Latest / The TalkBlock Show's Podcast / The Science of Sleep: How to Fix Burnout, Anxiety, and Nighttime Brain Racing | Dr. Melissa Milanak

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The Science of Sleep: How to Fix Burnout, Anxiety, and Nighttime Brain Racing | Dr. Melissa Milanak · The TalkBlock Show's Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Is that that when people are surviving on caffeine all day, now when they finally can get to sleep, they don't feel tired.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: The core explanation that I talked about in my 10x talk as well is coming up with your sleep window.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: What you do, four simple steps.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: The first step, when we go to sleep at night, our body typically drops, so for Fahrenheit, about two to three degrees, Celsius, about a half to one degree, but we see that our body drops degrees of temperature to cool down whenever we are sleeping.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Coffee doesn't make you less tired, it just reduces your ability to perceive that you're tired.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the TalkBlock Show.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: My name is Vadeem, and today our guest is Dr.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Melissa Milenak.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: She is a licensed clinical psychologist, an executive consultant, and an expert in sleep, stress, and optimal performance.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: She founded Mind Impact Consulting, where she helps people and organizations eliminate burnout, build resilience, and achieve peak performance through quality rest.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: She has given a popular TEDx talk titled Sleep, Not the Impossible Dream.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Today we dive deep into the science of sleep.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: How stress ruins rest and real tools, how to fix it.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Doctor, welcome to the show.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: My pleasure.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh today the first question uh so we all know that uh all high performance people they all treat uh s uh sleep uh not not as they don't take it as important as it's supposed as it's supposed to be.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: They often often treat sleep like uh luxury instead of uh a priority.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: So um how how dangerous it is uh for long-term health to not to sleep well or sleep bad?
2:13
SPEAKER_01: There's a significant impact on all different aspects of our health when we're not getting quality sleep.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: We need sleep for our physical bodies to heal and repair, for our metabolism, our immune system, our body to heal from injury.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: There even for individuals that like to exercise and work out.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: If you're not getting the right amount of sleep, I always say your workouts stop working for you, your body will have a more difficult time, even building the muscle and doing what it needs to be able to survive and protect itself.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: But it's also very important for our brain health.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: When we sleep, our brain takes out the trash in the sense of it clears out all the toxins and such that build up throughout the course of the day just by using our brain.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: And if we're not getting the right amount of sleep, then our brain can't do that important vital process.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: So now it builds up and it can have significant impact on our brain health, which is why lack of sleep can actually be one of the biggest risk factors contributing to early onset Alzheimer's, dementia.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: That's why if we're not sleeping well, we see impacts with our memory, our focus, attention, and concentration.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: It's truly not even to mention our mental health and the sense of impacts for our mood, for our resilience, for our ability to balance emotions, to deal with anxiety and stress.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: So sleep actually is one of the fundamental core pieces, really at that foundation for everything else.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: So also many, many people lay down and their mind keeps keeps racing non-stop.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh, how can someone like shut their brain off when trying to fall asleep to not to have those infinite like thoughts?
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Completely so there are a number of things.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: So our brain is designed to process information for us, to problem solve for us.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: And so as we're busy throughout the day, most of us don't give our brain the chance to actually do that, to stop and take a minute to think and to process.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: So when we climb into bed, it's the first time that we are alone with our thoughts without all the rest of the distractions.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: And so now our brain is trying to jump in to that to do what it's supposed to do, but at that point, we don't want it to do so.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: So I tell people, just like if you're cooking, you wouldn't take a hot dish out of the oven and immediately put it to refrigerate.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: You would give it a chance to cool down.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: We need to give our brain that same window time.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: So about 10, 15 minutes before it's time for bed, I recommend taking a notepad and a pencil, no technology, doing this outside of bed.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: And you want to write down your to-do list for the next day because otherwise you're gonna lay in bed and you're gonna think and plan.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: And now you're it's gonna keep your brain awake, trying to remember what it needs to do the next day.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: And you also want to download everything running through your mind, all of your thoughts, good things, worries.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: I usually recommend setting a timer for three to five minutes at the beginning because if you just write quickly, you're gonna do a high-level quick things, but you're not really gonna give your brain that chance to download.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: So by taking that time, downloading it, you take it, you put it on the nightstand, and you get in bed.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: And then if your brain is still racing, you actually would get out of bed and write more and then get back in bed.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: Just like when people have a pet and they take the dog and they keep putting it outside for house training to teach it that it has to go outside of the house.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: We want to teach our brain that it can think and process, but it has to do that outside of bed.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: So that writing, that processing, it makes you more efficient.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: You have your to-do list in the morning before you have your coffee.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: It helps your brain to know when to shut off and it gives your brain permission to not have to constantly be thinking and planning.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: If you still find that you're in bed and your mind just still hasn't shut off, or maybe it's the middle of the night and you wake up and now your brain is running.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: You can also use something called cognitive shuffling.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: And what that does is it gives the brain just the right amount of distraction that it can connect with something and focus on something to be able to stop thinking about any plans or worries or those things.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: So, one example, take a word related to sleep.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: Say the word blanket.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Imagine the blanket warm and soft, relaxing, and then work your way through the letters of the word.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: Start at the letter B and think of every single word that starts with B.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: Baby, balloon.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: When you run out of B words, then go to the letter L.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Most people will fall asleep before they finish the word, because it was grounding just enough to distract the brain from the worries, but not enough to be something that the brain felt it had to hold on to and keep you awake for.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's interesting.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: It's a nice game.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And um also I have a question a little bit uh from my um uh about my past uh the job I did in the past, uh the schedule was very crazy and it forced me to wake up extremely early every single morning, and often I had like four hours, five hours of sleep, and to stay awake uh throughout the day I drank uh energy drinks and coffee with espresso shots.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: So uh how um uh what is this habit doing to to to to human body and uh this kind of sleep cycle?
