The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Sleep Habits With Alanna McGinn - Fall 2024

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

In this episode, Gina chats with Alanna McGinn, Sleep Expert and founder of Good Night Sleep Site. Along with her 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/livymethodfall2024Topics covered:Introducing Alanna McGinn and her new sleep coursesSleeping better: What do you need to know?How does stress factor in and the role of cortisolHow are you finding moments of joy each day?Constructive worry: Finding time in your day to stress out.Sleep Hygiene: The changes you can make to better your sleep healthWhat does a good night's sleep look like? Quantity and qualityGetting up in the middle of the night.Sleep disorders: What is not normal sleep? Acute Insomnia vs chronic Insomnia, sleep deprivation and sleep apneaLooking at your pillars of health: Why is sleep so important?Sleep Hygiene: Where can you start, and a 20/20/20 routineFinding the right bedtime for youTech at bedtime and in your bedroom; set boundaries for yourselfSleep watches and other sleep devicesBed rotting: The act of staying in bed all dayAre you waking up in the middle of the night?What do YOU need to help yourself fall asleep easier? Wine & caffeine: setting those limitationsBedtime/Morning routine; should they fit the seasons?Melatonin; when might it be appropriate.Putting together a sleep [e-mail]'s courses:Sleep programs available including The Midlife Sleep DIY E-Course and The Messy Middle Sleep Solutions Grouphttps://alannamcginn.com/sleep-programs/https://goodnightsleepsite.click/reclaim-your-restful-nightsTo 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,

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This is an opportunity to become curious. To learn some things. How do we help you feel less overwhelmed so you can continue on your journey? Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. Continuing our series this week on sleep and stress. My guest today is a sleep and stress management educator, also the creator of Good Night Sleep Site. We've had the pleasure of her joining us many times before. She is also a proud Libby loser. Alana McGinnis here, everyone. Hello, hi. Hello, hi.

Hello, everyone. You're also, I want to get into this because yesterday you just announced, I would say a passion project because you have been talking about this for a while. You are now, of course, you have your good night sleep site. You help families and, you know, everyone get a better night's sleep. But you've also started this new project or this new course, this new program. How would you describe it? Focusing on midlife. I mean, it's just like a hot conversation right now. Yeah. So I am midlife and I call it the messy middle, right? As many are. I call it the messy

middle because, you know, now we're hearing a lot, obviously, about menopause and perimenopause, all super important conversations. But there's more to us that happens in that midlife, right? We see like a lot of major life transitions. I myself, I say my messy middle was a divorce of 45. Others could be caregivers. We're taking care of teenagers. We're taking care of aging parents, empty nesters, career changes, relations. Like so many things are happening at this stage. And our sleep takes a hit. And our stress levels are at an all-time high.

So I have now started AlannaMegin.com. Good Night is still working and running. But AlannaMegin.com and our new program is called working and running, but atlantamcginn.com. And our new program is called the Messy Middle Sleep Solution, focusing on women in midlife and all the things that go into that, helping them sleep and sleep more and stress less. I love that. There's so much to unpack in just what you've said. This conversation, of course, today is for everybody, although I am trying to get Alana to come join us in our new menopause add-on as well. Okay. So you talked about so much, all the things

that we have to focus on and work through and do in our lives. And I think that's the takeaway is all about weight loss and sustainable weight loss is so much more than what you are eating and when, drinking your water, taking your supplements and, you know, doing all that. It really is trying to navigate life at the same time. I want to know what you think, because you've been through the program, you know, how hard our members are working through. What do you think they need to know about sleep? It's exactly what you just said. You know, I know a lot of this conversation, we're going to talk about sleep hygiene and often when we talk about sleeping better um sleep hygiene is definitely a

part of it right and I won't get into that now because I know we're going to be talking about it um but there is so much more than like you said just taking your supplements and you know making smart decisions and things like that it's um know, working on managing our stress levels and working on our self-care, which your program falls under. It's self-care is not just a facial and getting a manicure, although those are lovely. Really prioritizing yourself, putting yourself first, even if it's for an hour or two a day, working on your mental health, working on setting goals and crushing them and the appropriate way to do it and all of those things, in turn, then helps us sleep better. So sleeping better isn't just having a nice bedtime routine, which is important and we're going to talk about, but there's so much more involved than just that. And you don't have to conquer it in a day,

just like your program. You can't conquer it in a day, right? It takes time and you chip away at it. Yesterday, we talked to Dr. Beverly David. She's a clinical psychologist, sleep researcher about how not getting enough sleep really affects your brain. It affects your hormones. It affects the way your body is processing and digesting foods. It affects your emotions in that piece. Tomorrow, we're going to talk to Dr. Alinka Trejo on how sleep affects your body even deeper physically, especially when it comes to those hormones as well. Today with you, I want to get into how to get a better night's sleep. I want you to walk us through the things that we maybe aren't doing that we need to do or the things that we could tweak. But I also know the sleep, the stress is a big part of that. So how is stress, how does stress factor in to this conversation with sleep? So when you're going through, listen, we all stress out. I'm not here to tell you guys to not stress out, to not have worries, to not have anxieties because we are human and it's going to happen. But we, it's important to

learn proper coping, coping skills. It's, it's appropriate. It's important to learn how to stress appropriately and how to what we call kind of constructive worry, right? So find time. So much of what we do throughout the day, and I'm going to say this a lot in the next little bit, so much of what we do throughout the day can in turn help us sleep better. And unfortunately, what happens is we all have problems in our life. They could be small problems. They could be big problems. And during the day, it's so easy for us to get distracted so that we're not working through those problems. And then when do we work through them? At night, when we're lying in bed, distractions are gone, right? So finding appropriate times and ways to stress out. But when you're going through a more stressful period in your life, your cortisol levels increase, right?

