September 6, 2024 • 22 mins
In this episode of Living Well with Robin Stoloff, we delve into the elusive quest for a good night's sleep with guest Amanda Chocko, a nutritional therapy practitioner, author, and sleep coach. Amanda shares her personal journey from being a chronic insomniac to becoming a sleep expert, revealing the holistic approaches she uses to help her clients achieve restorative sleep.
Amanda discusses the root causes of sleep issues, the impact of diet and lifestyle, and the importance of stress management. She introduces her book, "Relax, Sleep, Thrive: Your Five Week Journey to Peaceful, Restorative Sleep," which offers a step-by-step program to improve sleep quality. Key strategies include maintaining a regular sleep schedule, creating a sleep-friendly environment, and managing stress through techniques such as meditation and journaling.
Additionally, Amanda sheds light on the effects of alcohol, blood sugar imbalances, and hormonal changes on sleep. She also explains the benefits of different types of noise, such as pink noise, to enhance sleep quality. Tune in to discover practical tips and success stories to help you transform your sleep and overall well-being.
For more information and resources, visit Amanda's website at amandachocko.com and follow her on Instagram at @amanda.chocko.
Thank you for joining us on Living Well with Robin Stoloff, empowering you to live a healthier life. Don't forget to like and follow the show for updates on our latest episodes. Until next time, keep living well!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The elusive good night's sleep. We all need it.
We all want it. Yet 30% of us are not getting enough quality sleep and that
can lead to brain fog, irritability, and accidents.
Today we are talking with a former insomniac turned sleep coach about a holistic
approach to better sleep.
Hello and welcome to Living Well with Robin Stoloff, empowering you to live
(00:22):
a healthier life. I am so pleased to welcome Amanda Chaco, nutritional therapy
practitioner and sleep coach.
Amanda, let's start with your journey. You were a former insomniac.
What did you do to overcome that, and how are you helping your clients?
In most of my adult life, I've had some form of sleep issue.
(00:44):
And over the years, you know, it was kind of random, and I would just do like
the over-the-counter, like NyQuil, glass of wine,
sleepy time tea, different things that were the only things I really knew that
existed to try to help with that.
And they worked temporarily, but they obviously were just a bandaid for like what else was going on.
(01:08):
I, over the years, also had some other health issues with autoimmunity and inflammatory bowel disease.
And I was really suffering with that. So I was feeling that the sleep issue
was just a side effect of all of that.
So after really not getting answers that I needed from like the conventional
(01:29):
standard of care, I really went into more of a holistic realm to try to overcome the.
Some of the things that I was going through. So I was really looking for the
root cause and working on my nutrition and trying to work on my sleep and stress.
And there were some other things that I was working with a functional practitioner
on and doing tons and tons of research.
(01:51):
So all of that led me to, I began to write a blog called The Feel and Groovy Project.
And then people started asking me a lot of questions about health.
So I thought at that point, yeah, I'm really enjoying this.
So I decided to go back to school and become a nutritional therapy practitioner, which I did in 2017.
(02:12):
Came out of school and did additional certifications in gut health protocols,
autoimmune, and many of the things that I was dealing with.
So when I started working with my clients, that's what they were coming to me
with, those types of issues.
But always in the background were sleep issues as well.
It was just something else that they were dealing with that I was also trying to help them with that.
(02:36):
And again, kind of playing whack-a-mole with all these different remedies that you hear about.
But it wasn't until the pandemic when my insomnia became chronic.
It was just relentless. I was staring at the ceiling every night,
walking around like a zombie every day.
And I just, at that point had had enough and said, I need to get to the bottom
(03:01):
of this and get to the root cause.
So I really started digging into the research, experimenting with different
frameworks and protocols.
And was able to really get to the root cause of my sleep issues and fix it.
Out of that came my book where I have documented this methodology to help others
(03:27):
that are dealing with sleep issues and began to also work with my clients.
And then really decided at that point to completely focus my practice on sleep
coaching because I really feel like if your sleep is shot,
all the other things that you're trying to accomplish in life really take a
backseat to that because if you're fatigued or have chronic insomnia, it's just the worst.
(03:52):
Absolutely. And so many people suffer from sleep problems.
You wrote a book about this, and you share some of these strategies with your
clients. What is the name of your book, and what is some of the advice that you give your clients?
So the name of my book is Relax, Sleep, Thrive, Your Five-Week Journey to Peaceful, Restorative Sleep.
