The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Psychology of Sleep with Dr. Beverley David - Spring/Summer 2024

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

In this episode, recorded on May 9, 2024, Gina talks about the psychology of sleep with Dr. Beverley David. Dr. Beverley is a Clinical Psychologist registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. She also holds a Ph.D. in Sleep Research (Insomnia) and a Master's in Health Psychology.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024Topics covered:Introducing Dr. Beverley DavidWhy sleep is so importantIf there is one thing we need to know about sleep, this is itWhy do we feel like we need permission to prioritize sleep?The different stages of sleep and why each is importantWhy you can sleep through the night and still not be getting good sleepAre sleep apps beneficial?How menopause affects sleepWhen it comes to sleep, how much is physical and how much is mental?Sleeping together vs. sleeping apart- which is best?What is restless leg syndrome?How do we improve the quality of our sleep?How food and digestion can impact your sleepWhy if you can’t sleep, you shouldn’t think about sleepingCan you have too much sleep?Where to find Dr. BeverleyFind Dr. Beverley:https://www.yourpsychologycentre.ca/@drdrbeverleyTo learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple,

and Amazon Music. summer runs, or playoff season meditations. Whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.

You're going to have this ability to now reframe. Allow yourself time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. The thoughts and the feelings and the behavior cycle can start changing. What happens when you're not getting enough good quality sleep? Today we are talking with one of my favorite guests, Dr. Beverly David. Not only is she a clinical psychologist, but she spent quite a bit of time doing sleep research. So today we're going to talk about what is sleep research, how is it connected to psychology, and how does this factor into your weight loss journey in the spirit of maximizing this week, which is talking about all the other things you can do besides what you are eating and when drinking water, adding in supplements,

things like managing your stress and moving your body more. But sleep I have come to learn is like the Holy grail. It is so important. So many people focus on what they are eating when they just need to get better sleep. It not only factors into your mindset and your mood, but also into your hormones. Next week, we are going to be joined by some more amazing guests. Alana McGinn is going to talk sleep hygiene. Dr. Oleninka is going to be back and talk sleep and hormones. But today we are getting into the psychology behind sleep with Dr. Beverly David. Hi. It's like, you know, you know, when boxers come

and they come to, it's like you introduced that way and I get all like nervy oh heart beating pounding good morning Gina did you good morning well did you sleep well last night I got this really exciting thing I'm doing tomorrow that I can't talk about and so I haven't been sleeping for like the whole week my mind is just racing I'm like semi-stressed but also like really excited so it's like no I was listening to Harry Styles he does that like you know that calm app and he's like good evening everybody except with his his accent you could probably do Harry Styles accent better than I but did it work I'm glad I'm glad he soothed you soothed you in your slumber oh every night I'm like Tony can you put Harry on for me please that's all right take Harry to bed yes so sleep

sleep and psychology and sleep and everything you just said mindset mood hormones health you're absolutely right it's it's there for a very important reason mother nature knows best you know she's asking us to try and spend a third of our lives in in this very vulnerable state where we close our eyes we would be very vulnerable to predators we are not procreating we're not making money so the demand that we have this sleep, it must have a significant benefit for us to be doing this. Well, in knowing this, because I'm just going to ask you off the top, what's the most important thing people need to know about not getting sleep? There is this kind of like, like I'll sleep and I'm dead. People do not prioritize their sleep.

They just, they don't. And it's not something we, I mean, we're talking about it more and more, which is why I'm so excited for this conversation because we had it for the first time in our previous program and mind blown. But what do you think people need to know about sleep? I mean, if there's one thing you could tell them, what would that be? That it is important for absolutely every organ in your body. It's, it's absolutely essential. And, you know, I can either introduce it in a very scary way. And I can say when you don't get sleep, or I can tell you it in a very positive way and tell you that when you do get sleep, we will see anxiety levels decrease, depression improve, all sorts of mood improvement. We'll see less impulsivity,

improved performance, less pain. This is huge for quality of life. Then we'll see our immunity improve. Diabetes can be nipped in the bud. Glucose control, healthy weight. We avoid some cancers. Cardiovascular disease risks can be improved. Dementia, our trajectory towards dementia can be slowed. We can have a more enjoyable sex drive and our libido can be enhanced by this. Fertility is enhanced by quality and quantity of sleep. And recovery, recovery from whether it's injuries or breaks or illnesses, everything, let the the sort of very important parts of our brain in performance and accuracy and getting along with people because it's everything our our our sleep is for the brain and by the brain the brain makes it happen and the brain needs it the brain is the first thing to show the deficit when we sleep depriveddeprived people. However, we now know that every organ starts to

be impacted and we start to compensate. Everything starts to slow. Our metabolism slows down. Our management of sugars start to become affected. So we might notice weight gain. And we'll notice things. We'll notice that we can't resist snacks and treats and our cravings go up. So it's absolutely everything. And we need to prioritize it because when we do give it back, when we are able to find ways to improve our sleep, immediately we see that, you know, weight can stabilize, glucose management can stabilize. Our fogginess, our brain fog can improve and lift and we can now listen more, make decisions, make complex decisions. We'll notice that maybe we're not as impatient. We might be nicer people to be around. So it's everything.

