Speaker 1 (00:00:13) - Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, y'all. I have to tell you that, you know, if you've been around the block with us for a minute, we've done well over 300 episodes, and I could safely say about 98% of all guests we've ever had on the show are people I know personally. So I usually start the podcast with like a story or how I experience them. And I have to say every so often they're floats on by a purple blue unicorn that has like spits Skittles from her mouth. And I got an email in my inbox and it was a podcast pitch. Now hold on, prepare your heart, prepare heart. We get podcast pitches at minimum 8 to 10 times a day. So the vast majority, 99.8% of the time we say no. And then I came across this wild woman pitch and I thought to myself, This is something that's so important. I have believed it's important. It's radically transformed my life. And here she is as a specialist who not just specializes in this topic, but specializes in this topic for entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1 (00:01:08) - She is a consultant that specializes in helping high achieving entrepreneurs completely overhaul, wait for it their health, but not because she wants you to be healthy. She wants you to facilitate your health. Why? What is the main benefit? Well, you're going to have breakthroughs in your personal and professional lives. So here's the thing. If you want to CliffsNotes version, this is what her IG bio says, I help six and I'm just going to keep on rolling with it because I got nervous bringing you on with a formal bio. I help six and seven figure entrepreneurs double their energy and focus so they can make more money in their businesses. Y'all, if that is not the biggest benefit driven bio I've ever read on the Gram, I am very happy and welcome to the woman who actually wrote it to Nessa Shears. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show.

Speaker 2 (00:01:54) - Hey, Jasmine. Thank you. What an intro. I have to say that takes the cake for the best intro I think I've heard.

Speaker 1 (00:02:00) - Well, I've done my homework and I've dug in and we never say.

Speaker 1 (00:02:04) - We never say never. We hardly say yes. But when we say yes, we really dive in because our listeners time is the most important thing that they have. And so if they're investing it, I want to start off with the benefit. The benefit is this woman will help you make more money and have personal and professional breakthroughs. Awesome. But how she does it, I was really fascinated and I'm excited for this conversation because I want to dive right in and I want to ask some pretty basic questions that we can then build off of. And then I want us to have like a real homegirl to homegirl conversation about practical ways that entrepreneurs can start feeling better. So are you all in?

Speaker 2 (00:02:40) - I'm all in. Hey.

Speaker 1 (00:02:41) - Hey. I was like. That was the buildup. That was the buildup. I'm like, are we crossing this threshold? Okay, so for many years, I struggled with brain fog. It was like I had my ideas and they just seemed to be surrounded by this gray cloud.

Speaker 1 (00:02:55) - Now, could you define for us what brain fog is and how it might be showing up in ways that we don't expect? And so the reason I'm starting with this question is because you do have a lot of solutions and ways to change. But I first want to identify something that I experienced, and then once I identified it, I wish I had somebody speak to it a little bit earlier. So that's where I want to start with defining what brain fog is.

Speaker 2 (00:03:17) - Yeah. So brain fog is interesting. It's not one of those things that you can like walk into the doctors and they're like, that's brain fog because it's more so like a collection of symptoms. It's I like to describe it best as like if you were thinking through sand, like imagine yourself on the beach running in sand, like you can do it, but it's not as effective. It's slow. It's kind of like clunky. I like to think of that's how thinking feels with brain fog and a top of that. It comes up with a whole bunch of other things.

Speaker 2 (00:03:41) - Like if you're sitting down to write content, for example, and you're just can't come up with anything good and you're just like, I have nothing to say right now. You're forgetting things. You go to write an email and you're like, Who am I writing this email to? What is going on here? And you just feel fatigued, like you wake up feeling a little tired and you hit that dreaded like two, 3 p.m. slump and you're just like, I have nothing. And then you finally wrap up your work for the day. You get into the evening and all you have the energy for is Netflix. Not that there's anything bad with Netflix, but I want to have the energy to choose that if I want, but also do the other things in my life that make it so fulfilling. So brain fog is really this overarching sense of just like my brain doesn't feel right. I'm confused. Low energy fatigue and it's not working the way I need it to, to have the life I want.

Speaker 1 (00:04:23) - Brain fog also showed up for me in that I like how you had said it was like seeing through sand. And for me it was like I could see the ideas and I could see the ventures I wanted to do. And they had a form, but I couldn't actually drill down on the root of it to bring them to life in a way that was satiating and exciting. And so it always felt like this elusive just out of my grasp. And I kind of felt like I was just moving a lot slower. Now, whenever we start with these conversations about, well, as entrepreneurs are in a clear that brain fog, I think it's super helpful to know like what's on the other side, like what are we selling into? Because for so long that was my norm. The story I told myself was, Oh, which is a little bit harder for me to see things clearly without me giving myself the permission to say, No, no, no, this thing exists and it's brain fog. You wrote in an Instagram post because your girl is a creeper.

