72. How to Hack Your Sleep To Optimize Your Health, Happiness, And Energy With Sleep Guru, Mollie Eastman

Welcome to the That Healing Feeling podcast. I'm your host, Faith Ashenden, founder and CEO of That Healing Feeling, where we show you how to become a self-healer of mind, body, and spirit through nervous system regulation. Join me and thousands of my other students as I dive into the world of neuroscience, subconscious programming, energetics, and radical self-love. In this podcast, you will learn that your body and mind are are meant to heal, and that under the right circumstances, we can experience miraculous healing by leveraging our own internal infrastructure. Let me guide you as we challenge preconceived notions and outdated narratives and dive into the empowering world of self-healing. My intention is that you leave this podcast full of hope and actionable tools. So without further ado, let's dive in.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Fat Healing Feeling podcast. Today I am bringing you an absolute gem of a human being, Molly Eastman, from my hometown, Austin, Texas. So I was so excited to get Molly on the podcast because she is literally the sleep guru. Like, if you don't already follow her on social media, you absolutely have to, and like get on her email list and do her sleeping assessment. I adore her and everything she's talking about. So if you've been here for like a hot second, you know that sleep is like my number one priority, period. I always say this all the time. At the end of the day, sleep is the thing that is the foundational element to everything that you do. When you are healing, you've got to try to nail it. And if you're doing all the fancy frou-frou things but like you're sleeping 4 hours a night, or you know, you're getting really bad sleep, then I would honestly say drop all the other things and put your attention on the quality of your sleep. What I love about Molly is she gives like so many actionable, practical tips, but also is just like an insane wealth of knowledge on such a niche but so important skill. So today we are doing a deep dive on the importance of sleep and also what the research is saying about our daily habits and how it's impacting our capacity to sleep well. And then Molly just gives so much advice on how to optimize your sleep.

It's crazy.

So I know you're going to love this podcast. I know you're going to think it's so actionable and it's going to have an impact on your life. So before we dive in, I'm going to go ahead and introduce Molly to you properly, and then we'll go straight into the show. So Molly Eastman is the creator of Sleep is a Skill and the host of the Sleep is a Skill podcast. Sleep is a Skill is a company that optimizes people's sleep through unique blend of technology, accountability, and behavioral change. After navigating insomnia while traveling internationally, she created what she couldn't find, a place to go to learn the skill set of sleep. With a background in behavioral change from the nonverbal group, she became fascinated with chronobiology and its practical application to sleep and our overall experience of life. Knowing the difference between a life with sleep and without, she's now dedicated her life to sharing the forgotten skill set of sleep. In the spirit of that goal, she's created the #2 Sleep Podcast, written a popular weekly sleep newsletter for over 4 years, partnered with luxury hotels and lifestyle brands, and has appeared on over 150 podcasts. So without further ado, let's dive in. Today we are welcoming a super special guest to the podcast to talk about one of my favorite topics, and I feel like also like one of my top 3 most frequently asked questions with my clients, the topic of sleep. So I'm welcoming Molly Eastman today to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited for this conversation.

It's such an important conversation and we kind of were talking about this earlier, but the number one thing I always say to my clients is sleep and I say it on social media and I always say like, you know, there's a lot of noise in the wellness space about what you should have, what you should buy and all these fancy like supplements and products products that cost thousands and thousands of dollars and there's nowhere to store them. But at the end of the day, if you're not sleeping, you really shouldn't buy any of that crap. It's not going to do you any good. Why don't you just try to sleep and then we'll take it from there? And I think it's an important message to get across because like we all can do it, you know, it's like breathing properly. We're all doing it, you know, but we have to learn the skills to do it properly, not just fall into these habits because of like our modern-day world and whatever else I'm going to learn from you. And so I just want to like learn before we dive into what I think is such an interesting topic. About you, who you are, what you do, and how did you get to this career?

Yeah, such a good question. I hope it's useful for the listener from a perspective of no matter where you're at in your conversation with sleep, whether you're struggling actively right now, whether you're someone that thinks, "Oh, well, maybe I could uplevel my sleep a little bit," or anywhere in between, I hope that my story can illustrate that I think I have evidence to point to that just about any person can uplevel their sleep results, bar none. And so my story illustrates one of doing everything not to do for your sleep, and really, truly, and really having one of my lowest moments in my entire life be linked up with sleep, and it actually being a blessing in disguise. So what it ended up looking like is I now think of my life in a 3-part series and sleep being part of that through line. So I think of it as before I went through this kind of sleep breakdown, honestly, and during and after. And the before was just littered with a lot of labels and narratives around my sleep. And I really didn't think about my sleep that much. I thought I just had these cards that I was dealt where the labels were, I'm a short sleeper, I'm a night owl, it's in my genes, I'll sleep when I'm dead. You know, the ways of navigating this time, this thing we do a third of our lives on average, 26 years are spent asleep, and yet I was just kind of surviving it. And that was like that as a kid, teenage years, college, early 20s, etc. And not kind of drawing or seeing those through lines of some of the deleterious effects with my health and how the management of my sleep might have been playing a role. So for example, I had the beginnings of an ulcer, shingles in my 20s, I had painful periods, lots of mounting anxiety, a number of things that were pointing to how I was managing my health and well-being. Something wasn't working, and yet I wasn't really factoring my sleep. And later on discovered my circadian habits, if you will, and we'll get into some of that. But I wasn't thinking about any of that, and I was just then dealing with the fallout. And so it wasn't until, as a serial entrepreneur in Manhattan, burning the candle at both ends, my husband and I decided to get a one-way ticket. So we've been together 13 years. And in the beginning of this relationship, um, we decided to get a one-way ticket and then travel the world and take our businesses on the road. It sounded like a great idea at the time, and yet this mounting stress of our businesses was just too, too much. Um, and so when I landed in Madrid, actually, um, the first spot that we landed in, tons of jet lag, lots stress. I had a panic attack that first night and was like, did we make a mistake? This is too much. And then couldn't sleep thereafter. And I'd already been up for a long stretch of time for the flights and what have you. And then just spilled over into all the things not to do to manage this. And so my sleep just started getting real, like a real problem. And I never really experienced it like that. It was always just, you know, it was there. It wasn't great, but now became a real problem. And what it ended up looking like was finally when it got to some of the longest stretches of just what felt like no sleep and beginning to question this ability— when you go into bed, you usually think, well, I'm going to get a night of sleep here. And at that point, my confidence in my abilities to do that became so dwindled. And so eventually I went to the doctors. We were in Croatia, and so they had not the best things to deliver on this topic in the, in the place that we went, this little kind of rundown clinic, and leave with sleeping pills. Specifically, Valium is what they gave me, which is pretty old school. And is just, if anyone's listening, this is not supposed to be the first line treatment for anyone for sleep issues. So just in case you're listening, in the United States, it is supposed to be the gold standard that you are meant to be met with recommendations for CBT-I, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, although that still doesn't always happen either, even in the United States, not even, but certainly not in the United States, despite it being part of the kind of approach that we are supposed to seek. So I start taking these sleeping pills, and I'm so conflicted as I'm taking them because I feel so bad and wrong about taking these things. I came from a family where lots of medication, like pharmaceutical use, And so seeing what that had looked like for a lot of family members and having concerns that, oh no, now I'm on this path. Am I gonna be stuck on this? Is it just gonna be mounting tolerance and now upping of this dosage? And what is this gonna look like? So eventually hits this point where I realize, okay, I think if I'm gonna need to shift this problem, I'm gonna have to figure this out. And it felt like I am gonna have to understand what does it even take to get great sleep? Not just from a philosophical question, but from a, I am feeling I'm losing my mind and I need to figure this problem out. And so that actually ended up being such a blessing because it put me down this rabbit hole of this entire world I had no idea about around chronobiology and the science of time and how time affects our biology and understanding more about circadian rhythms. And it really turned my life upside down, uh, and had me kind of reorient how I was managing myself and my life. So, on the flip side of that, the after, once I started actually restoring my sleep, which took some— a lot of time, energy, effort, money, all the things, the after of that is now just a whole other experience of life. I often say I'm addicted to feeling good at this point because I never knew I could wake up and feel well-rested and ready to take on the day and all those things. Had no clue. And, being able to quantifiably point to sleeping on the right side of the bell curve, if you will, and with many trackers and in-lab et cetera, it now lends itself to what has now been built, which is our company Sleep is a Skill. And the company stands for creating and giving agency to people to help improve their sleep versus kind of being in the passenger seat of your sleep. You get to get back into the driver's seat of that. And so from that, it's just been wild. So now we've built the number 2 sleep podcast. We have online courses, we have newsletters. We have a particular niche in high stakes poker of all things. So we work with a lot of high stakes poker players, which oddly I will explain, um, but has more relevance than we might realize. And many of us are actually living a bit closer to those high stakes poker player lifestyles than maybe we would, um, anticipate. So I'll explain that. But I say all that because the fact that for someone like myself who just assumed that I was in a fixed state, you know, many false binaries exist with sleep. Like you're either bad sleeper or good sleeper. That's kind of how it is. And then survive your lot. And I think, I hope this story can point to the richness of sleep and how it truly, especially in our modern society, has become the skill set that we can all develop.

