Kelly & Lori Live – April 14, 2026 💬 | Functional Medicine, Metabolic Health & Wellness Tips

Well, hi there. It's so fun to get to see you tonight. Happy Tuesday.

That's right. After a very intense weekend learning all kinds of amazing things at A4M in West Palm Beach, and of course enjoying the beauty of West Palm Beach.

I know it was really, it was really a difficult choice, guys, for us to stay inside for conference because the weather was so beautiful. So we kept sneaking out for walks in early morning. To get our steps in before we got to conference. But it really, I mean, it just made me realize how important it is to be there for myself, but also for you guys to learn all the new things.

And that we did, didn't we?

We did. I came back with the list, and my team always, I mean, I think they like it, but also I think they were kind of like dread it because they're like, okay, what is going to happen now?

That is right. That is right. And we also got a chance to really network and connect with a lot of vendors and a lot of people that we don't get to see that often, but we talk to behind the scenes and emails and things like that. So yeah, it was really fun.

Yeah, really, really good. So guys, we appreciate you for being here. It's a Tuesday evening. We know you could be doing many, many, many things, and we really appreciate you sending in your questions. Um, this month we're talking all about sleep, and I think we've had an opportunity ourselves with travel to get a little sleep deprived. I've got On my Oura Ring, it's showing up as sleep debt. I don't like any kind of debt, especially sleep debt. What about you, Lori Esarey MS?

I agree. I don't like any kind of debt and especially sleep debt because the brain does not work very well with sleep debt.

That's right. Sleep is your time to repair, right? I used to think— I don't know about you, Lori, but I used to think it was a waste of time. I would get so frustrated because I am a morning person and I've always gone to bed early because I just need the extra sleep. And it would frustrate me when I had so many things I needed to get done. But it was power down. It was like lights are going out, you better go get horizontal. But it's not a waste of time, it's important. It's repair time.

Yeah, it's recovery time. It's rest and restoration. And I'm like you too, like grew up in an era that I do, you know, you got to get stuff done, you got to get things off the list. But, um, learning as I get older, we don't have the capacity to lose or live in sleep debt.

Right.

We don't. And we feel it as we get older. But the reality is, is even when we're younger, we have the ability to bounce back. And we may feel like we can power through. But the reality is, as I once heard it, is you don't get that back again. So it doesn't matter what age you are. If you're listening to us tonight, lean into this conversation because it's relevant no matter what age you are. Sleep is your superpower.

Yeah. So some of the studies they've done on sleep and younger people with sleep deprivation, it's almost like being intoxicated. You know, having to take certain tests when you're sleep deprived just doesn't go so well. So, don't test yourself on this one. Just believe us. Believe that you need your sleep. So, you want to start with some questions? I know we've had several questions sent in by the listeners, and we do appreciate that. We love digging in with you guys, and we got some really good questions tonight.

Yeah.

The first question was, you know, why is it that all day I'm so tired, And then I get home and I lay down at night, put my head on the pillow, and I cannot fall asleep. You know, we call that wired and tired, right? So what would you say about that, Lori Esarey MS?

Yeah. So I think, and I had an example of this today because I had the privilege, as I like to say, of going over a DUTCH, a dried urine comprehensive hormone analysis. And you get to see it so beautifully on the DUTCH when you have this spike of cortisol. It's like this second wind, you know. We all have this body clock, this circadian clock, and that whole wind down, particularly, I guess, depending on the season of the year too, when it's dark outside, the body starts winding down, and we should be winding down. And then we get that second wind again from all kinds of different things. We gotta power— we feel like we have to power through because we have this long list of everything we've got to get done. And we wake up, and then we expect our bodies to be able to sleep. And the reality is, is much harder to sleep when we get wired up like that to get that task list done. But I mean, I think one of the other things that I see a lot is eating late at night, right? You know, eating is, you know, we need that whole, um, it's parasympathetic, it's rest and digest, right? So, um, we eat and it revs up the body for digestion and it activates the body, and we don't sleep very well when we eat late at night. So lots of different reasons. What would you say, Kel?

