Can't Sleep? Fix your Insomnia with Devin Burke
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February 9, 2022 - Episode #90 - Can't Sleep? Fix your Insomnia with Devin Burke
You are tired and dragging during the day, requiring copious amounts of caffeine and then when it’s time for bed you are wired. Or are you the opposite? You crash into bed, falling asleep quickly but then you toss and turn throughout the night, waking frequently. Insomnia is an awful problem to have and it truly affects every aspect of your life….your health, your emotions, your stress, your relationships and your work. This is a topic that you have to address and today I have a guest expert to help us do just that. Devin Burke provides tremendous insight on why sleep is so important, how sleep and stress are inter mingled, the secret to improving your relationships and regulating your emotions, and how to fix insomnia. If you are exhausted and tired of the sleep struggle, this is for you. Highlights of this podcast include.......
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FULL TRANSCRIPT February 9, 2022 - Episode #90 - Can't Sleep? Fix your Insomnia with Devin Burke You are tired and dragging during the day requiring copious amounts of caffeine. And then when it's time for you to go to bed, you're wired or are you the opposite? You crash into bed, falling asleep quickly, but you, and turn and toss and turn throughout the night. Waking frequently, insomnia is an awful problem to have, and it truly affects every aspect of your life, your health, your emotions, your stress, your relationships, and your work. This is a topic that you have to address. And today I have a guest expert to help us do just that Devin Burke provides tremendous insight on why sleep is so important, how sleep and stress are intermingled, the secret to improving your relationship, relationships, and regulating your emotions and how to fix insomnia. If you're exhausted and tired of the sleep struggle. This is for you today on Healthy Harmony. Welcome. This is the Healthy Harmony podcast. I'm Jennifer Pickett Dietitian turned Functional medicine, health coach. I help spiraling moms overcome the overwhelm through functional wellness coaching for the body, mind, and soul so they can transform their health and live a deeply fulfilled life of freedom and harmony. Okay, let's get real. When it comes to your health, you know what to do. I help you make this shift from knowing to actually doing the last 25 years. An experience have taught me that the absolute last thing a woman needs is a lecture about self care and another unrealistic diet plan. I recognize the importance of compassionate and intentional health practices. So you can feel good because guess what, when you feel good, you are more likely to make better decisions for your health. If you're ready to take control of your complete health, address, the obstacles standing in your way and live a life of freedom and harmony. My friend, you're in the right place. Devin Burke is an international and TEDx speaker, the bestselling author of the sleep advantage, the founder of sleep science academy, and one of the top health and sleep coaches in the world. His books, keynotes programs and videos have inspired the Hells and of people to improve their sleep, their energy and their life. Welcome Devin Burke. You are talking about one of my absolute favorite subjects today, and I've got a renowned expert on the show. Please welcome Devin Burke. Speaker 2: Hey! Speaker 1: Hi, Devin. Speaker 2: Hey, glad to be here. Speaker 1: So glad you're joining us. Okay. We're just gonna get right into it because I, you know, as I was kind of digging into you and your research and what you've done, I noticed something interesting. And that's your story. You had this path and you are gonna become a doctor of physical therapy and you kind of ended up doing it about face. Tell us your story. Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'll give you the quick, the quick version of a longer story, but I was, yeah, I was on set on track to become a doctor of physical therapy. And then I took a two and a half month backpack trip through Europe and really started to think about, Hey, is this what I wanna do with the rest of my life? And I realized that it wasn't. So got back from that trip. I was working with a client at the PT clinic. She had this transformation and she told me she was working with a health coach. I had no idea what a health coach was. I started to look into what a health coach was, what, you know, she started telling me her experience with her health coach. And then that sent me on this whole journey of a decade of studying. Let's just call it mind, body technologies. I, I was doing performance coaching for a lot of high performing entrepreneurs with, with a little bit of health coaching involved in that. And someone that I was working with had issues with their sleep and they asked for help. And I had no idea that first and foremost sleep was the foundation of health. I, I studied all these things, but not sleep. And then the more I studied the sciences sleep, the more I realized how important it was and looked into what was available for people. And it's not very good. The, you know, what was, what was really available for people is, you know, sleeping pills and C B T I, if you could find a good practitioner and I said, Hey, I think I can help solve this, this specific issue. And so that led me into studying sleep science and sort of taking all these mind, body technologies and, and really channeling them into solving this one specific challenge for people which is trouble sleeping. Speaker 1: Oh, I love it. I love how you just, you really turn things around after being exposed to someone who had worked with the health coach that is obviously near and dear to my heart and always so good to hear. And two, just how you of diving into sleep because you had a, a client who was like, Hey, help me sleep. It is, it's amazing to me that this is a subject that very few are talking about yet. It is the absolute foundation of our health. So let's dive into that. Tell us why sleep is so vitally important to our health. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well, sleep, you know, it might seem like our body and mind are sleeping, but it's act both of 'em are actually wide awake. So it's not a waste. It's not a waste of time. So, so much goes on throughout the night and, you know, and affects every aspect of our life. So physically during the night, our that's when our bodies are repairing, that's when our immune systems are activated. That's when you know the little trash, the little Trashmen come out and clean up all the garbage from, you know, the food we eat the air, we breathe the water, we drink, you know, all of the damage cells during the night. That's when they get cleaned up and clear it out. So from a physical standpoint, sleep is essential to restoring our, our physical bodies. Then we get into the mental aspects of why sleep's important, you know, sleep is, is like first aid for our emotions, you know, during certain stages of sleep, when we're dreaming specifically, we're working through emotional traumas of the day. We're, you know, we're problem solving, we're creative, we're coming up with creative solutions you know, for our memory it's essential short term memory gets shuttled to long term storage. The, you know, the lymphatic system, this amazing system in our brain gets activated where our brain actually shrinks. And this cerebral spinal fluid flushes out the beta amyloid, the plaque that builds up that creates Alzheimer's. So like so much is going on is like, there's like a symphony in our brains. And, and it's so literally it, every aspect of our physical and our mental wellbeing are being restored and repaired throughout the night. And so many people just don't realize that that's actually what's happening. They, I, I was actually just, you know, I was at a wedding this past weekend sitting next to someone that was studying to become a lawyer. And, you know, we started getting into this conversation and he's like, yeah, I don't sleep. I just, I, you know, I just, it's a waste of, I feel like it's a waste of my time. Oh goodness. And I was like, oh my gosh. I'm like, well, you're sitting next to the right guy. <Laugh>. And so so we got to talking, but yeah, it has such, there's so much misinformation and misunderstanding around sleep because it's something that we become unconscious for. So, you know, most people just don't ever think about their sleep until they're not sleeping well, then it becomes sometimes an obsession to solve and fix it. Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. So true. So tell us, I know there's different sleep phases. Tell us what happens during those sleep phases and why sleep quality is so very important. Speaker 2: Yeah. So every 90 minutes, essentially, we go through a sleep cycle and within a sleep cycle, there's different stages that we go through. So stages one through four, you could be, are considered non REM sleep and then there's REM sleep or rapid eye movement sleep. So every 90 minutes we're coming in and out of these different stages. Now, when we talk about sleep quality, we're really talking about Delta deep sleep stages, three and four, and we're talking about REM sleep or rapid eye movement. And so in order to get to those stages, though, you need to go through stages one and two, that's sort of when our, you know, our blood pressure starts to drop our body temperature starts to drop. We're kind of coming in and out of consciousness. And then we drop into a deeper stage of, of of sleep. And each of these stages of sleep correlate with different brain waves. So the Delta deep sleep that's really important because that's where our physical body's repairing that happens in the first quarter of the night. So if you think of your, your night in four quarters, the first quarter of the night, that's when we're getting most, our bodies like to get into Delta deep sleep. And then the fourth quarter of the night, that's when our bodies like to get most of their REM sleep or their rapid eye movement sleep. That's why, when you wake up, you usually, you know, you remember your dreams or it's, it's, you're, you're coming out of a dream. That's because a lot of, for whatever reason in the, you know, the early morning that, and most of our, our brain and bodies like that REM sleep. So again, there's, there's this dance that happens, this sort of symphony that happens every 90 minutes. And then sometimes people actually pop out into consciousness after a sleep cycle and, and, and then the challenge then becomes falling asleep. But a lot of times people don't realize we actually oftentimes are waking up about every 90 minutes, but it's just not conscious. So that's kind of what happens throughout the night and a little bit of, you know, what happens within each stage Speaker 1: So important. And, you know, I think it's amazing how everything, everything that happens during the night that we've really just taken for granted, but there's so much healing and restoration that happens. And just that deep cleanse