I love, well, first of all, I just love hearing how these businesses come about because it, in everyone that I bring on, it's like, such an inspiring story of like being in this low and then being like, you know what, I'm just going to figure it out myself. And it's such a testament to our capacity to shift identities and heal ourselves and like tapping into the knowing that like we can, we can reach homeostasis. And just how I relate to what you said because I have a lot of close friends who are like, oh yeah, like it's genetic. And I, and you know, I'm very lucky because I have had problems in the past, but sleeping is not one of them. And so I hear from people like exactly what what you said, like even the anxiety of like, oh my gosh, now is the time and there's pressure and there's only so many hours. And like, I hear that from people who are close to me and there are things I do, but like to support my sleep. But I think ultimately, like I also just am, I don't know, you'll be able to tell me why I'm a good sleeper, but I am minus, you know, the periods of time where I had newborns. But outside of that, yeah, I mean like I can get up and like do anything, be woken up and I'm just like back to like the best sleep and I wake up feeling like 100% and I'm like, oh, I'm ready to take on the day. And I wanna know like, why is that the case? And why is that not the case for other people? But the biggest, most important thing out of that, like, is just that, like you said, like, none of it is your destiny. There's no such thing, I suppose, as an identity of any of these labels. It really truly is like there's always a roadmap for you no matter what your situation is. And I think for everyone who's here to heal whatever you're, you know, because people listening to this podcast, they're looking to heal either chronic anxiety or some sort of chronic condition, whether it be diagnosed or not, is irrelevant to me what the diagnosis is. It's just, you know, the message of the podcast and the experts I bring on is you can always get back to homeostasis. Let me provide you some of that evidence and then I can provide you some of that expertise. And so I think I want that message to come across loud and clear because to me, if you can master this, you're like halfway there. You know, it's like all the other things, that's going to be easy when you feel good because you slept. So let's get into it because This is so, so, so important. My number one question for you, because one time I said this in my stories, I said sleep is a skill and this is before I had found your account. And I got like so many messages from people being like, what are you talking about? Sleep is a skill. Like, you know, we just naturally sleep, yada yada. I don't know how to explain that. So why is sleep a skill?

Mm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love that. Clearly we're quite aligned on this topic and I love that you're helping to create forums for people to, as you pointed to, get back to homeostasis. I think that is just so crucial in our modern society of what can feel like a lack of a sense of control and questions on how to manage some of these very— what can be mystifying areas of life like sleep. So, on this topic of sleep being a skill, I've often put it like this at different points where in our modern society, there's unequivocally I believe a very strong case to be made that sleep has become a skillset. Now, if you were to go in a time machine and go back into our days of past, thousands of years spent living outside in nature, that it might've been a little bit of a harder sell. And I think therein lies some of our cues of how to actually sleep well today. What are those components that make up this skill that used to be more innate that have become more divorced because of our kind of maladaptive behaviors as human beings that these recent behaviors have not met with our biological underpinnings. And so, meaning that one of the big things that I point to that I believe to be one of the root causes of some of our problems with our sleep is what I call the indoor issue. And the indoor issue is that in recent years, we know out of, um, in 2001, the EPA did a study and they found that the average person was spending about 93% of their time indoors. And that was, and it broke down to in buildings and automobiles. So in your car, but 93% of our day, and that was in 2001. And so we could probably assume that it's gotten worse. Course, most likely, because now with the pandemics or the pandemic, with our smartphones, with laptops, with Netflix, with work from home revolutions, with all the things, we've gone further indoors, if anything. So why is that a problem? What does that have to do with sleep? Well, if today that can land where we know that even just 2023 Google keyword search trends reach an all-time high for searches around sleep, We know that so many people are looking for answers. They're struggling in some way, shape, or form. But why are so many people struggling? And why does it seem to be going up on this kind of like Mount Everest climb of so many people over the years really struggling with this area of their life? Well, the more that we progressively not only gone indoors, but also we're being layered with certain things in our environment that are further divorcing us from these rhythms of nature that used to keep us on track. So if the rhythms of nature, the sunrise and sunset, not from like a spiritual— I mean, that's fine. You can have it, but from even a biological hardwired perspective, we were linked up with these rhythms, this 24-hour rhythm of the rising and the setting of the sun. And that used to really kind of do a lot of the heavy lifting for us. When we know, when we go and look at hunter-gatherer tribes and we see that, or in groups that do not have exposure to electric light, we see that they tend to, as a group, have much more kind of aligned sleep rhythms and they're linked up with the rising and the setting of the sun much more closely. So, typically going to bed around a couple hours after sunset, waking up, rising more often with the sun. I mean, you can't really avoid it if you're sleeping outside. It's there. And now, not only is the sun rising, but the temperature is rising, which is another time giver for sleep. And so, these kind of unequivocal cues were always present, but then as we've gone indoors, now we're cutting off from that. We have, you know, 24-hour, um, 72 degrees thermostat settings. We have our LED lighting, which has become particularly problematic, you know, great for energy efficiency, but not so great may be for our biology. And to the point that one scientific consensus that I like to point people's attention to is just last year in 2023, nearly 250 circadian scientists putting their entire reputations on the line are citing 2,000 and nearly 700 peer-reviewed publications, and they're calling for warning labels on light bulbs when used at night. So why would they risk their reputation on something like this? Well, they're citing not only the impact on our sleep, so that component that we're talking about, the sleep being a skill and it hitting drastically, measurably at that skill set, just the presence of basic light bulbs being on at night. Not only is it hitting at sleep-wake, but it's also hitting at things like obesity, diabetes, cancers, reproductive disorders. Psychiatric disorders. So even our mental health being impacted. So there's a lot there that the just simple environment that we put ourselves into is now meaning that we have to kind of relearn what would it look like to manage ourselves throughout the course of our day and night. And once we learn some of these things, a lot of them are largely free or quite affordable in nature, and often environmental and behavioral. So that's where a lot of the skill set resides that maybe wasn't there in the past, but today lands as an absolute need to learn these components of sleep.

