How to Sleep Better with Morgan Adams [Ep. 77]

Lisa: 0:00

This is eight. Well think. Well live well podcast. I'm Lisa Salsbury, and this is episode 77. How to sleep better with Morgan Adams. I haven't done a dedicated sleep episode since episode number six. Wow. So I thought it was really time to dedicate an entire episode to sleep as it is a major foundation. For not only health, but actually for weight loss as well. Morgan Adams is a sleep coach. And let me tell you, get ready for some really fascinating stuff about sleep. Not only does she share some great thoughts about sleeping pills and sleep trackers, but stay tuned to the end where she gives three very actionable tips to start sleeping better. Right now. Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. Welcome to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast. I have the pleasure of interviewing Morgan Adams today. I am going to let her introduce herself and just get right into how she got into the sleep coaching field, which we are talking all about sleep today. So it's something we've talked about on the podcast before, but is. Just as important as the food we're eating. So I think we just really can't talk about it enough. So I'm so excited to have Morgan on. Welcome

Morgan: 1:37

Thank you so much, Lisa. Appreciate it.

Lisa: 1:40

Yeah. So tell us how, you know, what you do and how you got into that field.

Morgan: 1:45

Yeah. Well, I am a sleep coach. Like you mentioned, um, there are not tons of sleep coaches out there, but the field is growing very quickly. And the reason why I got interested in sleep is because I actually had my own really bad bout of insomnia years ago. And it was kind of kicked off by troubles and a romantic relationship, which I'll spare you the details. But essentially it, it, it got me into a situation where I had something called sleep onset insomnia, which is essentially when you lie in bed for a long period of time before you can actually fall asleep. So I would lie in bed for up to two hours, most nights waiting for sleep to come extremely frustrating, looking at the clock and getting more frustrated. So I got to the point where I thought, I cannot, I can't take this anymore. So I went to my doctor and I was prescribed Ambien, which I took because why not? Doctor prescribed it. I thought this is all I know. So, okay, if there was a pill, I'm going to take it. so I took the pills and it did end up getting me to sleep more quickly for sure, but I had a lot of residual side effects the next day. And I came to find out, you know, after researching sleeping pills, just, you know, a few years ago that 80 percent of people who are taking sleeping pills have some kind of grogginess or residual side effect the next morning. So it manifested for me as just lots of brain fog. Um, I had the kind of job where I was. Forced to write very quickly as a PR kind of communications person, press release. And I remember there were several times where I was just paralyzed at my desk. I couldn't type, I couldn't think. And it kind of got me into trouble at work a few times because I wasn't quick enough to produce the content. And I just, I kind of just dealt with the side effects. You know, I didn't know what else to do. And then about eight years into that Ambien experience,

Lisa: 3:42

Oh, wow. You took it for eight

Morgan: 3:45

eight years. Yeah. Eight years. Yes.

Lisa: 3:47

a long time to deal with the daytime effects.

Morgan: 3:51

it is. So eight years into it, I met a man who I started dating who is actually now my husband.

Lisa: 4:00

Congratulations.

Morgan: 4:01

happy ending to that story. Thank you. And, um, in the early stages of our dating, he said to me, you know, when you take that pill. It really freaks me out because you act like a zombie. And I was like, and in the most loving way he said this, but it really, it really got to me. It really made me think, what am I doing taking these pills? So I decided that I was going to come off the pills. What I did was, and I don't recommend people doing this, I just took it on myself, you know, this whole getting off the pills. So I like cut the pills in half and then to quarters and, and, you know, fortunately I was able to come off successfully without like a lot of problems. But knowing what I knew now about sleeping pills and sleep, if you are in a sleeping pill that's prescribed, you really need to work with your prescribing. Physician or nurse practitioner, whoever prescribed it because you will want to get some kind of a titration schedule to follow. It also helps if you do have a sleep coach alongside you to give you that accountability and support because it's not always easy because a lot of times people who are taking these sleeping pills don't have much sleep competence at all. So they need support and having someone build that up. And unfortunately, the doctors are just too busy to like hold your hand through it. They can give you the schedule, so that's the sleep story. Number one. And I slept fine after, you know, getting off the pills for many years. And then a plot twist happened that, uh, and that plot twist actually was experienced by all of us collectively in March of 2020, when the pandemic started, I started to have trouble sleeping again. And I was really, really concerned because I did not want to go down that road of full blown insomnia again. So I went to Dr. Google and started looking up sleep tips and how to sleep better. Got an Oura ring to track my sleep. And within a short period of time, I was actually able to turn my sleep around before it got too bad. And I got pretty fascinated with this whole topic of sleep, you know, because it was, it seemed very fixable, you know, in a short period of time. So I started to just organically post what I was doing, what I was learning about sleep on Facebook. And I came to find out that a lot of other women in my circle were struggling with sleep around the same time I was during the pandemic. So late in 20, I think it was late summer 2020. I had this revelation and it just like, it was like, I'd been struck by lightning, Morgan, you need to become a sleep coach for women because so many people are struggling with their sleep. So it was at that point that I was off to the races, getting multiple certifications, taking classes and really getting up to speed. I spent about a year or so doing that. And then I launched my sleep coaching practice, um, a little over two years ago. So that is kind of how I got into this kind of a roundabout story, but I feel like. In this field of health coaching, a lot of people who are practitioners have had the same issue they're helping others with. It's sort of that pain into purpose. And that was the 100%.

