Jan. 8, 2025
Over 40 and Sleepless? Discover the Secret to Restoring Your Energy and Emotional Balance!
Are you a woman over 40, sleepless, while trying to juggle life’s demands? You're not alone! In this episode, Helen Sernett, a passionate sleep advocate and host of the Sleep List podcast, shares her transformative journey from sleep neglect to restoring her energy, and emotional balance while becoming a wellness champion.
If you’re caught in the hustle culture, sacrificing your rest, Helen's personal story will resonate with you. She reveals how chronic sleep deprivation leads to burnout, depression, and insomnia—and how prioritizing sleep can restore your mental and physical well-being.
Women over 40, listen up! It’s time to rethink sleep—not as a luxury, but as vital self-care. This episode uncovers the crucial connection between sleep and emotional balance, showing how quality rest is key to reducing anxiety, boosting cognitive function, and maintaining a healthy body. Helen explains how circadian rhythms affect our daily lives and offers practical, research-backed strategies to enhance your sleep, like reducing screen time, embracing natural sunlight, and setting a calming bedtime routine.
Don’t miss Helen’s expert insights and tips to help you sleep better and wake up feeling restored. Tune in and transform your sleep, your mood, and your life!
Bio
Helen Sernett once felt as though she was losing her grip on life. As a non-profit fundraiser, she experienced constant stress, burnout, and a deep sense of apathy that dulled not only her work ethic but also her passions. Like a ship lost at sea, she drifted without direction. Her turning point came when she took control of her sleep.
Regaining a healthy sleep schedule and prioritizing restorative rest transformed both her mental and physical health. For Helen, sleep became the foundation for addressing a myriad of medical challenges she had been facing—some resolved and others still unfolding.
Helen now helps others do the same. Her story resonates strongly with women, middle-aged individuals, non-profit workers, parents, caregivers, those managing chronic illness, and anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed in their career or life.
Social Media and Website
https://www.facebook.com/SleepLists/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfMvDMHSELtQyGWfYIkmwQ
https://www.instagram.com/sleeplists/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sleep-lists/
Helen Sernett's Website
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Chapters
00:00 - The Importance of Sleep and Wellness
10:52 - The Value of Sleep for Wellness
15:30 - Tips for Better Sleep and Wellness
26:42 - Understanding Sleep Stages and Supplements
Transcript
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It's internationally recognized that sleep deprivation is torture, and the idea that our bodies can get into such a state of unbalance and unwellness that we somehow do it to ourselves is mind-blowing to me.
00:00:26.612 --> 00:00:34.378
Hi, I'm Lennis Woods Mullins and I love to help women to vibe, to be more vibrant, intuitive, beautiful and empowered in their life.
00:00:34.378 --> 00:00:41.365
So come on, let's vibe.
00:00:41.365 --> 00:00:50.021
I've realized, especially now that I'm 67, how important it is for me to make sure I get enough rest.
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I cannot treat my body like I used to when I was in my 20s or when I was in college or in grad school no sleep.
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I can't do that anymore, and neither should you.
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Today, we have with us a sleep expert that's going to be talking about that Helen Cernet I hope that's the correct pronunciation, got it Okay?
00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:25.290
She's the host of Sleep List, a podcast designed to get you sleeping, and she's always wasn't always a fan, she said of sleep, and I guess she learned from that and she's going to be sharing with us her insights and her expertise when she talks about how critical it is for us to get a good night's sleep.
00:01:25.290 --> 00:01:27.670
Kellen, it's wonderful to have you here today.
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Thank you so much for being on the Vibe Living Podcast.
00:01:30.421 --> 00:01:31.825
Lennis, I'm so excited to be here.
00:01:31.825 --> 00:01:37.126
Thank you for having me and yeah, I was definitely a person who thought that sleep was the thing that interrupts my life.
00:01:37.126 --> 00:01:40.822
I just felt like I can sleep when I'm dead.
00:01:40.882 --> 00:01:44.584
That was the sort of yeah, lately people have been saying that a lot can sleep when I'm dead.
