WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

57. Tips For Better Sleep: Boost Productivity, Weight Loss, and Overall Health

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 57

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Is sacrificing your sleep for productivity actually making you less efficient? Join me as I explain the intricate relationship between sleep and wellness. I reflect on how societal pressures often lead us to undervalue rest, resulting in burnout and inefficiency. From energy levels to mood swings and even cravings, discover how sleep influences every facet of our daily lives. We also explore how different life stages, like parenthood and perimenopause, can complicate your sleep patterns, emphasizing the necessity to prioritize rest for a balanced lifestyle.

Explore the hidden link between sleep quality and your overall health, focusing on weight management and cognitive function. Unearth the ways sleep deprivation can trigger increased hunger and caffeine dependence while heightening risks of chronic diseases. We challenge cultural norms that glorify busyness over rest, revealing how melatonin production is naturally stimulated and why supplements might not be the answer. Unlock practical insights on improving sleep quality, paving the path to embracing rest as a crucial element of self-care and wellness.

Finally, step into a world where optimizing sleep is achievable through strategic light management and establishing healthy routines. We provide actionable strategies like using blue light blocking glasses and curating calming wind-down routines akin to those for babies. Learn how consistent morning and nighttime practices, such as light stretching and exposure to natural sunlight, can enhance your sleep and elevate your overall well-being. This episode offers a holistic approach to health, illustrating the interconnectedness of sleep, nutrition, and movement to boost your vitality and life satisfaction.

Thank you so much for listening!


Speaker 1:

Hello friends, welcome back to Wealthy Generation Podcast W-E-L-L-T-H-Y. I have a question for you How's your sleep? How's your sleep doing? Are you sleeping well? Are you sleeping many hours, but you feel tired in the morning when you wake up? Are you having a hard time falling asleep? Are you having a hard time staying asleep?

Speaker 1:

Sleep has been a theme with a lot of my clients, and sleep is something I try and protect as best I can because I am also human and don't follow my own rules as much as I can, but it is one of the most important things when it comes to wellness. I know I probably say that about exercise and eating and stress, and I think it's up there. It is definitely part of the top three, because if we're not sleeping well, it just throws everything else off. If you're not sleeping well, then you're not going to have energy to exercise. If you're not sleeping well, then that causes a lot of cravings because you did not replenish fully through sleep. So then your body asks for extra energy through food. So you might crave extra sweets and refined carbohydrates because your body is looking for that quick burst of energy. Remember, your body is so smart. It actually asks you for what it means Maybe you are a lot less patient and your mood is off and things are getting to you because you have not slept well. I already think that you know what the topic of conversation is going to be for today, which is sleep. And if you have not had a choice and have had lack of sleep via you are a pet parent and you're training your pets to sleep overnight or I don't know I've never trained specifically like a dog or anything like that, but I do know that when you're training pets or you have pets, your sleep can be disrupted. If you've had a baby, you absolutely know how you don't get sleep and the delirious, the deliver delirium that you live in is extent like you sleep two hours in a row and you feel like a brand new person. But beyond that, that's one side of things.

Speaker 1:

And then there's this whole concept to of we don't need sleep, we're going to sleep when we're dead, like I'll just not sleep and I'll get things done. And there's this whole thing of I know in college for me it was this big cool thing to like break night there, like my classmates would just be like, oh, I'm just going to break night, yeah, like I need to get this paper done. I'm just going to break night and I'm like. I tried that a few times and I was like what in the world is this horrendous idea? First of all, my brain doesn't work past a certain time. Back in college that was midnight, 1 am Past. That time I was like I can't even think straight. I'm staring at my computer, I don't even know what I'm doing and I found it so ineffective. Now, right Like now, my cutoff time is like like 9 PM and that is extremely pushing it. I would say something like I don't know seven, seven for me to get anything effective done. But you know, if I have to push it a little bit, I will.

Speaker 1:

The point is that there's this trend of as sleep is not important and it is the thing that you give up. And then when I was in corporate, it was so cool to to just be out and be partying and drinking and doing all these fun things and then coming in the next morning with your Beck, with your bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel or on a roll and work, and I also was like what in the world is this? Because this does not feel enjoyable at all. I don't know how you work. I don't know how you focus, how you don't make mistakes. Like, how is it cool to just sit in this chair and be feel like you're going to vomit and you're like falling asleep and then you're pounding coffees and Red Bulls Like first?