And it's really a step-by-step approach. It's a five-week program,
(04:14):
but it's really day-by-day, helping people first get the foundations of their sleep set.
So that means, you know, having a regular sleep schedule,
having some type of wind down routine so they're not like, you know,
rushing up, you know, 100 miles an hour to sleep time without really giving
(04:34):
their bodies and minds time to decelerate to get into that relax of state.
You know, helping them work through creating the perfect sleep environment, their sleep sanctuary.
So really getting those bases down. There's lots of checklists and assessments and things like that.
In the second week, we're really trying to connect the dots and becoming a sleep
(04:58):
detective and all the things that we do on a daily basis that could be impacting your sleep.
So you begin journaling your sleep.
Kind of the quality of your sleep, if you're having trouble falling asleep,
staying asleep, getting back to sleep.
And then the timing of all the different activities that you do in the day.
(05:20):
So this would include light exposure, meal timing, exercise,
caffeine, alcohol, supplements, medications.
These are all things that depending on when you do them, if you just tweak the
timing of those quite often, And you'll find that that's enough to really help
get you back into a sleep mode.
(05:43):
But stress usually plays a really big role in that as well.
So that's a big part of when I work with clients and in my book as well is really
helping them work through how to manage stress and particularly stress at bedtime
and during those times when you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind just turns on,
(06:06):
you can't turn it off and coming up with strategies to overcome that.
So that's usually the case with most of the people I work with.
But sometimes there's a deeper problem.
You know, it might be a blood sugar issue. Blood sugar dysregulation will impact your sleep.
You know, having some type of a sleep disorder, digestive disorders,
(06:28):
hormonal fluctuations, situations, depending on where you are in your life with
those types of situations.
Also, even just being overheated. If you get too hot in the evening,
it will wake you up in the middle of the night. So there's all different things.
Becoming that sleep detective and learning how to connect the dots between all
(06:51):
of the things that are impacting your life and experimenting with,
either addressing those issues or, as we said before, changing the timing or
working with these stress management techniques.
Yeah, that's a big part of it. I think the stress in people's daily lives,
it just, it accumulates.
And even if you're not even realizing it because we're all so used to it,
(07:15):
that is something that really can make us stay up at night.
And you have some strategies that you, you know, general strategy.
So let's go over those was again, you mentioned a few, but just talk about,
you know, what you tell people and the best ways that, you know,
people can make changes today.
Sure. So the first thing to, you know, just really low hanging fruit changes
(07:36):
you could make is turn down the temperature in your house about an hour or so before you go into bed.
You really want, especially your bedroom temperature to be, you know,
66, 67 degrees, because your body needs to cool down a couple of degrees to
really be able to begin to get into sleep and particularly deep sleep.
(07:59):
And then, you know, through the night, your temperature raises for when you
wake up in the morning. So temperature is a big thing.
Darkness, you want to turn down those lights, you know, when it gets closer
to bedtime or have candles, a fireplace,
some people, red light bulbs, because any artificial light is going to signal
(08:20):
to your body that it's daytime and make it harder for you to get to sleep.
I use blue blocking glasses at around nine o'clock every night,
and I read my Nook, which is something I've been doing for the last 10 years.
I love to read before I go to sleep, but I know that the light,
the blue light from that device is going to downregulate my melatonin.
(08:42):
So I wear those blue blocking glasses.
So those are just, you know, general sleep hygiene is the first thing that I
always ask is like, what is your nighttime routine?
You know, are you working from your bedroom?
Do you have a TV blasting in your room? Are you stressed out,
you know, right up until the time you go to sleep?
And trying to work on those types of strategies.
(09:04):
You know, again, connecting the dots to those daily things. So tracking against
your sleep, the timing of the things that you're doing and tweaking those a little bit.
You know, there are a lot of medications that are known to cause insomnia,
but you don't always hear that from your doctor and it's not always on the label.
And they're very common medications as well.
(09:26):
So really looking into your medications, the timing you're taking that and speaking
with your doctor, if any of those do fall under that umbrella,
that they might be, you know, a cause for insomnia.
When it comes to stress, particularly like the evening time.
You know, really doing a mind dump, you know, about an hour before bed,
(09:49):
get your to-do list out of your head for the next day.
Sometimes we get overstressed and anxious with all of the things that we have to do.
So just writing those things down, putting them on a calendar,
knowing that, yes, I will deal with them tomorrow.
Tonight is sleep. sleep, worry lists as well.
You know, when I work with my clients, it's like, okay, if you're worrying about
(10:13):
something, let's write that out, you know, and then create a worry time the
next day that you're going to dedicate that time to.
