Jessica Stover (00:07):
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Networks Look At...

(00:10):
This recording is an offering of Networks for Training and Development's online university.

Tracy Lapreziosa (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to another episode in our Taste of Wellness series here at Networks for Training and Development. I'm Tracy Lapreziosa, and I'm gonna lead us through this discussion today, and I'm joined by Rosa McAllister, a dear friend and coworker at Networks.

Rosa McAllister (00:31):
Hi, everyone.

Tracy Lapreziosa (00:33):
We're gonna t- talk about sleep today, another one of those things that everybody does but we don't always think about it. So we're gonna start out with discussion a little bit about wh- what is sleep and why is it important, and what happens to us when we sleep, and what happens to us when we don't get enough sleep.

(00:52):
So we're gonna just get started here with what is sleep? It's an essential function of the body, and it allows our body to kind of rejuvenate, repair, and to recharge. And it helps us to build up immunity, it maintains our health, it enables the body to repair itself, it enables weight control, helps keep our emotions in check, and helps our brain to function.

(01:19):
Just a fun little tidbit fact, I was Googling sleep and Googling like what happens if you don't sleep for days, and apparently if you don't sleep for three to four days, you can begin to hallucinate. And the longest anyone has ever gone without sleep has been 11 days.

(01:35):
You know, there's a lot of stuff that happens in our body when we sleep. There's melatonin levels that increase that help to make us sleepy, and I- I know there are a lot of people that take melatonin artificially to help them go to sleep. And there is a pituitary gland release of a growth hormone that helps us to repair and to replenish.

(01:58):
So there's a lot going on in our body when we sleep, and I know that later we're gonna talk about sleep hygiene and what things we can do to help us to get better sleep, and to help th- these processes to move along, but I know that, you know, some of the things that will affect us will be like the foods we eat and the things that we do.

(02:18):
So if you don't get enough sleep, a lot of not so good things can happen to your body, your memory can start to slip, you might have difficulty with attention and focus, irritability, moodiness. I know that's one of the things that happens with me if I don't get enough sleep, you know, better beware because I'm- I'm just gonna-

Rosa McAllister (02:36):
(laughs).

Tracy Lapreziosa (02:37):
... not be able to function or be very nice (laughing). You might make some wor- you might make some impulsive decisions if you don't have a good night's sleep, and you might be more prone to catch whatever's going around in your home il- illness-wise. Like if you're a mom and you have young children, and, you know, kids are always being exposed to bugs, and I know as a mom, I usually was able to keep them at bay from myself and just be able to take care of my kids, but if I was going through a stretch of not having enough sleep, I was catching, I would catch whatever it was that they had.

(03:07):
And a lack of sleep can also affect your blood pressure and c- and cause higher blood pressure, higher sugar levels, weight gain, and balance issues. There's just so many things that sleep does, it helps our body to do, that if we don't have enough of it, we're gonna really have a difficult time functioning. And I'm sure all of us have had that period of time when you've gone a couple days where your sleep has been really poor, and you just feel like you can't function.

Rosa McAllister (03:33):
You mentioned about, um, we've all had different periods, there's also been some interesting studies about some times when of our lives, some chapters of our lives, when we're a little bit more likely to sleep well versus not sleep well. So we all know little babies, little babies sleep in little bursts for the most part. Once in a while, somebody's blessed with one of those babies that sleeps through the night right from the start, and those of us with a baby hate them. Um, but-

Tracy Lapreziosa (04:00):
(laughs).

Rosa McAllister (04:01):
We're up every hour or two hours with our babies. But it's a natural thing, because a baby, think of the growth that that baby goes through in that first year of life, it's absolutely incredible. And it's true even when the baby's in utero, the sleep patterns are usually little short burst, so it's, you know, sleep, eat, poop, sleep, eat, poop, a kind of thing like that. It's a- it's a cycle they go through.

(04:24):
And as we get a little bit older, we sleep more. Then think of the teenager, the teenager that you can barely drag out of bed at 11:00 AM or noontime because they're sleeping so deep and so heavy. They might be staying up late, but they're sleeping for longer stretches of time, and this is also because their body's going through amazing growth and change as well, hormones are shifting and things like that. So they naturally sleep longer, sleep deeper, sleep more often, including naps.

