Habits and Hustle - Episode 349: Sleep Fitness with Ana Marie Schick: Strategies for Optimal Sleep Health

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Are you starting to get dark circles due to difficulty achieving and maintaining quality sleep? Unlock the secrets to rejuvenating sleep and optimize your health with sleep expert Ana Marie Schick! Our enlightening conversation traverses the landscape of sleep fitness, a vital yet often neglected aspect of our well-being. We don't just talk about why a structured sleep routine is as crucial as our exercise and diet plans; we equip you with actionable strategies to improve your slumber quality and maintain it through the years. Delving into the practical steps to enhance sleep quality, we lay out a blueprint for you to craft a consistent sleep routine that adapts to the inevitable changes that aging brings. What we discuss: (03:31) Importance of Structure in Performance (07:12) Comparing Fitness Tracking Devices (13:37) Quality of Sleep and Sleep Patterns (22:30) Deep Sleep and Circadian Rhythm (25:20) Evolution of Temperature Contrast Therapy (30:36) Differences in Deep Sleep Stages (36:56) Breaking the Habit of Subconscious Peeing (46:59) Magnesium for Better Sleep (49:39) Effects of Gummies on Sleep Quality (53:46) Quality of Light Sleep Thank you to our sponsor: OneSkin: go to https://www.oneskin.co/ use code HUSTLE15 for 15% off  To learn more about Ana Marie Schick:  Website: https://sleep.me/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-marie-schick-744613217/  Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it! Alright guys, welcome to Habits and Hustle and today we have yet another amazing guest. We're going to be talking all about sleep. I think right now sleep is one of the biggest health hashtags out there. It's so popular and people always ask about it. So we have not only a certified health coach, but a sleep expert and her name is Anna Marie Schick. I said it correctly, right? Yes. Good. And we're going to talk all sleep, sleep hygiene, sleep fitness, all the things. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Like I said, people are obsessed with sleep. I feel it's become like a really

huge trend, fad, like in terms of talking. Like we've always slept, obviously, like it's a major part of everybody's life. But I think the importance of it and how it really affects our health overall has really been something that people really dove into in the last few years especially. And so I really like talking about it to let people understand the importance of it, right? So let me ask you, you say, I think I've never heard this before you, sleep fitness. I've heard sleep hygiene, I've heard lots of other things, but what is sleep fitness to you? To me, well, because I'm, my background in health and wellness started as a fitness instructor

and then a personal trainer. And so we do all these things to plan for our workouts, plan for our meals, plan, but we don't plan for sleep. And we have fitness plans, nutrition plans, but again, we don't have sleep plans. And that's typically what we wind up sacrificing the most. And then we wonder why we feel terrible, right? We wonder why we're not performing, we wonder why we're not remembering things, or we're not focusing.

And so it comes down to what are you doing to make your sleep better? Just like what are you doing to make your workouts better? What are you doing to make your meals better? It comes down to a plan. And to me, it's a fitness plan. And so sleep fitness and sleep hygiene can be synonymous, but where sleep hygiene is kind of like the big picture and the big, huge, what your hygiene looks like, where the sleep fitness is,

these are the steps to follow. This is your workout plan. This is your fitness. This is your sleep plan. I love that because I'm a big person about structure and having regimens and routines to be at your highest level of performance and success in everything in life, right? Without structure, we kind of just like flail through our life, right? And I guess you're right, like because sleep and because we're going to talk, we're going to go more into it, but how it affects so many areas of our life in a real way, especially

I feel as you age, right? Because like when you're younger and when you're a kid, like you can get away with not sleeping well and it doesn't affect your body or your mind as much. But as you age, the importance of sleeping well and having a sleep plan or having a fitness sleep plan is so crucial for your overall function, daily function. And that can be said as well about nutrition, right? We used to be able to eat junk and now as we get older and level up, it takes a toll on us more.

Same as with working out. Maybe we could just get a hard workout in and then go a couple of days. It's all about having a plan and following, like you said, a structure. And part of the structure is also in assessments, right? So just like you would assess how you're eating and how you're working out or how you're moving,

you also need to assess how you're sleeping. And it can be as basic as, you know, writing things down, how you're feeling when you wake up, what changes did you make, all the way up to, you know, measurables, things that you can actually track with wearables or non-wearables, but we can get into that later. But that's to me why I circle it back to sleep fitness,

because you have to know what you're dealing with, what the problem is, what are the symptoms, and what do you wanna solve for? Right. You know, you brought up, and with, what the problem is, what are the symptoms, and what do you want to solve for? Right. You know, you brought up, and I also said sleep technology is such a, that is a huge piece of it right now. What is your take on technology, like the, like the aura rings, all the things that are your phone to track where you're sleeping, how you're sleeping, your REM sleep?

Because I'm under the, like sometimes when you track too much actually, you begin now to have anxiety over that thing. One million percent. Right? Absolutely. Right. So for my opinion, and I'm in, I want to get yours is when I was wearing, because I get all the gadgets, right? I get the aura rings and all the different things. I wear them for a finite period of time. and then I just like don't wear them anymore or use them anymore because it becomes an entire full-time job. Like how much did I sleep? Where did I sleep? What was my level of sleep? Oh my god, how am I going to sleep tonight? Where it's like now I'm going to bed with such a level of angst and anxiety scared that I'm not going to

sleep well. Absolutely, yeah. And we find that in health coaching in general. People begin to feel like anxiety over not performing the way that they are expected to perform. And now that it's being tracked or now that it's being documented, that can also create a whole problem of its own. What I like to do for myself at least, and it tends to work for others as well, is before you check that piece of technology, before you wake up to decide how you slept, do a self-check. How do you feel?

How do you think you slept? And it can be as simple as a smiley face. When I ask people to document, just write it down. Just how do you feel? Do you feel lethargic? Do you feel sad? Do you feel anxious? Do you feel like you slept well?

