Michelle Tubman
Catherine, welcome to the mindful weight loss podcast. I am so excited to have you here.
Catherine Wright
Thanks, Michelle. I'm so glad that you asked me
Michelle Tubman
and today we're going to talk all about sleep and this is such an incredibly important topic not just for weight loss, but for you know, health and well being in general that I don't know how we're going to cover everything in one episode, but we are going to try. But Katherine, I actually first met you taking one of your courses. On sleep, which actually dramatically changed my relationship with my own sleep, which is why I was so excited to invite you on the podcast today. And so maybe to get us started. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're so passionate about sleep?
Catherine Wright
Sure. Yeah. So I before I actually got interested in adult sleep coaching and working with adults around sleep, I began working with families. So actually been practicing as a as a family sleep coach, with parents with little ones. For over a decade now. That began I'd say just shortly after I became a mum myself, and I got really interested in sleep. And I think partially because I've always really loved my own sleep. I've always coveted sleep sleeps been a very precious thing for me my whole life. And so when I became a mommy, I was a little bit fearful about losing control about my own sleep. And I started learning a lot about intensely toddler sleep, mental health attachment, and then before I knew it, I had a business and I was coaching other parents and working with other parents. And somewhere along the way, having nothing to do with my own little person. I actually started experiencing my first bouts with real insomnia, and having a lot of difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep a lot of anxiety about not getting enough sleep. And so that sort of began my own journey at looking into my own sleep. And I was, you know, I was it was in that phase where I hear a lot of my clients where it's just feeling I was totally depleted. I was totally exhausted. But I was totally unsettled. Like I was anxious all the time. I was wired but tired and I was in that state sort of 24/7 having a lot of a lot of hard time calming myself down. At night and staying asleep. And I started medicating a little bit with alcohol and dropped a lot of my tools that I was using sort of pre mom yoga, meditation, all of those things. And so for me and healing my own sleep, it was really coming back to the drawing board as a mom reevaluating what are my priorities? What do I need to really take care of myself and making some big shifts in my life to start to really care for myself properly during the day so that my body could do what it needed at night. Let go and and so I got really passionate about sleep. It really did change my not only my relationship with sleep changed, but the way that I was taking care of myself in general and my relationship with myself changed and so i i that sort of began my journey working with other adults, a lot of women who are sort of in midlife looking to to have a better relationship with their own sleep.
Michelle Tubman
And one of the things I find fascinating is that I think as a culture, we are on the whole sleep deprived. I read a study that this was a study on children, but I'm certain this applies to adults as well that over the past 20 years, the average number of hours of sleep that we get overnight, in particular has decreased rather dramatically and yet sleep is absolutely fundamental to every part of our body and our health and our mental health as well. And so I think what you're doing is so important, and one of the challenges I know I face as a coach, because in my weight loss programming we focus on five fundamental habits and one of them is sleep and it is ironically the hardest one for most of my clients and they will give me so many excuses of you know, I don't have time. There's too many things going on in my evenings. I can't I can't wind down earlier you know before bed is the only time I have to look at social media and I don't want to give that up and you know so many things and people just seem to prioritize sleep last. And I know for me I mean as emergency physician as well doing shift work, sleep has been a perpetual problem for me. And I know that when I don't get regular sleep, I'm miserable and I'm functioning way below my optimum for sure. And in fact, after taking your course and realizing just how much the shift work was affecting me I made changes to how I schedule myself at work. So I don't actually do night shifts anymore. I do way more 6am shifts with people which people hate as much as the midnight shifts, but it has completely changed my health. Just just making that that shift. And so trying to impress upon people just how much improving sleep can change your life has really been a challenge for me, but at least using my own personal example I'm able to at least get people to hear this idea of putting some effort into improving their sleep.
Catherine Wright
Absolutely. And I think you just nailed it there. I think sleep prioritizing sleep is a big is is difficult to do in our culture, right. It's difficult to do in our sort of busy hyper productivity culture, really carving out that opportunity for seven to eight hours of sleep at night. And then there's a lot of people who understand the value of sleep who really want to sleep, but are having difficulty sleeping. So you saw sometimes I think there's almost there's two groups of people with people who sort of don't really care about sleep. It's not a priority. I got better things to do who just aren't getting enough sleep. And then there are the people who are you know, more in that insomnia group where they're, they they understand they understand the value of sleep, they want to sleep desperately want to sleep, but they're not able to. So, yeah, absolutely.
