"Why Am I Always So Tired?" We Know. Here's Why.

The Science Behind Bad Sleep — & What You Can Actually Do About It

Let's say it: you are not imagining how tired you are, and "just go to bed earlier" was never going to fix it.

In this episode, Jillian sits down with Dr. Marguerite Weston, Courtney Gilbert, PA-C, and Colleen Bush, RDN, to pull apart why so many of us are running on empty. Cortisol spikes waking you up at 3 a.m. Gut imbalances quietly wrecking sleep quality. Hormones shifting everything from fertility to perimenopause. 

There's a root cause, and they're going to find it!

This episode is for anyone who has been told their sleep is "fine" while feeling anything but.

Everything We're Covering:

• Why 45% of adults are sleeping less than six hours a night
• The real reason you keep waking up at 3 a.m. (hint — it's not your bladder)
• How gut bacteria imbalance shows up as poor sleep, even without GI symptoms
• The cortisol-melatonin relationship and what a DUTCH Hormone Testing panel can reveal
• Why "you can't out-supplement bad sleep"
• One week of bad sleep equals about one extra pound — & they show the math!
• REM sleep, deep sleep and why timing matters as much as total hours
• Do women actually need more sleep than men, or just better sleep
• What's really happening to sleep during perimenopause and menopause
• Melatonin: the dose most people are taking wrong
• Magnesium, L-theanine and what's worth trying
• Cognitive behavioral therapy and why it beats sleep medication in the research
• The five-hour mark your brain needs to start clearing waste overnight
• The vital importance of early morning light exposure

"Melatonin is not meant to knock you out, as many people think it is. It's actually just supposed to be an indicator to your body — 'hey, it's getting close to sleep.'"
— Dr. Marguerite Weston, MD, IFMCP, Functional Medicine Director

Meet Your Experts:

• Dr. Marguerite Weston, MD, IFMCP — Functional Medicine Director, dual board-certified in Family and Sports Medicine, bringing root-cause clarity to a topic most people have only gotten surface-level advice on.
• Courtney Gilbert, PA-C — Hormone health and fertility specialist who connects the dots between cortisol, melatonin and the overnight wake-ups so many women have just learned to live with.
• Colleen Bush, RDN, LDN, IFNCP — Functional dietitian who makes the case that gut health and sleep quality are far more connected than most people realize.
• Jillian Birkle — Host of Asking For a Friend, bringing the questions patients are already thinking but haven't had the chance to ask out loud.

Transcript

Intro + Why So Many Adults Aren't Sleeping Enough

SPEAKER_00 0:00

45% of US adults uh sleep less than six hours per night. That is awesome. Even if you don't necessarily have issues with ball movement or bloating, it's still such a root cause for other things. And then if we look at cardiovascular health, the work of your heart, but night we want melatonin to go up to help us sleep, we want flexible to go down. But if we're having quartz cells nights through the night, I wake up and go, I'm gonna wait. I have my sleep report from last night. When you get like over that seven, you're like feeling like letless or like lazy or something. Do you guys take any supplements to help you sleep? Oh yes, magnificent, I sure do. And that is the best. Higher than any medication in every single study. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. There is a light. Welcome to Asking for a Friend. I'm Jillian, and this show exists because too many women are sitting in doctors' offices being told they're fine when they're very much not. Every episode, we unquirk the cabernet and get into it. Hormones, digestion, confidence, bodies, all of it. The team at Donaldson created this space so women could finally have the conversation they've been asking their friends about for years. My yogurt with basil seeds is in the car. I had a yogurt with chia pepper. I've wrapped my yogurt seats in there. I know. And you're fine with like basil seeds, and then you said something like that. I got a Costco bag because I had basil seeds in my cart. Yeah. And I have a Costco bag size of chia seeds. So I need to get through and then I will make the transition. But like my chia seeds is massive. I know it's smells like something on fire. It does smell it on fire. I don't smell anything on fire. I unplugged the plastic burning. Wait, I'm gonna stand on the burning smell. It's not my curling iron, it's unplugged. When I was training with Dr. Weston, I know what you're she would have the her little heater on to meet all the time while you were in the access. And I was like your body.

Why Sleep Problems Are So Common Now

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Like it's just like so new that I was like, no, it's I love the heat. I was like, turn it up. You're so much nice. I said that's definitely what it was. It looks stupid if I sit like this. Like no, you can't look stupid. You're too pretty. No, Jenny, you you really are. And you can sit wherever you want. You're not sure. So you're being subconscious. And you have a cool purse. Just be confident. Thank you. I'm so hard to do everyone. You be you. So, how did everyone sleep last night? I think great. Probably great from what I can see. So good. Are we feeling rested? I feel great. How are you feeling with the weighted air pressure? Oh, yeah. She talks to me and sometimes she can sing to you. There's a music one. She does heat. And she says goodbye. That is intense. It's amazing. On that note, um, today I wanted to talk to you guys about something that we all do, some of us better than others, and that is sleep. Uh, me personally, I can sleep well, but it's never consistently.

Genetics vs Lifestyle: Why Some People Struggle With Sleep

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Um, and I know that's also the case for a lot of people. And another thing about my sleep that I know is I do consistently wake up at 3 a.m. every single night. And then there's people like my dad who doesn't sleep at all, and it's something I have heard my whole life. He's just complaining about it. It's hard. I mean, if he ever watches this, he'll probably get mad at me for pitching about it. But he bitches about it. So then I think about how does he or anyone else who doesn't sleep, like how do they go about their daily life and functioning? It does make me wonder are sleep problems or anyone who experiences that, is it completely lifestyle-based, or could there be some sort of genetic tie that I have to worry about because I worry about everything? And now that has been added to my list of worries. There's not a genetic link that I know of. Do you? No, I mean, I'm sure maybe like a chrome type or like how you metabolize your caffeine or something. That's I think a lot of it is lifestyle. So I've tried telling him that. So if you're listening, good luck. Yeah, please

Dreams, Brain Activity & What Happens When We Sleep

SPEAKER_00 4:10

lower the stress in your life. And also another question that I have that I always think about where do we go when we sleep? What happens with our brains when we dream? Like, do we know where we go? Do you guys know from like a scientific standpoint?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

I do not.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Well, this is what we're doing in your stomach. I was about to talk about like astral projection. I was like, whoa. I have that listed. Please elaborate. An astral projection. Um that's not a skill I possess. But do you even know what that means? But it looks like you know something about it. So you'd be curious about this too. Yeah, no, I'm not sure. I'm not you don't astral project. Like an astral plan. It's like another dimension. Yeah, like you could like there are talks of some people leaving their body during sleep and going wherever. And I've never experienced it, but there are people that like talk about training for that. Nothing that I've done, but so I was wondering like if that was legit or if I've never read like a scientific paper about it. So that's not in PubMed search. No.