Then think about how, what you did to set yourself up for sleep the night before. But as far as tracking, I do believe in it. I also know that just like the scale that you have in your bathroom at home is different from your scale when you go to the doctor's office. And so all tracking devices may not measure exactly the same, but as long as you're keeping consistent with one,

and that way you can keep up with the trends, right? You want to see are you trending up, are you trending down? So it's not that one wearable or non-wearable is better than the other. A tracking device is a tracking device, as long as it's a reputable one of quality. You want to just make sure that you're tracking your trends on that one. If you do use more than one, because a lot of people have the Ring the Whoop or Under the Bed tracker, a lot of people have those and then they're comparing them against each other and then they're doubting their results. Where I would caution people against doubting the results, because even when you have a fitness tracker and then you compare compare it to, say, your Apple Watch, right?

And you do a workout, and then you track the results. They're not always exactly the same. So all that to say, in the end, it can get a little bit overwhelming, where people are like, I don't want any more information. I don't want to get nervous about it. I don't want to be thinking about it so much. So it's really, the tracking is for the people,

the techies that like it. And I just tell people, use it as a baseline. You do want to get a baseline. You want to see where are you? Where is the problem? And especially with sleep trackers, you can figure out, is it the REM that's suffering? Is it the deep sleep that's suffering? Is it how long it's taking you to go to sleep, which we call sleep latency? So there are good things that come out of it that can help us as coaches help people sleep better, help people figure out what to address because it may be what they're consuming or their behaviors or their mindset. And mindset is what you're talking about with it can be overwhelming

with these with these trackers. Absolutely. You just said something also you said the differences like REM sleep is different than deep sleep and difference than sleep latency, you said? Yes. Can you talk about that? Because I think there's a misconception that REM sleep and deep sleep are the same thing. So yeah, that's actually one of my pet peeves is when I hear people talk about,

oh, I got such deep REM sleep. I'm like, that's not the same thing. You get a lot of REM sleep or you get a lot of deep sleep. Deep and REM are not the same. So there is non-REM sleep, which deep is part of, and then there's REM sleep. And so there are technically four sleep stages. And sleep latency, which is what we discussed earlier,

sleep latency is how long it takes you to fall asleep. And so, provided you're not in bed reading or as we hate as coaches watching TV, which is a huge no-no, or on a screen, but so provided that you're not in bed reading or as we hate as coaches watching TV, which is a huge no-no or on a screen. So provided that you're not in bed doing something else that is not the intent to go to sleep, sleep latency is how long does it take you when your intent is to fall asleep to actually fall asleep? And a lot of people say, oh, my head hits my head, go to sleep before my head hits the

pillow. That's actually not good. That's actually not good. That's actually not healthy. That means that you've built up so much sleep pressure during the day that you haven't even gotten the opportunity to down-regulate. You are already kind of in sleep mode by the time you hit the pillow.

You want to be able to, it should be, a healthy amount of sleep latency is about 15 to 20 minutes. That's how long it should take you to fall asleep in a healthy way, in a natural healthy way. People that are already half asleep hitting the pillow are sleep deprived already. That's what we consider that.

When people are like, I'm a great sleeper. I can fall asleep anywhere. We really need to check their sleep quality because even if they say they sleep all the time and they sleep everywhere and they're constantly able to fall asleep everywhere, that means that there is an issue with their sleep. They're not getting good quality, dense sleep.

They're two hours of REM, they're two hours of deep, which is what we strive for. That's like the panacea. That's what you wanna go for. So if you're tracking your sleep and you're getting your two hours of deep and two hours of REM, that means you're hitting your marks.

Whether it's in a six hour window or an eight hour window, we're looking for that two and two. And when we're children, as we were discussing earlier, children do that. They can get that amount of sleep. Sleep becomes more and more elusive as we add behaviors and nutrition worsens and movement worsens and life and stress and all the things that we

take on as adults and as we level up in life and sleep suffers because we're awake and we can consciously make changes to the things that we do when we're awake. But when we're asleep, we can't make changes to it once we're asleep. So we have to count on our behaviors on doing the things that we need to do to our environment, to the things that we consume and the things that we do before we go to sleep, so that when we are not in control, when we are asleep, we're getting that quality sleep. So sleep latency, again,

is how long it takes you to fall asleep. And then the sleep stages, you have non-REM and REM. Non-REM is your light sleep, which is what happens when you drift off into sleep and you see people kind of jerking and moving, and that's the brain slowly trying to, it's faster brainwaves and the brain is transitioning, right? And then you're going into your first stages of sleep and then when you go into your REM sleep, typically stage three, REM sleep rapid eye movement. That's why people, it's called that because the eyes move a

lot when you find people sleeping and their eyes are moving, they're in their REM sleep, you don't wanna disturb them. That is the part, the stage of sleep where we're working through the information that we've taken in through the day. That's the emotional management part of our sleep that is crucial. So people who don't get sufficient REM sleep or whose REM sleep is suffering,

a lot of times we'll look at how long they're spending in REM sleep because that's where we're sorting through emotional issues, taking in the information. It's like all the files that you get all day long and they're just putting them out. You're just sorting through what you're gonna do with that information. Are you gonna keep it? Are you not gonna keep it? What are you gonna do with it? A lot of problem-solving happens during REM sleep. That's when our most vivid dreams occur and actually the body becomes paralyzed during REM sleep

so that we don't act out those vivid dreams that we have. If you dream that you're flying or you dream that, and so a lot of times we'll wake up from a REM sleep because if we feel like we fell off a cliff or a building or something, that's typically whatever that might mean, which we won't get into the meaning of dreams because I'm not that, that is beyond my scope of practice. So that's typically the REM sleep. The dreams that we remember occur during REM sleep. And then deep sleep happens a lot of...