that happens. I mean, even to the brain, you referenced that earlier, you know, I mean this deep cleanse, it happens even in the brain as we sleep, but it's something that we've clearly taken for granted. So why do you think so many people suffer from sleep issues, suffer from insomnia. Speaker 2: There's two reasons and they're, they're connected. It's, it's really, at the end of the day, it comes down to stress, physical stress and mental, emotional stress. And then there's a lot of things that create physical, mental, emotional stress technology being one of them. So, but at, in a nutshell, sleep and stress are by linked meaning the more stress you experience, the less rest you experience, the less rest you experience, the more stress you experience. So this becomes a paradoxical sort of situation where if you're not getting great sleep, your, your, your body is gonna be under more physical stress. And also your perception. It's kind of like you put on these glasses that see the world in a different lens and not a good one. It's a more of a negative lens. You misinterpret motions, which leads to relationship issues, which leads to more stress. So it kind of creates this perfect storm of, you know, we're not sleeping well. We're seeing the world in a different way. Our bodies are experiencing more cortisol, more stress, not rep, you know, they're not restored. And then that leads into less sleep. So this is kind of the paradox that happens. And it's, it's really challenge for people sometimes to, to find their way back or out of this paradox. Speaker 1: You know, I see that paradox with my with my clients every day. And I coach a vast majority of women and this horrible, you know, not enough sleep over, you know, stressed out cycle and it's never ending and they've spent most severe adult life F in that mode. And they don't feel like they're enjoying life, their, their life. It does not feel fulfilling because of this awful paradox of no sleep and unmanaged stress. So I, I find it interesting. You alluded to relationships and how, if we don't get enough sleep, that really affects how you interpret emotions today. The next day. So go a little bit deeper into that. I love that. Speaker 2: Yeah. So essentially when we, when we're not well slept, our, our perception of other people gets, gets distorted. More so than it normally is. <Laugh> so, so essentially we misread or misinterpret people facial structures, you know, they're, they're, they're the, the way that somebody looks at you you're, if you're under slept, and this is not just me making this up, there's, there's science and studies supporting this. You might, somebody might look at you and you, you think that they're looking at you and with, with an angry eye, or they're looking at you in a way that's, you know, angry or something like that. And they're not, it's just, you're interpreting their face in that way. So there's this misperception of reality that gets directly experienced in the way of misinterpretation in emotions. And then, so that's the external, and then the internal we have and in a to emotionally regulate. So when we're under slept, we are, you know, we're more emotional, you know, we, we, we're more sad. We're more tearful. There's a huge link between a lack of sleep and depression, a lack of sleep and anxiety. So we're more anxious. We see, you know, we're, we're more lethargic. And then that gets, gets kind of brought into relationships. So when, you know, when you're irritable and you're on edge, and you're just not feeling like yourself, that creates conflict within relationship. And there's an interesting study that actually showed that even if one person that's in relationship with another person is under slept, that creates, they both rank lower in their, you know, their perception of how they showed up in their relationship. So, so even if you're, you know, you're not the one that's experiencing the sleep issues, it's your, you know, your partner, you're both gonna rank each other as not showing up as their truest best self, which I thought was kinda fascinating. Yeah. Speaker 1: And I think we've tapped into something that can literally change the world because we're starting with changing the family and how we interact with each other. And it does, it goes back to how you sleep the night before. It, it, it just fascinates me and it has such a direct relationship. I love how you refer to that study with how we interact with folks the next day and our relationship. So you've just truly uncovered a, a huge secret that is the key to happy and healthy relationships. And that is get some sleep the night before. Right. Speaker 2: Amen to that. And, and don't bring your difficult relationship conversations to bed. This is like, oh, I it's so common for people. And I get it. You're busy with your kids. You're busy with work. You're busy, you know, with your life. So maybe you don't, you don't, you know, you're not connecting with your partner. And then the first chance you get is when your, both your head hits the pillow, and then you start talking about, you know, stuff that really is not meant to be talked about in the bedroom. The bedroom's meant for two things sleep and making love. And that's it not these difficult conversations about, you know, should the kids go to this school or that school, or should we bring 'em love Catholic or Jewish, or, you know, these types of conversations you wanna schedule earlier on in the day? Yes. Do not bring them into the bedroom. That's just gonna create a, you know, it's a recipe for a racing mind and, and poor sleep. Speaker 