Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Fixing Your Sleep Deprived Brain

Transcript

Fixing Your Sleep Deprived Brain · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

0:03
This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
0:07
and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
0:12
I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
0:18
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
0:23
anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
0:27
world that we live in. Well, for those of you guys that have
0:39
known me for my whole entire life, or for those of you who have
0:43
been listening to this show, I am allergic to the word sleep, mostly
0:49
because I don't even know what this word means. It's fairly foreign. I
0:53
have been an insomniac since I was nine years old, like legit insomniac.
0:59
It's been one of my largest challenges and lifelong struggles. And it's sad right
1:04
like it's sleep, guys. And the fact that I show up the way
1:08
that I do with most nights suffering from now physical pain is nothing short of
1:12
a miracle. On days that I wake up and look and feel the way
1:17
that I do, even though inside I'm absolutely exhausted and I feel like I'm
1:23
hanging on by a thread. And you know, but those sleep issues started
1:26
before my diagnosis, right, So now I just have this other layer,
1:30
which is a fairly decent layer of issues with me sleeping. And we know
1:36
that a lot of it is probably stems from trauma and abuse, as you
1:40
guys know anxiety. And when putting this together, I was thinking about another
1:45
sleep issue that I have, or a component to my sleep is safety.
1:49
And now you couple that with pain, that safety part of me from the
1:55
years of abuse and trauma. Well, it's scary going to bed because you're
1:59
not a are you sure if you can get away to something? A burglar
2:02
come into your home and into your house, I can't run. So now
2:07
I've coupled pain and safety issues. So it's all just kind of mushed together
2:10
in this big rubber band ball, and I can't get it. I can't
2:14
get it unwound, you know. But we need this sleep and so living
2:17
in pain or not sleep is crucial to our ability to focus, to function,
2:21
and to thrive. And today we're going to deep dive into some strategies
2:23
about how we can get us to sleep, and it's going to be some
2:27
hard work. I'm up for the challenge. Challenge accepted, and I hope
2:30
you guys are too, because we need to retrain our brains to allow us
2:35
to let go and embrace the power of sleep, the healing power of sleep.
2:39
Right, So, my guest today is going to talk to us today
2:43
about some solutions to help us fix our sleep issues, our patterns, and
2:47
also our narratives around a good night's sleep, because for me, every time
2:51
I'm like I'm not going to be able to sleep, well, of course
2:53
you're not going to be able sleep because all you do is tell yourself you're
2:54
not gonna be able to sleep. So changing those narratives, right, We're
2:58
going to cover overcoming chronic pain and stress, insomnia, and trauma by working
3:01
with the brain, how chronic pain originates from normal pathways in the brain and
3:07
how they're connected to our sleep experience. Like I mentioned, strategies and tools
3:10
to help us rock us to sleep again. Gosh, I wish my guest
3:15
was here every night to just rock me to sleep. That would be awesome.
3:17
And then we're gonna chit chat with her about her personal experience with chronic
3:21
pain and her mission to help as many people as she can to get better
3:24
sleep. Heal and reduce the symptoms of trauma. I need a nap after
3:30
even saying all of that, So let's talk about it without further ado.
3:34
I would like to introduce to you today my guest, Annie Miller. We
3:37
made it woman. Hey, I'm so glad to be talking to you.
3:42
Annie is a license psychotherapist and private practice in the DC area and the owner
3:46
and founder of DC Metro Sleep and Psychotherapy. She received her BA from the
3:52
University of Pennsylvania and her msub MSDUB is that funny MSW from the University of
3:58
Chicago. Is also a licensed clinical social worker in Maryland, the District of
4:02
Columbia and Virginia. Has training from the University of Pennsylvania and CBTI which we're
4:08
going to get into, and also trained in AMDR and pain reprocessing therapy.
4:14
So I don't know what who I could have gotten better for us today,
4:16
but she is the real deal. So I'm rolling out the red carpet for
4:19
you, babe, and I'd like to start talking about your personal experiences with
4:25
chronic pain and what led you to get into the world of sleep and helping
4:30
us all get back to sleep. Let's take you from there. Yeah,
4:33
so I come from a family of everyone is poor sleepers, Like historically,
4:42
everyone has problems with sleep. There's this joke that my sister used to sleep
4:47
on the floor of my parents' bedroom every night because she was too scared and
4:53
too much of an insomniac to sleep in her own room. So this was
4:56
kind of built into the structure of my family as sleep problems. My journey
5:00
really with chronic pain started as a teenager. Started having you know, headaches,
5:08
neck pain, that whole issue, but also sleep issues that were went
5:12
beyond just insomnia. I was having you know, excessive fatigue, all kinds
5:16
of strained sleep issues, sleep paralysis, stuff like that. That great,
5:26
give me another thing to worry about when I go to bed. Oh my
5:30
god. Basically just manifestations of stress. Okay, yeah, so that you
5:35
know, that really started as a teen But the chronic pain issue was a
5:41
big problem. Headaches, you know, I would say, like what people
5:45
call chronic daily headache or chronic daily migraine was such a big issue. I
5:50
mean I did everything, so I started down the whole medical path of going
5:54
from doctor to doctor, you know the drill. Unfortunately, Yeah, yeah,
6:00
to know this drill, everything out there right, you try everything,
6:04
and I still had this issue even after I became a therapist. So just
6:11
because you become a therapist doesn't mean you all of a sudden understand how this
6:15
all works. It took me a really long time. There was a therapist
6:18
who introduced me to the concept of the brain causing physical symptoms, and it
6:27
wasn't immediate, but it started to sync in for me and started to learn
6:31
more and more about it, learn more about neuroscience and sleep, and it
6:38
kind of just unrattled this whole world for me of oh, you can actually
6:45
have physical symptoms because of what your brain is doing and how your brain's behaving.
6:50
And so all this led to I took some training courses in CBT for
6:56
insomnia and I started really practice sing it and doing supervision in it. And
7:01
then that really changed like therapy for me because started seeing the people that I
7:08
was working with get better and like improve things quickly. Not just talk therapy,
7:15
because I started out as a talk therapist and I really love talk therapy.
7:17
There's a real benefit for you know, to talking to someone and really
7:23
uncovering and expressing and learning about your emotions. But I think this was different.
7:28
So The way I do therapy when it comes to sleep is there's data
7:31
involved. There's spreadsheets, which I'm not great at spreadsheets, but I've had
7:34
to learn. I'm allergic to excel, so I totally understood. But I'm
7:41
a data day though. Yeah, And so I saw progress quickly and I
7:49
felt like, oh my gosh, I have this power. I can help
7:53
people really get better. And so that really changed therapy for me. I
7:58
wanted to really or on these evidence based treatments where people can really, honestly
8:05
truly get better. And so that that's kind of the basis of my story.
