The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Sleep Habits and Tips with Alanna McGinn - Spring/Summer 2024

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

In this episode, Gina chats with Alanna McGinn, Sleep Expert and founder of Good Night Sleep Site. Along with her trusted team, Alanna has successfully helped thousands of families overcome their sleep challenges and establish healthy nighttime habits so they can get the sleep they need. Gina and Alanna discuss good sleep habits, sleep tips, why sleep is important and how to get better quality sleep in your daily life.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024Topics covered:Welcome Alanna McGinn to discuss what you can do to improve your sleep What is happening in society with sleep?Stress & Sleep: how are the two connected?It's ok to not sleep well short-term. Quantity and quality: What does a good night's sleep look like?Alarm clocks: should you press the snooze button?The stages of sleep and your bedtimeSleep deprivation and Insomnia: Acute versus chronicSleep Apnea, restless legs and medicationTech in the bedroomSleep Hygiene and the steps you can take to sleep well.Temperature at night: pyjamas and how to help your body regulate Moving your body and filling your drive for sleep Falling asleep: what is normal?Are you a morning lark or a night owl?How much time does it take to change your sleep habits?Naps & Shift workersMelatonin, magnesium, and CBD as sleep aidsProducts and tech to help you sleep betterWhat is more important, your morning or bedtime routine?Taking a PERSONAL PAUSE throughout the dayWhere to find Alanna McGinnGoodnightsleepsite.com @[e-mail] 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. We've been talking about sleep. We're going to continue that conversation with my guest today. The other day we talked to Dr. Beverly David, clinical psychologist. We talked about the psychology behind sleep, what's happening in the brain. We also talked to Dr. Alinka about what's happening in your body. This is a conversation y'all have been waiting for. What to do about it, how to get better quality

sleep. Joining me today is Alana McGinn. She's a sleep expert, founder of Good Night Sleep Site. Hello. Good morning. Hi. Hello. Good morning. So this is a whole new group. We have thousands of new people. Maybe do a quick introduction about yourself. Absolutely. So my name is Lana McGinn. My company is Good Night Sleep Site. We work with babies to kids to teens to adults to major corporations and helping them sleep better really with a focus on coaching and guiding through sleep hygiene, behavioral changes through our emotional relationship with sleep. We focus on stress management because as we know, it goes hand in hand. I am a fellow Livvy loser. Always love chatting with this community and supporting you guys. And yeah, always happy to be here.

Okay. I love it. Let's get into it because there's a lot to talk about. We're going to talk about sleep quantity, quality, sleep hygiene, falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night, what you can do during the day. But first I want to ask you, I was thinking this morning, knowing we're going to have this conversation. As a sleep expert, has the conversation changed much? Like what's happening in sleep? Are people getting, it feels like nobody's sleeping.

Is people getting a worse sleep than ever? Or is this because I'm getting older? What's going on? Well, I mean, we are definitely a sleep deprived society for different, different reasons. One is, you know, we are always a connected society for sure. You know, we're always in front of not just forget the bright screen part of it, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but we're just always in front of information that's we're constantly consuming throughout the day. And stress is a big one. You know, I think it's

fair to say we're, for the past five years gone through a lot of different ups and downs with stress for many different reasons. And it's affecting our sleep for sure. What I will notice being in the industry and in my profession is there has been a shift in the conversations about sleep and the value that individuals like yourself or your communities or just an individual puts as importance for their sleep health in the same breath that they'll do nutritional health and physical health and emotional health, which are also also important and pillars of health. Sleep was never kind of put in the same category as that. And we're seeing that shift now where it is. And if not, I can say and go as far as say, really the foundation of all the other pillars.

So that is exciting to see. Yeah, I mean, that's been that that's been the conversations that sleep is the foundation of all the other pillars of health. And specifically, you know, we're talking weight loss, everyone wants to lose weight loss. That's why they're here. But they're also needing to, you know, repair, rebuild, heal, not just physically, especially after years of dieting, but mentally as well. So let's talk about stress for a hot second, because I know you've been doing more in this space in terms of stress and sleep. How would you say the two are connected?

Well, I mean, it's kind of a vicious cycle, right? So when we are experiencing higher than usual stress levels, we then experience higher than usual cortisol levels. So our body fluctuates between melatonin release, which is our natural sleep hormone. This is what kind of helps drive our circadian rhythm. It helps what it helps prepare our body and mind to sleep. And that's released at night, in the morning, that melatonin is suppressed and our cortisol levels rise. So cortisol is a stress hormone. It's not necessarily bad. We all have, we all need it. It's, it's, it's, it's a natural occurrence in our body, but when we are experiencing higher than usual stress or stressors in our life, that elevates our cortisol levels.

