Michael Hildebrandt is Coach & Speaker, as well as Certified NLP, CBT and Heroic Coach.
Join us in a riveting conversation with Michael Hildebrandt, a renowned sleep coach from Germany, who lifts the veil on the priceless value of sleep and its overlooked role in our everyday lives. Tune in as we challenge the common misconceptions about sleep sacrifices and shed light on the direct link between a good night's rest and heightened productivity.
Michael also shares his personal battles with insomnia and provides handy tips on effectively balancing sleep with other life activities. Learn how to sidestep the pitfalls of modern habits like binge-watching TV and keep a healthy sleep cycle. Brace yourself for an insightful discussion on the effects of sleeping pills on sleep quality and the utility, as well as the limits, of sleep tracking gadgets. We'll also guide you on the different stages of sleep cycles, their importance, and how to ensure that you're getting enough sleep.
Prepare to be enlightened and entertained as we navigate the intriguing world of sleep and its significance in maintaining our overall well-being. This is not just another podcast episode; it's a journey into understanding one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives - sleep. Join us, won't you?
You can find Michael on Instagram @sleeptrust
Michael has been generous enough to share his sleep score card which you can download here
Michael Hildebrandt is Coach & Speaker, as well as Certified NLP, CBT and Heroic Coach.
Join us in a riveting conversation with Michael Hildebrandt, a renowned sleep coach from Germany, who lifts the veil on the priceless value of sleep and its overlooked role in our everyday lives. Tune in as we challenge the common misconceptions about sleep sacrifices and shed light on the direct link between a good night's rest and heightened productivity.
Michael also shares his personal battles with insomnia and provides handy tips on effectively balancing sleep with other life activities. Learn how to sidestep the pitfalls of modern habits like binge-watching TV and keep a healthy sleep cycle. Brace yourself for an insightful discussion on the effects of sleeping pills on sleep quality and the utility, as well as the limits, of sleep tracking gadgets. We'll also guide you on the different stages of sleep cycles, their importance, and how to ensure that you're getting enough sleep.
Prepare to be enlightened and entertained as we navigate the intriguing world of sleep and its significance in maintaining our overall well-being. This is not just another podcast episode; it's a journey into understanding one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives - sleep. Join us, won't you?
You can find Michael on Instagram @sleeptrust
Michael has been generous enough to share his sleep score card which you can download here
Hello, hello. It's Nadine and I'm here with this week's episode of Life, Health and the Universe, and I'm joined this week by my guest all the way from Germany, michael Hildebrandt. Welcome, michael, good to have you here.
Speaker 2:Hi Nadine, thanks for having me on your podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited to catch up with you. So we've got a little bit of history. We actually met online. It always sounds so weird when I say that, like I've been on dating apps or something. We met on Instagram very similar interests. Your name popped up, we connected and you've been kind enough to be a guest inside my membership. A couple of years ago I reckon it probably was the time flies, but we've got a lot in common and I'm really super excited to have you here on the podcast with me talking all things sleep, because you're a sleep coach and I don't I realize I don't know a whole bunch about you. Apart from that, pretty sure you're a dad of two.
Speaker 2:Three.
Speaker 1:Three, ah, living in Germany and working away at your business as a sleep coach Sleep trust is the name of your business and you're helping people in your well. We're going to talk about all of these things and you'll be able to give us a little bit more insight. I reckon that probably since we last spoke, you have, I don't know, dialed down and got a little bit more into certain areas of sleep. That's kind of just my inkling based on what I've seen on your Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's an everlasting journey, right? Yes, life is an everlasting journey. I think it's a good part. Your podcast is Life's Health in the Universe. It's like this is a part of life. Change is constant. Change is just a part of life that I highly appreciate. Yeah, things have changed, but slightly. At the core, nothing has changed. But on the outside, things that you can see, the things how we present sleep trust, how I present sleep trust on Instagram these things change the coaching not so much. Like the core of the coaching is still the same, like it's nine steps that I guide people through and maybe we're going to have a chat about that later on. But yeah, you're right, we're in touch for like a few years over Instagram. I really had a laugh when you said like it sounds a little bit like you know you're moving to the day, to the absolute end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we met online. It's just how it works and that's like the beautiful side of the internet, like there's a lot of things where you could argue it's probably not so good for a society. But this the connecting people, bringing people together, like-minded people like you and me over the universe that's the thing I highly appreciate. I will have to admit that in I was not aware and I know you know I follow you and I see a lot of things, but I was not really aware that you actually host a podcast until you reached out, so I'm really happy to be on. Thanks so much again for having me here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into our conversation, and I have had a podcast, but I've become I don't know. The truth is that social media just started getting a little bit too. I didn't, I wasn't getting into it right and so I've kind of like I've backed away from it a lot and I really do the bare bones when it comes to the podcast. I record the podcast. I, you know, do a little bit of sound bites and tell people what's coming up, but I don't spend a whole bunch of other time on social media at the moment.
Speaker 1:It wasn't good for my brain and I really admire people who can hang in there, because I yeah, I just found it a little bit too tricky, but we are still connected and I have seen it looks like your business is evolving and growing, which is great, and you've got a good following and you're getting the message out there. And that's what this is all about, because, as you said, the great thing about social media and the internet is that we can connect with like-minded people. I love your approach to all of the things about sleep. I'm a mad sleep fan Always have been and it's so good that there is some momentum building when it comes to people realizing the importance of getting a good night's sleep. That's true. It took a while.
