Unlock Your Mind: great sleep, learning and brain's ability to change itself. The best tool from psychology.

The ability to adapt and change has never been more critical than in today's rapidly evolving world. Yet most of us unwittingly sabotage our own cognitive flexibility through one common mistake: keeping yourself stuck in unhelpful thought patterns.  

And it starts with sleep...  

Sleep isn't merely rest, it's when your brain performs its most sophisticated work.  

During those precious hours, your neural networks physically restructure, processing new information and connecting it with existing knowledge. Research consistently shows that sleep-deprived individuals significantly underperform on learning tasks, regardless of whether they involve physical skills or mental concepts. By sacrificing sleep in the name of productivity, you're actually preventing your brain from developing the very flexibility needed to navigate complex challenges, learn and find the most effective solutions.  

The most powerful tool for breaking this cycle of not sleeping and being stuck in outdated belief patterns is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT, the basics of which you will learn today). The revolutionary insight of CBT is recognizing how our thoughts directly shape our ability to change and solve novel problems - and how questioning those thoughts can transform it.  

Ready to transform your sleep and unlock your cognitive flexibility and learning potential? Tune in, question your thinking and get ready to change.  

Transcript

Introduction to Change Capability

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey guys, and welcome back to Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, if you don't know that yet. I'm your host, I'm your executive health coach 360, someone who is here to help you accelerate change and help you become more change capable. And that is important in any time, but I think especially now, when things are moving and changing so fast that if you don't change with them, it's going to feel like a very disturbing experience. So change ability or cognitive flexibility, using scientific talk, is something that we all need to be constantly working on and, yes, it is something like a muscle, something like a skill. It's an ability that you can train, and you train it by helping yourself to change in different ways, especially in the ways where you think you are all set and solid and unchangeable.

The Power Tool for Cognitive Flexibility

Sleep: Where Learning Happens

Speaker 1 1:08

Today we are talking by the end of this podcast, guys. Today you're going to learn about one of the most potent tools to help you improve your changeability, your cognitive flexibility, your ability to improve and grow and change and adapt and become more resilient in so many ways. It will help you to get unstuck. One of the most potent tools. You're going to learn the basics, the foundations of it. So by the end of this podcast, you will have a cognitive tool which will help you to adjust your behavior and get unstuck in any area of your life. But I will start with something that we started talking about last time sleep, and how the same tool is the most effective tool for not just improving your cognitive flexibility, your changeability, but also for improving your sleep. Believe it or not, but this same tool helps better than medications. Helps people to get into sleep mode, to sleep better, to unwind and get the recovery, the rest that you need in order to then start your day and stay productive and have a fulfilling life experience.

Speaker 1 2:33

And, guys, if you didn't know that, sleep is also crucial for your cognitive flexibility. Your ability to change your brain actually does the most adaptation work, does the most learning. During your sleep, your brain analyzes all of the learnings, life experiences that you had during your day and then it change the brain itself, like physically reshaping neural connections and the way your neurons communicate to each other. Also, at the same time, your muscles change and so much change is happening actually during your sleep. And if you don't get to have that sleep experience, what research shows? You don't even learn that well. So they did a lot of research when they gave people material to learn or skills to learn, and then some people were sleep-deprived and some people slept just learn. And then some people were sleep deprived and some people slept just fine. And people who are sleep deprived consistently and considerably so, on the next day underperform on all the tasks that are designed to test the stuff that they learned, whether that's physical skill or mental skill, knowledge, like you need to recall, like I don't know, some dates or numbers or some other facts, right? So sleep is where you learn and that's why it's also a tool in itself to improve your cognitive flexibility. I feel like so many people get stuck more than they need to because they like sleep and they think well, I sleep when I'm dead and you know what. You're going to be the same person till death if you keep thinking like that, and science proves the point. So, if you want to be more resilient, change able and also in your organization, if people are constantly, for example, in the environment, when they feel that they need to sleep, deprive themselves to keep up and to be aligned with the fast-paced change, actually they are, and you are shooting yourself in the foot by doing so, because sleep is the ultimate time when you learn, you adapt and you stay resilient and your innovative ideas come, and again when all of your learnings is assimilated and connected to your prior experience and knowledge.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy vs. Coaching

Speaker 1 4:55

But back to the tool. Today we're talking about cognitive behavioral therapy Maybe not so much therapy as coaching. So first, what's the difference between therapy and coaching? Therapy is more interested in uncovering underlying patterns and like where is this coming from? What was the past? What may be the trauma that you experienced? Coaching is more future forward looking. We're not so much interested in why that happened and we are not interested or qualified to treat the why or unwind your past experiences, but we are interested in rewiring your forward-looking patterns and helping you do better and perhaps achieve certain outcomes. Moving forward. Again, we are not here to treat conditions. We are here to give you tools to move forward and get unstuck in many different areas.