So they're higher than usual. Cortisol is our stress hormone. It's not necessarily a bad thing. We need a certain amount of it throughout the day, certain levels of it throughout the day. But when they're higher than usual levels, what happens at night is at night your melatonin is released, your cortisol decreases. But when you're experiencing higher than usual stress levels, which happens in life, it doesn't decrease as much as we need it to when we're going to bed. And therefore, our melatonin isn't able to release as much as we need it to in order to go to bed. And that then affects our night's sleep. Then we're going into sleep with higher than usual cortisol levels, which is what we want to avoid. So we need to learn

to manage that throughout the day, manage our cortisol levels, which is what we want to avoid. So we need to learn to manage that throughout the day, manage our cortisol levels so that when we go to bed, everything is balanced out. That is so huge because you're right. There's nothing, you need cortisol. Cortisol is not a bad thing. It's just our body's reaction to bouncing back from high cortisol. We get that high, that cortisol, that stress, and then we're just stressing all day long. And then by the time we come down at night, we're, we're, we're processing and dealing it with it then, which I can imagine is messing with our sleep. It's how we respond and react to stress in our lives and getting back to that baseline. Okay. Should we get into tips for that? Like, what is the, what's the timeline of our conversation today I know normally I ask you a million questions I'm all over the place is there a more like is there a

timeline like a let's have this conversation 101 how to get better sleep I mean we can I mean let's we're on the topic of stress so let's let's start there you know um you know coming back to what I was saying in terms of constructive worry and a lot of what we do throughout the there, you know, um, you know, coming back to what I was saying in terms of constructive worry and a lot of what we do throughout the day, um, you know, a question now that I'm asking a lot of my one-on-one clients that are taking the messy middle, um, program is when's the last time you felt joy for yourself, right? We all feel joy for our children, for our partners, for maybe some work accomplishments, but when is the last time you actually felt joy, um, for our partners, for maybe some work accomplishments. But when is the last time you actually felt joy for something for you? Again, it's always coming back to putting

yourself as a priority, which a lot of you guys are doing just by taking Gina's program. So, you know, finding ways to incorporate joy into your life. And it doesn't have to be a huge commitment. It doesn't have to be a lot of, you know, it's funny, I was just working with a client who has younger children and found it really hard to separate herself from, you know, carving in an hour, maybe a week of incorporating some kind of joy. And her concern was, well, if I leave, and this is not to dog her partner, her husband, but, you know, they won't do what, you know, she's used to her kids doing. So she likes her kids out and, you know, riding their bike and getting outside.

Well, if I leave them with him for an hour, they're going to be in front of their tablets. Or if I leave them on the night of their girl guides, maybe he won't take them. So my question to her was, so what? So what if one hour, like, where is the balance there? So what if one hour a week your kids are balance there? So what if one hour a week, your kids are on their tablets? Sure. It's not ideal. It's not what you want to happen, but maybe in that hour, you can go have a coffee with your best friend that you haven't been able to. You can sign up for an art class or something that you want to, or an exercise class that you've

been wanting to do. You can prioritize yourself and your kids are on their tablet for an hour. So it's, you know, it's finding time to letting things go, which is not easy. And I will say generally not easy for women to do sometimes. But again, prioritizing yourself in that time. And then a big part, which we've talked many times when I talk to you and your community is incorporating that personal pause. So finding time throughout the day to stress the fuck out, right? We need to work out our problems during the day so that we're not working through them at three o'clock in the morning, which is when we tend to start working through them. Okay. Okay. So, okay. I get the mom thing, right? This can do if you have teenage kids, if you're taking care of parents, if you're prioritizing work, right? Like, it's just like feeling, I don't have the time right now because

if I leave work, this isn't going to get done. I don't have the time right now because my kid needs me and whatever. And I do understand in life, something has to give, right? There are those moments where you have to prioritize other things and people above yourself. But I want to get into this joy part and this personal pause because it seems like I'm finding time for my, for myself to stress the fuck out. Yeah. Right. So it's like, I think people think personal time needs to be reading a book. It needs to be like going for a walk. It needs to be like self care is this, I don't know, bubble baths and, you know, meditation when, when, how do we stress, how do we let our stress out? How do we calm down? Like,

how do we stress the fuck out? How do we do that? So here's the thing. It can be, it can be two different things. You can incorporate an hour or two because you don't have to stress the fuck out for an hour. Right. But you can like incorporate an hour or two because you don't have to stress the fuck out for an hour. Right. But you can like incorporate an hour or two throughout the week and make sure you're doing something like everyone who's watching this, who's taking your program right now is practicing some form of self-care. This is your self-care. You're priorit%. So amazing. Like, that's great. To have constructive worry, it could just be a minute or two during the day, you know. So let's say you have a problem. Focus on, you know, most of us have many problems, but focus on the biggest problem that's really occupying your brain the most time. It's taking up a lot of capacity in your life. That is your problem that you're going to focus on.

So take a minute or two during the day. Get out a piece of paper, super simple, write a line down. On one side, you're writing out the problem. On the other side, let's start jotting down some solutions to solve that problem. You don't have to solve the problem in that moment on that day, but what are some of the steps that you can start doing? It could be, you know, doing some internet research, making an appointment, talking to somebody, finding a source, close up that. That's it. That's all you have to do. You just stress, you just stress the fuck out. That's it. Close up that piece of paper and put it away so that when you wake up at three o'clock in the morning, or when you're going to bed, that listen, that problem is still going to pop in your head because we're human. You can think to yourself and I actually want you guys to think to yourself, say it out loud in your head. I thought about,

I worked on that throughout the day. Now is not the time to do it. I will work on it again tomorrow. And listen, I know that that can be easier said than done, but the more we practice this, it's all about that growth mindset, shifting that mindset, right? The more we say this to ourself, the more we practice this method, the more you're able to diffuse those problems when you're trying to sleep and your brain isn't all jumbled because you know you've allowed yourself time throughout the day to work through it. And then the next day you take out that piece of paper and you keep chipping away at it until that problem is solved. That is that cognitive behavioral therapy piece we talked to Dr. Beverly about yesterday. This is That is that cognitive behavioral therapy piece. We talked to Dr. Beverly about yesterday.

