For a special episode of The Thrive Global Podcast, Thrive Global founder and CEO Arianna Huffington sat down with music icon Katy Perry for the “Witness World Wide” livestream promoting the release of her latest album Witness.
Much of the conversation centered on sleep, a topic Perry is passionate about and wanted Huffington’s expertise on. Huffington, author of “The Sleep Revolution,” knows a thing or two about the topic.
“I believe so much in the power of sleep,” Perry said. “A lot of people say they can’t get sleep, they don’t know how.”
Perry said she sometimes gets anxious to allow herself to rest and go to sleep.
Huffington stressed that this is often because of two things: a lack of transition to sleep (you don’t just drop a baby in a crib and expect it to fall asleep, yet this is what we expect of ourselves as adults) and our addiction to our phones.
She then walked Perry through the importance of a transition to sleep — a routine that separates you from your phone and acquaints you with, say a book, instead. Huffington came prepared and gifted Perry a Thrive Global Phone Bed to kick start her new phone-free sleep routine.
“It’s about putting your phone away because it’s a very addictive device,” Perry said. “And there is a time and place for everything and phones are really important. They’re great tools for all of us to be able to communicate and get the things that we need, but they can also take away a lot of things like our imagination, our presence, all these things.”
“It’s never been easier to run away from ourselves and to just lose ourselves,” Huffington said, and stressed that the importance of creating space between our phones and our sleep routines carries through to the morning.
“When I wake up in the morning, instead of rushing immediately to my phone, if we can give ourselves literally one minute. Does everybody have one minute before rushing to the phone?” Huffington asked. “Give yourself this minute and also just look ahead at what you are grateful for about that day. It could be your café latte. It could be this flower that you found. Anything. It doesn’t have to be a major thing.”
“It doesn’t have to be anything besides what you already have,” Perry said. “It’s like, I’m grateful I just get to wake up another day. I’m grateful that my body’s working. I’m grateful that I get this opportunity to share and shine my light. I’m grateful that I’ve come so far and I still have so far to go. It just means that life is an adventure.”
Huffington and Perry also discussed the science of sleep and why sleep is like a dishwasher for your brain. They both said they need eight hours to have a great night’s sleep.
When the conversation turned to dreams, Huffington shared that she used to write hers down. When asked about the last dream she remembered, Perry said Selena Gomez made an appearance, “It was awesome. She’s great. I love her.”
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