Challenging Beliefs About Sleep

Speaker 1 5:53

So cognitive behavioral it's more often called therapy, but today we are talking about coaching. But the tool is the same. It's all about restructuring your own thoughts and beliefs and looking at the connection between your thoughts and your beliefs and your actions as in relation to the outcomes that you either get in your life or want to get in your life and seeing that connection. So, to give you an example, if somebody believes that their sleep doesn't well, they can't get all of the sleep they want. If they want to be, for example, a successful professional or somebody who provides for their family, or a great leader, if they believe that they need to sacrifice their sleep and they can't give themselves this luxury to get all the rest of the sleep that they need to sacrifice their sleep and they can't give themselves this luxury to get all the rest of the sleep that they need in order to show up for the people or their family, whatever that might be. If this is your fundamental belief, it's going to be hard to impossible for you to get all the sleep that you want, no matter what hacks and tools you're going to learn. It's just your belief you want. No matter what hacks and tools you're going to learn. It's just your belief. And that's why you're going to be wired and waking yourself up, being more in that up and go and wired state more often than not, because what you think and what you believe changes what hormones your brain, your body release and how much cortisol and adrenaline and how much stress you almost experience, and it is again also proven by research, by science, that what you tell yourself, what you believe, is going to change your physiology.

Speaker 1 7:36

So for a lot of people, untangling their beliefs and thought patterns about sleep is the first step to improving that sleep. Or somebody might believe well, you know, I never get good sleep Like it's been ages, and I just never sleep well and I'm always waking up and it always takes me forever to fall asleep. And that's their belief. And so that's why they're not going to try that morning routine when you get up and see the bright light in the morning, and that's why they're not going to try to go to sleep on time because, like well, it doesn't work anytime. Why would I force myself to do that? Or they're not going to try the relaxation techniques or that shower or anything that helped them to unwind, and they're not going to work on maybe some eating habits or some substance use, like maybe too much caffeine or maybe alcohol, at all the wrong times and all the wrong amounts. They're not going to take the action consistently enough to actually produce meaningful results and that's why untangling again your thought patterns and your beliefs before or along with taking action, is one of the most effective way to actually produce desired and consistent change.

Speaker 1 8:57

And there is even cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, and it works better than medication because, unlike medication, it helps you to uncover the underlying causes of that, except of course, for the instances and there are some when you physically, your body, is not capable to produce the state of sleep, which might be the case, but it's not as often a case as people think. These days, almost everyone I work with experience some sort of sleep disturbances, and most of it is their own doing, whether that's thinking, believing and then not doing certain things, or simply not following good enough routine and then struggling because again of their own doing or believing. So again, first, what cognitive behavioral therapy or coaching do is they look at your beliefs and your thinking and then, after you analyze your like, what are your beliefs about sleep? Do you believe that you cannot get good enough sleep because you didn't have good experience for some time and it seems like it's been forever? Do not get good enough sleep because you believe, well, it's not possible for you to fulfill your role as a provider in your family or as a leader and get the sleep that you need? If that's your fundamental belief. Forget about anything I say because you're not gonna do anything about it anyhow, so might as well keep doing what you're doing and then ask yourself is it working for you?

Speaker 1 10:28

And that's the second step of cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive behavior coaching in your toolkit to help you unstuck in any area of your life, not just about sleep, but we are taking sleep as an example. So, now that you have your, you analyzed your thoughts, your beliefs, maybe your frustrations, also your feelings. How do you feel about going to bed and sleeping all the eight or nine hours that you might need? Me personally, my full block chunk of sleep that I need, 8.5 hours, that's my sleep that I need in order to function, my absolute freaking best. Do I always get it? No, but at least I give myself a chance on most days. Sometimes I do have to stay up, but I make sure that it doesn't happen on a regular basis, because I know that when it happens on a regular basis, everything goes south, from my cognitive performance to my learning ability, to my positivity, my ability to empower others, my ability to learn and improve, and learnability is one of my top values. So I'm going to be shooting myself in the food by not giving myself the sleep that I need, but anyhow. So back to step number one.

Speaker 1 11:44

Step number two Step number one is again, start noticing your thought patterns, your feelings, your beliefs about sleep. A few of my clients, entrepreneurs, thought that you know, I can't really be a successful entrepreneur if I start prioritizing sleep because, well, there are always things to do and if I just get to sleep I'll never get anything done right. That was their fundamental belief, and no wonder for quite a while, until we uncovered this belief and actually false belief, until we uncover this that what they actually get is performance that is not that great. Decision-making that is compromised, always running after putting up fires versus thinking upstream in advance how do I prevent that from happening? And then also not showing up for their family or their important relationships. So when they start seeing the pattern that is actually not working for them to think this way, once they accept the need to change their beliefs, their thoughts again, that usually happens through experience, not by me telling them you know, you're wrong. That doesn't work for an adult human. So once they open up the gate, so to speak, by their willingness to change their beliefs and reconsider their thought patterns.