Speaker 1:

I never consider myself to live like a lifestyle rooted in wellness until 2016, after I had my second kid. But, man, I had some self-awareness of what felt awful in my body and I just did not. I tried to be cool. I tried, I like, did it a few times and I was like I don't see why this is fun or cool or something that you want to do on purpose, repeatedly Like I didn't get it Okay. And now here we are.

Speaker 1:

Um, I'm going to share with you why sleep is so important, why we need to take care of that, why we need to pay attention and, honestly, some tips if you're having issues with sleep, because, especially when we're getting into perimenopause, our sleep starts to get disrupted. As with everything, our body works in a loop of hormones and there's this loop between cortisol and melatonin and sugar and all these things. Right, that happens. That can interrupt our sleep. And when we're getting deeper, deeper into perimenopause, there are more contributing factors that don't allow us to sleep well. It's like the baby situation, the pet situation, right? Or maybe you're caring for an aging parent. That might keep you up at night, right?

Speaker 1:

Other things that might keep you up at night just that you don't have control over most of the time is the ability to regulate your body temperature. As we get more into perimenopause, so you just cannot regulate temperature and you're waking up because you're too hot, because you're too cold, because you're sweating, because you're shivering and you're trying to consistently adjust the temperature so that you're able to rest well. And I know that's something that's coming up for me now. I don't necessarily think it's perimenopause in that sense in terms of temperature regulation for me just yet, but because of global warming it's hard to gauge the temperature and there's like a wide range that's happening during the days now, like it starts off warm during the night and then it gets really cold, and so I've also been having a hard time because I'll use, like my fleece blanket, and then I don't need that, and then I have to take off my socks and then I need to like let my feet out, but then my feet get cold and I need to cover them up. So there's just many factors that are kind of out of our control when it comes to sleep, depending on where we are in our lives and what's going on in our environment. However, there are a lot of other things that we can do to help us sleep better, and I'm going to share with you a few of those tips today, and I'm also going to go into why it's actually important to care about this and to try and do something about it, because sleep definitely is a cornerstone. I'm trying to look at my notes to see how many tips I have for you, but I actually did bullet points instead of numbers, so let's see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, about seven tips I have for you today, with like sprinkles in between.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so why is sleep so important? Sleep, or your circadian rhythm, your sleep weight cycle, is really, really important. It is critical to get into a state of deep sleep where your body is recovering and actually resting. When you're sleeping is when your internal organs rest and recover. There's actual tissue repair and muscle growth. That is super important, especially if you're exercising right. You want your muscles to grow and repair, to make sure the tissue is safe, right, and that is taking care of, let's say, soreness and all these things your muscles need to repair. And yes, there's the food component 100%. And also sleep. Sleep is where it's at.

Speaker 1:

If you are struggling to lose weight and if you have very poor sleep hygiene, this is one of the reasons why you might be having a hard time, and this is why holistic wellness is so important, because you need all of these pillars and wellness to get results in a way that is not exhausting and more damaging to your body. Also, when we talk about tissue repair, there's a thing called oxidative stress, where there are cells and DNAs that are damaged at the cellular level in your body and they need to get cleaned up. They need to get vacuumed out, exited right, and it's through free radical scavengers, which are also known as antioxidants, that help us with this. But again, sleep is so important to actually get these processes done in our bodies. When we are sleeping as well, it helps with hormone regulation, it helps with your appetite control, with stress, with your metabolism and other bodily functions everything that has hormones attached to it.

Speaker 1:

As I said right in right in the beginning of the episode, if you are not sleeping well, then your body is going to ask you for more food. That's the form of energy that it needs while you're awake. If you're not replenishing your energy while you're asleep, so it starts to throw off your hunger hormones, your satiety hormones, which are ghrelin and leptin, and your stress hormone, which is cortisol. Your body is kind of troubleshooting because it is lacking an essential for it to be in homeostasis or in balance, which is sleep, and also this is where a lot of your memory gets consolidated and stores stored, and it is essential for you to learn new information. It is essential for you to have good brain health. Right, when we are in this chronic loop of not sleeping well, our body's asking for more food, especially simple carbohydrates. Things like Alzheimer's are being coined as diabetes type three, so everything feeds into each other. It is a loop. If you're losing your memory, if you're having a hard time concentrating, if you're eating high sugar, if you already have diabetes and it's impacting your sleep, it just goes in this circular motion where you really want to protect that.

