Sweet Dreams: Tailoring Your Perfect Sleep Routine

[00:00:02] What you want, when you want it, where you want it. This is The MESH.

[00:00:10] Hey, I'm Amy Chang. I'm a nationally board-certified health and wellness coach, and this is Healthy AF.

[00:00:16] In this podcast, I'll be bringing you all things health, from the newest health strategies to how to tackle those personal roadblocks that just will not let you move forward.

[00:00:27] So buckle in. We're going to be inspired and instructed, and dadgum, we're going to have a little fun on Healthy AF.

[00:00:36] Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Healthy AF. It is officially September, and September is all about sleep.

[00:00:44] You know, I had the biggest time picking out topics for each month, and I think last month we did physical environment, and September is sleep month.

[00:00:59] So I'm going to tell you everything I know about sleep, and you've probably heard it before.

[00:01:04] When I looked at all things sleep, I'm like, hmm, wow, nothing much is new here, but do we do it, right?

[00:01:14] Most of my clients who come to work with me bring a lunchbox full of items that they would like to get better, tweak a little bit, maybe completely revamp, whether it's losing that weight, decreasing their stress, starting that exercise program, whatever it is that is on top of their mind.

[00:01:41] And the first way we start is by doing an assessment of their overall health.

[00:01:46] So like, where are you at? How are you feeling? You know, when you look at your health as a full picture, what's the most pressing issue?

[00:01:54] And I can't tell you how many times the most pressing issue, the first place people want to start is sleep.

[00:02:04] And I can understand why. I mean, if you think about it, if we don't get enough sleep, we're likely to crave more sugars, be more emotional, be more crabby.

[00:02:15] I know for me, I've been wearing my little whoop now for, gosh, two years, I guess.

[00:02:22] And I know that when I have had poor sleep and I go and check my whoop and it says, Amy Chang, you are in the red on your recovery scores and your sleep has been awful.

[00:02:36] I just go ahead and say to myself right then, OK, no big conversations today, no big decisions today.

[00:02:44] We're going to like pull back a little bit, rest a little bit and not have anything that could be, you know, taking me into the give me five cookies and let's have a fist fight.

[00:02:58] Sleep is important. Sleep is important. It impacts everything we do in our lives.

[00:03:02] It really is sort of like this hammock under structure that gives us all the fuel that we need to be the people we really want to be and make those life changing behavioral choices that we want.

[00:03:17] OK, so sleep and what do I know about sleep?

[00:03:21] I'm just going to start listing things out.

[00:03:23] The next podcast coming up, I will give you a little preview.

[00:03:28] This podcast is going to be like brain dump.

[00:03:31] Here's what I know and here's what I've seen.

[00:03:34] Here's what I do. What has been helpful for me?

[00:03:36] The next podcast, we're going to talk a little bit about two other questions I get quite frequently.

[00:03:43] What about magnesium and what about melatonin?

[00:03:47] Those are two supplements that I hear in my practice all the time and have supplied a lot of information out there to clients to help them figure out what's the right thing for them to do.

[00:04:00] So when you are thinking about your own sleep habits, if you are that person, let me let me think here.

[00:04:10] How do we want to structure this so that your little listening ears can absorb what I'm saying?

[00:04:19] OK, if you are that person who can't fall asleep, once you get to sleep, you stay asleep, but you have a trouble falling asleep.

[00:04:29] You're going to look at these things.

[00:04:33] You're going to look at is your bedtime a consistent bedtime?

[00:04:38] What's your nighttime routine?

[00:04:42] Are you taking a warm shower in the evening?

[00:04:46] Because actually taking that warm shower lets your body go ahead and cool down.

[00:04:52] I don't really know the science behind that, but you can you can Google it.

[00:04:56] Having that consistent routine where you're telling your body just like, OK, fun fact.

[00:05:05] We all know I've got a couple of dogs and two cats, actually, who live in the house with me.

[00:05:10] They know that when I close my computer, I'm finished with my session and that we're going to take a walk outside.

[00:05:18] So anytime I close my computer, wherever the dogs are in the house, I hear the clicky clack, clicky clack tap dancer feet of two German shepherds coming to find me because they know we're going outside.