Lisa: 7:14

Yeah. Yeah. And Morgan and I went to the same health coaching certification program at Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is great by the way, it is a great foundation for health coaches. But then she was telling me before she did additional coursework specifically in this area to really hone in on the sleep issues that women are having. So first of all, thank you for sharing that story. I think it's fascinating that you were able to titrate down and like you said, like work with your doctor. If If you are wanting to do that, but you were able to get off of them, but then still be able to sleep. Do you think that was associated more with like the stable relationship as opposed to what, like how it happened in the first place, or just sort of your body was used to sleeping at that point

Morgan: 8:00

Yeah, it's, it's a good question. I think it was probably because I was just in a more stable place. And, I would, maybe I was just ready. I was determined to make it work out. And I had, you know, kind of tried to stop a few times before that, but it just wasn't the right time for me. But I'm really, really glad that I got off of them because I did not have that fogginess that I was dealing with. And in fact, this is really interesting. I found out that in 2013, so about a year before I stopped taking the pills, the FDA ended up changing the dosage for women. They ended up cutting the dosage in half because what they were finding is that so many women were being overmedicated and having these residual side effects. That they, they had to reduce it. So in essence, I was being over medicated without my knowledge because they changed that in 2013. And then in 2019, they put a black box warning on these meds like Lunesta. Yeah. Look, all the Z drugs, Lunesta, Sonata, Ambien. And for, for those who don't know what a black box warning is, it's, it's a warning on a drug itself. You can see it in the package insert and the drug basically stating that, you know, certain side effects can happen. And the reason why they put the black box warning on it is because there were actually several and continue to be several incidents where people harm themselves or other people. So getting behind the wheel of a car when you're under the influence. and even, you know, I know that in my case, you know, I hate to admit it, but there were mornings when I had to get my butt to work and I had major grogginess from the sleeping pills. It was like, almost like I was still under the influence, but I had to get to work, you know? So,

Lisa: 9:44

So, you were definitely driving and what you kind of look back on is an unsafe state.

Morgan: 9:49

I believe so. Yeah. And I think, you know, if you think about all the people out there who are taking sleeping pills, um, sadly, you know, a lot of people are probably under the influence and may not even realize it. So there's some really, gruesome consequences to these pills. And perhaps the most poignant description of the dangers is in Matthew Walker's book. why we sleep.

Lisa: 10:13

I love that book.

Morgan: 10:14

It's amazing. He has a section on the book and the book on sleeping pills and he delivers some really powerful statistics, some of them even being, sleeping pills being correlated with higher mortality rates. Scary. And, you know, he's not saying that if you take sleeping pills, you're going to have an earlier death, but there is some kind of. Association, especially when you're looking at, like sleeping pills and infection rates, And one of the theories is that when you're asleep on a sleeping pill, you're actually not getting the same quality sleep you would in a natural state. And you're also not going through the proper sleep stages and the sequential order that they're supposed to be in. And because of that. Perhaps that lack of sleep quality is affecting our immune function, right? so yeah, it gets pretty deep if you really, you really think about it.

Lisa: 11:07

absolutely. I think most of us, although I certainly don't recommend, like you said, Dr. Google, I think we've all been like, Oh, I'm not sleeping well. What could help and done those sleep hygiene tips, which I appreciate where we talked a little before that we're really going to get beyond those sorts of things. So I did hear you say, you know, you spend a third of your life sleeping. So you do some quick math. That's eight hours a night. Is that your recommendation?

