Embracing the Feminine Principle for Better Sleep with Lucinda Sykes

In this episode we get curious about:

• Hyper arousal and its impact on sleep.
• Masculine vs. Feminine approaches to sleep issues.
• Over-medicalization of sleep and its consequences.
• The importance and benefits of sleep hygiene.
• Potential sleep aids: melatonin, cannabis, and their effects.
• Sleep-tracking app experiences.
• Insights from the Maori culture on sleeplessness.
• Lucinda's 'mindfulwomen50' initiative.
• Laurin's connection to ancestral sun rhythms.
• The pros and cons of modern sleep tracking devices.

To learn more about our guest:

Lucinda Sykes is a sleep coach for Women 50+ She helps women get deep natural sleep throughout the second half of life. Her self-care approach is a natural extension of the Feminine Principle. She’s a retired medical doctor who taught mindfulness programs for more than 6000 patients at her Toronto clinic, Meditation for Health. When COVID ended the clinic’s in-person teaching in 2020, Lucinda shifted her work online, bringing her longstanding interest in sleep and mindfulness to new coaching programs for Women 50+. Lucinda’s background includes 10 years of Jungian analysis with Marion Woodman, a pioneer in the contemporary exploration of the archetypal Feminine. Lucinda studied 6 semesters at the CG Jung Institute Zurich, and received the Institute’s Certification of Theoretical Knowledge in Analytical Psychology. Lucinda’s mindfulness teaching is based on extensive training through the Center for Mindfulness affiliated with the University of Massachusetts.

Website: Happysleepsecrets.com

FB: Joyful After 50

Blog: MIND & BODY AFTER 50

Freebie: HAPPY SLEEP SECRETS

Credits

Audio Engineer: Sam Wittig

Music: Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio

Photography & Design: https://ashamclaughlin.wixsite.com/tejart

To learn more about Laurin Wittig and her work: https://HeartLightJoy.com

Copyright 2024 Laurin Wittig

Interview Episode with Lucinda Sykes

And you're just demanding that she give you seven hours instead of six. And by gosh, you only got six and a half last night. You're aiming for seven today. That, again, there's the hyper arousal, which you are, shall we say, unconsciously stimulating. And that's the masculine. Instead, the feminine is just as you say, you wake up, the sun's up, back to sleep at nighttime.

Yeah. And you let's support our nature rather than lording it over her and telling her what to do.

I think we're going to learn some good, useful things today. Lucinda, welcome to the podcast.

Lucinda: Thank you indeed, Laurin. Very glad to be

Laurin: , I'm really looking for, I say this every time I'm so looking forward to this conversation, but I have great conversations all the time. So it's always true. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

Lucinda: For sure. For sure. Well, they're usually interested to know that I'm a retired physician here in Canada. I had a clinic for 22 years, a clinic teaching mindfulness. To medical patients who were referred by their doctor for quite a wide range of medical conditions. So I have been teaching mindfulness for a very long time.

So that's where I am. I'm a long time mindfulness teacher who was a medical doctor.

Laurin: That's a lovely It's not something you find often.

Lucinda: I'm very glad about this. In fact, now that I'm no longer practicing medicine, I find I can speak more forthrightly about some of the problems that I can see in in medicine. And I hope that serves serves people to hear about that from the perspective of a longtime physician.

There's times when one is better than the other, but together they're more powerful. So

Lucinda: definitely. In fact, the irony is that there are often research papers that will be confirming that which you are promoting. For example, exposure to the natural world. We know that women live longer if they live close to the natural world. It's overlooked in part because the overarching medical model still doesn't really accommodate this understanding.

Laurin: Yeah. In fact, the first time that I know this is not where we were going, but we're going to, I'm going to talk about

Lucinda: Or jump in, yes.

Laurin: The first time I ever read about nature being used in a, as a healing modality was in Japan.

Lucinda: Yes, forest.

Laurin: Where people were, were encouraged to go forest bathing

Lucinda: Yes.

Laurin: and it was mental health stuff.

I know if you live in downtown Manhattan, I guess that's why everybody likes to go to Central Park there. But it's it is amazing to me how much research and science there is being done on

Lucinda: Oh, yes.