The reason why we get into deep sleep, we can go into later. But so deep sleep is the brain waves slow down, much slower brain waves, and deep sleep is responsible for muscle and tissue repair, and for long-term memory filing. So the memories that we've decided to hang on to in REM sleep, the information that we've decided to process in REM sleep, then gets filed away permanently in deep sleep. And physically what happens to the brain is spinal fluid goes up and flushes the brain

of toxins. And so deep sleep as we age is more and more elusive. So what typically if we would be getting two hours of deep sleep as children as we age is more and more elusive. So what typically, if we would be getting two hours of deep sleep as children, as we grow up, and up into our 20s, as we age more and more, we're lucky to get 10 to 15 minutes of deep sleep, naturally, unassisted, without intervention. And that's just simply not enough time

for the brain to flush the toxins out, the plaque buildups. And as we know, all of these diseases of the aging and elderly have so much to do with brain health, with the plaque buildup in the brain. And so being able to get ahead of the game, now that we know so much about deep sleep, typically in the past decades past, what was studied was REM sleep. And that's why we know so much about how dreams occur and what happens in REM sleep and the rapid eye movement. But less study was done, less studying was done on the stage of deep sleep.

People didn't understand it as much. And they didn't really respect it as much until we figured out in the health and wellness and fitness world, the role that it plays in recovery and cell and tissue repair. The role that sleep has when you're in deep sleep, not only are the cell and tissue repair. The role that sleep has when you're in deep sleep, not only are the cell and tissue regenerating and repairing, that's the stage of sleep where human growth hormone is released. It's the stage of sleep where testosterone is released. It's the stage of sleep where practically all of the things that we need to perform physically, emotionally, mentally, the next day, that deep sleep is

crucial for. And so if we're not getting that deep sleep, and the tricky part about deep sleep is that deep sleep likes it cold. And so if we're not getting cool enough, the body has to perceive that two or three degree temperature drop, the body temperature actually drops, which is why we get sleepy a lot in the middle of the day, and which is why when the sun goes down and the temperature drops, we should get sleepy. And that's, again, apart from the body has to feel that temperature drop to be able to get into deep sleep, the reason for that is because we produce melatonin.

Okay, wait. It's a lot. No, it's a lot, but I will say something. And I'm not just saying this to be polite, because you're a guest on my show. I've spoken to a lot of different sleep experts in my career as a podcaster, and just overall, I've never heard anybody explain what you explained as well as you just did. Oh. No, I'm serious. Let's try and put it into layman's terms, because it's a lot.

It's a little, it's, it's, you have to break it down. But you broke it down in such a way that I actually, and also this is like some information I've never heard anyone say. Like I, first of all, the sleep latency, REM sleep, deep sleep, I actually did not even realize that the REM and the deep were separated and or how and what you what what each accomplishes. So you're saying that in deep sleep that's where all the muscle repair happens and in the REM sleep is where you kind of like process emotional stuff. Absolutely. I did not know that that was how it worked first of all. Second of all I wanted to ask you because you were saying it now about deep sleep

and how as we get older, it's harder to get more of it because you're saying, is it because of our life stressors like life basically and aging? What can we do to be able to enhance, increase our deep sleep? That's the first question. And then I want you to talk about something you also said, which was that we need to be cold in deep sleep. Because those are two things, again, that I think is really important that this can be very helpful for people.

Absolutely. And temperature is a huge factor in quality sleep. Temperature really does play a role. And it goes back to how we evolved, right? Our ancestors, and I'm talking about the beginning of time, we evolved where we rise with the sun and set with the sun. So we're taking, our brain was needing and taking cues from the environment. So when the sun comes out and the earth warms up, we wake up to talk about hormones a little bit. Our bodies produce cortisol, our brain produces cortisol, and that's, it's in a healthy way. Cortisol gets a bad reputation,

but we need a healthy amount of cortisol. That's the wake up and go hormone. And so we need to be able to produce that cortisol in the morning with light, with warmth, with heat, and we get up and going. And you actually shouldn't even really need that cup of coffee if you got a good quality night of sleep and you wake up feeling warm, light, refreshed.

You should actually wait on that cup of coffee for a little while because you don't need the caffeine if the cortisol is doing its job. You should wake feeling refreshed. We have to kind of back into it though, right? We gotta make sure you get a good quality night's sleep to be able to have that feeling when you wake up. Wait, do you mind if I interrupt you for a moment?

Of course. Do you need to have REM sleep to get into deep sleep? That's a really good question. So a lot of people have the misconception that you go into one stage, and then you go into stage two, and then three, and then four, and then we're done. And that's not the case.

We actually cycle through all stages of sleep every about 90 minutes. So you're constantly cycling through all the stages of sleep. Now, at the same time, the majority, what we found is the majority of deep sleep happens in the first part of your night. And the occurrences of deep sleep,

if you look at a hypnograph, which is kind of like that graph that tracks your whole night of sleep, the majority of deep happens in the beginning of the night and the majority of the REM cycles are concentrated in the end of your night. So you take that information and like my teenage son who likes to stay up late,

I'm stressing constantly because he's not getting his crucial time of deep sleep in. He winds up getting it because he's young, he winds up getting it because he regulates his body temperature, he does the hacks and the things, but if you don't have the information and the hacks to get that body cold enough and cool enough, because our bodies naturally, again because of the circadian rhythm, because of how we evolved, our bodies cool down at night and warm up in the morning. But if you're not taking advantage of being in bed and sleeping when your body is wanting to be cool,

then you're missing that window of opportunity to get quality deep sleep without intervention of other things to make you cooler by the time you go to bed if you've missed that window. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Also, I was gonna say that it makes sense to me because I need my room really cold. And my little boy, my 11-year-old,

ever since he was a baby, was been like, he sleeps with the air conditioning at frigid temperatures. Like, I say he's like a polar bear because it's freezing. I can't even walk in there. I need a parka to walk into his room, right? And my husband's like that as well. I like it cold, but not that cold. But I will say, if I'm not cold, like at least a little,

my quality of sleep, or I think it is, right? Because I'm not tracking it anymore, does feel like it's really much less. And I don't feel... I wake up more often during the during the night I don't feel as well rested so that is actually you're are you saying the number one thing that people should be thinking of is making sure that their body is cold before they go to sleep to get a deeper sleep in my opinion that is

one of the easiest things to do okay and it's not about oh I don't feel comfortable it's okay let's see how cold we can get it and you still feel comfortable because we also don't want to freeze you out and then you're not getting to sleep at all. But it usually is less a matter of preference and more a matter of trying things, right? So back to how we evolved, you know that now we're, what's trending are these cold plunges and saunas and we're getting hot and we're getting cold and these extreme contrast therapies and temperatures.

