Sleep like your life depends on it with Dr. Peter Martone - Part 1

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Perfect Practice. This episode is going to be focused on an area that I feel, and my guest also feels is extremely overlooked in clinical practice, in health journeys. And those of you who are seeking health, I believe that this could be perhaps the next or perhaps even the final frontier in your overall health and wellness. And what I really looking forward to in our conversation. Dr. Marton and I already had a conversation prior to hitting record, and I'm like, we gotta stop talking and we gotta start recording. So we're gonna go through a variety of different ways that the way you sleep affects your quality of life, your quality of your health, your posture, your facial structure. I mean, this is gonna be a really fascinating conversation. You're gonna get a new perspective on how to improve all of those things as well. As I am a student of Dr. Martone's in the sense that I have his pillow, I've been using it for the last month or so, and it has definitely improved my quality of sleep. And you guys all see my sleep scores. I post them every day. So I have evidence to demonstrate that what we're going to talk about today has even helped me. So without further ado, welcome Dr. Peter Marton.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. This is great. And I love your work you do on the breath. It was transformational for me personally. So this is a great mutual respect conversation. So I am gonna. I'm enjoying it.

I love it. Thank you. And it's always wonderful to hear that you never know whose life you're gonna touch. And I know you've impacted many physicians lives in a positive way, enabling them to help their clients and their patients. And you've also helped so many people directly by using some of the products that you've developed. So what I'm curious about is we're both chiropractors, and somehow we both ended up, you know, really coming to the realization of how important sleep is, how important facial structure is, and how important breathing is. So I'm curious as to how your journey brought you to where you are. I mean, not today, because you've been doing this for a while, but what brought you down this path?

Well, it's funny, I didn't wake up one day and say I wanted to help people sleep. Right. I think that that, you know, life is a life leaves breadcrumbs. And I really zigzagged into the sleep industry because I'm not in the sleep industry at the beginning because I want to help people sleep. I wanted to fix a problem that I had. And the only time I was able to do it is at night when I slept. So I had herniated a disc about 15 years ago. And I was, you know, I was mountain biking, which I'm actually going tonight, my mountain biking right after this. And really competitive, really hardcore mountain biking. And I had like, like tweaked my back a little bit, you know, playing golf a couple days before. And I, I had always at that point had back pain, but I just attributed my back pain to, yeah, I can help my patients, but now I'm super athletic or, or, you know, you know, I'm really hot on my body. It's normal for me, but it's not normal for you. And I'm living this, this contradiction. And your growth is only, is, is only as good as the contradiction. And finally you're going to explode. And that's what happened to my back. It blew up. My disc leg was numb. I remember I was in so much pain when it happened. I told my wife, I need to go to the emergency room. She's like, all right, jump in the car. I'm like, no, you have no, you don't understand. I am in so much pain, I couldn't even move. And when the paramedics came to the house, I was screaming in pain. By the time I got to the emergency room, they asked my wife if I was a drug addict because they gave me so much morphine, it didn't even touch the pain. Like, wow, that is how much pain I was in. So you can imagine pain to purpose where I was in. I said, how the hell did it come to this? I'm in an emergency room. I'm hooked up on Dilaudid. It's one of the most strongest narcotics they can give you in the hospital. And I'm like, where am I ever going to practice again? Am I ever going to be able to mountain bike again? Couldn't feel my leg. So I said, there's a pattern. I know that there's a pattern. I know something's going on. I got to friggin figure this out. So I reviewed 3000x rays and I found a pattern. And it's not right in front of you, but when you, when you look and you start to see things and then you start to look at patients differently, I'm like, oh my God, this is unbelievable. I had just a lost cervical curve and forward head posture just a little bit. But what. The pattern is due to a dural attachment at the base of the skull. And the base of the sacrum. What I found is it causes a psoas major muscle spasm to twist the hips to take pressure off of the. The. The lower back. I mean, take posture off of the. The cord from the meninges. So I looked, and every time somebody has forward head posture, they had this curve in the lower back in 90 of the cases. And I'm like. And everybody thinks that it was this. It's. It's a quadratus on borum that's doing it. But I'm like, it can't be my quadratus because I've had so much. And that's a. The muscle in the lower back. I had so much work done on it over the years. I'm like, it's my psoas. And then I remember a teacher telling me the psoas is the only muscle in the human body that attaches directly to a disc. And I'm like, wait a second. The psoas is the agonist to the quadratus lumborum, so it's got to be reacting to forward head posture. So I'm like, listen, if in theory, if I fix my cervical neck, if my. My posture, my neck, or my curve, I should be able to get rid of that psoas spasm, and then my disc problem should be gone forever. So I started rolling up towels because I was a side sleeper. I love to curl up on my side because your subconscious brain wants to feel safe. And I love this. You know, people love this curled up, safe position. So I would. I was slept on my side, and I'm like, there's no way I can sleep on my back. But the why was big enough. That was the only thing I know. That tissue remolds over a long period of time. So if I put my neck into this position and I force myself to stay in that position, in theory, if I fix this, I'd be able to fix my lower back. And from doing that, day in, night in, night out, over a period of several months, I have never had back pain again since ever. I mean, it is transformational. And then you take that. And I started working with patients, and then I started seeing transformations happening in their lives. They're sleeping better. Their. Their digestive problems are going away, hormonal imbalances are going away, immune system starting to function better. And I'm like, holy mackerel. It's having a huge effect on the parasympathetic nervous system. HRVs are going through the roof. It's so. So then I became a posture. A sleep posture expert. Right. A sleep structural expert. It doesn't exist. So I made up the category. So now that's where I am in the space.