Morgan: 11:34

So the national sleep foundation recommends seven to nine hours a night. So eight is sort of like kind of right in the middle. And because I'm a sleep coach, I get served a lot of ads and a lot of products and a lot of content. And so much of it is, you know, get eight hours of sleep, get eight hours of sleep. The reality is that if you look, I'm going to use this analogy because your listeners, interested in food and nutrition. So not everyone has the same calorie need depends on, you know, many factors, how active you are, your age. I mean, so many things go into this. So it's kind of the same with sleep. Not everyone is going to need that eight hours. Most of us are probably going to need probably seven to eight, most of us, but you really kind of need to, to figure out kind of what your own sleep need is by listening to your body. When you look at the National Sleep Foundation, uh, the full, recommendations for sleep for adults and all different age groups, you will 10 hours may be appropriate. So that's a little, that's quite a

Lisa: 12:45

That's quite a range

Morgan: 12:46

It's quite a range. And, you know, there are very, very few people who can get by with six hours of sleep. In fact, they probably have some kind of genetic variance that allows them to be, in that category. But

Lisa: 12:59

they're just using a lot of caffeine.

Morgan: 13:01

yeah,

Lisa: 13:02

that say, Oh, I only need six hours are either like lying to themselves. They could be functioning at a much higher level, or they're depending on a lot of caffeine during the day.

Morgan: 13:14

I think you're right. And we, we look at long term studies. What we will find is that when people are these are longitudinal studies when we're when we're looking at people who are consistently getting less than six hours of sleep on a long term basis, we do find increased associations with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline, so it's not necessarily to say that you're automatically going to get these conditions, but it's something to really think about if you are the kind of person who is Burning the candle at both ends and not really prioritizing your sleep. The people that I've really worried about though, are people who have insomnia and see these headlines about these terrible things may happen to you. Because these, the, the, and I'm mostly working with people who have insomnia. They are, they are trying to get that sleep. So when they see these messages in the media about X, Y, Z is going to happen, if you don't get six hours. They become even more anxious about their sleep and I'm, when I'm working with them, I have to really reassure them about, you know, just because you have insomnia doesn't mean you're going to die of this, this, or this,

Lisa: 14:27

And insomnia is so different than just not prioritizing because I, yeah, with my clients, I feel like we talk about sleep a lot because like you said, it is so important to a lot of our food choices and to preventing obesity and other health issues that could come down the road. And so a lot of times it's just a matter of. Choosing to turn the TV off, choosing to put the book down, choosing to a lot of my mom clients are like, it's my only time it's when I do my projects and that sort of thing. And so it becomes a matter of choosing to prioritize sleep. Insomnia is a whole, whole different. Issue. And that does not have anything to do with just their choosing to be in bed at the right time. And you did say that's primarily what you help with and you use cognitive behavioral theory therapy, which is it.

Morgan: 15:21

Therapy. It's called CBTI, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Yeah.

Lisa: 15:26

Yeah. So tell us about that.

Morgan: 15:28

yeah, So it sounds very clinical and very, you know, therapy like, but in actuality, it's not as therapeutic, in that, in that realm as one might think. In fact, there's a very well known sleep doctor who I heard lecture and he said, CBTI is more like potty training and less like therapy. And I thought, Oh, you really, you really nailed it. So when you're looking at CBTI, you're looking at the C part being the cognitive part, that's really related to changing some negative maladaptive thoughts about sleep and attitudes about sleep. So we're working to, make those corrections over time. So an example might be the person who is like, I have to get eight hours of sleep or I'm going to suffer from this. It's actually reframing that into something more positive. The B part, the behavioral part, is actually sort of the crux of the whole CBTI protocol. And that's actually changing some key behaviors around sleep. And you're essentially just training your brain to get, to get better sleep. And a couple of the techniques that are used, one is called sleep restriction. And it's a terrible phrase because it sounds like you're making people sleep less. But in actuality, it's bedtime restriction. So, for example, a lot of people who have insomnia will lie in bed, they'll spend what, nine hours in bed, ten hours in bed, only to generate like six hours of sleep. So, what we want to do is we want to kind of consolidate that sleep so that the time they're asleep, they're spending in more quality sleep, right? another thing that's part of the behavioral part of CBTI is something called stimulus control, and that's essentially making the bed or the bedroom, the bed, a place only for sleep and sex. So what we don't want someone to do is spend a lot of time worrying in bed, right? So somebody who wakes up at, you know, 1 in the morning and can't get back to sleep after about, you know, 2030 minutes, what we instruct them to do is to sound so so counterintuitive, but to get out of bed. And to go into another room and do something relaxing and pleasant and dim light until they become sleepy again, and then they return to bed. So it's a real, it's a real kind of behavioral technique that basically unpairs Your brain with the anxiety of being in bed. We want to make your bed a place where you're relaxed and you're not stressed out.