But it's interesting because, like, you can kind of say this for anything that used to be just like innate, for example, like eating, right? Because this is, this is not something I touched on. So I'm not, I'm not going deep into it. But the point being, you know, there's a lot of opinion opinions on how we should eat. And, you know, it is all very like intuitive and it was all very obvious. And I always say to my clients, like, go back to how we evolved, you know what I mean? Like, you have the wisdom, like it's in you, but we're not living the way we used to live. So now it's about navigating how can I go back to that wisdom and how can I hear it and understand the signals before, you know, it's so loud that it turns into these big stories like I had a panic attack or I have a chronic illness diagnosis or whatever. But what's cool about it is like, I feel like we have this internal compass that we evolved with and it's just that the environments are like a little bit rapidly progressing more than we have and biology is just not there yet. And so there's a lot that we can learn to listen to. And I'm going to ask you about that as well, because I think like in the work I do, you know, it's all about coming back to those cues and what is your body telling you and how can you find like what's best for you to get back to that place of balance and healing? And I think with sleep, I'd love to understand, like, let's start with like biomarkers. I see you're wearing like an Oura ring because this is something we talk like with my students as well. I'm kind of more into relation on like nervous system health, but it's the same thing, right? Because you have to, you have to sleep for your nervous system to function properly. But let's talk about like some of the biomarkers of like that people can use or that they might not be aware of that actually, because, you know, people who are listening do a lot, right? They're getting their lab work run with like functional medicine doctors, naturopathic doctors. So they're taking lots of different supplements. They understand like where their inflammation is at every single level, like their hormones. They know like what their Oura Ring data is saying and they're tracking their heart rate variability like they have the glucose monitors, like they're doing it all. Like, so where are they looking that they might not know or that they might know So, that's an indicator of how well they're sleeping.

Yeah. So good. And to point on what you said in the beginning too around how you could say this for a lot of things too, just looking back to nature. 110%. One of the things— so, I've been kind of traveling around giving different talks, one on sleep, but when I'm speaking to practitioners and people in the wellness space, one of the talks that I'm often giving is why I believe circadian health will be the the next big thing in wellness. And I think it's already starting to make more of its presence known. And yet, I believe it will reach more of the mainstream conversation in the future because it actually does exactly what you just pointed to, which it provides this blueprint for all practitioners to look at something known as chronotherapy. So, the timing of all these therapeutical interventions. So, It suddenly gives us this blueprint from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep and during sleep, where you put all of these components. So including where do you put your meal timing? Where do you put your ice bath? Where do you put your sauna? Where do you put meditation? Where all of these things suddenly have places that are more optimal than other places to put some of these things, including supplements, drugs, You know, even thoughts go on that same spectrum. So, when we look at circadian rhythm entrainment, we know that we have studies that point to that our thoughts have a very different flavor in the day than they do into the night. So, this topic is huge, pervasive, and just fascinating, I think. So, it opens up this kind of Pandora's box for us to really understand and take seriously this timing piece. And also using the rhythms of nature to inform a lot of our behaviors so that a lot of things happen when the sun is out and a lot of things don't happen when the sun has set, or maybe are happening when the sun has set, but that will all be in the rhythm of more downregulation is part of our aim in aligning with these rhythms more kind of clearly. So then with metrics, how can we also, by being informed by that piece, this circadian component and how can we use that to then look at these metrics thoughtfully. So, every person we work with is wearing the Oura Ring. So, we've got tons and tons of mountains of data on how outside of research people can be impacting their sleep results and what really moves the needle versus just doesn't even really show a blip. And, it turns out that most of the things that we see that really truly move the needle where we can look and say, "Oh, what happened here?" Like, just a trend started amounting based on certain interventions. And often, again, they just happen to be largely environmental, behavioral, and very rarely do we see some magical sleep supplement or something do much of anything. I mean, to be honest. And, that's not to say, of course, that there's not importance of we identify, oh, someone has really low vitamin D or something, and then we address that, of course, those things are going to then spill into your sleep results. But just this kind of casual error of looking to find, you know, the thing that's gonna put us to sleep like an Ambien is something that I rarely see be effective. And I get it because I also know that when we're struggling with sleep, we just want to fix this problem and we just want, tell me what to take and then I'll, Well, that's what I want to know. And that was often— that was what I was dealing with. I took everything under the sun when I was struggling with my sleep in hopes that those things would help. And it turns out that it's often more in other areas. So, what could be some metrics that we might look to that could help in this journey? Well, one set of metrics, if we're talking about the Oura Ring, and of course, you know, if other people are listening, Garmin, Apple, Whoop, you know, Biostrap, all the different things. One thing that we do like to take a look at is often more nervous system indicators, which you are a master of. And so, some of those that we happen to take a look at are heart rate variability is one that we look at quite routinely. And that one can be really, really helpful. I found that to be really effective too for some of my people because many of the people that are struggling with sleep then might have some of that crossover from anxiety, depression, not always, but sometimes does come up, and it can provide something to point to more objectively that can actually almost validate their experience a little bit more versus the subjective just swell of just not feeling their best. When you can point to a trend that has happened, then we can almost reverse engineer and find out what are some of the behaviors that are leading to this, how How can we interrupt this? How can we test certain things? And almost provides more agency is what we find for people to kind of more gamify this aspect of life versus just surviving it.