Wow. Amazing. Amazing. So that explains the pillow, which just wanted to show everyone I have here. And you've got one behind you there.

Yes.

So it's a very unique shape. And now that you explain it the way you do, it makes sense why it's designed and shaped that way. And it's designed to help restore that cervical curve for people who are unfamiliar with that term. You know, you and I are chiropractors and forward head carriages is a big part of our vernacular, but maybe. Yeah, exactly. Let's show people with the spine what we're looking at.

So right here is the neck. The head sits here. So you're supposed to have a curve in the neck. Then you have this curve that goes the other way and then a curve in the lower back. So the cervical curve and the low back curve, those should equal the thoracic curve. And that is. That's normal. So the shock absorbers in the spine are not the discs. It's the actual structure of the curve. It's this, the curve. The body acts like a spring, and as you walk that, you're supposed to bounce, and it's supposed to give it once. When you lose this curve over a period of time, it increases the distance from here to the base. So then you're going to pick up a curve in this plane because you lose a curve in this plane. And that is what that is. That is what I found, is that when you lose this curve, you pick up this curve. And this is happening through a psoas major muscle spasm. And it's the only muscle that inserts directly to the disc. So when you start to improve this curve here by changing your sleeping position and doing different things that we'll talk about, you end up releasing that spasm in the low back, taking pressure off of the disc. So most people that have hip issues and back issues doesn't come from the hip and the back, it comes from the neck due to the writing reflex. And the writing reflex states that body posture adjusts to head position. That's a law. So anytime you don't like your posture, there's an issue with the. With the way that your eyes are balancing.

So you. So what you're saying is your eyes will always try to stay level with the horizon and the rest of the body will compensate for that, which obviously makes sense because our brain wants the Head to be as level as it can possibly be. This is very fascinating. I never, I, you know, I. Nobody ever taught me this when I was doing structural work because I'm sure I could have helped a lot more people with something that, that seems obvious, but also the solution seems so, you know, right there in your face and simple.

And it's so, it's like, it's called simplicity on the far side of complexity. The way that they come to these understandings. And when you base your. What you're doing on law, right. So law is. There are three laws is the writing reflex, Davis's law and Wolf's law. Bone restructuring. Wolf's law is basically bone restructures based on the stresses applied. Davis's law is tissue restructures based on the stresses applied. And then Wolf's large. I mean, and then the writing reflex is the body posture adjusts to head position. So when you look at all that, basically the spine's like clay. Body is like clay can be moldable. And we all hear that. Oh, the, like, you're building a foundation. You have to have a strong core. Strong foundation. Build the core, core. Right. And everything's from the bottom up. It doesn't work that way. It works from the top down. It's totally opposite. If I take my head and I tilt it this way, my head's going to go this way and my hips are going to go this way. It all adapts to this. How we hold our head and our posture is the battle between a neurology and gravity. So you can read somebody's posture and tell them what's going on internal based on the way that they hold themselves. I can tell you, you know, if you sprained an ankle 20 years ago, based on the way that you lose your rotation to the opposite side because everything is connected. And then when you start to base your theories on law, it's very predictable. So now you, your subconscious is starting to see the patterns. Now you become an intuitive healer. That's what intuition is. It's when your subconscious brain recognizes data points that the conscious brain doesn't have time to even think about. So when you're able to base your theories in. In stuff on really reproducible actions, you can see things way beyond where. Where others fail.

