The Livy Method Podcast - Sleep Habits with Alanna McGinn - Winter 2025

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Struggling with sleep and stress? You’re not alone! In this episode, Gina chats with sleep expert Alanna McGinn to break down the connection between stress and sleep—because let’s be real, they go hand in hand. They tackle the age-old question: What’s more important—managing stress or getting quality sleep? Plus, Alanna shares why your 3AM wake-ups aren’t random, how men and women experience stress differently, and the top three ways to improve your sleep starting tonight.Alanna McGinn is the founder of 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.IG: @alanna.mcginnwww.alannamcginn.comwww.thebedtimeedit.comHow to Rid Those 3am Wakings - https://goodnightsleepsite.click/3am-wakingsYou can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodwinter2025To learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livi and welcome to the Livi 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 relisten 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. At OLG, we celebrate winning every day. That's because we make millions of sports and lottery winners across Ontario all year round. In the last year, we had more than 208 million winning

tickets and we gave away more than $2.6 billion in prizes. That's a lot of winners and a lot of dreams that came true. At OLG, every winner has one thing in common. They played. Could you win next? Play in store or at olg.ca and bring home the win. Winner, Kenyon. Play in-store or at olg.ca and bring home the win. Winner, Geno.

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Just be patient. Is your stress and lack of sleep making you fat or causing you to make it very difficult in order for you to lose your weight? Absolutely, yes. That's the whole point of the conversations we're having all this week. Yesterday, Dr. Beverly David, clinical psychologist, joined us to talk about when you're not getting enough sleep, what's happening to your brain and the choices that you are making, really stressing the importance of making sure you are managing your stress and getting better sleep. And here today to give

us those tools is stress and sleep management coach, owner of good night sleep site, Alana McGinn. Hi, Alana. Hello. Hello, Gina. Okay. So, you and I have had this conversation before. To anyone who's new to the program, Alana has been with us for a few years now.

She knows the ins and outs of the program. She knows what you are doing and trying to do. And so, this conversation is really just to give you more insight and to have you walk away with some tools that are gonna help manage your stress and help you get a better night's sleep. Which, first of all, Inlander, you have this new passion, I wanna say new passion, for stress.

You always talk sleep, you had a passion for that, but why combine the two? Can you just talk about the importance of that, maybe for our members first? Yeah, my focus right now definitely is still on sleep. I've been doing sleep since 2007, but it's focusing on stress management because it goes hand in hand. When our stress levels are too high, we're not able to get great quality sleep.

When we're not getting good quality sleep, that's going to amplify our stress levels as well. My focus is on midlife women. I work with really all ages and sexes, but I focus on midlife women and just making sure that as we're going through this transition of life that affects so many things, we are able to manage our stress levels in turn

so that we can sleep better at night. Yeah, now this conversation is for everyone who is listening, to manage our stress levels in turn so that we can see better at night. Yeah. Now this conversation is for everyone who is listening, but if you are in the menopause add-on, Alana did join us over there and talked about stress and sleep and menopause. So if you're part of that group, you can go check out those conversations if you haven't yet. So what do you think is more important, managing stress or getting a better night's sleep? Like I said, they go hand in hand.

So if we look at stress levels, right? So let's say we all have, you know, we have our natural sleep hormone, which is melatonin. This is what's released at night. This is what helps drive our natural body clock. We all run off of a 24 hour body clock, call our circadian rhythms. Melatonin helps prepare our body and mind,

drives that clock and prepares us to sleep. Throughout the day, we have an increase in our cortisol levels, which are our natural stress hormones that aren't necessarily bad. Stress is not bad. Let me start with that. To be stressed out is not, we're human. We're going to have stress. We're going to have worries. It's learning how to respond to that stress. It's learning proper coping skills to manage those stress levels. That is important. So, you know, when I'm working with a client, it's not to eliminate all stress. That's not going to happen. But how do we cope with that stress? Then what strategies do we put in place? So if we have higher than

usual stress levels during the day, meaning our cortisol levels are higher than they usually would, as we're entering those evening hours, we're naturally, our body clock would start to suppress our cortisol levels and increase our melatonin levels. If our stress levels are higher than usual, the cortisol levels aren't able to come down to where they should be, meaning our melatonin isn't able to come up to where it should be to prepare us to go to sleep, which is going to affect our sleep. Now on the flip side, if we're not getting good quality sleep, that also interferes with the natural balance of our melatonin and our cortisol levels. That's not allowing us then to have a good night of sleep. So where do you start chicken and the egg? I mean, if you are feeling like your

stress levels are higher than usual, you are going through a more anxious period in your life, a more stressful period of life, I would say start there. Let's learn how to manage those stress levels, which is often working on a lot of daytime stuff and morning stuff rather than just nighttime stuff in order to sleep better. And off the top, I, you know, obviously we're trying to get that hook, but does stress and lack of sleep make you fat? Yes. Does it cause the body to feel the need to store fat? Absolutely. High cortisol is also alternatively really low cortisol aren't great either. And then

