Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: What'S worthwhile healing Mind, body and spirit. I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. I choose peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit over stress, exhaustion, or overwhelm. Together, let's explore and pursue the many ways to build holistic health and wellness.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: What if sleep were a drug? Yeah, we have this new invention. It's better than any other supplement on the market and it's going to be amazing for your heart. It's going to help you look more attractive. It is going to get rid of that brain fog for you. It is going to help you perform at your peak performance. You know, the cost is astonishingly low.
It's reliable. You don't need a doctor's note. There's no risk of dependency.
Get yours tonight.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Hey there, it's Ramsay here. That was Dr. Leah Kahler. No, we're not pushing a new drug. We're talking about sleep. Dr. Leah is a licensed clinical and prescribing psychologist who has served as the FBI's sleep expert for over five years.
Her new book, now available on Amazon, is called what if Sleep Were a Drug?
Bottom line, sleep is essential. It gives us tremendous benefits when we do it well and nasty impacts when we do it poorly. Dr. Leah speaks directly to first responders and other high achievers who need the performance enhancing properties of sleep. But hey, don't we all? This is a great episode to learn all about sleep, but understand this, this conversation was lively and upbeat and will not put you to sleep.
You'll need to use Dr. Lia's strategies instead.
Let's get started.
Hey, Dr. Leah, how are you doing today?
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Hi, I am well. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to chat with you about sleep today.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, I'm so thankful and appreciative.
You know, I haven't had a chance to talk to a sleep expert yet on the podcast, but it is something that I'm very interested in. And when I went looking for somebody, I did not expect to find the FBI's in house sleep expert.
Which is awesome and cool, but also begs the question, like, why does the FBI have an in house sleep expert?
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, you're not the first person to ask me this. So just to back up, I am a psychologist. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and a prescribing psychologist. So when the bureau hired me, they were hiring a psychologist. So that's what my actual title is. I don't have any really cool title like my pay stubs don't say sleep guru. That would be super cool. Kind of wish they did. They don't.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Are you an agent? Do you have like credentials and do you have like a, like a cool thing in your wallet and stuff?
[00:02:54] Speaker A: So I'm not an agent, I'm a professional staff, so I'm not weapons bearing. But we do have credentials, so yes, very cool.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Well, we'll be sure and check your credentials next time we do a sleep study.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Yeah, right. I could get into so much trouble for that. Also, just an FYI, I am here speaking. These are my own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, behaviors. And this podcast is not sponsored by the FBI.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Yes, I'm glad that we got that straight.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Yes. So the reason I got hired as one of the many mental health professionals that we have on staff, everybody has a different background and something interesting that they bring to the table. And so what happened was before I was full time with the FBI, I was at the Memphis VA Medical center. And I was.
When you are there and I was on my residency year, you have to do lots of rotations. You have to be really well rounded before they let you out into the world to go practice under your own license.
And that was what I was doing.
I had my heart set on two rotations when I matched at the VA and neither of them were asleep.
So what happens is all the interns and all the postdocs, we all have to go into one room and everyone has to walk out with rotations and everyone has to be relatively happy. There has to be some compromise. So I wish I could go back in time and just remember if I wanted the sleep rotation, if it was one that I compromised on, I can't remember. I don't think that I didn't want the sleep rotation, but I think that there, there were a lot of really cool, interesting options, but nonetheless, sleep. The sleep rotation was mine and I could not be more grateful. It was such an eye opening experience.
And I learned how to treat insomnia and nightmares and obstructive sleep apnea and just helping people become more adherent with their CPAP machines. So just tons and just general sleep information. Oh my gosh. And with that, when I became full time with the bureau, my supervisor had asked me, okay, so what's going to be your thing? And I said, well, I don't know, how about sleep? Because whenever it comes to stigma and mental health, even in my regular day to day life, I go to the grocery store and someone asks, oh, what do you do? And I say, a psychologist. People just walk away or they get real quiet, they clam up, they Ask if you're going to write a dissertation about them. No, I don't want to do that. I did one and it was traumatic.
