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Restoration Beyond the Couch
The Beyond the Couch with Dr. Lee Long podcast is intended solely for general informational purposes and does not represent the practice of medicine, therapeutic and psychiatric services, nursing, or other professional health care services. It also does not constitute the provision of medical, therapeutic or psychiatric advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is established. The information on this podcast and any materials linked from it are used at the user's own risk. The content provided through this podcast should not be considered a replacement for professional medical, therapeutic, or psychiatric advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It is important that users do not ignore or postpone seeking medical, therapeutic, or psychiatric advice for any health or mental health condition they might have, and should always consult with their health care professionals regarding such conditions.
Restoration Beyond the Couch
Rested Minds: The Podcast for Better Sleep and Stronger Mental Health
Unlock the secrets to a well-rested mind and body with Dr. Lee Long and special guest Lila Pond, as we explore the transformative power of sleep on mental and emotional well-being. Ever wondered how quality sleep can be the difference between hope and despair, especially for those affected by Alzheimer's? We'll reveal the fascinating science behind sleep stages, including the brain's deep cleaning process where cerebrospinal fluid clears away harmful plaques, emphasizing the crucial role of sleep in maintaining cognitive health.
Discover the profound relationship between sleep, emotions, and mental health as we discuss the restorative power of a good night's rest. With insights into therapies like Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), learn how mimicking REM sleep can aid those with disrupted sleep due to trauma or stress. We offer practical tips on optimizing your sleep environment—think room temperature and light exposure—to enhance emotional resilience and clarity, illustrated by real-life anecdotes of sleep's impact on creativity and problem-solving.
Finally, explore the nuances of gratitude, emotional self-understanding, and their significance on mental well-being. We'll share the importance of recognizing difficult experiences, maintaining emotional control, understanding chronotypes, and supporting unique sleep needs. From managing stress before bed to seeking professional help for sleep disorders, particularly during critical times like pregnancy, this episode is your guide to reclaiming restful nights and renewing your mind. Join us to harness the power of sleep and awaken a healthier, more balanced you.
Welcome to Restoration Beyond the Couch, where host Dr Lee Long and guest host Lila Pond dive into real conversations that impact your mental health. In today's episode, rested Minds the podcast for better sleep and stronger mental health, we're exploring the essential connection between quality sleep and mental well-being. Together, dr Lee and Lila will uncover practical insights, science-backed tips and the latest research to help you reclaim your rest and renew your mind. If sleepless nights have you feeling drained, you won't want to miss this episode. Your journey to mental wellness starts here. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Welcome listeners to this very special episode of Restoration Beyond the Couch. I'm Lila Pond, an LPC supervisor here at Restoration and the illustrious sister of Dr Lee Long, whom I consider a great expert. I'm going to be guiding him through this conversation where we're going to explore the critical role of sleep in not only our mental health journey but our overall health journey. So in the host seat for this episode we have, as I've said, dr Lee Long. He's an expert in many things, but especially in mental health, trauma recovery and mindfulness and, lee, you're here to share those insights on how sleep impacts our emotional and psychological well-being. It's so great to have you in this different role today.
Speaker 3:It is so great to be here with you and talking about sleep, which is so important, important. Dr Grossman, who was a sleep expert, said that the how does he say it the bridge between hope and despair is a good night's sleep.
Speaker 2:Is it ever?
Speaker 3:I think that that is something that we often overlook is the role in the critical, the critical role and importance of sleep and, um, I think that you know, for for a long time I thought you know I had the mindset well, you sleep when you're dead I've said that a few times in my life, especially with a newborn baby right or a teenager, right it's a lot like a newborn baby, right.
Speaker 3:But when I realized what sleep does for our brain boy, I retracted that. I retracted that statement, and especially having a parent who struggled with Alzheimer's timers, that's one of the things that it has really set me on a path of how do I prevent it and, if I ever get it, is there anything we can do to slow it, to stop it or to reverse it? And right now in medicine they would say that there's only room to slow it. There's only room to slow it. There's, I think there's new research showing that sleep can somewhat slow it, but can also somewhat turn a little bit, turn it around. And that's where I was like, okay, you have my attention, and now sleep is something that I think is super important.