8:09
Well, I love that you've experienced well I don't love it for you,
8:13
but I love that you didn't just become a therapist and just dealt with
8:20
people that have had sleep and insomnia and chronic pain, that you've also dealt
8:24
with it in your own personal life, because there's definitely an element of if
8:28
you've been through it, you can certainly help others in a much more productive
8:33
way than if you hadn't. If somebody is not sleep deprived, they do
8:37
not understand what I go through on the day to day. This is not
8:41
it's not even a chance. And just so for some people that may not
8:43
know. CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy, and there is an eye at
8:48
the end of what she does CBTI, which stands for insomnia, and she's
8:52
going to get into that. But man, the roles that are busy chronic
8:54
stress world that we live in play into our sleep and as I mentioned on
9:00
our meet and greet, we've got in my family full of insomniacs as well.
9:03
We call it ABD. Yes, yes, we call it BBD,
9:07
the busy brain disorder that it keep the narratives in our head are going on
9:11
and on and on and on and on, and for me it's been people
9:13
pleasing or anxiety, social anxiety, which sounds strange because everybody thinks I'm just
9:18
like social butterfy. I'm actually scared to death of going out in big crowds
9:22
of people. I don't really like it. I don't like it in supermarket,
9:24
I don't. I'm like just now, I'm good. But the sleep
9:28
side of things, it's unbelievable how crucial it is to our day to day
9:33
life and our well being. And it also leads to chronic pain issues and
9:37
the difference within chronic pain and sleep, so can you talk a little bit
9:41
about why that's a little different for people that live in chronic pain and or
9:46
both coupled with trauma. Why is it so much harder for us to get
9:50
to sleep. Besides the obvious we're in pain. Yeah, you know,
9:54
I think pain meets us away, but pain also acts evates the fight or
10:01
flight system and the brain more so you're generally just more activated, and you
10:07
know, there's more cortisol, more adrenaline. I also I find that people
10:13
who have chronic pain that tend to have like more unusual sleep schedules, so
10:16
like people will get like a second wind at night, so you know,
10:22
be you know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately I do. I'm like,
10:26
wow, I'm on my eighth wind for the day. Yeah, and it's
10:30
midnight. Great. Yeah. And it's it's these kind of cycles right of
10:35
like you know, kind of a spike and then a crash. And I
10:39
think it's more common with you know, when you're dealing with chronic pain and
10:43
with trauma because of the way the brain's activated, it makes it harder to
10:48
have the ability to relax and rest. That being said, I think a
10:54
lot of this stuff can still help no matter what but yes, I do.
10:58
You know it is far. There are unique challenges when it comes to
11:01
trauma and pain. So how do you work with people like myself? I'm
11:05
the guinea pig for every episode on this show. So how does it work
11:09
for people like myself who have dealt with unfortunate traumatic events which some of which
11:15
we discussed, some of which we haven't, but my listeners know a lot
11:16
about some of them. How do we deal with people like lindsay, I
11:20
mean, I know I'm a lot. I know I'm a lot. Everybody
11:24
knows I'm a lot. But how do we take on sleep with people that
11:26
live with product pain and have trauma? What are you doing for us with
11:30
your therapies? Because you've got a couple different things that you do, So
11:35
I would I would start with the CBT for insomnia because it's a short term
11:41
therapy and so you know, we typically say, now everyone's different, but
11:46
we typically say six to eight sessions. It's a very structured approach. Research
11:52
shows that it's seventy to eighty percent effective, which is a really high number.
11:58
Yeah, yeah, no, kidden. Sometimes you know CBTI just on
12:05
its own, can have some impacts on chronic pain in a positive way,
12:09
so we can help with this stuff in general. If you're more relaxed,
12:13
if you're sleeping, that our you know pain is you know less of a
12:16
problem. So I start with CBTI just because it is a getting in a
12:22
good sleep pattern. Getting that out of the way first and then moving on
12:26
to other types of treatments is I think the way to go. That's my
12:31
method and that's how I learned it. And let's see what's left, right,
12:37
like kind of check that box. Sure, okay, I let them
12:41
see what's left. Yeah, So when you do CBT, because all of
12:45
us that have been in any form of psychotherapy, behavioral therapy, cognitive CBT,
12:48
however, you guys want to think about we're sitting down and we're talking
12:52
with somebody about the shit that's going on in our brain. Let's be real,
12:54
that's what we're doing, talking about our past experience. We're talking about
12:58
our our life experiences now, what we're scared of in the future, and
13:01
all these things. So can you explain what goes on in CBTI, because
13:07
I think that all of us might be thinking like I'm just laying on the
13:09
couch like I normally do. So what does the eye actually mean? Is
13:13
what is that? Because you said that it's challenging, it is hard work.
13:16
Like I said at the beginning, challenge accepted there. I'm not afraid
13:20
of hard work. That is something that has never been an issue with me.
13:24
But what I've learned on my journey through chronic pain and dealing with stress
13:26
and anxiety and all of these things and now i'm sleep of course, is
13:31
that I never really had the opportunity for somebody to actually truly believe that I
13:37
was ever going to be okay. And so I think that when you've experienced
13:41
these negative experiences with health practitioners over the years living in chronic pain, I
13:46
mean even starting from a young, young little girl, such negative messages and
13:50
narratives were sent to me about all the things I was doing wrong at such
13:54
a young age. And now I'm older and I feel like I'm still that
13:58
little girl that was doing all the things wrong. And that's one of the
14:01
reasons I can't sleep. So can you give us a rundown of a little
14:03
bit about what cb CBT I is, because I think that that's a that's
14:09
a big question for me as well, especially with eighty percent effective, like
14:13
give me. I'm in Yeah, well, and I'm sorry to hear that
14:18
you've had that experience with feeling like you did everything wrong, because yeah,
14:22
I think you know the power our brain has to learn negative habits but also
14:26
to unlearn right, So that's really there. But yeah, so cbt I.