Speaker 2:But I completely agree that there is momentum going, like sleep is omnipresent, like you have an overall kind of media, not only on social media, on TV, documentary news even. Like the importance of sleep is, like, highly highlighted nowadays. I'm not 100% convinced that the people do the right things only because they know that it's important, but that's a different part of the story. At least the awareness is there now.
Speaker 1:I think it's really interesting that, like intuitively, we know, right, you have a good night's sleep and you talk about it, right you go oh my God, you tell people I had such a good night's sleep last night or I slept really badly Like we know that these things, like we know it's good for us and how good we feel, but we are forever sacrificing our sleep to fit more into our days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's like partly. There are a lot of reasons for this, nadine, right, but if you look at business owners, business professionals, managers, that kind of range of people, like I think a lot of these people still believe they know that sleep is important, but I think they believe just because it's painful. Like you know this, I need to move through the pain. Because it's painful, it's also productive, and that's simply not true. Like, if we're honest to ourselves and we really start to measure the things that we do or take a different perspective on them and see, okay, what am I really going getting done?
Speaker 2:Like after one of these awesome nights of sleep where I know, oh my God, like I feel incredible, like I get up, I have all of this energy, I show up, like people are reacting to me accordingly, because now I'm like in a friendly, very tranquil mode of doing the things I do. So what do I get done on those days? Like productivity wise, and what do I get done on other days where I'm just working, like I'm pushing myself hard okay, I can be proud of myself that I did that, I would agree to that but what do I honestly get done? I think that's kind of the mismatch that a lot of these business professionals have going on, that they still do not really believe that they really get more done when they give themselves that hour or two more sleep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Are you still working with business people specifically, because I know that when we spoke previously, that was like a big part of what you did was like teaching people that sleep is important for productivity and it can actually help with work performance if you are getting a good night's sleep. Are you still doing that with your, the people that you coach?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the coaching is like the sleep coaching people people from all different kinds of areas have problems with their sleep right, so it's not specifically broken down to business professionals. I love to work with business professionals because that's just where I'm coming from, Like I used to do performance coaching and rather was harsh to myself before. I had my own issues with sleep Years ago. So that's kind of why I still have a preference to work with these people, also because typically and that's not a rule, but typically they're more committed and it's easier to work with people that are committed to do the things they need to do. Like, if you have a chat with a business professional and he gets, he or she gets what's going on and you agree on certain things, they're higher likely to follow through or at least be honest. If they don't say okay, like let's recommit and try something else, whatever. So that makes it easier for me to do my work, because I can literally not help people if they're not willing to put the effort into what needs to be done right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I had some things coming off the top of my head and I have to say tonight. So, because of our time difference, you're in the AM and I'm in the PM and I got my times mixed up right because of our clocks changing and so this is normally around the time I start shutting down and going to bed. So if I lose track of what I'm saying, I'm living proof right here that regular sleep times are very important for us. I was thinking about your like a few things popped up in my head as you were talking then. I think that often people who are sort of executives, for example, they do start to look at how they can improve their performance. Right, if they're doing ticking a whole bunch of other boxes, I think it seems to be more of a. They've realized the importance of how they can enhance their productivity through their lifestyle, whereas it used to be a bit more well and it probably is for a lot of people, still a bit more kind of like you know, sleep when you're dead kind of mentality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that right you can.
Speaker 1:But there are. There is this evolution of, and these people are emerging where they're like. I need to get the best out of my work and to be the best I can be. I need to improve these lifestyle factors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and productivity is kind of a hook, like one of the hooks to get people to listen. But, like in the coaching and real life, it's not about productivity, right, it's about how we feel more, more like we want. Why do we want to be productive? If we want to feel proud of ourselves, we want to create value for others. So it all boils down to how are we feeling?
Speaker 2:Like, if we're not feeling good, like not a day or two, like that can always happen, but if, over longer periods of time, we're not feeling good because of the way we act and treat ourselves, maybe we're not doing the right things, like put that up front. And I think that that's kind of the point where people start to understand okay, yeah, maybe something's not going right, maybe I have to put myself, my health, my well-being, into the front row and work myself, you know, forward from that point. And that's kind of like the approach that I like to take and that I know you take too, like life or well-being, that has to be our core. Like it's all about how do we feel, how do we show up, and if we want to deliver value to the world, we need to show up strongly, like we want to feel good and show others that you know how we want this world to look and be and feel. So that's kind of the core when it comes to sleep too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. You mentioned that you. You're teaching this because of your own experience and you were a performance coach. You said and you did you suffer burnout? Were you not sleeping? Like what happened to you? That made you flip to doing what you're doing now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually I'm like I've gotten an LP like neurolinguistic programming, like that's my coaching angle, certified in that for over 10 years now, and that's kind of a bunch of tools that we can use to optimize our behavior, our performance when it comes to business, also how to connect with people and ourselves, like essentially all the starts with ourselves, right. So I was doing that and at some point I got hit with a slip disc, which I had one when I was my younger years, but this, this time, it was so painful, like I, literally I thought, like I was really desperate, like I went to the doctors and they, you know, suggested surgery or you know, they literally couldn't do anything for me. I didn't want to get that surgery. I thought, no, it's the very last thing I'm going to do. I'm too young, I'm too much of many things can go wrong if you get, you know, that surgery in your back. So I ended up like, literally, I was living on the floor of our living room here, like because the sofa was just not pain-wise, it was not as possible.