This is the action you take on that piece. Because if you just go, go, go stress, this is me yesterday. Stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. One stress to the next stress, to the next stress, to the next stress. And then you get in bed and then it all hits you like a ton of wrecks. And this is where I'm talking to Tony and I'm like, well, this and that, what do I do about this? And I got to do this and this is happening. And then I'm on my phone and I'm trying to find solutions. And like, it's just that, and then I lie there wide awake thinking about all the things I need to think about before I go to bed. So it's

about taking time during the day to stress and think on these things so that they are not piled on by the end of the day and you're lying there thinking about everything. Yeah. And I mean, we're using the term stress and, you know, we're making light of, you know, stressing the fuck out, but it's like, it's productive, right? So you're not just sitting there. Exactly. You're not just sitting there in a fetal position, stressing out about this problem. Like you're actually taking steps to solve it. Right. Um, yeah. I think people don't think of this when they think of, of sleep, they think journaling. Okay. We get that, but not really understanding why we need to journal and how it's beneficial. Right. Yeah. Oh, I'm a huge list person. I will send myself an email every night of my to-do list. Cause if it's not, I'm, I'm 47. So I still do emails over texts. Um, but if it's in my inbox, I know it'll get done

because if I go to bed and I think, okay, tomorrow I got to do this tomorrow. And then it's like, no. So every night, that's the last thing I do before I shut my computer off for the day is I, to do is my subject, put all my list, email it to myself, done. Love it. Okay. I love this. Okay. I know we're going to talk about sleep hygiene. I think what, let's talk about what that is. What is sleep hygiene? When we talk about sleep hygiene, people hear that word. What does that mean? So sleep hygiene are, there are steps and practices that you take in order to sleep better. So think of them as lifestyle changes, habit changes, environment changes, right? Easy, realistic changes that you can do to better your sleep health.

Oh, love that. Okay. So should we start with what good night's sleep looks like? What's our expectations on our sleep? And is it the same for everybody? Like I hear some, I see some people in notes, someone's a night owl, someone else gets up early. Like, is it, is it true that everybody has different needs in terms of their sleep? And what does a good night's sleep look like? So yes, everyone has different sleep needs. Everyone has different sleep requirements. You can be the term night owl and lark and morning lark is, is a legitimate thing. You could be an individual, um, who, you know, tends to stay up later and sleep in a little bit in the morning. You could be that individual who likes an earlier bedtime and wakes up earlier in the morning. A lark can become a

night owl and night owl can become a lark. Because again, it's all about changing those habits. We all have our own specific sleep needs in terms of quantity of sleep, in terms of environment and our needs to sleep better. When you're looking at a typical good night of sleep, we'll say, what does a normal night of sleep look like? You're going to hear the average for quantity, seven to eight hours. I don't think that everyone needs eight night of sleep look like? You know, you're going to hear the average for quantity seven to eight hours. I don't think that everyone needs eight hours of sleep. I like to extend it to six to nine because I do feel that there are individuals who can function fine and remain well

rested on just six hours of sleep at night. Whereas I also think there's individuals that maybe need nine or 10 hours of sleep at night. Again, it depends on you. I think if you're that individual who functions fine on say four to five, um, is this a very small population that can remain well rested without, um, without, um, you know, going into sleep deprivation on four to five hours, what happens is like anything, right? The more we it's, I always equate it to alcohol. If you drink a lot of alcohol, your tolerance for alcohol increases. The more nights you sleep of less sleep that you need, the more you start to feel good in it. Cause that's just what your body's used to, but it's not necessarily what your body needs. Right. So aiming for those six to nine, you know,

you know how you feel during the day. You know how you feel when you wake up in the morning. So focusing on the right quantity of sleep in terms of quality, we're looking at anywhere between we cycle through four to six full cycles of sleep throughout the night. So each cycle of sleep has about 90 to 110 minutes per cycle. And then we transition through each cycle throughout the night. So on average, you're looking, you want to aim for five to six full cycles of sleep throughout the night. Within each cycle, we go through four different stages of sleep, three stages of non REM sleep and one stage of REM sleep. And then, you know, as the night progresses, we get different amounts of certain, um, certain REMs of certain amounts of stages of sleep.

Um, our third stage non-REM is where we get that deep restorative sleep. Um, and that typically happens earlier in the evening. So, you know, this isn't me telling you to go to bed super early because we'll talk about that too. That's not always a good idea, but in the earlier part of your sleep phase is when you're going to get the deepest sleep. And then that's why that 3am, 4am waking tends to happen because that's when we start getting less deep sleep and more lighter stages of sleep. Yeah. Understanding that sleep cycle is really important. And not necessarily the four stages of your sleep cycle, but like those 90 to

110 minutes. Cause that was a real game changer for me. I used to stress because I was waking up throughout the night until I realized that's somewhat normal to wake up through the night. You're not always having that deep sleep where you're just conked out all night long and you don't wake up once. And then this was a game changer in terms of my morning routine, because if I had to get up at seven, but I naturally woke up at six and I knew I didn't have enough time to get in that, that 90 minute full REM sleep, I would just get up. Otherwise, if I went back to sleep, I waited till my alarm woke me up. I woke up and I was just groggy because I'm being pulled out of that, that deeper sleep. Um, can we just talk

about that? What, like how, how, how many times is it normal to wake up because people are drinking more water on the program, their body is detoxing and whatnot. Obviously, there can be pelvic health issues to where people are having to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. But let's just talk sort of like, generally, how many times is it normal to get up or feel awake during the night? I mean, we all, like you said, we all, as we cycle through each cycle of sleep, as we transition through each cycle of sleep, we can, sometimes we just partially wake up. So we don't even realize that we woke up. Sometimes we fully wake up. So it's not necessarily how many times you wake up. That is the problem is, are you able to fall back asleep?