Speaker 1:

Other things that are tied to sleep is your energy, which is something I spoke about right in the beginning as well. If you don't have energy, if the main source of replenishing your energy is sleep, and you don't have that. You're not going to have energy to cook or to exercise or to take care of yourself or do anything fun. You're just going to be so miserable. Sleep is also going to help you with your immune system.

Speaker 1:

When you're sick, what's one of the main things that they tell you to do? Rest, go, take a nap, sleep and you start to feel better. You're also more alert, more creative, more focused, because your body again is not in this totally depleted state where it's just fighting to meet its basic needs. It helps you with your mood, with anxiety, with being irritable, with mental exhaustion, and this is something like if you are some sort of parent or caretaker and you've lost sleep that you can really really at least I can, I can really relate to just being very unpleasant just because I am so, so exhausted. And also, getting good sleep helps with a good sex life as well, because you're not going to be exhausted. You actually having a good libido or sex life again ties into this whole cycle of resting and not eating well and not exercising and it all ties together All right. So if you're not getting proper sleep, aside from your immune system and you not being able to repair your tissues and your mood and all that.

Speaker 1:

Big factors are weight gain. Again, if you're having a hard time losing weight, there might be a lot of factors, but one of the main ones to check is your sleep. It can really account for gaining weight or not being able to lose weight, because now you're also extra hungry and then you're beating yourself up or you're supplementing with caffeine and all that it can increase risk of chronic disease because, again, this whole loop of your body not being able to get rid of toxins to repair and then the call from your body for quick energy throughout the day to keep up with demands, is a real thing and you can actually hurt yourself. If you're going to the gym and you're sleep deprived, you can't think well, you can't coordinate well, your balance is off, so you're more prone to injury and your brain focus, like brain capacity, declines, your cognitive function declines and it really affects you.

Speaker 1:

Not only is it part of the aging process that we want to try and stall as much as possible, but if you're consistently not sleeping, that also can add to this process. I know of a person who had a night job right and they worked all night and then they did not make resting and sleep a priority during the day, make resting and sleep a priority during the day, and they would drink a lot. Also, they had a lot of visceral fat, a really big belly, and they ended up getting very sick, very sick, and when it happened again, I wasn't even surprised, because this your body can only take so much. Until it really has, it just falls apart and then it's too late. So please, don't wait for it to get to that extreme for you to start doing something about it. Right, and here we go. I'll go into the tips.

Speaker 1:

I just really wanted to highlight some other reasons why it's so important to get really good quality sleep, why we want to make it a priority. If you have something like a night job where you're working overnight, or you have a newborn or you're taking care of family, right, I know it's easier said than done, because I've been there a few times. However, there are some things that you're just going to have to deprioritize in order to honor your rest and honor your sleep. I know it's always a give and take. It's always a give and take. So maybe it's the laundry, maybe it's not putting away the laundry, maybe it's the dishes there's something that you might have to leave for someone else to do, or to do at another time, or just to deal with the mess so that you can actually rest. And anyway, if you actually go rest first, you might have the energy and the capacity to get it done after.

Speaker 1:

But I know, especially in Latino culture at least in Dominican culture, at least, how I grew up we do not rest until everything else and everyone else is taken care of. Like it's unheard of to go to sleep if the kitchen is dirty or if there's dishes in the sink or if everything's not put away and tidy and clean dishes in the sink, or if everything's not put away and tidy and clean. And I'm here to tell you that sometimes that's just how it needs to be if we want to honor our wellness. The dirt is always going to be there, the dishes are always going to be there, everything's going to be there. They are not going to get sick, they're not going to end up in the hospital. Someone else can certainly do it, but no one else can sleep for you. No one else can take care of yourself like you can, and it is so darn important.