(04:54):
Then, you get to the parenting, young adult age, where our sleep is really thrown off, because for those of us who have kids and they're going through the short bursts of sleep, our body starts adapting to that. And for many of us, myself included, it took a long time, my son was well into his teenage sleep years and I was still in his baby sleep time with short bursts of sleep. I, it took me a long time to kinda get back into deeper and longer sleeps.

(05:24):
And then, you hit, for women, you hit menopause, and for many of us that really shifts our sleep patterns, and it disturbs sleep because the temperature changes and other things like that. Or, for any of us during our prime work periods of our careers, our brain's so busy, some of us have trouble shutting it down, or we wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep because our brain's on fire thinking of so many things. So many responsibilities, so many things to do.

(05:54):
And then, you get to later years, senior years, and oftentimes you hear about people where their sleep is really not that deep, but they sleep often. It's not unusual for seniors to take naps, sometimes two naps a day, three naps a day, and also sleep at night, but not as long and not as deep. So there's natural rhythms with our times of life too and sleep.

Tracy Lapreziosa (06:18):
Thank you, Rosa, that's- that's very, very true, and I'm thinking about there are times also when you feel like you sh- your sleep should match to other people in your household, but it really doesn't. I'm thinking how I was always a very, very deep, deep sleeper, and when I had babies, getting up and being woken up in the middle of the night several times a night would just throw me into a total fog-

Rosa McAllister (06:45):
Mm-hmm.

Tracy Lapreziosa (06:45):
... for the next day. I could not deal at all. So that was really, really hard for me coming, being that type of sleeper and having to shift.

(06:54):
Now, fortunately, my husband is a different type of sleep, and he was the more lighter sleeper, and he could wake up and fall back asleep easier. If I would wake up, I could not-

Rosa McAllister (07:03):
Hmm.

Tracy Lapreziosa (07:03):
... fall back to sleep. If I'm up, I'm up. So we would kinda take shifts, and he would always take the first shift- shift so that I could sleep, and then when I woke up at 2:00 or 3:00, I could just stay awake. (laughs). So that's how we did it.

Rosa McAllister (07:17):
Good partnership.

Tracy Lapreziosa (07:19):
You know, w- we had to do that. But you'd, sometimes you really, you want your sleep to be a different way, but it's hard to m- change it 'cause your body has its own way of doing things, you know? Like my sleep cycle has changed a lot over the years, as you were mentioning, with aging and whatever. I don't have that deep, deep sleep that I used to have when I was in my twenties, not at all.

(07:41):
So, you know, what are some of the things that we can do to help us have better sleep, to sleep deeper, to sleep longer, to, you know, get more rest so that our body can repair, and to help us to think clearly, you know, in our daily lives? So, Rosa, what are some of the main things that you like to do to, uh, help regulate your sleep?

Rosa McAllister (08:06):
Thanks. I- I am, by s- some friends who I've traveled with, they refer to me sometimes as the corpse, so I'm a good person to talk about this and a not-so-good person to talk about this, because I've been a pretty good sleeper, it's been one of my skills and talents through most of my life, although there certainly have been periods where it's not.

(08:26):
So, but I'll tell you about my sleep patterns or sleep deeperns, if you will. Because people often ask, "How do you sleep the way you sleep?" There's something about creating a sleep sanctuary, and I think of my bedroom as a sanctuary. Now I live alone, but for many years, most of my life, I did not. And so, it's a little hard, there's some negotiation you need to do, but I have refused for most of my life to have a television in my room, because not that I'm a big television watcher, but I used to really like the late night talk shows, and that would keep me up too late.

(09:06):
So not having a TV in your bedroom is a very important thing. B- because of the- the emitting of the blue light and the EMFs and other things that we know about that go along with electronic devices and screen time, so cutting back on screen time. I love books, and I- I was one of those kids that had a flashlight under the covers reading, and would sneak it, and my parents would come in and, "Rosa, are you still awake?" And, "No, no, no," or I'd pretend I was asleep (laughing).

(09:36):
I love reading before bed. I love reading in bed. It's one of my very favorite things to do, oftentimes with a cup of tea, and both are a very good thing to do in your sleep sanctuary, in your bedroom, to get you ready. But really creating any ritual is an important thing. I'm a ritual girl, so I have routines and rituals for various things in my life, how I wake up, what I do first thing in the morning, all that kind of stuff, and I also have rituals about going to sleep.

