Real Health Transformations: Inspiring Strategies & Stories for Healthy, Holistic Living

The Sleep Paradox: Why Trying to Sleep Makes It Harder | Ep 33

• Holly Jean Mullen • Season 1 • Episode 33

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In this throwback episode, Sleep Science Academy founder Devin Burke shares a holistic framework for understanding and overcoming sleep issues by addressing the nervous system, mind, body, and spirit connections.

• Sleep is a natural biological process that happens when we remove barriers, not something we can force or control
• Quality and quantity of sleep are both important, with individual needs varying based on age, lifestyle, and chronotype
• Poor sleep affects hormone regulation, cognitive function, emotional stability, and even physical health
• The "Three P Patterns" that keep people stuck in insomnia: perfectionism, problem-solving mindset, and putting sleep on a pedestal
• Sleep pressure and circadian rhythm are the two main systems controlling sleep, with napping potentially disrupting sleep pressure
• Creating anxiety around sleep by trying supplements, perfect environments, or special routines can backfire
• Most sleep hacks and trends (like lettuce water) miss the fundamental point that acceptance and releasing expectations are key

For more information about Devin Burke and his sleep programs, visit Sleep Science Academy or find him on YouTube and Instagram @devinburkewellness.


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© 2024 Holly Jean Mullen

Speaker 1:

Hello friends, it's Holly and full disclosure right out the gate. I am currently running on approximately zero hours of sleep. I got no winks last night. I am five days post-China trip and jet lag has officially evolved into full-blown insomnia. We're talking 26 hours awake and counting. At this point, I'm basically a coffee-scented ghost with a to-do list, and napping is not on that list because I am so afraid that if I take a nap, I am not going to be able to fall asleep tonight. I have never had jet lag before because I've never traveled so far internationally before, so this is all new to me. So, in the spirit of practicing what I preach and not forcing fresh content when my brain has clearly filed for sabbatical, I have made the wise decision to recycle one of my favorite past episodes with a sleep coach, because it just feels appropriate right now. Now you'll hear in the episode I am a self-proclaimed excellent sleeper and this current state of delirious zombie is as foreign to me as the Chinese language. And this episode originally aired back in October of 2021 on my previous podcast, low Carb Conversations with my awesome, amazing dear friend and co-host, leah Williamson. Awesome, amazing dear friend and co-host, leah Williamson. And yes, the year is vintage, but the content is still 2025. Fire.

Speaker 1:

We are talking to Devin Burke. He is the founder of Sleep Science Academy and the creator of a full spectrum sleep approach called Dynamic Sleep Recalibrating. It's not just about sleep hygiene or melatonin. He goes deeper, looking at the nervous system, the mind, the body and, yes, even the spirit, and that's why I love this conversation so much. Devin has helped thousands of people break free from the exhausting cycle of insomnia using this holistic framework, and he holds a degree in health promotion and, like a pile of certifications, his real PhD is in results. That's so cheesy, I know, but he has been in the trenches with real people. He has the transformations to show for it. So he has studied what it takes to rest and heal and restore, and he's drawing from psychology, physiology and spiritual traditions from all over the world. And he was also named one of the top 25 health coaches in America. And once you hear him, you'll understand why.

Speaker 1:

In this episode, we dive into what's really going on when your sleep goes off the rails. You know what I just have to say? It probably doesn't help with my sleep that we have a puppy and I don't know if you can hear him right now, but he's at my feet chewing on stuff and he's making all sorts of little snorting and grunting noises in his little happy puppy chews. But not helping with my sleep problems at night is having a puppy. But anyways, back to Devin.

Speaker 1:

We also talk about sleep debt and the pressure that we put on ourselves to sleep well and how that backfires. Hello, I am living proof of this right now. We're talking about circadian rhythms and sleep biology, and Devin breaks down what he calls his signature three Ps of sleep and how to use them to reset your rest without the stress. You know, I love all the things that take the stress out right. Like I said, this episode originally aired in 2021, but Devin is still active, he's still very much relevant and I have all his current links in the show notes for you. So if I mention it in this episode, it's still in the show notes now, even though this is a replay. So let's get into it.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me on the show and allowing me to share. I'll give you the quick version of a long story. But over the last decade I've studied a lot of different mind-body let's call them technologies really selfishly to figure out how I could live my best life, how I could wake up with energy, get things done, be productive, be happy, be joyful. And I, through that journey, I was helping a lot of high-performing entrepreneurs that were suffering from burnout. Not so much a sleep expert didn't know anything about sleep, took it for granted myself. This person had sleep issues, really bad, and he said hey, I know you've studied a lot of things. Can you help with this issue? I said I've studied a lot of things, but I don't know anything about sleep. I don't really. I think it's a waste of time, like you're having issues.