So you're not going to be like that. Just get rid of it, write it down,
get it off your mind, get it off and then know, okay, tomorrow I'm going to
to take 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever that might be, and really think this
(10:36):
through, you know, how real is this?
Is it just stories that I'm making up in my head?
You know, what's triggering this worry? You know, can I reframe this doing reframing exercises?
How much of it's in your control? How much of it isn't?
And easier said than done for many people, though, because sometimes you get
something in your head, and it's just very hard to release it,
(10:57):
you know, and that's where I I think, practices, and I'm sure you recommend
this, something like meditation,
yoga, any kind of movement. I hate to use the word exercise.
It doesn't have to be formal exercise. It could be moving your body in any way.
But that really makes a difference, doesn't it?
Absolutely. For me, I've had this on and off relationship with meditation and
(11:18):
I get on a good streak and then all of a sudden I get off of my habit and I
really notice a difference.
And what meditation does, I think of it more as brain training than even,
I mean, it's relaxing, yes, but you're learning how to just observe your thoughts and let them pass.
And that gets stuck in that rabbit hole of all of a sudden, you know,
(11:43):
you start, you know, ruminating or catastrophizing and all the things that we
tend to do, which always gets worse at night, right? Right.
I mean, for some reason at night, everything is so much worse in our minds.
And then we wake up the next day and we're like, OK, I don't know.
Yeah. Well, it's still it's quiet.
It's the time that you sort of wind down and relax and that can let thoughts into your brain.
(12:09):
And sometimes when people hear the word meditation, they sort of think of like,
you know, a guru sitting cross leg on a mountain.
But it's not like that at all. You can meditate really anywhere at your desk
if you want. And it can be five minutes, right?
I mean, it doesn't have to be a big major overhaul of your life.
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if you wake up in the night and you're dealing
(12:29):
with these incessant thoughts, I mean, one thing that I've found really helpful
is like body scan meditations.
You need to get out of your head.
So if you're focusing your thoughts on something other than whatever is bothering
you at that moment, it's really helpful. So there are a lot of guided meditations that do body scans.
(12:51):
You know, there's other techniques of, you know, thinking through your favorite walk.
Like if you go through a trail or anything else, just going through those emotions,
not thinking of anything too technical or, you know, stimulating in any way,
but almost something that's boring.
I used to be a pastry chef many, many moons ago.
(13:14):
Oh, different career. And yeah, that was my other life.
But I still remember all the recipes. And sometimes when I can't get my mind
off of something, all of a sudden I just start baking in my head and I go through
like every single ingredient.
And it really, it just puts me to sleep. It's amazing.
That's great. Now, see, my thing would be I'd be on the beach.
(13:34):
I would be on the beach. I'd see the ocean. I hear the ocean.
I feel the sand. That's my happy place. And to me, that would be something that
would kind of put me to sleep. In fact, sometimes I even put that on my iPad
and listen to the sound of the ocean because it's so relaxing to me.
It brings up very happy memories for me.
So whatever your thing is, whatever works for you, that's a great way to do it.
(13:56):
And now you're hearing a lot about different blue light, brown light.
I'm not sure what the difference. White noise, I'm sorry. White noise, brown noise.
Yes. So what does that mean? What is the difference between all those different noises?
Yeah. So there's white noise, pink noise, brown. I know, you're like, what? Yes.
It's just, it's different frequencies of sound.
(14:20):
And actually, I was just listening to a podcast today with a sleep scientist,
and he was talking about the different colored sounds.
And apparently, research has shown that pink noise is even better than white
noise to help you go to sleep because the frequency of the pink noise goes in
sync with the slow brainwaves that we have during deep sleep.
(14:44):
So it kind of syncs you up with that in your mind. It might be like a subconscious
thing that you're not even aware of.
But, you know, white noise, you know, the nature sounds that you were talking
about. I mean, these are other ways to relax.
Get out of your head. You're listening to something else. It's tuning out with
other street noise or other things.
(15:06):
Sometimes, you know, just my ceiling fan helps, you know, hearing that going around.
It's just funny that they call a noise a color.
Or maybe tough, tough to get that. But I guess you have to call it something.
So maybe under a microscope or something. I don't know. But talk to us about
some success stories that you've had with your clients.
(15:28):
Sure. So, you know, sometimes it's as simple as I had one client and,
you know, we were working together and she was every evening having a glass
of wine before she went to bed.