(10:06):
So I have certain essential oils that I annoint myself with every night before bed, and it's because I think the lavender is a good thing, and the chamomile is a good thing to help promote sleep, but the other is it's just part of my ritual and routine that I do, and there's certain parts of my body that I annoint myself or bless myself with with these oils. And it's just become a habit that I do. When my grandkids sleep over, I, they join in with, as my granddaughter used to call my- my nighttime Earls, or oils.

Tracy Lapreziosa (10:40):
(laughs).

Rosa McAllister (10:41):
And, um, it's just part, it's a- it's a couple, and it takes just a couple minutes, but it's something to help me- me signal myself that I'm getting ready for bed, I'm slowing down, and I've giving gratitude to my body and the day for what it has been.

(10:57):
I have some music that I listen to oftentimes when I'm falling asleep, and it's not necessarily sleep music, per se, but it's very gentle, usually piano music that's very lyrical, very beautiful and soft, and I have it on just low enough that I'm not really listening to it. But again, it's just part of my ritual, it's part of what I do.

(11:19):
Some people have a diffuser in the room that gives, um, you know, uh, like essential oils like a lavender or some kind of a- a nice scent and a smell. They say it's really important to keep your room cool, or on the cool side, so that we can kind of snuggle into the covers. Some of us like a heavier blanket or a weighted kind of blanket or quilt to kind of snuggle us down.

(11:46):
And many of us have a particular position that we get in to fall asleep in. I certainly have one, I'm a back sleeper for the most part. Again, I'm the corpse, so I kind of fall asleep spread eagled, arms, legs, everything just wide open, I'm lifting my hands over my head kind of demonstrating it. But that's how I fall asleep. I have long hair, so I pull my hair up and flip it up so it's on a pillow so that I'm not strangling myself with my hair in sl- in my, in the night.

(12:16):
And there are just a few things that I do, art of my routine, it's part of my r- rituals going to sleep. What about you, Tracy?

Tracy Lapreziosa (12:24):
Well, I try to wind down my activity... Well, (laughing) wind- wind it down pretty early. We usually eat dinner at like 6:00 or so, and I wind it down after there, I try not to do anything that's really brain taxing anymore after that point. I spent many years doing a lot of my paperwork in the evening until 1:00 in the morning, and I had really terrible sleep, so now, um, I, you know, try to shut off my work brain after a certain point and try not to do too much in the evening that's, you know, highly physical.

(12:57):
I will, a lot of times I will do like, uh, stretching, some yoga or Pilates routines, uh, before I go to bed because just the whole idea of getting my- my body nice and loose and relaxed after a day of being tense and moving around and doing a lot of things.

(13:16):
But I think one of the most important things that we can do, no matter what it is, is to have a routine. And, you know, Rosa really explained her routine. My routine isn't near that extravagant, so to speak, mine's just a simple, I just wind down and, you know, I try and get rid of all the blue light or whatever, do a little reading, maybe fall asleep in, you know, in my chair (laughing) while I'm reading, and then go to bed.

(13:43):
But, you know, describing the routine, I think about, I- I have worked in early intervention, and one of the things I have worked a lot with parents on is developing a sleep routine for children, young children, toddlers, to go to sleep. There's, you know, you know... And, you know, I would ask 'em, "Okay, what are you doing? You know, if you're not having good sleep, whether you're a toddler or you're an adult, look at what you're doing."

(14:12):
Do a little bit of a mini assessment, you know, take a look at well, what time am I eating? What time am I, uh, what am I doing between dinnertime and my bedtime, what's going on? You may find that you might be doing some things that are kind of revving your body up, if you're doing a lot of heavy-duty exercise, you know, or with little kids, or, you know, maybe it's they're really running around. And I always tell parents, "Have the bath time be later." A bath in the evening is a good thing because it just kinda relaxes you. It relaxes a child, it relaxes an adult, to helps you to be able to have better sleep and to, you know, avoid any of that, you know, heavy-duty TV time, video time.

Rosa McAllister (14:54):
Right.

Tracy Lapreziosa (14:54):
For children and for adult. Like, you know, to watch a really scary movie that, you know, at 10:00 at night, you might have difficulty falling asleep. So it, there are just some general things that were in your routine that are appropriate for anyone no matter what the age is, and I h- have found myself over the last six years really stressing that a lot to families of children, young children, and I think it's important too with some of your older children, ele- uh, elementary school children as well. A lot of them are not getting the sleep that they need because of the activities that they do.

