Sleep Simplified with Monica Le Baron

What if the secret to your next professional breakthrough isn't doing more—but mastering the art of the somatic off-switch?

In a high-intensity culture that treats "the hustle" and sleep deprivation as badges of honor, ambitious women are facing a quiet epidemic of chronic exhaustion, nighttime panic, and the dreaded 3:00 AM wake-up call. In this episode of This is Yoga Therapy, host Michele Lawrence sits down with Monica Le Baron, MBA, C-IAYT, a globally recognized sleep expert, certified yoga therapist, and the bestselling author of Sleep Simplified.

Monica beautifully bridges the gap between high-level business strategy and somatic therapy because she lived it. After climbing the corporate ladder while silently battling debilitating insomnia, chronic pain, and anxiety, she found her pathway out of burnout through yoga therapy. Today, her signature Sleep Simplified™ method helps hundreds of high-achieving women worldwide drop the stress of rigid sleep tracking and reclaim deep, restorative rest.

In this conversation, we dive into:

• The Corporate Pivot: Monica's personal turning point from corporate exhaustion to somatic alignment.
• Stripping Away Bedtime Anxiety: The core philosophy behind her 4-step framework and why rigid sleep hygiene rules can sometimes fuel insomnia.
• Rest as a Foundation, Not a Reward: Re-framing rest as a non-negotiable metric for professional longevity, success, and leadership sustainability.
• The Neurobiology of Self-Love: How a lack of self-compassion keeps the sympathetic nervous system on high alert at 3:00 AM, and how to transition into a physical state of safety.
• Mind-Body Mechanics for Nighttime Panic: A practical, in-the-moment breathwork tool to down-regulate an anxious nervous system directly from bed.
• The Next Chapter: An exclusive sneak peek into the central message of Monica's highly anticipated upcoming book.

🔗 Resources, & Guest Links

• Connect with Monica Le Baron: Visit MonicaLeBaron.com to find her bestselling book Sleep Simplified, explore her guided audio practices on the Insight Timer app, and sign up for updates on her upcoming book.
• Deepen Your Training: Discover advanced modules and clinical pathways to bring mind-body tools into specialized care at Inner Peace Yoga Therapy.

