Sleep Is The Foundation

Your sleep problems are not a character flaw, and they are not “just getting older.” We unpack why sleep is the foundation for everything you want more of in midlife: steady energy, clear thinking, better mood, healthier metabolism, and more patience with the people you love. If you are waking at 3 a.m., feeling tired but wired at night, or dragging yourself out of bed even after a full night, we help you translate what that pattern is actually saying.

We talk through common sleep struggles we hear from clients and in real life, including trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and the anxiety loop that happens when you watch the clock and start doing sleep math. From a whole body perspective, we connect the dots between nervous system regulation and hormone patterns like cortisol, then share an easy way to think about nighttime “windows” (roughly 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. for repair and 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. for processing and integration). When those windows get disrupted, your body can feel less safe, and sleep can become lighter and more fragmented.

We also name the big transitions that can change sleep overnight: moving, grief, a medical procedure, and the long transition of perimenopause, which can last five to ten years. You will hear practical ideas like brain dumping or journaling before bed, noticing what thoughts show up at 3 a.m., and why the best sleep plan is always individualized rather than one size fits all. If this helps, subscribe, share with a friend who is exhausted, and leave a review so more women can find support.

Connect with Amy Wilford on social media at @amywilfordhealth, or on her website at wholebodyharmonycoach.com

Connect with Heather Fontenot on social media at @embodiedrejuvenation, or on her website at embodiedrejuvenation.com

If you'd like to talk to us about our new joint program, Whole Body Real Life, email us at:

Amy@AmyWilfordHealth.com or Heather@EmbodiedRejuvenation.com 

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Promise

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Body Drama Shift, where we move from confusion to clarity without guessing. Because your body isn't broken, it's communicating. If you're a woman in midlife dealing with stubborn weight, low energy, mood swings, or poor sleep, you're not imagining it, and you're not alone. I'm Amy, creator of Whole Body Harmony.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

And I'm Heather, creator of Embodied Rejuvenation. Together we help you decode your symptoms by addressing both biology and the nervous system. Because real change happens when both are in alignment. Let's shift.

Why Sleep Runs Everything

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Welcome back to another episode of the Body Trauma Shift. Today we are talking about sleep. Because Amy and I both believe that sleep is the foundation of everything. We wanted to talk about sleep too because we know the quality and the quantity of your sleep determines the degree of your brain's operation.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Yeah, and I have had so many clients where this is an issue. And when I've been, I've been doing some online vendor events, and every single time I do an event, there's at least one woman, usually three or four, that tell me that they have sleep trouble. And my question is always do you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or both? And I get a big mixture of answers there, but all of them talk about how it impacts their energy. And I think that sleep is very, very underrated.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Yes, their energy, but also like their brain fall, like not being able to think clearly, maybe even emotionally, like, or some like short fuse because you are running on that fumes.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah. Yeah. All the time. And I think that most people in general, not just women, don't realize how sleep impacts everything. Like it's so connected to everything in life. And Heather and I are just really passionate about how important it is to get sleep. And because, like we said, it impacts everything else. It impacts your energy, it impacts your productivity, it impacts your relationships with other people. And just overall, how you feel. Like if you feel tired all day long, all you can think about is wanting a nap. And then trying to talk yourself out of it. Like, I don't have time for a nap. I can't take a nap. And then you try to go to sleep. And I have a lot of women too that I talk to who are tired but wired at night. So even though they're exhausted, they know they didn't sleep well the night before, they go to lay down, close their eyes, and they can't fall asleep. And then they toss and turn all

Falling Asleep Vs Staying Asleep

SPEAKER_00 2:48

night.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Yeah. So I think in this episode, we want to talk about like some educational piece, like what's happening in the nervous system, what's happening with hormones and cortisol level. And like this is what we help people with.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah. And I don't know about you, Heather, but I've had a lot of experience with difficulty sleeping myself. Like I don't usually have trouble falling asleep, but there are times and it's way better than it used to be. But I'll go through phases where I wake up in the middle of the night, 3 a.m., 4 a.m., and I can't go back to sleep because my brain is spinning. And then I go back to sleep, but then I wake up and I'm like, no, it's I can't get up right now. And then I try to go back to sleep and it's just suspicious cycle. And then I feel awful the rest of the day. And I know that I'm not alone in that. So that's another reason we really wanted to talk about this today.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