Michelle Tubman
And if we bring this back to weight loss, I think weight loss and sleep are connected in a very intimate way. And it's a little bit of a cyclical thing too because inadequate sleep has been showing into effect weight management in many different ways. But also carrying extra weight affects sleep as well. And you kind of get into this cycle. So I'm wondering if we could talk a little bit about you know, this bi directional relationship between sleep and weight. Any thoughts there?
Catherine Wright
Yeah, it is, like most things with with sleep are bi directional. But you really see it with with weight loss. Yeah, let me just I'll touch upon a couple of different things to kind of sort of help your listeners really see that cycle and how it works. I mean, the one thing that we know for a fact is that short sleepers tend to gain weight more easily. Full stop. We know that and there's been a lot of study and a lot of really interesting research around this. There's a few different things that are going on for short sleepers and when I say short sleepers, I'm really referring to people who are getting less than six hours a night. So most people the vast majority of people require between seven to nine hours of sleep for their bodies to do what they need to do, right. So so people who are sort of chronically getting less than six hours of sleep are considered under slept or short sleepers. So a couple of things happen for short sleepers. There's two main hormones that I'm sure you talk about this Michelle, there's sort of two more main hormones that control weight. And so poor sleep decreases one of those hormones the one that's signals being full or being satisfied or satiated. And it increases levels of the hormone that actually triggers hunger. So when we don't get enough sleep, we're more hungry and will tend to actually eat more because we don't have those feelings of being like oh I feel great. I feel full and satisfied. Right. So and so I'm saying I'm sure you talk about that. So in the studies that have been done, they've done like taking a group of people and given them four to five hours of sleep a night for a period of time they taken another group of people, and they've given them eight hours of sleep. For a period of time and they've controlled for for most things. And on average, the folks that were getting less than six hours consumed about 300 calories more per day, just significant. That's crazy. Yep, yeah. So and then you alluded to this, Michelle, this is the cycle. Part two is when when when we don't feel rejuvenated. When we don't feel well slept and well rested, and our bodies aren't properly restored. We just intuitively move a lot less right? Don't have the energy you don't feel like going for a walk. You don't feel like everything feels effortful, right. And so we tend to have a lower caloric expenditure, right? Yeah. Which then also fuels that. So the other I'll just mention one other really, really interesting thing is that short sleepers actually crave different food. Did you know that deja vu
Michelle Tubman
I have read that and I also read diary instead. In my own life. I'm sleep deprived. I want sugar and fat all the time. Absolutely. mostly in the form of chocolate for me. Right
Catherine Wright
is incredible. And I think reading this stuff is one thing but be able to actually use yourself as an experiment and see it because I do. I know on the nights where I am. I've had a rough night and I wake up and I'm thinking Oh man, I'm going to be dragging today. I watched myself and I do not crave the brown rice bootable I do not crave the you know whatever it might be I am craving sugar. I'm craving things with glucose and I'm craving the car all the carbs right?
Michelle Tubman
Yeah, yeah. And the studies do show that those extra 300 calories that people tend to consume are the carbs and usually, you know processed unhealthy carbs, not the bootable right, like you suggest. Brown rice. Yeah, right.
Catherine Wright
Absolutely. And I and the studies also are really interesting around looking at the part of the brain that gets impaired when we don't get enough sleep, the part of the brain that is in charge of our decision making so where we kind of, you know, say Okay, today I'm gonna focus on I'm going to have a walk and maybe do some stretching or exercise and limit my screen time, whatever it may be. That part of the brain is sort of impaired and the impulse part of the brain that reptilian part of the brass is dialed, right app.
Michelle Tubman
Yep. Right because I also it's so true because I again, using myself and then as an example, when I'm sleep deprived, it's the chocolate cravings and online shopping, and it's right it's that's that's what it is for me and control is just gone when I'm sleep deprived. Yeah,
Catherine Wright
and we and we, and we intuitively want to self soothe. Right, which makes sense we are we're essentially you know, when we're not well slept we our bodies are in a little bit of a survival mode. We're not functioning with a full tank. And so we want to suit we want to we want to help ourselves regulate, calm and soothe and so we tend towards some of these things that aren't necessarily good for us. But in the moment make us feel better. Right, right. Yes. Yep. Yeah, so and then so you can see. You know, when we're well rested, we maybe make healthier choices, move our bodies more, which of course, helps us sleep better at night. Yeah. And then we wake up and we've got a little bit more energy we're more inclined to go for that work or choose something healthy for lunch. And all of a sudden, the cycle, you know, we've got some momentum moving in the right direction. And those things are all working together to help us you know, be more optimized at at losing excess. Weight and and sleeping better and around and around. It goes. Yeah, and
Michelle Tubman
so why exactly is sleep so important, like what happens in our brains and in our bodies during those eight hours of sleep? Like why is short sleep or death? detrimental? What are we missing out on?