Speaker 2:Well, and that is such a huge topic today is what is the formula for health jevity, if you will, to coin a phrase from some other professionals, but it is you know. First we may need to understand and our listeners will probably benefit from understanding what happens when we sleep and why does that create such an essential part of our vital health.
Speaker 3:I love that. I think you're right. I think you're right. Healthgevity I like that Because I think that we're looking for longevity, but we are not looking to live longer, we're looking to live more productively.
Speaker 3:And I think that you know, when you think about so, what happens when we sleep. Well, there's several different stages of sleep. There's stage one and that's light sleep. That's when your body is just kind of drifting down into sleep. That's when your body is just kind of drifting down into sleep and you're, you're, as I see it, we're, we're getting, we're getting prepared to go into the other two phases of sleep, which the, the second phase would be deep sleep. And, um, sometimes people refer to the first two phases as light sleep. Then they refer to the phases three and four as deep sleep.
Speaker 3:And when I learned what, what happens in deep sleep, I think I may have called. I know I called you to tell you, but I think I may have called like four or five people to say, oh my gosh, do you know what happens when you fall into a deep sleep? So what gets me so excited is is that we have, from the neck down, we have a lymphatic system, and the lymphatic system, as I'm sure people are mostly aware, is where you have lymph nodes, that your body moves fluids through and your lymph nodes clean it and you know it's it's. It's, it's sort of like your, your filter system, but we don't have lymph nodes in our brain. Our skull present prevents that.
Speaker 2:There's no room Does that mean we have big brains.
Speaker 1:Yes, Some of us do.
Speaker 3:Yes. So how does our body clean our brain? Well, for a long time they thought it didn't. But when we get into that deep sleep our glial cells shrink and cerebral spinal fluid comes in and washes our brain and washes our brain. It washes it of amyloid beta plaque, which is that that which we, they say is connected to alzheimer's, and tau protein, which they say is connected to other neurological issues, and it washes the brain, washes itself of those, those plaques and those protein. And when I heard that I just thought, whoa, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's incredible.
Speaker 3:That as soon as we move into the REM sleep, our brain comes back to the normal size and it stops washing. And in REM sleep I've heard it described as like when you're going through something that's tough, difficult, some people might even call traumatic that they that the brain sorts through that through dreams. Rem sleep is where we dream and you know how many times there've been several studies done where they will give people a problem to work through and then they will put them into REM sleep and when they come out of REM sleep, oftentimes they will have a solution for that problem. What what I find in that is is that it's it's often been described this way that it's like whatever you're going through is like a citrus fruit, like, let's call it, an orange, and that when we have REM sleep, when we dream that, it's like the brain's way of pulling that rhine, that external rhine, off the skin off the orange.
Speaker 3:And so what's inside is much more malleable and workable. And so when you think about that, when we go into deep sleep, that our brain is cleansing itself, cleaning itself. And when you go into REM, your brain is is processing themes and things and it's it's helping sort of take that hard cover off of hurtful hard things or, uh, you're processing through different ideas and formulations and learning. The other part of what REM sleep also offers is that if we have, like, say, five neural pathways that we're using, or we have five neural pathways for something and we really are only repetitively using three, REM sleep might be where the brain says, okay, we don't need that anymore, and it becomes more efficient. And so you think about all that goes on during sleep. We're cleaning our brain, we're becoming more adaptable, we're becoming more efficient. I mean, when I learned all of this, I was like, well, it is time to go to bed right now.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that is so fascinating. It's like the lymphatic system's working from the neck down and then the Roomba goes upstairs right and just starts washing all that away the night cleanup team.
Speaker 2:But you know there are theorists who are very focused on the meaning of dreams and what that means, and we aren't necessarily going to go into that today. However, it is fascinating if you would kind of deep dive a little more in how this impacts our emotions and our mental health. I can see where it would help. Our physical health and our brain is like waking up, stronger and more primed for adaptation or new ideas. But how does this impact our emotional and mental health in the long?
Speaker 3:run Especially. I think the best way that I could articulate that would be that when you think about being well rested, right, you think about you, don't? You're not operating with as much despair, right, If you, if you, again, it's the bridge, the bridge right. The bridge between hope and despair is a good night's sleep, Grossman was really onto something.
