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The Why & How Of Optimal Sleep! | Ep 157
Episode 15724th February 2024 • Don't Wait For Your Wake Up Call! • Melissa Deally
00:00:00 01:15:51

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Discover the secrets to a restful night's sleep in this special episode combining three interviews I gave recently for the No-Problem Parenting podcast. The content was so well received, and applies to adults too, so I wanted to share it with you here as well! Uncover the daily habits affecting your sleep and learn practical tips to transform your mornings and enhance your longevity. Don't miss out on the key to better health and well-being! Tune in now. 😴🌙

 

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https://linktr.ee/yourguidedhealthjourney

 

About the Host:

Melissa is an Integrative Health Practitioner and a Board Designated Trainer of NLP, Time Line Therapy® and Hypnotherapy, helping people get to the root cause of their health issues and then get lasting results. Melissa neither diagnoses nor cures but helps bring your body back into balance by helping discover your “toxic load” and then removing the toxins. Melissa offers functional medicine lab testing that helps you “see inside” to know exactly what is going on, and then provides a personalized wellness protocol using natural herbs and supplements.  Melissa’s business is 100% virtual – the lab tests are mailed directly to your home and she specializes in holding your hand and guiding the way to healing so that you don’t have to figure it all out on your own.

Melissa is the winner of the 2021 & 2022 Quality Care Award by Business From The Heart and is also the recipient of the Alignable “Local Business Person of the Year “Award 2022 for Whistler.

Melissa has been featured at a number of Health & Wellness Summits, such as the Health, Wealth & Wisdom Summit, The Power To Profit Summit, The Feel Fan-freaking-tas-tic Summit, the Aim Higher Summit and many more! She has also guested on over 60 different podcasts teaching people about the importance of prioritizing our health and how to get started.

 

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/yourguidedhealthjourney

 

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Transcripts

Melissa Deally:

Imagine getting up every day full of energy is if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be like? What would that be worth to you? What is your health worth to you? Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet, we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system, or public health. As a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today and all your tomorrow's don't wait for your wake up call welcome back to another episode of The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I am Melissa Deally your host. And today's episode is actually the combination of three episodes that I created with a colleague of mine Jackie Finnema of the no problem parenting podcast, she asked me to come on to her podcast and talk about various aspects of sleep that could benefit the families and children that she works with. We had such a great time recording these episodes together. And I had so much to share that it ended up being a three part series. And I decided since this month, I'm also focusing on rest and rejuvenation. That rather than re recording a whole new podcast episode myself for this don't wait for your wake up call show that I would stitch together these three episodes that I did with Jackie, and share them here with you. So you're getting information that is aimed at children and adults. All of it incredibly helpful for improving your sleep experience and therefore your health. So enjoy the show. And thank you as always for listening and subscribing to the don't wait for your wake up call podcast. Hey, welcome

Jaci Finnema:

back. No problem parents and today's Wellness Wednesday episode we're going to be discussing sleep and the profound influence of blue light and our special guests, Melissa Deally from your guided health journey. She's been on the show before she is back. She's an integrative mind body health practitioner, and she's going to talk about the critical connection between our sleep patterns and exposure to blue light, especially from digital screens, Melissa shares insights into how blue light disrupts our circadian rhythm and melatonin production affecting our overall quality of sleep. And this is not just for your kids. This is for you parents as well. We're going to bring Melissa back on the next couple of Wednesdays and continue our conversation on sleep. But today's just a quick short episode on specifically blue light. Melissa also wrote a chapter in our first book called Raising your kiddos with more confidence and less fear, you can get that link in the show notes. And she wrote a specific chapter and how you can get more water into your kids by teaching them about their poop. So that's a super fun chapter. If you don't have the book yet, go grab that. And to learn more about Melissa, there's a link in the show notes for her link tree account, you can also go to your guided health journey.com. We're just going to jump right into it. Melissa, I'm excited to have you back on the show. Welcome.

Melissa Deally:

Thank you so much, Jackie, for having me. I'm excited to be back here too. We're going to

Jaci Finnema:

talk about sleep. It's not just about getting on a regular routine and getting our kids to bed on time and making sure that they're napping and all of that there's so much more to it.

Melissa Deally:

And most people haven't ever done a class on sleep, we're all doing the best we can we're born we know how to sleep as babies. And so people don't realize that modern day life is getting in the way of our ability to sleep well. And that applies to children as well as to adults. And one of the biggest issues today getting in the way of sleep is blue light. Now blue light is the light that is emitted by the Sun at high noon. And that tells our brain when we get that blue light into our eyes. It tells our brain that it's time to be active in time to be awake. And as a result, if we have had too much blue light getting into our eyes in the evening, our brain doesn't even know to start producing melatonin. And then it's time to do that to get ready for sleep. Now back before the advent of electricity, the brain would get natural signals of when to be producing melatonin and that natural signal would be done Ask because the light in the sky changes, it changes to that orange kind of Camp Fire glow. And that would signal the brain, it's time to start producing melatonin because this person is going to be going to bed soon. Yeah, blue light, in fact, blocks the production of melatonin. So it's not even that, okay, I'm going to, you know, turn off my computer half an hour before I want to go to bed. So my brain can start producing melatonin and half an hour before I go to bed. That doesn't work. Because for every hour, you've been on a device that's emitting blue light. When you get off that device. For every hour, you've been on it, it takes another 30 minutes for your brain to be able to start producing melatonin.

Jaci Finnema:

Okay, wait, are you kidding me? 30 minutes for ironing or

Melissa Deally:

eating? Yeah. So if you spent three hours on a device after dark, which is really easy to do, particularly in winter, right, when you get off your devices, that's 90 minutes before your brain can start producing melatonin. Okay,

Jaci Finnema:

so maybe you're gonna get to this and I'm jumping ahead, like I can fall asleep fairly easily. But now I'm thinking that there's something to this because I am waking up with thoughts, or sometimes I'm feeling like my brains not really shut down.