1: It really is. And, you know, like you said, the bedroom needs to be a sanctuary for those two things for making love and for sleep. And that's it. And when we're, when we're not really preparing our body for sleep devastating things happen. So let's talk about circadian rhythms, and I want you to describe circadian rhythms. What are they, first of all, and why do we need to honor those circadian rhythms? Yeah. Speaker 2: So circadian rhythms you can think of is your body's clock. And there's the super char nucleus big word, but that's the master clock. Actually, every cell, every organ in our body is on a circadian clock. So it has a, there's a certain rhythm just like, you know, the day and the night. And actually our circadian clocks are synced with the day and the night. So they get UN as a result of technology as a result of stress. There's a lot of things that happen that kind of unsync our clocks, but essentially it's our body's clock. And, you know, we want to make sure that our body's clock is actually synced with it is, sounds a little woo, but synced with the clock of the earth the natural clock of the earth. And so making sure the most important thing when we're talking about Syad rhythm and circadian sinking is light, making sure that you're getting enough light and light at the right times. So first thing in the morning, getting some sun, if you can, if you're in a place where you can't get, you know, a nightlight or a sunlight, I mean a sun box. So, cause you want, we wanna get that light first thing in the morning because that's gonna really start to turn off the melatonin faucet. And then at night that's when we wanna start to know, if you can watch the sunset, that's amazing for sinking a circadian clock with your feet on the ground. That's another strategy, Speaker 1: Love it. So grounding, right? Just grounding barefoot on the ground, watching the sunset. How simple is that? Right? Speaker 2: No simple. You don't need anything fancy, no gadgets, nothing like that. Just get outside, put your feet on the ground, watch the sunset. Now, you know, as you, if you're, you don't have the opportunity to do that, or you're not creating the opportunity to do that, you can start to turn off half of your lights. You can start to, you know put blue light blocking glasses on blue light filters on your devices. I'm a big fan of red light. So in my home specifically, we have a salt lamp and then we have a, we have red lights. So, you know, as the sun starts to set, as it becomes dark, there's, you know, this red sort of glow that happens in the home and you think about it, our ancestors were around fire, right? That's for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years, right? And so that light, that natural light frequency that's created this red Amber light is very good for sort of helping the body understand that now it's time to turn on the melatonin faucet sleep hormone that makes us, you know feel sleepy. So using therapy and, and integrating nature into your home is a fantastic way of keeping the circadian clock help. And as well as keeping a consistent sleep schedule is the other tip there. Getting up specifically at the same time every day and ideally going to bed at the same time every night. So if you play with the light and you get on a schedule, your circadian clock will be Speaker 1: Synced. I love that. And, and honestly, you know, I think our tendency is during the week, we have more of a schedule, you know, and and we might have to get up earlier. And so on the weekend, we're like, oh, I can stay up later and get up later. But what you're saying that really messes up your body's clock, is that correct? Speaker 2: That's right, Jennifer. And, you know, there's actually a term for that. It's called social jet lag. So, you know, so we, you know, we have maybe a scheduled during the week and then during the weekend, and I'll, I'll just be honest here. I went to a wedding in Miami last weekend and it was a Spanish wedding. It wa you know, and we were up all night long. The wedding ceremony started late. You know, I think we were eating dinner at like nine o'clock. And then dancing literally to till 3:00 AM and, oh, wow. So, so <laugh> you know, you don't wanna be doing that every single weekend. You can get away with it once in a while. But really the more you can keep your body, even on the weekends in sync, and you, you know, you don't wanna be too strict. You wanna live your life. You wanna, you know, be able to dance till three a in the morning and celebrate, you know, people you care about. But you don't wanna be doing it every weekend because that totally would just create wreck havoc on your, on your system and your body. And then there's that social jet lag. It's, you know, the sleep debt kind of gets builded up and now you, you know, so there's arguments on whether or not you can, you know, catch up with sleep debt. I'm more in the, I think that you actually can, you know, if you sleep a little bit more, it can help you sort of catch up on sleep depending on who you ask, they'll say, oh, no, you can't. But yeah, so it's, it's important and to try to stay as, as consistent as possible, even on the weekends where, when you can. Speaker 1: And the way I've described it is, you know, when it comes to sleep, especially the body loves rhythm and routine. So one of the things that I talk about a good bit is establishing a bedtime routine. How can we send signals to the body? Ways to relax, it's time to unwind, it's time to prepare for good sleep. So outside of really working with the light, turning down the