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Joanne Lockwood: Today is episode 183 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title Owls and the Fouls. And I have the absolute honour and
Joanne Lockwood: privilege to welcome Stephen Jasper Stephenis a jet lag
Joanne Lockwood: consultant and chrono diversity advocate who reshapes how
Joanne Lockwood: we review time, productivity and work based
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion. When I asked Stephen to describe his superpower, he said
Joanne Lockwood: it is providing simple interventions that help people manage
Joanne Lockwood: not only their jet lag, but their working lives and
Joanne Lockwood: productivity. Hello, Stephen, welcome to the show. Hello,
Stephen Jasper: Joanne. Thanks for the lovely welcome. Absolute pleasure.
Joanne Lockwood: I could tell by your accent you're not from around these parts.
Stephen Jasper: I'm about as far away from those parts as you can get. Really?
Stephen Jasper: Yes, I am. I'll confess up front, I am an Australian and that's
Stephen Jasper: why it's pitch black here. It's just gone midnight when you're
Stephen Jasper: interviewing me and I'm a bit of a night owl. Come back to that. And
Stephen Jasper: it's a public holiday here, so that's what I'm doing on my public
Stephen Jasper: holiday at midnight. So which public holiday is it?
Stephen Jasper: It's a public holiday called Anzac Day and the
Stephen Jasper: closest equivalent I know, the Americans have Veterans Day. What's
Stephen Jasper: the UK equivalent? Armistice. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Remembrance Sunday. Armistice. Yeah, that kind of thing. Or Victory in Europe.
Joanne Lockwood: VE Day. Those sort of things. Yeah, those sort of. It's. But
Stephen Jasper: it's a commemoration of a loss. So Anzac stands for Australia,
Stephen Jasper: New Zealand Army Corps. So of course it's celebrated in both Australia and New
Stephen Jasper: Zealand and it's a loss in a place called Gallipoli
Stephen Jasper: in Turkey. So
Stephen Jasper: 10 years ago they had their hundredth anniversary and it was a very big and
Stephen Jasper: emotional deal. So we will have a dawn service
Stephen Jasper: and halfway between me and the city, I'm about eight kilometres out of the
Stephen Jasper: city, we have the shine of remembrance and there'll be a. A dawn
Stephen Jasper: service there for the fallen and fallen, those
Stephen Jasper: who. In war. And so there's going to be early morning trams, like 4
Stephen Jasper: o' clock in the morning transport to get people to the shrine of remembrance or
Stephen Jasper: other places of commemoration. So very. A very
Joanne Lockwood: deep, meaningful. And I say sombre. Sombre.
Stephen Jasper: Sombre is a good word for sombre. Yeah, yeah. Reflection of the
Joanne Lockwood: nation's loss. Yeah. And remembrance. And also gratitude to
Stephen Jasper: those who fought for our nation. Yeah, it's. I don't know if you have the
Joanne Lockwood: same expression. In Australia we would say lest we forget.
Stephen Jasper: It's a very much. Yeah, very much. That phrase
Stephen Jasper: here. And we have the torch that gets lit and.
Stephen Jasper: Okay, is that a thing that you do there? Is that an Australian
Stephen Jasper: thing? Like in a. An RSL or a legacy club with a member? They'll
Stephen Jasper: say lest we forget. And there's a torch that gets lit. It's
Stephen Jasper: an electric light inside a torch. I don't know
Joanne Lockwood: that particular tradition. We will probably have a lone
Joanne Lockwood: bugler trumpeting out the
Joanne Lockwood: last post. Yes, we have that, but you. Okay, we had the torch as
Stephen Jasper: well. So I'm not aware of the torch. So it's possible we
Joanne Lockwood: would lay holly wreaths at the cenotaph or. Yeah, we would
Joanne Lockwood: lay wreath to Hollywood. That's more of a First World War remembrance as well,
Joanne Lockwood: right? Yes. And also rosemary sprigs. Is that a thing for you?
Joanne Lockwood: I don't think we're big on rosemary sprigs in the. In the uk. But
Stephen Jasper: it's for remembrance. It's not to, you know, garnish your lamb roast.
Joanne Lockwood: We have rosemary, but now we would use poppies. Poppy
Joanne Lockwood: poppies are kind of our remembrance symbol.
Stephen Jasper: We use poppies as well, but they tend to be
Stephen Jasper: fake because I don't know that there's a lot of. They certainly don't grow wild
Stephen Jasper: here. I have seen gardens near
Stephen Jasper: me, but, yeah, they don't. They're biodegradable these days. They used to be
Joanne Lockwood: paper and plastic. Hopefully they're better now. Wow.
Joanne Lockwood: We just had a quick cultural lesson, so thank you for that, Stephen. It was
Joanne Lockwood: fascinating. I don't know if it's linked at all, but, you know, you are a
Joanne Lockwood: jet lag expert. And cranodiversity. You could talk a bit about
Joanne Lockwood: cranodiversity. Is the fact you're in Australia
Joanne Lockwood: contributing factor to the fact you're an expert in jet lag?
Stephen Jasper: Absolutely, absolutely. Australia is the best
Stephen Jasper: place in the world to research jet lag. And if you've ever
Stephen Jasper: flown here, you'll understand why.
Stephen Jasper: And I'll explain how I got into it, because how did this guy become
Stephen Jasper: a jet lag expert? So I started off life as a pharmacist and I was
Stephen Jasper: happy as a compounding pharmacist working in the hospital system. So
Stephen Jasper: I'm one of those people that actually knows how to work in water and pestle.
Stephen Jasper: I can drive those things. And after about
Stephen Jasper: 10 years in the hospital system and you get burnout. I hear stories
Stephen Jasper: about, you know, the nurses, especially during the pandemic, how
Stephen Jasper: exhausting it was. And I felt for them because I'd been, you know, in
Stephen Jasper: that and not in the pandemic. And I moved into the pharmaceutical industry, which
Stephen Jasper: is a fairly logical progression. And I had a number of roles
Stephen Jasper: and I fell into a role where I did a lot of travel and
Stephen Jasper: there was no expectation that I travelled when I went for the job, either
Stephen Jasper: from the people hiring me or me myself, there was no expectation of travel.
Stephen Jasper: And I had a boss and he said, I'm sick of travel, you do it.
Stephen Jasper: So I did it. And so I became one of the small number of Australians
Stephen Jasper: that does crazy travel. You know, could I fly to America through
Stephen Jasper: a week and stopped by London for a couple of days on my way home?
Stephen Jasper: That was normal. And I think my craziest travel, the one that
Stephen Jasper: really changed my life was a three day trip to Buenos
Stephen Jasper: Aires. And if you know anything, it's 11 time zones. The
Stephen Jasper: jet lag between here and South America is insane. It's about as bad
Stephen Jasper: as you can possibly get. And it was four flights going
Stephen Jasper: there from Melbourne to Sydney to Auckland to Santiago to
Stephen Jasper: Buenos Aires. Worked, you know, worked for two days, had a day off at the
Stephen Jasper: end of it and did it all in reverse. So that was, yeah, that
Stephen Jasper: was my craziest escapade. And so I had an interest
Stephen Jasper: because I get shocking jet lag, you know, if I don't treat it. My jet
Stephen Jasper: lag is absolutely shocking, as I discovered on my first
Stephen Jasper: overseas trip. And the thing that saved
Stephen Jasper: me, and I didn't know it at the time, but I know now
Stephen Jasper: on the first day, the people I was training said, hey, we're going
Stephen Jasper: to lunch, we could drive you, but it's only a kilometre away. Do you
Stephen Jasper: want to go for a walk? I'd love to go for a walk and have,
Stephen Jasper: you know, see the streets of Buenos Aires. That's not something you see every day.
Stephen Jasper: And it was sunny, you know, it was Winter, but it was sunny
Stephen Jasper: and that sunlight absolutely saved me. So
Stephen Jasper: sunlight is a key thing. And so I did an MBA
Stephen Jasper: after that job and I wanted to do project management.
