Sleep Struggles & The Science Behind It!

Sleep is so overlooked, but whose lap does it fall in, right? It's like, I don't know, is it respiratory? Is it anesthesia? Is it your primary care? Like, who?

Well, I'll say anesthesia because you guys put people to sleep.

You would think, right? However, right, however, um, you know, I guess that's a different type of sleep, right, that, you know, nobody wants to touch, right, right. Except pro somnia sleep.

Pro somnia, we up in here.

But no, real talk. So who are you? And why are you an expert in sleep?

Man, it happened as 27 years went by. I realized I was an expert. I didn't even think about it from that perspective getting into it, to be honest with you. It kind of just fell in my lap. And I just realized more and more as I started talking to people similar to your situation that, wow, sleep is really messing people's lives up. It's not happening in my house. having seen it happen with my grandmother having this problem and then kind of thinking, wow, everybody's got a grandma, a mother, a father, a cousin, a brother that's snoring and they didn't even realize it's not a joke.

No, it's not.

It's actually something serious and, you know, people are falling asleep in the daytime and you're thinking the only time that you think motor vehicle accidents happen when people doze off is at night, but that's not true. They're just sleep deprived. They sleep anywhere.

Day, night, middle of the day, early in the morning.

So, you know, after, you know, realizing that there was a whole group of people in the Caribbean of English-speaking that my parents are from, I felt like an obligation, even though I was born in the US.

Yeah.

You know, I just felt like, okay, there's enough people dealing with this here and there's nobody talking about this here. And the burden kind of fell on me that I couldn't walk away from, thinking that lives would go and suffer if I didn't take this sacrifice to go into space, to start talking to people like I was Noah, like a flood's coming. And they're looking at me like, sleep? What are you talking about? Like, it just came out. Like, this ain't COVID, you know? The sleep apnea didn't just come out in March of 2020. Like, we've been dealing with this forever. Nobody knew. Unfortunately, you know, the dementia and Alzheimer's disease, you know, that later on in life that you realize it started with years of sleep deprivation.

Absolutely.

Years of lack of oxygen to the body. And, you know, I feel we have an important place, you know, in what we do as believers, knowing that we are created to help others.

Yeah.

And when we get to the point where all we're thinking about ourselves is when we've lost the understanding of what our purpose is.

Absolutely.

And I believe that we both have 2 purposes that have aligned.

Mm-hmm.

And brought us together. Like, what a— and who knows where and how many people we're gonna help with this. It's gonna be crazy.

This is, this is a worldwide thing though. It's not just, you know, it's sleep affects every aspect of everybody's life. Mm-hmm. I don't care what your symptoms are. I promise you we can trace it back to sleep. And, you know, I think that's what was so overlooked. And honestly, that's what I didn't understand before I started this business. I, You know, fortunately, before I started this business, I didn't have a problem sleeping.

Now you're thinking about sleep. Now I'm thinking about the business.

But some reason can relate. But no, but real talk, like, you know, as I started this, it happened to be, you know, as the inventor of prosomni sleep therapy and starting Prosomni Sleep Health and Wellness and, and this corporation, it was a discovery that translated into sleep. And when I say an untapped market. Like, it's— and it affects every organism on Earth. Every organism that has a carbon structure needs sleep, right? So I didn't even realize the magnitude of, of this, you know, industry. And then as I met you, because I was so focused on prosomnia, I wasn't— you know, it had— I had to— I can't just help people with REM sleep disorders without addressing non-REM sleep disorders. And sleep apnea and other— the secondary effects. So I had the responsibility to learn and meet you. And so you've become a very valuable asset to ProSomnia Sleep because you—

I learned a lot about insomnia through you and propofol and all these things. I was like, what the hell?

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so I love it. And it's just one of those things. Nobody wakes up and says, oh, let's open a sleep clinic. But 27 years of respiratory therapy, I'm sure you thought you'd be on a podcast talking about sleep, right? At some point.

I guess today starts that day.

That's how it starts.

I mean, I did win Podcaster of the Year in 2023 with Sleep Talk.

Congratulations.

Yes. But like I said, I didn't even think that this was something that I was going to consider doing on a personal level or even working with a team like with you.

Yeah.

To do this. So I'm excited that we're, you know, we're finally breaking history. We're both stepping into a new realm.

Absolutely.

We're guided by our passion to want to make a difference in the people that we can serve with the information that we have. And I just think that we got a great chemistry overall.

I love it.

I love it. Most people would think that we together or something.

Oh, always.

Always.

We talking all day.

Talking all night.

They'd be like, mm. I know, you know, but you like my brother. You're family now. You know, it's not—

I mean, once you get that bug, the sleep bug, I call it.

Yes. Yes, for sure.

You just can't walk away from the fascination of what you're finding out in sleep.

Yes. Like, through happenstance. Like, you think you're educated on one thing, but as you learn and grow and evolve into this industry, and even personally, you learn things. It was like, gosh, all that time. All that time. Oh, that makes sense. Oh, this is why.

Now it's all coming together.

Because why? We were never taught. No one's ever taught about sleep.

I got bedtime stories to go to bed.

All day long.

But never heard why I'm sleeping. What's supposed to happen in sleep? How's that going to impact my game tomorrow that I'm looking— I'm excited to play?

1,000%.

You know, these are things that we're going to be able to definitely uncover, how we can change the— I would say the status quo about what sleep is really about and how education awareness is going to mean a huge part of your success in life in every aspect.

Yeah, I'm so excited. So, all right, fine. What is sleep apnea and why are we missing it? Why is it missed? Why is it overlooked?

Because you don't, you don't feel it. I mean, it's not pain associated with it. So I'm talking to you about a problem that's life-threatening and you can't see any signs outside of feeling tired. And you're like, well, dude, everybody feels tired. Yeah, everybody's got a little bit of weight on.

They've normalized daytime.

I've been snoring for years. My mother snored, my father snored, my grandparents snored. So You know, when you take a look at women who typically have different symptoms from men, and that there's such a stigma behind the word sleep apnea now that people are learning because they're finding out that, oh my gosh, don't let me have to wear a CPAP.

Right, right, right. They're scared of the machine.

That's all they're concerned about, so they don't even want to be diagnosed. And we have a chronic problem globally impacting every home in America and around the world where people are snoring, people are having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and not realizing. Sleep apnea is when your oxygen levels drop.

Correct.

It don't matter if it's in the day or night, oxygen should never be dropping in your body, right? And if you definitely don't know about it because you're asleep, it's even worse because you can't do anything about it. And unfortunately, we're looking at a billion-plus people estimated that have uncontrolled, unmanaged sleep apnea, and 30% to 40% of those people are connected to insomnia symptoms. So it kind of goes hand in hand until you actually Realize that through some of the symptoms or maybe some of the situations you're being impacted by in your relationship with your partner because they're pissed. They can't sleep with you.

1,000%.

Like, I love you, but you got to go sleep outside because I got to go to work.

So now you got a partner who's not sleeping in the bed with you, right? They got to go on the couch because you got to get up and go to work too as a partner, right? I, I love my partner, but baby, look, I can't. Listen. And so now you're not sleeping together, you know, let's independent of the fact that you're already outside of the house, you know, 8, 12, 16 hours, and then you come home and you can't even sleep with the person you're with because of sleep apnea, right? And, and it— but it's real.

It is.

Like, you know, you can't— there's— you can't minimize it. And the secondary, you know, that you can't breathe and now, you know, your partner doesn't want to sleep with you, right? And now you're having problems in your relationship. You know, it's just a spiral of undiagnosed Unrecognized symptoms that people have normalized again.

Well, I think what we got to start putting on the dating sites is if you snore or not, because unfortunately you got to sleep with that partner to figure out, is this gonna work? Because once you've had a snoring partner and you say, I ain't going back to that, and everything is hunky-dory and the fireworks are going off, obviously in the initial stage, but that first sleepover, you can find out a lot about what you're gonna be dealing with.

In all defense, this is This is part of the issue, right? It's— there's a negative connotation associated with snoring, right? Sexy girls snore. Hello. But, okay, but I mean, so does that mean—

Are you implying you're sexy?

Absolutely. Are you disagreeing?

I agree, I agree. Just checking.

But for real, like, it is embarrassing though, right?

It's not sexy, but it is sexy.

I promise you, I swear I was dating a dude that broke up with me because I snored.

I broke up with women because that— listen, when I was dating That was the prerequisite. I gotta figure out after everything else lined up and it was chemistry, could we sleep together? Could I cuddle? Could I not have to be, oh my gosh, this is— I can't do this, and go sleep? Listen, I had a— I don't even wanna talk about it, but, you know, I had this young lady, really liked her, supermodel, because you think that snoring is only for overweight people.

Not for big people.

And they're thin women like you, ideal weight, gorgeous head to toe, and— Don't try after a couple of drinks, it's even worse.

I love that sound effect. Okay.

I'm just saying. And unfortunately, it's a deal breaker.

Yeah.

And it hurts.

But why? Why does it have to be a deal breaker? Because she's not— why don't you get her some help, sleep specialist?

Well, I did. See, at first it's a little delicate to talk about because they don't really— they feel embarrassed about it. But being that I'm an expert in the space, I'm like, listen, I'm the guy to talk to. I'm okay with this. I treat people all the time. But I think, you know, she was a little bit kind of rubbed the wrong way how she felt, because when she woke up, I was in the living room.

Sleeping in the living room.

In the living room. And she was like, what's wrong? And I'm like, yo, I couldn't do it. And she's like, you know, you can imagine that feeling after a great night, 'cause I put it down.

A little bit.

But I'm saying, but now I'm like, ugh. So she left. I kind of said, well, I still wanna kick it with her, but we can't spend the night. And then I was like, well, that's not gonna work long-term, 'cause it's all about just the physical. And that was obviously not a long-term strategy. And I said, you know what? When she's ready to, she'd make the move. And funny enough, a couple months went by and she hits me up. She goes, hey, you know what? I'm thinking about getting a sleep study. I talked to my doctor. And I was like, what? I was like, okay. But got the machine, couldn't tolerate it. So she's still snoring. And I was thinking, man, at least I was able to—

1,000%.

Help her understand of something that could be impacting her long-term health issues and how she lives her life. And whether or not we were to be a long-term relationship or not.

You clearly made that clear.

Well, that ain't happening. And it's not that I have a problem with it per se, because I know it's not your fault if you snore. You didn't try to snore. You're not doing something wrong because this and that's why you snore. It's not a bad thing. It's just—

And a lot of people don't know, you know, again, like, again, it's real easy to say, you know, you broke up, you in the living room, but hadn't you not said anything, which is not an easy conversation to have.

Sometimes I didn't. There's some point— some of them I didn't say. Not to say there's been a lot. I'm just saying some of them, I'm like, all right, I'm not even gonna say none because there was some other things that wasn't going good anyway. So this is just the icing on the cake.

Did you really just use snoring as an excuse to break up with somebody?

It's the number one— well, not the number one. I would say at least in the top 3. In the top 3.

Yeah.

You know, I'm sorry. You know, in the top 3 reasons why it's not gonna work, it's in that range. You know, there's certain things I like, little attributes I like, and chemistry is highly important. Kissing. I gotta be able to kiss. You know, if you can't kiss me, I'm like—

I mean, people with sleep apnea can kiss.