Sleep holds everything up. You know, it's not one of the pillars of health. It is the pillar of health. If we don't have it, it's devastating. It leads to early mortality. It's dangerous. And so I don't want to scare people too much. No, you can. you can scare people.

Well, it's my, you know, do no harm. I want to help people do better. I want people to be informed because when we're informed, we can do better. And there are ways to do this when we understand, like you're talking to me today about the science of sleep, what is it, what's going underneath, what's going on in the brain, how can we improve it? I'm really happy Alana will be talking more about sleep hygiene. And Dr. Alinka with the hormones, this is a lovely way of just prioritizing, let's let's look at this, you know, let's get this on track. And if you're noticing anything isn't on track, let's see what you need to do, whether it's to go to an overnight study, a doctor, a program. Um, we can talk about that towards the end of, end of the session as well. Yes. It's a lovely way to scare the shit out of people. I think we need to listen. This can be the most important conversation of, of anyone's weight loss journey and experience. People do not

understand the importance of sleep. They're like, I'm eating all the foods. I'm drinking all the water. I can't lose weight. Meanwhile, like they're up all night and not just because they're peeing and their body's in detox. Like, and then I know I'm already watching the comments while I'm a shift worker, while I'm a new mom, or, you know, I'm in menopause and all those things. This is why you need to pay attention to this conversation. Oh, it's going to be so good. It's already so good because this conversation with Alana and Dr. Alinka, it's just going to like, it's like a holistic approach to really understanding sleep. You are going to walk away with tips on how to get better sleep or better quality sleep. You might not be able to get more sleep in terms of time, but better quality sleep. And you are

going to see how it is all connected and weight loss is so much more than just what you are eating and when and sleep plays a huge massive role in that it's almost like we need permission to to prioritize our sleep why why why is that i think humans seek permission so often we grow up we grow up with it whether it's the stories from our family of origins we we just I don't know whether we know that we're important and we are really important and I often come up against that you know partners saying well why why aren't you staying up with me to watch that and what you know why are you going to bed early but we see it across the board. Like, why are you going to the gym? Or why are you, you know, not having a maximized ice cream, you know? We're choosing health.

We're choosing a way. And some people don't like it or don't understand it. And then they might take it as rejection. When I'm working with families with, you know, now I'm asking them to prioritize their bedtime routine and that may also include going to bed later because when we apply a sleep restriction or sleep compression model to get sleep back on track we might be asking you to stay up until midnight say you normally get into bed at nine o'clock I might be saying hang on we're not getting sleep because you're not falling asleep till midnight. So I don't want you reinforcing the pillow with wakefulness and the pillow with restlessness. So then that partner might be like, what do you mean? We go to bed together.

Why, you know, what is going on? I feel rejected. And then we have this burden of having to consider somebody else's feelings. So I always invite the systemic approach. I tell your family, tell your partners about the importance of this. You will be a better partner, a better lover. You'll last longer. You'll have many more years to watch Downton Abbey together. You know, let's prioritize getting sleep on track instead of thinking that these, you know,

an hour extra night is going to be the glue that holds us together. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things that really surprised me because you think get more sleep means go to bed early, but that's not necessarily the case because if you are going to bed and you're just lying there awake, you're making these associations and then that's messing with you. And oh my gosh, there's so much to dive into. Okay. Where do we go next with this conversation? Okay.

Well, let's, let's start. We're doing the science of sleep. So I want everybody to understand what happens inside of, inside of sleep, because it is not just a stable thing. So everybody knows what sleep looks like. We know we can identify it. We've seen babies doing it and toddlers do it and we can do it it's a very it looks very restful our eyes are often closed

but inside of our brain we're going through these stages and if you were measuring sleep that the gold standard measurement is putting electrodes in a particular pattern on our brain we're going to have a lecture, little electrodes near our eyes to be monitoring rapid eye movement. We're going to have little electrodes on our jaw to notice when we tense. We're going to have an oxygen machine to be able to be measuring flow of air and whether or not we're holding our breath or depriving ourselves of any oxygen. And we're going to have these electrodes on our legs also to be looking for restless legs. Now, the electrodes on our brains, the only way we can truly tell where you are in sleep and if you're asleep. So we're looking out for particular markers in our brain activity. So a sleep

technician will be watching this and they'll be looking out for you going into these stages. And now we call them stage one, two, and three. There used to be a stage four, but we've amalgamated it to stage one, two, and three, alpha, theta, delta. And we go from quite busy wakeful waves in stage one, where I might be able to say, hey, Gina, and you'll say, yeah, I was just resting my eyes, just like my grandpa used to do. OK, so we'll be able to hear things. We might not notice that we're starting to fall asleep. As we're going into theta stage two, we might notice on the brain activity, little spindles and K complexes. And that's your brain going like a little hiccup, little hiccup in the brain. And it's taking you down to the deeper levels. And so now you might notice that your head bobbing, you know, you might fall asleep on somebody on the train.