I just figured being a psychologist within the bureau might be kind of challenging. And so I thought, well, why don't I do this sneaky foot in the door thing where I talk about sleep, I talk about the importance of sleep, I help you get better sleep, and then eventually we'll probably get to those really deep underlying things. And that's exactly what happened. And excitingly, no one else is talking about sleep. So I have kind of just stepped into this role because there's such an interest and need for sleep education because it really can create a space in which you can step into your best self, cognitively, emotionally, physically. And I'm so grateful that people are interested and that they want to learn about it. And it's almost becoming a little bit trendy right now. So that's.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Well, it's.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: That's where it all started.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: We're talking about sleep, but it's definitely not a sleepy subject. It's not a boring subject.
In fact, you.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: I'm surprised I have people fall asleep on me all the time.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Well, you know, with the psychology dissertation interpretation, like, there's probably a higher likelihood of that. But you have a new book that just came out that you wrote, and it's called if Sleep Were a Drug. So you definitely don't have a sleepy title. And now I'm wondering, what if sleep Or a drug.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: What if Sleep were a drug? Yeah. So I. That a little funny story. That was not the original title. The original title was something else. And I had been advertising and talking about it. We had a whole cover art made. And then we realized somebody else had the title.
And so we were like, oh, we have to about face. And so it was. I remember that day and feeling so frustrated and so upset. And then I remember exactly where I was when I said, well, I was talking on my phone, talking on the phone to my editor. And I said, well, why don't we call it if Sleep Were a Drug?
And from there it was like zero to 60. I was like, I love this title. The COVID art is going to have like a pill bottle on it. And the back cover almost looks a little bit like a prescription script. But the ironic thing is that there's no prescription required.
So the reason why I titled it if Sleep or a Drug was because. And I have like, a very fun ad that I put together. This was the very last thing I put together before it went out to print.
And the ad is all about.
We have this new invention. It's better than any other supplement on the market. And it's going to be amazing for your heart. It's going to help you look more attractive. It is going to get rid of that brain fog for you. You. It is going to help you perform at your peak performance. I mean, it is a whole page long. And I talk about, you know, the cost is astonishingly low.
It's reliable. You don't need a doctor's note. There's no risk of dependency.
Get yours tonight. And it's basically like this funny, like, infomercial that I put together.
And, you know, if we could bottle sleep, could you imagine big pharma getting their hands on it? We couldn't afford it.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah, the insurance would pay for it, but we'd have to pay really bad, really big to the insurance.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: But then.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's why, I mean, that's maybe why sleep has not had all of the attention that it deserves. Because you can't sell it, you can't bottle it, you can't sell it. So nobody's going to make a profit off it.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Oh, well, very true.
And with it, everybody wants a quick fix.
And that is the society that we live in, Right? Like, I can order something now and a drone is going to drop it off in 30 minutes. Like, it is this culture in this society that we live in today where we could get groceries dropped off, we could find a date very quickly. You know, we could call an Uber or a Lyft, and it is. Well. And especially whenever you're not sleeping well and you're consistently not sleeping well, that's the thing that you are so desperate for is sleep and wishing that it could be a pill. And unfortunately, there is no magic pill. But I wrote a really long, comprehensive book on all the different things that you can do to get better sleep.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Good. Well, let's talk about some of that stuff. But first off, why is sleep so important? I mean, what starts to happen to us if we're not getting the sleep that we need? Because it even starts to happen really quickly. Right?
[00:09:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So I remember back very first, when I started the bureau, so about six years ago full time, that my supervisor had been talking about the three pillars of health, and she had talked about exercise, nutrition and sleep. Well, as I fast forward all these years later and the amount of time and effort, blood, sweat, tears that I put into this book and research that sleep, I don't think is a pillar of health. I think it's the foundation for which you put everything else on. I really, truly do. And so when you're not sleeping well, literally everything goes off the rails. I talk about how sleep is kind of this vicious circle if you're not sleeping well with a lot of different things. So if you're not sleeping well, your mental health is not going to be as good as it possibly can. Because when we sleep, that's kind of the emotional recalibration that we need if you aren't sleeping well. And this is like one of my favorites, so indulge me for a moment.