Speaker 2:He was, and it's so funny because my late husband and your late brother-in-law used to say that all the time. You know when you're raising six teenage daughters and two teenage sons, and they didn't come here in that form. But, but you know when you're raising six teenage daughters and two teenage sons, and they didn't come here in that form.
Speaker 3:But newborns feel like teenagers often.
Speaker 2:With car keys Right and teenagers feel like newborns. But it's that that is the place where you do find deposits of hope. So that is spot on, spot on, yeah.
Speaker 3:It gives us, I think, a platform and I think that when you think about I remember a friend of mine who her sister was a dressmaker, okay, who her sister was a dressmaker, okay, she would say that her sister would be so distraught over a dress that she was producing for some big event, for someone.
Speaker 3:And she felt so responsible and that she would go to sleep, she would say her prayers, she would ask God to highlight things for her, she would go to sleep and she said it was like a divine visit. And I think that there is. Our brain really does work through some of our despair, some of our the pains, and you think about the premise of, like ART, accelerated risk resolution therapy, which we have just become, uh, we've become trained in, and right gosh.
Speaker 2:I love art. Oh, it's so powerful and emdr.
Speaker 3:They operate off of that eye movement that replicates REM sleep and you think about well then, doesn't REM sleep have have such a great. It has something so beautiful and powerful to offer us? Yes, but here's the here's part of the struggle. Where ART and EMDR come in is typically when you have any kind of post-traumatic stress or you're stressed about something.
Speaker 1:What tends to get disrupted Sleep Exactly.
Speaker 3:And so we have learned these theories and these therapies of how we can I hate to say, artificially impact, but I think that's appropriate that we can artificially impact our brains by replicating a piece of that REM sleep. And so when you think about when sleep isn't disrupted, and if we're protective of sleep, then how you know how powerful could that be for us.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and look anything in life that can help us deal with the things that come along that are difficult, but also even the joys of life can keep us awake sometimes. But what are some common factors that can interrupt sleep? You mentioned one stress, anxiety.
Speaker 3:You know one common factor I think that's really simplistic is we don't turn all the lights off in the room. It's a well-lit room. In other words, in order to sleep, we have a cold, dark space and so temperature, light, artificial light. I know that a lot of our smart not so smart devices put off ambient light. Smart not so smart devices put off ambient light and, um you know, going into the evening, are we around, are we? It's? It's interesting because my wife, your sister-in-law, loves her sleep. She's a woman who loves her sleep.
Speaker 2:She's obviously extremely smart. She's brilliant, extremely smart. She's brilliant.
Speaker 3:And she. One of the things that she naturally does is when, when it, when the sun starts to go down.
Speaker 3:She starts lowering lights in the house so that there's not a lot of our artificial light coming into our eyes. Because, if you'll notice, if you wake up and you go let's say you wake up in the middle of the night and you go to the restroom If you do that in the dark, it doesn't wake you up as much. But if you turn on your phone or turn on the light or you do something that lights up the room, you're immediately, then you're waking yourself up further. Then you're, you're, you're waking yourself up further.
Speaker 3:And so her whole thought is and she's actually right about this is that when, when it start, when the sun goes down, start turning down the lights. I know some neuroscientists who are. I think you know they're so guarded of their sleep, which I understand why they will put red filters over their lights and that they will turn on the red filters at night so that all of the light that's coming to them is red filtered light, which does not wake the brain up as much.
Speaker 2:OK, that is fascinating, you know, because light is often, sometimes what we seek, if we're not fans of darkness. You know there are some folks who don't like to sleep with it too dark, but I think there's a way to tone that light down. Yes, and that's so helpful. So what I'm hearing you say is temperature is important. Yes, maybe avoiding too much light. What is something else that? A couple of other things that might be helpful.