Yeah, so that cortisol spiking at night is interesting because with that comes blood sugar. And to your point, when you're eating late at night, it just gives fuel to the fire that's already there and doesn't really allow your brain to power down. And I would say, you know, our sleep starts in the morning. So I was talking to a couple this afternoon in clinic and we're talking about, um, they're living in an apartment right now because they're building a house. And they have no outside space. And they were like, we have not really been outside for 6 months, right? We, we used to being outside, getting some sunlight. And, and the, the way our brain works for producing melatonin to lower cortisol at night is that sunlight exposure during the day. So I would say if you're not building into your day an opportunity to get outside, that can work magic to help your circadian rhythm work a little bit better. And then stress, you know, recognizing that our bodies are not built to be on all the time. We don't have an off switch. So if we're just expecting our body to be a machine and go, go, go, and then we lay down and expect to be able to fall asleep, sometimes that just doesn't work. We need some power down time. So what are some of your favorite things to do at night to kind of power down?

I love getting home and taking a shower. You know, if it's about— if I had a bathtub, I would probably sit in the bathtub too. But I honestly, there's something about a shower, just kind of getting myself ready and relaxed. I do love, love, love this time change. I love it lighter, longer, and I love the ability to sit out or go on a short walk just to get outside, to just reset my body prior to— if I get a chance to eat first and then walk, that's always better. I prefer that. But I really enjoy night where I can come home, get outside, um, eat some food, take a good shower, um, read a book or read at least a little bit, not necessarily on my phone or a reader, but I really enjoy the ability to read or listen to a podcast or something like that. Like, those are some of my favorite things to do. And of course connecting. I think that we both have jobs that are very— they require a lot of us. You know, constant talking, constant engagement and things like that. So, um, I feel like at night, um, I'm not as ready to connect. I like— yeah, I like to— I just have to, you know, have quiet. So yeah, yeah.

What about you? I think, I think that when you're having challenges with sleep, it can be really helpful to create some type of routine Lori mentioned a few, like for her taking a shower helps kind of send the signal to her body, it's time to power down. So figuring out some routine, it doesn't have to be the same thing we're talking about. It could be anything. It could be reading, it could be sitting outside, it could be deep breathing, yoga, something, just a signal that your body knows, hey, she's getting ready to power down. And doing that consistently enough that your body kind of learns from that. So we need cues for the body to pick up on to get us into good sleep. I love a good Epsom salt bath. I'm a bath girl at night. I love to chill out in my bathtub. My bathtub is my best friend.

I was gonna say that, like, and you have this beautiful bathtub too. Like, you created this sacred space, and there's something to be said about that too, right? It's the space to which you really power down and you enjoy. But that sacred space of that beautiful bathroom with that lovely tub that you have in there.

So I'd say if you're still struggling, if you do some of these things and you're just feeling like things are not working, dig in deeper, do some testing, see what's going on with those hormones, because this menopausal, perimenopausal time frame can be an opportunity for progesterone to dip. There can be really cool things happening that just need a little tweak to get you where you need to be so you can have restorative sleep. Not just sleep, but restorative sleep.

Yeah, I think if we're going to talk about the things that actually wind us down, I think it's really important to talk about the things that maybe we've learned that we should not do. Oh yeah, we should not—

there's a list, there's, there's a list. And you know, the thing that's helped me see that has been wearing the Oura Ring, and I don't get anything from Oura Ring. I am not an influencer for Oura at all, but it has taught me some things because you would think, or I would think, that having a little glass of wine at night to help you chill out is a great way to help you sleep. Mhm. Eh, eh, eh. And I mean, I've dramatically— like, I will have a glass of wine maybe once or twice a month. I mean, and I was probably doing, you know, 1 or 2 glasses every weekend before. Um, and so yeah, it disrupts my sleep. Wine at night— if I'm gonna have wine, I like to do it at lunch. If I'm gonna have a glass of wine on the weekends, I'll do it more at lunch and give it time to kind of metabolize out before I'm trying to get some sleep, because I don't want anything messing with my sleep.

Yeah, it is something very, very sacred. I think for me, it's one of those things I didn't realize, but watching anything on TV that gets me spun up Like sometimes drama, sometimes I can't watch anything related to like crime or just scary things. It just, it doesn't work for me. And some people are like, I could watch that stuff all day long and it doesn't bother me at all. For me, I can't. Like I'm still, I'm in it. Like I'm trying to solve the mystery. I'm trying to solve the crime. I'm trying to, and then I dream about it all night long too. So that was an— that was a, um, I think that was a harder observation for me because I didn't really understand, and the people around me certainly didn't understand either, because there are many people that can do that and it does not bother their sleep at all. So maybe it's the news for some, maybe it's action-packed movies and things like that, whatever that is. But realizing that sometimes the things that you watch, the— some— sometimes the things that you read aren't settling you down, they're actually wiring you.