And then what happens is when we're going to sleep at night and carrying that into the evening hours, that doesn't allow our body to properly release our melatonin. So therefore then we're not falling asleep and sleeping as well, which then elevates our stress levels. So it's like, so we're getting stressed out by nights, not sleeping, we're getting stressed out and not sleeping. It's just that vicious cycle. So they definitely, and then quieting your mind. I mean, I think that's the common, um, issue that I hear with, especially women in, in midlife is my brain just will not shut off. How do I do it? Right. So that's really been a huge focus of myself. Cause I am a woman in midlife, um, who just recently went through a major life transition. Um, and we go through different transitions in life and like, let's throw in, you know, just coming out of a pandemic and sprinkle some perimenopause on top of that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I think that's important to point out because, you know, you can't just focus on get better sleep and not do anything about your stress. It really is all

connected. And of course, adding in some movement there will help, you know, eating good nutrient rich foods will help. I mean, that's one thing we've learned with this program is it's all connected. Before we get into all of the rest, is there like one singular thing that, you know, in being a sleep expert that you would want everybody to know about sleep? Or is it just really individual? I mean, there's definitely individual components. And you guys might be shocked at my answer to this. But I think what I want people to understand about sleep is understand your personal sleep needs, which we can talk more about. But don't be super hyper focused on the fact that maybe in this moment you're not sleeping well. And the reason why I say that is because

sleep is a natural ability. We're all born with the ability to sleep. We have to work at sleeping well, right? Just like we have to work at eating well and moving our body well and all of those things. But we're all born with the ability to sleep. If you're someone watching this and you've had a long-term struggle with sleep, you know, there's definitely going to be some tips and tricks that we're going to talk about that are going to help you. But if you're somebody watching this, that's maybe just going through like just a bad sleep phase, I go through them. It happens. Um, the worst thing you can do is become hyper-focused on that because then what's that going to do? Like anything, right now we're just hyper-focused. It's going to elevate our stress levels about that. And that's going to create a more negative

association about sleep. So it's okay to not sleep well. It's okay to not sleep well for a short time, but there are things that you can do to better it. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I love that. You have to work at sleep, just like you have to work at working out, work at managing your stress, work at eating healthy, or you have to work at managing your sleep. I also love that you say that we're born with the ability to sleep. It's like, because sleep does really feel like this elusive thing rather than, you know, I look at my kid who can fall, like I picked her up from school the other day and she's sleeping.

I'm like, it's what? You just, oh my God. Oh, the lives of tweens and teens. Seriously. Okay. Let's get into, I think, let's get into sleep quantity and quality. What does a good night's sleep look like? So a good night's sleep looks like, I mean, in terms of quantity, that depends on the person. So, you know, you're

going to read seven to eight hours, right? That's kind of the blanket amount that tends to be typically thrown out. I like to extend that to six to nine, because there are some individuals who can function fine on six hours of sleep and live a well rested life. I always say 80-20 rule, right? 80% of the time really focus on protecting your sleep space, protecting your sleep routine, protecting the amount and quality of sleep you're going to get. 20% of the time life happens, you're going to sleep in, bedtime is going to be late, you're going to have a crappy night of sleep, not a big deal. But you're looking at six to nine. So and some people might need nine hours of sleep. If you're someone who feels like you function fine on four to five hours of sleep, what tends to happen, like anything, is the more we do something, the more your body will begin to feel okay doing that. So it's the same as eating.

If we start eating big meals every day at three o'clock in the afternoon, our body's going to become hungry every day at three o'clock in the afternoon, our body's going to become hungry every day at three o'clock in the afternoon. So your body gets used to that little amount of sleep. It feels like it's doing okay, but probably what's going inside a lot of what you probably listen to this week about sleep is probably telling you a different story. So it's a very small population that can function well on four to five hours of sleep, and you're probably not one of them. So focus on those six to nine hours.

In terms of what does a good night's sleep look like, for myself, I answer it very easily. You're looking at about five to six cycles of sleep throughout the night. A cycle of sleep for an adult is about 90 to 110 minutes. So imagine five to six cycles of those, and just generally waking up feeling well rested. Now, this isn't me saying you're waking up like Snow White singing with the birds, and you're bouncing out of bed, like no one does that. And if you do do that, amazing. But the fact that you don't do that doesn't mean you haven't had a good night of sleep. So how do you feel in the morning? And then how do you feel throughout the day? You know, where are your energy levels throughout the day?

Now your energy levels can fluctuate for different reasons for blood sugar and different things that you're eating, but also just how do you feel? Like, how do you feel day to day? Are you groggy? Are you foggy? Are you, you know, that is a signal to me that either you're not getting enough sleep throughout the night or you're not getting the right quality of sleep throughout the night. Okay. I love what you said there. It's about what your body gets used to because there are those people that I only need five hours sleep.

It's the same as people are like, oh, I can go all day long without eating. Like that doesn't mean that that is what's optimal for you. That's just what your body has gotten used to. And this waking up and feeling like, you know, oh, I'm so wide awake. Does this not have something to do too with alarms that we're setting for ourselves? And because one of the things I've changed in speaking to you is if I don't have enough time to go back into a whole sleep cycle, I will just get up in the morning. And some people feel like, well,

if I'm waking up at four, five o'clock in the morning, I'm like had a crappy sleep. Cause I, I'm awake what's going on when in reality, like that's maybe when you should get out of bed. So there, there is that, is there such a thing as too much sleep? And then is there, you got a good night's sleep. You just, your alarm has woken you up in the middle of a sleep cycle and that's why you feel all groggy. Yeah. So, I mean, let's talk first about the alarm clock. So, you know, most of us do wake up from an alarm clock, typically a well-rested individual who, who practices consistent sleep patterns, um, which is one step in sleep hygiene, sleep hygiene being steps and practices that you take to sleep well, habits, really lifestyle habits that you can change, you know, typically wakes up at the same time every day.