Stephen Jasper: Looked around, nothing interesting came up. I was being offered pretty much the
Stephen Jasper: same sort of roles that I'd done. So I thought, stop it, I'll do a
Stephen Jasper: PhD as you do. I was hunting around for things
Stephen Jasper: and my supervisor and research manager were all saying, no, that's rubbish,
Stephen Jasper: don't do that. And then I mentioned the whole jet lag, explain the story.
Stephen Jasper: And they said, yes, absolutely, this is what you should do, research. And
Stephen Jasper: I did it. And that's how I became the jet lag guy.
Stephen Jasper: So, yes, I have a PhD in jet lag, so
Stephen Jasper: wow. International management. So it was a
Stephen Jasper: series of so many left turns. That's a spiral. I'm just
Joanne Lockwood: thinking there must be a, a whole collective of jet lag
Joanne Lockwood: PhD, experts of one. Yeah.
Stephen Jasper: And also, I mean, there's lots of scientists that do circadian rhythm
Stephen Jasper: stuff. And that's great. We need more of that. And I cite them.
Stephen Jasper: But in terms of international management, now, bearing in
Stephen Jasper: mind I was doing it through what was then the College of Business and Law,
Stephen Jasper: so people were writing about finance, economics, they're, you know,
Stephen Jasper: big on blockchain and of course all the various types of law. And I came
Stephen Jasper: across fairly late in my PhD, a study where they injected
Stephen Jasper: hamsters with Viagra for jet lag. And
Stephen Jasper: I had worked with Viagra in the clinical trials back in 97. I
Stephen Jasper: actually, you know, was up close and personal, you know,
Stephen Jasper: with 2,000 bottles of Viagra, and it was still being researched.
Stephen Jasper: And so I dedicated a paragraph for my PhD to that
Stephen Jasper: statement, you know, and it's all done academically. I
Stephen Jasper: think I lay claim to being the only person in that college to
Stephen Jasper: ever have written a paragraph about Viagra being injected into
Stephen Jasper: hamsters for jet lag. So, yeah, that, that's, I think
Stephen Jasper: that's unique. Blowing here, thinking, what other side effects did the hamster
Joanne Lockwood: exhibit with Viagra? Well, that's the funny
Stephen Jasper: thing. I mean, going back to, like I said, I've worked with Viagra. It started
Stephen Jasper: off as a heart drug. It opens blood vessels, surprise, surprise, it
Stephen Jasper: opens some other blood vessels. And one of the nurses in the very
Stephen Jasper: early stage, like first time in humans trials,
Stephen Jasper: asked the patient, did you notice anything? Well, actually, nurse, I
Stephen Jasper: noticed. And da, da, da, da, da. And interestingly,
Stephen Jasper: that same drug. I'm digressing here, that's
Stephen Jasper: fascinating. Fascinating. Is used in a
Stephen Jasper: serious cardiovascular condition called pulmonary arterial
Stephen Jasper: hypertension. And it's fatal. It strokes
Stephen Jasper: mostly young women. It's a horrible disease. But
Stephen Jasper: the active drug sildenafil is used in that application to open up blood
Stephen Jasper: vessels and alleviate that. So it is still used as a
Stephen Jasper: cardiovascular drug, but it gets a lot more use with other uses.
Joanne Lockwood: Yes, yes. And it's also now useful for jet lag,
Stephen Jasper: but only in the eastbound direction. That's the other.
Joanne Lockwood: That was my next question. In my
Joanne Lockwood: earlier career I used to work for a private bank and they had offices
Joanne Lockwood: in Hong Kong, Singapore and la, San
Joanne Lockwood: Diego, New York, Miami, east and west and Uruguay and
Joanne Lockwood: Bahamas and Cayman, other other lovely places. So I used to
Joanne Lockwood: fly regularly east, west, up, down across Europe and
Joanne Lockwood: further afield. And I was aware that there was a different
Joanne Lockwood: experience of east west travel to west east travel.
Stephen Jasper: So what's, what's the, what's the okay
Stephen Jasper: for most people? And I'm going to put a, you know, red underline,
Stephen Jasper: yellow highlight. This is the kind of diversity kicking in for most
Stephen Jasper: people. East is a beast and west is best
Stephen Jasper: for most people. Flying east is a beast. And
Stephen Jasper: here's the thing. And for morning people it's the other way around. So let, let
Stephen Jasper: me unpack that because that just sounds random. So when you
Stephen Jasper: fly west, say if you're, you're in London, if you fly to Los Angeles,
Stephen Jasper: the day seems to stretch out whether it's a long night or a long day,
Stephen Jasper: but your day seems to stretch out. It seems to last longer than
Stephen Jasper: 24 hours. So what you do is you stay up late and you
Stephen Jasper: have a sleep in. But if you're a night owl,
Stephen Jasper: lovely, that's fine. If
Stephen Jasper: you're a morning person, that's hard. And then going the
Stephen Jasper: other way, flying east, the day seems to shrink. So
Stephen Jasper: your sun rises and sets less than 12 hours because you're flying against the
Stephen Jasper: sun. So you have to go to bed early when you're not
Stephen Jasper: really tired and wake up early when you still are tired.
Stephen Jasper: For night owl, that's hard going. But for
Stephen Jasper: a morning person or a foul, that's easier for them.
Stephen Jasper: Yep, they'll go to bed early and wake up early. So there's that
Stephen Jasper: intersection between direction of flight and chronodiversity. And that's where I
Stephen Jasper: stumbled into onto that. And I'll give you an
Stephen Jasper: example from my own life. During my PhD,
Stephen Jasper: I got a scholarship to go to an international management
Stephen Jasper: conference in Paris. You haven't had catering
Stephen Jasper: until you've been to an international management conference in Paris. But that's another
Stephen Jasper: story. But I noticed
Stephen Jasper: I flew there and it was my birthday. It's
Stephen Jasper: the only time in my life I've ever had a warm birthday because my birthday's
Stephen Jasper: in winter here. Landed and I was good
Stephen Jasper: to go. And I just said to the conference
Stephen Jasper: organisers, every break we get, I'll be going outside just to get
Stephen Jasper: some sunlight. And then I knew coming back,
Stephen Jasper: I had to throw everything I could at it because I'm a night owl. This
Stephen Jasper: is why I'm talking to you. Just after midnight,
Stephen Jasper: I did. I managed my jet lag. Day two, day three, I went
Stephen Jasper: to bed a little bit early, like 8:30, 9 o', clock, which is early for
Stephen Jasper: me, but I didn't lose any productivity. And that's when I. Yeah,
Stephen Jasper: I'm onto something. I'm definitely onto something. And I did everything
Stephen Jasper: I needed to do. So coming back.
Stephen Jasper: So that directional component's absolutely vital. Yeah. I was
Joanne Lockwood: thinking the last time I went long haul was Australia,
Joanne Lockwood: Melbourne, where you're. Where you are. That was pre Covid
Joanne Lockwood: and I'd never travelled. Say
Joanne Lockwood: again from. I'm in Melbourne. I'm not from Melbourne, I'm from the other cities.
Joanne Lockwood: Sorry. Oops, Sorry. The most
Joanne Lockwood: I'd ever flown before, I think in terms of time was
Joanne Lockwood: Singapore, Thailand, those sort of Hong Kong and they tend
Joanne Lockwood: to be about 13 hours. From the UK was about eight,
Stephen Jasper: I think. Singapore. Eight, was it? Yeah, maybe. Maybe
Joanne Lockwood: it was Thailand. It was Thailand. Thailand, I think, is
Stephen Jasper: about. I think it might only about seven. No, it's definitely
Joanne Lockwood: more than that. I've. Yeah, I've done it.
Stephen Jasper: Singapore and Hong Kong are both +8 and Thailand's a little bit west
Stephen Jasper: time zone. I'm talking about flight time. Sorry, I'm talking about flight time.
Stephen Jasper: No, no, you're right. You're really right. Sorry. And I,
Joanne Lockwood: I. Because when we went to Melbourne, we went via Singapore.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, no, sorry, via. We went via Hong Kong. We stopped over in Hong Kong.