Speaker 2:

So, anyway, he inspired me to look into, first and foremost, insomnia and the solutions available. And when I saw what was available, I was like, wow, this is first and foremost a lot of the what was available sleeping pills, highly addictive, dangerous side effects. And then on the other side of that is CBTI. I was like, okay, that's one tool that can be effective. But it really inspired me to learn more about the science of sleep. And then see, I love challenges. So I was like, well, let me dive into this. The more I dove into it, the more interested I got in it. And then I said, well, let me see if I can help this person. And I was able to help him using some of the techniques and the tools that I learned. I said, if I can help one person, I can help millions of people and in a way that is better than what's currently available. So that kind of zooms me up to what I do now at Sleep Science Academy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that sounds pretty interesting. So did you have like, just as a side, did you have any sleep issues yourself or not sleep issues? But now your sleep is enhanced way more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I don't have like a sob story where I had insomnia and it was terrible and I was on this quest to figure it out for myself. I just I'm a really curious person. I like to solve problems. I'm a natural, I guess entrepreneur. That's what we do, and I love health.

Speaker 2:

And so when I the more I studied sleep specifically and the more I realized that it literally is the foundation of health and what it does and all the amazing things that happen during the night and how that impacts our performance, our energy, and then I said, okay, there's something here. Let me start to measure my own sleep. And once I started to measure my own sleep, I realized that I wasn't that as good of a sleeper as I thought I was, realized that I wasn't that as good of a sleeper as I thought I was. And so I started to optimize and pull certain levers and test certain things, and that enabled me to get better quality of sleep. And I saw how that quality of sleep ended up translating to my day into my mental performance, into my mood, and really it's little hinges swing big doors when we're talking about sleep quality, and so that really had an impact on me and you know.

Speaker 2:

So that was. It's an ongoing process and I'm always trying new supplements and trying different. You know strategies and and and um be happy to share some of those, but it's um, it's like you can always improve something, but we spend a third of our lives in bed. Why not improve that one third to make the other two thirds that much better? It's my mentality, at least.

Speaker 3:

Definitely I couldn't agree with you more than Holly Were you going to say? Something Was when you were kind of describing.

Speaker 4:

I was thinking like you don't know if you're sleeping good or if you're sleeping bad until you experience like really great sleep. And I was thinking like you don't know if you're sleeping good or if you're sleeping bad until you experience like really great sleep. And I was thinking like, let's say, you're someone who sleeps in a budget motel, every time you travel right, and you think, oh, this is great. And then one time you stay in a luxury hotel and you're like I am never going back. And so I imagine like if you, if you just think your mediocre is fine and then you have great sleep, one day you're like, oh, so does it kind of turn you into a diva, like when it comes to your sleeping hacks and stuff, when you're like I need my cold room, I need my blanket.

Speaker 2:

I can't wait till we get into all that, when we get used to feeling a certain way and we think that that's like normal or good, that's like normal or good, and then when we experienced something else like we go from the budget hotel to the $10,000 massaging mattress that cools and heats up and you realize, oh my God, what was I thinking when I was sleeping on this budget hotel?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's the same thing with your sleep and you know so. As far as for me, needing all of this, the perfect environment, and having you know all this, the special things I really I let go of all those those things. I can sleep on a rock and I'd be okay with it, because one of the downsides to thinking that you need a cold, dark room and a $10,000 mattress and all these things it actually creates pressure, pressure and anxiety around sleep, which ends up doing the opposite of getting good quality sleep, because you have all these expectations and things need to be perfect, and and then that creates more unnecessary pressure and stress, which actually does the opposite for your sleep, that it doesn't allow you to get deeper delta or rem sleep. So so I'm relaxed about it, but I trust me, I love sleeping in an optimized bedroom. My in my house, for sure it's optimized, but elsewhere it's like I could sleep on a couch. I'd be fine.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Us moms always talking about sleep vacation. So like, instead of just going away for like a weekend of drinking and partying or whatever it is, it's like let's just book into a hotel and go to sleep.

Speaker 4:

I love that, yeah, so so.

Speaker 2:

I know you're you're a kid. Well, maybe you're kidding, but one of the things that I'm working on currently is creating a sleep retreat in Utah where people can come and be in this environment that's optimized for sleep, that has like no EMFs. It has this perfect mattress that has, you know, the lights, and literally you could come and hang out for a week or a weekend and that's what you do is. You get amazing sleep and you're an amazing beautiful place. So that's in the works for me there.

Speaker 3:

When the when the world opens up again, sign me up.

Speaker 2:

All right cool.

Speaker 3:

Holly and I will go for a sleep vacation, all right. Well, this, this is awesome already. I knew this conversation was going to be great, but before we move on to some of our articles, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about your book, the sleep advantage, and I hear you've just recorded a new audio book, so tell us about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, um. So the sleep advantage really came out of all the research that I was doing over the last four years to improve my own health. I like to put people in different buckets when I talk about sleep. There's the insomniacs, then there's, like, this big chunk of the world that just doesn't think sleep's important and doesn't do anything to improve their sleep. And then there's, on the other side of that there's like the biohackers and the people that wanna optimize and they're doing all the things.