And I love how you brought that up because that is your experience. And so to remind people that our experiences are all different. So for me, my experience with sleep is for most of my life, I have been one who never struggled with sleep. In the sense of I got good quality sleep, I didn't have trouble falling asleep. I loved to sleep. But my issue was that in the mornings I would still be so exhausted because there was a lot of heaviness in me. And from my lens, from my work, constitutionally, like I was just made that way, where like my body just internally is heavier. So my sleep, if I don't, and we're gonna talk about this too, like the windows. So I found what helps for me is if I go to sleep or 4'10, around 10, not too much earlier. And if I wake up around 6 or 6:30, if I sleep past that window, then I'm like dipping way down into further into that exhaustion, that headlessness.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah, I think there's a sweet spot that we have to find. And you have to try to stick to that sweet spot the best you can. And obviously, life comes up, things come up where you might be out later because of something happening. Like that's totally normal. But to get back into your regular routine as quick as possible is really important because you're confusing your body otherwise. And I know like we talk a lot about our bodies feeling safe, and your body doesn't feel safe when it doesn't know when to expect

Finding Your Personal Sleep Sweet Spot

SPEAKER_00 5:25

rest. And I want to give another example of a client of mine who her sleep was very disruptive. So she would sleep for like maybe six hours, but then she would wake up and she would do some work in bed on her phone for an hour or so, and then she would go back to sleep for like two hours, and then she would get up and do it again. And it was just very disruptive. And so I'm like, the problem with that is that your body doesn't feel safe. So your body doesn't know when it's gonna get rest. And when you wake up and you start working, you reactivate your brain and you get in this work mode, and then you fall back to sleep, but your body doesn't know when you're getting when it's getting sleep. So we've been working on getting a better sleep pattern for her, and she's starting to feel better. She's feeling more energy during the day, she's feeling more productive when she's working, and she feels safer, and so does her body.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Yeah,

Disrupted Sleep And Feeling Unsafe

SPEAKER_02 6:26

and maybe we can talk now about like the windows of time and like what happens. Because I think that kind of speaks to some of that too.

The 10 To 2 Repair Window

SPEAKER_02 6:36

So from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., your body is repair. So if we dip in past like 10 p.m., say we go to bed at 11 or 12, like we're shortening that window for the body to repair itself. And the nervous system, that's when the nervous system gets genuine rest. And the day's experiences get siled away. So that's the rebuilding phase. Then from 2 a.m.

The 2 To 6 Processing Window

SPEAKER_02 7:04

to 6 a.m., the mind processes and integrates. So if emotions get processed there, too. So if you didn't have that rebuilding phase, it's kind of like that seeking you're talking about, like your body didn't have that time to rebuild, to repair, to feel safe. So then you from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., you dip down into that, um, your brain gets quiet. So it's a little more vulnerable time, right? For you to be able to process to integrate the things. You're going into your subconscious model. And if you didn't get fit that time from 10 to 2, then that that disrupts that window that we need to be able to integrate in blossols.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah.

Cortisol Timing And Tired Wired

SPEAKER_00 7:50

And when you're talking about cortisol too, your cortisol needs to be lower at night, and then it should be higher in the morning when you wake up so that you have that energy. Well, if you're waking up in the middle of the night and you're doing things and your cortisol patterns get confused. And also part of it is like there, I talked about being tired but wired at night. There are also people who wake up in the morning and even the even if they've slept all night through, they still wake up tired and groggy and they can't get out of bed. So that again, that's another cortisol pattern that's not right in their body. And it could be because they didn't allow themselves to wind down at night. They missed that window that Heather was just talking about, and then it just messes with your whole day. Sleep is so underrated. Nobody gives enough credit to the power of sleep.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yeah. And I think too, like what we're saying too is like there's an there's an underlying cause, and it is it is all different, right? If we are struggling to go to sleep for 10. I also want to name like there's nothing wrong with you. There's there's something happening there that we can look at and say, okay, this is what's happening. I'm having trouble falling asleep around 10. Not beating yourself up, but again, like we've always talked about this. What message? What is that? That's your body sending sending you a message. So how can we work with that?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Yeah. And I think too that we tend to, just with everything else, we beat ourselves up about it. Like, I should be getting more sleep. Why am I not getting more sleep? And also, I think when you wake up in the middle of the night, like you wake up at 3 a.m., your brain's like, oh my God, I have to get up in six hours or three hours. I get up at six o'clock. That's only three hours of sleep left. And then you look at the clock again and you're like, oh, now it's 3:30. Now I only have two and a half hours left to sleep. And it's like you're you're amping yourself up. And to speak Heather's language a little bit, that messes with your nervous system. Like your nervous system gets in a panic. And then how can you go back to sleep? You can't. You're just gonna toss and turn and worry about how much time is left before your alarm clock goes off.