Joanne Lockwood: I remember the journey. We got. We weren't rich, we. We went. We went coach.
Joanne Lockwood: We were at the back of the plane, knees on our chest like you do.
Joanne Lockwood: And the flight to Hong Kong was absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: painful. And then you have to get off and you have to do it
Joanne Lockwood: again. So you do 13 hours, have a couple of hours break
Joanne Lockwood: and then you got to do another eight. It was that second eight. It's very
Joanne Lockwood: heady. Yeah. It's not quite as far
Stephen Jasper: from here to Hong Kong as it is from London, but it's still a long
Stephen Jasper: way. It's a long way, yeah. And so the jet lag was One thing, because,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, you talked about the fact that you're flying into the sun or flying
Joanne Lockwood: away from the sun when you're flying 18 hours total, the whole
Joanne Lockwood: circadian rhythm gets messed up. You've gone past that. Is the day getting longer or
Joanne Lockwood: shorter? It's wrapping itself, isn't it? Well, there's a couple
Stephen Jasper: of things to pull apart there. And the first is jet
Stephen Jasper: lag versus travel fatigue.
Stephen Jasper: And an example I would give to you. Say you
Stephen Jasper: want to fly to Cape Town in South Africa, but you can't get a direct
Stephen Jasper: flight. So you've got to do a couple of, you know, you've got
Stephen Jasper: the long flight to Johannesburg, then you're going to hang around Johannesburg airport, then you
Stephen Jasper: get another flight to Cape Town and then you, you get in a
Stephen Jasper: taxi and you get to your hotel, right? And of course there's the getting to
Stephen Jasper: the airport in London at your end. That's an exhausting
Stephen Jasper: journey. And you'll be tired, but you won't be jet lagged
Stephen Jasper: because you're very similar time zone. There's no
Stephen Jasper: travel fatigue. I mean, sorry, there's no real jet lag. There's travel
Stephen Jasper: fatigue. Lots of travel fatigue. The example I use in Australia is if we flew
Stephen Jasper: to Vladivostok, same thing, lots of travel
Stephen Jasper: fatigue. If on the other hand, they rebuilt the Concorde,
Stephen Jasper: you know, or you know, some super duper. One article was
Stephen Jasper: talking about London to Australia in three hours and you've got this super,
Stephen Jasper: supersonic jet, right? Let's say you boarded the supersonic jet and
Stephen Jasper: for that three hours there's soft pillows and, you know,
Stephen Jasper: little meals and cups of tea and anything you could want, right?
Stephen Jasper: And you land in Melbourne three hours later,
Stephen Jasper: you won't have travel fatigue because you've had three hours just sitting very
Stephen Jasper: comfortably. It's like going to the movies. But the jet lag will be
Stephen Jasper: brutal. So I want to pull those two things apart. The other
Stephen Jasper: thing is when you fly so far east, what can happen is your
Stephen Jasper: brain doesn't shrink the day. It's like it's flying
Stephen Jasper: west. And I've had that happen to me. You get so
Stephen Jasper: disoriented because there's two mechanisms to adjust to
Stephen Jasper: flying east. You have phase advance. So you, you know, you
Stephen Jasper: go to bed and wake up early. That's called phase advance. Viagra
Stephen Jasper: helps with that mechanism. When you fly west, you have phase delay. You go
Stephen Jasper: to bed late and you wake up late and that's phase delay. And that's easier
Stephen Jasper: for most people. So what can happen if you Fly, say
Stephen Jasper: London to Australia and you're just so not coping.
Stephen Jasper: What your body might do instead of doing phase advance, it might go into phase
Stephen Jasper: delay and take you longer to overcome your jet lag. So.
Stephen Jasper: Yeah, absolutely. And that first flight from London to Hong Kong is
Stephen Jasper: the one that, that's the terrible one in terms of time jet lag.
Stephen Jasper: That's an eight hour time difference. Hong Kong to
Stephen Jasper: heat too, not a problem. So if you could stop at Hong
Stephen Jasper: Kong, you know, rest up, that will help. Yeah,
Stephen Jasper: that's exactly what I did on my first round the world trip. I stopped at
Stephen Jasper: Hong Kong for a few days cause I knew my jet lag would be terrible
Stephen Jasper: and it was. And I was fine. And I used the old Hong Kong airport.
Stephen Jasper: That was scary. I've landed in there when you're
Joanne Lockwood: flying in. That was in the 90s. Yeah. Yes.
Stephen Jasper: You fall through the mountains and you land on a cricket pitch.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I remember distinctly about that was you could
Joanne Lockwood: smell the sewers in the plane when you were on the tarmac and you
Joanne Lockwood: could smell Hong Kong coming through. I remember seeing
Stephen Jasper: the slums. But what I also remember,
Stephen Jasper: at the end of the Runway there was a cafe
Stephen Jasper: and you could watch the planes landing or taking off.
Stephen Jasper: It just looked terrifying. You know, all that had to happen was for
Stephen Jasper: one plane not to break properly and it would plough straight into that cafe and.
Stephen Jasper: And everyone seems perfectly oblivious to that. No, no, absolutely
Stephen Jasper: not. Get me out of here. If I fly to the
Joanne Lockwood: us they tend to structure the flight so that you get on mid evening
Joanne Lockwood: and then you're effectively landing and waking up at six in the morning and then
Joanne Lockwood: you just get off the plane and get on with your day. And then in
Joanne Lockwood: reverse you structure the flights and then morning. So getting off and then going home,
Joanne Lockwood: going to bed and then try and kick your routine back in, is that kind
Joanne Lockwood: of a good thing to do? It can be. I think going
Stephen Jasper: from the US to London is, will be harder for most people to having a
Stephen Jasper: day flight, I think I've done night flights, all my
Stephen Jasper: flights and they're brutal. The transatlantic eastbound crossings and
Stephen Jasper: I've done trans Pacific crossings a lot as well. But the
Stephen Jasper: transatlantics are the ones that get me because I don't get a chance
Stephen Jasper: to nap. I don't the overnight ones. So yeah, a day
Stephen Jasper: flight I think would be better. You know, the overnight ones.
Stephen Jasper: I be lucky to sleep for two hours on a
Stephen Jasper: transatlantic flight. And if you do it in this height of summer,
Stephen Jasper: you've got sunlight most of the way anyway. There's not Much night.
Stephen Jasper: You're flying that far north. When I was flying a lot, let's say
Joanne Lockwood: back in the 90s, I used to do a lot of short haul. Let's say
Joanne Lockwood: it was to. From London to Zurich. I guess that short haul, two and a
Joanne Lockwood: half, three hours or whatever it was. We had domestic flights, given
Stephen Jasper: that here. Yeah. I got so used to it
Joanne Lockwood: that I could literally fall asleep before
Joanne Lockwood: takeoff. And I would land as we landed.
Joanne Lockwood: I would chop and wake up as we hit the tarmac at the other end.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'd probably let out an expletive out of my mouth, go, that just
Joanne Lockwood: happened something. Because I was mid deep sleep. Everyone around me
Joanne Lockwood: going, what the hell is this going on? But now I found it
Joanne Lockwood: very easy to fall asleep on those short hauls.
Joanne Lockwood: And my technique for long haul is get on there and pick about four
Joanne Lockwood: movies. And the movie that I'm not that fussed about is always
Joanne Lockwood: the third or fourth one. Because I know by the time I've watched the first
Joanne Lockwood: two that my brain is now getting to the tiresome stage.
Joanne Lockwood: Then I found myself forcing myself to stay awake for the third. And generally I
Joanne Lockwood: miss most of it. It's a bit like go for an operation. They inject you
Joanne Lockwood: and say, count back from 10. You know, you never get past two. I never
Joanne Lockwood: get past the third movie sort of thing. So it's a. It's a good technique
Joanne Lockwood: that I've learned over the years. Now I'm
Stephen Jasper: one of those strange people. They call it raw dogging, which sounds
Stephen Jasper: positively obscene. It's not. I just like to watch the flight map.