Speaker 2:

So I really wrote the book to take people from the big bucket of people that don't realize the power and the importance of sleep and start to shift them more towards that other optimization category where they can realize how by doing these simple practices and the book's very tangible, it's very actionable. There is some science, but it's more so if you read some of the other very popular sleep books out there, which are fantastic. Like Matt Walker's book, it's not so actionable. It's more like science. It's more like he's giving you facts and figures.

Speaker 2:

The reason I wrote the Sleep Advantage was to give people a plan and say, hey, this is what to do, this is why to do it, this is how to do it, and so I released that last year became a bestseller because I think people needed a simple guide with tangible steps, not just to know that when you don't sleep, how detrimental that is to your health, but what to do to actually improve your sleep. And so that's the book and it's also on audio version, which I recorded in my voice, which was a lot of fun for me and I've been getting great feedback, so I appreciate you sharing that with your listeners.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, great, We'll link that up into the show notes so everyone can take a look at that. And then you mentioned before to your sleep academy, was it? Was that the right name of that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sleep Science Academy.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, sleep Science, so tell us a little bit about that as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that Sleep Science Academy, we help people mostly in the United States we do have some international clients get and stay asleep using a holistic approach based in science. So over a period of eight weeks we help people successfully reset their sleep systems and the bed dread and allow them to get natural sleep, without the need for Ambien or Linesta or all these drugs, alcohol or even sleep hygiene, for that matter. We teach people, we give people the mindset tools, the support and leverage technology to give people what they need to restore their natural ability to sleep. So that's what we do at Sleep Science Academy.

Speaker 3:

And now, moving on to the articles, holly's got the first one and I think we're going to talk a little bit more about boosting that sleep quality and get into some more of your hacks here.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I like that bed dread. Ok, this first article is from Real Simple Magazine and this is from their latest edition in August, and the title of it is how Well you Sleep Matters More Than how Much you Sleep. Here's how to Boost your Sleep Quality. This article, quick summary, discusses the recommended number of hours to sleep per night, whether quality or quantity is most important, suggesting that both are important and why, and it walks us through kind of understanding the sleep stages, why we need both REM sleep as well as an REM sleep, and suggestions for sleep improvement. Before we get into this article, Devin, I'm wondering like is eight still the magic number of hours recommended of sleep per night? And where did that come from?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So to answer the question, no, everyone's sleep needs are unique. So some people can do fantastic with seven hours. Some people need a little bit more than eight hours and it also depends on where you are in your life. Your lifestyle, you know, are you an athlete? Are you 70 year old, male or female Like, are you a 16 year old child or a teenager? That's an athlete, or maybe not, maybe a bookworm.

Speaker 2:

So depending on, like, your lifestyle, how old you are, how much stress your, your job and sort of stress you put yourself through, all dictates how much sleep you're going to need, on top of your unique chronotype, your unique chronobiology. So we all have this. You know, night owl and morning lark is kind of the more common term that people are familiar with. But that's our like sleep genetics and sometimes we're prone to need, you know, to want to go to sleep a little bit later and need less sleep. And some people are just they. They do better with more sleep. So there's a lot of factors. Eight hours, I think, definitely is a myth, but it's, you know, between seven to eight hours generally for most healthy adults. Is, is, is what's necessary, and so, depending on all the things I just said will dictate is it more towards the seven or is it more towards the eight, and that can change throughout life as well.

Speaker 4:

Okay, so a lot of our listeners are from, like the paleo keto, like primal circle. So when you say that we have unique chronotypes and sleep cycles and some people are night owls, some people are early birds, but I think, like in this circle, we kind of have this idea that we're meant to go to sleep with the sun and rise with the sun. So do you think that that is accurate, like throughout, like human evolution, or do you think that we are still kind of wired that way and have just adjusted to modern living? Or maybe we've never really been modern or wired that way?

Speaker 2:

No, that's a great question. I love that question and it's a hard one to answer. I definitely think that because of modern technology, our sleep cycles have changed and are changing just because of the way the world's operating with artificial light and with working with Netflix and with all these things that kind of pull us away from sleep. But there are a lot of research now. Dr Michael Bruce, he's doing a lot of this chronotype research. Dr Michael Bruce, he's doing a lot of this chronotype research. He's written a great book called the Power of when, which talks about, yes, there are certain genes and our circadian clock.

Speaker 2:

Essentially every cell has a circadian clock, powerful, that kind of sinks all the other clocks and so, depending on your, your genetics, you might be more of an evening person or a morning person. And if you go back into like the paleolithic times and we're talking about like the hunters and the gatherers, like there's there was a need for that. There is like the need for the people that could stay up late and protect the tribe and then maybe other people that were more of not the hunters, they were more of like the daytime workers, if you will. So I think like there's like an evolutionary adaptation for survival in these different chronotypes, which that's just my opinion. It makes sense to me, but being synced with natural rhythms in general, whatever they are for you, is so important.