Yeah, but that's the first part. I mean, there's other stuff too. And you know, it's nice. You know what that synergy is like when it hits, right? You know, you ain't got to work on it. We too old to be working on nothing. It's supposed to just fit.

Oh my God, I want to, but time does not allow me.

Oh snap. But yeah, as we know, you know, we're gonna always be talking about sleep apnea because it's never going away.

It's not. We just have to be more aware. We have to educate people on what it is.

Do a test! That's the only way to educate yourself.

And remove the stigma, you know, remove the stigma of, like I said, sexy girls snore.

Well, you know what, get a mouthpiece.

Mouthpieces are the way to go now.

All day.

I really, I really am a huge advocate. It's helped me personally, you know, and it's a lot easier to justify a mouthpiece than snoring and keeping my man up at night, you know, so For whatever it's worth, once you turn out the lights, like, I really think you would.

So do you mind if both of you snore?

That happens too.

Oh, of course.

I'm supposed to understand him snoring.

So who's beating who to sleep? Because one person's got to get to sleep first because the other one's going to be up fighting trying to sleep. If you have a difficult— but I'm a light sleeper, so I guess that makes it even worse. Anything I hear is like, I'm up, you know? So unfortunately, I mean, would you consider wearing like earplugs or something? No. I'm not making no adjustments. I'm 54, gonna be 55. That's not a fair statement to make. No adjustments, no adjustments. It either fits—

You can't make— but she gotta put a whole mouthpiece in her mouth?

Well, she gotta breathe. I'm trying to save her life. She wanna be around? It's not about the snoring. I get it.

I have a man.

It's about the breathing. It's about the weight challenges, the blood pressure, the hormone imbalances, her grouchy-ass mood she gonna have when she don't get a good night's sleep. That's what it's about.

I get it, I get it. I'm just saying, you gotta— you have to be willing to compromise too.

I understand. I know. Pray for me. I'm gonna work on it.

Okay, that's a fair statement. That's a fair statement.

Okay, so you having fun?

I'm having a great time.

Are you?

Are you?

I'm loving it. We're going to kill this.

Oh my goodness, this is gonna be great.

Okay, so let's run through them. Are we like live? We doing it now?

We've been recording.

Oh, that's what's up. So they'll just edit whatever we need to edit? All right, cool.

Yeah, we just talk.

Let's jump into something.

Do our thing.

So we were talking about sleep apnea, and we kind of want to talk about the difference between sleep apnea and insomnia. So you're the insomnia specialist, I'm the sleep apnea specialist, and they go hand in hand, right? Because 30 to 40% of persons who have sleep apnea also have hidden insomnia that's not addressed, why it's waking them up in the middle of the night because of increased cortisol and sympathetic activation, fight or flight, all these things happening because adrenaline's releasing because you ain't breathing, you know. And that's a reason why people tend to eventually say, you know what, I can't sleep. And they're taking drugs.

Right.

They start taking anything underneath the sun, under the— over the counter, under the counter, around the counter.

Well, in their defense, what happens is they go to their doctor and they say, hey, I can't sleep. Doctor says, okay, here's this prescription for X, Y, and Z. Or they've tried melatonin, they've tried marijuana, they've tried whatever it is, you know, Benadryl, NyQuil, ZzzQuil, Pick-a-Quil. You know, it's just they've tried everything, right? And then at some point, you know, it really gets to a point where you have to address the root problem, right?

Right.

Because that's, that's second. I'm sleepy during the day, but why are you sleepy during the day? And that's the hard part, you know, and especially if you don't know about it. You don't have a partner who tells you you snore at night.

Use that phone then, because you can record yourself. You can find out what you really about when you're sleeping and know that, you know, nobody's lying. If someone's telling you you're snoring, I promise you, you're snoring.

Some people don't— wouldn't even know to go and record themselves at night because—

Start right now.

Having a sleep problem has— we haven't been taught about. Society has not been talked about proper sleep, proper sleep health, sleep hygiene, how to get proper sleep until we can't.

Right.

Right?

Right.

So how would they know to even consider recording themselves because they might have sleep apnea?

Well, I think if they're listening to us today, they would come to the realization that sleep is important.

Absolutely.

And that if you're not getting proper oxygen to the body, that's even More important, and consider pulling that phone out. Just record yourself. It's free. Nobody has to know. It's private, confidential. You can set that camera up right on your nightstand, even listen to yourself.

All kinds of apps.

And see how many times you toss and turn. I mean, you'll be quite amazed what you actually do, because I hear people grinding teeth, saying things in their sleep, kicking, twitching. And, um, you know, there are 80 different types of sleeping disorders.

Yes.

And, you know, typically people would live with this for many years and never address it, unfortunately, as you said, until a little late in the disease process. And we're just encouraging people, like, like how we were having a push for people to check HIV in the '90s when we heard about Magic Johnson and we heard about other people, Arthur Ashe. And we're now making a push that you should do a sleep study. Like, don't put that away.

It affects every aspect of you, I promise you.

Yeah, that needs to move up the priority list in your health. Like, that's not the just do blood tests, just check cholesterol, just see what my echo in my heart's looking like. Okay. But all that starts with how well you sleep. Right. What is the problem? You ever had a leak in your tire?

Of course.

Okay. So when you first have a leak and you don't got no time to deal with, what do we do? We just put a little air in it every morning, right?

Plug them.

Plug them. Right. And keep it going. And that's what you're doing when you don't get the sleep problem fixed. The root cause of all the symptoms. We just putting Fix-a-Flat on our life.

For real. Fix-a-Flat.

We got that class. We got— we're not getting paid for Fix-a-Flat. Just know that we're not a sponsor.

Sponsored by— but for real, no, no, you're right. Again, it's just— it's the symptoms, the symptoms, the symptoms, you know. Tell us some of the symptoms of, you know, potential sleep apnea at night.

If you're waking up and got an elbow bruise, that's a good sign because your spouse has been kicking you all night trying to get you to roll over. No, that's— that's a symptom. But the other symptom would be dry mouth.

Yeah.

Waking up obviously with headaches, waking up feeling like you're gasping, repeated visits to the bathroom. Like that, you know, people think that going to the bathroom in their sleep is just a ritual that they do. Like, there's a reason why it's happening. Maybe because you're drinking a little bit too late, but also maybe because you're building up so much CO2 in the body because of this lack of oxygen and it's causing you to run to the restroom. Symptoms will include obviously weight gain, blood pressure problems, instability of managing your sugar levels. Just reasoning and thinking, your forgetfulness, you know, your mood.

Oh yeah.

Your mood. If you got a crappy mood— oh, sorry. That's my alarm.

I like to add hiccups to that because if you're gasping for air throughout the night, you know, you'll notice that as you wake up, you, you tend to have hiccups. Like, I always have hiccups around 9 o'clock, or I always have it because of all the air, you know, and the lack of air and those gaps and air pockets in your belly will give you hiccups. A lot of tossing and turning too.

If you're moving, like you start here and you end up somewhere else in the bed, well, there's a reason why you are unconsciously making these moves back and forth, back and forth, because you're trying to get the airway open.

Yeah.

And you don't even realize that, but that's subconsciously what you're doing to try to position yourself. I mean, if you are obviously having trouble, erectile issues in men, uh-oh, I went there.

E.D. Oh, you really wanna talk about that? E.D.

Okay, are we gonna talk about that? No, but when we understand that testosterone development happens at its highest peak for men during REM sleep, and that most men suffering from these areas of lack of performance and erectile strength is stemmed to this. And if you're in the gym and you're an athlete and you're looking to get the gains that you're putting that work in for, it starts with sleep.

Exactly.

It starts with that testosterone and repairing of that tissues and getting—

And growth hormone.

Correct.

Yes.

And all those are going to be thrown off if you're suffocating throughout the night and not getting the proper light, deep, and REM sleep that the body needs.

Because technically, like, what happens is you usually don't even get into REM sleep. For 2, you know, hour and a half to 2 hours after you've laid down and gone to sleep. So if you've already had breathing problems in those first 2 hours or some sort of apneic event, then you're definitely not getting to REM sleep.

No.

Where those growth hormones are and all those type of hormones.

The leptin and ghrelin that control your appetite and metabolism, all that stuff.

All that leptin, ghrelin, all that diabetes, you know, diet, your diet. Just a metabolic issue, even if you don't have diabetes.

Right.

You know, if you're someone who has a hard time losing weight, that's because you have metabolic dysfunction.

True.

Simply because you're not sleeping at night.

Yeah, not getting proper sleep. Or proper sleep at the same time.

And proper rest and proper anxiety.

We don't even know what proper sleep is anymore. Since COVID we just sleep whenever, you know, catch one here, catch one there. We're so busy with trying to, you know, make a dollar and trying to be successful and living the life and, you know, Netflix marathons. You know, we've abused sleep. Um, in ways that our children don't even understand what sleep means.

Right, right. We've taken it for granted because if we have— if we find something else to do during the time that we're supposed to be sleeping, that's what's gonna go.

It's discipline though. All right, I mean, because trust me, I fight with myself. Like last night, it was like, okay, it's 10 o'clock, I still feel like I had a little left in me. I was like, you know what, let me get some entertainment in. I worked all day.

Absolutely.

Can I put something on? And I just realized, like, Greg, you are telling people to not put that light in your eyes. You're telling the people that it's going to affect the quality of their sleep, their REM, but yet I'm still addicted to turning this TV on. And I was like, you know what, I'm not turning it on. I just turned the lights off, made sure it was cool, and like I said, got into my comfy position and got to sleep. But good job. I'm just hoping that—

Job well done.

I'm just— I'm hoping that sleep apnea becomes a household word.

Yeah. Well, or not. Um, just recognition.

Recognition, okay.

Of sleep apnea and that, and snoring.

Right.

You know, so what you had said is, you know, you were having a hard time going to sleep. And I know a lot of times we set an alarm to wake up, but we don't set an alarm to go to bed.

Right.

Right. And so, well, naturally though, if you— if we are fully— have all of our rest and we're sleeping properly, we have good hygiene, We actually don't need an alarm.

That's true.

You know, we, we can establish a routine where our body and our minds know when it's time to go to sleep and time to wake up.

Right.

Now, listening to those, you know, self-alarms is a whole different story, but recognizing it, you know, is definitely—

That's what ProSomnio Sleep's here for, to support you, to coach you, to tell you put the phone down.

Something is—

Stop drinking alcohol, stop drinking caffeine, cut them lights down. Make it noise-proof.

Cold press.

Get that stressful call and that you're going to have to talk to somebody and get that over with.

Meditate.

Meditate.

You'll learn how stress management, medication management.

True.

True. A lot of the medications out here prevent rest and REM sleep. That's true. True. True. So that's one of those fine prints that they actually do disclose, but nobody actually takes into consideration.

I think we should just stand out in front of Starbucks in the morning and just hand out sleep flyers because we know they're all sleep deprived.

Everybody. We can stand in front of Walmart, Home Depot. True.