Speaker 2:When I went to bed, I knew like I might be able to sleep asleep for two to three hours and then I woke up with like this, like I was measuring my pain like from zero to 10, and there were quite a few days. What was 10? Like it's. It's. It's like a pain you cannot. It's hard to express how, because it goes to through your nerves, right, it's like in the middle of your brain, like it runs from from your, your back or from my back.
Speaker 2:In that time into my brain was just like boom, this massive pain, like tooth pain, just coming from the, the, the, the, the. You cannot stop it. So I ended up like walking at two, two am in the morning, going outside like just for a hundred meters, 200 as long as, with like little crutches. I was like marnic walking sticks but I used them as crutches. I just don't want to look completely weird. And yeah, so, and after after time of just getting like two to three hours of sleep a night, it was like just devastating. So I I worked on my, my physiology and tried to there was not too much thing you can do with that pain and in the end I figured out a way to handle the pain, like after a lot of trial, like I did a lot of trial and errors, including my mom giving me as a little present, like and this was experimental, like it is an electroshock belt, like you put it around your back and it gives you electroshocks into your back and it should kind of prevent the pain.
Speaker 1:It's like what they give women in labor, is it yeah?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it was. So I tried quite a lot figured out for myself, but that's just my. My own experience Helped me to move through the painful nights with meditation actually. And it was a meditation well, it was so a mind opening because it was a guided meditation for that that moved me into my pain, like, rather than trying to ignore it, or something moved into the pain, came up with like the faces of pain and whatever, and this, this ritual of moving into the pain, really helped me to fall asleep again. So that was part one like my, my own insomnia over months. That went actually, and so and at some point I had a meditation and it just popped into my mind and I knew I have to move to sleep coaching. So that was kind of the long story. Short was, at the end I did a non-guided meditation, just a typical regular meditation after the pain was, everything was kind of working in my favor again and it just popped into my mind. I said, yeah, you need to do that.
Speaker 2:I did a little bit of research, saw like that it was an epidemic problem which I was not aware of till then, and I started to read one book after another like about sleep, sleep, sleep, and kind of combined it with the things that I know we need to have in place through my coaching practices to be able to implement the things.
Speaker 2:Because if you look at sleep tips, it's not. There's not a lack of sleep tips that you can Google, you can ask chat, gpt, you can ask a doctor, a coach whatever you will get like a bunch of sleep tips. It might be better for you, some might not as good, but, like, 80% of success is to have other things in place which are lacking and which doctors do not do typically don't have the time to do so which not all coaches do, which you're going to have a hard time to find on Google or how to do that because you're just going to get a sleep tip. So, and I kind of built that into the coaching structure, like figuring out what to do, but in particular, setting up a system that people will really be able to implement these things and knows they're working for them or not, so that was cool.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you about that a little bit later, without giving too much away, because we want people to go and check you out. Do your, do your program? So there's well, there's, there's so many layers, right? So I was just thinking, like, you mentioned insomnia and I know that your, that was your experience, right. Because of pain, you couldn't sleep, and you are working with people specifically with insomnia, is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right yeah.
Speaker 1:But generally, like for your everyday person. Even if they aren't experiencing insomnia, most people probably aren't getting enough sleep or enough good quality sleep, Would you? Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would. And I would also say it's like this the podcast you're hosting, this is a very like these are special things because people that listen to these podcasts are open to information, they want to get educated, listen to things, they think about things. Hopefully you you're listening to this right now Think about these things and no, and that's a good approach to take. I believe what you say is true Like most people do not really get enough sleep, and I also believe that that most people are not really open to change things because it's more important for them to watch Netflix or other things, do other things like and that's mostly true Like a lot of people that end up and that's kind of the hard part of my business too A lot of people, until they reach out to coach, like they went through a whole lot of things and a lot some of them, like are at the edge that they're not. That's going to be hard to help them.
Speaker 2:That's like I just had a chat recently, like went through everything, like literally sleep clinic, this, that you know that, and the question then is what you know? What do you expect me? Where? How can I help you? What do you believe how I can help you.
Speaker 2:So if you're listening to this and you're not that scale, you're, you know, just feeling that you might need a little bit more sleep, or that would help you to show up as that best version of yourself.
Speaker 2:And maybe just think about, you know, prioritizing your sleep, thinking about how you can do the other things you love in a way that it's not gonna harm your sleep and you don't have to give them up completely because you don't. There will be a way that you can figure out how to enjoy your life doing the things you do right now without harming your sleep. And number three, maybe just think about what's really important in your life, because a lot of the TV stuff you can't even like this morning I thought I knew yesterday like your podcast and the dean is called Life, health and the Universe. Right Yesterday I was completely whipped me out of my feet, I was just lying in bed, and so in the evening I watched some TV with my wife, and this morning I asked what did we watch yesterday, like just to you know, and it took us like a minute or something to realize what we watched or actually she was faster, but you know how important is what you watch and binge watch this series.
Speaker 2:How important is that really for your life? Like if it's even hard for you to remember, you don't even think about what it was yesterday because it's over now, right?
