Transcript
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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.
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I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury.
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I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter.
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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.
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Hello, I have a super fun show for you today.
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This is an interview I recorded several weeks ago while I was still working on getting my first few episodes done.
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So I've been anticipating publishing this episode for a while.
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Now.
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I'm excited to introduce you to Janet Whalen she's a sleep coach and is going to teach us what to do when we can't fall asleep.
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What to do when we wake up in the night and all sorts of good things, I've actually been referencing this interview to a couple of my clients, and I keep telling them like, don't worry, I'm going to publish that episode soon.
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And then you can download her free guide.
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And so I'm excited to offer this to my clients as well as to all of you listeners.
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So I'm glad it's finally here.
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Real quick though, before we jump in, I just want to remind you that if you leave me a review and you send me a screenshot of that, I am going to buy your Starbucks this morning.
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That can be down on apple or Spotify.
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And you can email that to me hello@wellwithlisa.com or you can DM it to me on Instagram.
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Secondly, I'm also doing a new promotion for shares.
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So while you're listening to the podcast, take a screenshot of that and share it to your social media.
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Or you can share one of my posts about the podcast tag me in that so I can see it.
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And I'll enter you into a drawing for a hundred dollars Amazon gift And this can be done for every single episode.
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So no limit on shares or like entries into the drawing.
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If you share all five or six that I have published so far, then that is that many entries.
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So details on that are on my Instagram, but I just wanted to remind you about that.
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Okay Let's get right into it.
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All right.
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Hi, Janet.
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I'm here today with Janet Whalen she is a sleep coach, which I find fascinating because many times we discuss sleep with my clients.
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So welcome.
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Janet.
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Do you
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Yeah, thanks, Lisa.
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I'm really excited to be here and I'm thrilled that you invited me.
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I am a sleep coach.
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I call myself a sleep and stress management coach because a lot of what I end up doing is helping women with stress.
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Probably as we get talking, we'll discuss that, you know, a lot of the, the causes of insomnia are really about stress and not about sleep itself, but we'll get to that.
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physical as what you
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yeah, yeah, yeah.
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so, I used to be a business coach and then in training, well, in, in my training at the life coach school, I decided to use my, what I was learning to try and figure out something to help myself while I was doing this thinking, well, if I can.
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Fix something of my own, what would it be?
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And I thought, well, it could be my lifelong insomnia and I did.
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And it was, I thought I had found sort of the answer to the universe's problems, right.
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Because who doesn't need help with their sleep while my husband doesn't, but a lot of women do.
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And, and I thought, well, I wonder if I could actually help other women with this.
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And it turns.
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I could.
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So, so I switched my niche altogether and I've been doing this for the last two years, I guess, two and a bit, and I love it.
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So, but I, aside from that, I'm, I'm a mom.
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I have two.
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Boys who are like 19 and 21 now, which I can hardly believe.
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I run a membership for, midlife women who are having sleep and stress problems, and it's called permission to sleep, but we can talk about a lot about all that other stuff after.
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I love that name.
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Permission to sleep because sometimes it's so strange how we feel like we're we have to have sleep problems as moms.
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Like we have to constantly be dieting and we have to, like, everyone is tired.
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Like, oh, I'm so tired.
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I didn't sleep.
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Well.
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It seems like a common topic of conversation.
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And I just have to interject by the way, Janet and I are on video, even though that's not gonna be out with the podcast.
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And she has the cutest pillow, it says I'm so good at sleeping.
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I can do it with my eyes closed.
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Yeah.
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I always keep that like you, so my clients can see that, cuz I think it's fun.
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It is so cute.
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So I have to say that that is how I am.
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I've always been good at sleep and it's actually something, especially after, learning about coaching and about our thoughts.
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I consistently say I'm a good sleeper out loud when other people are like, I didn't sleep well.
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Or that sort of thing.
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I consistently say, oh, I'm such a good sleeper.
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I'm very good at it because I do think it's really important to tell my brain how good I am at sleeping.
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And in fact, my family loves to bring their own pillows wherever we go.
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And I think that's such a hassle and I'm always like, I'm a good sleeper.
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I can sleep anywhere on any pillow on any bed.
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And that did come to a head last weekend.
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Those pillows at that Airbnb I went to were it was rough, but I was like, I am a good sleeper.
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This is gonna be fine.
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It's gonna be fine.
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And it, it was, it was in the end, but, I've actually.
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I've been able to sleep in so many places in so many ways.
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My sister is constantly annoyed.
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We had a class together when we were in college, I would fall asleep in class.
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We went on a trip together.
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I was like, it's no problem for me to sleep on the plane.
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And she was just staring at me like, are you kidding me?
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So generally I've been great.
