Chelsie Ward- Importance of Sleep

I’ll never forget when I was about ten years old and my grandmother looked at me one day and said, “child, you get everything that comes down this family line.” 

What was she talking about?

Blood sugar issues, inability to pay attention, gas, bloating, constipation, and nausea after meals. My doctors labeled these symptoms as IBS, hypoglycemia, and ADD. 

The older I got, the more diagnoses I received. In college, it was anxiety, depression, hypothyroidism, and then came the dreaded perimenopause at age 27. 

My migraines would sometimes last a month with no relief. Chronic fatigue would land me on the couch daily for a nap. I suffered from sugar addiction, hair loss, stuttered speech, foggy thinking, poor memory and concentration, chronic pain, acne, and metabolism issues. 

This list kept growing year after year with no end in sight. My cry for help was LOUD! I tried everything I knew. I met with doctors and specialists and even hired functional medicine doctors to help. I filled my sack full of prescriptions each month, but I wasn’t getting well. 

As a nurse, I realized that I was just like my patients – being told that medication and surgery was the way out. I was told I would have to live with it. That’s not an answer I was willing to accept. 

One day it clicked. I thought, “what if there’s a better way?” 

I began to study how food is medicine and how our bodies were created to heal themselves. I realized that when we give the body what it needs, it will give us what we want in return. I needed a strategic plan to help me heal, using what God provided. 

We don’t heal many times, because we don’t address the root of our health issues. We look at a physical symptom as that – a symptom. We don’t take into account that the cause may be something mental, emotional, or even spiritual. There is such a disconnect. 

I tried to partner with others in the natural health space and learned quickly that I needed a different approach than what these doctors had to offer. 

It was challenging to find someone who would look at me as a whole person, from a mind-body-spirit approach. I don’t think I even realized that’s what I needed at the time. So I went on a mission to study everything I could to address these health challenges myself. 

I was already a nurse with a degree in psychology. So I went on to study health from a natural perspective and was certified in functional medicine and functional diagnostic nutrition. I also studied the spiritual and emotional components through energy medicine and was ordained as a healing minister, using the power of prayer. This all-encompassing approach was life-changing for me personally. 

I felt so much joy and energy some days that I could hardly contain myself. I had never had that in my 30 years prior.

I remember thinking, “this is how we all should feel all the time.” How could this simple approach to health be hiding from so many people? 

We are misinformed. We don’t have to expect illness as we age. It’s simply a choice when we know what to do. The problem is, how do we learn these techniques if they aren’t being taught?

I never intended to share this story. I did it because I saw so many others who desperately longed for the answers I had. As I looked around, I saw the energy depleted faces that I once knew so well. I knew I had to share this information with others. It was my gift back to a world of hurting people. It wasn’t fair to keep this knowledge to myself. 

I wrote my story in a book called Healed His Way and filled it with as many resources as possible. To my surprise, it hit the Amazon Bestseller List! My next steps became clear – I had to create a program to help others get their life back. 

Transcript

Colton Cockerell: 0:04

Hello and welcome to a another exciting episode of Bridge the Gap. Where We're balancing life through health, wealth, business and relationships.

Trisha Stetzel: 0:17

Hello and welcome to the show. My name is Trisha Stetzel and you may see that my counterpart Mr. Colton Cockerell is not with us today. But that is okay, because I have an amazing guest on with me today and we don't need Colton. Anyway. So welcome everyone to the show. This month. On the show, we're focused on health. So today, we're going to be talking about the misconceptions, and some tips and tricks about sleep. And who better to come on the show and talk about the importance of sleep. Then Chelsea Ward, owner of Chelsea word wellness and author of Healed His Way. Welcome, Chelsea.

Chelsea Ward: 0:58

You so much, Trisha, it's an honor to be with you today.

Trisha Stetzel: 1:00

I am super excited that you're on. And if Colton were here, he would actually butt in and say, We need to give our sponsors a little credit here. So I'm going to say the sponsor today is Results Xtreme Business Solutions. So Chelsea, I want to start here, a lot of professionals, particularly those that are very focused and driven, and I used to say this to will say sleeping is for dead people. So what do you think about that?