Like if you go to bed pretty much at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning, you're going to notice you naturally just wake up at that time, right? That being said, majority of us still use alarm clocks. But what happens is if we talk again about that 90 minute cycle of sleep, when you are, your alarm initially goes off, you hit snooze, you're dozing back into sleep, you're dozing back into a, the start of another cycle of sleep and then waking up nine minutes into that cycle. So that forces us into what's called sleep inertia, sleep inertia. Think of it as like, it's like a sleep hangover.

Like you're feeling groggy and foggy. You're feeling likely worse when you wake up after that nine minutes than when your alarm originally went off, right? And then what do we do? We just keep hitting snooze and hitting snooze and hitting snooze. And then we feel, again, groggy and foggy. And then we associate that with the night of sleep that we've had. So we feel like because we feel crappy, we feel like, oh, we mustn't have slept well,

or we mustn't have gone enough sleep. When in reality, it's just because you've been tricking your brain and your body into falling asleep and waking up, falling asleep and waking up. So try not to hit the snooze. Listen, am I guilty of hitting the snooze? Of course I am. But, you know, we try not to. Like, you know, try and set your phone away from your bed so you have to physically get out of bed to turn it off. I like what you said, Gina, about like don't hit snooze and let you know you can do another full 90 minutes, which typically, you know, you don't typically do that when the alarm

goes off. So that's one side of it. When you're waking up at, say, you know, a common wake up time is like that 3am, that 4am mark or 5am. And it's a consistent thing. That 3am mark is a normal time in the middle of the night for your body to wake up more than that partial wake up as it's cycling into a next cycle of sleep. And that's typically because we've slept the most deeper stages of sleep until that time. So between four to four and a half hours from when you go to bed, you're going to be experiencing the most deepest stages of sleep. And then around that 3, 4 a.m.

mark, you cycle into a lighter state of sleep. So it's harder sometimes for you to get back into that next stage of sleep. That wake up could be for many different reasons. But it also could be to answer your question, am I getting too much sleep? It also could be because you're going to bed too early. You know, a lot of people will say, will think I'll say go to bed earlier. But if you're going to bed at nine to 10 o'clock at night and consistently waking up at three or 4am, don't make me do math at nine o'clock on a, what is that? That's, you know, that's like seven, eight hours of sleep. Am I saying that?

Maybe six. That might just be your body naturally being like, we're good. We're done. Time to get up and start the day. So shift your bedtime back, right? Too late. People think, well, I'm going to try to get better, better sleep. So I'm going to go to bed earlier. And then they're wide awake at like four 35 and they're like, this something, something is wrong here. Okay. What about, um, so just, just, just going back to that. So waking up throughout the night is normal.

It absolutely is normal. You know, it's, it's our ancestors would, that's how they would sleep. They would break sleep up into two stages. So you'd go to bed, you'd wake up, you know, in the middle of the night and do things, chores, whatever, like we're talking way back in the day. And then they'd have another sleep stage. But then modern day with iPhones and lights and things like that push bedtime out later and later. So waking up in the middle of the night is not necessarily a bad thing, provided you can get back to sleep, right? Provided you can fall back asleep. When it becomes an issue is when now we're waking up in the middle of the night, and now we're tossing and we're turning and we're clock watching and we can't fall back asleep because maybe now our mind is racing. So that's where we need to start incorporating

different techniques. Yeah. Dr. Beverly mentioned this as well. This is the first time I've heard that where primitively we would have gone to bed. We'd all sleep in a room for all of our kids. And at some point us adults would wake up, you have a little bit of hanky panky, do whatever, and then like go back to sleep again. So where's this concept of like going to bed and getting that straight good night's sleep come from then? What is that? What is that? Again, it's just it's modern life, right? It's it's bedtimes, you know, people used to go to bed at six or seven o'clock at night, right? They were working in the fields, and they were doing manual labor all day, they were tired. And they were also

working with the external environment, the natural light and dark of the day. So when the sun went down, that was bedtime. Then, you know, gasoline lights got invented and then iPhones got invented. And now we're, you know, we're in front of screens at two o'clock in the morning. So that's kind of how it shifted and morphed. Yeah. Okay. So what are the major offenders asleep? I would say the major, you know, not talking about maybe if you have certain illnesses, certain medications, things like that. I'm not a doctor, so I tend not to get into, you know, certain medications and things like that. But I would say in terms of lifestyle, stress and tech, 100%.

Okay. Yeah. What about when it comes to things like sleep apnea, insomnia, restless legs and medications? Is there still hope for people? Oh, 100%. So insomnia, if we can just, so insomnia and sleep apnea are probably two of the most leading sleep disorders. Insomnia is really broken into two components. So we're talking acute insomnia and then chronic insomnia. Acute insomnia was something that I discussed earlier,

just when we first started saying there are going to be nights where you're just not sleeping and that's okay. That's, it could be because maybe you are going through a more stressful or, or anxiety filled time in your life. It happens to all of us, or maybe you're not feeling well, or as women, we go through different hormonal shifts throughout the month. And maybe there's a couple nights throughout the month where you just don't get enough sleep. Acute insomnia is I've had it. You probably had it. We've all had it. Chronic insomnia, acute insomnia can turn into chronic insomnia. And that's where you were seeing long-term sleep loss. So think three and three, it's three nights or more per week for three months or longer of lost sleep. It's the inability to fall asleep when the person wants to.