unknown 5:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

We know, actually, we don't know where our minds go, but in terms of our bodies, I did pull a quick stat. 45% of US adults uh sleep less than six hours per night. That is awful. It's horrible from the body's standpoint. What like consequences do we face from that? Let me take the gut and then Yeah. Okay. So I feel like when your sleep is not great, there's a couple things that are going on. So when we like do a GI map at our practice, um, we're looking at bacteria. And so when I see good and bad bacteria

Why Sleep Is the Foundation of Health

SPEAKER_00 5:50

kind of high and low, that's a direct correlation with poor sleep. So a dysbiosis, so just an imbalance of bacteria. If you're not having good quality sleep, we'll often see an imbalance of bacteria. Um, gut lining could get messed up. You're not digesting foods as well. And then so we have a lot of these gut symptoms. Your gut produces neurotransmitters. So then we're kind of thinking, okay, we have low melatonin, we have low, we're in this like hamster wheel where our neurotransmitters are being low. I feel like poor sleep, it's just it's kind of like this cascade of other things kind of gut related. And then as far as we can go through every body system, so metabolic health, everything. It is, it does impact everything. So metabolic health, and when I say metabolic health, I mean like on the diabetes continuum, which affects more than just sugar. It affects our cancer risk, it affects our risk of dementia, it affects our weight. But we know through mostly through studies with like um with people who have uh shift work, like nighttime worker, shift work shift work, like they work through the night. We know that they consistently have poor metabolic health, so they have higher risk of diabetes, um, they have higher leptin, which is a hormone that comes from our fat cells and tells us when our when we are full. And so they usually have higher inflammation, higher weight. And they can eat the same number of calories as people who don't have shift work. But so those things, and then if we look at cardiovascular health, I mean, it increases your your sympathetic tone. So it increases resting heart rate, it it increases the work of your heart. Um, you have higher risk of heart failure, you have higher risk of dementia. I mean, when I first started really reading about the sleep, I'm like, it's so my God, and then you go to you like lay down and then you're like that's probably my dad. You're like, oh my gosh, it affects it affects your immune system. So I mean, if you sleep, like less sleep equates to less natural killer cells, which are important for cancer prevention. So there's actually a link between, and so there's been talk of being a carcinogen, like shift work being a carcinogen. Well, first earlier mortality for shift record. Yes, from who from the World Health Organization. Yeah. I mean, I talk to my patients about sleep being the foundation of your health. If sleep is not where it needs to be, that's the starting point. We have to work as

"You Can't Out Supplement Bad Sleep"

SPEAKER_00 8:14

on sleep first. It's funny because patients will come in and they'll say, Oh, I'm so tired. I'm so tired. And I'm like, listen, if we can't, I can't out-supplement a bad night's sleep. No. So I'm not gonna try to give you supplements until we actually get sleep. Now, sometimes we use them to try to help sleep, but there's nothing else you can do. You have to sleep. You can't get around it. It sounds like a lot of your patients do come to you with that complaint that they don't sleep well. Why do we think that is? Is that just like modern life and daily stressors?

Gut Health, Cortisol & Why You Wake Up at 3 AM

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Or well, it could be gut imbalance. Like gut imbalance, like your neurotransmitters aren't producing so many. And I feel like everyone's gut is actually not correct. So I feel like that's kind of a place where we check so many people's guts. Yeah, just because even if you don't necessarily have issues with ball movements or bloating, it's still such a root cause for other things. And I mean, cortisol. I mean, sometimes cortisol will elevate through the night, and then you wake up, you're like, I'm always waking up between like one and three a.m. Is that why I wake up at 3 a.m.? Time it might work. Yeah, cortisol. I mean, we do a Dutch test uh, you know, in our practice, and it stands for dried urine test for comprehensive hormones. And we're able to see like what's happening to your cortisol like through the in the morning and and through the day and in the night. And we want to see a nice rise in the morning. We want to come come down and then be nice and low at nighttime so we can sleep. And it's actually inversely related to melatonin. So at night we want melatonin to go up to help us sleep. We want cortisol to go down. But if we're having cortisol spikes through the night, we're gonna wake up and be like, why am I awake? Should I go to the bathroom? What should I do? Why am I awake? Well, it's interesting because that's the first thing that happens when I wake up at 3 a.m. or my bladder is like, let's go, baby. Oh, and if you want to learn more about what we just discussed, we've written a blog on pretty much every topic under the sun. You can find it at DonaldsonHealth.com. Okay, because it's a little what comes first, the chicken or the egg, because people it it's people assume that it's the fact that they have to go to the bathroom that wakes them up, but it's actually that they're awake and so then you realize you have to go to the bathroom. Because if you sleep under the night, you don't have to go. There are no bathroom. There's no bathroom there, so yeah. But the beauty of the Dutch when we do salivary testing is if you wake up in the middle of the night, we can at least check our cortisol. And so, and sometimes it's did I wake up and that increase my cortisol or did my cortisol wake me? But either way, it's a different type of treatment if it's high cortisol. So we just have a little bit different approach. Not only cortisol, but also because a lot of our patients are snackingopausal. Oh, yeah, that too. I think you're saying snacking at a snack. Sticking a myself. So if you have cortisol, but also low estrogen can cause if you're having hot flashes, that'll wake you up. Low progesterone progesterone, that'll wake you up. So there's a lot of things that can wake you. And so a good history can help, and then some testing. Yeah. So could be a multitude of things to waking you up. Thank you, Dr. Weston. Noted.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

It could be a lot of issues.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

You know that, trust me. Why do you think I haven't come to you guys yet for like a testing? Like, I already know we're fine,

Sleep as Recovery — Digestion, Immunity & Memory

SPEAKER_00 11:16

everything's fine. So, on that note, obviously sleep is very important for our mind and body, but focusing again on our body specifically, is it safe to say that sleep is almost like a recovery time for our body? And if so, like what are the specific most important points that like our body recovers during that time? There's so many things. There's just so many digestion. I'm gonna pop it again. Yeah, I feel like it's important. Yeah. So I feel like with digestion, we do want our digestive system to rest during nighttime. So we'll typically recommend about stopping to eat about three hours before going to bed. Reasoning again, you want to be done digesting foods when you do go to bed. I was thinking about also like just a part of the letting your digestive system rest. Usually I'll talk to my patients about like fasting maybe 12 hours overnight, letting everything rest and kind of heal overnight. I feel like that goes in the circadian rhythm, which I'm sure we'll talk about at some point too. But like circadian rhythm and sleep, I feel like it's your body's internal clock, right? And what are the two things that affect that? It's timing of eating and timing of light. So I feel like again, going into that digestion piece. So I feel like really trying to stop. Usually I feel like we recommend like after dinner, you know. I feel like that'll get your good 12 hours of fasting, but also give yourself time to digest your foods and then get a good quality sleep. And your sugar to come down. Sugar too, yeah. Blood sugar. How this is like a recovery. So as far as recovery um immune system health, which we touched on, so that is when your immune cells are best growing, is during the night. And then also um like cellular repair, I wanted to get into it's also learning in memory. So best to have a good night's sleep before learning, but also after learning. So if you have like three hours of lecture, say, like say you're a college student, you have all this lecture, your best bet is to get a good night's sleep right after, because then your body actually moves those thoughts and those like memories of learning into long-term memory. Oh, that's helpful to me. Super important for a learning component. I mean, what we all would have listened so well.