When we sleep, this is the one that I love to throw out. Whenever I can tell that the audience doesn't really care that much about sleep, is that something incredible happens. The brain shrinks up, and then we have cerebral spinal fluid coming up and giving our brain. I used to call it a brainwash. I don't call it that anymore. I call it a little brain car wash. And it comes through and it just kind of washes away all the gunk and the junk and the misfolded proteins and all the things that are gumming up the works, and it washes it away as waste. That should be happening every night.
If it's not happening every night, we're going to start to have problems. So everyone listening here probably has some type of waste management system where they put their trash out on the curb or something, and those people come and they take it away, and you don't think twice about it. But if they didn't show up, you're going to still continue to make garbage, and you're still going to have to put it somewhere. And if it continues to pile up, well, you're probably going to have issues with smell, with rodents, with health problems. There's a lot of different issues.
So imagine that kind of shrinking down and being in your brain if you're not allowing that waste management system to come and clear out all that debris. And so here's what the real kicker is, is that those things that are gumming up the works in the brain are often things. And I will ask my audience, you know, have you ever heard of the words beta amyloid or tau proteins or plaques or tangles, and then people's eyes start to get a little bit wide and that. Yeah, okay, so what are these terms often associated with? Well, they're often associated with neurodegenerative disorders, like the umbrella term of dementia or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. And so that's the one that I love to bring Out. Because it's just if you.
I think everyone can. I'm sorry, go ahead.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: It's nasty thinking about what is just gunking up and like literally piling up inside your brain.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And whether you've experienced it in your life or whether you've just seen it on tv, you can imagine how devastating it is to yourself, to your family, to your life, what it's like to have one of those neurodegenerative disorders. And I'm not saying one causes the other, because there's a lot of different dynamic factors that come into play, like lifestyle, health, genetics, all kinds of different things. But if this is one thing that you have a tiny bit of control over, you better believe that I'm going to be prioritizing sleep, because the alternative is very scary.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well. And I think I hear a lot of times people who are older saying, oh, I don't need that much sleep. I only sleep two, three hours a night. I'm fine. Is that really true? Do old people not need sleep?
[00:13:27] Speaker A: Excellent question. That's a myth. Whenever it comes to older people, and we're talking, let's just say like 65 and above, because the.
Our sleep needs change dynamically through our lifestyle or through our lifespan. Excuse me. So think about a newborn. Yeah, they're sleeping most of the time. Then toddlers, then we get into school age, then teenagers.
Our sleep needs shift and change based on what the brain needs, what the body needs, the time for growth, the time for learning and absorption. But when we get into the age category of between like 18 to 64 years of age, that is where we need 7 to 9 hours of sleep.
Now, when we get past that age category into the older adult category, there are going to be some tables that show or some graphs that show older folks needing less sleep.
It's not that they need less sleep. It's that it's much harder to get that needed sleep, whether it is because of maybe chronic pain, whether medical conditions, whether side effects from medications, because oftentimes when we get into that age category, we're taking much more than we normally would. Also having a weakened bladder, where it's much harder to not go to the bathroom throughout the entire night. So there's a lot more factors working against older folks. So it's not that they don't need it, it's definitely that they needed and more so maybe even than our middle adult population, but it's that much harder to get. But I would also say that if you are observing those folks who say, oh, well, I only need two to three hours per night. And you watch them all day long. Well, they're probably falling asleep in front of the television. You know, they're napping, they're just drifting off. And so they may say that, but what their body is actually doing is a completely different story.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
Well, and another group of people, another population of people who have trouble sleeping are, you know, a big sort of audience of yours, which is first responders and just generally people who have, let's say, really stressful or sort of built in trauma to their professions.
And why is it that it's more difficult to get good, high quality sleep for people with experiences like that?
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And the reason why I wrote so anybody can pick up this book and benefit from it, but you will see that it says the first responder edition on it.
And that is because that's who I've spent my entire career with. And all the examples that I give are for first responders. However, anyone can benefit. And again, just like what you mentioned, there will be people out there in civilian life that do have very stressful jobs or maybe in their personal life, they're exposed to very traumatic things. So I think that everybody can.
Everybody sleeps, everybody goes through light sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep, so everyone can benefit from this book. So don't get scared off if you see, oh, first responder edition, what the heck.