Speaker 1:

We need to make it okay to ask for help, to outsource, to let go of perfection. Perfection, because it is really really, really hurting our health in ways that you do not even realize, just because we want to live up to a certain standard, when there's more and more and more dumped on us on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, that we have to take care of, to also be upholding these perfect standards at the cost of our wellbeing and our health. You are more valuable than that, mama. You deserve it. It is your birthright to rest. It is no one else's business what you're doing or how you're doing, because it is valuable to feel good and to have the capacity to just have a good day when you're purposefully delaying your sleep or not sleeping to fulfill other tasks in your life. Delaying your sleep or not sleeping to fulfill other tasks in your life.

Speaker 1:

All right, I got like I went on a little rant there, so let's just get straight into these tips, okay. So here's the thing. Everything's with hormones, right. So the main hormone you probably heard about this because you may or may not have some of these supplements in your cabinet at the moment Melatonin, right, melatonin is one of the or the hormone right, that tells your body it's time to unwind, it's time to relax so that we can actually go to sleep. And what's happening nowadays is that we don't give our body the actual cues and signs that it is time to unwind and go to sleep and we think that just by popping in a melatonin gummy is going to solve the problem. It might for a little while, but you don't want to create the type of dependency and your body receives the signal to create melatonin for you to unwind, through your eyes, through your pupils.

Speaker 1:

So, as the light diminishes right, like as it goes into nighttime, what naturally happens if we were living back in the day is that your pupils would widen up to let more light in right, and usually when it's bright outside they are tighter. The circle is more shut right, like they're more closed. The circle is more shut right, like they're more closed, your pupils. Now what's going on is that it's getting dark outside and we're in front of a lot of bright lights. We're in front of our computer, the TV, the bright lights in our house. Outside there's the car lights that are LED and the street lights. There's just lights everywhere. So it's dark outside.

Speaker 1:

We understand that it's nighttime and then we have to go to bed soon, but our body's not getting that message. Because it is so damn bright, our pupils are still quite small and they are not getting the message that it is time to sleep soon. So you have everything like all this light shining into your eyes and all of a sudden you want to go to sleep, and then it's taking you an hour or two to actually fall asleep. And this is because that's how long it actually takes your body to kind of unwind and start creating melatonin so that you can go to sleep. And we need to be aware of this, because it is not your body's not a light switch. There are hormonal processes, chemical processes that happen in the body so that you can get the effect that you want, so that you can get croggy, so you can get tired.

Speaker 1:

If you've ever either had your own baby or watched babies on TV or something like that, or you've watched a family member, usually this baby has this whole sleep routine where they take them a nice bath and they read them a nighttime story and they get massaged with lotion and they get cuddled, and all of this right To make the baby nice and groggy so that they can fall asleep. We are no different. We're no different. We need some sort of routine to unwind. It is not a light switch. You can't be stressed out working on your computer and then think that you can just go to sleep with no problem, or in your home with very bright lights, doing chores, and then just go to sleep. There needs to be some sort of routine so that your body understands, especially through your eyes, that it is time to start unwinding, because you might get really tired and then you might tell me Naomi, but then I get a boost of energy and it's fine, the second wind.

Speaker 1:

You don't want that to actually happen over and over again, because what happens is that your body is like all right, I think it's time to unwind, let's create some melatonin. And then they're like oh no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. She's over there doing something else. They're over there, we are under stress, we are under attack. It is like something's happening, we are in danger. And then it's like shut down melatonin, let's get cortisol back up. So now you get another boost of energy, your cortisol is back up, your melatonin is delayed right. And now it's even harder to go to sleep, because now you have to come down from that. And, yes, sometimes that's helpful, like if I'm going to a concert and you know the concert be starting at 9 PM and it doesn't end till like midnight or one in the morning. Yes, I want a second wind, I'll maybe even have some coffee, but I don't want that to be the regular, what always happens, because it will start to ruin your circadian rhythm, your sleep and wake cycles, where your body all of a sudden gets used to just giving you the second burst of energy at 11 PM atm at night, because you just keep going and going, all right. So I want you to know that. That's how, like at a very basic, basic, high level, melatonin starts to be created through your eyes.