Speaker 2:

Synced with natural rhythms in general, whatever they are for you, is so important. Like you know, we are so out of sync with nature, you know it's. It's unbelievable how far we've come from from what's natural, um with our sleep, with the sunlight, with, you know, fresh air, with you know being able to be connected to the earth, the electromagnetic frequency of the earth, you know, being able to be connected to the earth, the, you know, electromagnetic frequency of the earth. There's so much dysregulation now with all these um interferences. That's one of the reasons why we have this massive sleep epidemic, beyond, on top of all the stresses, the emotional and mental stresses that people experience, um just because of modern, the modern world that we live in.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, fascinating. I'd really like to dive into that. I'm going to have to look into it. Okay, so quality and quantity of sleep are both important, but are they equally important?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So that is a tough question to answer because they are both important. So I don't really have an answer for that because I would say you know some people it's. It's a tricky one because some people can say, well, I want to sleep less and make that and try to optimize the the sleep that I am sleeping and make that better quality. But usually what happens is your body needs a certain amount of sleep regardless. So, based off of your chronotype and lifestyle and all the things that we already went through, so you can, I think, toy with that a little bit to a point. So like, if somebody is a seven hour sleeper and they're trying to get five hours and make like three, two or three of those hours quality sleep, it's going to be really hard to do and eventually I think that even if they were able to achieve that, there would be a toll on their health because they're not getting enough sleep. Does that make? Does that make sense?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it does. I mean and it all of it makes sense is that there's not really a black or white or a yes or no answer. You know, there is a lot of gray area because we have to take into account bioindividuality.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. That's a great word and I love that it's so true. So I think focusing on both is important. Like stage one is figuring out, well, how much sleep is enough for me, and then looking at, well, how much of that sleep is actually quality sleep is phase two, where you're looking at, well, okay, I'm getting seven hours, I'm a seven hour person, but when I in that, that presupposes that you're measuring it, because we can't manage what we don't measure and we can't master what we don't manage. And so if we're measuring our sleep, then we can see okay, I'm getting, I'm getting seven hours, but wow, 20 of my total sleep time is not deep sleep. It's actually that I'm out of kpi there. So what can I do? All right, I cannot maybe eat as late in the night, because we get most of our deep sleep in the first quarter of the night. And then you can start to kind of pull these levers and see about maximizing the quantity of the quality of sleep within the quantity.

Speaker 4:

Okay, you mentioned a couple of things that I want to go back to. One was you mentioned how sleep would affect our health. So I want to. I want to know about what are some things that can go wrong with our health. And then, just so I don't forget, well darn it, I think I already forgot. All right, let's just go with that one.

Speaker 2:

Well, one of the things is actually memory loss.

Speaker 4:

Oh, gosh, it's obvious I haven't been sleeping this week.

Speaker 2:

You teed that up really nice for me. Yeah, so there's a lot of science around what a lack of sleep and quality sleep does for our cognitive performance, in our memory and anyone. You don't need to be a rocket scientist or read an article to know that when you don't get good sleep, your brain is just a little bit slower, and we can see this in specifically in auto accidents. So you know, matt Walker talks about this in his book about daytime savings. When we lose that hour of sleep, there's the most car accidents and heart attacks the day before.

Speaker 2:

And the reason is because sleep is that important to our mental function, our ability to concentrate, to stay focused, stay present, as well as our reaction time, as well as just our general hormone health, you know. So that's one of the things that goes away when we're not getting enough quality sleep or enough sleep is that our hormones get out of sync. So ghrelin and leptin are the hunger signaling hormone and the full signaling hormone. Those get out of sync. So you crave fat and sugar like crazy. You overeat and your cortisol is higher, so you're storing that sugar like crazy. You overeat and and you, your cortisol is higher, so you're storing that as fat on your body. So from a physical standpoint to a mental standpoint, to a longevity standpoint, you know telomere shortened. There's so many areas that are impacted when we don't get consistent, good sleep.

Speaker 4:

When I was young and used to go out and party and close the bars down and the next day I would feel like crap. I always thought it was because, well, I was out drinking all night. Of course I didn't feel good. Now I'm not out drinking all night, but if I'm not getting sleep the next day I feel hungover, Like my chest hurts, my head hurts, my body aches. I can't think.

Speaker 2:

I want to eat all the food. So, yeah, it's an emotionally you're more irritable, You're on edge, you make poor decisions and you know it's, it's not good. I talk to people literally all over the country every day that have that a lack of sleep is destroying their lives, either their, their financial health, their physical health, their relational health because it does sleep, does impact all these areas, because it's like a, it's a trickle effect and you know, when you're not sleeping, you're, you're, you're more stressed into street. Sleep and stress are bi-directionally linked, meaning the less sleep you get, the more stressed you are. The more stressed you are, the less sleep you get. So it becomes this vicious cycle I call it the zombie cycle or the insomniac paradox which then keeps people, you know, on this Ferris wheel of of not feeling good until they're able to get off it.

Speaker 4:

All right, I'm going to pass it to Leah because I don't have the whole show. Let's see if we can make up for sleep this weekend.

