in, in musician, and what they found was very similar. What they saw was that they see improvement in rhythmic stability.

It probably make more sense to you. Sight reading accuracy, I understand that, uh, and memory. So I think that's great. I mean, it's very empowering that, you know, we can actually do something about it. We can actually sleep more to be better a- and, and really performing at our peak, at our ceiling.

Noa KAGEYAMA: In the event that sleep extension may not be feasible or possible, or even if people just don't want to because there are other things they wanna do with waking- Right

hours in their day, um, I wonder if you could say a little more about how naps could help. And obviously, I think sleeping continuously is gonna be better for us than, than putting in naps, but, like, [00:19:00] specifically with regards to learning, I'm curious if, if someone were to choose between caffeine or a nap before they practice, or even in terms of timing of naps.

Like, if you're gonna have a short nap, should we be napping before we practice? Yeah. Is there a benefit to napping after we practice? Is there a difference between the two? I wonder if you can say more about that.

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. Definitely think sleep banking can be a really useful strategy for performers. Um, so it can come in a form of naps.

So you're right. I think sleep extension in one solid kinda nighttime sleep may be better because you're going through all the sleep stages, you know? But nap is not a bad alternative. It's definitely- It can be really important and powerful. We discussed earlier the, the differences between the short and the long nap, how short sleep can be really helpful for cognitive performance and reaction time.[00:20:00]

But longer nap also can help with other things, like just more restorative because you're going through the deep stages. But, you know, in terms of for performers, I think we really kind of have to think about how to fit that in, right? So for example, in the rehearsal time when your nights are more flexible, you can certainly try to bank sleep.

It can be an hour more, 30 minutes more, or adding a nap in. So that's the time you bank it before you go into a higher demand time. Um, so that can be one strategy. I think napping and sleep extension can be a tool for recovery. So after a, a long run of performance, perhaps, uh, you do want to kind of recover, right?

And sleeping more is a way to help recovery. And the reason [00:21:00] is, during the deep sleep, I didn't mention this before, sleep is also important for immune system, um, muscle tissue repair. That's when the immune cells go, go to the lymphatic system, the, the lymph nodes. So all kinds of good stuff and, and, you know, there's glymphatic system, which is a brain cleansing process that the brain cleanse out waste product and neurotoxic protein.

And then human growth hormone, which is super important for recovery, whether it's just after performance or injury recovery. I think when it comes to performers, there should be a different way to, um, add more naps or extend your sleep. Once again, I think preseason, pre-tour rehearsal time, when things are more flexible, you wanna bank your sleep.

During the performance season when [00:22:00] maybe you don't have enough time to do that, you can fit in that s- 20 minutes nap, uh, maybe four hours before the perf- performance. That can be really helpful. And then off-season recovery, you want to increase your sleep from seven hours a night to 9 to 10 hours a night, so that you can have physical and cognitive recovery.

Noa KAGEYAMA: Let's say somebody is going to have a really big audition, or maybe they're heading into a big international competition where there's gonna be weeks of high-stress performing happening. Is there a period of time in advance of that that you would encourage them to start extending sleep? Like, whether a week or two months, or, like, what would be a good period of time?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: If you look at the athlete study, they did it for a good 10 weeks or six weeks. I, I have to look it up. I can't remember six or 10, but as you can see, it is more than a month. So I think if your schedule allow you to bank sleep weeks ahead of [00:23:00] time, that's definitely best. But if you don't have that opportunity, I think couple days is better than nothing.

So actually, what study has shown that sleep extension can show up as improvement in your performance just in a matter of couple days. So, so yeah, longer certainly better, but couple days better than nothing.

Noa KAGEYAMA: Going back a bit, uh, before I forget about this, you mentioned circadian rhythms, and I know that many of us think of ourselves as either being morning people or night people.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I know certainly a lot of musicians, some of them, uh, I think not many, but some of them do like practicing in the morning, and others tend to prefer practicing at night. Does it matter in terms of learning or performance? I mean, does it relate to our, our chronotype or our circadian rhythms?

Like, w- what sorts of recommendations might there be for maximizing the time that we do spend practicing?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. That's a really good question. So chronotype is, [00:24:00] is real biology, is actually genetic and, um, I think they say roughly 40%, you know, heritable. So, so it's, it's in your genes. So if you're a true evening type, for performers, it's actually a good thing because most of the activity is at night.