Where did that come from? And it's because that's how we used to live. We didn't have climate controlled homes, vehicles, gyms, schools, offices, where we're just kind of keeping the steady temperature that we feel comfortable in. So our brains aren't getting those cues of light and dark that it needs to get quality metabolism, quality sleep, quality emotional health,

which is created by this contrast therapy that we're all into now. And it's also done in sleep. So we want different temperatures when we sleep. We don't want the same temperature all the time. Add that to modern technology and textiles, and we want comfy, cushy, foam mattresses, and all of that in that little cocoon gets really hot.

Whereas on the floor of a cave, when it was cold, it was cold, and when the earth warmed up, it was warm. And so it was kind of like technology before technology existed. And then enter the invention of the light bulb in the industrial era. Then we were able to stay up much later. Lights in our eyes, our brains are going, what's going on?

I'm used to the sun going down. I'm used to there being no light or less light or the color of the light being different. And then now we have this blue light, white light, office light in our eyes. And our brains are just getting confused. And that's why, again, we have this blue light, white light, office light in our eyes, and our brains are just getting confused. And that's why, again, we're using contrast therapy, cold therapy, hot therapy, and we're realizing that even when we sleep, we're tossing and turning, tossing and turning.

I tell people a lot of times when you wake up, look at your bed, look at your covers. Are they a mess? You weren't still all night long, and that's not restful sleep. Well, also think about like how when you're like on a side too long, you get so sweaty and hot and then that's just like, then I know for sure I'm never falling asleep that night, right? Like I know I'm just going to turn that pillow over and over to get that cool feeling. Absolutely. Right?

But what happens if like my, everyone's tolerance level is different, right? So like my tolerance to cold is much less than let's say my husband or my son, right? Who can stand 60 degrees where for me, 68 is like the most I can tolerate, right? By the way, that's why I actually love, I have this mattress cover that was like, if we put it on top of the bed, the chili sleep one. Chili pad?

Yeah, chili pad. Because I don't fight with my husband anymore because I can regulate my side of the bed and he can regulate his side because his cold is more cold than my side, right? Do you have like a temperature that people should be targeting or is it based on the actual person? So I like to tell people, start with your preference. And if you're tracking it, that's best. Kind of get a baseline of first, how you feel. And secondly, what does your sleep report tell you, right? If you're tracking it, whatever wearable or non-wearable

you're using to track your sleep. Are you suffering in the deep sleep? And that means you're not getting cold enough. Now it's a trick, right? Because you don't want to be so cold that you can't sleep, that it wakes you up, because that's disruptive. So what we want to do is kind of tick it down one degree at a time, and it'll take a week or two, maybe 10 days, to figure out your perfect prescription, your perfect recipe for your temperature, your scheduling. So sometimes people like to go

to bed to a cool, refreshing bed, or in the wintertime, maybe people like to feel warm. Whatever kind of down regulates you and gets you to settle down and get that sleep going within 15 to 20 minutes, that's that temperature. And you'll figure that out. It's very personal because your metabolic rate is different from your husband's metabolic rate.

The thermal load that your son puts on a bed is a different thermal load that they put on the bed. And then the bedding is also different, right? One mattress differs from another. And so the way to, with the chili pad, the way to actually manipulate that or kind of cut through all of that to level it is everybody has their own set temperature

and you can graduate the temperature. And so then keeping in mind that you want the majority of your deep sleep towards the beginning of your sleep and you wanna get it as cold as possible without it waking you. So maybe one night you wake up and you're like, okay, I went too cold. Yeah.

Ticket up a couple degrees. And then once you finally find that sweet spot, you want to keep it there for a good four hour window to allow for that two hours of deep sleep eventually, knowing that it's in the beginning of the night. And again, if you're a shift worker or something and you don't have eight hours to play with, then you kind of modify that down a little bit. But it's about, you know, we try and become efficient with our workouts. We try and become efficient with our meals

and get more bang for your buck and more and less time. We can do that with sleep too, but it does take intervention, which is temperature based. Otherwise, then you're dealing with covers on, covers off, you're sweating, then you're cold, then you're... And it happens. A lot of people take a cold bath. A lot of people take a warm bath to down-regulate, but then their body temperature is elevated. But then the body temperature drops, and that helps them fall asleep. So it's very personal. It can be different for different people. You have to really take it case by case.

I'm shocked to hear that deep sleep happens at the beginning of the sleep. I really thought it was the stages. It happens throughout. It happens throughout the night. But when you look at a hypnograph, the vast majority of the deep sleep acquired throughout a whole night of sleep, we would like for it to be seven to eight hours. Americans aren't very good at that, but we would like for it to be that. The vast majority of it happens in the first part of your sleep and the first part of your

night. And so what is your take on everyone needs a different amount of sleep? Like there are people who can function really well off of five hours of sleep, and there are other people who need nine hours of sleep. Do you think that there's a healthy number that people should all aim for? Or is that actually accurate that everyone needs a different amount? Again everyone, I think everyone is different. Everyone has a different reality, right?

And then everyone has different sleep quality innately, right? So if you're a night owl, I can't expect you to go to bed at nine o'clock at night, at 10 o'clock at night. If your zone of genius, if your productivity is at night, I can't expect you to forego that and not do your best work creatively or mentally because you need to go to bed because you're gonna miss out on your deep sleep. Those people can still get their deep sleep. forgo that and not do your best work creatively or mentally because you need to go to bed

because you're gonna miss out on your deep sleep. Those people can still get their deep sleep. They just have to learn their bodies and their environments and do the right things so that when it's time to go to bed and they're only getting a five hour window to sleep, and this is what happens a lot with shift workers. They really have to figure out that piece of the puzzle because they may say now that they

can sustain that and you know the old I'll sleep when I'm dead I tell them you're going to be sleeping real soon because it's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. No. So unless it's a cyclical type of sleep or unless they're able to get a quality nap in during the day, which I'm not opposed to, as long as it's done the right way, then they can eventually get enough sleep there. They can build up enough sleep pressure where they're not laying in bed, because that's another no-no,

is just laying in bed when you can't fall asleep. Because then again, it's all about the signals that you're sending your brain. Right, it's also, you start to ruminate in that, and it's absolutely the worst thing. It's a vicious cycle, the rumination. So if you're not supposed to lay in there when you can't like lay in bed and you know, stare at the wall when you can't fall asleep, what are you supposed to do?