What Happens When Sleep Quality Drops?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

So well. Yeah. What are the consequences for our bodies when our sleep quality drops? So, consequences of our body. We'll talk like physical for me. So I'm sports medicine by trade. So risk of injury higher. Uh, risk of not learning, higher, kind of starting with the younger people. That tracks. So, like, yeah, it tracks, and we make our kids get in asleep. My kids are home from sports so late. They have to get up early. So early. I hate it. And then they have to get extra early because they have to put all their products on their face. It's literally, I feel like it's so go, go, go right now. I hate it so much. I know. And sleep is so important. It's so important, especially for kids. Yeah, little kids. It's in teenagers. They need more. They need more. I sing the I don't know, tweens. And probably girls too when they're getting their periods and stuff for the first time. They need more than please tell them what they need. I miss the I'm missing it. I'm happy I have two little boys.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I probably needed like an exorcism when I was going through it. It's something. I think it's still something. I will say it's much better once they do get their period. Okay. Well, I'm waiting. So much better. It was awful. And then she got it. And I'm like, it's like I'm on eggshells. I'm like terrified. It's better when she just gets it. Just get the period. I know. I know, yeah. No, I'm like, I don't want to wake you upset. No, just get it. I'm like, move your shoes. And she's like, like, what? Okay, sorry, we digress. Okay. Others, but other things that happen when you don't have sleep, you have uh poor, actually poor regulation of decision making, as well as calorie intake. So a poor night of sleep, on average, you

Sleep, Cravings, Weight Gain & Late-Night Eating

SPEAKER_00 15:10

intake 300 to 550 more calories per day. I believe it. I believe that too. And they're not like you're not picking salads and protein ladies. You're like hungry on those. Yeah, yeah. That's a lot of calories. So if you equate that, like do a whole week of bad sleep, and that's a pound. Yeah. It makes a difference. So again, I hope my father does not watch this, but he literally, so he'll fall asleep for maybe like an hour, and then he wakes up. And the first thing he does is go to the kitchen and like make a thing of toast with peanut butter on it. Yeah. At like not great times of night. Oh no. Oh shoot. And then the blood sugar runs. Oh shoot. You wake up and you know what? Maybe I hope he watches something. But yeah, I'm that just made me think of that because I'm like, that's literally

Sleep, Fertility, Hormones & Reproductive Health

SPEAKER_00 16:02

nightly routine. Yes. So that cardiovascular health goes down, immune system goes down, reproductive health goes down. There was a study, I'm gonna get the stats wrong, but there was a study on men, and I wanna say it was less than six hours sleep. And they had no, it was five hours sleep. They had smaller testicles than the men who had seven hours of sleep. I mean, if that doesn't speak to men, for sure, yeah. They're like, Yeah, but the same thing. What's the happy women? We just our eggs are on the inside, so we don't really know. Exactly. Well, egg quality, it's important. Sleep is important. I talk about it with all my fertility patients. I was about to say, like, from a sexual wellness reproductive standpoint, that's probably pretty important to emphasize to your patients. Yeah, again, baseline of health. You have to sleep. Are your patients surprised to hear that?

Why We Normalize Being Tired

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Like when you I think people know, like people know you have to sleep, but I think it just doesn't when you do have like a clinician or provider telling you, like, no, you have to like you have to prioritize it. Maybe that means you don't get up for like 5 a.m. workout class. Maybe you change the time. I think that's shocking for some patients when you say that. And again, sometimes yeah, they're like, I'm doing the right things. I'm getting up, I'm working out. And it's like, well, yes, I you have to move your body, you have to work out. That's also really important, but you have to sleep. You have to sleep, change the time, you have to make it work for your body. That doesn't mean do like a hit class at 8 p.m. Because that's gonna affect your sleep too. It's so hard. Yeah, I do think that it's interesting though, because I think people know that sleep is important, but I feel like the seven to nine hours, like I feel like that, and they're like, wow, like that much sleep I need. Like, I hear that a lot. Yeah. They're like, yeah, I get great night's sleep. I get about like six hours always. I'm like, yeah, six is always six. And I'm like, and even like at home, like I've been like working really hard and getting trying to get eight. My husband's like, oh my god, you sleep so much. I'm like, actually, this is very normal.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

I'm like, Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

I'm like, this is this is what you should be doing. Yeah, I feel like it's almost like when you get like over that seven, you're like feeling like gluttonous or like lazy or something, but it's really immediate. That's societal. It's it's crazy, it's the

Can You Get Too Much Sleep?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

go, go, go. It's the yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know if any of you have experienced this, but I've noticed if I get too much sleep, like for example, if say I went out the night before and then I sleep too much the next day, and maybe now that I'm talking out loud, like it's probably because of going out that makes me feel deep and tired the next day. I didn't go out the night before, but I just had like a really, really good night's sleep where I got over eight hours and then I feel really tired the next day. Like, what what is that? Why does that happen? I wouldn't know. It hasn't happened to me since I've had no guys for gonna say this because yes. But there's no like scientific thing there is a scientific reason, but it is over, I think it's over 11 hours. Yeah, I was gonna say it's like a hyperspecific. I think it's 11 hours. Eight hours is having beyond the eleven. I think for some reason, like that's the that's the think of it that sticks in my head that you can be more groggy. And some of it depends on when you wake up. Um, so you can have like a a grogginess that happens if you wake up during a deep sleep, and it usually takes about 30

