Sleep Deprived? Turn Sleepless Nights into Restful Days! with Morgan Adams

Are you having trouble sleeping and staying asleep?  In this enlightening episode, certified Sleep Science Coach Morgan Adams shares her personal journey from prescription sleep medication dependency and breast cancer survival to becoming a women's health advocate. Morgan reveals the profound connection between quality sleep and healing, offering practical, evidence-based strategies to help women reclaim their natural sleep patterns without medication.

So many women in midlife struggle with sleep issues and Morgan provides actionable advice on optimizing your circadian rhythm through proper light exposure, mindfulness practices, and lifestyle adjustments. Learn about the critical role of morning sunlight, the importance of consistent sleep schedules, and why that 3AM wake-up might actually be normal.

Whether you're battling insomnia, experiencing hormonal sleep disruptions, or simply looking to improve your sleep quality, Morgan's holistic approach addresses the root causes of sleep problems rather than merely treating symptoms. Discover how quality sleep serves as a cornerstone of disease prevention and vibrant health.

Morgan Adams is a holistic sleep coach who empowers women to conquer their battle with sleepless nights without reliance on sleep medications. With her powerful sleep toolkit, Morgan not only ensures that women experience a profound enhancement in their sleep quality, but she also guides them in rekindling their relationship with sleep, paving the way for less stressful and more fulfilling days.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Sleep Deprivation Epidemic
• 13:59 Morgan Adams’ Transformational Journey
• 19:23 Breaking Free from Sleep Medications
• 26:59 The Role of a Sleep Science Coach
• 35:11 Holistic Strategies for Restorative Sleep
• 48:01 Begin Your Journey to Vibrant Wellness
• 1:10:25 Morgan's Experiences with Sleep and Breast Cancer
• 1:57:33 Importance of Understanding Insomnia Causes
• 15:11:31 Practical Tips for Better Sleep

Transcript

Rose: 0:00

Sleep deprivation is an epidemic, and my next guest she experienced it, from battling sleepless nights and surviving breast cancer twice to becoming a beacon of hope for countless women. My guest, Morgan Adams, turned her darkest struggles into a mission of transformation. After breaking free from a decade of sleep medication dependency, she discovered the profound connection between quality sleep and healing. Now, as a certified sleep science coach, morgan is revolutionizing how women approach their sleep and overall wellness. In this powerful episode, she shares her extraordinary journey and reveals the holistic strategies that have helped hundreds of women reclaim their sleep, health and zest for life, without reaching for a prescription. Ready to unlock your most vibrant, authentic self, your journey to radiant wellness starts now.

Rose: 0:57

Welcome to Chat Off T he Map. I'm your host, Rose Wippich, and I'm here to guide you on an extraordinary journey of feminine healing, energy, work and total well-being. Welcome, morgan. Thank you, rose. It's great to be here with you. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while Me too, so tell us about yourself and how you got to where you are helping others address their own sleep issues.

Morgan: 1:24

Yeah well, the story goes back close to 20 years. I had pretty bad insomnia for a long period of time and it was kicked off by a relationship issue and basically I had a really hard time getting to sleep and I would lie in bed one to two hours most nights, tossing and turning waiting for sleep to come. And after a couple months of this frustration I decided to go to my family doctor and he gave me Ambien, which is a very popular prescription sleep medication. At the time I was actually a pharmaceutical sales rep, so the idea of taking a medication was just no big deal to me, you know, because drugs were part of my currency pretty much. So took the Ambien. It worked as advertising, getting me to sleep a little more quickly. But I paid on the back end with a lot of residual side effects the next day, grogginess, brain fog, just really trouble concentrating, and I ended up taking them for quite a while you know eight years in total. And what really got me to the point where I questioned taking them and made the decision to stop was in a brand new relationship that I was in, dating a new guy who is actually now my husband. He said to me Morgan, when you take these pills to sleep, you kind of act like a zombie and it freaks me out. And I was like, oh yeah, you're right. So I did what I do not recommend others to do, and that is go off your pills, cold turkey. You really, if you're listening and you're on a sleeping medication or any medication, really go with the guidance of the prescribing provider to help you get off those pills. But because I've got a lot of grit, I was able to muster through, got through that phase of getting off the pills and slept pretty decently for many years.