Enjoyed this episode? Please take a moment to leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! Share this episode with a high-achieving friend, colleague, or client who needs permission to put down the trackers and reclaim the courage to rest.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to This Is Yoga Therapy. I'm your host, Michelle Lawrence. Join me as we venture beyond the mat into the fascinating intersections of yoga and health. Each episode brings you candid conversations with the visionary leaders and practitioners who are truly shaping this field, sharing their stories, insights, and the profound impact of yoga therapy in action. Hey everyone, Michelle here. I want to take a quick 60-second break from today's conversation to invite you to something incredibly special that we've been building behind the scenes. On July 18th and 19th, we're officially holding Science and Soul, the Yoga Therapy and Integrative Wellness Summit. If you love the deep dive conversations we have on this podcast, then this summit's your chance to experience that wisdom and action. You're going to learn live from absolute masters of the field, including Joseph LaPage, Maria Shamus, Neil Pearson, and Smith Amalaya. Best of all, tickets are completely free and your registration includes a limited time replay pass. Head over to the show notes right here or go directly to innerpeaceyogatherapy.com slash summit to claim your free ticket. And I can't wait to see you there. Now let's get back to today's episode. Welcome back to This Is Yoga Therapy, folks. Today we're joined by a yoga therapist and globally recognized sleep expert whose work is shifting how high-achieving women view rest, recovery, and resilience. Monica LeBaron, MBA, CIAYT, is the best-selling author of Sleep Simplified. She's a certified yoga therapist and the creator of the signature Sleep Simplified Method as well. Monica has helped hundreds of ambitious women worldwide break free from the cycles of chronic exhaustion, anxiety, and burnout to reclaim deep restorative sleep, which is just so important for our health. So today we're going to dive into the science-backed sleep strategies behind her four-step framework and how her personal pivot from corporate burnout transformed her own health and the deep intersection between self-love and sleep, which seems to be a core here. And a sneak peek into her upcoming book. Monica, it's such a pleasure to meet you and have you here today.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Thank you so much for having me. Like I said before, I've been a fan of the show for so long. And it's just so nice to be interviewed by you and also to be of service of this audience.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, well, I'm really excited for our conversation and to hear about your work. So I think it's really relatable to a lot of our listeners who are perhaps navigating demanding professional lives while trying to maintain their own well-being. And before you became a sleep expert, you were climbing the corporate ladder. I did a bit of that myself as well. And dealing with your own severe struggles with insomnia, chronic pain, and anxiety. So what was the turning point that made you realize your high-achieving lifestyle was no longer sustainable? How did yoga therapy become your pathway out of burnout?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Like they say, right, yoga finds you. You don't mind yoga. So when I lived in Beijing because I wanted to speak the more three more spoken languages in the world. So I grew up bilingual, Spanish and English, and I took a trip to China, and I loved it. So I decided to go back. And it was just so foreign for me. You know, I was working for the Mexican embassy and I was uh studying Chinese and I was doing my master's on the side, and I was just doing everything, right? For me, it was just like no big deal. But China was so foreign and so far away from home that it triggered a lot of the things that I wasn't expecting, right? I I was really good at covering my emotions, and I was really doing the things and just working more and seeing rest as lazy. But then just things started to shift. I didn't have my support that I had back home. Things were just different. I had to start all over because I didn't speak the language, right? So it was like, oh, everything I did for the past 10 years, like it doesn't matter anymore because here I'm starting again. And eventually, like I was crying all the time. I was in the hospital every other week. I visit every doctor in the building specialist. And I just knew something needed to change, and somebody introduced me to a yoga therapist. I've never heard about yoga therapy before. My insurance was able to cover it, and I was like, oh, free yoga classes, let's go. Little did I know that this was the turning point in my life and in my career, right? Because I couldn't like it started with um PMS. I thought it was just TMS, and then it was like, wait, I'm feeling PMS all month, like that's not normal. Then I've learned it was anxiety and insomnia, and all that led to depression. So I was seeing a psychiatrist and I was going to Capunchara every week, and I was reading the books and doing the work, but nothing seemed to really be a long-term effect until I found yoga therapy. And four sessions after, like, my I was a different person.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Right. I took ownership of my life. I understood like the basics that I needed to do to fall asleep. And when that happened, like everything changed, right? So it was not one thing, it's never one. No, it's not, but it was this part of being so foreign, far away from home and not really connected to my body and what I really needed.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Wow. Such an interesting path to get there. So let's talk now about what that turned into. So you have a signature method and a best-selling book. They're both titled Sleep Simplified. And in a world filled with complex sleep trackers and rigorous bedtime hygiene rules, which, you know, I understand the place for that sort of thing, endless supplements, sleep can even feel stressful to achieve, right? And so, what's the core philosophy behind simplifying sleep? How does your four-step framework strip away that anxiety for someone who's chronically exhausted?

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Well, I work with the basics of yoga therapy. That is, first of all, meeting the client where it is. Uh, being not seeing a person who can't sleep of only the that little part, and really seeing the person as the as the whole, right? And um you can't sleep. I know that's just like the tip of the iceberg of all the things that could be going on, right? And also like your body has a capacity to heal itself. Like when I've learned that, and I was told, yeah, you just need the right conditions and enough time for that. So I was like, oh, yeah, why not? So, what are these conditions? It's going to vary from person to person, and it's going to be different depending on what you want and what you need on your life right now. So I like to compare like yoga to food and saying, like, oh, when I'm nervous, when I'm sad, when I'm angry, I'm not gonna need the same thing. So it's the same thing for yoga, right? If you're you got uh surgery last week, or if you had a breakup, or something really exciting happened, and you know, like that's all gonna vary of what you need. So if you do the same activities all the time, some might work, but it's not the core. So for me, it was very like I started getting all these tools, like you know, a yoga therapy training is a hundred hours of training, I mean a thousand hours, and you learn so many things, and I would bring that to the client, it was like, whoa, I'm overwhelmed. And for me, it was like very interesting because I came to yoga therapy as a client first, right? Yeah, so having that experience and remembering when my my teacher was or my amazing therapist uh Nassim was telling me, like, oh yeah, mootras, let's do this. And I was like, what is this? Or oh yeah, you just need to do this posture, or you need to, you know, and and they work, but it was so foreign, and I was in such a state that I didn't understand that as a teacher and as a therapist, for me it's very easy it's easier to relate now and say, okay, how can I make this so simple that people actually understand it and then put it into their lives that they really are gonna start making change? So with my first clients, I I've learned one thing and then the other one, and and now I can get into a room and put 15 people to sleep, like strangers in a two-hour program, like that is amazing. But I learn and I practice and I do the things, but if it's complicated, the brain itself is going to block it. So my philosophy comes from making it things simple, and also that's the way I've learned. I'm I'm dyslexic. So being able to understand things, I have to break it into little pieces, master it, then I make my own losses, and all of this is just part of who I am and how I've learned. So I can't teach what I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Right, right, yeah, absolutely. It's such a cool entry way that you became a yoga therapist, and I don't hear that story that often. So it makes a lot of sense that you refined the things that helped you individually and turned that into a um really accessible way to work with other people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