REM Sleep, Deep Sleep & Understanding Sleep Stages

SPEAKER_00 19:10

minutes to get out of it. So well, that's actually a beautiful segue into what I wanted to get into next, which is talking about the architecture of sleep and the various sleep stages, the different definitions of sleep, whether it be REM sleep, deep sleep, all the things. Um, can you guys just talk a bit about like give me an example, a definition of like what all of that means? In general, our body has sleep cycles that we go through, and they are on average 90 minutes. And so within those 90 minutes throughout the night, it's either non-REM sleep or REM sleep. So REM or non-REM sleep, and they're kind of like fighting for those 90 minutes. So at the beginning of the night, non-REM sleep is winning, and then in the later, like early morning, late night, REM or REM sleep is winning. So REM stands for rapid eye movement. So if you watch someone sleep, you can actually see their eyes moving underneath their eyelid. Non-REM sleep is then further um divvied up into four stages. So you have stage one through four, one and two are later sleep, and then three and four are deeper sleep. So deep sleep is super important, and red asleep are super important. So those are the things that we talk about a lot, like as far as sleep percentages. And a lot of people now are wearing wearables, so you can have like an aura ring or a whoop or whatever. We can say whatever we want because no one sponsors us, but if they want to, we would give them to our patients and we could track their sleep. But in general, so helpful. It is so helpful, it is really helpful and also like annoying. It is, yeah. But it's annoying. Everybody also thinks that they sleep great. Honestly, some people think they sleep better, and some people think they sleep worse because some people are like, if I only slept 20 minutes, I'm like, nah, I can call BS. Like, I don't think that that's true. Um, but you usually we think we sleep more than we do. Like, I'm like, oh my god, I got great sleep, and it's like 7.05. And I'm like, like last night I was like, like a I was like, oh my gosh, I slept great. I was in the 90s, like on my restore my sleep readiness. It was like 6.58, and I'm like, okay, that's just during the week. That's like yes, it's hard. Yeah. So um, anyway, so you have your deep in your REM. So ideally, you like it like 25%, 25% of each of those. So usually that equates to like 90 to 180 minutes of each. So if you're a wearable device person, those are your goals. It's hard to, when people are like, well, how can I increase this like stage of sleep? And it's it's hard. But in general, your REM sleep happens later. So if you're cutting that time short, you're gonna have less REM. I think it's also important too, like the total number of hours that you sleep, obviously that's important. We just said that's important, but the timing that you go to sleep is also important. Because you're going to miss some of that restorative sleep. So going to bed at 1 a.m. and getting seven hours at that point is different than going to bed at 10 p.m. and getting that same number of hours of sleep. You're going to have more restorative hours of sleep if you go to bed at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. Yeah. I mean, midnight is named that because it should be the middle of your night. Right. I mean, and we should be with the sun. Yeah. So I mean, that's what

Timing vs Total Hours — Does Bedtime Matter?

SPEAKER_00 22:25

I mean, daylight savings time is awful. It's on SRS. Talking about wearables and the data that say an aura ring, hashtag not sponsored, will that be hashtag. Would love to be sponsored. Um, I have my sleep report from last night pulled up, and I'm just curious because actually I'm looking at this, it always tells me every single night that my restfulness says pay attention. Like, for example, like what does that mean? Does that mean I'm not getting restful sleep, or

Oura Rings, Wearables & Tracking Sleep Data

SPEAKER_00 22:55

do we like no? I don't know what it uses for restfulness for over. Okay, I love that you're just let me give the restfulness tracks your wake-up, excessive movement, and getting up from your bed during sleep. My 3 a.m. You get up every single night.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Every single reason at your age.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Don't get up and pee. Okay, no, no, no, no. No one has a small blood. No, try it. Well, some people do. I have a very rare. I have like another story for that that my mom could back me up on. I'm gonna have to tell it now because it's actually really funny. You should eat bladder training. Probably. But in elementary school, I shit you not. My teacher called my mom because she's like, Jillian's trying to get out of class. She keeps saying that she has to go to the bathroom. And like they thought I was lying, but like I actually had to go pee. And my mom was like, No, you have to let her go to the bathroom. Like, she actually has to pee. I don't I don't know. This is the thing, my whole life.

unknown 23:48

Really?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

So yeah, and and every time I get up at three, I'm 30 years old. Like it's true. Try if you're like still happens. If you're kind of like, I do drink green stuff before bed. Stop. Wait, stop doing that. Two hours before bed. I'm thirsty. Get some biodiversity. Drink earlier. Yeah. I feel like I used to do like a sleepy time tea, but I had to pee. So I get in really weird dreams. You feel that I'm like, oh my goodness. No, way down. Welcome to my world. It's like it's never a bit kind of squished up, then you're squishing your butter. Try laying down flat. Like for a few minutes, lay down flat. You're like you're training your body to wake up. You have to lay the baby. So I do have to train your body. I can be training. I need to wake up at three in the morning, have to pee, and I tell myself, no, and then go back to the back. But then can't you get like a UTI from that?

unknown 24:36

No.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

You're not really holding it too much. No. So seriously, my trying to be funny of genuine. Hold your pee too. Mommy will get a UTI. No, I feel like you like where your pee is and you're gonna get it. But you're a young incapable of holding her pee that long to give yourself an infection. But you don't have to at that point. It's literally sterile. You can hold it as long as you want until you get each other. It's just sterile. It's a sterile area. Yeah, you will not. I dare you to try. So, anyways, going

How to Fall Asleep Faster

SPEAKER_00 25:20

back to the data areas. What a dare, what a dare. Sleep reports will show us total sleep, efficiency, REM sleep, deep sleep. What about latency? Like the time that it takes to fall asleep. Yeah. Do you guys have any tips that will help people get to sleep quicker, faster? I love doing something that Dr. Weston does not like. Meditation before sleep. Has been doing this really. I I love it. I love taking like 10 minutes during my nighttime routine, meditate. It brings down cortisol. 10 minutes of meditation. I love it. I love every bit of it. So then when you have your people who don't like meditation, I hate it. Dr. Weston hates it. So you say, don't do it. It's been a good thing. I know it hurts. It's like, yeah. I do three minutes of box breathing. So I feel like that's what I do in bed because I'm like, I'm, I try to meditate. Yes. Not my thing. But then that's where you kind of like, it's very personalized. Like so you talk to your patient. Yeah. Like, what do they like, what do they not like, what works for them, what doesn't. Yeah.

unknown 26:23

Yeah.

Bedtime Routines, Meditation & Habits

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Meditation. One of the most important things is just having a system. Yeah. At bedtime. Yes. Like what a routine. So just having a routine at bed makes a huge difference. So like you could do warm bath or shower prior to bed. And so that has um like one to three hours before bed can decrease latency by 10 minutes. Um, although I was talking about with Andy in our office, and she said, I'd rather just lay in bed for 10 minutes longer. Yeah, she's saying I actually don't care anymore. But warm bath before bed, like lavender spray on a pillow, that will also help. Um, has been shown like in studies to help with latency. Honestly, I think it's just any type of trans lighting. Yeah, should give in. Yeah. Like an hour or two before, I feel like I'm guilty for this. Like, I feel like it's my time with my husband where like I love to watch TV. So I'm like, it's really tough. But is it great for your sleep? No. I will say TV is better than phone. Yeah. City the real phone. And then like strain your phone or face. When you're scrolling, your eyes are going this way and they're going this way. Yeah. And that sends signals to your brain that it's like, we're doing something. Yeah. So we're like, I come back to the case. Instead of this and this