00:01:44.623 --> 00:01:47.737
That was the sort of yeah, lately people have been saying that a lot.
00:01:47.737 --> 00:01:54.647
No, we don't want to hear it, no, I'm pounding my desk, I don't want to make too big of a noise, but like it's, I've really reversed that.
00:01:54.647 --> 00:02:08.349
I felt like that was absolutely something that was prevalent in the 80s and the 90s and even the early 2000s, and the idea of a hustle culture where you've got to have one, two, three side hustles to like your main hustle.
00:02:08.349 --> 00:02:12.330
And you know, sleep is where you find that time.
00:02:12.330 --> 00:02:20.594
You sacrifice your restorative, valuable sleep in order to keep the engine of your life going.
00:02:20.594 --> 00:02:39.092
And I have come to realize that sleep is actually the engine of my life, and so I've definitely turned that thinking around and I'm working on undoing some of the mindsets and damages that have happened as a result of me not sleeping enough in my earlier life.
00:02:40.001 --> 00:02:44.307
So tell me, how did you come to be so passionate about the issue of sleep?
00:02:44.307 --> 00:02:48.794
What was your aha moment if you had a different kind of lifestyle previously?
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There were.
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I was, I was menopausal and really didn't kind of fully know it so it's perimenopausal didn't really understand that that's what was happening, didn't have good healthcare support to help me understand what was going on.
00:03:03.792 --> 00:03:11.431
My mom passed when I was 40, so I didn't have that sort of family connection to like grab onto and I.
00:03:11.431 --> 00:03:20.961
That resulted in me having career burnout, depression, anxiety and all of that wrapped up as well and punctuated with insomnia.
00:03:20.961 --> 00:03:23.247
I stopped being able to sleep.
00:03:23.247 --> 00:03:34.879
I would find myself awake until three in the morning and four in the morning, and then five and then sunrise and I didn't get any sleep all night.
00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:51.725
And then that was happening like not once a month or once in a while, but like several times a week, and so that accelerated all of the mental health and actually physical wellness issues that I was having, because it was making me feel crazy.
00:03:51.925 --> 00:04:11.405
Sleep deprivation does that, and it's internationally recognized that sleep deprivation is torture, and the idea that our bodies can get into such a state of unbalance and unwellness that we somehow do it to ourselves is mind-blowing to me.
00:04:11.405 --> 00:04:33.454
So I started to, in part when I was awake early in the morning, research why I couldn't sleep and what was going on and what I could do to fix it, and so I just really started to learn a lot about an area of science medicine that wasn't really available to me even 15 years ago.
00:04:33.454 --> 00:04:46.911
So it's been the last 15, 20 years and really accelerated since 2020 that more and more research has been going into sleep and also the intersections between insomnia and menopause.
00:04:46.911 --> 00:05:11.603
So very interesting stuff, and I just got really excited about it because when I started, slowly and with two steps forward, one step back, implementing some changes to my life and to my sleep habits and my sleep hygiene, if you will, and to my sleep habits and my sleep hygiene, if you will I saw changes.
00:05:11.644 --> 00:05:12.665
I felt more human, I felt more like myself.
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I felt like I wasn't as crazy anymore.
00:05:13.668 --> 00:05:31.202
I started to be able to practice and implement some of the strategies that I've been talking to my talk therapist about around depression and anxiety, none of which I could do until I kind of had a brain that was functioning well enough to try to change stuff, and I needed sleep for that.
00:05:31.202 --> 00:05:36.374
So I also lowered the amount of blood pressure medication I'm on.
00:05:36.374 --> 00:05:43.254
I stopped having a large number of food sensitivities and allergies, so I not just food, but other allergies.
00:05:43.254 --> 00:05:45.360
So basically not just food, but other allergies.
00:05:45.579 --> 00:05:52.064
So basically, all the sleep you began getting was actually restoring your body, and I think maybe we should talk about that a little bit.
00:05:52.064 --> 00:05:56.401
But people need to know what happens when you don't get enough sleep.
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What are some of the things that can happen to your body?
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I know it's like you can fill it within a book, but you can give us a list.