Speaker 1 (00:05:11) - That what life looks for you on the other side. Like how you and your husband were able to have a conversation. And what does life look like before and what does it look like after? Because if you sell us on the after everything that we start working through, a lot of my questions and frameworks are going to help us be like, Oh, I'm closer to that very thing.

Speaker 2 (00:05:28) - Yeah. So I think that brain fog, when we have it, it's one of those things that like we look at, you know, your colleagues, fellow entrepreneurs, your family and everyone kind of feels foggy and tired and like you said, like, is this normal? Like you never really think to question it. And it doesn't become how clear of an impact it's having on your life until you break out of it. And you're like, Oh my gosh, I used to think that was normal. And I often find that with my clients, it's like they'll get to the point where they're like, I feel really good and everything's going fine, but then they'll have a night.

Speaker 2 (00:05:56) - Well, that we're the like, stay up a little late or they'll, you know, a little funky and all of a sudden they're like, I used to feel like that all the time. Like, I had no idea. And I truly feel like most entrepreneurs are operating at what I feel is like 65 to 70% of what they're capable of. But when you really clear out those things that are slowing your brain down, we get you revving up at 90%. You're just like, Wow, it doesn't take me three hours to write my social media post for the week. That's what happens when my brain is slow. So when I was able to move through that and start having a brain that was thinking clear, not only did I move faster through the day, which means I don't have to spend so much time doing the same stuff, but that time that I have in the evening with my husband, I can use it for things. And we are really big into the fire movement. We actually hit financial independence last year and retired him from his job and that was one of those things without having the energy to pursue other things outside of my business and my family, we never would have had that opportunity.

Speaker 2 (00:06:50) - So it's just your brain is capable of so much more. And I just love people to begin questioning of what they're experiencing, if that is what they're truly capable of and if they want to explore more.

Speaker 1 (00:07:00) - Okay, so side note, what's the fire? What did you say? The fire?

Speaker 2 (00:07:04) - Yeah. Fire. Fire stands for financial independence. Retire early. Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:07:09) - Wow, wow. Yes. I want that lifestyle, girl. I want to be like the Phoenix. I want to rise up from the ashes. Let's go. Okay, so explain a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (00:07:16) - Yeah. So basically, what it means is the way we have invested a lot of the income from my business over the years has created such a cushion and a return yearly that all of our living expenses are completely covered by what's kicked off from our investment portfolio. So all the money that I make in my business is for fun. So I brought my husband home, which lets me play a little bit more because now the girls are home.

Speaker 2 (00:07:38) - I got two little girls. They're 11. One month old in three. He's home. He's running a videography business. I'm doing my thing. I work with people I love because I get the choice. Like it's such freedom that I didn't see as a byproduct of like, taking care of me first.

Speaker 1 (00:07:52) - Okay, See how I say, like, we have conversations. I was like, I like fire. Like, that's going to be written on a Post-it note. And I want to start really looking heavily at our investment portfolio as well because I want to create for fun, like, let's go. Okay, So thank you for clarifying that. And now I want to get a little bit practical because people are saying, well, I might be I too might be experiencing brain fog now. I have done a lot of things. I am. Now, here's the thing. I don't think that one or all of these things alleviated brain fog. I'm just saying what has definitely made an impact on my life.

Speaker 1 (00:08:27) - And that's not a recommendation, nor is it a judgment. I'll talk here, but I'm going to go back and why I was really struck with what Dennis said, saying because inadvertently I started noticing that this one thing had a domino effect on everything else. But I don't drink alcohol very much. I don't do recreational drugs. I don't smoke. I work out six days a week. I am gluten free like I'm vegetarian. There's a lot of stuff that I started changing and cutting away. I don't have a television in my room and I don't have like devices in my room. But here was the thing that I noticed was the domino was could I do one thing that I felt like I was in control of? And that became the force of change. And I noticed that when I changed my sleep, everything happened thereafter. And when I started reading and doing a lot more research on you, I was like, How do we get practical? Now I want to talk about why sleep is important to feeling better, and if anybody else is listening, how it could be a domino effect as well.

Speaker 2 (00:09:19) - Yeah. First of all, Jasmine, you're speaking my love language with all those things. I'm telling you, just.

Speaker 1 (00:09:23) - Literally Soul Sisters. I saw this pitch and I was like, There's more of us out there.