And this is like a really common thing that like, you know, alcohol,
it, you know, it's a sedative. It's going to help me fall asleep.
(15:50):
And the same thing happens to me just waking up at 3 a.m.
Not trying to figure out what it was. And it was really through that journaling
and that tracking that we found out that she really had to replace that wine
with something else or have that earlier in the day.
So that was like a really easy fix.
(16:11):
Yeah. People think that wine makes you, well, it might help you fall asleep
or any kind of alcohol, but then it wakes you up, doesn't it? It disrupts your sleep.
Yeah, it does. once your liver finishes
detoxifying that if you
just all it just for some reason we wake up in the night and have and then your
brain turns on and you have a really hard time falling asleep and even if you
(16:34):
don't wake up it really still messes up with your sleep cycles i know for me
i have a sleep tracker and if i have wine even if i have it earlier in the day for me it totally
ruins my deep sleep.
Some studies show it ruins your REM sleep. For me, it's deep sleep.
But in any case, even if I don't wake up, I just don't feel great the next day. I have brain fog.
(16:56):
I'm just, you know, not working on all of my cylinders.
So, you know, alcohol is definitely one of those things that you want to...
Yeah, a lot of people don't want to hear that.
They do not want to hear that. Sometimes I don't either.
So I know if I have wine, It's going to impact me.
But I'm still going to go out on a Saturday night with my husband and have a
(17:18):
glass of wine. I mean, you just know, all right. I just know Sunday I'm going to be a little slower.
But I've made that connection, you know, and I'm in control.
It's the risk-reward situation.
I hear you. But, you know, other people, like another client I was working with,
her blood sugar, she had a lot of blood sugar imbalances. She was hypoglycemic. them semic.
(17:41):
So really working on the nutrition side of thing and balancing the blood sugar
health, because if your blood sugar drops during the night when you're sleeping,
it's an emergency to your body.
Your adrenals are going to, you know, pump out that cortisol.
And cortisol is just the opposite of melatonin, right?
(18:02):
It's like yin and yang. You do not want that cortisol are all flowing through your body.
So blood sugar can be an issue.
And then on the other hand, if you have that chronic insomnia or even,
you know, like one night of bad sleep will mess up with your blood sugar regulation for the next day.
So you'll find yourself, you know, with more cravings. Yes, I was going to say
(18:26):
sleep and nutrition are so intertwined. They really are.
We don't often think about that, but one affects the other, doesn't it?
Yeah, you can't really separate them. And it's, you know, it's kind of like
this vicious cycle where you, you know, you're trying to work on both of them at the same time.
But, you know, when your sleep is disrupted, you know, when you're going through
(18:47):
your deep sleep, that's where you have a lot of your hormones are being balanced during that time.
And that includes your hunger hormones, your ghrelin, which,
you know, is our hunger signal that gets upregulated. So we feel more hungry.
Our leptin, which tells us when we're full, that gets downregulated.
(19:08):
So we're not recognizing when we're full.
And then your blood sugar gets out of whack, which causes cravings and kind
of that blood sugar rollercoaster.
And that can create a vicious cycle. And then you're having sugar and then you're
staying awake and then you're not, then you're hungry again the next day and you're overeating.
It's, I mean, it can affect your weight. Sleep is related to that as well.
(19:30):
Yeah. Yeah, because, yeah, I mean, you're going to be not as satisfied eating.
So you're going to be eating more calories.
You're going to be drawn to the less healthy food choices.
I know. I would say, who craves a carrot? Who craves celery?
Yeah, and it becomes a vicious cycle. So then you're, you know,
(19:53):
not eating as best as you could.
So then you're not sleeping well. And then all of a sudden the next day,
you know, you have the ramifications of that. And yeah, so it's, you know, that's why...
You know, it's so important that if you really want to fix your sleep, it's like really,
you know, being introspective and, you know, becoming a sleep scientist of yourself
(20:17):
or a sleep detective and really looking at all of the things that are going
on. and this process of elimination.
Again, the low-hanging fruit in the beginning of getting that sleep hygiene,
timing of things, but then you have the blood sugar issues.
If you're going through perimenopause, menopause, I mean, it's all...
(20:39):
Yeah, I think it's different, obviously, for every person.
One size does not fit all, and that's what you do with your clients.
You talk with them and you figure out, you know, what is going on.
But I think the first step in all of this is just saying to yourself,
okay, I have a problem with this and I need to fix it, recognizing that there is an issue.
So I think that's a great note to end on. And where can people reach you if
(21:03):
they'd like to talk with you, get some more questions or work with you?