And I, I think it's okay to have a later, um, circadian rhythm. You know, you call these people night owl. Yeah, a night owl is okay. It is... It's not laziness. It's not a, a character flaw. Uh, you, you should just, you know, make sure that you go to bed about the same time, wake up about the same time. It doesn't matter what time, you know?

And, uh, I, I would say don't force it. If you're evening type, don't force yourself to be morning type because it's, it's not helpful. It's not gonna... Usually they don't work. Uh, yes, there's a, a way to force it to happen. Like, in my clinic sometimes I do have to [00:25:00] help patie- patients who be to, to change their morning type because of their job, you know?

Um, so y- it's a very tedious process of using melatonin and, uh, kinda utilizing light boxes, things like that. But yeah, I think y- you shouldn't force yourself to change from one type to another.

Noa KAGEYAMA: I know that sometimes auditions will happen outside the window when we would prefer to be playing, such as like 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning.

And especially if you're coming from a different time zone, that can be exacerbated by whatever time zone you happen to be auditioning in. Are they in situations, or I mean, is that the sort of situation where it could be worth shifting or trying to shift, um, your natural comfort zone for performance to an earlier time, at least for a temporary period of time?

Or even then, is it better to just kinda deal with it when it happens?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. I would say if you're traveling multiple time [00:26:00] zones, then it may be important to shift ahead of time. Westward travel is always easier because it's easier to go to bed later. Eastward is harder. The rule of thumb is if you're eastward travel multiple time zones, you can shift about half an hour per day.

You can't go more faster than that. So if you need to move six hours, meaning that you have to start shifting 12 days ahead of time. If it is just one time zone, I would say probably not worth shifting, but jet lag is, is real and, and it can have a significant impact on alert- alertness during the day and your ability to fall asleep.

And, um, I would say you can actually use melatonin as a tool to help you to fall asleep. You just need about half a milligram, one milligram of melatonin to do that. You all [00:27:00] probably heard about the importance of eating at a local time, expose yourself to sunlight in the morning, 'cause that's the quickest way to pull your circadian rhythm to the local time zone because of that, the process C that I mentioned with the master clock in the brain.

But yeah, I think multiple time zones, definitely worth shifting ahead of time. I'll give the example, um, that, um, Olympics a couple times before in Japan, some of the athletes actually travel to Hawaii first to shift the time zone, train there, and then do another shift when they go to Japan. I think these athletes recognize that it's the importance of shifting your circadian rhythm ahead of time so that they can peak whenever they have to perform.

So s- there's so many kinda nuances to that as well. It's really it's a business. Um, you can really try to move these small [00:28:00] factors, uh, in their schedule to help them to, to peak at the right time.

Noa KAGEYAMA: So to make sure that I, I got that right, if you're going to try to start shifting your sleep schedule in advance of travel, the idea is to shift your bedtime and wake time Like 30 minutes forward or backwards, depending on what direction you're going in?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. So 30 minutes if you go eastward, because it's harder. One hou- uh, 60 minutes if it is westward. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah So going west you can actually shift faster. Faster. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Gotcha. 'Cause it's just naturally easier for us to fall asleep later. Mm-hmm. But really hard to try to fall asleep at 7:00 PM.

Noa KAGEYAMA: Gotcha. Gotcha. Is there sort of a limit? I mean, 'cause, you know, if you're traveling to Asia, you would end up living on the opposite side of the day here before you go there. I mean, is that the goal? Or is there some limit to which you really can't- Yeah ... go past?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: I think it depends. Like, for, for me, a, a [00:29:00] person who is not an athletes, not a performers, I think it's not as important and may not be as relevant, although I would like to be awake, you know, during the day so I can enjoy the trip.

But for performers and professional athletes, I think that is, you know, it... the difference between getting a, a gold medal versus not on the podium, you know? So, so it really depends. I would say for a high professional, high skill professional, I think shifting is, is a must.

Noa KAGEYAMA: And you mentioned melatonin as, as part of that, as well as, you know, eating at the local time and getting sunlight and so forth.

Are there other supplements that you recommend as part of that, um, whether it's temporarily for the purposes of shifting our, our time zones, or even just on a regular basis nutritionally that we should be considering?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah. There are definitely a few that I, I do say i- is effective and, um, [00:30:00] really n- no, no major side effects or long-term effect.

