#116 - But, How's Your Sleep? - Easy Sleep Tips that WORK

September 14, 2020 Ellyn | Burnout Coach & Speaker

Summary

𝗕𝘂𝘁...𝗵𝗼𝘄'𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽?

My teenage students HATE when I ask them this question...but it's so damn necessary.

Cuz the burnout? The relentless work? The never stop, never quit, do do do, go go go, burn the candle at both ends shit that we ALL do? We learn that as early as our teens...

And I've been rewriting shit sleep patterns and habits for the better part of a decade. But I'm having this conversation with you now because - even after re-reading the AMAZING book "Sleep Smarter" this summer - I'd forgotten about the necessity of sleep...

After running my body ragged this past month, I'm being reminded that sleep is essential for...

👉🏻A strong immune system

👉🏻Repair and rejuvenation when you've run yourself ragged

👉🏻Memory and focus

👉🏻And SO much more!

In today's podcast episode, I'm talking about easy sleep tips that work and that you can implement TONIGHT when your head hits the pillow!

For show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast and, of course, if you have any questions or want to connect, head on over to @coachellyn on Instagram.

ACTION STEPS:

Create an IDEAL Environment.
- Keep your environment cool, dark, and quiet
  - Dark? Get black out curtains
  - Quiet? I love this sleep machine from Snooz or just use a fan
  - Get YOURSELF ready for sleep.
    - Limit your technology or just don’t use it
      - If you have to use technology, check out these blue light glasses from Amazon
      - Dim your lights
        
        If you can’t, just turn on your more “red” lights
        
        Create a pre-sleep routine that gets your ready to sleep
        
        Advanced Tips:
        
        Magnesium instead of Melatonin supplements
        
        Drink tea - I love Sleepy Time or Camomille tea. I have taken CBD from SoulCBD…
        
        Workout earlier in the day
        
        Expose yourself to light early in the day to set your circadian rhythms more effectively
        
        Try grounding, which you can learn more about here
        
        Last but not least, here are some finals nuggets to leave you with:
        
        Try one thing at a time. Don’t try to overhaul your entire sleep routine all at the same time
        
        Focus on consistency. This isn’t a temporary thing…you’ve gotta be consistent with it.

RESOURCES IN THIS EPISODE:

The core of this episode was based on the book Sleep Smarter - Shawn Stevenson
My “What’s your Burnout Type?” Quiz is coming soon - head here to register for ANY freebie and you’ll be informed as soon as it’s available

Transcript:

(00:00):

Hello, my friend. And welcome back to the take back your life podcast today. I want to ask you a very, very important question because y'all know that like my big mission here on this podcast and in my work is to really empower you a very high achieving professional millennial woman to free yourself from burnout, because I want you to find more fun and fulfillment in your life. That's why I'm here. So today we get to have a very, very unsexy conversation. And to start that conversation, I want to ask you an important question.

(01:45):

How's your sleep? Literally.

(01:47):

I am a professional tutor in my day job, and I know how much my high schoolers hate it when I ask them this question. But even though they hate it, this is a really, really important question for us to consider when we're talking about burnout. I don't know about you guys, but sleep is something that I have on and off struggled with for years, which is hysterical because my mom can tell you when I was younger, I would sleep like a log. I could sleep through earthquakes. Like I could sleep through anything. And something happened when I got older, you know, call it the stress, call it the, to do listing, call it. The fact that I'm constantly thinking about how I can grow, how it can be better, whatever, but sleep has become a lot harder for me as I've gotten older. I don't know if you can relate to this, but sleep is something that is a challenge. Now I love sleep still. Like that has not changed, but the quality of my sleep, isn't where it was when I was younger. It's a lot harder for me to get that high quality sleep nowadays.

(02:50):

So I have spent a lot of time in recent years, playing with sleep, hacks, tips, tricks, things to do and things that I've really found to be helpful when it comes to sleep. So that is what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to be talking about easy sleep tips that work, and I'll tell you right now, a lot of what we are going to be talking about is from the book, sleep smarter by Shawn Stevenson. I re I discovered this book a couple of years ago, and I have literally been rereading it each year since I discovered it because I get so much value from it. And I feel like each time I read it, I learn some new things. So that's a lot of what it's going to be talked about enough today in this episode today - 0Ooh, talking is so hard - um, is going to be stuff from this book.