So whether that be at bedtime or whether that be in the middle of the night, if they wake up now, there's also a difference between insomnia and sleep deprivation. And often the word insomnia gets kind of, oh, I didn't sleep last night, I had insomnia, or I haven't been sleeping while I have insomnia. Well, you might not have insomnia, you might just be sleep deprived. A sleep deprived person isn't really focusing on sleep. Like it's not like we're talking about, you know, valuing that pillar. They're not really putting a lot of value in it. So it's like like we're talking about, you know, valuing that pillar, they're not really putting a lot of value in it. So it's like, they're not sleeping well, because they're just not working on it, right? Whereas insomnia, that person is like hyper focused on sleep, like they

want to sleep well. And it's really difficult for them to do so. And because of that is just heightening any issues that they have. Sleep apnea, again, another leading sleep disorder. And the tricky part with sleep apnea is that it often goes undiagnosed because people just think I snore or my partner snores like this is normal, right? But it can cause a lot of long term health risks. It doesn't discriminate. Often we think sleep apnea is overweight men. It could be men, it could be women, it could be children, all shapes and sizes, all races. You know, it's, it's, it's something that if you or your partner is snoring and I'm talking like wall rattling snoring, and you can tell like they're not breathing kind of thing. Like you're having to kind of hit them to breathe again. Um,

waking up really tired, having a lot of excessive daytime sleepiness. I'm not just talking low energy. I'm talking like you're falling asleep in meetings. You're falling asleep at red lights. You cannot keep your eyes open. That is a signal to me, a red flag that the quality of sleep you're getting at night isn't great. Talk to your doctor who would then refer you to have a sleep study done. And same with restless leg. Sleep studies would diagnose that. Um, there's something else you mentioned. Medications. Medications. Um, again, I tend not to, to talk about medications cause I'm not a doctor to prescribe. I mean, that would be a conversation that you would have with your

doctor. Um, but I always take the route of before we incorporate prescription medications, let's like, let's work with what we have. So what are there certain lifestyle changes and emotional changes that you can make to sleep better without going the route of medications, but medications play a role too. Yeah, this is sleep hygiene. That's what we're talking about, right? That's that sleep hygiene. And then I always share since having these conversations with you, I've made a lot of changes. And when I am actually doing the things, it's like, it's a game changer when it comes to my sleep. And do you find a lot of people like, I'm just going back to where I was like, I'm fine. I have my office in my room. I'm okay. I can watch TV. I can have this. I can have a little tea. I can, you know, be on my phone. And

I really couldn't, but I was really fooling myself thinking that I could. Do you get that a lot? Oh, absolutely. Um, I mean, it's the same with your program, right? Oh, I can have a little nibble of this and I don't have to drink as much water today. Like we all think we can cut corners and get the results that we want. Right. Listen, I've been, I did it on your program. It happens. But then you don't see the results and you're like, ah, okay. I see what I'm doing. So, you know, there are certain people who are more sleep sensitive than others. So I'm not saying that there are those people who, you know, can't have their office in their bedroom, but they do it and they set boundaries. And that's okay to do. Like I know logistically, you might have to have your office

in your bedroom, especially with more people still working from home or it's like a hybrid or remote. But can you clock out? Can you put that away and just focus on sleep when it's time to sleep? If you're not checking your emails, working on a project, thinking about that project that's due tomorrow. You know, it depends on, again, you have to work at it. You have to put together that sleep plan. Think of your sleep plan in the same way that you would your Libby plan, your Gina Libby plan or your workout plan, right?

This is a plan that you have to commit to. And you have to commit to to wait to see those results. They don't just happen overnight. Your sleep plan is the same thing. You've got to commit to it and make those changes. Yeah, I'm assuming the body loves the routine with sleep, just like it loves the like the body just in general loves routine. And if you can create that kind of sleep time routine. Okay. So let's get into like sleep hygiene. We're throwing that word out, but like, what exactly is it and why is it important? So sleep hygiene, uh, are really steps that you take to, to sleep well. So think of it like a lot of them are really habit lifestyle changes. So things like having consistent sleep

patterns, right? Trying to go to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning, creating a conducive sleep environment. So we kind of just briefly touched on that just now. So really setting up your sleep space for sleep and sex only. You should walk into your bedroom and feel that instant connection with relaxation, calmness, sleep. You know, you don't want to walk into your bedroom and see those dumbbells that you've got to hit tomorrow or the basket of laundry that you haven't folded yet, or that TV that you're going to stream an entire season of a show till two o'clock in the morning, or those work piles that you haven't gone to yet. So really clear the clutter, clear the space. You don't have to spend a lot of money, but make it a relaxing

environment down to the paint color on the walls, the fabric of your bedding. And then focus on your five senses. So what do you see? What do you hear? What do you taste? What do you touch? And what do you smell? So what do you feel? You know, your side of the bed should really be specific to your sleep needs if you do share a bed. Now, I understand a mattress is a mattress. You have to share a mattress. But, you know, you don't have to have the same pillow as your partner because you might sleep in a different position or you might have different ailments where you need a flat pillow where your partner maybe likes a fluffier pillow,