lights at night, what are some other things that should be a part of our bedtime routine to send signals to the body that is time to prepare for a good deep sleep? Speaker 2: Yeah, so I, I, I share a, it is called a 3, 2, 1 sleep technique. So three hours before bed, you stop eating because you don't wanna be digesting food. When you're trying to get into the deeper stages of body repair two hours before bed, you stop working. And then one hour before bed is that's when you really start that bedtime routine, and that can look like something that's not involving technology. So, you know, not binge watching Netflix or scrolling on social media air, checking your email, that's the opposite of what you wanna be doing before you go to sleep. You wanna be doing something like taking hot, hot, bath, hot shower, making love for your partner. Maybe a puzzle reading, stretching maybe meditation, maybe prayer, maybe journaling on, you know, reflecting on all the things you have in your life to be grateful for. These are some, you know, ideas for crafting your own unique routine. And it's important to note here though. You don't really need to do anything to sleep. This is really important for people to understand sleep's a natural biological process that happens when we allow it to happen. Just like our heartbeats, our lungs breathe. You know, you wanna be careful that you, you, you know, you get, you don't have to do anything to sleep, so you don't have to take a hu shower. You don't have to read a book. You don't have to take that sleep supplement. Those are things that are gonna be supportive to sleep quality, but you don't really have to. There's a ton of people around the world every night that do the exact opposite of sleep hygiene and still sleep. I mean, could the quality of their sleepy better? Sure. But I just wanna make sure that people understand that. Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. And again, it's kind of, I think too, it's looking at the obstacles. What is keeping you from good sleep? Like you said earlier, having those really tough conversations literally right before bed, your mind is racing. It's gonna be very, very hard to settle down versus can we really protect our time before we go to bed? I love your 3, 2, 1 method. I think that's absolutely fantastic. Is there an ideal bedtime? What should we look at when we discuss bedtime? Speaker 2: Depends on a lot of factors, you know, so we each have our own, you know, prototype. So are you a morning person or evening person or someone in between? So knowing what your prototype is, and you can take a prototype quiz, there's a thousand of 'em on the internet. Just to kind of UN understand what type of person you are. And so honoring that as well as your lifestyle. So sleep need is gonna change throughout life, depending on you know, where we are in life and what we're doing. Are we an athlete? Are we, you know grandma you know, so, so our, our sleep need is gonna change. And so being sensitive to how much sleep you need based off of your lifestyle, your genetics based off of the amount of stress that you're experiencing is really important. And that takes body awareness and also takes tapping into intelligence body intelligence, because our bodies know what they need. It's often we get in the way of, or we don't listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us. So so yeah, so it is really, I mean, he healthy adults between seven and nine hours in some cases but everyone's needs are, are, are, are unique and different. Speaker 1: Okay. So how would you respond to that person who says, I just don't need much sleep. I need to get a lot done. And I just really, I operate great with no sleep. How would you respond to that person? Speaker 2: I would respond to them saying, well, let's, let's ex let's see if that's really true. Let's see if we can start to sleep more and sleep better and see if it makes a big enough difference for you to continue to prioritize and protect it. Most people are under slept and then what becomes their under slept becomes their norm. And they think it's normal and it's not, it's actually them operating, you know, at like 75% when they could be operating it at like 95%, if they would just prior and protect their rest. Speaker 1: Oh, so important. And, you know, I think it does. You're so right. We get used to this norm. It becomes our norm to have just not that much energy or, you know, be dragging the next day, not to have a little bit of brain fog and you know, it's, it's crazy how that becomes our norm. So I love you reference, Hey, like, let's see if we can improve your sleep and see what happens. See if you feel better. It is it's about that mindfulness and really tapping into listening to our body, being very, very self aware. So let's switch to the morning what we do in the morning can set ourselves up for success. What does the morning need to, to look like? And will that set us up for a successful night's sleep? Speaker 2: Yeah. So a great night of sleep happens as soon as you wake up. So I love talking about the morning because it affects the rest of our day. So making sure that you, if you can start the morning in a way that's more peaceful, meaning, you know, you're not waking up to a blaring alarm clock. You're waking up maybe to a, a, you know, a natural light alarm clock, or ideally just you're waking up without an alarm clock getting some sun and then doing something that's gonna be more parasympathetic, meaning something that's gonna and allow your body to you know, be in a peaceful place versus high stress. First thing