Speaker 3:So this may sound, this may sound counterintuitive, but if if you're struggling with sleep, waking up with the sun and going outside with the sunrise and taking in, now, do not stare at the sun. I am not suggesting that you stare at the sun, but looking at the clouds, looking at the blues and the reds and the oranges and all of that, like taking all of that in. In other words, don't wake up and put sunglasses on, depending on what type of glasses you wear. It won't filter out that stuff, but it's best to just have the naked eye ingesting that and yes, ingesting that because there's only two nerves your optical nerves, so your eyes, and your olfactory nerves, so your smell or your nose. Those are the only two nerves that go directly into your brain. The rest goes through your brainstem and so when you ingest that morning light, it starts the production of melatonin.
Speaker 3:You think, well, wait, I thought melatonin was for sleep. Yes, but it begins in that morning rhythm. And so wake up with the sun and, conversely, go to bed with the sun. You may think, well, golly, I can't go to bed that early, and we'll talk about that in a moment. But maybe you can't and don't, push yourself and don't shame, for the love of all things, pure and holy, do not shame yourself for that there's a reason.
Speaker 3:Exactly. But when the sun goes down, go outside, take a walk around the block Again, ingest that sunset Again. Don't stare at the sun, but do look at the sunset and take that in, because it helps put your body on a good rhythm that it understands. Okay, it's now nighttime and when you go back in, just keep your lights a little more dim or put the red filter on them.
Speaker 2:That's great and that is a great reminder too. That goes all the way back to why we're even talking about the importance of sleep is that our mind and our body are so connected and so vital in taking care of those things that we've got to remember that all of those factors are sending a signal to our body to do what it was designed to do and we're moving out of the way those interrupting factors hopefully.
Speaker 2:Just for look, it's just for overnight. And how are we going to get across that bridge of despair to hope if we don't start kind of moving those things out of the way?
Speaker 3:Well, in one sleep scientist who's a friend of mine said. He said that what sparked his interest in grad school was the fact that we spend a third of our life asleep.
Speaker 2:So true, so say more about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we spend a third of our life asleep, so why wouldn't it be an important theme, absolutely? And when he looked into that or when, when that's what sparked him and I started thinking about it from that perspective and he and I started talking about all these themes that go into sleep and what all happens in your brain and all that. I just again, we spend a third of our life asleep, so it has to be something that we pay close attention to.
Speaker 2:And prioritize Right and prioritize. You know, some of us have bought into the like, the mythical thinking that I only need three or four hours of sleep and I'll be fine, and you know, that's kind of like saying I only need to eat one certain thing or I only need to not eat so many times, and believing that kind of mythical thinking. But we're not listening to our bodies. So this is super important. So do you have some specific tips? First of all, I know you've mentioned the red light, I know you've mentioned the sun, but what about that old nasty stress and adverse event thing or relational interruptions? What do we do with that?
Speaker 3:That's such a great question. I think that, first and foremost, I know a lot of people not a lot. I know people wear sleep trackers. I wear one, my watch tracks my sleep and so I'm looking at on a daily basis how much time did I sleep Did it? How much REM did I get in my sleep? And it's a gross estimate, but it it is. But it's watching my heart rate to determine about where I am with things. It tells me deep sleep, rem sleep, light sleep, how often did I wake up in the night? Based on my movement? And I know that I love data and I can totally geek out on data, but I also know that I cannot be distracted by the data. I know that. You know, I was just with one of my kids for the weekend at an event for her school and I was super excited and I started thinking at a certain time. I'm like, well, I'm really sleepy, but I thought I don't want to give this time up.
Speaker 1:And who cares?
Speaker 3:if I only get five hours of sleep tonight and so we want to be careful that we don't become rigid with our bridge from despair to hope man, that's great yes. But that it's more of a principle that we're guarding sleep but we're not coveting sleep. Right sleep, and if we're anxious, it's okay to be anxious. We don't need to become anxious, then, about our anxiety, because then we're going to have sleep anxiety.
Speaker 3:And so if you find yourself feeling anxious about sleep and am I getting enough? Is it the right kind? And I would encourage you to, just as much as you can, radically accept the fact that you're going to do the best you can with what's in front of you and maybe you need to get up out of bed and you need to just reset.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then you can try to go back into bed with a mindset of, hey, I'm going to do the best I can, I'm going to get the sleep that I can get and I'm going to move through this in a way that is not trying to force something.
