EP 8 | Falling Asleep Doens't Have to be Hard: Tips for Getting a Restful Nights Sleep

Having difficulties falling asleep? We've all been there at some point. Here are some helpful tips, backed by neuroscience of course, to help you get a restful nights sleep. We are going over things that Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. David Spiegel suggest doing: like eating 2-3 hours before bedtime, dimming the lights, creating a routine, to learning about cortisol and GABA receptors when you are feeling the wired but tired feeling at night. 

Together we will explore things you can do to fall asleep quickly and stay asleep. 

Here is one episode with Dr. Huberman and Dr. Spiegel:

https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-david-spiegel-using-hypnosis-to-enhance-mental-and-physical-health-and-performance

Let me know what you think about the podcast - I'd love to hear your input!

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Transcript

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hey Cuties. What's up? Thank you for tuning into another episode of the Cue the New You podcast. I'm Merrit your host, and I hope everyone has been enjoying their summer thus far. We finally made it to the beach mainly because the girls are playing in a beach rugby tournament, so we've had a lot of evening practices at the beach, we stayed at the beach until 10:30 PM the other night, and it was so nice because it wasn't as crowded, but it still felt really warm outside. And our youngest was digging in the sand, making a sand sandcastle, and one of her friends sees her on the beach. And so we were hanging out with. More friends at night, so it was a good time. But the beaches in Europe are a little different than in the us. I mean, obviously, depending on where you go. But for our main beach and Valencia, they have playgrounds, restaurants, cabanas, lounge chairs, so many sand volleyball, courts, fountains, food vendors. And so many things are always going on at the beach. You have different teams practicing a lot of different sports. There's been juujitsu outside, there's been running teams outside. Our GAA football team has practiced on the beach a few times, and then you always see, groups of people dancing. On the beach and the other night was our first experience of San Juan where they had bonfires all along the beach. So a lot goes on at the beach. All right, moving on from the beach. I wonder how many times I can say that word. Let's start talking about how to create the best nighttime routine for optimal sleep. And last episode, we did the morning routine, so now we're gonna focus on the nighttime routine. Last week we talked about the morning routine with the advice from Dr. Andrew HuHuHuHuberman and we are going to use some of his tips again for the nighttime routine. So we will be breaking down the tips, what to do and why it works, and also look at some of the reasons why we aren't falling asleep. First, y'all know I love listening to Dr. HuHuHuHuberman podcast. Like the morning routine, he has a plethora of different episodes discussing the nighttime routine hormones, sleep patterns and sleep cycles. These are some of the things that he suggests for getting optimal sleep as part of your nighttime routine. So tip one, dim the lights at least two hours before bed. He suggests to use warm tones or amber lighting and avoid overhead lights. So think about maybe candles or turning on your lamps instead of having overhead lights on. And why this works, it helps trigger melatonin production. And it helps your mind. Gear up for sleep. It's a cue for sleep. Tip number two is avoid bright screens. Use either blue light blockers, like there's some blue light blocking glasses you can use if you need to work on the computer. Or it could work on TV or use the night mode. Maybe if you have a Kindle and you like to read on your Kindle before bed, turn it into night mode. And why this works is because blue light delays melatonin, which keeps the brain alert. Tip number three, cool your core body temperature. And this means you can take a warm bath or a shower, and he suggests to do this one to two hours before bed and to make sure the room you're sleeping in is at a cooler temperature. This works because cooling down signals to your body that it is prepared for sleep. So it puts you in sleep mode. Tip number four is no food two to three hours before bedtime, So what's to do for this? Try to avoid large. Meals late at night and really high carb meals late at night. Try to aim for more protein such as rice or sweet potatoes at night. And if your blood sugar crashes at night, try to eat more protein, eat more of a snack that is protein filled and with fat not eating a large meal or a high carb meal late at night helps prevent digestive disruption in blood sugar crashes, tip number, what number are we on? Five Limit dopamine stimulation inputs, meaning. Avoid social media right before bed or avoid watching an intense TV show. For me. A lot of times that's like true crime or documentaries. So if you like to watch TV at night, maybe opt for something light or funny and avoid heavy or intense conversations right before bed. And why this works because high dopamine equals increased alertness. And so if you have like an intense conversation right