Uh, but I have to say, no supplement can replace sleep, right? So melatonin I do recommend routinely. Um, but one thing I would say about melatonin is it's not FDA regulated. It's a supplement. It's interesting because melatonin is actually not a vitamin. It's not a supplement. In other countries, like the UK and Japan, you can't get melatonin unless it's prescribed by a physician.

So what I'm trying to say is because it's not FDA regulated, what you get from the market really can vary a, a, a quite a bit. There was a, a recent study f- couple years ago now, basically look at all forms and different brands of melatonin, whether it's gummy or, you know, liquid or tablets and, and what they found was just, like, astounding.

The, [00:31:00] the actual ingredient of the melatonin ranges from, um, 10% to 400%. So it's, it's just crazy, you know? I mean, the 10% Well, you know, it's not great because you kind of waste your money, but the 400% can be potentially harmful. If I give a child five milligram, you may be actually giving them, like, 20 milligrams.

So, so a- actually that's the reason why, uh, the recommendation from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine in terms of melatonin is get the USP-certified label melatonin. And the effect of those, again, I think you just need half a milligram if it comes to jet lag. Um, you don't need more than that. But having said that, up to 10 milligram is pretty safe.

You know, the only side effects that I am aware of from, from, you know, my, my practice is sometimes higher dose give you GI side [00:32:00] effects, but nothing major. The other supplements that I, I like is magnesium glycinate. So magnesium can come in many different, um, form. Um, so they have magnesium oxide, um, uh, and, and couple other ones.

But glycinate is great because glycinate is glycine, is n- is a amino acid, is sedating, and magnesium is, is good for brain health overall, so it... Magnesium works for people with migraine, and it also help with, with sleep too. So, so magnesium glycinate, you know, you have two things that help with sleep. So the, the ty- typical dose that I recommend is 200 to 400 milligram a day, and you wanna take it before bedtime.

In terms of other substance, I wanna kinda, uh, point out that alcohol, while it, it usually give you that drowsiness in the beginning, is really not [00:33:00] good for sleep. I, I always say just avoid alcohol altogether because, um, it actually disrupt your sleep in ways that are not intuitive. You, you fall asleep faster, yes, but it suppress REM, and REM is so important for us, you know, the memory, the emotion processing, and also it give you that rebound too.

So the half-life of the alcohol is only couple hours, so what that means is half, the second half of your night, you're basically bouncing between light sleep and wake, so it's not good quality sleep. So just no alcohol. Definitely, I think if you're a performer, if you can, just try to, you know, avoid alcohol, uh, especially if you have sleep problem.

Uh, and then cannabis and CBD really come up frequently now. I think THC, cannabis, uh, overall It, it is kinda n- not great. Um, it, it, it shorten your sleep latency, meaning that [00:34:00] it can help you fall asleep. But like alcohol, it also suppress REM, and also can have trigger rebound insomnia, the, the same process that I described r- earlier.

So yeah, I think probably I would say alcohol and cannabis is not really good for sleep.

Noa KAGEYAMA: So one of the challenges I think is we might know that sleep is important, we might want to sleep more, but sometimes it's easier said than done, especially with irregular schedules and so forth. Do you have any tips on how we can sleep a little bit more, I don't wanna say easily, but for those of us who maybe have difficulty sticking with a sleep schedule or getting to sleep, are there any habits that we should be considering or things that we could do to, to make sleep a, an easier priority in our lives?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: First of all, I, I would say don't be too hard on yourself. You know, one night of bad sleep is, is okay. We're looking at kinda overall trend. So [00:35:00] couple things that can kinda help with sleep. One thing is, is important to have a kinda wind-down routine, and I think especially for performers, um, having that 60, 90 minutes post-performance, that wind-down protocol, it may be really important.

Because of that, you know, the stage lighting, the adrenaline from the performance, you really need to have something that is very routine, very effective to help you to wind down. Can be, um, a list of things. You don't have to go crazy, you know? Do like 12 things to go to bed. But the most effective, I would say, is the cooling of the temperature of your, your core temperature can be really helpful.

So it can be a cold shower, which people don't like, and I don't. But what I usually recommend is a warm bath, and when you come out of the bath, that, that immediate cooling is what kinda give you the, ah, you know, the [00:36:00] drowsiness. So the cool- cooling of the core body temperature is, is very good. You do wanna be mindful of your, um, ambient lighting.