Screens, Phones & Optimizing Your Sleep Environment

SPEAKER_00 27:35

is not happy. It's not good. Yeah. But yes, like when we are trying to get people to fall asleep with latency specifically, we'll have people take their TVs out of their and people patients have come back and said to me, When I stopped with the TV and like took it out, it makes a it's just such a different way. We have no TV in our room. Out of the room, yeah. Darkness. It should be dark. Kids have alarm blocks, they're so bright. No, so I turn them. Yeah, because people who constantly either can't fall asleep, like you look at the clock and you're like 10 o'clock, you get cracked 11 o'clock. They should actually take the the alarm block out of the room. Yeah. Like not even have it there because that's that's the opposite of helpful. Yeah, will they wake up then? How you can still have an alarm, just like I'm usually not waking up to the city. But you can actually have like an old school alarm that doesn't it's not a digital, it's not an analog. Yeah, yeah. Like you can't see the time. Yeah, you can't see the time. Or like away from your bed too, like where you like you can't see a little bit of a spin it away from you. So you can still see it up, but you just can't see the time. I want to ask you guys a bit about what your specific nighttime routines are. I mean, don't ask us. Yeah, I mean, we all have like multiple children. We don't so knowing that you have multiple children, what do you try to do for yourself? I feel like I try to get consistent night times or bed times with them. It's very hard. Like we had mentioned with sports, but I feel like so. Mine, um, I feel like I lay with my youngest, whether that's great or not. Yeah. I don't want any like parenting ships. Okay. I think it's I know. I've laid with all of my children, and it's literally terrible, but it's nice also. It's special. It's I do it too. It is. Yeah, that's me okay. So I lay with my youngest until she's sleeping. She's sleeping, then I have my other two. So I have a 10 to 12-year-old too. So seven, twelve, and seven, ten, and twelve. Um, so seven-year-olds sleeping, then I go to my 10 and 12-year-olds. I like tuck them in, say goodnight. Um, typically they're coming in and out for like the next 30 to 40 minutes, which is fine because this is in my routine now. I'm like a tired person. Like I have RA and I feel like I do not like to say that like it makes me fatigue, but I am like a tired person. I'm tired often. I have recently like really tried to get good quality sleep. Um, like if I like eight hours, I feel literally amazing. Um, so that's always my goal during the week. It's usually around seven. To do that, I start with my my skincare because I work at Donaldson and I know about that. Shameless plug. So I have my skincare routine. So I start with that. Then I'm gonna do some like box breathing, um, three minutes of that. I put castor oil all over my hands because I have an inflammation in my hands. I put my compression gloves on. I am a sight. I am a sight. Oh my lucky husband because like I get to bed and I'm like ready. Um, it's like at least he's not, you know, poking you. Wait, I'm not so he's like literally, he like waits in bed and waits because we're gonna watch TV or whatever. And I feel like at this point, my son is now in our on our floor, and he's like, they're both saying how long it takes for me to get ready, literally every night. Um, and so then like I feel like then I'll have like my like mask on. Um, sometimes I'll do mouth taping. Um, but that's kind of it it is a process, but I do it every night, and my sleep is pretty good, and I feel like I'm really proud of that. Um because increasing your sleep. Yes. So I feel like again, so I have an aura ring. I am obsessed with it. And when I first got my aura ring, um, so it checks your heart health. Um, and mine was it was either seven or eight years older than my actual age. And I feel like if you know me, I'm I I try to do literally all of the things. Two things that I had really started working on was strength training and good quality sleep. And now today I checked and it matches my age. So I was like, that literally shows like how important it is. It's crazy. Yeah, it's

Parenting, Kids & The Reality of Family Sleep Schedules

SPEAKER_00 31:30

amazing. Yeah, it it works, I feel like it's not fluff, it's not woo-woo, like it literally works. So it's really crazy. Uh I don't have a great husband. I mean, she got kids account because I have kids that come down like 8:30. And like I am, I want to be in bed. So when I pick them up from sports, I'm literally in pajamas. I'm like raverette. Sometimes my face is already washed, but I don't have a problem with sleep latency. Like, I can probably mid-rub on my kids because I fall asleep with my. I don't have a problem with sleep. And then with mom, I'm like, shh, she's been she's gotta get a knee fake. I mean, they know. Like, do they feel like you're older? Does she go to bed before you or at? Because like the volleyball. That's I feel like Isabella goes to bed after me. Oh I do not feel great about that. Well, and so sometimes I'm putting my such a control person, I'll be like, no, you need to let that be the last woman. You're not gonna be thrown up. I would be so angry. I'm always the last one. It's wild. It's different. Do you know that less bleep makes you crankier? No, yes. I'm a cranky girl. There's science behind it though, too. You do not strike me as a cranky. I think you really cranky. I think she saves it for home. Not around the woman. I'm gonna tell that I give it all at during the day that I get home. I'm like, I would love to be a flyer round with sweaty socks. Maybe I need to sleep. Maybe I need to not be the last one up. But I feel like if mine were little, like like Brooklyn is definitely sleeping. I would not trust her in my house awake. Maybe it's just my kids are still young. I would not. I have to be able to do that. That's a hard no for me. Isabella, I trust you to stay in her room at least. My kids aren't going around the house. They're yeah. Brooklyn would. I feel like she would interrupt. They would go in the star room. Yeah, no. Immediately. That's key. What side of the bed do you think they go to? Mom side. Yeah, not definitely. And do you know how they wake me up? One of two ways. They either stand right there, right here, or the little one will poke me in the forehead. No, in the middle of the night, I'm gonna make it now. Every single night. And my sleep latency is poor. I will say, like in the middle of the night, like so my son typically will sleep on our floor at this point because Brooklyn will come into our room every night. Like she is trained at this point. So she comes into the room and in the like I do this in my sleep now. I always have like an extra pillow on the side of my floor. And so she comes in, she taps me, I grab it, I put it over, like, and I don't even wake up for this anymore, but every freaking night, it's the same exact thing, which is wild. Like a mattress on our floor for so that's where that's canon. Because I'm like, we cannot have we are Evan and I are big people. I'm like, we have a big bed, but I'm like, we cannot have five people in our bed. That's fair. So does your ring like pick up at the time that it does not, I feel like, which is wild actually. Just that's your ring. So it's just a normal thing. Seriously, still asleep. I think I am asleep doing it. That's crazy. That's crazy. It is wild, but every night, like so. Before I go to bed, I set it up because I'm like, I know it's real. Half the time, if my kids come into the bed, I leave. Or if I if I wake up in the middle of the night, my husband snores. Yeah, God love him. And he's a great man, but I cannot, and then I want to suffocate him. So I'll just go to the kids' room. I'm like, I don't I'm not doing this. Yeah, I feel like Evan is the one who he gets like he's annoyed, and then he'll leave, and I'm just in bed with the kids. Oh yeah. I sleep great with the kids. No, that's yeah, no, and that's usually what happens and we're in our bed. Our bed is better than all the children. So for me, I just uh sleep with my doggie Daphne. Our dog is in my bed too, is I actually little care as well.