Lisa: 18:01

So do you include like not working, not being on your phone, not bringing your laptop into bed, not watching TV, all that kind of stuff as well.

Morgan: 18:08

all of the above now, the TV is a little, can there can be a little bit of a grace period with that? Because some people just with their lives and their partners, it's part of their ritual, but definitely not working in bed. Definitely not scrolling their phone in bed. I mean, I've had lots of clients have disrupted sleep. because of that, you know, the blue light and everything, um, the stimulation of social media. So really, you just want to make your bed for sleep and sex as much as you can. And so what, what I do in my practice is I take some of these concepts from CBTI when they're appropriate for the client, and then we implement them to help them improve their sleep quality so that they are, getting better sleep overall. And they're feeling better in the day because a lot of, people talk about insomnia as being like a nighttime problem, but in, in reality, so much of the fallout from insomnia happens during the day, right? When people have fatigue and they're irritable and they can't concentrate. so that's just sort of a little background of CBTI and how it works.

Lisa: 19:17

So switching gears a little bit, you mentioned that you kind of started with sleep onset insomnia where you can't go to sleep at night, but so many of us in midlife. And it's not that I only have listeners that are in midlife, but if you're not there yet, this might happen to you is we wake up at 3 AM and knock on wood. This isn't one of my perimenopause symptoms just yet, but that one, two, 3 AM wake up. Why does that happen?

Morgan: 19:42

Yeah. So first of all, I just want to normalize that wake ups are normal. So a healthy adult can have up to 12 wake ups a night. And the thing is, is that most of these wake ups are very brief. So we are actually kind of designed to wake up very briefly after we've completed a sleep cycle. And those awakenings are sort of designed to. Um, And then once we realize we're safe, we go right back to sleep. I did, uh, I don't want to say a sleep study, but it's a device and app that I used and I measured it against my Oura ring and the device was saying, I woke up like 16 times. I only remembered one of those awakenings. That's how brief they were. if it's like three minutes or under, you're probably not going to remember it.

Lisa: 20:29

That was actually going to be my question is like, I do not remember waking up. So am I not waking up? No. So it's, it's normal to not remember it

Morgan: 20:36

it's normal to not remember it. Okay. So just, I want to normalize a couple of brief, brief wake ups that you might even remember are normal, right? And let me just say that some other reasons why we might be waking up other than we're finishing a sleep cycle. Here's, here are the main reasons I see in my practice. Number one, we're too hot. And that doesn't necessarily mean we're having a hot flash, but we may just be sleeping too hot, in which case, we can consider interventions like Turning up the A. C. In your room. You actually should be having your temperature in your bedroom a couple of degrees cooler at night just to help set your sleep.

Lisa: 21:18

than what you typically desire during the day.

Morgan: 21:20

yes. So for example, we keep our house on 72 during the day, then we go back to 68 at night. That's generally the recommendations. There's some recommendations that say like 63 to 65, which I think is quite chilly, but, but you have to, you have to kind of figure out your own preference, but essentially you want to make it a little cooler than your temperature during the day.

Lisa: 21:45

I have to tell you that we were just at this Airbnb. I was, telling Morgan before we got on, I've been out of town for a week, taking my daughter to college and I was staying in an Airbnb and the thermostat was controlled apparently by the owner because we, it was like locked and it was 76, 24 hours a day. And we were dying at night. Like I'm okay with that during the day. That's fine. 70s. I'm actually. That's fine for me during the day, but at night we were like, seriously, and so I feel really validated right now that you're like, you definitely should have it lower during the, during the night.

Morgan: 22:17

yes. I've heard this situation quite a few times with Airbnb's hotels. They're not considering women and midlife.

Lisa: 22:25

No, no.