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we would've been drawing on your face with marker together.
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thankfully she did not have a Sharpie handy, but, what, I'm all of that, all of that is to say the last few months we've been going through a kitchen remodel and I have been waking up.
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And I'm, as soon as I wake up, I'm like, what about that tile?
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What about that tile?
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What are we gonna do about that?
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What are we gonna do about that mistake?
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And I have been waking up at, roughly four or five in the morning, for days in a row, and then I'll get back to sleeping.
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So primarily for me, it's like an early morning waking.
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That I notice I wake up and I'm instantly thinking.
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Immediately.
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And so it becomes difficult to go back to sleep.
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So I really am relating to how you're saying it's sleep and stress management.
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Yeah.
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Cause what you're referring to is a lot of unresolved questions that your brain went to bed with.
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Right.
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And because it still had them, when you went to sleep, the minute you wake up, it's working on them again.
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And so, I do have a tool for that actually that I can share with you in a bit.
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But, that's, that's really typical.
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And a lot of in fact, most insomniacs complain.
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Racing minds and racing thoughts and not being able to turn their brain off.
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and that's what they think that's, what's causing the insomnia, but really it's just another symptom, right?
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It, it technically is causing the lack of sleep because when, when you are busy thinking and you start to worry your brain or your body has a stress response and the hormones that are sort of cosing through our system, when we're having a stress response are not really compatible with sleep.
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So.
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that, yeah, that's why it's really, when we think about a lot of, I'm not a medical doctor, I'm just gonna be really clear and upfront.
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This is not medical advice, but what we do know about sleep and stress is that, a lot of the illnesses that we think are caused by lack of sleep or poor sleep are the same illnesses that are caused by high unresolved stress.
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So.
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Of the sleep community kind of believes like, well, is it really the lack of sleep that's doing this?
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Or is it the unmanaged stress plus lack of sleep?
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Do you see what I'm saying?
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Because the result is the same.
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So if we can fix the stress, we can probably fix the sleep and therefore resolve the symptoms.
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but I also, I just wanna go back to something you were saying at the beginning, which is I'm a great sleeper, and I love that you offer that thought to yourself because when you think about.
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Our behaviors and our habits, they really do go along with the identity that we choose to claim for ourselves.
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Right.
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So when we say things to ourselves, anything you say after the words that I am, you will make true.
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right.
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Your brain will go.
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On a search to try and prove that that's the truth.
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So if you're saying I'm a terrible sleeper, of course you are.
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you're, you're gonna be excusing all the terrible sleep habits and sleep patterns you have, because you're just a terrible sleeper.
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I used to say, sleep is for chumps.
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because I couldn't do it right.
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Or I thought I couldn't do it.
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So it was easier to just resign myself to the idea that, like I had some kind of superpower that meant I didn't need as much sleep as other people.
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And all those other people who were wasting a third of their life in bed were just jumps.
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like, how ridiculous is that?
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Isn't that terrible.
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But I love the quote by Jen Sincero that says identities come with matching habit.
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And that's one of the things we do in my program is to, is to help.
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And you don't always have to believe the new identity in order to start saying it to yourself.
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Right?
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Sometimes you have to start with the, with saying it and with having the thought and practicing it and you start to believe it over time, the evidence comes later.
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It doesn't have to be there in order for you to believe the new identity.
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So that that's really good thing that you do for yourself.
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So you should keep that up.
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Perfect.
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I'll keep trying.
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Well, let's talk about just some like general, like importance of sleep in overall health before we get into some of the tools, because sometimes it's kind of like, well, but why bother?
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Because like you said, I thought those people were wasting a third of their lives where you're like, I'm not good at that.
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So I'll just decide it's not for me.
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If we do decide, well, maybe it's for me, like, why would we want to, why do we really wanna prioritize sleep instead of just saying it's fine.
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I'm not a good sleeper.
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I don't care.
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Why should we care?
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I guess is kind of the question.
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Yeah, so excellent question.
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So, you know, aside from the kind of health benefits that come from being well, rested and managing your stress well, which sleep helps you to do, one of the biggest benefits of sleep is actually like emotional regulation and mood improvement, right?
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So when, when people are struggling with their sleep, they're not typically.
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Unless they have sleep apnea or some kind of biological or physical issue that's causing the sleep problem.
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They're not typically complaining about being, you know, able to fall asleep at the drop of the, of a hat in the middle of the day.
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Like that's not really the symptom.
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That is the biggest complaint.
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The biggest complaint is I just I'm so moody.
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I snap at my kids.
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I yell at my husband or my partner.
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I'm not.
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Keeping up with my work.
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I feel like I can't get through the day.
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my presentation at work the next day is gonna be off or I won't remember what I was supposed to say.