Speaker 1 13:07

After that, we start leaning more and more into step number two, which is challenging your thoughts and beliefs. And a very good question to start and there are many questions you can look up cognitive behavioral therapy for sleep, for example, as we're taking sleep as an example. Once you decide that you know my thoughts and beliefs might not be working and might not be true, now you start asking yourself questions to challenge that thinking pattern or that belief. Well, is it always true? Is it always true that you're not able to fall asleep, no matter what you do? Or is it really working for you Like that pattern of thinking that you are not that great of a provider or a leader for your family?

Speaker 1 13:57

Is it really true? Like what evidence do you actually have that it is true? And, even better, are there other examples of people, leaders, anyone you admire who actually has it all, who sleeps well, who is an amazing leader that you admire, who has their stuff figured out, who is a happy person and has an amazing family and they sleep well? And there are plenty of examples like that, by the way. And if that is true, so your fundamental belief that you cannot be a great leader, provider, entrepreneur, whatever that is might not be that true. And if that is not that true, then maybe just the way you've been conditioned to believe or do things isn't really fundamentally right. But there are other ways that might actually work better for you, right? And that is the transition.

Speaker 1 14:55

First you challenge like is it always true? Or sometimes I talk to my clients and I ask them well, is it always true that you're not able to sleep more than five hours? And they're like no, actually when I'm on my vacation, I can sleep for eight and nine hours. I'm like ah, so you are actually capable of sleeping eight and nine hours? Oh, that is interesting. And they're like yeah, you know, that is interesting. And once they see like yeah, you know, that is interesting.

Speaker 1 15:19

And once they see that their belief is not actually true, they start asking well, why don't I sleep for eight or nine hours on other days, when I'm working and I'm in the midst of I don't know doing business or figuring stuff out or problems? Maybe it's because I don't know how to relax in those moments. Maybe it is that I don't know how to unwind. Maybe it is that I somehow set myself a day for being stressed and worried more than I'd like to. Maybe that is true.

Creating New Thought Patterns

Speaker 1 15:57

So you start challenging, and then the third step is you start looking for alternative explanations, thoughts, beliefs, again, just like I did right now. So if that is not true, what can be true? What else can be true, what might be the reason why this isn't working, why I'm not able to fall asleep? And then we start looking into well, what could I try to change that, to actively change the situation of me not being able to fall asleep? What if I believed that I could sleep eight and nine hours, or at least seven hours in my regular day, on Monday, tuesday, wednesday or whatever that might be? What if I believed that I could create the condition when, on the most stressful days and weeks, I can fall asleep just fine and rest and then get after it with new energy and all the recovery in me? And wouldn't that be better for me to solve problems, to show up as my full self and to help others to get through this together, whether that's family or your business. And then after that, you are so much more willing to try solutions. And that's where you start looking at your behaviors.

Speaker 1 17:22

Maybe if they say that consistency of routine is the most important thing for me to start improving my sleep. Am I doing it? Am I actually going to bed? Do I go to bed on a regular basis at the same time? Do I do that? And if not, maybe I should give it a try. And then, do I go outside and view sunlight first thing in the morning? Do I do that? And if not, then maybe I should try it, because the science says it works. And how about my caffeine or my alcohol? Or me eating too late, or maybe doing my work right before bed and starting solving problems at 9 or 10 pm or whatever that might be right, when I actually need to be winding down? Maybe that is not working for me, because they say that you shouldn't be doing a lot of stressful or challenging or stuff that makes you anxious and worried and wakes your brain up and starts shooting adrenaline and cortisol. Maybe I shouldn't be doing that stuff. Maybe I shouldn't be checking my email right. And that's where the change happens and that's where you start planning and that's when you're open to give things a try and give them a try not for a day, but actually for maybe seven days or a couple of weeks and registering improvements and changes.

