Why Can't I Sleep Through the Night?

In this episode, Lauren sits down with certified sleep coach Morgan Adams, who went from battling years of insomnia to helping other women finally get the deep, restorative rest they deserve. After her own health wake-up call with breast cancer, Morgan became obsessed with understanding what truly helps us sleep, especially during midlife when everything (including our hormones) feels like it’s working against us.

We talk about:

·      Why sleep isn’t just about hours, it’s about consistency and circadian rhythm

·      How morning sunlight might be the most underrated anti-aging tool there is

·      The truth about CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) and why it actually works

·      How to stop spiraling at 3 a.m. when you can’t fall back asleep

·      What midlife women get wrong about rest, and how to reset your mindset around it

https://www.morganadamswellness.com/

My Circadian App: https://mycircadianapp.com/ (Use code MORGAN for one free month)

OneSkin body lotion: https://go.shopmy.us/p-25028982

https://wellelephant.com/

https://wellelephant.com/ecookbook/

https://discover.wellelephant.com/ace-plant-based-eating-course-reg/

Follow us and reach out at:

Email: lauren@agelikeabadassmother.com

Facebook: @WellElephant

Instagram: @agelikeabadassmother 

https://www.youtube.com/@agelikeabadassmother

#MentalHealthJourney, #SoberCurious, #EmotionalWellness, #HealingFromWithin, #PersonalGrowthPath, #MindfulLiving, #SelfAwarenessWork, #MidlifeTransformation, #AgeLikeABadassMother, #MorganAdams, #Sleep, #WhyCan'tISleep, #Podcast, 