Speaker 2 (00:09:27) - Yes, right. For real? Yeah. So, you know what was interesting? So I've been in the fitness industry. I started as a personal trainer in 2008, opened my business in 2014. And at the beginning, you know, I was like, yeah, exercise is where it's at. But then, you know, over the years you're like, Wait, it's exercise and food. No, wait. And then you keep developing this. But for real. When I started diving into sleep and incorporating that not only into my personal practice, but with my clients, like, wow, did it make a difference? Because what I don't think we realize is sleep is not a pillar of health. It's the foundation on which everything else is built. Think about, Oh.

Speaker 1 (00:10:00) - Sleep is not a pillar of health.

Speaker 1 (00:10:04) - It is the foundation of health. I kind of wanted to like, say that again so that we understand that we're not messing around. This is not like an introduction of a cool idea or an added pillar to build bigger size scraper. There is no skyscraper without the foundation. I too. I believe that. So I wanted to pause there. I'm sorry. Carry on.

Speaker 2 (00:10:22) - Yeah. Well, the reason I love to say that is I want you to think about this. You went to sleep late. Maybe you had a rough sleep up a couple of times in the night. It wasn't that great of a sleep. You wake up, right? You're in a crappy mood. And so what's the first thing you do? It's likely what you skip your workout, right? Or you put it off or you put half effort into it. And so already that's gone kind of sideways. You go through your day and because you likely jeopardize some of the quality of sleep, you're in a bit of an irritable mood.

Speaker 2 (00:10:48) - So you're probably not going to be as engaging, creating content the way you want. You're not magnetic, you're not serving your customers and your clients the way you want because you're not showing up feeling in the place you want to be in. And then on top of that, because your sleep was fragmented, your insulin is 20 to 40% less effective. And that insulin's job is to keep our blood sugar stable. Blood sugar stable means less brain fog. So on top of that, your hormones are a mess. You're craving foods you want to eat more. So think about this. If you're focusing on I just want to eat better, I just want to exercise. But your sleep's a mess. You're literally fighting an uphill battle. Everything else is harder from how you show up to your mood, to the way your brain works, to if you do your exercise, to how effective your food is metabolized. So it's like we're fixing all of these things, but it's not really the thing that can set everything else in motion.

Speaker 2 (00:11:36) - So I like to like, wind it back and ask, all right, what are we missing on the foundation of why all these things feel so hard?

Speaker 1 (00:11:44) - So a lot changed for me, reading a very simple article and the whole article was hinged on one thing is that there's different types of sleep. There is richer sleep and more dense sleep and sleep that occurs before midnight is different than sleep. That happens after. And so what I was realizing was I was going to sleep at 1130 and I was cheating myself out of this really dense, beautiful sleep anytime between like eight and midnight, like that's the richest sleep. And I was cutting myself short from that. And so as people are listening, I understand the temptation that we as entrepreneurs and overachievers and really driven people, we want to add more pillars and that's great. But the foundation is what we need and it could be. So the thing that I've heard a lot from entrepreneurs as I kind of been diving into like my health journey is, Oh, but I can't.

Speaker 1 (00:12:32) - Like I just my body just doesn't do that. And I'm thinking, well, it doesn't do that because I too felt the same way. I was like, There's just no way I'm falling asleep before 1130 or midnight. And it just became a pattern. The minute I decided that I was going to not have a TV and not have devices and I wasn't going to have a lot of bright lights in the room the minute I was able to, like retrain like a circadian rhythm. Now, if we haven't sold a lot of people right now or like they say, that feels really heavy. What are some like? There's a listener who's listening and they say, You know what, I know that I have a little brain fog. To what extent? I don't know if I'm running at 60% or 75%, but they want to tweak it. But it feels very heavy. What are like two actionable things that they can do right now. So how does one number one, address the sleep issue? Have you tips on how to encourage people to go to sleep earlier? And is there anything else within that spectrum that you might say after this podcast? Today's the day.

Speaker 1 (00:13:22) - Let's start making some big changes.

Speaker 2 (00:13:24) - Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones we have to address is like like you hit on something really important. You said circadian rhythm. So if you're listening and you're like, What's the circadian rhythm your body follows.

Speaker 1 (00:13:34) - Thank you. Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (00:13:36) - Yeah, I know. Isn't it fun? Just kind of when you dive into this stuff, it just feels like language you use all the time, right? So, so your circadian rhythm is basically how your body follows a 24 hour clock. Your heart rate goes up and down at certain times of the day, your hormones, your temperature, all of that. And so if you are able to get this rhythm optimized, then your whole body just starts working a lot better. So it's interesting. What you said is like, I used to think I can't go to sleep before 1130 and I've had clients that will say that, but I often look at the hour or two before bed and I ask like, how are you cueing your circadian rhythm? Because one of the most potent sources of information for our brain is light.