If you do fully wake up, it shouldn't take you longer than 10 to 15 minutes to fall back asleep. If it does, that's when we start seeing that problem. And that's when your brain starts going. And that's when it could be more difficult for you to fall asleep. And then, you know, you're going to go through different phases of your life. For instance, whenever I start your program, I'm drinking a lot more water. I'm getting up definitely more times than I usually do to go to the bathroom throughout the night. As we know, as you go on through program that tends to change. So if it's an ongoing issue

where you are getting up, you know, more than once to go to the bathroom throughout the night, that to me maybe signals a bigger problem. So for instance, sleep disorders like sleep apnea, that could be a sign of sleep apnea. You know, or maybe just a sign that you have to kind of limit your liquid intake before you go to bed because, you know, we all have different bladders. Some of our bladders can hold it. Some of our bladders can't. So, you know, you want to avoid things that are going to wake you up multiple times throughout the night. But it's also okay to wake up at least once or twice throughout the night. Okay. This conversation is for everyone to get a good night's sleep or improve their quality of sleep or just really understand what's needed

in order to get the sleep that they need. You mentioned sleep apnea. Are there other sleep disorders where that's where someone might want to go to the next level, talk with their doctor, see a sleep expert like yourself? and then how do we know so i just separate those i had that happen to me too where like last week i kept getting this i was fine and then this tickle in my throat yeah i'm glad it's not just me sometimes i'm up in my life and I'm chatting and I'm like, it always happens at the worst time. Okay. I'm sorry. Ask your question again.

How do we know what's not normal sleep? Cause I do want to, I want to separate that right now cause we're going to get into sleep hygiene, everything you can do to get better sleep. I want to move into that conversation next, but there are people like people with sleep apnea. What are some other, would you call them sleep disorders or sleep issues? What would those be real quickly? And how would people know that they maybe have something more going on than, you know, stress or menopause or just bad sleep habits? Yeah. I mean, insomnia and sleep apnea are probably two of the most leading sleep disorders. So when we talk about insomnia, the problem with insomnia is I feel like that word gets kind of thrown around a lot.

If you have a bad night's sleep, I have insomnia. So if we break out insomnia, we look at acute insomnia and chronic insomnia. Acute insomnia is we've all suffered from it. You have, I have probably everybody watching us when you just, you're just not sleeping well during a certain phase of your life for whatever reason, for maybe it is a more stressful time in your life. Maybe you're, you know, you're not feeling well, you have a cold or something, or as women, we go through different hormonal shifts throughout the month where there's a couple nights, I know, guaranteed, there's at least two nights of the month where I'm not going to sleep well, right? It just happens.

But you tend to then start sleeping better again. Chronic insomnia is those individuals who have been suffering from loss of sleep long term. So it's the inability to sleep when you want to, right? So think three and three, it's three days or more for three weeks or longer for three. Yeah. For three weeks or longer. That's when we start getting into chronic insomnia, sorry, for three months or longer. That's when we start getting into chronic insomnia. Okay. So again, this is when you can't sleep when you want to sleep. So I also like to break out the difference between sleep deprivation and insomnia because you can be sleep deprived, but not have insomnia. So a sleep deprived individual is maybe someone who isn't putting a lot of focus on their sleep health, right? They're

not, they're just not putting a lot of value into it and just not really paying much attention to it. That happens. That doesn't mean you have insomnia. So for someone who has insomnia, that's where you would perhaps go through things like CBT, CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. There's different therapy programs, and I'm sure we'll talk about a couple of them. You probably talked about them yesterday, and maybe you'll talk about them tomorrow too. More the psychology of sleep, right? Yes. Going through different sleep hygiene and steps and strategies for that. Sleep apnea is a leading, my partner actually just had a sleep study done last night. So it's

funny that we're talking about this now. He just did it. It doesn't discriminate. A lot of people think it's overweight men who have sleep apnea. It could be men, women, children, all shapes and sizes, all ages. And that's where there's obstruction of breathing. The problem with sleep apnea is it often goes undiagnosed because you just think I snore or I'm tired. But it can have a lot of health risks down the road because you could be going, you could not be sleeping for 60 seconds at a time, 70 times throughout the night. Like it's, it's, it could be very detrimental to your health. So it's very important to tell the person sleeping beside you. If you notice that they're not breathing,

you need to go to the doctors to get a sleep study done. Or if you yourself are having signs and symptoms to go get a sleep study done. I love that you mentioned sleep health, because this is exploding. It's such a big conversation now. Really, sleep is the foundation of health. It may be for some people the foundation and the ticket to losing their weight. Everyone, again, focusing on that food when stress and sleep are really just like massive opportunities to really, you know, help your body level up its health and wellness. I just want to talk to you a little bit, like, have you noticed the uptick?

Of course you have in this conversation. And if you could like, just kind of wrap people in knowledge of why sleep is so important. What would you say about that? I mean, yeah, it's, you know, and it's the reason why I started this new program, especially for women, our age is when you speak to midlife women, especially, and I'm talking like, you know, 30 plus 30 to 50 plus age group. Um, it's, you know, again, perimenopause and menopause is, is often a conversation, but the one thing that people will say is I'm not sleeping well for many different reasons, not just because of perimenopause and menopause. So it definitely is something that we need to take stock of. And when we look at our pillars of health, we look at sleep, nutrition, where your program falls into, exercise.