as we learned yesterday, when you're not getting that sleep, how your body is processing foods is different. You are less sensitive to insulin, so your body needs to use more of it. We're going to talk hormones tomorrow with Dr. Alinka Trejo, but let's get into them. Is men and women different with their stress? I think so. I mean, I don't have any proven studies offhand right now to give you stats, but there are studies that show if we look at kind of sleep in relation to stress, women do need 20 more minutes of sleep per night than men. And the reason why that is, is because if we look at our brain as a computer screen, women tend to have a lot more tabs. This isn't a slight to men who are watching this. This is a natural study. Women tend

to have more tabs open, right? So we're exerting more mental energy throughout the day, which could factor into elevated stress levels, which could mean that in turn, the reason why women tend to need more sleep, but unfortunately, women are getting less sleep than men. Yeah, because again, Dr. Beverly talks about when you're sleeping, your brain is kind of going through this wash.

This is why like you can be raging or upset at something. you go to bed, you wake up the next day, you feel so much better about it so that it makes sense. If women aren't getting that sleep, then it's almost like our stress levels remain elevated and this is why you can be so bagged during the day and then as soon as you go to bed, you're like, you feel like you're wired. Okay, so let's get into what are the most, what do you want people to know about stress? Again, learning how to, learning different coping skills and coping strategies.

So I always say start with what you can during the day. Let's not focus right now at bedtime. There are activities that we can do at bedtime, which I'm sure that we'll discuss, but what can we incorporate in our day to day and really just looking at every pillar of health that is going to help you manage those stress. So if we look at nutrition, if you're on the program, you're doing it, right? You're focusing on proper nutrition, focusing on healthy eating, check.

If we're looking at exercise, daily movement is so important. That's going to help build a strong drive to sleep. It's going to help think of your drive like a gas tank, right? So it's going to help put in that sleep, that sleep gas throughout the day, that in turn is going to keep those melatonin levels raised where they need to be at bedtime, which is going to help you fall asleep. So focusing on at least 30 minutes a day doesn't have to be strenuous activity doesn't have to be like a hit class could be stretching, walking, yoga, any kind of movement that you can do throughout the day is going to help reduce those stress levels and keep that balance of cortisol and melatonin where it needs to be. And connection. Connection is so important. It is a pillar that I'm talking about

more and more and more. And connection could be in so many different ways. It's really what can you do throughout the day to add joy and happiness into your life? In whichever way that could be. It could just be a simple phone call with a friend. It could be a coffee with a friend. It could be getting outside more in your community. Just having that daily connection is so important and just bringing joy and happiness, getting a hobby that you like. I know that is the dreaded question for every woman. What is your hobby?

Like if someone asked me that, I hate it because I can never think of what my hobby is. But as I'm getting older, I'm like, I need to start incorporating more joy and in turn more hobbies, right? So again, your hobby could be a walk, your hobby could be a walk, your hobby could be baking. It could be something so simple. It doesn't have to cost you a lot of money or get you out in super, deep republic. But bringing more joy and happiness into your life, something just as simple as that. So focusing on all your other pillars during the day in turn will reduce those stress levels and help you sleep better. I love that. Yeah.

I love that you brought up connection because I think it leads to contentness. Being more intense, being more relaxed. I mean, one of the reasons why, you know, I've been able to get away or made a point of getting away is because I don't, I just work and work is my hobby. When you said that, I'm like, what is my hobby? I know. Oh, it's my work. Yeah. No, I get that. And that is the issue.

And again, this is why I focus, I think, so much on women is because our hobbies tend to become our work, our family, all of the responsibilities that we tend to have for others, right? Which doesn't in turn help our stress, which doesn't in turn help our sleep. So there comes a time and place. And I will say, again, studies show, my experience definitely shows, being midlife myself, being around more midlife women, that once we get to that age where perhaps maybe the kids are a little less dependent on us, where we can suddenly start gaining some more independence, it's like, okay, it's time for me, right? So that in turn is going to help your stress. Yeah. same goes with men too. I say to Tony all the time, like he said, working, working, working, like, go, go, go hang out with your friends, go play pool, go golf, go whatever, like, go spend time with your friends too. I think we don't do enough of that. I think

the pandemic mess with that too. We're all just like we, we went home, we stayed home and we're not, you know, a lot of us still aren't back at it and living life. Stress management techniques. Let's start with that. You talked about the morning. Moving your body obviously is a big one. Going for walks can be a game changer. You don't have to go to the gym.