So you have a specific niche of people that you work with, it sounds like. Um, so you hold an MBA yourself and you specifically serve ambitious, high-achieving women. And in that um world, there's often a badge of culture around the hustle and sacrificing sleep for success. You said earlier, like sometimes resting was equated to being lazy. So when you work with clients who are resistant to slowing down, how do you help them reframe rest, not as a reward for hard work, but as a non-negotiable foundation for their actual success and longevity of it?

SPEAKER_00 12:08

One of my superpowers is Yoga Nidra. When I have an audio on uh inside timer, and I have it as a free resource in my website too, where people can just download it and have it like Wi-Fi free, you know. And when I started with my yoga therapist, I would listen to Jennifer Ray's audio like every single day, like 10 times. And I was like, boom, and then later I got to study with her, so it was like super cool. Um and like that's like one of the like the simplest way to put people to understand, like they're like you can't tell somebody to do something when they have a million things, right? But if you prove it to them in five minutes or 10, 15 minutes that they're they're able to reset, like a breathing exercise and things like that. So I always go to that analogy that you need to give, you need to add gas to your car. If not, your car won't start, won't run, right? So if you're like on empty, you'll definitely make time to go to the gas station, right? But we don't do that for our bodies, and that's like one of the things that sleep does. And I just tell a lot of people like if you were if you needed to pay a thousand dollars to sleep, you would value it more, right? And we get we can get the thousand dollar benefit by sleeping, so it's a lot of understanding and reframing, but also giving the tools to actually prove it in that moment. So when people work with me, like the first session, I do an intake forum, I ask questions, but I make sure by the end of that session they got the reset that they needed, right? Okay, you're gonna do this exercise. Okay, let's try three, three different breathing exercises. Let's see what what's best for this, okay? Let's do this. A mudras, okay. So we try it, we do it by the end of the session. They they already had technically a yoga class, right? They feel more relaxed and like all that overwhelm and that resetting, like once you have it, it's like, oh, this is possible. So I think most people don't do it because they don't see it possible. But if you try to take a nap or rest and your mind's still active, like you can't rest and you don't like it, right? I tell people, like, contrary to what everybody says at night, that oh yeah, if you wake up at three in the morning and you have like all those things to work, I tell people, just work, you know, work, get that thing out of your head, work, but then reschedule your day. Work for one, two hours, go back to sleep if you can. If not, just cancel all the meetings, it's possible, you know. Like, so it is that part of reframing. Maybe the first two, three months when you start a process like this, it won't be possible. If your exchedule is overwhelmed already for the next six months, like it's not gonna be possible to do a lot of things, but if you start with little things like a breathing, a mudra, yoga nidra, those things are proven to reset your nervous system and to put you out of that fight or flight mode, your body's gonna ask for it more and more, and then you'll start making more time for it.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That makes a lot of sense. So, one thing that strikes me as very different or maybe missing from other sleep experts that I've heard talk is this concept around the role of self-love in sleep quality. And so, from a clinical perspective, how does a lack of self-compassion keep the sympathetic nervous system on high alert at 3 a.m.? And how do we use yoga therapy to transition a client from self-judgment into a physical state of safety? Talk to us about that role in sleep, self-love.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