And I always add in connection, right, Which your community is great for that. And I kind of do look at sleep as the base for all of the other pillars, because when we're not sleeping well, as you know, we're not digesting our food well. We're not metabolizing our food well. We tend to not make great nutritional choices. Exercise, we don't have the energy to move our body. We don't go to the gym.

Like we're tired, we're fatigued. Um, and then we don't leave our house. Yeah. Right. Like we're, we all know what we're like when we have a good night's sleep. Um, we're more moody, we're, uh, more temperamental. So, you know, it's important to, um, to focus on our sleep health, but then we have to look like our stress levels, in my opinion, right now are at an all time high for so many different reasons. Just turn on the news, you know, so it goes hand in hand, we can't be stressed out to the max, and then really trying so hard to get a good night of sleep, you got to work on it together. For sure.

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Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Sleep hygiene. You mentioned lifestyle, habit, environment. Should we break it down like that? Or where do we start with sleep hygiene? Okay, I'm not sleeping.

If I have sleep apnea or I have? Okay. I'm not sleeping. I, you know, if I have sleep apnea or I have insomnia, I'm going to go seek out help. Of course, these tips will also like, this is like, this is where you got to start. Um, cause these will also help. Where do I start with? I'm not sleeping. I like, where do I start? So focusing on the first thing that I always like to talk about is we talked already a little bit of what we can do throughout the day, right? So let's now focus at bedtime. And it's really important. Again, it comes down to prioritizing yourself and making sure that you, you know, we set

up these amazing bedtime routines for our kids and we tend to not do it for ourselves. So let's focus on a great bedtime routine for ourselves. And I call it what I call, I call it the slowdown hour. So it's an hour before your bedtime. Break up your slowdown hour in three 20-minute increments. And I always like to focus on the first 20 minutes of preparing for the next day. So I need to do that for myself to kind of give my brain that dump, right? Like get that to-do list off your head. So it could be something like what I just said.

I write out my to-do list. I email it to myself. That's part of my first 20 minutes. It could be, you know, preparing your work bag for the next day, packing lunches, picking out outfits, getting the kids' forms all signed and ready and doing all the things you got to do, right? Take that 20 minutes so that it's not swimming in your brain when you're trying to go to sleep. The next 20 minutes is all about you. So it's brushing your teeth, going to the bathroom, taking a bath or shower, doing all your skincare, getting changed in your pajamas, whatever you need to do. The last 20 minutes is incorporating whatever bedtime activity that will allow you to get into that peaceful and calm state to help you prepare to fall asleep. So maybe it's reading. It could be, you know, we get into meditation and mindful breathing and yoga and things like that.

It could just be something like just reading a book or just talking to your partner before you go to bed. Something just as easy as that. It could even be like just checking out a social media account that makes you happy. And we'll talk about that. Like that is okay to bed. Something just as easy as that. It could even be like just checking out a social media account that makes you happy. And we'll talk about that. Like that is okay to do watching one episode of one show that makes you forget your day. That is also okay to do. So incorporating that, giving yourself that prep time before you go to bed, that's going to clear your mind, get you in a calming state to allow you to fall asleep easier. Right. So we just mentioned that stuff only takes you 20 minutes. I would imagine you can do 40,

40, 40. Yeah, you can break it up however you want. Like I, you know, you can kind of, you know, I like to prepare for the next day as my first 20, but you can tackle it on the bottom. If that's what you want, you can create it however you want to just give yourself time to do it. Well, I love, and I love that you organized it like that. It's, it's, it's, it's steps, right? It's like giving your kid a bath and then it's like, it's reading them a book. And then it's like, you know, whatever that is, that's routine. We talked again to Dr. Beverly David yesterday, that psychology behind sleep, um, that routine is so important. Routine is so key. And you're right. We, we put our kids to bed. We would never mess with their bedtime routine because if we do it's fucking chaos. Yeah. We don't think about the

importance of having a routine ourselves. Okay. So what's, so what's next? Next is finding the right bedtime for you. So often people will think that I'll come on and say, go to bed early. Right. But the problem with that is we could actually be going to bed too early. So, you know, a lot of my clients will say, you know, that 3am wake up is so common. And there's many different reasons why we might wake up at that 3am mark and stay awake. One of them though, could be that you're actually going to bed too early. So we'll always check in on bedtime. And if a lot of people will choose like a nine or 10 o'clock bedtime, because that just seems like an appropriate bedtime. But when we do that, you know, by the time we get to 3am, that's six or seven hours of

sleep right there, right? So that's your body now in that lighter state of sleep, kind of telling you that's like, okay, I'm good. I've had my amount of sleep, like I'm ready to start the day. So this is where we perhaps need to shift that bedtime out. And this is actually a form of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. It's a therapy called sleep restriction, where we're actually moving bedtime out. So we find that appropriate time where we fall asleep

a lot easier in bed, because often if we're going to bed too early, also, it's taking us longer to fall asleep. And this isn't for those who are going to bed and scrolling on TikTok for two hours, right? They're not trying to fall asleep. But this is for those individuals that are actively trying to go to bed. And now you're tossing and you're turning and you're clock watching. And it's taking you an hour to an hour and a half to fall asleep. That's spending too much awake time in your bed.