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It's stuff like that.
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Right.
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And so.
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These are the things that I think we get used to in our society.
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We start, like you were saying before, we're we have these throw, throw away lines, like I'm so busy and I'm just tired.
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Aren't you tired?
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Like, oh, like, why are we always so tired that we think that this is just a normal state of being.
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And so all the symptoms that go along with that, which are stress and mental exhaustion.
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And like, sometimes we think we're tired and we're just mentally or emotionally tired.
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We're not.
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Physically ready for sleep.
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Right?
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Cause we're telling ourselves we're so tired all the time.
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so when we can resolve the, the sleep problem and find the amount of quality sleep that's right for us, because it's different for everyone.
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And I use the word quality in there specifically because.
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we have this idea that we need to search for eight hours of perfect sleep, but that doesn't exist for everyone.
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Some people are better with six.
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Some people are better with eight, the average healthy sleep for an adult seems to be around seven hours, actually not eight.
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and that's in,
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that, sorry, let me interrupt you.
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I have a question on that.
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I've heard the difference between actual sleep and sleep opportunity.
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So like a lot of times I'm in bed for over seven hours, like I'm in bed for eight, with that sleep opportunity, but I'm actually asleep for just over seven.
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Is that what you mean by the seven hours?
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Is that sleep opportunity time or is that like actual sleep time?
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So when you're talking about sleep opportunity, we're, we're actually talking about something called sleep efficiency.
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Okay.
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So sleep efficiency is the amount of time you spend sleep divided by the amount of time you were in bed.
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So if we want to be achieving somewhere between 85 and 95% sleep efficiency, which means you get, you know, 15, 20 to 30 minutes on either end of your sleep to be kind of resting, trying to fall asleep, that kind of thing.
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and you can still achieve.
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85% sleep efficiency.
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So when we're talking about sleep opportunity, we kind of mean the window that you've given yourself with the lights out, that you've dedicated to sleep.
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Mm-hmm
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Okay.
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for insomniacs what tends to happen is we think.
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We're not sleeping well, we're not getting the, the number of hours of sleep we want.
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So we're gonna expand our sleep window or our sleep opportunity by going to bed earlier or waking up later, so sleeping in or, or going to bed earlier.
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But this often actually makes the problem worse because we.
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Yeah, because we're already spending too much time in bed.
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Th this is the case for most.
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Insomniacs actually that they're, they're what they're doing is trying to sleep instead of allowing sleep to just come when it's ready to come.
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So they go to bed before they're drowsy.
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They're not listening to their bodies.
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Sleeping as signals, they've completely forgotten what they are.
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They make bedtime about when their partner goes to bed or when the news is over or when they've finally cleaned up their kitchen or whatever the trigger is that says, okay, this is my bedtime.
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It's kind of like eating before you're hungry.
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I was just thinking that I'm like, oh, fascinating.
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A lot of my clients are like, I don't even know what hunger feels like.
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Anyone that's listened to any episode, you've heard me say, we wanna wait until we're hungry to eat, pay attention, stop.
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When we've had enough.
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And.
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Our bodies are so smart.
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They are built with these mechanisms.
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That's how we were designed to have like these hormones, these signals, like nothing's gone wrong when you're hungry.
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Like that's just good news cuz your body's working properly.
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So I feel like it's the same.
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Like nothing's gone wrong at 10 30 when my body's like it's time for sleep.
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Like that's just,
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That's time for bed then like if, yeah, if you're that's it.
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And so we want to start adjusting ourselves to our body's signals instead of to, you know, the amount of time now.
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I say that at the beginning of, of working with me, we do actually kind of tighten up your schedule and then we allow it to expand as you learn those, like we get a little bit specific at the beginning and then we kind of expand it as you get used to seeing what your signals are.
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But that's really the process.
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It's the same as, you know, similar to how leptin and growlin the hormones that tell us when we're hungry and we've had enough, melatonin kind of functions that way for sleep, right?
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People think melatonin is a sleeping pill.
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It's really not.
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It's a hormone that is telling our body it's time to start winding down our wakefulness system and kick into gear our sleep system.
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It's not saying.
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Hey, let's go to sleep right now.
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It's saying let's change all the things that we were doing to stay awake all day over to the sleep system so that our body is working and the way it needs to work to go to sleep now.
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So that's why a lot of people say, well, it doesn't work for me, but it's not intended to actually put you to sleep, right.
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It's intended to help you regulate your circadian rhythm for things like jet lag and, shift work.
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And times when you might be living outside of your normal.
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Circadian rhythm, right?
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Which like you say, it's a biological process.
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Like we were designed this way.
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we are designed so that when light hits our retinas in the morning, it kicks off our wakefulness system.