Melissa Deally:

Exactly. So you're falling asleep, and some people can't fall asleep. Right? Right. Some people do fall asleep. And the people that can't fall asleep, it can be other reasons, like stress, things are running around in their brain, maybe they've had too much caffeine in the day, and that's running around in their veins. So there's a lot of factors when it comes to sleep. However, you're falling asleep, but you're not getting into a deep restorative sleep, therefore, you're not waking up feeling rejuvenated. And it's really important that we get into a deep restorative sleep. And the body cycles through, you know, sleep cycle through the night, multiple times, depending how many hours you're asleep for, right. And the REM sleep is helping recharge the brain. And the deep sleep is helping recharge the body. And we need good amounts of both, we want to have one and a half to two hours of REM sleep in a seven to nine hour window of sleep. And we want to have around 90 minutes of deep sleep. And blue light will prevent all of that from happening. So we need to a the first thing is just be aware of this, right. And most people aren't because life is busy. We're so used to devices now we just take them for granted as being part of our life. Our phones are, you know, attached to us. So what do we do about this? Well, on our phones, and on our iPads, there are night shift, I have an iPhone. So it's called Night shift in settings that you can turn that on, and you can set it like every day to turn on at dusk and turn off in the morning. Yeah, and it will just change the lighting to more of a yellow light. So this helps. Is it perfect? No, but it's something that's doable for kids and teenagers. On our computer, I can give you the link. There's software that's free called just get flux.com. You download that it has GPS in it. So even when I travel when I go to a new place, it pops up and goes it looks like you're at these coordinates coordinates would you like us to change the timing based on when dusk is happening here? And I say yes. And so that is protecting my eyes. Again, it's giving me a yellow light rather than the blue light on your television. Maybe more recent televisions have the opportunity to do this. My televisions are no more than 10 years old. I wear blue light blocking glasses. And the ones I love are called Viva arrays v i v ARAYS. It's they're made by a Canadian company by a fellow who's both a physicist and an engineer who studied all of the the light spectrum that's produced by the sun. And he has then incorporated that to ensure that these lenses will block the blue light from the screens. That impacts our melatonin production. Many of the blue light blocking glasses that you just buy on Amazon or at your local drugstore, aren't actually blocking the full amount they help, but there's more that we can do. So those are my favorite blue light blocking glasses. Now, why is all of this important? Well, first of all, we do need melatonin to get into a deep restorative sleep. And as human beings we are creatures of nature. So our body is designed to start producing melatonin in the evening. And it is an inverse hormone to cortisol. So cortisol we have at its highest in the morning, because we want to be waking up and having energy to start our day. And melatonin we want at its highest in the evening. The best time for us to go to bed as adults is where these two cross where cortisol is at its lowest and melatonin is at its highest. And that happens between 10 and 11pm. am at night. Now for younger children, obviously, they're going to bed earlier. And younger children need more sleep than adults, adults need seven to nine hours sleep. And I know many people are surviving on much less than that, right? People, you know, discount the importance of sleep and believe, you know, sleep is overrated or asleep, and I'm dead. I'm here to tell you that sleep is so important to our wellness, that if you choose to put off your sleep, you're actually shortening your life,

Jaci Finnema:

there's times where I'll get five or six hours of sleep. And I'll just feel so wide awake that it just okay, I'm up. And that's not accurate, we should be putting ourselves back

Melissa Deally:

to sleep, we still want, we definitely need that seven to nine hours of sleep every single night for optimal health. Now, if you're feeling sick, it's going to be more to that eight to nine hour window. And if you're feeling really healthy and good, then you can get away with the seven hours on a regular basis. going below that starts to have other downside effects on your health sleep negatively impacts the health of our gut. When we don't get enough sleep, it starts to break down the healthy microbes that we need in our gut to have a healthy gut. And our gut is really the core of all of our health. Hippocrates said, all disease starts in the gut. And I like to flip that around and say so therefore, all health also starts in the gut. And the other thing that we have in our gut are something called killer cells, we all have cancer in our body. And our killer cells are responsible for killing the cancer cells not getting enough sleep on a regular basis, reduces the number of killer cells we have fighting the cancer that's in our body. And this is important for children to understand as well, because nobody goes to bed, healthy as an adult in their 40s or 50s. And then wakes up the next day with a diagnosis of chronic illness, illness or disease. It builds in our body over time, from all of the little habits that we have that we are unknowingly doing that are negatively impacting our health. And one of those is the way society looks at sleep. We should all be planning our sleep around our day, the next day. So what time do you need to get up in the morning to get to work to get to school, and then go backwards by the number of hours of sleep that you need, and then go backwards another half hour to make sure you're in bed half an hour before you need to be asleep because it does take time to fall asleep. And then you want to start your bedtime routine and other half hour before that. Before I jump into the bedtime routine, which is another important part of sleep that I know you wanted to chat about. I just want to also mention the hours of sleep needed from newborns to adults. So newborns, zero to three months need 14 to 17 hours of sleep a day, infants four to 11 months, it's 12 to 15 hours, right? There's so much happening inside their little brain and their bodies in terms of development, they need the rest in order to get the restorative time to be able to thrive and develop properly. toddlers need 11 to 14 hours of sleep, preschoolers 10 to 13 hours of sleep, that's ages three to five children aged six to 13 need nine to 11 hours of sleep per night, teens from 14 to 17 need nine to 10 hours of sleep a night again, at the teenage age, there's so much change happening in the body. Right? I can guarantee you 90% of teenagers in the world today are not getting close to nine hours of sleep. Yeah. And

Jaci Finnema:

you know what it's so interesting is that, so one that can be self inflicted if they're staying up on their screens at night. But there's also a number of teens that are going to school have extracurricular sports, so they're up late from those sports or they're working. And so then they're also getting to bed late from that and then having to get up in the morning. So it's not always just that they're on their screens or doing something they shouldn't be doing. In we're thinking you're old enough now you should be able to handle 567 hours asleep. And then we're yelling at our kids for sleeping in on the weekends. Right. So I just want to point that out, because and I

Melissa Deally:

totally agree with all of that. And it's just a matter of helping them to manage that. They're overdoing it, that they're not working three nights a week playing hockey four nights a week, and they never get nights where they can actually get the right amount of sleep, or that they're, you know, working late one night and then they're up super early for some sports training the next morning, right? Teaching them about this and having them understand it and helping them manage their schedule is really critical because it's their body, it's their health. They need to understand this and they are old enough to start taking responsibility for it. But here's the other thing. Sleep minimizes anxiety. It minimizes depression because it low it increases our stress resilience, right? Yeah. And so look at all the kids today they're struggling with anxiety and depression. If we could get them sleeping more, that would have a profound impact. I'm not saying it's the only solution. But it's definitely part of the solution. And here's something else teenagers will understand is all the professional sports teams, right? lately, there's been all this research into how do we help the professional sports teams continue to perform at a higher level? How do we prevent injury, you know what it's coming down to? How do we get these people to have a more restorative sleep, because sleep does reduce the risk of injury, we have better decision making better judgment, when we have had good sleep, our coordination is better, it all comes down to sleep, we only heal in the theta state, which is part of our sleep cycles. And we have to get out of the stress state to be able to heal to be able to recharge our mitochondria are energy powerhouses, and for the body to be able to detox. And for us to feel rejuvenated, this

Jaci Finnema:

is so good, you have a couple of suggestions for how to make sure that we can get better sleep, but also a resource for us. Because there are times when it's not possible to get the seven to nine hours that we need as adults or the teens to have that. And so share a little bit about that before we wrap up today.