7:30
SPEAKER_00: How can uh someone in my position survive early mornings without like abusing caffeine and it's especially yeah?
7:40
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say there's two different parts there.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: So the first thing, if we kind of work backwards, when we're talking about the caffeine and the coffee.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: So from the moment that we wake up, our body starts to build up sleepiness again.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: Just like you eat lunch and then you start building up hunger until you get to dinner.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: And so that's sleepiness, that's sleep pressure, there's lots of different words for it.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: That sleepiness, what happens is your body starts to build up a chemical called adenizine.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: And more adenazine in the system, the more tired we feel.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: That's sleep heaviness.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: Caffeine actually mimics adenosine.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: It's only one molecule component different.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is that whenever you were drinking the caffeine, it basically binds to the receptors so your body can't detect the adenosine anymore.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: So think about what I just said.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: Caffeine doesn't make you less tired, it just reduces your ability to perceive that you're tired.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: So the reason that this connects with what you're saying is that when people are surviving on caffeine all day, now when they finally can get to sleep, they don't feel tired.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's harder to be able to get to sleep and give your body the sleep that it actually needs.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of people, because they're not feeling tired, they think that they can get by on less sleep.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: And so they start to believe, oh, well, I'm one of these people that only needs three or four hours a night.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: And so that unfortunately is not the case for the majority, a large percentage of the population.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: Most adults typically need somewhere between seven to nine hours.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Now it does change the amount of sleep that we need over the course of our lives, and the older we get, oftentimes that number gets smaller, which never seems fair.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: But to your point about the getting less sleep, we need to be cautious actually what we're doing during the day, because our sleep doesn't just start when our head hits the pillow.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: It's so much of what we're doing throughout the day, what we're eating, when we're eating, how we're exercising, the caffeine and the chemicals and the alcohol and everything else that help our body to be able to sleep when it needs to sleep.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Yep, totally.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: And and also um uh uh one more what's uh interesting for me, and uh I think for our listeners, some of our listeners experienced it's when you're extremely tired.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: For example, I I had um one day I worked uh like it's a hard physical job, I did drilling, and um like 14 day uh 14 hours day, started at 6 a.m., 14 hours, then then I don't know, for some reason I had some energy to go to the gym.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Then I came I came back home late night, and I need to wake up next day very early, maybe six or seven can't remember, and uh I try to fall asleep and I don't want to sleep.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm so tired that I cannot sleep for some reason.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: How how does this work?
10:38
SPEAKER_01: So there's a number of reasons and a number of things that can have an impact on this.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: It's a really great question I get asked a lot.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Some of it is that our body has different systems, different processes that govern our sleep and when we how we feel tired and how our body knows when to feel tired.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: One, if we're constantly ignoring that feeling of sleepiness, sometimes our system won't trigger it as easily.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: So take people that, for instance, maybe they are malnourished food-wise, and there's food insecurity, and after a while they don't even feel hungry anymore because their body knows what's the point of having hunger cravings because they're not going to eat.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: So there can be some of that.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: Also, there can be, as we talked about the caffeine a moment ago, depending on what workouts.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: Many times a lot of the different supplements and such people take for workouts also have caffeine in it.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: So there's that.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: But also when you're working out, that's gonna amp up the body.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: You're going to have chemicals that are gonna be coursing through the body, your temperature is going to increase, and you're gonna be more amped up versus relaxed.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: When we go to sleep at night, our body typically drops, so for Fahrenheit, about two to three degrees, Celsius, about a half to one degree, but we see that our body drops degrees of temperature to cool down whenever we are sleeping.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: And our body starts to drop in cortisol, for instance, and there's all these different changes.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, when we're working out late at night or when we're really stressed and anxious, our body is constantly scanning.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Our brain is checking our body, and our brain is scanning to see how tight are his muscles, how fast is your heart beating, how quickly are you breathing.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And because sleep is considered a vulnerable state.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: So if our brain detects that our body is having these responses that trigger that fight or flight response when there's a threat, our brain is gonna say, Oh, I can't let him sleep right now.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: There must be something that could hurt him.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: That's why you can be exhausted, but you're in the middle of a crisis and you can't sleep because your body is so amped up.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: And especially if you've done that workout, your heart is beating faster, you're breathing faster, your muscles are tense, your temperature is up.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: So all of the cues that your brain is reading from your body is saying that it's time to be awake, it's time to be prepared to protect versus it's time to rest.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why instead we have to see, first of all, okay, what are we doing to be able to relax the muscles, stretching, progressive muscle relaxation?
13:05
SPEAKER_01: What are that's why people talk about slowing the breathing rate down?