Chelsea Ward: 1:29

Trisha, I used to say that as well. And I had another naturopathic doctor in my life, she even said that. And unfortunately, if we don't prioritize sleep, then it can lead to an early grave. And the reason is, is that we're repairing our body during that time, the first four hours of sleep at night is typically for, you know, physical repair of the body and our livers detoxing, all of our organs are cleansing themselves. And it's kind of like a just a rewash, and a reset for our organs. And then later on in the night, the last four hours is typically for kind of that mental reboot that mental reset, and we get deep sleep during certain parts of the night, we get that REM sleep, which is rapid eye movement, where we have a lot of the dreaming, a lot of that occurs later in the night. Because we are getting a lot of that mental Refresh is taking place where kind of solidifying those memories are where all the creativity comes up comes in for our next day. So we need to prioritize a lot of times, you know, I like to just say between 10pm and 6am is a really great sleep time, because that's how our body is working around the Sun around that circadian rhythm so that we can really replenish and fuel our cell for the next day.

Trisha Stetzel: 2:48

So I heard you say four hours and four hours. So how many hours of sleep do we really need?

Chelsea Ward: 2:54

I heard something just recently saying before the light bulb, we used to get about 11 hours of sleep per night. So the studies are currently saying that if we get over nine hours of sleep per night, then it is actually a little bit detrimental to our health. But if we get eight, around eight hours, then that's really where eight to nine hours. And I can even probably stretch that from seven to nine hours. Usually, that's really a sweet spot for most people. And you're probably gonna see that you might do a little bit better on seven hours. And I may do a little bit better on eight. But the key really is is that consistently time stay in and within that one hour period of time of going to bed is really helpful because you get on that rhythm and you really just kind of say your body, it's kind of like your body already has like this wake up alarm set for you. And it's like, Okay, it's time to get up. It's it's almost like a cycle. And that's where we get into our really healthy sleep rhythm.

Trisha Stetzel: 3:59

And I find you know, I used to always say I have to So I went from sleeping as for dead people to I must have my eight hours asleep or I can't get out of bed right so from one end to the other. And what I'm finding now is when I am taking care of my body, and I'm taking care of my mind and I get the rest that I don't necessarily have to have those eight hours to feel refreshed in the morning like my body knows it's time to wake up right and start moving around now I still get I still get six or seven hours of sleep like true sleep. Thanks to thanks to the aura ring, by the way, we're sharing that with everybody in our family. So if anybody listening to the podcast is curious about that just instant just message us in the in the Facebook post and we'll get back to you on that. So it is a really, really cool tool for rest and recovery. You know, to see those on the back end of the day. So what what happened As you said, that we need this sleep to, for our organs to recover and for our creativity to come back and actually get there. So what if we don't get enough sleep? What are the repercussions there,

Chelsea Ward: 5:09

a lot of times we'll see cravings. So people that don't sleep at night, a lot like how they should, and they, they're not really getting the rest, there is more cravings during the next day, typically, for the not healthy foods, right, we're not craving broccoli, or craving high carbs, or craving sugar. And it's really because the body searching for energy, because we gain energy through sleep. And if we don't get the energy from our sleep, or from our restfulness, then the body's like, wait a minute, I need something to fuel myself to keep going. So we start craving these higher sugar foods. And it's really sad that people consume about four to 500 calories more when they're sleeping less than those eight hours than if they were to get a full night's worth of rest. There's also studies on cancer, you know, melatonin is a really good antioxidant. And it helps us kind of detox and is produced in the body. And if we're not really using it and utilizing that whole sleep cycle, the way that we should, then there are greater chances of disease processes happening in the body, and even things like cancer. So you really want to prioritize sleep not only for just so you feel like a decent human and you're not having brain fog, and you know, lack of creativity and all the things that sleep really helps. But daytime sleepiness is so chronic today, because we're in such this fast paced world, that we don't prioritize it. And then we think, Oh, I'm just so sleepy, I don't understand why I'm so sleepy all the time. When if we would just get the rest and set ourselves up for success. Truly, we're more productive during the day, if we have that sharp mind, the sharp mental focus, and all those things that come along with that rest, then if we skimp on that, skimp on it, trying to save ourselves time, you know, we're going to be more productive, and get more done. It's all about focus when we talk about productivity, and we can focus a lot better when we have that rest.