Speaker 2 (00:14:16) - Now, I want you to think about this. You go outside in the middle of the day and it is so bright out blue, white spectrum light. That's telling your brain it's the middle of the day. Be alert, be focused. This is where your energy comes in. And in the evening, if you think back to the before we had all this indoor electricity, right. What happened? The sun goes down, it gets low in the sky, it gets dim, it gets red, orange and pink. That light intensity, height and color tells our brain sleep is coming. We need to produce some melatonin. You need to start winding down. But all of a sudden we have electricity. And to make it worse, we stare into our devices. Now a lot of people hear about blue light and they just think, Oh, blue light is bad. Well, it's the timing of that blue light. So when you are feeding your brain, that blue white spectrum of light right before bed, you are telling your brain it's the middle of the day and you should be alert.

Speaker 2 (00:15:05) - So essentially what happens is you go to sleep and you might even if you fall asleep, your sleep is not going to be of high quality, you might get less of that REM sleep, the dream sleep at the end of the night. That's so good for us as entrepreneurs. I call that sleep entrepreneurial gold at the end of the night. But essentially your sleep isn't what you need it to be. You may have trouble falling asleep wake ups during the night, so it's like one of those things where if you're having trouble actually falling asleep, you want to look at like, Well, what information of my giving my brain in those hour or two before bed?

Speaker 1 (00:15:33) - Okay. So I'm going to repeat back one of two actionable things that they can do based on what you said is to monitor the amount of light that you are intaking before bed. I don't know. Tell me how to get better. I try to not have any devices after 9 p.m. and the lights that we have on in the house are only like bedside stands and like accent lights perhaps in the bathroom, just to kind of make it a little bit darker.

Speaker 1 (00:16:01) - How is that as a start? And then once you cosign or amend, what would be the second tip to help somebody start falling asleep a little sooner?

Speaker 2 (00:16:10) - I love what you said. You got the whole dimming thing and the lower thing. You know what I love to do? I replaced one of my bedside lamps with an orange incandescent bulb because that really hits the coloring. So I have the other one for the morning when I want it nice and bright. But then I have that orange incandescent bulb for the evening and it makes such a difference. So it has the same effect is, you know, those like blue light blocking glasses that are red. I have those as well, but I either will wear those or throw on the orange bedside table lamp, especially in that half hour for it's kind of like that. Further queuing. Have you ever heard of the red glasses? No. No. Oh, they're awesome. Okay, so imagine wearing a pair of sunglasses, but instead of like, sunglass lenses, the lenses are red.

Speaker 2 (00:16:52) - And what it does is it filters all light coming through so that the light is orange and red spectrum. It literally is amazing for sleep. I've had my poor husband, I've fallen asleep mid-conversation with the poor guy, like we're leaning up against the headboard and I'm like drifting off. Like it is such a wonderful thing for like, that cozy, falling asleep, feeling that it is you.

Speaker 1 (00:17:12) - Wearing the red glasses.

Speaker 2 (00:17:14) - Oh, yes. With my earplugs in the sound machine on, like, the whole deal.

Speaker 1 (00:17:18) - It's amazing. That's amazing. I love this real talk. I love this real talk. Because what we're doing is we're indexing and we're having real conversations about things that truly matter to us and having those conversations with our partners. So managing the light before we go to bed, in addition to devices and perhaps wearing red tinted glasses, that could be another helpful thing. Is there anything else that somebody just like, Hey, it's I could dim all the lights and I'm not falling asleep before 1130.

Speaker 1 (00:17:45) - Anything else that pops up as like an actual thing that they could start?

Speaker 2 (00:17:49) - Yeah, I see this one all the time. I'm looking at what are we eating and what proximity to bedtime.

Speaker 1 (00:17:55) - So good. Yeah. Dave here.

Speaker 2 (00:17:58) - Yeah. So we don't really think about food's effect on sleep like we are. So I want to say the word brainwashed only think as food in terms of like health and fitness, but we never think of food and sleep. So I want you to think about this. Your brain's job when you go to sleep is to restore refresh and rejuvenate for the next day. In order for that to happen, you need to allow your heart rate to drop and to get into full recovery in the early part of the night. Now, if you are eating within, I like to honestly say 2 to 3 hours for bed for most people. Think about what has to happen. Your blood pressure needs to go up, your heart rate needs to go up, your body needs to divert its energy to digestion.

Speaker 2 (00:18:37) - Now, if we really want to get nerdy, like I monitor a lot of my body stats with a ring that I'm wearing right now, It's called an aura ring. And I wake up in the morning and I check what my resting heart rate did during the night. I know this is nerdy, but if you eat too close to bed, you will actually see your resting heart rate go up after you go to sleep and then drop later in the night. And if your resting heart rate is taking longer to come down when you sleep, that's a bunch of time you don't get to spend getting prepped for the next day. So I'm really looking at, okay, can I start moving that back? And a lot of my clients are like, I eat an hour before bed. So I always like to say like, let's not do anything crazy here. Can we get it back to 90 minutes? And then after that and that feels comfortable, can we pull it back even more? And that's kind of where I like to start with the food conversation.