Catherine Wright
Well, I think again, coming back to that the hormone regulation piece like as soon as you know we are we're not sleeping as much as our bodies would like us to it's quite easy for our hormones to get dysregulated right. And so we see disrupted patterns in cortisol, which is you know, the stress hormone so people who are not sleeping very well tend to have more elevated levels of cortisol. They may therefore not be making as much melatonin which is the Dracula hormone which helps us relaxing into sleep and sick and so we can be kind of functioning on this sort of you know, that that tired wired in that tired wired state, so, but yeah, I mean essentially when we are sleeping our whole bodies and minds are under complete repair. So you know, we are repairing on a cellular level or growth hormones. Our brains undergo like a almost like a, like a brain wash where we all the harmful build up of proteins and amyloids that are you know, not good, not good for cognition and and cognitive health. All of those undergo like a nice cleaning. Our all our whole system is really optimized so that when we wake up in the morning, our bodies are able to carry out those those functions, you know, whether it's digestion metabolizing, all of those things our body's set up to do really well, when we're well rested and when our body doesn't undergo that regenerative, regenerative process at night. We're not optimized to do those things. Well, you know, our metabolism might be sluggish, all of those hormones that are going to help us you know, with regulating and blood sugar is another huge one. Right? We know that the that the link between insomnia and obesity is massive. And we're seeing it in kids
Michelle Tubman
too. Now. Yeah, right, fortunately.
Catherine Wright
Yeah. So and I think the other I mean, I don't know we can get into this if you want to, but I think the other the other piece that's really interesting is how being overweight impacts our sleep.
Michelle Tubman
Yeah, and I think it's important to talk about that piece of it as well. Because when we are living in bigger bodies and have sleep challenges because of our weight, I think that's something that we have to look at and troubleshoot as well. And I think you know, sometimes when people are struggling with with sleep, it's not necessarily their fault. That's, you know, some of this is a function of sleep apnea and other things, you know, related to heavier weight. And so, I think it's useful for people to have an understanding of how weight affects sleep as well. So yeah, let's let's hear it.
Catherine Wright
Yeah, absolutely. And there's some of this we don't totally know. But what we do see is that people who are living in bigger bodies, overall just tend to report higher levels of poor sleep. And some of this we understand and some of this I think there's still a lot more research to be done, but there seems to be a link between and I don't know exactly how much weight but be, we'll talk we'll just talk generally about overweight Ness, and the body's ability to recover that deep restorative sleep at night. So the adult you know, the adult sleep cycles comprised of, you know, that REM dream sleep and then a big chunk of sort of deep, deeper, more restorative sleep where a lot of the body repair happens, a lot of the brain repair happens in the REM sleep around memory and all of that and emotions. And a lot of the body bodily repair happens in that deep sleep chunk. And it seems as if people who are who tend to be more overweight, aren't getting or spending as much time in that deep restorative sleep. We're not entirely sure exactly why that is, but definitely you touched upon it. You know, the risk and severity of sleep apnea goes way for for folks who are overweight.
Michelle Tubman
And I wouldn't be surprised if there was a hormonal component component to that as well, because I haven't done a lot of reading beyond sleep apnea in terms of weight in sleep, but I do know that our adipose tissue which is our fat tissue in the body is a metabolically active organ. It creates hormones, it secretes hormones, it creates estrogen, it creates leptin like there's lots of it's a very hormonally active organ and I wouldn't be surprised if it interferes with you know, hormone systems. that are involved in sleep, just like it's involved in, in altering our leptin, our hunger hormone levels as well. So I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if that plays a part in it.
Catherine Wright
I wouldn't either. That's actually really fascinating and I hadn't ever heard of that hormone directly, but that makes absolute sense that that would be involved in the process as well. Yeah. Yeah. Do you talk talk a little bit about sleep apnea, dear, have you done any podcasts around sleep apnea?
Michelle Tubman
I haven't I haven't spoken to sleep apnea directly yet. But I think it would be definitely something that I will talk about in the future. I don't I don't talk a lot about the medical aspects because I like to keep you know, my physician hat off when I'm coaching but I think it's probably a big enough issue in the lives of enough of my clients that it's worth. It's worth talking about.