Trisha Stetzel: 7:09

What. So this is a maybe an off the wall, but go along with this conversation. What if I wake up in the middle of the night, my brain is busy, I can't fall back asleep, it's, you know, two or three o'clock in the morning. Any suggestions around getting back to sleep? Or what should I do,

Chelsea Ward: 7:28

you really want to slow your heart rate back down and kind of rest and relax your body. Because when people are waking up at that time of night, a lot of times this is stress response. And what happens is your mind gets busy and you think, Oh no, I'm so I've got all these things on my to do list. I'm already awake. Now you're thinking about tomorrow, the meetings that you have, there's a lot of anxiety, the heart rate increases. And we enter we enter into this kind of panic mode fight or flight right where we're already feeling the stress. And it may not even feel that exhausting or taxing on the body, you may just think oh my to do list, I have this and this and this. And oh, I should be doing this. And it may not even feel that stressful, but it is still a stressor on the body. And when your heart rate starts to increase like that, in the middle of the night, it's almost impossible to get back to sleep. So I love using things like slow breathing techniques, and maybe even just doing something physical to slow the heart rate back down. And it'll calm your nervous system so that you can usually get back to sleep. One thing I do as I turn around and flip my flip my feet toward the wall and I put my feet up the wall so that it slows down the heart rate. Because it puts it forces the blood toward the heart. So you're actually slowing the heart rate down because it's harder for the heart to pump. And then you can do some slow breathing exercises. So you want to focus on longer exhales then you do inhales so you may breathe in for a count of four. And then breathe out for a count of six. And when you have those longer exhales and the shorter inhales, then it's going to slow your heart rate down as well. So just those things in combination, you can usually do that for like one to two minutes and you'll feel a little bit more relaxed. I mean there's also supplements you can take there's over the counter like melatonin drops or I love using an amino acid called L theanine is drops you can use to kind of slow that down. And they're great for just kind of giving you that little kick if you need one to get back to sleep, but just it's really about entering into that state of rest.

Trisha Stetzel: 9:46

So let's talk about the darkness in your room. I've heard about you know the blue light on your computer and you shouldn't read on your iPad before you go to bed and you shouldn't have night lights and all of these things. So let's talk about that.