(03:36):

So highly recommend you check out the book yourself. But if you can't, I'm going to try to distill it down nicely for you into some of the easy tips. That'll give you the most bang for your buck and are a great place to start as well as some more advanced tips.

(03:48):

But before we dive into all of that, I want to let you guys know that I also am creating something that I am really, really excited about. I already have a bunch of freebies on my website, coachellyn.com/Freebies. There's all sorts of really, really awesome freebies for you there. I've got my free burnout guide, the high achievers guide to managing burnout. I've got my go-to playlist. I've got some time management tips. I've got my goal mapping webinar. There is a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff on this freebies page, but I'm going to be adding something new that I'm really, really excited about, and that is going to be my what's your burnout type quiz.

(04:29):

And what I'm really excited about with this is I personally find whenever I Google like types of burnout, there are types of burnout that I just don't resonate with and, or just don't really find to be an issue for high achievers, but there are four main types of burnout that I do consider to be something that high achievers tend to struggle with. That's burnout as a result of boredom, physical burnout, there's emotional burnout and there's burnout as a result of overwhelm. So these are kind of the four core types of burnout. And I want to create a quiz that not only helps you pinpoint the one that you're struggling with the most, but also directs you to some key resources in the form of blog posts and podcasts that can serve you in overcoming whatever type of burnout you are struggling with. So that is in the works and I'm really, really excited about.

(05:14):

And if you are to head on over to coachellyn.com/freebies, register yourself for whichever one of those current freebies really, really jumps out at you. I know I listed off a bunch of them, but let me know whichever one jumps out at you and register for it. And then you will be informed via my email list as soon as the newest freebie drops with that burnout quiz. So I'm going to kind of be revamping a number of things on that page, but I wanted to make sure you knew about that because it is going to be so awesome and so valuable to be able to very quickly go in and take a short quiz to identify what is burning you out the most of everything, because if you're just kind of in the thick of burnout, sometimes it can be really hard to identify that.

(05:55):

So I want to give you very tangible tips for, or some tangible ways to identify what your burnout type is as well as some ways to overcome it. So with that, let's dive in to today's topic. So I've got two core tips today that kind of have a few pieces to them. The first big tip is if you want to get better sleep to create an ideal sleep environment and the way in which you can do that is to keep it cool, keep it dark and keep it quiet. So I want to dive into these a bit more. So when we talk about keeping it cool, I really prioritize keeping my apartment cool. Especially at night. This is actually something that I even did when I lived in Michigan. And if you live in the Midwest, you know, it can be hot and humid AF over the summer.

(06:47):

So I actually didn't really care too much to prioritize running my AC during the day, but I ran it at night to really help myself get higher quality sleep, because I really need to be cool when I sleep and actual ideal sleeping environment, the temperature is somewhere in the sixties, which for those of you who live in hotter climates, that might seem crazy, but that's actually the ideal sleeping temperature for us. If you notice, we tend to wake up, you might even notice this with yourself. We tend to wake up when we're too hot, when we're sweating. So it is really important to make that environment as cool as possible. I often particularly struggle with sleep over the summer because I live in an area where air conditioning is not common, just because it doesn't get hot enough. I live in the Pacific Northwest. Um, so cooling off my apartment at night can be a little bit trickier.

(07:36):

So what I try to do to overcome that is I constantly have a fan running in my room, which is actually going to help with one of the other aspects of this tip. I constantly have a fan running and I really try to keep my windows open to suck in that cool air at night. You can also really work around this by trying to have, um, you know, wearing just less clothing. Um, when you're sleeping during the summer, I sometimes my, you know, maybe this is TMI, but whatever might sleep just in my underwear or butt-naked some people like to sleep butt-naked and I actually can really feel like that is a beneficial thing when it comes to keeping your temperature cooler. So those are some ways you might be able to go about keeping your temperature cooler. Those are some of the things that I've done is kind of how much am I sleeping in, in terms of clothing and sleeping attire, as well as cooling off my room by opening windows, or you're running an AC or having a fan.