Catherine Wright
Yeah, I think so. I'm also an I just wanted to say you know, I think what's so interesting to me about and we don't have to dive into everything around obstructive sleep apnea. But what I find the most interesting just because I have a lot of people who are coming to me actually, as a sleep coach, and I always ask I always ask people what's your what's what's the motivation? What's the thing what's your pain point? Why are you why are you now motivated? People have all kinds of different reasons. But one of them is weight loss. Yeah, and one of them, one of them is I want to lose weight and I know how important it is to be sleeping well for my body to be able to do that. Well. Right. You know, we we know that also. Our bodies burn fat more efficiently when we're well slept and make muscle more efficiently when we're well slept. And often what I hear from people too is I'm on the weight loss. I'm on the journey and I'm losing weight. I did have obstructive sleep apnea, but I've lost enough weight now that my sleep apnea is actually resolved. And now I'm working on you know, other aspects of my sleep because that you know, this part fits still feels wobbly and I want some help. Here or there. But to me what's so motivating and encouraging is that a lot of sleep apnea cases actually just disappear when people shed some some pounds
Michelle Tubman
100% Yes. And the studies show that it's often only five to 10% of weight loss that is required to reverse sleep apnea, so it definitely isn't a death sentence. If you have sleep apnea. Weight loss actually can help with this. And, you know, I think just so that people don't get the idea that if you're overweight, your sleep is doomed. Why don't we talk about some strategies that people can use to help themselves get better sleep? And where I'd like to start actually, as many of my clients say that they fall into bed dead tired at night, no problem falling asleep, but they wake up at 3am with the wheels turning and can't get back to sleep. That seems to be the biggest problem in my clients anyway. So do you have strategies for for managing that those 3am wake ups when you just can't get back to sleep?
Catherine Wright
Yeah, I do. And it's, it is interesting how that becomes sometimes we think of people who have trouble with insomnia or people who are having trouble falling, that it's people who are having trouble falling asleep. But I think you're right, and I do find especially in this sort of midlife and beyond group, that this is where it's the sleep maintenance or the staying asleep piece that becomes more of a struggle. And some of that has to do with just changing the way that our sleep evolves as we age. Our sleep architecture changes, which means you know what I mean by that is our sleep. The amount of time that we spend in in REM sleep and deep sleep changes, and that can impact how we sleep through the night. As can hormone changes that happen for a lot of females, right? We start to see those progesterone and estrogen levels doing some funky stuff. And and that can that those two hormones are directly linked into our sleep processes and our sleep cycles. So that's sometimes why those things start to show up. But absolutely, it's also you know, there's also the the mental component, right and that and the mind that gets racing. So in terms of giving people some ideas around it. Kind of look at two things. So we first just want to make sure when we're looking at sleep maintenance, so our ability to drop into sleep, and then stay there for the duration of the night. I mean, within reason like most adults do wake up I think on average around 12 times at night. We just, you know, sound sleepers won't be aware of those wake apps that will wake up will roll around and will fall back asleep so that's totally normal. In fact, being awake on average, including falling asleep at bedtime until the morning time, the average person is awake for about 30 minutes every night. And that's all considered totally normal. We're talking more about like when you wake up and you're like, Why do I have to wait and the mind starts going? Exactly We want to Yeah, so we want to definitely look at Do we have a really nice strong sleep drive. And that drive is I always liken it to a balloon that fills up with air. That drive builds from the moment that we wake up in the morning and we open our eyes and our feet touch the floor. Our sleep drive starts to increase, increase, increase, increase like air filling up a balloon until the moment that we close our eyes and drop into sleep and then that air back pressure that sleep pressure starts to decrease and that pushes us down into sleep and will help hopefully keep us there for the duration of the night. So a lot of people who are experiencing those 3am wake ups those 4am wake ups. Sometimes it has to do with a weak sleep drive or a squishy balloon. So how can we help ourselves get a really nice strong sleep drive. Going to bed around the same time and waking up around the same time is probably one of the best things that we can do to create a nice strong sleep drive and to help ourselves maintain sleep throughout the night. I think one of the biggest misunderstandings around sleep is this idea of not sleeping well. I'm waking up a lot at night you know my sleeps crap. So I'm going to just try to sleep harder I'm going to I'm it's like they call it casting a wide net to go to bed really early. I'm going to try to see then I'm going to take naps. I'm going to just get as much sleep as I can. And it sounds like that makes sense intuitively, but actually our sleep really doesn't like when we do that and sometimes trying to catch more asleep is actually what creates the squishy balloon. So for people who are doing that one of the best things that you can do is actually create you know, eight hours of sleep opportunity at night and try to keep a steady bedtime and awake time. godless of what kind of sleep you had the night before.