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What are the top 10 that say what happens when you don't get enough sleep?
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So it's cognitive functions, mental health stability and physiological, like all of your basic biological systems, start to falter.
00:06:19.610 --> 00:06:24.742
So that comes in the form of brain fog, which is already a symptom of menopause.
00:06:24.742 --> 00:06:31.375
It comes in the form of an aging, but it comes in the form of depression, anxiety, burnout.
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It comes that's the mental health side of it.
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Executive function, like you used to be able to focus and pay attention, and now not only do you have this fog, but it's like you're easily distracted, like something like that.
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Other things can show up and turn you around.
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Before you used to be able to juggle 10, 15 things, and now it feels like if you've got three things, you're overwhelmed.
00:06:52.266 --> 00:06:55.949
Right, that's that happens with lack of sleep.
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So that's the mental health side of it.
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And physiologically, our bodies don't have the time to heal and restore.
00:07:06.295 --> 00:07:17.132
So every day we're exposed to lots of things that and our cells just they live and they do their work, and their work creates waste.
00:07:17.132 --> 00:07:26.350
And then sleep is when that waste is generally most easily dealt with and that's when our filters, like our kidneys and our liver, really get to function and do stuff.
00:07:26.350 --> 00:07:28.889
It's what our pancreas gets to make insulin.
00:07:28.889 --> 00:07:38.074
It's what, like sleep, is when we do a lot of those things internist functions that keep us going during our waking hours.
00:07:38.074 --> 00:07:54.694
It's also when we build muscle, it's when we mineralize, use calcium in our bones, and so a lot of these things that are associated with aging can be addressed in part by focusing on your sleep.
00:07:55.319 --> 00:07:55.519
You know.
00:07:55.519 --> 00:08:15.158
It's interesting that you say that because prior to what I do now, for the last 17 years, prior to that, for 25 years I was in corporate America and by the time I left corporate America I had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and given the fact that I was probably going through early menopause back then, so it was a double whammy.
00:08:15.158 --> 00:08:20.045
I was going through early menopause, I was totally stressed out then, so it was a double whammy I was going through early menopause, I was totally stressed out.
00:08:20.045 --> 00:08:22.394
Working for 25 years in a very stressful type of occupation.
00:08:22.394 --> 00:08:28.175
I was in human resources and I have four little ones at home, One on the way to college.
00:08:28.175 --> 00:08:32.708
On my second marriage and we'd only been married for a few years, so it was a blended family.
00:08:32.708 --> 00:08:37.269
That was stressful, all these different things which would contribute to my sleep deprivation.
00:08:37.269 --> 00:08:46.807
Well, I know now that if I hadn't made those incremental lifestyle changes and some major lifestyle changes, I would probably definitely look 67 and then some.
00:08:46.807 --> 00:08:52.472
And I attribute one of the reasons why I look the way I look because people say I always look 20 years younger than what I am.
00:08:52.472 --> 00:08:58.027
One of the reasons is because I reduced my stress significantly.
00:08:58.769 --> 00:09:02.014
I peeled back the layers to find out what the anxiety piece was about.
00:09:02.014 --> 00:09:05.811
Eventually I got hormone panels drawn, because that's extremely important.
00:09:05.811 --> 00:09:19.171
I didn't lead with that because no one told me that, but as I learned more about wellness, then I realized that one of the things to do but the other thing was I made sleep a priority and it hadn't been that much of a priority as we talked about before we came on.
00:09:19.171 --> 00:09:31.928
I was getting very little sleep because I have four little girls and they were all close together in age and it was nonstop from about 4 am in the morning to about 10, 11 o'clock at night and I really didn't think much of it at the time.
00:09:31.928 --> 00:09:39.806
But when I began to peel back the layers in terms of what I could do to begin to minimize my anxiety, I realized one of the first things was well, I don't sleep.
00:09:40.408 --> 00:09:41.030
I don't sleep.
00:09:41.474 --> 00:09:53.764
And the other thing that's really interesting about sleep and this is something I learned as I began getting into working with women over 40, when it comes to their overall health as their health coach is that sleep is one of the best ways to lose weight.