Speaker 1:

Now, tip number one right is minding the light on your electronics. It is getting darker earlier. We again are mammals, human beings, part of this earth, so we should try at the very least in our very model, modern and convenient world to try and mimic the natural cycles that happen on this earth. So things that I do in my house to help with that is one I have blue light glasses because it is unrealistic for me to stop using devices or working, or my phone or something like that, as it gets later into the night, or my phone or something like that as it gets later into the night. So I have blue light glasses without prescription, just as blue light blockers that I have on my nightstand, and I have my regular glasses with prescription that also has blue light blocking technology on them, and it is something that you can request to be added to your glasses or just getting just a blue light blocking regular glasses that you can get anywhere else right. So as the night starts to come, I like to put on my blue light blocking glasses.

Speaker 1:

Something else I do is I try and turn off very bright lights in my house and I try and dim lights. If you have dimming technology whether it's on a switch or these smart light bulbs now that you can just ask to be dimmed or you can control on your phone, or you can have a lamp with a light bulb that is less powerful, not LED, where you can have more of a dim yellowish light happening. I have a lamp in my bedroom and a few months ago or last year, I don't remember I switched the light bulb to a red light bulb because blue light interferes with your sleep. It actually has your pupils close up, but red light is more of an appropriate light frequency to help you sleep. So I have a red light bulb in the bedroom that way I can see, but I don't need to have the overhead light on, which is fairly bright.

Speaker 1:

In my living room I have a set of lights that are very bright. I turn those off, I turn the lighter ones on, even if you have, let's say, a hood over your stove that has the light sometimes. I do that for it to be a softer light that's not directly overhead. Do that for it to be a softer light that's not directly overhead. This way your pupils start to get the sign that the light is dimming right. There's less light available, which in turn starts to open up your pupils and start to produce melatonin. So there's a bunch of tips right there Get your blue light glasses, change the light bulbs, turn off overhead lights, dim lights, all of those things that hopefully are fairly inexpensive and you can just have the mindfulness to start doing when it starts to get darker.

Speaker 1:

Outside tip is to try and eat your last meal, your dinner, two to three hours before bedtime, and I know this is probably hard for my late night snackers, but you know what we need to really start to discern if you're staying up way past your tired mark and then you're getting that second wind, when your cortisol shooting up and it's your body's like hey, in order for me to keep going, I also need more energy. And then here comes the cravings right, or the desire to eat more food. If you're going to sleep on a very full stomach, you're not going to have restful sleep because your body is digesting a lot of food. It is a very big activity for your body and if your stomach is so full and it is at the beginning of the digestion process, then it is going to be tough for your body to actually fully relax. And I know sometimes I want like a little something and it's usually sleep, because I've noticed that if I have my dinner and I'm just pushing past my very exhausted and tired point, then the reason why I get hungry is because I start to go into that second wind and I try to avoid that as much as possible.

Speaker 1:

Another thing is to try and stop using electronics about an hour before bed. I know that that's sometimes tough to do because, for whatever reason I know, for me I try and stop using my phone and my computer, but sometimes we unwind by watching TV. But the thing with technology now is that you can try and set it up so that it dims on its own and it's reflective of the light, that is, in the light of the environment. I remember a family member. Once on Super Bowl Sunday they came and adjusted the settings to my TV to be very bright and to remain that way. That way it wouldn't auto adjust. And I noticed that when it was when it wasn't the Superbowl and the TV was on and it was dark, and then it was super bright and I went back and I adjusted the settings so that the TV was not so bright when the lights were not as strong in my living room. There was no need for that. So something I like to do with all of my technology, with my phone and my computer and all that is have auto settings to go into night mode, to go into more of a yellowish, dimmish screen. And I have a Apple phone, but I know that for sure you can also do that on a Samsung and probably Google phone too. So I would recommend to go check those settings because if you're not like disciplined or able to, if you're not disciplined or able to, or whatever the situation is not to be on electronics an hour before bed, then that can be helpful to have your electronics automatically switch into night mode.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that I advise my clients to do sometimes you want to have the TV on in the background. You don't really need to look at it, so you can do other activities while the TV is in the background or you're casually watching something you don't care that much for. You can color, you can do a puzzle, you can crochet or knit I don't know do something that is not necessarily on a screen and that will have you entertained and doing something else play board games, something like that, so it can help you start winding down. And if you're like man, I need something because I take sleep medication or I am just into these melatonin gummies Some things that really help, too, with sleep is tart cherry juice. Tart cherry juice helps your body produce melatonin, and I'm not saying like a juice cocktail or a sweetened juice. I'm literally saying like organic, like cold press cherry juice where there's nothing else added to it, and having some of that also teased with calming herbs like chamomile, lavender, mint teas with calming herbs like chamomile, lavender, mint, lemon balm and the biggie head honcho valerian roots.

Speaker 1:

However, you want to be mindful as to how much you're depending on things like this and if it's just for a season that you're using it for, or is it something that you've created a dependence on right, especially if you're going for something stronger, like valerian root. Usually, if I even smell chamomile tea or something like that the calm ones I am out. I don't even need that anymore. I just knock out on the couch. Um, but if I have something warm warm water, warm tea then I'm out. The thing with this, or the caveat, is you want to be mindful too of how much liquids you're having before bed, because you don't want to have so much liquid that then you're getting up two to three times a night to pee because you drank too much. And that's something I actually worked on with one of my clients because she wanted to wean off her melatonin and we were incorporating like tart cherry juice or the teas, but she was having like 16 ounces of water or like tea before bed and it was interrupting her sleep because she had to get up and pee often, so we paired it down to half, like eight ounces, six ounces, and that was very helpful where she got the effects of the tea. But she wasn't waking up two to three times a night to go use the restroom and other unwinding activities.

Speaker 1:

I know I already said coloring, but maybe moving your body, like doing a nice light stretch, right, I like to take a hot shower. If I'm taking a hot shower, a shower before bed, that means I'm not doing anything else, like I'm not doing any chores, it's just pure relaxing time. So having some sort of routine for yourself, it's also super helpful. Like the baby, like the baby, right. You dim your lights, you put on your blue glasses, you do a nice stretch, you have your final meal, you prepare yourself a little cup of tea, you take a nice warm shower, you journal a little bit, you start to rest, you watch a light TV show. Nothing that's going to give you anxiety, please. There is enough drama in this world that we have to deal with on a daily basis to be adding more stress with what you're watching, what you're consuming. Please have boundaries and protect your peace with what you are consuming. So make sure that it is something that will actually help you unwind, not trigger an anxiety episode when it's late. So that is all nighttime stuff.

Speaker 1:

But something that is also super important for sleep is actually what you do in the morning. So again, we're setting our circadian rhythm, our sleep-wake cycles. So when you wake up in the morning, it is so beneficial to get some natural sunlight in. You don't want to stay in dim light, it is totally the opposite. When we wake up, our cortisol is a little high, our blood sugar is a little high Natural things for our body to actually wake up. It's what helps you wake up and you want those two hormones to start to nicely calm down. You want to get some sunlight into your eyes.

Speaker 1:

Stepping outside is best if possible, but if that is not possible, it is getting cold here in the East Coast. The window I love to get some sunshine through the window. It warms my face. I look at outside, at the window I love to get some sunshine through the window. It warms my face. I look at outside, at the brightness, and usually I'm also leaving my house at some capacity. I'm leaving my house early in the morning, whether it's to take my kids to school or to go to the gym.

Speaker 1:

Now, what has happened with work from home and after COVID is that we were not leaving our house and not resetting our circadian rhythms, and we were indoors in similar lighting the entire day, from morning to night, and, as you can see, that can just have very detrimental effects for our sleep. We're not meant to be indoors. We are humans, we're meant to be outside. Right, whether it's cold weather or not, we're meant to be outside at least at some point during the day. So if you're a work from home person or you're mostly indoors, making stepping outside a priority or getting some sort of fresh air is important for sleep.

Speaker 1:

Now, what do we also do? First thing in the morning is have some coffee. Most of the time not everybody, but it is a habit, it is promoted that you go ahead and have coffee and this is the first thing that you do and that's what wakes you up. No, friends, that is not what wakes you up. That is not sure. It gives you some energy if your body is sensitive to caffeine. But you can also accomplish that through sunlight. You can also accomplish that through movement.