Michelle Tubman
Does that make sense? It does make sense. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Catherine Wright
Yeah. And I think you know, that that idea of just not spending too too much time in bed. Then we create a really nice strong association with bed and sleep. So we're really like getting into bed when we're actually sleepy, not just fatigued or tired from the day which feels different than oh my gosh, my eyes are actually closing right like that's when you want to get into bed if you're someone who struggles with certainly with falling asleep but those are the things that can help things like alcohol, caffeine, and definitely inactivity will also create a squishy bloom and can help that can get in the way of people's ability to stay asleep at night. In terms of working with the thoughts, you know, a lot of people who are waking up at 3am They kind of have the sort of almost develop a little routine where it's like they wake up. Oh crap. They look at their phone. Their phone tells them it's three Yeah. Then they go oh crap. Here I go again. I'm doing it again. Right and it's like it almost it cements that pattern. So getting getting away from looking at your device or your phone and cultivating a different response to yourself when you wake up can be a really helpful I had to do this and it does take time. But I was definitely someone who would wake up at night and begin to test your phising immediately, right. I'm going to feel like crap tomorrow. Oh my gosh, here I go again. How many hours am I going to be awake and the panic would set in here? Yes. And you can feel your heart Yes.
Michelle Tubman
I know that feeling well. Yeah. This this happens to me when I have to be up at 430 in the morning for a 6am shift. And I am a very deep sleeper and I worry I won't hear my alarm if I have to wake up to alarm I mean like my husband I'll have a nap sometimes not often, but every once in a while have a nap and he will vacuum beside my head and I won't even notice. He's a firefighter and he's on call from home sometimes. I don't hear his pager he gets up and leaves bed and comes back in and I don't even notice. And so I get worried when I have to wake up to an alarm that I'm not going to hear it. And I find myself waking up every hour looking at my phone, having that conversation, calculating how many hours of sleep I'll have if I fall asleep right now. And then that pressure to sleep means I don't I don't sleep at all. And I toss internal lights so that catastrophizing is
Catherine Wright
it that it's probably yes I'm just explain that so perfectly. What it's a cascade of things that happen starts in our in our head where we go oh crap. And then we start counting. And then we start freaking out. And then our body has a response, which is that sort of fight or flight so we start to get produce a little bit of adrenaline and what that happens once that adrenaline starts to to kick in our melatonin our sleepy hormone goes whoosh. Right? It's like an inverse inverse relationship between the two. So now our bodies are awake as well and our mind has shifted to like awake in daytime. So intercepting that gently and saying having some things that we can almost rewire reprogram how we respond to those wake apps. You know, I like I like the one where you just gently say to yourself, rather than looking looking at checking the time because checking the time kind of communicates to our bodies that there's actually something that we need to control. It's nighttime, our bodies are ideally in full surrender mode, right and so there's nothing to control. And so by not looking at our clocks, we kind of stay in this space of nighttime and surrender. And I'm okay I'm awake right now. That's okay. I can I can be. I can be awake and in my bed and just enjoy the sensation of being at peace. Just enjoy the sensation of my cozy bed sheets and the dark and I can just relax and know that that's also restorative for my body. My body knows what to do. My body. My body's taking care of me, and I'll drift off when I'm ready. That sounds easier said than done. But when we start to rewire a little bit by kind of replacing those catastrophic thoughts with slightly more forgiving thoughts, it can actually really change, change our sleep because our body then stays in this surrendered. receptive, relaxed state so that sleep can wash over us and bring out and we can we can then we're more easy, you know, easily able to fall back asleep.
Michelle Tubman
Right? And I I find that one thought actually really helps be that thought of just lying here and resting in bed is restorative. Like that somehow, you know, settles me down enough that I'll usually fall back asleep again. So that's one thought that's actually been very helpful for me when I find myself in that situation which has been less than less as time goes on. So I've also been doing what you've suggested is even though I'm a shift worker, I mean, it's hard to have the same bedtime and the same wakeup time, every day. But I actually try to do that on the days when I'm not working and I you know, if I get home at 3am from a shift, and I go to bed I actually make myself wake up a little bit earlier and then I go to bed again at my at my normal time. And that seems to get me back on track faster than you know allowing myself to sleep all day. Or to bed super, super early. Yeah.