[00:05:32] Your body's the same way.

[00:05:34] So it might look like when I wash my face and I put on my soft jammies, then my body knows like, oh, it's time to chill out.

[00:05:46] When I light that candle and I have my chamomile tea, body knows it's time to time to chill out.

[00:05:54] So you want to do those things in a structured routine way.

[00:05:58] And you also want to choose activities that have your body sink down into that parasympathetic nervous system.

[00:06:07] You want to relax.

[00:06:09] You want to do those things that are nourishing and loving.

[00:06:14] And it can be different for everybody.

[00:06:17] I know that we're not supposed to have blue light stimulation.

[00:06:21] I love my wordle and my quartal when I get in bed.

[00:06:24] I just do.

[00:06:26] I like to do my wordle and my quartal and, you know, tuck right off.

[00:06:31] Another thing that I find pertinent is don't be having those conversations that are tough conversations before you go to sleep.

[00:06:44] A, it's probably not real good for the conversation because you're tired and may or may not be cranky.

[00:06:50] And B, when you do stuff that just riles you up, it's real hard to head hit the pillow and then go straight night night.

[00:07:00] So you want to do those things that help you calm down.

[00:07:04] Another thing I suggest is taking some time either mentally or written to do a list of accomplishments for the day.

[00:07:13] Do a list of what you have to do the next day.

[00:07:18] And do a list of gratitudes.

[00:07:21] You can easily do this.

[00:07:23] I do this sometimes in prayer.

[00:07:25] You know, I lay down.

[00:07:26] I put on my meditation.

[00:07:27] I've got a nighttime routine.

[00:07:28] I guess here it comes.

[00:07:31] Especially in the summers, I grab an extra shower because it's humid as heck here in Wilmington.

[00:07:38] And I grab that shower and put on my jammies.

[00:07:40] And after I get that done, then I gather up my dog and put her in my room.

[00:07:47] And we lay down with the light on.

[00:07:50] We do a little wardle, cordle.

[00:07:54] And then I set my meditation on.

[00:08:00] I use my insight timer religiously.

[00:08:02] And I set a meditation on.

[00:08:04] I roll over onto my left and I start to pray.

[00:08:08] And in that prayer, I just ask God like, hey, I'm reviewing my day.

[00:08:13] What did I do well?

[00:08:15] What did I not do?

[00:08:17] What do I maybe need to make an amends for?

[00:08:21] Or like say sorry or clean up for later because there are those things.

[00:08:27] And then just that list of gratitudes.

[00:08:30] And that really encapsulates that day and lets it be a chapter for me.

[00:08:34] I do find that when you are worried about things that you may have forgotten to do, either writing them down or texting them to yourself, leaving a voice memo, having a post-it note by your bed to do a scribble-scrabble really helps kind of package that up so that you feel like it's safe and you can go to sleep.

[00:08:57] So those things that make you feel safe, comforted, loved, and done in a routine really help you come down so that you can head to pillow and go night-night.

[00:09:11] So those would be my suggestions if you're that type of person who you have a really hard time falling asleep and then after you sleep, you sleep great.

[00:09:21] Those would be things.

[00:09:23] If you were going to take your melatonin, it would be then.

[00:09:27] If you were going to take your magnesium, it would be then.

[00:09:30] And both of those will help you fall asleep.

[00:09:32] Let's see.

[00:09:33] Let's say you are that person who falls asleep, but maybe you wake up and when you wake up, your eyeballs are up and you are ready to rock and roll and conquer the world and your head is going and spinning.

[00:09:49] So what I always recommend and what I found helpful for me is making sure I have a pad of paper in the bathroom or on my bedside table.

[00:09:59] And that's when those thoughts wake me up and I can't get rid of them.

[00:10:04] A friend of mine a long time ago suggested that to me so that I can go and write down those things and then I feel safe and I can go back to sleep.

[00:10:13] Another big one here is caffeine intake.

[00:10:19] When I have clients who can fall asleep but can't stay asleep, we start looking real hard at their caffeine intake.