in the morning, our cortisol, our stress hormone is highest in the morning. Oftentimes people then dump caffeine into their system. First thing in the morning, which is not what you wanna do. You wanna drink water because we lose a liter throughout the night, just respire, you know, respiration and sweat. So you wanna drink water hydrate, first thing in the morning, an hour later, then you can enjoy your coffee because then your quarters all starts to kind of balance out. But ideally you wanna do something that's gonna ease yourself into the day and that can look like a lot of things. It can be as unique as your nighttime routine. For me, I wake up, I drink a big glass to water, and then I sit on my cushion. I do 20 minutes of, you know, meditation for some people that might be waking up going for a walk. You know, that might be waking up and praying journaling something, you know, you kind of like how you end your day. You can kind of start your day in kind of the same way. That that's, that's a good way of sort of looking at it. Speaker 1: It so important. And I love how you referenced really drinking that water. First thing in the morning, we do, we, we become dehydrated during the night, we're losing fluids and we need to rehydrate first thing in the morning and it's just a habit to have that coffee first thing. So it's interesting. How you reference how that really affects your cortisol. The cortisol is already spiking. Then we dump in a lot of caffeine and so often even more caffeine right after that first cup. And we're setting ourselves up for failure. So you're saying we need to wait on the coffee for at least an hour after we've been awake. Speaker 2: Yeah. And another strategy here with the coffee too, is you can throw a little mushrooms in there, so like reach or Cortis or you know, chaga mushrooms that kind of helps buffer the adrenal glands or take athe, you know, that's, athe is naturally, you know, found in, in green tea. You can take it in a supplement form, but that kind of helps buffer some of the caffeine. So it's not so, so sort of shocking to your system. So there's, there's a, you know, there's are strategies around how you can upgrade your coffee and, and, and you can, you can do things. I love coffee. I love the taste of it. I love the smell of it. It's, it's a nice ritual. And so you, you can have your coffee, you just, you know, do it in a way that is gentler on your system and in a way that is in a more, more harmonizing been, been destructive. Speaker 1: For sure. For sure. So I have, I have been taught that when you do not get good sleep at night, the next day, it dramatically affects what you eat. So can you clarify that? What do you crave the next day when you don't get good sleep at night? Speaker 2: Yeah. This is such a fun topic to talk about. So the sleep, the sleep and food connection. So first and foremost, what happens is our two hormones that regulate grin leptin when we feel full and when we feel hungry, get dysregulated. So that leads to us eating more and not feeling full. And then we crave sugar and fat, like crazy because sugar is energy and that's what our bodies recognize as energy. So, so our bodies are looking for sugar and fat, and then our bodies are not realizing when we're eating or overeating, because those two hormones grow in leptin get, you know, dis dis dysregulated essentially, or just and so that's a problem. So you're eating, you know, and, and you have low willpower because when we're tired, willpower's like a muscle. It's like, you know, you, you, you go and is it the coffee or, or the salad? I mean, the co you know, the donut or the salad, it's like, oh, I'm tired. That donut looks sugary. It's it's, I don't know for the donut, you know, cause you just don't have that willpower muscle. So, and your biology is kind of working against you at that point as well. Speaker 1: So true. You know, I, I call it the easy button if we, I, if you really wanna affect what you're eating and what you're choosing to eat, getting good sleep, when you feel better, it is easier to make healthier decisions. And so that's why I love as a coach to start with sleep. Like, how are you sleeping? And I've never had a client, not once in my years of coaching, who said I prioritize sleep and I just, I sleep great. Like that is my top priority. Never <laugh> yes, it will shock me if I ever have someone like that. It, I just feel like we live in this society where it, it is kind of celebrated, you know, for you not to get sleep and to burn the candle at both ends. And it doesn't make sense. Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. I mean, and it is culturally sort of stigmatized, you know, you hear things like you snooze, you lose you sleep when you're dead, early bird gets the worm, all these things, you know, that are culturally sort of a, a, a programmed that create this sort of distortion of what sleep really is and how powerful important it actually is. And I think people are waking up to the fact that sleep is important and making and making it priority now more so than, than before, but it's still, you know, there's still a lot of stigma around it and, you know, it's, people don't really understand it. And again, it's, it's, it's not something it's, you have to really have an experience of better sleep to really then notice how important and powerful prioritizing it is. Speaker 1: Definitely. so for the, for the person who says that their main, they fall asleep easily because they're so tired, they fall asleep easily, but they're waking frequently throughout the night. What would you advise that person? Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's two different types of insomnia there's onset insomnia and maintenance insomnia. So what you're describing is what we call maintenance insomnia or, or a acute version of that. And so for people that have issues staying asleep, it's, you know, there's a lot of things to, to really look at here. The first thing is, you know, why are you waking up? And it's not so much about waking up. It's about if you're, if you wake up and you're not able to get back to sleep. Cause as I mentioned earlier in our conversation, we all wake up, essentially. Yes, every 90 minutes, it's just, most of us are not conscious. So if for whatever reason, you're getting pulled into consciousness. And usually that reason is a racing mind. It's, you know, some form of stress. We want to rest that during the day. So that, that doesn't happen during the night. Our night is a reflection of our day. So let's say you wake up and you're up for, for longer than 20 minutes. You wanna remove yourself from the bed bedroom, cuz you do not want to anchor your bed and bedroom with wakefulness. So get yourself out of that. I know it's hard. Go do something relaxing when that sleepiness comes back on you, then you just get back in bed. But ideally, you know, you really, you want to address sleep maintenance in, so, you know, maintenance, insomnia, or waking up restless throughout the night. You want to, that really there's things during the day that you're doing and not doing that are then causing that. That's not the problem. That's just a cause a of that's a sign that something's outta balance in your day. Speaker 1: So what could be out of balance during the day? What are some of those items? Speaker 2: Yeah, some so a big one that I find we work with a lot of high performing entrepreneurs, people that run companies and families and oftentimes people just don't take space throughout the day. So they're going from one thing to the next thing. One decision to the next decision. There's no space. So that, that creates stress. It's a mental, emotional stress that creates a form of tension in the mind and the body. And so if you're not releasing that valve, that sort of pressure valve that builds up throughout the day, because you don't have any time you haven't chosen and intentionally created time force space and for rest and rhythm throughout your day. Well, it's gonna be hard for you to go to sleep or stay asleep at night. So making sure you prioritize space throughout your day, there needs to be, you know, like there's a lot of cultures around the world that take CIES, that's a fantastic strategy, taking a nap, you know, having some down time, you know, eating your, your lunch with your family or doing something, you know, that doesn't involve a sympathetic you know, activity that stress inducing activity is really important. You know, it's, that's so important. People don't realize that if you do not honor rest and rhythm throughout the day, that, and it's gonna be really hard to rest at night. So that's one strategy. Another strategy is to make sure that you're, you know, not having caffeine too late in the day this, you know, oftentimes people are relying on caffeine because they're not getting good sleep. Caffeine's a drug, it blocks adenine. Adenine is a neurochemical that builds up that creates, you know, sleep pressure, which is a, you know, sleepiness. So making sure that you have a healthy relationship to stimulants and you're not using stimulants because you're, you're not well, slapped is really important. And then, you know, having some practices, some intentional awareness around what's creating stress is, is really powerful. So creating some self-awareness around, well, what are the thoughts? And the beliefs that create are creating the most stress in my life and then taking responsibility for the ones that you're choosing and then getting support to choose something else Speaker 1: So important. So when it comes to caffeine, what would be your cutoff during the day? What time? Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about the half-life caffeine. It's about six hours. So it's in our system for 12 hours. It is. Yeah. And so depending on the type of metabolizer, you are certain people are, you know, fast caffeine. Metabolizers certain people takes a little bit longer for them, metabolized caffeine. So knowing, and you can get a genetics te a genetics test that will tell you what type of caffeine metabolizer you are. So knowing how you're metabolizing caffeine, as well as the half-life of caffeine is gonna be, I would say you don't wanna have coffee at the latest, the, maybe 1:00 PM in the afternoon, but ideally, you know, 12, 12 noon. So that three o'clock coffee that most people, four o'clock coffee that most people have, cuz like that's when the temp body temperature starts to dip and people start to get like, feel that little low, which is actually natural. That's not when you wanna have a cup of coffee, that's not that's when you wanna take some breaths, that's when you go like take a walk, take a break, take a siesta you know, do something parasympathetic, not force yourself back into the sympathetic. Which is what most people do. Speaker 1: Oh, so important. So important. I, I feel like I, I keep saying that phrase so important, all of this stuff is just so crucial to good health. And I think you have, have really opened people's eyes to so much here. It's just something that is not discussed enough. You reference stress so much and I really like on your website, how you reference