Sure. So my website, amandachocco.com, on there, you can find my book,
which is also on Amazon. on.
You can see my programs that I run for sleep.
And I also have a free guide for creating your perfect wind down routine that you could download.
(21:25):
And then I'm on Instagram at amanda.chaco where I give sleep tips.
And I will put your links in the show notes. So very enlightening, very interesting.
Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful sleep tips with us, Amanda.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
And thank you for being with me today for Living Well with Robin Stoloff,
(21:48):
empowering you to live a healthier life.
Please give the show a like and a follow and we'll keep you updated on our most
recent episode. Until I see you next time, keep living well.
Music.
The elusive good night's sleep. We all need it.
We all want it. Yet 30% of us are not getting enough quality sleep and that
can lead to brain fog, irritability, and accidents.
Today we are talking with a former insomniac turned sleep coach about a holistic
approach to better sleep.
Hello and welcome to Living Well with Robin Stoloff, empowering you to live
(00:22):
a healthier life. I am so pleased to welcome Amanda Chaco, nutritional therapy
practitioner and sleep coach.
Amanda, let's start with your journey. You were a former insomniac.
What did you do to overcome that, and how are you helping your clients?
In most of my adult life, I've had some form of sleep issue.
(00:44):
And over the years, you know, it was kind of random, and I would just do like
the over-the-counter, like NyQuil, glass of wine,
sleepy time tea, different things that were the only things I really knew that
existed to try to help with that.
And they worked temporarily, but they obviously were just a bandaid for like what else was going on.
(01:08):
I, over the years, also had some other health issues with autoimmunity and inflammatory bowel disease.
And I was really suffering with that. So I was feeling that the sleep issue
was just a side effect of all of that.
So after really not getting answers that I needed from like the conventional
(01:29):
standard of care, I really went into more of a holistic realm to try to overcome the.
Some of the things that I was going through. So I was really looking for the
root cause and working on my nutrition and trying to work on my sleep and stress.
And there were some other things that I was working with a functional practitioner
on and doing tons and tons of research.
(01:51):
So all of that led me to, I began to write a blog called The Feel and Groovy Project.
And then people started asking me a lot of questions about health.
So I thought at that point, yeah, I'm really enjoying this.
So I decided to go back to school and become a nutritional therapy practitioner, which I did in 2017.
(02:12):
Came out of school and did additional certifications in gut health protocols,
autoimmune, and many of the things that I was dealing with.
So when I started working with my clients, that's what they were coming to me
with, those types of issues.
But always in the background were sleep issues as well.
It was just something else that they were dealing with that I was also trying to help them with that.
(02:36):
And again, kind of playing whack-a-mole with all these different remedies that you hear about.
But it wasn't until the pandemic when my insomnia became chronic.
It was just relentless. I was staring at the ceiling every night,
walking around like a zombie every day.
And I just, at that point had had enough and said, I need to get to the bottom
(03:01):
of this and get to the root cause.
So I really started digging into the research, experimenting with different
frameworks and protocols.
And was able to really get to the root cause of my sleep issues and fix it.
Out of that came my book where I have documented this methodology to help others
(03:27):
that are dealing with sleep issues and began to also work with my clients.
And then really decided at that point to completely focus my practice on sleep
coaching because I really feel like if your sleep is shot,
all the other things that you're trying to accomplish in life really take a
backseat to that because if you're fatigued or have chronic insomnia, it's just the worst.
(03:52):
Absolutely. And so many people suffer from sleep problems.
You wrote a book about this, and you share some of these strategies with your
clients. What is the name of your book, and what is some of the advice that you give your clients?
So the name of my book is Relax, Sleep, Thrive, Your Five-Week Journey to Peaceful, Restorative Sleep.
And it's really a step-by-step approach. It's a five-week program,
(04:14):
but it's really day-by-day, helping people first get the foundations of their sleep set.
So that means, you know, having a regular sleep schedule,
having some type of wind down routine so they're not like, you know,
rushing up, you know, 100 miles an hour to sleep time without really giving
(04:34):
their bodies and minds time to decelerate to get into that relax of state.
You know, helping them work through creating the perfect sleep environment, their sleep sanctuary.
So really getting those bases down. There's lots of checklists and assessments and things like that.
In the second week, we're really trying to connect the dots and becoming a sleep
(04:58):
detective and all the things that we do on a daily basis that could be impacting your sleep.
So you begin journaling your sleep.