Catherine Wright
Oh, I love that. Yeah, that's that's really interesting feedback. And I mean, that's often the advice that is set for some shift work depending on the hours that that wouldn't work because the person then would just become completely depleted. But that's a really great strategy to use. If you have an occasional shift here and there to keep yourself from sliding over here and sliding over there where then we've got that squishy balloon problem right and our circadian rhythm is a little bit wobbly because our wake time and sleep times are so fluid. Yeah, that's that's a really good one and the other I would just add to that is to help people when we're trying to reframe and take sort of take a little bit of the pressure and perfectionism out of our sleep, which usually helps people drop back into sleep at night. The other one I remember to like to remind people is that our bodies naturally do a little bit of recalibrating. So if we have a crack night or we are do you know have a shift work night where we don't get our ideal seven or eight hours of sleep that you know, our body can't, nobody can you know make up for that lost sleep in the next night but what it can do is it will drop into that deep sleep part of the sleep cycle a little bit more quickly and stay there a little bit longer. If you've had less sleep the night before. So it's like the body almost goes okay, we need to sleep we're gonna get really efficient at this tonight to kind of make up for last night and get into that deep restorative sleep more quickly. Maybe skip over stage one stage two of light sleep get right in there and get busy helping this person restore and recover. So our bodies are there on our side, like working with us. And we just a lot of this is just trusting
Michelle Tubman
it is and getting your own brain out of the way. Right and another thing that you taught me also that has been really helpful is to get out of bed. And so you know, I find if I'm waking up and looking at the alarm and can't get back to sleep, I'll get out of bed and go sit on the couch and read and I swear that 10 minutes with my novel and my eyes start drooping and I can go back to bed and fall asleep and that seems to work like a charm for me sometimes as well. And there are times when I'm super stressed like if I'm anxious about something that's happening the next day that I will have troubles falling asleep and that works for me too. So I find if if I just go somewhere else and read like just in a like a quiet nicely, like dimly sort of soft lit room and read for just a few minutes my eyes will start to droop and then that's when I go to bed and then I'm able to fall asleep. But if I try and you know force myself to go to bed and go to sleep, it just it just doesn't happen so
Catherine Wright
that yes, that's so that's the paradox, right? As soon as we we try for it, the further away it slides from us. And so I That's exactly right. i And I I try to encourage my clients to do the same thing if they have kind of a wake up habit. It's really hard for some people to do that. And some people will say to me, I'll do anything you tell me but I'm not gonna get out of bed. And so we find other strategies but it is it is it is a really great strategy because what you're doing essentially when you're doing that as you're saying to yourself, Okay, I'm my body doesn't feel sleepy right now. So I'm gonna go do something else where I'm not focused on sleeping, but I'm more just focused on staying relaxed. And so we take the trying out of it. And we just focus on you know, something relaxing, like reading a good book. And naturally those sleepy feelings will come back. Exactly right. And so that's a really, really nice way to work with ourselves if we are going through a period of, you know, increased stress or anxiety where you know, sometimes it's just gonna go through those patches where we're not able to sleep through the night. But this is a really beautiful way to sort of tend to are asleep and ourselves if we are having having one about you know, a rough patch can often help us get back to sleep. Yeah, and then all those amazing apps like some people love these sleep meditations like on you know, on calm or Insight Timer. Oh,
Michelle Tubman
no. I'm telling you listening to Matthew McConaughey read
Catherine Wright
for sure. I love how they made these things. They're like, just interesting enough that you want to keep listening but not so interesting that you would actually not fall asleep if you were legitimately tired. Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of a lot of these and some people don't want to get on their phones at night and they just want to book which is great. That works for a lot of people. But for some people who who want to just lay there in the dark and have more of an auditory relaxation, a guided meditation or a story or something like that. Yeah. There's lots of really great stuff out there now. Yeah, yeah, ambient music or with some with some gentle breathing exercises that it's just enough to kind of take us out of the spiraling thoughts out of the worries and pulling us back into our bodies and our breaths so that we can just, you know, break that that worry cycle for a
Michelle Tubman
minute. Yeah, exactly. Because you certainly cannot bully yourself into sleep. Like I know this from personal experience. You cannot bully yourself into sleep. And I think what what the reading and what all those lovely apps do is just kind of shift you out of that sympathetic nervous system. Into the parrot, you know, parasympathetic nervous system dominance, where you're actually able to, you know, calm calm yourself down and and find sleep. I love it.
Catherine Wright
Yeah, and I think even you know, Michelle, for folks who are really prioritizing sleep or who are really wanting to prioritize sleep or who are struggling with these wakeups also doing some having a mini practice even five or 10 minutes during the day, where they start to work that muscle a little bit that that met that mindfulness muscle whether it's like five, this can really help at night. So some of these tools are just as useful actually during the day keeping a worry journal or you know, setting aside 15 to 20 minutes to jot down all our worries and kind of look at them and spend some time with them so that you know, we don't have to do that at night or we feel less inclined to do that at night. Or, you know, spend a little bit of time connecting with our breath and parasympathetic parasympathetic nervous system during the day. can really support how we do that at night.