(08:27):

When it comes to darkness, this is perhaps the easiest thing you can do to improve the quality of your sleep environment, the environment in which you sleep in your bedroom, get blackout curtains. They are so inexpensive now to get blackout curtains. And it is so important because I don't know about you, but I'm right up against a parking lot. And there are streetlights outside. And without my blackout curtains, all of the lights would be blasting into my bedroom, making it really, really difficult to sleep. It's also really helpful. If you just flat out don't have light in your room when you sleep, that includes your cell phone, that might even include an alarm. I do have an alarm that sits next to my bed and how I kind of work around this whole dark issue with my alarm is it is red light, which is actually easier on us. And when it comes to kind of disrupting our sleep patterns. So keep it cool, keep it dark, to create an ideal sleep environment.

(09:23):

And then last but not least, you want to do your best to keep it quiet. Now, maybe live in a more rural area. And this is really, really easy for you to do, but I live in an apartment complex and the apartment above me. It's not their fault. These apartments just aren't built very well. And the apartment above me, I can tend to hear them when they walk around or when their dog runs around or things like that. You know, I mentioned a second ago, they live next to a parking lot. So if people are driving around or they have a really loud truck or they play their music really loud in the morning when they get into it, which happens in my complex, um, it's not quiet and it can wake me up. So there are a few things that you can do if you live in an environment that is louder, maybe you live in the city, even if it's not a quiet environment, then there are a few things that I would recommend your fan.

(10:11):

We mentioned the fan earlier to help keep your environment cool. But actually sometimes a fan can serve as a really, really good white noise creator. If that's not enough though, I actually have a fan running and I have a sound machine. I recently got a brand new one that I am blanking on the name, right. But I will put it in the show notes under the resources that I love. It's super easy to use. You can actually activate it with an app on your phone. You can adjust the volume with an app on your phone phone, but I love that it is a noise machine and it sits right at the end of my bed kind of, but in conjunction with my fan to create some white noise, to help block out some of those unnecessary or unwanted noises from my environment. And then if all of that doesn't work and there's still a lot of noise going around - earplugs.

(10:59):

I get that earplugs are probably the last thing you want to sleep in, but that is a great workaround. If you're finding that, the reason why you're not getting quality sleep is because you're getting woken up by noise. So that is tip number one, create an ideal sleep environment and how you want to do that is by keeping it cool, keeping it dark and keeping it quiet.

(11:19):

Tip number two is really about you and how you're getting yourself ready for sleep. And this really involves a few different things. Firstly, and this one is so, so hard. I totally know how hard this can be for so many of us, myself included try to limit the tech. Ideally you want to get off your technology. That means your TVs, your computers, your smartphones. You want to get off of those at least an hour before you go to bed.

(11:46):

But at a minimum, try to get off them within 60 minutes. And one of the worst things I hear my students say so often is that they wake up in the middle of the night. They're having a hard time sleeping and they get on their phone and they start watching something on their phone. Literally the worst thing that you can do because the blue light disrupts our melatonin production and that is going to keep us from falling asleep. Yes, we can work around that a bit with blue blockers. And if you don't have a choice when it comes to being on your computer late, then absolutely get some blue blockers. I have some really cute, really cheap ones on Amazon that I can also put into the show notes for this episode. But if you cannot, absolutely cannot be off your technology, just wear blue blockers, try to cut down on that blue light because it really is very disruptive to your hormone production that helps you sleep.

(12:36):

The other big thing is dimming the lights in your apartment as best you can. Or what I really try to do is I turn off the vast majority of the lights in my apartment, except for some of my more orange or red lights, I actually used to full-blown have a red light bulb in the light that was right next to my bed. I really need to get back to doing that because that was really, really helpful when I was kind of winding down to the end of the day. But otherwise, if you don't have that, try to turn on only the orange of your lights in your apartment or your environment. Like I have two coffee tables on either side of my couch and they have really, really orange light as opposed to the very fluorescent blue light of like my overhead lights in my kitchen.