Kind of the quality of your sleep, if you're having trouble falling asleep,
staying asleep, getting back to sleep.
And then the timing of all the different activities that you do in the day.
(05:20):
So this would include light exposure, meal timing, exercise,
caffeine, alcohol, supplements, medications.
These are all things that depending on when you do them, if you just tweak the
timing of those quite often, And you'll find that that's enough to really help
get you back into a sleep mode.
(05:43):
But stress usually plays a really big role in that as well.
So that's a big part of when I work with clients and in my book as well is really
helping them work through how to manage stress and particularly stress at bedtime
and during those times when you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind just turns on,
(06:06):
you can't turn it off and coming up with strategies to overcome that.
So that's usually the case with most of the people I work with.
But sometimes there's a deeper problem.
You know, it might be a blood sugar issue. Blood sugar dysregulation will impact your sleep.
You know, having some type of a sleep disorder, digestive disorders,
(06:28):
hormonal fluctuations, situations, depending on where you are in your life with
those types of situations.
Also, even just being overheated. If you get too hot in the evening,
it will wake you up in the middle of the night. So there's all different things.
Becoming that sleep detective and learning how to connect the dots between all
(06:51):
of the things that are impacting your life and experimenting with,
either addressing those issues or, as we said before, changing the timing or
working with these stress management techniques.
Yeah, that's a big part of it. I think the stress in people's daily lives,
it just, it accumulates.
And even if you're not even realizing it because we're all so used to it,
(07:15):
that is something that really can make us stay up at night.
And you have some strategies that you, you know, general strategy.
So let's go over those was again, you mentioned a few, but just talk about,
you know, what you tell people and the best ways that, you know,
people can make changes today.
Sure. So the first thing to, you know, just really low hanging fruit changes
(07:36):
you could make is turn down the temperature in your house about an hour or so before you go into bed.
You really want, especially your bedroom temperature to be, you know,
66, 67 degrees, because your body needs to cool down a couple of degrees to
really be able to begin to get into sleep and particularly deep sleep.
(07:59):
And then, you know, through the night, your temperature raises for when you
wake up in the morning. So temperature is a big thing.
Darkness, you want to turn down those lights, you know, when it gets closer
to bedtime or have candles, a fireplace,
some people, red light bulbs, because any artificial light is going to signal
(08:20):
to your body that it's daytime and make it harder for you to get to sleep.
I use blue blocking glasses at around nine o'clock every night,
and I read my Nook, which is something I've been doing for the last 10 years.
I love to read before I go to sleep, but I know that the light,
the blue light from that device is going to downregulate my melatonin.
(08:42):
So I wear those blue blocking glasses.
So those are just, you know, general sleep hygiene is the first thing that I
always ask is like, what is your nighttime routine?
You know, are you working from your bedroom?
Do you have a TV blasting in your room? Are you stressed out,
you know, right up until the time you go to sleep?
And trying to work on those types of strategies.
(09:04):
You know, again, connecting the dots to those daily things. So tracking against
your sleep, the timing of the things that you're doing and tweaking those a little bit.
You know, there are a lot of medications that are known to cause insomnia,
but you don't always hear that from your doctor and it's not always on the label.
And they're very common medications as well.
(09:26):
So really looking into your medications, the timing you're taking that and speaking
with your doctor, if any of those do fall under that umbrella,
that they might be, you know, a cause for insomnia.
When it comes to stress, particularly like the evening time.
You know, really doing a mind dump, you know, about an hour before bed,
(09:49):
get your to-do list out of your head for the next day.
Sometimes we get overstressed and anxious with all of the things that we have to do.
So just writing those things down, putting them on a calendar,
knowing that, yes, I will deal with them tomorrow.
Tonight is sleep. sleep, worry lists as well.
You know, when I work with my clients, it's like, okay, if you're worrying about
(10:13):
something, let's write that out, you know, and then create a worry time the
next day that you're going to dedicate that time to.
So you're not going to be like that. Just get rid of it, write it down,
get it off your mind, get it off and then know, okay, tomorrow I'm going to
to take 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever that might be, and really think this
(10:36):
through, you know, how real is this?
Is it just stories that I'm making up in my head?
You know, what's triggering this worry? You know, can I reframe this doing reframing exercises?
How much of it's in your control? How much of it isn't?
And easier said than done for many people, though, because sometimes you get
something in your head, and it's just very hard to release it,
(10:57):
you know, and that's where I I think, practices, and I'm sure you recommend
this, something like meditation,
yoga, any kind of movement. I hate to use the word exercise.