But we really know this addiction for coffee is like, wow, are we in the right business? You know, because we will be. You could pop a coffee shop up anywhere and somebody's coming.

I— and coffee serves its purpose.

True.

Yeah, I, I think it's, it's the caffeine. The caffeine intake is the issue, right? And the amount of caffeine. And it's, again, it's a symptom, right? Why are these coffee shops so easy to open? Why are they all over the place? Why is there a line outside the door before it even opens? Right?

Yeah.

Because we're a sleep-deprived nation. Yeah. Right? And so this is not against coffee shops.

Right, right, right, right. Not at all. All y'all, I got the coffee cup right on my head.

I'm ready to sponsor a coffee shop.

Look, I'm all about the coffee.

You got a whole picture, okay? But, you know, the issue though is let's recognize that it's not the coffee, not the caffeine. It's our addiction to not getting sleep, staying awake, being in a hustle culture, and not taking that time to rest.

True, true.

You know, and caffeine, you know, is a very accessible drug. You know, I think it's one of the number one most addictive drugs out there.

Do you remember, um, back in the day they used to have like a little— I think it's called No-Doz.

Yes, you get them at the gas station.

At the gas stations. Like, I remember that was like the thing to keep you up. Yeah, but now you're going to a gas station, there's a whole section of energy drinks of every name and every— and I'm like, wow, is people really that sleep deprived that they need energy? And the sad thing is that these young kids, our kids, right? I see my son drinking one one day. I was like, boy, if you don't put that down— it was like he was drinking whiskey.

And on the right, not like, not like the energy drink and water, energy drink before I go to the gym, energy— it's like energy, energy, energy.

Like wow, how do you turn that off?

New water. True.

They're addicted. The new water. Energy water.

Yeah.

We might be on to something.

Okay. Posomniac.

Posomniac.

They want it.

We better get the copyright on that quick.

Thank you for pointing that out, sir. Man. No, but no, for real. It's it's again, it's not the energy drinks. It's not the coffee. It's our our lack of the ability to just sit down and. And know when it's time to rest or recognize when we have a sleep problem.

True.

You know, so I think that's the message, you know, ultimately.

I think a lot of people don't understand the connection to sleep and mental health in the way that we are trying to present it now.

For sure.

Because when we think about mental health, we think, oh, you're either traumatized because of something happened in your life, or, you know, psychologically you just have some, you know, problems maybe from and who knows. And we used to look at mental health as like, like something was wrong with you if you saw a mental health professional. But now we're realizing that everyone has a mental health need.

I know, I'm glad.

And that your behavior, your decision-making, your ability to focus, your ability to remember, all is predicated on what we know as REM sleep and that detoxing of the brain. And it's probably why so many people are making so poor decisions every day.

Right.

Because they ain't sleeping right.

And even, you know, funny you should say that because I actually legitimately have patients who's like, no, I get plenty of sleep, you know, yeah, I get REM sleep, but they're— they, um, I think I need to talk to you because I'm forgetting a lot, or, you know, I'll— and they contribute it to age.

Right, right, right.

But again, is that a symptom of lack of oxygen to the brain or your inability to get into REM sleep and not detox your brain? So again, everything comes back to sleep.

Everything.

Um, you know, and I think it is very important that we, we identify and connect the dots with mental health. Almost at least 75% of my patients are on a mental health, air quotes, medication.

Let me ask you a question. This whole REM sleep thing, right? What is that really saying, um, to your brain? Like, what does that mean to you to get to REM sleep?

That is the only time when your mind can rest. Non-REM sleep is when your body rests, but REM sleep is the only time when your mind can really go through the process of detoxing and clearing, resting, recharging, rejuvenating. There is a biochemical reaction that happens only during REM sleep in certain parts of your brain.

I thought it was just about dreaming.

No, it's, it's part of it. It's definitely part of it because that is your prefrontal area, your thalamus. Your cortex, those are very active regions that you'll see. Um, they akin, um, on an EEG monitor, the activity of your brain as being awake. So that's how active your mind is in clearing and recharging and restoring, that the, the brain waves show up and look like you're awake.

Yeah.

But that is the only time when your mind can rest.

That's amazing. And when you think about sleep anxiety that people are kind of creating for themselves now, even with insomnia being how we consider it from a medical definition. People are using these trackers, all kinds of consumable items, and getting involved with looking at sleep, but not really using medical-grade equipment or having a professional person in the space that could help them. But they're causing themselves issues because they're looking at this tracker—

Exactly.

And it's telling them, oh, you only got 5% REM tonight. That's not a real calculation, but it's estimating body movement and things to help you determine. I think when you take a look—

They're based on an algorithm. I think it's important for people to know that I'm not minimizing the data that's elicited from these devices. It's real. I think it's enough to bring attention. Like you said, even if you don't know. But if your device legitimately says you only got like 2% of REM or no non-REM, whatever that looks like, it may be time to just consider calling Prosomnia Sleep because There's something going on, no matter what it means, no matter what it's based on. At the end of the day, your data is not aligned with a healthy person who has healthy sleep habits.

And then depression. I mean, think about it. If you have trauma, you lost a loved one, you broke up, and you're like Alicia Keys, and you're up here, you can't sleep. Sleeping with a broken heart. And you come into the realization that You can't sleep, and when you can't sleep, you feel worn down. And then before you know it, you're going on days, weeks, months, and you're in this funk and you just can't get out of it. Unfortunately, that sometimes leads to suicidal attempts.

Absolutely.

And sometimes they are successful. But, uh, it's just a sad place to think that this started because of sleep.

Sleep. Um, because even when we're sleep deprived, it's— if, if you become sleep deprived enough, I think it's like— don't quote me on the hours, but You are legitimately in a drunk state.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And so now you're emotionally—

24 hours. I think it's 24 hours, the same correlation equivalence to you having, having had X amount of alcohol in your system, which would be non-acceptable and you'd be getting a DUI. Can you get a DUI for sleep?

I mean, driving under the influence.

Under the influence. Sleep deprivation.

That's not exactly drunk.

Did you sleep today, sir?

Exactly.

When's the last time you went to bed? What if they start asking them questions?

Hey, my police officers, you might want to ask that question for real because that's—

Everybody ain't drunk. Somebody might be sleepy. Let the man go home, man.

I work in the hospital. I get it. Like, we have overnight shifts.

Right.

Some days when I worked in trauma, we did not sleep.

Mm-hmm.

And then I gotta go home and drive?

Yeah.

Like, I legitimately know people who've gotten in car accidents.

Oh yeah.

There's been plenty of times I've driven, don't even know how I got home.

Well.

Right?

That was in my younger years.

I'm talking about sleeping. I'm not talking about—

Leaving the club, hanging out. Didn't know how I— oh, I'm home. Okay, thank you, Lord. I made it home.

Amen.

Well, then on a more spiritual side, we're looking at sleep now because I think this is a part that we got to understand that we were designed to sleep.

Every organism on Earth has to rest.

Like you said.

Why?

It's a spiritual rhythm, you know, and this circadian rhythm that you talked about when we go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, get our biological clock and our mind kind of in sync, that regulates a lot in our lives. And sleep is that one place that we are completely vulnerable to anything.

Yeah.

We don't know what's happening to us when we're asleep or who's around us and who could be coming around. So this is the time—

And that's why we sleep in cycles. That's why you're— now think of it like an avatar, right? If you need to let your mind rest like a power plant, you gotta let it shut down for a minute. You be like, oh, you know, between the hours of 2:00 AM, you know, you go to the website, it will be, you know, upgrading, doing all this. That's your mind. That's your mind every night, right? We only need 120 minutes of it, right? So outta 8 hours, you just gotta give your mind 2 hours just to disconnect a little bit. So we can go to, so I can recharge, rejuvenate, revive, but we still got to maintain control over this avatar of a body, right? Right. So we'll tap in, we'll go out, we'll tap in, we'll go out. So that happens about 5 to 7 times throughout the night in an 8-hour sleep session, right?

Right.

Or 8-hour sleep schedule, right? Right. So that's the importance biologically, you know, historically from a physiological standpoint. That's why we sleep in waves because we, we have to allow our bodies to disconnect from our mind.

That's true. So going back to the spiritual aspect of it, like when we think about this sacred time that we are at one with the creator, you know, because if you believe you were created by something, know that it started somewhere in the beginning. In the beginning. And that he created sleep even with Adam. And wow, what a day it must have been for him to wake up and have a new, brand new girlfriend sitting out there. When he woke up, he felt a little light on one side from the rib. But if I was Adam, I'm gonna be honest with you, I've been thinking, well, I got about 7 more ribs. I wonder if God's got some more opportunities coming.

For sure.

If that one didn't work, just in case. But, you know, this divine moment where we are at a oneness with our spiritual side of the aspect of connecting, where our physical and our mental is kind of no longer in space that we can control. Right now is the time where I think we all have to be humbled that we realize that we are human and we do need rest. Trying to not prioritize that will impact your life. I don't care how strong and how much money you got or whatever you think you are.

Even on a spiritual level, you know, we think about physical, you know, hormones and neurotransmitters and all this other stuff. But on a physical level, imagine how you feel spiritually when you're tired.

True.

When you haven't rested.

You can't witness when you ain't got no energy.

Right, right. You're already upset because you broke up and now you can't sleep. So now you're messing up relationships with everyone around you, you know. So On a spiritual level, I do believe sleep is like that interface. You know, sleep is that time where we can tap into that spiritual connection. Our dreams, right? You know, are these— these dreams come from nowhere? These ideas come from nowhere, right? Um, the periodical table was developed in a dream.

In a dream, right?

You know, so spiritually, something—

Even biblically. Biblically, life was changed as we know it because of dreams. Dreams that people had about what was happening and interpreted dreams for, you know, for different leaders. And, you know, dreams is powerful. It is, you know, and we talk about about Martin Luther King and his dream and his vision, but we all have something within us that we bring to— as creativity in our minds, and we can hopefully tap into that. And I think that we're in ours finally after 50 years.

Yeah.

Yeah. And it feels good to have arrived, you know, so you really realize that everything you went through was to have you ready for this moment just right here. And we're going to be ambassadors for sleep as a result of it, you know, and change lives. But let's, let's take a spin back to something else. People actually, you know, wanna know, do I need a CPAP? 'Cause that's just like what it comes down to. When you think about CPAP, it's about, oh my gosh, I gotta put this thing on my nose and mouth. Let's talk about the symptoms of it.

Well, first let's talk, what is a CPAP?

Well, continuous positive airway pressure is just like if you had a fan at home and it's just blowing air. You're just blowing air into the nostril space, into the back of the throat, sustaining, keeping that airway from collapsing, which typically happens when the muscles become relaxed during those different stages of sleep. And based on some positions sometimes of laying on your back, your tongue and the soft tissue because of gravity kind of sinks down. And that's probably the time you get the old elbow because you're getting really loud. But, you know, CPAP is an end result to when you have a more moderate or severe condition of sleep apnea. You can obviously have other therapies for sleep apnea. So many are coming on the market today.

Yeah, sure.

You know, you can use a positional belt by just keeping you on your sides. You could actually use a mouthpiece, which we call a mandibular advancement splint. We could actually Put other modalities in place where you can consider even doing surgery to remove tonsils, adenoids, create some airway space.