Speaker 1:So yeah, you kind of weigh up the yeah, you weigh up the benefit, right. Yeah, the disadvantage compared to the disadvantages compared to the advantages. And yeah, we, yeah, all right, so you work more with people within Somnia. And you've mentioned health. I know that insomnia is like a. It's pretty chronic, right, if you can't sleep. And I've had a friend who like actually I've got a client who I do personal training with at the moment and she is a chronic insomniac Like she will go to bed. She'll work sometimes, you know, till nine or 10 o'clock at night after her kids have gone to bed. Then she'll go to bed. She won't be able to get to sleep and it will sometimes be like four o'clock in the morning before she's even got to sleep, so she's tired. You know there's all these knock-on effects. It's been going on for so many years for a lot of people, like it has for her. They don't know any different and they're just like oh well, that's just the way it is, yeah where do we start with someone?
Speaker 1:something like that. And the second part of the question is like what are the detrimental long-term effects or effects in general on our health when we aren't getting enough sleep?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's start. You know, to pick up on your first question, number one, I would eliminate the word chronic, Like I just don't like it. It's like, it's like human-made.
Speaker 1:She might not have said that, I just said it make it sound more dramatic.
Speaker 2:No, I love that you said it because, nadine, that's what everybody says and that's probably what's you know. You're completely right with that. I just don't like the word because it indicates like oh, I'm cr-indubed and d-ubed, like it's, like it's chronic.
Speaker 1:Nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 2:It's chronic, yeah, and it's a very powerful word Like even with my back, they told me the pain would get chronic. Like, if that pain lasts for over three months, it's gonna be chronic because, like it burns into your brain. I never believed that. And it's not chronic, like it's gone. I had it for six months and it disappeared. So I think it's just a very good thing to start to say, okay, this is how I am, who I am right now, like acceptance, like this is what's going on, and then starting to get a picture of what's going on, and then working towards a goal, like saying, okay, I wanna improve this, not, you know, I'm chronic in Zandia, and you know tomorrow I'm gonna be like sleeping like Einstein 10 hours a day.
Speaker 2:That might not happen, but say, okay, I wish my sleep to be better than it is right now. And these are the one or two things I'm gonna try and see if it works and opening that, I think that's a very good approach to see progress. Not saying something's wrong with me. It's not Like you are as you are and there's a reason for that. You know things are happening as they are right now.
Speaker 2:You might not need as much sleep as others that can be two or two but you would feel that, like, if you feel exhausted the entire day in fatigue that's probably not the case Like and then you need to die, then, okay, what's the root cause of it Like? Is it my mind? Is it like something emotionally challenging going on? Do I feel stressed? What thoughts are popping up at nighttime? Is it pain? Is it like something to do with my physical condition? Not, you know, nurturing my body in the right way, like? There are a lot of aspects we could look into, but it all starts with accepting where we are and having a goal to improve.
Speaker 2:And believing that that can be the case. And that's super hard if we think we've got something chronically, because everybody chronic means you're doomed Like yeah, it's chronic, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that sometimes, like it can be a bit of a for someone like that who has had, who has experienced more poor sleep than good sleep. They might have some initial improvements when they do, you know, choose a couple of things like they might okay, I'm gonna turn off my computer earlier or I'm gonna do some meditation and they might get some good outcomes, but then they might also it might be like two steps forward, one step back, and it could be easy to fall back into that. That's who I am. Here I go again, kind of mentality. That's why they need a sleep coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is true. That helps because I'm gonna keep them accountable, for sure, and also, like I'm gonna show them. You know, typically you need to measure the things that you're doing, like because our brains trick us constantly, and it's even worse. What you just said is kind of a common thing too, like people have passed something and they have, you know, there's great experience. Oh my God, now I slept eight hours. I didn't do that for like a year. This is cool. And then they fall back because, like there's a false expectation that that will work like every single day from now on, just because I did a meditation once. That's just not how life works, right. So you need to stick to things and give them some time to work out, and that's sometimes even worse than if it doesn't work at all, because then now people get frustrated and devastated. I think they're stuck, and so, yeah, that's that. But you had a second part to your question, right, which was what's the long-term effect or the effect.
Speaker 1:the general is Even the short-term. Yeah, yeah, yeah, on our health specifically.
Speaker 2:So on our health? Like sleep is probably. No, is the like? Matthew Walker is a well-known sleep expert and the author of why we Sleep Like he calls, and this is I can't get tired to kind of rephrase him on this one Like sleep is not a pillar of health. Like we have eat, move, sleep right, the pillars of health. I would add briefs. So he says it's the foundation. It's the foundation upon which all other pillars stand, and it's true.
Speaker 2:Like, if you think about your eating, like if you don't sleep enough, your leptin and ghrelin levels are out of whack, which are the hormones that are appetite, right, if you're hungry or not, and it leads to our brains craving for sweets, like for sugary energy, yep, and for all that unhealthy stuff. So if you think about having a healthy nutrition, like, and not getting enough sleep, it's going to make it harder, it's possible, but it's going to make it harder because your body will crave for things that are just not good for you in the long term. If you look at, like melatonin, all of these hormones that move up and down, which is connected to serotonin, like, all of these things can have a severe impact on how we feel, right, we know that if we have one night of really bad sleep, our amygdala is lit up to 60% more and the amygdala in our brain is responsible for our fight or flight reactions. So if you think like you know your kid, if you're a parent, your kid says something to you and you're like, yeah, okay, now you know why. Like you're just not that quiet, tranquil mood.