13:09
SPEAKER_01: Because when we're sleeping, our respiration rate is lower.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: People take the hot shower, then step into the cold room for the temperature to be able to drop.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: And usually if you've had your long work day and then you've had your workout and you come home and you eat late, when we eat also can impact our circadian rhythm.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: That process within our body, that 24-hour clock that manages when we're awake and alert and when we feel tired and sleepy.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: So if we're eating later at night, that's cueing our body that it's time to be awake instead of time to prepare for sleep just yet.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: So all of those things can combine together to confuse the system of whether it should be awake or asleep.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: A little bit um about how um how much sleep do we actually need?
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Is is that uh eight-hour rule really uh for everyone, or can someone some people actually like thrive on much less sleep?
14:06
SPEAKER_01: So eight hours is an average.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: So we know for the average adult, they usually need somewhere between about seven to nine hours.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: So if I asked, you know, what's the average shoe size for the country that the person's in, you'll see all different ranges.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: And so smaller and larger feet and shoe sizes.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Same thing with that eight hours of sleep.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: There are some people that naturally need more and they barely give themselves eight hours and then they wake up and they still feel tired.
14:32
SPEAKER_01: And there are some people that need less and they'll wake up after six or seven hours and feel great until they look at the clock and then feel tired because their brain said they should, because it hasn't been eight hours.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: So the key here to note is that not everybody needs the same amount, but that doesn't automatically mean that you need less.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: And the amount of sleep that you need does change over the course of our lives.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: Think of it with calories, right?
14:59
SPEAKER_01: You have different people, and some people need more or less calories to fuel their body.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: Sleep is the same way.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: So, what we need to do instead is there's a process that, and I can share it if you want me to, where we kind of do certain steps to figure out how much sleep you actually need.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: And for each person, it's actually very individualized, and it does change over the course of our lives based on our age, our genetics, physically active and how much our brain is active.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yes, please.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: So what we usually do is, and this is something where individuals that do CBTI, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, this is actually the core explanation that I talked about in my TEDx talk as well, is coming up with your sleep window.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: What you do, four simple steps.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: The first step is we need to determine how much sleep you are currently getting.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: So you have to take your all seven days, weekdays, weekends, average up how much sleep you're getting, including naps in a 24-hour period, and come up with one number, not a range.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: Don't say six to seven hours, say six and a half.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: And don't count time in bed, meaning that the time that you're awake reading or the time that you are awake in the middle of the night, time in bed does not count as time asleep.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: So average that up and then come up with how much sleep you're currently getting.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: Maybe right now you're only getting six hours a night, and that's okay.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Now, for anyone listening, if your number right now is less than five hours a night, we would start with at least five hours.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: So that would be your initial starting point.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: For everyone else, we're gonna start with reality of what you're truly getting, not what you want to get or think you need.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: We'll grow the number.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: So say it's only six right now.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: That's step one.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: Step two is that we have to figure out the when to get your sleep.
16:47
SPEAKER_01: And so you think across your seven days what the earliest is, but you have to wake up.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays, you're up at 6 a.m.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: for a workout class or for your commute or whatever it is.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: That means that 6 a.m.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: is gonna become your wake up time.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Yes, all seven days, even on the weekend.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: But if you're getting the right amount of sleep, you're not gonna need to sleep your weekend away.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: So you take your number from step one, six hours, you take your wake up time from step two, six a.m., and you work backwards.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: And so 6 a.m., six hours back is 12 midnight.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: That would be your starter window that will grow.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: So step three is we start with our starter window and we stick to it for seven days.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: So that means that 6 a.m., six hours back, 12 midnight.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, 12 midnight might feel too late.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: So you could make it 11 to 5 or 10 to 4, but we're not gonna make the window bigger just because we want to get in bed earlier and we want to sleep longer.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna start with our six hours.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: We're not depriving you of sleep.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: We're making you a more efficient sleeper.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: So that 12 to 6, that means that that step three, that stick to it for seven days, means that you're not gonna get in bed at midnight and read.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: You can get, you can read at 11, maybe on the couch or in the chair, not in bed.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: But when midnight rolls around, that's not when you start reading.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: That's when you put the book down and then you get in bed.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: Head is on the pillow, it's time to sleep.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: Whether you wake up seven times in the middle of the night, you still get out of bed at 6 a.m.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: when the alarm goes off.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: And yes, you might feel tired.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: But that's a good thing because that means you're gonna have built up more sleepiness to make it easier to fall asleep the next night.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And that sleep momentum will help you to start being able to sleep during your sleep window.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: So that's for those seven days.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: We only sleep between those two times.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: We don't take naps throughout the week because we want to build up sleepiness.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: And yes, naps can be a great thing when they're used strategically.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Power naps, 20 to 30 minutes, that quick boost of energy before two or three in the afternoon, but we don't want to take them every single day because then our body learns to rely on them and it learns to expect them.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: And now we start to feel tired at our scheduled nap time each day instead of being awake during the week.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: And then step four is that we're gonna evaluate and adjust.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: We want to be falling asleep within 10 to 15 minutes, sleeping straight through the night, minus the bladder break, and then waking up and feeling rested and not needing the nap.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: If that is you, you've hit the right number.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: If not, we adjust.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: If you're still waking up multiple times, we shrink the window a little bit.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: If you're sleeping through the night but you're still sleepy, we grow the window and we start adding 15 extra minutes to the bedtime.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: So midnight to 6 a.m.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: becomes 11:45 to 6 a.m.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: And then 11:30 to 6 a.m.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: And we keep increasing this once a week until we hit the sweet spot that we're falling asleep quickly, sleeping through the night, and waking up and feeling rested.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: And now we know exactly how much sleep we need, when we want to get it, and we did the impossible because we just created more hours in your day.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Because instead of spending 10 hours in bed to get six hours of sleep, you're spending six hours in bed to get six hours of sleep.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: You're more efficient, and you now have four more hours in your day to do all the things that you didn't have time for before.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Melissa.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Lots of information in there.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely gonna try it, yeah.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: So um, stress and anxiety.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it causes uh terrible sleep, right?