00:09:53.764 --> 00:10:02.370
One of the things I love when it comes to my weight loss programs and when I'm working with women in their overall wellness is to get them on a strength training program.
00:10:02.370 --> 00:10:10.004
And the reason why the strength training program, of course, is good for protecting your bones, because the muscles grow and protect your bones.
00:10:10.004 --> 00:10:11.328
That's really important.
00:10:11.328 --> 00:10:15.865
It's not that I want them to be all bulky or anything, but it's because I'm helping protect their bones.
00:10:15.904 --> 00:10:25.864
But the other thing is that when you are doing weight training or strength training and then you go to bed at night here's the good thing you get two benefits.
00:10:25.864 --> 00:10:32.966
If you sleep long enough, your metabolism system kicks all the way in and you're metabolizing much, much better.
00:10:32.966 --> 00:10:34.789
Your digestive process is better.
00:10:34.789 --> 00:10:41.913
But the other part is that you burn fat in your sleep as a result of the strength training you did during the day.
00:10:41.913 --> 00:10:44.928
All the more reason to look forward to going to sleep.
00:10:44.928 --> 00:10:51.166
When you're trying to lose weight, you should look forward to it, because you're going to burn some fat and you're going to metabolize and you're going to meet your weight loss goals.
00:10:51.166 --> 00:10:51.586
There you go.
00:10:52.379 --> 00:10:54.583
I love it because I get to go to sleep.
00:10:54.583 --> 00:10:58.109
Like I think of that now, like sometimes I had a really bad night last night.
00:10:58.109 --> 00:11:16.149
It took me a long time to go to sleep and I had to use a lot of tools in my toolbox to get there, and part of what my thought process is when I'm having a really struggling night is like this sleep is not only a privilege but it is a benefit to me.
00:11:16.149 --> 00:11:23.948
Like this is personal care, this is spa care, this is taking care of myself, it's growing my muscles, it's strengthening my body.
00:11:23.948 --> 00:11:31.312
I had a procedure done, a very like standard routine procedure done yesterday, you know outpatient kind of thing.
00:11:31.312 --> 00:11:39.826
But I was also like I need to heal from that, like there's a little bit of healing that has to be done, like so this is like I need this and it is something I get to do.
00:11:39.826 --> 00:11:52.941
I get to give this gift to myself of sleep and there are so many reasons to give yourself that gift and you know we all have complex, beautiful, complicated lives.
00:11:53.181 --> 00:12:12.522
But when we're looking at that, like you were saying, the anxiety aspect and really trying to get to the root of your anxiety, one of the things that sleep does is, there's a cycle in sleep that helps you sort through what's happened to you in a way that allows you to separate the facts from the emotions.
00:12:13.302 --> 00:12:35.634
And if you don't get that cycle of sleep, the next time that you encounter a similar situation, your emotions from the past situation the past similar situation are not processed, they're not stored away, they're not dealt with and they add into and build up on what you're going through.
00:12:35.634 --> 00:12:42.787
And so all of a sudden, your anxiety puts you in a place where it's like I used to be able to handle this like nothing.
00:12:42.787 --> 00:12:54.816
I used to blow this off, like it was no big deal, like whether it's microaggressions or a crappy boss or you know misogyny or whatever you're dealing with in the workplace, or just you know grumpy coworkers, whatever.
00:12:54.816 --> 00:12:56.280
None of that used to bother you.
00:12:56.280 --> 00:13:01.292
And now all of a sudden, like you just look at Danielle and she gives you the wrong look and you're like I hate you.
00:13:01.292 --> 00:13:02.321
What's wrong with this?
00:13:02.902 --> 00:13:11.626
Oh yes, and you're so right, because many times when people snap, so to speak, it's not just the one thing, it's the accumulation of occurrences.
00:13:11.626 --> 00:13:22.109
And if you aren't getting enough rest and your brain's not able to shut down and recalibrate, you're right, those feelings, which aren't feelings, are not always based upon what's true.