Nervous System Health, Stress & Turning Off "Fight or Flight"

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Always. Oh my god. Yes, it's California king. We're big people. I sleep. Yes, we're little people. Yes. We're little. We have a queen. We should talk though about so Aura Ring measures with sleep, it measures your resting heart rate and then your heart rate variability, which is super important for sleep. Because so when we have people that um can't fall asleep, can't stay asleep, and they're like their cortisol's fine, and but they're just anxious people. Yep. Or have autoimmune or HRV. So that means their sympathetic nervous system is like ramped up compared to their parasympathetic nervous system, which we talked about earlier. Parasympathetic is your rest and digest. Rest is a big part of that. So if you're sympathetically driven, you're not gonna be able to sleep as well as if you were parasympathetically driven. So you want your to turn on your parasympathetic nervous system at bedtime, which is why we talk about gratitude and meditation and a like a whole sleep hygiene thing. Yeah, and like activating the vagus nerve. It's super important. So important. And it's probably very underutilized, as is light. I would say light would be my biggest sleep hygiene thing. Yeah. That's underutilized and then nervous system. I know that I should gargle every night, like before bed. Yeah, because it really can activate your parasympathetic nerve or humming. Like I should in my meditation practice, should be doing some omega. But I'm not I haven't done that. Wait, like gargling like salt water. No, just like radio water. Gargling actually, like so we have a nerve that actually we can activate and it can bring us from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system. So and that can be very like that's where we're starting and gargling and don't pee. These are your goals. I'm gonna try all try my best. It's just two goals right now. Start there.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Hey, still with us? Of course you are, because you clearly have taste. If this show has given you that moment of feeling like someone finally gets it, please subscribe and drop us a review. I know everyone asks, but it genuinely helps other women who are out there looking for this kind of conversation actually find it. So do the thing, we'll be here. Um, anything else of note with your sleep routines? We've talked a bit about mouth taping was mentioned. Okay. And you have your sleep mask as well. I guess. I so I'm a big sound machine person. So am I. I don't have a sound. I could if I hear somebody breathing, not even snoring. Breathing, I'm disgusted. I am too.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

I'm just disgusted. I get it.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Don't breathe in my presence. I have to drown it out with a sound like a high quality sound machine. I have to sound like hurricane. I mean, do you have a hash? No. Because I feel like that's like a high, I feel like it's in my Amazon cart. But I know I don't think you need it. You don't think that's a good one? I might rather do a 10,000 luxe light in the morning. I don't love a happy light. Happy light in the morning and just a normal sound machine. But in the winter, I do. I use my happy light every morning in the winter. I do in the winter, it's it's in my nightstand. I pop up, it's like right in front of you because your energy. I for sure. I do need to. I mean it's in my drawer. I yeah, freaking have it. I mean, the morning is like the most important time for sleep. Getting that morning light sets your own. I mean, I pop up on brushing my first thing you're doing. Whatever you're doing, first thing you're doing. Put it next to the floor. Okay. Okay. But like, are you in the bathroom with like a big light? Absolutely. I literally have it. Yeah. So it's like your bathroom light and then that very well. Yeah, I have my youngest sleeping in my bedroom. So like because he always comes in. So I have my like lighter light in the bathroom, but then I have my happy light and then brushing while I'm getting ready. Yeah. Do you guys take any supplements to help you sleep? Oh yes. Magnesium. I sure do. I love Courtney's. Sounds like not just magnesium, but I mean, I dabble. Well dabble. What do you

Sleep Supplements — Magnesium, Melatonin & L-Theanine

SPEAKER_00 39:15

dabble in? I dabble in well magnesium. Always magnesium. I'll dabble in a little bit of L-thenine. Okay. Occasional apigenin. Okay. Oh, occasional melatonin. Not usually all together, but I do I have my routines. And do you ever do them all together though? I maybe have before. But I'm also a little paranoid. I might pick up. Am I ever going to wake up? So no. Usually, I mean, usually I'm a melatonin person. Or no, I'm sorry, usually magnesium person. Rarely melatonin. Occasionally, like if I'm traveling, like if I'm traveling, I will bring melatonin. But usually magnesium, sometimes L Then if I really feel like I'm gonna need extra support. But I actually fall asleep pretty quickly. Because another garbage for now, valerian root, valasagodal. And that's usually in like T time. For melatonin, just a quick note, like it's not meant to knock you out as many people think. It is supposed to just be like an indicator. Hey, it's getting close to sleep. So you're actually supposed to take it a couple hours before bed in a very small dose, not so much like a huge

Marijuana, Alcohol & Sleep Support Conversations

SPEAKER_00 40:15

dose right before bed. Yeah. So question how do we feel about because it is recreational in the state of Ohio, marijuana. Does it help with sleep? Because I'll say it personally, it helps me sleep like a baby. No shame. If you had a patient come to you saying, like, you know, I I eat a little gummy before bed, would you tell them, like, mm-mm, don't do that? Or would you be like, if it helps? I I don't know. If it's a fertility patient, I always for sure. No different. For sure. Yeah, that was a very pointed question to you, and that doesn't really make sense. Personalized a bit too. Yeah. I don't know the research on it too. Actually, I don't know the research either because we don't prescribe it. Yeah. Yeah. Like when I think about like when I'm thinking about like brain health, like I don't think that that's a good no. I mean, it's not good for like Alzheimer's disease. It's in the alcohol category, right? Yeah, in my mind. Kind of don't think it's but I know a lot, I mean, I do have a lot of patients that I like. I mean, it works for people. But I think it keeps to help you fall asleep. But you're for sure. Horrible sleep. Kind of going back to the aura ring with like alcohol. I feel like if I have oh even so if I again not a big drinker, but if I have like more than two drinks, like it is concerning. Yeah. My heart rate. I was like, this is yeah. You know, I feel like I'm like, oh, I feel like crap the next day, but I don't know why. But then I see it and I'm like, oh shoot. Like now I now I actually know why. But I feel like as far as marijuana, I I'm not positive. Just curious. Yeah, no, I feel like it's asking for a friend. It's like a common thing, but no one else is not positive. Yeah. Asking for a friend, right? Yeah, exactly. So we've talked a lot