20:33
SPEAKER_00: And terrible sleep causes even more stress.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes, in my opinion.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, how do we break this uh cycle permanently?
20:44
SPEAKER_01: There are a number of different ways to target this.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: So, yes, whenever we are stressed, kind of as we were talking about a few minutes ago, our body is going to have more of that tension in it and the way that our physical body is responding to the stress.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: So our brain is gonna find it harder to be able to sleep and to relax because it wants us to be prepared to fight off whatever is causing the stress.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: So the first step is figuring out how to relax the body and the brain so that we can send the cues that say, it's safe, it's okay, I can sleep.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: So that's where things like the writing and the journaling, the kind of shuffling, if people have significant anxiety problems working with a medical provider to treat the anxiety for the physical body, doing things, for instance, I mentioned briefly something called PMR.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: That's where it stands for progressive muscle relaxation.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: When you overly tighten and stress out a muscle group, and then you quickly release it, it fatigues the muscle, it can help to elongate the muscle, to relieve tension.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: So we do this exercise where we do this with every muscle group head to toe.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: We're squinting the eyes, stretching the face, holding the shoulders up to the ears.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: And as you progress through all the muscle groups in the body, By overly tensing and then releasing them, it helps to relieve the tension throughout the body.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: It helps the brain to focus on the body instead of worries.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Our breathing rate slows down, which helps the body to relax.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: And what's great is not only does this relieve the tension and the anxiety in the body, it makes us feel less stressed, helps us to be easier to fall asleep.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: But people that are experiencing lots of movements or pain at night often report that this helps to reduce that as well.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: So we can help prepare our brain and body to be ready for sleep so that it helps the body to know which chemicals to be releasing and to let us relax.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: And on the opposite, if we're not sleeping as well and it's putting the stress and strain on the body, then that's where we start to do some of these other strategies to help our body to know when it's time to sleep.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: When we're going to bed at all different times and we're waking up at all different times, our body doesn't know one when to feel tired.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: So if we're going to bed around the same time every night, now our body knows when to feel tired.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Just like if you eat dinner at 7 p.m.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: each night, you get hungry around 6:30 because your body knows to expect food.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: So we want to be able to teach our body when to begin to unwind.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: That's also why it's very important to have a wind-down routine.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: Most of us don't have anything to prepare for bed other than scrolling on our phone, and then we get in bed and we want our brain to shut off.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: If we can do a few things each night, that routine that triggers our brain and it can say, oh, I know it's time to rest now, that will also help the system to start to shut down and to relax, which can help fight off some of that anxiety.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: Lots lots of other things in there as well, but that's that's a few tips.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, sure.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And uh you just mentioned this uh evening routine and technology, like our cell phones, TVs, tablets.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh what are the biggest mistakes people make during the two hours before bedtime?
24:03
SPEAKER_00: And do the screen, like a cell phone light, uh really ruin this rest, or Yes.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: What's your thoughts?
24:12
SPEAKER_01: Very much so.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: See, what happens is that so our eyes perceive light through the optic nerve, and it sends messages to our brain, and there's a little part of the brain we'll call it the sleep switch, and it says, It's light out, it's time to be awake, it's dark out, it's time to sleep.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: And so historically, as the sun would set, that would trigger our brain, you know, we'd have dusk and the sun is setting to know that it's time to start preparing for sleep.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: That tells the body to start producing melatonin and other sleep-related chemicals.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, now, because we're on our devices in our face, there's so much brightness that the sun never sets.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: Our body and brain never know when it's getting dark and when it is time to start to prepare for sleep.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: So that can impact our body's ability to know when to start producing chemicals like melatonin, for instance.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: With the introduction of all of these personalized devices, we see more and more people having melatonin deficiencies because it's not triggered in the correct way.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: And so not only is it the light, it's also going to be yes, what it is that we're focused on and what we're doing on the devices.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: So, step one, I will tell people at night, put it in night mode, make the white with black lettering switch to black with white lettering that will emit less light.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Pay attention to what you're doing on the devices as you're winding down.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: If you're getting in bed and it's time to fall asleep and you're doing the last minute, why are you checking your email?