Right.

And then obviously there's the CPAP. And then there's different modes of CPAP depending on the complexity of your sleeping disorder. So you have APAP, which is auto-titrating positive pressure, which is probably the best technology they found because it tailor-makes the treatment to each person's needs. So it's not just one set pressure like CPAP. And then there's bi-level, BiPAP, Which is 2, bi meaning 2, not girl and girl, meaning 2. Oh God, I got it. But we're saying that bi is 2 pressures, inspiratory pressure and expiratory pressure. And when this is ventilating you, most often it's because you have central sleep apnea. You have a pretty significant problem neurologically that your brain is not signaling to your diaphragm to engage breathing. That's a more complex situation that requires a different technology. But CPAP is not for everybody, right? And I don't want everybody to think that you have to wear a CPAP because you have sleep apnea. I think there's drugs on the market now they're trying to push to help you lose weight because weight does play a role, but not in all cases. I mean, how much more weight can you lose?

Same thing. I had a patient, he did lose weight. He had obstructive sleep apnea, right? He lost the weight. still had obstructive sleep apnea, right? So not absolutely 1,000%. And it's not— it's— I think it's also important to be clear that it's not the GLP-1s that are allowing people to sleep and no longer have sleep. It's the GLP-1s that have helped them lose weight and don't have the obstructive sleep apnea, don't have the excessive tissue in their airway.

Right.

And so they can actually go to sleep without it being obstructed, right? But there's still, like you said, skinny girls, you know, skinny people can still have obstructive sleep apnea. So it's not just—

That supermodel I was telling you about, she was gorgeous. Yeah, head to toe, probably not even an inch of fat around that waistline. And yet she was—

yeah, I was like, that's an anatomy thing, not even possible. And that's when the oral airway devices come into play. They can reposition, you know, the airway, the jaw, It can elevate some, you know, depending if it's a dentist involved. So the oral airway therapy, I feel like, is an overlooked, easily overlooked therapy that could actually be very effective.

More palatable. I'll accept a mouthpiece. I mean, if—

yeah, for sure.

If my girl has to throw a mouthpiece in, I think I can work with her. The men all pause when you walk into the room. The men all pause.

Wasn't that the jam?

But it's real.

I know, that menopause is real.

Let's talk about that. Oh wow.

I mean, I see a lot of, you know, I see a lot of the, you know, social medias, women talk about menopause. And okay, granted, we all know we got menopause, we hot at night and shit, we can't sleep. But what, what is the problem, right? What is the root problem of menopause?

It's them surges in the body temperature.

I'm telling you, right?

It's, I mean, so hormones. I mean, you're a woman. I can't get into knowing what's going on in that body and how you're made up. But from what I understand, once I'm speaking to so many women on a day-to-day basis that are looking for sleep observations, looking to figure out for solutions on why they can't get to sleep and stay asleep, I hear the same thing all the time. The hot flashes, the just inability to fall asleep, waking up in the middle of the night.

Yeah.

Getting a little pudge, getting some weight that they just can't seem to get rid of. And they're like, what am I doing? I'm not really eating. And not realizing that all of that restlessness in their sleep is affecting you getting proper rest, getting those architectures of light, deep, and REM, getting the hormone releases that's necessary and stuff that stabilize our mind and our body. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, bladder issues is another issue. Bladder issues, yeah. You know, women wake up to go to the restroom and it fragments that sleep, you know, and it's—

Vaginal incontinence, right? You know, the pelvic floor weakens.

PCOS.

PCOS is an indication of metabolic irregularities, right? Or metabolic dysfunctions, which are also a secondary effect of sleep apnea, right? If they're not sleeping at night, then what did we talk about earlier? Are your cortisol levels, which explains the pudge, right? Right. And so these are all secondary effects of not being able to get proper rest, breathe at night, have sleep apnea. And it's just a natural thing with age, right? I do— I'm, I'm very encouraged to see a lot of companies really coming on board and recognizing, you know, the symptoms and side effects. And sleep is a side effect of menopause, right?

Mm-hmm.

And however, but because sleep affects every aspect of your life, you kind of— if you can get your sleep under control, you can kind of deal with all the other issues. So, you know, looking at those hormone levels and identifying— usually what happens is because of the hot flashes, you know, tossing and turning, tossing and turning, that's fragmented sleep, right? So now you have fragmented non-REM sleep. Now you have daytime sleepiness.

Right.

Right now you have grogginess. And so again, now If you're not getting non-REM sleep, you're not getting REM sleep. So now you're forgetful.

Wow.

But for some reason, all this has contributed to menopause, right? You know, I don't think it's fair. Like, and we really have to identify and decipher what's really happening and put things in its proper place.

I think when I was, I was looking and writing my book, right, and I was trying to segregate men and sleep, women and sleep, children and sleep, and I was digging up information because I'm not a woman. I had to go research. And hearing it from different people is one thing, and then learning and understanding that this hormone roller coaster that you guys are on from inception of life, um, to getting, you know, the first menstrual cycle, to a month-to-month cycle, to a premenopausal state, to a menopausal state, and somewhere in between, if God blesses you with a pregnancy—

Yes.

You're going to have even more challenges. And these metabolic problems arise now with the blood pressure and the diabetes.

Right.

And obviously the weight affects your ability to sleep, to be in the right positions, get the airway space open. Um, you know, so I tip my hat to women in general because without you, we wouldn't be here. Um, and Mother's Day is every day when you think about it. Without women, we would not have a population of people. Um, and yet they take on so much responsibility most often taking care of their family, the husband, the children, their elderly parents, and then themselves last. But I'm sure you make up for it at all of the spa— the spa sessions when you can.

Don't call me. I put myself in timeout. Y'all don't call me. I don't know where I'm at.

Right.

But I thank you. And I think, you know, I've been with a lot of great men too. A lot of great men.

Oh wow, sounds like you are.

I've met a lot of great men.

Okay, say it like that.

Let's go ahead and edit that one out. That are really understanding. And I think a lot more men are more understanding than I, I thought. You know, it was embarrassing. Like, you know, you meet somebody, you spend a night for the first time, all of a sudden you're drenched in sweat and he's like all cuddled up under the blankets. Or how do I in a sexy way say, hey baby, can you turn it down to 65? You're getting me hot, baby.

You're getting me so hot.

Can you turn it down to 65, baby? 'Cause it's about to get real hot up in here.

Oh, dang.

But not knowing 'cause I'm gonna have my own personal summer.

That's a personal heater inside getting you up.

That's embarrassing, man. But I mean, you know, like I said, there's been a lot of, you know, men who've been a lot more understanding. And so I think those, and those who may not, you know, uh, remember men have a manopause too, right? So, all right, you guys do go through hormonal changes.

Is it monthly though? 'Cause I don't know if I have it.

Oh, 1,000%. Let me tell you about, I got your, oh my God. Anyway, I digress. Um, so men, let's— it's important for us to also recognize the changes that men go through, um, and testosterone levels that also affect sleep and how that affects sleep. And recognize that we, just like we get checked on a regular basis in our hormone levels, y'all might— it might be time for y'all to do the same. Just saying.

Yeah, it's important, you know, any way you look at it, uh, Woman, boy, child, man, whatever creature you are, what you wanna identify with, you better sleep.

Yeah.

And you better be breathing during that time.

Amen.

And when I wanna give advice to women, 'cause I'm not a woman, and I tell 'em, listen, I could just give you what I tell everybody else. Make sure the room is cool. Get it between about 65 to 68 for you hot women, okay? And then you wanna make sure it's quiet, dark. And if you can get those blind shades, I put 'em up and I don't even open 'em. It's black always in my room.

Blackout Curtain Company.

Yeah, we're not getting paid for that. Um, you know, like you said, quietness is so important. I mean, that white noise and maybe having a fan on typically helps to kind of get your mind distracted for a moment to kind of go into that space of finally going into that light sleep phase. And then like I said, bedding, you know, the sheets you use, the pajamas you wear, if it's sticking to you, and that's all that's going to wake you up too.

Well, I can definitely tell you most women who are going through their personal summers Just don't wear all them clothes.

Okay, now it's time to start.

However, okay, but the sheets, the sheets make it— I know they have like a lot of cooling sheets out there now.

Oh snap.

Um, yeah, that will definitely like draw that, um, I almost want to say they're like bamboo sheets.

Okay.

Like draw out that heat.

I know there's mattresses that do it now. You can adjust it.

Yeah, they're really—

And they adjust the top so you can get your head up so you can stop having so many apneic events.

Sleep position, right, right. And that's something else too that maybe people should consider. You know, you don't necessarily— I get a lot of people, some people, but ironically I don't— there's, again, people aren't educated, they don't know.

Right.

I do have some people who kind of have gone through the gamut of, you know, I tried an oral device, I tried a mattress, I tried my position, I tried a position. They've done all that, right? And there should be some credence in a place for those mattress companies, or that position, right? Ideal, ideal position, right, where you don't snore because it brings the tongue out of your airway. And if you're a normal-sized person and it's just an issue of you not sleeping on your back, which is another thing we adamantly disagree with, right, right, because you're— when you lay on your back, your tongue goes right into your airway, right, right. So you really may not even have a sleep problem.

True.

You just need to change your sleep position.

I like sleeping on my left. I like cuddling too on the left, you know.

Okay.

So if a girl can't cuddle on the left, we might have problems because I don't cuddle too good on the right. You know, it's another thing I got to figure out that's got to work. And, um, you know, when you think about asking somebody, what's your, what's your favorite position in bed, you might be thinking something else, but I'm thinking about it. Are you on your back, on your stomach, on your side? You know, we don't get out of line too early in the questions of dating.

But I mean, if y'all are sleeping together, you need to know.

I mean, early, what position do you like to sleep in? That might be a strange question for someone to answer. Everybody asks me what position I sleep in. I'm like, listen, I need tapes. I don't care about your credit report no more. I don't care about, you know, what your pap smear showed. Can you send me a video of what you do when you sleep?

Do you snore at night?

That's what I need to know. Are you back and forth all night, back and forth to the bathroom?

What is your sleep position?

And do you sleep naked? Because that's important too, because I might— that might help you. That might be some added points.

Probably does.

All right, cougars, the cougar love. So CBT-I, you know, we talked a little bit about it. I think this is a space that you have a lot more information and insight because you've been involved with it. You dived into insomnia from an anesthetic position. And I, I gotta tell you, every time I talk to you, Nyree, you, you definitely have impressed me. And that's not easily done. And, um, because I've been seeing people in all types of professions, but for you—

27 years you've been doing this.

But for you getting in this And the way that you did, and just your energy and tenacity, and just the testimonies I keep hearing every day that you've made one more milestone and one more milestone. I'm, I'm sharing in the journey with you, and I'm— and it's such— it's so fun to be around someone that's seeing impact and change and hope and, and purpose in their life. And I'm just glad that we've aligned ourselves to be in that space together. Um, and so tell me about the CBT-I. How's that work?

So CBT-I is cognitive behavioral therapy for Insomnia specifically, um, there's different types of therapies. However, it essentially comes down to sleep hygiene. How— what are your sleep habits? And the really great thing about this is that sleep is a habit. You can create a proper sleep habit.