or maybe you're a night sweater. I'm a hot sleeper. I can't have a big, thick duvet flannel. Like, ugh, I cannot do that. I need a muscle like a midlife woman. I need breathable cottons, fibers, wicking fabrics, light, fluffy. Cannot recommend a silk pillowcase enough. If you can, it's an investment, ladies. Please get a silk pillowcase enough. If you can, it's an investment, ladies. Please get a silk pillowcase. It's a cool sleep. Your hair will look great and your skin will look great. It's awesome. Whereas your partner might be a cold sleeper. Maybe they need those flannels. They need that thicker blanket. What are you hearing? Are you someone that maybe needs a bedroom bone quiet? Or do you need a fan running, a sound machine running, some kind of noise going? What are you smelling? Incorporating

aromatherapies and oils and diffusers and sprays and all those lovely calming scents. I'm missing some. What are you tasting? We want to stay away from big, heavy meals. I mean, that works great with your plan. We're not eating huge meals right before we go to bed. But if you want to incorporate like a little sleepy time tea or something before you go to bed, you can, provided you're not like a middle of the night peer, you know, watch your liquids. And then what are you, what am I missing? Missing one. Just focus on your five senses. Five senses. Yeah. Sleep. Yeah. Okay. Let's. I know. I'm missing one just focus on your five senses five senses yeah yeah sleep yeah okay let's

you guys can figure it out 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 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. What about pajamas? To wear pajamas or to not wear pajamas? That is a great question. So a lot of people think to not wear pajamas is the cooler way to sleep. But here's the thing.

If you are a chronic night sweater, or if you are a woman who is going through menopause and you have hot flushes throughout the night, you're going to perspire regardless. So now if you're not wearing pajamas, you're just kind of lying in your pool of sweat because there's nowhere for the sweat to go. Right. So I would recommend instead of incorporating pajamas with like a wicking fabric. And there's so many great ones on the market that really, um, focus on women in midlife or going through certain, um, you know, or just for the night sweater type thing, um, that really will hold the fab or hold the perspiration. There's even, uh, more and more pajamas are even now making, being made of like performance fleece, like

same like workout kind of material. Um. So it's up to you. But if you are a bit of a sweater, you might actually be more comfortable in a nice breathable PJ. Okay. And then room temperature is like whatever you really prefer. And is it do like, what is this thing about we need our body to be at a certain body temperature? Do we all need that as a universal or do some people need it cooler than others? It depends on the individual. I mean, we do all sleep better in a cooler environment. Our body's temperature naturally drops in the middle of the night and then raises in the morning as we start waking up. But we do sleep better in a cooler environment. So keeping in mind things like body temperature regulation, things like

digesting big heavy meals, our body can really only do one thing at a time when it's sleeping. And what we really wanted to focus on is getting proper quality restorative sleep and doing all the things that it needs to do and getting that. So if our body is busy regulating temperature, if we're too hot, if we're too cold, or if it's busy digesting a meal, or if it's busy, you know, removing alcohol from our system, because maybe we had a few too many drinks before we went to bed, we're gonna have more fragmented sleep because our body isn't able to get proper restorative sleep. What about working out? Are you like a workout in the morning or workout in the evening fan? How does working out or being active factor in? So I am a huge body moving fan because that is a great way to build your drive for sleep. Our

drive, think of our drive as like a gas tank. We want to fill it throughout the day. So it's nice and full when we go to bed. So that's going to help us fall asleep and stay, get more consolidated sleep throughout the night. Moving your body is a huge part of that. But I will say if you are incorporating body movement, we're looking like 30 minutes a day, 150 minutes per week. I prefer in the morning. That being said, I know some people who can work out right before bedtime and it doesn't affect them at all. So it really depends on the person. The same people who can like drink a cup of coffee after dinner and it doesn't affect them. Like there are some people that, that can, that can happen. Um, so it's, it's really up to the person. Um, just move your body. However you got to do it, whenever you got to do it, whatever works

best for you. Okay, great. Let's talk about falling asleep then, because that's, I mean, Tony falls asleep two seconds on his phone, watch a movie, just eat something. And like, he falls asleep in a second and he wakes up the next day and I'm like, how, how was your sleep? Great. Like every fucking day. I, on the other hand, I'm lying there. I'm whether I'm on my, I'm off my phone or whatever. I just seems like it takes forever. Like what, what is the secret sauce? Like what is normal? What is normal? Like, is he just overtired? So he's crashing. Like, is that normal to be able to fall asleep so quickly? And is it normal to stay awake for a while? Like what, what's the, what's the standard of normal? Okay. So that's a great question. If it's take, if you are falling asleep, the second your head hits the pillow, or it's

taking you longer than 15 to 20 minutes to fall asleep, that is telling me that you are likely sleep deprived and you are in an overtired state and your body is just in a state of exhaustion. So that's not actually normal. A lot of people like pat themselves on the back. Oh, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. It's not necessarily a good thing, right? On average, it should take you natural and normally to fall asleep. But in 15 to 20 minutes, that's kind of that sweet spot. If you're falling asleep and around then you're you're gold, you're good.