So people might be asking, how would you use that? Just out of curiosity, what would you want it to be? Or when would you want it to be? You know, whatever. Oh, and as a follow-up point, is the Oura Ring data— this is my qualm with Oura Ring. I just had this conversation with, um, because I do actually have one one. I'm not wearing it now because I'm not charged, but I do have one. And I had this conversation with my students, and this just reminded me. Um, my— one of my students was saying, you know, she wakes up feeling really tired, but her Oura Ring consistently says that she's sleeping really well. And I said, with my Oura Ring, I would— I would wear it every night. And with my second baby, she slept with me, and I would get up every hour and a half and I would nurse her So I knew that I wasn't sleeping well and I was— but, you know, whatever. She was a new baby. But the point being, my Ring would be like, oh, you got a 98 sleep score and like, you know, you slept super well. But it would show that I woke up. But obviously that's really bad sleep. So that's my second question. How much, you know, what's the deal with that? That's just a total like side note because this wasn't something I planned on asking you. But, you know, I think it's relevant because a lot of people do ask me and I'm not an expert on Oura Ring data. Like, you know, I use it in my programs as as a way to track progress if students want to, but I can't like speak to whether or not it's accurate. So let's talk about the heart rate variability. What do we want to see? And then just a brief one on, is it accurate? Or what are we working with?

So a couple of things. So HRV, heart rate variability. So there's certain arguments for that our consumer-grade tracking that we utilize right now with some of these readily available trackers that HRV, heart rate variability, could be one of the more valuable metrics for us to look at specifically for sleep because it's a metric of recovery and it's pointing to how well recovered are you kind of second to second to second and can arguably just give us that indication of how well rested and ready to take on your day are you when you actually wake up. And what is really important to understand is it's such a complicated metric. There's so much nuance. There are things. So it's not just like the psychological aspect that I pointed to does tend to show up. So that's really helpful. And yet that's not the only part of the story. Then, of course, your physiological aspects, even just simply getting sick, we'll see that, of course. You know, you've taken on too much at the gym or what have you, you're recovering. Those things can show up. The types of foods you're eating can show up, whether they're agreeing with you or not. The environment that you're in can show up on these numbers. So if it's just simply too hot in your space, um, if it's, you know, the poor air quality in your space, like how well you're able to breathe in that environment, looking at things like mold, I mean, it just gets really, really layered. It's quite a puzzle. So I hope that doesn't land as overwhelming for people, but instead hopefully inspiring that this metric can unlock quite a lot of information, but it, you know, can just be a, a thing that we have to peel back the layers on. And we also don't wanna get too at the effect of this data, which is this constant dance of how to both be informed by this data, but not have the nocebo effect, you know, where we wake up and maybe, and unlike, uh, some of the clients you pointed to, the other side of the coin when people wake up and they've got horrible scores and now they're like, ugh, dragging for the rest of the day at the effect of that. Or to your point, which we also do see where people might just get great crowns everywhere and yet it might be masking something really, really important. So, it can kind of have me bleed into that in a second. But for the HRV, the general thing that we're looking to do is one, to not compare to spare. A lot of people do do that and they'll say, "Oh no, I'm only—" whatever, 25 baseline HRV, and they look at other people's scores and they see, oh my goodness, they're in over 100 or what have you. And then they get upset and, you know, all this. So instead, what we're looking to do with HRV is to establish your baseline over a stretch of time and then start to just distinguish the marked deviations and trends. We really want to get more trends heavy versus just day to day. Because we know that too many people can kind of get stressed out on the day-to-day and it's, it has variability in the title. It's meant to be variable. So, and you actually don't want it to be too flatline. That can also be problematic as well. So it, there's a lot of nuance here, but I guess what I'll leave it with is one, just establishing your own baseline and marking and noticing these deviations. Some of the kind of generalized rules of thumb that we might operate on are things like when your HRV is dropping around 20% from your established baseline, it just might be a sign to, "Okay, so maybe I wanna take it easy, prioritize recovery." If I'm seeing a drop 40% or more, that can really almost be kind of a, you know, invisible stop sign to just really pull back from things that might be overly stressing my nervous system, taking cues to inform my behavior. So maybe that wouldn't be a time to have the extra glass of wine or the whatever, or, you know, all of these things that— and I think often some people might not even realize some of the hits that they might be taking on their HRV. Like, for instance, one of the most common ones I see is just late eating. And when I say late eating, people are often like, "That's not me. I'm not eating like right up into bed." So, they take themselves out of that conversation. But, what we see is some of the greatest source of research, of course, pointing to at 3 hours before bed having your last bite of food. So think about when your bedtime is. So if it's 10, then your last bite of food would be 7. But I'll say that I'm also very curious in emerging research and wearable data where we're seeing even more benefits earlier than that. So for instance, I just spoke with the vice president of performance sciences at Whoop, and they're pointing to a large, um, study that they're gonna be releasing soon. Which is 4 hours before bed having your last bite of food versus a 2-hour before bed group. And the 4-hour before bed group markedly, you know, just unequivocally, greatly improved results. So, that would be 4 hours. So, if you're 10:00 PM bedtime, then that would be a 6:00 PM last bite of food. But then, I can also very much anecdotally say that some of the wearable data that we're seeing, we are seeing really marked improvements when people go even a little bit earlier. Earlier than that, so like 5 hours before bed, 6 hours before bed, just really early bird special. And certainly, this goes under the umbrella of circadian intermittent fasting. And it's kind of a dramatic term, right? Yeah, because it sounds so much bigger than— which really, it's just giving ourselves this digestive break in the evenings and having us more front load our calories so that you're eating when the sun is out, not eating as much when the sun has So, there's that part, big topic on how to manage HRV, but I would say those are some components. And then, I would say on the great question that you asked about, what does it mean though when people are having great scores but they're feeling crappy? Well, here's something that I found has been really interesting with some of these trackers is that I've commonly found people with undiagnosed sleep disorders doing really well in the sleep section of their data. So meaning that I've seen a lot of people with sleep apnea, with upper airway resistance syndrome, with things that show up on their data as they're often needing to get more sleep or they're falling asleep pretty quickly because they're arguably sleep deprived even though they're getting all this sleep. The quality of that sleep comes into play. But the nuance of these trackers might not totally be there to be able to distinguish, although they are getting a lot better, but they might not miss or they might miss some of these components and then think that just, oh, you know, almost giving you lots of points, proverbial sort of like, you know, video game type points for the longer amount of sleep that you're getting, right? And then that's not really the whole story. So that's where I find that looking at the readiness section, if we're talking about Oura, to be particularly important because that's where you could get some more nuance on what is really going on. Because typically when I see people have great sleep scores, they might not also look further at their readiness scores or activity scores because it is important to have those all rounded out.