Rosa McAllister (15:27):
I- I-

Tracy Lapreziosa (15:27):
Like video gaming. (laughs).

Rosa McAllister (15:27):
Yep, I agree.

Tracy Lapreziosa (15:27):
They can't fall asleep.

Rosa McAllister (15:32):
I would also throw into that the heavy conversations. I know of a couple, actually a good friend of mine was telling me about her husband wants to have like the big discussion of the day when they get in bed, and she's had to say to him, "I can't sleep then! No, don't do that." We do that with teenagers sometimes, you know, or kids, we are tucking them into bed and we wanna rehash the day. That is not the time to do it. It's not the time to do it.

(16:01):
If you do it with the, let's talk about, let's, what are we grateful for or what was wonderful about your day or something like that, that's a good thing. But to talk about-

Tracy Lapreziosa (16:11):
Right.

Rosa McAllister (16:11):
... the, you know, "You looked a little stressed earlier, and now that we're alone-

Tracy Lapreziosa (16:16):
(laughs).

Rosa McAllister (16:17):
That's not the time to do it, because you're revving up the person, their brain and everything, it's not settling them. And you're doing that to yourself too, so.

Tracy Lapreziosa (16:24):
Yeah.

Rosa McAllister (16:26):
Another thing that I think is pretty interesting, and I was recently reminded of this in something that I was reading, is there's some biological things you mentioned already about our body resetting itself while we sleep and how important that is, and specifically our internal organs. You know, there's a reason that we wake up with that funky morning mouth, and that's because our body is detoxifying, and our organs are kind of spewing off and getting rid of, or squeezing in some t- in some cases, some toxins and other things, and it comes up in our mouth. Like when you think about it, it's kind of gruesome.

(17:03):
So it's important, like I used to bring a cup of water to bed 'cause my mouth would get dry in the night, and then when I started learning more about it, I realized I was actually drinking back down all the poisons and toxins my body was getting rid of, it was eliminating through my mouth. I was drinking them back down into my system while I was... Ugh. (laughs).

Tracy Lapreziosa (17:23):
(laughs).

Rosa McAllister (17:25):
It's interesting, a lot of us wake up and have to poop right away and pee right away, go to the bathroom, and part of that is because our body has been getting rid of some of its extra stuff, some of the toxins, some different things during the night because our internal organs have been working so hard.

(17:45):
So scientists now say, medical people now say that it's really important, there are certain timeframes, it's really important for us to try to be in bed by 10:00 PM, because usually, typically, between 10:00 and 11:00, 11:30, our body is doing a gradual release and shutdown. Getting ready for our internal organs between about 11:30, midnight, through about 3:00 or 4:00 AM, really doing this reset and discharging and kind of re-healing themself.

(18:22):
So it's important, as you mentioned, not to eat a whole lot before. You mentioned, I think, four hours before we go to sleep is really important. Not all of us can do it, but it's important not to do a whole lot or to just do something like the warm milk or a cup of tea, something easy for, and digestible and soothing for our organs and our systems.

(18:46):
And then, our body does this amazing, miraculous kind of thing, as we get ready and our body's starting to slow down and we're going into the initial stages of sleep, hopefully around 10:00 PM, 10:00 to 11:00, something like that, then our body does its thing while we're sleeping. While we're maybe dreaming or doing other things, our various organs are cleansing themselves in various fashions.

(19:13):
And so, don't take that water to bed, and, in fact, when you get up in the morning, some of us scrape our tongue to get rid of and rinse very carefully. Um, it's not a bad idea to brush your teeth first thing in the morning to get rid of some of the goop and gunk, and it's a good idea to poop. (laughs).

Tracy Lapreziosa (19:32):
Interesting you were talking about the- the timing of the eating, and one thing that I have been reading about recently is that the reason that you don't want to eat so close to bedtime is that when your body has to digest, that's where all the energy goes, that's where all the blood goes for that process.