Speaker 2:Or if you're a business professional and you're moving along with your team or your boss and you feel like somebody offended you and that might not have necessarily been the case. So a lot of things go on when it comes short term, when it comes to our health, that have an effect on us in our day to day living, besides of the things that all of us know. We're just not focused, we're not creative, our decisions are poor, the decisions we make, so anything we need to really show up strong is diminished and we're operating from a lower level. And that's like the short term effect. And long term, we know that. You know if you get five hours of sleep only, like if you're not one of these special people that have modified DEC2 gene and gets along with you.
Speaker 1:There's the people who, yeah, there's like what less than 1% of the population is something?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah yeah, so, and if you're not one of those, then you're probably gonna shorten your lifespan around 15%. Wow so, and that's just number two, like, oh yeah, like I'm not gonna live as long and it might happen to me or might not, but you know, you don't die because you've been so healthy before.
Speaker 1:So before, you die, there's a story to that right.
Speaker 2:I love that and it's just like, if you look at all of these factors, it's just not worth it. Like I think, enjoying sleep as you open up this colony, like to really feel sleep not as a waste of time but something that we really deserve to have a good rest maybe in our western culture not appreciated enough like dreams and the Indian culture and other cultures more appreciated, also the Native Americans, I think they have a lot with dreams and these dream captures and stuff like that. So I think dreaming, appreciating what's going on in our dreams, seeing that as a very essential source of inspiration of what's going on in our lives in the outside, but particularly in the inside too, that can help to make sleep more attractive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. What do you think, Nadine?
Speaker 2:What do you think about dreams? I have to ask you.
Speaker 1:I'm super Well, it's a bit of a twist If you want me to go esoteric or not.
Speaker 1:I had some weird dreams last week. Actually, it was like coming up to the full moon, so the light in the room was brighter from the moon. I had some weird dreams. What did I dream about? I dreamed about loose teeth and then I had a dream about I can't remember. It was some kind of animal. Anyway, I Googled it to see what the spiritual thing was. I can't remember what it was, but it didn't seem significant. I think that if you become aware of your dreams and you write them down afterwards, you can probably dissect it and become familiar with how it might relate to experiences or emotions. But from a more sort of scientific point of view, going back to Matthew Walker, he talks about how important REM sleep is, that dream sleep for our emotional processing and how we you know how, when you have a bad experience, over time, it doesn't seem so bad anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, he kind of says that REM sleep is part of that process and that people with PTSD often don't sleep and they think that part of the reason they have PTSD is, well, it's that kind of perpetuating thing where they don't dream so they don't get their REM sleep, which helps them to process the experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Makes complete sense to me. No, I know Matthew Walker. I think he even called it our built-in therapy system, and I think it's right. We all know that you have a hard day. Something really went wrong and you feel emotionally wrecked. Now you have a good, long night of sleep. You feel so much better. You cannot compare it to when you went to bed.
Speaker 2:So there's something going on with these dreams that is far more important for us than we might know or appreciate. Like most of us might not appreciate that in the way I think, like we process things and when I think about my dreams and I love the weird dreams, I always have weird dreams too, and sometimes I can make sense of it, sometimes not, but I think in the end it doesn't matter too much. But when I make sense of it it's like oh yeah, like I can take a picture I'm not a believer in Freud or whatever young where you said oh yeah, you get this animal and that's supposed to be this, and that. I think we all have very individual experiences and hooked up to like a line for me is something completely different than a line is for you. Yes, so we need to tap in. What's the feeling behind the pictures that I see and how can I relate that experience to what happened?
Speaker 2:I did have a couple of really aha moments from dreams where I said, oh yeah, that makes sense to me, and my belief now that there's no science behind that except of Matthew Walker backing that he thinks it's like important for our mental health, is that I believe, like very on the very deep, the deepest level in ourselves, like these informations get processed and get processed in a way that is good for us, and the information just gets sorted out where it belongs to, in a way that we will be able to survive and grow from this experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so if you don't, and so could you maybe talk us through sleep cycles, because different things happen at different points in our sleep, right? And so the REM sleep happens at certain stages. So we almost need to do, we almost need to get a certain amount of sleep in order to get that REM sleep.
Speaker 2:Is it over?
Speaker 1:the course of a period of time or this is quite interesting.
Speaker 2:So when we have a look at the sleep cycle, it's typically we say around about 90 minutes, round was one sleep cycle. Roundabout, that may be 120 minutes for you and 70 for me, whatever it is, or vice versa, but roundabout. And in one sleep cycle you get all sleep stages, like we typically have light sleep in the beginning, then it moves down, goes to deep sleep at some point and moves upwards to REM sleep, which is like in the higher edge of light sleep to. So we, we move downwards and upwards to one of these cycles per in one sleep cycle.
Speaker 2:In deep sleep, like, our brain waves get very, very slow 0.5 to four hertz like waves. Second, that's very slow. So in this deep sleep our brain seems to cleanse itself like there seems to be. The poison gets washed out and information gets transported to deeper areas of our brain to, so that that's kind of interesting. Also, human growth hormone gets pushed out into our bodies deep sleep. So it's a very, very important sleep stage when it comes to our physical health. Then we, when we move up and at some point we're going to arrive at REM sleep. Rem sleep our brain is very active, like it's it's brain waves, nearly as if we're awake, Our bodies kind of blocked, like there's. There's this little switch that just prevents us from living our dreams right. That's why we're lying in bed. The only muscles that work are the muscles of our eyes.