You might like jolt in a lecture or something like that. And then we start to see delta waves and they're the beautiful and we call them slow wave sleep. So we've now we're in this very restorative sleep for this, especially restorative for the prefrontal cortex. And then we also we come back out. So we go stage one, stage two, stage three, stage two, stage one REM. And then REM sleep is a very active time for your brain. If I was watching the output, the electrical output, I would think, wow, this person is awake. That's why we have to see your eyes are going because that's why it's called rapid eye movement. We also see your body tense as long as you haven't got an REM sleep deficiency where you might act out your dream, you might jump out,

but you're supposed to be in a sleep paralysis. So you don't act out your dreams. Men will have an erection. So that is a really nice way of ruling in or out, sorry, Gina, in or out something that might be going on down there. If a gentleman might say, okay, I'm not able to perform as I would like to with my partner in the day a clever way is to see is everything physically working and we can do that when they're asleep to think okay is it psychology getting in the way of performance okay so very powerful um so then as as we go through the night we generally take our deep one, two, three. We take nice amounts of Delta. And towards the end of the night, we're going through these cycles in about 90-minute segments.

We go in and out. This is important when I'm teaching this to people so that they know that sometimes you will be in later sleep. You will become aware of the dog or the air conditioning or the bin men coming. So we're not always deep, deep because delta deep sleep stage three would be hard to wake you up. That would be really scary if you woke up from that sort of deep, deep sleep. But stage one is easier. So we want to know this is why that sometimes during the night you might think, oh, I'm a little bit awake. We don't want to be alarmed. We don't want to know this is why that sometimes during the night you might think, oh, I'm a little bit awake. We don't want to be alarmed. We don't want to worry.

We're going to try not to prevent those very quick thoughts going. Oh, no, this is it. I'm not going to sleep for the rest of the night. Because now we've had cognitive effort and frustration. We want to be thinking, OK, I've just come out of my stages and see if we go back down into our stages. We can also use this information to help us time our waking up. Because sometimes, you know, sleeping that little bit longer, we might have been better off getting up when the alarm went off at six instead, because we're in lighter sleep.

And so this is what we want people to know. And that's the stuff that gets affected by certain choices we make in lighter sleep and so this is what we want people to know and that's the stuff that gets affected by certain choices we make in the day um and as sleep researchers what we always like well any psychologist our mean streak our research streak we take these things away and see what happens so we'll take away stage one we'll take away stage two we we'll take away stage two, we'll take it and we watch and we used when I first started this back 1998 was when I started sleep research. It was all about the delta, it was all about deep sleep. And that was the priority if we don't get that and Jim Horne used to call it the core sleep, he used to call it optional sleep and core sleep. Because when we sleep deprived,

that's the bit that rebounds. If I put you back in the clinic, I'd see so much delta that following night. So we assume that that's the most important part. We also see what it does to us. We lose our word fluency. We find it really hard to make decisions we're very impulsive our risk goes up it's why vagus works okay so it compromises that clever bit of brain um however sleep research has advanced and now we the money is there that people can be followed for longer and now we notice there's also rebound in other stages other stages are are important also. So we know that in the spindles are really important for performance and laying down memory of procedural memory, like learning a piano scale or learn something. sleep not only to learn but also to remember and to do it state and then rem sleep is very important for our emotional regulation that's that sort of managing our anxiety managing um people you know that turn taking of of being a human we might become more suspicious we might

become more guarded and so every bit of sleep is important. And that's what we look at. And so that's underneath, that's when our eyes are closed. So that's just the beginning. So where should I, where do you want me to take you next? Well, I just want to talk a little bit about how one of the things, again, that blew me away with our conversations is that people think like a good night's sleep is you go to bed and then you wake up the next day. And that's not the reality. It is actually very normal for you to wake up a few times during the evening. And this is like whether you wake up, you got stuff on your mind or you wake up and you realize, oh, you know, I need to go to the bathroom or whatnot. And I thought, okay,

well, I have the worst sleep because I wake up two, three, four times during the night where that's normal after those 90 second sleep cycles. This was also 90 minutes. Yeah. This was also a massive game changer for me because I was that wake up, realize, okay, well, I still have an hour to go back to sleep. And then I would wake up and then with my alarm and just be like, oh my God, well, I still have an hour to go back to sleep. And then I would wake up and then with my alarm and just be like, Oh my God, what am I doing? So now I really got into with

my sleep cycles. So I can tell, okay, when I'm up, like if I get up at five 30, even though I can sleep to seven or eight, like I'll, I'll get up if I don't have enough time to get that full 90 minute cycle in. And I, it's a game changer in terms of my energy and my mental clarity and how I'm feeling. Because when you set that alarm and you're being woken out of that deep sleep, man, it's rough. Yeah. It's so rough. It's so rough. Okay. Um, you were talking about the lecture. You talked about loads of things there because you talked about people thinking if you go to bed and you wake up, you've slept. And this is where it gets a bit complicated. Or, you know, we used to because if we think of our daytime measures, if I'm talking to a client and they're saying, OK, go to bed.