Laurin: call alternative or complimentary modalities.

Lucinda: Most definitely. I have forest bathing in my PDF that I'll be telling people about

Laurin: good.

Lucinda: My happy sleep secrets. I recommend that people go and be with the natural world every day if

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah.

Lucinda: Yes.

Lucinda: Yes. So rightly it belongs in medicine and the research is there but medicine is a little slow. Lumbering along medicine is lumbering along.

Laurin: Yeah. A little bit high down there. Yeah.

Lucinda: Yeah. But it accommodates mindfulness. There I was teaching MBSR in a medical model. My patients were all referred by fellow physicians in downtown Toronto. So it does, there is room.

There is

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. I had another client, another client, another guest who was working with a children's pain clinic. I think out in California. It's been a while. I can't

Lucinda: Okay. Okay.

Laurin: 12 years. And she was doing Reiki and other kinds of energy healing and having tremendous results. hmm.

Lucinda: Yes. Yes. If you can get the results and even better if you can put them in a credible scientific paper and publish it in medicine, lumbering along begins to change.

Laurin: Yeah.

Laurin: And every, every time we can get a little bit more in there, that's, you know, it helps. It just opens the door a little bit

Lucinda: Oh yes, because we want to help people.

Laurin: yeah, yeah, that's the, that's the end goal, right? Let's help you feel better.

Lucinda: yeah,

Laurin: So well, that gives us a nice segue into this topic of sleeping.

Lucinda: fantastic. It does.

Laurin: I know that in some of the notes you sent me, you said more than a third of women 50 plus have unsatisfactory sleep.

So let's start with, what do you mean by unsatisfactory

Lucinda: that's a probably an underestimate actually. It's like they complain about. Sleep that is a concern to them, that they may even tell the doctor about, sometimes they don't tell the doctor, but they, it's they, they aren't sleeping the way they want to. Often they're not awakening, feeling restored, we call it restorative sleep, it's not available to them.

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Lucinda: A range of different ways that sleep is is a trouble. And by the way, the demographic that takes the most sleeping pills is women after 50. So it's an enormous trouble now that we're coming to understand the, well, let's use the word, the toxicity. of sleeping pills, especially if they're taken for, you know, more than a week or two, such serious side effects. And by gosh, it's women over 50 often taking them and they can least afford the side effects.

Laurin: Right. Right. Yeah. All too often medications are really tested on men too. So, you know, they don't really know how they're going to

Lucinda: and they're tested for short periods of time. Yeah.

Laurin: So, so what are, what are some of the causes of that? I mean, I, I know hormonally there's that big shift.

So we won't do that here. Yes, the highlight is that gosh, you could have some family predispositions, but probably the overarching concern is something that sleep scientists call hyper arousal as a fancy term for the mind won't be quiet The mind. Carries on and carries on, especially women. We have a tendency to self criticism, self judgment.

Laurin: Yeah, I was thinking as you were saying that, that for me, having kids was my major sleep depriver,

Lucinda: Yes. And then you

Laurin: through high

Lucinda: habit. Yeah. One gets a habit. Women get a habit of sleeplessness from caring for the kids when they're young. Yeah.

Laurin: yeah. So, what do you, what do you suggest for Those who are having the, this hyper arousal or, you know, this voice that won't stop that's if I'm going to have a bad night's sleep, it's because I wake up in the middle of the night and my brain starts running.

The masculine side is there's a problem, that's a goal, let's fix it. And I'm not opposed to that, what physician is. However, that attitude of there's a problem, it's a goal, let's fix it, actually can contribute to hyper arousal. Because then your sleeplessness becomes a shall we call it a problem. It's an identified issue that needs to get solved.

Laurin: Mm.

Lucinda: But we may well be better served if we take the attitude of the feminine, which is, it's our nature. Being occasionally sleepless is part of human nature. We have all done it. And Sleeplessness is a manifestation of our nature.

Now, the feminine attitude is one of self cultivation, self care, so that we're not trying to correct problems or fix them, but we are cultivating our natural capacity to sleep.

Laurin: Mm.

Very different than let's fix that pernicious problem that we've labeled insomnia.

Laurin: Yeah. Because the anxiety that comes with the label contributes to the problem.