If it's taking you longer, you're probably overtired. If it's taking you, you know, the second your head hits the pillow, you're probably overtired. If it's taking you longer to fall asleep, this is where, you know, we talk a lot about sleep hygiene. Here's the thing. If you're somebody who's really suffering from sleep loss and maybe has chronic insomnia, sleep hygiene probably isn't going to fix everything. It's something to include in your sleep plan, but you also have to work with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. So CBT-I, and there's many different therapies that fall under that umbrella that really focus on things like sleep restriction, things like sleep stimulus, which I'll talk about, things like your mental skills, so your

relationship with sleep. So one of the therapies is actually getting out of bed, and this is bedtime stimulus, getting out of bed, doing a quiet activity, and then getting back into bed and trying to fall asleep again. So the goal of this therapy is to shorten that sleep onset and strengthen that association between your bed and your sleep so you're not tossing and turning and now ruminating your thoughts and all of those things. Yeah, that was a long answer to your question. So if I'm lying there 20 minutes, half hour, I should really just get up and go do something. Yeah. And I know that that's hard to do and nobody wants to do that. Same thing if you wake up at three o'clock in the morning and you're tossing and you're turning and now we're clock watching

and we're doing the clock watch in our head and that's just going to heighten any stress that we're already feeling the best thing you can do is actually get out of bed don't turn on every light don't check your emails like do a quiet activity you can be reading a little bit for about 15 or 20 minutes until you start to feel sleepy and then get into bed and try again if again it's taking you longer it might be a bit of a yo-yo you're up, down, up, down. But the goal of that is every night that you do that, it's going to shorten that time between awake and sleep in your bed. And it's going to help you kind of retrain your bed, your brain to fall asleep a lot easier in your bed. Okay. Are there differences in terms of people, like when some people like do really well going

to bed later, some people go to bed well, really well earlier. Like, is there, is there something like, like genetic or that different people function better going to bed at different times? Like, you know, like a morning person versus a night. That's the thing. Absolutely. Like you can be a natural morning, like what they call them morning larks. So those are individuals who go to bed earlier and wake up earlier, or you could be a night owl. So you go to bed, your body naturally feels tired later at night, and you tend to sleep in a little bit more. That is just a natural occurrence that everyone is kind of born with. But you can, you know, a morning lark can become a night owl and a night owl can become a morning lark. So you can change your sleep habits and your sleep patterns if you want to. But you can be more naturally prone to falling asleep later and sleeping in or falling

asleep earlier and waking up earlier. There's just those people that are just more, I'm more of a morning person. You know, I'm an go to bed earlier, wake up earlier kind of person, whereas some people might be, you know, a go to bed late and sleep in a lot more. Okay. When you talk about changing sleep patterns, or sleep habits, what is like, how much time do we put into this without thinking, okay, there's something bigger going on? Like what's the, you know, I think like for weight loss, right? Like you want to put at least 12 weeks into helping the body make change, especially coming off of years of dieting, any health issues that you have, it just takes the body time to change. What is the standard for sleep? Like when you work with someone, how quickly can they make changes in their sleep?

Well, we'll log for two weeks just to see where they're at and to see what happens in those two weeks. But you know, again, a lot of what I talked about is like habit changing. So it takes 21 days to change a habit, right? We can't just expect these habits to appear overnight or to break our old habits overnight. So you have to give yourself time. So I would say anywhere between 21 days to a month, um, to really incorporate these habits into your life and lifestyle, where now it just becomes kind of second nature. Right. Yep. Okay. Yeah. What about, um, what about naps and shift workers? Like, is there any, are naps good, not good? Is there any time when they are good? And then, so I don't know if it's two separate things, naps in general, and then shift workers

who are sleeping during the day. So for naps, I mean, this is a question I get asked often is, can I take a nap? So if you are someone who, you know, probably needs to fine tune their sleep a little bit, but for the most part is, is their sleeps pretty on track and you want to take the odd nap. It's fine. It's no big deal for those that are really struggling with sleep and perhaps have chronic insomnia. Those would be the individuals that probably need the nap because they're exhausted, but those are the individuals that we want to limit that daytime sleep. And the reason why that is, is remember I talked about sleep drive as that gas tank, right? So our goal of filling that tank, like moving your body, waking up in the morning at a consistent

time, immersing yourself in that natural light, getting that, you know, that blood flowing, that's going to help put that gas in that sleep tank throughout the day. If we nap, what are we doing? It's like we're driving 50 kilometers, right? We're removing that gas in that sleep tank throughout the day. If we nap, what are we doing? It's like we're driving 50 kilometers, right? We're removing that gas. So we want to avoid robbing ourselves of that sleep, of that gas, sleep gas, so that not actual sleep gas, so that when we go to sleep, our gas tank is nice and full. In terms of shift workers, this is a very fast and growing community. It's one I speak to often. Um, and it's when we're sleeping against our natural body clock, we all have a 24 hour

natural clock. That clock does not shift because we work different hours or we go through different time zones. It stays within that 24 hours. And this is why a lot of shift workers struggle because they're literally sleeping against their natural sleep clock. There isn't much you can do in regards to that. I mean, your schedule is your schedule. But this is where it's so important to really protect your sleep whenever you are doing