So if you're in the hotel, make sure, you know, those overhead lighting should be dim. If you're at home, you want to make sure, number one, um, the, the intensity of the light should be down. If you are able to eliminate these white lights, um, and, and switch it to something kinda more amber lighting, that's good because meaning that y- you don't have as much blue light going into your eyes.

Um, and then f- You know, no screen is definitely a golden rule. I know it's hard. It's so hard. But I would say for performers, try to limit screen use. If you have to, wear blue light filter glasses. They do work. Um, study shows that it blocks about 80% of blue light. [00:37:00] And definitely take advantage of these blue light filters setting on, on our phone or, or on our laptop.

Definitely very helpful. And I would say don't, don't re- review of the performance, no social media, no processing feedback. I think that's just not a good, uh, feedback loop to our, our, our brain. Light reading is good. Calm music, uh, meditation, very helpful. Yoga is good. Um, no strenuous exercise. Um, I would say try not, not to have strenuous exercise six hours before bed.

So for a performer, that can be hard, right? Yeah, yeah. So, but that's really it. Uh, I think when we talk about dimming the light before bed, but the bright light in the morning is also very important. So, you know, in the wintertime, we don't get that bright light in the morning, or if we're daylight saving, we don't get that morning light.

You can actually get the light box. You can get it anywhere nowadays. That gives [00:38:00] you the artificial lighting. So when you are looking for a light box, you do want, uh, the light intensity to be at least 10,000 lux. And if you can, blue light spectrum is better.

Noa KAGEYAMA: So when you say getting light in the morning, it, it's not just turning the lights on in the room, like it has to be a specific sort of light?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Yeah, I would say if you really get your sleep down, you have no problem with daytime function, then I think the regular turn on your, your, your living room light or bathroom light is, is sufficient. But if you have the seasonal affective disorder, that, that, that winter blues, and you just feel really groggy in the morning, not quite awake, or you have to wake up early after a night performance to teach, you know, then you may need the extra light to wake up your brain.

Noa KAGEYAMA: So for young musicians or students or young professionals, or actually really probably for the rest of us, 'cause I don't think we're ever too old to adopt new habits, let's say that you had to consolidate [00:39:00] all of the knowledge that you had into three... You know, 'cause there might be a dozen things that we should be doing, but ultimately, at the end of the day, it's hard to commit to very many.

If you had to consolidate your recommendations into three essential habits that you would love more of us to start getting into the habit of in light of everything we've talked about, what, what would those three things be?

Joanna FONG-ISARIYAWONGSE: Three is so hard. I wish I could have more. But I would say, I have to think about this because they're all very important.

I think The first thing is anchor your wake time, 'cause that's actually something that not a lot of people know about. Even when bedtime is different night to night, and it will for performers, a consistent wake time stabilize your, your processes, the circadian rhythm, and that's the single highest leverage sleep behavior for performers.

I think banking sleep is... It, it is a [00:40:00] very important strategy for performers with such highly variable schedules, with different demands. There's so many different variables, so, um, yeah, I, I mean, in the week before, um, multi-week tours, a performance, opening weeks, you know, recording sessions, all that, I think s- extending sleep by 30 minutes up to two hours nightly can be a game changer, I think, for, uh, performers.

This one is, it may not be the most important, but I think is actually... I, I think it's important. Let's just say it's important. So I think seeking novelty, cognitive no- novelty is so important. So maybe not so much for a musician, but maybe, like, more for performers doing long runs, you know, s- seasons at a time.

The material is just same thing over and over and over. [00:41:00] A- and I think one thing people don't recognize is our brain need challenges. So, you know, think a- think about the brain as muscle, you know. If you do the same exercise, lifting the same weight forever, we don't gain any muscles, right? We don't see improvements.

So you do wanna challenge the brain with novelties. So what does that mean for, um, performers during long runs or seasons? That means that they may have to actively seek cognitive challenges outside the performance, learning something new, you know. If they have time, learn so- a new repertoire, you know, study a new, new language, uh, because challenge the brain by learning new things actually does something to our sleep.

So when we are actively learning during the day, we have more delta sleep, or slow-wave sleep, deep [00:42:00] sleep, N, N, N3, stage three sleep. So a- and we know that that is very important, right, for restoration, for learning, for, for that muscle memory that we talk about with the spindles. So you do want to kind of continue to challenge the brain.

I'm not saying that you should completely change you know, act two or something crazy. But you can change your interpretation of a music differently, you know? So that's would be my third, um, recommendation.