Latest / The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women / Ep. 38 Why You’re Still Tired After 8 Hours of Sleep

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Ep. 38 Why You’re Still Tired After 8 Hours of Sleep · The Body Rhythm: Nervous System Health, Digestion & Daily Rhythms for Women

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The woman who has been in the sympathetic activation in that low grade stress response all day long doesn't just arrive on her pillow ready to rest and restore.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: She arrives at the pillow, still running, the mind still racing, the thoughts still going, still processing, still carrying the weight of the day in her shoulders, her jaw, her lower back.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And say, then what happens?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Body Rhythm Podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to stop pushing through and start feeling like themselves again.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm CJ, Ayurvedic Wellness Guide, helping women reconnect to the natural rhythm their bodies have been craving.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't that long ago that I was exhausted in a way that sleep didn't fix, bloated no matter what I ate, and lying awake at 3 a.m.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: with my mind already running tomorrow's to-do list.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I just needed to be more consistent, more disciplined.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that my body wasn't feeling me.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was completely overwhelmed because you're not broken.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've just been living outside your natural rhythm for a long time.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, and thank you for joining me on this episode of The Body Rhythm.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're talking about all things sleep-related.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite subject.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me if this sounds familiar.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can spend eight hours in bed, sleep well, and still wake up feeling like you never really rested.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you're foggy, your patience is short, your body feels heavy, and you reach for the coffee, and before the day has even started, you're already thinking about when you can have your next cup of coffee.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was from the house to the office.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as I got to the office, I had my third cup of coffee.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just to keep going.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And with the all the smartwatches, all the health technology coming out right now, I feel like sleep and the hours that you sleep has become this great thing to track.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is tracking it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Eight hours, then we see all the things online.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you get eight hours of sleep, it's great.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Six hours, it's not so great.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Five hours, well, that's why I feel this way.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then you check your smartwatch and it tells you how you are supposed to feel.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it lines up with how you really do feel, or maybe it doesn't.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe, and this is an interesting research that has come out over the last few years, it's not how long you're sleeping, but what is actually happening during the hours that you sleep.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because those are not always the same thing.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode isn't about sleep hygiene tips or another bedtime routine checklist, but it's about what is actually happening in your body when you close your eyes.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so important for women's health because you can technically be sleeping, tossing and turning, waking up in the middle of the night, and your body isn't restoring.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I did an episode a couple of episodes back about brain health, and this ties in directly to that episode.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because how you sleep is connected to how well your brain functions and it impacts not just today, but years from now.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sleeping less is a way to prove our worth to ourselves, perhaps, but also to others of how much we can get done, of how fabulous we are.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that getting by on less sleep is something to be proud of because it demonstrates my worth.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But sleep is not empty time, it's not something that really we should just squeeze a little bit here and squeeze a little bit there.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's definitely not something that we should get less of just to prove our worth to ourselves and to others.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we sleep, the body is regulating hormones, it's supporting our immune function, it's consolidating our memory, it's performing cellular repair.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And your brain is doing housekeeping of its own.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the glymphatic system.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the glymphatic system is the brain's own toxic waste cleanup system.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is when you sleep, this brain toxic cleanup system gets to work.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes through the brain, all the little channels, and it takes out all of the toxins and all of the waste that have accumulated throughout the day.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And research is showing that as the brain begins to clean up all of the toxins, it reduces the risk for memory loss and dementia and potentially Parkinson's later in life.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's how important sleep is.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And tell me if this sounds like you, because it was definitely me not that long ago.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was so depleted.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I really didn't have too much left to give.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Every night I was sleeping.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I would wake up still dog tired, still heavy, reaching for my cup of coffee just as soon as my feet hit the floor.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And eight hours just wasn't enough for me.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was just too depleted.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned this before in previous episodes, like when I completely burned out, I couldn't get out of bed for three days straight.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's how depleted I was.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: During sleep, fluid waves through and around all the brain tissue, the little channels, and helps carry away the metabolic waste that accumulates as your brain does its work throughout the day.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And think of it like this your brain is running all day long, right?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the central processing unit of the body.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's processing information, it's managing stress response, it's making decisions, it's holding all the things, it's making sure your heart goes, your lungs breathe.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: It does all of that work.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then the byproducts accumulate and put onto that things that you're eating, medications that you're taking, these things are accumulating deep inside the brain's tissues.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then waste products begin to accumulate in the brain.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the researchers have found that these waste products are connected to things like dementia and Alzheimer's later in life.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we go for days, if we go for years after years after years of not getting good sleep, if not getting enough sleep, then the brain just begins to load up more and more and more toxins because they're never fully getting cleaned out of the brain system through the lymphatic system.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so sleep then is so important to become part of the normal maintenance that your brain needs to do its job well so that you can feel better in your body.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And research has shown that the brain's toxic cleanup system is significantly more active when we sleep than when we're awake, because sleep creates the conditions, the physiological state that allows the clearance of the toxins to happen more efficiently.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is no small thing, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is your brain every night running its own version of a reset.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: On top of the reset that the liver is doing and the kidneys are doing, right?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: The the body is an amazing, amazing thing.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But when your sleep is fragmented, when it's shallow, when it's interrupted, when you're tossing and turning, when the nervous system never fully turns off, then our brain cleanup system is compromised.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't happen overnight.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I don't think any of the research that I've read says if you've had a few days or months of disturbed sleep, that the toxins build up so much that it's gonna increase your risk potentially for dementia or memory problems or Alzheimer's.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: But over time, over years, over decades, the brain can be affected and the body can never fully restore.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then the symptoms show up so many years later when the damage has already been done.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: The research also showed that deep sleep is important.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Deep sleep, what the researchers call the slow wave sleep, is when our lymphatic system is at its most robust state.