So as you well know, habits are a thing. Habits are huge. And the brain needs habits. The brain needs cues. And this is light, this is dark, this is, now it's time to sleep, now it's time to wake up. And we get those cues from our habits. So if the habit is to tell the brain,

I can lay in bed and not sleep and just keep laying here, then the brain has no reason to help you go back to sleep. So whereas with babies, we let them cry it out, that's different. Once you're an adult, if you can't fall back asleep within five to ten minutes, we recommend get up, walk it off, don't go work out, don't turn bright lights on. You can go sit on the couch, you can go somewhere else outside of your bedroom where your brain knows the bed is for sleeping. The bed is for sleeping, for intimacy, but that's it. You don't want to associate your bed

with lying there ruminating because the brain says, oh, I know how to do this. I'll just do more of this. And then you never break that cycle. So what we find is that it happens less and less. So it is a pain to say, I don't want to get up because then what has happened even with myself is, okay, then I get up, then I use the bathroom,

then I'm training my brain that I need to use the bathroom. And we don't need, typically, unless there is a structural problem, a medical problem, we don't need to get up to use the restroom. Because even if we're in that, especially if we get into that deep sleep window, because we actually produce an antidiuretic hormone, it's called ADH, and it's to keep you from waking up

needing to use the restroom. So that's a habit that needs to be broken a lot of times too, when people are like, how do I stop? There's nothing wrong with me. There's nothing medically wrong with me. I'm clear. Why do I keep waking up to use the restroom? Number one, it's probably temperature related that woke you up and you don't even know it.

And number two, you've trained your brain. I'm up. I may as well go. And then you get up and then it becomes a habit. So, so much about habits is about breaking the habits and retraining your brain. So what should you do if you wake up? Wait it out five to 10 minutes, get up.

Eventually, you'll get tired of getting up and sitting on the couch. Don't fall asleep on the couch because then your brain will associate falling asleep on the couch with that's where I get my sleep and then you'll never fall asleep back in your bed again. Well, this is so interesting.

So basically, again, you said something that just kind of like popped in my head, but if that's the case, right? Is that, I wake up usually around two or three o'clock to go to the bathroom to pee. Is it because I already train my brain, like habitually, Like that's what I do. That's my habit. I wake up, my eyes pop open, I walk to the bathroom, I pee, I go

back to the back to bed. How do I break a habit of peeing? Like I'm not doing it intentionally. It's like subconscious, right? Right. So how do people not do that? So again, if there are no, well, if there are no structural medical problems causing that, Yeah, I don't think there is. Right? You want to try and break the habit. It's kind of like when you don't want to feed a baby in the middle of the night and you're like, they can't possibly be hungry. It's enough now. Yeah. And then you eventually have to stop feeding the baby. So you can try. Nine times out of 10, it will break the habit. Just don't get up. Try to fall back asleep. But what's more important

is to try and figure out why you're waking up. Is it because you have to use the restroom? And if it is, maybe check your fluid intake towards the latter part of your day. Or is it because you're waking up hot? Because typically, the two o'clock, three o'clock hour is when your body needs to be the coldest. I love that. So because I, and also what I was going to tell you earlier about my chili pad, I didn't realize that I had to keep it cold at the beginning of the evening, at the beginning of my night, because I was under the impression, probably like a lot of people, that as the night progresses, that's when you make it cooler, not at the beginning.

Because people like to go into a cozy, maybe warm-ish bed and then get colder as they go. Yes, absolutely. So as far as the temperature that the bed should be when you get in, we recommend what is the temperature that makes you feel comfortable, relaxed, that allows you to down-regulate and kind of check out safe, comfortable, cozy.

For some people, they burn hot all day long. They get in a cool bed and they're just like, oh, I feel refreshed. For others, it's no, no, no. I just wanna get cozy and feel like a warm hug and in my cocoon and that helps them. So it's very personal and it's absolutely, whatever helps you fall asleep,

that's the temperature you need to start with. And then from that temperature to get to drop down into the deep sleep phase, you want to, two to three degrees is all it takes for your body to say, oh, this is where we're going. I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor, BioOptimizers. Let me ask you a quick question. Are you ever just tired of feeling tired? Do you always hit snooze and then slam your head straight back on the pillow or wish you can?

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That's biooptimizers.com slash Jennifer Cohen and use promo code JC10 during checkout for that savings of 10%. Do you have any stats that you can share? Any type of data on or like by people or some kind of like focus group, people who slept with cold versus regular and the quality of the sleep, the quality of the deep sleep, the quality of the ramp sleep, how much they slept with sleeping in a colder environment versus regular temperature, warmer environment? Absolutely.

So we've worked with several teams, professional teams, collegiate teams. And when've worked with several teams, professional teams, collegiate teams, and when you have a larger group it's kind of like a study group. And within that group you'll have more problem sleepers and less problem sleepers, but all in all we'll get anonymized data and it's always higher than 50% whose sleep improves, their quality improves. So where we're no longer measuring quantity of sleep, we're measuring quality of sleep, the sleep density. It's always in the high 50s to 60s as far as the percentage of improvement where they

didn't even know it. Once they got their temperatures dialed in, again, very personal, what allows them to get into cycle through all the stages of sleep. The sleep improvement is just incredible. And that is also the same for women in menopause, which is a whole nother ball of wax. Yeah. That's a whole other podcast.

It really is. It's actually what brought me to the company was just being able to understand what was going on with myself being in perimenopause way sooner than I thought. Yeah. You're young. How old are you? I'm 50. You're 50? You look great.