Michelle Tubman
Oh, for sure. And all of my clients learn mindfulness as as, you know, part of their work with me, because it's also super important and understanding your relationship with food, right is to be able to, you know, bring yourself down back into your body and really understand what's happening when you're tempted to eat mindlessly. Or when you experience a craving or, you know, want food when you're not really hungry. The key to understanding all of that is is to do that exact thing shift back into the parasympathetic dominance and just reconnect with your body again. So those are skills that my clients learn anyway, that can also be applied to sleep.
Catherine Wright
Absolutely. And I love how you just because what they're what we're really doing with sleep or eating or any of this like what you're describing that you do with your clients, right? It's just it's about giving pause in any moment and just asking what's, you know, what's really going on here? Like what is what's actually going on here? How am I feeling in my body and kind of reconnecting back into the body? And even you know, I find, you know, some of my clients, they haven't had a lot of experience, even sort of gauging for themselves. What do I feel like when I'm dysregulated? What does that feel like in my body? What are the signs that I am dysregulated and then what are some of the tools that I can use to come to help myself calm back down and come back into a more grounded state? And I'm sure that yeah, I could see that that's absolutely essential when you're looking at your relationship with eating and food and all of this stuff, all of these things that we intersect with our daily habits and choices and yeah,
Michelle Tubman
right. All right. And so if you take the example of, you know, someone who recognizes that they need to get more sleep or improve the quality of their sleep, but have all of these objections, right like I'm full throttle till 10pm I don't have time there's, you know, too much going on. Like, where can people start? Because it's unrealistic, you know, to ask them to just well, you know, fine two extra hours, right? Yeah. Yeah. And and I like how you mentioned earlier that, that sleep drive starts, you know, the moment we wake up in the morning. And so, I guess I'm wondering also is if there's things that we can do for ourselves during the day, that will make it easier for us to line down in the evening. Time, or if there's, you know, small steps people can take to start moving towards getting more sleep.
Catherine Wright
Mm hmm. Yeah, great questions. I mean, I would say sort of at the very minimum for someone who's you know, busy, busy, busy, go, go go full throttle person. We always kind of start with sleep opportunity. So, can I at the very least carve out seven to eight hours where this is time that I am committed to giving my body and myself to be, you know, in rest asleep. And you know, for some people that may be easier or harder to do depending on their schedules, but sort of prioritizing and very minimum that that time that we need. Yeah, there's a lot of people who can't manage you know, when our wind down routine before bed, it's impossible because of their work schedules or their families or whatever. And so we do kind of want to start with Okay, can I at least kind of, you know, work with myself in getting up around the same time in the morning getting a hit of sunlight first thing in the morning, so book, ending the day with even 10 to 15 minutes of daylight. Much easier to do this time of year in in North America. So that really helps strengthen the circadian rhythm. The internal body clock, that will also is you know, is in charge of helping us fall asleep and stay asleep. So I have you know, people who are radiologists who work in dark offices all day, that kind of thing, really important for people to like get a good hit of sunlight in the morning, and ideally a little hit of sunlight you know, in the later afternoon, four or five, six o'clock PM, helps a person keep an eye strong. Healthy clock. And then, you know, we haven't, we have like an ultradian rhythm. So like a 90 minute rhythm during the day to where our body kind of moves through high efficiency and then decreases into lack of focus, and then we need a break. Being mindful of that during the day can really help set us up at night. So maybe we don't need an hour long wine down routine at bedtime. Because we've taken these tiny little breaks I call them snack right? Like they're like rest snacks during the day, right where we give ourselves even five or 10 minutes stand out. From the desk, do some stretching, eat something healthy, hydrate all of those kinds of things. Keep us regulated during the day so that if we want to okay, it's 10 o'clock I need to go to bed. We don't have to come down from way up here because we've been sort of keeping ourselves more regulated during the day by taking breaks and moving our bodies and having healthy snacks and all of that kind of thing. Yeah, that makes sense. It makes total
Michelle Tubman
sense. And I think I've been intuitively doing that lately. So it's not so easy when I'm on shift in the ER but when I'm at home working on my business and have like an eight hour day in front of the computer, if I'm writing and you know doing things like this, I actually noticed that it seems to be like maybe more 70 or 75 minutes for me. I start to get very distracted and and I can't focus anymore. And so I've just decided that when I get that way I'm gonna get up. It's springtime now. So I go and I like examine what's blooming in my garden. I just take this quick little walk, refill my water glass and then I come back and that's all it takes. It's literally five minutes and I come back. And like I'm much more focused when I come back to my computer. But I also notice I do notice that when I honor that I sleep better. And I shouldn't say I noticed my husband noticed at first and then I started paying attention and and you know realize that that that is actually true. And as simple
Catherine Wright
stuff sometimes it's simple stuff and simple doesn't mean easy. Yeah, it is what you're talking about requires noticing and paying a heck of a lot of attention to what's happening. And that's that's that's the work I think for a lot of people is just to even notice. Oh yeah, I'm totally trailing off my body needs I need to move I need to like get my circulation moving. I need to have a glass of water. I need to let my mind just enspiral for a couple of minutes and then you know I can get
Michelle Tubman
right and to just give yourself permission to do that. Like that's the biggest piece because I know that I will start telling myself I just have to push through. I've got lots to do. You know I don't have time to take a five minute break. But the reality of the situation is when I do take those five minute breaks, I'm actually more productive. You know, during during the rest of my work week and I I have a client that brings this up to me all the time. And I asked her it's like how much of the day do you spend like googling various things or staring off into space and she's like, a good portion of the day. And I'm like, so you're wasting time anyways, so you might not do it while you're recharging. Exactly right.
