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By now, most of us probably know that sleep is an integral part of our ultimate performance,

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whether we're on the job or not.

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Maybe you'll pick up some audio in the background of our dog, Cash, saw on some logs, he's fast

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asleep over here next to me.

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But let's dive into some basics of sleep on episode 34 of the Firefighter Cosmorship

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podcast and dive into really what do we actually kind of need to know about sleep, what are

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the different stages of sleep, and what do they actually mean.

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What are some different things that might get in the way of all of these stages of sleep

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or one stage specifically.

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And then let's dive into maybe some routines that we can implement to make sure that we're

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capitalizing on our opportunities for sleep, both if you have an opportunity to sleep at

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work if you're on a 24 hour style work, or while you're off the job.

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Welcome to the Firefighter Cosmorship podcast where we coach you to deal with the stressors

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of the job as a first responder, as well as how to thrive off duty.

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My name is Kevin Housley, a human performance coach and a firefighter since 2005.

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I've been able to coach over 1000 emergency responders on ways to be more resilient, better

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prepared for the job, and how to be happier and healthier at home.

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So let's get to it.

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So the basics of sleep.

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So for most of us, we try now, we understand that, you know, when you wake up maybe five

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times if you're a firefighter and you wake up five get ups, it hurts the next day.

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It doesn't matter how old you are, it still hurts a little bit or it takes us a while

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to recover from on our days off.

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If you're a department that works at modified Kelly where you work every other for three

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shifts and then get four days off, you might notice that those days in between your shift

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work days are just completely focused on recovery, the more that you progress in your career

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or based on what company assignment that you have.

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Or even if you're on that 2448 schedule, you know that first day or if you're a little

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bit older, maybe the first day and a half or both days that you have off might be dedicated

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to trying to catch back up based on what happened during your tour.

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For some of us we work nights and so stages of sleep or circadian rhythms have actually

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adjusted meaning when we are trying to be asleep versus when we're trying to be awake.

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And that goes against just the commonalities of how everyday life works when you're supposed

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to get errands done and go to appointments and all that stuff or when people are ringing

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your doorbell.

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And so there's a lot of things with circadian rhythms specifically for shift workers that

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we just need to be aware of.

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But today on the podcast, we're going to just kind of dive into super, super basic quick

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hitter episode, what are the stages of sleep?

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And a really important thing to understand is these stages of sleep, there's four in

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total and they're made up of three non REM, so non rapid eye movement, sleep stages and

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one REM sleep stage, rapid eye movement.

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So four total stages of sleep and each stage lasts roughly 90 to 120 minutes.

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And it's really important that we need to understand that each of us is a unique beast.

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We are influenced by how we're made and lots of different inputs and factors go into that.

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But each of us has a little bit of a customized cycle.

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And so we know that most people are sleeping roughly 90 to 120 minutes per sleep cycle.

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And an optimal number of sleep cycles for 90 to 120 minutes each, let's just call it

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90 for ease is five to six full sleep cycles in a night.

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And we're going to kind of talk about why five full sleep cycles is really, really important.

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And so the old adage of, well, I'll sleep when I'm dead needs to get thrown out.

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And Dr. Matthew Walker has done a fantastic job of really bringing to light from his book,

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Why We Sleep, of why that concept is unfortunately very, very true and it actually might speed

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up disease process, which could lead to a catastrophic event at the end of the day.

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So within the stages of sleep, we have four total stages and they're made up of three

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non-REM and one REM cycle total.

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Now throughout the night, those four stages are going to kind of ebb and flow based on

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how long each stage lasts.

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And so when I talk about these different stages, this is kind of where that goes into play.

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So we start off with stage one and they're very, very creative when they name their sleep

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stages.

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So we have stage one, which is also called N1 or non-REM1.

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And that really lasts for one to seven minutes.

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And that's, you know, sometimes you're basically kind of still awake, you know, you might still

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be having like auditory inputs and things that you're kind of processing somewhat of

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a daydream sort of state.

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And that can be perceived, you know, as well, I wasn't actually asleep or if you've ever

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been in a really riveting training session and you're like, Oh, I paid attention that

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whole time, but your buddies were laughing at you because your head was kind of bobbing

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over there.

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You're probably in that stage one and one sleep.

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And that stage one can last from one to seven minutes.

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Now for those of us that maybe struggle falling asleep or falling back asleep after a call,

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if you're in the fire service, getting out of stage one sleep might be the big catalyst.

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That's kind of a barrier for us getting back to sleep as, you know, your brain might start

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spinning in that stage one.