Morgan: 3:20

And then there was a plot twist which we collectively experienced in 2020, the first couple months of the pandemic, when nobody knew what was going on. My sleep started to suffer again and I got really concerned because I did not want to go back to that full-blown insomnia I had previously experienced. So I got pretty proactive, got myself an Oura ring, started researching sleep and in pretty short order I was able to get my sleep back on track. And in this process, I started just posting about it on Facebook, about what I was doing, organically, just like you post about a movie you saw that you were excited about, and I came to find out during this time that quite a few other people in my circle were struggling with their sleep as well.

Morgan: 4:06

And, just as a sort of a backtrack, in 2018, I got my first breast cancer diagnosis, and that was an incredibly pivotal moment for me in terms of changing the trajectory of my health and also really solidifying my life's mission, and I felt at that point in 2018, moving forward, my life's mission was to help other women with their health. However, at that time, I just wasn't sure how I would do that. And then, when I found this fascination with sleep, it was like everything came together and I was like, okay, here's what you got to do. You got to help other women with their sleep. And I was like, okay, here's what you got to do. You got to help other women with their sleep. So that was like late in 2020 when I made that decision.

Morgan: 4:49

I spent about a year studying sleep, getting certified as a health coach, a sleep coach, and delving into all of the studying part, and then launched the sleep coaching practice in 2021. So it was a long, circuitous story of how I got here, but I love what I do and it's just really a joy to be able to help other women upgrade their sleep and upgrade their health as a result suffer from sleep deprivation and sleep is such a luxury.

Rose: 5:27

It seems like a luxury for some people because they don't have quality sleep and, besides, relate. You said you were going through relationship issues which contributed to that. But there's other things that can happen that create sleep issues, right so like health issues, like stress from work, even like alcohol, like people that drink alcohol, or maybe late at night or eat late at night. So there's a lot of factors that can contribute.

Morgan: 5:51

Yeah, so there are many, many factors that play into insomnia, but in my practice, some of the main ones that I see are stress and anxiety and just really people not having the skills to mitigate those properly. There's also behavioral issues that come along with insomnia and sleep problems in general, and that can be like what you alluded to substances like caffeine and alcohol, even food at the inappropriate times, and then really I think also that's playing into this crisis of sleep so deeply is so many of us are circadianly misaligned, right, and so what I mean by that mainly is we have our light and dark cycles sort of messed up and we can delve a little bit more into how to get that corrected. But those seem to be the main threads that I'm seeing with people and their risk of insomnia in my work. What about menopause? Yeah, menopause is a big one.

Morgan: 7:02

So what we're finding in menopause is that our female hormones, mainly estrogen and progesterone, are declining and that is really really wreaking havoc on our sleep. You know, the hot flashes, the night sweats, the 3am wake ups, those can be really, really disruptive to a woman's sleep, and you know there are certain strategies we can employ. Some of them include, you know, hormone replacement therapy. That's somewhat of a loaded topic, but it's something that can help a lot of women. But it's obviously you know something to. You know chat about with your healthcare provider and you know then strategies designed around really protecting our circadian rhythm and mitigating our stress, because as women in midlife, we have so much on us we're dealing with. Quite often, the typical 50-year-old in midlife could actually have kids at home, right.

Morgan: 8:05

That they're responsible for Right. I did.

Rose: 8:07

I was in my fifties and had young kids.

Morgan: 8:10

Yeah, and then on the other end you could have aging parents who you're responsible for helping out, and on top of that you're likely sort of at the top of your career game if you have a career, and so I call this kind of the sandwich generation right. We have so many competing things in our lives that demand our attention that sometimes we don't prioritize our self care, and that can often translate into not prioritizing you know, our evening wind down routine, not prioritizing our, our morning intentions. You know our evening wind down routine, not prioritizing our morning intentions, you know, for starting the day off right. So it can be a real uphill battle for a lot of women in midlife and sleep.

Rose: 8:56

Yeah, wow, yes, like it relates to a lot of things that you were saying. And the thing with the estrogen I know that people like I'm a breast cancer survivor as well as are you, and estrogen was one of the indicators or one of the reasons the high estrogen created the breast cancer. So that's like I know I can't do that, so I like to resort to more natural sleep. You know rituals, winding down to things which I know we're going to talk about. So talk about why sleep is so important and what are the benefits of having like a really yummy good night's sleep, but not just one night, right, many nights, right, yeah, sleep is just so critical.

