Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep # 128 Unlocking Better Sleep for Mental and Physical Health
Struggling with sleep? You're not alone. In this eye-opening conversation with certified sleep science coach and licensed clinical social worker Keri Cooper, we uncover the profound connection between quality sleep and virtually every aspect of our wellbeing.
Drawing from her 25 years of experience as a therapist, Keri explains how she consistently observed sleep quality directly affecting her clients' mental health. This pattern became so apparent that it inspired her to become certified in sleep science and launch Sleep Solutions by Keri, where she helps clients transform their relationship with rest using cognitive behavioral approaches rather than medications.
The science is compelling: during our nightly sleep cycles, our bodies activate immune functions, detoxify systems, repair muscles, and process emotions. Without proper sleep, these critical processes break down, affecting everything from weight management to workplace productivity. Keri shares practical strategies for improving sleep hygiene, including limiting caffeine after noon, removing electronic devices from bedrooms, and restructuring how we think about sleep itself.
What's particularly fascinating is Keri's work with corporations, where she addresses the costly myth that burning the midnight oil equals productivity. Sleep deprivation costs businesses billions in errors, accidents, and diminished output. Her message is clear - well-rested employees accomplish more in standard hours than exhausted workers putting in extra time.
Parents will find Keri's insights especially valuable as she discusses how exhaustion undermines even the best parenting intentions and offers guidance on helping teenagers develop healthy sleep habits in our screen-dominated world. Her books, "Mental Health Uncensored: 10 Foundations Every Parent Needs to Know" and its companion teen workbook, extend her expertise beyond her practice.
Ready to transform your relationship with sleep? Visit sleepsolutionsbyKeri.com to learn more about her virtual coaching services that typically produce significant improvements within just four sessions.
Sleep Solutions by Keri
Keri Cooper
47 North Franklin Tpk, Ramsey, NJ
keri@sleepsolutionsbykeri.com
201-256-4141
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Drohan.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. Today we are joined by Keri Cooper, who has a company called Sleep Solutions by Keri, which is we were talking offline for about 15, 20 minutes and there's so many things that she does that are so effective that you know, when I think of a new business, you always ask the question do they, you know, is it something that people want or need and do they solve a problem? And I think she checks off two of those boxes. I think it's something people need and I think she solves the problems. Keri, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:So you are a certified sleep coach, sleep science coach let's not forget the word science that's in there. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you became. You know to focus on sleep.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 1:I've actually my first, you know, my real job.
Speaker 3:I guess I can call it is that I'm a therapist and I've been a therapist for 25 years and I really work with high school and college kids and I take a very holistic approach and I've always, you know, asked them how is your sleep, how are you eating, are you exercising?
Speaker 3:And what I've always noticed is the moment their sleep starts going downhill, so does their mental health, and there's a huge connection in the research about sleeping and mental health.
Speaker 3:So I've always known that we need to focus on that and get that under control if they want their mental health to be better. But as I've been working with these kids for a very long time, I also work with their parents, and lots of times their parents would come into my office and say I want to be a better parent, I want to use all the tools you're telling me, but I'm exhausted, I'm tired, I have no patience, I'm overwhelmed. And then I'd start talking to the parents about their sleep and realize they were absolutely not getting enough sleep at all. And then, you know, during COVID times, especially when everyone's sleep was a disaster because of our routines and schedules and screen time, I wrote two books Mental Health Uncensored 10 Foundations Every Parent Needs to Know. And then I wrote a workbook for the kids and in both of them I wrote an entire chapter about sleep and I really dove into the research about how sleep is connected to our physical and mental health and how it's truly the number one foundation we need to fix.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, after all of that, I decided let me get certified as a sleep science coach. So I went back and did that and opened up a business for adults where I'm a virtual sleep coach and normally within around four sessions they're sleeping a lot better. What the research really finds is that the best approach to sleep therapy is a cognitive behavioral approach, and that was already within my wheelhouse as a therapist.
Speaker 2:So it's not about taking Ambien or something like that.
Speaker 3:No, it's not. And that's not to say if you are taking it, stop immediately, but it's to say there are better ways out there.
Speaker 2:Right, and you know it's interesting. I used to travel overseas a lot and I used to blame getting sick on the air quality of the airplane. But you know, when you're traveling in different time zones and I didn't sleep well if I was giving a presentation, so that was also compounded. But there is, there is a link between you know, your general health right, maybe a weakened immune system if you're not sleeping well.