Transitions That Trigger 3 AM Wakeups

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Yeah. And then it makes sense that you're groggy and you can't wake up when the alarm does go off.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

I had a client recently, she's going through a big transition. So she's moving. And so what we know about movement from my lens externally creates more movement internally. When we go through very big transitions, whether it be grief, whether it be retirement, whether it be a big move, that creates a lot of change. So internally, it's creating more movement in the body, in the mind. So she was waking up, she didn't have trouble sleeping before. But now she just started like she's just started having trouble sleeping or waking up from around 3 a.m. So in between that 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. So what that told me is oh, there's a lot of movement happening. And she's waking up with racing thoughts, like her won't turn off. Gave her something for that window and she came back the next week. Oh, I'm sleeping again. I'm like, okay, good. So, you know, also noticing that, like when we go through transitions, those patterns, the sleep patterns can change.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah. And I know the last episode we talked about how we did the practice with Heather because I was having that procedure in the afternoon. And so my energy was really drained and I felt like I was distracted and kind of all over the place because that's all I could think about was what was coming. And the two nights before the procedure, my sleep was horrible. I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn't go back to sleep. And I knew because I've paid attention to my body's signals and have figured out how to listen to my body a lot better than I used to be. I made the connection of, okay, well, it's because I have this procedure coming up. Like I know that that's what's triggering my sleep issues. And, you know, for the first, I don't know, probably three or four nights after it, I still had some trouble sleeping. But part of that too was that I had to sleep differently, right? I had to make sure I was on my right side instead of my left side and that kind of thing. But it's finally starting to get better because I know how to like handle it and my body is healing. So, like even just knowing that those things are coming up and what might be triggering a sleep issue can really help you to process through it and fix it faster.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

And since we talk about like transitions, Amy, because for me, like we talked about earlier, for me, that my sleep um was always really the same. Like, and I noticed throughout doing this work on myself, oh, if I wake up at this time, if I go to sleep at this time and I wake up at this time, that really helps now with that being said, when we hit perimenopause and the hormones start to change, that that could change things too. And I want to name that because then we

Perimenopause And Needing More Rest

SPEAKER_02 13:00

we could see that again, the sleep impact not only does the sleep impact but our days, our relationship with our kids, our families, our husbands, spouses, partners work, how we show up in work and impacts all of that, but I want to name that big transition of Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah. And as you were talking about transitions, I was gonna say that like perimenopause is a transition, and it's a long transition. Like, I don't know if we've talked about this before, but perimenopause can last five to ten years. That's a long time for your body to be shifting and transitioning. And I think part of what's hard about that transition too is that like we all, majority of us probably, when you're in your 20s and 30s, you can run on six, six and a half hours of sleep pretty easily. I mean, even back in, you know, college where you might have been out late and maybe you, you know, were partying or not partying, but you only got four hours of sleep. You could get up and go to work the next day and yeah, you were tired, but it didn't impact your functioning as much. But when your body's going through a transition like that, through those hormonal shifts, you need more rest. And I know that it's hard because we still have busy, chaotic lives and we still have a lot going on, and there's different stressors in our lives now. You know, a lot of us are, you know, maybe you're dealing with teenagers at home or you have aging parents that you're taking care of, all those things. And it's so it makes it harder to give ourselves that time to rest and that grace, but we need it. Like it is super important. And the more well-rested you are, the better you can take care of those other things. And I think that's a piece that people don't see. Like we just kind of go through the hamster wheel and do what we have to do, but we don't realize that we could do it even better and without it completely draining us, if we are taking care of ourselves. You have to take care of yourself to take care of others effectively.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Do you do you want to say anything else like about like that hormonal shift?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah. So when we're making that shift, our bodies are working harder behind the scenes. And also our cycles are changing. And so those days leading up to your cycle, you probably are noticing some sleep disturbances during your cycle. If you still cycle, if you're not a cycling woman, it might look different for you. Um, however, your body is still shifting and changing, even if you're not experiencing periods. So, yeah, your body is just working extra hard, which makes it harder to which makes you need sleep even more. That's just really, really important. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