Morgan: 22:27

they need to be corrected. But, um, anyway, there's other interventions. You use, bamboo fabrics for your bedding and for your sleepwear. There's even mattress cooling pads that are great. Those are game changers for a lot of people. The fact is, is that when you're, sleeping in a cooler environment, you tend to get deeper sleep. And I, and I know this for a fact because we, my husband and I do have a cooling mattress pad that has been on the fritz a couple times. we're sleep geeks and we look at our sleep data and our deep sleep is never as good when the, cooling pad isn't on. so. Being hot. One reason for waking up. Second reason is low blood sugar. So when our blood sugar crashes, we have these cortisol and adrenaline spikes, which wake us up. So we have this kind of recommendation to not eat like three hours before bed. However, there are certain times when if a client is waking up a lot at three, we may do this experiment where she has. A very small snack an hour before bed that consists of like a Greek yogurt with some almonds, something that's got some protein, some fat, a little bit of carbs to see if that prevents the blood sugar crash. So that could be, that could be something someone could try to see if it prevented the wake up if they're having it real consistently. And then the third reason, and this is quite common, not talked about nearly enough, is that women have sleep apnea episodes that wake them up. And they don't really realize that they're waking up because of this. Another, I'm getting a little tangents off on a little tangent, but I feel like it's really important that women in midlife, especially realize that the rates of sleep apnea increase quite a bit as we get into our menopausal years. Because the lack of our female hormones, that decrease actually affects our airways that our female hormones protect our airways and when we don't have those hormones, our airways may reflect that. And so, when women are not feeling refreshed in the morning, even though they've had their seven or eight hours of sleep, when they're feeling really low, sometimes that's a really good sign that they need to get a sleep study done. And I know people are very scared of that, but you can order, you can even do consumer grade sleep, studies that you can just order on your own from home and test your breathing at home, which is pretty great. You don't have to go to a sleep lab and do it.

Lisa: 25:00

Yeah. this might not be in your area of expertise. But when you're talking about that hormones, I have had a couple of guests on talking about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy do you see that helping with sleep?

Morgan: 25:13

interesting question. Yeah, I, I do actually hear of it helping with sleep. Okay. I personally have started taking biogenical hormones. For my own sleep, because I had, I'm 53, um, going through perimenopause, I have started having more early morning, morning wake ups, like four o'clock. And I approached my doc and of course, being a sleep coach, I know all of the things to do and I don't have anxiety about sleep. So I look at HRT as sort of the last resort once you've tried all of the other interventions. In my case, the HRT didn't really affect my sleep. Now with other women, it does. So in my experience, it seems to be like a 50, 50 shot, which isn't really that promising, but I mean,

Lisa: 26:02

There's just so many other reasons to take HRT, so I, I just was curious if you'd seen that in your clientele, if anyone has been taking it, or, I mean, it's just so fascinating how many things the hormones are protected up. Protective of like, you know, we, we know like vaginal walls and bone density and all of that stuff. And now you're like, Oh, the airways. I'm like yet another thing. I just feel like the, the reasons for taking them are just racking up like crazy lately for me.

Morgan: 26:30

You know, and, and now that you mentioned it, the HRT, I, I do have several clients who are on it who already have been on HRT and they come to me because that's not working. And so we do the CBTI protocol because they have actually shown in clinical studies that CBTI can help women. who are having menopausal insomnia. It's the, the CBTI isn't actually fixing the physical symptoms, but it's helping our subjective reality the next day or during the night of how we're interpreting and, dealing with those on a psychological basis.

Lisa: 27:06

Yeah. It is so stressful not to sleep. I knock on wood, honestly, I am a great sleeper. And if you're a long, long time listener, you know, I interviewed Janet Whalen, who's a sleep coach over a year ago. And I told her like, I'm a good sleeper. And she's like, you just keep telling yourself that and can keep speaking it out loud because there is so much benefit to having positive. Thoughts about, you know, anything, but sleep included, this last year, I have just been really, really trying to just keep saying I'm a good sleeper, despite the early morning wake ups and, you know, just randomly here I am awake at five 30 in the morning, ready for the day, but not really. So I still believe that I am a good sleeper. So I don't have as much, firsthand knowledge on this kind of thing. So I appreciate all of your expertise. I'd really love to get into some. You know, actionable tips, like a toolkit here for sleeping better. And I know you've mentioned a couple of times you use an Oura ring. So I don't know if that's part of some of those tips.

Morgan: 28:08

Yeah. Well, that wasn't part of my tips, but I'll just share that, you know, with sleep trackers. I think they can be a really great tool for people who are interested in optimizing their sleep and improving it.

Lisa: 28:22

my worry is it will increase anxiety about it that I'll start tracking it and then be like, Oh no, I'm not as good of a sleeper as I thought I was. So I I've shied away.