Morgan: 9:36

You know we often talk about nutrition and movement. Those tend to be the pillars of health, along with sleep. That are, you know, the three pillars, and the nutrition and the movement really have gotten the highlights, the main attraction, for so many years, and I've often called sleep the redheaded stepchild right, it's just hasn't gotten its due, and I really consider myself to be, you know, kind of a PR agent for sleep, because if you think about it, without proper sleep, we're not going to be, you know, kind of a PR agent for sleep, because, if you think about it, without proper sleep, we're not going to be able to have the ability to make nutritious choices for ourselves, we're not going to have the motivation and energy to do those workouts. So it's really the foundation upon which the other pillars are built. And so you know some of the some of the you know more specific benefits of sleep are the brain cleanse, the brain cleansing opportunities we have when we are in our deep sleep. We have something called our lymphatic system and that is basically the lymphatic system for your brain, so you can imagine your brain while you're sleeping, and deep sleep there's this sort of like car washing process that's going on. All of these toxins are getting wrung out as we're sleeping and it's like a natural brain cleansing overnight and that's really key. We also know that Really good quality, restorative sleep is really helpful for our cardiovascular health, our hormonal health and also our ability to have, you know, to emotionally regulate.

Morgan: 11:12

I think that's something that we sometimes leave off of the conversation. We know that people who are not getting enough sleep are less likely to donate to a nonprofit. They're less likely to help out a stranger. So really, you know, if you're like I come at things really from sort of a sleep lens, obviously, but if you're driving along the highway and somebody cuts you off, maybe they didn't get enough good sleep. You know, maybe if your coworker snaps at you or your boss, you know, kind of growls at you, maybe they didn't get enough sleep and like think about, just if everyone was getting better sleep, how much more harmoniously we'd be getting along. That's something that I think about a lot.

Rose: 11:57

Yeah, good sleep, happy life. Why do you think so many women are suffering from poor sleep?

Morgan: 12:05

Yeah, well, we kind of touched on a couple already, number one being the hormonal shifts that are taking place, the lower progesterone and estrogen. We touched on the fact that we're like the sandwich generation we have these competing demands and it's often really hard to mitigate that, the stress and anxiety that goes along with it, and then you know, really, the other reason that I see is that with midlife women, we're more prone to having anxiety and depression and those leave us more vulnerable to insomnia and sleep disruptions. So if you think about all three of those factors, you can see how like each one can really compound on the other and create this sort of set the stage really for bad sleep or insomnia.

Rose: 12:50

Yeah, I think women have a lot on their plate and they really have a hard time shutting down at night. So it's not just you know you're going and you're going and you're not really processing anything during the day. Going and you're going and you're not really processing anything during the day. And once you I know, because I I'm talking about me once my head hits the pillow I'm thinking I'm going to sleep because I'm so tired, but then all of a sudden, like the switch turns on and you start thinking about things.

Morgan: 13:12

Yeah, you're so right, and one of the one of the things that I work with my clients on is really developing a protocol to do these things that I call mindfulness snacks. Right, I think everyone's heard of exercise snacks. I think I might have coined the term mindfulness snack, but if anyone's out there who claims otherwise please let me know if I stole it.

Rose: 13:33

You can take that.

Morgan: 13:34

I'm going to claim it.

Rose: 13:36

Because you talk about the sandwich generation, which I've heard recently, but the mindfulness snacks you take that one.

Morgan: 13:42

Yeah, I'll take it. So, basically, what the mindfulness snacks are? It's like carving out maybe 10 minutes three times a day where you're basically doing nothing, you're not consuming any information, you're not. You know, I think a lot of us are just like so wired to like read or listen to a podcast or whatever. It's like taking that 10 minutes to go for a walk in nature without listening to a podcast or a book, just enjoying nature.

Morgan: 14:09

It could be 10 minutes of sitting there doing nothing, 10 minutes of meditation or breath work and giving yourself that white space, that time during the day to kind of do nothing, process anything that might be going on internally. Because you're right, like, if we don't take the time to do that during the day, what's going to inevitably happen is our head hits the pillow and all of a sudden those unprocessed things come up to the surface. Or at 3 am we wake up and all of those things come out like kind of like kernels of popcorn, just popping up here and there. So I think it's really, really critical that we stop and give ourselves intentional breaks throughout our day to avoid, you know, that busy brain once our head hits the pillow you know that busy brain once our head hits the pillow.

Rose: 15:10

Yeah, no, I agree what I find lately I just am so tired not all the time, but there's times when I'm really tired during the day. I'll just sit and shut my eyes so that I'm not looking at a book or scrolling or thinking about something I need to do. I just try to just close my eyes, and even for 10 minutes, and I actually did that this afternoon and felt so refreshed. In Italy they take an afternoon nap. Yeah, they know how to live.