before bed, maybe you feel anxious and that leads to poor sleep and because your body hasn't calmed down yet. And so it's harder, at least for me to. I fall asleep quickly because I'm up replaying that conversation and I just don't, I just don't fall asleep that easily. Tip number six is find something that helps you wind down, and this could be journaling, stretching. Reading a lighthearted book, you can do some yoga or breath work, and this activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which then tells your body that you're calming down and it's ready and it's safe for you to rest. And then he also suggests. For, and this is an optional thing, is to take supplements at night that can help you, relax and help calm your nervous system naturally. But obviously speak to your doctor about this. But he suggests magnesium, fate. I don't know how to pronounce some of these. Magnesium glycine or l-theanine. I'm not sure if I said that last one correctly, but obviously speak to your doctor about this. So those are more of the traditional tips for creating a good nighttime routine. Now let's look at some non-traditional tips, especially for women who want to get a higher quality of sleep. For me and a few friends I know some of them feel the wired but tired feeling before bed. The wired but tired feeling is how it sounds. Your brain feels exhausted, but it won't shut off. And this is due to blood sugar levels, cortisol and emotional processing. Sometimes when I've had a busy week and I'm super tired, but my mind is still running. When I hit the pillow, I will be up for an extra hour trying to fall asleep, and then thinking about how much time I have to sleep, which makes me feel anxious because I'm not gonna get enough sleep and that doesn't help me fall asleep any faster. So how can we overcome this wired but tired feeling? Okay. Eating a balanced dinner with protein, healthy fat, and a little bit of carbs can help. And again, try to eat this two to three hours before your bedtime. And again, if you tend to have a blood sugar crash at night, try a small snack like yogurt or almond butter and banana. And see if that helps. Another tip comes from Dr. David Spiegel, who is a psychiatrist in a professor at Stanford, who has done extensive work involving stress and health, pain control, sleep hypnosis, and has integrated his work into psychotherapy for cancer patients. And he says, you can't control your stress, but you can control the physical reaction you have from it. End quote. And in a podcast he did with Dr. Huberman, he was talking about this. And basically what that means is you can control how your body response to stress, especially at night when you're going to sleep. And he mentions. To imagine yourself floating freely in a lake or a river. I would skip the ocean, especially if you're scared of sharks or something like that. So think of a serene lake or a river, and then you project whatever the stress is onto an imaginary screen. Therefore, you are looking at the stress, but not tensing your body up or having a physical reaction to the stress. And like Eckhart Toley says, you'd be the watcher of your mind and be the watcher of your thoughts. You can be the watcher of your stress if you look at it that way, but this helps with the mind body connection and calming your senses down in order to wind down to get proper sleep. A few years ago, I was actually so good at doing this, but I didn't realize that what I was actually doing. But I could fall asleep almost instantly when I hit the pillow because I was separating myself from everything. And I was looking at it from this kind of perspective. I just remember my sleep was so great back then and I need to start doing this again. So this is a nice reminder. Okay. Because when you get adequate sleep, you have more energy and your brain works better, and you feel better. You don't have brain fog or chronic fatigue when you get quality sleep for over a long period of time. Okay, so moving on. We have the sleep stress hormone triangle where poor sleep, higher levels of stress and hormonal imbalances affect your sleep cycle. Because they're so tightly interconnected, especially in adult women. So when one is off, the others are disrupted. Again, cortisol is a key factor in this because it is the primary source of the stress hormone. However, when your cortisol levels stay elevated, it interferes with your ability to fall asleep. Progesterone and estrogen play a role in this because the older we get as women, we can have a decline in our hormones, meaning a decline in progesterone, which helps your brain calm down because it acts as GABA receptors, which are basically neurotransmitters that impact your central nervous system. And there are ways you can increase your GABA receptors by meditation or doing yoga, eating a healthy diet, exercising, et cetera. If you are having more nights where you can't fall asleep, your body is telling you to slow down a little bit. Now again, life ebbs and flows. Sometimes you are in a busy season. And I know with the pace of today's society, that can feel impossible to do at times, but you also have to be aware and have to take care of yourself in your nervous system, or else you're gonna get so burnt out and it's, you're gonna have a hard time recovering or a longer time