Do you get much time to reflect on your achievements?

Is it something you do once a year, like when being forced to undertake your Annual Performance Review?

Or is it something you do during your daily journalling?

Perhaps it’s just spontaneous?

Reflection can improve one’s ability. You can gain the insights, and implement them.

In some ways it’s similar to the research process.

For example, after you finish a scientific study, you reflect on what you’ve learned. Then, you might go and do another test of what you think is true (ie, do another study to test a hypothesis or theory).

In previous years, we’ve done a Best of The Previous Year’s Blogs.

And we’ll do that again now.

But first, we’re going to add a little spice this time - and reflect on the Best Research Papers of 2022 that we published.

From 2022, we’ve got 31 blogs - and 17 scientific studies we published.

So let’s go …

The Top 5 Scientific Studies

No. 5

It’s really cool when you get to publish in a Nature journal. And whilst this isn’t a publication in THE Nature journal, it was nevertheless great when you get recognition for your career’s work. So when an email popped into my Inbox inviting me to write a review of teen sleep and mental health, it was satisfying. But not as nearly as satisfying as the moment when the study was complete. But for me, it wasn’t necessarily the content of the paper, but the authors who I shared this paper with. It was definitely a time of reflection. Reflecting on the cumulative decades of fun times doing research with all these talented women. To have them all on the same paper was a privilege - very much a ‘microphone drop’ moment.
As for what this paper is about …
Takeaway message: If teens don’t sleep, depression comes knocking.

No. 4

In the weeks after COVID-19 began to close down the work and play of humans, Dr ‘Mika’ Kahn came up with an idea. We’d been doing research with a company called Nanit. Nanit invented a camera that when placed above a baby’s crib, it could measure their sleep. And these cameras had been recording the sleep of thousands of babies across this whole time that a little bug was sweeping across the planet. Mika, Natalie Barnett from Nanit, and myself, have published a bunch of studies of the impact of COVID-19 on infant sleep. This one though, was pretty fancy - and certainly made our team help to show the world that even babies could experience ‘social jetlag’.
Take-away message: the after-effects of COVID-19 shifted babies’ sleep patterns.

No. 3

For many, many, many years our team had been doing bright light therapy to change the biological timing of teenagers’ sleep. We then moved onto using melatonin. But we also wondered whether exercise alone could change circadian timing. It took a sports scientist from Basel in Switzerland to come over to our sleep lab in Australia, run full-week studies that collected crucial data, and even broke her arm in the process (long story). But suffice to say that Dr Christin Lang is a tough nut and a smart nut. And she’s helped us realise that being sedentary in the dark is quite bad for one’s circadian rhythm.
Take-away message: scheduled exercise can change circadian rhythm timing.

No. 2

You know that moment when you’re in a crowd, and you laugh or clap … and you’re the only one who did? Well I feel like that each day when I doomscroll and see yet another person claiming how bad technology is for people’s sleep. For many, many, many years I heard many, many, many teenagers talk about how they tried to restrict technology - but it didn’t work. All it did was leave them in the dark for hours. Tossing. Turning. Frustrated. Bored. Angry. Depressed. Anxious. Stressed. Worried. So eventually they get on their phones and feel less bad. So we did a study to prove this - and we dedicate it to all those teens who aren’t being heard …
Take-away message: pre-sleep tech use helps a lot of teens cope with their worries.

No. 1

At the Worldsleep2011 conference in Kyoto (that’s in Japan), I was at a talk by Prof Daniel Buysse about split sleep. It was very interesting. But nevertheless, my mind still drifted. I began reflecting, thinking about what parts of my research to focus on. One of them was about sleep and mental health. I got my conference notepad out, and began doing sketches. Not doodles - sketches. Drawings of different research designs. Until my pen lifted off from the paper, and I realised I had something. An idea. A way to test school-age kid’s insomnia and anxiety. Yep, we were going to do what everyone tells you not to do. We were going to sleep restrict anxious school kids. Yes - it took a decade before it finally got published. And yes, it will take a minute for someone to criticise it on social media (and then describe the sleep of their own kid to prove their point …)

Take-away message: sleep restriction therapy for school kids can be therapeutic.

Apologies to all the wonderful researchers who have put in 100s of hours of work and didn’t make it into this list. Choosing these 5 studies was hard - like choosing your favourite children. Luckily I’ve only got 2 children, hey? The third one might develop a syndrome or something.

Anyways, now it’s over to your choices …

What were your favourite WINK Blogs of 2022?

No. 5 - Baby Sleep Science

Well, this one is a surprise to me. It was a blog to speak a little about how Baby Sleep Day became a thing, and what the original group - led by Jodi Mindell and Erin Leichman - were doing on March 1st 2022 (aka, Baby Sleep Day). So watch out what the Pediatric Sleep Council will be doing this year - it’s going to be different … and on their Facebook page.

No. 4 - Do Blue-Blocking Glasses Work?

If you’re talking about helping you fall asleep quicker … then ‘No’.

No. 3 - Matthew Walker Changes his Stance

When we have a bunch of experiences, over and over again, we start to form a belief about how our world works. And quite possibly - when someone is told the same thing, over and over and over and over again - we tend to believe them, and see the world through their eyes. That effect is amplified if that same phenomenon is spoken by a trusted source. In this case, Prof Matthew Walker wrote in his bestselling book ‘Why We Sleep’ of a Harvard study that showed people fell asleep significantly later after reading from an e-book compared to a printed book. The blue light from the screen was to blame. This was in contrast to several studies that showed it didn’t take that much longer to fall asleep after using a screen that emits blue screenlight. But - Matt has done some reflection himself - and now … well, I don’t think if you hear it from me that you’ll believe it - so hear it from Matt himself.

No. 2 - Welcome to Sleep Cycle

Well, shucks guys and gals. I’m real glad you liked this one, because I really liked writing it. Indeed, I’ve noticed throughout 2022 that the concept of a Seachange seems to cut across a lot of lives out there. And not just in the workplace. People reached out to me after this blog, describing how they left a relationship that held them back and now they feel empowered and happier. It was lovely hearing people taking control of their lives and living a better chapter. I certainly have been … oh, btw, get Sleep Cycle soon! (trust me).

No. 1 - Attachment and Baby Sleep

This is a topic that so many people working in the baby space want me to talk about. Why me? Maybe because way back in 2006 our team wanted to test the idea that sleep training affected the attachment relationship between a baby and its parent. There were so many claims that this was the case. Even claims that science didn’t need to test it - it was common sense. I guess they haven’t heard of the concept ‘Mythbusting’.

Conclusions?

On reflection, 2022 was an amazing year. Not only for the creation of so much published research, but also because we got the chance to translate this research - and others - into a format that people ‘get’.

But in no way was the content from 2022 due to just me. Indeed, only 1 of the 17 published scientific articles was led by me as a first author. For the most part, I chip in. I’ll likely be a part of the creation of the idea that bounces around other people, until it’s seared, baked, and glazed. Admittedly I barely collected the data in these studies. A lot of hard-working people were in labs, in a clinic, or reaching out to people via the interwebs. These same people likely crunched the data, and then we chewed over the findings, searching for the story to tell.

So I would love to thank the following people from the former ‘Flinders Sleep Gang’:

Michal ‘Meeks’ Kahn, Serena ‘Sezza’ Bauducco, Christin Lang, Chelsea Reynolds, Cele Richardson (aka Doc), Michelle Short (aka Boss), Gorica Micic (aka G), Kate Bartel, Meg Pillion (aka Turtle), Hannah Whittall (aka Hare), Daniel ‘Bon’ Bonnar, Neralie Cain (aka Nez), Joe Reeks, Alex Daniels, Benita Rullo (aka Beni), Jess Mikulcic, and Steph Bourboulis,

And as 2022 consisted of the largest number of co-authors than any other year, I’m going to shout out a big ‘thanks mate’ to the Repeat Offenders:

Anu Katrina Pesonen and Liisa Kuula and the folks at Polar Electro, Aly Suh and Sangha Lee and the folks on the esports studies, Natalie Barnett and the folks at Nanit, Em Ricketts for leading one big-ass review paper, the folks at Orebrö University, and the 62 wonderful co-authors who backed Prof Pandi-Perumal’s “Scientists against war” paper.

• Prof MG