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April 12, 2025 15 mins

Guest host Richard Syrett and sleep coach Pam Killeen discuss the challenges to getting a good night's sleep in modern society due to excessive use of technology, the health risks facing both young and old people from inadequate sleep, and advice on improving your sleep by reconnecting to nature and sunlight.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight. From coast to coast Am on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
In the nineteen eighties, a storm of illness, chronic fatigue, fibromyelgia,
multiple chemical sensitivities felled Pam Colleen, casting her into a
crucible of suffering. Unbowed, she forged a path to renewal,
immersing herself in nutrition and natural health. Clinicians, though well meaning,
often led her astray, their missteps, sharpening her instinct for

(00:27):
authentic healing. With degrees and languages and education, Pam once
envisioned teaching tongues, but her body's betrayal redirected her fate.
Rising victorious over her ailments, she found her true north,
empowering others to conquer sickness. Co author of The Great
Bird flu Hoax with doctor Joseph mccola, and host of

(00:48):
The Circadian Reboot with Pam Colleen, She's a clarion voice
for wellness, not for those content to cradle disease, but
for warriors eager to reclaim life's vas Haunted by some
clients sluggish recoveries, Pam saw deeper truths. Guided by Circadian
trail blazers like Jack Kruz, she uncovered a primal key.

(01:11):
Our body's ancient clock drives healing modern chaos. Phrase this
rhythm stalling vitality. With fierce resolve, she launched the Sleep
Better Form, a haven to realign souls with nature's pulse.
Pam Colleen, Welcome to Coast to Coast, Am, How are you.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm great, Thanks, Richard. It's an honor to be here.
I really appreciate your invitation to join you tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
What do we mean by circadian rhythm?

Speaker 4 (01:40):
Circadian rhythm, Well, it's basically, our body is biological clock,
and we evolved on this circadian rhythm, you know, for
you know, centuries, for thousands of years.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
We rely on this clock for so many different purposes
in our body, everything from our sleep to our digestion,
to hormonal health, etc. Etc. And So what's happened is
we've denied our body this natural rhythm that we evolved with.
And it's really due to this fast new world that

(02:16):
we live in. A lot of the choices that we're
making today are actually undermining this natural circadian rhythm. And
so what's happening, of course, is you know, I think
a lot of people are blindsided by it. They don't
really know what's happening to them. They're chronically fatigued, they're
not sleeping properly. But unfortunately, I think what's happened is

(02:37):
a lot of people are normalizing their symptoms and think
it's just a part of aging, or it's just because
they're overworking, or they have a lot of stress in
their lives. But I think it's overall just generally we're
making a lot of bad decisions over the course of
the day, even though I think we think that they're
healthy decisions because we're potentially so busy, or we don't

(02:58):
have time to prepare our meals properly, or you know,
we're sleeping six hours and we think that's adequate. So
we're making a lot of bad decisions, and it's just,
you know, one bad decision is piling on top of
another bad decision, and our biology is just simply screaming
for attention, and we're just not knowing where to start
because there's just so much chaos out in the world today.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
What does sleep do for the body? How does sleep
help us heal?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well?

Speaker 3 (03:27):
You know, the sleep science is evolving on a daily basis.
I keep reading new research that's coming up through the woodwork.
But I think the two things that stand out to
me with sleep is that it's a time during the
day where our body can actually repair and restore. So
we really need that time to you know, strengthen our bodies.

(03:48):
We also need that time to detoxify as well, and
so over the course of the day, you know, we
we might be building up certain toxins in our body,
and at night we you know, if we're relaxed and
we're sleeping, well, we should be able to let go
of some of these toxins. And so I think it's
you know, when you're not sleeping properly, even things like

(04:08):
growth hormone is affected. And so you see in aging people,
you know, as we get older, people have more and
more trouble sleeping, and so you'll start to see the
muscle wasting in especially older people. Perhaps when you're younger,
you don't really see or notice that as much, but
when you get older, if you're not sleeping properly, it
can manifest as muscle wasting and it's a sign that

(04:30):
they're just not sleeping properly. And so during the phase
of the night when you're supposed to be secreting or
producing growth hormone. It's just not happening adequately enough. So
it's happening with our older people. It's happening with a
lot of young people today too, Richard. And this is
a big concern because of the developing brain in young children.