I go to bed at 10 o'clock. I fall asleep pretty fast and And I wake up at six o'clock, and I seem to have been all right. But I am falling asleep. I'm finding it hard to have a conversation. I can't focus on my work. I'm not feeling at all. You know, any vitality, you know, then we're thinking, okay, what's going on. And of course, that can be a sign that maybe your eyes are closed, but something's going on? And of course, that can be a sign that maybe your eyes are closed, but something's going on with your sleep. And that would be maybe an indication of sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. Because those stages that I spoke about, you might think that you're going through them. But sleep apnea is, there's two types, obstructive sleep apnea, where something obstructs the

airway, like big tonsils or your throat, like more of a loose neck or just the way our anatomy can sometimes make us more likely to have this. And it stops oxygen being, you know, air going around. Central sleep apnea is when the brain forgets to tell us to sleep, to breathe. Now, both of these are very dangerous because your body is going to preserve life. And when it notices that, it's going to make you cough or splutter or take a breath. Now, what happens is it prevents you going down to the stage three, which we need. We need it. OK, so it's without you knowing you're getting light sleep all night all night but you

didn't you didn't know you weren't aware and that's why it's so dangerous because then in the daytime you're like I have no energy I'm gaining weight I'm irritated I'm irritable and then we think okay let's have a think about this um and then you you talked about a wonderful part that you've been practicing is routine. Routine is the guardian of sleep. It really is because then our body gets to know what's happening. It anticipates bedtime. It anticipates wakefulness. Our circadian rhythm has a better chance to hold us. And that's what you've been doing. You've been starting to learn, okay, I'm going to do this. And I could lie in, I could sleep for longer if I want, but you've started to notice, actually, you feel good. You feel good in that, in that amount of time and up you get and,

and on you go. So routine is definitely so key. So it's really quality over quantity of sleep. It's not how long you're sleeping. It's the quality of sleep that you are getting. It's a little bit of both. We want to be trying our best to give ourselves the opportunity because a lot of people don't even have the opportunity and that can cause sleep deprivation. So we're wanting about eight and we want to aim for eight and a half to nine and a half hours on average. However, remember, everyone's different. We've all got a different appetite for these sort of things. However, if we're not even getting into bed until one and we need to get up at five.

Now, there's no chance there's no chance we're going to hit those at that number. Our our sleep will absolutely try and compensate it'll try and take the important bits as fast as it can but you're still not getting enough according to what we would recommend that said again we're looking for the out the outcomes in the day if you're saying i'm totally fine you know i would never suggest less than five hours. But say you're sleeping seven and everything's good. I'm not going to change. I'm not going to say, well, let's start changing this. Because if you're saying everything is on track, I do well at work, I'm able to exercise, I'm able to communicate, I feel good. You know, with that sort of person, they're not going to come see me for sleep anyway,

because they're feeling good about it. Yeah. Okay. So quantity and quantity. Okay. So I want to follow up on two things before you move forward. I want to talk about restless legs. And I want to talk about, um, you talked about the things on your face, measuring your brain. What about the, what about the sleep apps and the watchers that we're wearing to measure our sleep? Is there any benefit in using those at all, do you think? They are getting very advanced. They're trying their hardest.

The sleep world, we're always really careful because people will often want to know, are we endorsing them? Who's listening? Are we being paid? Will it be an advert? But truly, we only know if we are wearing the electrodes, if we're, you know, if an EEG is plugged on to us. They're trying their best to be monitoring things like our heart rate and our rise and fall. When I finished my first PhD, one of the pieces of equipment was trying to track that, you know,

the rise and fall of our chest to determine sleep. I had all of my participants for my PhD wear something called an actogram, like it's a movement device. It's not a sleep device, just noticing, are you wriggling? Which you would wriggle if you have restless leg syndrome. So these devices, we want to be careful, any monitoring is useful, as long as it's not getting in the way. Because when Alison Harvey is, is a phenomenal researcher, psychologist, and she did this wonderful study where in the morning, regardless of what the output said, she would just tell you, Oh, Jeannie, you had a great night's sleep. Okay. And we and we

watched that half you know that those parts of the the study those people would go about their day and they'd have a wonderful day oh i've had such a wonderful sleep we then tell the other half of the group terrible terrible night's sleep and that that is that's that feedback you carry it with you for the rest of the day. And then we might start to perceive things and notice things differently. And now we've had a funky day because we were told something at the beginning of the day. So we know that we're very affected as human beings. So the power of suggestion is powerful. So we don't want to look at these watches and think that's it.

It's told me I hadn't, you know, no deep sleep last night. I'm doomed. OK, because it doesn't really know. And if you then go into your day really delicately and then you put off going to the gym because you think I'm a bit. And you put off going to that social event. Now we've missed out on some really important bits of life. And so we don't, we want to tap into ourselves. We want to think, how am I feeling? How did I, you know, because that's the best measure. Sleep diaries are good because it's all about subjective measures. How did I, how did I sleep? How long did I take to fall asleep?