Yeah, and that's. I love it. Because it's a very, it's very contradictory to the way we've been taught to look at things. Right. Even as, as a chiropractor, we'd often look at the clients from the feed Upwards. And what you're telling me makes so much more sense. Just intuitively it makes so much more sense.

Yeah. So go ahead. Sorry.

No, go ahead, finish your thought.

Yeah. And then, and then we'll get into like the brain neurology when you know, you know, so, so when you, you see somebody's older on in life, right, do they walk backwards or do they walk forwards? They typically shuffle forwards. And what are they? You know, a lot of times when people get older, they lose what their prefrontal cortex. So you, you, you tend to lean into the atrophy or the side of brain weakness. And most of that stuff happens through the vermis in the brain where if you lose your balance, one of the functions of the vermis is to build the prefrontal cortex so you can look at the way somebody's walking and tell them what their cognitive functioning is. And that's that, that other patent that we were talking about, that work.

Wow. So fascinating. It seems like once you, once you know what to look for, it's right there and it just clicks. Yeah. That's awesome. So tell me, tell me this with all this information which to me is like literally blowing my mind. I'm excited to hear about how, how like you then I mean it seems so obvious. So it's almost embarrassing to even to talk about it because of the simplicity of it, which, which is what I love. But what, what made you start thinking about how facial structure, sleep all how, how those things are impacted and then tell me if the facial structure also affects brain function. I'm curious about that connection.

Yes. So it was a, I, I, I don't know know the correct term. Max Lingual. It, it was a doctor that I interviewed once, Max something ologist. I don't know what it was, but they, they study the structure of the bones in the face and they had heard me and they, they, they're like, well, well, you're one of the really the only people that are, that are out there that really, really, really focused on back sleeping, you know, contrary to what the research, you know, suggests, which I love to break that down because it is, it is so, it's so there are so many holes in those studies, but, and I interviewed her and she was talking about, yeah, you know, when you're side sleeping, just like, you know, if I want my arm to be bent, all I have to do is grab it, hold it like this for a year and I will have a bent arm. Right. Because tissue remolds based on the stresses applied so she had mentioned. She's like, yeah, you know, we talked about breathing. I do a lot of breath work. And in. One of the issues is people are side sleeping, and they're sleeping right on their sinuses, and the pressure against the pillow is causing those sinuses to break down. And I'm like, well, that's Davis's Law. Davis's law is tissue remolds based on the stresses applied Wall Street. Wolff's law is the same thing. So if you lie on your side, you're going to. That pillow pressing against your sinuses caves in those sinuses, and it affects. Affects sinus drainage. Doesn't really affect the airway here, but it will affect you, your ability to breathe out of your nose and cause deviated septum and stuff like that.

Yeah, I'm thinking to my. My own self, because I have a deviated septum. So I'm. I'd have to ask my mom, you know, if I was. I feel like I'm a side sleeper now, intuitively, like, that's where I comfortably want to go, is I want to sleep on my side. But then I have to talk myself into sleeping on my back because I know how beneficial it is. And, and I will say this, I'll. I'll admit this, is that when I want to help people stop snoring, one of the things I do is I encourage them to sleep on their side, so. Because that allows their airway to work a little bit more freely because their tongue doesn't fall back into their throat. But I'm. I'm so intrigued by what you're saying, because I understand now that it could be compounding the problem in the long run if we don't correct for the deviated septum and the sinus is getting smaller and not draining adequately.