25:34
SPEAKER_01: If you're truly not going to respond to it, don't check it because otherwise now your brain is gonna start thinking and planning the response that it wants to make.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Or if you're listening to things that have voices, people like it because it distracts their brain.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: But the problem is that as you're starting to fall asleep, if it's television, the commercials are louder than the regular programming.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: So that volume change will wake you up.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: And anything with vocalization and voices, if our brain detects a voice that it doesn't recognize, it will want to check and see if that's a threat and someone there to harm you.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: So it causes micro awakenings that will pull us out of restful sleep.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: And we may not realize because we're not fully awake, but it's reducing the amount of time that we're spending in restorative stages of sleep with our body and brain healing and repairing itself.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: So we want to make sure that our devices are not playing anything.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: If we if we need noise static, a white noise machine, a fan, if you truly refuse to stop watching TV or listening to something to fall asleep, at least put it on a timer so that it will shut off earlier in the night and it's not playing all night.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: So once you fall asleep, you don't constantly have the disruptions.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: And another key piece, we want to make sure our phones are in the do not disturb or screen down.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: Because even when our eyes are shut, all the flashes and alerts, we can detect light changes through our eyelids.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: Our brain thinks that there could be something that could hurt us.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: It could be lightning, explosions, all these flashes, especially when it's on our watch and it's this close to our face as we're sleeping.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, so there's and then the last thing is the snooze button.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people love the snooze button, and they even will schedule their alarm to hit the snooze button more often.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: But the problem is that when we hit the snooze button, we negate the process that our body just went through to wake us up.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Our body prepares to wake us up two to three hours before we wake up.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: And when we hit that snooze button, we're negating the process.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: It can take our brain up to an hour to fully be awake and alert just from those disruptions.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: And those eight or nine minutes of snooze sleep typically are not enough to get back into a restorative stage of sleep where our body and brain is healing itself.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: I say it's like empty sleep calories.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: So it's better to set the alarm later and be less disrupted by it.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: Now, when you do wake up in the middle of the night, not only don't check the phone, but don't check the clock.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, our brain starts to do math.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: It starts to calculate how long we've been asleep and how much more sleep we have, and that can wake up our brain and cause more stress as well.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: I I always check the how much.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: It's hard not to, but it's so much better if you don't.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes it's like, oh, it's still five hours to sleep.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: And it's great when you wake up and it's time to get up and do that.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: But otherwise, think about it.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: You're laying there and you're thinking, oh, okay, I've gotten three hours of sleep so far.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna fall back to sleep?
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Why am I waking up?
28:33
SPEAKER_01: Why is it 3 a.m.?
28:35
SPEAKER_01: And then most people get stressed and frustrated, or it's oh, well, my alarm's gonna go off in 45 minutes.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: Should I even try to fall back to sleep?
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Am I gone?
28:42
SPEAKER_01: And now the more we try to force ourselves, now we don't relax to fall back to sleep.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing: if you're laying in bed and you know you're not gonna fall back to sleep, sometimes we're there, we're just wide awake.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: It's actually better to get out of bed and do something boring until you feel sleepy and then get back in bed.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Because laying in bed trying to force yourself to sleep actually starts to connect our brain associating the bed with being awake and with being frustrated instead of actually sleeping and resting.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: So it's better to get out of bed and like fold the laundry, empty the dishwasher, do something until you feel sleepy so that we strengthen in our brain that connection that bed is for sleep, not for being awake.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good suggestions.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: And how does uh sharing a bed with a partner, kids, or pets impact sleep quality?
29:37
SPEAKER_00: And how can we fix fix it if it's impacted in a bad way?
29:41
SPEAKER_01: It impacts it in every way.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: So there's a few things.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: So obviously, whenever there is anyone else that's in the bed, it could be a pet, a child, a partner, you're gonna have two different people that are moving.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: So whenever somebody moves, they could distract you.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: Any noise or sound can cause a disruption.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: Maybe one person, a partner, comes to bed later than the other person is turning on the lights or making noises, or their alarms going off in the morning and they're waking you up and getting out of bed, or the awakenings in the middle of the night.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: Temperature, where if one person is warmer or colder and the impacts that can have, there's so many different disruptions.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: So part of it depends on what the disruptions are.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: An eye mask or earplugs are always great first step options.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: They don't disrupt your sleep.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: And for most people, you'll find that you're sleeping better, especially if people have different schedules because it helps to block up the noise.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have one partner that's getting up multiple times to use the restroom or what, or somebody that's snoring and those things.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: That's a separate conversation about sleep apnea.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: But in general, step one, a lot of people will have the eye mask, will have earplugs.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: You can have earplugs that actually have personalized alarms.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: So it will wake up the one partner, but not the other person.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: And so that's a great option so that both people aren't disrupted if one person has to get up before the other.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: Being able to find the balance on temperature is another piece.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: We say cold enough that you need a cover.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Now, some people will feel warmer or colder.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: So you might have to adjust the amount of clothing that you're wearing, or maybe one person has the comforter on their side of the bed, the other person only has the sheet.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: Some people will adjust the type of mattress that they get so that the coils are independent.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: So if one person's moving, the other one doesn't feel it as much.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: Now that's that's different with an adult and two adults versus with children, with pets.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: For children, we typically want to help them to be able to find a way to get back into their own bed on most nights, especially as they get older, just to be able to encourage their sleep habits and their sleep hygiene and their ability to eventually be able to sleep by themselves and feel safety.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: From a pet standpoint, there's a lot of research that shows that humans sleep very well if the pet, the pet can be in the room if the pet is not disruptive, but on their own bed on the floor.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: When the pet is in the bed with the human, many times it can be disruptive for the pet as well as for the adult.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: There are obviously circumstances and service animals, and I'm not, you know, contesting any of those pieces.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: It truly is an it depends situation.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: But there is some research that can show that it can also be very disruptive and distressful for the pet to be sleeping with their human.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes the best solution is to have them on their own bed in the room, but not in the bed.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Good.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: Lots more for that one, too.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: For sure.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know uh how some people, um uh those who don't have enough sleep on weekdays, uh sometimes they say, Oh, it's okay, I'll catch up on weekend.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Can we actually catch up on sleep during the weekend?