Melissa Deally:

Sure. So this is brand new technology that I'm really excited about. And this is technology that helps our brain drop into that theta state that I just mentioned, it's the healing state, it's recharging our mitochondria, it's helping the body detox. And it is where we finally get out of our fight or flight stress state. And this is technology that you can listen to overnight, the ears and the music or the carrier so that you have a nice experience. But what it's doing is it's actually delivering math and physics signals to the brain to drop the brain into that theta state. So it's all about the signal, the music is the bonus. So you have a nice experience. So it's much more than your regular sound healing that you can find on YouTube. And during the daytime, they have a few other options as well. So one of them is restore. And restore is designed to literally drop you into that theta state after eight minutes of listening to the music. And then you have the option of a 20 minute, a 30 minute or a 15 minute session. And during that time, again, your body can heal and restore. And when you end your session, that 20 minute session is like a two hour deep sleep equivalent to. So it's pretty cool for people that are having afternoon slumps or the teenager that's come home from school and has to go to work in two hours, they could do a 20 minute restore session, to give the body what it needs before they head out to work. And so I'm really excited about this because it's been now being used by Department of Defense, the SWAT FBI, military's using it, they're using it to help with anxiety and depression, PTSD, negating the need for drugs. This is incredibly powerful. And because it's easy, and the music's really enjoyable to listen to, people will do it. Well,

Jaci Finnema:

this is exciting, Melissa, I have downloaded and we're going to test this out in my family and see the difference. And we're actually going to report our results back and we'll do that in next week's episode. Melissa is going to be a regular contributor to the podcast and sharing her knowledge because there's so much that we don't know. And once we know we can do more for not just our kids, but for ourselves. And oftentimes parents, I think it starts with making sure that we're taking care of ourselves. First, you can find Melissa at your guided health journey.com. Again, links in the show notes. If you want any more information before the next episode, feel free to reach out to Melissa and get your questions answered there. Otherwise, stay tuned appearance we'll be having the most back on next week on Wellness Wednesday for more information on this topic, a continuation of this topic and we'll focus on bedtime bedtime routine and oh incorporating breathwork

Melissa Deally:

Yes, and also timing of eating before bed. And people can choose what's easy for them to shift right now. And that's going to be different from person to person. Right? But as we shift one thing, and we noticed the improvement and we get that habit down then we can come back and shift another thing because we have the knowledge and we know what we can do versus when we don't have the knowledge. We don't know what to do. Right? You don't actually don't know.

Jaci Finnema:

Exactly, exactly. All right. Well, thanks so much. We'll see you next week.

Melissa Deally:

Welcome back to the don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I am your host, Melissa Daly and excited to have you joining me here again today. Today's episode is a continuation on the topic of sleep. And if you didn't listen to my previous episode, on sleep, go back and listen to that. I believe it was episode number five and we can link that up in the show notes. And in that episode What I talked about a number of facts as to why sleep is really important for your longevity, as well as we got into the creation of a bedtime hygiene routine and why that is so important. And today, I would like to continue on this topic and get into talking about setting up your bedroom for optimal sleep and comfort. So first of all, you want to sleep in a cool bedroom, because your body does warm up overnight, and you're under blankets, etc. And if you're too hot, you can't sleep. And you probably know that because you've probably had some summer nights where you might have tossed and turned all night because it's been too hot. But in wintertime, were less likely to ensure that we're in a cool room for fear of being cold. But the ideal temperature is between 18 and 20 degrees Celsius. And I'm sorry, Americans out there, I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit. But I know you can use Google to convert that. So 18 to 20 degrees is ideal for a good night's sleep. You also want to have dark curtains in your room. And if you're in North America, and listening to this, soon after it's come out, you will know that we have just gone back on to daylight savings, which means that it's a little bit darker in the morning than it might have been previously. But as we move towards our summer solstice of June, our days are getting longer and longer. And they're starting earlier and earlier. And here's the interesting thing, even though you're asleep and your eyes are closed, your body can still sense Dawn, in fact, your skin has light receptors in it. And so having a dark bedroom for these long days, really helps your body not get woken up too early or start waking itself up too early. And if you don't have dark curtains and you can't change your curtains right now, I highly recommend an eye mask, which you can get inexpensively at any drugstore. And wear that and you don't necessarily have to wear it all night. But if you're someone who gets up and goes to the washroom in the middle of the night, you can put it on after that, so that you are keeping that light out. And it's not registering in your brain, that it's getting light, very, very effective. And it's something that when I put my eye mask on, it's almost as if my eyes relax into the fact that they don't need to be alert to the impending dawn. And they relax into sleep. And I always sleep better after I put it on. You also want to keep your bedroom tidy. A cluttered room leads to a cluttered mind. So when your room is cluttered, your brain sees all of that and tries to process all of that. Whereas if everything is in a tidy place, your brain doesn't have as much processing to do and therefore it's not going to sleep, you know working on all of this with all this processing happening. So tidy up your bedroom. And that will allow your brain to calm and of course last time I also talked about the benefits of a gratitude journal and a brain dump, to also allow your brain to calm and release all of these things that it's trying to do and process so that it can instead go to sleep happy on those gratitude thoughts and in a calm frame of mind and get you into a more restorative restful sleep. You also want to be turning off any Wi Fi or electronic devices in the room at night. And in fact, don't even have them in the room. And that includes television, I talked last time about blue light and the impact that has on melatonin. You don't want to be watching television in your bedroom. Even if you're wearing blue light glasses because very often what you're watching is in some way stimulating to the brain. And if you're doing that right before going to sleep, it just again makes it harder for your brain to calm down before sleep. And it's not an ideal habit to be in in terms of building your bedtime hygiene routine that routine needs to happen after your turn off devices and therefore you do not need a television in your bedroom. But phones like some people say oh I have to have my phone because it's my alarm to wake me out. Well you can get another alarm for like $10 that you plug into the wall that is perfectly good at waking you up and it does not have to be your phone the electromagnetic field from phones and tablets etc being close to your head. In the bedroom is actually also has negative health ramifications on your body, they're considered a toxin. And some people are more sensitive than others. It is something that I discovered I was quite sensitive to a while ago, when I was staying in a hotel room. And I had the phone on the bedside table. And for three days in a row, I woke up with a headache. And I didn't know why. And then I kind of had this, I don't normally even have my phone in my room at home, because I have more than just one room in my house. And now I have this phone right my my head, so I actually moved it into the bathroom of the hotel room, and the rest of my stay, I no longer have headaches. And so these electromagnetic fields do affect our body. And for optimal sleep, it's best not to be exposed to them. And so removing them from your bedroom entirely, is your best option for a good night's sleep. You also want to be making sure your mattress is right for you. And a mattress lasts on average seven to 10 years. That's what's recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. Your mattress may be younger, it may be older. But here are some signs that maybe it's time to replace it. First of all, you could see signs of wear and tear on the mattress, or even a depression in the mattress from where you sleep. Or perhaps you're tossing and turning all night and you can't get comfortable. Perhaps you're waking up groggy, sore or stiff. Maybe you're experiencing brain fog lessened ability to focus and low energy during the day. That might be from other reasons as well that I've talked about previously in the last episode, such as the impact of the food you're eating and coffee, you're drinking, etc. But it could be impacted by your mattress. Perhaps your allergies or your asthma have gotten worse due to dust mites in the mattress. And then also another great test is that you sleep better when you're away from home. And if that's the case for you, then that is a very clear indication that it may be time to be buying a new mattress. I just recently bought a new mattress myself and oh my goodness, it is so comfortable. I love it. I don't want to get out of bed in the morning, even though I wake up and I feel rejuvenated and energized. And I love my work. And I want to start my day is just so comfortable that it's like I could lie here for five minutes longer in this blissful comfort, and then I get up. But what I did is I bought it online. And the reason I bought it online is that you actually get a way better deal buying mattresses online. And what I mean by that is if you go to a store and you shop for a mattress, you lie on that mattress for maybe five minutes, maybe 10 minutes, and then you know to try and discern if it's a comfortable mattress for you or not, but really is five or 10 minutes long enough for you to know that compared to sleeping on it for seven to nine hours every night. And it's just one of those things that you feel weird in a store relying on the mattress, even if it's a store that only sells beds and mattresses and other people are doing it too. It just feels strange. So we tend not to lie there for very long. And also, you're not going to take a seven to nine hours shopping experience to buy your mattress, right. So when you buy a mattress in a store, you don't get the opportunity to really give it a test drive. And