Yeah, and I would say what you mentioned earlier, eating late at night. I think eating, you know, too close to bedtime will oftentimes disrupt my sleep. So, watching that, making sure it's about 3 hours prior to bed. So, trying to eat a little bit earlier.

Caffeine. We think about timing of caffeine. You know, some people think that they can drink caffeine and they're like, I fall asleep with a cup of coffee in my hand, which I used to be that way. But that did not mean that I was getting restorative sleep. So, caffeine in the afternoons can be very sleep obstructive too. And also some teas that are out there. Some of you are drinking— people like to drink iced tea. You know, I live in the South, so, you know, people like iced tea, black tea, and some of those that also they're having at dinner. And those can be very bothersome, not only to the bladder, but they can be very bothersome to the sleep cycle. I want to go back to something that you said too, Kelly, is that sleep is an all-day event. Like, the quality of your sleep is directly dependent on your day and the rhythms of your body. Yeah.

So we had another question from a menopausal female, and she's having difficulty sleeping, and she wants to know, is this just the way it is? Do I just need to settle for poor sleep and generally not feeling well because I'm not getting good sleep? Is this just something I need to plan for? Help me out.

No way. It is not something that you need to accept. In fact, we need actually more sleep, and we have to really hone in on the things that we just talked about. What's, you know, what's creating— what, what is positively influencing our sleep and what's negatively influencing our sleep. But understanding that our body, our body relies on hormones, a lot of different hormones, and it's not just sex hormones. I think one of the things that we really walked away this weekend, um, we already knew it, both of us, I believe, truly knew it, but maybe don't speak about it as often as we should, but that cortisol is a master hormone. If we don't get that regulated, we're not going to get anything else regulated. So it's really, really important to look at cortisol.

Cortisol is the only hormone that goes up with age. All of our other hormones decline with age and cortisol goes up. So recognizing that we need to have, you know, by the time we hit menopause, we really need to have some good strategies for cortisol regulation. And we're not taught that early, right? We're not taught how to control our stress response and things that help us decompress that will help manage that cortisol dysregulation, right? And we mentioned earlier, blood sugar is a key driver of dysregulated cortisol. So if you're seeing some mid-abdominal weight gain, um, even if your hemoglobin A1C is still normal, you could be having some massive shifts in glucose, insulin, and cortisol that are disrupting your sleep. But no, you do not have to settle. These are modifiable issues. Even though cortisol goes up with age, it doesn't have to be elevated and dysregulated. Those are two separate things, right?

Yeah, say that again. I think that's really important to understand. Yeah, yeah, say that again.

Dysregulated cortisol, where it's up and down and all around, so your days and nights are mixed up, that can happen. Or we can have persistently elevated cortisol. And so just because age may be driving higher than average cortisol readings doesn't mean that cortisol needs to be or has be dysregulated. There's plenty we could be doing.

Yeah. I think remembering too that stress by definition is any demand for change. I think we all, you know, maybe throw stress around like a badge of honor. And, you know, because we just, I mean, stress is part of life, but when we talk about stress, we're talking about any demand for change. And that means even good stress, right? There's good stress. There's bad stress. Eustress, distress, right?

All stress is not bad. We need some. We need to do hard things.

Yes.

But we need to be able to recover and repair too.

Yes.

So speaking to, you know, really all women, but I would say especially the menopausal female, I would say we need more tools in our toolbox to keep us regulated. Like, I love my higher dose PMF mat. Like, I love to be able to get on that if I get, if I have a night where I'm just wired. And I cannot make myself go to sleep, I'll go get on my mat for 20 minutes and then I'm out like a light, right? So sometimes we have to use technology to help us regulate some of our hormones and regulate cortisol levels. So I'm glad we have those things. I told someone today, I'm just so glad technology has advanced and we have some cool things to pull from. You know, we're not just struggling without, without help. And then there's lots of herbals that can help with with cortisol regulation too. You know, sometimes we use those to help regulate cortisol.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm— I, I want to go back and say that we don't have to accept it. Menopausal, perimenopausal, doesn't matter. Not accepting it, that there's so much we can do. There are modifiable factors that we talked about tonight, but then there's also really working with a qualified healthcare practitioner. I love helping my clients restore their sleep.

It's a power move.

It is a power move because when you're sleeping, everything else works better. You could be doing a lot of good things every day, working out, eating really good food, you know, managing and mitigating stress, but not sleeping. And at the end of the day, you're not going to have a healthy life. You're going to unfortunately gain weight. And you said earlier, that belly fat, you know, that's the area— it just— you wake up one day, I don't know about you, but I'm like, what in the heck is What is that? Like, where did that come from?