00:13:22.109 --> 00:13:24.442
It's based upon what you felt at the time.
00:13:24.442 --> 00:13:26.649
Those feelings haven't been processed, you're right.
00:13:26.969 --> 00:13:51.051
And so next thing, you know you're leading with that, and the only thing that happened was that someone you know you dropped an ice cream cone and it's like I really, you know, it's one thing to sort of keep yourself even keel and your job when you're getting paid to do it or whatever it's, but like I really noticed it with my family, my family was just like you're cranky, you're very, very cranky, what is going on?
00:13:51.051 --> 00:13:54.684
And then, like cranky, started to be like I couldn't do anything, I just freeze.
00:13:54.684 --> 00:13:55.826
That was the anxiety.
00:13:55.826 --> 00:14:05.212
I would just completely freeze and I started to have actual anxiety attacks in places that used to be like my happiest places to go.
00:14:05.253 --> 00:14:20.480
Like I'm a foodie, I love to cook, cooking is my relaxation, so I also love to go grocery shopping and going to the grocery store is like a weekly boost of like happiness to me normally and we were doing our weekly shopping run.
00:14:20.620 --> 00:14:39.371
I walked through the doors of our grocery store that I know well, I know where all that stuff is the aisles, like it's a very familiar environment, and I panicked, like I just froze, and my husband was like already halfway down the first aisle and he was like waiting for me with the cart turned around and was like where are you?
00:14:39.371 --> 00:14:55.729
And I was just frozen like and like panic on my face and I started to feel like I needed to cry and he was like all right, you give me the list and go to the car, take a nap and I will finish this process.
00:14:55.729 --> 00:14:56.789
But that was a.
00:14:56.789 --> 00:14:58.552
That was one of many wake-up calls I said.
00:14:58.552 --> 00:15:07.748
You know, being awake at 5 am and watching the sunrise too many mornings was another one, but that was a big one too where it was like oh, this is normally what I do to relax.
00:15:07.947 --> 00:15:11.465
Which is interesting because your circadian rhythms get way out of whack.
00:15:11.465 --> 00:15:16.643
And could you tell them what the circadian rhythms are and also share with us some tips?
00:15:16.643 --> 00:15:20.590
What are those things that you went to last night for tools when you couldn't go to sleep?
00:15:20.951 --> 00:15:22.033
Okay, circadian rhythms.
00:15:22.033 --> 00:15:28.437
Basically, that is when your body gets into a sleep-wake cycle and that's all it is.
00:15:28.437 --> 00:15:29.640
It's a sleep-wake cycle.
00:15:29.640 --> 00:15:35.942
People that live on the equator tend to have circadian rhythms that include a nap in the middle, in the hottest part of the day.
00:15:35.942 --> 00:16:02.994
People that live really far north tend to have or, you know, south tend to have circadian rhythms that are based on a single period of sleep, that sort of classic that we think of in Western medicine as classic six to eight, nine hours of sleep, and you're fortunate, you seem to function really well with just with the six hours, even if it's like to the minute, but a lot of people find that they need nine hours, and that's OK too.
00:16:02.994 --> 00:16:07.402
Naps are great supplements for that.
00:16:07.402 --> 00:16:19.787
You take on an equatorial thing, but that's all the circadian rhythms are they, and they're a shift in your hormones that helps you become sleepy when it's time to sleep and helps you wake up when it's time to wake up, sleep and helps you wake up when it's time to wake up.
00:16:19.787 --> 00:16:29.865
And so if you're having trouble falling asleep or you find that waking up is the hardest thing in the world to do, chances are something's a little off with your circadian rhythms, and there are various therapies that you can use to really support that.
00:16:29.865 --> 00:16:33.981
Some of the simplest are two to three hours before your regularly scheduled bedtime.
00:16:33.981 --> 00:16:47.913
You want to dim lights, shut off screens, stop eating minimal liquid intake and, when you wake up in the morning, try to get 10, 15 minutes of natural sunlight, even if it's cloudy overhead.