Stephen Jasper: I don't really want to watch movies. I don't want to have headphones in.
Stephen Jasper: I just. I just want to see my flight map.
Stephen Jasper: And I'm. I think we are relatively rare in
Stephen Jasper: the population in that we fall asleep on planes. I know, you know, I get
Stephen Jasper: the white noise and there's light vibration and bang, I'm out. But I know most
Stephen Jasper: people can't sleep on planes and they complain they can't sleep on planes. And I
Stephen Jasper: can't stay awake on the things, you know. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I put a lot of weight on over. Over Covid and other things, and I
Joanne Lockwood: flew to San Francisco. I found that really, really
Joanne Lockwood: difficult to fly to San Francisco a couple of years ago after Covid, because I
Joanne Lockwood: was a lot bigger. I was a lot more cramped. I was just
Joanne Lockwood: uncomfortable. And it's. It really, as you say, that,
Joanne Lockwood: that travel fatigue combined with the jet lag and just
Joanne Lockwood: that frustration of the whole cramped in space,
Joanne Lockwood: it's just, it's painful, isn't it? And the airlines know that that's
Joanne Lockwood: the, the problem. And they, they charge you premium to book a bigger
Joanne Lockwood: seat or to have pick your aisle. And it's like you trap me in
Joanne Lockwood: the middle up middle aisle or you trap me by the window with a family
Joanne Lockwood: next to me. It's hell, isn't it? Well, I,
Stephen Jasper: I hate the middle seats. I really don't like the big planes. I'm happier
Stephen Jasper: on not the tiny ones, but you know, medium sized planes where I like
Stephen Jasper: being next to the window.
Stephen Jasper: But yeah, I think the flight from Raleigh Durham to London,
Stephen Jasper: I was near a whole lot of families with small children. So that was an
Stephen Jasper: overnight flight from Raleigh Durham international to London. So what's the
Joanne Lockwood: recovery time? You know, I get you have the jet lag and I appreciate
Joanne Lockwood: everyone's different, but how the body's natural
Joanne Lockwood: recovery, what is the kind of process it goes through?
Stephen Jasper: The rule of thumb is about a day per hour
Stephen Jasper: crossed. That's the rule of thumb. Bearing in mind
Stephen Jasper: a few things. First of all, that it's easy to
Stephen Jasper: recover from west than east for most people.
Stephen Jasper: So like I said, when I went to Paris, I just got off the plane,
Stephen Jasper: I'm good to go. Off we go. And
Stephen Jasper: when I went back, I managed to telescope it.
Stephen Jasper: I interviewed someone for my podcast.
Stephen Jasper: So it's wonderful doing a podcast. I don't have to press any buttons here.
Stephen Jasper: You can do that. And he investigated Canadian in speed
Stephen Jasper: skaters. He's based in Montreal and they
Stephen Jasper: looked at speed skaters and they recovered much more quickly than they anticipated.
Stephen Jasper: So I think the state of health is important. Of course these speed skaters
Stephen Jasper: are in peak condition. They have to be speed
Stephen Jasper: skaters.
Stephen Jasper: But the rule of thumb is a day for every hour cross. So if
Stephen Jasper: you're crossing 10 time zones, which you do from to London, give
Stephen Jasper: yourself 10 days. But I think it could be less. And I think
Stephen Jasper: there's lots of things you can do to manage that. If I'm, if
Joanne Lockwood: I'm spending 10 days in Melbourne, it's going to take me
Joanne Lockwood: 10 days when I'm in Melbourne to recover from the 10 days I'm in Melbourne.
Joanne Lockwood: And then I ping back again. Is that 10 days plus 10 days,
Joanne Lockwood: that's 20 days of recovery or does the reverse offset it?
Joanne Lockwood: No. Yep. Well, there are some. An
Stephen Jasper: airline crew typically do this and this is why they don't want you to open
Stephen Jasper: the windows, by the way, the blinds. Obviously not
Joanne Lockwood: open the windows, but open the blinds. No, they don't want you to open The
Stephen Jasper: Sorry, no, not open the window. Yeah,
Stephen Jasper: don't open the blinds. They don't want you to open the blinds. It's not for
Stephen Jasper: your convenience, it's for theirs. Because let's say you've got British
Stephen Jasper: Airways and they've got a crew based in London, they want to stay on London
Stephen Jasper: time because let's say they do a flight to Bangkok, they'll
Stephen Jasper: touch down, they'll have a nice set and then they'll be back on the plane
Stephen Jasper: the next day to come back to London. They want to stay on London time.
Stephen Jasper: They don't want to be adjusting and they don't want the sunlight in Bangkok
Stephen Jasper: when it's still nighttime in London to interfere with their circadian rhythm.
Stephen Jasper: But if you're a traveller, you want that blind open so you can get that
Stephen Jasper: Bangkok sunlight so your body adjusts. Yes, it's daytime. Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: never thought about the cabin crew, the wanting to keep their
Joanne Lockwood: time clock because if they're completely isolated from the external
Joanne Lockwood: world and they stay on London time in their mind and in their job,
Joanne Lockwood: the shift pattern, then they're not affected at all, are they? They just
Joanne Lockwood: carry on living London time. That's it. And that's what
Stephen Jasper: people do. There was one case where someone flew around
Stephen Jasper: the world, I think it was for Qantas and you know, he just stayed on
Stephen Jasper: planes and flew around the world but he stayed on Sydney time.
Stephen Jasper: And so he didn't get jet lagged because he stayed on Sydney time. He just
Stephen Jasper: ignored what was happening outside. Again, going back to the night when I used to
Joanne Lockwood: fly. This was way before Internet and smartphones I
Joanne Lockwood: think I did have an old Nokia 2110 phone that had
Joanne Lockwood: global roaming or something so I could roam. But I tried to leave
Joanne Lockwood: my watch. The old days we had a watch that you had to adjust
Joanne Lockwood: manually. I tried to leave that on home time and
Joanne Lockwood: then in my mind just translate what time I am. So I was always thinking
Joanne Lockwood: about what time I was at home and then add five, add six, take away
Joanne Lockwood: 10, whatever it was and then eventually I could give up after about four days
Joanne Lockwood: and just set it, set it to the local time. But I guess that's me
Joanne Lockwood: adjusting in a, in a slow slide by
Joanne Lockwood: keeping the reference point back home. Well, it depends. Do you want to
Stephen Jasper: adjust or do you want to stay on home time? That's the decision you're making
Stephen Jasper: now if you want to stay on home time. If it was a really short
Stephen Jasper: trip, stay on home time. You know, like the cabin crew typically
Stephen Jasper: stay on home time. Don't Adjust your watch, leave it to London time
Stephen Jasper: or whatever, stay on home time. If
Stephen Jasper: it's a longer trip and you really want to adjust to the local time or
Stephen Jasper: you need to perform within the working hours of local time, get onto local time
Stephen Jasper: right away. Get on, you know, adjust your watch right away.
Stephen Jasper: There's a decision. But, yeah, go one way or the other
Stephen Jasper: is what I would say. Rather than stay on 1. Don't sit on the fence.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, sit on the fence. It's just painful. Make a decision one way
Stephen Jasper: or the other and then stick to it. Are there ways to sort of fool
Joanne Lockwood: your body? I mean, you mentioned sunlight is a good way of
Joanne Lockwood: getting your brain chemicals flowing. Eating food
Joanne Lockwood: at re. Changing your eating habits is that or your pattern. Eating food is
Stephen Jasper: secondary. Sunlight is the big one. And I've got a little gizmo I'll
Stephen Jasper: show you in a moment. But there's five different types of light receptors in the
Stephen Jasper: eye. You've got SO3 for colour vision. So think of red, green, blue,
Stephen Jasper: kind of sort of red, green, blue. You've got one for low level
Stephen Jasper: lighting and that's why you don't see colour very clearly in low level lighting.