it. So, you know, creating that conducive environment, because many of them are sleeping when the sun's out and it's bright out. So darkening up that room as best you can, even going as far as like darkening up your route to your bedroom. So if you have to wear, you know, blackout sunglasses driving home, you know, you have to darken up your path to your bedroom. You know, I've seen clients do whatever they need to do to really kind of help release that melatonin and help prepare their body to sleep, speaking to those around them that they have to protect their sleep space with sounds and things like that throughout the day. One of the most important things that when I work with the shift work community, I found

that has been so helpful is making sure that organizations are allowing groups to come together and talk because the shift work community can be a very isolating community because no one really understands it that, you know, if you're living in a house that operates on a nine to five and you don't, it's, it's really hard to, it can be a very isolating experience. So speaking to others who share those hours and share those struggles and talking about, Hey, this works for me. And this works for, you know, um, I've seen it really help for sure. Yeah. Kind of similar, um, to like new moms, right. Where they're up all they're up there, like the kids up and sleeping up and

sleeping up and sleep would be the similar situation. Try to like you protect your sleep, sleep when you can. Yeah. Okay. Um, where, how do you feel about melatonin and other sleep aids? So melatonin, I've talked about that. That's been brought up a couple of times in terms of it being our natural sleep hormone. We all possess it, right? It's very rare for you to be deficient in melatonin. The problem I have with melatonin, now melatonin plays a role for sure, for those who are traveling a lot, for those on perhaps certain medications, perhaps you have something like circadian rhythm disorder, where you just need a supplemental form of melatonin to help regulate you again, again, this would be if you

are going to take melatonin, talk to your doctor, talk to your naturopath to find the right dose and brand for you. And that's the problem that I have with melatonin is that it is marketed almost like a sleeping pill. It's so readily available that people likely are using it when they don't need to. And they are using the incorrect doses, keeping in mind like this isn't a vitamin or a mineral, it's a supplemental hormone that you are taking that you probably don't need to take. I see babies and kids take it. I mean, there's not enough studies done that we don't know the long term effects, especially for girls of taking those supplemental hormones

at a young age. So it's not something that I normally recommend. Again, I'm not a doctor, but it's definitely worth having a conversation with your doctor. The M that I like that I know you promote as well as magnesium. I mean, that's something that, you know, really helps with our sleep. It helps with regulating our, you know, our nervous system and our anxiety. And it just does so many good things. So that's always the M that I approve. But again, not a doctor.

Always talk to your doctor, you know, about incorporating any kind of new vitamins or supplements. Yeah. What about CBD? People are asking about like CBD oil. So CBD, I am doing more and more research on the effects of sleep and CBD. We know there's studies out there that show the benefits of CBD and anxiety and stress and how it can lower it. And we know that goes hand in hand, right? When our stress and anxiety is lowered, we sleep better. So I can't speak to it enough yet, because I don't have the right information

so far on sleep. But I mean, I take it sometimes I'm all for it. Yeah. Okay, why not? What about what about where technology comes in? And again, I know we're talking about sort of sleep aids, but the basis of sleep hygiene, that's, that's the foundation. But what about where technology comes in? And again, I know we're talking about sort of sleep aids, but the basis is sleep hygiene. That's the foundation. But what about tech? Like what about, you know, someone mentioned a grounding mat, someone, you know, do infrared saunas, you know, measuring your, you know, sleep apps. Like how do you feel about all of that? Yeah. I mean, there's, I don't, I'm not a big product pusher when it comes to sleep, because like I said, sleep is just, it's, it's, it's an ability that we all have. That being said, there are some great tech and products that can help. I'm actually in the process of doing more and more research on red light therapy. You know, I, I used it for my skin, but I'm going as far as now researching on red light therapy in the room while you're sleeping and the benefits that it does for that. Things like weighted blankets. I don't think that it's no pun intended.

It's kind of a blanket tool for everybody, but I think it can work really well. It normally is a sleep product that I recommend to again, help regulate the nervous system, release serotonin, calm the body and mind down. If you are struggling with that, if someone with restless leg to what a weighted blanket can help with that. There are there is a lot of tech that can help though. So think about, you know, we always talk about, you know, meditation and mindful thinking and mindful breathing. Well, that alone can overwhelm someone who has never meditated before, who doesn't know how to do it, who now is thinking, I got to learn how to fucking meditate. Like I, you know what I mean?

I don't have time in my life to learn that, but there's a lot of great apps that can guide you through it and can do all the heavy lifting and just put you in that relaxating, relaxing state. There's a lot of great podcasts and audio books that can work well, great for the tween and teen. So not all tech is bad. Normally I'm saying tech out of the bedroom, but there are some tech that can help you sleep better and help get you there. Yeah. Because I always think I listened to like the sleep, you know, Harry Styles sleep thing that he does. And some people listen to birds or whatever. And then I think, okay, is it helping me get to sleep? But

then is it okay to have those sounds when I'm asleep? Or is that waking me up again? Any thoughts on that? So when we're incorporating sound at bedtime, always focus on consistent sound. So it's okay to listen to that. I mean, who doesn't want to listen to Harry Styles before they go to bed? It's okay to listen to that before you go to sleep, but switch it up when you're falling asleep and have it be a consistent sound. So it doesn't have to be like a white noise. It could be rainfall, waterfall, because the issue with like music or TV, some people need the TV in the background, is that variation of sound can pull you out of your cycle of sleep, right? And

it also can be more habit forming than say a consistent sound of a white noise, babbling brook, playing like whatever sound you need. So if you are someone who needs some kind of sound, focus on a consistent one, a fan, you know, murring or whatever you need. Okay. There's been a lot of talk lately, um, about this morning routine, right? Getting up, getting outside. What, what's more important? Is it our morning routine? Is it our evening routine? Is there like, do we have to worry about that? I love this question because it's, it's something that I'm including in a new program that I'm developing.