(13:16):

So if you can't necessarily dim, then try to be selective about which lights you're using, especially as it gets later and later because those orange, your lights are a lot easier on our system, especially when it's late at night and they don't disrupt that hormone production nearly as much last, but not least in this whole, get yourself ready to sleep, have a routine, have a routine that you repeat pre sleep to really get your body sort of like in the zone to go to sleep. We love routines, you know, our bodies and our minds really, really love routines. And if you have a sort of routine that you engage in every night, it can kind of remind your body like, Hey, it's time to go to sleep. So try to engage in some sort of pre sleep routine. Yes, it can absolutely include like your teeth brushing and like maybe you put on moisturizer or whatever, or maybe you have tea before you go to sleep, whatever, but how a sort of routine that you repeat each night.

(14:12):

This is something that honestly I've struggled with for years, because I've yet to find a routine that really really sticks. But the few times that I have kind of gotten into a routine, even if it's only stuck for like a week or two, it's been really, really helpful and just kind of getting my body in the zone if you will, to go to sleep. So that's tip number two, get yourself ready for sleep. Try to really, really minimize if not eliminate your tech before you go to sleep dim the lights, or if you can't dim them, try to use the orangier or redder lights in your environment and have a routine that you repeat pre sleep to get your body ready to get into bed. So tip number one was to create an ideal sleep and tip. Number two was to use those few things, to get yourself ready for sleep.

(14:55):

Those are probably the easiest pieces of advice that I can give you. And notice only one of them involves going out, buying anything. Blackout curtains was really the only thing that you need to necessarily go out and buy. And the vast majority of us probably do need blackout curtains in our bedroom.

(15:13):

Um, but these last few tips that I'm going to give you are more advanced sleep tips. So if you're new to this focus on the ones that are earlier in this, those are going to be the easier ones for you to try out. But some of these are a little bit more advanced. So the first one is no melatonin, but instead of supplementing with magnesium, I am not a big fan of people who take melatonin supplements to help them sleep. Because all that does is it messes with your normal melatonin production. Your body produces melatonin. And if you supplement that, what you'll find over time is you have to start taking more and more and more melatonin because your body stops producing the natural melatonin. So if you are going to take a supplement, take magnesium, not melatonin. Magnesium is actually one of the micronutrients are the minerals that we get the least of in our natural diet. It's really hard to get enough magnesium. So, and it's something that actually can help with your sleep, hence why I'm recommending it.

(16:10):

Um, so if you are struggling and you're trying to look for a supplement that might help magnesium is probably the best one for you to use. And actually, and this is something from sleep smarter, that Sean Stephenson book, I recommended a really good way to take magnesium before you go to bed is to do it topically. There's actually magnesium, like oils that you can buy to put on your skin.

(16:30):

I actually mixed it with my moisturizer when I use it. Um, and that is the best way to supplement magnesium into your body as a, as opposed to taking like a pill. All right, next one is to drink some sort of calming tea. I personally am a big fan of sleepy time tea. That's what I tend to drink before I go to bed again, not so much in the summer because it warms me up too much before I go to bed, but in the fall and in the winter, my swear by sleepy time tea, before I go to bed, um, because they really just calms me down and gets me very, very chill. I also used to take CBD before I go to bed. In fact, I've used Soul CBD, um, but I tend to more consistently do the sleepy time tea, particularly in the fall. You can also use camomile tea, or I've also heard of people drinking, uh, reishi. So those are some options as something to drink to kind of help calm yourself before you go to bed.

(17:23):

Um, another great tip is to work out, but work out early in the day, if at all possible, try to aim for an early morning workout as opposed to an evening workout. Again, I really feel like this has to do with temperature. I find that when I work out in the evening, it's a lot harder for my body to cool its temperature down so that I can then get to the right temperature for me to be able to sleep well. Also sometimes depending on the workout I do, I just get too hyped and it's really hard to bring myself back down from that before I go to sleep. So if you have no choice and you have to work out in the evening, try to just do it in the early evening, as much as you possibly can as far away from your actual sleep time, as you can. So no melatonin, but magnesium, sleepy time tea or chamomille tea. And then working out earlier in the day are some of those advanced tips so far.