But whenever people are experiencing trauma, and the reason why I specifically wrote for first responders is that they do have some unique things. Whenever it comes to being called out to a scene, you may have no idea what it is that you're walking into, or maybe you might have a little bit of information, but what you walk into can be incredibly traumatic. And then maybe that's just the very beginning of your shift, you're going to have to call. You're going to have call out after call out after call out, and you have no idea what else is waiting for you on the other side. And I think that there's just such a high potential for vicarious trauma and for that to be very cumulative. And so when we're thinking about that, oftentimes it's going to be challenging to wind down or to get your mind off of some of these maybe very graphic, upsetting things that you've seen during the day. So I think that that creates an element of having a hard time falling asleep. Sometimes people don't have an issue falling asleep, but maybe it's waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back Asleep. And oftentimes our mind likes to loop and could also potentially be revisiting things that we have seen that are traumatic. Also, we see a great likelihood of nightmares. And nightmares are. The brain is trying to process what has happened to us during the daytime. Because during REM sleep we should be kind of emotionally recalibrating is what should be happening. And in our normal, average healthy sleeper, the levels of noradrenaline, so our stress hormone for the brain should be virtually at zero. And so during that time, the brain acts as this very skilled mental health professional. It brings up things that you need to work on that are traumatic or painful or upsetting or stressful. And essentially what it's doing at night is it should be removing the sting of that painful event. Not that it's removing the event, not that it's removing the memory. We don't have that ability to do that. But it's allowing you to wake up and continue to move forward with this part of your narrative and part of your life story. But maybe it's a little bit easier, maybe it's a little bit less heavy. And so that's what should be happening at night. However, if we aren't sleeping well or if we're trying to use different coping mechanisms such as alcohol, and that's a huge thing within the first responder population, that our sleep is going to be very poor, dare I even call it sleep. It's much more of a light form of sedation, if you will.
And alcohol. Alcohol, interestingly enough, is one of the most powerful suppressors of REM sleep. So that time when you should be emotionally recalibrating and kind of getting yourself raring and ready to go for the next day emotionally to be able to work with individuals or victims or kind of give that empathy and compassion that's being cut out, it's being suppressed by rem, by alcohol. Excuse me.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: So what should people do in order to get good sleep? You mentioned already two sort of essential troubles, which is the first being falling asleep and the second is staying asleep through the night.
So what are some really sort of fundamental things that people should be doing in order to do those two things?
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Well, first and foremost, I'll just say this about myself, that I am so incredibly grateful that my specialties are trauma and sleep. So when people come to work with me individually, I'm helping them work through the trauma, the stress, the anxiety, the depression, whatever. And then I'm also working with them on their sleep and how to get better sleep. So I would say first and foremost, we are not that scary when it comes to mental health professionals. So consider coming and talking to us. But nonetheless, there are times when you will just have crappy sleep. Maybe it's one night, maybe it's a couple nights in a row and that is normal. But if you're starting to see a pattern, and if we truly want to get into the diagnostic criteria, it is three nights a week of having trouble, whether it's falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up unrefreshed, waking up earlier than your alarm.
So three nights a week for at least three months, that's actually how we can get to the diagnosis of insomnia. So I just want to throw that out there. But whenever it comes to not being able to fall asleep, I think that we do a lot of things to get in our own way.
So first and foremost, the brain is so incredible. And it's the most deluxe, complex device in the entire world. It is incredible.
Sometimes it's also kind of dumb.
When you are in your bed and you are, you laugh, but this is so true. You know, I've talked to so many people about sleep and their sleep habits over the years. And so people will tell me, oh, I just love hanging out in my bed, you know, when I get home from work, like that's just what I do. And I'm like, so, you know, tell me, what does it look like when you're hanging out in your bed until bedtime? Like those hours, oh, I'm playing games, I'm watching tv, I'm paying bills, I'm talking to my partner, I'm reading a book, I'm praying, you name it, I'm telling you what people, people tell me all kinds of things. Well, imagine how confusing that is for the brain. If the brain gets into bed and it's like, wow, this multipurpose space. There's so many cool things that I could be doing here. I could be reading, I could be surfing the Internet, I could be shopping on Amazon, I could be doing this, I could be doing that.