And your morning routine is actually more important than your bedtime routine. Bedtime routine is important. Don't get me wrong. But how we start our day and what we incorporate into our morning, that starts our day. It really is how we're going to function for the rest of the day, you know, is, is however we started that morning. So things like getting out of bed, you know, opening the blinds, letting that light in, don't turning on the snooze, which I know we talked about moving your body.

I'm not checking in. You know, if you use your phone, I'm sure if I ask your community right now, type a in the comments for everybody who uses their phone as their alarm clock, I'm sure all we're going to see is a slew of A's and that's okay. I do too. Provided you're not looking at it the second you wake up. So turn your alarm off, but then push it away for at least 30 minutes. Because what happens the second we go on our phone, we are allowing the chaos of the world in whether it's checking your emails, checking into social media, boom, your brain just gets cloudy and full. And now we're carrying that throughout the day,

right? So how we start our day really dictates how we feel the rest of the day and then into the evening hours and then into bedtime. So your morning routine is really important and one I think that gets often overlooked. We covered a lot. It's time to wind down this conversation. What am I missing? What are we missing in this conversation? One thing I love to talk about is what can we do throughout the day to help us sleep better? And that's a method that I created called the personal pause. And the main issue is,

is that when we go to sleep, the inability to quiet our brain, and I know that that is a big one for many of why they're not sleeping well, is because we are so distracted throughout the day with life, with everything. And then the minute we lie down, those distractions are gone. And what happens? Every worry, every problem, every to-do list, everything just floods our brain and we can't fall asleep. So we have to allow ourselves time throughout the day. I've said it before on this show to stress the fuck out, right? We have to allow ourselves time throughout the day to have that constructive worry time. So we developed the personal pause and I actually gave a worksheet to your community that you guys can download and it can walk you through how to do it in one of two ways. One is just through allowing yourself time throughout the day for a minute or

two to have kind of a mindful hush. So a meditative thought, incorporating mindful breathing, again, being in a quiet environment, focusing on your five senses to bring you in a more present state. The more you incorporate that throughout the day, the more it becomes easier and easier to incorporate. If you do wake up at three o'clock in the morning, or you do go to bed and your brain is busy and you just try and get into more present state of mind. The other way of doing it, the way I like to do it, is called a productive thought. And this is where you are allowing yourself time to constructively worry. I'm not going to tell you to not have anxiety, stressors, problems.

We're human. It's going to happen. But try and work it out throughout the day so that you're not working it out at three o'clock in the morning. So super easy. Grab a piece of paper, draw a line, write the problem down, whatever problem you might have, and start jotting down some solutions. Take like a minute or two during the day.

You don't even have to take a lot of time. Minute or two. You don't have to solve the problem. But what are some steps? It could be researching a topic or making an appointment, sourcing out something. Fold that piece of paper away, put it away. You know you're going to get to it tomorrow so that when you do go to bed, and guess what? That problem is going to still pop into your head because you're human. You can say to yourself, say it out loud, now is not the time for me to

worry about this. I took time today. I will take time tomorrow. I don't need to do it out loud. Now is not the time for me to worry about this. I took time today. I will take time tomorrow. I don't need to do it right now. And the more you do that, the more you're kind of, it's all about changing and shifting that mindset, right? So big fan of the personal pause, big fan of stressing out during the day and not in the middle of the night. I love this because all day long, I'm trying not to stress. I'm trying not to be anxious. I'm, I'm almost feeling guilty about spending any time stressing out. I'm trying to calm my ass down. Just relax.

It's fine. But you're right. Not helpful because the minute I go to bed, then it's all like, okay, the time is now to stress the fuck out. Yeah. Take time to stress out during the day. I love this. Brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant time to stress out during the day. I love this. Brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant. And I love and adore you. Thank you for taking the time today. Where can people find

you? I know they're going to want to reach out. They're going to want to find you. Where can they reach you? You can find me on goodnightsleepsite.com has all our programs. I'm having a new website that is launching soon. AlannaMcginn.com, that will have all my new programs targeting midlife women. Super excited about that. That's launching in a couple of months. You can follow me on Instagram at gnsleepsite or at alanna.mcginn. Get a little bit more personal there and all the new programs will be focused more on the

Alanna account. I love it. Okay. Amazing conversation today. Amazing conversation in the last week and a bit with Dr. Beverly, with Dr. Alinka, and now with Alana. So you are now armed with the information that you need to make a difference when it comes to getting better quality sleep. Thanks everyone for joining us. Thanks everyone who were in the comments today and joining us live. Remember, you can also download and listen to this segment over on our podcast,

The Libby Method. Elena, thank you so much. Thank you.