Was I awake in the night? How long did I, you know, what time did I wake up? What time did I get up? And how do I sleep? How long did I take to fall asleep? Was I awake in the night? How long? Did I, you know, what time did I wake up? What time did I get up? And how do I feel? If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Okay, I'm going gonna put the restless legs on hold for a second because i'm thinking of all

the conversation when it comes to hormones and menopause and if you're menopausal you are perimenopausal or post-menopause you're not sleeping all these horrible things are happening to us you know we're lying there and we're just like ah um is there something to be said about sleep and age or sleep and hormones is it one the other is it both what's happening there the beautiful question because again sleep changes as we age we don't sleep now as we did when we were babies or as infants or as adolescents sleep changes our adolescence it's very difficult because this circadian rhythm shifts and of course as we as women become we sort of edge into the menopause the perimenopause or premenopause menopause that decrease that's that deprivation of estrogen plays havoc okay it's

disrupting serotonin it leads to sleep sleep disturbance. We know that, you know, between the ages of 44 to 55, in the research at the moment, 30 to 40% of women will report poor sleep. So the estrogen is making a real impact that the lack of estrogen, and then eventually no estrogen, as well as progesterone, because progesterone has a as an effect of helping to sedate and also that is compromised everybody will probably contest you because it's about 85 in the research we'll talk about the nighttime hot flushes and that's to do with their thinking it's to do with something called the vasomotor part of the hypothalamus managing it's destabilizing this thermometer and we are hot and if we are hot we wake up a hot you know we need to be cool and that's why we want to cool our bedroom down about 18 and a half degrees to sleep we're taking

ourselves into hibernation we cool and we sleep we rest we restore so that heat also interrupts our sleep so it's a double whammy and there's lots of research and thank goodness menopause is on the agenda it's so important now we know that we've missed female health for so long and we know that now there's more information about particular HRT schedules and things like that. But also we know cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia can be very helpful for people with menopause also, if they're not wanting to do the pharmacological route. And of course, we're also looking out for the other things because women also then report an increase in sleep apnea, an increase in restless leg syndrome. And we don't want this either because again, you know, I've told you about the consequences of not getting these deep, deep sleeps, which is the same as the restless legs because we're wiggling. We're not getting to deep sleep.

Yeah. You mentioned cognitive behavioral therapy. How much is physical and how much is mental when it comes to your sleep? What a good question. It's completely entwined, completely entwined because it's a double-edged sword. If I sleep deprive you, you will definitely become more anxious the next day. You will definitely feel sluggy the next day so now it's state of mind as well and when we're in that spot we make different decisions now if i also improve your um mental health sleep also so it's which where do you begin and and the good news is when we improve sleep when we look at the direction the causality of research when we look at the direction, the causality of research, when we improve sleep, everything seems to improve. Okay, if we have to pick up what to improve first, do we do a cognitive therapy or

or any therapy? Are we doing therapy for anxiety? Or should we do therapy for sleep? Well, it seems to be the case if we start with sleep, it helps the other things as well. Okay. But actually it doesn't matter. Start anywhere and you'll start seeing the cycle improve. Pain, pain perception, clarity, fogginess, being able to manage all of these things. If we got, you know, if we got better sleep, we'd be able to make better decisions. And then when we're making better decisions, we often then improve our daytime light quality and then we sleep better. Yeah. And the choices that you're making when you're following the Libby method. Is there a difference between men and women?

Oh, yes. Good question. Women still win the race. Unfortunately, we still are much more, we hold a greater proportion of sleep um disturbance and sleep sleep problems i know there's always there's always um there's always in all the literature we always have to say well do men report it as much you know women often come into clinics more often for different reasons they might get asked about their health they they might sit, um, or their sleep. And, but it is significantly greater in females. And we have many things happen, you know, our puberty, our, if we're, if we're trying for babies, when we have young babies, if, if we, if we go that way, um, and then of course our hormonal changes. Okay. I promise I'm going to get to

the restless legs things. But I want to talk about, I hear a lot of people talking about not sleeping with their partner. But you also hear that sleeping with someone you love makes you calm, get you nice. I mean, we start dating. We start sleeping together. We're all intertwined in a big lovey hug. And then, you know, by the end,

people are like, here's your side. Here's my side. Don't touch me. And then people are all like, then it goes to separate rooms. Like, are the people sleeping in separate rooms? Just like, fuck this shit. I'm prioritizing my sleep. And is there like, is there, is that, is that showing that there are underlying issues? Is it possible to get back into that lovey connected sleep? Or is that a snoring thing? Is that just a, uh, like what help us? I love it when you go deep, deep. I'm still in the, I'm still in the lovey sleep with Tony. So I'm blessed, but I also, you know, I, I hear enough stories from people saying, I can't sleep with my spouse. They snore, they move. people saying, I can't sleep with my spouse.