Speaker 3:

I'm just enjoying listening to all of this, but I do have an article here which is called why it's a good idea to sleep on the weekend. Here I'm fatigued as well because I haven't had enough sleep. Um, so, uh, this is just about a study that's being published that found, uh, that catching up on sleep on the weekend is not such a bad idea if you really need it. They're saying it's contrary to Matthew Walker's beliefs, which is he says that sleep is not like banking and you can't accumulate debt and pay it back later. And they're saying that, um, new research contradicts this. Um, they show that you may be able to recoup your woefully lost sleep with an occasional lie-in, and it showed that people who slept less than five hours a night or more than eight hours a night had a higher mortality rate than those that slept more. Overall, it was the amount of sleep a person got that seemed to make the difference.

Speaker 3:

So I guess my question is I burnt the candle a little bit last night. I went, I had an event, stayed out, couldn't go to sleep when I came home because I was all hyped up. It was such a good, you know, heartfelt, exciting event. So I wanted to sit up and share some of that love for a little bit. And then when I finally went to bed, my alarm's going off because I'm recording super early here and I've got events on all this weekend. So can I have a nap sometime today and be ready to go tonight.

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, based off of what you just shared, I would highly recommend that you do take a nap and you will be okay tonight. So you know again. So, depending on who like, the question is, you know, is sleep debt real? And what I'm getting is two questions Is sleep debt real? Is trying to catch up on sleep bad or harmful? And so, depending on the demographic I'm speaking to, right.

Speaker 2:

So if, if it's, if you are, if you said, uh, I am an insomniac, I have chronic insomnia, you know, I would say, okay, taking naps not the best idea because it's going to decrease your sleep drive and sleep pressure. But if you're, you know, an entrepreneur, you're burning the candle through both, both ends and you have the space and the time to take a nap, do it. It's going to be way better than a cup of coffee, as long as you don't get into deep sleep. So, like a 20 minute snooze, 20 minute, yeah, would be like the best thing you possibly could do to. And I always tell people, you know, try it on If you don't, as long as you don't have insomnia. Like naps are amazing Naps and catching up on sleep can be amazing.

Speaker 2:

Now, if you have insomnia and if you're. You know you're a chronic insomniac, napping and trying to catch up on sleep on the weekends. Not so amazing, not going to be good, because it's going to dysregulate that sleep pressure system and and then it becomes a real problem. So I would say, depending on who I'm speaking to is going to dictate. You know what. What piece of information would be most useful for that person.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that makes sense. I might just borrow you to tell my children to let me have a little nap later on as well, because they don't normally let me nap. But no, it definitely makes sense. So my husband's always had sleep problems and he takes a nap every single day and I said to him if you took that nap out and tried to kind of reset your cycle again, you'd be fine. You wouldn't rely on that nap at lunchtime every single day. Is that like? Am I down the right track, telling him that?

Speaker 2:

I think you are. Yeah, because when we nap, what can happen? If we're consistently napping every day? It can disturb the sleep pressure system. So there's two systems that control sleep circadian rhythm and sleep pressure. And sleep pressure is the buildup of adenosine, and so when we're napping we're essentially releasing some of that pressure and then some of that adenosine is getting cleared out and it's not building up enough to create the sleepiness so that then we can sleep throughout the entire night. So it's, it can be.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I would say, if you listen to this husband, stop taking naps yes good, yeah, can give him some more jobs now instead of napping, no, um, but seriously though, like I don't normally take a nap during the day, because I know that it would be harder for me to get to sleep at nighttime, and then you get in that cycle. So it's like I napped, now I go to bed later, and now I'm tired again, so I take another nap, so it kind of goes into that cycle. So for me I prefer just to keep going, have one day of less sleep and then just sleep a little bit longer into the next night, if that's possible.

Speaker 2:

So depending next night if that's possible.

Speaker 2:

So depending on what time you nap, too is going to be a big factor there. If you're not too late into the day, then not a good idea. If you're not being like earlier on in the day, like like after 1 pm, like when you naturally have that body temperature dip and you sort of get tired after lunch, that's not just because of the food you ate, that's also because of the natural body temperature starts to dip and our body temperature needs to drop between two to three degrees Fahrenheit in order to do sleep and we get this natural dip. That's why we and most countries around the world take a siesta. That's. That's why it's like, biologically, our body saying, yeah, wind down, chill out, take a rest. That's a great time to take a nap.

Speaker 3:

Four o'clock in the afternoon or five o'clock in the afternoon, not so good to take a nap if you plan on in the afternoon, or five o'clock in the afternoon, not so good to take a nap If you plan on being in bed by 10 o'clock.

Speaker 4:

Holly loves a good nap. I am the queen of naps and this is right in my nap time. I like to nap right around two to two 30 and my cat knows when it's nap time he lets me know. Mama is time for a nap.

Speaker 2:

Nap queen. I like that. You should have a shirt that says nap queen. That's a cool title.

Speaker 4:

I used to say I'm not excellent at many things, but I am excellent at sleeping.