Okay, that's interesting. But yeah, it makes sense because for me, like, I, since my baby was sleeping with me, I was only ever rolling over to nurse her. So technically, like, I wasn't moving— like, I was like totally awake for X amount of, you know, minutes. But I could see why Aura might be like, oh, you know, you're just like a really— you move a lot in your sleep or something, you know, and sometimes talk, but you're still sleeping. But that makes sense. Okay, amazing. So here are the big questions. What happens to the body when we start to lose sleep. So obviously not in a catastrophizing way, but more in a— in the opposite, actually. Again, what I'm trying to do with this is to show how much you can do to support your body's overall healing with one thing, right? Like instead of the really rigid supplement. And again, I'm like you. I'm not saying that there aren't some fantastic supplements out there and really amazing wellness products and amazing modalities. And a holistic approach means everything coming together. But what I want to shed light on is, okay, what are the repercussions of not sleeping? And in the same way, how much can we actually solve by getting the sleep right? So let's start with like, like, what are we going to notice like physiologically when our sleep, you know, again, don't worry to anyone who's listening who might have kids or, you know, whatever. Obviously seasons come and go and that's fine. But we're talking about like as an actual way of life, what do we start to see physiologically. And, and again, of course, the mind and the body are one. So, you know, and this is how I see it as well. So that's going to manifest in what many people will say, like in the mental health as well. When we start to lose good quality sleep or we just, you know, are only sleeping a few hours because of our lifestyle, whatever. Yeah.

So good. And I love how you frame that too, because, yeah, we're not aiming to just scare and get people— get the nervous system all flared without also steps that are actionable that people can take and hopefully then inspiring the reverence for this area of life. So I think that's so important. Okay, so there's lots of different ways we can look at this, but even just beginning at where a lot of people start, which is duration. So many times I'll give talks and people will quickly say, oh, I'm a fine sleeper, I sleep, you know, 8 hours. And just using the duration as the component of measurement where it says that they're a good sleeper or a bad sleeper. But it turns out that there's so much more to sleep than just how many hours you're logging. It's about the consistency of those hours. It's about the regularity. How fragmented is that sleep? Are you getting those 8 hours, but is it the kind of, you know, a certain set Monday through Friday, and then Friday through Sunday, it's a whole other set? What's the quality of that sleep that you're getting throughout that entire course of that night? It gets much more nuanced. But because many people go straight to duration, I can begin there. We do have quite a lot of research pointing to getting less than 6 hours of sleep consistently being a place where a lot of things start going awry. And we do have more research even sub-7 for a number of people. But I can just say there is a large meta-analysis that came out in 2010 that showed that people that are consistently getting less than 6 hours of sleep are setting themselves up for lots of deleterious effects with their health, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cognitive decline, and my favorite, death from any cause, also known as all-cause mortality, uh, simply from logging routinely less than 6 hours of sleep. So those are some of the deleterious effects with— on the sleep duration piece, and it can get much more nuanced because is while we say the average amount of sleep for a healthy adult being between 7 and 9 hours, that doesn't mean that you can just hang out in that range and then keep logging that amount of time. If you're a person that really does require 8.5 hours and then you're getting 7 hours routinely, that for you would be sleep deprivation over the long term. So, we really want to start to determine what is your sleep need. And your sleep need is dynamic. It's like a shoe size, if you will, for a stretch of time for many different things will show up for many different people, but also same way, you know, post-pregnancy, some people say their shoe size changed or whatever. We often can see that their sleep need, our sleep need might change throughout the course of our lives as well. So, and not even might, we know that that's the case as a kid into teenage years, early 20s, and then the kind of a more stabilizing often happens throughout adulthood, but then again, a change often seems to happen later in life. So, there's a lot for us to pay attention to. And this goes back to that sleep being a skillset piece that there's a management that needs to occur. So, that's just in duration. But, another interesting thing is that right now what's being put together is this conversation of finding out your sleep age, which is really interesting. So, you know, many people in this health conversation, might have even already tested themselves for what is their biological versus chronological age. And so that's been very in vogue in getting a sense of that. Well, now there's— what's being put together is the possibility of us testing our sleep age, which is quite interesting. So what would that look like? Well, using AI, then we'd be able to distinguish, are you sleeping— you know, maybe you're a 35-year-old, but you're sleeping like a 48-year-old. And, we'd want to— what are the components of that later sleep? Well, one thing that they pointed to was sleep fragmentation being a big, big concern and aspect of older-looking sleep. So, if you are waking up a lot throughout the course of the night, and this is also to use your framing, we're not trying to stress people out. It's very common to wake up throughout the course of the night, we're not trying to say that's like some sort of pathology. But if it is a lot of fragmentation, that is actually one of the big signs that consumer-grade trackers can be helpful for us in denoting, should we have this person tested for sleep disorders? And there are a lot of sleep disorders. So at least, um, conservatively around over 80, and some estimates put it at over 100, of sleep-wake disorders depending on how you categorize it. So there's a lot that could be missing And considering the average doctor, even on a Harvard Med, gets less than 2 hours of training in sleep, if you think that you would've been spotted and caught for any of your signs from your primary care doctor, I'm sorry to say that is probably unlikely the case, not from a malicious place, but just the system— like a systemic problem that it's, we're often missing some of these signs. So what there is to say about this is if there's a lot of sleep fragmentation, that can be another sign of poor quality of sleep. And that can also lead to— pick a single area of life that's important to you and we can draw lines to it. So meaning if you go to PubMed and put sleep and cognition, sleep and reaction time, sleep and safety indicators, sleep and emotional intelligence, I mean, it is just wild. But we also know just some of the most common things, cardiovascular health, so heart disease, heart attacks. So, looking at the heart health, but then also looking at what has been coming up in more recent years is our understanding of glymphatic drainage with a G versus lymphatic drainage with an L is this cleansing of the brain that's happening on the first half of our night if we're setting ourselves up powerfully for consistent sleep timing, adequate total sleep duration. And, that can set us up for avoiding and staving off neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, a number of things that are quite important for our ability to navigate the world around us. So those are just some things that could come up if we're not managing our sleep well.

Okay. So then let's talk about the other side of the coin, which is how we can like implement, like what we can implement in our day-to-day life. And I feel like it's two different things for me, and I'm sure it's a million different things for you, but just thinking about like during the day, simple things that we can be doing as well as like perhaps before bed. And again, like I know that a lot of people are who listen are moms or have busy schedules, yada yada. But I do always like to say, you know, I am a mom of a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. I'm an entrepreneur. Like, I get it. And I really do feel like anyone who comes on here brings suggestions that, you know, we're all busy, that busy people can do. So let's talk about how we can like fit these things into, you know, because I do feel like if I'm honest, Like, for example, I work with all different sorts of practitioners and I have my, you know, dietitian saying, I want you to do this intermittent fasting or I want you to eat this many hours before bed. And sometimes I'm like, I would love to, but, you know, I've got this kid screaming and that kid tantruming and they won't tell you all the other things that's happening. And so then I take a bite of what's left at the end of the day. And yeah, and it's like, so I always want to emphasize it really isn't about doing it perfect. And I'm sure you'll, you'll, you'll be talking about that as well. And I get that from you as well. It really isn't like about doing it perfectly. I'm sure it's about a few core things. I have my things. I want to know if it's in alignment with what like the expert has to say about sleep. So let's hear what your, your tips are.