But I had perimenopause at 45 and I did not know it was coming. It came out of nowhere and I didn't know what was going on. And it was covers on, covers off, and it was night sweats. And what you can do, if you can stop the night sweats, it significantly reduces, and in my case, completely stopped the hot flashes during the day. So it was about a month for me, and they were gone. Completely gone. Wow. You mean you're telling me that by just having, by sleeping in a colder temperature? For me to stop waking up using that chili pad because I was waking up with the,

with saturating the sheets and my pajamas. And I remember one night even in the shower thinking, this is not okay, I can't do this. I can't sustain this. Because I was just sweating through the sheets and changing the sheets and changing my pajamas. And then, and eventually getting on that chili pad completely from one night to the next,

I was like a different human. Because it's sleep deprivation, whether you're taking care of children or a sick person or whatever, whatever is depriving you of sleep. Sleep deprivation sustained for a long period of time, just changed. I mean, it just distorts reality. Totally distorts reality. You can't function.

100%. What are other ways people could improve their deep sleep? So, first of all, their sleep in general is mitigate, as far as deep sleep specifically, mitigate that temperature. The reason why I'm saying deep sleep is because, like, all the repair happens. Also, hormonal health happens in there.

Muscle repair, everything. Especially for a lot of people who are listening to this podcast and also who are aging and people who care about high performance and all the things. To me, that's like a very, that's probably the most important part of the piece of sleep that people don't, I think people thought it was REM sleep, not deep sleep. That's the first part. And so we hear of the same things we hear like in a dark room, create like, you know, habitual routine at night, you know, no TV, no this, no that. Is there anything specific to habits for deep sleep?

Besides the things that we spoke about, and we said, of course, the temperature is the number one. Is there any other things we can do to help improve the deep sleep? In general, things that help quality sleep overall will ultimately also help deep sleep. Temperature for sure is one, but what happens a lot is that to get into that deep sleep, which is slow brain waves, you've got to think about what's stimulating the brain

and keeping it from getting into that slow brain wave sleep. And so what is stimulating it? Is it stress? Is it medication? Is it caffeine? Is it, again, body temperature due to the metabolism because you worked out at eight o'clock at night and you're still amped up and you can't get cool enough even at two and three o'clock

in the morning because the engine is still trying to cool down, right? So whatever you can do to improve your overall sleep ultimately will, should improve your deep sleep as well. A lot of times, and this isn't the case, this isn't the case for everyone, but a lot of times vitamin C deficiency is discovered when people are waking up during

a time when normally they would be in deep sleep. So again, not to get too much into supplements and medications, but check your levels, check your levels of supplementation, because a lot of times vitamin C can be a cause, which is an easy fix. It is an easy fix, but a fix I've never heard of. I didn't know that the deficiency, I've heard magnesium for sleep. Also. Right?

For sleep onset, yes, absolutely. For onset sleep? But I've never heard of vitamin C. What's your take on taking melatonin because it's a hormone? And I think, well, what is your take on it? So my take is that we shouldn't take it as much as we do. We just, as a society in general, it is not,

it is meant to be a band-aid. And it's like saying, would you use band-aids to cure this perpetual wound that you have? The band-aid isn't gonna cure it, it's covering it, right? So it's to get it to the point where it can heal itself. Melatonin is produced by the body. Melatonin is produced when we get cool enough and when we get dark enough.

And that happens naturally. The brain has to perceive the darkness, the cool. That triggers the production of melatonin. That makes us drowsy. So if we're not getting dark enough at night, if we're not dimming the lights, down regulating, getting off screens, stop receiving the stimuli, if we're not doing that the lights, down regulating, getting off screens, stop receiving the stimuli. If we're not doing that, then the brain says,

nope, we're still going, we're still good. We still need the cortisol. We still need to be game ready. Then we're never getting that melatonin production that we need to feel drowsy. So let's pop some melatonin. Well, what happens is the brain says, oh, okay, you're gonna give it to me?

I don't need to produce it then. So I still need it because I'm not producing it because you're giving it to me. So it becomes this vicious cycle and ultimately it stops working. Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, that's what a lot of other people have mentioned to me. But then you have these other people who are like prescribing and promoting melatonin. What about magnesium? Why is it that magnesium helps us fall asleep? So magnesium, again, so many different forms of magnesium. That's the other question I was going to have. There's so many different forms of magnesium. How do you know which one actually works for the watch? Because it's confusing for me.

And this is what I do. So what magnesium ultimately, in a nutshell, it is for muscle and tissue relaxation, right? So a lot of people have the tension from the day, from the stress, from the workouts, from your day-to-day activities. And so the magnesium helps to release that tension, relieve that, and get into, and stay into that sleep cycle, those sleep cycles that you want to be in. A lot of people like to take magnesium or Epsom salt baths, right? So again, a different form of magnesium, and you can absorb it through your skin as well.

And then the bath, the warm bath helps you kind of relax. So whatever, whether you're taking it or whether you're absorbing it cutaneously, whatever you find that helps you. And that's what we tell people. We've got to meet you where you're at. What helps you and what doesn't help you. And a lot of this has to do with documenting.

Just like when you're doing a fitness plan or a nutrition plan, what seems to be working and what can we tweak? What can we change? So that has a lot to do with it. So a lot of people will find that the wrong types of magnesium at the wrong types of day because excessive amounts of magnesium

can also cause you to use the restroom. So it's typically, when I supplement with magnesium, which I do, I take mine at night, because I know that I feel like it helps me fall asleep. And I don't take a sleep supplement. We're trying to get people off of dependency of chemicals in general. This includes alcohol, this includes marijuana.