[00:10:26] Now, I love me some caffeine.

[00:10:29] And recently, I have been introduced to cold brew.

[00:10:33] It's rocked my world.

[00:10:34] We're probably going to have several podcasts here in the next two years on me coming off of caffeine because I don't think it's probably good for me to have that much.

[00:10:43] And I have some rules about my caffeine intake.

[00:10:47] Okay.

[00:10:47] I noticed a long time ago that if I have caffeine after about one o'clock, then I'm not going to sleep well that night.

[00:10:56] And for me, it's not just the coffees.

[00:10:59] It's also if you drink soft drinks, I guess it would be in salt drinks.

[00:11:03] I don't really drink those.

[00:11:04] But the tea, the unsweet tea that I might pick up, you know, as I'm driving across the state to see family, that one will get me every time if I forget.

[00:11:15] And I'm like, yeah, I'll just have unsweet tea.

[00:11:17] No.

[00:11:18] I have something that actually I brought a prop today.

[00:11:22] And this is my new fave and it's a shocker tea.

[00:11:26] I'm not a huge seltzer fan.

[00:11:29] I don't like the little bubble carbonation things.

[00:11:32] But sometimes in the afternoon when I get a little bit of a lull, I want a little pick me up.

[00:11:38] And I love my shocker teas because they are naturally, naturally caffeine free herbal teas.

[00:11:45] They're sweetened with monk fruits.

[00:11:47] So they've got like zero, the back of the can is like zero, zero, zero.

[00:11:53] And the ingredients are not anything that set my hair on fire that I don't want to have.

[00:11:59] So in the afternoons, I can crack one of these suckers open and they're just so tasty.

[00:12:06] And it makes me feel like I'm having a treat.

[00:12:11] And since it's not carbonated, I can drink it while I'm podcasting and I won't belch.

[00:12:15] So that's always a plus.

[00:12:17] So if you can fall asleep, but don't stay asleep, I'd say it's either stress and worry.

[00:12:23] You need to deal with that or it's caffeine intake and you can deal with that.

[00:12:28] You can decrease your caffeine intake slowly.

[00:12:30] You can say, OK, not after a certain time.

[00:12:33] Now, my mama can have a cup of coffee, you know, at 9 p.m. and still sleep like a log.

[00:12:37] I don't know how she does that.

[00:12:38] Most people can't do that.

[00:12:40] So you need to look at that caffeine intake.

[00:12:42] When we talk about stress load and when you wake up at night and you get that everything's just going and going and going and you're really awake.

[00:12:54] We talked about the paper and writing things down.

[00:12:58] Again, I use my breathing exercises and I also use my insight timer.

[00:13:03] Having a something to listen to, particularly words.

[00:13:09] Sometimes I use like a sound bath meditation.

[00:13:13] But having the words to listen to help block out the words that are in there kind of knocking around.

[00:13:20] And then there's some other stuff, too.

[00:13:23] And I don't often talk about these things because these are things that may or may not be affecting you at all.

[00:13:31] It's not, you know, general population.

[00:13:33] But if you've ever dealt with a thyroid issue, then, you know, your body can go low and your body can go high.

[00:13:43] And sometimes we can't explain why your body's going low or high on your thyroid status.

[00:13:49] But if you do know that you have a thyroid condition and you are not sleeping well and you are wide awake and ready to go at inappropriate times,

[00:14:02] probably need to go ahead and pull that thyroid level and just make sure you're not running high.

[00:14:08] Yeah. And that will also attribute to that those anxious feelings sometimes when you're asleep.

[00:14:14] So I would check on that if you have a thyroid problem.

[00:14:16] OK, so we've done can fall asleep, can't stay asleep.

[00:14:21] And we've done can't stay asleep.

[00:14:23] Now let's tackle I'm just not wired to go to sleep early, wake up early.

[00:14:34] This one pops up all the time.

[00:14:36] And as a morning person, I have less personal experience with this.

[00:14:41] So it's harder for me to tell you what to do because this is not a problem for me.

[00:14:49] But I've had lots of clients struggle with this and they've come up with some really interesting tips and actions to take that sort of keep them honest.