Can we break down that term comfortable real quick? I'd love to do that. So you said it feels comfortable. Comfortable for what? So it's not comfortable. So that I have this. Another theory. Right. Or another. I have this. This model. It's called the sleep triune. The triune of sleep. So you have the body, the subconscious brain, and the conscious brain. They're all at work. And this is really what we have to do when we, when we fall asleep. We got to have all three of those in mind. So the body, it wants alignment and comfort. Okay. The subconscious brain wants safety in the conscious brain. It just needs to get out of its own way because that's what screws up sleep. But what the conscious brain mistakes for what it thinks is comfortable. It's more, it's safety for the subconscious brain. So this is a safe feeling. It is not comfortable for the, for the body. So the average person will toss and turn 20 to 40 times a night because the number one reason the body's in pain. So you will toss, you will move out of that position. I give people the, the, I give people the, the challenge of try to watch a two hour movie. And the, in the position you fall asleep in, it's not possible because you're going to be uncomfortable. So you're setting yourself up for failure. If you're looking at good deep restorative sleep based on, you know, based on the data. If you use a consistent, if you use a consistent like an a ring on a consistent basis, your data is only as good as what's consistent within your nature. When you start to change alignment, your heart rate variability is going to increase by 30%. So your old way of sleeping will, will, will, will, will get bad scores. But so we want to put the body in a comfortable position. So we want to reverse the triune. Forget about the, the conscious brain. What it wants is irrelevant. We can train the conscious brain to do whatever the heck we want. So it just needs to get out of its own way. So we put the body into what we call a corrective sleeping position which is comfortable for the human body where its body weight is distributed over the greatest surface area. Where your neck is in distraction, not supported distraction, Very, very different keys. And we'll talk about that. And then you need, it's an unsafe position for the subconscious brain. So in order to be in that position, you need to create safety because this is safe. You're going from this to this. It is unsafe. So you put, you create comfort for the body. You then create safety for the subconscious brain and then you just teach the conscious brain how to get out of its own. And that's how you get great, you know, way better sleep.

So tell me about how, how does one feel safe in that position? If, if their original safety position is sleeping on their side, is there, is that just something they have to work themselves through? Do you recommend weighted blankets? Is there a particular mattress you recommend or a sleep setup you recommend?

Yeah, so we have a, we have, we're actually working with classifying people's subconscious brain into three animals. Right? You're either a gorilla where you could just fall asleep anywhere. You know those people that can just, they can feel safe anywhere. You have, you know, you have no natural predators. You don't care You, You. You know, you can fall asleep anywhere or where most people live, you're the armadillo. You're the, you know, you have that hard shell, and you need to curl up into a ball to create safety. And then the other one, which is really timid is, is the ostrich. You need to stick your head in the ground, right, and have pressure against your face and your forehead in order to, in order to create safety. So we categorize you within those that, you know, one of those three. Or you could be a gorilla dillo, right. You know, you can be something in between. So now each person needs to fall asleep differently. And I, and we have a sleep academy that we're launching, and we have a. We're coming up with a system to be able to analyze which one you are. And then, but in general, what you want to do is you can fool. Remember consciousness. Consciousness is thinking and stuff. Once that shuts down, you can teach, you can teach safety to the subconscious brain. So if you sleep on your side, right, the body likes pressure against the face, but you can sleep on your back and then put a pillow on the side of your face so the body will still feel like it's on its side, right? Because when you fall asleep, you don't have spatial awareness. And so you can create that pressure against your side. You can put a pillow on your forehead. You can. If you're an ostrich, you can put. Use a weighted blanket. But yeah, we do it with pressure and pressure in specific parts of the body, depending on. On what, what person we're talking to.

Yeah, that's great, sound advice. I love that. Is there, is there a particular mattress that you like or recommend? Like a specific material that you find to be more comfortable?

Well, remember, the issue is not more comfort, it's more function. So if a function becomes comfort, right, you can't buy a more comfortable pillow, or I mean, I guess you could, but you want a more functional pillow. And then, then that will become comfort. So if you're trying to, let's say, sleep on your side, if you get a more comfortable bed, you're going to cause more disruption within your problem because you, it's going to allow you to stay in that position longer, which your body doesn't want. We actually just did that with a, with a patient that that is, has a blown disc. And I say, he's like, oh, my bed, so uncomfortable. I'm like, all right, well, we got to get you to try to change your sleeping position. He's like, no, no, no, it's just super uncomfortable. I'm like, all right, this is what you do. Put a second feather bed or pillow topper on top of the bed. And he came in and he's like, oh, my God, my leg went to sleep and I'm numb. I'm like, something's not right. I'm like, you're still side sleeping, aren't you? I'm like, listen, I can't make a bed more comfortable. So you stay in that position longer. Because we're going to end up destroying. You know, we're going to end up causing more problems. So you take that thing off and start sleeping on your back. And then I can create comfort. Right. So. So I like a, you know, like a latex mattress underneath. Or. Or it really doesn't even matter. You know, you can sleep on a piece of wood. It's just. You need to. You need something to distribute your body, your surface area. So I like to use multiple toppers.