Speaker 1 18:50

So that is the most powerful tool for creating more cognitive flexibility, your ability to adapt, adjust and learn in any age. You see, guys, there is this belief all dogs don't learn new tricks. No, they do. It's been proven that people keep creating new neurons and new connections till the day they die. You're able to learn till the day you die. That is scientifically proven. So, at least when it comes to humans, all dogs do learn new tricks. But the thing is you need to A believe in it and if you don't, then nothing else will work in it, and if you don't, then nothing else will work. And number two once you start believing into and have useful thoughts that move you into the direction, that's when you will start changing your behavior and maybe creating more learning opportunities and experimenting and testing more, and that's how you get unstuck. But fundamentally, the first step, which most people don't take, is auditing your own thoughts and beliefs and feelings that lead to certain actions, realizing there is a connection and you might have unhelpful thoughts and beliefs that are in the way of you changing, and that's where you address first, before you try to take any actions, and when applied to sleep. That's the same thing and actually the most useful, the most effective tool to change your sleeping patterns again, unless there is some underlying condition, which might be the case and also if there is underlying condition, which might be the case, and also if there is underlying condition like sleep apnea, there are tools, there are gadgets and devices that will help you with the stuff physically to, for example, improve your breathing, and then, with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia or for sleep, you'll be able to improve the condition even further and improve your quality of sleep. It might not be perfect, but it will get better and with that, everything else, including your cognitive flexibility, your ability to change and make new decisions and learn new things and adapt and improve and become more resilient, will improve as well.

The Science Behind CBT

Speaker 1 21:21

Something that I also wanted to share with you about cognitive behavioral therapy overview. This is from Mayo Clinic, one of the top leading research institutions. So cognitive behavioral therapy, also called CBT, is a common type of talk therapy. During CBT, you work with a mental health professional, such as a psychologist or a licensed therapist, in a structured way. You attend a limited number of sessions.

Speaker 1 21:49

Cbt helps you become aware of thinking patterns that may be creating issues in your life, looking at the relationship between your thoughts, feelings and behaviors helps you challenge situations more clearly and respond to them in a more effective way. So there is no magic. It's just when you look at your thoughts and when you look into underlying beliefs, then you're open to take different actions and that's when the magic happens. And again, I think the most effective tool not that I think, but it is true the most effective tool to start seeing the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy or coaching is start questioning your own thinking and beliefs with questions like is this actually working for you? Is this always true? And if it's not always true, when is this not true? And what are the examples of this working the other way? So maybe my beliefs are not that right. Right, and not even working for me that well.

Speaker 1 22:57

What thoughts are you going in your mind in the situation where things are not working for you? What is stopping you from? And then think about the action or the goal or the outcome. What are the short and long-term costs and benefits of change? What is good about changing? What is bad about changing? Like we often don't change, like in sleep case, because we just don't want to change or we believe if we change our sleep then, fundamentally, we're not going to be as effective human being again, provider or entrepreneur. What's the problem with making mistakes or experiencing failure? Right, if you're always that rigid and are so close to experimenting and innovating in your own life, what's the cost of it? What's the problem with it? What advice would you give to someone experiencing the same challenges as yourself? What are the first concrete steps you need to reach your goal? If you were to believe that you could indeed reach it, to reach your goal, if you were to believe that you could indeed reach it.

Practical Steps and Resources

Speaker 1 24:03

So questioning is the most basic, fundamental tool in cognitive behavioral therapy and a way for you to start again changing your beliefs, your thoughts, and that is the first step to any change. So, if you are interested in learning more about cognitive behavioral therapy, so if you are interested in learning more about cognitive behavioral therapy, you can ask, for example, chatgpt to walk you through the problem, using cognitive behavioral therapy or coaching as a tool. Another way, of course, you can go to cognitive behavioral therapies or coach to help you do that. People still understand human condition a lot better than chat, gp, lgbt or any artificial intelligence, and you can also reach out to me. I practice CBT in my coaching practice all the time because, again, until you change your own thinking, until you question your own thinking, nothing else will matter. So, also, there is an email in the show notes. You can use it to connect with me.

Speaker 1 25:23

And what else?

Speaker 1 25:24

Yes, if you are struggling with sleep, your main tool to learn, improve your cognitive flexibility, stay resilient, adaptable and a great leader to others.

Speaker 1 25:35

So if you need to improve sleep and your cognitive flexibility, again, cognitive behavioral therapy is the most effective tool to start your journey towards there. And a couple of first steps to start unwinding your non-working pattern whether that's sleep or just improving your ability to change is start questioning your beliefs and your own thinking Like is this true? How do I know this is true, the thing that I believe to be right, and if it's not true, what else can be true, right? So that is the first step and see where it leads you. And again, you can use ChatGPT for simplicity or your favorite AI agent. You can schedule a session with me or another practitioner and keep listening to podcasts like this and sharing it with others to discuss, to help each other grow, get unstuck and improve ourselves and improve the world around us. So thank you guys for tuning in, thank you for listening. Don't be afraid to reach out and start questioning your own thinking. And till next time, keep listening, keep questioning and keep growing.