14:31
So what it involves when I meet with someone, get their history,
14:35
learn about you know, their patterns, and you know what sleep spin light,
14:39
and we kind of identify. Usually there's you know, the factors that
14:46
make it more likely that you're going to have insomnia, and we talk about
14:48
that, but mostly it's not really talking about the past because what we're focusing
14:54
on is habits and thoughts. Now, right, what are you doing now
14:58
that is contributing to this problem? So I start by having them keep asleep
15:05
diary, and this is have specific questions that I ask and a certain way
15:13
that we set it up so they'll come in and say, yeah, I've
15:16
been doing that myself, but this is different. So we do it a
15:20
certain way, and we have a set of data that we look at and
15:24
we you know, take it and we take a look at it and see
15:26
what you know stands out to me in terms of their habits, what might
15:31
be interfering, what things that I notice right away. There's kind of a
15:35
general set of rules from the CBT I standpoint that I will tell people to
15:41
do do this, do that right, and I can go through them with
15:46
you yes, and then I personalize it by looking at what their information says
15:52
and say, you know, this is what I think applies to you the
15:56
most. Here's a you know, a schedule that would work well for you.
16:00
And then it's up to them to do the things. And then we
16:03
meet and we talk through it, and we troubleshoot these things and what's hard,
16:08
what's not hard? You know, what are you running into that's a
16:12
problem, and we work on it, you know, we That's how the
16:17
therapy kind of evolves. So it's not the typical therapy. It's not talking
16:21
about, you know, the problems that led to sleep. It's it's doing
16:25
things now in the moment that can actually help. And I like that because
16:29
when it comes to talk therapy for me, like I've got a therapist and
16:33
he's awesome and he listens to the show, so hi. He is incredible,
16:37
and he helped me get to a really, really good place that I
16:41
needed to kind of like take a step back from some of the talk because
16:45
I felt like I was just repeating the same shit over and over and over
16:48
again, and I was getting I was getting frustrated with like, you know
16:52
what, I'm still talking about the same stuff. Like I have to work
16:56
on why I'm still talking about the same stuff, but I'm spending money talking
16:59
about the same stuff. And so I like that It's like what's happening now
17:02
and forward versus what happened in the past, because I know all of the
17:06
past stuff is important to clearing and dealing and letting go and all of that.
17:11
I've been working like nobody's business on that side of it. I haven't
17:14
spent an iota of time on dealing with why I'm not sleeping, even though
17:18
I've got my ideas as to why. Some of them are some of the
17:22
reasons I'm not. Obviously, we can separate chronic pain because we know that
17:23
that's part of it. That's an element that we're working through. But what
17:27
else is there that's going on in my noodle that It's like, that's what
17:32
we say all the time, your noodleing, honey, what are you noodling
17:33
about? Noodling about? Everything, everything on the planet. Things that I
17:37
should not be noodling about is what is happening right now. And that's that
17:41
busy brain disordered part. Right. I'm sitting there thinking about all the things
17:45
I didn't do today, were all the things I did do and how I
17:48
could have done them better? And all my friends or family members or all
17:51
these people that I need to be doing things better for them, And the
17:53
only person that I'm not thinking about is me. Yeah, there's one strategy
18:02
that I like that can help with just that piece of it, the noodling
18:07
as you're calling it. Yeah, this is a little separate from the set
18:11
of CBTI rules, But let's see if you can implement it and see how
18:15
it goes for you. I want to know, tell me how this goes.
18:19
But so the idea with this one is to schedule in worry time,
18:23
so on your calendar. Have you heard this before? No? Did you
18:27
see my face? It was a big eyeball than a big open mouth,
18:34
because what Yes, let's schedule worry time because right now it's twenty four hours
18:38
a day, right, So we want to try to work on compartmentalizing it,
18:45
right because the brain worries because it's searching out and trying to prepare you
18:49
for threats. Right. It's saying, hey, this is a this is
18:52
an emergency. The thing you didn't do for that person, that's an emergency.
18:56
Pay attention to this now, right, but we know it's not actually
19:00
an emergency. So when you're what I hear in what you're saying is the
19:07
worries are a lot around what you didn't do, what you didn't do for
19:10
other people, people you let down. Write that typical playlist of your worries.
19:15
I would schedule in a time in the afternoon away from bedtime. You
19:21
know, sometime in the afternoon. It doesn't really matter when you know later
19:26
in the day helps because you've had the whole day to think about it,
19:29
and you know, build up more worries. And I also do I do.
19:33
I start having like the Sunday scaries on the daily though, about three
19:37
or four o'clock. That's when I start to ramp up, when I'm like,
19:41
oh God, these are all the things that I didn't get accomplished today,
19:45
and these are the things that I need to stay up until midnight to
19:47
do. And everybody in my life that works with me and knows me knows
19:51
that. Oh well, Lindsay's just going to text me that she's sitting here
19:53
working and she's doing this a little you know. I mean, everybody that's
19:56
close to me and dear to me knows this. It's about me. But
20:00
that's exactly that's your time now give yourself. Let yourself have that time.
20:06
So between three and four and right, so I suggest like writing these things
20:11
out, like actually spending some time. What are these things that you're worried
20:15
about, list them, work through them, Spend you know, thirty minutes,
20:21
forty five minutes, whatever you need to write them out, works through
20:25
them. But then the goal is to let that go and move on with
20:30
your day. That doesn't mean you have to stop working or never do it
20:33
right. What that means is this is your time to worry about it.
20:37
And if at midnight your brain is saying, oh no, that thing right,
20:41
what we want to do is say that's not for right now, that's
20:45
for four pm tomorrow and I can handle that. Then I have this whole
20:51
time set out for me. And this is a practice. It's not going
20:53
to happen right away, but eventually your brain can start to say that's when
20:57
I worry not eleven pm midnight. So but you have to kind of work
21:03
at it and make it a daily practice, and kind of also along the
21:07
way gently remind yourself, hey, I don't this is not an emergency,
21:11
right, I can get to this. If I didn't do that thing,
21:15
no one's gonna die. It's okay, I'm gonna be okay, Right,
21:18
I can handle that. Like self soothing around the to do's is important too,
21:25
because there's a certain reality. It's not life or death those things.
21:30
I don't think they are, right. Yeah, you know, it's interesting
21:33
this conversation because there's a gal that I work with who I had I've had
21:37
a challenging relationship working with her. I absolutely love her to death, like
21:41
friend wise, but working with her was a challenge because she wasn't as deadline
21:45
orient as I am, and she she doesn't give as many shits about stuff
21:49
that I give shits about. For lack of a better term, I speak
21:55
so eloquently on this show sometimes. But she it got to a point where
22:00
we were like fighting about it because I was upper but all the time about
22:03
not doing things the way Lindsay wanted them to be done right, And then
22:07
she was like lindsay, you give too much care about things that don't really
22:11
matter big picture, and she helped me out the other and we went through
22:17
all that stuff and everything is great, and in fact, I learned so
22:18
much from her. Now she's like my don't give a shit coach to a
22:22
certain extent, because now I'm like, wow, I took it out of
22:26
her playbook to not be as worried about some things, and she helped me.