Okay, awesome. Speaking of speaking sleeping on wood, what do you think of people that sleep on the ground? I've heard mixed things about that. I've heard it's actually quite. Can be quite good for your posture. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, well, the flatter a surface is, the back goes into extension. Right. Which. That, you know, that think about a suspension bridge. You know, people think, oh, all right, let. Let's talk about this. I think this is really, really, really an important point. And. And we're often miss. We're misguided as a culture. I think this is the one thing, this theory. Well, this is a theory, and it's wrong. Just because 250 million people believe in a bad idea doesn't make it a good idea. Any time you support the body, you weaken it. I don't care what you're supporting. I don't care if it's an arch support in your shoe, if it's a back support, if it's support for your thyroid. Any time you support the body, you weaken it. So the adaptation to lack of use is atrophy. So when you support it. Oh, we got it. Yeah. Oh, we got to support the body. We got to do more back support in our bed. So we, you know, and then more support. Here you are destroying the structure in the frame. So I mentioned a few minutes ago, the neck nest does not support. It does. It does go under your neck. I guess technically it supports your neck, but it doesn't support your head. So what happens is the weight of the head should hang off of the neck Nest so that there's a force there called distraction. And distraction will gently stretch the curve back into the neck. So when you are using no support, like a. Like a flat mat bed, like a flat thing, that's going to be really hard for 99% of the world to get used to. If you start off like that, that's great. But there are ways to create that type of environment, especially within our culture, to be able to, you know, minimize the discomfort that that will cause. But I'm not. I'm not opposed to that.

So going back to some of these laws that you talked about, you know, if we sleep in a certain position, then it clearly, over time, affects our form and our function. So I'm just gonna ask what might seem like a silly question, but where do we put our arms and legs? Sometimes I have the tendency to wanna cross my leg one over the other, so I can't imagine that that's good for me. So where. What's the ideal positioning for my arms and legs while I'm sleeping?

It's like you're in a coffin. Arms are right down, right? And when I use, when I use my. My covers, like I just woke up from a nap, believe it or not, I. I have my arms out down below because I keep my hands exposed. I keep my hands and my feet exposed because I want my body to temperature regulate out my hands and my feet, because I'll. You can put your hand in a glass of water, right? Ice bath for 15 minutes, right in it. Think about putting your whole entire body in it for 15 minutes. It can't happen. You'll get hypothermia. Right? So your body uses your hands and your feet to temperature regulate. So if you stick your hands and your feet out the covers, have it by your side, have them on your lap, then your. Your body is going to flow. That's why I do not promote sharing covers. I believe that you should have your own covers so that you're your own heater. Your sleeping partner is your own heater. You do not want two heaters under the same, same covers. You want to be able to make sure your core temperature drops in order to get good, deep restorative sleep.

I'm going to have my wife watch this segment of our interview because we, we've been actually talking about that. And right now we have two separate blankets, but we share the sheets. I'm like, no, I want to have separate sheets as well. And I think in Europe that's a common practice is that the couples will actually Sleep on twin beds next to each other, have their own mattress and their own cover and blanket system.

Yeah, I didn't, I didn't realize that, but it makes sense. In my bed we have, we're a king, but they're two twins together.

Yeah, that's how mine is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So yeah. Okay, good. I'm gonna get a new comforter and new blanket and every new sheets that go with the twins instead of the king.

Yeah, and that's what we do. We do. I think maybe that's a queen or a twin. We have a twin sheet. Twin sheet. Then we have a full cover that covers the bed, but our covers are under that, you know. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, I gotcha. That's awesome. So how long does it take for someone to get used to sleeping that way? How long might it be until they see results? I know you said that once you started doing this, you never develop back pain again after that. How long did it, how long did it take for you to start noticing a difference in your case? And that's obviously an extreme case. And what are you noticing with your clients?