Well, all those activities are going to be more enticing than sleep because while sleep has incredible, incredible benefits. I wrote a whole damn book about cannot compete with dopamine producing activities. So watching a TV show that you're really invested in, playing on social media, playing games, all those things are going to release dopamine. And dopamine is this neurotransmitter that is going to be exciting and pleasurable and rewarding and get us to keep coming back for more. That's why Games and social media and all those platforms are designed the way they are to release dopamine and to keep you coming back. And then you're like, well, how did it get to be 2am again?
So sleep just has a very hard time competing. So what I recommend for folks is to take everything out of the bedroom except for the three S's, which are sleep, sleep, sex and sickness. Those are the three things that we recommend doing in bed so that eventually the brain will learn that when I get into bed, I only have a couple options. And one of them is sleep.
So that's one of the things that I recommend.
Another thing. So one of the other things that I often hear people talk about is like, I can't fall asleep. Like, right when I lay my head down on the pillow, like, my mind just starts running.
So what I recommend for people, and I love this recommendation, but you can't just do it once and then say, oh, Dr. Kaler's full of shit. I'm never doing this again. No, actually, you have to stick with these things. It's just like any other habit. You have to stick with it. And so what I like to call it worry time. And with worry time, I Recommend Doing this 3 to 4 hours before bed. And I recommend doing this somewhere that is not your bedroom. We do not want to bring worries into the bedroom intentionally. So go to your living room, go to your kitchen, go somewhere else to do worry time.
What you need is two pieces of paper, a pencil and a timer. I recommend paper just because there's something very uniquely therapeutic about writing versus typing or like texting with your thumbs. Now, I don't Recommend More than 10 minutes. 5 minutes is good.
Just a small amount of time. We're going to set a timer, and at the top of one page we're going to write things I can control.
On the other piece of paper, we're going to write things I cannot control.
And then we're going to start the timer. We're just going to do a brain dump. This is not the time for perfect punctuation or grammar or anything like that. We're just going to word vomit onto the page all the things that we need to do. And you know, it's like, oh, I needed to call the vet. I didn't sign that permission slip. Crap, I forgot to call that person that I needed to call. I promised them that all those different things that you need to do because the brain is very good at remembering things that we have not finished. It does not like open ends. It does not like open, unfinished tasks.
So what we're doing is we are acknowledging to the brain, hey, I heard you. I see you. I am writing this down, and I am. I'm giving it a parking spot, if you will. And I like to give a similar analogy. So when I say, for example, I run out of peanut butter, well, peanut butter tends to bother me in the most inopportune times when I'm in the shower. Clearly, I don't have my grocery list in there with me when I am driving. Same thing when I'm in the middle of doing a podcast or presentation. I can't just. Hey, can you pause for a second? I'm going to go right on my grocery list. But you better believe when I write peanut butter down on my grocery list that I remember and that my brain kind of relaxes a little bit because it knows when we go to the store, we are going to take our shopping list, and. And we're not going to walk out of there without that peanut butter. So that's what I like to equate the things I can control Paige with now, the things that I cannot control. That's going to be things like, oh, my gosh, we have a picnic on Saturday. What is the weather going to be like? Is it going to be ruined? What are we going to do?
You can think about the weather all day long. You ain't going to change it. So we're putting all the things that we cannot control on that other piece of paper. Now, when our timer goes off, we are done.
The paper with all the things that we can control, that acts as a to do list. So we are going to put that in our work bag for tomorrow. We're going to put it, if we work from home, on our desk so we know these things are not going to slip through the cracks. And we also don't need to keep thinking about them. They are here, and they will be addressed with the other page. All the things that we cannot control.
What I recommend for folks is rip it up, burn it, shred it, tear it, do whatever you need to do to get rid of it, because we are acknowledging to the brain, I see you. I heard you. There's nothing that we can do about this. And symbolically, we are kind of letting it go with that act of ripping, tearing, shredding, trashing. So that is what I recommend for worry time and again, As I mentioned, don't do it in your bedroom and do it a few hours before bed, because it could potentially be activating just depending upon what's looping around in your mind.
