This week’s podcast we are talking about the importance of taking care of ourselves and rest. Well, and mostly, SLEEP! It is so powerful, why do we fight it? When you are well rested you show up as the best you, not what’s left of you.
A few weeks ago I was talking to my my friend Kathleen and she told me that for her Master’s Program she studied her sleep and what affected it.
I had the idea for this podcast on my mind for a while and was super excited to hear about her study and her findings. I am constantly analyzing myself, but I’ve never done a study to that level.
I asked her to join me on this week’s podcast to talk about what she learned.
Links to the books I referenced in this week’s podcast:
- The Gifts of Imperfection – Brené Brown
- Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids – Dr. Laura Markham
I hope you enjoy this week’s podcast. Don’t forget we’d love to see you over on the Facebook Group, The Happier You Podcast!
And remember you can get the podcast and the midweek motivator emailed to you weekly when you join our mailing list here!
For those of you that prefer to read than listen, here is the transcript to this week’s episode.
Bona: (00:00)
Hi, and welcome to The Happier You Podcast. I’m your host Bona Normandeau. The goal of this podcast is to deliver a little bit of sunshine to you weekly. Each episode is meant to challenge and inspire you. I’m no expert, I’m just a regular gal who’s inviting you on this journey to find the happier you
Bona: (00:22)
Welcome Back Happy people. This week, we are talking about the importance of rest and taking care of yourself. And this idea came to me as I was reading a book, as I always do, and this one again came from Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection where she talks about one of the skills of being a wholehearted person is letting go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self worth. And the other book as I was doing the research for this, I remembered way back when it’s a book called Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids. Years ago, when Norm was going to sea often, we had been posted back out to the coast. He kept going to sea, and Alex had a really tough time adjusting to it. And I was having a tough time parenting Alex through this. So I grabbed this book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids.
Bona: (01:14)
And in it, she basically says, you need to take care of yourself so that you aren’t taking it out on your child. So basically you need to be well rested and well cared for so that your child gets the best of you, not what’s left of you. And that really hit me because when norm goes to sea, I don’t sleep, you know, I have trouble going to bed on time. And since I read that book, it actually has been a non-negotiable for me. I know that when he goes away, I have trouble getting to sleep. So I make sure I put myself into routine because I need my sleep. I know other people can get by without very much sleep, but I cannot. I physically get ill and mentally, I’m just, I’m not the best me.
Bona: (01:53)
So I was having a conversation with my friend, Kathleen, about this a couple of months ago and found out that she is taking her Master’s in Counseling Psychology. And we had this great conversation about sleep and rest. And as part of her program, you had to study yourself, which I think is so cool, because I think I informally study myself all the time, but you had to formally study yourself and then report back as part of your course. Right?
Kathleen: (02:35)
Right. Not very scientifically, but yes,
Bona: (02:37)
but yeah,exactly. More than the rest of us do in our normal day to day lives. Right?
Bona: (02:37)
Hold up! I got so nervous doing this interview with Kathleen on a zoom call with video that I completely forgot to introduce her. Apparently I have issues. As soon as you put a video camera in front of me, I met Kathleen my first day in the military, many, many moons ago. Um, we have been friends ever since. And in fact, we were posted to our first ship together and were cabin mates as the first female officers posted to that ship. Kathleen has been a very close friend for a long time. And in fact, we both married Navy guys and had our kids within weeks of each other. Norm. And I are honored to hold the title “godparents” to, Kat and Andy’s daughter.
We no longer live in the same city, but as much as we can, we try and make sure our paths cross as often as possible so that we stay connected after all of that. Welcome to the podcast. Kathleen, I am so sorry. I have issues with video cameras. So Kathleen is here as a favor to me because I just thought it was so interesting. You know, we read studies all the time, but Kathleen is just a normal person, just like me. And she basically had to study yourself. So Kathleen, will you please share the reason you had to do this study and what you learned about yourself?
Kathleen: (03:52)
Oh, thanks. Well, we did it because I had to do a study on something that would affect me and improve my work in a course. And so I thought, well, the thing for me that changes my life drastically is the amount and quality of sleep that I get. So I chose that other people chose different things like procrastination or eating chocolate or whatever, but I thought, you know, sleep is so crucial.
You just said, if you’re well rested, you can give the best to somebody, to your family. And I hadn’t been doing that. So I thought let’s look at sleep. So we did it for 30 days before starting the study. I looked at what my baseline was like, how much sleep was I getting? Was I waking up at night? Why was I waking up at night? And I wrote down everything that I could, then I did some research of why sleep was important, like for myself control or my energy or mental health or what have you.
Kathleen: (04:44)
And then I decided to make a little checklist and every night I would do the checklist and see if that improved my sleep quality and quantity. And in the end it did.
It was surprising because the three things that really made a difference, we’re going to bed on a routine, like routine really is important for that circadian rhythm. And I didn’t really believe it because I’m not somebody who necessarily goes to bed on a routine, but it really made a difference to set a bedtime and half an hour before that bedtime have everything done so that your mind’s not racing like, Oh, I have to do this. I’ll have to do this tomorrow. And this and this, like really being able to go to bed with that fresh sort of relaxation. So I, I picked a bedtime of nine o’clock, which might seem early to people, but so that by eight 30 I had everything done.
Kathleen: (05:38)
I, you know, you got your fresh PJ’s on your you’ve brushed your teeth, you did your whole routine. And part of that was a social call. I had to make sure that I contacted somebody during the day as a social like connection. Because, especially since it was during COVID, I thought, you know what, for the mental health. While you’re falling asleep, you could reflect on the fact that you had that social interaction despite COVID.