Catherine Wright
And actually, yeah, rewriting that that recharging is not wasting time and Exactly. Is that where we're really messed up in our culture or that our culture has backwards is that this idea of going out into the garden getting a glass of water stretching, staring in the clouds for a couple of minutes that that is a waste of time that that isn't important that that isn't valuable. And so anytime that we do that we have this sense of Oh no, I'm doing something wrong. Oh, no, I'm lazy. Oh, no, I'm not productive enough. And so those are the voices that we're trying to kind of, you know, shift. Yeah, right. Is that anything that is the very problem right there. I
Michelle Tubman
think. Yeah. And also that, you know, you mentioned earlier that being sedentary has a negative effect on your sleep later on at night and actually getting some movement or exercising during the day can help. And so, you know, even just a little bit of movement on brakes here and then can help in that additional way as well.
Catherine Wright
Helps that build that sleep drive that's right so that then our bodies feel or when I'm when we hit the sheets at night and our you know our bodies read as you know, physically a good level of wear and tear then our better sleep systems. Like okay, we got work to do. Let's get to sleep and start to read you know, regenerate and repair and so if we're not moving our bodies during the day that that there isn't that incentive in that drive for for our sleep to kind of recharge us
Michelle Tubman
right yeah, yeah, that's right and one of the key takeaways that I've gotten from this conversation, Catherine is that there's you know, sleep is so much more than what happens when our head finally hits the pillow at night, that there's all these things that are happening from the moment we wake up that are contributing to this and so you know, if you're feeling the that, you know, going to bed a little bit earlier is overwhelming, maybe focusing instead on, you know, adding these other little things throughout the day. You know, might make it just a little bit easier for you to do at least fall asleep at night and then maybe even have an earlier bedtime as your body tells you that you're more tired.
Catherine Wright
Yeah, exactly. Then you're able to notice the cues from your body that you're more tired and having some boundaries around. Okay, if you are a BOGO person, certainly okay, I'm making a deal. With myself. That, you know, there's a there is a cut off point at some time in my evening where I am committed to closing my laptop and turning off my phone. You choose that time, but having a bit of a boundary around so that it doesn't seep into the whole night, right. There are a lot of people saying that especially folks who are in school or you know, studying for your PhD or whatever, that they really need those boundaries. Otherwise they can just like just keep working right into, you know, the wee hours of the morning. Yeah, and that having some firm boundaries around some of those things is really helpful.
Michelle Tubman
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. Catherine, this was such an illuminating conversation. Thank you so much. Before we sign off today, are there any last words of wisdom you'd like to impart to our listeners?
Catherine Wright
Last Words of Wisdom Mmm, hmm. I guess I would just say I guess I would just say you know, sleep like sleep. Sleep is like a puzzle. You know, we can be there's there's lots of little pieces of sleep that we can work on. It doesn't always have to be this huge overhaul. We can make a lot of progress, sleep by just sort of paying attention and tweaking a couple of things here and there. And that even by, you know, improving our sleep quality a little bit or getting even one hour more of sleep per night will have a massive impact. On your overall mental, emotional, spiritual. So this isn't about like tearing it all down and doing this huge onerous thing. We can work at our sleep in really small ways and still have a massive impact on how we're feeling and living during the day. So to give people that motivation that this doesn't have to be, you know, a huge terrifying thing. You're not sleeping that well. It's okay. You're probably in really good. You are in really good company, and there's lots that you can do so
Michelle Tubman
amazing. I cannot wait to have you come to your workshop. It's going to be amazing. I know it I'm looking forward to it. Thanks so much, Catherine.
Catherine Wright
thanks so much, Michelle.