They snore, they move. I just, I can't do it. Different preferences and temperatures of the room and whatnot. So what do we do there? Oh, I say everyone is different. Everyone is different. And if you notice that you're not, your sleep is compromised, whether somebody is snoring next to you, hot next to you, wiggling, having nightmares, whatever that is. We've got to realize, and you hear me say this all the time, put our oxygen mask on first.

We're going to be no good to anybody if we've then had poor sleep throughout. And it really can affect us. The person with sleep apnea can affect the person that doesn't have it just as much because if they are wiggling or snoring or coughing or kicking us or jolting we don't go into our deep sleep okay it's stopping us do it so we're very affected or if we're warming them up and then they they having disturbed sleep. This is not wise. This is not looking after each other. So then there's the, you know, we're weighing it up. We're thinking, well, what can we do? Can we get two different mattresses? I know that's financially,

you know, it's a financial consideration, but can we have two mattresses? That can help. Can we have two different duvets or blankets that can help um can we have our time together before we you know before we go to our different rooms perhaps or our respective beds and do whatever whether it's you know talk pillow talk um problem solve hanky panky whatever that is can we get it in a different way and can we talk about it so that we know that we're on the same page and reassure one another it's not that I don't love you it's not that I don't want you I want but I want to also be my best self tomorrow for myself and for our family so it's it can be a hard conversation because some people we've grown up seeing maybe our parents always sleeping

together or the stories of our grandparents always sleeping together and people that sleep together stay together but we I don't know the world is changing we're busier we are we are bringing more stress to bed and we haven't had time to have a conversation with our partners and so often then we might even have that heated debate in the discussion of it. And that's not conducive to good sleep because now we're cognitively aroused. If we're lying in bed too long before bed, we're going to warm up the bed and that's going to make it difficult to fall asleep. So we just have to look at it. We'd have to think, hang on, am I getting affected? And is there a way around this? Yeah.

Is this why the queen and her husband slept in two separate rooms? I watched The Crown. But then sometimes they would come together, which I always thought, oh, that's cute. That's cute. But again, it's our idea, isn't it, of what makes for a happy whatever. It's our schema. we've developed these ideas and and when we hear of people having separate rooms we often go oh oh that's the the quickest way to separation but actually who says so I don't know I should probably look into the data to see if there's actual data

on happiness and longevity well I think I think quality of life and happiness comes down to getting a good night's sleep at the end of the day, regardless if you're sleeping with someone or not. It could be an age thing. You sleep so much better when you're younger, as opposed to when you're older. Historically, did, did, did we went to bed earlier? The whole family would have been in the same bed, likely, you know, we'd go to bed early at the cat because there was there was no artificial light so the sun would go down the candles would be blown out we'd all probably be in bed then midnight in in some of the literature shows to have been the middle of the night now many of us that isn't the middle of the night anymore that would have been as the

children were sleeping maybe there would be lovemaking um and then there would be another phase of sleep so oh this right now everybody wants this consolidated like chunk of sleep but we but in the literature it looks like sleep has changed you know that might there might have been two phases like first sleep a bit of wakefulness and a second sleep. So it's very interesting to just think, how have we changed? Yeah. Having hanky panky when the kids are sleeping, when that deeper REM sleep or whatever. Also, we weren't on our phones. No phones. We didn't have the lights on. All you got to do is go to a cottage in the middle of nowhere that's got no electricity and your ass is in bed at five o'clock and you're like, I'm so tired. Why am I so tired? And you wake up and you're like, that's the best sleep

of my entire life. Okay. Let's cover, let's get into restless legs. Why is that tied to sleep? Is that a physical thing? What is that a sleep thing? What is going on there? It affects our sleep, but it is a physical thing. So people that might be thinking that they have it would probably be given a questionnaire by so people that might be thinking that they have it would probably be given a questionnaire by their doctor that would be measuring things like do you have an uncomfortable sensation in your legs that's you know often as we're starting to rest or later in the evening do does it feel better once we move it like that sort of impulse of oh I've got to move my legs and if I twitch them and they feel a little

bit better for a moment so we might be kicking them so your partner if they're observing you might notice that your legs are just going okay often symptoms worsen towards the night and that's why we call it um often people will call know that that's when it's been um affecting sleep quality and then daytime quality some people will call it horrible things they'll think that that's when it's affecting sleep quality and then daytime quality. Some people will call it horrible things. They'll think that there's crawling under their legs or creeping or throbbing. So you would want to go for a sleep study. I would say your partner could even, if you gave consent, video you because that's nice evidence to say, hey, doc, see how much my legs are kicking and flailing all night. And that there's the daytime consequence

of I'm really sleepy. I'm not functioning as I would like to be. So there's going to be detrimental things that we can measure. And then there there's iron supplements they would look at what is going on inside that we can support that some people get on very well with a weighted blanket because it helps slow the the legs down some people will find a nice cold um sort of foot foot uh spary thing at night time can get some of the wiggles out. Some people prefer a hot bath and try and get it out. So it's, it's how to find the best method for you. And I think probably Dr. Alinka probably will have more to say about if there's particular, um, recommendations for any supplements that can help with things like checking iron levels and things