Transcript

0:00

Hey, friend, do you wake up at two in the morning and freak out because you know you'll never get back to sleep? Morgan Adams has the answer for you. I love this conversation because she's real, she's funny, and she gave excellent advice, which I have used successfully. Have you heard the latest? We've got merch that gives a wink and a nod to our gloriously feral childhoods. Go to page like a badass mother.com to check out our branded t shirts, water bottles, and totes that tell the world that you're aging like a badass mother. And also support the podcast. If you're looking to boost your health and lose weight by adding more plant based meals to your life after the show, head over to, well, elephant.com to download my free cookbook that I made with love for you. I've adapted some of your favorite foods like lasagna, sloppy joes, and cupcakes to make them plant based oil free. Guilt free and best of all, delicious. And if you're really ready to take charge of your health and even reverse disease, as I did, check out my ace plant based eating course while you're there. Thank you again for being part of this community. You truly mean the world to me. All right, let's find out how to get to sleep and stay asleep. Hi friend, are you looking to age healthfully, confidently and vibrantly? Then this podcast is for you. Smart, slightly salty, irreverent, and thought provoking. I'm Lauren Bernick and this is age. Like a badass mother. You can find double certified holistic sleep coach Morgan Adams guide awake again at 3 a.m. at Morgan Adams wellness.com. Please welcome my guest today, Morgan Adams. What? Hello, beautiful curly lady. Yes. Thank you. Lauren, it's so good to be with you, fellow curly hair sister of mine. Yes. Exactly. I love it. Do you wear your. I have seen you in some of your videos with straight hair, but you. You like to wear curly to usually curly. Every now and then I'll get a blowout just to shake things up. But it's just. I usually feel like curly is kind of my person, my persona. So I generally keep it that way. I kind of almost. I've straightened my hair too from time. I don't get a professional blowout. Maybe I need to do that. But, you know, I feel like, I'm not quite myself when my very straight. Do you feel that? Somewhat. I feel like I'm kind of like an imposter. Yeah. Like it's it's kind of weird, but I do like to, especially when I'm traveling. Straighten it if I'm going to be gone for a few days, because then I can just completely leave all of my tools at home for hair stuff and just, like, brush it or just come in and then I'm ready to go. So it's kind of a practicality thing sometimes when I get the straightening done. But yeah. I've done that too. But then sometimes, like then you get in weather like humidity or rain and then that's happened to me and then I'm like, well crap. Yeah. Planning thankfully yes I was yeah. Husband in New York City. And it was not supposed to rain and it started to rain. I'm like, we've got to get our butts into a store quickly because I spent, you know, $100 in this blowout. And I've only had for one day. So we're going to preserve it. Got to last. It was got to last. Kind of last baby. Well, You know, I just sleep comes up so much on this podcast because, you know, it's such a a foundation of health. And so I, I really wanted to have somebody on and I did some research, and you know, I, I like what you're putting out there in the world, but can you kind of share your story and how you came to this and what you used to do? I assume you haven't been asleep, coach, your whole life and just kind of kind of walk us into. It a little. Yeah. No, I have it. Yeah. This is a, this is, relatively new, but yeah, I'll kind of back you up and, share. I have had several careers over the years. I was a trained social worker for a while. Then I went into pharmaceutical sales, then whenever to health, healthcare, marketing and communications. But the reason why I got into coaching is I had insomnia about 20 years ago. I had a pretty bad case of that, what we call sleep onset insomnia is basically a fancy way of saying you have trouble falling asleep. I was going through a relationship struggle with a new partner, and that's really when the insomnia kicked in. And I, after about 2 or 3 months of that, just not being able to fall asleep, it started to really wear on me. I went to my primary care doctor and was given a prescription for Ambien, which is a very common sleeping pill that I'm sure many people are familiar with. Right. And I took the Ambien. It helped me. Get to sleep faster, which, you know, they advertise it to do. However, what I didn't know, and I came to find out was that there were multitudes of residual side effects the next day. Grogginess trouble. Trouble concentrating? I recall getting called out, called called out at work several times for not being able to produce my work quickly enough. At that point, I was sort of in a PR role at, health department, and I had to do press releases very lickety split, like, you know, in the moment, like you're going to write this or write it in like 30, 30 minutes and then you're done. And I remember just like freezing, like if it was something that I had to do with my brain before noon, it was a it was like kind of a crapshoot to see if I could actually pull it off. So. Did you do that? My, my friend took Ambien, and she said that she would wake up in the morning and see, like, a bag of candy next to her that she had just completely gone through that she had no recollection of. Oh, yeah. Did you do any sleep eating? Well, you know, I was aware I was cognizant of the eating. It was never like I just didn't remember, but it was like my defenses were down. And so I would, like, binge eat at night. Which, you know, binging on things like cookies and candy at night is not good for your sleep. It's not going to produce a very deep sleep. Right. So, you know, I went through this phase of insomnia for about eight years where I was taking the Ambien on this nightly, and then I was a started a new relationship with a guy who is currently my husband. And he said to me, Morgan, when you take those pills to sleep, you become like a zombie. And it kind of freaks me out. And I was just like, oh my gosh, I got called out, you know, like. And he was right. Like the pills were not serving me well. So I made the decision to