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's also during this time of deep sleep when physical restoration happens, when gross hormone is released, when the immune system does some of its most important work, when memory consolidation deepens, which means that a woman who is technically in bed for eight hours, but spending most of that time in light, fragmented sleep, and it is not getting the same restoration, the same toxic cleanup as someone who has deeper sleep and continuous sleep cycles.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, what might this look like in your life?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the pattern that I see most clearly in the women that I work with.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a typical day where she is solving problems, caring for others, switching between tasks, checking the phone, thinking three steps ahead, pushing through the fatigue to get one more thing done.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then 10:30 comes, and you expect your body to switch off, right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just like that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it can't because sleep isn't an on and off switch.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The nervous system doesn't work that way.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: The body needs a transition.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: It needs a transition from always doing into resting.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the woman who has been in the sympathetic activation in that low-grade stress response all day long doesn't just arrive on her pillow ready to rest and restore.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: She arrives at the pillow, still running.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: The mind still racing, the thoughts still going, still processing, still carrying the weight of the day in her shoulders, in her jaw, her lower back.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so then what happens?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: She might fall asleep right away.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then she might wake up in the middle of the night or toss and turn, or she might have difficulty falling asleep at all.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because the nervous system just hasn't had a chance to make that transition as well.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so the sleep is disrupted, it's it's more fragmented.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then she wakes up having slept, but still feeling like she's not fully rested, and the body just kind of accumulates this feeling of not being fully rested day after day, year after year.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it never quite gets better.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wondered that?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen that or felt that?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is physiology in the body beginning to accumulate our life experience and it's showing up, and we're just really not able to know what it means when we go to the doctor and we complain about sleep problems or our gut problems or tossing and turning all night long.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're really not gonna tell you that you have a dysregulated nervous system and you need to become more embodied, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor, in my experience, isn't gonna tell you that.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So in Ayurveda, sleep is considered one of the three pillars of health.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's food, sex, sleep.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You manage all three of those things, bring all three of those into balance, you'll be feeling amazing.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: So sleep isn't something that fits in after everything else is finished.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is a pillar of feeling good in your body and living longer, right?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the same category as food and sex and relationship.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what I know and have seen is both through Ayurveda and through my own experience and through working with others is that the quality of our sleep reflects the quality of our nervous system's relationship with safety, our nervous system's ability to feel supported.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because a body that feels supported can let go, can trust.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: A body that has been in high alert for a long time without any feeling of safety and support, struggles to trust and struggles to let go.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it stays in this constant state of vigilance because it feels that that's what's necessary.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: most of the time, the vigilance is no longer serving us.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't a threat from predators, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's an inbox, it's a to-do list, it's a low-grade hum uh list of everything that we're still carrying when our eyes are closed.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the things that we've pushed down because we didn't want to deal with them.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the nervous system doesn't know the difference.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: The invitation then becomes learning how to signal to your body that it's safe enough to release.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we do that through small pauses of rest throughout the day.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: We do that through a 20-minute evening wind-down routine.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: We do that through no screens at least 15 to 30 minutes before we go to bed.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: We do that by watching a beautiful sunset or lighting the candles or putting on beautiful music to listen to.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because sleep isn't something that you have to earn or to prove yourself.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that you get to do once you've finished everything else.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is so important.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that allows your body to keep doing everything that you ask of it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Our brain health is a whole life experience.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: As I explained on an earlier episode.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't listened to it, go back and listen to it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our brain health, our cognitive health, our memory is a whole lifestyle experience.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've already mentioned a couple of things that you can do, but here are three things that you can do simple tonight before you go to bed.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: One is to create a time of transition.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Give yourself 15-30 minutes between doing and sleeping, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So not scrolling, not another show, maybe turning all the screens off, turning up some nice music, lighting a candle, signaling to the nervous system that it's time to shift out of activated state into rest and digest.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then we reduce the inputs.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this isn't the right time to listen to our favorite podcast or our favorite show that we're watching, or just mindlessly scrolling, right?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Been there, done that, all the things.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: But when we give our brains less things to process in the time before we go to sleep, we're creating that transition that makes sleep easier.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we're also creating the transition to create less fragmented sleep as well.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing, if you're prone to fragmented sleep, towards tossing and turning, if you're a light sleeper, just make sure that everything is dark around you.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's darkness, maybe there's no lights from any digital devices that you have nearby.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the phone is in a different room.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then perhaps um enjoying a practice before you rest.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it's breath work, maybe it's a hand over the heart, maybe it's breathing in for four breaths, pausing for four breaths, exhaling for four breaths, pausing for four breaths, and doing that three times.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's a Yoga Nidra or a prayer or a bath or simply quiet, whatever it might be for you.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is the rest that you want to do before you actually put your head on the pillow?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because these three things teach your nervous system that it's safe to release.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: It begins to create consistent cues of safety to the body so that it gets easier to fall asleep and stay asleep day after day, month after month, year after year.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your body is learning what it feels like to let go, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can't force your way into restoration, but you can definitely create the conditions for it.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if you need something to help practice rest before you go to bed, I have created a yoga nidra to help the mind and the body and the nervous system release before it's time to go to sleep.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is a gentle place to start, and it was designed exactly for this: for the woman whose body doesn't know how to stop, for the woman who closes her eyes and finds her mind still going.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Yoga Nidra guides the body into that deepest state of rest, and actually it shows that that glymphatic system can operate when we're deeply rested in Yoga Nidra, which is amazing.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it is one of the most powerful tools I know for teaching the nervous system what it feels like to feel safe.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: The link is in the show notes.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and grab it.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if any of this resonated with you today, I would love to know.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Email me at Chelsea at Chelsea Johnson Ayurveda dot com.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, see you next week.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Be well and nourished.