like that. Yeah. Well, we're going to get into again with Alana sleep hygiene, things that you can do setting up your room, what time you're getting up, going to like all of that, what you can do throughout the day. We're going to talk sleep hygiene and then we will, we'll talk hormones, supplementation, all of that with Dr. Alinka. But I want to get into what you have to say on how do we improve our quality sleep? What are like, what do we need to do? So if I, first of all, so you know, I deliver cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. So that's the gold standard treatment for insomnia. And it goes through particular bits. So the first thing to

improve our sleep is to know about our sleep so we've done that a little bit today okay we've looked at what's going on in the brain then we would teach about the clocks we have the circadian rhythm the circadian rhythm circa means about about 24 hours so it's actually a bit longer than 24 hours. That means we need outside cues, outside time givers to help us stay on track. That's why regularity and routine is a guardian of the sleep. So when we see daylight, it tells our brain it's daytime. It puts the brake on melatonin and our brain says, OK, I'm ready for the day. As we go through the day, not only are we increasing our sleep need because that's how it works. The longer we're awake, we're approaching sleep.

OK, it's like it's like a roller coaster. And then that's we're supposed to be sleepy. Anybody that says, oh, my goodness, I get to 10 o'clock and I'm so sleepy. I'm like, hooray, that's how it works. This is great. I don't want you to get to 10 o'clock and be like, you know, all wired and tired. So that's how it works. We're building, building, building, building.

Then when we're lowering the lights and lowering that sort of activity that we're moving out of our doing self and into more of our being self so time like a nice wind down a nice buffer time the the break is coming off and melatonin is being released and melatonin doesn't help us sleep it doesn't put us to sleep it just signals sleep is going to come it's like matt walker talks about a beauty he's like it's the starting gun for the race that's the person that does the gun doesn't make it doesn't run the race doesn't win the race doesn't participate in the race but it tells it's

going to happen so we want to be doing that all the time regularity wake up same time see the daylight flood ourselves with morning light in the evening lower it down slow it down we want to be also aware of as we're going up that roller coaster there's things that can interfere with our sleep appetite okay things like falling asleep in front of the TV, you know, having a doze on the sofa, that is like eating before the main meal. You may well impact your ability then to fall asleep. And the measures we're looking at are sleep onset latency. How long does it take you to fall asleep? We don't want it to be over 30 minutes all of the time. That would be where we're thinking, okay, there's probably a problem. We want to support that person with sleep. However, it's also not one second. What falling asleep within one second would be a sign of sleep deprivation. Okay. It's normal to take

10, 10 minutes, 15 minutes to wind down and take yourself into sleep. So if you're lying there thinking, why am I not asleep? Why am I not asleep thinking why am i not asleep why am i not asleep why am i just saying you're gonna wake yourself up because you're putting too much pressure on yourself okay so so that that's that and now we also know things can interfere with that caffeine caffeine will interfere with our perception of sleepiness because it masks it masks adenosine that is building so we've got all all of this stuff going on to make sure we eat at the same time, exercise regularly, try and keep a pattern. I know that we can't do it perfectly all the time, like you say, progress over perfection, but we want to let our body have the predictability. This is why I love the living method. It's all about routine. The body loves

routine. When the body's in a routine, it's functioning better. It's more calm. It's more able to focus on the things it needs to do like repair and rebuild and regenerate and rejuvenate and heal all of those things. I do want to talk about eating then, right? Like there is that, okay, it's bedtime. Your body's getting that signal to bed. It's not like eating is like stimulating your digestive system in the morning you eat to break the fast to wake your ass up somewhat. So can we just talk about eating before bed? It's really good because the break of the fast is exactly why we call it breakfast. And there's a really nice model, which I find quite useful. It's called time restricted eating, but it's not terrible. It's not it's not very hard. It's just trying

to think about it in 12 hours. The first calorie that we put in into our mouth in the morning, and that includes coffee. Okay, so if you've had hot water all morning,'s fine but the minute you even caffeine even coffee has a few calories so once our gut receives that it goes okay the gut's clock is awake now that we our digestive system is awake and it's anticipating daytime now we want to be able to then maybe think of the 12 hour to then if that was say it was eight o'clock that you had your first something try and have your last something by 8 p.m because then it gives you a nice sort of frame to think now my body's going to have a chance to rest digest and it's not going to have confusing messaging to say hang on I was expecting us to now sort of relax and head towards sleep. But now you've,

now you've put something in me, and then it gets a little wonky, like, so where are we now, then are we going again? So it just, it just confuses us a little bit. And of course, then it might have impact also during our sleep, because if our body's trying to digest we're going to compromise that architecture of the hypnogram the stages and then we might wake up feeling a bit like yeah funky yeah um so that's what we want to be on the lookout so to try it try to think okay if i had my first thing at 8 30 i'm going to try and be done by 8 30 and. And you've taught that. Once it's dark, try to be, you know, not great and just be mindful, mindful to notice it. Because the first thing is to notice and think, you know what, when I did do that, did I get up easier? Did I feel better the next day?