00:16:47.913 --> 00:16:57.532
If you live in an environment where it's really really dark in the winter and it's hard to get that at the natural dawn, you can get a light machine that can help you with that as well.
00:16:57.532 --> 00:17:05.872
At the natural dawn, you can get a light machine that can help you with that as well, and all that does is when you get sunlight, your body's like okay, like 16 hours later I'm going to make melatonin to help you go to sleep.
00:17:05.872 --> 00:17:11.008
So that's the circadian rhythm thing, and then tools and tips and tricks that I use.
00:17:11.759 --> 00:17:26.512
Number one, I like to say if you're in crisis, like I was at first, when I was not, when I was watching the dawn from the wrong side of it too many nights in a row in a week, I just needed, I needed pharmacological intervention, and I tried several different sleep aids.
00:17:26.512 --> 00:17:30.626
Recreational marijuana is legal in Washington state, and so I was able to access that.
00:17:30.626 --> 00:17:32.247
It was helpful for a little bit.
00:17:32.247 --> 00:17:36.383
I do say like that's, when you're in crisis, it's still disordered sleep.
00:17:36.383 --> 00:17:40.792
When you're supplementing with pharmaceuticals, it's still considered a disordered sleep.
00:17:40.792 --> 00:17:46.932
But do what you need to do to like start making some kind of changes right, just to get anything.
00:17:46.932 --> 00:17:52.067
Make a little bit of gains and you can work at perfecting it later and be graceful with yourself.
00:17:52.067 --> 00:17:57.809
That's the other thing I always say when you're starting your sleep change journey Be graceful with yourself.
00:17:57.891 --> 00:17:58.992
Change is not linear.
00:17:58.992 --> 00:18:02.651
Change and healing and health are not linear processes.
00:18:02.651 --> 00:18:04.006
These things are cyclical.
00:18:04.006 --> 00:18:05.184
They have ups and downs.
00:18:05.184 --> 00:18:08.148
You're looking towards milestones.
00:18:08.148 --> 00:18:09.707
Are you reaching those milestones?
00:18:09.707 --> 00:18:13.431
Are you able to make some changes that are benefiting you?
00:18:13.431 --> 00:18:20.087
Are you seeing the benefits that you want to see in your waking life from what you're trying to change in your sleeping life?
00:18:20.087 --> 00:18:24.471
And then I have my sleep lists, which help people go to sleep.
00:18:24.471 --> 00:18:25.884
So that's a podcast.
00:18:25.884 --> 00:18:26.406
It's available.
00:18:26.406 --> 00:18:28.548
There's three seasons of it, available for everyone.
00:18:28.548 --> 00:18:29.723
I'm working on a fourth season.
00:18:29.723 --> 00:18:38.166
It's been a while I've had other stuff going on, but there's already 20 some lists out there for you to listen to and help you fall asleep.
00:18:38.166 --> 00:18:40.625
So you can use headphones or a small speaker.
00:18:41.146 --> 00:18:46.644
In fact, we're going to have all of those links on the show page for those of you who are listening.
00:18:46.644 --> 00:18:53.490
Take a look at your show page and you'll see some of the some of her social media links and definitely her sleep list that we are, which are fabulous.
00:18:53.490 --> 00:18:55.002
I listened to them last night.
00:18:55.002 --> 00:18:56.285
I absolutely love them.
00:18:56.625 --> 00:18:57.346
Thank you.
00:18:57.346 --> 00:18:58.869
So yeah, so that's one thing.
00:18:58.869 --> 00:19:00.252
I listen to my own sleep list.
00:19:00.252 --> 00:19:01.781
Some people don't like the sound of their own voice.
00:19:01.781 --> 00:19:07.653
I use my voice in my new life and living and so I listen to my voice a lot.
00:19:07.653 --> 00:19:10.391
It doesn't bother me, so I listen to my own sleep lists.
00:19:10.391 --> 00:19:13.381
Some people do well with white noise machines.
00:19:13.381 --> 00:19:14.823
Those don't work well for me.
00:19:14.823 --> 00:19:17.207
A fan even sometimes works for people.
00:19:17.207 --> 00:19:19.630
Last night I actually had to change my environment.