Melissa Deally:

when you buy in a store, they often don't have great return policies. But when you buy online, you can do all of the research. And admittedly you don't get to trial at first, but you get to trial it after with full money back guarantees. So many of the companies selling mattresses online know that you need to test it and they give you a 60 and 90 120 day trial period. And you can return that mattress if it's not the right mattress for you. No questions asked full refund. Now that is an awesome way to trial your mattress because you're going to use this mattress for the next seven to 10 years. So you want to know that it truly is comfortable for you and your partner. And that's the best way to do it. Some things that you can look for in mattresses now that maybe the last time you bought a mattress weren't an option for you are different layers of that mattress that helped cushion movement. So your movement isn't felt by your partner and vice versa because this of course is going to help you get a better night's sleep if you're not being bounced awake by your partner rolling over as well. As cooling technology so that you're not overheating in the night. And so that's called Climate adaptive in many cases, as well as the mattress that kind of retains your body shape. So it's a memory foam mattress, that when you get into sleep, after you've slept on it for a good 30 days, it starts to kind of know your shape. And that's when you kind of sink into it in this utter comfortable bliss. Like what I've experienced with my new mattress, which I purchased online that came in a box, it was totally shrink wrapped. And we unrolled it all and then poof, it popped up. And it's just been absolutely wonderful. So it's not only mattresses that you want to be looking into, but also pillows, getting the right pillow for you, that supports your neck and helps keep your spine in alignment through the night. And very often regular pillows have the upper part of your spine in your neck at a strange angle. And sometimes you can wake up with neck pain, et cetera. And of course these pillows are, depend whether you're a back sleeper or a side sleeper as to what you get. And same thing, you can do your research online, you can buy them online, and you get a 3060 90 day trial period, after which you can return it. If it's not the right one for you. Something else that's wonderful to look into that can really help with sleep is a weighted blanket. And the benefit of a weighted blanket is it's it's helping put your body into that parasympathetic nervous system that rest and digest state, it's almost as if the body under that weighted blanket feels like it's back in the womb, the ultimate place of safety also keeps you very warm. Although you can get cooling covers as well, so that if it's too warm in the summer months that you can get a cooling cover to help cool you down. But so wonderful to lie underneath feel all nice and snug, safe. And it really supports a restful night sleep. And again, you can buy them online, you can trial them, and send them back. If it's not for you, I think my weighted blanket had a 60 day trial period on it. So many, many options for you there in terms of adding to the comfort of your bedroom. So some other things that we want to be doing as we set you up for sleep success is training the brain that your bedroom is for sleeping, it's not for watching television, it's not for playing games. It is for intimacy it is for reading books as you calm your body. And it is for sleep. And so that's why clearing the clutter, getting the electronics out of the room, start to train your brain, this is where I sleep. And that's really important. As you start to build a habit of restorative sleep, and break the habit of lying awake, so many people struggle with lying awake. And this leads me into step three of of helping improve your sleep. And that is do not lie awake for more than 30 minutes. So often people can have that tired but wired feeling they go go go all day in the afternoon may suddenly start feeling exhausted into the evening. And then when they're trying to go to bed all of a sudden the brain switched back on thinking about tomorrow, et cetera, et cetera. But if you've done your bedtime hygiene routine, your room is set up for comfort and sleep and you're still lying awake, we have to break that habit of lying awake and teach our brain this is not for lying awake, my mattress My bed is for sleeping. And so we do that by if you sense that you've been in bed for about 30 minutes and you haven't fallen asleep yet. You want to actually get up, get out of bed, leave the room turn on a dim light somewhere in the house. Have something trashy to read or easy for the brain to process no work type books or books that require heavy processing and understanding of the brain. We just want some you know, simple trashy magazine that you're going to read that if you read for about 15 minutes in this dim light. Maybe that's going to start having you start to feel a little bit sleepy and you can go back to bed and hopefully fall asleep. It If, however, you still don't fall asleep, we don't want you lying there for more than 30 minutes, because again, we're training the brain that this is where you sleep. So the next step, and this is a pretty easy one, in terms of setting yourself up for success was sleep is for at least 30 days wake up at the same time every day. We tend to take sleep for granted, and we expect our bodies to sleep on demand and fit into our schedules. And quality sleep is much more important than that. And as you've heard me say in the last podcast, that sleep, we have to plan our day around our sleep, right? So what time are we going to wake up and then back that around to figure out what time do we need to go to bed in order to get the seven to nine hours of sleep. So set that wakeup time the same every day for 30 days, the body starts to get into that pattern and know that this is what time I'm getting up. And it helps to reset your sleep cycle. The other thing that's really awesome to do is upon waking up is to open those dark curtains and let the sunlight into your eyes because that also sends signals to the brain around I don't need to be producing melatonin anymore. And I can be producing cortisol, because now it's full daylight. And it's time for me to get up and get going with my day.