22:30
Two nights ago. I was like, I'm not going to hit this
22:33
deadline. She goes so right, so what as She's like, there are
22:40
far bigger things for you to be worried about and this isn't one of them.
22:42
And I love that, And thank you if you're listening to this show,
22:45
because I've learned so much from you. But you know, it's one
22:48
of those things where the people pleasing in me, which comes from trauma,
22:52
which stems from so many things in my childhood in adulthood, it's so challenging
22:57
to work through those because now it's like, oh, well, I'm a
23:00
grown up and i really have to make sure that I've got my best together
23:03
and I'm doing everything that I need to for everybody and anything on the planet
23:06
whenever they ask me to, no matter what time of the day it is,
23:07
Lindsay, will always be here for you. It's part of the reason
23:11
why I think I'm sick well, because your brain can't turn off right,
23:15
it can't let them never say it not right now. And so you know
23:19
that actually leads me to another, like one of the CBTI strategies. So
23:26
the scheduling worry time is a little separate, but there's another one that I
23:30
think could benefit you, which is to make sure to give yourself wine down
23:36
time before you go to bed. And because you were saying, I'm going
23:40
to have to do this and work till midnight, right, and I know
23:42
that is a really strong kind of urge for a lot of people. Get
23:47
it all done, get it all done now, get it all done.
23:49
And when we do that, So if you think about this, if you're
23:52
working till midnight and then you expect at midnight you're going to be sleepy,
23:56
right, You're you're asking your brain to do this complete shift, go go,
24:02
go, be on on on and then stop and meeting that right doesn't
24:07
and then you get frustrated and you're lying there like, well, why isn't
24:10
this working right, because you haven't given it a transition time to not do
24:15
anything. So this should be kind of a non negotiable for a lot of
24:19
people, especially when you have BBD is one to two hours, which may
24:26
sound like a lot. Yes, it sounds like a lot. I people
24:33
will ask, well, what do I do during windown time? Does it
24:34
have to be like, you know, dark and silent? No, No,
24:40
because sometimes that can be anxiety provoking for people. Actually, yeah,
24:45
I think watching TV during windown time is great if you like TV. Some
24:49
people don't like TV, right, My suggestion for that is nothing like I
24:55
wouldn't watch the horror movie during your wine downtime, right, I would probably
25:02
be mindful of like news. News can be very very negative and it can
25:07
get us really worried and thinking about a lot of things. So like people
25:12
like to watch the Great British Baking Show, right, or nature documentaries,
25:18
you know, anything, It doesn't really matter what it is, comedies,
25:22
you know people A lot of people will say I watch old episodes of The
25:25
Office? Great do that you know does? It doesn't matter what it is
25:30
as long as it's you're not doing six things at once, Like if you're
25:36
working on your to do list while watching TV while you know, trimming your
25:40
dog's toenails. I don't know, that's a funny, that's a funny thing
25:45
to say, But I feel like my sister is totally that person that of
25:48
each trimming dogs nails and doing a million other things. I am for sure.
25:52
My laptop leaves my studio and it follows me to what I call my
25:55
couch office or my bed office, and I take it with me everywhere I
26:00
go. And then I'll turn on like Netflix or whatever, and i want
26:03
to binge a show or what have you, and I'm working at the same
26:07
time. And then I've got my text and I'm on a Mac, so
26:08
my text is coming in on my computer, and I've got all my alerts
26:11
that are coming in from people that work with me, or work for me
26:15
or not for me. Everybody works with me. And that is what happens
26:18
every single night in this household every night. What do you think that's doing.
26:23
It's making me batshit crazy, is what it's doing. And also not
26:29
the greatest work I've done either. So what's happening is I'm blending all of
26:33
these different spaces and times together to try to accomplish as much as I can
26:38
in a day, because I used to be far more focused and able to
26:42
get so much more done before this whole chronic pain baloney came into my world.
26:47
And it's really affecting me. But I'm only adding to it by doing
26:51
these kinds of things that you're talking about. I am because it stems back
26:55
to my people, please, and I always want to make sure that I
26:56
am on top of everything at every moment. And it's exhausting to the point
27:00
that I can't sleep right because and your brain is is doing too much,
27:06
right, And so what would it be like to just watch Netflix and that's
27:11
it, you know, for an hour? One hour, right, if
27:17
more is okay? Too right, But you like, it's almost we've gotten
27:21
to the point where there's so many, so many options for what to do
27:25
that we can't just do one thing, but just you know, relax,
27:29
let yourself kind of actually watch the show fully right and enjoy it left,
27:33
you know, smilele and you know, breathe a little bit, and give
27:38
yourself just it's like zone out time time where you can zone out where you're
27:41
not really you know, responsible for everyone's stuff for the just a period of
27:48
time. So that's you know, that's the wine down time. But there's
27:53
other things here that I think could help to Okay, well, please tell
27:57
them because there's not one woman that I know. And sorry guys, you
28:00
guys popped like you know, ambient and you're good to go. I can
28:03
only speak from experience with my sweetie because that's his way. Like he's like
28:07
whoop and he's done, and I'm like, well, this is going to
28:10
be a fun seven hours sitting here watching you sleep so frustrating. Oh my
28:15
god. I've got more videos of him like sleeping and snoring, and pictures
28:19
of him sleeping everywhere, all over the globe, and I'm always the one
28:23
off taking the pictures of everybody else sleep. So what are some other tools
28:29
that you are some other ideas for us that we could be using to help
28:32
us better sleep. Okay, So another thing I heard in what you were
28:37
saying, which you like the rest of us, right, we all do
28:41
this stuff and we have to figure out what works for us. But you
28:45
said my bed office, right. Oh yeah, So one of the main
28:49
things we want to do is use the bed only for sleep. So what
28:55
that means is no reading, no watching TV, no working all that stuff,
29:00
no looking for just in bed. So people people get okay, well
29:03
I'm stopping, come on, Anne. I mean, yes, intimacy,
29:07
all that, all of the bed things that we need to do, but
29:14
leave everything else at the door. That's nuts, especially the reading thing.
29:18
So but I do this work with people who you know they'll find like,
29:23
it's not necessarily the whole bedroom. It could be, but and it's not
29:27
the phone. It's not like we don't have to worry about like I can't
29:30
look at my phone right before bed. I don't think that that's necessarily the
29:34
biggest problem. The biggest problem is the association with bed with something else other
29:41
than sleep. Sure, so that's fair. This comes from the idea of
29:45
conditioned response that when we get in bed, we want to feel relaxed,
29:51
like this is where I sleep. So your brain connects bed equals sleep right,
29:56
And when we do all those other things in bed, we loosen that
30:00
connection, and that association starts to become weaker, and the bed then becomes
30:06
a place where I worry, where I work, where I look at my
30:08
phone, where I do all the other things, not sleep right. So
30:11
we want to try to keep this as clear of an association as we can.