The other thing that was important, in the results was eating and drinking within like an hour to two hours before bed.
I just found that my body can’t take that because I’ll be up in the middle of the night. I’ll either have vivid dreams or I’ll have to get up to go to the bathroom, or it might even cause me to overheat if it’s carbs or whatever.
Kathleen: (06:25)
And then the last one, which was almost the most important one was putting away your tech devices. For me, my iPad away, at least a half an hour, uh, studies recommend an hour, but I knew it wasn’t achievable for me. And so at least half an hour, because the blue light from your iPad and from your tech devices actually inhibits your melatonin, your body’s process to get to sleep uses melatonin. And so the blue light inhibits that. So by getting, by stopping my iPad beforehand, then I was giving myself my best chance.
If I did those three things specifically, I had a really high success rate of increasing the time of sleep, the ease of getting to sleep like the time it took me to get to sleep and just the quality of the sleep and the next morning feeling more refreshed and ready to give my best, as you said to the people around me.
Kathleen: (07:16)
So if any of those three happened, for instance, if I didn’t do my sleep preps, or if I ate and drank within that time-frame, or if I use my tech device within half an hour of going to sleep, then it was almost sure that I would have a poor sleep night.
It was remarkable to me because I didn’t think it would have that much effect.
Bona: (07:38)
And was there anything that you thought would have an effect and you found out it wasn’t that big of a deal?
Kathleen: (07:43)
Um, I hesitate to say it because one of my things that I did is I followed, a meditation, like a sleep script. Every night, as soon as I was about to get ready, like I was in bed and ready to sleep, I would put in a mindfulness based meditation script. And I changed it. I had different ones that I listened to and I found that I was really focused on them and my mind didn’t wander.
Kathleen: (08:09)
So that was great. And I thought that that meditation would have like a, more of an effect. But in the end, I don’t know if that really helped, but it made me feel good because one of your podcasts had said, you know, how to build a habit (She’s referencing Celebrating The Small Wins Episode). And that was one that I wanted to build every day. I wanted to listen to that because I thought it’s such a nice way to go to sleep, but does it actually help? I don’t know.
Bona: (08:33)
So are you still doing it though because you liked it?
I like the calmness that it brings.
Kathleen: (08:36)
I am good at that part. Not the whole sleep. Like I’m no longer go to bed at nine o’clock and I don’t always put my iPad away beforehand, but the meditation. Yeah. I tried to do it every night. I like the calmness that it brings. And the fact that, if you’re focused on it, all those other things you would normally have kept you awake or not keeping you awake because you’re focused on this guided meditation where you’re going
Bona: (09:02)
Well, that’s interesting because it’s a way to put meditation in your life. Like you said, right? Like if it, if it becomes part of that routine, then you know, then so be it just because it didn’t show up in your sleep numbers doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial. Right. So that’s kind of cool.
It’s interesting because I remember when you and I talked about this before, I was saying, I do know that eating late, and this is back from our Navy days when I’d have the mids, and I’d take candy on the mids with me. I would sleep-walk and have nightmares. And I realized very quickly, wow. Probably slower than I would have preferred to realize, that I just can’t eat that kind of stuff late at night or the middle of the night. Certainly. Like I have learned that I’m a much nicer person when I sleep.
Kathleen: (09:47)
And it’s interesting too, because I thought, you know, we always hear, Oh, you need at least eight hours sleep. And so that’s what I was trying to push myself towards, like to see if I could achieve that. And if it would make a difference and it didn’t getting over eight hours of sleep was no different than maybe getting seven and a half hours sleep.
So anytime over seven hours, I had the same mood as if I had nine hours.
But I did find that my number is seven hours. So anytime over seven hours, I had the same mood as if I had nine hours. It didn’t matter. But if I had just less than seven hours, I had a headache. I had to have a nap the next day I was like, just moody and cranky. So like, everybody’s different. Right? So I encourage everybody to try that and say, what’s my number, right. It hasn’t been, my number is at least seven. You know?
Kathleen: (10:31)
So what I find interesting about that is pre doing this test. Would you have realized that the headache or the not feeling good or the crankiness, would you previously have realized that it was, you were shy on sleep?
Kathleen: (10:46)
No, I no. I would probably attribute it to something else. Like, yeah, you don’t know what it is. You’re like oh I woke up with a headache.
Bona: (10:54)
Exactly. Right. Well, thanks Kat. This has been so fun. So Kathleen, isn’t physically in the podcast booth with me, but she is, she’s right there. I can see her. So thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.
I always like to finish the podcast with a quote. So before I give you the quote this week, I just want to encourage you to pay attention to how you are taking care of yourself. So are you getting enough sleep? Are you aiming for exhaustion as a status symbol or is your self worth based on productivity? Remember, the people around you deserve the best of you, not what’s left of you.
Bona: (11:30)
Okay. So the quote for this week is “Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” And that’s from Thomas Decker. And I couldn’t resist the other one is from Dalai Lama. So I thought I’d share it. “Sleep is the best meditation.” So there you go. That’s it. All right. Happy people have a great week and go get your happy on
Outtakes: (11:56)
Okay. First of all, welcome Kathleen. Sorry. That was the world’s worst introduction, but welcome to the happier You Podcast. And now for me, it’s alcohol in the middle of the night. I’m up. It’s like three o’clock like clockwork. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, exactly. Bring back the music.