00:19:19.630 --> 00:19:28.690
There were too many things going on in my normal sleep environment that changing would have upset my sleep partner.
00:19:28.690 --> 00:19:32.905
He was happily sleeping, so I just removed myself from that environment.
00:19:32.905 --> 00:19:46.531
I'm fortunate enough to have a large enough home where I can go and sleep on a couch, which is also comfortable for me, and I actually was able to get better sleep on a different floor of the house than in a different room of the house, than he was sleeping in or than I normally sleep in.
00:19:46.759 --> 00:19:50.067
I also say try really hard not to turn on screens.
00:19:50.067 --> 00:19:53.040
Our phones can be a really great distraction in the middle of the night.
00:19:53.040 --> 00:19:57.105
We think, oh, we'll just, you know, play some stuff or read something on it until we go to sleep.
00:19:57.105 --> 00:20:02.789
I highly recommend that you try paper first.
00:20:02.789 --> 00:20:17.323
So read an actual book with pages that you open, or the Kindle, real paper readers like not the Kindle fires that are color and like big, but like the readers, the book readers that actually look like paper.
00:20:17.323 --> 00:20:20.960
If you need print modifications and stuff, those are really great for that.
00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:28.683
So anyway, but don't read on a bright backlit screen or journal and write.
00:20:28.683 --> 00:20:31.108
That's another thing that you can do is take some time.
00:20:31.276 --> 00:20:44.301
I had a huge brainstorm that was happening in my brain, which was part of why I could not sleep, and so I wrote out the basic outline and draft for a new talk that I want to do.
00:20:44.301 --> 00:20:47.469
That's what was going through my head.
00:20:47.469 --> 00:20:50.442
It was like seven pages in like Sharpie marker.
00:20:50.442 --> 00:20:51.605
I was like boom, boom, boom, boom.
00:20:51.605 --> 00:20:52.678
Here's some pictures.
00:20:52.678 --> 00:20:54.386
Here's what I think the slides should look like.
00:20:54.386 --> 00:20:54.930
Abc.
00:20:54.930 --> 00:20:56.557
Here's the surveys I want to do with the audience.
00:20:56.557 --> 00:21:05.126
So whatever's keeping you awake and you're thinking about creating, sometimes it's just good to get the notes or the basics, the skeleton of that, out on paper.
00:21:05.126 --> 00:21:13.747
If you're really not able to think because you're trying to replay something and you're not able to sleep because you're trying to replay something in your mind, write out your feelings.
00:21:13.747 --> 00:21:14.647
That can help.
00:21:14.647 --> 00:21:16.029
You know, I could have said this.
00:21:16.029 --> 00:21:19.805
I should have said that that really made me feel angry, like why was I so angry about that?
00:21:19.884 --> 00:21:25.026
Just write it all down in a journal pen on paper, not typing those kinds of things.
00:21:25.026 --> 00:21:27.557
If you think of things to do, write it down.
00:21:27.557 --> 00:21:45.904
If you can't write it down, I used to do this, especially when I had a desk job that I commuted into I'd call my desk phone and just leave myself a message of stuff that I was thinking about putting on my to-do list and then when I got into work while I'm having my coffee, I could add that to my calendar.
00:21:45.924 --> 00:21:46.246
Yeah.
00:21:46.755 --> 00:21:51.507
So those are all the types of things that I went through until I finally kind of got to sleep.
00:21:51.507 --> 00:21:54.619
Don't turn on your TV, don't get into it.
00:21:54.619 --> 00:21:56.022
It's like sucked into a Netflix series.
00:21:56.022 --> 00:21:56.744
What?
00:21:56.805 --> 00:22:02.844
about sleep rituals, things that you can do to set the mood before you go to sleep.
00:22:02.844 --> 00:22:06.256
What are your suggestions about that, or is that even necessary?
00:22:06.876 --> 00:22:07.718
It's fantastic.
00:22:07.718 --> 00:22:15.424
It's especially awesome if you find that you are traveling a lot, or sometimes in different places.