And this is going to be an activity that I recommend that you. Again, it's not a big time investment, but this will be something that, if you incorporate this into your evening routine, it can be something that your brain learns to, okay, this is our set time for worrying, not when our head is on the pillow.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: That's great. I haven't heard that sort of written out that way before, but that makes perfect sense.
And I love the fact that you do it in a different room and I love the fact that you are deliberate about recommending people do it analog and not digital.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: Because there's part of the sort of wind down time before sleep. Right. Has to do with kind of getting away from these screens and electronics and that kind of stuff. Is there some truth to that?
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Oh, 100% yes. So for the longest time blue light has got a bad rap. And it, it still does, but that's not the whole story. So blue light, just to give a little science behind it. The reason why blue light is detrimental is that going back to our caveman ancestors, they knew when it was time to be awake when the sun went up. They knew when it was time to go to sleep, when the sun went down. And so that is our, that is how our circadian rhythm is entrained is the light and dark cycles.
So naturally that is how our body rhythms go. However, now we have lights where you could have electricity anytime you want it. You don't have to be tied to this natural light dark cycle of the sun and the moon.
So with blue light, the reason why it is detrimental is that blue light is the same wavelength as sunlight.
So if you are trying to wind down for bed and you're trying to get into a sleepy state, but you have your phone on and it's right in front of your eyes, your brain thinks, ah, it's sunny, it's sunny out. Stop that melatonin, we don't need that right now. It's time to be awake.
So that's why part of the reason why blue light is not recommended close to bedtime. The other part of the reason is how are you engaging with that blue light? Because it's probably a TV screen which given is much further away. Hopefully it's across the room from you. Maybe it's a laptop screen closer, maybe it's an iPad, maybe it's a phone very close to you. It depends on the brightness. You know you want to turn that down as much as you possibly can. And I know that there are various different filters and whatnot. The best possible thing you can do is just cutting out screens before bed. But I know that for some people that's just going to be unrealistic. But the other part of the story that I was alluding to is, well, how are you engaging with it? And we've talked about this already of the dopamine and you want to keep scrolling. You want to see that next funny cat video. It's very exciting. And it's hard to disconnect from that.
It so easily overrides your natural sleepiness signals that you just keep going, you keep scrolling. So that is like both sides of the story of why blue light and screens before bed are generally not recommended.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: I mean, maybe something more boring, like an actual book, you know, on paper.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Who else loves the smell of an actual book? Raise your hand.
Mine is raised.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it does have.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Forget about those.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: It's a very different tactile experience, you know, because you're holding it in your hand, you're flipping the pages, you know, sometimes it's heavy, sometimes it's not.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I think that, you know, everyone is going to have different interests when it comes to a wind down routine, but reading, we know can lower cortisol very, very quickly. I think the research says even just six minutes of reading can lower your cortisol drastically compared to some other activities that it was compared to. So it really, it doesn't take long. And yeah, I would recommend reading something that's going to be gentle, maybe not necessarily like a murder mystery right before bed, but you know yourself best.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Yeah, you mean not a story about the FBI's Cracker Jack sleep expert.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: You can totally read that.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: You should read that book. You should. You can totally read that book.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: And if I put you to sleep, I will also take that as a win.
[00:31:07] Speaker B: Yeah, nice.
So we, I think we've talked a lot about going to sleep, but what about staying asleep? Because, you know, those are different things. And you know, there's also, it comes to mind that there's biological reasons that we wake up and there's also sort of, you know, mental, emotional kinds of reasons. And on this podcast, I'm really interested all the time in how mind, body and spirit sort of collide and interconnect.
So, you know, what about strategies to stay asleep and sleep through the night?
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. And it's fundamentally different than not being able to fall asleep. So the recommendations that I made about kind of having a wind down routine and doing that not Having screens, having the worry time, those are all still things that I definitely recommend. But when you're awake in the middle of the night, we create a problem.
Because a lot of times people don't know any better, but they will be awake in the middle of the night and they're tossing and they're turning and they're looking at the clock and they're doing all this mental math of I have two more hours until this alarm clock goes off. If I could just fall asleep.