Morgan: 15:32

I know it's so interesting because they're actually working with their circadian rhythm.

Morgan: 15:38

So we have this circadian dip in the early afternoon.

Morgan: 15:42

It's just part of our circadian system and they're doing it right because they're working with their circadian rhythm and capitalizing on that dip to take their nap, whereas some of us in the States we just power through that circadian dip.

Morgan: 15:57

That usually happens around one to three and unfortunately, how a lot of people power through it is they grab themselves a coffee and then that kind of sets off this cascade where if you're having coffee too late in the afternoon it is going to still be in your body by the time you get to sleep and you may not fall asleep as quickly or you may not sleep as deeply because you've still got that caffeine in your system. So I'm a big advocate of really kind of putting the brakes on caffeine around lunchtime, around noon for most people, because there are people who clear caffeine quickly and there are people who clear caffeine more slowly and it's a genetic component, you know. So you would have to have your genetics done to ascertain what you have. But I kind of go under the assumption that we all might have slow clearance, you know, if we don't know why don't we assume we do and be more proactive about it and just kind of keep that caffeine curfew around noon-ish is a safe bet?

Rose: 17:01

Yeah, have a glass of water, because you know I've heard that drinking water and being hydrated that way is better for you. So I encourage people to, instead of grabbing a cup of coffee. That you're hydrating your brain, you're hydrating your body and that's a way to help you get through. You know feeling that tired, especially if you can't just pause and take a nap. Right, absolutely. So you talked about the circadian rhythms. Is there any? Or misaligned circadian? Is there anything else you wanted to add about that?

Morgan: 17:33

This is a topic that I've become very interested in, passionate about, over the past year and so really kind of where I'll start with this is we have gotten our light and dark cycles really mismatched in the modern world. Because, if you think about our ancestors, before the invention of the modern light bulb, we were living our days in really bright surroundings, we were outside a lot, we had that natural light all day, and then the sunset we were in darkness. There was no blue light, there was no LED light, and we've kind of gotten things backwards a little bit Like we're not during the day, we're not getting typically enough natural daylight exposure, and then at night we're getting blasted with lights that are too bright. So like, if you take nothing away from this conversation, think bright days, dark nights, okay, but like let's drill down a little bit more granularly into what that means. So how we can kind of manage this is by getting natural light exposure in the morning as soon as we wake up. So if we are able to getting outside within, you know, a few minutes of the sunrise, and the sunrise is a moving target throughout the year, depending on where you live, those factors, but I'm a huge fan of an app called of an app called my Circadian App.

Morgan: 19:06

It's a relatively new app. I got involved in promoting it when it first came out and it's a free app that you can use. There is a paid version where you get more features and if you use the code Morgan, you can get your first month for free. But essentially I use this every day to kind of inform me of where of when the sunrise is, and right where I'm living right now it's rising at 7.19am, you know, and it'll start rising a little bit later as we move toward the spring months, start rising a little bit later as we move toward the spring months. But the sunrise light is really really critical in terms of helping our circadian rhythm get entrained. It's a way for the body to receive those messages that it is daytime, it's time to start doing the daytime processes. So it's going to shut down any residual melatonin from the night before. It's going to naturally boost your cortisol levels to a good spot. And then a lot of people know this already about the sunrise.

Morgan: 20:14

But what's really also very important and I think even more important is something called UVA rise, and that is when the sun is at a 10 to 30 degree angle and the UVA rise. You can see the times of that happening within the app, but essentially it's like a two hour period roughly, and again that depends on where you are, what time of the year it is. But during the UVA rise we have these aromatic amino acids in our eyes that capture the photons of UV light and there's this really interesting cascade of neurotransmitters and hormones. So, for example, we have a neurotransmitter called tyrosine and that gets converted into dopamine for motivation and norepinephrine for energy. We have a neurotransmitter called tryptophan and that gets converted to serotonin for the happiness, and then serotonin gets converted into melatonin. So essentially you're preparing your body's melatonin for that night and you can help. It can work to help regulate your thyroid hormone, sex hormone, your fat burning hormone.

Morgan: 21:26

It's almost like taking a bunch of multivitamins and natural pharmaceuticals in the morning just by getting this light. So I recommend for my clients to get outside and try to book out 10 minutes minutes twice if possible during that UVA rise, so 20 minutes total during that time. And it may take you know, it may take some getting creative with your schedule, you know. So if you are working in an office you may want to kind of book in your breaks and the early part of the day and step outside for 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. But really, like, I have experienced the benefits of this myself by really putting it into practice and my clients are like, wow, this feels amazing Because it is like it does feel like sort of like a natural antidepressant, mood lifting. Okay, so then we've covered the morning.