Sleep Disorders, Restless Legs & When Medications Make Sense

SPEAKER_00 42:00

about sleep issues, what can attribute to poor sleep, good quality sleep. When does someone's sleep issues turn into like a medical concern? Like when should they see a doctor for a potential disorder? So I think all of us probably screen for sleep acne when people talk about poor sleep. So we talk about snoring, we look at body habitus, neck size, um, like daytime tiredness. Wait, sorry. What does neck size have to? Oh, I know. It's like by the criteria for the bang. Like, yeah. So uh neck size, which men usually know what their neck size is, or at least they used to be the next collar shirt. Nowadays they don't wear them as much. But before, like they would be able to tell you have a 16-inch neck or neck shirt. That's how they're how they're size. So how would that indicate like a potential? That's more of an anatomical issue. So you can have um sleep acne can be central or um obstructive. So if it's obstructive, you have certain body habitats, so like big neck or um like large palate in your mouth that when you sleep, it like falls and it literally obstructs the area and you can stop reading. Or central is like your brain's not sending the signal to your diaphragm to move. So you'll have these um these level, these low level oxygen like throughout the night. And so the aura ring can actually predict it and tell you if you should get checked or not. But like I tell people, if you're not, if you're a big snore and you're not sleeping well and you're coming to see us for fatigue, please save your money and go see your doctor first and get your sleep study because we're not gonna out supplement you and a happy light is not gonna fix the issues with your sleep. Like you need to sleep to have energy. Kind of going back to the sleep importance. Yeah, like so important. So on the topic of sleep disorders, another common one is restless leg syndrome. What would you recommend to patients that are experiencing that? So you should have labs done. And it can tell you like, yeah, you know, restless leg. Uh so I mean one of the most common reasons is just low iron. So we check low we check your iron, we check magnesium, we check potassium, we check I mean just electrolyte. Really I'm asking because I genuinely don't know that control. That's just super common. Learn something new every time. That's one of the yeah that's the first thing we check. And then um there are medications to help it but it's mostly to help with sleep and not so much restless leg. So we'd rather work on iron and nutrition rather than medications for sleep. Because they're just band-aids. Yeah I wouldn't imagine that any of you would ever prescribe a patient say like an ambient or something like super heavy duty or would you? I mean I may have I think for like really acute but it's not like go-to yeah no I I think long term it's definitely not good I mean I do use sleep meds if needed because you have to sleep like if I have patients who aren't sleeping or especially if it's a period of time where like something there's like a situation like and they're not sleeping I will give actual like heavier medications to help them sleep for a season. So not to bring up my father again but throughout his sleep he's watching. At this point yeah he should be but um throughout his many years of he's gone to like sleep studies he's tried it all and many doctors have tried to get him to get on ambient because he simply was not sleeping and he never would because all like the potential side effects in this ambient stuff you don't want to be on it long term. Right. But even just to get like a week of good sleep or something he just wouldn't do it and I just I had a patient once who took ambient and he literally while sleeping walked out their door walked across their yard jumped over their fence and broke his wrist and had no recollection what yeah like oof ambient's not no like I would just get up and just eat. Really? And I would have no recollect recollection at all. Oh that's scary. Did you wake up with like Cheeto crumbs like no I just wake up and like a bunch of stuff was out in the kitchen.

unknown 45:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Exactly it was not good choices. That sounds really good. Honestly the best treatment for sleep is cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah. Better than any medication. Like it's every every board you'll ever take for family medicine is always like what's the best it's cognitive behavioral therapy. Well can you dumb that down a bit for people who are not doctors like what is that so it is changing behavior to help thoughts and then changing thoughts to help feelings. And you do this in like a session with a professional with yeah so they're a psychologist or a psychiatrist usually psychologists that focus on CBT and that is the best that is the higher than any medication in every single study to help with sleep. Like

Women, Hormones & How Sleep Changes Across Life Stages

SPEAKER_00 46:45

and I mean we have taken CBT people and you don't have side effects. Yeah there's no side effects it just takes time. We've talked a lot about how sleep impacts everyone the pros, cons, what to do, what not to do I want to specifically ask about how this affects women in particular just knowing that we go through arguably like a lot of things that men don't go through is it fair and safe to say that women need more sleep than men it's harder for us to get the same sleep throughout the month. Like we have yeah it changes and so like there's those two weeks before a period that we're not sleeping as well. And it gets worse as you get older and and also like we said earlier like kids aren't bugging the dads. They're usually coming our side of the bed and we have to breastfeed and we like it just we just have less and we're by nature more worriers I think because we're not as good at compartmentalizing as men like our brains don't do it as well. So to say we need more sleep versus like we have more fragmented sleep so we need more sleep I don't know if that's that's been done so like I don't know I guess sure we need more sleep because we have more fragmented sleep I could see that. Especially different life like stages of life. 100% I feel like going to like we I feel like we had kind of talked off camera like about like the newborn stage and like I feel like mom is getting next to no sleep. You know I mean that was one of the questions I got like it was more how do you get a six month a six week old to sleep? Yeah. And like just pregnant you get through it. You do you don't you do for sure it'll get back to normal eventually. Eventually and I feel like hopefully you're you're young enough and like I I feel like you're at a different stage of life where you're a bit more resilient. So I feel like it's not affecting you as I mean not that it's not affecting you. I mean you're feeling all of the things in that moment but you're also hopefully you you know you don't have as many things against you at that point. Yeah. Generationally we're able to say to our husbands more than like perhaps our moms or grandpa. Absolutely yes get up yes you get the kid yes I mean that's a great point. Oh yeah like most of us work yeah everybody like nowadays it's not all just the yeah like we're not a friendly much a partner to tango to make we have to go get a I mean he does no I feel like my husband always gotta I feel like you need like a partner to be helpful. What about women who are

Perimenopause, Menopause & Hormonal Sleep Changes

SPEAKER_00 49:15

going through menopause do you think they require more sleep? Probably struggle yeah they need the same amount of sleep they just can't get it. Yeah so would you recommend like the same solutions and things to try to help to get them to sleep or anything different as women everyone needs sleep hygiene and absolutely but if your hormones are low you're not flashy stuff yeah you need a cold room I mean there's all of those no one touching you no one touching you no one breathing by you definitely nobody breathing. I feel like work wonders though because I feel like with a lot of like my gut patients like who are working with you guys with hormones and like when you're seeing what's happening and you're supplementing or giving like that's life changing for them. If hormones are the issue hormones work like this. I feel like the amount of people people that I'm seeing that are like yeah like progesterone like more like that's amazing and you guys do such a great job of that it really starts like declining in the perimenopausal years and a lot of women come to us and they're like I don't know what's going on like I'm still cycling but I'm I'm not sleeping like for two weeks before my period and a little bit of stress really helps yeah testing and seeing like kind of like what is going on and it's not really talked about a ton. So I feel like it's getting talked about more yeah um but still like I feel like there's such a population that just kind of deals with it. Yeah um but when you see like you guys doing that work and then like I'm talking with them and they're like my sleep is so good I'm like that's amazing. And so it's like it's really cool to see on my end that you guys make such a difference with sleep. I love that. It's cool. I see because I feel like I don't do that. And I get that I'm like it's amazing. So and the same with you like when they're doing gut stuff and they're like oh things are so much better after I have seen Colleen I'm like no it's so cool I know I knew they wouldn't be a teamwork feeling for you guys as a functional team like I'm over here as the social manager slash podcast person and really called the titles like that. But anyways it's