Yeah, so my, my case was obviously I had a really nasty disc problem. So. But just, I mean it varies so much. I mean just with my patients alone, you know, we've, we've worked with thousands of them with changing their sleep. You know, the more, the more arthritis or degeneration that they have in their necks, the tougher it's going to be. So really the lifestyle habit is just fall asleep like that. Let your body do whatever it's going to do in the middle of the night. But I had a patient, she's just, just yesterday, 40, 48 years old, she said, I never thought I would be able to be a back sleeper. And she's been on a neck nest, but been sleeping that way for three weeks and she's sleeping the entire night on her back. That is not normal. Normally it takes a couple of months. But really the lifestyle habit isn't that you need to be a back sleeper. The lifestyle habit is the ten minute sleep ritual. You just fall asleep in a specific position that way. That's it. And don't worry about it because like I said, the sleep triune is the conscious brain needs to hand it off to the subconscious. And the subconscious brain is in control of sleep, not consciousness. So when you're consciously saying, oh, I'm a side sleeper. No, you're not. You're whatever your subconscious brain wants you to be based on the amount of pain that your body's in. You're all over the place most of the time. And airway, airway I think we should, we should get into is very difficult to manage, especially when you're sleeping on your back, because sleeping on your side, you can get away because your jaw can stay shut. You know, the gravity is not opening up your mouth. You, your tongue's not going to drop back into your throat. And so it's a lot easier to manage your airway on your side. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Just because it's easy doesn't mean that it's good. You know, it's easy. Hard. Easy is doing the same thing now, but hard is still having disruptive, you know, horrible sleep and having dysfunction for the rest of your life. Hard is listening. Let's get over it. Let's work on, on, on habits and get those habits right. It's so difficult. We're going to go through pain. And if the pain is greater than the perceived benefit, you're never going to change. And in my case, the pain didn't even come close to my perceived benefit because my why was so big. So if you can get over that and really make those changes now, it's a game changer down the road.

Are there. Because people might be listening to this and, and I just want to ask this question and my people might be wondering, is there any contraindication to sleeping on your back?

You know, so remember, I'm talking about falling asleep in this position. Your body, all those contraindications, your body is going to. It. Let's say the body's in pain or you're not breathing well and your airways closing down, it's going to turn you to your side. So really, ultimately, what I'm trying to get done, I'm trying to get that neck into distraction at least, or traction at least one hour a day. Nobody is going to do it during the day, so you want to start this way off at night. And it just so happens that it will. It transforms people's sleep once they get it down. That's why we have the Way Better Sleep Academy, because there are so many obstacles that come up when you try to do this, and the biggest one is airway. But other than airway and sleep apnea, that really is one of the contraindications. If a woman's pregnant, she can still sleep like this, but you need to, you, you need to use elevation. You got to sleep like using a sleep. A bed wedge or a sleep wedge. And then you want to elevate the legs and that's way better than sleeping on your side and having the, the, the pelvis torque all night long. It's, there are so many contraindications to that. That's why women have so much sciatica and stuff like that. But if we understood structure and you and me as chiropractors, we have to have an anchor in. And these anchors are non negotiables. This is how the body works. It's law. My non negotiables are the nervous system controls everything in the human body. Number one, it's not, you can't argue with people. Try to argue it. It's hormones, it's the nervous system. Number two, the structure of your spine directly affects the integrity of that nervous system. So if the nervous system is trump, trump, we need to do everything we can to maintain the integrity of our structure of our spinal cord or, or our spine. So that is really where the essence of the, of the anchors come in. And then from there, then we talk about Wolf's law, Davis's law and writing reflex. So once you have that core, the best way to start out your health day, I start your day not at midnight, I start your day at 9 o' clock or 9:30 when you go to bed. It's to start your health day off in traction because then you're reversing the damaging effect of the modern day lifestyle.

Okay, wonderful. So the other question I have then naturally, from what you just said is are there any. At what age? I mean, I would imagine that we'd want our young babies sleeping on their backs from the very beginning.

On the backs, no pillow.

On the backs, no pillow. And then how young can somebody. Because nowadays kids use phones, they use devices, you know, their heads are in this forward posture. At what age can children start using something like the neck nest?

So it would be the size of the child. So right around 10 years old, 11 years old.

Okay, perfect. You have to get one for my son because, you know, why wait until he's my age to help have him learn this, right? He may as well learn it right now as I'm learning it.

And one of the things with kids, right, so this is something that you can do and this will be, this would be great for you to really, how do you say it? Categorize if you're how the personality type that your child's in. So what you do is. So you're looking at me through the lens, See the lens right there? Make a circle and then look at Me through the lens, through that circle.

Okay.

And then bring that back to your eye. Just bring it all the way back to your eye. All the way back to your eye. All the way back. Okay, good. So you're right eyed. Okay. You can put your hand down and are you right handed?

I'm left handed.