Melissa Deally:

The next step, this one sounds easy. But I know a lot of my clients think that it's going to be hard, but it really isn't. And that is do not look at the time in the middle of the night. How many times you wake up in the night, maybe go to the bathroom, and look at the time. And then what happens very often, you start to get stressed out about, oh my goodness, I don't feel refreshed, and it's five o'clock and I have to get up in an hour. And then the brain starts going and boom, you don't get to fall back to sleep. Right? You've been there. We all have been, haven't we. But here's the thing, when you don't look at the time, you don't trigger that response. And so as I said, phones out of the bedroom, iPads tablets out of the bedroom, but if you have an alarm clock that you plug into the wall like I do, face it oh to the wall so that you can't see it. Because it doesn't matter what time it is in the middle of the night. If you wake up and you have to go to the bathroom, and you want to go back to sleep, the best thing to do is do not look at the time. Because all it does is triggers dress response to the fact that you don't feel rejuvenated. And you have to get up soon. But of course you don't feel rejuvenated because you haven't finished sleeping. And so if you don't look at the time, and you simply get back into bed and close your eyes and allow yourself to fall asleep and time doesn't matter, you're gonna fall back asleep. It's really, really powerful. And in fact, the very, very first time my husband overheard me telling this to somebody else, he thought it was crazy. But then he agreed to try it. And was so surprised at the impact that it had. Trust me, you don't need to know what time it is in the middle of the night. Your alarm will wake you up in the morning when it's time to get up. And until that alarm goes off, it's sleep time for you. And it doesn't matter whether you have half an hour left to sleep, or four hours left to sleep, you get to enjoy that last bit of sleep without stress of worrying that you haven't had enough sleep. And then the very last tip on improving your sleep is to not obsess over it. So there's always going to be times when we don't get as much sleep as we want. Or we you know, worry about losing sleep. And very often it happens when we have a big event the next day, it might be a big sporting event that you've been training for. It might be a performance you've been training for it might be a presentation. Like I said, you know, this happens to me if I have a big webinar, and I want it to go well. That is the time when I'm most likely to struggle with either falling back to sleep in the middle of the night or getting to sleep in the beginning. And so I've given you lots of tips and tricks in order to counter that with, as I said a gratitude journal, a brain dump 557 breathing. But if you're still finding that you're lying there and not able to sleep, it's likely that you're obsessing over the lost sleep, the sleep that you're missing out on. And that doesn't serve you in any way shape or form because the more you obsess about it, the more sleep you lose and you can't get that sleep back. So instead, recognize that you've done all that you can do at this point towards whatever it is that you're worried about your sporting event, your performance, your presentation, you've done everything that you can do. There's nothing more you can do, the best thing you can do for yourself at this point is to allow yourself to get to sleep, rest is going to help you more than anything else. So recognize that stressing and obsessing over lost sleep is preventing you from getting the sleep that you need. And use these techniques and tools and move forward with that presentation. That event, knowing you have done what you need to do, honor that. And it's amazing how when you talk to yourself in this way, even in your mind, even as you're trying to sleep, that you can talk yourself down from that obsessed state, and allow yourself to fall asleep. So I hope that you have found all of this information to be really, really helpful in terms of getting yourself a better night's sleep each and every night. If it's something that you still struggle with, even after implementing all of these tips for 30 days, then we may need to look at some structural issues. It may be you struggle with sleep because of sleep apnea, it may be your airways are blocked. And it may be that you need to visit a dentist that specializes in airways and sleep issues because it's very often the dentist that will diagnose this even before a doctor. It may be that you have got issues that are impacting your sleep. And when we heal your gut, your sleep improves, it may be that your toxic load level is really quite high and your body is struggling to detox overnight. And it's working so hard that it's inadvertently waking you up or keeping you awake. So maybe you need to look at what your toxic load levels are, and do a detox and so you might want to go to my toxic load quiz to see what is that score. And reach out to me in regards to starting a detox program. I have many people who have done my detox program. And that's one of the first and best benefits is getting to a place of rejuvenated sleep. So I hope that you are able to take all of these tips and improve your sleep. And if not take the steps to find out what is impacting your sleep getting to the root cause because your sleep is so important that it is worth looking into. Because honestly, the longer you sleep, the longer your life. So thank you very much for joining me today. And I look forward to having you back on my next episode of that. Don't wait for a wake up call podcast.

Jaci Finnema:

Alright, welcome back no problem parents to part two of our two part series on sleep with Melissa dealey from your guided health journey. Welcome back, Melissa.

Melissa Deally:

Thank you, I'm so happy to be back.

Jaci Finnema:

You and I could meet every single day. And we could exchange tips and tools and ideas and resources for parents every single day. So I wish there was time for that. But I am super excited that you are going to be a regular guest contributor to the show. And that we're talking about sleep as sort of our fundamental foundational, I would say our foundational first step whenever we have issues with behavior, and mood. And our stress levels are high. And all that I think our very first go to is addressing sleep.

Melissa Deally:

Absolutely. It really is foundational in all aspects of health and wellness. And stress is a problem in the world today. And it's not just a problem for adults, our kids are stressed too. And it doesn't matter what grade of school they're in just life is busy. And they feel that stress and that can negatively impact their sleep. And then that sets them up for being less stress resilient the following day. Whereas when we understand that they're stressed, and we set them up for being more stress resilient, through getting good sleep and focusing on sleep and having them understand the importance of sleep, you know, having these conversations with our kids, even when they're little is important. Because for me, you know, I would nobody ever talked to me about sleep. It wasn't until I got into health and wellness that I started studying sleep and realizing how important it is in all aspects of our lives. That I wanted to start teaching it and sharing that with more people.

Jaci Finnema:

I think it's awesome that you have and you and I've learned just so much from you well in lots of different arenas, of course, but also in the sleep like our last week, our episode on blue light, and just the the resources that you shared for that which I've already downloaded the app for my screen, my my computer screen, both screens are now blue light protected. So what you would call it, yes, I have not ordered the glasses yet, I do have a couple of pair of glasses I wear when I'm just typing on the computer that do have some blue light blocking in it. And, you know, they shade the screen a little bit, I guess. So that that works. But but also the the point that you make about kids and stress and it happens for infants to infants that are going to daycare, for eight to 10 to 11, sometimes hours a day, away from Mama that is stressful, or primary caregiver that is stressful, intense for them. And especially if it's in a daycare setting where the staff are rotated, and they're not getting consistency of staff and that same person that understands their cues, when they you know, have a tummy ache or when they're tired, and all that kind of stuff. I don't want to scare people by that. But I want it I want to alert you enough that you pay attention. And don't just go through the motions of dropping your kids at daycare, picking them up and expecting that everything's gonna be okay. Babies get stressed too. So that's my point on that, as do you know, little kiddos. But let's so let's move in last week, we talked about blue light. And actually there's a lot more information on blue light than I thought there was. So that was very helpful. Now today, we want to talk about bedtime routine and the importance of that, how we can incorporate breath work and timing of eating before we are expecting our kiddos to drift off to sleep. So I'm going to let you take the mic.