Speaker 1 (00:19:20) - Oh, that is so good. And we started noticing I don't think my husband and I were eating. We've never been late eaters. We came from families who ate dinner early, but it was after having our daughter when we started realizing that she was eating dinner at 530. So it didn't make sense for her to eat at 530 and for us to eat at like 645 how we used to. And I had seen the biggest difference in how I was falling asleep. When I started eating dinner at 530. A lot of my friends will make fun of me if I'm like, okay, we made dinner reservations at six and they're like, Why? Like, are you a grandma? And I'm like, Call me a grandma. Like, I'm happy to be a golden girl because I'm sleeping. I am, like, feeling better about myself. I don't wake up feeling as like full or heavy. And so in that regard, I love this. So two actionable steps that you can do today that doesn't require a big shift in behavior.

Speaker 1 (00:20:08) - You could dim some lights and not be looking at devices before you go to bed or elongated. If you're looking at a device immediately before you go to bed, why not try like putting your device away 15 minutes, then maybe 25, 35, and then looking at what time you're eating dinner to ensure that your heart rate isn't spiking while you're sleeping because you're losing the thing that is the most valuable. So I know that you talk to people and you help. Like high earning business professionals who are driven, achieve breakthroughs professionally. What do you see stopping people? Like now that we give this advice, I want to be like, Yo, watch out for this because this is coming. Like, what kind of pitfalls do you see often? And then how do we overcome it?

Speaker 2 (00:20:49) - Two big ones. Number one is that there is this belief we have that if I take more time out to sleep, I'm less productive. Meaning like there are many entrepreneurs that I work with that I find after the kids go to sleep later at night, they'll just check back in.

Speaker 2 (00:21:05) - They'll just answer a bunch of emails, right? Some social media posts. This is my time to work on my business, right? And they'll end up, you know, maybe getting 5 or 6 hours sleep and being like, it's okay because I'm more productive. But I truly love to invite you to take a shift that what if that's actually just taking from tomorrow's productivity? And because your brain wasn't restored, maybe what would have taken you five hours tomorrow and it takes you eight? Are you really gaining that back? And on top of that now you just feel lousy?

Speaker 1 (00:21:31) - Oh, so good. Wait, let's pause. So the minute we start making these changes, dimming the lights, indexing on our sleep, changing the way we eat, what comes up is not the reality. It's the emotion of guilt or waste. And then what TSA is saying. Right. So you're going to sleep an hour more and if you don't, it will take you three x that to do something else in the middle of the day.

Speaker 1 (00:21:53) - So it's still like a net loss. So if we know that that's coming, we can now be prepared not to go through the negative emotion of guilt. And then what's the second thing?

Speaker 2 (00:22:03) - The second thing that comes up is the but if I go to bed earlier, that's my me time. So. Right. Because especially for parents, it's like the chaos just ended. I just want to scroll Instagram for an hour and a half or watch Netflix. I want to zone out. I need to recharge and that's my time. If you take that away from me, when am I going to ever have time? And here's the question I love to ask. Okay, so let's talk about that time after your kids go to bed. What is it that you really want to get out of it? And it's never a thing. It's a feeling, right? We do everything for the feeling. And so the they'll often say to me like, I just want to feel like I'm restored or refreshed. I want to have some quiet and calm in my day where I don't have to be responsible and think, I just want that peace.

Speaker 2 (00:22:50) - And I'm like, I love that. Now what are you doing in that time? And if it's Instagram scrolling, let's say I'll be like, okay, does Instagram give you refreshed? Does Instagram give you restored? And the answer, we know the answers to that.

Speaker 1 (00:23:04) - It's no and then hell no girl is a hell no, right?

Speaker 2 (00:23:08) - Even if it's Netflix and it's a show we love, it's like I don't feel restored after. And then I loved a question like, Well, maybe is the reason you need so much downtime because you're not getting out of it what you want. Maybe that's why you're watching Netflix episodes roll because you're like, I don't feel like I've had enough me time yet. Well, because it's not giving you what you need to recharge.

Speaker 1 (00:23:28) - Oh, somebody is preaching right now. Oh, my God. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:23:32) - Yeah. So my invitation is like, there's nothing wrong with Instagram scrolling and Netflix. We all do it. But instead of like having it, consume all of your downtime as a way of escaping how overwhelmed and tired you are, why not instead use some of that time to do something that gives you that feeling of restoration? For me, reading is home.