I love that. And you perfectly set that up because we absolutely don't want to have it or put any sort of pressure on us to ourselves to attain some sort of perfect sleep, because also we don't want to think of ourselves as this fragile state, that if we don't have the perfect temperature and perfect meal timing and all the things, that everything's going to fall apart because that can just kind of set us up for failure and neuroticism and all kinds of problems can come about from that. And sleep just does not thrive very well when there's kind of that level of pressure on. But I understand it's such a paradox because we're both, you know, saying all these problems can come up if you're not managing your sleep. But then, you know, don't stress too much about it. So I understand it's like, how— well, what do I do? So instead, how can we both have respect for how crucial this area of life is for us? And how can we set the stage for it as powerfully as we possibly can, routinely giving ourselves grace for humanity and for all of the things that come up? And yet, almost think of it as this analogy. I had someone on the podcast who had a great analogy where they talked about about sleep being like surfing, which I thought was cool, where they said essentially sleep the same way surfing for, you know, great surfers, they have all these things that they'll do. So they get their proper gear and their, you know, scuba stuff, whatever. I know, clearly I'm not a surfer. But they find out the weather conditions and they find out what spot of the water, what part of the ocean should they go to to get the best waves and the whole thing. And they do all this and they drive out to the But then once they get into the ocean, they just like wade on out there, and then they just wait for the waves. And that's essentially what we're looking to do with sleep is that we're setting the, you know, structure and the container for this in the things that we have power over. But then we're not trying to force sleep to come because we always see that often backfiring, especially for people that are dealing with anxiety or what have you, you know, just forcing that performance anxiety can be really problematic for a lot of people. With that said, what are some of those things that we can create the structures around? Well, I find that it has been really empowering for a lot of people to understand that half of the things that we are looking for you to do to get great sleep happen way early in the day. And so, instead of— that was the mistake I was making with my sleep was I was freaking out about it, stressed about it by day, and then I'd be fixated on the nights and what's going to happen tonight and am I going to sleep? This also goes in this bucket of sleep anxiety that people start just overly, you know, catastrophizing and fixating on this area of life. But I would just be so dead set about how am I going to manage the nights? And I would almost be going into battle. And so I'd have like my books and my eye mask and all my supplements and all the things and then just like, please let me sleep. And obviously that for me was a failing strategy and we often see that. So the winning part of this, the empowering piece is most of these things we want to be focusing on from the moment you wake up. So your daytime, how are you living your day? How can we win the day to support your sleep? Because I often say for people, if you weren't doing all these other things by day, it's like by the time night comes around, just whatever, get comfortable, find a good book because good luck. So, and, you know, to instead put it into terms of almost like self-development or kind of self-actualization that the getting of great sleep often has to do with the attainment of some of these things that we know are probably a good idea for us, moving our body, getting some sunlight, choosing certain foods, et cetera, et cetera. But when we put it through the lens of how this could show up in our sleep results, suddenly it can be a bit more of a game. Okay. So then what can we do to make it super practical? Well, first, the two aspects that we begin with, with every person we work with are 2 anchor habits. And our anchor habits are one, that we are simply really paying attune or attention to our light-dark environment. And so, our light-dark environment, why do we pay so much attention to that? Because it's our most important zeitgeber or time giver for our circadian rhythm, for that 24-hour rhythm we've been talking about. And so, the components of this are that we need to really just like, what are the actions? All right, we need to get our morning sunlight exposure, not from behind sunglasses and hats and all the things that we might usually do, but getting that unadulterated sunlight in our eyes outside for at least around 10 to 20 minutes every morning. Now, that's a huge range, because it does depend on which season you're in, where you live on the globe. There's lots of components here. There is a great app that I like to suggest called Circadian Life that can help guide you in this, and it will geotag you kind of where you are and help with a lot of the kind of automaticity. So, just pop up as a little notification on your phone about, "Oh, you got to get outside and get that morning light. Oh, you want to make sure you get your morning breakfast," all of these sort of things, right? So, we want to get that morning sunlight in our eyes. But then, the other research that's come out is needing to really get at least around 30 minutes, bare minimum, to an hour of sunlight exposure throughout the entire course of the day to create sufficient melatonin at night. There's lots of questions on, well, why does that even make sense? Like, why does getting sunlight impact that kind of hormone of darkness, melatonin? Well, there's lots of theories, but the takeaway is that you need to be getting outside at least 30 minutes to an hour every day. And if you're in places where it's really cloudy and it's northern latitude location, the bad news insight is that you might have to really be outside longer. To get this kind of effect because the sun power is weaker during those periods of the year. So just kind of being aware of that. And yet, I mean, again, if we go back to nature, for thousands of years, we would have been living under this environment all day, every day. So it can sound like some sort of cruel and unusual punishment to send people outside for 30 minutes to an hour. And yet I promise you there's going to be some real important benefits, including your mitochondrial health. Especially for people say, "Well, it's cold." Well, we know that that actually can be a component. It's a much longer conversation, but the colds can affect our mitochondria. And we also know that melatonin gets created in our mitochondria. Many people don't know that. It used to be thought of as just more of a brain-based phenomenon, but it appears that it's also created in the mitochondria. So, getting that light exposure, getting that darkness exposure post-sunset. And most people say like they tune out when I say this and they're like, "Oh yeah, I dim the lights." Just about nobody does this, like very rare. I know we've got like our little, you know, kind of biohacker worlds of people that maybe have the red lights and stuff. But most people, if I was to go and audit their space, there's tons of kind of hidden blue light sources that we really, really, really want to take the time to remove. So we really want to move— switch out your evening bulbs to be more fire-like hues. So oranges and red tones, which is more what we develop developed and kind of evolved under. So, taking the time for that, and that can cost $30 or something for a lot of your main rooms, right? Like a $10 light bulb on Amazon or something. So, just get those red aspects covered. And then, the second anchor habit is choosing a consistent wake-up time that you stick with 7 days a week, plus or minus about 30 minutes, even if you had that rough night. We're looking to largely keep it at about the same time, which again can sound like cruel and unusual punishment because people will be like, you don't understand, I had such a rough night. Now, of course, we can swing it out a little bit, but for the most part, we're looking to really keep it not much further than that 30 minutes plus or minus. And the difference that that can make to quickly get you back on track when you've even had this rough night is surprising. And then we're looking to do what we call the do-nothing method. Which is when you have that rough night, you're looking to still get up at around the same time, not overly compensate, not have a ton of coffee, not have like really long naps, not go to bed super early. A lot of people do that. They say, oh, I'm going to be so tired, I can barely make it to my bedtime. I'm going to go to bed really early. All of those things can further just confuse the circadian rhythm and swing things out of alignment.