[00:15:00] What they typically look like is I'm a little tired on Monday, but by Tuesday I get in bed OK.

[00:15:09] And then Wednesday comes and it's still all right.

[00:15:12] But then maybe I catch a second wind Wednesday night, do work.

[00:15:17] I'm up until two.

[00:15:19] Then on Thursday I'm dragging.

[00:15:21] I might catch a nap during the day.

[00:15:24] Then, you know, of course, since I've had a nap, I have a later dinner.

[00:15:30] Then I'm scrolling on my phone or the this one.

[00:15:36] And then on Friday, I'm so glad it's the end of the week that I come home.

[00:15:40] I have that extra cocktail while I'm cooking.

[00:15:43] Then I finally sit down on the couch to watch TV.

[00:15:46] And at 2 a.m. I wake up and go to my bed and try to go to sleep.

[00:15:49] And of course, I'm not sleepy then because, you know, 2 a.m. is kind of like my get up and go.

[00:15:54] And I've just had this couch nap.

[00:15:56] So if you can relate to that, that is sleep hygiene.

[00:16:02] That is sleep hygiene, my friends.

[00:16:05] That is putting everything on a schedule.

[00:16:07] OK.

[00:16:08] And there are contributing factors to like how hard keeping that schedule is.

[00:16:13] It's really hard to go to bed at a consistent time.

[00:16:18] If you come home, have the two cocktails sit down on the couch.

[00:16:21] Like once you do that, all bets are off.

[00:16:24] You're going to wake up at 2 a.m. with the crick in your neck and your spouse or partner in the bed,

[00:16:30] you know, taking up all the all the covers with nowhere for you to go.

[00:16:36] So for that, you know, when you're really working on this consistent bedtime and consistent wake time,

[00:16:43] even on the weekends, even on the holidays, even on the like,

[00:16:48] but it's the last day in the week and it's been a hard week, even then, right?

[00:16:53] Even then, you want to look at those habits that influence your choice to keep your sleep consistency.

[00:17:02] So getting in your bed at, you know, 10 might be affected by your cocktail use.

[00:17:09] It might be affected by your social media use.

[00:17:12] So if you get in bed at 10 and you notice that when you're opening up that one email,

[00:17:21] you look at all the other emails and then it's midnight.

[00:17:28] And you see that last email sent by, you know, Jenny Sue Smith.

[00:17:34] And you're wondering, you know, did her kid ever go to college?

[00:17:39] And then you pop over onto the Facebook and you're like scrolling.

[00:17:43] Oh, my God, they're dating.

[00:17:44] I didn't know that, you know, like then it's two.

[00:17:47] You see how those little behaviors, those little choices sort of led you down there.

[00:17:52] And when you scroll that back, you get to see, oh, I opened up my phone and checked that email at 10.

[00:18:00] And that was like laying out a welcome mat to walk through a doorway into second wind work time.

[00:18:09] Okay, don't do that, right?

[00:18:11] So if you're one of those people who you're a, well, I guess I stayed up too late again.

[00:18:17] And now I got to go to work and I'm tired and cranky and I'm really hoping I catch a nap kind of people.

[00:18:23] Sleep hygiene is so super important to you.

[00:18:27] Now, if you're way off, if you know that you need to go to sleep by 11 and get up at, let's just say, 7.

[00:18:38] Because I hope you're getting eight hours of sleep.

[00:18:41] And currently you're at 2 a.m. and 8.

[00:18:46] You want to go back incrementally.

[00:18:48] Okay, you don't have to just tackle that all at one time because probably you're going to be laying in your bed at, you know, 1030 going like, but I'm not tired.

[00:18:57] I don't know what to do.

[00:18:59] Oh, my God.

[00:18:59] Well, now what I'm going to do?

[00:19:00] I've got that meeting at 730.

[00:19:01] I'm going to be spent.

[00:19:02] Oh, my God.

[00:19:03] I haven't fallen asleep yet.

[00:19:04] And then the anxiety about not being asleep at the appropriate time that you said you were going to be asleep cranks up.