Speaker 1:

You also don't want to be having coffee on an empty stomach first thing, especially, especially during perimenopause or ever, because it just exacerbates your cortisol response and it is already heightened. You want that to calm down. You don't want your body to be in this feeling of stress, right? You want it to resolve and you also want to balance out that blood sugar. So I don't know if you've heard of this or not, but it's super popular now and it is backed up by science of how important it is to have a high protein, savory breakfast, not dessert for breakfast, not necessarily sugary pancakes or French toast or sugary cereals or sugary oatmeal and things like that.

Speaker 1:

Very savory, high protein breakfast, let's say eggs breakfast, sausages, tuna, some sort of fish, chicken, I don't know steak, whatever you want, right, cottage cheese, yogurt, so that your blood sugar levels out, so that your cortisol levels out, and then you enjoy your coffee, okay, so your actions in the morning, your actions in the night, matters, and if you are tired midday and you are always reaching for another caffeinated drink mostly coffee, or high sugar foods, things like that you also want to check that, because if you're having coffee or caffeinated beverages too close to your bedtime later in the second half of the day, that can also be interrupting your quality of sleep, whether you realize it or not. And if you're so exhausted you're crashing by 3 pm then, or 4 pm then you really want to take a look at what you're eating throughout the day and how you're moving or not moving your body. That has your energy so super drained. Our body works in cycles. They feed into each other. So sometimes there's what I you know like the lowest hanging fruit of the one thing you can do that can have the biggest effect on how you're feeling.

Speaker 1:

But then you also really want to start analyzing what other things are happening so that you can have a holistic wellness experience where you're just not isolating sleep or exercise or food and you're actually unifying them so they can work together for you. Because whether you realize it or not, your body works in a symphony together. It's not an isolation and that's how we've been taught to treat it. So the more you see it as a unifying being, which you are, of one thing affecting the other, kind of like a domino effect, then you start to get more curious and see what other aspects of your life is impacting this one thing. So I hope this was insightful on sleep and why it's so super important and we can build on that with other factors in our wellness. But as for sleep, I hope these tips are helpful. I hope it's been enlightening as to why it's important and how it starts to happen at a super duper high level and it helps you get better sleep.

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And if it does, please rate this podcast, please leave it a review, please share it with your friends, send me a text message I am excited to hear if this was helpful for your non and also please send me a DM. Take a screenshot, tag me on Instagram, I'll say hello and we can start chatting and stay connected. Also, if this is something that you need support in and you're like, wow, I don't even know how to connect all parts of myself my nutrition, my exercise, my sleep I didn't realize how important it was and how impactful it is to actually start to combine these things, aside from, let's say, your gut health and your blood sugar and all that then I really invite you to book a consultation for one-on-one food and hormone health coaching. In one-on-one food and hormone health coaching, we will meet on a weekly basis for 24 weeks basis for 24 weeks, six months, where we will start actually unifying these isolated parts in your life so that you can start meeting your health goals, whether that is weight loss or gaining more energy, or getting rid of bloating all of these different factors that might be impacting your life greatly. You've been having a hard time getting answers and you kind of feel defeated. I want to shine some lights on the fact that you can get the results you want. You can get that weight loss, that energy back, that fatigue to not be a thing for you and actually feel like yourself again, feel confident and vibrant and like you are actually enjoying life and have the energy to take really good care of yourself, because it is difficult to actually take care of yourself if you don't have the energy, and we need to solve for that first, and that's something I want to support you in and really help you. So, aside from meeting with each other once a week for 24 weeks a total of six months you also have WhatsApp WhatsApp access to me where we can continue the conversation and coaching throughout the week. You don't have to wait. You also have a client portal and personalized resources and a plan for you to actually enjoy the wellness process, enjoy taking care of yourself without the guilt and the shame and the thought that you don't have time or it won't be effective, because it absolutely will, and that is exactly what I'm going to support you with.

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So if you're interested in one-on-one food and hormone health coaching, I invite you to book a consultation call with the link in bio. It's absolutely free, and if you want to learn more, there's a link also in the show notes. I said the link in bio. That's on Instagram. Yes, it is in the link in bio, but it is also here in the show notes where you can visit my website, naomijerez. Yes, it is in the link in bio, but it is also here in the show notes where you can visit my website, naomijerezcom, and you can find more information there. I hope this was helpful, friend. I will see you next week. Have a good night, sleep well. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.