That's weakening that association between your bed and your sleep, which we always want to avoid. So this is where I'll come in and say, well, maybe your bedtime, you tend to fall asleep more around 11, 1130. That could actually be your bedtime. So let's try with that time, shortening that sleep onset. When they get into bed, it's going to allow them to fall asleep a lot easier. It's going to bring more positive association between sleep and their bed. And it might actually help push out that 3am waking because now their body will cycle through into that next cycle or transition through that next cycle of sleep. What about our bed? Like if we go, like we have a TV in our room, obviously, which I'm sure you're

going to say is not ideal, but we go into our bed eight o'clock and we just lie there all night. We watch TV and then we try to go to bed like when we think we should, 11, 11.30, and then we can't get to sleep. Is that hurting my nighttime routine? Yeah. Here's my thing with tech. Let's talk about that real quick before we get into the bed rotting trend that is going on. For me, for tech, if you are someone watching this and you're like, okay, I need to make some serious changes to my sleep, the best thing you can do is remove tech completely from your bedroom in my opinion it is the reason why we are such a sleep deprived society it is the biggest sleep buster in our home um and just never mind the reason of the bright screen and the blue lights just for the fact that we are

always connected and we are always connected and we are always absorbing. And what are we absorbing right before we go to bed? Some can be more sensitive to it than others. I'm sorry, Gina, hang on one second. So that's where you want to just clear out the tech, give your night table that audit, create a docking station in your home where you can plug in all your devices in your home, keeping it all out and encourage that for your kids as well, right? A lot of your community might have teenagers. I have three, so I totally get it. You know, encouraging tech out of the bedrooms. I also know that's an easier thing than doing with teens, but again, being that role model, right? Now, if you're someone who's watching this and thinking, I sleep pretty good, but I probably can make some changes here or there. My biggest thing with tech, and this is what a slight to men, but women, especially like in those evening hours, we're looking for that joy, right? We,

this is when chores are done. Kids are done. I finally have no responsibilities. I don't have to answer to anyone. And then here I am telling you, don't turn on the TV. Don't go on social, like don't do all the things that bring you joy in life. Right. Cause I'm that person too. I want to watch my favorite show. It's the only time I get to do it. Or, you know, I want to text with my friend that I haven't caught up with in forever because she fills my bucket, you know? So set boundaries on what you're allowing in at night.

If there are social media accounts that make you feel crappy, don't watch those before you go to bed. If there's a show that's going to amp up your stress, stay away from the news if you're more sensitive to headlines, like things like that. But we all have our feel-good shows that watching – this isn't me giving you permission to watch like the entire season until 2 o'clock in the morning. But if watching an episode or two before you go to bed just makes you feel like good, do it. It's okay. On the topic of tech, what do you think about the sleep watches, the sleep apps? Is it

adding more stress? Is it actually helping us? Do we even need to know that shit? Do we even need to know? Because don't we just know if we're sleeping? I love that question. Do we need to know? For the most part, I don't think we do. Here's my thing with the sleep trackers and the Fitbits and the Apple watches and things like that. I like them for the fact that they are making people more focused on their sleep health. I do think that is a good thing. They are starting these kind of conversations at work. There's sleep challenges. You know, I do a lot of corporate lunch and learns where companies will get sleep challenges going and movement challenges and they're able to track and measure. Like, I love it for that, but I don't love it because it also can make you super hyper-focused on your sleep with inaccurate information. So I don't feel like those devices yet are at the level where they're going to properly measure your sleep patterns and sleep health throughout the night. The best way to do that is through a sleep study, an EEG, measuring your brainwaves, your breathing, and all of that. We're not getting that through the tracker. So it could be giving you inaccurate information that now you're hyper

focusing on, which can just heighten your stress and anxiety that you're already feeling about your sleep health. So it's like a catch-22. I like that it makes you focus more on your sleep health, but then I also don't like it that it can make you focus too much on your sleep health. Got it. Okay. Bed rotting. What the heck? You mentioned, I wrote it down. What is bed rotting? Is this like a new trend? I'm just, I'm not cool like that. What is that? Yeah. Listen, we're of that generation where we're not cool like that. So it is a newer trend, more for like the younger millennials, the Gen Zers. And it's called bed rotting. It's called carcass time. Like it's the worst names, but it's all over TikTok right now. And it's literally just the act of just spending a day in bed. You're doing your bed

rotting. You're doing everything in bed. You're eating in bed. You're working in bed. You're watching TV in bed. You're doing everything in bed. And we're seeing more and more of our younger generation adopting this method and this act, right? Yeah. My thoughts on that is I'm okay with the occasional bed rotting day because I feel like we all need one, right? Like I'm cool with that. Saturday, it was raining out and I literally watched like five movies in a day. Mind you, I was on my couch. I wasn't in my bed, but it was like, you need those down days. Cool with that. But if it becomes something where you're constantly doing it, two things. One is, again, we want to walk into our bedroom and have that instant connection between sleep and our bed. We want to feel relaxed. We want to feel calm. We don't want

to look at our bed and think of, I've got to stream this show. I've got to do my work. I've got to eat a meal. Like, again, that's not going to help us sleep better, right? So we want to avoid that and having too much bed rotting time can lead to that. The other issue we need to talk about is if it gets to a point where now you actually physically and mentally don't want to get out of your bed, that's a sign to me of a bigger problem, right? So do we need to talk to a doctor? Do we need to be in touch with a different professional that might help us? Are we saying, you know, we're going into the season of sad, of seasonal affective disorder? Are we showing more signs of depression? You know, more winter blues that's not wanting us to get out of bed. So I'm okay with like a day or two of bed rotting every now and then,

but we don't want to make it a habit. Yeah. I mean, I think I'm the same with you when I was younger, single, you know, fancy free, whatever that saying is like, I would spend the day on the couch. I, but I wouldn't think about going to my bed all day. I, but I would be on the couch all day. Okay for the sake of time I want to just go through and ask you some a variety I'm just going to just shoot a bunch of things at you. The first I think we need to deal with is is waking up. What do we do if we wake up in the middle of the night? Let's say we clean our our room environment it's nice and conducive we move our office out of our room if possible. We make it look nice and zen. And we do our 20-20-20 routine.