Speaker 2:That's why you can see the eyes move like crazy when somebody is dreaming and in, yeah, and that's like where we process all the information. So now, if we look at those cycles probably because deep sleep is just very, very important for our physical health In the first sleep cycles we experience more deep sleep.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Our body gets recreated. All of these things happen and in the latter sleep cycles we get more REM sleep, which also means like if we're not sleeping enough, we have body to certain degree will get, get what it needs to survive, at least on the basic level.
Speaker 2:But you know you might not just feeling good, that good Like. Ask yourself if you're one of those people which I was in the past like only sleeping five hours or six, if you can like when it works for you it didn't work every night but ask yourself how you feel afterwards. So that's like typically you get five sleep cycles in a night, like that how many hours?
Speaker 1:Eight hours, that's roughly eight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and typically for grown up, you want to get somewhere between seven and nine hours, and I would tend to rather say somewhere about eight hours, and that's hours of sleep, right, Not hours of you being bed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's just quickly touch on that because I have a well, so we can go down the little rabbit hole of different devices. I've got an auror ring, so my auror ring, for example, last night I think it said that I was in bed for nine hours and four minutes, but I only had eight hours sleep. It's a fair bit of movement, and I was kind of aware of that. I don't know what's going on with that at the moment, but I probably wouldn't necessarily say that I felt like I was awake for an hour. How would someone know if they're in bed if they didn't have an aura ring telling them that they weren't actually getting as much sleep as they thought they were?
Speaker 2:So, in regards to all of these gadgets and I cannot test them all like that.
Speaker 2:I know the aura ring does a really decent job and I actually was thinking of getting one too, but I'm using withings watch. I just love it because it has 30 days of battery life and that's the thing that comes really handy for me. But what is true for all of these is that in the end, they take educated guesses. Right, they don't write that on the packaging, but the only way to really measure sleep is if you measure the brainwaves, and they all don't do that. So they're taking educated guesses depending on your body movement, your heart rate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of these things Body temperature, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Body temperatures, oxygen saturation, whatever it is. And then they say, okay, I see these patterns and odds are that this person has had this amount of light sleep, this amount of deep sleep, rem sleep. So, and I think that's exactly how I would take these numbers, I would take them with the grain of salt, I would see them as a personal number for me, like if I feel good, like always ask yourself are you feeling good right now? Okay, that's check number one. And then I would just take the number as what it is and see if I'm moving towards a better number or a lower number for me. Like I wouldn't give too much about the, you know, is it nine hours or eight or whatever? But if they calculate a sleep score or if they have like, then I would check in on that and say, okay, like in that, no, on the aura.
Speaker 2:If I have a sleep score of I don't know 90, whatever it is, then you know, and I'm at 91 now, it was a great night. And if I'm moving towards 85, I could think, okay, what did you do yesterday? And I might find something like maybe I watched TV too long or I did something else, or I had a stressful day, whatever, but that's the approach that I would recommend to take also helps to not get caught up too much in the data, like some people get. Really. They go really too intense into the data and, nearly like if the watch tells them that they should feel bad, they're going to feel that that's not the way it should work, like you should observe the data.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, how do you actually feel? Yeah, yes, yeah, totally Cool. So, yeah, they're kind of handy. I like my, I do like my Warring, but it I didn't wear it for a few weeks, a few weeks ago, and it was kind of nice to just go. Yeah, you know what I feel? All right, and I don't need to necessarily look at the app. It becomes more of a habit to look at it when I first get up in the morning. But yeah, I was just curious about that. Being in bed for a certain amount of time doesn't necessarily mean that you're asleep for that time, because it always takes a couple of minutes until you fall asleep and it always takes a couple of minutes until you get up, yeah.
Speaker 1:Tell me okay. So here's the thing. Here's a question for you. When people say to you and I'm sure they do, well, you do insomnia, people with insomnia but people come to you for sleep, so there's going to be people that say, or people who talk to you in general, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits a pillow. Do you have people that say that too? What? Yeah, some people that's not, actually, we're not supposed to fall asleep as soon as our head hits a pillow, are we?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a lot of information around that too. Some people say if you're, it would say if you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, you're too exhausted and that should not happen. Like you should go to bed earlier, whatever. I think it's like I always take. If you look at all of the studies, Nadine, like I can find a study backing up literally anything I would say about sleep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just put in the right words into Google and you'll find exactly what you want to support your argument.
Speaker 2:And that's the matter of the fact. So the problem is how to handle this, and my approach is always to rather say okay, where are you standing right now, what's working good, what isn't, and figure out what really needs to be changed. Particularly, I would not tell somebody just because he or she falls asleep fast that that's a bad thing, yeah sure I wouldn't go that far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've got to kind of delve a little bit deeper and find out what's going on in all areas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if there's something that indicates that there should be a change before they go to bed, that might be a thing to tackle. But, like these, easy truths are mostly not as simple. Yeah sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's another one. I'm just going to throw a few questions at you. Alcohol and sleep.
Speaker 2:And not a good idea either. Like it's very intriguing for a lot of people, especially when they're stressed, like to have a glass of beer, wine, whatever it is alcohol to fall asleep faster which will work. But it's also and people would not argue with that it diminishes sleep quality. That's true for everybody, even for me. I enjoy my wine too, on particular Friday evenings or Saturdays, whatever, but it's not good for your sleep quality and it also messes up with our dream sleep. So it kind of prevents us to. That blocks the REM sleep to a certain degree. So it's not good.