And it's very frustrating and anxiety inducing. And when we talked about earlier, the three S's, we can also just create bad habits. So if you're someone who is in the habit of being awake in the middle of the night and you just continue to lay there and you toss and you turn and you get upset about it, you are then creating a new association between the bed and, oh, I guess in the middle of the night, this is what we do. We wake up and we think about things and we get frustrated and we get upset to break that association too. And the way that we do this is if you know in the next 15 to 20 minutes that you are not going to be able to fall asleep. What I recommend is get up, get out of bed. If you have the luxury of being able to do so, go to another room, keep the lights in that room dim and do something boring.
Flipping through a magazine, gently folding laundry, reading the manual for a household appliance.
Boring.
Until you feel sleepy. Because I will have people kind of sort of do this activity, but then they go watch TV or they go scroll. And that's not the point of this activity. The point is we're getting out of bed. So we're breaking that association between laying there and tossing and turning and getting upset. And we are teaching the brain how to become sleepy again by doing very low stimulating activity. And then we're learning that we only go back to bed when we feel sleepy and we are about to fall asleep. And over time, as we continue to do this, because consistency is key, right? Like, you can do this activity once or twice, but it's kind of annoying. And like, my bed is so comfy, cozy and warm that, like, I really just don't feel like it. It's not going to improve. You have to make changes and you have to stay consistent with it. Just like anything else. If you are building a muscle, if you're training for a marathon, that's. That's what you have to do. And I know that it may be annoying, but that is my Best recommendation. But you had mentioned something earlier and I want to circle back to it.
Mind, body, spirit. One of the. So I don't. We talked about the three S's, but I will make a tiny exception. One of the very last things that I recommend that you do before you turn your lights off is to do a gratitude practice. This does not have to be long. There's a lot of research out there to show how beneficial this is. And here's why. Again, going back to our caveman ancestors, our caveman ancestor couldn't just go and enjoy a sunset because they might potentially be eaten by, I don't know, a dinosaur or saber toothed tiger or something. But instead, they're constantly scanning their surroundings, looking for anything dangerous. And those ones who were constantly looking for danger, for threats, for negativity, those were the ones who continue to live and pass on their genes. And those are the genes that we eventually have. So we are continuously wired for the negative. We are always looking for something wrong. What's the catch?
And when we sit down to do a gratitude practice, and it doesn't have to be big, like I said, the magic number is three. If you can do a little bit more than three, three to five. Fantastic. It should be different every day. It should not always be family, dog, house.
Pick different things every day, but really feel into them. So I'm so glad that I got a chance to talk to my friend on the phone today. She really put my mind at ease. I feel so much better and I'm so grateful to have her in my life. So simple and simple, basic. I'm so grateful for that delicious meal and that it was so enjoyable and that I could sit down with a family member and have that time together. Just little simple things. And so the reason why this is important and important to do right before bed is that because we are wired for the negative doing this gratitude practice. Short, sweet. But we are purposely shifting towards the positive so that we are getting away from what we're already ingrained to do. And then hopefully this will set us up for a little bit more of a peaceful night's rest because we are ending the day on a gratitude practice. A positive.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: No, that's great.
The power of gratitude, I think, is really profound.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: I often think of gratitude right next to forgiveness.
And that forgiveness also is sort of a neighbor of gratefulness in terms of getting us into, you know, that positive mindset.
And that's where the body is more.
Well, the mind is more at peace and the body is more in sort of a healing kind of state.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: So.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's terrific.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah.
Short, sweet. I love it. I think that it's awesome. I've been doing it for years, and it. I think just as a.
I think that it helps me take things more into perspective just every day now, because that is something that I have been doing for years, and I think that it's just a really lovely thing that you can incorporate into your life, because we all have lots of things to be grateful for.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Yes.
You know, we've been talking a lot about the idea of correcting sleep troubles, but what about sort of getting ahead?
You know, is.
Is getting, like, really great sleep? Is that effective for the high achievers out there? And if so, sort of. What does that look like? How can you. How can you optimize your sleep in order to really supercharge your performance?
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah, great sleep absolutely is possible. And, you know, one of the things people. I've been on a lot of podcasts now, people are like, well, why does the FBI have a sleep expert? And again, like, I kind of stumbled into it. Like, that's just what I brought to the table. But to take kind of like a zoom out, there are so many sports teams that are waking up to, oh, my gosh, if we had a sleep psychologist on staff or someone that we could consult with, and we could. And there's so much research out there to show of how much better our three throws are or how much better our speed is, or our time or this or that. Like, all these really important metrics for whichever sport you're going to talk about improves and really improves whenever our sleep is on track. And so there's lots of different things that you can do to kind of hack that.