Speaker 3:So during sleep we go through these REM cycles and we go through around four of them and every aspect of them helps our body in some way and helps our mind in some way. So our immune system actually kicks on. Really during sleep, that's when you know all that good stuff is activated in our body. It's when we detox stuff from our body. So we need restful sleep and you know they say, you know when you're sick, oh, go sleep all day, go take a nap, like you know your body needs that and that's because it needs to repair itself. That's also when you know all your muscle repairing is happening as well.
Speaker 2:Sleep is really crucial to like every aspect of our well-being yeah, and you know I mean, there's a lot of things associated with sleep problems, you know, aside from the weak immune system and um, you know, one of them you you have here is called weight gain and I found that, and I know, talking about cognitive and behavioral changes, if you're exercising and especially, like I used to, to work out a lot at night. I used to train, I used to teach classes. I slept pretty well, you know, when I was working out at a more regular and intense level because my body needed to repair, yes, and you know, as long as I didn't come home, and then, you know, sometimes you got to cool down, you know, mentally and emotionally after a class, but once I hit the pillows, man, I was out and I think that you know, as a parent, like you said, you know it was the parents that then came to you and said I need help. You know, going back years before people like you existed, you know my mother had five kids, four of them in four and a half years. You know, mothers, parents, they were overworked and the less sleep you got, probably the more you know edgier, less patience you had with your kids and it was kind of like a cycle, because the less patience you have, the more anxiety there is, the more tension there is, and then the less you're going to sleep and it just keeps going and going.
Speaker 2:So you know, you know with you and bringing these issues to light, I think a lot of people are recognizing this now and you're positioned in a great space because I think, anyway, from things that I read and in the media, that there is a more of a heightened sense of how important sleep is. Do you find that to be true?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think people are really realizing how crucial it is. And you talk about exercising and weight loss and all of that. And I always kind of chuckle around January 1st when everyone starts posting like, oh, I'm going to eat well and exercise, and I always want to say, but what about sleep?
Speaker 3:Because if you're not sleeping, you're not going to be able to wake up in the morning and exercise easily. You're not going to have the motivation to do it. You're not going to be able to repair your body if you are exercising. And during sleep is when our hormones are all made for like to let us know oh, I'm full, oh, I'm hungry. So sleep is really. You know, everything we do in life. It comes back down to sleep. So if we we're not sleeping well, weight loss is going to be an uphill struggle as well yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know. Another thing that's obviously more prevalent, that my mother didn't deal with when she was raising us, was having a cell phone. One of my habits is my son's, 11 years old. He wants me to like be in the room with him when he falls asleep. So I sit in a chair. I tend to fall asleep in that chair, but before I do I'm reading the news. I'm checking out the Mets score, Cause maybe I went to bed before they. Luckily they've been winning a lot of the. They got shut out last night.
Speaker 2:So I'm reading my phone. I'll say reading my phone. I'm looking at my and sometimes I get you know if I read a book I fall asleep within five minutes, but I can't read a book cause I don't have a light. I got to turn the light off when my son's sleeping. But I know that's not a great habit. It's a habit I need to break. I think there was a song it's a hard habit to break by Chicago or somebody like that. But what do you like? What's your advice to people that you know? I own a business on my phone. It's part of my, it's an appendage, it's part of my. It's my third arm, my third hand. What do you say to people that just can't seem to turn off? And I'm not just talking about adults. What about teenagers?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a huge issue and I do say that like an hour before bed you got to put the phones away and you know you were saying like, well, I would read a book, but I don't have a light and you can get like a $10 book light off of Amazon.
Speaker 2:There's solutions to all of these issues, like a miner's hat light that goes on my head, put it onto a book.
Speaker 3:Also, all the phones have, you know, night mode, and that at least helps a little bit with the blue light. But for your kids especially, get the phones out of their bedrooms. It is so important Nothing good is happening at 3 in the morning on your child's phone, and especially with the population I work with, I know how disruptive those phones are in the middle of the night and as adults put your phone on. Do not disturb. Get it out of the room if you can.