And we know that if we are really sleep deprived, the research was showing if we can improve sleep length and give back sleep without doing anything else, but improving sleep, you can lose 15 pounds. Because we will eat, we'll snack, we'll pick the wrong things. Our impulse control wants the very sugary, salty snacks. And it's like having another meal. I know we don't talk about calories, but the research still often does. It's like another meal, 250 to 350 extra calories are consumed when we've shortened our sleep.

So when we are prioritizing our sleep, often then our choices, our appetite appetite because also if we sleep to pride you our cravings go up and our appetite goes up so it's it's physiological you know you're it's tougher yeah everyone just woke up when they you said they can lose like 15 pounds just by getting- Just by sleeping. Just by sleeping. Yeah. So you can imagine if you can lose 15 pounds just by sleeping, of course, there's variables to that, but it just goes to show you when you aren't getting the sleep, how it's hindering your body's ability to be able to focus on weight loss in general. This is also

why starting your day with that higher protein breakfast can be beneficial. It's breaking that fast. It's getting your body going earlier from the get, right? Okay. We've got to get going. I've already talked about what you think is the most important thing when it comes to sleep. But what's your... I mean, one time I remember you telling me, and I thought this was so silly, yet it was a game changer. If you're trying to sleep and you can't fall asleep, don't think about sleeping. Don't think it's called paradoxical intention. Okay. So there's particular parts of CBTI. There's the mapping our time to our bedtime. So if you, if everybody keeps asleep, though, if you notice that you're in bed for 10 hours,

and you're only sleeping five, that's 50% sleep efficiency. We want to match it better either by compressing or restricting so that you start pairing bed with sleep. So that's one technique. Stimulus control is if you're not asleep in bed, don't be in bed. Okay, if you if you feel like you've been awake for more than 1520 minutes, get up and go somewhere else, have somewhere set up nice, read, crochet, watch a show, but don't try to sleep because otherwise, you're going to pay effort and frustration. And that effort is counterintuitive. It's going to scare sleep away. And so paradoxical intention falls in that that if if

when we used to look at the the insomnia research by changing the instruction instead of please fall asleep as quickly as you can which is very hard sleep sleep sleep sleep remember i said about having an orgasm please have an orgasm as fast as you can okay okay I'll try we can't do it we cannot do it it's the fastest way to not have one okay so the same thing is with sleep if we change the instructions to say please lie there please rest your body and do not try to sleep anything but sleep I want you to stay awake for as long as possible lo and behold taking the pressure off taking the performance anxiety off the table here it comes yes yeah so try it with the orgasm try it with the sleep imagine getting both better what a happy happy people we would be i hope my mom's not watching sorry

that's everyone's homework for the week that's that's everyone's homework for the week. That's, that's everyone's homework for the week. Um, I was going to get into orgasms and sleep, but we'll have to save that for a whole other day because our time is up. Um, Dr. Beverly David, thank you so much. Um, for how I just, it's such a game changing conversation, honestly, that, that not trying to sleep for me game changer that understanding the 90 minute sleeps, 90, yeah, 90 minute sleep cycle was a game changer for me. I hear some people saying, well, when I get too much, I feel groggy. It's probably not that you're getting too much. It's like you're waking up when you haven't finished that sleep cycle. And you can have too much, you know, it is like you can like, it's like overeating

at the buffet. You can, and that can be,-out syndrome. But again, see, because you're right, we've got to experiment. We've got to think, did I just wake up there? You know, have a look at your total sleep time. But yeah, there's so much. I can't believe it's time. I looked at the clock and I was like, what? We're finished. And I think I didn't say anything.

Uh-oh. Okay. What did we even talk about? Orgasms and restless leg syndrome. Okay, so people are, this again, all of the conversations with our guests are just about awareness. That's what these are.

Go seek out your own healthcare providers, have conversations. I'm sure they're going to, everyone was going to want to know where to find you. Yourpsychologycenter.ca, yourpsychologycenter.ca. You do like sleep, like sleep sessions and stuff. You do like, you offer, yeah, you offer that. I'm in, I'm in my last week of this group. And then I've opened a new group to start June. Oh, I think it's June the 3rd. So if they go over to my website, you can join that group because I limit to 20 people. I like the groups to stay small. And that's

cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. So if they look at what it promises and whether they think they would be a suitable candidate, they'll see what, what does it promise? And then if they think, yeah, I want that. Amazing. And then of course you can follow Dr. Beverly over on Instagram. It's my favorite account, Dr. Dr. Beverly, where she's always sharing her wise words of wisdom. I adore you. Thank you so much. Thanks to everyone joining us live. If you want to watch it again, you can find it in the guides. If you want to download and listen again, when you're

on a walk, you can find it over on our Libby Method podcast. Thanks everyone for joining us today. Thanks, Dr. Beverly. I appreciate you. Thank you. Sleep well.