Speaker 2:

That's a great thing to be excellent at. I think a lot of people listening to this are probably very jealous.

Speaker 4:

What about this week? This week doesn't count.

Speaker 3:

What about if I decide not to take a nap, but at that normal time when my energy is kind of like feeling like it needs a rest, at that dip you were just talking about, if I just sat and meditated, or if I just sat and rested, would that be equivalent? I'm a yoga teacher too, and there's this saying is like when you do restorative yoga, it's like equivalent to having a night's sleep. Can you, can you, um, make up sleep through other methods, like that?

Speaker 2:

yeah, so there's. There is some interesting research about people that are able to drop into different brainwave states using meditation techniques. Most people don't have the skills to do that. Um, the meditation skills like that's like monks that have been, you know, meditate all day and have been doing it for like decades Um, but yeah, so there are you can put your, your brain, in a certain sort of restorative state, um, that kind of mimics, sleep while you're still conscious, and there are certain techniques of meditation I know that allow people to actually need less sleep because of that process. So, you know, depending on, I think, the type of meditation and how skilled you are at it and all that, I think will dictate whether or not that would be possible for you.

Speaker 3:

And I agree, and most people probably can't get into that state. What about just having that parasympathetic time, like you know, tapping into that part of the nervous system and just I mean just resting, being without distraction? Can that drop us into? Is it more the relaxation that's happening there rather than, um, you know, being equivalent to sleep kind of thing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean that's a, that's a. It's definitely beneficial either way, but I don't think it gets better than sleep yeah.

Speaker 3:

Nothing can beat that sleep.

Speaker 2:

No, like it's just another level. When you're, when you're in, when you're sleeping, your body's like pretty much shut down, even if you're just in the parasympathetic, whether it's you're just like meditating or relaxing or doing something low stim, it's still, it's I, it's good.

Speaker 3:

But if we're talking good, better, best, I would say sleep best, that would be like good yeah, I think that's good to know, because I think that if you're prioritizing anything, just take sleep as the number one and then, yeah, anytime you can just relax and rest is still going to be beneficial for you, though 100 percent. Love that. All right, I'm going to pass back to Holly because she's got some really great insomnia cures that we want to know whether they're true or not.

Speaker 4:

I want to go into these. First, I have a completely random and personal question. I have a completely random and personal question. So when I get really tired like if it's late and I'm I need to go to sleep I sometimes feel sick, like I get nauseous, I feel like I'm going to barf. Is that normal and why does that happen?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't think that's normal. Um, why it happens could be a number of reasons. It could be a blood sugar thing. Um, it could be a blood sugar thing. Um, it could be a blood sugar thing. So I'm not sure if you've ever used a continuous blood glucose monitor yeah, yeah, I did the nutrisense for a few months.

Speaker 4:

I never noticed anything. Okay, I thought it would maybe be something common.

Speaker 2:

You don't have to no, but hey, if I've never heard of that. But if I do ever hear of anyone else having that experience, I will.

Speaker 4:

I'll let you know if it's only like when I'm exhausted, and that's when I know OK, you need to go to bed because you're in the bar phase.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know what that is. So when you are exhausted, yeah, absolutely, it's almost like's, almost like you're. I think this has to do. It does have to do with blood sugar. Like if you're totally spent, like, let's say, you're a extrovert and you go to this big live event and you're talking to people and there's music and there's all these lights and everything's going on and you're like, you're like all hyped up and excited about things and that's like over a really long period of time. And then you're trying, you like can push past that point of like. Now your body's telling you, hey, you need to slow down, I'm going to make you feel sick, I'm going to do. The body's incredible, has its own intelligence. It'll do things to make us slow down. It's constantly speaking to us. That could be like your body just saying giving you the signal like you're at your threshold, like you need to chill out, you need to shut it down. That could be it. Again, I have no idea that I'm just giving it.

Speaker 4:

That's what I chalk it up to. Is that's my body going? Okay, you're done and it's time to go home.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it makes sense to me.

Speaker 4:

Okay, all right, let's get back to business here. All right. This last article. This is a fun one. It is called my Deep Sleep Quest. I tried 11 popular insomnia cures. Do any of them work? This is the story of a journalist how to sleep the best trying all sorts of different tricks, with sleep being such a common problem. I think a lot of people do this, and she tries everything from pillow sprays, mouth sprays, roll-ons, creams, breathing techniques, cbd drops, the weighted blankets, melatonin, counting backwards, including some weird ones I've never heard of that we'll talk about, but I don't know, because I am an excellent sleeper, as I mentioned. But I know that people who don't sleep well, they are willing to try anything to go to sleep or to overcome their insomnia. So where do you suggest people start when trying to find the magic key to a night's rest?