Okay. So now that is across dominance. So now let me explain your avatar. And this would be very important for your child. You crave protection. You're an internalized thinker. Unexplained underachievement. Your brain goes a million miles a minute. And a lot of times you, you think you're, you're introspective thinker. Right. So that avatar craves protection, craves comfort. It wants safety. So you would be more like a, like the. An amadillo. Ostrich. An ostradillo. Right. So, so you're going to want to. I'm cross dominant. Cross dominant is an add brain. So, so you, you're going to want to create safety with pressure. So you could either use an eye mask. I don't. You. We have those eye masks. I don't use them anymore. But I'll show you how I sleep. I sleep on my back with the neck nest under my neck here. Oh, you can't even see me.

I can see you.

All right. And then I use a pillow right over my eyes. And then sometimes I put a pillow against the side of my face and you're like. That sounds so suffocating. Like I'm, I'm gonna die in that thing. You will love it based on being left handed and right. And right eyed. Because across dominance requires. You want to be held by mommy all the time. And you know, there's a lot of internalized stuff. Go ahead.

I used to love sleeping with a. Like a toucan. Yeah, my head.

That's it. Because you brought, you love that, that, that pressure. And that pressure creates that warmth and that, that, that, that sensation of safety for you.

Okay. So maybe even wearing a hat at night, like a toque, would that work?

Yeah. And, and then a sock over your eyes. But you do. So what we found, we did some, we did some studies. Well, research on. Anecdotally on, on a few hundred people is when they put pressure against their eyes, their HRV improved. So it. You. And basically HRV improving is basically just telling you a stimulated and parasympathetic nervous system. So you want to stimulate that parasympathetic.

Okay. I'm so excited to go to bed tonight.

Man, I'm so Excited. I just took a nap. It's a Tuesday. Tuesday's nap time for me. I love it.

Talk about napping. Tell me about that.

Well, you know, your people are all, you know, ingrained within the oura ring, so you'll see a whole bunch of different scores. And when you, when you, you know, I, I have a very structured lifestyle and I know that on the weekends sometimes I don't want to be structured. Right. That's the only way I can kind of live a, you know, so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is a really structured time. And then I, I do a 24 hour fast until Friday, typically at dinner. And then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, my times, I love it. I do it. But sometimes I go to bed later, sometimes I'll have drinks and if I do that, my, my HRV sometimes is down at like 10 and 14. I should be basically beat dead. I got an HRV of a four one night. That's literally telling it. Zero would be dead. So, so I was so close, you know, to just, just, just flatlining that your body's got to make that up. And you're not going to make it up with sleep the next night. That's when you make it up with napping. So, so I, I talk about sleep on a schedule. So if you're not going to have, you can get away with a night or two of loss of sleep. But if you're doing that consistently, I have, I have a Tuesday nap time that's built into my schedule.

So you're only on Tuesdays though, not, not the other days?

Typically, no, Mondays is too much of a day. It would be Tuesday, Wednesday if I need it, sometimes on the weekend I will, but Tuesday or Wednesday, one of those two days, if I have to skip one, I will. And then it's, it's all about, you know, just kind of getting the whole body, you know, reset and recharged because I really like to keep my, my HRV's high.

So tell me about deviated septums. I mean, it seems so obvious when you say it. And a lot of clients that I work with who have sleep troubles or breathing troubles rather while they sleep complain about a deviated septum. So is it, is there a way to correct that? I mean, obviously we can prevent it from getting worse, but is there any corrective strategies that you recommend? At what point do you recommend somebody get surgery done, if at all? I'm curious your thoughts.

So here's, Let me, let's. We're going to talk a few. I can't even Talk. We'll talk about a few things because I do have a lot of. I have a lot of input here. Most of the issues with deviated symptoms are chronic fatigue because what's happening is they can breathe during the day. They can even breathe if they lie down sometimes during the afternoon, but they can't at night. Your immune system triggers at a very specific time and then your sinuses get congested, and then you're never going to be able to breathe, especially if you have a deviated symptom. So most people that they're affected by the deviated symptom, if they're not affected every single night, and there are a few nights saying breathe, and then the others, they can't. It's a chronic fatigue issue because the first line of defense of innate immunity is congestion. So you get congested typically at night. So most people have chronic fatigue with chronic sinus issues. And it's always blamed on a deviated symptom that they can't breathe. So it's not always a deviated symptom. Then they also have chiropractors do it. Maxilling. Ologists do it. I don't know. They stick the balloon up the nose and then they. They pump it. That I had done. And it was a game changer for my deviated, you know, September because I was a. I was a side sleeper as a little child and, you know, jamming my nose against the pillow all night long, you know, I had issues breathing and I never had an issue after doing that. So I recommend. I don't even know the name of the technique. I think it's like Rhino.