Morgan: 22:22

Then at night, what we really want to focus on is, around sunset, starting to dim your living environment lights. So a lot of modern homes have these led lights above us that are very bright. So either turning those off, if possible, and instead turning on a table lamp, maybe lighting, and then, if you are using any devices at night, consider dimming the screen and adding blue blocking glasses to your routine. So blue blocking glasses, the ones that you want to use at night, have amber kind of orange filter or lenses. So you want to make sure you've got those, and quite often I'm seeing people order like the cheap pairs, the clear ones, on Amazon.

Morgan: 23:09

And you have to be really careful about the brands you use, because there are a lot of brands that don't do the testing of the, of the what they say they're going to do in terms of blocking out the blue light.

Morgan: 23:20

They say they're going to do in terms of blocking out the blue light, right? So just you know, buy from reputable retailers. And they've actually done studies using blue light blockers with people who have insomnia and they gave people with insomnia blue light blockers, had them use them for two hours before bed for a week and the people who had insomnia were reporting subjectively better sleep. And if they had objectively better sleep scores, so they can be incredibly effective tool for and they're an accessible tool for most people as well. So what we're basically trying to do in the evening is preserve our natural melatonin, because you know, just to kind of get down to the basics, that blue light and the bright light will decrease our production of our natural melatonin, which we need in order to initiate sleep and stay asleep. So we're all, just, we're all about protecting that melatonin.

Rose: 24:16

Yeah, yeah. You know people say, take melatonin at night, but it really doesn't work. It's really your natural one that's going to work. From what in the camp where I'm for it? And let me just kind of deflect a myth here.

Morgan: 24:48

One of the things that I hear in the camp of people that say melatonin is bad is that if you take melatonin you won't produce your own, and that's actually not true. We have no evidence at all that that happens. So there have been reports of people who've taken, you know, hundreds of milligrams of melatonin abruptly discontinued it, and their body still was able to produce the melatonin. But where I see the best use case for melatonin is for people who are older. So in our 50s and beyond, we actually are producing less melatonin, and there's a really nice graph that I sometimes pull out in presentations that show that natural decline on your way down post 50. So I do feel like for a lot of people post 50, there is a use case for just a sort of a micro dose of melatonin to supplement what they may have lost. But we do still. I mean we can't. I guess my point is we can't completely have these habits that will trash our melatonin. We have to work on preserving it, because that's like the most important melatonin, but if we feel like we need to supplement, I don't see any harm in doing that.

Morgan: 26:07

I would suggest, though, that people be careful about the melatonin that they buy. So what they have found is that there's melatonin brands out there that are not actually correct in how they're advertising what's in the bottle. So they did a study where they pulled melatonin off the shelves and then tested it and they found that some melatonin brands had less melatonin in them and some melatonin brands had like 478% more melatonin than was advertised on the bottle. So, not to mention, there's like 13 synthetic additives that can be added to melatonin supplements that are not healthy. So you just want to be careful, you know. Buy a pharmaceutical grade melatonin. Stay away from, like, the big box brands. Those probably don't have the quality standards. Those probably don't have the quality standards.

Rose: 27:01

I drink a tea that combines valerian root and melatonin and chamomile.

Morgan: 27:07

Yeah, a lot of people do that. That seems like a really great solution.

Rose: 27:12

For me it's a ritual. I have a ritual at night where I do turn the lights off if I'm watching TV and then I'll have my tea, and the only thing I still do is still bring my iPad to bed, which I always said. There's no TV in the bedroom, but iPads are like your portable TV. So trying to move away from that, some of these habits are hard to break.

Morgan: 27:32

Yeah, oh, they sure are. I mean, you know I'm going to out my husband right now, but he actually still sleeps with a phone in the bed, right, he likes to listen to podcasts as he's falling asleep and he, you know he needs his phone for the podcast and I've gotten on his case a few times. Right for doing that. And the compromise that we've come to agree on is he will put his phone in a Faraday bag. A Faraday bag, you know, blocks the EMFs. So there's compromises and there's smaller things you can do, but these habits are hard to break because it's kind of like your security blanket, right, yeah, Like you want the iPad.