Lucinda: Yes, it becomes a story which worsens things.

Laurin: Right. I remember when my I was just going to say, I remember when my kids were young and school started so freaking early and I am, I have never been a morning person ever. Not even as a, an infant, I was not a morning person. So I was having to get up and, and, you know, get them off and stuff. And and so at night, if I was having trouble sleeping, I would.

Lucinda: Yes.

Laurin: Just don't look at it.

Lucinda: Yeah, that's in my happy sleep secrets as well. Get rid of that clock. Ha ha ha.

Laurin: My husband was like, what, why did you, why did you move the clock out of the bedroom? It's like, you don't use it. It just makes me anxious.

Lucinda: Yeah. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You see, your wisdom is there. We turn deeply within ourselves and we begin to offer ourselves good counsel, good advice. If we're lucky, there's an expert or two that gives us some ideas and the inner wisdom says, Oh yeah, that's a great idea. I'm going to follow that one.

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Lucinda: Very often our own nature begins to to advise us.

Yes.

Laurin: Yeah. And I know as women in this culture, we are kind of trained to dismiss our wisdom.

Lucinda: Yeah.

Lucinda: Yes. Yes. That's foreign to the current medical model. In fact, yeah, it's, it's foreign and it's a weakness in the medical model.

Laurin: Yeah, I've, I have battled with doctors for my children because I was like, this is what's happening. And they go, well, no, I don't see that. It's like, okay, we'll see you tomorrow. We'll be back with that ear infection that's

Lucinda: Yeah. It doesn't fit into their model. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't allow for the tremendous range there is one individual to another, how diagnostic labels, even when based on pathology have different ways of expressing themselves in different individuals. Yeah.

Laurin: Well, and you know, a stay at home mom with a baby knows that baby better than

Lucinda: Yes, yes, yes,

Lucinda: service. Yes. Yeah. Well, it's one of my concerns is over medicalization of of ordinary life

Laurin: Yeah.

Lucinda: of bringing in this cumbersome medical model into, you know, ordinary life and worsening, worsening

Laurin: Yeah. So one of the other things I, I really am a champion of is finding wise women to talk to when I have things like this going on. And so in that, since we have a wise woman who is a specialist in this sleep thing, what other kinds of, of suggestions, tips, I know you've got a PDF that that you're going to share later, but what other suggestions can you can you share with us to.

You figure out what's, what's best for yourself.

You do it every day. Some recommend it has to be vigorous, but maybe for other women, it's just, you go out for a walk every day and it's good to have exposure to a bright light, preferably sunlight is good to do it at the same time every day, because you want to help your circadian clock that's within the brain that controls sort of the mastermind control of the.

Laurin: hmm. Mm hmm.

Lucinda: And for sure, sleep scientist after sleep scientist would say, go to bed at the same time and arise in the morning at roughly the same time. And if you didn't have a good night's sleep. So be it. Don't just lie in bed and try to will yourself back to sleep. In actual fact, what you're doing is you're setting yourself up for another night of sleep problems.

Because you're just kind of lying there in bed, not doing much, and you're not building up sleep pressure for the subsequent night. Yeah, if you

Laurin: that's interesting.

Lucinda: didn't have a good night's sleep last night, so be it. Get up, go into life, and then let's see what happens the next night. And it's good to, as I say, sleep likes regularity.

Laurin: hmm. Mm

Lucinda: Stay up late and watch those videos and scroll through social media and so on. We're learning now that that's, that can even be harmful. Harmful to to the, the health, restorative effects of sleep avoid that urge to stay up late and fascinating research.

I won't go into it there, into it here, but really indicating that that's a, that's a harmful habit to get into, especially if you're watching a lot of screens late at night without realizing it. You're expecting. So the light.

Laurin: Mm

Lucinda: The light tends to have a blue quality. It's because of the light emitting diodes that that are behind the light of our screens.

Laurin: No.

Lucinda: at night. You know the sun was setting it was reddish and yellow,

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Lucinda: you're going to.

Worsen your sleep. If you're exposing yourself to bright light and especially blue light later in the day. So that's just some very basic, basic things.