This is a fun conversation.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

It is. I love talking about sleep because it's so big and no one people not no one, but it's not given enough credit, like I know I've already said, but yeah, we just don't value it enough and we don't we need more recognition of how it impacts everything else. And when you're going through perimenopause or those hormonal hormonal shifts, your body's already on edge. You're already going through so much, you're already, you know, depleted, you're already snippy with other people, you already have less patience. Like you are all those things are already present just because simply your body's going through those shifts. And when you pile on lack of sleep on top of it, it just makes it worse. And we need to support our bodies. Our bodies are not feeling safe when we're in this transition space. And so anything we can do to make it feel safe is gonna benefit us.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yes. And we're not saying that you can't function in a healthy way, a thriving way at this phase of life, because you totally can. Absolutely. I would say that honestly, like I know I'm in perimenopause, but I probably feel the best I've ever felt. Um, so you just have to be able to support your body.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Do you have any tips for what

Calming Tools Like Brain Dumping

SPEAKER_00 17:10

someone can do when they do wake up at three o'clock in the morning? How can they calm their bodies to go back to sleep?

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Um, I'm hesitant to give like big tips because again, it's so individualized. Like what's happening to the person? Like, do we need to give the tip before bed? Do we need to look at something that's happening before bed? Do we need to look at something and maybe you're not maybe it's adding some exercise during the day to help your body rest?

unknown 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

That makes sense. Or even like how to put in those, maybe those nervous system snacks that you talk about during the day, or like even just taking time to process your day before you go to bed. Like I I haven't done this for a while, but I used to journal before I went to bed. And sometimes that can help to just kind of write out like what happened during the day, what are you gonna have to do tomorrow? And then always ending it with like, what are three things that I'm grateful for? So just ways to calm your brain down before you go to bed. And then that could prevent you getting up in the middle of the night too, because your brain's in a calmer place before you go to sleep.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah, like brain dumping. So you're like getting it. Yeah, because we'll get what we talk about, right? When we go into that that time 2 a.m. to six a.m. Like the brain is processing.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

So if you can help kind of dump some of that, yeah, then it was and I think that paying attention to well, what am I thinking about when I wake up at three o'clock in the morning? What am I thinking about when I can't go to sleep at night in the first place? And then being like, okay, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm thinking about money. I'm just throwing out an example that could be someone's situation. I'm thinking about money. I'm stressing about money when I wake up at 3 a.m. Okay, so maybe that's something I need to process before I go to bed. Just making that mental note to yourself when you wake up, and then you know what you need to process. Like what keeps you up at night? Pinpoint what keeps you up at night and process through that during the day when you're supposed to be awake.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Yeah, or even like the person, I don't know you, your client's story is it, but even the person who wakes up to work in the middle of the night. Like, are you thinking about how, you know, what am I gonna give my team to do? Or, oh, did I complete this task? Oh, did I email this person? Like all of those things.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Yeah, and think in that scenario too, like thinking about okay, what can wait till tomorrow? No, no one else is awake at 3 a.m. to read my message right now. It it can wait and like maybe teaching your body and your brain that it's safe to wait. And that it's gonna take time, like it it takes training. You have to train your brain. Muscle memory has you in these habits that has you doing what you've been always been doing. So you also have to give yourself grace and time to make that shift.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

And that's what I was going to talk about too. Like, you know, the work that I do is embodiment. So a lot of it is from the body up to the brain. So those the things that we we implement are to help your body feel safe. And that in turn sends the signals up to the brain that it is safe. And eventually we'll sleep and do the math.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah.

Why Sleep Solutions Must Be Individual

SPEAKER_00 20:26

And um, Heather brought this up with when I asked her about a suggestion for helping people go back to sleep, is the individualized piece of it. So that is also a piece that Heather and I feel very passionate about is that anything you do is individualized. And anything that we suggest to you needs to be individualized too, because we are all unique individuals and we all have different needs. So there's no one right, wrong, and different answer or magical whatever. It's individualized. And that's what she and I both do in our work is we individualize everything based on what our individual client needs. And that's something that we both feel very strongly is important. So sometimes I'll ask her stuff like that, and then I'm like, I think I know what she's gonna say because she and I both think alike. Like you can't, there's no one size fits all when it comes to anything that related to our health.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