32:53
SPEAKER_01: So research shows us that it takes four days to make up for one hour of lost sleep.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: So the two-day weekend isn't is only half, and that would just be over for one hour.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: And now some people work augmented schedules, but a four-day weekend is still long for most people.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: The idea behind it is that in general, we don't have the ability to like some people will talk about sleep banking and they're gonna sleep a lot to try to use it for the rest of the week and deprive themselves.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: And there are short occasions where sometimes that can work.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Like people with shift work and night shift might take a longer nap to help reduce some of the sleepiness and help with alertness.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: But in general, being consistently inconsistent with sleeping maybe three or four hours during the week, and then hoping that we're sleeping a lot on the weekends, the best way I would say that for everybody is saying, if you spent your Monday through Friday and you ate junk food and sweets and fast food all week, would you then eat healthy on Saturday and Sunday and tell me that you had a healthy diet?
33:53
SPEAKER_01: Most likely not.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: And so trying to play ketchup just on the weekend, yes, we might feel less tired because we're reducing the overall sense of sleepiness, but our body can only process so much sleep at a time.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: And because it takes so long to really recoup from it, that two-day weekend isn't nearly enough when the majority of the time we're depriving ourselves of what our body and brain needs to be healthy.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: About um wearable devices, like smartwatches, smart bands, rings, they can track our sleep patterns now.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: So do these devices help us or they create more anxiety?
34:37
SPEAKER_00: What's the study about it?
34:39
SPEAKER_01: So there's a little bit of both.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: So for a large percentage of people, the tracking devices can be very helpful.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: In that if we're tracking and we're paying attention to something, there's a term as the Hawthorne effect, where you observe something and you impact it and change it.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: So if I said to you, okay, I want you to keep a diary of everything that you eat this week, you'll probably find that you start eating healthier because you want to write down the apple, not the box of cookies.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: And so for most people, by observing their sleep, just by paying attention to it, they start to see improvements because they realize, oh, okay, I had a couple drinks last night and my sleep wasn't as great, or I ate these foods, or this is what I exercised, the timing of the day, and this impacted my sleep.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: So that can be really helpful.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: And to see patterns over time, to see, oh, you know what?
35:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm really getting I'm not getting enough of REM sleep for my brain or deep sleep for my body.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: I wonder what I need to, oh, I didn't realize I was waking up so often.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times the trackers can be helpful because we can observe, we can make modifications.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: There is something called orthosomnia, which actually is now diet being diagnosed.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: It's this idea of the overfixation on getting ideal sleep.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: And especially with the data now with wearables and tracking devices, some people become so fixated on the absolute numbers that it causes more anxiety for them.
36:02
SPEAKER_01: They hear, okay, I'm supposed to be getting 20 to 25% of REM each night.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm only getting 19%.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with me?
36:10
SPEAKER_01: And not really thinking through the fact that not all of the device, most of the devices are only about 80, 85, or 90% accurate, you know, in terms of mapping on what we'd find in the lab.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: The idea is to look at the patterns to see how your body is performing over time.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: If you're consistently getting a set amount of sleep and certain percentages of sleep, how does your body feel?
36:31
SPEAKER_01: How is your brain functioning?
36:32
SPEAKER_01: So for some people, the wearable devices do cause significant stress and anxiety, and we take them away from them.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: But for most people, the tracking helps to really give insight onto what impacts sleep in a positive and a negative way, and helps people to start to really better understand how much sleep they really need to feel at their best.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: But um workplace burnout, uh, through your company, Mind Impact uh Consulting, you work with uh corporate leaders and elite athletes, right?
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Um uh what major shift occurs when an organization finally improves its uh sleep culture?
37:17
SPEAKER_00: How how can you tell the what's the data?
37:21
SPEAKER_01: So the data shows uh honestly, everything changes.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: So right now, what we're finding is that organizations are losing on their end a significant amount of amount of money each year because of the sleep problems of their employees.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: And employees are significantly struggling on their overall well-being and their health also because of the sleep problems.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: So when people start getting better quality sleep, we see productivity increase, creativity increase, we see less accidents, less sick days.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: We actually see interpersonal team dynamics.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: So people being able to learn from each other, to work better.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: We see resilience, the ability to be able to pivot and to deal with challenges, to be able to impact their clients and their customers and have those relationships be stronger and customers reporting that they're having better interactions with the team and with the folks that are working with them.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: There's it literally goes across all different aspects of the company.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: So it's not just the number of sick days.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: And yes, obviously, you see people that are just so burned out that things can take longer.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: We can see more errors and mistakes.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: We can see reduction in reaction time if we're not sleeping well.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: We can see that a project can take much longer because it's harder to focus, or we have to go back and check for small errors more and more times, or it's just people are lacking the motivation.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: The way that I easiest describe burnout, one, it's not that you're lazy or that you can't handle things or you don't want to work hard.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: It's that the demand on your energy, on your time, on your resources, the demands exceed how much that you have.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: And if we think about burnout, so we talked about everyone having their devices.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: Say that your phone is about to run out of battery life, but you need to make an important phone call.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: You may plug it in, get to 5% battery.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: You make the call, but then it drains the battery.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: You keep having to plug it in to get a few percentages so that it can do the task, but you keep having to plug it in versus plugging it in, letting it get to a full charge, and then it can work more optimally and more efficiently.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: Think of that for ourselves.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: Part of burnout is we're never fully getting ourselves to that full charge.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: We're just constantly plugging in for 5%, which makes it harder to be efficient, which makes it harder to really be productive.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: And overall, it's harder also for us as the individual to enjoy things.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: We don't experience as much happiness and joy.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: We don't take as much enjoyment out of the things we used to enjoy doing.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: So that's gonna impact not just our productivity and how we face our job, but every aspect of it.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: And um uh what pattern of um exhaustion do you do you see most frequently among high-level executives and top leaders?