One of the very easy, free things that you can do is when you wake up in the morning, within the first hour, going outside, ideally, and getting natural sunlight into the eyes. So no sunglasses. We're looking towards the sun. We're not burning our retinas, but the sun is at a low angle. And the reason why this is useful is, again, caveman ancestors, we keep coming back to them. It is for this sun to come into our eyes, to go back to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, to go back to the pineal gland, and to say, we do not need any melatonin. Now it is time to be alert. Now it is time to be awake. Give me this little boost. And that's what the sun will do for us. But also, so it's helping just strengthen our circadian Rhythm. So later, hours and hours later, when we're ready to fall asleep, it's also going to help us feel sleepier at that time.
Now I would say my top recommendation and people don't like this. I think people don't like a lot of things that I have to say because it gives you boundaries, it gives you rules and the best possible thing that you can do is consistency. So waking up at the same time every day and going to sleep at the same time every day.
Now people oftentimes are like, woohoo, it's the weekend.
Yes, I'm going to sleep in. Well, let me give you a little analogy.
This is me at 6am Monday through Friday. I get up and I go to work. Well, it's Saturday and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to sleep in. So I decide I'm going to sleep in until 9am on Saturday. And then Sunday rolls around, I'm like, yep, it's still a weekend. Going to sleep in. 9:00am well, what do you think is going to happen on Monday?
The brain is kind of confused.
Yeah, the brain is like, oh, I guess this is what we're doing now. I guess we're doing that 9am thing.
So it's going to be a super rude awakening and make Monday that much more difficult when you are getting up at 6am to get up for work.
Now we call that social jet lag because it's very similar to essentially taking a flight from New York City to Los Angeles and then bringing that flight all the way back in time for work on Monday morning.
So it's that three hour time difference. And you know, it can be a time difference for however many hours, but it's really challenging for the body. It's very confusing. And when we continuously do that because a lot of people think, oh, I'm just going to sleep in, it'll be fine, I'm going to quote, catch up on sleep.
They don't realize how damaging it is. And then they wonder, well, why am I having a hard time sleeping at night?
Why is it such a struggle to wake up in the morning? I don't know. And so this is one of the many ways that we often don't realize that we're getting in our own way. So consistency is key, even on weekends, even on holidays, even on vacation, to stay consistent, especially if you're someone who struggles with sleep.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Well, you definitely have laid out for us a good roadmap. And it sounds like it comes down to having some structure and some discipline around your behavior and the physical environment and what you're doing and what you're taking in, whether it's food, drink or ideas and entertainment.
So all of that really kind of works together. So I can't wait to read the book.
What's the book again and where do we find it and how do we get in touch with you?
[00:42:09] Speaker A: You? Yes. So the book is called if Sleep Were a Drug and I'm the author. My name is Dr. Leah Kahler. You are going to be able to find it on my website, drleacaler.com you can also find it on Amazon. There's going, there is a paperback, there's an ebook and there's an audiobook. And then very soon we'll also have a companion workbook too that's going to come along with it, which is very exciting. And yep, those will be available basically wherever books are sold. But definitely Amazon and definitely my website. And then if you're interested, I am on social media Everywhere. I'm at Dr. Leah Kahler and yeah, come and connect with me. I'm very active on LinkedIn. So yeah, there's a lot more where this came from today.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Well, that's great. Thank you so much, Dr. Leah. And I'm sure that we will all sleep better knowing that you are out there doing it.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Looking for more, visit whatsworthwhile.net to listen to podcast episodes, learn from books and articles, and live better by choosing healthy products and practices. I'm now offering services through Worthwhile Advisors for personal coaching, professional advising, speaking and group facilitation. If you or your team are ready to reduce stress and anxiety, build vitality and momentum and accomplish your goals without burning out, then please contact me, Ramsey Zimmerman, through the website or on site social media like Instagram X or LinkedIn. Thanks.