Morgan: 28:30

Yeah. You're bringing up a really good point. And that that's the flip side of the whole sleep tracker conversation is that you have to know yourself. And so it sounds like you've got a pretty good, you know, self awareness there. So congratulations. But if you, if you are on that anxious side, and you're afraid that that might happen, that's probably probably isn't a good move for you. but if you feel like you're not going to be emotional about the data and you can actually, I'll use myself for an example. it's been helpful for me, especially with alcohol use. Okay. So when I see that my scores are worse with alcohol, it actually gives me that impetus to decrease. So if you're the kind of person who can look at the data and then you're able to make behavioral changes based on the data that you see, then it's a great tool and you're not getting emotionally invested in it. Right. But for example, my clients who have insomnia, most of them would not do well with a sleep tracker because they'll get in the weeds with all of their. Oh, Morgan. Oh my gosh. I only got 9 percent deep sleep. Oh my gosh. You know, I've, I've heard of people getting up, like if they have a wake up at 3am, they'll, they'll go check their Oura ring. That's really counterproductive. So if you're going down that route, don't use an Oura ring. Another alternative, if you have an Oura ring and you find yourself getting a little bit too concerned with the data, you can take what I call a data fast. Essentially, you could wear your ring or not, but if you wear your ring, the data will track. You can just check the scores weekly, right? So that you're not checking every day. So that you're looking at your sleep from a little, a little bit of a wider lens than that narrow lens. but you know, in certain cases with my insomnia clients, sometimes the Oura Ring actually helps them. And these are people who have something called paradoxical insomnia, which is when You have insomnia and you really, your brain isn't registering that you're asleep. So essentially you think you've slept like one hour the whole night. Like I have clients who report on their sleep journals, the written kind, I slept one or two hours and. If you're sleeping one or two hours sustained, like you're, you're not going to, you're not going to be actually functional, you know? So in my mind, I'm like, okay, this person probably has paradoxical insomnia and those kinds of cases. Sometimes we do work with a sleep tracker because I've found that when they get a sleep tracker, if they're saying they sleep one or two hours, the sleep tracker will tell them. You got five and they're like, oh my God, I got five hours, which doesn't sound like a lot to us. But

Lisa: 31:08

But it's a

Morgan: 31:09

thinks.

Lisa: 31:09

than one or two.

Morgan: 31:10

exactly. So they're like, they're that's actually a use case where the sleep tracker is helpful because they're like, Oh my gosh, I'm sleeping more than I think I am. So it's a really, really individual decision. You really have to kind of know yourself and how you're going to react to the data when you see it.

Lisa: 31:29

Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like that the Oura ring is sort of the gold standard. Is this the only sleep tracker you recommend? I mean, I have an Apple watch, but I don't really love wearing it at night, but I know it will do some tracking.

Morgan: 31:41

So I think if you look at the sleep tracks. community sleep coaches, sleep doctors, you will find most of them saying that the Oura, as of this moment, is the gold standard because it seems to have the most accurate data. Plus, there is some benefit of having a ring versus a watch. There's a little bit more compliance to wearing a ring, but the field of sleep tracking is really, A growing field so or is not the only game in town. There are other sleep trackers that are going to be launching very soon. but yeah, I mean, they are, they are good tools. Some people really like, I think that, the Wootband or the Fitbit there, they might be better choices for people who really want the activity tracker piece of it to be better. And they're somewhat interested in sleep data, but if you're like really honing in on that sleep data, probably, or at this point in the marketplace, or is probably the best choice.

Lisa: 32:35

Okay. Well, let's get into some actionable tips. Everyone wants to sleep better. Even if you are like me and you're like, I basically sleep well. It's just so important to our overall health that I always feel like anything to improve is going to be

Morgan: 32:50

Yes. Yeah. Well, I do have a few really, actionable free tips I'll share with you all. So the first one is to keep a consistent wake up time every day. And people are like, even on the weekends, let me ask, even on the weekends, because our bodies don't know the difference between the weekend and the weekday. The reason why is because this keeps our circadian rhythm very strong and very consistent. So that is something actual that that we can do. We just sometimes might need to use an alarm clock to do this. Now, if you're waking up at the same time every morning, what you will find over time is that you will become sleepy around the same time each night. Right. So this, this regularity with our wake and sleep times is actually really important. They did a study that found that women who had a variation of 90 minutes or over with between their sleep and wake times had a higher body fat percentage than women who had 60 minutes or under a variance with their sleep and wake times.