And these are all, by the way, ways that people are medicating themselves, like Ambien, marijuana, whatever, to fall asleep. So I'm glad that you said that because what I was going to ask you is, a lot of people I know are taking gummies to fall asleep. That's the new Ambien, especially here where I live in LA, right? I don't even think it's only in LA, but like, it's because it's legal, they're like, okay, I'm gonna pop a gummy, it will calm me down, it will like de-stress me,

and then I'm gonna go to sleep. What is the effects of using gummies as a way to fall asleep, marijuana? Is it the same type of effect as alcohol in terms of the sleep quality that people are getting? So the sleep quality is terrible. I have not spoken yet to someone who can show me their hypnograph, their sleep quality,

having fallen asleep using CBD, THC, marijuana, alcohol. They'll fall asleep fast, but they won't stay asleep and get quality sleep. And especially with alcohol, they won't stay asleep because A, it. And especially with alcohol, they won't stay asleep because A, it's a diuretic, they'll have to get up and use the restroom, and B, it elevates their body temperature. So they're not gonna get that deep sleep, right?

Because it's sugar. So you're burning off that sugar, the alcohol, and so it elevates your body temperature. You may fall asleep, but it's not gonna be quality sleep. And then the same thing happens with marijuana. What we have found in hypnographs is that it, even though it mellows you out, it's not slow brain waves that occur. So it's not deep sleep that occurs. So they might get sleep, but it's not quality sleep. It's not restful sleep. What is it then? It's very light stages

of sleep. So there's no benefits to it. You're not getting the muscle repair, the hormone, the HG, the human growth hormone. You're not getting the emotional, as you were saying earlier, REM sleep. Long-term. Well, they might get some REM sleep. They'll probably have the vivid dreams, right? Right, that part. They'll get that part.

But then, so they're sorting through the memories, but then they're never getting to the point where they're filing them permanently. Right, and restoring their body. And restoring, right. And so that's an issue. People are like, oh, but I have to have my gummies to fall asleep.

Again, maybe here and there might be your stopgap solution because you can't fall asleep. Right. I'm not gonna say nobody should ever do it. I'm not gonna recommend it either, but sleep quality is just not there. It is just not there with people that use gummies for sleep. I'm sorry, I hate to be the messenger. Yeah, no, no. I like to know these things. What's worse, alcohol or THC for sleeping?

I mean, I think they're one in the same when you look at someone's sleep score. They're the same? I would say so. Probably worse is alcohol, mainly because of the effects that it has on the metabolism and on body temperature. But I would say either way, it's just not sustainable for quality sleep over a long period of time. It just isn't.

Yeah, I mean... You know, people a lot of times, excuse the interruption, a lot of times people say, oh, I had some procedure and I had the Michael Jackson drug or I had the, you know, the propofol. It's also not restful sleep. When a nurse comes in and says, get ready for a nice nap, it's a nap, but it's not a nice nap. It's not quality sleep.

Again, they've tracked brain waves of people who are under anesthesia. It's very light sleep. It's sleep. You're closing your eyes. But it is not quality sleep. Wow, I find this so interesting. Like you were even saying earlier, what I was blown away by is how people who fall asleep quick

is that means they're actually sleep deprived. I didn't realize that. And like for, I wanna talk to you more about that cause I'm really curious about that. I'm also curious and I've always wondered this. Like a lot of people, this is what I do to fall asleep. I know it's considered to be a bad, it's bad for bad sleep hygiene,

but I like to watch comedy before I fall asleep. Like I'm not like, I don't like to watch dramas or thrillers, but comedy because it puts me in a happy mood, makes me smile and I can doze off, like, and my brain is not having to, like, think of something that's, like, that's antagonizing to me, right? And then I fall asleep. I like to watch Frasier or stand-up comedy.

How is that not good if it actually gets me to sleep? That's a really good question, and I'll answer it by, I'll start answering it by saying, I could already tell what that does for you because of your smiling and your body language and telling me about it. It's mindset, right? So again, the signals that we're giving our brain,

like this is a good thing for me. Relax, I'm smiling, I'm happy. I'm not bogged down by the stresses of the day and the stresses of tomorrow. I'm able to check out. Exactly. And it's not like the news, and it's not like things that are depressing you

or adding more stress and anxiety to your day. If that is what makes you feel relaxed, and if that is what helps you get there, then that's what you need to do. Should we do it while we're lying in bed? I would suggest against that, because again, we're giving the brain the signal of, oh, okay, well, we can do this in bed instead of lying in bed, I would suggest against that because again, we're giving the brain the signal of, oh, okay, well, we can do this in bed

instead of sleep in bed. So I would recommend against. I just recommend against having a TV in the bedroom, period. But if that is what it takes, you know, a lot of times, if you think about what does it take to get me, I call it down, we call it down regulating, what does it take to send the brain the signals because I'm not in a cave anymore

and I don't have the sun setting in my living room. What does it take for my brain to say, okay, let's go? It's time, it's now time because it's habits. Again, it's habits. It's what we're telling our bodies, what we're telling our brains. That's what we're gonna put out is the result of the signals, right?

So if you think about the routine that we create for babies, right? Is it a lullaby? Is it a book? Is it a warm bath? Is it whatever it is? Some people like sleep music. Some people like a noisemaker. Some people like comedy before bed. Whatever it is that works for you, that's what you need to do. And if you're qualifying your sleep, whether it's with a sleep tracker or not, if you find the next morning that going to bed and beforehand, you watch some

comedy, if that works for you, that's what you need to do. Yeah. To your point, I don't have a TV in my room. My husband refused to have a TV in our room. So now I'm watching my iPad, which is kind of the same thing, right? Like, OK, you don't want to put a TV in my room. I'm going to watch my iPad. But I will say, like, if I'm watching something like I was watching something, I was watching a while ago, like the Jeffrey Dahmer, before I was going to bed, right?

Wasn't able to fall asleep. I watched the entire season, which is what, like six, seven hours. By the time it was like eight o'clock in the morning, I had to obviously get, you know, six o'clock in the morning, whatever it was. Obviously I'm not falling asleep to that, right? So that's kind of like common sense.

However, I think it's like kind of, it's called like limbic friction, right? Like my habit is I'm gonna go to bed, I'm gonna get to watch my comedy that will make me fall asleep. Like the comedy is making me fall asleep, right? And I will last maybe eight, nine minutes. Like I don't last very long.