stop taking the pills. And what I did is something that I don't recommend other people to do. If they're taking a sleeping pill or any kind of psychiatric med is you want to approach your prescribing provider with the intention of like, hey, how do I get off of this? You don't just take yourself off of it willy nilly. Fortunately for me, because I've got, you know, quite a bit of grit and determination. I got through it, on my own, and I was onto sleeping pills. I slept relatively well, you know. Okay. Sleeper for many years. And then there was a little plot twist that happened to all of us collectively in 2020, right when the pandemic started, my sleep started to get a little bit wonky. And I was very, very nervous about, like, insomnia really rearing its ugly head again. So I started to research, sleep and applied some of the things that I was learning on myself. I was able to get, you know, my sleep back on track, and I was so fascinated with with what I was doing and like, how is fixing my sleep that I started to share it organically on Facebook, just, you know, as you would like, if you saw a good movie like, hey, I'm doing this cool thing. And I found out at this point that a lot of other women in my circle were struggling with their sleep, too. And a couple years before this pandemic started, I had my first breast cancer diagnosis. That was 2018, and that did not have anything to do with my insomnia, by the way. They were not they were not related. But what? But surely you were stressed out about it. Yes. For sure. But basically the the breast cancer incidence of 2018 was like a real wake up call. As far as like being healthy on a very deep, profound level, not the surface area health. You know, at that point it was more like, eating low calorie foods. So that I can be slim, you know, whereas I had to really kind of reconfigure what was going to be the best course of, a deeper health trajectory. And I felt at this point that I wanted to kind of make a pivot, into, like, helping women get healthier. Fast forward. And but I didn't really know what that was going to be, so I'm just kind of, like, muddling on on that idea. Thought about should be a breast cancer coach. And then I kind of backed off of that, didn't really pursue that. And then, 2021 hit and I got my second breast breast cancer diagnosis. Oh my gosh, it's so scary. And yeah, it it was not a good time. But basically, you know in a nutshell what really propelled me to pursue sleep coaching was I knew that sleep was a foundational part of women's health, and I was so fascinated by it. I'd been able to kind of fix my own sleep. And so I decided to make it a business because I felt like there was a need, and I had a passion for the whole topic. And that's really how things came to be. You know, I went got several certifications. You know, you can't just have a sleep coach, hang up your shingle. You have to. Right? Do you have to put in the reps right to learn and to, you know, become proficient and and capable of helping people. But I have been doing this for over four years and I just love it. It's such a joy and an honor to be able to walk by women, you know, holding their hand virtually and helping them overcome insomnia and getting better sleep, which helps their overall well-being and outlook on life. Yeah. Well, can I ask first how your health is now? Yeah, and thank you for asking. My health is outstanding. It's I'm thriving. I'm doing I'm 55. I am as healthy as I've ever been. But I'm doing the work, you know, I'm getting my blood work done regularly. I'm obviously sleeping very well. I'm prioritizing that, eating well, moving every day, exercising every day. I'm just doing all the things to to keep my health, really robust. That's good. Yeah. Your breast cancer is. It's gone. Right? Yeah. Good. I did what I just to kind of tie the bow on that. I ended up having a double mastectomy in 2021, and I opted out of the reconstruction part because, I just felt like there were there were too many issues, risks with the with with breast implants because I previously had breast implants before in my 30s, and I believe they were unrelated to the breast cancer, but nonetheless they were in my body for 17 years and I wanted them removed. So I got them removed through a mastectomy. Unfortunately, that was not intended to get them removed, but that's how they ended up being removed. And I just thought, you know, I'm just going to minimize, you know, I'm going to put myself in a position where I'm really giving myself the best chance for optimal health. And that involves not having the implants. And that's no judgment on people who have implants. But that was just my personal choice at that point in time. Yeah, I thank you for sharing that because that's, you know, I, I just feel like the more women who share their stories and what they did, it just makes other women feel braver. And, you know, I mean, I think that that's beautiful, I love it. Thank you. Well, I hope to give I hope to give inspiration and hope to other women who are going through, you know, similar situations that they can be done and, and possibly how to do it. So yeah. I'm I'm an open book about this. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, let's, first of all, I mean, I feel like I know this on a surface level, but let's just start at the beginning. Like, what does a good night's sleep do for us? What's happening to our bodies when we sleep? Yeah. It's a it's a great question to get. It's a started at a fundamental level, we are replenishing our bodies and brains overnight. But we're, we're hitting the reset button every night when we go to bed. And what we're getting is this amazing brain cleansing. Tech, you know, process happening. So when we go into deep sleep, we have this thing called our lymphatic system, which is our basically our lymphatic system for our brain. And basically what's happening is, we're having these kind of toxins, wrung out of our brain. And that sounds a it's a very crude way of describing it, but we're giving our, our brains a chance to cleanse itself overnight. Get rid of the amyloid plaques, and keep us cognitively sound. You know, as we, as we age, it's also very important. Sleep is very important for metabolic health, for hormonal health. You know, regulating all of this important hormones, especially our hunger hormones, which can, can get way out