Speaker 2:That is so important. I'm glad you brought that up, because rigidity takes us often down. It'd be like driving without GPS and continuing around the same square block or detour or whatever. We just don't get where we want to go. That's right. And so I think by being less rigid and more open and flexible, but intentional at the same time, then we find that sleep becomes less of a nemesis and more of a partner. Yeah, I love that, you know. I mean, I think too, if we can find a place to park some of our cares. You know, with this accelerated resolution therapy, part of the mantra is we're not doing away with the facts, we're just creating new images and sensations in our body. And so what's wrong with, kind of right before going to sleep, reminding ourself that we can envision Remember the old count, the sheep jumping over the fence or whatever? I mean, that would stress me out.
Speaker 1:What if?
Speaker 2:that sheep falls. What's chasing them? You know we don't want to have images that create anxiety for us, but we do want to, you know, just find ourself in a pleasant place, not an anticipatory. Oh no, I know I'm going to wake up at three o'clock, right? You know, do you find that that having narrative um narrative management?
Speaker 3:I like that. That's actually brilliant, because what it's setting your mind on these, these? Well, let me get. Let me come at it a different way. I, when I, when I'm laying my head down to go to sleep, if I'm not already asleep by the time my head hits the pillow, then what I'm doing is going through the positive things in my day.
Speaker 3:That's my time of gratitude. What am I thankful for, what am I grateful for? And it's a time of meditation and prayer for me, of you know what. God, thank you for this day and thank you for this thing. Thank you for that thing. Thank you for this day and thank you for this thing. Thank you for that thing, thank you for this person and thank you for this dynamic, and it really like. It's like wow, I have a really great life and I'm just like you know, and it's it really.
Speaker 3:I think that can be a really neat exercise to not only put us in gratitude but also to stave away some of those worries, because even when I have something the next day that I'm stressed by or worried about, one of the exercises I do is trying to be grateful for the things I can be grateful about in that stressful thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, that is so powerful, and you know this, and I can't name the exact study, but there was a study done on gratitude and functional MRI research at the same time, and what was discovered was that neural pathways it was. They called it a cognitive expander. So in other words, we it's like taking an expander and dropping it into that neural pathway and widening it. It doesn't mean you'll always think differently, it just means you have more room to think differently. And that's where you know there are a lot of things that happen during the day that maybe we're not grateful for and we could spin out thinking on that, right, right, but then that's driving the bus.
Speaker 3:It is, and I also want to say some of those things that we may not be grateful for, may legitimately not be things that hold gratitude.
Speaker 2:Well, no kidding.
Speaker 3:In other words, I don't want to and I know you're not saying this Right I don't want our listeners to think what we're saying is that we have to put a Pollyanna Band-Aid over things and I know you're not saying that it's that place of there are some things in life that are just really difficult and we have to just see it, name it and say, yep, that's difficult or that was traumatic, or that was painful.
Speaker 2:You know, and that reminds me and this is kind of what I think we're saying. I'm kind of excited about this. I certainly wouldn't want to eat a heavy meal while I'm working out really hard that's right or running a marathon. That would prevent my body from doing what I'm asking it to do that's right. So I'm asking my body to go to sleep, so I want to make sure I'm giving it every opportunity to do so by not doing something else. And that is ruminating on everything that went wrong that day.
Speaker 3:That's it. And it's funny, a very good friend of mine was telling me. He said I don't know that I dream and I said, oh, I bet you do, you just don't recall them. And he was like okay, then how do I recall my dreams? And I said, well, you would start by basically alerting your body to the awareness that you want to recall your dreams. And I said when you find yourself rising out of sleep, make a mental note to scan. Did I dream anything? Well, I, I, I saw him today and, uh, I ran into him and he said I did, I do dream, I remembered my dream and we went through that, like he went through this dream, and I said well, what sense do you make of that? And he talked through some things that you know. He thought that it could be and what's interesting is is he, he illuminated the fact that he was working through some emotions.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And I to your point. I don't want to eat a heavy meal right before I work or while I'm working out. That is brilliant. I love that analogy because you're spot on and you think about what are you doing when you work out.