So, as we know, as a yoga therapist, one of the main things that we work on is that our body keeps the score, right? The body doesn't know if something is real or not, right? And stress and that awareness and anxiety are also here to keep us safe, right? If something's really going on, like you have to be alert. The problem is when our system is on 24-7, because we get stressed by a text message, we get stressed by the phone ringing or the news, but also like that internal judgment, I think it's worst because it doesn't matter. Like, I'm getting emotional right now, just thinking of how I was almost 10 years ago, that people would tell me, like, you're so beautiful and you're so calm and you're so peaceful. And I was like, cute, and I didn't know how people were perceiving that because I couldn't see it myself. I wasn't, I was a person who I would look into the mirror and I couldn't see myself into the eyes, and I would just cry because I was so desperate for love and attention from everybody else, and I wasn't giving myself that gift. And if I wasn't giving to myself, it was hard for others to actually do it, even if they're tried, because I wasn't gonna accept it. So if I'm being self-judgment and I'm being a perfectionist and like a higher achiever without specific goals and getting that balance of giving and receiving, like adding to my own bank account, adding that feel to myself, my system thinks I'm I'm in survival mode. It thinks that I need help, and the body tries to help you in a million ways. But if you don't speak your body's language, and if you're not in the same page, things are are never gonna go your way.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah, so true. And uh there's a lot we can do about that, but it takes that first step of recognition, right, of what the self-limiting beliefs might be or what is underlying our external personas. Yeah. So let's talk a bit about the mind-body mechanics of insomnia. So when a client's been trapped in a pattern of chronic sleep deprivation, the bedroom itself can become a trigger for anxiety. So, can you walk us through a specific mind, body, or breath work practice from your method that helps the client downregulate their nervous system right in the moment if they're feeling that anxiety at nighttime?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

So, one of the main things that I teach my clients and tell everybody all the time is that sleep doesn't start the moment you put your head in the pillow, it starts in the morning. So depends on the client and depends on what it needs. I help them to prepare during the day. So at night, if this happens, like I can give you the best breathing exercise. But if you are in this panic moment and your body doesn't recognize it as a safe space, it doesn't matter, it's not gonna work, right? So I teach this first to be able to say, okay, what can I do in the morning? And usually what I do is I put people to journal because, like, there's like so many nerve endings in our hands that are connected to our body, and there that's one, like one of the main reasons why uh mudras can be so calming. So I have them like right in the morning, and then I give them like one breathing exercise, depending on where the client is. I give them one exercise and I pair that with the mudra. So, one of the easiest ways that I start is like one hand in your heart and one in your belly, and then just like start taking three breaths or ten breaths, and then two of my favorite mudras are like the Hakini mudra, so putting all the tip of your fingers together and making a circle, and you can place that like in front of your solar plexus or on top of your thighs, and I take like five breaths, so I don't say stay here for five minutes, I give like very specific number, like just take three breaths, and they're gonna take three breaths and they're gonna want to take three more, and that's okay, right? So if I make it so simple, that's like one of the easiest ways to get started. And what I like to do, like to play with that part of not thinking the the the active mind at night or the panic attack or something, is like I start putting like the the connection with like so Hakini Dre you put all the fingers together, but I start with the like first touching the little fingers together and taking three breads, and then I'm to the ring finger and take three breads, and then to the why I'm forgetting the name.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

The middle finger.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Finger index and then the thumbs together, and then I put the the whole uh make that circle with the the hands, and by the time they get here, they already took 15 breaths, right? Or more. I don't need to I don't know how to do math now. So, like those little tricks that are gonna distract the mind, yeah, but also it's easy to remember. So when you're having a panic attack, when you're super stressed and overwhelmed, when you already have 10 million things on your schedule, like what was it? Was this the first finger, the other finger? Like, so if I use all the fingers and start with this mudra, that is super simple to remember. And like um from the book uh from Joseph LePage, you we know that the scalf from calming to energizing, the it this one is at level five, so that's why I could be super grounding, and like that's like my go-to, and everybody really likes it. And I love that you can do it anywhere. Like, I can be here sitting taking a breath, being in a Zoom meeting. Um, I can be waiting on a stoplight or talking to a friend, right? So it's just all these different ways that you can do, but this is like my top one. If you write in the morning and then use this mudra, let's say every time you get into your car or every time before you grab your phone, you take a breath. Like that is going to help your body understand that this is a safe space.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