of whack when we're sleep deprived. Sleep is also helping us with our memory and cognition and our mood regulation. I mean, there's literally nothing sleep does not touch, Lauren. I mean, it touches every freaking aspect of our lives. Yeah. So. Yeah. And that's and and you, you know, you can tell when you haven't had a good night's sleep. You wake up, you feel crappy brain foggy, like you were talking about your PR job, where you were. You were that was a little more drug induced, but still, you know, I mean, but even without that, you can still feel that way. Sure. Just, you know, What? Okay. So, I mean, this is a big question, but why are we not sleeping through the night? Why are we what is going on with all of us? Yeah, well, I think for women in midlife, there's, you know, kind of a few reasons why I'm thinking that we're not getting the sleep that we need. There's several other subtopics, but from a general perspective, there's kind of three main buckets that I'll share. Number one, it might be kind of an obvious answer, but it's hormones. You know, fluctuating and declining estrogen and progesterone. We need the estrogen to help regulate our core body temperature to keep our serotonin levels. Level, to, you know, help our circadian rhythm remain robust. We need that progesterone to kind of alleviate some of that anxiety. So those start to tank. And we can really experience a lot of sleep disturbances like hot flashes, nights, you know, night sweats. The second reason is women tend to be more prone to anxiety and depression in midlife. And those leave us more vulnerable to insomnia. And then, you know, the third main bucket is what I called like socio cultural reasons. And what I mean by that is take the average 45 year old woman, for example. She may have children at home. She's still raising. She may have parents who are aging and need her assistance with medical appointments and errands. And on top of all that, she's probably at the height of her career. Maybe she's a manager, maybe she's running her own business, she's an entrepreneur, and she is caught between, so many competing demands. You know, you've heard that that term, the sandwich generation. Yeah. You know, and that's kind of describing that, that midlife woman. So when you combine all of those factors, it's really like kind of the perfect storm for sleep issues to happen. And there's some other there's definitely other sub issues going on, but that those are sort of like the main three buckets that I'm kind of identifying as, like kind of the crux of midlife stress, sleep struggles. Yeah. So when we wake up in the middle of the night, are we not supposed to ruminate on everything we've ever done wrong in our life? Is that bad? So, you know, is that helpful? I will tell you, our brains are draining, right? Yeah. Why? You know why. That's. It's such a great, interesting thing that you brought up, because this is like, one of the most common complaints that my clients have is that that kind of just brain in the middle of the night, that starts to catastrophize. Yeah. And there's a reason there's a reason why that happens. Why? It's because when we wake up in the middle of the night, we're operating. Our brains are operating from the amygdala, which is that kind of fight or flight, our prefrontal cortex, that rational part of our brain. Even though we may be awake, that part of our brain is still a little bit offline. So we're largely operating from our irrational side of the brain, the non-rational part and that's why we tend to have those catastrophic thoughts. So, I mean, this has happened to me many times. Wake up in the middle of the night, start stewing about something really, you know, you know, just kind of weird. And and then the next morning, having breakfast, I'm reflecting on why I was thinking about that. And I was like, I really blew that out of proportion. Right. And there's when you start thinking, yeah, with a different part of your brain. Yeah. And there's a whole line of study now called Mind After Midnight, which points to the fact that even our thoughts have sort of a circadian pattern. And they show they've shown in this huge, body of work with mind after Midnight that suicide rates peak at this time of night. And why is that? Because people are feeling, irrational, desperate. And so they, you know, not to get morbid, but they decide to make a very fatal decision in that moment of, of chaos internally. So, when I'm, you know, working with clients who who have this issue, you know, I'm, I'm reminding them, like, your brain is lying to you. Your brain is wanting to create drama when there's really no drama. And, you know, you really kind of just need to remind yourself of that when you are in that moment. And it can be hard because you're not rational. So how do you rationalize with an irrational, irrational brain? You know, but that's really how our brains are working, unfortunately. Yeah. I mean, what? So what are we supposed to do when we I mean, I guess there's several things. There's probably, like trouble getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep and all that. But I guess we're talking about trouble staying asleep right now. So what should we do when we wake up and start catastrophizing? Yeah, there's a few different ways you could tackle this. So, and just just to preempt this, I have written a free guide called awake Again. It's three. Your guide to why you're waking up and what to do about it. And it goes kind of deep into this whole topic. But essentially what you could do if you wake up in the middle of the night is, first of all, one number one thing. A lot of people do this. Don't look at the clock like, oh, I recommend that people. And this sounds a little kind of out there, but I recommend that people not have a clock in their room and their bedroom wall. So and that includes a phone. Sure. Of course. And so really, you know, and this can be a little bit, you know, hard with a partner who's sharing the bedroom with you, who wants a clock, but do whatever you can in your power to you, turn the clock around, move it across the room. Because what ends up happening when we wake up in the middle of the night is we just have this instinct to want to check the time. And if you think about it, there's really no good that can ever come of that. Because such a good point. You're going to do the mental math.