Melissa Deally:

Yes, so let's start with timing of eating. Because dinner time in relation to bedtime does matter. After we finish our meal, our body needs time to digest it. And we want digestion to be finished before we get into sleep mode. Because when we're getting into our sleep mode, that's when our body is now detoxifying. It's recharging our mitochondria. So we have energy for the next day is when our body gets into healing mode as well. And none of that will happen if the body is in digestion mode. And we get into a much deeper sleep. If we've completed digestion before we're falling asleep, and yet for many people, and not necessarily children, but adults in particular, they might be, you know, having a snack at 10pm. And then, you know, falling is trying to fall asleep at 1030. And their body is still full on digesting that snack. And we don't want to be doing that we need roughly three hours between dinner and bed. And I realized for younger children, that may not be possible. However, I'm sharing this with you so that you can maximize the time that they have between dinner and bed. So can they have a bigger meal perhaps before they do? Maybe they have homework to do. Maybe they have some extracurricular activities. And rather than having a big dinner when they get home at eight o'clock at night, could they have a meal before they go not too big if they're running around doing sports and kind of split it up into two meals. So what they have at eight o'clock at night is a lighter meal rather than a heavy meal coming home from sports. So think about how you might be able to make that work for kids around their schedule and as often as possible, have two to three hours between dinner and bed. What

Jaci Finnema:

is the purpose of it takes that two hours for our bodies to digest.

Melissa Deally:

It takes hours for digestion. Yes. And it can take more because say that again. If you've had a steak, it can take even longer, right? So a meal that is easier to digest is something that's got cooked vegetables. It's the stew it might be lentils, anything that you can push. If you hold a fork horizontally to the surface of the plate and you push the prongs of the fork down into the food as opposed to holding it vertically and jabbing it like you would with a steak for instance, if you do it horizontally and push it down into the food if the food oozes up between the prongs of the fork like it would with mashed potatoes That's easier on digestion. So the more cooked the veggies are, the easier it is on digestion and there is a fine line because the more cooked it is the less nutrients right? Yeah,

Jaci Finnema:

so that's a really good point though, too, because we sometimes think that even like having a salad then before bed is going to be good with some raw veggies and things, but that's not going to pass the mash gestion Exactly. And I remember a parents if your forecast if parents if you're okay, so this is more for the parents who are listening. But Melissa also provides or offers 21 Day Health kickstart detoxes, and I've done those at least once a year. They're amazing. You get to eat on them. And you learn about this very thing when you're doing that kickstart health kickstart detox, because eating a salad is healthy. And yes, it can be very good for you. But it's also harder to digest. So as you're getting rid of toxins and on, you know, any kind of particular detox, it's good to not have those. So anyway, just so you know, go stalk her website, your guided health journey.com and learn more about these kinds of the exact kinds of things like what is easier to digest? And what is what are the health benefits and all that. Okay, I hijacked that. No

Melissa Deally:

problem. Great conversation, though, because parents can plan around give this as the night they're going to be home later. So then they can plan an easier to digest meal, or a lighter meal so that digestion doesn't take as long in dinners digested before bed.

Jaci Finnema:

How does it keep us up? Is it just the digest the fact that you know we can, we're not active after we eat a big meal and go right to bed. And so we're picking up weight, you know, gaining weight, that's just usually what I think about why you're not supposed to eat right before bed is because you're gonna gain weight.

Melissa Deally:

Well, that's part of it. But that's not really an issue for most kids. Right? That is it for adults, that the longer you fast overnight and started earlier in the evening is better in terms of the body's ability to be using those calories and burning them up so that you're not gaining weight. But really, it's also about digestion and making sure digestion has been completed before we're asking the body to go into sleep mode. And getting into the REM sleep and deep sleep because that's when it wants to be detoxing. That's when it wants to be healing. That's when it's recharging our energy. And none of those things can happen if digestion is still happening, because digestion in and of itself takes a lot of energy. Every time we put food in our mouth, it takes 30% of our energy to digestive. So interesting. Digestion needs to be complete for the next processes to start.

Jaci Finnema:

So it's really good idea for us parents to learn this and to know this and then just be able to provide this information to our kids. So we teach it in this it's just a matter of fact, kind of this is this is the way it is, instead of no you can't have that, hey, what do you think? Would your body be able to digest that in time for you to go to bed? You know, it's like, you know, I'm having these conversations. I'm having these conversations just much differently than, yes, no, you know, snack or no snack. And then I also like the idea of breaking up the meals. I think oftentimes, if you have a school aged kiddo, and they're in school in person school, they may or may not be getting great nutrition in school or eating their full meal, because they might be over, you know, conversing with kids and just like overstand and just don't get all the food and, and they're famished when they get done with school, and especially if they have like an after school program that they're in. So sometimes coming home and eating a really big meal is almost too much right away. And breaking that up and having a little bit before dinner, you know, instead of wait for dinner, well, Mom, I've just waited since my 1030 lunchtime at school or my 11 o'clock lunchtime at school, I've already waited six or six and a half hours, I am hungry, I need a little bit. Now. Yes,

Melissa Deally:

that's a long time for kids to wait. Ideally, we're eating every three and a half to four hours. We don't need to be eating nonstop, like many people were during the pandemic because the refrigerator was just here, we do want the body to have time to fully digest one meal before we put the next meal in. But if we eat every three and a half to four hours, the body can do that. And going six to seven hours is a long time without a meal, especially for kids who are using mental energy learning at school, physical energy running around playing with friends going to gym class, et cetera, et cetera. And so that in and of itself can put the body into a little bit of a stress state because the body's going wait a minute, you're using all this energy and making all these energy demands of me. Where's my fuel? Yeah. So definitely, you know, if kids are coming home after school and they had a really early lunch, they are going to need a nutritious meal at that point and give them something then is perhaps more substantial and a lighter dinner. Because we're also all beings of nature and digestion is at its best. When the body is warmed up when we've got heat, which is again, high noon, right, we talked about high noon is when blue light is the light coming from the Sun is when our bodies are the warmest is when our digestive system is functioning at its best. So ideally, we actually have our biggest meal of the day, in the middle of the day, when our bodies are warmer and digestion can function more efficiently. And a smaller meal at the end of the day.

Jaci Finnema:

And I almost wondering if mealtime would go a lot smoother and a lot better for parents at home. If they weren't trying to get that big meal prepared, the more complicated complicated meal prepared, at the end of the day when everybody's tired and exhausted, especially mama who doesn't want to have to cook.