Speaker 2 (00:23:53) - Like if I read like a good chick lit romance book, like I'm a happy girl and that for me is rejuvenating. So maybe you do some of that and some of Netflix, or maybe you do some of an evening yoga class and then some, you know, scrolling on Instagram. But are you incorporating things in that meantime that give you what you want or are you just wasting the time to go to bed and then wake up feeling tired again the next day? It's a cycle, right?

Speaker 1 (00:24:15) - Oh, so outside of the first sip that you had given us, it's to ask yourself first and foremost, what activities give you peace, joy and refreshment. And once you identify those activities to index on those activities, instead of going to what is normal or what is easy, knowing we know that we will not get the satiation and that void filled by what we are going to now. So it's okay. Like and here's the thing, I kind of was a little bit nervous with this podcast. I didn't want it to be like, Oh, there's the right way, or castigate like, no, not at all.

Speaker 1 (00:24:52) - In fact, Denise said, You can do both. You could still watch Netflix and still scroll Instagram. But is there a way that you can introduce an alternative to start mixing and at least attempting at giving yourself the chance to get the emotion that you want by doing something you've already identified as refreshing? So when we talk about this, I think what comes up for me and probably a lot of people listening is there are times in our lives where it doesn't look like it's optimized for sleep. Like when we started a family and we had a baby or there's other people, there's been time in my life where I was like a first and foremost caretaker and you put the needs of other people before yourselves and then it feels like, well, sleep the way that I know it is just impossible. Like, do people need to give up on focusing on sleep for a while? I mean, obviously people will sleep, but do they need to fall into these patterns of what we're recommending or are there strategies that you could share to help?

Speaker 2 (00:25:43) - Yeah, there's absolutely strategy.

Speaker 2 (00:25:45) - So consider this like I have a three year old and 11 month old. I'm not too far out of those like that. That stage where my sleep was second priority. But I think there's a difference between getting not enough sleep and then also still taking care of the sleep you are getting. Right. Because let's imagine that you can only get five hours of fragmented sleep because you're up with a baby. Well, what can you do to protect the sleep you are getting? Because, I mean, there's a difference between short, lousy sleep and short good sleep. Right? So I think changing that mindset that it's not just about throwing no pun intended, no throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Right. I think that's part of it to consider there. But then there's also a whole set of strategies that we can consider that you can use in the morning. So mirroring the circadian rhythm discussion we had with bed, you can use certain strategies to help wake you up in the morning. And a really good example of that is let's go back to light.

Speaker 2 (00:26:41) - We've already talked about light, but how can you use it in the morning? Most of us sit indoors all day long or in our cars all day long. We are surrounded by low watt artificial light. And what we don't do is ever expose our eyes to natural daylight. Now, if you go outside, even on a cloudy day, the intensity of that light is so bright that it goes into your eyes and cues your brain. Oh, it's morning. Let's wake up. Let's turn off melatonin so you don't feel so drowsy anymore. And on top of that, let's reset your rhythm so that you get tired at the right time tonight. So I always love to advise, if possible, get outside for at least ten minutes in the first hour of the day. It's not always possible. And if you can't do that, it's all right. If we can get outside in the morning, like sometime before 10 a.m.. Right. If we can just get outside, have your coffee on the deck, walk around the yard with a dog, go out with your kids, like walk your kids to the bus stop.

Speaker 2 (00:27:37) - These are all strategies my clients have used to get that little bit. But you add in these things in the morning that can help offset some of the nights that we've struggled to sleep.

Speaker 1 (00:27:45) - I am absolutely obsessed. And for people who feel like, okay, well, I'm not really set up for walking the dog or a kid to the bus stop. It's been as simple as me choosing to collect my mail in the morning and instead of doing it the night before, I just get to walk out my front door, go to my mailbox, take a few deep breaths. And I am intentional about looking at this guy, which sounds so crazy, but it's very important because I actually am a very early riser, so I am waking before the sun. And so what I try to do and to please like give me feedback on how to make this better. I mean, maybe I'll buy a pair of red sunglasses and then a pair of different colors, sunglasses to wear. But I do not look at devices.

Speaker 1 (00:28:27) - At the top of the morning I will have a low light next to my bed stand or perhaps in like the bathroom. And then I just go through and I just take me time. So I'll. I'll pray. I'll read. I just have like a little bit of time to wake up. And then I drink like about a liter of water with some lemon. I'm very old. I'm very old. But because the sun isn't there, I try to make sure that when I go out in the morning to collect my mail, I am being cognizant of looking at this guy. So for somebody who is an early riser, what more could I do or what could other people do?

Speaker 2 (00:29:00) - So I love that you're going out in the morning. I think that's so important. And you know what's interesting, the way you describe your morning, it's almost more of an experience for you. And I love it. The coziness. Right. So if you were to think about how circadian rhythm biology works, what I might want to include is actually flipping on the lights, right? Even if it's indoor lights, because that is cueing your brain to wake up.