Laurin: Yeah, that's, I'm going through my habits and thinking, yep, I do that, I do that. I have learned in the last couple of years, I'm a TV holic, I, you know, admit it, but and my husband goes to bed earlier than I do, so I, but what I've learned is that just when he goes to bed, I turn the TV off

Lucinda: Yeah, there you go.

Laurin: and then I, I'll read for awhile

Laurin: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And yeah, so that's, that's something I have sort of, I keep adding new habits to my sleep. And that's, that's been a really, it's been really interesting to watch it because I fall asleep a lot faster now than I used to.

Lucinda: Ah, yes. Yes. The body she likes. Well, she likes to sleep. You can get into that rhythm. You know, this is self care. This is in the feminine rather than you standing over her and saying, now you better do what I tell you.

Laurin: It's time for bed. Go to sleep.

Lucinda: Yeah. Yeah. And that's the dominance of our culture. Of course, it's the dominant of medicine.

That's where all the pharmaceuticals come in. And we We, we don't allow the, the body to restore its natural rhythm for

Lucinda: Yeah, it's very popular

Laurin: Yes. Yes. And the other is is cannabis, you know, gummies.

Lucinda: Yeah, it's also very popular. Yeah, yeah.

Laurin: So I don't know if, if they have a, if there's, I mean like with nose spray, I know if I take it more than once or twice in a row, it's, I'm going to have rebound from it and it's going to be a problem, more of a problem than if I just suffer through it.

So I'm wondering if those, those sort of more natural sleep aids have a similar kind of thing going on.

And I, I wouldn't wanna offer. People advice on that other than to say, if you have to choose between melatonin and a benzodiazepine or a Z drug, melatonin would be the way to go. And in Europe, that's even maybe more widely accepted. You may find, however, that it's going to be less effective over time.

And as for the cannabinoids, you know, it's still stuff. In the brain. And what goes on, you see, when you get your brain exposed repeatedly to a chemical, even if it's a chemical that in various forms it makes itself, but if you are presenting the brain with an imbalance, it will balance the other direction.

And you know, it's probably not the way to go. And I'm not opposed to marijuana. I'm from the sixties, you know,

Laurin: Yeah.

Lucinda: Yes. But you see, it's still in the end. It's just a chemical.

Laurin: Right. Right. Okay. That makes sense.

Lucinda: Yeah. Yeah. And probably less is better. And, you know, sometimes what you're benefiting from is what medicine pejoratively calls the placebo response, but it should not be so rejecting of the so called placebo response because the placebo response is your own capacity to heal.

Laurin: Right.

Lucinda: Yes. You're.

Laurin: doing what your body is designed to do.

Laurin: Yeah.

Lucinda: you know, to still give your mind body permission to fall asleep, because especially in the latter half of life, you want to strain the brain as little as possible.

Laurin: Okay.

Lucinda: You don't want to be introducing. Strange chemicals. Recently, I just sent out an email to my folks about the evidence that food additives contribute to dementia down the road. Very valid research Indicating that if you're in the habit of eating food additives, and it's almost, it's very difficult not to eat food

Laurin: Yeah.

Lucinda: yeah, then you are more at risk for dementia in the subsequent years.

So any type of chemical, and let's face it, the cannabinoids, whatever smiley face you might want to put on it, is a chemical!

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. Save it for an important,

Lucinda: Yeah, well, you know, let's take care of ourselves. Yeah,

Laurin: So I've, I've been using a sleep app to track and it's not super. Super detailed because it's on my phone. It's not, I'm not wearing a watch or something to bed cause I'm not going to do that, but I've been tracking it for probably three or four years now. And so I, I, you know, have found patterns. One of them was, and this didn't really surprise me as a woman to learn this, but I sleep much better in the dark of the moon than I do in during

Lucinda: Ah, yes,

Laurin: And it didn't, once I sort of saw the pattern, I was like, okay, so now I know, you know, if I'm having a bad night's sleep, I'm going, is it a full moon?

Lucinda: sure.

Lucinda: yes, yes,

Laurin: I could understand the patterns better and then I don't stress over them. It's like, Oh, it's the full moon. I'm going to have a couple of nights where I don't sleep. Okay. That's fine.