Speaker 2:You don't always need to be available. Yeah, that's true. That's true, I think. Um. It leads me to my next uh topic, which is, aside from working with teens and kids and parents and adults, you also address corporate um issues, which is, you know, the old mindset of I'm multitasking, I'm working, I'm so busy, I don't have time to sleep much, and that was like a badge of honor, man, yeah, I'm so. How you doing? Oh, man, I'm so busy. Like nobody ever says, ah, I got nothing to do all day. You know, work is great, man, I love the fact that I got this work-life balance. Nobody would ever say that to their boss, to their colleagues. But yet, you know, I mean, you come to work and you're you're dragging your butt and then at two, three o'clock, you got to get that caffeine lift after lunch because you know you're hitting the, you know your your head's kind of nodding off. It could cost. I guess there's a dollar figure that you could attribute to worker fatigue, is that correct?
Speaker 3:There is, we're losing a lot of productivity, a lot of mistakes are happening at work. You know, especially when we're dealing with some industries that are dealing with, you know, heavy machinery or anything like that they know. They do know that their employees need to be well rested in order to function, and I do think that, depending on the industry, there's definitely some that are still like oh, it's a badge of honor, and others who are focused more on work-life balance. But this whole concept of multitasking and staying up late at night in order to do more work, you're not productive, you just aren't. And if you actually slept well, you can get so much more accomplished during the daytime hours, and you can get it done better too. So what does that look like?
Speaker 2:So you come into a company, they hire you to come in and give a workshop, or how does your corporate and you can get it done better too. So what does that look like? So you come into a company, they hire you to come in and give a workshop, or how does your?
Speaker 3:corporate. Sometimes they'll bring me in to do a workshop just to talk. Lots of them have wellness days, and other times they'll have me come in and actually work one-on-one with their workers. That way we can talk about what exactly is happening with them and how can they get some better sleep. Nice, nice. That way we can talk about what exactly is happening with them and how can they get some better sleep, nice, nice.
Speaker 2:So if somebody were to you know they gave you a call like how does the process work? And you said it's virtual right, they don't have to come to your office.
Speaker 3:Right, I do have an office in Ramsey, but I am virtual as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, so how does the process work? They reach out to you. They say hey, man, I'm Carrie, can you help me? I'm really at my wit's end. I'm not sleeping and I know it's affecting my health, it's affecting my relationship. Can you help, like what's the next step?
Speaker 3:So the next step is we will set up a time to talk and I will send them a ton of intake paperwork, because I have a lot of questions, before we even meet for the first time, about what their daytime routine looks like, what their nighttime routine looks like, what their sleep looks like, how they're feeling, how much caffeine they're using, alcohol, all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:That way, day one, we jump right into making the changes that we need to make Right? And you know, my father drinks coffee at 10 o'clock at night and falls asleep Like he has no problem. He can. You know the the.
Speaker 2:The funny thing with my dad is like if you come over, if you go to the house and he says, do you want a cup of coffee? I always have to ask is it fresh? Because he won't throw out. He and my mother will not throw out any leftover coffee. So if they made a pot in the morning and they only drank half of it, that's just going to go in the microwave if you want a cup of coffee. So but it's throughout the day. When they come to visit me, there's always coffee on up until they go to bed, and maybe they're.
Speaker 2:You know, they are a rare breed. Obviously my dad has become somewhat desensitized to caffeine, but um, it's. It's funny because I I like my coffee in the morning. I get up at five. I don't sleep that great, we could talk about that another time and I usually have an afternoon cappuccino or cortado or something after lunch and then I'm good. I found that if I drank a normal cup of coffee after four o'clock that would affect my sleep. But are you saying that, even if I have a cup of coffee at three o'clock in the afternoon, that that could affect my sleep?
Speaker 3:Everyone's a little bit different based on their metabolism. But if you're having sleep issues, I would definitely say no caffeine after you know. 12 o'clock in the morning I'm really fine with it, but in the afternoon, even if you, you know like your dad, could fall right asleep. But is he getting a restful sleep? Is he getting into?
Speaker 2:So if I look at your client base, you're going from. You know you have teens. How young do you start with helping somebody with their sleep?
Speaker 3:With their sleep, definitely within high school. We start because a lot of high schoolers have some issues.