(18:13):

And then last but not least get early sunlight or ground during the day. So when I say get early sunlight, try to expose your body to vitamin D in the morning. This is another tip from sleep smarter. And what I love about this tip is it makes total sense. We've been so much time inside, especially because we're still in quarantine and we are not leaving our apartment still as much as we used to. So we spend so much time inside that sometimes our circadian rhythms can get thrown off because of that. But if you expose your body to light in the morning, preferably prior to like nine, 10 o'clock, that is going to help set your circadian rhythms so that when you get to the end of the day, your body, isn't thinking that it's earlier than it actually is.

(18:56):

Your body is set to know, "Okay. It is time for me to go to sleep because I was exposed to my first vitamin D and my first sunlight, you know, 15 hours ago" or whatever, which is totally logical when you think about it. So getting that early sunlight.

(19:10):

And then the other one was grounding. Grounding is an act of putting it your bare feet on the surface of the earth. And I, I used to do this so much last summer when I was living at my parents' house, I do it a lot less. Now that I live in an apartment and I just don't have grass immediately, immediately outside my back door. So this something that I do a lot less of, but when I was doing it, when I was living with my parents, holy, it was unbelievably helpful. And actually, you know, call it anecdotal if you want to. But I got so much benefit and really found like it was helping with my sleep.

(19:48):

So those are some advanced tips for you. Again, if I want a little bit too fast there, apologies head on over to coachellyn.com/podcast, click on the link for today's episode and I'll break them down a little bit more. But to recap for you, our first step for our kind of easy bang for your buck tips was to create an ideal sleep environment by making a place that's cool, dark and quiet. Our second tip was to really get yourself ready for sleep by minimizing your technology, dimming your lights as best you can, and having a routine that gets you sleep ready. And then our advanced tips were if you were going to supplement with magnesium and not melatonin, drink sleepy time tea or camomile tea to kind of calm yourself before you go to bed. If you're going to work out, work out early in the day or in the early evening, trying to get it as far away from your sleep time as possible, get early sunlight so that you can help set your circadian rhythms and your kind of internal clock and last but not least try grounding, put those bare feet onto the earth. It's not something that we get a lot of anymore. What, with our rubber, rubber soled shoes, so highly recommend testing out grounding.

(21:00):

Again, those last few tips are more advanced, but lots of tips in here. Again, this is all from the book, sleep smarter by Shawn Stevenson. And before I kind of wrap up this podcast, one of the biggest things that I want to say is that the hardest part of this whole process is that you have to be consistent with these things, whichever things you choose, and I'm going to highly, highly, highly recommend.

(21:24):

Don't do all of these things at once. Pick one, start integrating it, see if it's helping. If it is helping keep doing it, if it's helping, but not quite enough, try something else later. These things in on top of each other, don't try doing it all at once. That's the biggest thing. I see people fail at these kinds of things. Um, when it comes to health, when it comes to working out, when it comes to nutrition is they try to do too much at once and they end up getting overwhelmed and then they ended up not doing anything. So pick one thing to start with and whatever that one thing is, you've just got to be consistent with it. If you're someone like me that has struggled with insomnia or sleep deprivation, or just aren't getting quality, sleep on the rag, doing these things temporarily, isn't going to fix your sleep issues.

(22:14):

You've got to do them consistently. So that's the final piece of advice that I will leave you with is make sure that you start small, start with one or two things at the beginning and focus more on being consistent with those couple of things, as opposed to kind of overhauling your sleep all in one go. So that's all I've got for you today. This went a little bit longer than I intended for it to go, but hell, it's way shorter than reading the whole book. I wanted to give you some bang for your buck today, and I hope you got a lot out of this. So thank you so much for tuning in And listening and I will see you next time. Bye.