(04:52):
So these poor children are not developing properly simply because
they might be on screens until one o'clock in the morning,
and then they have to get to get up early
and go to school, and some schools start at eight
o'clock in the morning. So these kids are probably only
getting five, maybe six hours of sleep at night because
they're just not going to bed at normal hours. I
don't know about you, Richard, but in the nineteen sixties,

(05:16):
you know, or seventies even, I mean, we would go
to bed at nine or ten o'clock at night. That
was normal, and we didn't have the distraction of these screens.
So we were sleeping better, you know, a few decades
ago than we are today. So I think what's happened.
I think what has to happen with children is we

(05:36):
have to remove the screens, certainly from their bedrooms and
make sure that they're going to bed at respectable hours.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, I want to get around to blue light in
a moment. But you know, we're spending I don't know,
it's a huge industry, the sleep industry. We're spending, you know,
so much money on the latest mattresses designed by NASA
for crying out loud and pillow we're trying all sorts
of different pillows and linen and all cooling blankets and

(06:07):
all of and beds that you know, you can raise
the feed or you can raise the change the temperature
on one side of the bed. And yet despite all
of the money we're throwing at bedding and mattresses, nobody's
getting a good sleep. It's it's an epidemic. Nobody's talking
about it, but we're all miserable in our beds. You know,
our ancestors slept under the stars on a cold ground.

(06:31):
Why did you know what made their rest so solid
compared to our tossing and turning.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Right, Well, they were respecting the rhythms. They were respecting
light and dark. So they would get up in the morning,
they would watch the sunrise, and they would be outside
all day long, most or most of the day anyway,
and they would watch the sunset. So they were actually
actually getting the medicine that they needed for sleep just

(06:59):
by being outside in the sun. And unfortunately, especially since
the nineteen eighties, late nineteen eighties, early nineteen nineties, when
the Internet started coming into our lives, we became cave
men by being indoors more often, we didn't go outside.
We hardly go outside these days because so many people

(07:20):
are on their computers, and so we've lost that connection
to nature that our ancestors had. And that they also
didn't have shoes, so or if they did have shoes,
they were leather bound, and so they could actually ground
to the earth. They didn't have rubber interrupting the electron
flow between the bottom of their feet and earth. So

(07:43):
they had the ability to actually be you know, having rhythms,
be honored by the earth and by the sun. And
we don't really have that connection today, unfortunately. So they
would go to bed at the sunset and they would
get up at sunrise, and that's today. You'd see farmers

(08:06):
do that, of course more than more or less, depending
all kind of agriculture they're doing, but more or less
they're going to be going to bed at sun set
and getting up at sunrise. And most people today are
really you know, they're staying up late hours, they're going
to bed at erratic hours. You know, they may be
getting up really really early in the morning for work,

(08:27):
but they probably haven't had you know, seven to nine
hours of sleep because of all of the chaos in
their lives and all the distractions from you know, Netflix
or whatever it is they're watching on TV at night.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
So let's get back to the screens. And many of
us take our smartphones to bed and we're doing that
death scroll on social media and so forth until we
doze off. What's the science behind how I guess it's
blue light from screens messes things up, keeps us wired
when we should be out cold.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, it's there are many different colors in the light
that you're looking at on your screen or you know,
in your kitchen or wherever. So there's a lot of
different colors. It comes out as looking potentially white, but
within the spectrum, the color that is the most stimulating
for our nervous system is going to be the blue

(09:24):
within the spectrum, and that blue light sends a signal
to our brain to basically release your hormones that tell
you you're awake. And those are hormones like you know,
cortisol and adrenaline. And so as I'm talking to you
right now and it's after one o'clock in the morning,

(09:44):
I decided I'm going to have my lights on to
tell my body that I'm awake because I want to
be able to have a healthy conversation with you, Richard.
So I have bright lights on top of me right
now because I want to be alert. And so it's
releasing hormones in my body to tell me it's daylight.
And you know that I have to stay sharp. So