That's so true because it's like It's— but then how do you do the day? That's my question. Yeah, I'm just thinking about it because it's getting the wheels turning for me. And obviously, like I am, like I said, I'm very lucky because I am quite consistent. But just thinking about like if I had a really busy day like today, how would I— what are your like recommendations? I mean, just maybe just, you know, don't push yourself. Just have like a walk instead of a run. I don't know, stay super hydrated. What do you recommend if you're not compensating?

Yeah, so good. Exactly. And it's not to say, by the way, totally, you you can still have delicious, amazing coffee and sleep well. I am a big coffee fan. And it's instead just making sure that we're not tipping the scales and going nuts and really doubling up on everything like super long naps. Like we see people do that, super, like a whole cup of coffee because it was such a hard night. I mean, a whole pot of coffee, I should say. And so just not going overboard. Now, yes, one of the things that we want to layer in is is bright light exposure because— so, we always want to be doing that, but you can really double down on that on a day where you were really struggling. So, say I went to a wedding a little bit ago and then the next morning, I was out much longer for my morning sun and just kind of made sure to have some of my calls out there and whatever to counteract. Why? Because we know that there's a real biological response to the presence of light. So, it's known as phototherapy. So, you can really use light as a bit of a drug and to front-load your day because we know that light exposure in the morning along with meal timing in the morning along with exercise timing in the morning, those 3 things put on the front half of your day, we know can help phase advance, which means that it can help you with the getting sleepy earlier. So, and we've seen in studies people being able to move back their bedtime by on average around 2 hours to 2.5 hours pretty routinely. So, all those people that will say, and I was one of them, that would be like, "Oh, I'm an extreme night owl, like that's just how it is, can't go to bed before midnight," or whatever they say, we can layer in some of these things. One of the most— one of our favorite studies that did this really elegantly was they took people camping And so, they, out of the University of Colorado, they took night owls camping. And so, people that said, "I can't go to sleep until after midnight," or whatever, and then they reliably moved back their melatonin pulse by around 2.5 hours earlier in a relatively short period of time just simply from having them all day being exposed to bright light, and then in the night, no electric light of any type, any kind at all. And so, those clear polarities, and that's one of the things that's really missing in our modern society. Is we're very comfortable and we're kind of dealing with like the comfort crisis, you know? So it's like this really nice, as we mentioned, 72 degrees. We've always got a stocked refrigerator pantry. And so all hours of the day we can be going and nibbling and whatever, the same temperature set. All of these components are, while comfortable in the short term, on the long term, we just are not getting how much of a biological hit this is. Because all of our organs and every cell and tissues and all these components of our body have clocks within them and they all have their little ecosystems at play. And so, the digestive system likes to kind of be on at certain times and not on at certain other times. So, how can you think about this? Well, most of the simplistic component of it is kind of we call day mode and night mode. So when the sun is out, we want to do a lot of day mode things. And so the day mode things would be largely getting most of your caloric intake when the sun is out, aiming to being as active as possible. Also, this goes into the thought domain where you're handling a lot of maybe stressful things or things that, you know, just might be more in your mind, like, oh my gosh, I— this is such a stupid, funny thing. But last night I read the whole Andrew Huberman takedown piece. I don't know if you— and it got my wheels going too. And I knew I should not be reading this, but it got my, you know, gears going. And it's one of those examples of, okay, there's certain things that you should just know, uh, this is gonna be too activating. And that's something that we wanna put earlier that goes into the thought timing domain. And that's a really fascinating long topic. So we want to put those by day mode and night mode being reserved for things that we know are going to have more of a downregulatory effect. So what would those things look like? That would be maybe more time to get a digestive break. That would be lowering the temperature in your space. That would be more relaxation, less technology, less electric light.

It's like microhabits really, isn't it? And boundary setting. I think what I find with my clients, like the hardest, and obviously it might just be the line of work of line of work I'm in. But the hardest thing for people is the thought portion because I feel like a lot of people, you know, doing this are like generally high achievers potentially, or they want to optimize and they want to feel their best, like you said, really addicted to feeling their best. And it's like, oh yeah, I can buy like a Red Bull on Amazon. Like, you know, I have that installed in my kids' rooms and we're only using red, red light, yada yada. And for me, that's fun and that's a quick hit. I can check it off the list. But it's like the self-control to not have those conversations. And it's not even to shut your laptop or put your phone away. I think it's even harder to not have the thoughts and not have the conversations. And for me, obviously, that's my line of work and what I teach. But it's, yeah, you know, it's micro habits, but also not disregarding. And I think a lot of people are looking for quick wins, like you said. And so it's like beyond the supplements, it's like, yes, and all of these are amazing things. And I believe they will have a huge, huge, huge impact. And also thinking like those conversations that you're having in the the things that you're like running through your day. And that does happen. I know a lot of my clients who struggle with sleep, it's like they're running through those conversations and how they should have responded or what they're going to do tomorrow and all of that, because your body doesn't know the difference between what you're imagining and what's real life. Yeah. So if you are having these conversations, think about like the adrenaline that we want to be rolling. So I think, you know, that is such a freaking important point. And I think like to that point, what's interesting is I think like for me, with my sleep being so good. Yeah, I think, you know, there's so many things I've done wrong, if that makes sense. Not to discount it, but like in my seasons of— and especially in the past 3 years having 2 kids, and there's so many things I've done wrong, although generally I have good habits and I do a lot of the things that you've said. But the thing I'm best at is like controlling that inner narrative. And I feel like that's been the most like influential thing for me when my sleep like really, really improved was just like being able to like shut it all off at like— really, for us, 6:30 to 7:00 where we shut everything down. Like, that's like the kids are asleep, the dishwasher's on, the kitchen is done, we've eaten, and it's like completely— we're not— we won't even have like a conversation about like something too exciting. Like, you know, we're going to Paris. Yeah, I'm like, I can't have this conversation. It's too exciting. I'm literally— this was a real thing we spoke about. I think there's just so many components to this. It's interesting for me coming from my perspective as well, because I think a lot of my students, like, this is the particular area And I'm interested, I know you said like that's a whole other conversation and we're winding this up, but just like as last points for that, what would you say to someone who's like, okay, I'm checking all these other things off, I'm really self-controlled, I've implemented these habits, but I have these like narratives, right? I'm struggling with like the boundaries of this, of not having like these exciting conversations or like anxiety-provoking conversations in my head or in real life.