Speaker 2:

And, um, let's go over some of these things that, like, might actually work yeah, so, so, um, so one of the big things that just everyone listening to this needs to know is sleep's a natural biological process that happens when you allow it to happen or when you remove the to it happening. So oftentimes people get caught in what I call this paradox of trying to force or control sleep, and sleep's not something you can force, control and trying to do so, you're actually going to create more anxiety and pressure around it, which is going to lead to more of what you don't want and so like. Again, you cannot force sleep, you can't like will sleep. It does doing that. And these are when you use the sprays and the pillows and all this.

Speaker 2:

All this, this whole article of all these things is this uh, this poor journalist has tried. She is trying to control something that you cannot control and in doing so, this is why she's stuck. And in the bottom of the article she actually says the most insightful thing, which is, let me see, she says, the best medicine, I fear, may be acceptance. The way she phrases this, the best medicine is acceptance. The way she phrases it, I think she could have. It's more about like sounds like she's talking about resignation, not acceptance, but acceptance is actually a key to getting out of this paradox is actually not having expectations around what will happen during the night.

Speaker 2:

And and so what happens is people have these expectations I'm going to do this and that's going to make me sleep. And when it doesn't work, it reinforces a false belief that they're broken and they're not going to be able to sleep. And then they try something else, and it reinforces that belief. And now, all of a sudden, now they think that they're going to have to live with insomnia the rest of their life. And they don't. And that's every insomniac's baseline fear is I'm going to have to, I'm going to live the rest of my life not being able to sleep. And it's not true. And that thought itself is creating anxiety, which is creating less sleep.

Speaker 4:

Okay, and that reminded me of what I forgot earlier, when you were talking about things that you can do to actually measure whether or not you are getting a good night's sleep. So maybe we can circle back to that and then what your recommendations are. I mean, I know you just said remove the expectations, but are there other things that people can do to help remove the barriers to getting a good night's sleep?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, one of the first things is change the belief that you need anything in order to sleep. There are people, millions of people, that can sleep on trains, planes and in the car, in the worst environments, and they have no problem sleeping. But somehow we come up with a belief that we need the perfect environment, we need this essential oil, we need a hot shower, we need to, you know, pray and do this mantra, we need acupuncture, we need this, we need that. It's all. That's all that can be helpful to increase sleep quality. But believing that you need any of that in order to sleep is a false belief that keeps people stuck.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that makes sense. Like I'm, I'm all about like having the sleep routine or doing things at night to relax and get your body ready for sleep. But, um, I never really understood that being dependent upon, like certain circumstances or situations and having everything just right.

Speaker 2:

But I'm also not a type A personality, so yeah, if you can release your expectations and just accept whatever the night brings, whether it's a great night of sleep or it's a challenging night of sleep, your body's going to be in the best position to actually sleep. And that's what people don't realize. They try to force it or control it or they resist, like there's a saying. We say a lot in Sleep Science Academy what you resist persists, and so people resist the you know uncomfortable feelings that sometimes come along with not sleeping and that creates more uncomfortable feelings, which creates more of what they don't want. So there's a lot of there's a lot to be said about just releasing expectations around sleep and releasing pressure and really challenging the stories about what you have. You see, this is where it's I have. I teach something.

Speaker 2:

It's called the three P patterns. There's perfectionism, problem solver and pedestal patterns. Most of the people in sleep science Academy that we serve have all three of these patterns. Perfectionism is like this this woman that tried all these different things, she's trying to perfect her sleep. She's and she's trying to solve it. She's also in problem solver patterns. She's trying to solve it Like it's a problem.

Speaker 2:

Sleep is not a problem. Sleep is a result, it's not a problem and so and so the pedestal pattern is people put it on pedestal. This is the tricky one because, you know, like people like Matt Walker and all this science, it's like, yes, when we get great sleep, we have better energy, we're more focused, we, you know every, you know our health is better. But by putting it on a pedestal creates this expectation that if I don't sleep, then like my body's falling apart, my memory's falling apart, and then that creates what anxiety and stress, anxiety and stress creates less sleep, what anxiety and stress, anxiety and stress creates less sleep. So identifying the three P patterns and really working through those patterns can transform somebody that's tried everything and still can't sleep. Usually that's what they're missing. They're missing how to change their relationship to sleep.

Speaker 4:

That was gold right there, you know. Thank you for coming to Devin's TED talk, although you've done the TED talk. Was that what it was on? Thank you for coming to Devin's TED Talk, although you've done the TED Talk. Was that what it was on that? Was so good All right, I want to know about lettuce water. Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 3:

Sorry, I was just going to say something there. I love what you just said, devin, and when my children have trouble sleeping, I'm like the tough love master. They'll be like mom, I can't sleep, I don't want to go to sleep, I'm like that's rubbish. Just go in there and lay, lay down and stop fussing about it. My daughter be like oh, can I have the oil? But I'm like no, just go in there, close your eyes, you'll get to sleep. And within five minutes they're asleep. Um, so I love that I'm doing the right thing.

Speaker 2:

You are keep, keep it up.

Speaker 4:

My son does the same thing. He'll be up going. I can't sleep, I can't do this, and it's like well one. Let's start by getting in bed and to close your eyes. Let's see what happens. We'll start there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you don't want to train your kids to feel like they need anything in order to sleep, because they don't.