Stephen Jasper: It's not geared for colour. And then you've got
Stephen Jasper: receptors that have nothing to do with vision and everything to do with
Stephen Jasper: regulating your circadian rhythm. And they're most sensitive
Stephen Jasper: to light in the blue, green, that sort of cyan colour,
Stephen Jasper: that sort of wavelength. And that's very primitive. If you think of
Stephen Jasper: like blue green algae in the water when they're sort of sinking
Stephen Jasper: or rising depending on the time of day, that's the colour of light that
Stephen Jasper: penetrates that blue green colour. So that's why it penetrates
Stephen Jasper: water better than any other wavelength. And I met a young man
Stephen Jasper: a few years ago and he went blind. Suddenly at the age of 16,
Stephen Jasper: his optic nerve just stopped working, which is a really awful
Stephen Jasper: thing. And so he was legally blind, but he still had a
Stephen Jasper: circadian rhythm. And a lot of blind people still have a circadian
Stephen Jasper: rhythm. A lot don't and they have to, you know, and this
Stephen Jasper: is where melatonin supplementation for those people can be
Stephen Jasper: useful. But yeah, it's independent of vision and a little
Stephen Jasper: gizmo. So this is an Australian invention because we love our jet lag
Stephen Jasper: here. And I was speaking with the inventor the other week and they. These are
Stephen Jasper: electronic sunlight glasses. So it's that cyan
Stephen Jasper: showing up for. Anybody who's listening to this and can't see it. So
Joanne Lockwood: Stephen's got what looked like half Glass half, half
Joanne Lockwood: glasses, white frames. And then they're beaming
Joanne Lockwood: a blue light into his eyes. Yeah, blue green light.
Joanne Lockwood: Blue green light. Yeah. So they're beaming light. And what
Stephen Jasper: this does. And I better take them off because I want to get to sleep
Stephen Jasper: tonight. True, true
Stephen Jasper: is they wake you up and I go to networking
Stephen Jasper: events and I hand them around and get people to try them on. And for
Stephen Jasper: some people, they say it's like having a shot of coffee,
Stephen Jasper: and for other people, they're fine with it. And I think part of
Stephen Jasper: it is because I'm doing this about seven or eight o'clock at night. The morning
Stephen Jasper: people, their melatonin starting to kick in. And what this does, it
Stephen Jasper: sends a message to the eye saying, hey, it's sunlight, wake up.
Stephen Jasper: And that sends a message to the brain saying, hey, stop producing
Stephen Jasper: melatonin. Little part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus
Stephen Jasper: stop producing melatonin. Wake up. And the evening people, their melatonin
Stephen Jasper: hasn't kicked in yet, so they're fine. They just put them on, don't feel a
Stephen Jasper: thing. So there's, there's
Stephen Jasper: labs that are similar. They have that blue, green colour. And this is, this is
Joanne Lockwood: the logic behind things like mobile phones having dark mode.
Stephen Jasper: Exactly. Adjusting the tone, night mode,
Joanne Lockwood: you adjust the. The balance of light as well, so you make them more
Joanne Lockwood: yellow at night. Things like this, it gets a reddish kind of tinge,
Stephen Jasper: Like a reddish yellowy, tawny sort of tinge. That's. That's cutting
Stephen Jasper: out the blues and the greens. That's what it's doing, cutting out the blues
Stephen Jasper: and the greens. You get this sort of sandy,
Stephen Jasper: bluish, reddish kind of colour. And so that's what
Stephen Jasper: night mode is. And it's doing that with your
Stephen Jasper: cell phones and your monitors, that sort of thing. Yes. You're trying not to
Joanne Lockwood: feed your brain chemicals with daylight light.
Stephen Jasper: That's it. And that's why, you know, they tell
Stephen Jasper: people, don't doom scroll late at night.
Stephen Jasper: You know, you're giving. You're not only keeping yourself awake with all the horrors of
Stephen Jasper: what's happening in the world, but, you
Stephen Jasper: know, and there's some horrors, but you're feeding the blue light
Stephen Jasper: that's keeping you awake, you've got bad news that's keeping you awake and
Stephen Jasper: blue light keeping you awake. And then, no surprise, you get insomnia. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm guilty of that. Guilty of that, definitely. Yeah. But I flip
Joanne Lockwood: my phone, goes into automatic night mode or dark Mode at about 8
Joanne Lockwood: o' clock in the evening, so. Oh, that's good. I'm not saying, I'm not saying
Joanne Lockwood: it's brilliant, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Jasper: So. And in my research in jet lag, like I said, it intersected with
Stephen Jasper: Chronodiversity. And this is something.
Stephen Jasper: I'm a night owl and I've been that all my life. And it does change
Stephen Jasper: with age. So if you've ever been the parent of small children, there's no such
Stephen Jasper: thing as a sleep in because they're up, ready to play, it's
Stephen Jasper: 6:00am Come on, let's go. And then when you're the parent of teenagers, like,
Stephen Jasper: you know, they're up at the crack of noon, you know, that's,
Stephen Jasper: that's what happened. Yeah, teenagers. Yeah, teenagers were laying. They'll
Joanne Lockwood: sleep anyway, weren't they? Teenagers? Yeah, I remember, yeah. But that's
Stephen Jasper: actually really useful for us as a species. So that they
Stephen Jasper: researched a tribe in Africa and they
Stephen Jasper: found they had morning people and late people. This was natural. And there was only
Stephen Jasper: a total of about 80 minutes, 18 when everyone was
Stephen Jasper: asleep. Otherwise someone was awake. Really handy in Africa,
Stephen Jasper: you know, there's lions and jaguars and stuff.
Stephen Jasper: You want someone to protect the tribe from prey. So this is
Stephen Jasper: why chronodiversity is a feature, not a bug. And if
Stephen Jasper: you, you know, if you're under attack from predators or enemies or someone,
Stephen Jasper: you know, late at night trying to take advantage, who do you want
Stephen Jasper: awake? Crazy teenagers is who you want to wake. You
Stephen Jasper: know, they'll, they're at, they're physically fit and they'll,
Stephen Jasper: they'll just go for it. So that's why, you know,
Stephen Jasper: chronodiversity is a feature and we treat it like a
Stephen Jasper: bug. And over in Australia we have
Stephen Jasper: an election coming up and the opposition initially had a
Stephen Jasper: policy against working from home. They said, right, we're going to abolish working from home
Stephen Jasper: in the public service. There was an outcry. There was an
Stephen Jasper: absolute outcry. And they pointed out it's going to mostly affect women. Do
Stephen Jasper: you really want to lose women's votes? And they said, actually no. They
Stephen Jasper: reversed on the working from home, which is good because it was bad policy.
Stephen Jasper: And I don't think it was clearly thought through. But one of the
Stephen Jasper: benefits with working from home is you can choose your hours.
Stephen Jasper: For most people, you can choose your hours. And I had a positive
Stephen Jasper: experience some years ago because I always struggled to be in the office
Stephen Jasper: at 9. That's just, I've got to get, you know, getting
Stephen Jasper: on crowded commuter transit, you know, it's just awful.
Stephen Jasper: And I Was working with a team based in Paris and I.
Stephen Jasper: I was in Sydney initially, then Melbourne and I didn't need to be at
Stephen Jasper: the office at 9, I'd start at lunchtime.
Stephen Jasper: They weren't going to be in the office until at least 4:30 in the afternoon
Stephen Jasper: my time. I could work on things and then if I had any questions, we
Stephen Jasper: could video conference early evening for me
Stephen Jasper: and it was just liberating As a
Stephen Jasper: night owl it was. I got to be who I was and people valued
Stephen Jasper: who I was and I want that for everyone.
Stephen Jasper: And it's not a one size fits all, but being able to work with your
Stephen Jasper: own body's natural rhythm. So that's. I'm passionate about that. And
Stephen Jasper: now, you know, I've been working in academia.