And I think and we named that in this episode, right? Because for me, if somebody's saying, Oh, I'm waking up at three o'clock, my brain's racing, da da da, like I don't re I I didn't relate to that. Because for me, it was just that I didn't have trouble sleeping, but I was so sluggish in the morning. Like again, but for you, like waking up at and that that has kind of started to change for me now that I am in Perryman Paul's, but I still sleep pretty good, so I'm thankful. Um But I just want to name, like we kind of named that in this episode, right? Like it is so different. What is happening for you? Because it's different from the other person.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah. And I think sleep changes too based off, I mean, obviously your body is under stress when you're going through perimenopause, but sleep can change based on what's going on in your life too. Like I mentioned, my procedure. So sleep can change there. But I think once you kind of figure out what's happening, then you can get out of that cycle faster. So, like I my trouble sleeping started two days before I had my procedure. In the past, it may have started five, 10 days before my procedure. It may have started the night I found out I needed to have it. And it may have lasted longer after the procedure if I didn't know what my body needed and how to get myself back into it. So it's, I don't want people to think that it's, you know, if I'm not sleeping eight hours straight through every night, there's something wrong with me. It's just things happen in waves, and there's going to be times that sleep gets disrupted. It's just normal. But knowing how to address it can prevent it from lasting long periods

TMJ And Teeth Grinding Clues

SPEAKER_00 23:10

of time.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

And I also want to make these too, because I had several clients who have told me this. And I have experienced this too, like TMJ, um, grinding your teeth at night. I've worked with people that say, Oh, I had this situation happen. They don't even say that they had this situation happen. I know them so well because they're my client. And they say, Oh, I have I'm having t trouble with my jaw, like TNJ. And I'm like, oh, this situation is happening. So your body is bracing and clinching during the night when it actually, because again, when we talk about that, um, you know, when it your logical brain quiets and the emotional brain starts to speak, we're a little we're we are feeling there because the brain's quieting down. So then the body's like, oh no, oh no. So that's another thing, like your body might be saying through jaw pain, through what you know, some other signal that, oh, something's gone. Oh, I'm going through this in my life. This might be causing me to gross.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah, making those connections is huge. Really is. Yeah.

Wrap Up And Connect With Us

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Well, I think that we could probably talk about sleep all day long. But we also, our goal of this podcast, too, is to not take up a whole bunch of your time and still make it valuable. So um, I think Heather, are you good with wrapping it up for today?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

I think we talk about a lot and have trouble sleeping. Connect with us. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah. Yeah, we are here. Um, yeah, and I'm sure sleep is gonna come up again at some point in time. So it's not a one episode and done. I'm sure we will talk about it again.

Where To Find Amy And Heather

SPEAKER_00 25:00

But yeah, if you want to connect with us, you can find me at whole bodyharmonycoach.com and also whole body harmony coach on Instagram and Facebook. Facebook is Amy Wolford Health. And then you can find Heather.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

All right, embodiedrejuvenation.com or Facebook and Instagram in body rejuvenation.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

And we are also working on a new program that is going to allow our clients to work with both of us within the same container. So we have been working on that behind the scenes, and we're super excited to launch that in the near future. So stay tuned for that, and we'll have more information really, really soon.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

I'm Heather, nervous system coach and yoga therapist and founder of Embodied Rejuvenation. My work is rooted in the belief that lasting transformation isn't just about knowing what to do, it's about your nervous system feeling safe enough to actually do it. I know what it feels like to be capable, smart, and driven, and still feel like something is holding you back that you just can't name. Through nervous system assessment and high-touch coaching, that's exactly what I help women uncover. I also deeply believe in the power of women, healing and growing in community, which is why community is woven into my programs and why I host retreats for women who are ready to go deeper together. If any of that sounds like what you've been looking for, I'd love to connect. You can book a call with me at embodiedrejuvenation.com. The link is in the show notes.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

At Whole Body Harmony, I help women in midlife stop guessing and finally understand what their bodies are trying to say. Through comprehensive lab testing, personalized protocols, nutrition, and high touch coaching, we look at the whole picture because hormones, gut, metabolism, stress, and lifestyle are all connected. If you are tired of feeling dismissed or stuck, or even been told that you're crazy, you don't have to figure it out alone. You can learn more or book a clarity call at whole bodyharmonycoach.com. Hope to connect with you soon.