that we should not only manage our stress, but master it. Well, you go a little bit more in depth on that. Speaker 2: Yeah. So, you know, most people there's, there's all framework that, that I teach around stress and most people learn to manage their stress from people that didn't know how to manage their own. And so it's not really people's faults it's, you know, so most people manage stress. They lash out in anger, they zone out or they, you know, zone out with social media or work or they numb out with food, alcohol on drugs. So knowing your stress blueprint and you know, understanding, Hey, these are the ways that I deal with stress is really important. That's the first step to mastering stress and mastery. When you master something it's, it's like you can think of somebody that's a master, a master pianist a master athlete somebody that is really understands. Something is a master that they don't just, they don't just know it, they embody it. And so stress mastery is a process of understanding what's creating dress and then practicing and choosing to practice tools. And that create the awareness to shift out of stress in our thinking in our beliefs and what we're doing and what we're no longer doing. And so the process of mastery begins with self-awareness and knowing what your stress blueprint is like, what your go to, when you feel stressed, do you lash out in anger? Do you zone out with social media or work? Do you numb out with food, alcohol, and drugs? You know, don't judge yourself. We all have, we all do, you know, one or many of these ways, but just have some awareness of what the pattern is. And then you can start to create some healthier habits, healthier ways of relating to stress and to the things that create stress. And there's a lot of practices and tools that we teach at sleep science academy. One of them's mindfulness, one, you know meditation, so important to have a practice that creates that self-awareness as well as connects you to that deeper place within yourself is a great place to start. And then there's a million other, you know, strategies that we could, I could talk about for hours, for hours on the end. But but I don't think we have time for that today. So but that's, that's a little bit about, you know, the conversation I, I like to talk about when, when people ask me about stress mastery. Yeah. Speaker 1: Oh, I love it. Okay. So, so people have been listening to this. I know they're leaning in and their eyes have been opened. If you are to suggest, Hey, here's where you need to start. Where would you tell somebody to start? When it comes to making sleep a top priority, where do they need to begin first? Speaker 2: They first and foremost need to understand and why they're making it a priority. So really getting connected to a, a, a strong why cuz then if you have a strong enough why then you'll figure out the what right. So understanding, okay, sleep is important. I wanna make some changes around sleep then really, you know, what's good for your health is good for your sleep. So start to clean up, you know, that's a great place put in place, you know, practices like the 3 21 sleep, you know, some sleep hygiene, you know, start stress management practice. You know, it really, everyone is at a different point in their journey. So I, I tend not to like to give, you know, just a blanket sort of answer to there's Speaker 1: No one size, it's all amazing, Speaker 2: But start somewhere, you know, start I say, start with connecting with why sleep's important for you. And, and then once you really, hopefully this conversation is the catalyst for that, then it's okay. Let's just start with the 3, 2, 1 sleep. You know, that's, that's a simple technique that really would make a difference if people consistently implemented it. Speaker 1: So vitally important. I know our listeners are gonna wanna connect with you. So give us the information on where we can connect with you. Speaker 2: So sleep science academy.com is the website for those of you that suffering from sleep issues. And then all the social channels, Devin Burke wellness you know, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all that Devin Burke wellness is, is where you can, you know, connect with me there. Speaker 1: Fantastic. And I will make sure guys to link that in the show notes. So you can access that you easily, Devin, this has been such an amazing conversation. This is why I was so excited to record this podcast with you. So I can't thank you enough. Speaker 2: Jennifer, my pleasure. And thanks for, for, for being so diligent about inspiring, better sleep within the people that you're working with. Speaker 1: Thanks. Have a good day. Speaker 2: You too. Speaker 1: Such a great interview. The power of sleep is something that we definitely take for granted. Hey, please know that you're not alone on your health journey. I'm here to provide you information just like this. So you can take control of your health and your life. And by the way, if you're looking for a coach, I do have some one hour virtual coaching slots available. So go to inspire healthy harmony.com and click on the coaching tab and coming up. I have a fantastic opportunity for you. It's a ask the functional medicine doctor episode where a functional medicine doctor, where and will answer your questions. So you need to pre-submit those questions to me, you can do that on social media @inspirehealthyharmony on Facebook. On Instagram, you can send those over private message, or you can always email me, [email protected] until then remember when you know you do better. Bye y'all. |