[00:19:11] And it's just a show.

[00:19:14] Here's a helpful hint for that.

[00:19:16] When I get cranked up with anxiety because I really feel like I need to be asleep and that does happen to me frequently, I say to myself, Amy, you can just rest.

[00:19:26] You don't have to sleep.

[00:19:27] You can just rest.

[00:19:29] And actually, that gives me permission to, you know, stop beating myself up and wondering why I'm trying to figure out why I'm not asleep.

[00:19:38] And I can rest and typically fall asleep.

[00:19:43] So let's see.

[00:19:44] What else about sleep hygiene?

[00:19:47] You know, things that are, I think, handy for people who are trying to shift their schedule.

[00:19:55] No naps.

[00:19:59] I'm going to say it again for the people in the back.

[00:20:02] No naps.

[00:20:04] If you have to nap, set a timer, 20 to 40 minutes.

[00:20:10] Have it happen in the beginning of the day.

[00:20:13] Nothing past maybe 1.30 or 2 o'clock latest.

[00:20:16] Okay.

[00:20:17] And make sure that you're in a zone where when you wake up from that nap, like you are raised, you throat punch someone, you are by yourself.

[00:20:26] You can not ruin your relationships because you had to just wake yourself up for a 20 to 40 minute nap.

[00:20:34] Okay.

[00:20:35] So no naps.

[00:20:36] When you wake up, go get your eyeballs outside.

[00:20:41] And I mean naked eyeballs.

[00:20:43] Not looking through the window.

[00:20:45] You need natural sunlight, natural daylight.

[00:20:49] So walk outside.

[00:20:51] If you have to do it through a window, do it through a window.

[00:20:54] I mean some of us live in cities and we can't just like walk out.

[00:20:58] But if you can get outside, as soon as you're up, go get outside.

[00:21:03] And this has to do with different rays of light, different frequencies of light hitting our eyeballs and our brains and the chemicals that we start producing when we get that daylight.

[00:21:22] Okay.

[00:21:22] Um, let's see.

[00:21:25] Shifting your schedule.

[00:21:26] Shift.

[00:21:27] I said shift slowly.

[00:21:28] Be consistent.

[00:21:30] No naps.

[00:21:32] Use your natural light.

[00:21:34] There is a study on being outside and time outside.

[00:21:38] In fact, there's a handful.

[00:21:39] Nothing's conclusive.

[00:21:41] So I can't tell you being outside helps you sleep.

[00:21:44] I can tell you being outside helps me sleep and it keeps me, uh, there are conclusive studies on mental health, but not conclusive studies on, um, the ability to fall asleep, have, uh, efficient sleep.

[00:21:57] Or stay asleep, but I would say try it.

[00:22:02] Try getting some of that outside time.

[00:22:04] Exercise.

[00:22:05] A daily exercise will, will increase your sleep.

[00:22:08] Let's see.

[00:22:10] I think those are about all the jewels I have for each type of person.

[00:22:16] We have the person who goes to sleep late, the person who falls asleep easily, but wakes up during the night and the person who can't fall asleep.

[00:22:26] I hope that's helpful for you.

[00:22:29] Um, remember I'm not sponsored by Shaka, but I do love me some Shaka tea.

[00:22:34] It gives me such a nice little gift to myself in the afternoons and it doesn't blow my sleep.

[00:22:40] Um, if you enjoyed this podcast or benefited from it in some way, please subscribe, like, and share.

[00:22:47] We will see you next time.

[00:22:49] Uh, give yourself some grace.

[00:22:51] If you're laying there in bed, wondering why you can't sleep, or if you slipped up and had that nap, it's going to be okay.

[00:22:58] Give yourself some grace.

[00:22:59] I'll see you next time on Healthy AF.

[00:23:02] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Healthy AF Podcast.

[00:23:06] I hope that it has helped you create a new possibility for your health and sets you into action to go get it.

[00:23:14] If you want more information or if you want to connect with me, visit my website at myhealthylife.coach.

[00:23:21] And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that each new Healthy AF episode will be sent directly to you.

[00:23:29] Let's take you from where you are to where you want to go.

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