Being tired is costing you more than you think with Lisa Maltman

We talk a lot about financial well-being on this podcast, obviously, and there's a reasonable link here, I think, between people who are worried about their finances and the effect that that will then have on their sleep.

What do you do when it's situational like that? Like you said, sleep can be so elusive if the more you think about it, the harder it gets to chase down.

Totally.

So, well, in the first place, sleep impacts decision-making, so it's kind of a two-way thing.

Sleep impacts decision making.

So the logical part of your brain does not work as well when we are sleep deprived.

So you can actually see what happens if you see an MRI of your brain with lots of sleep and not much sleep, you can see actually what's happening in your brain, which is amazing.

So lack of sleep will impact your decision making, your planning, all the sorts of things that relate to financial planning and making great decisions and increased risk-taking.

That's a concern.

Is it? That's so strange.

Yes.

Why on earth would not getting enough sleep make you take more risks?

Because of the impact on the, it's called the prefrontal cortex, which is your decision-making part of the brain.

So that does not work as well.

And then the opposite happens in your emotional part of the brain that overworks, which is why we feel more emotional and stressed and even anxious and depressed when we don't have enough sleep.

And, of course, money can be one of those stressors.

If someone came to you in this sort of terrible situation, like what do you do? Like if you're in this sort of like stuck

loop, where do you start? Yes, so it's understanding the impact of stress on on your sleep and realising that that overstimulated nervous system, we call it nervous system arousal, where the whole day you might be sort of at this level of stress, come bedtime, then that fights your sleep.

So the cortisol, the stress hormone, that nervous system.

So it's understanding it's a nervous system thing.

So often we think it's just before bed, let's not be on our phone, let's not drink alcohol, all these things.

But if your stress, your nervous system is up here all the time, which is where mine was for insomnia, then you've got to bring that down.

And it's not just about your nighttime habits.

It's about your daytime.

And so sometimes it can be actually setting scheduling.