Connecting with people throughout the day. What about deep breathing exercises? What about journaling? Is there anything else we can set our intentions with in the morning that are going to remind us to help manage our stress throughout the day? 100%. Your morning routine, I could do a whole hour just on the morning routine. Your morning routine is probably the most important time of the day in terms of your

stress levels and in terms of sleeping well. So often we think of bettering our sleep. What do we think of? We think of what do we need of bettering our sleep. What do we think of? We think of what do we need to do at the bedtime? What do we need to do at night in order to sleep better? But it really starts from the moment that you wake up. So my biggest tip for everyone in the morning is, well, two things.

Let me start about the first thing. The first thing is don't look at your phone. Don't check into the world the second you wake up. Majority of everyone watching, and I'd be very curious, you guys have a chat function here, right? Like throw it in the chat, type yes or A or whatever. If you use your phone as your alarm clock, I'm sure majority of people do that, myself included.

But if you are, if it's the first thing you're looking at before you go to bed, and it's the first thing you're, the last thing you're looking at before you go to bed, and the first thing you're looking at when you wake up in the morning when you turn that alarm off, you need to make some changes, either buy an actual alarm clock or set better boundaries on your phone usage. Because what happens is we aren't even getting out of bed before we are, right? The whole world is in our brain. We're checking our work emails, we're checking into social media, we're checking on the news, we're checking on the weather. Again, our

feet haven't even hit the floor yet. So what does that do for our stress level? So take the first 30 minutes, turn the alarm off, take the first 30 minutes of getting out of bed for you. And that could be anything. I mean, it could just simply being have a quiet cup of coffee. It could be your daily movements, a great time to work it in. If you have smaller children, it could be preparing them for school, having quiet time with them. Like whatever it is before you check into the rest of the world, how we start our day really does carry with us for the remainder of the day.

So if you are starting the day reading a very stressful work email, reading really stressful news headlines, which let's be honest, they all frigging are now or anything. That's exactly how you're starting your day and carrying that through. So that morning practice is really important. When I say there's two things we can focus on, also focus on before you go to bed, what can you do to prepare for that morning to make it a little less stressful? So could it be something again, simple as like packing lunches, picking out your outfits, getting breakfast, setting your coffee, automate your life, a coffee automation, coffee pot,

get that coffee going when you need to, whatever you need to do to make your morning easier, because again, that's gonna carry with you through the rest of the day Well, these are and we're starting to see how stress and sleep are really connected Like if you are journaling before you go to bed trying to write out all of your thoughts if you have a great nighttime Routine that you're going through whether it's washing your face or reading a book Helping your body kind of wind down and in the morning just wake up less stressful.

One of my biggest takeaways from Alana because you know I have these conversations and she's like you know don't go on your phone before bed, don't put your workspace in your room and I didn't even realize how much I was being triggered because my office used to be in my bedroom. I have a fairly large bedroom. I had lots of space for an office and it wasn't really until my sleep was really, really, really suffering that I listened to her. I just, I had her on, she told us stuff.

I was like, them, okay. And it wasn't until I was really suffering with my sleep, probably due to menopause, perimenopause, and I took her seriously and I took my office out of my bedroom. I put my phone downstairs in my new office. It was my basement. It's not like I didn't have all this amazing office space.

I just made it work. If you see my office, it's beautiful, that little corner of my basement. The rest is a hot mess. I figured it out. I made it work. It wasn't until I took it out that I realized walking into my bedroom felt differently. It just my energy was completely different.

And so you may not think, oh, getting on my phone isn't really stressing me that much. Staying on my phone late isn't really messing with my sleep that much. It's not until you actually like make some of these changes and you because you are now becoming more aware and more into doing the program, you really understand how those things are affecting your stress and your sleep. Your sleep environment is such a powerful tool that you can utilize to help you sleep better and manage your stress.

And you don't, like I said, you don't even realize it until you make those changes. And it doesn't have to be a complete renovation. You know, again, you don't have to spend a lot of time and money on this, but you need to have the sense of when you walk into your bedroom, there's that instant connection between peacefulness, calmness and sleep.

So if you're walking into your room, looking at your work files, looking at the dumbbells that you haven't picked up and that guilt's hitting you, looking at the pile of laundry that you haven't folded yet, instantly flipping on the TV. And we'll talk a little bit about tech because I'm not completely opposed to some tech at bedtime. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, setting up your environment, just simply clearing the clutter, you know, making it, think of it, making it your sleep sanctuary. What colors put you at more peace, feeling more relaxed and feeling more calm? What fabrics do you want? Little things like that can make a huge difference in how well or not well you're falling asleep

at night, for sure. Okay. I have a ton of questions that I'm going to ask about sleep, but I want to stick on stress for a minute because people feel like, and I know you already touched on that, it's not about alleviating your stress. Do you find that people don't, what can people do to recognize their stress?

Like I think I've talked to so many women who are like, yeah, no, I'm like, what's going on? Like their weight's not moving. And I'm like, well, how's your stress? Oh, it's fine, I'm not stressed. And then when I started asking them like other qualifying questions, they're like carrying, you know, two or three jobs or they have their job, they're other qualifying questions, they're like carrying,

you know, two or three jobs, or they have their job, they're going to school, they're taking care of kids, they're in the middle of a divorce, they're selling their home, like all of a sudden it like starts to unravel and I'm like, tell me again how you're not stressed. And I think, and I was like this, I think the reason why I have four children and the reason why I've been able to do what I do is just straight up denial. It literally up denial. It literally resists denial. So how do we recognize that really stress?

Sleep is an obvious one because we're awake at three o'clock in the morning, we can't get back to bed or we can't get to sleep. How do we know when we're stressed? So I'll tell you a little story and then I'll answer that question. So when I was going through my divorce two years ago, I was living with my ex while going through the divorce, which is not something I recommend for most people. But unfortunately, financially, it happens to a lot of people, right? And I remember I was taking your program.

I've been a Libby loser for always, for a lot of years just to maintain. And thankfully your program helped me. So I'm taking your program, I'm walking every day, I'm taking the best possible care of myself while I'm going through the most stressful thing I've ever gone through in my life. And I'm thinking, I'm fine. It's actually not that bad.

Everyone's like, oh my God, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good, I'm good. And what's funny is I actually got my ear pierced, my cartilage pierced. It's the smallest little thing in like August during that time. And I've had other piercings that have healed fine. And it was not healing for months and months

and months and months. And I thought I'm gonna, it was to a point where I thought I would just have to take it out because it just wasn't healing. And I thought that's so weird. I was taking care of it. It was good. Yeah.

Finally, two weeks after I moved out of that house, ear healed like that. Right? So it's like that just showed me how I actually felt like I was handling the stress okay. But what was going on inside my body was telling me a different story, meaning my immune system was down and my body wasn't able to heal how it probably could have. Right? So we have to look first at those hidden stressors that you might not even realize are amplifying your anxiety and your stress. For me, as I'm getting older, I'm noticing more and more it's coffee.

I drink and I only drink a cup a day. But when I have that cup, right? Like for the past two weeks, Gina, and it's killing me because I need my morning coffee. But the second I drink it, I am jittery. I can tell that I'm like in fight or flight. And again, what I do is I log it. OK, so what am I doing throughout the day? When do I notice and log in for about two weeks?

What are you doing? What activities are you doing throughout the day? What is what are you taking throughout the day? Meaning coffee, drinking wine, whatever you're doing. When are you noticing that you're feeling that fight or flight moment? When are you noticing that you're feeling more anxious, more jittery, more just, you know, when you're just not feeling yourself, right?

Logging it and then taking a look at that two weeks. And that's what I did for a week. Why am I feeling like this at like 10 o'clock in the morning, nothing's going on crazy in my life. I shouldn't be feeling like I'm ready to like, oh, and I'm like, oh my God, it's coffee. No, tell me it's not so. So log it, right?

Get a piece of paper out, actually log down what activities you're doing, what your nutrition intake is, and then what is your mood? How are you feeling throughout the day? And see if you can make that correlation. But those hidden stressors could be things that you don't even realize. I would have never thought coffee would have been mine. It could be news. It could be social media.

It could be seeing one person versus seeing another person. Like hidden things that could be amplifying your stress and you don't even realize it until you start logging it. Until you start. Yeah. Because I've been on decap for a while. It's interesting because I still look forward to my decap every day, even though it's not really doing anything for me. It's such a, you realize it's such a mental thing when you're no longer getting the caffeine anymore. And then after a while you realize it probably wasn't even the caffeine that you needed in the first place. But it can definitely be, I think that's one of the things people don't relate is the things

that you are doing in the day that really are messing with your ability to manage your stress But it can definitely be, I think that's one of the things people don't relate is the things that you are doing in the day that really are messing with your ability to manage your stress throughout the day and also to get better sleep at night as well. Let's take a minute to hear from our podcast sponsor today because this new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening kind of like what you're doing right now. So you can explore audio books, podcasts, even exclusive audible originals that are no doubt going to inspire you, but more so motivate you. All you have to do is open up the app, tap into your wellbeing, and you can hear advice and get insight from leading influencers, experts and professionals, whatever your focus

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Their everyday line is their light support level. Buttery soft pieces, perfect for low-key activities. Then their balance line is their more medium support level. Perfect for things like yoga or Pilates. Soft fabric that moves with you. And then there's their momentum line. Okay, come on, don't tell me that's not an amazing name. That's for more of their medium to high level support for more intense workouts. That's gonna be fabric that like moves with you through every rep. However you choose to move, Joe

Fresh has you covered and Joe Fresh has a promo code for you. I love this. So all you have to do is use the code livi method 25 when you check out online at joefresh.com or through the Joe Fresh app. Right? Amazing. At OLG, we celebrate winning every day. That's because we make millions of sports and lottery winners across Ontario, all year round. In the last year, we had more than 208 million winning tickets, and we gave away more than $2.6 billion in prizes.

That's a lot of winners, and a lot of dreams that came true. At OLG, every winner has one thing in common. They played. Could you win next? Play in store or at olg.ca and bring home the win. Winner, Kenyo. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so let's go into sleep. So I got a, yeah, someone said no coffee feels stressful.

So okay, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how making some of these changes are going to make you feel. We know the end result, right? Like I guess, you know, to everyone who's watching or listening, I want you to really understand the reason why I'm having these conversations is after helping thousands, hundreds of thousands of people lose weight, your stress absolutely impacts your journey. Your sleep absolutely impacts your journey. How much you're moving your body. Like it all, it How much you're moving your body. Like it all, it's everything you're doing working together.

It's not about making big radical changes. It's about just improving the things that you're doing just slightly will make a big difference because of all the things that you are doing. But I've talked to so many people who are struggling with getting the scale to move. And I can tell you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, does it have anything to do with what people are eating? It's never that. It is never that. Yeah. And we have

this maximizing, you know, we have the maximizing 20 questions. It helps people look for areas of opportunity, other things that they can focus on. And we get people to score themselves on a one out of 10. And they're just like, you know, they can be doing all the things and it's really the stress and the sleep. And they think, oh, well, I'm getting the best sleep I can, or I can't get better sleep because I'm a new mom or I work shift or I work whatever, or my stress is what it is.

And again, it's not alleviating, it's just improving it. So, okay, let's get into, this is a big one because I know we talked about this in the menopause add-on, but the three o'clock in the morning wakeups. Let's get into that first because we all want to know what's going on. Yes. So I actually have a, I know you guys are going to share a link. I have a free email course on specifically the 3M waking. Why, common reasons why we're doing it and how to remedy those reasons. So there's a lot of different reasons why we could be waking up at 3am.

It could be bladder issues, right? So, and I'll be honest, that can happen. You're starting to drink a lot more water, right? So as your body's getting adjusted to that. So, you know, limiting fluids. When you do wake up to go to the washroom, because sometimes we can't help that, you know, not turning on every light, getting into back into bed, if you're having difficulty falling back asleep, maybe practicing some visualization exercises. So, you know, visualize something that you really enjoy doing, or deep breathing. I'm a huge, you mentioned that earlier, I'm a huge proponent, advocate of deep breathing studies, can lower heart rate, help calm the body and mind down. It could be digestion, right? Eating too big of meals if we're on this program, we know we're not doing that anyways,

but our body's busy digesting food when it really should be focusing on sleeping well. A big reason though why we tend to wake up at 3 a.m. If we don't factor in perimenopause, menopausal hormones, I know you guys are going to talk about that tomorrow and of course that is a reason, is we haven't given ourselves enough time throughout the day to work through again coming back to stress and sleep, to work through what we have to work through and at 3 a.m. is when our brain starts thinking about it.

And the reason why that is, is if we look at one cycle of sleep, we have about five to six cycles of sleep per night. That is a good night's sleep, if we really want to categorize what's a good night's sleep. Each cycle of sleep is about 90 minutes. And we go through different stages of sleep in that 90 minutes, about four different stages, three non-REM stages and one REM stage. As the night progresses, we tend to have less non-REM sleep and one REM stage. As the night progresses, we tend to have less non-REM sleep and more REM sleep. Now, a lot of people think that REM sleep is the deep state of sleep,

but actually the deep state of the sleep is in that third stage of sleep, which is a non-REM stage. So as the night progresses and we get closer to 3 a.m., now we're in a lighter, more lighter state of sleep than deep sleep. So if we wake up, like we have been doing all night,

transitioning through each cycle, we tend to wake up more. And if we have a lot of busy brain, we have a lot on our mind, we tend to think about it more at that 3 a.m. mark because it's harder for us to get into that next cycle of sleep. So this is why it's important to work on managing your stress throughout the day so that you're not busy

trying to manage it at 3 a.m. Well, when you say it like that. I know, it seems so simple, right? Yeah. All right, all right. Okay, let's get into the importance of your nighttime routine, like going to bed. Yes. Yeah. I mean, going to bed, we always should be incorporating a good bedtime routine.

You know, it's hard to go from 100 to zero. So I like to do, and I know I've talked about this in the community before, and it's really working on having that slowdown cycle. So I like to do and I know I've talked about this in the community before and it's really working on having that slow down cycle. So for an hour before you go to bed, break that hour out in three 20 minute increments. So the first 20 minutes could be exactly what I was talking about before preparing for the morning. So writing out your to-do list, writing out your grocery list, all the things you need to tackle the next day, picking out an outfit, baking lunches, all of those things. The next 20 minutes could be focusing on you. So, brushing your teeth, washing your face, doing all the normal hygiene stuff that we do before we go to bed. The last 20 minutes is focusing on calming and relaxing activities, whatever that may be.

So, it could be journaling. It could be breathing activities. It could be meditation. It could just be conversations with your partner. You know, often we're so busy throughout the day, bedtime, especially if you have little kids, bedtime is that only time to connect. So it could be reading, it could be whatever you want to do. So really focusing on that hour and breaking it up into those three 20 minute increments is important. Three 20 minute increments. I like that. That's doable. And you can stack them however you want.

I stacked them one way, but you could watch your face before you write out your to-do list. Stack them however you want to. I find that so many of us are looking for that me time at night, and that's where we plop ourselves in front of the TV, and we are scrolling on our phones. We just want that break. We feel like we don't want our kids wanting something

from us. We just want to shut her down feel like we don't want our kids wanting something from us. We just want to like shut her down. We just want it. And we think that watching TV is mindless. And we think that scrolling on our phone is mindless. But you know, at the end of the day, I don't think that's really you time. I'm not disrespecting it because I do it myself y'all.

I do it myself y'all. But what do you say about that? Again, it's really just driving home the fact that it's making the change, although uncomfortable as it is and it messes with your routine and you might not love it at first. It's so important. Yeah, and this is where I say, you know, working on what you're doing throughout the day is going to help you in turn sleep well at night and sleep well at 3 a.m., right? So, yes, we're all guilty of focusing on that me time in those evening hours, especially if you have young kids been there done that get it.

I'm but there's no reason there's no reason why you can't incorporate five minutes 10 minutes let's even go as far as saying 30 minutes a day for you. you. You can carve that into your day. But again, it's making changes. It's committing to that schedule time. Put it in your calendar, like you put your kid's dentist appointments in your calendar, like you put your work appointments in your calendar, put in that you time. So is it maybe just the first 30 minutes when you wake up and you're not looking at your phone and that's you time? Is it lunch? Is it maybe at 2pm.m.? Where you can just, again, start small, five minutes a day, where if you wanna just mindlessly scroll on TikTok for five minutes on the couch during the day, do it. I know you can if you're working,

but go sit in your car and do it. Find a place where you can just have that me time. And I'm not saying don't have that me time also at night, but doing it more in the day will mean that you're not going to, there's that whole bedtime procrastination revenge syndrome that kind of happens in those evening hours where now maybe you're not pushing it too far into your bedtime and into your bedtime routine and therefore affecting your sleep as well.

Okay, I want to address this one. Here's Maureen talking about it. I'm in the same spot as Susie. I'm not really sure what Susie's doing, but no loss, which is still normal at this point, right? And so nice people say I'm doing all the things and they're stressing about not losing weight yet And I'm like, are you paying attention to the fact that it's still normal to have not lost weight yet? So that makes me sometimes wonder if you're really doing the things if you're really reading the information Really doing all of it when you're missing the biggest part of it, when it's so normal to have not lost weight.

You know, we're only a few weeks into the program for a variety of reasons. There are other things besides stress, sleep, there's hormones. If your weight isn't dropping, you should be noticing your body changing. But there are things that can mess with your body focusing on fat loss. Stress and sleep are the low-hanging fruit, which is exciting because there's so much we can do. The next level of that is things like inflammation, is hormones, which we're going to do about that conversation, food sensitivities, a lot of times people don't want to address, gut

issues, your microbiome. So this is stress and sleep are low-hanging fruit, which is why it's so, so, so important that you address them. A lot of times people will be like, I'm doing all the things, but they're not taking any of the supplements, right? They're not taking the omega-3, they're not taking the vitamin D,

they're not taking the magnesium, which can really help facilitate, especially in the evening. They're not doing those types of things. And so this is really about having conversations that bring awareness, where you also have to be honest and truthful with yourself about not just all the things that you're doing, but are you doing the things that you you need to do and are you doing them consistently enough? But my question based on this,

I appreciate Maureen saying, is like can we get a good night's sleep and still be stressed? Yeah, like I, stress is normal. It's hard to go day to day without having any kind of stress. And then there's good stress and then there's bad stress. Good stress is the stress, you know, a high intensity workout could be stress. You know, doing that presentation at work that you're worried, you're stressed out about could be stress. But you cope with that

you come back to you know your normal stress levels when you do something like that. Bad stress is when we get into we aren't able to control and manage the stress levels anymore given the resources that are around us. Meaning you know you could I mean, I'm just using it as an example, could be going through a divorce. It could be, you know, being unemployed or just going through a really hard time in your life where now you're not able to manage those stress levels. And then what can happen is then we go into burnout mode, which is what happened to me when I was going through my divorce. That's why it's such a near and dear subject to me. So stress, you know, stress increases in a very natural way. What I want to explain though, is we're, you know, we're

talking a lot about stress and sleep. I also don't want your community to be so stressed out because they're not sleeping well. Right? That is also a problem. So, yes. Yes. Yes. And that can happen. And I know that for me, sometimes, you know, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm talking all about sleeping well

and all the things that you can do to sleep well. And then, you know, you get those people that are now super hyper focused on their sleep health, which I want you to be focused on your sleep health, like you are your nutrition health, like you are your physical health. But I don't want you to be so hyper-focused that now your stress levels are amplified because you don't feel like you're getting that good night of sleep. Yes, focusing on sleep health is important. Focusing on a good night of sleep is important, but it's also okay to not sleep well. It's also okay to not have a good night of sleep.

That is also natural and normal. So, you know, it's like, yes, I want all these takeaways to be like, do all the things, but don't stress about doing the things either. Right? Yes. Yes. And that's like, that's what I'm saying with, with maximizing and even doing the program. It's not like doing more and more and more and more. It's about really recognize the things that you need to focus on and being really consistent. Like there's a lot of people on this program, and so we're having a lot of conversations. How you make it personalized is like figuring out what's relevant to you.

If something is bothering you when you're listening to, or you're having an aha moment when you're listening, something that's sparking you and be like, oh yeah, I totally do that. Or, Oh yeah, I could totally address it. Okay. Given the time that we have or, or more so we don't have. So anyone, if you've got questions, load them up for Atlanta real quick.

I'm going to ask her, but I have some for myself. So, um, three top things for managing stress. Three top things for managing stress. Again, find joy in your life. However you want to do that. That is so, so, so so so important. Take time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. And what I mean by that is you need to, you know, schedule in again, five minutes, we all have

five minutes in the day to constructively worry. So something as simple as get a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle. What is that problem that you know is not going to allow you to fall asleep at night? That problem that is not gonna, that is gonna wake you up at 3 a.m. and keep you up at 3 a.m., write it down, write down a list of solutions.

You don't have to solve it in that moment, in that first five minutes. But start, it could be making an appointment, finding out information, talking to somebody, fold that piece of paper away, put it away. You're gonna pull it out the next day and work on it again. So when you do wake up at 3 a.m., you can say to yourself, I worked on it today,

I'll work on it tomorrow, now is not the time. So find time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. It is so important. Third reason, third thing for stress, my mind has gone blank right now. I mean, to me, physical activity is so important. Yeah. Get your body moving.

Again, it could be something as simple as a walk. It could be something as simple as daily stretching. It doesn't have to be high energy, high aerobic, but get your body moving. It is so important. Okay. What about top three things for sleep? Top three things for sleep, understand that sleep is a natural state. We're all born with the ability to sleep. It is okay to have a bad night of sleep. Don't stress too much out about it. Second thing, focus on sleep environment. We

talked a lot about that. Making a calming and relaxing sleep environment is important. Focusing on your side of the bed, what you need versus what you and your partner need. What blankets do you need? What pillows do you need? What do you need? You know, customize your side of the bed to you, not to everybody else in the room. Third thing was sleep is follow consistent sleep patterns, but more importantly, go to bed when you actually

feel tired. So rather than me saying, go to bed earlier, that most people think I'm going to say, for a lot of people, it could actually mean you maybe need to go to bed a bit later. Perhaps you're going to bed too late. Another reason for a 3 a.m. waking, if you're going to bed at 9 p.m. every night, because you feel like that's just an appropriate bedtime, and you're waking up consistently at 3 a.m. That's like six or seven hours of sleep. Do we need to actually go to bed later to push out that 3 a.m. waking? Yes, that's like it was a big ding ding ding moment. I think for a lot of people. Yeah, right? Like if you if you're going to bed super early, don't be surprised if you wake

up super early. A couple of people were talking about grief, Alana, how they're not necessarily stressed. They're not that they normally don't sleep. But grief, Alana, how they're not necessarily stressed. It's they're not that they normally don't see, but once they get to see if they're going through a grieving process, that time where your mind is quiet, which is very difficult for people. Yeah. Any advice there? Community in those situations are so, so important. Finding like-minded people, I mean, this is why your community is so successful and so important for so many.

When I say find joy throughout the day, a community like this is what I mean also, right? So just being able to talk to somebody who understands. Not so much about grief, but I'll use the example I use is I work with a lot of shift work, the large shift work community. A lot of my clients are shift workers and it's a very lonely experience for many

because many people, their family, their friends, they don't understand the hours that they work and why they need to maintain the schedule that they have. So just talking to other people in that community can help alleviate some of that stress in sleeping better. So, you know, when you're going through periods of grief, I'm not a grief counselor expert by any means. But I feel like community is so important during those stages and really reaching out to those that you feel can help therapy. Like, I can't talk about therapy

saved me during my divorce, like saved me. So therapy, huge advocate of that. Okay, amazing. Sunlamps, what do you think about that? I got myself one of those fancy little light machine sunlamps. So now I go get up in the morning, I go on my walking pad, I put my little bright sunlight on. What are your thoughts on that?

I'm a big, I'll be honest, I don't push a lot of sleep tools. Tools that I do push are a lot of nature related sleep tools. So things like sunlight therapy lamps, I think are great. We don't get enough vitamin D, we don't get enough of that blue bright light throughout the day, especially let's talk about January, right? It's important for us to, again, regulate our 24-hour clock. Things like natural sunlight simulator alarm clocks can work really well at naturally waking us up. I'm doing a lot more research in things like red light therapy and grounding mats and bedding, really focusing on how nature can help us sleep better. I have a lot of beliefs in that.

So maybe next session we can talk more about that and dive more into that. Cause I find it all very fascinating. Yeah. Well, again, we'll have you back and we'll get into that. What more, how can we build on this? As you know, the program, really it's so easy just follow the guidelines each week.

If you want the cold notes, the practical guide, do that. But each week really builds on the next, on the next, on the next. That's why I'm saying like, if your scale still isn't moving, there's so much more to talk about. There's so much more you can do. We really are getting started. But how it all comes together. And the takeaway for today, and I love that you said it is not to stress you out that you're not getting to sleep, not to stress you out that you are stressed out. It's really just to bring awareness and how these things actually can impact, especially when it comes to getting and keeping the scale moving, and how these little things that you're doing that you don't really understand are feeding into that

or the things that you can do that you're not doing that are so simple, that can be a real game changer with this process. I know, Alana, people are going to want to know where to find you. And I also know you also do like, you do workshops, you have anything like that coming up. Tell us what you got going on. Yes. So you can find me on Instagram at Alana.Meghinn, my website, AlanaMeghinn.com. I have a new podcast also that comes out, an episode comes out every other Monday, one's coming out this Monday called the Bedtime Edit Podcast,

and you can download that anywhere you download podcasts. I'm welcoming, it's focusing on midlife sleep, again, stories and situations that are keeping you up at night. So not necessarily just about sleep, but it's through all life transitions that we midlife women go to. So I would love to hear anyone's personal stories.

You can either share them through a DM, or if you go to the bedtimeedit.com, you can leave a little voice note there. Where can you find me? I have a DIY program that can help you sleep better, and I'm rolling out a membership program soon, probably in March. So I'll share information with that once it's out.

Okay, everyone asking about those grouting mats. Yay, nay, how do you feel? Yay? So far, yay. And I have been yay for a while. Again, nay, how do you feel? Yay? So far yay. And I have been yay for a while. Again, I'm doing a bit more research, so I don't wanna talk on it yet. But grounding mats and red light therapy,

I think are gonna be big game changers for many different things. But sleep is definitely one of them, yeah. I got myself one of those red light mask things. Like, does that work? And it's great for scan, for collagen, increasing our collagen, things like that. But I'm looking at it more for like treating inflammation, helping us sleep better. So more like full body red light rather than just the face mask. Face masks are great. But there's the panels,

there's the red light mats, there's grounding mats, grounding bedding. So I'm literally like in the thick of it right now doing all my research. I love that stuff. You and me both, right? I like the learning, the learning never stops learning never stops. That's what makes you so great at what you do. And I adore you. And I love that you have a passion for coming on and sharing your knowledge. Because you know how hard our members are working. Our members are working very hard to make change. Of course, there's a lot of feels and there's a lot of, you know how hard our members are working. Our members are working very hard to make change.

Of course, there's a lot of feels and there's a lot of things that make it not so easy for us. And it's just about getting up every single day. As long as you keep showing up, you can't mess it up. I make some work. Five minutes a day, make a change. Five minutes a day, that's all you need to motivate you. Right?

Yeah, little and often, is what we say. Five minute action, yeah. Little and often. Alana McGinn, thank you so much for everyone who is watching us live. Hello, thanks for joining us live. Everyone who is listening after the fact by way of our podcast.

I know, I'm not hope, because I know you got a lot out of the conversation. Today we are gonna continue it tomorrow with Dr. Alinka Trejo, talking about how sleep and stress are affecting your hormones and what you can do about that. So thank you, Alana McGinn.

We'll have her back on. We'll talk about those grounding mats. We'll be in no doubt so much more. Thanks everyone. Thanks, Alana. Thanks. Let's take a minute to hear from our podcast sponsor today because this new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening kind of like what you're doing right now. So you can explore audio books, podcasts, even exclusive Audible originals that are no doubt going to inspire you, but more so motivate you. All you have to do is open up the app, tap into your wellbeing,

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