Rose: 28:15

Listening to a guided yoga nidra meditation or a meditation of some sort prior to going to sleep. I know you talked about your husband having the phone nearby and probably falling asleep with the phone, and it's you know. Everything is here.

Morgan: 28:29

Yeah, I think those can be really helpful. I think that you know, if you want, if you kind of rely on those from an outside source, like from a YouTube video or whatnot, my solution to that is having a Bluetooth speaker in your bedroom. So you're setting your you're, you're, you know, playing it on your phone, but your phone is in another room but you can hear the, the, whatever it is, on your Bluetooth speaker. I would just say, keep the Bluetooth speaker like six to eight feet away from you, because you still have the EMFs from the Bluetooth. Yeah, but I think it's a. It's a good compromise.

Morgan: 29:04

I actually um listen to um an eight hour sleep track called deep sleep. It's um, it's a. It's a neuroacoustic software called new calm. That I that I bought a few months ago, and they've really done a lot of research with the. What they're trying to do is get your brain into these certain waves so that it's more conducive to sleep. So what I do is I just put that Bluetooth speaker across the room and have it playing all night, you know. So it's like not ideal that I have a Bluetooth speaker in my room but yet it's also pretty far away from my bed.

Rose: 29:39

Yeah, I know, you know I don't want to go down the EMF topic because that could be a whole nother topic, but I'm guilty of you know, because I was going to ask you what about sleep trackers? What about your iWatch People? I wear it once in a while to track my sleep. Yeah, and it's not good here. I have it right up, you know, by my head.

Morgan: 30:03

Right. Well, yeah, I hear what you're saying about that. I use I use actually four sleep trackers, I'm embarrassed to say, but I use a whoop around my wrist, I wear an aura ring, so here's sort of the stance that I take on sleep trackers and EMFs. Most of them emit a very small amount. I mean, I don't know about the Apple Watch, that might be a little bit more intense with the EMFs, but it's sort of a cost-benefit analysis, like if you feel like you're getting some really good data from your sleep tracker and it's helping you modify some of your behaviors, then perhaps the benefit is worth the risk of the slight EMF, right. So it's kind of a trade-off. I kind of look at that's kind of how I look at toxins as a whole in my life. It's like you've got this kind of toxic load, a bucket, if you will, and you kind of pick and choose where you're going to put that, put in that bucket, right, like what's really important to you, um, so it's it's kind of a personal decision.

Rose: 31:06

I am willing to take the hit of the small emfs and and and trade for getting that sleep data, which to me is helpful and I also notice, um, you know, maybe we could talk about Like I know that if I go to bed at, if I'm asleep by 10 or in bed by 10 and sleep by 11, I really get the best sleep. I notice the pattern is the best sleep.

Morgan: 31:30

Yeah, you probably have like an intermediate chronotype, right I would say, and I think that's really great that you've become aware of that, think that's. I think that's really great that you've you've become aware of that and like your consistency is obviously helping you feel better and what we know about consistency is that's like a really key factor in our sleeping habits. A lot of people are talking so much about getting eight hours. Getting eight hours. The real, the real thing that we want to be talking about is how consistent is your sleep-wake cycle? Yeah, they did a study about a year ago thousands and thousands of people where they showed that people who had a consistent sleep schedule had a lower all-cause mortality risk versus people who had eight hours with an inconsistent schedule, right. So these people who are sleeping six hours a night on a regular basis were faring better with mortality rates than the eight-hour sleepers who were just kind of like you know, having a lot of wake-ups or having some inconsistency in their sleep period.

Morgan: 32:36

So if we're looking to really build that consistent sleep-wake cycle, we want to start really with our wake time. That's sort of the anchor that really helps us a lot in getting us to the place where we become sleepy around the same time each night, right? Because we have this chemical in our brain called adenosine and after about 17 hours of us being awake that adenesis needs to be released in the form of sleep. So getting that consistency in our daytime is really going to kind of help our bedtime become more regular, because we're going to start becoming sleepy around the same time each night. So there's a lot to be said in consistency. That's like the main thing that I'm helping my clients with is getting on a more consistent schedule, because when they do that, like you just reflected on, you feel so much better.

Rose: 33:30

So you talked about the eight hours of sleep, that there's a misconception, that we need eight hours of sleep because you may not right, yeah, yeah.