I hear a few jokes or watch one scene of Frasier or whatever, and then I'm falling asleep. So like, it's not like I'm sitting there watching TV all the time, but because I think I've programmed my brain to make me feel happy or like, you know, distressed, it works for me. So then that's what you need to do. And that takes care of mindset, right?

Which is one of the keys to unlock quality sleep is how you're feeling. A lot of people go to bed stressed and they're like, I can't shut it. I can't stop thinking. My son does this. I've told him, you know, put a pad beside your bed and just do a brain dump. That's what I call it. Just what's on your mind. Doesn't matter. Whatever. For me, it would be, you know, what's missing in the refrigerator, bills I have to, whatever. Just put it down. And like that, you have told your brain, I don't have to keep remembering it or holding on to it, because it's going to be there in the morning. And that little trick of just writing down,

if you're ruminating, writing down what you're thinking about on a piece of paper. So whatever works. And so first, it's mindset, how you feel about being able to go to sleep. And if humor, if comedy does it, that's great. The only thing I would add to that would then be a behavior, or it has to do with environment as well, is the intake of light. So if you're doing it, then maybe use blue light blocking glasses. So like that, the brain isn't saying, I know you're wanting me to go to sleep,

but the stimulus is keeping me from going to sleep. So if we can mitigate the environment that is keeping me from going to sleep. So if we can mitigate the environment that is keeping us from falling asleep or getting quality sleep, because you're stimulating the brain. You're saying, I know I wanna go to sleep, but I can't because I'm looking at this light that you're getting from the iPad, right?

Right. So that's the only thing I would add to that that would probably improve your quality of sleep. So you believe in those glasses, huh? I do. I do, wholeheartedly. The amber ones. I mean, not all, just like not all supplements are created equal, not all mattresses are created equal, not all blue light blocking glasses are created equal. You really want to, now again, go back to the cave days, right?

You want to mimic that warmth, that red-orange light, because that's what the brain, it was a fire, right? You want to mimic that warmth, that red orange light, because that's what the brain that it was a fire, right? And that's what the brain perceives as its nighttime. And so if you can do that with the amber glasses, the amber colored lens, that's best to the amber the red. Okay, I'm going to try that. Thank you. And so okay, so I like that. So sleep tricks that we possibly haven't heard of. That's a good one. Brain dump, all the stuff in your brain that you're thinking about on a piece of paper. So then once it's out of your head,

that can maybe potentially help you falling asleep, right? Is there anything else that you can add to the sleep tricks that we have not heard? Well, you may have heard of this. This actually, I like to, so much of my passion and what I do has to do with what I've lived, how I've experienced it, because you can't teach, you can't coach if you're not with them, right?

If you don't feel it. 1000%. And so what works for me is, okay, I wanna get as cold as possible, at least for a four hour window of my sleep, but I don't want it to wake me up. So I sleep with socks on, cozy socks. And cozy socks allows me to get much colder with my sleep temperature without waking.

Because your extremities get cold first. And so... Your head though too. But with me, it's my socks. So cozy socks, and a lot of people have found that. When they're like, I want it to be cold, but I get too cold. I'm like, before you take it up,

put some cozy socks on before you go to bed. I love that. That works for me. That's I'm like, before you take it up, put some cozy socks on before you go to bed. I love that. That works for me. That's amazing. What temperature do you put it on? So I start around 70 on the Doc Pro because different ones are different. Doc Pro is the coldest one.

I start around 70. So if it was the older iteration or the cube or the Ullr would be around 60. And then I drop it down to, well, I start with it about 74 and then my cold temperature is around 70, which is the equivalent of 64 and 60 on the cube or the Euler, about a 10 degree colder, colder device. That's cold. It is.

It's like sleeping in a cold plunge. Well, not really, but, but, but again, what, because of the thermal load that I put and I like to pile on, I sleep with the down comforter even in the summertime. You do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in order for me to be able to do that, the surface has to be cold. So like in a hotel, forget it. It's like I can't have all the comfort.

I can't have all the heavy blankets on me. Absolutely. Okay, so one other thing is, well, not one other thing, but I was going to ask you earlier, but I was so riveted by what you were saying. When someone does not sleep well and have bad sleep hygiene or can't sleep properly, what are the effects it does have on your body? What are some of the things that it manifests into? I mean, an array of, it can be metabolic dysfunction. We find insulin sensitivity gets completely out of whack.

Cortisol just spikes through the roof. All kinds of, even cardiac issues. Heart health suffers tremendously when we don't get quality sleep. Injuries, recovery from injury decreases. I mean, and then health and wellness has so much to do, especially nowadays, with mental health. And if you're not filing away those memories, if you're not sorting through the problems, mental health suffers. And so it's just, it becomes this this huge vicious cycle. We're not repairing physically, we're not repairing emotionally, our metabolisms are all over the place, our insulin sensitivity

is not where it needs to be. It's just an array of issues. It's just a downward spiral, chronic inflammation, just all these processes that our bodies depend on. We spend, let's say we do get eight hours of sleep a day, a a night if we're lucky. That's 30% of your day. 30% of your day. And we focus so much on what we're doing during that one hour workout or the three meals a day that we eat. That's not 30% of your day. So when we look at it like that and we zoom out and we say, what are we doing during that time? Are we using it constructively? Are we setting ourselves up for success for the next day and the next week and the next year and to be around so our lives can not only be longer like they are now, but that

they can be quality lives? It's not how old you are, it's how you are old. Exactly. It's a hundred percent right. Well, I really loved this podcast. I loved having you as a guest. Thank you. Really, thank you very much.

I actually, no, I learned a lot. Really, I did. I'm really happy that we made this work. How do people find more about you? Well, I write a ton of blogs. They're all on our website at sleep.me. So all the blogs are on there. We discuss everything from physical fitness, emotional fitness, to women's health, tips and tricks on how to get better sleep, and independent of our product. My mission is to just elevate

human health just in general through sleep. So if we can all sleep better, could you imagine what the world would be like? Right, if it was that easy, right? Like, just everyone sleep better. I mean, think about a happy baby, right? I mean, let's just go back to when they've slept well, right? So true. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. You're very welcome. You're welcome. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Bye.