(10:06):
if I, you know, go to bed at night, I
need complete darkness so it doesn't send that signal to
my hormones that it's daylight. And so what's happening is,
of course, a lot of people keep their lights on,
and you know, at ten o'clock at night, they might
be watching TV. They might have their lights on bright,
and they turn their lights off to go to sleep

(10:28):
at night, and they can't sleep because they're still producing
too many of those hormones that tell you that you're awake.
And this is a big, big problem because it's actually
causing a cascade of other problems. It's going to send
the wrong signals for your blood sugar control as well.
So other hormones are also affected by all of this

(10:50):
synthetic light. And so what we need to do is
we need to you know, at a minimum, you know,
we're not going to escape all of this electricity today.
So I'm not saying to become pure tan and return
to the way we lived several thousand years ago, but
certainly there's some key things you can do to help
start rescheduling your body if.

Speaker 5 (11:11):
You will, And I do want to get I do
want to get to those I just want to kind
of go through sort of the hindrances to a good sleep,
and then we'll start offering some solutions.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
But let's talk about noise. Is we if you live
in the city, you've got this constant buzz in the
city of traffic sirens. How does that screw up our
ability to hit deep sleep cycles.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, well, it's basically telling your body that if there's noise,
things aren't safe potentially, and for us to have a
really good night sleep, we have to feel safe. And
all of this noise is distracting us and setting our
nerve nervous system on fire. It's telling your nervous system
you know something is wrong. Because it really should be
quite peaceful and quiet when you go to sleep at night.

(12:00):
And so some people, I know, even myself, I wear
I wear earplugs to try and block out some of
those noises so that I don't, you know, wake up
if I hear something. So you have to be in
a pretty quiet environment in order to have a good
night sleep, or else you're going to have a very
shallow sleep. Your body's going to be on alert, like
it's you're about to be attacked by a lion or

(12:21):
something like that. And so you want to be able
to feel really really safe in a quiet, nurturing environment.
And so that's why they call the bedroom your you know, oasis.
It has to be set very intentionally so that you
can have a good night's sleep, and that includes the darkness,
and that includes quiet as well.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
And what's the deal with electromagnetic fields, Let's say, from
from phones Wi fi? Are they zapping our circadian rhythm?

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Yes? Yeah, it's one of the biggest interferences out there,
and we can't escape it. Practically. It's very you know'sbiquitous,
and what it's doing, it's your brain has waves in
going on. You have your alpha, your data you know,
you have all of these brain waves in going on
and they need to be you know, in sync for

(13:13):
you to have a good night's sleep. And what these
EMFs do, these man made EMFs, what they do is
they actually throw off your body's electrical circuitry and that
includes your brain waves, and so it can really really
throw off your sleep. And that's one of the biggest
complaints that I have when I talk to people, is
that they notice when they have their router on at night,

(13:34):
or if they're surrounded by a lot of electrical equipment
in and around their bedroom, they complain that they can't
sleep at night. And then when they change their environment
in their bedroom, let's say they turn their breaker off
to their bedroom and they start removing these this dirty electricity,
if you will, then all of a sudden, their sleep improves.

(13:55):
So it's a pretty amazing, you know, cause and effect
relationship that can go on once you start reducing your
exposure to these non native EMFs. So that's one of
the biggest factors I see. I mean, the the EMFs
do other things to the body as well, but where
sleep is concerned, it certainly disrupts. It certainly disrupts your sleep.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
There's no question about that. Very quickly, because I've only
got about thirty seconds here and then I got to
go to a break. Why eight hours? And we can
continue this conversation after the break. But why eight hours?
Is that an arbitrary number?

Speaker 3 (14:28):
I think it's probably an arbitrary number, but I think
it's a number.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
It's a number that I.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
Think we need to respect. I think a lot of
people are going to tell you more times than not
that if they get a good, solid eight hours of
sleep at night, they're going to feel a lot better
the next day. I don't think six hours is adequate.
Nine hours might be good for a lot of people,
but I think it's really just a consistent feeling across
the board. If people get eight hours of sleep at night,

(14:54):
and it's good quality sleep, they're going to have a
pretty good day the next day.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more

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