Speaker 2:It's funny. I met someone yesterday who's like a pediatric sleep consultant. Yeah, consultant, yeah. So uh, she'll have kids up until like seven years old you know eight years old, um and the parents and help them with you know a cognitive approach to to sleep, um having better sleep yeah, when you're that young, really more of the work is with the parents yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, if we go through all the different stages of our life, of when we have stress, certainly as a teenager, you're worried about all the exams you have to take, and maybe you're in sports and this and that. And then there's the social media part that you know, you and I probably didn't have, I know I didn't have. And then there's the new mom, and then there's the parent with you know, now you're raising your kids and you're worried about what they're doing, you're worried about your job, you're that. So there's a lot to turn off. You know, and I could, you know, it's no wonder we as a society have problems sleeping. So you're saying within four, say four sessions, if I implement the things that you're, you know, these science based habits, that I should start to see some, some improvement.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, Because it's not just about structuring your day better which we do tackle and structuring your nighttime routine. It's also about the concept of sleep and how you approach it, because too many people are approaching it like it's a battle and then it's driving up their anxiety and, oh my gosh, I only got five hours last night or up at 2am. My day is going to be awful tomorrow and we need to address really those cognitions so that sleep is no longer a battle and that it's more like your friend opposed to your enemy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's true. Sometimes I've gone to bed thinking, oh my God, am I going to sleep tonight? And then you wake up at one and you're like, oh my God, it's one o'clock, I can't believe I'm up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that starts to snowball and it snowballs. So it's really about changing the thought process behind sleep as well.
Speaker 2:So when did you start? So you're a licensed clinical social worker. Have you always been on your own as a business owner?
Speaker 3:I think my private practice has been around 13, 14 years at this point. So yeah. I've been my own boss for quite some time now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what has that been like? Did you go to school? Did you study accounting marketing?
Speaker 3:No, I was just a therapist and you know I've worked in numerous therapeutic settings and then eventually went into like a group settings for private practice and decided. I don't really fit neatly into any of these group practices because I'm so holistic in nature.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I just went out on my own and figured a lot out and joined a lot of great women business groups. And they were so amazingly supportive and helpful. And yeah, 10 years later. Now I'm giving advice to other small businesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great. Do you have a business coach or any kind of marketing consultant?
Speaker 3:I've had a business coach for a little bit and I have somebody who's helped me with like the website designs, but besides that it's really just me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what advice would you give to somebody Say it's a, you know somebody wants to start a therapy practice. What advice would you give to them just starting out?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I actually. It's funny I just posted about this in a therapist group because so many people asking that question you know how do I start? How do I start? And I said was that first you need your clinical skills really, really high in order to be in private practice.
Speaker 3:So you should not be, in my opinion, jumping out of school and going into a private practice. I worked over 10 years in the field with other people, so you really need to understand that. You need to know what population you really want to work with. You can't work with everybody. You can't be good at everything. Then you need to focus in on that and realize that it takes time to build up a successful business. It's not going to happen overnight.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah. So you know, you need the stomach for that, as I say.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:When it comes to marketing, it's not an overnight. Everybody wants instant gratification and everything.
Speaker 2:It's funny, I always say, like the business owner has. Like, you know the devil and the angel. Like, as a consumer, you know that the first time you see an ad, you may not be in the market for what they're selling, maybe it just goes right past you, you don't retain anything, right, whatever. But as a business owner, you want, the first time somebody sees your ad, to give you a call. So you kind of forget who you are as a consumer and then ignore all the science, but I say the neuroscience, what they call neuromarketing nowadays.
Speaker 2:Nowadays is understanding how the brain reacts to marketing messages. And if you don't have the uh, like I said, if you don't have the stomach to understand that it could take time, uh, but the payoff is huge then it's going to be a struggle and you see a lot of people weep, frogging I tried this, I try this, I try this. That didn't work, I didn't work, instead of sticking with something and you know so, um, and that's great advice. So how would um, how would people contact you? What's the best way to reach you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my website is sleep solutions byKeri. com , and you know. Go through there and read up all about me.
Speaker 2:Okay, and the phone number is 2 0, 1, 2, 5, 6, 4, 1, 4, 1. And your book, let's? Let's talk a little bit about your book for a second, because you, you know, we kind of glanced over that, but uh, I don't often have authors on my show and uh I go. Mental health uncensored uh-huh by kerry cooper.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's mental health uncensored 10 foundations every parent needs to know. And then the parents really asked me to do a book for the kids. So I did a workbook for kids taking all of that into practice, where they could see and track their own progress, so that one is Mental Health Uncensored 10 Foundations Every Teen Needs to Know and they're both on Amazon.
Speaker 2:I was on Amazon.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:That's great. That's great. Well, carrie, this was really really interesting. Well, carrie, this was really really interesting. As you could probably tell, I could definitely pick your brain or use your help, so I think a lot of our listeners will feel the same. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Chuck's going to just say goodbye and you and I will be right back. Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen. com. That's gnpbergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.