30:18
So that means in the nighttime, even in the beginning of the night,
30:21
in the middle of the night, or in the morning, you want
30:22
to look at your phone, which we all do. I mean, I
30:26
need to see what all of my girlfriend's reels were at two o'clock in the
30:30
morning, because it's all we're doing is I wake up in the morning and
30:33
I've already sent like twenty reels to my best girlies and they've done the same.
30:36
And now we're laughing, and now I'm up, and now we're talking,
30:37
and we're like, why can't we sleep right? Well, you just
30:41
got these seventeen really funny videos about dumb girls doing stupid crap and drinking wine.
30:47
Of course I'm going to laugh and stay awake. Great, great,
30:52
you can. You should look at those reels right at two in the morning.
30:56
I think there's other things that could be better. But in bed,
31:00
if you start to train yourself that I'm going to look at all the reels
31:03
in bed, it's not going to help you. But so let's say you're
31:07
up. You know, you wake up at your normal time. Most you
31:10
know, many people out there just sit in the bed and look at their
31:12
phone. For an hour before they even do anything. Now you can do
31:15
that, just not in bed, move to the couch, move to a
31:18
chair. If you set up a nice chair next to the bed, it
31:21
at least gives you this separation so you're not in bed like associating it with
31:26
being away, right, And so that's the goal with that. Yeah.
31:30
The challenge that I have with that piece, and to just be totally honest,
31:34
is it is really hard for me with my legs in particular, because
31:38
that's where the majority of my pain is in my legs. I mean it's
31:42
everywhere, but the heaviest part is my feet. In my legs is I
31:48
have to be in bed for about two hours before I can even put my
31:51
feet on the ground. And so what do I do for two hours at
31:56
three o'clock in the morning because I got to get out of bed. Well,
31:59
lately I have to get out bed way earlier than I normally do.
32:01
That's for another show. But now I'm having to get out of bed by
32:06
four o'clock in the morning, So that means I've got to get up at
32:09
about two. But I can't do anything between two and four right now,
32:14
is what you're basically saying. Which I don't even know how to do that.
32:19
So in these kind of places where you're dealing with and I'm going to
32:22
speak to the CRPS people that I know in my life, they're laying in
32:25
bed and we're listening to podcasts, we're listening to meditation, We're listening to
32:30
all these things to at least try to distract our brains to a certain extent
32:35
from the pain that we're feeling, and they keep us occupied. Otherwise I'm
32:38
in here going this is it. I'm ft for the rest of my life.
32:43
This is how it's going to be. I'm never gonna walk my dogs
32:45
again. All that negative narrative that I was talking about earlier. Now it's
32:50
like, well what do I do at that time? So what do you
32:52
do when you're immobile and I can't actually go sit in a chair by the
32:55
side of my bed unless it's my wheelchair, you know, which I don't
33:00
want to be in right now because that makes me even more sad and sleepy,
33:04
you know, And it's not comfortable. It's not a comfortable place.
33:06
And so this kind of set of rules can be adapted because you know,
33:12
there are people, let's say, in their nineties who have mobility issues.
33:16
Who do this, you know, who do CBTI, who have problems sleeping
33:21
which can be helped in their nineties. There's you know a lot of research
33:23
that shows so this is but they are you know, potentially have fall risks
33:30
and other things that you make it very difficult to get up and get out
33:34
of bed. So even for you, even moving to the other side of
33:38
the bed and sitting up gives you some space. That's like, this is
33:45
that side of the bed. I can lie down over there. That's where
33:49
I sleep this side if I just shift and set up, because you want
33:53
to give yourself a queue, this is where I'm awake. That is where
33:58
I'm asleep. Okay, So sometimes it works for people to have like pumpy
34:02
chair next to the bed or something like that where they can or even honestly,
34:08
like a yoga mat on the floor or you know, speaking even just
34:12
not like a bean bag would be super cool. Like they've got some really
34:15
nice not like cheapy, gross ones, but they've got really nice like sitting
34:20
apparatus that supports your body, that helps you feel a little bit better.
34:23
And I also was reading something the other day and prepping for an episode today
34:29
about swapping sides with your spouse m and having asking my sweetie, hey,
34:35
can we switch sides of the bed and see it? Because I've always slept
34:38
on the same side of the bed, even with my ex husband, and
34:42
same with him with his ex wife. So it's like, Okay, we've
34:45
been on the same side of bed for all this time, and we've adapted
34:47
our bodies to sleep like that. Like, maybe let's shift that and throw
34:52
some wrenches into our brain to kind of trick our brain to think that we're
34:55
in a whole nother sleeping environment. Because why is it that when I go
34:58
to a hotel and I spend the night there, I'm able to get like
35:01
a really nice, deep amount of sleep big picture, But I'm home and
35:06
I can't because you associate it with stress. That's right, because your brain
35:10
knows this is where I worry, and this is where I have had this
35:15
whole history of negative thoughts. Stress, can't sleep, insomnia, all that
35:21
stuff. Your brain remembers that and it when you like So this is what
35:24
happens to a lot of people, is the hotel thing. Yes, that's
35:29
absolutely the case. Some people have it reversed. I sleep right at home,
35:31
not in a hotel, right, we're all different. Yeah, but
35:36
another really common thing is lying on the couch watching TV. I'm falling asleep,
35:40
like exhausted, ready, and then I moved to the bed and I'm
35:44
I'm wide awake. Yep, yep. It's the worst, that's right.