Where did that come from? And one last question before we get off for the night. Someone's asking about— they feel like they're sleeping enough hours. They're getting 8 hours of sleep a night, but they're waking up unrestored. They're tired, they're stiff, they're achy. That's a lot, right? Good for you for getting the 8 hours of sleep, but it's probably not restorative sleep. What could be causing lack of restorative sleep?

And then what is restorative sleep? You know, so let's first talk about, um, the sleep cycle. So there's light sleep, there's deep sleep, and there's REM sleep. And we go through several different cycles through the night of that. But restorative sleep is your reparative sleep. That's the sleep that we absolutely need for our body to heal and repair. In order for it to heal and repair, we need all those nutrients. That we ate during the day. We need all the water that we— all the things that the cells need to be able to heal and repair. But it's during that healing repair time, that restorative sleep, is where we are kind of getting our refresh on. We need all of those cycles of sleep. And so those are those cycles, and you'll go through those cycles several times through the night. But restorative sleep is greatest— for those of you that are wearing wearables, we've been able to discover this, you know— are that, that first 4 hours, like 10 to 2, that is such an important time for us to get a large majority. Now, we will then again have later sleep cycles, right, Kelly, that we will have those periods of time in which we'll have some deep sleep. But most people will find that the longest period of time, consistent period of time that we have deep sleep is in those first few hours that we're in bed, which makes it really, really important.

So for you guys, if you're having non-restorative sleep, you probably need to dig into what's causing that, right? So think about sleep apnea. Are you getting enough oxygen at night? And guys, females that are thin can still have sleep apnea. We used to think that we had to be overweight, right, to get sleep apnea, but the tongue is the first place you gain weight. There's a little fat pad in the back of your tongue. That enlarges when you gain a couple of pounds. It doesn't have to be massive weight gain that can obstruct our, our airway. Also, our neck muscles can get weak if we're not working out. We need to be doing some strength training. If we're not working out, just simply our neck muscles can get weak and it collapses at night when we're sleeping and we just don't get good oxygen. So for females, don't think because you're normal weight, if you're not getting restorative sleep, you need to to be assessed for sleep apnea. And it's never been easier to have a pulse ox that you wear at night or some type of at-home device for a screening for sleep apnea, right? So I'd say that's oftentimes missed. And if we've got sleep apnea, we're not getting enough oxygen, our brain will not be happy. They will not be happy. And so it's something that you definitely want to evaluate. I know no one wants to wear a sleep— CPAP, but there are other ways to address the sleep apnea. There's some dental appliances. There are different ways to assess depending on what's causing the sleep apnea. So if you get diagnosed, figuring out what's driving it, like, what can I be doing to help improve if you're not wanting to wear a CPAP?

Yeah. And then the other thing is a lot of people, unfortunately, have a lot of lights on in their house. They're not producing enough melatonin. Melatonin is a key— I'm going to call it a nutrient, but it's an essential— It's an essential nutrient of sorts that your body needs to have in order for you to get good sleep and get good rest. But it's produced by your pineal gland as the lights go down at night. So when the lights go down at night, we need to leave our internal lights in our houses dim too and lower. And then we can't leave out ambient temperatures in rooms can really obstruct, particularly for menopausal women, hot flashes and things like that. Lowering the temperature of the room is something key that would really aid in that. There are so many cool devices now that can help understand or help you understand your sleep. I love the Oura Ring. I think, you know, you just said earlier you love the Oura Ring. It doesn't have to necessarily be an Oura Ring, but these wearables give insight to things that you may never understand are going on with your sleep. So back to the original question, if you're waking up after 8 hours of sleep and you are not feeling rested, explore. Look at what you're doing pre-bed. Look at what time you're going to bed. Look at ambient temperatures in the room. Look look at what you're eating close to bedtime, look at what you're drinking close to bedtime, really assess, you know, is it truly that I'm not getting to sleep? Maybe I'm up through the night several times, like what's going on? And if you can't seem to put your finger on it, then definitely get a device. They're reasonable these days, they're becoming more reasonable to have them, and they really do help. And then team up with a qualified healthcare practitioner because it's fun. Don't you love when someone comes in with a wearable device and doesn't it make you feel like so much—

you can really dig in. We can really dig in and look at track because we're trending. We're looking at trends when we look at that. It's not a one day that makes or breaks. It's the trend over time. But I say if you're not getting restorative sleep, dig in and figure out— that's, that is important to figure out whether that's sleep apnea, whether that's dysregulated blood sugar, dysregulated cortisol, thyroid dysregulation can cause that too. Don't let that go unassessed. You need to be figuring that out so that you can repair at night. And function your best during the day.