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Is there any pattern related to sleep?
40:15
SPEAKER_01: There are a number of things.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: I think that the higher up you go and higher into leadership, people feel increased pressure.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: They feel the pressure to perform, they feel that they need to, they obviously care about their teams and their people and the company, and so they feel like they need to show up, they need to be the ones to tackle every single issue.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes it can be difficult to delegate or to rely on someone else to do it, or feeling like they truly can't take a break because they need to be the one there to respond and to be available.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: It can become much harder to disconnect.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: So finding that they're laying in bed and they can't shut their brain off, or even if it's the weekend, it's really hard to not work all of those two days because they feel like they need to play catch up on other things, and then seeing the back and forth where when they're with family, they're thinking about work, but then they're at work and then they're feeling guilty that they're not with their family and both are are negatively impacted in those ways.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: Not to mention that, I mean, the thing is some of this is real.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: When you were at the top for leadership, there may be certain things that only you can deal with and handle.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: There may also be certain scenarios that you can't share with other people, whether it's clearance or the information.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: So that's where it becomes really important to not only take care of prioritizing your sleep, maybe have your executive assistant only schedule meetings starting at a certain time so that you can rest if you need, or one night a week you don't have late calls with other time zones so that you can have that time with family or to rest.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: But then also looking through one, what are the things that you can delegate?
41:49
SPEAKER_01: It may not be as perfect as if you did it yourself, but looking at the trade-offs for your health, for the team's health.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: And also one of my favorite concepts is something that I call planned neglect.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: And what that is, is thinking of all of the things that we have to get done and then choosing what are the things that we are not going to do that day.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you want to have the time to come home and spend with your children.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: So instead of spending the hour to cook and prepare the meal, you order takeout so you can spend that hour playing with your children.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: You're neglecting cooking, but it doesn't mean that people aren't still getting food.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're choosing to not do something, it doesn't feel like a failure.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't feel like one more thing you didn't get done because you got to take back control over it.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: And that helps to reduce some of the fatigue and exhaustion because now we're giving ourselves permission to breathe for a moment.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: And also, Melissa, I was always wondering how uh top-level politicians, when they visit other countries, like on the other side of the globe, it's a huge jet lag, and sometimes it's even multiple countries, multiple uh time zones.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: How do they is there any trick?
43:04
SPEAKER_00: How do they deal with with this jet lag exhaustion, dealing with other leaders than media, all these conferences?
43:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh and and they look nice, they look like I mean there there's so many different parts to that.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: So it with jet lag in general, if you do nothing, your body takes about one day per hour to fully adjust.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: So if you're traveling somewhere five, six hours different from your home time zone, it would take five to six days for your body to naturally adjust.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: Now you can do certain things to help jumpstart that a little bit.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, using light to your advantage.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna get somewhere first thing in the morning, get as much light as you can because light triggers our body system to feel more awake.
43:51
SPEAKER_01: So you get there at 9 10 in the morning, don't put your sunglasses on.
43:55
SPEAKER_01: Get as much sun and as much light as you can to help the brain wake up.
43:58
SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna get somewhere like Late at night, and maybe you don't feel tired.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: You've gone from west to east, but you need to go to bed earlier.
44:05
SPEAKER_01: That's the time where you might put your sunglasses on at seven or eight at night, make it dark, get into your hotel room, close all the blinds, turn the temperature down to make the room colder.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: We want to give our body the cues to know when to feel tired.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: So on the days of travel, sometimes if they are going to have the option to not immediately have to do the first media appearance, we might find that they exercise more to feel a little extra tired.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: So that gives a little more sleep momentum to fall asleep and to be able to reset.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: If they get somewhere first thing early in the morning, we try to stay awake until it's time to go to bed in the new time zone.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: If we want to adjust to the time zone.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the other piece.
44:47
SPEAKER_01: Because some people, what they'll do is if they're only traveling for a day and they're going to be in different time zones as best they can, they may actually stick to their home time zone, depending on how many hours difference it is, because that may mean you just wake up a little bit earlier or you go to bed a little bit earlier if the schedule can allow it.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: And then you're going to also feel more rested.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people that first day kind of function on a bit of adrenaline and a little bit of caffeine.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: But if they're going to have to do a multi-day tour, that's also where we use strategic napping to take those naps to give that body.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: Some of them will take a 20, 30-minute power nap before they do their media appearance so that they can have a little bit of that boost of energy and alertness, even if they feel like they're going to have the crash throughout the day.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to need to use something like this because uh I'm going to Japan and Thailand in November.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's like 15 hours difference.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: I was just in Japan a few months ago.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Should be.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: No, should be good.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Should be.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't worry about this.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, and part of it too is figuring out how you can sleep on the plane.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're gonna be leaving, I cannot.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: I cannot.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Whatever whatever long, like I've been to Thailand many times, 16-hour flights, like the direct flights, I can't.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: I'll say again, the IMAS and the earplugs on the plane don't hurt.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: If you avoid coffee and alcohol, sugar the day or two leading up to it, and you're just drinking more water, your body's natural chemicals will help to jump into place.