Now, what was so interesting to me is half the people were Maori and the other half were non Maori.

Laurin: Oh, how cool.

Lucinda: Wasn't that interesting, because you see, by and large, the researchers observed that the attitude to sleeplessness was different. That for the non Maori people, it's an inconvenience. I mean, it's three in the morning, you can't sleep, how inconvenient.

Laurin: Hmm. Right. I have to get up in the morning and do stuff.

Lucinda: Yeah, yeah, and the Maori people, it's a generalization, but that's how research is. It was a time for cultural and spiritual practice.

Laurin: So now it's a gift.

Laurin: Hmm. Mm

Lucinda: Okay, the, the people who were sick by the, the early part of the 6th century, they were going to have sleep experience at the temple of the God of healing. Yeah, because the, the sleep experience was going to facilitate healing and some of the dreams might speak to the healing that needed to happen. It gives us access to, well, as a Jungian analyst, I would say, gives us access to the non conscious. Yes. But.

Laurin: Right. Yeah.

Lucinda: Like your work for sure. I was just reading your fascinating podcast you gave us earlier in in this year about the heart chakra and you're describing a practice that you see if you're not able to sleep at night.

Well, why wouldn't want to do that?

Lucinda: that's it. Get rid of the should.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. I just, I, I literally have gotten to where I just lie on my back. I put one hand on my heart and one on my solar plexus and just breathe into it.

And next thing I know it's morning.

Lucinda: Maybe the mind body wants that. Maybe it's waking you up so that you will go to the deeper level of yourself in this way so that this is not a technique to induce sleep. There's a whole lot more. going on.

Laurin: This is just fascinating.

Lucinda: is why I wanted to come and speak with you. I want to point to this dimension, which I believe is overlooked in conventional medicine,

Laurin: Yeah.

Lucinda: especially for my ladies over 50.

It's a tremendous shame because the, the, the inner life is so rich for them, has so much potential for them. And instead they have the inconvenience of insomnia.

Lucinda: Yes, yes,

Laurin: It's like, you know, I'm from a family that were farmers. My dad's dad was a farmer and for generations in the deep South. And. I know that they just got up when the sun got up and they went to bed when the sun went down and they worked when, you know, at whatever they got done that day.

And nobody, I mean, you know, I don't know how they organize things, you know, the church bell, I guess. So you go to church, you know,

Lucinda: Oh, yes.

Laurin: but your day wasn't cut up into hours and minutes and seconds. And I would love to live without that.

Lucinda: Yes.

Laurin: I think that would take a lot of anxiety out of whether you're sleeping or not.

You know, that might be useful if you are consulting a a sleep doctor of some sort, and maybe CBTI makes use of such devices. But in the long run, I'd suggest people get rid of all of that. Because you don't want your poor mind body to feel scrutinized. And you don't want her to feel like you've got a project for her.

And you're just demanding that she give you seven hours instead of six. And by gosh, you only got six and a half last night. You're aiming for seven today. That, again, there's the hyper arousal, which you are, shall we say, unconsciously stimulating. And that's the masculine. Instead, the feminine is just as you say, you wake up, the sun's up, back to sleep at nighttime.

Yeah. And you let's support our nature rather than lording it over her and telling her what to do.

Lucinda: That was the message I wanted to

Laurin: yeah, I think, and, and I, I really do want anybody who's listening to, to try to let go of time, especially related to sleep.

Lucinda: Yes. Because that's sleep is about what you enter the world of timelessness.

Laurin: Yeah.

Lucinda: Yes. Yes.

Laurin: I, I love sleeping. I, my daughter was a sleeper from, I mean, the, from the get go, she slept like I did, you know, she just slept long and hard and, and we would talk about dreams, you know, what, did you have a good dream last night? What'd you tell me about your dream?

Lucinda: Yes.

Laurin: So it's yeah, just letting go of the shoulds and oughts and have tos and time.

And it's just, it's a much better way to live. And, and it's hard to do in a culture that is so like, you have to be here at this time and you have to do that at that time. Yeah.

Laurin: Yes. Yeah. Okay. I bet. Yeah. Thank you.

Lucinda: to talk with you, Laurin.