Yeah. Yeah. So we have about 6 minutes left. And so I want to talk about, you know, you know, there's a lot of sleep remedies on the market in respect to supplementation and maybe even medication. But let's not go into the medication side of things because I would much prefer. But what would be one of your favorite supplements that you use to aid in sleep, or what would you recommend?

I say the first thing that I recommend typically is going to be magnesium. And I say that because magnesium helps your body make melatonin. Um, and magnesium has about 300 other metabolic activities in the body. And most Americans are magnesium deficient. Like, it's rare to find someone coming in that's not taking magnesium already. That is repleted with magnesium. Like, it's— I don't think I've ever seen it. Like, anytime I've ever tested a red blood cell magnesium, right, we've had lower levels, like less than optimal levels. So I would say that would be kind of my number one go-to for most people.

Yeah, I agree. Is there a particular type of magnesium? You know, we get the question all the time. You know, I feel like there's so much, you know, over-the-counter to purchase.

Sure.

What kind of magnesium would you recommend?

So if we're just thinking sleep, magnesium glycinate is the actual precursor for melatonin. But your body can do amazing things with magnesium. So if we're dealing with lack of sleep and constipation and other things, I may need— I may use a blend. You know, we have a formula called TriMag. I love that one. Um, and then magnesium citrate, I'll use that sometimes if constipation is the prevalent issue, and then maybe they're not sleeping great, but we're really trying to work on constipation. And so sometimes it's a blend, sometimes it's a combination. I'm not shy about using magnesium.

Me neither. Me neither. Yeah, I'm not shy about using magnesium either because, you know, if you even use magnesium threonate, it crosses the blood-brain barrier. And people that perseverate, or they wake up and they— they're— or they're in their sleep and they feel like they're actually working in their sleep, it really, really calms the brain.

So I hate when that happens, when you work all night long and you're like, oh Oh my goodness. But that happens, right? So yeah, having that magnesium threonate can be epic. Another one that I like for that rumination, perseveration person is L-theanine.

It's a green derivative.

It just helps quiet— it doesn't put you to sleep, it's not going to knock you out, but it just makes the brain kind of relax and get quiet so that you can go to sleep. Kind of shuts down the committee meeting that's going on up there.

Well, I love L-theanine I was telling someone today, it's very similar to how the anxiolytics create a calm without creating the drowsiness in the morning.

Right.

So L-theanine, and L-theanine is so safe, like so safe. Most L-theanine products, again, you know, we're talking about general products right now. Always choose quality, right? Always choose pharmaceutical-grade certification or certification of good manufacturing practices. But most L-theanine products are about 200 milligrams mg per cap. And so people can use 2 or 3 of them at night depending upon, you know, what they're dealing with. But I have used it throughout the day as a natural anxiolytic for people going through big stuff, right? Like really big stuff. Grief, loss of family members, all of those things. So I love it too. I also love our product, which is Chill, and it just is a combination of some GABA, L-theanine, and I also like I think that many of us would benefit from ashwagandha as well, right? So that's awesome. Yep.

Yeah, thanks so much for your questions and for your time and attention. I think this is great. We'll be back on here next month talking about creativity, talking about connection, how we connect, how we can be more creative, a little bit about brain and connectivity and, and creativity. I think that would be a good combo to be talking about. Send us in your questions. You know, it's my— May is Mother's Day, so we'll be on in May, um, talking about just all the things you want to hear about. So send us your questions. We listen. We love spending this time together with each other, hanging out, but also with you guys too.

We do. And then if they want to get more of us, where do they go to find more?

Yeah, so we're building a community on Facebook. Um, and you can find us there. I'm trying to— I mean, I'm trying to remember like what we're calling it because we have changed the name like 3 times.

Exactly. Exactly.

Sorry that I'm like— we'll put it in the chat. How's that? We'll put it in the chat, the name of the group.

Yes.

Because it's a way to connect. It's a way to get your questions to us, um, and get some really good content that helps just keep you motivated, focused. There's so much that we could be doing Right. We get all the noise out there, but really, at the end of the day, it's what should you be doing to help you move the needle and feel your best?

Yeah, that's right. So thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you taking time out on a Tuesday night, and we will see you real soon.