46:22
SPEAKER_01: You can actually start adjusting your time zones a few days before you leave if you can move your schedule a little bit in either direction, because then it helps you to already start to make up for some of the time zone change.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: But on the plane, definitely paying attention to when you eat your meals.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: That's a really big one.
46:41
SPEAKER_01: Because if we're eating and it's nighttime when we're eating and it's time to eat on the plane, but it wouldn't be a time to eat in the country that we're traveling to, that can throw off our circadian rhythm as well.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: So pay attention to when you're eating, and that actually will help your body to have a better sense of when it should rest.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
47:00
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: And Melissa, what uh what is the absolute worst health crisis you you have seen from someone who was ignoring severe sleep loss?
47:15
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen any crit critical conditions?
47:19
SPEAKER_01: So I mean there there are a number of critical conditions.
47:23
SPEAKER_01: I think there are so many different ones that come to mind.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: When I think, for instance, from a heart health standpoint, the American Heart Association added sleep to life's essential eight because when we're not sleeping well, the significant risk increasing for risk of heartioattacks, uh, heart heart heart attacks and other types of cardio and cardiac different distress and issues there.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can see even for as children, adolescents, as young as 15 and 16, that if their sleep deprived, the plaque building up in their arteries and veins and such even faster.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: So sleep plays a lot with our cardiac health.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: We see it for risk for diabetes, for obesity.
48:03
SPEAKER_01: Additionally, sleep apnea.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: I have to bring this up for a moment because it's not just the insomnia and the difficulty sleeping, but for individuals with sleep apnea, they literally have this diagnosed condition where their body will, their oxygen levels drop or they stop breathing for 10 seconds at a time.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: And so that sleep disruption, not only does that then wake most people up, so they reduce the amount of REM sleep typically that they're getting, which is very important for our brain health and repair and our memory consolidation.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: But because we're waking up so much, then typically that disrupts our brain's ability to clear out the plaque and the toxins that we were talking about.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: Our three-pound brain produces over five pounds of toxins every single year.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: And if we're disrupting the body's ability to flush that out, that's why untreated sleep apnea is one of the higher risk factors for early onset Alzheimer's, dementia, cognitive decline.
48:59
SPEAKER_01: So we see sleep for playing a role in those types of conditions, not just the sleep apnea itself, with which that does for brain health and our heart health, but our, as I said, cardiac, obesity, diabetes, uh even risks for cognitive decline, dementia, Alzheimer's.
49:15
SPEAKER_01: It really spans the entire for physical conditions as well as for mental health and the negative impacts with anxiety, depression, trauma, substance use, suicide risk, triggering, bipolar episodes, seizure.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the list goes on and on, which is why sleep is such a fundamental thing.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: But the good news is that no matter where your sleep has been up until this point, you can start today.
49:41
SPEAKER_01: You can start making adjustments, you can start making tweaks.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that all of a sudden that your whole life is shot, but instead you can start working to reprioritize your sleep and harnessing that power that we all have access to to help improve your physical, your mental health, even just your overall quality of life.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: Got it, got it.
50:05
SPEAKER_00: And the last question for today, Melissa.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: If someone is listening and feels completely exhausted right now, what is the one small change they can make uh tonight to sleep better?
50:18
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna give you a two-part answer to that.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes, please.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: And so what I would say is the first adjustments we would usually say is work on having a bit more of a consistent sleep schedule as best you can.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: A set bedtime and wake time.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: If you can't completely get it perfect, really focus on having a set wake time all seven days.
50:39
SPEAKER_01: Try to get your better sleep schedule for your bedtime and wake time so your body when it when you're sleeping at the same time and your body knows when to expect sleep, it can actually give you a more optimized, more effective healing for your body and brain because it knows how to allocate those resources.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: So the scheduling of it as best you can and how you treat your bed.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: Your bed should be reserved for sleep and romantic activity, and that is it.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: Everything else, our brain is gonna be confused as if it should be awake or asleep.
51:09
SPEAKER_01: That's why they want to read and eat and all of these things outside of bed.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: And then when we get in bed, we want it to be ready for sleep.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: Just as if I said to you, I'm gonna go to the movies or the cinema, what snack am I most likely gonna get?
51:23
SPEAKER_01: You'd probably say popcorn.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: And your brain says movies popcorn.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: We want your brain to say bed sleep.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: So if you're starting to struggle with sleep, working on a little bit more of a consistent schedule, treating the bed just for sleep, those are two really great places to start.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: But if it's more the disruption because of things like potential sleep apnea and the snoring and those issues, or anxiety attacks and such, then the first step would be to get connected with a sleep professional.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: You can do a sleep study at home.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you have to wear a CPAP machine, but we want to help people to be dealing with those types of conditions.
52:00
SPEAKER_01: So it depends on what the concern is, but that would be where we would usually start.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: Understood.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: Yep, Doctor, thank you very much for uh joining us today and giving us this incredibly valuable information for me, for our listeners.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: And guys, to learn more about um Melissa's work uh or to book consultation, visit her website melissamilanek.com.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: Thank you everyone for uh watching today.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to like like subscribe, leave a comment below, and until next time, stay safe and get a grips great sleep tonight.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, sweet dreams.