True.

However, it's the effort and the conscious discipline. Yeah, discipline and the behaviors you have to go through, right? And the cognitive— cognitive behavioral Therapy, right?

Right.

And so just telling somebody to change up your sleep routine is not that easy.

No.

Especially depending on your life. You got responsibilities, you got a job, you got a family, all that, right? But if I say these responsibilities are affecting the way that you sleep at night—

Yeah, maybe you have to—

Believe it or not, a lot of people still aren't really willing because they'll sacrifice themselves before they have to be inconvenienced.

True, true.

To change their sleep habits or their lifestyle, right? So with that being said, we do see that and we take on patients. A lot of it is medication management.

Okay.

That definitely falls under cognitive behavioral therapy.

Okay.

Not drinking caffeine or those energy drinks after a certain time depending on—

But somebody told me don't— not to drink alcohol in the evening and I was like, well, when do you drink alcohol? You drink alcohol in the morning, that might be a problem. That's a real problem.

Well, I don't know.

I mean, we're in the nightlife, you're in the club and what you're in there Drinking ginger ale, like, you know, this is what we're drinking, you know, at night, out at dinner. But yet it has such a huge impact. And maybe that's the reason why all of us are sleep deprived as well, because it's chopping up our sleep.

I mean, hey, that's, that's part of it though. However, you know, once in a while on the weekend you're at the club, you join in. But if you're drinking like that every night, we got a way bigger problem than your sleep.

That's true.

You know, so—

AAA, we got a company to help you with that.

But it's just a matter of putting everything where in its proper place. And developing a healthy habit, right? You know, our night shift workers, I'm not gonna tell them stop working at night. You know, we're just gonna— we're gonna create a different sleep habit, right? We're just gonna get them to sleep, you know, as soon as they get home till like 3 or 12 or whatever.

You ever dated someone that worked nights?

Yeah, man, that's hard.

It actually— I liked it, to be honest with you. It was the best relationship I ever had. I actually had the bed, um, in the day. Um, not really. And let me tell you how— why it worked. worked because one, it was COVID.

What?

And two, um, you know, as I was dating someone at that time and we eventually moved in together, um, she worked nights, nurse, 7 PM to 7 AM. So typically when she gets home at 9 o'clock in the morning, because by the time she checks out and drives home and winds down and takes a bath and goes at— right, it's 9 o'clock, she goes to sleep. I'm at work in the day shift. She's gonna wake up probably like 3, 4 o'clock, if anything. If hopefully to catch about 6 hours, because, you know, when you work night shift, you can never get 8 hours.

No.

Because it's just too much light pollution, noise pollution, too many things you got to get done during the day. And then when I would get back home or whatever I was doing, she'd be on the way out the door. But she only worked 3 days a week, right? Most shifts that nurses work are on 3 days. So those other 4 days was the days that we interacted. So it didn't feel like I had to give give all my time every day to this person and sacrifice not having time for me. So I actually had a good 3 days, or maybe even a 4th day as she's recovering from that 3rd night, to myself to get things done.

Yeah.

And it worked for me. But I mean, I started realizing that night shift workers have a higher risk of cancer, breast cancer as well.

Yes.

Um, having the issues with the dementia and Alzheimer's disease and not getting good rest and saying, wow, is it really worth that couple of differential pay that you get to work at nights.

Because again, who, who discussed that when they applied for that night job? Who discussed their sleep schedule with them?

Nobody, right?

I mean, I'm sure—

Like, were you on night shift before you started night shift?

Right, exactly. Like, maybe they may have addressed it, or like, you know, they're aware that you come to work sleepy, but who legitimately was like, hey, now that you're working night shift, as an organization Who imposed this schedule on you?

Right, right.

Our responsibility is to change this.

Class action suit. We're getting ready to get ready to put out the lawyers on this. Look, think about it though, Nyree. When you think about it, if you tried to sleep in the day for 3, 4 days and then try to be a regular person for the other 3, 4 days, your circadian rhythm is so thrown off, your body don't know what to do, when to be alert. And can you imagine that 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning that you are wired because that's your life?

Because that's what you do.

And you got to shut it down When you come in. So, you know, it was sad to see that, you know, this person that I was with at that time was really sleep deprived. And that was actually the, uh, because of the business I was in, in the industry, we would kind of be going head to head. And I'm like, listen, get some sleep because I want you to be able to think down the road and be able to have a good healthy life. But you think sleep is a joke because you work all night long. All night long. All night, you know. But you know what I'm saying, it gave a perspective about night work, shift work, and how people, how their lifestyles are so different and how their health consequences are different because of their job.

Absolutely.

You know, so working in, you know, night shift, day shift, back and forth switching, all that throws off that psychological, biological clock and your circadian rhythm. And I think, well, when we are diving into habits, you know, I myself got to get a habit. Let's put a challenge between you and us. All right?

What's that?

Every night, we're going to do a ritual and see if we do it. Because you know it's hard. We're telling people to do it, but can we do it? 30 minutes every night, we set our alarm before bed that we're going to have this ritual. If it's stretching, yoga, devotion, meditation, whatever it is, we're going to disconnect from everyone, disconnect from the phone, and see, do we follow the directions? So, you know, we're giving cognitive behavioral therapy, but as you said, it's hard. It's hard to change that cycle.

Well, look, I legitimately have a timer.

Serious?

To go to bed at 9:30 PM. I set my timer to wind down. It says unwind, right? It'll go off, and at least it's a conscious reminder to me that, hey, it's time to shut it down because I will go. Yeah, yeah, right. Shut it down. All right, start unwinding. Tell everybody good night, lock the doors, turn the lights out, do whatever I do. brush my teeth, get ready for bed. But so by 10 o'clock I'm in bed, right? And that's what we, we recommend to people, you know, just start— set a nighttime timer.

Gotcha.

Right? Put the kids to bed, kiss your spouse, your whatever, your significant other, kiss your dog.

Please don't.

Oh, that's another thing too. Uh-oh, animals in the bed.

Let's not go there. You're gonna offend so many people with that. That's another segment.

Is it offensive that I have to deal with you at, at work and you're cranky because you can't sleep 'Cause your dog's in the bed or your cat.

Just so you know, cats, nope, doesn't work with me. I can't do cats. I just can't. They make my eyes water, and that's a deal breaker too. So cats and snoring, ladies, I hope you're hearing us. Snoring and cats. Think about it. No, but no, I love that we, we touched a little bit of everything today. You know, we talked about the menopausal, we talk about some of the pregnancy issues with weight gain, we talked about men's testosterone own development. We talked about sleep apnea, the silent killer that's affecting billions of people. And then the number one hidden problem is people not realizing that insomnia is taking over their life, not getting enough sleep. Time in bed and time sleeping is 2 different things.

2 different things. That's quantity and quality.

And, you know, and I think that as we continue to dive into this on a week-to-week basis and we start even like challenging ourselves and then our listeners, you know, we want to know, hey, Eventually, did this help you? Like, did this strategy help you? And we can get into detail about how you can take advantage of prosomnia sleep, you know, because this is fascinating. I mean, that what you're able to uncover and the amount of people that you could help globally with this solution is mind-boggling.

And that's what I also love about what we do is because we're not just a comprehensive sleep center, you know, we look at sleep from a neurological perspective, right? We look at neurotransmitters, right? We identify, like, are you— maybe you have low serotonin, maybe your melatonin isn't converting properly, dopamine. A lot of the antidepressants are serotonin receptor inhibitors, right? That affects— those are— that's a sleep neurotransmitter.

I was on the short bus. Can you break that down a little bit? I grew up with the helmet and everything.

Stop it. No. So what happens is we have quite a few neurotransmitters in our brain, like at least 9 to 10, 11, at least let's say 10 for simplicity's sake. But they all intertwine, they all connect.

Like my shoelaces.

Exactly, absolutely. But if your pathway to sleep is through this receptor, but your drug— the drug is blocking this, inhibiting that, right, right? Or inhibiting that, like you, you're not getting sleep naturally. That makes sense. The drug is doing what it's it's supposed to do, right?

For whatever—

they told you you might not be able to sleep.

Yeah, we never risk— we never look at that part. You ever listen to those disclaimers about all the side effects? Like, what if maybe I shouldn't take this? I can't handle the side effects. Is the problem worse than the side effect?

I promise you could pull up probably a lot of the neurotransmitter drugs and they will specifically say, wow, this will affect your sleep, right? You may have Insomnia. You may not be able to sleep, but we take a look at that. We take a look at— we take a look at your medication, okay, and we identify this is a drug that may be preventing you from sleeping, right? What we also do is we look at, um, you know, serotonin is the precursor to melatonin, right? So serotonin, once it breaks down—

I'm writing this down.

Okay, you got it. All right, you pay attention.

Now I'm going to go to school.

No, but Serotonin breaks down into melatonin.

Okay.

So if your serotonin levels are deficient, your melatonin levels are deficient.

Oh snap.

Melatonin and serotonin is what keeps you asleep throughout the night.

Oh.

Where's serotonin made?

You know what, I started getting on the melatonin bus, um, because everybody was looking for an over-the-counter product that they can get. And, um, as I realized melatonin in our body, like you said, and most often it's not regulated because of caffeine or issues that, you know, that we don't know that's causing it to not be where it should to help us fall asleep. I started taking melatonin. I started with 5 milligrams, eventually got to 10 milligrams, but I felt groggy. And then it seems like 3 hours into it, I was awake.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I was like, this is not really helping me the way I thought it would, you know?

Absolutely.

I probably would say that most people are running to cough syrups, melatonin supplements, magnesium. I hear it's another big thing.

Yeah.

The candle game with the lavender and everything, anything to try to help sleep. I think that we should really go back to the science of sleep and stop trying to hack it.

Right.

You know, get a parasomnia assessment, plug. And also, at the same time, let us provide a comprehensive program To help you identify some challenges that's in your day that's affecting your sleep schedule, and at the same time help you get on track, you know, because that's what at the end of the day we all need. We got to get on track.

And that's it, just having conscious awareness of how we can get proper rest. We were not taught this information.

So true.

And just like I was saying before, like, serotonin is actually— 80% of the serotonin in our body is made in our gut.

Oh.

So if If you're not eating properly and your nutrition isn't right, your melatonin can't convert.

I'm so glad you said this.

To keep you to sleep. So we also help people develop a nutrition plan to help them sleep better, simply based on their neurotransmitters and their ability to sleep.

So if a girl comes up to me, I could tell I have a serotonin belly. Yeah, just know I'm not getting with you.

Cortisol belly, or, you know, a liver issue, or pancreatic, or Or, you know, it's all a system. We can't just look at one pathway and say, oh, it's because I don't have enough melatonin. And let me also say this, exogenous melatonin, melatonin you buy from the store, right, is not regulated because it's a supplement, you know, and it's not anything that has to be regulated.

I see.

So just like you were saying, you would take 5 milligrams and 10 milligrams and 25 A lot of times, because it's not regulated, you actually probably don't know. Mm-hmm. Um, so you don't know what you're putting in you. 5 milligrams.