Speaker 2 (00:29:23) - It's funny, my husband does this. I'll come down like 5 a.m. is like a late wake up for me. And I'm downstairs and he's down there. I'm like, Why are you sitting in the dark? You're going to be tired all day. And he's always like, I'm fine. But I would say, like, if you maybe get through the morning part of the cozy part and then turn the lights on, but you can also trigger your body to wake up in a different way. So another thing that'll cure circadian rhythm is if we increase body temperature, that directly tells our brain time to wake up because in the morning body temperature rises, in the evening it falls. So if you facilitate an increase in core temperature, you're going to feel more alert, more energized and more focused. I've got two ways to do that. Move your body and I'm talking walk. I'm talking. Move your body with stretches. I'm talking a workout. All of them are good. They don't have to be long.

Speaker 2 (00:30:11) - Or number two, I love a good cold shower. It's counterintuitive, but if you put cold water on the outside of your body, you have a thermostat inside just like the one in your house. When it senses warm on the outside, it's like we got a cool or when it says it's cold on the outside, it's like, we got it. We got to heat this up. We got to heat this up. So it turns your core temperature on. I'm going to tell you, cold showers or something. I feel the most resistance around with my clients, but when they adapt it because I do love to really say, please try it, nobody turns back. They're so good. They're so good for just how you feel after the dopamine, the adrenaline, just how clear you feel like, oh, go create content after a cold shower. I tell you, life changing.

Speaker 1 (00:30:53) - I mean, I think I feel like shots fired because I did it wrong. Like, I was like, oh, when you said your body should start warm, I immediately went to I'm in a warm up body, which is my hand to heaven.

Speaker 1 (00:31:04) - You and I are literally kismet. I wake up naturally without an alarm for 30 every morning. It's kind of the shtick that I do. And so then this morning, I woke up, I went through my routine, but I had a little bit of time before my workout, and I'm like, I'm going to take a warm bath. I am telling you, I took warm bath. I got up, went and worked out and I felt like a million bucks. But I did it wrong.

Speaker 2 (00:31:22) - You know what? I don't ever think there is a wrong because you also did a lot right. So I don't want to take away from the fact that you did the workout. But being warm, like going in a warm bath, your inner core temperature is like, Oh, we're warm, we should cool this down, right? That is something that signals the body to wind down because we need that temperature drop in the evening. So here's the thing. Like there's science and then there's you and your experience, right? So if it's working for you and you love it, do it.

Speaker 2 (00:31:50) - But I always like to invite something I say with my clients all the time, What if we experimented for a week and you get to the end of the week and you had the experience of now doing the warm bath or the cold showers and you get to decide, having had both experiences, what you like best, because I often find our brains like to freak out a little bit when we're like, You want me to change that forever? And after after I loved this for so long, but I love the invitation idea of like, what if it was just a week and you get to decide? Because that's the way I find. I like to invite my clients into the process a little bit, especially on the stuff. They're a little bit like, Oh, I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 (00:32:26) - I love that and I feel like it's super attainable. It's, Hey, why not just test it? I love that. Okay, I received that and I'm going to try it. I'm going to try the cold shower, although I'm always cold, like I'm always cold to and cold shower will probably drive me crazy, but I can't have a thought until I have an opinion.

Speaker 1 (00:32:44) - So I want an opinion based in fact. Okay. So we talked about a lot of things that we can start taking action on. But one thing that you had written is your list of boundaries. And I saw some of this on social and you put this actually out on Instagram that you put boundaries in place to protect your energy. And I'm going to read a few of them because I'm very sensitive to protecting my energy. And I didn't understand that until adulthood. And so if there are people who are listening and not really aware of it, here's a couple of boundaries that you put in place. You don't respond to emails, messages or clients when it's not work time. Another boundary. You set work hours and you follow them. You don't skip workouts or walks or eating well just to get more done. You're not skipping lunch so that you get an extra hour during the day. You leave open space on your calendar and you remember that there is nothing that can't wait until Monday. Okay, so I love these boundaries.

Speaker 1 (00:33:40) - Do we make each of them our own, or do you think that there's some universal boundaries that are like, Here's a good place to start?

Speaker 2 (00:33:47) - I do like the idea of, you know, creating our own. However, sometimes if you don't have boundaries, the idea of creating all these boundaries can feel really like, don't even know where to start. So it's kind of like, you know, the idea of like when you're trying to change your mindset about something, sometimes it's easier to borrow someone else's thought until you start developing some of your own. So this can be a good example of like, you know what, I really do like that idea of not, you know, skipping a workout for the expense of being productive. Maybe that's something I could try. And then naturally, I think as you as you put these into your life and you get your own experiences, you start to adapt them to your life. So whether you start with your own boundaries or you kind of borrow examples that we've talked about here, I think they can be really good jumping off points to see how they fit into your life already.