If it's 3: 21:32

00 and you have to wake up at six, you're going to be like, oh no, I've only got three more hours of sleep. And then you start to get more, cognitively agitated. And that doesn't help you fall back asleep. So and I've actually had people tell me this, it's kind of amazing. They're like, once I stopped looking at the clock, this problem went away. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen for everybody, but it's a really good first step. If you are a clock watcher in the middle of the night. So we really we really don't want to create a situation where you are in your bed and you're stressed out. We want to make sure that your brain has an association with your bed. That is, you know, one, the bed being a pleasant place to be when a place to be that is just for sleep and intimacy. So there is something called CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. This is something that I use in my work. And there is a technique in CBT called stimulus control. It sounds so very clinical and called that essentially what this means is we want to we want to pair the bed with the idea of sleep and relaxation. So if you are awake at 3 a.m. and you're tossing and turning and you're stressing out, it's probably a good idea to consider getting out of bed because you're basically removing yourself from that place where you're stressed out, which is your bed, because again, you want to unpair that association. So what you can do is you can go into another room, you can relax and dim light, read a book, maybe listen to a podcast, do some crafts. You know, I had a client once write handwritten notes on stationery to her friends. Like, how how do I how nice is that? Right? So nice. That's a. Good use of time. It it really is. So you can just kind of you're basically you're you're using that time not to, like, make yourself be sleepy. You're just you're just passing the time until you become sleepy. And then once you feel those sleepiness cues hitting, then you just make your way back to bed. So it's a technique that is a very popular one. It can be effective, but not for everybody, not everyone is going to want to get out of their bed, especially in the winter when it's cold. Yeah. So another technique, using sort of a different line of thought called act acceptance and commitment therapy is, you know, accepting the fact that you're awake, not fighting the wakefulness and just saying, I'm awake. Nothing. I'm safe in my bed. Nothing bad is going to happen. And I can sit here. I can lie here and just reflect on some positive things that are going on. So you can think about doing some mental distraction activities. A couple that come to mind are what I call the mental walk. I didn't make this up, but it's kind of cool. It's the mental block. Basically what you're doing is you are, you are in your mind replaying step by step what's going to be happening in the walk that you're taking. So if you're used to taking your dog on a specific walk, you're literally conjuring up in your mind the imagery of like putting the leash on your dog, then you're like rounding the corner into, you know, that neighbor Smith's house. You know, you're seeing their car and you're just really replaying step by step what's going on in that walk. And it's sort of like a spin off of Counting Sheep, which doesn't work, by the way. But it's. Yeah, essentially you're just you're just mentally distracting yourself. You're giving your mind something to do. There's another little game called the cognitive Shuffle. And that is basically you pick a word. So pick Apple, for example, and you want to think of all the words that start with a. Once you've exhausted that list, you go on to P and so on and so forth. So those are just some ideas to kind of get your mind going in a direction of like, hey, there are things to do versus panicking, right? Because panic is panicking. Is it what you want to do? Well, you know. You don't want to, but you, you know, naturally just do it. I mean, yes, I have to say, I'm normally a pretty good sleeper, but a few years ago, when my mom was dying, I just would wake up and every night I would just start thinking of everything that I had to do for her. I mean, this was like, for a year and just all the like, am I making the right decision? Like there were every day was just so many decisions. And at night, like for two hours every night, I would just be going over those decisions, going, God, I know I'm doing the wrong thing, you know? And so that I, I think this would have been helpful just to have these distractions or even to know these few like I do. You never, ever. I never thought of getting out of bed where, you know. Yeah, well, that makes total sense. And really, if I were working with you at that time. Lauren. What? Here's what I would about actually asked you to do it with these. Do something called the constructive worry exercise. And that is basically you take out a sheet of paper, you draw a line down the center. You make two columns on the left hand side column is problems and concerns or worries. On the right hand side of the column is solutions. So because you were going through a phase in your life where you had lots of decisions to make, lots of things coming up every day, that would have been like the perfect exercise for you, because basically your brain dumping. So you're listing out x, y, z, problem. And then on the next column, the next step to solving that problem. So that would have been like the primo, you know, exercise for. And so, you know, for your for your listeners, if they're going through something similar to you, which I'm guessing many are having to make these decisions about either their kids or their, their folks, a great exercise to, to, to do when they're faced with like a lot of moving parts and decisions to make. So the point of this exercise is to get all of these things out of your head onto paper so that when you wake up, you're less likely to think about them. And if you do think about them when you wake up, you can say, hey, Lauren, I've already, you know, dealt with these things. I'll resume these things tomorrow and my next little constructive worry, exercise session, because there's three and there's literally nothing I can do about these things at 3 a.m., like there's nothing I can do. So, like, we're going to put off, we're going to we're it's actually you're you're sanctioning yourself. Like you're giving yourself permission to worry because we're going to worry, but we're giving ourselves guidance to worry and a more appropriate time. Yeah. That would have been helpful. And I guess like and then the next day you can look at it and I wonder your maybe your solutions aren't that great because what you were talking about working from your amygdala at that time, your fight or flight mode, maybe, maybe you're not having the best solutions, but at least you're getting it out there. And then maybe the next day you could see if that was. A good solution. Well, you know, I should back up. I didn't give the instructions very well. So this exercise, you would actually do it a few hours before bed. Oh yeah. Oh okay. I did. That was something you did when you got up in the middle. Of the night. I should say this was before bed. Yeah. I should have been more thorough in my instructions, but. Okay. Yeah. The exercise is best done before bed, so I usually recommend my clients do it before or after dinner around, you know, a few hours before because you're giving yourself a little space because you're exactly right. If you did this, you know, in the middle of the night, your solutions might not be as rational. Right? But you brought that up. Yeah. Okay. Good. I'm glad I clarified that. Okay. So let's talk about what to do if you have trouble getting to sleep. Is it kind of the same thing or is there different solutions for that? You know, it can be. Very much the same thing. I wouldn't throw out like a bunch of different solutions for that problem because I think it's very similar to, what happens in the middle of the night, except your brain might not be quite as, irrational at that point. But here's here's what I would suggest, though, if you're having that problem. A lot of of about falling asleep. I think a lot of people do this, and I know my clients have, we talk about it a lot is I think one of the reasons why people are not falling asleep more quickly is because they're not actually getting into bed when they're sleeping. So they're they're actually getting into bed when they're fatigued. Their bodies and brains are kind of tired. So fatigue and tiredness are different than sleepiness. So when you're sleepy, you're perhaps your eyes might your eyeline. Eyelids might be kind of like closing your head might be bobbing back. You know, when you you know when you're watching TV and you're you kind of have this, like, jerked back, your head's bobbing. Your eyes are feeling very heavy. You may kind of lose, kind of the train. The. You may literally lose the plot of what you're reading or, or watching when you get to that point of sleepiness, that's like a really good time to actually get into bed. I think a lot of people make the mistake of like, well, you know, my, my partner goes to bed at nine and, you know, I like to go to bed, my partner. So I'm going to go to bed too. I'm not sleepy, but you know, whatever. Then what happens is like they're lying there for like an hour or so, waiting to get sleepy when they should just just have, you know, not gotten into bed until they were feeling those sleepiness cues. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. That's kind of when I get in bed is when I start doing that. Or I'll tell you what I actually do, I like I've admitted this before and I know it's like, okay, this is not what you should be doing, but I like to get in bed and watch it. Like, first of all, first I take a hot bath, then I read, this is all out, you know, bath tub, living room for reading. And then I get in bed and I watch, you know, late night TV, like, whatever, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, whatever. But if I start doing, like, where I'm nodding off or I shut the TV off and I just go to sleep, I try not to fall asleep with the TV on, but. Yeah, but I know you're not supposed to fall asleep with the TV on, but I like it. I'm sorry. Well, I'm, you know, it's okay, I think. I think there's a little nuance there. It's helping you fall asleep. I think the biggest thing. And this is where I've seen some clients kind of, you know, go in the wrong direction, is keeping the TV on all night. Sounds like the TV is going off like it's being shut off. Do you have a timer or. No, I mean, I could, but I just kind of try to do it when I, like you said, get those sleepy cues and I start closing my eyes and falling asleep. Yeah. So I think, like for people who want to watch TV in bed, to have a timer so that the TV will go off at a certain point because you really ideally don't want to have the TV on all night, right? Because of the light coming through. And then there's random noises that can create micro awakenings for you overnight. But I mean, there's nothing like it's not that bad to, like, fall asleep. I mean, I know there are a lot of people would be like, yes. Thank you. But like, I just I feel like there are these rules about screens and lights there. I feel like personally, there's a lot of nuance behind them, and we shouldn't be so black and white about like those things, you know, the, the screens. Because sometimes screens can be quite useful, you know, especially if somebody is, going through a hard time and they're really anxious about their sleep or other things in life. And perhaps, good old sitcom rerun of Friends or Seinfeld gives them the census sort of like comfort, you know, then. Wow. You know, that's a great use of a screen in my eyes. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I feel good. Well, I. Want to empower people. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to, like, knock, knock down all of their habits because, yeah, sometimes people will tell me exactly what you told me. They're like, I feel so guilty telling you this. I'm like, oh, you know. Yes. And if it if it's. Not a great thing that you're doing, we can. Find a workaround. We can find another way to do to have you enjoy the things you want to do with, just like a little less threat to your sleep. It's not that it's. Good to do, do we? What's what's your take on the eight hours? Do we all need eight hours sleep? No. Oh, what. We're doing out of sleep, coach. What's another one? That's another myth. I just is. You're my favorite for me. It it's it's hooey. Yeah. So, it's been this sort of like, thing that's been going on for a long time. People are saying you need eight hours. The reality is, not everyone needs eight hours. The recommendation with the sleep foundation is 7 to 9 hours for an adult. I've heard a lot. A lot of sleep. Physicians who are, you know, very well researched. I heard one the other day say seven is the new eight. And I was like, how do you know you're speaking? My lack of. It is the. New York speaking my language. We really don't want to go below seven on a regular basis. Okay, but here's the thing that's really important. We've been driving home this eight hours. Eight hours. The most important thing as of a couple of years ago is regularity and consistency of our sleep schedules. That's the most important thing, aside from, you know, the the duration, we do want to pay attention to duration up to that point of seven hours. They did a study back in 2023 where they tracked people for several, several days. They were trying to figure out, how the regularity of their sleep schedules was affecting mortality rates, disease rates. And they found that irregular sleep was linked to increased risk of these things, independent of sleep time. So so you're saying like, go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time? That's exactly what I'm saying. Yes. So what they found with the study was the top 20% of people had sleep times a week, times that were varied by about 60 minutes a day or less. The top, the bottom, the bottom 20%. They had variations of like three hours in their sleep timing. So it's so if you even if you got like, let's just say 6.5 hours of sleep consistently, you're probably going to be doing okay. So six and a half is kind of that like kind of people. Some people may need more than that. But yeah, I. I did. As a as a rule and I do too for sure. But as a rule I think seven is sort of like the, the minimum. But if you're getting if you're logging six, six and a half occasionally or, you know, it's not the end of the world, it's just like you don't want to have long stretches of time like that. So when I'm working with my clients, we are, quite often figuring out like, what's their sweet spot? A I've had clients come in. I mean, I can't tell you how many clients have come to me, and their goal is I want to sleep eight hours a night, and I'm like, no, that's like that's and what that what? That that's silly. Like literally what they have found out most of them. I mean, if that's what they if that's what they need, then we find that out and we honor that. Absolutely. But I've had clients who say they need an eight. But as we go through the process and they're increasing their quality and their regularity, they're like, wow, I'm feeling really, really good on 7.5 hours. Like, I don't know why I thought I'd, I needed 8 or 9 because they're it's their quality improved along with their consistency. So you know it's just it's it's really a myth. And I think that over time, probably in the next couple of years, they are going to probably start talking more in the public health space about the regularity with sleep. Being as important or, you know, being more important than the duration. Interesting. Okay, maybe I need to do a little better on that. I don't know that my I mean, I'm not as bad as I used to be, but, Okay, I'm going to try and work on that. That's going to be my. Are you finding this is what I'm finding with most people is and this let me just ask this of you. Are you finding that, your sleep timing in the on the weekday is very is varying from your sleep time on the weekends. Like, is that really kind of where things are? Definitely. Because that's that's what I'm finding with a lot of my clients and just people in general. Okay. No, not really, because, you know, I work at home and I'm very fortunate. Like, I can I mean, yeah, I might stay up later on the weekends if we go out, but, no, I don't think that's the problem. I think it's just when I'm getting tired. Yeah, I'm getting sleepy, but I'm trying to wake up more at the same time, so I am working on that. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that, because that's actually the most important thing, the getting up to the same time. So you typically you're going to want to try to get up within about a 30 minute window every day. Yeah. What happens when you have that very regular awake time is by default you become sleepy around the same time. So you've got this chemical in your brain called adenosine. And once you've woken up in the morning, it builds up, starts to build up over the day. And like 14 to 16 hours later, the adenosine is at its capacity. It needs to be released through sleep. So if you find if you're finding, you're waking up at around the same time every day, you're likely going to be sleeping around the same time, right? Each time. Yeah. I'm working on that. I mean, I used to be really bad because. I'm just I've really worked on this because, like, on the weekends, I don't even. I don't want to tell you this, but. I think, okay, I got this right. Yeah, I've got a story, too. I've got this. I mean, on the weekends I would regularly sleep like