I come out with a melatonin this week, but it was really 3. Private label, right? First time let's see melatonin. All these business ideas.

I mean, it's funny how that happens.

Wow. With AI, AI ain't gonna help you sleep, unfortunately. Yeah, it's gonna help some of these owners sleep because they're going to be able to work around the clock. And it will—

AI will help us sleep better. I do believe that.

True. Coaching, support.

Yes. And the wearable devices. I think there is the opportunity to have a lot of— we have to definitely evolve more with the data that's being transmitted back to us and how we're using that, how we're validating that data.

Right, right.

How accurate is that data? So there is room. I think the potential is there. Um, I'm just not sure we're quite there yet.

Okay.

Um, so that's my opinion. Okay.

Well, you know, I've had such an amazing time here with Nyree, and I know most people don't even know who I am. Um, my name is Gregory Arnaud. I am the founder and clinical director of an organization called ISD Health Solutions in the Caribbean. Started off in Trinidad and Tobago, where my heritage and family is from. Eventually it allowed me to get Suitable for them. I've had the pleasure of meeting so many influential people in the sleep space and medical device sales and working in deromedical companies and having the ability at the same time connect with people like Nyree, you know, and sleep physicians around the world. It kind of inspired me to write this book, The Wake-Up Call: How You Sleep Is How You Live. And I think this was primarily because I felt like even after I pass away, my story needs to be heard. Like, somebody is going to win in life because of the pain. So my pain was somebody else's gain. And I had a grandmother that suffered from sleep apnea, and we didn't know what it was back then. And unfortunately, we just laughed about the snoring. But later, as I realized that she had a common issue that many people don't realize the significance of the seriousness of it, and yet they're passing away. So I made it my, I guess, my priority to use my life. life as a blessing to other people, as being a servant, all I know how to be. Being in the military, you know, having, you know, been in the Air Force for 4 years in a service mentality and then coming as a clinician, you know, I really was a poor businessman and more of a clinical person and empathetic with persons' needs. And it's allowed me to, like I said, to come into a space now that I'm allowing myself to be used for, I guess, for the divine purpose I was created. And I'm sure Nyree is going to tell you a little about her, um, and realize that, you know, this was destiny. Destiny, right? This is destiny, man. Um, so tell me a little bit about who this Nyree lady is.

Uh, no, uh, I have been very fortunate and blessed to— I'm a certified anesthesiologist assistant. I've been doing that for almost 18 years now. So essentially, I have been practicing Anesthesia for over 15 years, and it was just one of those things that happened. You know, I had these patients, they would come to me and like, "Oh my God, it's the best sleep I ever had." Like, and real talk, it was after colonoscopies.

Wow.

After every single colonoscopy, he's like, "Oh my God, it's the best sleep I've ever had." And I'm just like, but you just lost something. Like, for real? Okay, whatever. And in the anesthesia community, that's that's normal, right? You're like, yeah, okay, of course.

Duh.

But this one particular patient waited for me one day. He was my patient earlier.

Stalker. That's what I was thinking.

I was like, yo, bro. But he was like, I'll do anything, just come to my house, put me to sleep.

I'm gonna use that line. How much does that work?

I bet. How many zeros? No, real talk. Um, no, he was— but I didn't have a sleep problem, so I didn't understand the magnitude Of what he was asking me, right? I knew how to do it. Granted, we know a very successful celebrity that unfortunately, but it wasn't done properly in a safe controlled environment by trained anesthesiologists and professionals. However, side note. So it was a situation. It was just one of those aha moments for me. I do have a background in business, so I. I was always kind of— I was at that point in my life, I was kind of— I'm almost over 15 years in. You could just kind of, at that point in your life, you start looking for different things. How can I get more involved? What can I do? And it just kind of hit me. I was like, wait a minute, this can be done. Like, wow, right?

That's crazy.

This isn't like rocket science. We do this every day, right? This can legitimately be done. So I went, I was like, I know somebody's doing this, right? Let me go look.

Nobody, not one. Nyree Penn is doing it. That's who's doing it.

India, England, Africa, South America. Somebody's— I know somebody's— nowhere in the world did I find no information about putting people into REM sleep with anesthesia. Wow. So COVID hit, and I suddenly have all this time to do all this research, right? So I realized It's, it's, it was one of those things for me where I discovered something I didn't know what I discovered until I discovered it.

Okay.

Because of research, I knew how to do it, right? I just didn't know why and where the pieces fit in and the science behind it. And as I researched and developed a protocol, so I actually developed a protocol to use anesthesia, okay, to put people into REM sleep with an EEG monitor And I look at their brainwaves and I can definitively say, you achieved REM sleep and all the benefits of REM sleep, and your body is utilizing all the body parts necessary for REM sleep in 1 hour.

That's crazy. So imagine if I could just live off of 1 hour of sleep a day.

I mean, I can let you borrow a couple hours, but I'm not gonna let you have prosomnia.

I mean, when you think about— just think about something. I mean, if in an hour's time you can reset your mind, your body, you got energy like you haven't had, like you slept for 5, 6 hours. Imagine from a performance standpoint, like in professional sports, how that's going to change the game if you have a Presomnia sleep session before Sunday football. Sunday football's at 11. 9 o'clock, you're getting your session. Get on the field.

You good, bro. You good. Wow.

We got to look into that.

But I mean, and it's not, it's not talk, it's real. It's, we can, we legitimately do it. We look at numbers, we look at biomarkers, you know, we, we calculate, we track, we get all the data.

Even for the Olympics.

Actual, yeah.

Like, they will look at drugs and enhancements for performance, but no one's gonna look at a drug enhancement that puts you to sleep.

We enhance your own personal body.

Naturally.

Naturally.

Naturally.

Well, naturally, not naturally, but we know how to tap into your, your natural biomechanism of REM sleep to utilize all the benefits in a safe and controlled environment.

And it's such a rigid schedule they have for athletes, like Olympians.

Yeah.

Like, I heard like what that sleep schedule is and how disciplined it is for them to compete. And thinking that people are coming from various time zones, so what it took just to kind of get synced to the time and area that you are, that we call jet lag, so to say.

It takes a week.

And then realizing that pilots, realizing that athletes, realizing truck drivers, you know, just the everyday person even at Walmart that's the greeter, you got to get some sleep.

Like, the list goes on. Yeah, the list goes on. And if we provide that restorative REM rest, that quality of sleep—

I need it, right? I need it. Sign me up.

Even if it's just a tune-up, a reset.

Just give me a tune-up.

A sleep reset. That's what we refer it to because we do get those patients Like me, like you, really don't have a sleep problem, right, but can definitely benefit from, you know, the, the—

It's like a vacation.

That sleep deprivation, you know, to get that, that sleep inertia, you know, just released, right, right, you know. So that's what—

Oh, you didn't tell me that word. I heard you say it the other day, adenosine.

Adenosine.

Break that down for me again.

So that is the actual neuromodulator. So it's like a neurotransmitter in your brain. Once it's released, so you ready for some science?

I'm ready. Let's go.

Got to break down science.

Note to self for you to understand.

So you know what ATP is, right?

What is that?

ATP, adenosine triphosphate. Okay, that's energy, right? That's our energy source. Okay, one thing the law of thermodynamics says: energy cannot be created or destroyed. The same rule applies in our body. Our mind, our nervous system is a closed system. So that means all the energy. we ever have is all the energy that we'll ever get. So that means we have to break it down and reset, break it down. So the adenosine triphosphate—

Say it again. All the energy you ever have is—

Is all the— wait, all the energy you'll ever need is all the energy you'll ever have, right? Oh, in our brain, in our closed blood-brain barrier system, right? So that means is we have to use the energy that's currently there, right? And just recycle it and reuse it and recycle it and reuse it. That happens during REM sleep. During REM sleep, adenosine triphosphate, ATP, is broken down into ADP, adenosine diphosphate, into adenosine.

Okay.

That adenosine is the building block of our energy source throughout our entire body. The only time it can ever be recharged, restored, and rejuvenated is during REM sleep. Now that adenosine sleep pressure is what builds up when you work out, when you think, right, at school you went to— oh my God, if I don't lay my head down, go to sleep, take a nap, oh my God, that's that adenosine sleep pressure. It's a very large molecule.

Okay.

But if it's not released so it can go back out and be rejuvenated and recharged and recycled, it builds up.

Wow.

And it builds up and builds up and builds up, and that And that's the brain fog.

And then you release that.

That's the daytime sleepiness. And with prosomnia sleep therapy, we release that adenosine sleep pressure so it can be recharged and rejuvenated.

Beautiful. In a controlled environment, in an anesthesiology—

In a controlled environment.

We don't want anybody trying to pull this.

With anesthesia professionals.

Right.

And we monitor our patients throughout. Blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation.

Right.

You know, everything.

So we're in good hands.

You are in good hands.

Just like you would take— Like, like you were getting a colonoscopy, right? The same person that did that, I'm doing this. I've seen you before.

You know me.

I had my colonoscopy back in '87.

Exactly. So that's the science behind, um, prosomnia sleep therapy. We would release adenosine sleep pressure, um, and the way that we're able to measure that— remember, it's, it's a, it's a closed system, right?

Right.

So people like, well, how do you know? Well, I know because once they— there's only certain drugs and certain molecules that can cross the blood-brain barrier. It's a very tight system.

Wow.

Very tight system. And so usually things have to be broken down before they can cross.

Right, right.

Right? So when any excess adenosine comes back and forth, which it can, right? But when any excess is converted into a smaller molecule, Ultimately, it's broken down in what we call uric acid, and people usually hear that with gout. Okay.

Oh, my dad has that.

Right. So with gout, it's too much uric acid. But adenosine is also broken down into uric acid, and that's how it's released in the body through the urine. So we measure the urine and the blood samples, the uric acid levels after prosomnia sleep therapy to say, yes, this was successful for you. Yes, you experienced REM sleep. Yes, we relieved the medicine sleep pressure. So that's how we do it.

When I was there, I did one of the sessions with a very important sleep researcher.

And I believe he had a really great experience.

I mean, that's what he said. He said this was the best thing that he had ever felt in so long. And just to hear someone say that, and it wasn't like, yeah, put up to saying it, and seeing that this is the same response with other people was kind of was a win for me to say, wow, this is real. Like, you know, I don't feel like I'm bamboozling anybody. You know, this is impactful stuff. And, um, I think that we're on a cutting-edge opportunity to changing the world as a whole. And I'm just grateful to be with the inventor, the designer, the, the creative mind behind this, and, um, that we could continue to make Prasomnia sleep a household word.

And that's what motivates me. To see a patient afterwards, like, some women have cried because they haven't been able to sleep like that.

That's true.

So long, like, not sleep, rest, just to have that peaceful rest, right? And some people want to go out, run a marathon. Some people want to go shopping. Some people, you know, just depend. But to have that, that hypervigilant, oh my God, I feel rested. I reached the store. Oh my God, this is the best sleep I've ever had.

Nothing better. Nothing better.

That's what motivates me.

Wow. So, you know, we, we tapped into talking about the women, and we talked about, you know, some of the challenges with insomnia. But, you know, we talked about sleep apnea. We kind of honed in on the sexual challenges that men and women are facing with libido and testosterone imbalances. Who would have thought that, you know, there's billions of dollars being spent in drugs to enhance erectile strength?