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You can't turn your brain off and then you become conscious again.

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And here you go.

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You're up and maybe you're visiting the fridge for a late night engineer kind of snack.

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So from stage one, one to seven minutes, roughly, that's when that lasts.

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Then we get into stage two, which N2 is what that is creatively called.

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And stage two can last anywhere from 10 to 60 minutes.

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Stage two is typically called light sleep and typically naps kind of last within stage

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one and stage two specifically.

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So stage two is where your heart rate starts to slow down, your body temperature starts

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to drop and you start to get real comfortable and actually fall asleep.

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And so that's where, you know, if you take a catnap or something like that, you know,

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this could be within that stage two sleep.

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Stage three called N3 is where we get into deep sleep.

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And this is really where sleep starts to give us some really, really cool benefits that

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leads to ultimate performance.

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So in deep sleep, we have restoration, we have bone repair, we have muscle repair, you

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know, and this cycle lasts roughly 20 to 40 minutes, but we have most of our deep sleep

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or our stage three N3 sleep at the beginning of the night.

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So we're going to have longer stage three sleep cycles in those first two to three sleep

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cycles out of the five to six sleep cycles that we go through.

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Stage three is actually going to take up a larger chunk of time than some of the subsequent

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stages, which is really important for us to understand.

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So if we've been training really hard tactical fitness, really hard things like that, or

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we're tired, we're sore, maybe we're injured.

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It's really important that we have good quality, non interrupted stage three sleep, which happens

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in those first two to three sleep cycles in the night.

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It happens earlier in the night versus later in the night.

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So if we are working for a fire department specifically where we're getting up a lot,

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you're probably entering stage two, and then during stage three, you might be getting interrupted.

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And so one of the problems with that is, you know, that's kind of when maybe you're waking

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up and it feels like somebody kicked you're right in the stones is you were in that deep

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restorative sleep.

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And it's probably earlier in the night from when you actually fell asleep.

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And so sometimes this is called slow wave sleep because of how they're measuring brain

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waves and you're entering into Delta brain waves.

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It can also be called Delta wave sleep.

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And so that's kind of where the body is really starting to rejuvenate and recharge.

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And so if we are interrupting this stage specifically because of whatever your work environment is,

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it's harder for us to recover.

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And then when you couple that with years on the job, things like hypervigilance and age

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specifically, it becomes harder and harder to recover overall.

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And this is a correlated spot to disease process on diseases that we don't necessarily want

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to get is because we're getting interrupted in this stage three sleep consistently.

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Here stage three, we go into stage four sleep, which is REM sleep.

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So rapid eye movement sleep and REM sleep is pretty cool.

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This is where we generate or solidify memories.

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We process memories throughout the day.

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So this is really important for mental wellness that we're entering into REM sleep that we

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can process this.

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This is where our body cleans our brain in REM sleep.

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This is where we have most of our dreams, very, very vivid dreams.

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And we process learning.

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So if you, let's say you're training or you're studying or you're learning, you have to sleep.

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You can't just pull an all nighter and then hopefully you're going to retain that information.

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You might pass your test, but you're not going to retain any of that information.

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And so the more research that comes out about sleep specifically in relation to learning,

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we understand that it's actually better to sleep more in a learning process.

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So think about this.

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If you're developing curriculums for, especially for new recruits, whether, whatever, regardless

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of the emergency services branch that you're within, if you're developing training and

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things like that, how much information are you giving them throughout the day?

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How much are you expecting them to do after they leave the facility, whether it's class

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or academy or whatever you want to call it, and then how much sleep are they getting?

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How much sleep is allowed based on the coursework and the course load?

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And are you building some of those days in where maybe they have a later start to help

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them process, solidify learning?

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Because the point of the, the fact of the matter is when we have training programs and

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we have training facilities and we have things like academies, the point is to learn it.

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And the point is to not only learn it, but then be able to do it in a high stakes, high

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speed, constantly changing environment where they've never been on that exact call with

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that exact patient or with that exact house on fire or that exact issue in police services

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specifically.

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So very, very important that we need to start to change the narrative on what does sleep

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look like for our learning environments and how do we intentionally build curriculums

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to allow people to be challenged, to learn, to grow, to fail, to succeed, but also to

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process and solidify information.

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And this is where sleep is so, so important.

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The cool thing about REM sleep is you have these crazy, if you've ever watched somebody

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sleep when they're in REM sleep, they have very breathing patterns.

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And I'm not talking about obstructive sleep apnea where they're having long periods of

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time where they're not breathing at all, but they'll breathe kind of funky sometimes.

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And you can see their eyes fluttering back and forth or moving all over the place.

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They're obviously still breathing.

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However, in REM sleep, you actually have sleep paralysis, which is pretty wild.

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And so for those of us in the fire service, if you're on the job long enough, you will

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absolutely at some point wake up in the middle or be woken up in the middle of a REM sleep

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cycle and be somewhat conscious, but not be able to move.

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You will be completely paralyzed.

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And there's this crazy little like cognitive disconnect of I'm awake.

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I know I need to get up and I got to get out to the bay and put on all my stuff, but I

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can't move.

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And it's pretty scary to be honest when it happens to you.

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It's happened to me, it happens to me more frequently now than it used to when I was

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younger, but now I kind of know what's happening.

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And so you just kind of enjoy the ride and laugh a little bit of like, I can't move.

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It's freaky.

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I'm all right.

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I know what's happening.

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All right, here we go.

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And it's usually a fraction of a second probably, but it feels like it's a few seconds for the

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brain and the body to kind of catch back up, especially if you've been woken up multiple

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times in a night and they're nice and spread out where you have the ability to get into

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that REM zone, really, really wild chain of events there.

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And so, you know, some people talk about sleep paralysis where maybe they have a sleep disorder

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where they're waking up quite frequently and they have sleep paralysis and really, really

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scary stuff.

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If you don't understand what's going on.

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So just a rehash or we have four total stages of sleep, the first three are non REM sleep,

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which means we don't have the rapid eye movement.

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And then the fourth one is the rapid eye movement sleep and all of them are very, very important.

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Another reminder, we get most of our stage three sleep in the first part of our sleep

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cycles throughout the night.

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And then at towards the end of the night, because the sleep cycle is still 90 minutes

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long and we're basically not going back into stage one after the first time we fall back

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asleep, we go back into stage two, which is that light sleep.

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And so REM sleep towards the end of the night is when we get most of our REM sleep.

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And so if we are consistently shorting ourselves, especially when we're not at work and we have

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lifestyle choices that we're making like staying up and watching a movie or staying

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up and playing a video game or reading or whatever it is.

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And you are waking up four or five hours and you're not getting seven hours, six minimum,

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six minimum, but seven, eight is even better and optimal.

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You're shorting yourself on REM sleep.

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And that's really, really important because REM sleep is where we process learning, we

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process memory, we process potentially traumatic events and we let our body clean.

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The brain.

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And so this could be correlated to pretty scary diseases that all of us in emergency

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services have seen when we go into some of these facilities that we certainly do not

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want to have happen to us.

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There's a lot of research currently happening to see if this is directly tied to REM sleep

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or not.

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So something to be aware of that's why getting six, but even seven and eight hours, seven

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as a minimum is really what you should be shooting for.

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This is the reason why, because towards the end, you know, three, four, five, six is when

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those REM stages of sleep start to get longer and solidified for that ultimate cleaning

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performance function that we need sleep to accomplish.

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So there's the basics really, really quickly on sleep and why it's important because it

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ebbs and flows throughout the night and you'll kind of, if you start wearing wearable technology,

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it's tracking some of this stuff for you based on which device you have.

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Really important thing to understand is that alcohol, even one drink impacts REM sleep.

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So again, REM sleep, cleaned your brain.

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And when we don't clean our brain, we know that bad stuff can happen.

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Is the simplest way to put it.

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So when we drink even a single drink of alcohol, our body has to process that alcohol, but

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that ETOH specifically gets in the way of our body being able to enter into a full REM

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sleep cycle.

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So be very, very aware.

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If you just have a habit when you're not on duty and you always have a drink with dinner

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or you have a few drinks before you go to bed or you think that alcohol helps you fall

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asleep.

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That may be true on the surface level.

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It might relax you and help you fall asleep, but you're not actually getting the full benefit

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of sleep because that alcohol is specifically blocking or interrupting or chunking out stage

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for REM sleep.

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Not great.

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So the recommendation now is a minimum of four hours between when you have your last

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drink and when you go to sleep.

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But they're talking like one to two drinks max because of how long it takes alcohol to

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process through the body in relation to sleep specifically.

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They're not talking about seven or eight beers and then falling asleep four hours later.

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That's not what they're talking about because your body's still going to be processing

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that alcohol.

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So those first few sleep cycles, it's still processing alcohol and it's interrupting that

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REM cycle specifically.

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So something very, very important for us to be aware of.

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So the easiest way to really kind of look at this is if you have a wearable device,

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whether it's a woop device, an Apple watch, ring, or a ring, whatever they're called,

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is to start to look at your HRV when you don't have alcohol, especially when you're not at

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work if you have the ability to sleep at work.

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But what's the impact of alcohol when you are in your home safe environment and you

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can control all the control balls?

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What about that one little factor there?

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How does alcohol impact your sleep and your HRV overall?

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And HRV is that heart rate variability, which is measuring basically the symbiotic relationship

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between the parasympathetic, rest and digest, and the sympathetic fight or flight.

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And it is a marker that it can be used for recovery and training specifically.

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So a lot more content to come about HRV specifically from some experts.

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But for today, that's kind of the short and sweet is heart rate variability.

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What's the variable between each beat in the heart measured in milliseconds and which part

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of your autonomic nervous system is being impacted the most?

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So let's dive into a little bit of routines here.

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So we just kind of talked about alcohol.

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So what are the routines that you have at home that maybe are a barrier to getting good

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sleep?

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Or what are the routines that you have at home that are a good addition to getting quality

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sleep?

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So things that we know about sleep specifically is we want our sleep environment to be as

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dark as possible.

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We want it to be as cave-like as possible.

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So really trying to have no light exposure.

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That's why blackout shades, blackout curtains are such a great thing.

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And a lot of fire departments around have jumped on this, which is fantastic.

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They don't cost very much money to implement.

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So this is a very easy solution for you to help sleeping quarters out is to put out blackout

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curtains, blackout shades, things like that.

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So cold and dark, meaning cold around 65 to 67 degrees as optimal.

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And you can have as many blankets as you want, but the overall environment should be

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cold and as dark as you can possibly get it.

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So there's a good solid routine.

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And then also limiting that blue light input.

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So are you sleeping?

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And when you go to your bed, especially you see this in the fire service a ton and open

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dorm concepts, you know, the dorm might be pitch black and nice and cold.

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And then you have all these little teeny super computers on their phones right there in six

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inches from their face, just emitting negative light, which can trigger different things

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with our circadian rhythms, specifically neurochemicals and those sorts of things that are blocking

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melatonin release.

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It's replicating.

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Oh, it's not time to sleep.

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That's a really, really bright light.

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Kind of like the sun.

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It might be time to start waking up.

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And so we've heard a lot about blue light exposure, especially from our devices up to 90 minutes

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before bed.

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So what is your routine?

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What's your routine at home?

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Are you going in your brush and your teeth and then you have a nice dark cold room and

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you're going to sleep and you haven't had blue light exposure for the last hour or so.

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Or you have lights that are out table lamps, not lights overhead.

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And so it's starting to calm us down, helping with that melatonin release.

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Maybe you're getting outside as the sun is setting, which helps release melatonin as

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that sun sets that's tied into our neurology and biology of releasing melatonin based on

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the wavelength of light of a setting sun.

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And so start to kind of pay attention to what those routines are and then take those routines

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with you to work.

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And so if you're able to sleep at work based on your work schedule, do you have the same

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routines or completely different routines at work?

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Are you staying up till two o'clock in the morning at work to have family time in the

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day room and watch movies and tell jokes?

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We're at home.

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Maybe you're crazy about it and you go to bed at eight, 39 o'clock at night or something

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like that.

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How do those things differ?

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And can we start to create consistency in our routine regardless of the environment that

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we're in to start to set ourselves up for success?

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And over the last two episodes, we've talked about a couple of different sleep replacements

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or sleep aids, the first one being a yoga nidra to help us calm down basically a progressive

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muscle relaxation technique.

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And then we also talked about exploring taping your mouth to help with parasympathetic nervous

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system activation by simply breathing to our nose.

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And so here we go.

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This is the tie back into why does it really matter?

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Well, we have these four different stages of sleep that are impacted by those external

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factors on things like alcohol, hydration, light exposure, um, and environmental cues

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of temperature and how dark is my room?

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So as we say at firefighter craftsmanship all the time, awareness is foundational.

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So just start to become aware of sleep specifically and start to become aware of what are your

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routines around sleep specifically?

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And how can you maybe change those to level up just a little bit?

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A couple more fantastic episodes, longer form episodes coming up in this little series about

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sleep with firefighter craftsmanship.

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Reach out if you have any questions, happy to help.

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However, I can, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, or you can hit me up at Kevin Housley

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on LinkedIn.

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Thanks for spending your quality time with us here on the firefighter craftsmanship podcast.

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