Speaker 1 (00:34:32) - I absolutely love that and I adhered to a lot of these boundaries as well. And so when I first learned about creating boundaries from an entrepreneur perspective, it's like when you give yourself space, that's when your mind decompresses and it allows more creative thinking or a different way of looking at a solution or coming up with a solution that you couldn't see because you were in the thick of things. When I would say, Oh, I'm going to create some space, I'm going to create some space. And it wasn't until I said, When do I have like a three day block? Like when can I create it? And I started realizing that I didn't have a three day block of time for like 3 or 4 months out. And so the minute I started realizing that that was the pattern, I started going into the future and just blocking out three days indiscriminately and like hell or high water. These are three protected days for downtime and a lot of times maybe you don't have that. But we've implemented here at Social Curator that we have a mental health day once a month so that we start teaching our team members what it is to put up boundaries and then what it feels like to invest in some down space so that when we come back to work, we can apply those things now for somebody.

Speaker 1 (00:35:35) - And I'm saying like aka me on the mic, I will sometimes skip a workout because I slept longer or I have like so much to do and I just know that I can't get it all done when I'm looking at it. It's physically impossible taking the time that it would take for me to go and work out. So what do I hear you recommend in those situations? Is that like, well, you're just moving some work to the next day or what?

Speaker 2 (00:35:58) - For me, I think what we have to get good at distinguishing is the difference between excuses and self-care. And I find like sometimes, you know, when you need to sleep, just because it's been a big week, you've got a lot going on. Maybe a launch is going on, You're making a lot of high level decisions. You were at a retreat. You just need to sleep more. And I think when you're looking at self-care, if it is a way of not escaping your life, but creating like a safer space to just relax in there, that is always, I think, a reason to skip your workout.

Speaker 2 (00:36:29) - But if you're skipping it because I don't feel like it, I don't want to. I'd rather work. Like, I think we really need to be good at making that discernment, so to speak. But no, there's definitely times like even if we like, zoom out and talk about like your monthly cycle, your energy changes during your cycle, right? And naturally so do your sleep needs. And so I always like invite, you know, in that last couple of weeks, are you giving yourself extra time in bed? Like, are you planning for the fact that you might want to nap in the middle of the afternoon one of those weeks? Like, are you scheduling yourself a little lighter in case you need it? So I think there is proactively looking out and just like you've done with your three days, but also looking out on your month and being like, is there a time that I might need to be proactively scheduling in some rest time so that I don't end up in this whole like bump it down the schedule thing? Because I know some of my clients love to create the stories then of what am I doing wrong? I'm not doing good enough, I'm not working enough, I'm not enough.

Speaker 2 (00:37:25) - So I find like just like create a space where that conversation doesn't have to happen by taking care of yourself ahead of time.

Speaker 1 (00:37:31) - I couldn't think of a better way to tie up this gift that you have given us with a very perfect bow that there is a distinction in a difference between excuses and self care. And dang girl, I needed to hear that. I needed to give myself the permission to say like, okay, not today, but for good reason. And that's different than not today. Because I don't feel like going to say you are a gift you have far surpassed. And I came in, I was like, We are going to talk about sleep. We're going to talk about foundations. We're going to talk about changing how we think and feel so that we change how we act, think and feel. And that's very, very, very different. How can people go deeper with who you are and what it is you do? How can they find you?

Speaker 2 (00:38:10) - So I'm on Instagram at shares and I host a podcast called Becoming Limitless.

Speaker 2 (00:38:14) - It is literally biohacking one on one for entrepreneurs. You want to hack, you want to know how it affects your business, how to apply it, guarantee you there's an episode on that. But beyond that, I have a playbook that I've put together and it's beautifully covered. So many of the things we have talked about today, it's called 12 Ways to Biohacking Your Energy. And it's a short and quick. These are the things that have had the best effect on energy across the board with my clients. And it's that's necessary as a.com/energy.

Speaker 1 (00:38:40) - Thank you for guiding this conversation. And then also thank you for giving me a way for me to share my journey without coming out and saying that. I'm a professional. I just get to share my experience with you with so much more experience and wherewithal and knowledge can actually give us context around that. You're incredible. Thank you for being a gift to the world and thank you for changing entrepreneurs in the way that we show up. Thank you a million times over now.

Speaker 2 (00:39:01) - Thank you so much. I'm so glad. Hopefully we can just make a bigger impact on entrepreneurs who prioritize sleep, get that foundation in place.

Speaker 1 (00:39:08) - Love it. Thank you.