Yeah.

Good luck with that. Um, no one is claiming that we're using it, but apparently there's billions of dollars being used.

I'm sure I see about 10% of them in the emergency room on a regular basis.

Right? But no one's buying it. No, not me, not me. I'm 79 and I'm just healthy.

Okay.

But, um, you know, I'm realizing that this is hitting to the core, um, to men because, you know, we're ego-driven, you know, and you want to keep your man Happy and satisfied. Just make him believe.

You hear me?

But it's not even what you do; it's about what you say. Really, show him that.

What do we need to fix? Your sleep?

But the challenge is there, and I speak to a lot of men who you know somewhat are embarrassed to talk about it. You know, and may not even share that experience with their partner. What they're trying to do, and I've realized that men. With this mindset that we just have to overcome, you know, being men, we have a stigma that we can't be weak. We got to be able to take care of this, this, that, and the other. And we don't have emotions, you know, we don't get tired, you know, we don't, you know, and the sad thing is that men are in depression, you know, men are dealing with all kinds of health consequences and the challenges of just being a man. And sleep is not showing that you're weak.

It looks like a weakness.

It used to be like, if you could stay up for 2 days straight, you're bragging about it. Oh my God.

Man, I haven't slept in 3 days.

I treat dogs. You know, but you know, when you, when you think about this, the, the damage that's done long-term in the lives of people that are not getting sleep, but that mental change and shift in confidence in a man in the bedroom affects a lot of that man's ability to feel like a man. So when we talk about men and sleep, men don't tend to be proactive about health. Unfortunately, most often they're being pushed by their partners. That's why they're working.

That's why they need to.

Well, you know, we just think that we don't want to be soft and go to get some help. You know, we don't even want directions.

Right.

You know, that's just how we're wired. We want to do it on our own.

Yeah. And you can't.

And, you know, I'm hoping that we resonate with the women that have men that are not— oh, we should say just lost their edge. In the bedroom and, and maybe snoring and maybe having some problems with their health concerns and finding a way how to present this conversation with your partner that's not going to put them in a shell.

Right.

And they can't really address it or be in denial because typically I find that women are with men and men are with women.

Yeah.

They don't seem to be arguing as much, but at the same time, they're going for years before they do something about it.

But I don't mean to say, but why? Why do you think it's so hard to talk to your spouse, your life partner, about sleep or sleep issues? And why is it embarrassing? Why is it embarrassing if I'm spending the night and I'm snoring and he's out in the living room?

I mean, it's a disconnect. I mean, it feels like we separated, you know, and then I can't share that moment with you anymore. So you still want to share that that moment with somebody, and eventually that could lead to intimacy problems, and then, you know, infidelity problems, and all other kind of problems. And you go from sleep divorce to real divorce, and you're down at Broward County.

I can't really write that in the blank, but okay.

All right, magistrate, I'm sorry, but she snored, man. I didn't know what to do. And it just broke it down. And, you know, sex is important to us. Yeah, you know, it's not like we cannot say it's a priority in our relationship. You know, because it makes up a huge part of it, you know, and it's part of the love languages, you know.

Absolutely.

And I think that when we dive deeper into bringing this barrier down of this mindset and stigma that you're weak if you have to sleep, or you're weak, you know, because you prioritize and don't— I mean, I get that all the time. My buddies want to go out and I'm looking at the time, I'm like, man, I don't even operate well after 10 no more. I mean, I'm so old. I mean, truth be told, if it starts It's 7 or 8, that's when I'm at it, right? I can't make the 10 o'clock show, you know, not anymore. And I don't want to.

No, I get it.

Because I want to wake up feeling good, and it throws my whole week off from day to day catching up. And this sleep rebound, it, it's just not worth it at the end of the day. And I love that you wrote this book called Why We Don't Sleep. You know, we didn't even dive into telling me a little bit about that.

Uh, I, I— it's crazy. I was like, if somebody else comes up with another sleep book and it— I really, I don't know.

And here's yours, bam!

Why We Don't Sleep. Okay, that's real creative. But it's— the after was the biological aspect, and that's what I talk about. I talk about, okay, fine, you can't sleep, you have sleep apnea. Why? What is going on biologically, physiologically, neurologically that you can't sleep? It's not like you can't sleep because you have menopause and you're hot. No, you can't sleep because the receptors in your brain are hypervigilant. And, you know, because we don't make estrogen, progesterone anymore, you know, they seem to get ignited super fast overnight. I dive into that, like, and I dive into the neurology and the psychology behind men and manopause and their low testosterone levels and how that affects your brain and your body and your inability to sleep. Central sleep apnea, right? You know, that's something— that's a neurological type of sleep apnea. A lot of A lot of people just think of obstructive sleep apnea, right? But we, we have 2 patients who actually have central sleep apnea.

Wow.

You know, so those type of— the neurological aspect of sleep and why we're not—

Sleep is in the brain.

It's a brain. It's definitely a neurological issue, you know. And outside of obstructive sleep apnea, which is a physical, right, you know, inability, I truly believe everything else falls under neurological. There's no other— This is the head.

This is the brain of the whole operation. If they say so, the way he thinks is the way you live, right?

The way you tell me.

That's what you tell me. I mean that how you think is how you live. I know how you sleep is how you live, but how you think is how you believe in yourself. You know how you project yourself to be, you know, received by people because you have to first believe in yourself first because anybody else is gonna believe in you. I believe in you though.

I know.

I believe you the real deal. I mean when I said when I told you I was impressed. I mean, I am impressed. Like, you are the real deal, and you will be successful. There's no way around it. And I'm just trying to hang on to your coattails because I know we gonna cross the finish line if I hang on long enough. I hope it's soon. I'm just saying. I'm on this AARP, man.

This ain't—

this ain't got much for me. I'm trying to find alternate options.

No, you're my brother.

But this is— this is all love. So before we go, Um, I wanted to talk about how do you get tested? Now, how do you get tested for sleep apnea?

So we have home sleep tests. We use the, the NightOwl, right?

You know, this, this product is pretty neat, you know, that it's disposable.

You sold me on that product.

I know. All right, well, I know a little about it.

You know a little bit about it, but I, I definitely, um, you know, once you explained it to me and the parameters that we use, I mean, it helps us tremendously in identifying people with different type of sleep disparities. So I'm very grateful that you introduced that to us, um, because I, I think it's a huge value. It helps us track our patients longitudinally over the long course.

True.

As opposed to just one time.

True. You sleep differently every night.

Absolutely. You can't go somewhere else thinking you're going to sleep okay and get a proper assessment. You know, you got to be able to sleep in your bed with your people, with your pillows, with your blankets.

In the nude.

If you're over 50. Dry wet sheets, whatever it looks like. And that's why I really like this device.

So the product is pretty simple, I see, to use, as I showed you. It's a little sensor that's measuring what we call PPG or PAT. All that is is a fancy way of saying, we'll take a look at the volume of blood that's in this finger. And if you can measure that blood volume and associate this with With when fight or flight response kicks in, when you have this pause in breathing and this— and adrenaline starts to release and your heart starts speeding up, that blood is gonna leave from the extremities of the feet, the hands, the penile area, and rush back to the heart and brain.

Yeah.

And that's why those other issues arrive because it's not getting the oxygen.

Yeah.

It's not getting the possible process of the hormone balances and all the things that has to take place with regulation. So this makes it simple. You just kind of put your finger on it. Take one of these bandage, like Band-Aid straps and just wrap it on.

How many bandages are in there?

Well, there are about, I think, 7 or 10 of them. You get like 7 nights of information.

Yeah, that's right.

So I think that what you do initially is you do a first few nights to get a look at the first night-to-night variability issues that you can find, and then you prescribe some therapy of some sort.

Yeah.

And then follow back up to see has it improved. And this will help us to understand—

There's a lot of different sleep therapy.

If you're having oxygen drops in the body, which is affecting your blood pressure, your sugar levels, your immunity, you know, your ability to be able to produce testosterone. We talked about the hormones of leptin and ghrelin and metabolism rate. And the list kind of goes on and on about what sleep does, but more importantly, how well oxygen plays a role in all the diseases and the risks associated. So this product, great, it's disposable, so you don't have to worry about it being used by somebody else and you're using it, so it's infection controlled.

Right, right, right.

Right.

It's all yours.

And you can do it anywhere. You got a smartphone, which most of us do.

Yeah, you can travel, you know.

You can put this on anywhere, connect it to the app, get the results back to our doctors, get a result, and then boom, go over those options with the patient of what could be done to consider how to treat it and get you in that prosomnia sleep program.

That's right, and that's what we do. We take a look at those results, you know, talk to you about them, see what options we have.

How much easier can this get?

I mean, we send it to your house. You don't even have to come to us. You know, we'll educate you.

Uber, Uber tests.

Uber tests.

We take it to your house.

I mean, I don't know how much— there's like absolutely no reason.

No reason. No reason. You're in denial still because no one knows that a third of our lives we sleep. And you imagine how many people are in a cemetery that never got a sleep study.

Yeah.

How many people died in all of our lives? Heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, motor vehicle accidents. Even during the day, just of other consequences because of lack of sleep and oxygen. And now we're finding that billions of people have this problem and we're still ignoring the fact that we don't know what happens in our sleep.

It baffles me. I shouldn't say it baffles me. I think it's because a lot of people don't know what to do. You know, I, in all, in all defense, our medical community isn't completely— we know how to write prescriptions, right? Um, but to actually go through the process— medication, medication management, evaluation, supporting that patient and resources— I'm pretty sure we're the only company that does that. Yeah, yeah, you know, and, and that's okay too. That's what we're here for.

We're a beacon of light.

We are a beacon of light.

For change.

There you go. And so, you know, all our physicians, our medical, our practitioners You know, refer your patients to us. You know, so we can they I don't care if they live in Iowa, Michigan, Idaho, Dakota, wherever.

We got you.

We got you. We got you.

The whole world is a village. It's so small now with the technology as we can use it today.

No reason for people not to get help.

That's awesome. So, so what can I say? You know, I think it's our first episode.

I love what we're doing here. I I hope you know we actually enlighten people for sure.

First, I'm excited. I'm bringing my pajamas next time just so you know because I need to get. Into the sleep mindset while I'm here.

I think, I think maybe somebody should— insomnia sleepwear, insomnia pajamas, sleepwear. And we will— a sleep mask. We can get some sleep. Okay, maybe ear— I don't know, for those of you who are willing to— earplugs, earplugs, you know, highly recommend. Save your relationship mouthpiece. Mouthpiece.

Save it. Save your relationship.

Yes, yes.

You out of there.

Like sheets, pillows, Mattresses, blankets, or not. I do want to touch on the pets and the kids.

Oh boy. Well, go ahead.

What do you think about that?

I mean, I got kids that are grown now, gratefully, but I can remember when I first brought my first son home, my first and only, and my daughters, and I was like round the clock trying to manage because I didn't get the time off from work like the mother did, you know. You know, they didn't— they weren't giving maternity leave to the men at that time.

Maternity leave.