And we're journaling. We're taking time during the day to stress out. So we've got the nighttime thing. But what if we find out, even with all of that, we're waking up in the middle of the night, making sure that we're not going to bed too early. But what do we do if we're awake in the middle of the night and we just can't get back to sleep? Do we stay in bed? Are there things that we're not going to bed too early. But what do we do if we're awake in the middle of the night and we just can't get back to sleep? Do we stay in bed? Are there things that we can do? Yeah. So again, this is part of CBTI. So it's called stimulus control, where it's okay

if you can't sleep to get out of bed and try again. Because again, we want to be spending 85% of the time in bed, we want to be asleep, right? So when we get up in the middle of the night, and it happens to all of us, and now it's taking you longer than 10 or 15 minutes to fall back asleep, you start clock watching and you start doing that countdown. If I go to sleep now, I'll get four. If I go to sleep now, I'll get three hours. And then that just heightens any kind of stress. We're tossing, we're turning, we tend to reach for our phones, all of the bad things. And then we're not sleeping. And then we're spending too much awake time in bed. And then we're not getting the appropriate sleep. So the best thing you can do, and also the hardest, I understand it's not an easy thing to do at three o'clock in

the morning, is actually get out of bed, leave your bedroom, don't turn on every light, don't check your emails, don't check your phone, maybe like read a little bit in low light or knit, crochet, do a puzzle, like something low, you know, with low stimulation, um, for about 10 or 15 minutes until you start to feel tired again. And that's key both for bedtime. And if you practice that in the middle of the night is go to bed when you actually feel tired, not just when you feel you should go to bed. And I'm not talking like bone tired where you're dragging yourself to your bed. But as soon as your body starts to feel those sleepy cues, we talk about a lot with our kids, but with ourselves as well, that's your sign and signal to start getting ready for bed and to get

into bed. So, you know, go do a quiet activity for about, again, 10 or 15 minutes. When you start to feel tired again, go back to bed. If it's taking you longer than 10 or 15 minutes, again, get out of bed. It might be a bit of a yo-yo for a couple of nights, but eventually you'll fall asleep a lot quicker in bed. And again, it's all about retraining your brain. So then your brain and your body will get used to falling asleep quicker when you go to bed and eliminate that long wait period that you might be experiencing throughout the night or at bedtime. Yeah. Instead of lying there being like, oh, my God, I'm not sleeping. When am I sleeping?

Okay. Love that. That's a huge tip. Okay. What about audio books, listening to music, those sleepy time, that Harry Styles? Man, that Harry Styles, that gets me every time. Oh, yeah. Listen. Yeah. I mean, I'm fine with all. that Harry Styles, that gets me every time. Oh, yeah. Listen, yeah, I mean, I'm fine with all, to be honest, I'm fine with all that.

Like anything that's going to help you fall asleep easier, I'm all for it. So, you know, when we talk about things like tech, I, again, it's all about setting those boundaries. So, you know, I'll always ask, you know, who uses their phone as their alarm clock. And like everyone uses their phone as their alarm clock. Now I've, I've lost the battle of like stores still sell alarm clocks. Cause I even use my phone as my alarm clock. I get it. But I also make sure that it's not the last thing I'm looking at before I go to bed. And it's not the first thing I'm looking at when I wake up in the morning. So I'm okay with like audio books.

You know, some people just to say like, try meditation, just the thought of having to learn how to meditate. That's like, now I got to learn how to meditate. Like who has time for that? I don't, but there's so many amazing apps that will guide you through meditation, mindful thinking, mindful breathing. I'm a huge proponent of mindful breathing. Incorporating that in your day-to-day, both during the day and at bedtime could be a game changer.

Provided you're not sitting there like on your phone, you know, like just like listen to it, right? And then allow it to drift you off. So I'm okay with all of that stuff. Okay. What about wine and coffee? I mean, coffee I think is obvious. Don't drink it too late if it does mess with you. Does decaf have the same effect? I'm assuming not. Cause that's what I've been switching to. And then what about wine? Give us our honest, true thoughts on both of those. Yeah. So, I mean, when we say coffee, it's really any caffeine. Cause there's a lot of

stuff that caffeine is hidden in too. Right. So you really want to like, make sure that you're not, if you find you're more sensitive to caffeine, make sure you're cutting it off at whatever works for your yourself. So, you know, for instance, for me, like I can't drink coffee past 2 PM. It's going to affect my night's sleep. You know, I'll have a cup in the morning. And then if I'm craving something in the afternoon, I'll have it in the afternoon, but then that's it for me. Then I know people who can drink coffee after dinner. Like I hate those people because I want to be that person and it doesn't affect their sleep at all. Right. So it depends on the individual, but caffeine could be in the form of food. It could be in tea. A lot of people think, well, I'll drink tea instead. Some teas can have more caffeine than coffee. So really avoiding that in terms of

alcohol and wine. Yes, it could help us fall asleep. And yes, I always feel bad telling people not to have a glass of wine with dinner. But again, if you are more sensitive to wine, and we know, especially for women, as we age, we tend to get more sensitive to wine. I know I have white wine, especially. I can't drink it at night, because it's gonna like I already know if I have a glass, I'm like, there goes my sleep. Like I just know it it's going to affect me. Cause what happens is as the alcohol leaves your body, it's going to cause more fragmented sleep. So you're going to get more fragmented sleep throughout the night. But again, everyone is more, it depends on the individual. Some people can drink and they're fine for sleep.