Stephen Jasper: I've had one class at 8am that was unusual
Stephen Jasper: but my morning classes start at 11:30,
Stephen Jasper: so technically morning classes,
Stephen Jasper: yeah. It's interesting what you say there about how over the course of our
Joanne Lockwood: life our internal
Joanne Lockwood: cranodiversity mortifies. I remember being,
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose in my early 20s. I was, I was very much.
Joanne Lockwood: Everyone accused me of burning the candle at both ends. I was getting up early
Joanne Lockwood: and working late. I was in it. So I end up working on systems all
Joanne Lockwood: night, getting locked into something and then I
Joanne Lockwood: had a job where I had to travel for two hours. I got in the
Joanne Lockwood: car, I woke up every day at 5 o' clock in the morning, I was
Joanne Lockwood: in the car, I got into my office at 10 to 8
Joanne Lockwood: or something like this, beat all the traffic and then I got a clear run.
Joanne Lockwood: Then in the evening I hung on until the traffic had passed. I got home
Joanne Lockwood: at 8:30, 9 o' clock in the evening, have my tea and I'd probably still
Joanne Lockwood: do something and then I go to bed about midnight, I'd be up again at
Joanne Lockwood: five and I behaved and performed like that for five,
Joanne Lockwood: six, seven years. And all of a sudden I stopped doing that very early
Joanne Lockwood: morning, I didn't need to. And I found my ability
Joanne Lockwood: to start early, disappear completely. And
Joanne Lockwood: then my job changed again and I wasn't working all night,
Joanne Lockwood: I wasn't staying up all night and I found my ability to keep going,
Joanne Lockwood: disappear completely. So now I'm a kind of an 8 o' clock in the
Joanne Lockwood: morning person till 8 o' clock at night. Outside of that
Joanne Lockwood: I'm just not functional in a professional sense anymore. Right. What
Stephen Jasper: time is it there now, by the way? 50. So 10 to 4 in the
Joanne Lockwood: afternoon. Right. That's quite civilised. Good, good, good. Yes
Joanne Lockwood: it is, yeah. I've got good lighting, so I've probably got some
Joanne Lockwood: daylight lighting here as well. No, the only lighting I
Stephen Jasper: would get is the aurora australis at this time of night. We do have
Stephen Jasper: aurora sightings down here, by the way, so that's not made up down
Stephen Jasper: amongst the penguins. But that evolution of our own
Joanne Lockwood: self, was it because it was a habit or is it because of
Joanne Lockwood: my ageing and changing hormones and changing life changing? I tick all
Stephen Jasper: of the above for that. I mean, look, when you're in your 20s, you're bulletproof
Stephen Jasper: or you feel bulletproof. And I know in my 20s I was
Stephen Jasper: working in the hospital systems, I. I'd do late night
Stephen Jasper: shifts and on calls and, you know, I'd be called into makeup
Stephen Jasper: and infusion at 3 o' clock in the morning and doing, you know, maths
Stephen Jasper: and, you know, crazy stuff like that. And I was doing that,
Stephen Jasper: I think, into my 30s. I couldn't imagine doing that now.
Stephen Jasper: I couldn't imagine showing up in a Hospital at 9am and
Stephen Jasper: compounding. And I worked really hard.
Stephen Jasper: In hospitals, you work hard, there's no two ways about
Stephen Jasper: it. And that's why all the
Stephen Jasper: nurses during the pandemic and the doctors, like, yeah, I feel you. I have
Stephen Jasper: sympathy for you. I've been up against it, doing that hard work and having
Stephen Jasper: to have additional protection, you know, you had to have the
Stephen Jasper: masks and what have you Absolutely had to. That was
Stephen Jasper: absolutely. Yeah, I'm glad I wasn't working the healthcare
Stephen Jasper: system at that time. But again, I think ageing is part
Stephen Jasper: of it and your chronotype changes. You become less of
Stephen Jasper: a night owl, you sort of peak for men,
Stephen Jasper: males, I think we're about 17 and for females about
Stephen Jasper: 15. I think somewhere around that. And
Stephen Jasper: then you drift towards being a more of a morning person or some of
Stephen Jasper: us drift. I seem to have stayed. I have adolescent
Stephen Jasper: chronic. That's just how it is. Yeah, I definitely struggle now beyond
Joanne Lockwood: 10 o' clock at night. Yeah. And I'm not particularly early
Joanne Lockwood: riser. My alarm goes off at quarter to seven in the morning. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: past 10 o'. Clock. That's it. Yeah. And also you missed out on
Stephen Jasper: a lot of sleep. There will be some catch up. You know,
Stephen Jasper: there's unfortunately been a link to lack
Stephen Jasper: of sleep and dementia, so I
Stephen Jasper: take my sleep as absolutely sacred. And I think there
Stephen Jasper: was an example, the late Margaret Thatcher, who famously
Stephen Jasper: lived on four hours of sleep, but. Yes, but she ended her life with dementia.
Stephen Jasper: So, you know, that sort of thing. Exact surprise. Maybe it's
Stephen Jasper: linked. Maybe it's Not. But, you know, that's. Sleep is just one of the pillars
Stephen Jasper: of health. And again with Chronodiversity,
Stephen Jasper: letting people sleep when it suits them. We have such
Stephen Jasper: a stigma in society. My father used to say to me all the time, early
Stephen Jasper: to bed and early to rise makes men healthy, wealthy and wise. And, you know,
Stephen Jasper: we have all these sayings. You know, the early bird catches the worm,
Stephen Jasper: different languages will have different sayings, all saying the same
Stephen Jasper: thing. And there's a real stigma about it. And people say, oh, I've done
Stephen Jasper: half a day's work before breakfast. No, I did mine the night before.
Stephen Jasper: I did mine the night before, I'm done, so I could sleep in. I. I've
Joanne Lockwood: seen that, that kind of bias exhibit itself in the workplace myself, where, because I
Joanne Lockwood: was. I was an early and a later, I'd be in there sort of 8
Joanne Lockwood: o' clock and I'd see people coming in. Some people would drift in half nine
Joanne Lockwood: or whatever it is, and they would be sort of saying to people, oh, you're
Joanne Lockwood: leaving already? It's only five o', clock, the night shift's already here sort of thing.
Joanne Lockwood: There's this perception that you don't see the habit of the other
Joanne Lockwood: people. You think they're slacking because you only see what you see. That
Joanne Lockwood: overlapping period is probably a third of your working day.
Joanne Lockwood: So you think you've done a third more than they have because they've come in
Joanne Lockwood: later, but really they're staying on. So, yeah, there is a bias there.
Stephen Jasper: There absolutely is. And it's a real stigma. And they do research
Stephen Jasper: on evening types of the owls. So you should talk about the owls
Stephen Jasper: and the fowls, which is different to the birds and the bees. But
Stephen Jasper: if you're a morning person, you're said to be a foul, and if you're an
Stephen Jasper: evening person, you're said to be an owl. That. That's the explanation.
Stephen Jasper: But there's a real stigma against owls. Real stigma
Stephen Jasper: against night. Night owls is like, as a night owl, I know I'm every
Stephen Jasper: bit as productive. As a morning person, I
Stephen Jasper: just do it later, or in my case, to do it the night before. So.
Stephen Jasper: And this push against work from home,
Stephen Jasper: I don't know why people need to be micromanaged. If they. If they can do
Stephen Jasper: their job at home and be as productive, let them, Let people select their
Stephen Jasper: hours. You might need to have a zoom
Stephen Jasper: time that suits everyone. See if you can have it in the middle of the
Stephen Jasper: day. And if people have to meet in the office, do that occasionally.
Stephen Jasper: But See if you could do that in the middle of the day. But
Stephen Jasper: this nonsense, you know, everyone rushing
Stephen Jasper: to work to be in the office at 9 o' clock is
Stephen Jasper: bonkers. I came to the conclusion after
Joanne Lockwood: some self reflection I realised no matter what time I
Joanne Lockwood: came in I'd always end up leaving at the same time,
Joanne Lockwood: late, whatever it was and I'd always end up getting the same thing done, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, I'd always achieve the same amount. So I soon realised that there was
Joanne Lockwood: no benefit to me to coming in at early o'
Joanne Lockwood: clock because I'd still be there at 8 o' clock and I still get the
Joanne Lockwood: same thing done in the day. So I thought well hang on a minute, why
Joanne Lockwood: do I put my pressure on myself to come in really early and do this
Joanne Lockwood: both end stuff? I might as well just start at 10, finish at 8
Joanne Lockwood: in the evening and say that's the way I work. Yeah
Stephen Jasper: and that's what I do. I try not to do much before 10
Stephen Jasper: unless I'm dealing with Americans and that's because of the time zone difference.