It doesn't have to be formal exercise. It could be moving your body in any way.
But that really makes a difference, doesn't it?
Absolutely. For me, I've had this on and off relationship with meditation and
(11:18):
I get on a good streak and then all of a sudden I get off of my habit and I
really notice a difference.
And what meditation does, I think of it more as brain training than even,
I mean, it's relaxing, yes, but you're learning how to just observe your thoughts and let them pass.
And that gets stuck in that rabbit hole of all of a sudden, you know,
(11:43):
you start, you know, ruminating or catastrophizing and all the things that we
tend to do, which always gets worse at night, right? Right.
I mean, for some reason at night, everything is so much worse in our minds.
And then we wake up the next day and we're like, OK, I don't know.
Yeah. Well, it's still it's quiet.
It's the time that you sort of wind down and relax and that can let thoughts into your brain.
(12:09):
And sometimes when people hear the word meditation, they sort of think of like,
you know, a guru sitting cross leg on a mountain.
But it's not like that at all. You can meditate really anywhere at your desk
if you want. And it can be five minutes, right?
I mean, it doesn't have to be a big major overhaul of your life.
Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if you wake up in the night and you're dealing
(12:29):
with these incessant thoughts, I mean, one thing that I've found really helpful
is like body scan meditations.
You need to get out of your head.
So if you're focusing your thoughts on something other than whatever is bothering
you at that moment, it's really helpful. So there are a lot of guided meditations that do body scans.
(12:51):
You know, there's other techniques of, you know, thinking through your favorite walk.
Like if you go through a trail or anything else, just going through those emotions,
not thinking of anything too technical or, you know, stimulating in any way,
but almost something that's boring.
I used to be a pastry chef many, many moons ago.
(13:14):
Oh, different career. And yeah, that was my other life.
But I still remember all the recipes. And sometimes when I can't get my mind
off of something, all of a sudden I just start baking in my head and I go through
like every single ingredient.
And it really, it just puts me to sleep. It's amazing.
That's great. Now, see, my thing would be I'd be on the beach.
(13:34):
I would be on the beach. I'd see the ocean. I hear the ocean.
I feel the sand. That's my happy place. And to me, that would be something that
would kind of put me to sleep. In fact, sometimes I even put that on my iPad
and listen to the sound of the ocean because it's so relaxing to me.
It brings up very happy memories for me.
So whatever your thing is, whatever works for you, that's a great way to do it.
(13:56):
And now you're hearing a lot about different blue light, brown light.
I'm not sure what the difference. White noise, I'm sorry. White noise, brown noise.
Yes. So what does that mean? What is the difference between all those different noises?
Yeah. So there's white noise, pink noise, brown. I know, you're like, what? Yes.
It's just, it's different frequencies of sound.
(14:20):
And actually, I was just listening to a podcast today with a sleep scientist,
and he was talking about the different colored sounds.
And apparently, research has shown that pink noise is even better than white
noise to help you go to sleep because the frequency of the pink noise goes in
sync with the slow brainwaves that we have during deep sleep.
(14:44):
So it kind of syncs you up with that in your mind. It might be like a subconscious
thing that you're not even aware of.
But, you know, white noise, you know, the nature sounds that you were talking
about. I mean, these are other ways to relax.
Get out of your head. You're listening to something else. It's tuning out with
other street noise or other things.
(15:06):
Sometimes, you know, just my ceiling fan helps, you know, hearing that going around.
It's just funny that they call a noise a color.
Or maybe tough, tough to get that. But I guess you have to call it something.
So maybe under a microscope or something. I don't know. But talk to us about
some success stories that you've had with your clients.
(15:28):
Sure. So, you know, sometimes it's as simple as I had one client and,
you know, we were working together and she was every evening having a glass
of wine before she went to bed.
And this is like a really common thing that like, you know, alcohol,
it, you know, it's a sedative. It's going to help me fall asleep.
(15:50):
And the same thing happens to me just waking up at 3 a.m.
Not trying to figure out what it was. And it was really through that journaling
and that tracking that we found out that she really had to replace that wine
with something else or have that earlier in the day.
So that was like a really easy fix.
(16:11):
Yeah. People think that wine makes you, well, it might help you fall asleep
or any kind of alcohol, but then it wakes you up, doesn't it? It disrupts your sleep.