So, you know, you, you know, your limitations. Um, and it's, it's important to set those boundaries on those limitations. Okay. A lot of talk lately about getting sun on your face and your eyes first thing in the morning. Like, should we be changing our bedtime routine according to the seasons? We're rolling in, it's fall, we're going to be rolling into winter. Here in Canada, it's going to be dark at like four o'clock in the afternoon. Should we, should we, and whether it's springtime and summer, should we be changing our sleep routine to fit the seasons? And how important is that sun? Should we like wake ourselves up and drag our asses outside? Yeah. I'd like to talk more about changing your morning routine, depending on the seasons, because your morning routine, in my opinion, is a lot more important than your bedtime routine. Obviously a good, calming, relaxing bedtime routine is important. We are now going into a

season where it's going to benefit our bedtime. As we go into spring and summer, you might want to incorporate things like blackout blinds and eye masks and things like that to kind of, again, we want that darkness. That darkness, our external environment, the light and the dark of the day, is the biggest cue for it to either release our melatonin, which is our natural sleep hormone, or suppress it in the morning, which is what we want to do, right? Our morning routine, though, is the most important time, in my opinion, I can do a whole hour just on the morning routine, on helping us sleep better at night. Because that's really the start of our day. It's how we start our day is going to affect either how well or not well we sleep at night. Because that's really the start of our day. It's how we start our day is going to affect either how well or not well we sleep at night. So yes, immersing yourself in

natural light first thing in the morning. I know that that's hard because the sun is going to take a lot longer to rise. We're going to have a lot more darker mornings. But there's things like natural light simulator alarm clocks, things you can incorporate if you do have to get up frequently when the sun is still down, getting your body moving first thing in the morning, staying away from things that that's going to rise your stress levels as soon as you wake up. That's why I always say I don't look at my phone for at least 30 minutes before I wake up or after I wake up. Because what happens when you look at your phone, you're checking your work emails, you're checking into social media, the chaos of the day starts, and that's what you're carrying through the whole day. Okay. What about, lastly, melatonin? You mentioned melatonin.

I know I'm cognizant too. There are people like shift workers have a hard time getting sleep. We talked to Dr. Beverly again yesterday about naps, people with, you know, if you're, you shouldn't really nap unless you are deprived and you're like, try to get that sleep in. If you are a new mom, if you are a shift worker, that type of thing. Melatonin, where does that come in? Like, does it at all? Are you a fan of melatonin? I mean, I think melatonin plays a role for certain individuals. Like you said, for shift workers, for people who travel a lot and going through different time zones, trying to get back on certain time zones, people who maybe have circadian rhythm disorders and need it for that, perhaps certain medications. You know, I know we see it a lot with our kids who are taking ADHD. Now there's a lot more adults who

are being diagnosed with ADHD. So sometimes with those medications, always worth having a conversation with your doctor or your naturopath before starting any kind of melatonin. Unfortunately though, I think melatonin is largely promoted as a sleeping pill and it's not that, you know, it's, it's a hormone. It's, it's a hormone that it's very rare for you to be deficient in. Again, the best way to release or suppress our melatonin is through our natural environment, through the light and the dark of the day. It's just a blood test, or I think it's a blood test or a swab where you can actually get your melatonin levels tested. But because it's so readily available, a lot of companies are adding it into their sleep aids and sleep pills.

People think that it's going to, by taking it, you get sleepy. That's not what melatonin does. Melatonin helps prepare our body and mind to sleep. So it doesn't necessarily make you tired. It just gets your natural circadian rhythms in sync with your natural 24-hour clock. So I think that people are taking it. It's a supplement. It's a hormonal supplement that now you're taking

that probably isn't the right dose, isn't being released in your body in the same way that your natural melatonin is. So I think a lot of people, I think there's other things that you can do to release your melatonin before taking the melatonin route. But I do think that it can play a role too.

So I'm not completely against it. Okay. We could probably talk all day. Someone's asking, is sleep apnea directly connected to weight? I think anytime you're not getting the sleep that you need, that affects your weight because it affects the choices that you're making. It affects your hormones. It affects how your body is actually processing and digesting your foods, especially with insulin, insulin resistance and whatnot. It's affecting your emotion. So I think this is why I believe that sleep is really the foundation of not just health, but also weight loss as well. Everyone focuses on the food, what they're eating and when and exercise. And yes, those things are really important. But to me, if you're not managing your stress and your cortisol levels are just

running amok all day long, you're not getting that downtime and you're not sleeping at all. Absolutely. 100% that is affecting, that's causing you to either gain weight or it's definitely getting in the way of helping you lose weight, which is why these conversations are so important. Because this could, focusing on your sleep could be the ticket to moving the dial on the scale, especially if you think you're doing everything else. Okay, Elena, I'm squeezed every last second of time out of you. But before we go, is there anything I missed? Is there anything I missed? And you're like, geez, I wish Gina would ask me this, or I wish we could talk about that. No, no, I mean, I think we talked about most things. I think what's important is, you know, whether you whoever's watching, it takes all this

information and applies it or just takes one or two tips and suggestions. I think, sorry, there's my phone. I think it does. It takes time, right? Put together, when you put together your sleep plan, you're going to put it together in the same way that you're going to put together either your, your Gina Libby plan or your exercise plan. We're not going to see results in a day, right? So it takes 21 days to change a habit. A lot of what we talked about is incorporating new habits and changing old habits, and that takes time. So you have to just keep chipping away at it. Amazing. Okay. Thank you so much for all of your tips and knowledge that you shared with us today. I'm excited to continue our conversations. So just let's go through again. Uh, people want to reach out to you. It's Alanna McGinn, A-L-A-N-N-A dot McGinn, M-C-G-I-N-N. That's where they can find you on Instagram. That is your website. Um, do you have anything started? Do you have, when you have

programs starting, have they started? Yep. So we have our, our self-led program that's available now, um, our messy middle sleep solution. And then we're going to start a group program in November. So there's currently a wait list for that. And you can sign up for that wait list to be made aware when that becomes available. Um, and slowly rolling out more and more programs. Amazing. Thank you so much for joining. Thanks to everyone who joined us live. Uh, keep an eye on all of your questions. If you want to rewatch, it'll be stored in the guides. If you want to download and listen again and again and again later, you can find it over on our podcast, The Living Method, available on all podcast platforms. Atlanta McGinn, thank you so much. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks.