The Livy Method Podcast - Sleep Means More Confidence w/ Dr. Beverley David & Alanna McGinn

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

In this episode, Gina talks sleep with clinical psychologist Dr. Beverley David and sleep expert Alanna McGinn. From unexpected panic and brain fog to stressing out at 3 AM (when we should be doing it at 3 PM), they talk about the very real shifts women experience in perimenopause and beyond, and why sleep often suffers. It’s a healthy dose today of practical insight on mental health, hormones, stress, confidence, and learning to trust what your body is trying to tell you. A must-listen for women navigating midlife, sleep issues, menopause symptoms, and the connection between mindset and overall wellness.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspring2026Find Alanna McGinn:@alanna.mcginnwww.alannamcginn.comwww.alannamcginn.com/menopause-sleep-gpt/Find Dr. Beverley:https://www.yourpsychologycentre.ca/@drdrbeverleyTo learn more about The Livy Method, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm going to be honest with you, this podcast is unapologetically a hot mess because that is what midlife feels like sometimes. Why, though? And how do we make it better? Do we all just need facelifts and g-lp-1s? I mean, let's talk about it. No bullshit, no wellness wankery here because we're trying to make real change and change is hard. But we're in this together. Welcome to the Living Method podcast.

Good morning. Good morning. Did we all sleep, well? I did. Did you? I did. Are we sleeping well these days, Elena? You know what we are?

Which is funny, because life is crazy with three teens and jobs and driving and all the things. But I am. Yeah. I know. Driving and all the things. Where are you guys in the menopause sphere? I'm like post. Post.

And it's a game changer. I just started at J.R.T. about three weeks ago. Hey, that is a great question. I have no idea. Like, I'm there, I guess, Perry. I don't know. I don't know.

What do you mean? Have you gone a whole year without your period? No, like, I'm still completely regular. I'm waiting. How old are you? Thanks for asking. She's so young. 49.

I'm 49. Oh. Oh, yeah. Is that still young? But I feel like, like, there's things that are happening. But in terms of period, totally still regular. Like totally tricky, isn't it? Which thing is happening to be thinking, okay, is this it?

Is this it? Like what is? Because you go to the doctor and they still, it's really difficult. It still is, okay, you're cycling regularly, you know, you can't be in it. And I'm like, hang on, but we know better now. You know, there's differences. You know, I've never been a panicker, but I find myself panicking. I've never been anxious.

I've felt feeling anxious. tinnitus in my ear. I'm like, joint, my arthritis. I'm like, hang on. Let's look at my age. You know, let's make sure we include in this. And then thankfully, we're trying it. And already the panic is gone. Like I was thinking, what has changed? Has anything changed? And I was like, ah, I'm not debilitated by that panicky feeling, which was so weird. Okay. Can we just take a minute because Dr. B, like, you're a psychologist. You're a sleep researcher. Like, to hear that, I think we just need to normalize, you know, you having, feeling anxious. Can we just talk about that? Because, yeah, can we just talk about that? Because I don't know why that makes me feel a million times

better. Well, it's scary. It's scary to admit. And that's such a shame, isn't it? It's a shame that it's hard for people to admit that they are feeling that way to be thinking, my world is smaller or I'm more nervous to put myself out there. And it's hard unless you slow down and you think, okay, am I different? What's happened? Because a couple of years ago, I was like, yeah, Gina, I'm going to go on. I feel confident. And then suddenly I was like, oh, my goodness, I've got the life.

I've got to be prepared. My mouth is dry and worrying. And then I was like, okay, we're going to. to be public, how's that going to be? So all of those, the imposter syndrome became louder. What is this? What is it? And you don't want to tell anybody because you are the person, apparently, that's supposed to be able to manage your thoughts or feelings of behavior, her body. And yet my tools weren't working. And I was like, I'm supposed to know this. and then when you do go and you do have the courage to say I need help and then they don't

listen. You're just like, oh no, how can this be? And so you skill up and you research more and then I went back more confidently to say I would really like to try this because it's interfering now with my work, with relationships, with my confidence, with looking after a teenager. And so that level of important, sometimes we don't do it when it's just us, which is such a shame. But when we start thinking this is affecting other people as well, then suddenly we're like, right now I need to do something about it. But it is really hard. So be prepared. When you go to the doctors, I always say try and monitor, monitor yourself for a few weeks so that you know what you're going to go in and talk about, whether it is pains, whether it's feeling the heart,

She's also being told noticing your sleep is erratic or different. You know, have you started having intolerances to different foods? Like monitor yourself so that you can go in prepared and then hit the things that you need to hit. Like is it interfering more days than not? Is it impacting the way you turn if you're at work or whether you're at home or with your families? Let them know how it's impacting you because that's. what they're looking for is, is it interfering with occupation, social life, confidence, your mental health, all of those things. And it's not all about the absence of your period.

Yeah, I want to, yeah, and I want to get into Elena. Because I think what we don't need is another fucking 10-page to-do list around here. And what these conversations are is it's about awareness and being informed. Like imagine you are, look at everything you learn by going through the program about yourself, about food, about stress, about the mental part of it. So you're able to go to your doctor and have more informed conversations and hopefully feel more confident in that. I know, Elena, I mean, I'm surprised, Dr. B, that you talk about how that was a hard conversation for you, right? Because you're a doctor. I mean, you should be immediately respected. Elena, I know you've talked to so many women about this, you know, about sleep, about stress.

you're now sharing how you've gone through a divorce. You know, I think we need to just have more conversations so people don't feel alone. Oh, for sure. I mean, even, you know, myself, I mean, I teach sleep and stress. And then, you know, you ask me at the beginning of thing, how are you sleeping? Right now I'm sleeping good. But there are days where my sleep is shit, just like everybody else is. You know what I mean?

Like, it happens. And so as a sleep coach, to say that to someone, I'm sleeping terribly. But it happens. I'm human. You know, I'm going to have bad nights of sleep. When I was going through my divorce, the most stressful period of my life late, you know, my sleep was rocked, my stress was rocked, my life was rocked. And here I had to show up as someone who had it all together, you know, and to be honest, I didn't. I was funny. I was just talking to someone, a colleague of mine the other day and she's like, I noticed you got quiet for like a year or so. Yeah. Like I couldn't go online and be like, do this and do that and do all these things.

And my life was like falling apart. You know what I mean? So, you know, professionals go through it too. We're human. It happens. It's normal. And it's okay. Yes.

So what do we, what do you want to add something there and talk to me? No, I totally agree. I like the description of going quiet. I resonate with that. And so let's keep an eye on our friends and each other to think, do we notice somebody going quiet and can we lean in and check in on them? Because that's where it's happening in this community, Gina, we're here. We're learning so much and sharing and expressing and being vulnerable. So the more we can lean into check in on our friends, then maybe we can help them get to where

they need to get to as well, whether it's a doctor or whoever that person might be to support them. Let's also check in on ourselves, right? So that we want, I want to. I want to bring the conversation back to stress and sleep and they both go hand in hand. I know, Atlanta, like, you're moving totally into that stress base. And Dr. B, you studied, you studied sleep so long ago in terms of sleep research. Was stress something that was talked about as something that affects sleep? Were you also researching not just sleep, but how stress factors in? Yes, it is very related because we know that there's such a lot of bi-directed.

that means that the direction of the arrow is two ways. So stress is going to impact sleep and sleep is going to impact stress. So if I sleep deprive somebody and remove some of this sleep or sleep opportunity, very quickly you're going to notice the brain acting differently. And stress is one of the quickest things. So stress might be that you can't be patient, that you're more impulsive, that you're more agitated with yourself. The internal critic is louder for ourselves and for other people. We also find it harder to solve the problem. So that becomes more stressful, you know, that prefrontal cortex that is in charge of, okay, what should I do, when should I do it? And how is this problem solvable? Just falls offline. And so we feel clumsy and we feel ill-equipped.

And that adds stress. Like I'm not finding my words. I'm not articulating myself. I can't see my way out of this forest. So it becomes very claustrophobic and daunting when we haven't got our sleep. Then there's the emotional regulation part of sleep. So if we're not getting the sleep, then we're more anxious. We're more worrisome.

We might be more angry at ourselves and make more mistakes. So then we see it in our performance and we think, I can't do this anymore. You know, I am this or I am that or I've got to withdraw and not put myself forward for that promotion or that opportunity. And of course, the decisions then that we make with a sleepy brain are different. We don't feel like going for the walk or the run or we don't do the food preparation. We don't follow up on that conversation that we should have. So we just start spinning our wheels and that can then cause more sleepless nights.

Because, of course, then we go to bed with a lot of worry and we think, I haven't done that. I haven't done that. I'm not this anymore. And the cycle just perpetuates. Yeah. And in the background, our body is producing more cortisol, producing more adrenaline. We're now whack-a-moleing. We're living in the fight-flight fate mode.

We're spinning the plates and we're not keeping on top of it all. So it just starts to spiral. Yeah. I see you nodding, Elena. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a lot of my conversations that I'm having now with clients, you know, obviously when we talk about sleep, a lot of what we talk about is what we can do at night, right?

working on a great bedtime routine. And we've talked about that. And that is so important. Working on a great sleep environment, all of these things are so important. But more and more of my conversations are we need to focus on what we're doing throughout the day. We need to focus on what we're doing in the morning. We don't realize that your morning routine, your daytime routine, stuff that you take throughout the day has a huge impact in how well or not while you're sleeping at night because of stress management, right? we're so distracted. We live in a world that we are so, we can so easily distract ourselves from our worries and our problems. And, you know, I'm sure Dr. B can say the same thing. We're not, we're not going to sit here and tell you not to have worries and problems because, again, we're human.

Those things are always going to exist. And we can really turn the volume down on those things throughout the day because we're living life. We're distracting ourselves. But then when we go to bed, the distractions are gone and everything floods your brain. So a lot of my conversation, is, okay, what can we do throughout the day to manage that stress, to work through some of those problems so that you're not busy doing it at 3 a.m. Work on your things at 3 p.m. so that you can sleep better at 3 a.m. Right? So a lot of what we do throughout the day is going to help us sleep better too. Why do we think we're, why are we resistant to that? Like, we all know that we should manage it. We talk about supporting to manage your stress. It's important to work on sleep hygiene.

Why do you, is it, is it just me where I feel like people are resistant? to that being the thing that they need to focus on? Do you guys get that sense too? Or is that just me? I don't necessarily think that it's that people are resistant to focus on it. I think that it's like anything, right? We know we need to move our body, right? We know we need to eat better.

And we don't necessarily put it high on our to-do list. Sleep is all, listen, of all the pillars, and I'd love to hear Dr. B's opinion on this, but sleep is like always the bottom of the list of things to work on, right? I think the conversations are shifting now. and it's better because more and more individuals like ourselves and communities like yours are talking about the importance of it. But working on our sleep because we sleep, but we don't recognize that maybe we're not getting the right quality, the right quantity. We know when we're not moving our bodies.

We know when we're not eating well. Those are easy changes to make and recognize. So I think that it's just people aren't prioritizing it. Yeah, the e-part, it's easier you recognize it more people are talking about it, where if you were to ask me, the number one thing you need to focus on to lose weight is sleep, which is why eating after dinner is so detrimental to that, which is why you have to move your body. I went for a walk today, like in a field full of cow patties, because I was like, I couldn't sleep last night. So I'm like, I need to tire myself out. Let me go. It was absolutely amazing. And I'm so happy that I went. But yeah, yeah, I think, especially when we talk about weight loss because ultimately that's what people are here to do. I think if you're not sleeping,

it's absolutely impacting. And then you add stress on top of that. And it's like a combination, not just for weight gain, but I think for feeling stuck when it comes to move in the scale. The 24-hour clock is just so difficult for, I think, everybody to manage, but particularly people that are in that caring, responsible role, you know, whether we're looking after children, or a family or a home or our parents, people still accidentally do the doing during the day. And then when the house goes quiet, we just neglect to realize the importance of sleep.