a teenager till 10: 40:07

00 in the morning. And I was like, I have got to stop. This is stupid. And so now I concentrate on getting up like seven, 8:00 at the latest. But I'm trying to work at getting like up at seven, 730 in the morning. I feel like that's a reasonable grown up time. And yeah, well, I think, you know, you're not alone. Absolutely. I mean, you know, there was a point in my life where, I mean, I'm an early bird chronotype, so 10:00 would be pushing it for me, but, you know, I'd stay out really late and I'd get up at like,

9: 40:39

00 on the weekend, but I get up at six on the weekday. And basically what happens is when you have that differential, that three hour differential, you're creating a situation called social jetlag. And it's essentially like jet lag, but you haven't gone anywhere. So it creates this sort of circadian rhythm confusion. And that's why a lot of people, have a hard time getting to sleep on Sunday night and why people don't feel well on Monday morning. Right. That's personally, my theory on why people hate Mondays is because most of the population has social jet lag from the weekend. Right. And we're giving it to ourselves. So you know, but no, you, me, you're you're I mean, what you just shared is like commonplace. It's not okay that it's not an outlier situation. I like you, Morgan. You you make me feel bad about myself. Have you ever heard. This is, like, a weird thing that I read one time? I don't know if you've ever heard of this. Like, back in the farming days, I heard that, And who knows if this is even true? That, like, people went to sleep when the sun went down and then would wake up in the middle of the night and, like, visit with neighbors or do chores and then go back to sleep until the sun came up. Have you ever heard that? Yes, I have, there is there's there's been the historical, you know, instances like where they report that in literature and it's called biphasic sleep. Yes. And it's like a it's called our second sleep. Right. And yeah, I mean, I totally believe people did that. I don't see how it could be done. I find it to be a really strange scenario to, to do that. But yes, it was done for sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't I'm not suggesting we do that. I definitely don't want anybody knocking on my door in the middle of the night, but I'm just saying, like, I, I wonder if that's why we sometimes have the tendency to wake up in the middle of the night because it's like in our DNA. Yeah, it's an interesting, thought because there have been theories around that, that that we are wired to have those wake ups because we are our bodies are, I guess maybe programed to have that second sleep. So, yeah, there there is like, there are some theories out there as to why we're waking up and that whole second sleep concept. But it is it's a hard, it's a hard thing to pull off, like in our society today. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm not suggesting we die. I mean, it's just I think there are a lot of people who legitimately consider it, you know, they're like, well, they did that in the I've just seen several social media. I like. What I like to really do, honestly, is I like to look at posts about sleep on Instagram and then look at the comments. It's yes, because I'm thinking of this one post about that topic. And people were like, yeah, I mean, I'd like to do this, you know, or I'd like to try doing this. This is second sleep or, you know, it's just but like, I don't think it's going to really work for, for my lifestyle and like it's probably not. No. And also, don't you have to go to bed when the sun goes down, then I mean, I think that was part of it, right? Just because there was no net, no light. Yeah. And that's, that's one of the things that, you know, I talk about a lot is just, you know, following nature's rhythms as far as our sleep wake cycle. You've heard a lot of people say they're night owls, and there is a, there's chronotype or basically, you know, whether you're an early bird or a night owl. And there are a lot of people out there who are like claiming to be a night owl. But in reality, they have actually trained their bodies to become a night owl by having caffeine later in the day, having a lot of bright lights, a lot of stimulating things in the evening, lots of screens, things like that. And they're like living a lifestyle that promotes, kind of a night owl, lifestyle. But like, they've done studies. This is so fascinating where they took a bunch of people who were claimed self-proclaimed night owls, and they took them camping for, like, two weeks. Yes. And by the end of the period of two weeks, most people were going to bed and getting up within like 30 to 60 minutes of each other. So when they were put in a situation where they were only exposed to the natural light and the darkness, there were no screens. Then everything kind of regulated so that they kind of went that went to a more of a, I guess, quote, early bird ish kind of, you know, chronotype. So it's yeah, it's really fascinating. And, you know, if you're a night out, if you're if you're a true night owl, you are I mean, there are people like that who no matter what they do, and I know people like this, they kind of obey a lot of the sleep, sleep hygiene things about caffeine and light. Yeah, they still have a genetic predisposition to stay stay up late. And yeah, that's totally fine. We just have to kind of figure out a way to, help your, your chronotype fit into society because our society is wired for the early bird chronotype. Yeah, just think about the 9 to 5. You know, it's just, like, kind of ingrained in our culture. And I do feel. But I do feel bad quite often for the, the true night owls in terms of like, school work expectations can be pretty brutal. Yeah I know, okay. Well I want to move on, but is there anything that you think we need to know about sleep that we haven't talked about? Yeah. There's one really important thing that I think we should really focus on is one of the. Okay, so one of the most important things that we've shared here is the consistent wake up time. As far as like if you were to if you were to like right now, begin a journey toward better sleep. Two things consistent wake up time and then morning sunlight is a second thing. So critical. A lot of people miss this. And let me let me explain why this is so important. So I'll tell you kind of the sort of the protocol to doing the morning light is essentially getting outside as soon as you can after you wake up, not wearing your sunglasses. The reason why you don't want to cover your eyes is because when the light hits your retina, it sends a sends a signal to your suprachiasmatic nucleus to, do these different hormonal and neurotransmitter, firings. If you will. And it basically tells your brain like, hey, it's daytime, we're going to start doing daytime things. So that's why we always encourage no sunglasses in the morning. So it's essentially setting your circadian rhythm up, strengthening your circadian rhythm. If we were to stay in a dark room all the time and not go outside in the morning, we would eventually find our circadian rhythm drifting longer. So we just kind of extend our circadian rhythm longer. It is it sounds like so unsexy, so unsophisticated to say, go out and get the morning light, but it is like, damn, the most powerful thing. And when you start doing it, you want you want to keep doing it like you, you feel the benefits and you want to continue on. To, somebody mentioned this, Kathy is and she was on several episodes ago talking about nitric oxide. And she, she told me about this to go out and get up in the morning. And I actually, I've just been going in my backyard with bare feet, putting my feet in the ground and looking up at the sky. You know, not burning my retinas or anything, but just looking up in the morning. Do. Is that enough? I mean, I feel like it's been helpful. Or do I need to, like, then I walk my dog, but sometimes I put my sunglasses on. Do I need to like, do the how long do I need to do this? Yeah. So there's not like a specific time. It kind of depends on a lot of different factors, but safe to say probably ten minutes or so is going to be sufficient if you could, you know, try to like not use the sunglasses in the morning. It's better. Okay. So so again, another nuance topic. Sunglasses. Like if you're driving into work, and there's a lot of clear by all means on your sunglasses because we want to be safe, right? For first and foremost, if you're, like, really, really struggling, a lot of people just have a hard time at first without the sunglasses because our eyes aren't used to it. And, I mean, I have very light eyes, and I can attest to the fact that it's hard at first. But you can wean yourself off of them by just kind of going longer stretches of time without the sunglasses. I mean, I wear them, I wear sunglasses occasionally. Not in the morning, but like in the afternoon. If I'm, like, walking through a parking lot, there's just very there's no trees or no shade. I'm just like, wow, it's really bright. And I'll just pop on for a couple minutes and take them off. But yeah, I mean, I think, like, if you can, here's a tool that's actually really helpful. I think what could answer your question? There's a tool called my circadian app. We could even put