Melissa Deally:

Exactly. So if a lighter meal at the end of the day, as long as the kids have had a nutritious meal that will carry their energy at lunchtime to after school time.

Jaci Finnema:

Okay, so all of that is so important, great information. And then let's let's transition then into bedtime routine. So now we have, I do have to say I don't know how many parents are going to be able to wait three hours between the time they get home and get the kids fed, and bedtime, some kiddos are getting to bed by eight o'clock, and they may not be getting a meal till six. And then they you know, get that meal in, they're doing bath, they're getting their story, they're brushing their teeth, they're popping off to bed, and everything's just sort of, you know, parents are just praying that it's gonna work just smooth every night.

Melissa Deally:

So it is about doing the best you can, as I said, and being aware of the timing that you're working with, and ensure that that meal is an easier to digest meal, if you have less time for their little body to digest it.

Jaci Finnema:

And that could just be your regular that's the way your homeworks once you set this up and put this in place, and maybe then you and hubby or husband and wife partners are waiting to eat their nice little date night meal. After the kiddos are in bed, you've had a little snack with them, you know that can be your hors d'oeuvre if it's a smaller meal for the kids. And then adults can be getting their bigger meal, you know, substance meal and just a little bit later after the kid is in bed. So that's not a bad idea either. Or

Melissa Deally:

perhaps timing is that Monday to Friday because of work schedules and not getting home until five o'clock. So you can't get dinner on the table till six and bedtimes at eight that you have the easier to digest meals and smaller meals Monday to Friday. But perhaps on the weekend, there's a little bit more prep time, you can have dinner on the table at 5pm. So now you can have those special meals on the weekends, etcetera. Right? Another way to look at it bedtime routines, so bedtime routines. When when my kids were little, I just thought bedtime routines were to help make the whole process easier because the kids knew what was coming. And then hopefully that meant they were a little bit more cooperative with the whole process. What I now know and the science behind it is that the bedtime routine is really really important for the brain to know to start producing melatonin. And we talked about melatonin last week and its inverse hormone to cortisol etc. And that melatonin is really important for our bodies to be able to get into a deep restorative sleep. And the signal for the brain to produce melatonin used to come at dusk because our eyes would see the dusk sky and that would be the signal Oh, it's time to now start producing melatonin. We don't have that signal anymore because of course we live in homes with electricity, and then all of that gets blocked out. So the brain has no way to know to start producing melatonin in advance of us going to bed so that we can then fall into a deep restorative sleep unless we create a routine and train our brain to No. And we can absolutely do that. And it takes you know, 21 to 30 days to create a habit. I like to suggest people do this for 30 days in a row and then the brain will know Oh, he's doing this. He's starting his bedtime routine. I'm going to start producing melatonin. So what is the bedtime routine? It's four to six activities in the same order every night that take anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes as you prepare for bed. So typical routine. Back when my kids were little was to have a bath, put the PJs on, brush teeth, etc. And get into bed and have storytime. That's for activities, you do that in the same order every night for 30 days. So some of you listening might already have a bedtime routine, and you do it in the same order every night. And that's awesome. Because what it's doing is it's letting your child's brain know to start producing melatonin, so they can fall into a deeper, more restorative sleep. Some of you may not have a bedtime routine, or you do but you don't do it in the same order every night, you kind of shake it up and do things differently. I invite you to do it in the same order every night. So your brain realizes soon as the bath is turned on, and they know they're getting in the bath, the brain will know Oh, it's bath time, I'm going to start producing melatonin. And you can enhance their sleep by throwing in a cup of Epsom vessels into that bath, that's very calming on the body, the magnesium in the hips and vassals is easily absorbed by the skin, it also helps to draw toxins out of their bodies. So it's got a double benefit. And because it's so calming on the body, the magnesium that's being absorbed, they're also going to be more easily able to fall asleep. So definitely include bathtime in your bedtime routine, whatever else you want to include, for some of you it might be take the dog for a walk around the block. For other people, as kids are older, maybe it's a shower rather than a bath. It may be for adults, it could include things like you know, washing the dishes, and going around the house and turning out all the lights, whatever it is just do it in the same order. You can include Yoga, you can include just stretching, you can include breathwork, that we've also talked about.

Jaci Finnema:

Yeah. So before we get into breathwork, because I think that is important. And we're going to finish up with that one today. I think this is really key that having that say the same things every night, tells her brain okay, this is what this is what's happening and we start to produce the melatonin. And I think even if you have kids in, you know, sports theater, things that after school events, evening events, yes, there's going to be those days where you don't get all four to six in, but you get or you don't have time for a bath. Well, if they're doing sports, you're probably making sure you're rinsing them off in some way shape or form, but it may not be the full bath. Even just going to the bathroom and washing their face, and washing up their hands and putting a warm washcloth on their face or you know something that's signaling and so you can adapt this, I think that's really great. And then I was gonna say something else about that we just had on Episode Two was it 243 of the podcast, talking about 242 or 243. That's hugs and the importance of hugs, and incorporating those into your daily routine. And so that's a great opportunity for some snuggle time at night or some hugs to get in. The hugs with at each member of the family maybe and all the kiddos are going around and hugging each other. Just lots of different things that we can do that remind our brain to gear up for or get shut down, slow down for a nice rest. Okay,

Melissa Deally:

yes, and I love the idea of a hugs for everyone as being part of the routine. That's a beautiful one that you can add in. So breathwork breath work is another incredibly calming tool for our nervous system. And our breath is like sleep, something we tend to take for granted because we all can breathe, we were born able to breathe, and we just take it for granted. However, when you consciously choose to focus on your breath, you can calm your body. And so if kids are feeling stressed out, you can teach them this, this is a great way to help calm the body right before bed. It's also something that you can teach them that if they wake up in the night, and they can't fall back to sleep that they can do this as well to help them get back to sleep. And that is what I call 557 breathing, where you inhale for a count of five. And if the kids are little, you can adapt the number of the that you count to maybe it's 335 breathing, if they can't yet hold their breath for a count of five. But ideally, you inhale for a count of five, you hold that breath for a count of five, and then you exhale for a count of seven. So that the exhale is longer than the inhale. And you do that 10 times. And that will drop their nervous system out of the sympathetic fight or flight system into their parasympathetic rest and digest system which is where you need to be to get rest. And the reason this is so powerful, and the reason it works is first off, it's because the exhale is longer than the inhale. So if you think about our fight or flight system is designed to have Pump cortisol and adrenaline into our veins so we can get to safety. So if we have a lion or a tiger tail chasing us, that we can get to safety, so we can move fast. And if we're running from that lion or tiger, we are going to be panting, right? So the brain knows that if we, if our exhale is longer than our inhale, it knows, oh, I must be safe. I'm not actually trying to run away from a lion or a tiger. So if I'm safe, then I can be in my rest and digest system. That is genius. I've never heard that.