Lisa: 33:50

16. 16 minutes. Oh, 60. I was like, whoa, that's really specific.

Morgan: 33:56

That's, that's pretty tight. That's a little too tight.

Lisa: 33:59

an hour either way. So I could wake up like between 630 and 730. That would be considered a consistent wake up time.

Morgan: 34:06

would be pretty good. You know, if you could have it a little bit, little bit tighter, like within a half hour, that would be even better. the, the question often arises with my clients is, Hey, I'm going out to a wedding on Saturday night. I'm going to be out later. Can I sleep in? Okay. So on the weekend. You can probably get away with sleeping in by like an hour, but I wouldn't push it out too far because what could end up happening is you could get social jet lag. And so that's essentially the same as jet lag, but you're not benefiting from traveling. Your body is just sort of out of sync. And what ends up happening if I mean, this happened to me personally years ago. you know, when I really didn't know much about sleep, I would stay out really late on the weekend and sleep really late, like three hours. There'd be like three hour differential and Sunday nights were brutal. Monday mornings were even more brutal. So the more regular you can stay, that would be great. So like I said, if you're really regular with your wake up times, you're going to just find that each night you're going to become sleepy, probably within an hour window. So your, your bedtime doesn't have to be quite as tight, but your wake up time should be pretty tight.

Lisa: 35:14

That does happen to me where I get sleepy at the same time. And then that frustrates my husband when we're trying to watch a movie on Saturday night or something. He's like, it's Saturday night. Like, why can't you stay up later? I'm like, cause I'm tired at the same time.

Morgan: 35:25

I'm trying to obey my circadian rhythm and my sleep drive. So just deal with it. so then the second tip I would have is to get morning sunlight or morning daylight every day. So first as first thing, when you wake up within an hour, waking up is try to go outside and get about 10 minutes of light exposure without your sunglasses on. I do this. I mean, these are the things that I do myself and my clients are doing, and they're getting really, really great results. So I know it sounds incredibly simplistic.

Lisa: 35:59

No, I just, I made a face because my eyes are so sensitive to the sun. Like my eye doctor is like, you have zero pigment in the back of your eyes because I'm Irish. And so he, he's like, never go out without my sunglasses. I'm like, I can't, it hurts my eyes. So I know I need to try to get a little more sunlight

Morgan: 36:16

know, but I'm, but I'm with, I'm with you though. I, I have really light eyes myself. And when I started this, it was kind of like a shock to my system, but your eyes actually do adapt. over time. So right now, I mean, even though I have a collection of pretty cute sunglasses, they rarely get worn. they get worn when I'm driving and there's a huge glare, but like when I'm walking in the morning or the afternoon, I don't take them with me because my eyes have become adapted to it. The reason why it's so important that our eyes actually hit that light without the sunglasses is because when the natural light hits our retina, it sends this signal to our suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is our circadian pacemaker. And when that happens, this beautiful cascade of hormones and neurotransmitters happen. So it shuts off any residual melatonin from the night before it boosts your serotonin for better mood. And it also prepares your melatonin production for that upcoming night. So when you're outside early in the morning, walking your dog or whatnot, and you you're wearing your sunglasses, you're kind of doing your body a disservice in a way, because you're not getting the benefit of those neurotransmitters and hormones syncing up for the day. so the third tip, and this is one that I think your, your audience is going to resonate with. It probably won't be a stretch for them, but it's exercise. And we have So many studies that have shown that getting regular exercise helps us with our sleep. One of the reasons being is because the more active we are during the day, the more it builds up our sleep drives. And they've actually done about 13 studies showing that consistent exercise helps boost our deep sleep. It also helps with our sleep efficiency, our sleep quality. and the total time it takes us to fall asleep

Lisa: 38:04

Does it matter if it is a cardio workout or a strength training workout? Like, do you

Morgan: 38:11

glad you

Lisa: 38:11

like burn a lot of calories?

Morgan: 38:13

Yeah, you're, you're setting me up for this next thing so well, beautifully. So, um, there was a study of middle aged adults done recently where they had people broken up into moderate intensity aerobics, high intensity aerobics. Moderate to intense weight training and the group that had the most sleep benefits was the aerobic group. And it was the moderate aerobic group. Now I'm a huge fan of strength training, so I don't want anyone, anyone in mid life out there to like ditch their strength training. I personally feel like we should just. Have like an equal balance, right? definitely strength training is so critical for women in terms of avoiding sarcopenia. But I think the takeaway is we don't have to like knock ourselves out with a hit workout every day. Because this study is showing moderate intensity is really was really the sweet spot. So I love that.