(19:52):
So if you're having something like a cup of tea or warm milk, it's not gonna require heavy-duty digestion and it's not gonna require all of that. If the blood flow is there half the night because you've just eaten a half of- a half of a pizza before going to bed, that energy and that blood flow is not gonna go to the other organs, it's not gonna go to your brain, and you're not gonna have that clear and refreshed feeling in the morning. I've heard it even described as a brain bath, like a brain wash, like when the-

Rosa McAllister (20:21):
Right.

Tracy Lapreziosa (20:21):
You have that blood flow that's able to go to your brain and just refresh all the oxygen and refresh all the cells in your brain. So I think eating is, to me, one of the number one things, if I had to-

Rosa McAllister (20:33):
Mm-hmm.

Tracy Lapreziosa (20:34):
You know, if we had to sum up with like the top five, I know, I think the timing of eating would be number one.

Rosa McAllister (20:41):
I agree.

Tracy Lapreziosa (20:41):
Um, routine would be number-

Rosa McAllister (20:44):
Number two.

Tracy Lapreziosa (20:44):
One of- one of them, and, you know, not having that, um, blue light, TV-

Rosa McAllister (20:51):
Right.

Tracy Lapreziosa (20:51):
... kind of thing. Um, the sleep sanctuary, you know, and- and, I don't know, what else would be in the top five? Maybe just-

Rosa McAllister (21:01):
Quiet.

Tracy Lapreziosa (21:02):
Quiet. Yeah, quiet. Peaceful, quiet, a quiet space, you know?

Rosa McAllister (21:05):
Right.

Tracy Lapreziosa (21:06):
Just having that quietness to wind down.

Rosa McAllister (21:09):
I think it's also a really... We mentioned this a little bit, but another thing if you're building a routine, just the s- making yourself low and easy breathing, there's some actual breathing practices you can do that's recommended to help us get to sleep or get back to sleep. Um, and the other thing is quiet reflection. Quiet reflection, it's not the time to like, "Oh crap, I've gotta lose 10 pound," "Oh man, I really blew it today," or, "I shouldn't have done this." Flip the script.

Tracy Lapreziosa (21:39):
Forgot to do this, oh no (laughing).

Rosa McAllister (21:42):
Exactly. It's not the time to go through the to-do list and all of that, but it is a time to do a quiet reflection, a gratitude reflection. A lot of people start the day with that, which I think is a beautiful practice, but I think it's also a really good thing to do as we're going to sleep at night is to give thanks. I mean, that's the basic idea of our bedtime prayers that many of us were brought up with. It's the idea to quiet our minds and to give thanks, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:10):
I use that quiet time to like, instead of counting sheep to fall asleep-

Rosa McAllister (22:14):
Mm-hmm.

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:15):
... I will visualize all of, you know, I go through my whole family, I start at one end and I go, j- just visualizing them happy and healthy and doing the things that they wanna. I just go through until I fall asleep. (laughs). Sometimes I get to six-

Rosa McAllister (22:31):
That's beautiful.

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:31):
... sometimes I only get through three. (laughs).

Rosa McAllister (22:32):
Hmm, I love that.

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:35):
I start with the youngest, I start with the youngest, the babies, and work up.

Rosa McAllister (22:39):
That's very sweet.

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:40):
So that's how I fall asleep at night, just thinking of, you know... Enveloping in, keeping them in that love bubble.

Rosa McAllister (22:47):
I love that.

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:49):
And, uh, doing that breathing and calming down the body is awesome.

Rosa McAllister (22:52):
Hmm.

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:53):
All right.

Rosa McAllister (22:54):
Deep sigh. (laughs).

Tracy Lapreziosa (22:55):
You ready for a nap? (laughs).

Rosa McAllister (22:57):
I think so (laughing).

Tracy Lapreziosa (23:00):
Well, this has been an interesting discussion, and, uh-

Rosa McAllister (23:03):
Mm-hmm.

Tracy Lapreziosa (23:03):
... we thank you all for joining in today to l- listen to our episode of, on sleep with Taste of Wellness. And if you enjoyed this episode, there are many more in our online university at Networks for Training & Development, so we hope to see you again.

Rosa McAllister (23:21):
Thanks, Tracy.

Tracy Lapreziosa (23:22):
Mm-hmm.

Rosa McAllister (23:22):
Thanks, everybody. Sweet dreams.

Tracy Lapreziosa (23:25):
Yep, good night. (laughs).

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Thank you for listening. We hope the information provided was helpful. Don't forget to stop by our website and take advantage of all we have to offer.