Jaci Finnema:

Is that is really cool to teach your kids. That's a great example of understandable example of how to teach your kids about that their brain will know it's safe in there. And I love that for bedtime. I love that for kids who are scared of, you know, a monster, there's no monsters in your room, but in your brain, there might be no, you might feel like there are men love that for kids who are afraid, at night to be away, or miss mom and dad and, you know, just really want to be with them. But they need to be in their own room. Which, that's not me saying you need to be in their own room, keep your kids in your room as long as you want. That's my theory. That's my school of thought. But you do you as long as everybody's able to get good sleep too, right. Um, but I really just love that idea for, for teaching kids, how they can tell their brain that they're safe, and they're okay, and it's time to rest.

Melissa Deally:

Can they just have to count their into inhale their hold, and their exhale, and the brain will know, we do 10 cycles of it so that the brain has time to kind of catch on. And after 10 cycles, the brain is like, Oh, look at that. My exhale is longer than my Inhale right now I must be safe. I'm gonna turn on my parasympathetic rest and digest nervous system. So the other thing that's really cool about this is that a for young kids to they're practicing counting, right, they got to count 12345, hold 12345, exhale 1234567. And I do all that in my head, I use this myself, I do that in my head. But then I have to count 10 rounds of it. So I had to pull out my fingers. Right, because I can't count the three cycles and the, you know, 10 times have that all in my head. So then I pull out my fingers, and I'm counting on my fingers. Well, by the time I focused on all of this counting, whatever was stressing me out is gone. Yeah, I love that one out of my head, because that's just one too many things to have to still keep hold of. So it's distracted me to let go of the stressor. So that's the other piece. That's really cool. I

Jaci Finnema:

think it can also I would be willing to, I'd be willing to bet that some of these some kiddos, we say that again, I'd be willing to bet that some kids will have fallen asleep by the time they get to five or six even Oh, totally. Like counting sheep when we were little it was like count sheep, and you start counting sheep, and eventually you'd fall asleep. Exactly.

Melissa Deally:

And this is a spin off of that in the sense that now I understand the science of it. And I understand the inhale, the whole the exhale. And what that's doing, I do liken it to when my mother told me to count sheep. And when I use this, I rarely wake up in the night and can't fall back asleep and it happens. And when I use this, I never get past eight rounds before I fall asleep again. And you can use this anywhere. You can use this in the car, if you're driving to work and you're late and there's a traffic jam and you're getting all stressed out and frustrated. Just do this cuz you've got your breath with you everywhere. Maybe something's going on in the middle of your workday as a parent and it's you know, you're just frustrated at work annoyed, stressed out, just go to the washroom. sit on the toilet, count your breath. Just bring yourself down or do it in your office, you can do it anywhere. This also helps to turn on digestion as well. So we were talking earlier about digestion. Remember, this is your rest and digest mode. The body doesn't digest unless digestion is turned on. So if you want to help your kiddos be better able to digest their their evening meal so that it's fully digested before they go to bed. You want to make sure digestion is turned on even before they start eating. So you can all sit at this table as a family at dinner and before you start eating. Just do this to again drop your body into that rest and digest state. So now digestion is turned on, which means your body can produce salivary enzymes, stomach acid, all of the enzymes through your intestinal system to help break down that food more quickly and effectively. So digestion is completed before you go to bed.

Jaci Finnema:

And why not for those of you that are Christian families or any denomination you're maybe doing a prayer or some kind of meditation or something right before dinner every night. Just envision everybody holding their hands on the table, do your prayers, whatever. And then do you know even if it's three of them three of those 557 breaths and just everybody together doing that, count those as hugs parents again, if you listen to the episode a couple episodes ago, 242 I think it was. And just an end, we need four hugs a day. 800 for maintenance, eight hugs a day. Okay, how does that go? Again, I gotta remember. I know, it's I know, I never heard the eight. So eight is maintenance. We need four hugs a day for survival. Eight hugs a day for maintenance and 12 hugs a day for growth. You're holding hands and doing that breath work with your you know, with your kiddos and your family that counts as a hug. That's like that's going to do the same exact thing. Because like Melissa saying, it's helping our parasympathetic nerve and balancing our sympathetic and our parasympathetic. Yes. Nervous System. Right. So yeah, this is so cool. I'm learning so much. I love it. So thank you. I think that's a great more tips. We're going to have to get this I feel another book coming on Melissa, because I was thinking about that we are, by the time this episode airs, we're going to be at about 30 I think it will, I think it airs January 31, which means it will be our 31st episode of the year doing daily episodes 31 episodes already, at the end of January shins and we are learning so many things that I think we're gonna end up with a 365 day, no problem parenting book, by the time we're done with this year. With all of these, you know, different mindset and motivation, Mondays and wellness Wednesdays and all the different daily themes. There are so many tools, impactful tools that we're learning. So I really appreciate you being back today, we're going to be recording again, we'll have a little break on a on a Wellness Wednesday, and then we're going to have you back for a couple of more episodes. Because we do have more to talk about parents. Melissa's, like I said a wealth of knowledge. We're going to talk about food sensitivities, which we already dabbled in a little bit. And then also detoxifying for wellness, which I already shared just a little bit. And then also Neuro Linguistic Programming. Yes.

Melissa Deally:

Come back and talk about all of these things. And we can talk about hypnosis as well.

Jaci Finnema:

Yes. Okay. Say that again, because I interrupted you.

Melissa Deally:

Yeah, I'm excited to come back and talk about all of these things. And we can absolutely talk about hypnosis as well. So I love to share what I learned what I know. And I'm happy to come and share this with your audience. Thank you very much, Jackie.

Jaci Finnema:

Well, you're welcome. And another reason why I love that even any of your work, all of your work is that you learned as a mom when you had kiddos that were struggling, and that's what even introduced you to the world of health and wellness when otherwise you were in accounting. Yes. And if people want to know more about that story, they can go back and listen to episode 59. The first time I had you on the show and before you wrote a chapter in the book, and all that to learn a little bit more or go to your website, your guided health journey.com

Melissa Deally:

Thank you for investing this time with me on the don't wait for your wake up call Podcast. I'm so glad you joined in. If you can take two minutes to share this episode with someone you think can benefit and have a positive impact on their life. That would be wonderful. Please leave a review by going to your favorite podcast listening app. And let me know what you enjoy or would like to hear more of it will support me in my effort to bring the possibility of natural healing to a wider audience and help disrupt the sick care system we have today and make human health a global priority. Health is your true wealth.

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