20, 30-something years ago, actually, when I had my first daughter, that men were getting it. But, um, it was such a challenge to try to sleep in those first couple years because obviously where all the attention was on the child. And these newborns, yet we love them, they disrupt sleep cycles.

Yeah.

And as they grow older, they even become more of a challenge because we got to make sure they're sleeping right, you know, and making sure they're They're putting themselves in a position for long-term success and not sabotaging themselves.

Oh my God.

And this phone is—

That's a whole nother episode.

Between phones, communication, FaceTime, just constant stimulation from social media.

And the solitude. The solitude is becoming an issue as well. And that can naturally affect the sleep.

True.

And I come back to, at the end of the day, to exert energy, mental energy, to sleep well.

True.

But, you know, if it's just the— I don't know if we're even thinking anymore as a society. We're not using our brains. We're inputting it into some device and they're spitting stuff out, right? Are we even mentally stimulated?

Wow.

And our children, are they mentally stimulated anymore? Which can secondarily affect how they sleep at night.

Wow. Think about how How old we are when we were thinking about how we has to get information. Do you remember the botanical encyclopedias?

Yes, I used to be so excited. They would get mailed to the house.

And then you had to get deeper dive. You had to go to a library and get under the microfiche and try to see something. Like kids just say, tell me why blah blah blah blah blah. Give me E equals MC squared. Like wow, isn't it crazy?

And then they got the nerve to say, I don't know.

I don't know. And I think what the problem was is that we had to be creative. We had to think outside the box. We had to go through the trial of error to learn.

Yeah.

Because it's good to know what to do, but you gotta know what not to do. And lessons are learned when you do the wrong thing.

For sure.

Hopefully. Hopefully, at some point. And most successful people that you hear that ever made it in life had many failures, many issues, and success came way after. And I think that children are depriving themselves of that ability to even have the desire to want to do more than what it takes to get information.

Yeah.

You know, so I think when you think about screen time, you think about children who are constantly stimulated and have access to things we never had, because once 11 or 12 o'clock came, it was white screen. I mean, we didn't have anything, so we slept. And this generation doesn't, and they're caffeinating themselves. They're energy drinks.

Yeah, energy drinks.

They're taking all kinds of stimulants to sleep, to wake up, drugs, vaping. I mean, anything you could think of. And unfortunately, our future doesn't look bright if we kind of take a look at where our children are. And I think it's for the first time they've actually mentioned that unfortunately parents are probably going to outlive their children. Because of their exposure to this light, exposure to food and chemicals that we were never exposed to. I mean—

We talked about nutrition and then we talked about these blue lights.

These poor kids don't have a fighting chance when they don't get to learn sleep from their parents because their sleep— the parents are showing them and abusing sleep the same way, right? So, you know, we have responsibilities for ourselves as well as our children. And I think we always put a lot of emphasis on wanting to help the child and not help ourselves, but just like like in the airplane where they tell you you got to put your mask on first. You can't help you're childish. You're level-headed, got the energy and stamina. And some of these older people that are still having young kids need all the sleep they can get because I could imagine having a newborn at 45 and 50. And I'm so glad I'm past that stage and I'm in the, uh, what we call, uh, what do you call the stage when they're empty nesters? Empty nester. Empty nester. Yeah, thank you, Lord.

Yeah.

So, you know, children is going to be always an I think that's an important factor. They're our generation, and we're going to pour into these kids and try to make sure they're getting the best opportunity to advance in life and be successful by getting good sleep regimens. I think that's important that we put it as a curriculum in schools.

Oh, I would love that. I've definitely discussed— I'm sorry, I'm on the committee, the Overtown Youth Committee, and that's definitely something that, you know, we've considered. But it's one of those things, you just— it's going to take some time to implement. But health, you know, they all take health, right? Sex ed, health, nutrition, all that other stuff.

Why is sleep not in there? Where's sleep?

Like, that was a perfect opportunity for us to learn sleep. However, we're definitely trying to be proactive, trying to implement, you know, some sleep programs into the schools, colleges.

True.

Corporations.

Staying up all night trying to study.

Firefighters, police officers, everyone can learn to be Educated.

You know, I get a lot of patients that are firefighters. You know why? All those guys are sleeping together. Not sleeping, sleeping together, but they're sleeping in the same place. Hopefully not.

Yeah.

But at the same time, they're like roommates.

Right.

And they're complaining about the other guys. And all they do in there is eat. Exactly. Now they work, don't get me wrong. They're out there. But when they're there, they're cooking, they're eating, they're watching TV, they're enjoying life and putting on the pounds.

Yeah.

And snoring all night long. We know that they're not drinking, but at the same time, These people are aware that they have sleep apnea, right? And they're like, bro, I can't even sleep next to you, right?

You're making all that noise. And it's, you know, they, they probably joke about it and it's funny and it's just a joke. But, um, you know, again, like, we can look— all my firefighter friends, right? You want your man to sleep, send them to ProSomnia.

ProSomnia Sleep, get it. Help them out, get them a device, you know, maybe make sure you make that fire burn. Keep that fire alight. Lit and ready to go.

You got firefighters.

What else do we got to touch on? What, what else do we think we gotta—

I mean, the pets in the bed.

Oh, there you go.

That's the thing. But I think it— I know it's gonna sound crazy, but I loved it. Those little smushy face dogs that snore. I mean, I know they have to sleep. What are you talking about?

Oh boy.

Oh my God, they're so cute, but they snore.

Yeah, they do. But you know, those are things, especially for dogs too, because the way their jaws and how their face is set up.

That is real obstructive, you know, physiological sleep apnea.

I mean, do lizards snore? Because that noise I keep hearing is— what is that? Is that a snore?

Potentially. Prosomnia Pets 2027.

Help us put your pet to sleep. Give them the best REM they've ever had. You want your dog to grow and be more active?

They need more.

They need some more. They gotta get that REM.

But, uh, yeah, I know. It's dolphins. Owls don't have REM sleep. Dolphins have the ability to have one side of their brain go into REM while the other side is awake.

Whoa.

There's a lot of really—

It's like one foot in, one foot out.

Yeah, really interesting because they can't stop moving.

Oh snap.

So they—

but the brain has to rest.

There you go.

Sweet.

So they've learned to adapt. I think sharks might be that way too.

I think I was a dolphin. Maybe, maybe I'm a dolphin. I mean, because I think that I'm so good now that I just go on whatever sleep I get, you know, and that's not good.

Why is it not? That's— see, that's another misconception.

No, I mean—

Who said? Do you feel rested?

Not this morning. I mean, I was struggling this morning, but no, no, some nights I can't go to sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night. I can't go back to bed. I don't have no hack on sleep. We all are faced with the struggles of getting a good night's sleep at some point in our lives. And I got a lot of stuff on my mind, you know. I got a lot of things I'm thinking about, anxiety about the next day or what's coming or bills coming, you know, or, you know, finding out that, you know, your kid didn't pass an exam. I mean, there's a lot of stress that comes along, you know, everything.

That's a financial burden for some people.

And that'll keep you up. Get your kids on a sleep schedule, right, right, that they wasn't doing all summer.

All of a sudden it kicks in, they—

first night of school, like, doesn't work that way.

A lot of sleepy parents on Tuesday and kids sleeping in school. Kids sleeping in school.

Is that sad?

Why are they reprimanded? You know, a lot of times kids, kids will get reprimanded for falling asleep instead of asking, hey, what's going on?

What's your sleep schedule? What's the environment like at home?

What's your parents' sleep schedule like?

Right.

If you got a parent who can't sleep at night and they want to clean, right, and run the vacuum, right, and wake you up to clean with them.

Wow.

Now they got to go to school sleepy.

Yeah.

But they got—

How do you learn that way?

Right. But now they're not learning. They get sent to detention.

And then I'm— or they're failing, and then they get into more trouble.

So again, we need to start really acknowledging, even from a corporate level, like, what is going on with people and sleep.

Okay, well, let's just stop right here and say no pets in the bed. Let's just stop that right now. Stop this foolishness.

Like, okay, fine, you need your pet to go to sleep. You know, that's hard to say, but if you have an actual pet—

Deal breaker. Ain't happening. I can't have all this dog fur and stuff on me waking up in the middle of the night. What kind of foolishness is that?

They love their pets, man.

I know, but love them outside of the bed. The bed is a sacred place. There should be 3 things going on in bed: sleep, sex, and snoring, if you snore.

I don't disagree. I do not disagree.

We'll accept those things.

Well, I mean—

Pets not allowed.

Sleeping with your snoring pet, maybe, but that's hard. That's habit. That's a habit people don't— and that's when people don't want to take responsibility for their own cognitive behavioral therapy.

Don't talk about people's pets though, you might be in trouble. People serious about their pets.

And that's why they about to shut you off right now.

I know, like, oh, you talk about a pet, I'm done. Beep. Done.

They can't sleep without their pet in bed.

All right, I won't bash the pet. I won't bash the pet owners that respect the lives of animals.

As long as it's not causing you to be sleep deprived.

True.

Right? If it's a situation where you're a light sleeper, your pet's always moving or snoring, like, it's gonna be hard, but it might just be you might need to make that transition. Same thing with the kids. Them kids get to a point and they— you over here and they over there, but they're still right here.

Yeah, yeah.

Right? You know, so it's— it might just be time. Wow.

Waking up to go walk a dog in the early morning, not getting sleep, like, you might as well just put that—

That dog will wake you up. Dogs will wake you up.

But you don't want to clean up after them, so you got to take them for the walk. Get your dog on your sleep schedule. Get your dog on your sleep schedule.

As long as it's not causing you to lose sleep at night. You know, the people find comfort in, you know, sleeping with their animals or their children.

True.

But as long as it's not—

Give me a blow-up doll. I'll be all right.

If you need a blow-up doll to go to sleep at night, as long as you're rested and restored in the morning, my friend.

It's called a swan pillow. It's like a pillow. It just allows you to have something to hold. You just feel comfortable when you have something to hold in sleep, no?

That's called a body pillow.

And then something in between your legs that kind of stabilize your back and kind of keep you— That doesn't snore. That's what we need.

Yeah, we need a body pillow.

That doesn't snore.

Shaped like a man.

And a woman. When necessary.

When necessary.

With cool temp. Cool temp.

Cool wick.

We can even dress it up. Okay, it's going too far with the sleep mask. For Somnia Sleep, we're here. We did it.

We did it, man.

We're about to continue to make change, impact lives, change the game, and make sleep a thing.

It's a thing, man.

Make sleep a thing.

We coming for you, sleep.

All right, you heard it here.

Yeah, check out our book, Why We Don't Sleep. It's on Amazon. The biological secrets behind insomnia. I take it from a neurological perspective, identify reasons neurologically why you may not be able to sleep and/or why some other issues you can consider, other REM sleep disparities that you can look at. Also, The Wake-Up Call is on Amazon as well.

You know it is. How you sleep is how you live. How you sleep is how you love, how you learn, how you look, how you work. I mean, it's everything.

Sleep is everything. So, my friend, I think we did it. All right. I love you, my brother. I love you too. Okay. For Somni Sleep Health and Wellness. We out of here.

Lights out.