35:47
It's because of the yeah, exactly, And my sweetie he's in broadcast journalism,
35:53
specifically in news, so okay, it is the news that's on,
35:58
and so we've kind of set up some boundaries and rules around that peace so
36:04
that he's not watching CNN from the second that he's you know, sitting on
36:07
the couch in the evening until he goes to bed, like, give me
36:09
a break. We do the same story. We know what's happening with all
36:13
of the malarkey in our world right now, Like, can we at least
36:15
give that a beat. So that's shifted for him a lot, which has
36:20
been very healthy for him and by proxy healthy for me, because I'm like,
36:22
I'm just I'm not going to be in the room. I can't watch
36:24
the news like this, like I can't do that, and then in bed,
36:28
no news. So it's only been Yeah, and even though it's a
36:31
small thing, it's a big deal for our family unit, right that the
36:36
news isn't in every single room all day long in our alerts. I even
36:38
turned off news alerts on my phone so I wasn't getting like breaking news from
36:44
CNNA, and like, well, it's always breaking news from CNN. You
36:45
know, of course it is the same stuff. But trying to do a
36:50
little bit of that, I did things like changing the warmth of the tone
36:52
on my phone and turning off certain notifications. I'm really good at doing do
36:58
not disturb on my phone too, I'm not here anymore. And that was
37:02
all these small things. I've been making these changes in shifts to work towards
37:07
what you're talking about doing so, because it is hard work, it is
37:10
a decision that we have to make, to a cognitive decision to say,
37:14
you know what, I'm going to change this and break this behavior because all
37:16
I know is this, All I know is being insomniac. So my brain
37:21
is like, WHOA, Holy cow, you're throwing in something new here,
37:24
and my brain's like, WHOA, that's nuts. We don't normally do this,
37:29
And it's actually been helpful for me changing my hours that I work to
37:34
waking up way early and going to bed super early. I've been doing it
37:37
for two weeks and I've been sleeping for six hours, which I never do.
37:43
I'm normally two hours a night. I've got six hours under my belt
37:45
for the past couple nights. Not too shabby because I changed. Yeah,
37:52
yeah, well I took some of your's another thing, right, so that
37:54
I think it's another point that is important to make in the when we're talking
38:01
about sleep, is what your body needs to sleep is what's called sleep drive,
38:07
right, It's this natural, innate feeling of I need to go to
38:12
sleep right now. So you know, if you've ever pulled an all night
38:15
er, which happens you know still but certainly like when we're younger, it
38:20
happens all the time. We're able to like, but you go out until
38:23
two o'clock in the morning and then go to Denny's and get like a bunch
38:27
of pancakes and eggs, and then go take a final and acet like,
38:30
what where's that girl? Exactly? But after you do that, right,
38:35
you feel or if you take a flight that's like an all night flight,
38:38
let's say you get there, you feel sleepy, right, That sleepy feeling
38:45
is what we need in order to sleep. So this is called our sleep
38:49
drive, right, and it works with circadian rhythm, which with the light
38:52
dark cycle. But I think what you're describing by changing your schedule is that
38:58
you're boosting your sleep drive. So typically if we can't sleep, Let's say
39:04
you have a night where you cannot fall sleep till much later than normal,
39:07
you might decide, well, then I'm just going to sleep late, or
39:10
I'm just going to like kind of sleep when I can. You like,
39:15
don't usually get up anyways and just go through the day. You try to
39:20
accommodate. You might take a nap, you might try to sleep later,
39:22
you might go to bed early. But in fact, sleep drive is your
39:27
friend when it comes to like insomnia. You need to have a very very
39:31
high sleep drive in order to sleep that night. You have to have that.
39:36
So the more regular and consistent your schedule is, especially with wake time,
39:40
you wake up at the same time every day, no matter what,
39:44
you will boost your sleep drive. It'll make you feel more sleepy. So
39:47
no matter if you get two hours or six hours, if you get up
39:51
at the same time, you're going to have a higher sleep drive. Okay,
39:54
I mean, and I've been very disciplined throughout my whole life, no
39:57
matter what on my alarm going off, getting up, taking a shower,
40:00
put it in my makeup. I've worked from home for twenty four years,
40:02
and I always make sure I'm showered and I'm ready to go like I'm going
40:06
into an office. I've done that forever. But I also can run a
40:08
trader Do's and throw in laundry while I'm working, right, So you know,
40:10
I've got that model dialed in. But what I've found with everything that's
40:15
happened with my health that that model has shifted. And I still think that
40:19
that's the model that I'm in and I'm not anymore. And so it's really
40:22
retraining not just my brain to sleep, but it's also giving myself like some
40:25
grace in like lindsay, you didn't accomplish everything that I said I was going
40:31
to accomplish today, but I also accomplish like seventy five thousand more things than
40:36
most people do in that day. And I did it in a wheelchair or
40:38
I did it through or whatever, you know. And so not that I'm
40:42
patting myself on the back, because it's not at all what I'm doing,
40:44
but I'm just I exercise this like, I've got this tenacity, I've got
40:47
this grit. I can get through anything great, Lindsay. But it's also
40:52
keeping you sick. It's also keeping me sick. Yep, right, yep,
40:55
yep. And so that's doing mino service. And it's also not servicing
40:59
the people that are around me in my life that loved me, because I'm
41:01
so drained all the time and I'm giving them just a little bit of me
41:06
instead of giving me what they should because I'm so drained and I'm just so
41:09
tapped out, you know. Yeah, Yeah, that's it's a hard feeling,
41:14
and it's it's when you're pushing and pushing and pushing, it's easy to
41:17
get into that drained mode. And I think the thing about the sleep in
41:22
the schedule is sometimes we feel like, yeah, I do that, you
41:25
know, but how often so a certain percentage of people will sleep late on
41:31
the weekends, or will figure out ways to accommodate to kind of add in
41:37
sleep during the day or whenever is you know, just they accommodate that need.
41:44
And what I try to coach people to do is when I look at
41:47
their sleep diaries, I calculate an average total sleep time. So let's say
41:52
it's six hours, which is a very normal, healthy amount of sleep.
41:55
Actually, even though we're not told that, yeah, not hours, we're
42:00
else supposed to eat in the pyramid. By the way, right, six
42:05
hours is totally fine if that worked for your body, it's all different,
42:07
right, My sweet spot is actually five hours. If I get five,
42:12
I am like, oh my god, don't even get in my way.
42:15
I am on fire. Well that's great then, and that is the case
42:21
for some people, right. I think typical is more like something between six
42:27
and nine. But there are people who do fine with five hours. So
42:30
give yourself a window, right, if it's gonna be five hours, if
42:35
it's gonna be six hours, that's your window, and then you're not in
42:37
bad line. There. The rest time you can sit in your chair and
42:40
relax and do your kind of routine to get yourself ready for the day or
42:45
to feel like you can put your feet on the ground. Sure, okay,
42:49
but your window is your window. That's the time that you sleep.
42:52
And it's hard. That's the hard part is every day your alarm goes off,
42:58
Let's say it goes off at five am. Let's say you go to
43:00
bed at four am and you fall asleep. Finally at four, you get
43:04
up at five. That's what we do. You were saying it's going to
43:07
be hard, right, So you tolerate the feeling of being really, really
43:15
sleepy because you know that sleep drive is going to be really high the next
43:20
night, and you don't go to bed early. You go to bed at
43:22
your time, and you sleep within your window, and it's going to be
43:25
a lot easier because your sleep drive is high, right, And that's what
43:30
we want every night. And as you get into it, so if it's
43:35
one hour that you sleep, okay, that really sucks, but you get
43:39
through the day. It really sucks. There's no other way to say it.