Speaker 4:

A little bit. Okay, let's circle back. So there is a trend on TikTok going around to help people sleep. That is lettuce water. Have you heard of this? What is it? Is it up there with celery juice? I don't even know.

Speaker 2:

Honestly, I haven't heard of that and I I know nothing about lettuce water, but I can assure you that if, if that is the holy grail to a great night's sleep, I think a lot more people will be drinking lettuce water. I think that's probably just a tick tock sort of joke or one of these viral things on the Internet that somehow I don't know how people actually believe and start to do I. That one is new to me, that is, that is definitely disgusting.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I agree with you. I don't, I don't recommend lettuce water. Um no, it's not. That's not in the recommendation last year.

Speaker 3:

And aren't they taking, like, the oil from it or something like, something weird? But lettuce doesn't even let us seed oil, and that's what it is, I think.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, it's like yeah.

Speaker 3:

Like who would even think of that?

Speaker 2:

is I think, oh yeah, it's like. Yeah, like, who would even think of that? Yeah, it's not a thing, guys, I I really you know it. Listen, I've never tried it so I can't really knock it, but I haven't heard of that. That, literally, was the first time I've ever. I'm not on tiktok either, but or a lot of social media, but uh, yeah, that's, that's definitely out. The lettuce water I've not heard that one. That one's, that's a, that's a shocker right there.

Speaker 4:

Well, if any of our listeners are struggling with sleep and they want to give that one a try, let us know how it goes, let us know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let us know. I've heard of banana tea. Banana tea, that one, that one actually got one recently. Yeah, boiling, you know boiling the banana peels, because it releases, you know, natural melatonin. And banana tea, I mean, tastes much better than I think warm lettuce water. I'm just throwing that out there, um, but that would be an interesting experiment for for listeners, to try lettuce water versus banana tea and attract your sleep. Let us know how it goes.

Speaker 4:

Let's make that, let's make that challenge go viral. Okay, since you just mentioned it, I wanted to wrap up. But since you did just say melatonin, I know that is a common go-to for people and there are both sides of that camp saying, yes, do it, as long as it helps. Whatever helps you sleep, go ahead and do it. And then there's the other camp that says, don't do it, it's a hormone helps whatever helps you sleep, go ahead and do it. And then there's the other camp that says, don't do it, it's a hormone, you're going to mess with things, create more problems. Is that one of those yes and or maybe answers yeah?

Speaker 2:

it is I. I tend to lean more towards the not using melatonin because it's a hormone and it's, you know, it's actually regulated in the eu. It's, it's. I don't like to mess around with hormones, I just think that you know your body, unless, unless you know again, there are some circumstances and there are some interesting like studies about, like, high dose melatonin for health, um, but I don't know, I just get a little bit concerned when people start popping hormone pills, um, to try to figure out their sleep, and the supplement industry is just not regulated. It's, you know, there's. Actually. There was a study specifically done on melatonin that showed, even across the same brand, there was varying amounts of melatonin within the same company's supplement. So it's kind of like one of those things. It's, it's a bandaid, it's it's a bandaid.

Speaker 4:

There are other avenues to explore first, for sure Okay. Leah, do you have any final questions for?

Speaker 3:

Devin, no, I'm, I've just really enjoyed this chat so much I'm going to go and take a nap next.

Speaker 4:

I don't get my nap today you guys are taking my nap right now I'll forgive you. Okay, you said you're not on social media, but I know you are on Instagram, so is that the best place for people to find you, or is there somewhere else to direct people to learn more about you and find your sleep Academy and all that stuff?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so. So when I say a lot on social media, I just don't spend a lot of time on it, but I do post content on, specifically on YouTube. I have a lot of great videos on my YouTube channel for talking about how to sleep, the these paradoxes within sleep. You know some of the techniques and tools that we use at sleep science Academy. Put out a lot of good stuff there on YouTube, instagram, devenberg Wellness, linkedin, devenberg Wellness everywhere else. But if you're looking for like strategies and actually content wise, definitely YouTube is where I put out most of the stuff.

Speaker 4:

Okay, fantastic. We'll be sure to link all those sites up in the show notes so our guests can ease or listeners can easily find you. Thank you so much for coming on today. This has been a really great conversation. I know I got a lot of value out of it. I think our listeners will get a lot of value out of it. So thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

All right, that's it for today's show. Thanks for hanging out with me, especially if you're listening at 3am wide-eyed, like me this week. Big thanks to Devin for sharing such timeless wisdom. You can find all of his updated links in the show notes. And hey, if this episode helped you feel seen, less stressed, or just reminded you that you are not broken when it comes to sleep, just share it with a fellow tired soul. Until next time, may your bed be cozy and your brain be quiet, and I pray you get some sleep. I pray I get some sleep. I'll see you next time.

People on this episode

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Holly Jean Mullen

Host
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Leah Williamson

Co-host