recovering. So figure out a way to carve out time for your nighttime routine in order to wind down. And a good way to do this is by practicing some somatic movements. And somatic movements are body-based techniques like gently shaking. I know in yoga with Adriene, we sometimes do, like, I get helicopter arms, I guess I forgot what she calls it, but basically you're standing straight up and you gently swing your arms where one arm. Is going in front and the other arm is going in the back and you lightly tap your front side and back side, you know, switching arms, so you're kind of twirling. so that could be something, or it could be, you could do some butterfly tapping, which is like tacking your shoulders lightly or massaging your vagus nerve. And doing these can promote awareness to your nervous system that you are safe to rest. I've been talking to a friend about this recently where they are becoming more active and they are having trouble falling asleep. And we've been sharing what has worked for me and what has worked for them and what they can tweak to get this under control. But when you are active and undereating. Or not eating enough carbs or eating almost like too light. You can cause your blood sugar to crash and you can start waking up during the night. And this has happened to me, and this has also happened to them, not in a, for me, it's not like I'm undereating, on purpose basically. So I have to be really careful and make sure that I'm eating. This has happened to my friends as well, where they have to eat something in order to fall back asleep even though they aren't necessarily hungry. So again, that's going back to maybe eating yogurt or the almond butter with a banana if you wake up during the night because of your blood sugar. And I've had blood sugar issues for the, the last few years, and a lot of doctors and people have told me that. I need to eat more. So again, I just have to make sure that I'm eating actual meals and incorporating like more rice and sweet potatoes into my diet, especially because I'm more plant-based. So a good rule of thumb is to include complex carbs, fats, and enough protein at dinnertime because this will help you stay asleep. And we don't want to fear food. We want to look at food as fuel for our bodies, and if you want to keep your blood sugar and hormones in check, you got to eat and you need to eat what's best for you and your body. Another thing that may be keeping you up is eating too much sugar at night. Drinking caffeine late in the day, or being on a screen or in bright lights before bedtime. Like how many of y'all scroll on your phone right before bed and then you stay up too late and then you're tired the next day, or you may wake up a few times at night because of this, the disruption you've gotten from the bright light from your phone. That's because you need to delay your dopamine intake. And I talked all about that in the morning routine episode we did last week. So if you haven't listened to that one, go check that out. And a good rule of thumb too, is to try and go to sleep and wake up at the same time. On the weekends, you may extend staying up an hour, maybe a little over an hour. More, but you don't want to fully disrupt your sleep patterns. Just like with a morning routine, you want to create a nighttime routine for yourself so your body understands that it is getting ready to calm down from the day. Routines are meant to be almost automatic, and you don't need a 20 step nighttime routine. But here are some more things you can include. To help you wind down, turn your phone off 60 to 90 minutes before bed and do something that you enjoy doing. Don't make it like a chore chart where you don't want to, where you get frustrated trying to check things off. So for example, you can light a candle in the bathroom, it's in the lights, and take a warm bath or shower. You can get into bed and drink some tea, read a book. Flip through a magazine you can cuddle with your dog, put on your most comfy pajamas. You can gua or rub lotion under your skin. You can recite affirmations or do a devotional, but do a few things each night until your brain and body recognize that this is what we do before going to sleep. Because I. I wish everyone can get quality sleep every night because sleep is one of the most important things for us. It helps our bodies recover our hormones recover, and we feel better if we sleep well and we sleep well consistently. Our brains and bodies are amazing and we should treat them with respect. So that is all I have for you today. Again, go check out some of Dr. Huber Man's podcast and let me know what you are going to incorporate into your nighttime routine. My favorite thing to do is definitely drinking tea, and after washing my face, I put olive oil on my face and opened my lymph nodes up. And I do some gu, I don't know if that's the word, but I gua at night and it just helps me relax so much. And I look forward to doing these things at night because I had built this into my routine. But as always, you can DM me with your answer of what you are going to add to your nighttime routine, or if you have any questions about anything, don't hesitate to shoot me a message on Instagram at Cue the new you or on TikTok at Rollins. All right, cuties, I'll talk to you next week. Okay. Bye.