Laurin: Yeah. This has been great. I've learned a lot and you, you've kind of opened my eyes to things I was not consciously thinking about, but have clearly been doing.

Lucinda: Yeah, we resonate. Oh yeah. We're serving this profound mystery that we incarnate. Yeah.

Laurin: All right. So is there anything else you'd like to leave us with after that incredibly wise thing?

Find you online?

So I do teach a few times a year. I call it mindfulwomen50. So mindfulwomen50. com. We have these programs just, we assemble a group of women who want to spend a month practicing daily mindfulness. We use the framework of MBSR because, you know, I am a physician and a scientist and I like to give people the framework, the MBSR framework, but then people are left to their own magical devices.

We see what shows up.

Laurin: So tell us what MBSR stands for.

Lucinda: Mindfulness based stress reduction. That is the program that so much research has investigated. In fact, hundreds of research papers now showing the benefit that comes to people by participating in such programs.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. It's mindfulness is so good for calming the nervous system

Lucinda: Yes.

Lucinda: I, I saw, yes.

Laurin: I like to start my day off that way. Cause it sets the intention for the day to be calm and in the flow. So and I think it makes me, helps me sleep better.

So,

Lucinda: Well, that was one of the first things I learned when I started teaching MBSR at the clinic, was that it really helps sleep.

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Lucinda: I had not been advertising it to my fellow physicians as a way to help patients with insomnia, but they told me

Laurin: Mm hmm.

Lucinda: But we never tell anybody to improve their sleep. We just help them to be present in a mindful way.

Laurin: Right. Yeah. It's a, our mind is so powerful and, and it's, we can change our reality by changing our mind. You know?

Lucinda: Well, that's what you're doing with your podcast. Look at this!

Laurin: Yeah. That's, that's what I'm hoping to do.

Lucinda: Yeah, that's what you're changing. That's what we're doing here.

Lucinda: Yes. Oh, yes. It's a fascinating research paper with the Maori and how they view sleeplessness.

Laurin: Yeah.

Lucinda: Not an inconvenience.

Laurin: yeah. It's an opportunity.

Lucinda: Yes. To be with the ancestors they were writing with.

Laurin: Yeah, I, I just, I love that, that I'm so, I have a cultural anthropology degree from, you know, years ago,

Lucinda: I saw that, yeah.

Laurin: but so I love, I love indigenous cultures because they're so much more in sync with

Lucinda: Yes,

Laurin: the natural way we, we should be living, you

Lucinda: yes. And I believe that, see, through mindfulness, you begin to contact that in yourself. It's in our genome. I mean, it's us. We are those Paleolithic ancestors.

Lucinda: Yes, we just need to school the analytic mind is school it so it takes a side side position. Yeah.

Laurin: Yes. Intuition and, and just knowing it's really important.

Lucinda: yes, I could see that in your work, Laura. Yeah. Yeah. I had

Laurin: Very much.

Lucinda: to suffer for energy healing. I most definitely do. Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're going to bring this to a close. This has been a lovely conversation. I'm so glad that we got to do this

Lucinda: Yes. So good talking with you. Now, if anybody wants to get on my email list, go to lucindagift. com and there you'll get the happy sleep secrets PDF and then you're on the list and I'll let you know what. What's what? Okay. Lucinda, my name, gift. com.

Lucinda: Yeah. I, I would hope that I'm pointing to this in yourself that wants to say, Oh yes, of course. Yeah, of course. Okay. I knew

Laurin: Well, thank you everybody for being here with us today. I hope you've learned a few tips about how to enjoy. The nighttime better. Let's

Lucinda: I was meant to speak with you, Laurin. Good.

Laurin: Yes. Well, the universe brings us together with the people we need to see, right?

Lucinda: Yeah. And goodbye to your audience

Laurin: Bye everybody. I will see you next week on the next episode of Curiously Wise. In the meantime, stay curious.

Please head over to my website. www.heartlightjoy.com. Curiously wise is a team effort. I am grateful for the skill and enthusiasm Sam Wittig, Our audio engineer, brings to this collaboration. Our music is Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio.

I'm Laurin Wittig. Please join me again next week. For another episode of Curiously Wise, from my heart to yours, may your life be filled with love, light joy, and of course, curiosity.