43:43
Yeah, but you tolerate it right, like you muddle through. I
43:47
think we're worried about all the bad things that are going to happen if we're
43:51
overtired or if we like don't get a good night's sleep, and that's what
43:54
we have to try to let go of. You know. I think you
43:58
started at the beginning saying sleep is so important. It is, but we're
44:02
hit over the head with how important it is, and it's putting so much
44:06
pressure on all of us to do it right and to get it all perfect,
44:10
and we can't do that when we feel so much pressure, right,
44:15
So yeah, okay, that's fair. Let's say you have an early flight
44:20
or a meeting or something and you have to be up early versus a day
44:23
where it's just a regular day. Your brain perceives that and says, oh,
44:29
no, I have to get a good night sleep. I have to
44:30
get a good night sleep. I have to do this, and then it
44:32
just ruins the whole night because you're worrying about it so much. And if
44:37
you just really go into it is you know what, if I sleep tonight,
44:42
great, If I don't, I'm going to get through the day,
44:45
I'm going to be okay, and I will have a super high sleep driver
44:49
the next night. I will get through this. It takes some of that
44:52
pressure off. We're putting all the pressure on yourself to do things a certain
44:58
way. It's so anxiety provoking. I know, I mean all the things
45:04
you say. I'm just sitting here shaking my head and just going it's so
45:07
accurate. Like even like the travel thing we can all identify with. We
45:10
have a flight in the morning out of Lax or wherever we're flying out of.
45:15
I know, for us getting the lax is a big pain in the
45:17
butt, and with the lax takes forever, and it'supposed when to fight international,
45:20
and then you've got to add my wheelchair component to it. And then
45:22
you got your back because and then we've got tsday and it's like, oh
45:27
my gosh, and the night before you're like, did I pack everything?
45:29
What do I have? Am I forgetting? And then we're just and then
45:32
I don't want to miss my flight. And I mean it just goes on
45:35
and on and on of the worry. So you know what, let that
45:39
go. You may not have a good night's sleep before you travel, and
45:45
you know what, you're going to survive. You're going to get on the
45:46
plane. You're going to get where you need to go. Nothing terrible is
45:51
going to happen. I mean I can't say that with certainty, but most
45:52
likely you know that's not going to happen. If you were flying the plane,
45:58
this would be a different conversation. Very true. Right, Yes,
46:00
thank you for saying if you are a pilot, this is not for you.
46:07
There's ways to do this with pilots, But the point is you're you
46:13
have to muddle through the day, right and changing the way we think about
46:17
it as so we want to do the things set up our you know,
46:22
our schedule to make sure that we have high sleep drive, that we are
46:24
sleepy and ready to sleep, and that you're only getting in bed when you're
46:30
like about to pass out, but also to let go of the fear of
46:34
not sleeping. If you don't sleep, then I'm not going to feel great.
46:37
Okay. Isn't that the case other days too? Right? Right?
46:40
Yeah? I feel like poop all the time, So I mean, what's
46:44
It's just another day. But I like the idea of the setting the alarm,
46:47
and that's what I've had to kind of do. And there's another gal
46:50
that that has an episode coming out and her she talks specifically about this exact
46:57
thing with our brains, as you change what you're used to doing to kind
47:01
of like shift your brain into like reframing and rewiring the connections that are going
47:07
on in your brain for sleep, for anxiety, for depression, for all
47:10
these different things to put in a whole new game plan. And the shift
47:15
for me helping to support my sweetie with his show has been a very very
47:20
early morning shift, and so with that I've had to set the alarm early
47:23
and go to bed earlier. And I will tell you that's been over the
47:27
past two weeks, and I'm sleeping more because of this and of sleep drive.
47:34
Uh huh. You proved myan, You proved this this doctor's point that
47:38
I've just mentioning doctor Rebecca Jackson, she's a badass, but it proved that
47:43
point that everything she told me to do, and the few things that you
47:45
told me to do on our meet and greet I immediately put into place.
47:51
And I have been sleeping short for a big picture, but six hours for
47:55
me is like whoa unless I'm just dead of the world, are sick,
47:59
and those days don't count, right, But like on a normal day,
48:00
for me to get five or six hours is unheard of. So wow,
48:05
and that's been two weeks. In two weeks, Annie, it hasn't been
48:08
like months and months of me trying this. I took what you said and
48:12
what this other doctor said, and I've put them into place already, and
48:15
I'm ready. I'm seeing a difference in such a short span of time.
48:17
And it's hard, it's like grossly hard. You weren't kidding, sister,
48:22
You were not kidding. But it can be quick your body can adjust,
48:28
you think it will. So impressed. I am so impressed with our building.
48:32
I'm really Yeah. Yeah, Now we haven't covered the pain reprocessing therapy
48:37
that you do PRT, and i'd like to discuss that. I know we're
48:40
going a little bit longer than planned, but can we talk a little bit
48:44
about pain reprocessing therapy and how that is coupled with what you do for sleep,
48:49
and then we can hit the dusty trail for that, even though I
48:52
want to talk to you for like two more hours. Yeah. So,
48:55
yeah, pain reprocessing therapy is it's really all about, like what you were
49:00
talking about is rewiring those signals, but this is for pain, right.
49:05
So the idea is that these neural pathways in your brain when we have pain,
49:12
we really connect it with fear. Right, So the brain perceives pain.
49:20
So whether the pain starts because of an actual injury, which happens,
49:23
right, or because or just because of a stressful experience which also can happen
49:30
yep, But then it starts to like what I was talking about was sleep
49:34
with the condition responses, pain becomes a condition response, right, So anytime
49:38
I feel stress, I feel pain, and then when I feel pain,
49:43
I feel more stressed, and not only stressed, I feel fear and frustration
49:49
and anger and all the negative emotions that drive our cortisol and adrenaline. Right,
49:55
So what we want to do is change our experience with pain to more
50:01
neutral. It's not going to be positive. Pain is not positive, right,
50:05
No, But it is our bodies talking to us. That's something that
50:08
is something's wrong. It's not your ear, right, it's a warning sign.
50:15
You should not feel like you're walking on legos and rocks and hot coals
50:17
and broken glass. It's just like something that you should not be doing,
50:20
lindsay. But that's what I meant. And I know, I know it's
50:23
in my brain. I'm not physically socks, no, But it's real pain.