Morgan: 33:36

So the National Sleep Foundation recommends seven to nine hours for adults. But when you look at the fine print of their recommendations it says between six and 10 hours may be appropriate for some people. So there are people who, you know, do just great with six, six and a half hours. But there is like probably one in a thousand people who are actually what we call short sleepers. Genetically they have a specific gene that gives them like the ability to only need like less than six hours. But that's one in 1000, roughly right. And I have come across so many people who say, oh, I only need five hours or whatever. But the reality is their problem they probably don't have that gene. They're probably kind of forcing themselves to live that lifestyle. But it's kind of like I look at the sleep hours needed as sort of like a shoe size, like there's sort of this range of normal, of expected, but we don't always have the same shoe size. We have different shoe sizes. You and I, I'm sure we probably need different calorie requirements. We have different calorie requirements. You and I, I'm sure we probably need different calorie requirements. We have different calorie requirements.

Morgan: 34:44

So same thing with sleep hours, the complaint that I hear most often from people in general and my clients is the 3 am wake-ups right and people have this notion in their head and I think it's sort of perpetuated by society that we should be sleeping throughout the night without any breaks. But it's very normal for healthy adults to have brief awakenings throughout the night. In fact, after we complete each sleep cycle it's normal to have a brief awakening, and it's really from an evolutionary perspective because it's a safety check. So think about many, many years ago we were sleeping out in the wilderness. We didn't have these homes and security systems. We were vulnerable to prey and so it served us well to have a brief awakening to scan for safety. And a lot of evolutionary biologists say that we have kept this pattern in modern day times, so that we're waking up after the sleep cycle, we're scanning our surrounding for safety, we're scanning our room and then we go back to sleep.

Morgan: 35:49

So if you're awake for like less than two or three minutes, you're not going to remember that you are awake. You may see in your sleep data that you had a small awakening. But the problem is when people freak out about the fact that they're awake, they start to ruminate like, get worried about the next day, or they are. They're worrying about the fact that they're awake, and what I always like to tell people is like your nighttime brain is not the same as your daytime brain. So in the middle of the night there's this this new research that's been out recently called the mind after midnight, and basically what they're talking about is your brain is operating from your amygdala in the middle of the night. It's not operating from the prefrontal cortex, the rational part of your brain.

Morgan: 36:36

So if you wake up at 3 am and you all of a sudden notice that you've got these like really catastrophic thoughts, your brain is doing what it's supposed to be doing, right. So so what I tell people is don't believe anything. You're you're. You tell yourself at 3am discard it, come back to it in the morning. It's going to feel less threatening, less significant in the morning when you're in your right, the rights in your normal brain, right. I have actually written a free guide all about 3 am Wake ups, called Awake Again at 3 am, your guide to why you're waking up and what to do about it. It is a free resource on my website that goes through the whole what I just shared. Resource on my website that goes through the whole what I just shared, plus reviews, some of the common reasons people wake up and strategies about what to do if you're waking up. So it's something to look at. If what is plaguing you is middle of the night wakenings, I'd definitely check it out.

Rose: 37:34

Yeah, we're going to put the link because I think everybody needs to read that.

Morgan: 37:38

Yeah, I think it's a resource that could serve a lot of people.

Rose: 37:42

Yeah, absolutely One of the things that I stopped drinking alcohol over a year and a half ago and my immediate benefit was that I sleep way better Because I, you know, my body's not processing alcohol in the middle of the night. I'm actually sleeping better. I don't wake up as often and I noticed from my sleep tracker that I sleep that deep sleep better and I feel better when I don't wake up as often and I noticed from my sleep tracker that I sleep that deep sleep better and I feel better when I wake up. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing, yeah.

Rose: 38:09

I tell people that all the time because, like I say, well, if you're going to complain about sleep and you can't sleep, well, try maybe not to drink after a certain time at night.

Morgan: 38:17

Right, yeah, I'm a big believer in a couple of things with alcohol. It's like decreasing the quantity and also moving the time period back a little bit. So think happy hour versus nightcap. A drink at 5 pm is going to land a lot differently than a drink at 8 or 9 pm. And ask me how I know this? I've experimented with myself and my Oura Ring data does not lie.

Rose: 38:45

Yeah.

Morgan: 38:46

But yeah, I think, as we're in midlife and beyond, alcohol really just doesn't serve us overall for our general health and it definitely we're a lot more sensitive to it for our sleep. So limiting it is definitely serving us well in midlife, morgan.

Rose: 39:02

let's talk about some of the top tips and strategies that you have some takeaways that people can use to help sleep better.