Audience Questions: Sleep Architecture & Newborn Sleep

SPEAKER_00 51:20

really great to hear that how we can help patients and I'm sure that's so fulfilling for you guys. So on that note I know that we got some answers to your question that you shared on your Instagram story speaking on social media. I had questions on so sleep architecture which we did six week old sleep. Good luck. It's tough time yeah time I feel like and kind of I think like realizing that it's a stage I feel like you're like in it and I feel like it's very consuming and it's isolating and I feel like all of those things and there's not really anything that's gonna help in that moment and there's a light at the end of the tunnel there is a light and I feel like it's so far away though. I just remember away it's it's isolating it's hard it was so hard yeah I don't even know what I would say like just do whatever. And if one per more person told me like you'll miss these days I want to just seriously throw punch though. That's what my sister would say. I mean I see why they say it because I want to say it but then I remember I'm like I don't miss the middle of the night like I seriously was so tired. My sister described it as like you're in the trenches. You were in the tired and I feel like just and yeah I I feel like it's hard to be like enjoy it because it goes no what you need to do if your friend tells you that what you need to do is get in your car go over there take the kid and tell them to shower or like vacuum their carpet or clean their floor for sure or like clean out their fridge. Ask for help. Yeah they feel like a lot of sense that is I feel like me like not really having help like I feel like it's hard but like if you have someone ask for help you know and and that's okay it's not like a sign of weakness. No. Just kind of knowing that that's kind of what you're in at the moment. Being honest it takes a tribe I also got a question about exercise before sleep and like what's appropriate. So like just know high intensity exercise so they I mean it's varies it's like one to four hours before bed is recommended for higher density quite the range. Like if you're walking and stuff yeah that's fine. You want to a hot girl walk because I like to call it any other questions you received that you want to oh one was how to increase parasympathetic nervous system. That's like a whole nother that's a whole that's a whole lot I thought we were going to talk about it more tonight but it's actually probably need another one yeah that is probably a podcast write that down nervous system is very big right now it is and but it's huge with everything it should be it should it regulates your health importance it's so important. I do think regulating your body is really like an important first step and then but also like then the brain too like getting your body calmed down like humming girl like gargling maybe moving your body but then also concentrating on your brain and like expressing gratitude. So gratitude journaling can be really nice. Yeah I really like that morning and night I'm a big like double gratitude journaler. The five minute journal have you seen that I feel like that's like a nice thing when like people are super busy and it's just five minutes. Or you can do one minute you can do like 100% yeah three things that like like mine are so easy like they're like I saw the water glimmering yesterday when I was walking you would do that. That's what I'm like you are doing for like believe you being cranky. That's so sweet. I can be a cranky I had a conversation today with one of my patients because patients who are like sympathetically driven don't want to do that stuff. It's so hard. It's really hard so that's when I talk about the rest or the digest piece. Yeah so I talk about like chewing your food.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

Yeah because it's super important.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

So I'm like we need to chew your food all the way because that's something and you need to sit down when you eat not do it while you work Colleen always talks about the belly breath belly breath so that's what well I talk about it so she has little kids prayer before eating or gratitude before eating or like highs and lows around the table and like having that time because it's not just about family time and things and that's important. But it also it tells your body oh I'm turning on my parasympathetic nervous system I'm gonna be digesting. And I feel like doing those are things you can do check boxes. That's what I'd checkbox yes for sure exactly I'm doing something I'm being productive. And if I tell mom this is important for your children, they'll do it. Well that and that's it. And I what I'll typically say because I'm like if you're doing it

Brain Detox, Glymphatic Health & Why Rest Protects the Brain

SPEAKER_00 55:30

have your kids do it too. Like what a great habit to start. Well I was just sitting here listening to you lovely ladies talk and I just noticed our slippers and I think we should take a moment to I mean yours are much cuter than this action these are so old but I love them. But these are these are like a sock slipper combo. You kind of all have the same thing I don't know I bring slippers to my friends' houses when I'm invited to dinner I'll have slippers with me. We didn't talk about glimph oh uh Dr. Tell me a bit about what what is glimpse I mean I'm getting those something like kind of I would love to actually appropriate you don't know either I don't know what glimph is so you know if you're sick and you have a swollen lymph node your lymphatic system is what takes the fluid away from that node and like brings fluid to the node. So you have your glimph which is your brain lymphatic fluid it only pumps around your brain after five hours of sleep or more. That's interesting. So you know like your plaques and things like amyloid plaques and there's dementia risk with that and brain fog. Sure. You need at least five hours of sleep to get that yeah so there's actually like video of the glimph moving in your brain that's so interesting. Transgressed it's not great I'm just imagining like it looks the the physical look of it sounds yucky no it's important. Yeah it's it's really it's amazing when you see it moving yeah but like that's taking all the toxins away from your brain. So would you say that is one of the top takeaways that you want people to absorb from this episode is I think light is people absorb

Caffeine Timing, Daily Habits & Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 57:15

that there's more to control than they think there is around sleep. I love that I think that's excellent. The sleep hygiene piece yeah like there's a lot more when they're like I just can't sleep I'm like there's there's a lot you can try to do on your own kind of tracking throughout the day I feel like caffeine I feel like we didn't really talk about caffeine we didn't I didn't talk about it and see anything yeah I feel like caffeine trying to stop by noon because I feel like after noon it's gonna affect you I feel like guilty I feel like beforehand I was like oh yeah if I have coffee right now it's not gonna affect my sleep because I do sleep I go to bed quickly and I have a good quality sleep typically but my numbers will be different if I do have caffeine in the evening. You know I feel like I'll feel like I'll go to bed and I'll sleep decent but my numbers will be different. So I feel like mine explain some things for me absolutely not 3 p.m dicos yeah that's it I feel like it's kind of like tracking throughout the day I'll typically say you know when you wake up you're like almost already starting to prepare for your good quality sleep at night and people it's kind of it's it's those lifestyle habits. Yeah well I feel like we covered a lot so thank you all for your time today. I learned a lot and I hope and my dad also learned you might not call your phone and that's a wrap on today's pod. As always we're here for your questions your curiosity and the stuff you've been too afraid to ask out loud that's why we do this. You can find more episodes more resources and more of the incredible team at Donaldson at donaldsonhealth.com tell a friend, leave a review, you know the whole routine we'll see you next time on Asking for a friend. Take care of yourselves out there. You deserve it