Stephen Jasper: So you know, but my American, any
Stephen Jasper: colleagues, my Americans I know, I'll just be there with a cup
Stephen Jasper: of tea and don't talk. I mean I've set my online diary,
Joanne Lockwood: my calendar up so that the first appointment is never before half nine in the
Joanne Lockwood: morning and my last appointment is half five to half
Joanne Lockwood: six in the evening. That's quite so, yeah. Sometimes
Joanne Lockwood: I'll end up having to accommodate someone from a different time zone or I have
Joanne Lockwood: to get a meeting in and I said it's a nine or something like this
Joanne Lockwood: and I'll wake up in the morning, I'd just be chilling out, doing my morning
Joanne Lockwood: routine, listen to the radio and listen to the quiz on the radio, listen to
Joanne Lockwood: the favourite song of the day and then I go and have my shower and
Joanne Lockwood: I come back to it and look at my phone go my God, I've got
Joanne Lockwood: a beating in two seconds. It's like how did that. My brain's
Joanne Lockwood: tuned itself that the day starts at 9:30 and yeah, I've got to
Joanne Lockwood: sometimes check that. So when I go to bed I go what? I programme my
Joanne Lockwood: brain say right, I've got to get up early and my brain goes okay, I'll
Joanne Lockwood: do that. Well I have my alarm set, so I have my
Stephen Jasper: daily list in my phone of what times things are on and
Stephen Jasper: okay, what alarms do I need to set? So I set an alarm for 10
Stephen Jasper: minutes to midnight. Normally I'd set it for five minutes. I wanted
Stephen Jasper: this. I don't haven't used this platform much, so I thought, I'll get in nice
Stephen Jasper: and early. And I have a friend who rings me about 10 past,
Stephen Jasper: quarter past 11 when she worked. So, um,
Stephen Jasper: she, she works until 11:00 o' clock and she was in a near miss, in
Stephen Jasper: a car accident. Near miss. So she was, you know, survived,
Stephen Jasper: but she was rattled. And I said, well, why don't you ring me when you're
Stephen Jasper: driving home from work? Because that was when she'd get nervous. I'll be awake.
Stephen Jasper: And so we, we chat typically three or four times a week
Stephen Jasper: at 11 o' clock at night. And that works for both of us.
Joanne Lockwood: So sleep deprivation, you know, you mentioned Margaret Thatcher, potential dementia
Joanne Lockwood: links. Sleep deprivation is a really bad thing, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? It affects our whole wellbeing. Absolutely. Look,
Stephen Jasper: sleep is one of the fundamental pillars of health, along with, you know, diet
Stephen Jasper: and exercise and, you know, connection or community, those
Stephen Jasper: sorts of things. Sleep is absolutely one of them. You cannot,
Stephen Jasper: you can go without a night of sleep. You can probably go for
Stephen Jasper: two nights at a pinch, but you will. Crunch. And we do
Stephen Jasper: need, you know, in the wild we needed to do that if, you know, sabre
Stephen Jasper: toothed tigers running around or something. Not a good time to have a nap.
Stephen Jasper: So we needed to have sleep like that. And
Stephen Jasper: it's interesting, horses need a lot less sleep than humans do.
Stephen Jasper: Horses sleep for less than three hours a night and they're very skittish,
Stephen Jasper: they wake up very quickly, but that's because they're
Stephen Jasper: prey. You know, for a lion, that's a meal,
Stephen Jasper: that's several meals. So that's why horses are so skittish
Stephen Jasper: in that they don't sleep much. And we have a big race here in
Stephen Jasper: Melbourne called the Melbourne cup every first Tuesday in November
Stephen Jasper: and horses are flown in from around the world.
Stephen Jasper: And there's. And this jet lag device is
Stephen Jasper: also a similar one, is used for horses. Their own blinkers they
Joanne Lockwood: put on and. They'Ve got these blue light blinkers that
Stephen Jasper: they, you know, it's a different shape because it's a horse face and there's a
Stephen Jasper: company that researches it and there's an academic,
Stephen Jasper: Barbara Murphy, who's dedicated her life to horse jet lag. She's
Stephen Jasper: at Kentucky, Kentucky, which is near the Kentucky Derby.
Stephen Jasper: So, no, that makes sense. But yeah, horse jet
Stephen Jasper: lag was her thing. So we've got probably the only PhD
Joanne Lockwood: jet lag expert on the call right now. We're talking to you. And
Joanne Lockwood: then we've got a unique person who's a horse jet lag expert somewhere in
Joanne Lockwood: Kentucky and states another. Another pool of one person that's like
Joanne Lockwood: a. It's fractal. You know, we're going sort of
Stephen Jasper: jet lag in horses. So. Yeah. And somewhere out there there's probably jet
Joanne Lockwood: lagging dolphins, jet lagging in sheep or something.
Joanne Lockwood: Deprivation. Certainly, you know, they do look at
Stephen Jasper: jet lag in animals because it's. But jet lag goes
Stephen Jasper: right down even to plants. You know, there are. Because plants have a
Stephen Jasper: circadian rhythm. That's when it was discovered. It was a mimosa plant that was
Stephen Jasper: put in a cupboard and it opened and closed its petals at the same time
Stephen Jasper: as it would have normally out the fields. Yeah, I'm certainly aware.
Joanne Lockwood: I suppose I've pulled 36 hour on
Joanne Lockwood: the, on the bounce. Sometimes, you know, in my IT days, get up at normal
Joanne Lockwood: time, all the systems crash, you're there and all night
Joanne Lockwood: and then you get to about 4 o' clock in the morning. There's no point
Joanne Lockwood: in stopping now, we might as well just carry on. And you're there, everyone
Joanne Lockwood: walks in, you're the heroes that got the system back up. And everyone gives you
Joanne Lockwood: a round of applause. Your boss looks at you, wags his finger and says, you
Joanne Lockwood: should go home to bed now. You go, hang on a minute. If we go
Joanne Lockwood: to bed now, we've got to make sure everything's tested. And eventually they force you
Joanne Lockwood: out about just after lunch, get home and then you're
Joanne Lockwood: sort of like, you're wired, aren't you? You're kind of wired, all the adrenaline's kicked
Joanne Lockwood: in. There's no way you can just drop to sleep all of a sudden crash,
Joanne Lockwood: you say the adrenaline goes and you're out. And that's that
Stephen Jasper: same response, you know, staying awake in case there's a Sabre tooth target.
Stephen Jasper: It's that, it's that biology kicking in. You're wired, you. And
Stephen Jasper: it's really funny. When I was doing my PhD and I was in the
Stephen Jasper: interview phase, so I interviewed 28 people who were working
Stephen Jasper: in biotechnology sector about their jet lag. That was the first phase. And then
Stephen Jasper: I did a survey and they kept coming up with the phrase running on
Stephen Jasper: adrenaline. Now I had a checklist of questions.
Stephen Jasper: Adrenaline wasn't in there. But multiple people kept
Stephen Jasper: using the phrase running on adrenaline. Oh,
Stephen Jasper: I've got to look into that. And this is something I found is
Stephen Jasper: that because, you know, east is worse than west for most
Stephen Jasper: people, but more people said that jet lag on return
Stephen Jasper: was worse than jet lag going out. Because when they go
Stephen Jasper: out that, you know, they'll fly to America or the uk. They are running on
Stephen Jasper: adrenaline. They've got to do this and do this and go here and go there
Stephen Jasper: and go to conference and speak and da, da, da, da, da. Right? Then they
Stephen Jasper: get back, they're in their routine, they're safe and all that
Stephen Jasper: exhaustion, bang hits them. And it takes a real
Stephen Jasper: toll on relationships because their partner,
Stephen Jasper: and especially if they've got kids, their partner who's been away is
Stephen Jasper: now absolutely useless. Can't drop the kids off at school,
Stephen Jasper: can't cook a meal, grumpy as, you know, bear with a sore head.