And then we're going to pick the Netflix or the relaxing, or I'm just going to have time to myself, because it just hasn't happened. So we're like, finally, everybody's asleep. I can have some me time. And just like Alana said, we've got to reverse engineer that to think, okay, how can we expect change to happen if we don't change the day? If we don't look at how our day moves and actually put in place some different structure. Because if we can have the walk with the cows, if we can have the quiet three o'clock moment where we do our worry journal or we think through the things that might keep us up that night,

then we're actually leaning into ourselves and not waiting to care for ourselves at the wrong time of the day. Because that bit of sleep is so important. We can't get it back. It's not, you know, it's not like we can just make up for it on the weekend. And then we see everything changed, just like we talked about. Our food choices, our impulse control, how we do manage the next day. And that's going to make it even more difficult to make that structure happen. because we don't have now that solution-focused brain to say, okay, I know I'm going to block out that half an hour for me in the middle of the day.

I'm going to plan that walk with my friend before I start the day. I'm going to take the dog for a walk alone so that I can just have dog time and dog talk, which is far easier than human talk, at a time when I can process. And then it's about delegating, depending on the age and the stage of your family or your, set up, are there things people can do now to help you? And can you actually do it? Because when we're so tired and so sleepy, we don't think that's possible. If you're anything like me, I'm like, I'm doing it myself. It's going to take you all too long to do it. So then we interfere and we don't let them build their own capacity and confidence. So we want to help delegate and say, hey, how about you do

that or you set your alarm and you get up yourself and I'll be able to go. So, So look at your day, take time and think, where can I steal some time back for myself instead of doing it to compromise my sleep opportunity? Because we'll push it, we'll push it and we'll push it. And most grownups don't have a bedtime. And we need to have a bedtime so that we're aiming for it to think, okay, I'm going to get my stuff done and I'm going to have my wind down and I'm going to protect this very important part of being a human.

It's, I was just, we were having a conversation last night and Lynn, who I'm here doing the book with, her daughter Tristan is here shooting photography and she has two very young kids and we're talking about how she just can't sleep and she's trying to be a go with the flow kind of mom and we're all sharing our stories and it just occurred to me like when, when, you know, I had young kids, you weren't sleeping. It was normal to be tired. Then when I got older, I was like out all night and whatever. And then, you know, now I'm like, you know, now I'm like, you know, like sleep is elusive or you sleep when you're dead. And like we don't even have like a positive relationship with sleep. And now I'm with these women who like shut her down at seven o'clock. They're having baths. They're like, there's a whole like nighttime routine. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, what the fuck do I do with myself? What am I doing?

Elena, I know, listen, to anyone who's watching or listening, I have had so many conversations with Elaine. where she has just shared lists and lists and lists of sleep tips and hygines and talking about wearables and what to eat, what to drink, what to do. So we don't want to get into that today. But Elena, how is the conversation? Those are on our podcast. You want to listen. How, how, what is the current conversation of sleep right now and stress? Well, as you know, you know, I work primarily with midlife women, but you know, this is in that midlife stage. I mean, we talk a lot about menopause we did at the at the top of the show. And as our hormones are shifting, as we're going

through different ages and stages of life, that's definitely going to affect our sleep. And I know that's a big conversation in your community. But I think what we also need to understand is during that midlife phase, there's so many different transitions that women are going through, right? You just listed them yourself. You're dealing with young kids as they're getting older. You're sending them off to school. Some are coming back home. We're dealing with aging parents. We're maybe having a career change going back into the workforce, coming out of the workforce, going through different relationship changes, great divorce is on its rise. You know, that is going to definitely affect our sleep. So it's so important to learn to, as Dr. B explained, you know, manage our day to day so that we can manage

our sleep, whether that's through constructive worry, which I know that's a big conversation. We've had a lot, and I'm sure that's on a podcast episode of ours. But my conversation now is also how do we take time throughout the day to incorporate joy? Not necessarily happiness. Because happiness comes and goes. That's a feeling. But joy is a choice. And joy, even if it's just a micro moment joy, for me, joy is like walking into a thrift store for 10 minutes. That is like my micro joy. If I'm like having a day to stick me in a thrift store, I don't even have to buy anything. That's my micro joy. And what that does is that's going to settle my nervous system. That's going to turn down the survival switch in my brain and increase that growth switch, right?

That gross switch is going to give us that movement. That movement is going to settle our nervous system, which is going to give us deeper sleep, which is going to help us feel more rested and help us wake up more rested. So it could be a walk with a friend. You know, it could be talking to your dog. It could be anything that is just going to give you that moment throughout. the day, make the choice. Making the choice means scheduling it in, right? I think that's a, that's a big conversation I'm having right now with clients. Yeah, well, who didn't, like,

I'm just listening here and thinking like, joy and I'm like, well, shit. Like, you know, like there's happiness. Am I happy? But am I, am I seeking joy? Am I seeking joy in my life? And I think we need to be intentional about that and just, I felt like a really deep connection to you. saying that, but I don't know how we're supposed to do that. You've got to learn. You do have to learn. It's a muscle to work because you need to install it. You need to enrich it.

So when you're doing it, sometimes I'll say, you know, go out, notice the three fantastics or, you know, the three or five fantastics a day. And they can be so small. It can be that the kettle is still hot water in the kettle, that there's one team. bag left, you know, the petrol light isn't on or the petrol price has to improve today, whatever it is. It's these moments that you've got to first of all be on the lookout. So you prime your brain, you prime your body for I am going to be changing my glasses and I'm going to be on the lookout for joy, that feeling of contentment. And it might be watching a grampie and his grandson

walk across the road. So you prime, then you notice it. Then you, then you notice it. Then you, have to install it by really thinking, how did that feel? I smiled a little bit, or I felt a warmth, or I felt that nervous system calm, I felt presence. Then you want to use as many senses as you can so that it installs it more deeply into your body and your brain, ready for you to recall it later on in the day, because then you've got bang for your buck. Okay. And the last bit of enrichment is also knowing that in a chaotic, busy world where we often don't have a lot of certainty and it can be very scary, we know what's going on, or in fact, we don't know what's going on, which makes it scary, that these moments can still be there. So the world can be a little

bit scary and uncertain, and I noticed that I felt that moment. So then it allows your brain to practice knowing that both can exist, both are possible. So we don't get too, saturated with the down and the negative. We know, but I saw that cardinal this morning and it was beautiful and the sun shone on it just right and the world is a bit wonky. So it allows the brain to settle. Because we're trying to, because we talked about food noise last time you're on, Dr. B and how we basically trained our brain into food noise constantly thinking about it all the time. and how we how we trained our brain to think that we can't sleep. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, sorry. No, go ahead. I just want to piggy back off what you were just saying. I call it finding your giraffe. And the reason why I call it that is when I was going through my divorce, walking was huge for me.

Walking's always been a big part of my life. But that was, I lived with my ex for like a year and a half of our divorce. So walking was a savior for me. And there was a post in my walk. and there was a little giraffe stuffed animal that some child must have dropped and someone put it on there if the mom came back to look at it. And I remember walking past and thinking, oh, that's so cute and smiling, going through a really hard time in my life.

And now I'm so aware of giraffes. If a giraffe pops up on my screen when I'm out, that is my, as Dr. B was saying, like, that's my little moment where I just smile because I become aware now of my giraffe. So my giraffe could be somebody else's something. but it's finding your giraffe. It's that little small moment in whether you're going through a really hard time of that smile, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. It's so true, isn't it? I'm looking out the window for the giraffes. But yes, we can learn. Whatever you want it to be. We learn.

The more we repeat something, the better we get at it. Okay, so if we are on the lookout for positives and we practice that, the better we get. If we are practicing not sleeping in bed because we take our worry to bed and we're awake in bed, we're practicing that. We're going to get very good of being awake in bed. So we want to use our psychology to extinguish that. And that's a lot of what I do with the CBTI, the cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, is unlearning through your actual body clock,

but also the psychological learning, the association that we have with bed and sleep, and how to rebuild that relationship with bed and sleep so that you don't fear the bed. You actually anticipate rest and calm and actual sleep. But there's a particular technique to do it so that your brain is starting to learn and unlearn. your body is learning and unlearning and your thoughts that what you have come to associate

because if you absolutely keep saying, I won't get to good night's sleep, I'm not going to, you know, tomorrow's going to be a write-off, that's going to start the spiral as well. The thoughts, the feeling is the body and the behavior. Yeah. Well, I just had a bit of a moment because you just said all that in association to sleep, but you could say all of that in association to your weight loss, Totally. Psychology is in everything.

We're animals, after all, we learn. We get reinforced by particular behaviours. And sometimes, unfortunately, the behaviours are reinforcing us. And we think it worked, you know, a bit like, you know, we've had that thing in the cupboard and oh, we feel a little bit better. But then we don't feel so good. So we're trying to slow down to be thinking, these choices I make can often be habits. and they can build associations and sometimes, well, often we need to spend the time to tease them apart

to think actually is that one hour extra of watching downtown Abbey wise or not? I think it was because, oh, it lowered my anxiety. But here's the sting. I've got an hour less sleep and my anxiety goes up tomorrow. So we see it in our food choices, our day-to-day choices and our sleep choices. Yeah, so the same behavior pops up in my weight loss journey and trying to get better sleep, how I manage my stress, my attitude towards exercise, like how I do one thing is probably how I do everything. So if you can't see it while you're losing weight because you keep getting pissed off by the scale, you might be like it's just you want it so badly. How do you approach sleep?

What's happening there? How do you approach movement? How do you approach stress? How do you approach anything in your life could give you insight to how you're showing up here trying to lose weight? Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Huh. I saw you again nodding Atlanta. What do you want to add there? Well, I mean, the one thing I will add is, you know, in terms of sleep and association with our bedrooms, there's the, I call it like the behavioral and the emotional. So as Dr. B was explaining our relationship and we have to shift our mindset to a more positive one when it comes to sleep. And that's where CBTI can definitely help. On the sleep hygiene side, this is where you couple it with a great sleep environment. Sleep environment is probably one. of the most powerful tools that you can utilize to help you sleep better. And often if we're going to sleep amongst chaos, that is what's going to, you know, our brain is going to be full of chaos

when we're trying to sleep. So it could be something, and this is a great time to do it. We're going into the spring season, right, giving your room that spring clean, removing the chaos, removing the clutter, you know, removing the piles of laundry that we're staring at that we haven't fold yet. It's okay you haven't folded it yet. Just get it out of the bedroom and look at it somewhere else in the house, right? I know that's what happens in my house. Switching the sheets, you know, the sheets that we maybe used in the winter isn't necessarily going to work in the summer. I know it doesn't for me. I'm a naturally hot sleeper, so I can only imagine what my sleep's going to be like in a few more years, you know, switching it to more cotton fibers, more wicking fabrics, fabrics, more light,

cottony, airy fabrics. Your side of the bed should be customized to you. So working on a great sleep environment definitely coincides with shifting your mindset to a more positive one when it comes to your sleep health. Yeah, well, I'm away and I'm in this beautiful little cottage in the Cotswolds and the bedroom is gorgeous. And I have my brand new jammies that are like I'm a menopause material. First time I actually kept my clothes on while I slept. And then I was like, is it, isn't that I'm away or is it that my room is clean? And, you know, like, environment. Okay, before we go, I hear the music. One thing you can say to us as we move on with our day and try to manage our stress better and get better sleep, what could you say?

Dr. B, go first. You got like 30 seconds and then Atlanta. Make time. Make time for your day and make time for your sleep. And you've heard me say it before. We don't want to chase sleep. We can't force it. We can't will it.

We have to put the ingredients in our day and in our life so that then sleep comes natural. again. But yes, I'm sure you'll put our contacts if people need help with that. Yeah, always. I agree with everything she just said. I'm just going to end was to simply go and find your giraffe. You're aware of those small little moments during the day that is going to bring you joy, sell your nervous system, and therefore get you better, healthier, deeper sleep. Go find your giraffe. I love it. Ladies, I love you. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone who is watching us live or listening to the app of the fact.

you can reach out to Dr. Beverly, David. You can follow her on Instagram at Dr. Dr. Beverly. You can also reach out at your psychology center.com. Tony's behind the scenes training on how to do stream yards. This is why these keys are showing up. You're doing great, Tony. You're doing great, babe. And Elena, you can follow Elena at Elena McGinn on Instagram,

or you can reach out to her by way of website, which is elanamagin.com. Thanks, everyone. Have a great rest of your day. We'll see you next time. Bye. Thanks, ladies.