Lisa: 39:05

totally. I think too, if you are really trying to solve a sleep problem, that's the priority. So if you're like, okay, I'm going to throw everything at this. And that means I'm going to do all I have time for is a moderate intensity cardio workout. And I don't have time to strength train. I would say. Yeah. It's more important for you to get your sleep on track and then add back in this strength training when your sleep is on track, because it is really just the foundation.

Morgan: 39:33

Yes, I would agree. I think that a lot of women make the mistake of setting their alarm for early morning class that they want to get to even if they haven't had the proper sleep. And I've really, I've really discouraged people from doing that because if you're Going at it pretty hard and it's in a spin class, you know, and you're not well slept your injury risk can go up and you don't want to an injury, So, it's a great point you made, you really want to prioritize the sleep and there's such a wonderful interesting by directional relationship between exercise and sleep. If we're getting great sleep. We're going to wake up and we're going to feel motivated to work out, you know, and then in turn, our workouts, like I just said, are going to help increase the quality of our sleep and the depth of our sleep. and here's something really awesome is if you can do a morning, an early morning walk, you're getting, you're hitting. I hate the term killing two birds with one stone, but you're feeding two birds with one scone is what I'd like to say. You are getting your, you're getting your sunlight, like I'd said, and you're getting your movement. So you're multitasking,

Lisa: 40:38

Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Yes. I love it. Well, I love those three tips. Any, any last thing that we haven't covered that you'd like to add to this conversation?

Morgan: 40:48

Gosh, I will just briefly touch on the, the importance of an evening routine as well as a morning routine. Those are both the bookends of your day are really critical times to prepare yourself for sleep. And sometimes people say, when should I start preparing for sleep? And I say the second your feet hit the ground, right? The morning routine is critical. And the evening routine is just as critical. I do have a free mini course that actually guides you on how to create your own perfect morning and evening routine. And you can maybe link that in your show notes, but again, yeah, evening routines and critical morning routines. And if you have problems with the evening routine and getting it, I think that one of the best tips is like put an alarm on your phone alerting yourself that, Hey, now is the time to shut everything down. And start going into that evening routine because sometimes you mentioned just with some of your clients. It's, it's that procrastination, right. And we can kind of like maybe mitigate that procrastination by setting some of those boundaries with an alarm.

Lisa: 41:51

I actually love the bedtime feature on my Apple phone because. I just, I have that set. And so it's kind of a darker screen past a certain time. And it tells me like, it's time to get ready for bed. And I know people think that it's dumb and like, that doesn't help me, but it does. It's just like, Oh yeah. Okay. That's what time it is. I often get lost in what I'm doing or sidetracked and it just is a great little alert. And I do use that. So I like that idea of alarms because I do think it's helpful. And then it automatically turns on, do not disturb. And so I don't have to worry about being disturbed at

Morgan: 42:25

Yeah. It's all automated. Love it.

Lisa: 42:28

Okay. Well, in addition to your free mini course, which I think a lot of people are going to be interested in, tell us how people can find you online and work with you if they'd like to.

Morgan: 42:38

Yeah. Um, my website is MorganAdamswellness.Com on it. You can schedule a free sleep clarity call where if you're having trouble with sleep, I can help, maybe troubleshoot, get to the root cause, maybe leave you with a couple of tips. And, you know, get you started on better sleep. So you can schedule that on my website and I'm really active on Instagram as well. My handle is morganadams. wellness. I do a lot of stories and reels and stuff like that. So yeah, love to chat with anyone about sleep.

Lisa: 43:06

Perfect. And we'll put all of those links in the show notes. Thanks again, Morgan, for being here. I really appreciate it.

Morgan: 43:11

Thank you, Lisa.

Lisa: 43:13

If this episode has helped you in any way, all I ask is for you to share it. Share it with one friend or share it on your social media tag me. And I'll give you a shout out as well. I have been getting a lot of comments lately about how beneficial the free content is that I have been putting out in the world and sharing it can really help someone else. You can also leave a five star rating on apple and Spotify and review the show on apple podcasts. That also really makes it easier for other people to find it because apple loves that and then they push it out to more people. So your review actually helps other women. Have a great week and as always, thanks for listening to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.