What's your advice? Oh yeah. Well, using, to continue to use my own example last night as a what not to do, Yeah, I get it. Someone had sent me this article and I just did not think it was going to be that, like, activating to my brain. And yet I should have known better. It was one of those moments where you need to understand the power of our brain state and how activating certain things can be and other— and how we actually have so much of a say of this. So my husband and I often use this terminology of thought timing routinely. And so And I always tell every person in my programs that this continues to be my biggest struggle of the area. I have no problem with the red lights, living in a brothel. I have no problem, you know, I have no problem with the meal timing being earlier. Like, I kind of condition everyone in my environment to like, they know if they're meeting up with me, we're meeting up early. Half the time we're doing daytime, like walk and talks and all the things, like all of these things. Not a problem. For me, it continues to still be the thought timing one that I can still— I have to keep reining myself in because I have a tendency, like an addiction, to liking to be more in the upstate, you know. So if we think about day mode being more of an upstate mode and night mode being more of a downstate space, so it's really important to kind of learn what are some of your, like, Achilles heels. And so my husband knows this about me, so he'll often, like, between the two of us will be going back and forth where some of you know, maybe, oh, we want to talk about an exciting vacation or something, because even excitement, you know, that's known as eustress, right, can get you amped up.

It's the same like excitement anxiety, they're doing the same thing in your body. Exactly. And so that's something to be aware of. Don't get yourself too excited.

So my husband, you know, will be like just getting into bed and be like, oh, did we get the, you know, flights for the trip to Japan? Like, what is not a good thing to have at, you know, whatever time it And so we'll both be end up policing each other to be like, is that really good thought timing to bring in? You know, because I mean, like, there's a reality of the fact that sometimes you are going to aim, you're going to forget that maybe this is not the best thing to bring in. And so the more that you can start to train yourself, train, you know, have this even be in your conversation and the people around you. So I'll even have with my friends, we'll be like, you know, chatting back and forth and stuff. And it's like, oh, this is really bad thought timing conversations, you know, so instead unit, we can be supportive of some of these callouts. So, you know, it's a forever work in progress, a muscle to be built. But I tell everyone that this is a big one for me because I would love to just keep listening to the podcast that gets me all, oh, this is a good idea. Oh, this is fun. And yet, so for me, I have to actively make sure to put in lots of extra boundaries for myself to really make sure that routinely I'm not slipping into the overthinking, the upstate activity too late into the evening. And so for all of us, when we think of these sort of analogies, one of the analogies for sleep is often like a plane. And so needing to have sufficient runway time so that we're kind of shifting from this often like the crazy beta train, I'll often refer to as when a beta brain state of all that activity, right? And then how to support that transition because so many people, one of the most common things I'll hear is like, "Ugh, I just can't shut off my brain. I wish I could just flip a switch and like, I just wanna turn it off." And part of the ability to have that happen is happening, you know, further upstream where we are setting the parameters. So then there's just not much of that activity happening. So then you can just downregulate. So for me, one of the best things is just lots of reading. So I'm a reading fiend. I have a friend that calls it fiction after 5. And so, Funny things, right? And so really noticing that even the content of the types of things— because I would love to still be reading my, you know, things that are around business, and I like— I have to actually rein that in and make sure, no, it's more of a relaxing, like, you know, just kind of maybe the fiction piece, maybe that whatever, but something that is going to be supportive of our goals. Why? To kind of put a bow on this whole thought timing thing, One really fascinating study we had, so the lead researcher's own podcast speaking to the Mind After Midnight studies. And so the Mind After Midnight is looking at how— what they discovered was that in the wee hours of the morning for you, whatever your sleep-wake time is, they found a very distinct difference in the types of thoughts that were coming up for people the later that they were awake, just simply thinking like you normally do, but in the wee hours of the morning seemed to result in more of these these anxious, catastrophic thoughts in those hours. And it had some really real-world consequences, including suicidality rates going up during those times, more of these kind of flawed logic type thoughts. And I think many of us can probably have— point to some instance when this has happened for them. Like, you're laying awake and you're thinking all the horrible things, like, you know, that are going on in your life. Oh, this is going to be awful, yada, yada, then the next morning you wake up and you're like, wait a minute, it's not that bad. What is— why was I so stressed about that just a few hours ago? And we know that there's very different hormones that are at play at certain hours of the day and night. So there's a real biological rhythm to these thoughts. Um, and so we see that also even in our understanding of how more hunter-gatherers kind of organize thought patterns, and it seemed to be more are, you know, task-oriented, utilitarian by day, and then in the evenings was often a time for relaxation, sitting around the fire, connection, you know, dance, play, joy, those sort of things. And so how can we mimic that in our modern society? It all comes back to that, doesn't it?

And how can we make that— I, I love it, I love it. I feel like there's so many things that I could pick your brain on and probably go on forever and So for people who want more, want to know where to find you, how to work with you, where would they find you, how can they work with you, all of that good stuff.

All of that good stuff. Yes. So at sleepisaskill.com, we have a lot of kind of steps you could take. So the first main thing is that we have a sleep assessment. So based on some of the things that you might be struggling with, with your sleep, you'll get auto-triggered back information to support your sleep in that state right away for free. And then that can also sign you up for our weekly newsletter that's been going out every Monday for almost 6 years. We've never missed a Monday. So what's been really cool about that is we've gotten to really have some close relationships with readers and we respond to every single email. So, you know, please join in on that. And that's just free information, including our weekly podcast that comes out with different sleep experts in lots of different domains of sleep. So that's all available. And then if you're struggling further and really want to dive into what I think is this fascinating, life-changing world of sleep, then we do have different cohort groups. So we have one coming up in May of this year, where we'll have small groups and every person like I was sharing before does wear an Oura Ring. And since we've amassed just such a huge database of Oura Ring users, we have lots of targeted information that we can share of how you're really stacking up as far as your sleep results and if things are kind of red flags for us. And we often then layer in sleep tests in addition to that. For all of our one-on-ones, we bundle in— your sleep tests are also done, as well as blood work, hormone analysis, other things as well. So all that to say that if you're struggling, whether you're looking just for some free information to kind of keep this in your— in the conversation, or if you really want to uplevel, that's all available. Additionally, we're aiming to get out a lot more information on social media as well. Instagram, um, molly.eastman, Molly I-E, for, you know, kind of daily reminders, hopefully, of the power of sleep.

Well, I love following you on Instagram, and I'm going to tag everything there. Um, this will come out before your program, so can people still sign up for your cohort if like close to the start, because this will probably come out in a couple of weeks. So be like, that's April. What month are we in? It's April.

Yeah. Okay, fine. So no, yes, you can absolutely— we'll have people signing up right until the start dates, because my intention and mission on this planet is to really spread the good word of how I truly believe that if all of us were to take on this area of life, that the world would be a much better place. We know that not a single diagnosis in the DSM doesn't have some link-up with sleep. So, from our mental health, our experience of the world around us is so interconnected with sleep that it's, I think it's time for its time in the sun or light, no pun intended, of really understanding the importance of this area.

I completely agree with you, and I just appreciate your time. I know it's valuable, and I know this is going to help so many people. So, thank you so much. And yeah, Yeah, it's been a pleasure.

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for the work you're doing and the enthusiasm and energy that you're bringing to this crucial, crucial area of life. I could not be more thankful.