00:22:15.424 --> 00:22:25.680
Like the routines that you can take with you and bring to a new place can help set you up for success in sleeping, if you have like.
00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:31.305
So the rituals can start, you know two, three hours before bed.
00:22:31.305 --> 00:22:48.809
The rituals can start, you know, two, three hours before bed, if you're getting off of your screens, if you're dimming your lights, if you're taking a walk in the evening.
00:22:48.809 --> 00:22:51.590
You know, breeze or it's a lot of thing.
00:22:51.590 --> 00:23:02.034
So I strongly recommend using those as like and trying them out and seeing what works and what you like, what makes sense to you.
00:23:02.253 --> 00:23:10.645
A lot of people have trouble giving up the like late night TV watching and so maybe back it up a little like.
00:23:10.645 --> 00:23:26.486
Instead of watching high action, high energy, intense, emotional things, maybe step it back to like nature documentaries or something a little fluffier that like I like to change it up to food shows.
00:23:26.486 --> 00:23:36.423
I like, like you know, cooking, like that's nothing that's gonna elicit a ton of emotion, so that you can regulate into sleep and not be awake.
00:23:36.423 --> 00:23:41.747
Try really hard not to check emails and voice messages before you go to bed.
00:23:41.747 --> 00:23:46.200
They'll be waiting for you in the morning, unless they're from people that you really are have to.
00:23:46.555 --> 00:23:49.061
Yeah, that's a tough one for me because all my girls are.
00:23:49.061 --> 00:23:57.085
I have one daughter that lives here, but all the other daughters live outside of California and two of them have three kids a piece.
00:23:57.085 --> 00:24:01.540
So yeah, so you know, I keep the phone next to me.
00:24:01.540 --> 00:24:08.182
But what I have started doing which is interesting, I've been doing this now for a few years is I listen to subliminals.
00:24:08.182 --> 00:24:15.848
They help me to go to sleep and, you know, usually behind the messaging is something having to do with productivity or focus and clarity or whatever.
00:24:15.848 --> 00:24:21.362
But it's either like an ocean sound that I like or rain sound.
00:24:21.362 --> 00:24:25.239
Now, some people say that rain gets on their nerves, but I like the rain sound.
00:24:25.378 --> 00:24:27.525
It makes me feel like I have to use the restroom.
00:24:27.684 --> 00:24:28.836
Yeah, that's what some of you have told me.
00:24:28.836 --> 00:24:36.106
Classical music will help me to relax, and I've also been using a lot of aromatherapy over the last 17 years.
00:24:36.468 --> 00:24:36.748
Love that?
00:24:36.847 --> 00:24:38.170
Yes, you know what?
00:24:38.170 --> 00:24:40.884
I didn't even think about this until about six months ago.
00:24:40.884 --> 00:24:46.625
We have a lot of herbs that grow in our backyard and one of the herbs that we planted that's been there for years is lavender.
00:24:46.625 --> 00:24:51.046
I can cut some of that lavender and put it under my pillow.
00:24:51.046 --> 00:25:08.021
I am out like that, and it reminds me one time when I took my group of women that I was working with, we went to a lavender farm and as soon as we got into the realm maybe three minutes from the lavender farm, we were all kind of feeling drowsy and what's going on?
00:25:08.021 --> 00:25:08.744
Why are we so tired?
00:25:08.744 --> 00:25:10.269
And it was a lavender.
00:25:10.269 --> 00:25:12.259
The only thing is I haven't figured out.
00:25:12.259 --> 00:25:17.737
I guess I should make a nose gate or something, because when it dries out, this gets all over your bed and everything else.
00:25:17.737 --> 00:25:20.246
So that part my husband doesn't like that part.
00:25:20.346 --> 00:25:30.681
Yeah, just uh, sew a little sachet that you can like, like your little, put a little stitch in a piece of spare fabric and and stitch the lavender inside there, and then it can okay cool okay, that's a good thing, there you go.
00:25:30.701 --> 00:25:31.541
Good thing, there you go.
00:25:31.541 --> 00:25:32.544
That's what I'll do then.
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