Speaker 1:No, so you know, if you hear someone, I guess, who sort of says that they have experienced anxiety, just an example, and maybe you know they have a drink in the evening so they sleep, they don't experience their REM sleep Then they feel anxious the next day. Yeah that could be because they haven't had that part of their sleep, so like emotional process and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:That would be exactly one of these vicious cycles, right? Some take it to count on their stress or anxiety, but the result is the same it just messes up with your sleep, which will put you into a bad position the next day and just worsen the cycle. So you need to break through that and rather do meditation at night time, which will really help your anxiety, where it's kind of where the causes of the anxiety like really really tackle the root cause and it's going to make you feel better the next day. So you're kind of now you're starting on a higher position rather than from a lower.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay. So one of the things that you say I'm just doing like fast fire questions here One of the things that you say in your little blurb on Instagram the whole thing is that you help people overcome insomnia and you mentioned, like, prevent, like without taking sleeping pills. What happens when someone takes sleeping pills?
Speaker 2:Well, sleeping pills are. It's just a medication, like you have side effects and there's some funny side effects too, because they can mess up with your sleep, which is sheer, sheer crazy. But they just come with side effects. So, first off, you do not get the sleep quality that you would get from natural sleep. The second part is like, on average, you get like 20 to 30 minutes more sleep. Like you only get 20 to 30 on average. These are always average numbers, right, but 20 to 30 minutes more sleep, your sleep quality dropping. So why are you taking them?
Speaker 2:Why not just get along with less sleep and have good sleep Because in the end you're probably going to be at the same level of how you're feeling the next day and the side effects are just like. They're just massive. You could take them over time. So why would you do that if they don't really help you? I will say there are cases where it's necessary to take them, but a lot of cases doctors just prescribe them because they're not educated around sleep.
Speaker 2:It's a very simple way to get some To the next patient. Yeah, right, to help somebody quickly and move to the next patient. So it's just a thing to consider. Like if you have severe insomnia, there might be a good case to take them for a certain period of time. If you have a doctor or psychiatrist that prescribes them to you and you kind of have a plan, Sure how this will work. But most people don't have a plan. Like they get a prescription and then the doctor doesn't want to prescribe them again. Or some doctors just prescribe them over and over, Like there's no plan. It's just like okay, here's the medication. And that's a thing where I want people to know you should try other things before you think that you're doomed to take sleeping pills. And if you take them, you should at least be sure that you feel better when you take them, and that means like measuring what you're doing and what effect it's having on your sleep, your work and your well-being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're getting close to the end of our hour and I it's past my bedtime.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to set a good example here. What are some of the? If you had a new client that came to you I'm not sure how you work, whether you do more group programs now or whether you do one-on-one, but do you have like a bunch of questions that you ask someone like do they like, would you say how much sleep are you getting? How do you feel when you wake up? How do they? What are some of the things that you would get them to measure? Or what are some of the questions that you would ask that might, for our listeners here today, go that like they could answer those now and kind of get a sense of some of the things that they need to be keep they could keep an eye on.
Speaker 2:But typically, when you know I have a conversation a little like these kick-off conversations to get to know somebody, it's always like, first off, a couple of very basic questions how much sleep are you Since? When are you experiencing sleep problems? Number one, like how long is this going on in your life? Was there an event that kicked it off? Like can you remember something? When do you go to bed? When do you get up? Do you have sleep interruptions?
Speaker 2:These kind of questions just setting the, laying out the thing how it is in their lives, and then I just let them share their personal story with me, like, because I don't know what's going on in your life. Right, you have to share that with me so that I can understand. Ok, where are you coming from? That will give me a good feeling in the very first session. Like, ok, is this a critical part that you know this head is hitting the pillow and falling asleep right away, or is it not? Like, is there something else we need to check in on? And after that is done, like I typically walk them through the sleep map I've got these nine step process where we just, you know, check in on where you're standing. Number one what's your sleep goal Like what do you want your sleep to look like? It's very like. It's not enough to say I want to have a good sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to have a good sleep.
Speaker 1:What does that mean?
Speaker 2:What does it mean for you? Like, OK, is that a few sleep interruptions less? Is that sleeping a little bit longer? Is that feeling better the next day? Well, what? And that's kind of when people first start to think about, OK, what does it, what will change in my life? That's what I want them to change, to think about, to get to that state and feeling, and then we just move through the process and build these things like over time, Like, but the very first thing that they should all do is measure. Like, this is a little scorecard, right? Yeah, you know, I hand over to people and they can, by the way, download this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you. You said that. We're going to put that in the notes. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And this is like the little scorecard here. This is super helpful. It's the sleep scorecard. You can measure what's going on and get a picture of what's really going on in your life. So it starts with a couple of informations around your sleep, but also, like we're tracking, like how we're feeling. All was from one to 10, very, very simple approach from one to 10, how was your sleep quality? One low is 10 highs. How's your well-being? How's your productivity? These are the three numbers. We want to check in on these daily and see how, how do they relate to each other? Right, and how are they changing Once I do start to do stuff, once I start to change things.