Yeah, it does. once your liver finishes
detoxifying that if you
just all it just for some reason we wake up in the night and have and then your
brain turns on and you have a really hard time falling asleep and even if you
(16:34):
don't wake up it really still messes up with your sleep cycles i know for me
i have a sleep tracker and if i have wine even if i have it earlier in the day for me it totally
ruins my deep sleep.
Some studies show it ruins your REM sleep. For me, it's deep sleep.
But in any case, even if I don't wake up, I just don't feel great the next day. I have brain fog.
(16:56):
I'm just, you know, not working on all of my cylinders.
So, you know, alcohol is definitely one of those things that you want to...
Yeah, a lot of people don't want to hear that.
They do not want to hear that. Sometimes I don't either.
So I know if I have wine, It's going to impact me.
But I'm still going to go out on a Saturday night with my husband and have a
(17:18):
glass of wine. I mean, you just know, all right. I just know Sunday I'm going to be a little slower.
But I've made that connection, you know, and I'm in control.
It's the risk-reward situation.
I hear you. But, you know, other people, like another client I was working with,
her blood sugar, she had a lot of blood sugar imbalances. She was hypoglycemic. them semic.
(17:41):
So really working on the nutrition side of thing and balancing the blood sugar
health, because if your blood sugar drops during the night when you're sleeping,
it's an emergency to your body.
Your adrenals are going to, you know, pump out that cortisol.
And cortisol is just the opposite of melatonin, right?
(18:02):
It's like yin and yang. You do not want that cortisol are all flowing through your body.
So blood sugar can be an issue.
And then on the other hand, if you have that chronic insomnia or even,
you know, like one night of bad sleep will mess up with your blood sugar regulation for the next day.
So you'll find yourself, you know, with more cravings. Yes, I was going to say
(18:26):
sleep and nutrition are so intertwined. They really are.
We don't often think about that, but one affects the other, doesn't it?
Yeah, you can't really separate them. And it's, you know, it's kind of like
this vicious cycle where you, you know, you're trying to work on both of them at the same time.
But, you know, when your sleep is disrupted, you know, when you're going through
(18:47):
your deep sleep, that's where you have a lot of your hormones are being balanced during that time.
And that includes your hunger hormones, your ghrelin, which,
you know, is our hunger signal that gets upregulated. So we feel more hungry.
Our leptin, which tells us when we're full, that gets downregulated.
(19:08):
So we're not recognizing when we're full.
And then your blood sugar gets out of whack, which causes cravings and kind
of that blood sugar rollercoaster.
And that can create a vicious cycle. And then you're having sugar and then you're
staying awake and then you're not, then you're hungry again the next day and you're overeating.
It's, I mean, it can affect your weight. Sleep is related to that as well.
(19:30):
Yeah. Yeah, because, yeah, I mean, you're going to be not as satisfied eating.
So you're going to be eating more calories.
You're going to be drawn to the less healthy food choices.
I know. I would say, who craves a carrot? Who craves celery?
Yeah, and it becomes a vicious cycle. So then you're, you know,
(19:53):
not eating as best as you could.
So then you're not sleeping well. And then all of a sudden the next day,
you know, you have the ramifications of that. And yeah, so it's, you know, that's why...
You know, it's so important that if you really want to fix your sleep, it's like really,
you know, being introspective and, you know, becoming a sleep scientist of yourself
(20:17):
or a sleep detective and really looking at all of the things that are going
on. and this process of elimination.
Again, the low-hanging fruit in the beginning of getting that sleep hygiene,
timing of things, but then you have the blood sugar issues.
If you're going through perimenopause, menopause, I mean, it's all...
(20:39):
Yeah, I think it's different, obviously, for every person.
One size does not fit all, and that's what you do with your clients.
You talk with them and you figure out, you know, what is going on.
But I think the first step in all of this is just saying to yourself,
okay, I have a problem with this and I need to fix it, recognizing that there is an issue.
So I think that's a great note to end on. And where can people reach you if
(21:03):
they'd like to talk with you, get some more questions or work with you?
Sure. So my website, amandachocco.com, on there, you can find my book,
which is also on Amazon. on.
You can see my programs that I run for sleep.
And I also have a free guide for creating your perfect wind down routine that you could download.
(21:25):
And then I'm on Instagram at amanda.chaco where I give sleep tips.
And I will put your links in the show notes. So very enlightening, very interesting.
Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful sleep tips with us, Amanda.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
And thank you for being with me today for Living Well with Robin Stoloff,
(21:48):
empowering you to live a healthier life.
Please give the show a like and a follow and we'll keep you updated on our most
recent episode. Until I see you next time, keep living well.
Music.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com