it in the show notes. It's a free app that essentially shows you at what time the sun rises. And then right after sunrise, about an hour after, there's something called UVA rays. And that happens right before the UVB starts. But the UVA rays, which is depending on where you are and what time of year it is, it's usually like two ish hours like, but it shifts according to the season. Right now where I live, it's about two hours long and UVA that UVA light is, actually, in some circles, even more beneficial to us than the the sunrise light, because it's actually converting several different, amino acids to neurotransmitters. It's converting tryptophan and tyrosine to dopamine, epinephrine and serotonin. It's helping regulate our thyroid hormone and helping us with, appetite regulation. So it's like I that's the. UVA. One. That's the UVA one. I call it the internal pharmacy. It's like it's a great it's really great for mental health, especially. So my protocol that I use myself and I teach my clients, it's really just getting out for the sunrise for like ten minutes, then maybe going inside, maybe having breakfast. It's best to have breakfast around a little bit after sunrise before the UVA rise. I know that's very sounds very picky, but there's workarounds. I mean, you know, we we've got flexibility built in. But that's kind of like from a circadian standpoint, the best time to eat your breakfast. And then maybe pop outside for 15 minutes or so during the UVA rise. So a lot of times people are like, well, gosh, that's what I'm going to work. Well, what you can do is you can actually crack your window in your car, and that counts as natural light because the light bends. So maybe parked farther away or, if you're, you know, just finding creative, like it's almost like finding just creative ways to do these things. And but I always stress, though, don't make perfect be the enemy of good. Yeah. If you can't get out for ten minutes, don't say like, well, forget it. If I can't get out ten minutes, I won't get out. Or two minutes counts. Yeah. Every little minute counts. Yeah. So just do your best. So just do your. Best and find creative ways to get yourself out. Get yourself outside and exposed to the light it makes. I mean, it's it's I can't tell you how many people have just told me this one thing has been so impactful on their sleep and their mental health. I feel like it's really helped me. I mean, like I said, I'm a pretty good sleeper, but even I feel like it's been good about getting me to go to bed a little earlier and wake up a little earlier. So, just the short time I've been just trying to do that. So I think that's very good advice. Well, Morgan, do you have, you know, like you said, you're 55. You are doing something right. Do you have a best piece of advice for aging? Well? Oh, gosh. I would say, for aging. Well, gosh, that's a there's so many things we could talk about. But I think really just looking at aging as something that's not a negative thing and just listening to a podcast today, I forget what it was, always listening to podcast in my long time, but they were talking about how people who are in midlife, if they have a negative attitude about aging, it really impacts everything about their aging process. Like they have worse physical outcomes. The mental health outcomes. So I would say just like looking at it from a more positive standpoint. And I know that can be hard sometimes because there's like shitty stuff that happens to us as we age. Just we lose people that we love. You know, it's we may get more aches and pains, but like trying not to catastrophize those things and finding the joy and in the things that come to us as we age, the wisdom, the connections. That's what I would say. Yeah. So it's it's a yeah. It's a good place to put your focus. I think you're absolutely right. Do you have a favorite health or beauty product? Oh my goodness, I so many one that I'm thinking about now, there is a product. Now, disclosure I am an affiliate for this brand, so. Okay. But it's a brand called One Skin. And they have, they have face lotion, body lotion, eye cream. They have this, new peptide that was just developed called OS one. And, what's really the body lotion in particular is kind of neat because, it helps with that. Like loose skin you get around your arm. You know, that kind of. Like I'm familiar. They know it. But it's actually helped so much. So, that, I mean, God, I could do a whole podcast on fun beauty products and skincare. I love that. Maybe. Okay, maybe we need to have you back. I'm not a pro or anything, but I just love that stuff. But but yeah, that's like that's what's been on my mind lately is like, how much I love that body lotion for the winter and the kind of the creepy skin around the arms. That's awesome. Okay. Thank you. And then, a favorite concert you've ever been to? Well, I would say probably, like, one of the most memorable ones was that when I was like 13 and it was, it was this is wild. It was the Go-Go's. Oh, yeah. And access opened up for them. Yeah. So thrilling. I mean, it was like one of my first concerts. Not my first. My first was Lionel Richie. That was when I was 12. Oh my God. But I just saw him not too long. Oh, my. God, he's like this. So he's. And rocking. And rolling. Yeah he is. And also and he had just had a new book come out and we went to to listen to him talk about his book, but. Oh okay. Yeah. So did so in excess opened up for the Go-Go's. Who was better? Well, I was more of a Go-Go's fan at that point. I mean, I was there for the Go-Go's. I didn't I didn't know in excess, really then as much I mean, that they I think they had like one hit on MTV at that point, but an excess kind of came around like more like in my high school years. Yeah, a little bit louder. But it was thrilling because it was, at an amusement park. It's like 20 minutes away from my house. Where do you live? I live in Richmond, Virginia. Okay. And there's an amusement park about 20 miles away called King's Dominion. And I remember my friend's parents dropping us off, you know, and we were on an alone unchaperoned, which. Sure. I don't think. That's just how it was. But yeah, we were alone for though, and, you know, and then the parents were like, what? We're going to pick you up at nine. And we were there at nine to be picked up. Right. But it was like we were kind of like on our own. And it was kind of like fun to like, be out and like adults or were around, but like, we were seeing these bands that we just, you know, back then it's like you knew them from MTV, like, you know, their videos and just it was just a fun time. But that's probably like one of the most memorable concerts. But I've been to tons of concerts that I've just loved so much. Not as much now, because unfortunately, I do like to go to bed early as you might like, as you might gather. And so I'm missing out on some concerts, unfortunately. But, I just, I can't hang, like, admit to till midnight, like I used to. Just get married. You gotta hang with me. I'll show you how. Yeah. You know, I've never seen the Go-Go's, but I've seen in excess twice in one time. I think I've told this story before. I think I was about, well, I'm 57, so I'm a couple years older than you, so this may be around the same time. I think it was like 14 when I saw In Excess the they opened for Adam and we went to see Adam in, but they opened for Adam and then I was like, oh, I the reason I asked who was better, I was like, I don't know, I think I might be more of an in excess girl than a Adam girl at this point. So yeah, they they were awesome. They were they really were. So yeah. Yep. And it was a and the second time I saw them. So that was the same thing a friend's parents dropped us off, picked us up. We were like 14. Then when I saw them when I was 15, I shouldn't even tell this story. But, you know, it's fun. I worked in a telemarketing room. That's how I met my husband. He was the boss at the telemarketing room, and it was just like a telemarketing room of, like. Hello? Do you want the newspaper delivered to your house? And it's all teenagers. But there was, like, this 30 year old couple that lived in there, and they were like, I'm lived in there, worked there. And they're like, oh, hey, we'll we're going to go to that concert to will give you and your friend a ride. We'll hang out. And they were they gave us like pills. We were taking drugs from these grown ups. I'm like, man, my mother really did not have a handle on what was going on. All that stuff went down back then. I know that was done. Like. No, but that. Yeah. Yikes. I know, thank God they weren't like pills that, you know, I don't know. I don't know. We were a little buzzed. I don't even know what it was, to be perfectly honest with you. But it was fun. It was a fun time. And we got home safely. And I live to tell. And that's what it means to be a Gen Xer. That's right. We did all sorts of crazy stuff that we never condone now. But and that's why we're overprotective parents. Well, Morgan, thank you so much for coming on. That was such a fun conversation and very helpful. Thank you. So people can find you at Morgan Adams wellness.com and get your guide there, right? Yes. That's exactly okay. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks for listening, friend. From my heart to yours. Be well. Until we meet again.