Stephen Jasper: That's a strain on relationships. And a lot of people get
Stephen Jasper: burnout and say, you know what, I'm just not going to do this anymore, I'm
Stephen Jasper: done. So, yeah, you raise a
Stephen Jasper: good point with running on adrenaline or caffeine and. Or
Joanne Lockwood: caffeine. Yeah, caffeine and energy drinks. Caffeine and
Stephen Jasper: sugar. No, but my big bugbear is
Stephen Jasper: alcohol. People are, oh, well, I'll just have a few drinks and go to sleep.
Joanne Lockwood: If you have a lot of drink, it'll make you pass out. But a few
Joanne Lockwood: drinks doesn't as wise. You know, when I travel,
Stephen Jasper: I channel my Methodist preacher grandfather. About
Stephen Jasper: the only time lips that, lips that touch liquor will never touch mine.
Stephen Jasper: I do tomato juice and I remember being, I think it was Qatar and I
Stephen Jasper: ordered tomato juice. Oh, would you like some vodka in that? No, absolutely not.
Stephen Jasper: So alcohol is the worst thing you can
Stephen Jasper: partake of when you're travelling, you know, cross time zones and of
Stephen Jasper: course the airport lounge, it's free. And then on the plane it's free.
Stephen Jasper: You know, the temptation's there, but no,
Stephen Jasper: resist that. Yeah. The other problem I have is that if I've
Joanne Lockwood: got something on my mind, I mean, okay, I have to get up early
Joanne Lockwood: in the morning, you know, I can't sleep through. I can't sleep through. I can't
Joanne Lockwood: sleep through. Some reason my brain either wakes me
Joanne Lockwood: up at the right time or I just can't. I'm looking at the clock every
Joanne Lockwood: 20 minutes, every 20 minutes. I just time slice in the entire night and eventually
Joanne Lockwood: I have to wake up and I haven't slept at all. And it's. The brain
Joanne Lockwood: just will not sleep on it. Yeah, no, I'm a big believer
Stephen Jasper: in alarms. That seems to be the thing that works best for me.
Stephen Jasper: But speaking of alcohol, the effect of jet lag is similar
Stephen Jasper: to the effect of alcohol. So I ask people,
Stephen Jasper: would you go to work drunk if you don't Then why wouldn't you
Stephen Jasper: go? Why would you go to work? Jet lag, it's
Stephen Jasper: the same thing. Adding alcohol to that is like being twice as drunk. So
Joanne Lockwood: that's a combination of time zone change and also sleep deprivation as well. So
Joanne Lockwood: both those combinations. Yeah, it's impairing your
Stephen Jasper: cognitive performance. Right. Jet lag has an effect on
Stephen Jasper: cognitive performance. We saw Joe Biden in the debate
Stephen Jasper: absolutely crash and burn and he attributed to that jet
Stephen Jasper: lag, and I believe that. And then after the election, he
Stephen Jasper: visited Angola and fell asleep in a meeting. Again,
Stephen Jasper: jet lag. And he flew. He'd flown east and, you know,
Stephen Jasper: in a dark room, bang, you fall asleep. And he's not a
Stephen Jasper: young man, let's be honest there. So is that why Trump
Joanne Lockwood: actively says he doesn't like flying and travelling anywhere? He likes to stay in the
Joanne Lockwood: us, that's why he says sends JD Vance everywhere.
Joanne Lockwood: You know, can't trust himself to stay awake. Not a young man
Stephen Jasper: either. And yes, the jet lag messes with you. He might go, you know what,
Stephen Jasper: just send JD out. And interestingly,
Stephen Jasper: JD's wife Usha travelled to Italy recently and
Stephen Jasper: cancelled a number of events there because of her jet
Stephen Jasper: lag. And again, that's flying east. And as we know,
Stephen Jasper: east is a beast, so we don't think of
Stephen Jasper: jet lag and the top echelons of politics. But yes, absolutely,
Stephen Jasper: Steve, it's been absolutely. Fascinating to learn about owls and fowls
Joanne Lockwood: and east is the beast and west is best. Some brilliant, brilliant
Joanne Lockwood: takeaways there. And fascinating to see your flashy
Joanne Lockwood: glasses. If you're listening to this and you haven't got the video, track down the
Joanne Lockwood: video somewhere and you can see the crazy glasses that Stephen was wearing there to
Joanne Lockwood: shine that. So everyone, our viewers know what we're
Stephen Jasper: talking about. There we go. Let me just screen hold them there, let me do
Joanne Lockwood: a screen grab and they can. I can maybe put that in
Joanne Lockwood: the thumbnail on the image. So there we are. I think so. I think this,
Stephen Jasper: this is the thumbnail. I'll put that as your thumbnail
Joanne Lockwood: for the please do show. So. Yeah, well, it's very
Stephen Jasper: flattering. Yeah, I use that as the COVID.
Stephen Jasper: Glasses will be most appreciative. Yeah. So could people buy those on
Joanne Lockwood: Amazon or are they specialist? They can buy them at my website.
Joanne Lockwood: Just say that again.
Stephen Jasper: Www.jetlagguy.com
Stephen Jasper: au.au Australia.
Stephen Jasper: Of course, I couldn't get the dot com on its own, so I've got the
Stephen Jasper: au. So there is another jet lag. Guys, have I Then,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah. So that's, that's the website that's all about me
Stephen Jasper: working on. Are you on LinkedIn and other platforms as well? Absolutely. On
Stephen Jasper: LinkedIn. Hit me up. I welcome pretty much everyone on LinkedIn. I'm
Stephen Jasper: receptive. So look for Dr. Stephen Jasper or the jet lag
Stephen Jasper: guy. You'll see me. I post quite a bit on LinkedIn. I've also got
Stephen Jasper: a Blue sky account because I don't use Twitter
Stephen Jasper: X. I just. No. And I have a YouTube channel and I've got
Stephen Jasper: two podcasts about jet lag because one isn't enough. You got a East one
Joanne Lockwood: and a West one, have you? Well, we've got the.
Stephen Jasper: As a chatty one. It's like this. It's a chat with me and another guy,
Stephen Jasper: Arthur Chan, and we just chance called Whatever Happened to Baby Jet Lag.
Stephen Jasper: That was the weirdest title I thought. Yeah, it's a memorable title.
Stephen Jasper: The other is a series where I interview thought
Stephen Jasper: leaders in this field. So I've got one coming up where I interview
Stephen Jasper: the inventor of these. So he talked about and he had
Stephen Jasper: false starts in this because they needed light and he thought, oh, let's try amber
Stephen Jasper: light. Amber did absolutely nothing though.
Stephen Jasper: So it's called ending Jet Lag. So I've got one with
Stephen Jasper: who's written a cookbook for the Circadian rhythm, so all that sort of thing. So.
Stephen Jasper: And I've also got some merch. I've got several books. So I've got
Stephen Jasper: a book called Jet Lag and it's written in
Stephen Jasper: user friendly language so you know, but there's a glossary
Stephen Jasper: for any technical terms. And I've got a children's book called Ben Flies
Stephen Jasper: to London. It's about little boy Ben living in Sydney who flies to London.
Stephen Jasper: And there's a companion colouring in book. So give some
Stephen Jasper: kids some pencils or crayon on a long flight, they're amused.
Stephen Jasper: It's a travel survival pack. Excellent, Stephen. Thank you.
Stephen Jasper: Thank you very much, Joanne. As we bring
Joanne Lockwood: this conversation to a close, I want to express my deepest
Joanne Lockwood: gratitude to you, our listener, for lending your ear
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