Morgan: 39:11

Yeah, we've kind of reviewed a couple of them. I'd start again with reviewing the consistent wake-up time is a really, really key factor in strengthening our circadian rhythm, getting us more regular sleep. The morning light is really important in terms of regulating our circadian rhythm, getting those neurotransmitters and hormones in balance. And then really, exercise is something that we didn't really touch on, but exercise is a really key component in getting better sleep quality, getting ourselves to sleep more quickly, and deep sleep. We have like a meta analysis of about 13 different studies showing that exercise helps with our deep sleep, especially in midlife. So I would recommend 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week for better sleep, because it's going to help build your sleep drive, it's going to help regulate your circadian rhythm and it's going to help reduce your cortisol. So it's a really really attainable way to get better sleep, because we don't necessarily need to go to a gym to get this. We can just walk outside or do something at home if we need to.

Rose: 40:23

Yeah, yeah, and it doesn't matter what time of day.

Morgan: 40:27

To an extent. Yes, I would say it's best not to do something right before bed, like in the hour. Probably one to two hours before bed is probably when I'd say cut it off, because it's going to raise your body temperature and you need a cooler core body temperature to initiate sleep. I think that mornings can be a really great time of the day to work out for most people. Most people find that it kind of will encourage their system to want to go to sleep a little bit earlier. A lot of people want to go to sleep a little bit earlier. A lot of people want to go to sleep a little bit earlier, and I think it keeps our system in that nice routine. If we're getting our morning exercise, I think it's also just a really great way to start your day for mood boosting, brain boosting. But I suggest that people play around with the time of day that they're working out and figure out what works best for their own schedule.

Rose: 41:23

Yeah, and speaking as a yoga instructor and Qigong instructor, just some gentle stretching at night is a nice way, or some restorative yoga pose is also a nice way to just relax and use some, you know, maybe some crystals or some meditation, just unplugging, I think right. Yeah, we need to unplug as a society, especially if we want to. You know we have to put the iPad in the other room before going to sleep, if you can. Is there anything else? Let's talk about your offerings or what you offer your clients. Let's talk about that.

Morgan: 42:00

Yeah, so I work with clients in a one-to-one coaching container where I'm helping people who are struggling with insomnia or want to optimize their sleep, and I also, like we mentioned, have the free offering for the 3 am wake-up guide if anybody is interested in getting that, and also there's a free offering for a consultation with me. So if you're kind of like thinking I really would like to improve my sleep and you're like what would it be like to work with a coach, definitely reach out to get a consultation with me and we can chat about what's going on. If I'm not the right fit for you, or if you have like a sleep issue that is out of my scope, then I can refer you to another provider.

Rose: 42:43

Yeah, I love the concept of a sleep coach. I think it's great because why do we have to struggle all by ourselves to try to have a better habit around sleep?

Morgan: 42:55

Right, yeah, well, I mean, I think there's such a beautiful, you know aspect of coaching and that it gives you an extra set of eyes on your issue. Right, because we. I think that it's hard for most people to fully become aware of what's going on in the environment, like they're just too close to it. So getting that outside pair of eyes can be really helpful. And then also having somebody to be accountable to, right, because there's something called the Hawthorne effect and basically it's like when you're being watched, observed, you're going to perform better. And not that there's any kind of gray I'm not going to grave anyone but it's sort of like when you pay somebody to help you on a path, you're more likely to follow their recommendations than you might be if you just read a blog post about sleep or whatever.

Morgan: 43:44

Well, you know, I would just say, you know, final words is that sleep is better, sleep is attainable for everybody. And quite often I think we get tempted to jump to like the sexy hacks and gadgets and devices, and those are. I mean, those are great, don't get me wrong, I love my devices. But if you're starting this sleep optimization journey, really start with the basics first, like kind of the things that we went over and master those before you graduate. To the things that you can buy, because it doesn't have to cost a gazillion dollars. There's a lot of things you can do for free.

Rose: 44:23

Yeah, it's a great point. Thank you, this has been a wonderful conversation and I appreciate you being here, taking the time to be here on the show today.

Morgan: 44:32

Thank you, of course. Thank you for asking.

Rose: 44:36

Thank you for joining me Chat Off The Mat. If you're ready to transform your energy and step into your fullest potential, I'd love to work with you. As an energy alchemist, I help women release blocked energy and reclaim their vibrant essence. Visit rosewipichcom to explore working together and discover free resources for your journey. Love today's episode, Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, Leave a rating and share your biggest takeaway with me on Instagram at Rose Wippich. Remember wellness warriors your energy is precious. Nurture it wisely.