50:30
It comes from it's generated by the brain. So I think about it
50:36
less as being psychological more as being neurological. Yes. Agree, Yeah,
50:42
it's a real physical pain generated by a process in the brain. So we
50:46
want to start to feel the sensation of pain and relate to it differently.
50:52
And this is a really hard practice because pain is discomfort, right, and
50:58
it's a sensation that we don't feel like is positive. So we WinCE and
51:02
we brace, and we tense around it and we react to it. And
51:08
that the thing that I think most people don't realize is that makes pain worse
51:13
because the more we want the pain to go away, right, what we
51:16
resist persists. Have you ever heard that? Yeah? Unfortunately a lot nicely
51:22
done, bravo for that, but it's true, true, Yeah, I
51:29
didn't have. The more we want it to go away, right, the
51:31
more we want it gone, the more it's going to stick around because our
51:36
brain is saying, oh that thing, oh that must be really bad,
51:38
like, and it thinks it's warning you. Right, your brain is like,
51:43
oh, the just create you know, kind of create and exacerbate pain
51:46
as a warning sign. So if you think, oh that pain, it's
51:52
so bad, your brain knows it. Right, it's registering and it's going
51:55
to continue. Every time I feel that danger, danger, let's hike up
52:00
the fear, let's hike up the stress tension. So, you know,
52:05
starting to unravel that practicing through doing these like kind of meditative practices. But
52:12
I do with clients seeing the pain as neutral. Now this is hard,
52:17
right because it doesn't feel neutral now. But as you're sitting here talking to
52:22
me, you have other sensations, right, you're you're sitting up, your
52:27
back is you know, your stomach, your abs, they're all working to
52:30
hold you up. But it's the pain in your legs and your feet that
52:35
feels awful. That sensation is tagged in your brain as unbearable, negative,
52:42
as you know, frustrating, fearful, all those things. And so we
52:46
we want to remember there's plenty of other sensations that we have in the body
52:52
that aren't tagged that way, and it's a process to untag them. So
52:57
that's kind of the gist of it. There's you know, there's other therapies
53:00
that are related to this that kind of delve into the emotional experience. So
53:05
like the idea of repressed anger in particular, and you know trauma, repressed
53:12
anger and trauma being a source of pain, like not allowing yourself to really
53:17
feel it and go there for so long, pushing it away. It shows
53:22
up in the body. It is going to show up in the body.
53:24
And I think you can probably relate to that idea. I can. And
53:28
the book The Body Keeps Score we talk about it often on this show.
53:31
When I read it, which is very very early on in my stages of
53:35
starting this show, I read that book and I was like, wow,
53:40
no wonder, no wonder. We hold it right and we hold on to
53:46
those experiences. And you know, it's hard because I think a lot of
53:51
us as kids learn it's not okay to express sadness. It's not a pay
53:55
to express anger. Yeah, it's not a pay to let those things out.
54:00
And so it's stored and it's built up and it comes out somehow.
54:06
That's how I think of it. It comes out as these like physical sensations.
54:09
Some people it's you know, intense fatigue, and other people it's migraines,
54:14
and other people it's back pain or crps or you know. And there
54:20
are ways that these things come back and show up in the body. Yeah,
54:24
I want to cry, which I normally I've grabbed my tissue because I
54:30
was ready for it to come out, because it is sad. But you
54:35
give hope, and that is where we always end an episode on the show,
54:38
is with hope, because I'm certainly not a giver upper, you know.
54:43
And I'm not giving up for you, my listeners. I'm not giving
54:45
up on me. I'm not giving up on guests. I refuse to do
54:49
it. Is it hard? Hell? Yes, it is is the work
54:52
going to be challenging? Yeah, of course it is. But we're what
54:54
we're doing isn't working, then we have to change it, and it's going
54:59
to be and we have to find people like you. And I know that
55:01
I'll put some things into show notes and some tools and some resources that you've
55:05
provided me, and maybe a couple other things as well that I've found in
55:07
the importance of sleep and our brain. So where can we find you?
55:12
I know you've got a webinar on chronic pain that I can send our listeners
55:16
to, but we can find you online on Instagram, your website LinkedIn Facebook
55:21
at DC metro Therapy, So please take a look at that. Is there
55:24
anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with before we hit the dusty trail?
55:29
And I'm sorry that I can't talk to you longer. I just yeah,
55:34
I want I just want people to feel hopeful, because you know,
55:37
it doesn't really matter how long we've had these experiences. They can change.
55:43
You know, we know this about the brain, that the brain has plasticity
55:46
and it can change and then we can grow. It is hard, it's
55:51
uncomfortable, but yeah, I think there's a lot of reason to be hopeful.
55:55
I love it. Thank you so much. It's been so wonderful to
55:58
talk to you, and you definitely have given me hope in the sleep world
56:00
and even just the few things that you had me apply and such a short
56:04
span of time, I couldn't even I couldn't wait to do this episode with
56:07
you today because I was like, I'm gonna tell her that I slept,
56:10
Oh so glad, I'm such a nothing amount of time. It wasn't hard,
56:15
sure, but I'm like, I couldn't even believe it. By taking
56:19
a few things you told me to do, how quickly I was able to
56:22
just shift it. Am I perfect at it? Hell? No, of
56:23
course not. But at least I started and I left that fear a little
56:28
bit behind me because you're right, it's like you, you you attribute like
56:31
I go in there and I'm not going to be able to It's going to
56:35
be a gross place to be the whole entire night. And you bring those
56:37
negative connotations with you and leave them out the door, leave them at the
56:40
door. Thank you again so much for being on the show with me.
56:45
I really appreciate it's been so wonderful to get to know you. You can
56:47
find her once again at Dcmetrotherapy dot com and follow her on all of her
56:52
socials. Thank you so much for having me. Of course, you are
56:57
exclusively invited to share this in incredibly to be Sleepy Vip pain journey together.
57:04
Let's get to the heart of how to heel with you by my side.
57:07
If you know anybody that is crazy and wild like myself, who cannot sleep,
57:12
They're fearful of sleep, they're in pain, what have you? Please
57:15
send them our way to Annie and myself. We would love to be able
57:17
to help them in any way that we possibly can and connect you with our
57:22
heartfelt stories for this show. We've all been through challenges. We've got all
57:25
kinds of challenges in front of us, but we need to sleep, guys,
57:29
so we can get through all of it. Please follow the Pain Game
57:32
Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content, we will be there. Visit us
57:37
at the Pain gamepodcast dot com and follow us on all the socials. Thanks
57:40
for listening, my little VIPs. Catch you on the other side.