Speaker 3:right, you're lifting heavy things, you're running fast, running far you know running, you know hard, or however you want to say it. Well, what does dreaming do for us? It sorts out those things that we don't in our conscious awareness. We don't have that space for right. So our brain shut, I mean our body is. You know, we have sleep paralysis, right? The only two things that it doesn't paralyze is our eye movement and our diaphragm.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 3:The rest of our body is paralyzed.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:And so your eyes move during sleep and you still breathe. The rest of your body is down, Otherwise we would be acting out our dreams.
Speaker 2:And your heart's beating. Yes, well, right, yes, that's a given. Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:There are sleep disorders that I, I, I want to just touch on that. Sometimes your body doesn't go into sleep paralysis that the you may have night terrors or night you know, sleepwalking and there are those aspects and if that is something that a person struggles with, I hope that they will see a sleep specialist to help them sort that out.
Speaker 2:Or sleep apnea Right, right, oh gosh, sleep apnea, that is so critical that can lead to premature death.
Speaker 3:I mean, you stop breathing, right. And you know some people think, well, yeah, that's just going to happen and I'm not going to do that, and. But if you can breathe when you're awake, then you need to be able to breathe when you're asleep.
Speaker 2:Most definitely.
Speaker 3:And I just can't caution enough If you have sleep apnea or if you snore. There there are CPAP and BiPAP machines. Now, a lot of sleep scientists don't love the CPAP and BiPAP machines because it that positive airflow into your nasal passage they, they believe is can be very disruptive to the sleep process and you may not get into that deep sleep.
Speaker 3:It may prevent you from hitting the different uh levels cycles of sleep yeah, However, there's mouth pieces, there's a head placements, there's ways to adjust yourself. If you believe that you or your partner has a sleep disorder like sleep apnea, that is something that I strongly encourage you to seek like. Do a sleep study, do some, you know the the studies that are being done with, especially with pregnant, the studies that are being done especially with pregnant women who have sleep ap does have an impact on the unborn child.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's because oxygenation is so important. I think that's why pregnant women are encouraged not to allow their heart rate to get past a certain level when they're working out or whatever, just so that there's good blood flow and oxygen's not restricted in any way. So that is super helpful. Well, I know there are other sleep disorders. There's apnea, there's maybe some night terrors. Maybe there are others that you, I mean, would you consider insomnia, or is that just a misused term?
Speaker 3:No, I think that you're right. Insomnia due to stress or insomnia due to some other cause that doesn't allow a person to their body, just doesn't shut down there. You know, we they stay in that heightened sympathetic state. There you go, Whereas you know, sympathetic is the they call it the fight or flight. There's there's other parts to the sympathetic system, but there's also the parasympathetic, which is the rest and digest. But what's interesting is is that there's a balance to both right.
Speaker 3:You can overdo the sympathetic where you're in that fight or flight, and you can overdo parasympathetic where it actually pair. Overdoing parasympathetic leads you to coma and death, and so it's all a balance right. And so, um you, you want, you want to help the body get down into that resting space where, again, you do, you can do breathing exercises, you can do uh, you know, the the box, breathing. Oh yes, three square, four square. Some people do five square breathing.
Speaker 2:Um.
Speaker 3:I know that some people do the the inhale where it's where they take that inhale and then they take that last big breath in. And that's helpful for you know, calming the body, getting into that, moving more towards that parasympathetic system.
Speaker 2:So, kind of going back to that word, insomnia. What I'm hearing you say and I may be totally off on this, so please correct this, but it's almost like that is a spectrum for people who have trouble sleeping and if you just hold on to that, that maybe you miss what's underlying. Is that what I'm hearing you say?
Speaker 3:I think that's a neat way to say that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so like perhaps highly anxious or someone struggling with depression, that may be underlying what's creating the state of insomnia.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, I think that's a neat way to say that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so not to just hang the moniker of insomnia.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Oh well, I just have insomnia, Okay. So it's work through some of these tips and and, uh, healthy ways, yeah.