Speaker 2:So we've got all on one card, super handy, and after a week, on the back flip side, like you can do a reflection on that, like a weekly reflection. Very helpful to really have a look at one week's worth of data and say, yeah, okay, I did that, it helped, or or it didn't help. But now you know that it didn't help, like you can try something else, rather than just testing something once or twice and then giving it up without even, you know, giving it some time to work out. So so, yeah, that's like when it comes to the questions. It's like basic questions as just shared, and listening to the individual story which you know, your listeners, you listening to this you can.
Speaker 2:You can kind of share your story to your invisible body, share it to yourself in front of the mirror, but that will do the job. Just talking to somebody else will give you a different perspective and a different insight to what's going on and from there on, start to measure what's happening and you can use the scorecard. You can do it on a sheet of paper on your own, like it's very simple, but measure what you're doing and the scorecard is just the best, best way I figured out to do things. I use these cards on my own, like I really, I really love this approach. But you know, you can do it on a sheet of paper and just take a sheet of paper and a pen, but don't think you could do it in your mind. You can't. They have to write it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cool, great. If there were three to five things that you like just off the top of your head that you would say are really great things to do, like not drink alcohol, for example. To do or not to do to help improve sleep quality, what would they be? What are some of the standout things that you recommend?
Speaker 2:Okay, nadine, I'm going to start with not drinking alcohol, because it's the hardest one for me, and I'm going to drink a wine every now and again too, but alcohol is definitely not good for sleep quality. So if you're seriously having issues with your sleep quality, kicking that out of your life will probably be a good thing, or for sure.
Speaker 1:I kicked it out.
Speaker 2:I like it, I like it.
Speaker 1:Nearly two years ago I stopped drinking.
Speaker 2:Well, can you relate to this? And leaving alcohol away is just better for your sleep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely 100% yeah.
Speaker 2:A number two sleep schedule. Stick to a regular sleep schedule. Try to keep that fixed, like if it moves up a couple of minutes or so. Our bodies are very flexible when it comes to that. You know, if you go to bed at 10 pm one night, 12 the other, 2 am, that's not going to work and also nature doesn't know weekends. So stick to that regular sleep schedule over seven days a week. Sunlight very powerful. It's the driving force of life. So get morning, get your body exposed to sunlight. In the evening, try to get into a dimmed environment, cut out bright light, try to avoid that. Yeah, those are. I think if you stick to those three things, you've already done a lot of things right. And if you do a little meditation before you go to bed, or reflection, exercise, journaling, whatever relates most to you, I think that's going to be a very helpful process for sleep and your life in total.
Speaker 1:Brilliant and so easy. That's what I love about it, is that? Okay? So most of us aren't getting enough and there are those knock-on effects, whether it's like how we feel on a daily basis, and then those longer-term effects of the health consequences of not having enough sleep.
Speaker 1:But simple practices don't require anything apart from us being aware of them, like always going to bed around the same time and waking up around the same time, getting daily sunlight in the mornings, not having too much bright light at night. They're all things that we can do, and the thing that I love, especially when it comes to sleep, is you do that for one night and you feel the difference. Right, Our bodies are like, yeah, very grateful to us when we do those things and yeah, so, yes, there are knock-on effects if we don't get good sleep over a period of time. But when we start doing those simple practices consistently, regularly, our body's going to thank us and those things are just going to make us feel better and better the better it gets, the better it gets, the better it gets the better it gets exactly.
Speaker 2:And that's just how it works. That's true and luckily, like God or? I don't know if you believe in God or not, but the universe whatever.
Speaker 1:The universe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the universe didn't say you need to pay or do something complicated to sleep. It demands it from us. So we just need to follow the basic rhythm again, and that can be a little bit tricky, but in the end the simple things work. Simple things work. And a coach and a coach? Yeah, sure, because simple things work easier if you have somebody that guides you through and is there on your bad days.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and someone just to talk it through with and someone who might pick up on things that you may not have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got a bunch of like. I think, nadine, the big advantage of having a coach beside of you know, setting up all of the habitual things to create habits and having, like a clear goal in these things and setting that up in a consistent way, is that I have a bunch of ideas, a bunch of ideas how we can implement the things that relate to you, like okay, well, you know what is it like? Calming down in the evening before you go to bed? Which meditation might be a good fit for you, or is it something else, like that's going to be much easier for me to do with you together than if you, you know it's trying to muddle through on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're going to share all of your details in the notes, and you clearly know all of the things about sleep, and so, for anyone who is interested in finding out more about sleep, you've definitely got a whole bunch of great information on your Instagram page. Is that what we call it? Page feed? I think so. You've also got a podcast, so we can share that in the show notes, and we're going to share that scorecard as well. I just saw your email come through just before we spoke, so if there's anything else, I'm apologizing. Now you can tell us.
Speaker 2:No, no need to apologize. It was me replying really, really late to your email. So just to state that very clear here for your listeners. Nadine sent me that email weeks ago. That's okay. I was looking for the zoom link in advance of this session. I had it in my calendar, but I didn't have the zoom link in the calendar. So I went to my mail thing and looked for it. I thought, oh my God, you didn't reply to the email, that's okay.
Speaker 2:So that's just for your listeners to know Nadine was more than on time. It was me like lacking.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us, michael. It's been so good to catch up with you. I'm really it's yeah, I'm super grateful for you taking the time to be here with us, figuring out time zones and all of the things and, yeah, just a great chance for us to catch up as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks so much again, nadine, for having me here and yeah, have a good night of sleep tonight. Oh, dry.
Speaker 1:Thanks, michael.