It's one of my favorite mudras, too. Yeah. I've been sitting here holding it right now. Yeah, yeah. So uh your work's been recognized by IAYT, so that's the International Association of Yoga Therapists, uh, Spirituality and Health, and the Insight Timer app, as you've mentioned already. And because you bridge the gap between business strategy and somatic theory so seamlessly, I'm thrilled to ask you about your next chapter. So you have a new book coming out. So share with us, give us a little sneak peek, the central message of the upcoming book. How does it expand upon the foundations that you laid in sleep simplified?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Well, I've learned from working with many clients that one of the reasons that people don't get enough sleep or actually do the work to get it is because they don't love themselves enough. And I I changed the perspective of my my story and my things because I like after I trained as a yoga therapist, um, actually the day that I graduated, um, I was working with with sleep before I graduated, right? Because I because I had my master's degree and I my business degree, and I was like, when I finish this program because she's very expensive, I really want to know where am I taking it. So I I was working with clients in different things, and that's when I um by the time I was going to graduate, I I decided that I mean I've had been working with clients. So I was known as La Sleep Queen, and I was doing this and I was doing that, and then my dad had brain injury, and he passed away like two months later or a month later, and in that time I had a nervous breakdown. Like the day I've graduated from Krapollo online because it was in the pandemic, um, he passed away four four hours later, and that was just so heartbreaking. And I was my last module was uh Ayurveda. So I was living on Ayurveda, like super hot, super intense, like all those things. And I knew I needed alignment, but I I wasn't I for two weeks I hadn't been able to sleep well, I was super sensitive, and then my dad passed away, and I didn't have I didn't sleep for four days, so that put me on different areas of craziness, right? And then all my biomarkers that set it up, so I work with the psychiatrist and I do like I was doing all the tools that I do, and it totally changed my life, right? So instead of seeing that as if I have to do it, it's like, no, I take care of my sleeve because I love myself so much that this is so important to me. My life is going to change. I need to set boundaries. Like, I don't do speaking engagements after six o'clock, I don't do anything creative after six, you know, like all this changes, and I realized for myself that when I changed this perspective, I came into this place that I was doing everything because I love myself. And I came into this place of wow, I'm flirting in the mirror, I'm happy, I'm laughing, and I would talk to people, and they're I was like, Yes, I'm so in love, and like who's the guy? I was like disappointed. Um, because when I would say, No, I'm in love with myself, they'll be like, Oh, I'm sorry, like you know, like, and it's like, no, this is a really good place to be, and more people need to be in this. So I started like noticing more. So I work with a lot with the Bliss Layer and uh in the coaches, right? And this is something that I work in my book, but then I started using it more and more and telling people go on a self-love date or do something that really sparks your joy. So I feel that a lot of people with self-love issues have been coming to me to remind me of that and to be able to bring that message. So I'm working on my book, my next book, and the working title right now is Your Light. It's a book that I want to um um, I'm dedicating it to my dad's mom, my grandma lose. So lose in English, the translation for that is light. So your light, you're to lose. So I'm excited for that because she's been a very beautiful spiritual connection that I had over this period of working on myself. So I feel that it's a a good reminder that our ancestors are always taking care of us and that their prayers are still with us, and that it's our job to honor them by honoring ourselves. And that biggest legacy that you can give the people around you is to be a healthy and happy person. What a beautiful message.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Yeah. Well, thank you for being such an impactful bridge builder for ambitious women everywhere, for showing us that true vitality begins really with the courage to rest. And I'd like to end the podcast by asking, I always do this, the guests to share about their own personal yoga practice. So, what does yours look like right now? How does it anchor you in your busy life? It's always changing, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

But one of the main things that I do is writing in the morning. I either exercise, go for walks, stretch, that in the morning. And then in during the day, I remind myself to be present in any way I can. And at night, I started to add um a yoga practice after a shower, like lights are off, and and I do a gratitude journal in at night as well. So that's like part of that helping me with my creative brain to keep it calm. And I've always reminded myself of one lesson that I learned from a yoga teacher a long time ago, and she said that if you're you're a good person, you're doing yoga, so I just try to remember to be a good person. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

So beautiful. Well, thank you so much. I'll include these links in the show notes, but you can find Monica's best-selling book, Sleep Simplified, and her audio practices on Insight Timer and updates on her upcoming book at monicaleberron.com. Thanks so much. Great to have you here today.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Thanks again for listening. If you're interested to learn more about who we are and what we do, check us out at innerpeaceyogatherapy.com.