Speaker 3:There's a uh CBT which it has its place. Yeah, it has its place Um CBT I, cbt CBT cognitive behavioral therapy insomnia.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Um, they have a. There's a lot of tips and tricks that they utilize there of like you through their painful dreams, like having nightmares, stuff. That accelerated resolution, therapy uh, therapy is when you have a repetitive nightmare that's very thematic, that the therapist will work with you to have them to create an alternate ending. There you go and that alternate ending you can say that like one. One example is if, if, uh, if you're, if you're being chased through, uh, a, a small town where you get trapped by a man who you believe is coming to do harm, well, you change the ending to say, no, he was coming to alert you that you just won the lottery.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And it was an exciting dream.
Speaker 2:I'll let you know tomorrow if I dream that Right Go ahead. I dream that Go ahead.
Speaker 3:But it's the power of suggestion in our minds that helps us move to a different part of that dream that we can change, that we can have agency over that.
Speaker 2:And I love that. We as human beings are so geared and so wired to want options. We want the power of choice, boy, that's true, and I think sometimes we think we have no authority or power over some of the functions in our body. And I'm not saying that, we just will it into existence.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I know that there are statements like I manifested that or whatever, but that's really all that that is saying is that we get to choose how we're going to think about something. So is that why the admonition not to let the sun go down on your anger? Is that? Why do you think that plays into the fact that, obviously, sleep is a part of our natural, created way of existing?
Speaker 3:a need, a natural need yes, I, I think that is and I'm that's. That's an interesting uh uh topic to bring up, because I think all too often we think I've heard young married couples who say we stayed up until two in the morning because we didn't want to let the sun go down on our anger and I said wait, I want you to go back and I want you to reread what that says Don't let the sun go down on what? On your anger. It doesn't mean that you go work that out relationally. It means you work that out internally.
Speaker 2:Right, you calm the emotion. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 3:In you. Okay, you understand it, you calm it, because oftentimes we orient ourselves to other people rather than first orienting ourselves to us.
Speaker 2:That is so good.
Speaker 3:And what happens is is if I orient myself to someone else, I feel a sense of a loss of control, because you are making me angry and it's like no, let's look what is anger.
Speaker 3:Anger is an injustice. Has an injustice been done or am I disappointed because an expectation wasn't met? And if an expectation wasn't met, then I can sit with disappointment differently than I can sit with an injustice. Right, and so I I think that you're right that understanding how to name our emotions and understand what did I truly feel there is important, and especially, like what you're saying before I go to sleep, that it's not something massive that's overwhelming me.
Speaker 2:Oh, that is so important for all of us to understand. I think, too, we confuse the fact that our emotions are taking us to a conclusion instead of opening up a pathway for curiosity. It's giving us a clue. It's not leading us necessarily to a conclusion. The conclusion comes later. But you know, way back at the beginning of our conversation you said that it unlocks the parts of our brain to figure something out, right? So maybe, um, just calming the anger will allow us to wake up and solve our relational differences in a completely different way than what we started out with. That made us have such an intense emotion.
Speaker 3:Yes, and you think about how emotions get heightened when you're tired.
Speaker 1:You think?
Speaker 3:about the toddler that's throwing a fit and the parent who apologizes, it's. Oh, I'm sorry they missed their nap, oh good point.
Speaker 2:That's legit. That is legit that is absolutely legit and that's why.
Speaker 3:I tell these young couples that are trying not to let the sun go down on their own anger is what it says but that it's like wait, take a rest, take a break, take a beat, whatever you want to take, but take some time and rest, Let yourself get a different perspective and then re-engage with one another, and it doesn't mean you're ignoring the problem Not at all.
Speaker 2:You're not sweeping it under the rug, that's right. It just means that you're giving yourself, your brain, a chance to rest and get that Roomba out. That's right.
Speaker 1:Clean up the junk.
Speaker 2:That's right, clean it all up. So you know. Thank you so much for sharing. Is there any one thing that you want to say that you haven't had the opportunity to say? That you want to leave people with?
Speaker 3:today there actually is, and one of the things that I want to make sure we cover is people ask is there an ideal bedtime? And the answer to that is kind of I love that answer.
Speaker 2:Is there an ideal budget, kind of.
Speaker 3:But the ideal bedtime. One of the things that is really important for us to know is there is this term called a chronotype and chronotype. Chronotype is that there's is. When is your natural rhythm? To sleep Okay, meaning are you an early to bed person, are you a moderate to middle path bedtime person, or are you a super late to bed person?