I don't even know the balloon technique. I know what you're talking about.

Balloon technique. Up the new. They put it up and they blow it up and it goes. And it cracks your sinuses and it opens them up. Really worked really well for me. I.

Is it uncomfortable?

Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible. I'll never have it done again. But. But the reason why people have it. Have to have it done multiple times is because they, they go back to their. Nobody's ever taught that your sinus is getting crushed at night when, like, it's so apparent, right? And it, it's so much sense. They're like. I don't know why they. It went back. The bones won't just move. You know, they're based on the stresses applied. You know, it's just. I don't know. Because when you breathe the air goes this way. What's crushing them? That's what's crushing them. Your face jammed into a pillow.

Man, I love this. It's, it's, it's so obvious that there's, there's no rebuttal. It's like it is what it is, right. So we just have to accept it and now do something about it.

And then one thing too, I think, I think it's important, especially thinking about breath is when you lie on your back. Most of the research and reason why people can't breathe and they snore is because they, they sleep with a pillow under their head and it closes down your airway. Once you put a neck nest under your neck and that opens up your tongue, can't close down your airway. It's impossible. Once that because that's, you know, anesthesiologist did the studies. If your neck is back at that 5 degree angle that you don't, the tongue can't go and close down your airway. So it's not back sleeping. It's the position that you're sleeping in and how you're using your pillow. Then what I typically do is, is I put the covers up underneath my chin so my head stays back there and my mouth stays shut. That's how I manage my airway. And then I suck my tongue to the roof of my mouth, keeping my mouth closed, forcing me to breathe out of my nose. And then that's how I put myself to sleep.

I love it. A lot of similarities. That's exactly what I do. I do use the insurance policy of a little bit of mouth tape just to keep things closed. So that's awesome. I love this. This has been a very enlightening conversation. I think we need to do a part two if you're open to that.

Yeah, no, this is great. Yeah.

What, what would you like to leave our listeners with? You have practitioners listening to this. You have health seekers listening to this. You have people who are, who have trouble sleeping at night and breathing at night listening to this. What would be take home message from this part one episode?

You know, I think it's great. You know, you hear it, you're like, oh, let me try a neckness. That's not the place to start. A neckness is great but remember it's a pillow that is functional. So the function becomes comfort. What I would do is I would go to Dr. Sleepwright.com take a free sleep risk assessment. Basically what it does is it how is your sleep affecting your lifestyle? And you'll get a score. And depending on how you score, you can you can you can then go to necknest.com from there and, and if you think you can use a necknest and get through it and do it on your own, that's great. Or you can get into our, our academy. And in the academy is where you get all the education of all of the, the contraindications that come up. And it's monthly. You can do the academy and you get thousands and thousands. You know, you get, you know, you get, you know. All of my programs live in one academy. I used to sell different programs but I put them in one spot. I do monthly webinar, weekly webinars with people just like this, helping them, help them through stuff. So go to drsleepright.com all you need to do is figure out what direction you want to go from there and take your sleep risk assessment.

I love that. Great place to start folks. Check out the work that Dr. Marton is doing. When it feels right, go check out his website. I would definitely encourage you to take the quiz, get a sense of where you're at and then start your sleep optimization journey. I love you've done something really brilliant here and I want to acknowledge you for making it so simple for us to understand. And I love when a simple solution can solve a lot of complex health issues that people are struggling with. So thank you for the enlightenment you've provided me today and our audience. And I had one more question if you're okay with me asking. And I think the answer is going to be short, but I know sometimes a lot of times people also struggle with TMJ type issues and I would imagine that that's also being affected by the side sleeping. We didn't talk about it, but I would assume that that's the case as well.

Absolutely. It's a side sleeping in loss of cervical curve. So you know, it's as much as the pressure against the jaw shifting the jaw over as it is the loss of cervical curve causing suboccipital tension that comes up into the, up into the jaw itself which is causes the tightness from the back. So yeah, sleeping on your back, improving that arch decreases pressure not just sub occipitally and help with the headaches and improve vagal tone but it also takes pressure off of the jaw.

Amazing. I love it. I'm so looking forward to our future conversation. Thank you for everything that you shared today. Lots of love and here's to a great night's sleep to you and everyone who's listening to us today. Thank you.