Chelsea Ward: 10:00

We talked a little bit about just getting on that same sleep schedule. And I'll kind of give you some tips on just creating a wind down routine. And that's, you know, just creating your bedroom kind of like a cave. If we think about our ancestors, and they're sleeping under the stars, they went to bed with the sun, they woke up with the sun, everything was around the sun. So we really want to mimic that in our life. So if we're, if we think about the overhead lighting, it's kind of mimicking the sun. And it's very confusing to our bodies, you know, our circadian rhythm, as you know, working around the sun. But as we develop the lighting, and we're staying up late, we're working on our computers, this really confuses our own circadian rhythm. So there's a few things that you can do. Number one is when we have overhead lighting, just the way that the light hits our eyes, it actually will slow down melatonin production. So as the sun goes down, and maybe about 3pm ish, or whatever time the sun is really going down where you are, you really want to focus on using more lamps. So you get that side light coming in instead of the overhead lighting. And then you can dam your lights by using olive using salt lamps. So something that's a little more amber in color. So you could even put amber bulbs in your table lamps, things like that to use during the evening. You can also use blue blocker glasses, you can get these super simple for right off of Amazon. And they have all different kinds of stylish ones. Now you can look up gamer glasses if you're going to be on your computer late at night. And again, you want to make your bedroom kind of like a cave. So if your body comes into contact with any lighting at night, then you can disrupt those circadian rhythms. So that can be live from an alarm clock light from a nightlight Light from Light coming under the door, I remember being in a hotel room and I would even close the curtains and pin them together with a closing your so the light wouldn't come in. So you really want to dam all of that down. Because what happens is our skin is an absorber of light. So even if the lights just hitting our skin, we're absorbing that. And it's disrupting that circadian rhythm. So you should not be able to see your hand in front of your face whenever you're sleeping. So if you lay down and you open your eyes, and you can see your hand your room is too bright. So you can use blackout curtains, you can use an eye mask, if that's comfortable to you. And really, again, like a cave, you want to kind of det turn down the temperature a little bit, you want your room to be really cool. That makes some of the cooling blankets, cooling pillows, those types of things so that you just feel like your body temperature is a little cooler. And that has a lot of that is really just to mimic what happens in the body. So our body naturally lowers in temperature at night. So we're just kind of mimicking the body when we're lowering the temperature. But with the lighting, you can I know a lot of times you're working late at night, and you're thinking, well, I've got all this all this light coming in, you know the blue light, we just talked about that how important it is to kind of dim that as the day goes on. And you can use your blue blocker glasses for your computer, you can also go to just get flux.com. And you can download a program or it's a little software on your computer, it's absolutely free. And that'll kind of dim your screen as the day goes on. So you can use those things in combination, you really want to limit your electronics a couple hours before bedtime, just to kind of make sure that you're not disrupting those sleep patterns. But you can you know, if you have to, we don't live in a perfect world, right? We are a lot of that your listeners, they're business owners, they're entrepreneurs. And you know, we have deadlines to meet. So some nights is going to be impossible, and you're going to be up really late. So you want to make sure that you're getting those glasses on. Even you can even get Amber glasses for later in the day, the lamber amber lenses, and you can use those for nighttime working.

Trisha Stetzel: 14:10

And by the way for those older people with not so great eyes, they make blue light blockers with readers. So that you can see and read at the same time, which is wonderful for those of us who have old eyeballs. Well, so there's two things Chelsea that I that I really picked out of our conversation today. Although packed with excellent information, two things that I want to point out to my business listeners or my wellness warriors, as I like to call them. Number one, you got to get your sleep if you want to be good in your business, right? I didn't say those words, but I took it right out of the content that you just gave us we've got to sleep so that we can be refreshed and recovered and ready to work the next day particularly Really, if we want to be creative, right and put our game face on to come to work, and to, I'm pretty sure I heard you say that you could lose weight if you're getting good sleep. Did you say that?

Chelsea Ward: 15:13

Absolutely. And don't we all want to do that keep our at least keep our weight maintained?

Trisha Stetzel: 15:19

Yeah, absolutely. Everybody wants a nice physique, right? So go to bed early. It's important, absolutely important. Thank you so much for coming on to talk with me today. It's such an important topic to both our, our personal selves, right and taking care of ourselves, but also our businesses. And I appreciate every thing that you've done for me personally, and being in your coaching program, as well as sharing so much knowledge with the community. Just as a reminder to our listeners, I'm going to put all of Chelsea's contact information in the show notes. So please go there. Reach out to Chelsea, if you have any more questions, and we look forward Chelsea to hopefully having you back on again when we circle back around later in 2022 on health topics, and I'm sure that you could bring something else another topic to the show. I'm very excited about that. So thank you, Chelsea. Thank you so much. Tune in next week for another exciting episode of Bridge that Gap when we talk to Dr. Bob Rakowski about COVID-19.

Colton Cockerell: 16:22

Thanks again for tuning into this week's podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with the most important people in your life. Colton Cockerell with Sharer McKinley Group, LLC is located at 820 South Friendswood Drive Suite 207 Friendswood, Texas 77546 phone number to 281-992-5698. Securities and investment advisory services offered through NEXT Financial Group, Inc. member FINRA/SIPC Sharer McKinley Group is not an affiliate of NEXT Financial Group, Inc.