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:If you are an early to bed person, then asking you to stay up past that now for again, not rigidity, flexibility, but repetitively asking you that would be like an eight 39 o'clock bedtime. And if that's your natural bodily rhythm, your chronotype, then asking you to stay up until 11, because you know, every Saturday or you know, every couple of nights, there's this show on that we love to watch and I really want you to stay up. Chances are you're not going to be able to, but it's also if you're. If you do stay up past that natural chronotype bedtime, you're not going to get as great a sleep and your body's going to naturally wake up super early. Okay.
Speaker 2:Right, because if you go to bed, early, you naturally wake up early.
Speaker 3:If you go to bed at a moderate hour, you naturally wake up at a moderate time. Okay, If you go to bed super late, you're going to wake up kind of late, and you know, a lot of times people assign a judgment to that and say, oh, responsible the early bird gets the worm.
Speaker 3:I don't really like worms, I don't want the worm. But you know you think about that and how often we assign value to that. There is no value to whether you go to bed early or go to bed late, it's do. Did you get sleep and can you orient your life to the timings that you, to your chronotype?
Speaker 2:That is phenomenal.
Speaker 3:The other part that I would feel remiss if I did not say parents of teenagers, turn up the volume please. Right now, parents of teenagers, please hear me. When you are going through puberty and your adolescence, your natural chronotype is kicked to a later phase. That's why teenagers naturally stay up late and naturally want to sleep. Please, please, parents, parents, let them sleep. And I'm not saying let them sleep till two o'clock and let them stay up till two. I'm not saying that. But please don't kick open the door and tell them that they're lazy If they're sleeping late.
Speaker 2:I just I want to encourage you.
Speaker 3:I just I want to encourage you. Teenagers of all people need their sleep.
Speaker 2:So powerful.
Speaker 3:School time is usually super early, and so you're disrupting their sleep five days out of the week, and if their chronotype is not, most teenagers, like I said, their chronotype gets kicked to later, and so they're going to struggle to go to bed early and then you're waking them up early, disrupting the amount of sleep that they're getting. So, on the weekends we don't bank sleep, but at least try to let them catch up on some.
Speaker 2:That is so good. And you know, parents, we're not Navy SEALs. Our job is not to kick down doors. Parents, we're not Navy SEALs. Our job is not to kick down doors. And even a Navy SEAL goes into a room and is curious before they come to a conclusion. That's right, and so I think, being a curious parent, how can I support you while you're going through this phase of your life, rather than you're lazy is a good technique to use, and you're allowing them to develop a healthier brain.
Speaker 3:That's right. You know, and healthier brain, healthier body. You're right about developing connection and what's interesting is, your kid will grow.
Speaker 2:Isn't that great.
Speaker 3:Physically grow. You look at kids who didn't get good sleep when they were younger and I wonder and I don't have evidence for this per se, but I wonder that you know people who've been through trauma, people who didn't get good sleep. It really disrupts their growth. When you have other kids who are, are, you know, like we know now, I think about this generation that's coming up now and how much taller they are than their parents. Oftentimes I look around and see so many kids that are outgrowing their parents height wise and you think we now know how to make it darker in the rooms. We know that we that uh to make it cooler in rooms. We have that available to us. Nor we have the ability to to create good space for sleep and how kids are just shooting up height-wise and I just can't help but think that there's something in there that's really correlated with that.
Speaker 2:I agree, and that sounds like sleep nutrition as well as food nutrition, that is, it combines.
Speaker 2:Mental health, nutrition. I mean all of that. Like we said, our body is, you know, mind, body, spirit. So all of that works together for us to grow and be healthy. Thank you so much for sharing all of this great information with us. I know you've studied hard and I know that you've delved very deeply into this, because it is connected to our mental health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, our physical health. So thank you for that. I so appreciate you taking the time to share that with all of us.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, and thank you for being with us today. It's always fun to be with you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. Right back at you.
Speaker 4:If you found value in our discussion and wish to uncover more about the fascinating world of Right back at. You is just beginning and we're excited to have you with us every step of the way. Until next time, keep exploring, keep growing and remember to celebrate restored freedom as you uncover it.
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