Episode 17: Sleep Tight

Welcome to the Beauty of Better Podcast, where we help moms thrive in health and faith.

Hi, Mama.

Welcome to this week's episode.

We are so excited.

We're going to be talking about sleep, which I think as a mom is something that we all crave more of.

I know I do.

But today we're going to talk about the health benefits of sleep and some of the consequences of not getting enough sleep.

We'll talk about ways to improve your sleep hygiene.

So just think of that as like how to improve your sleep quality.

And yeah, that's kind of where we're going.

But to start, I have a really fun question that I want to ask everybody.

So I saw this and I thought it was just a really fun idea.

So if you had to pick one of these things, which one would you pick?

Okay, so it's kind of like a would you rather.

So A is you never have to cook dinner ever again.

B is you get eight hours of sleep every single night.

And C is your house cleans itself.

Oh, those are good.

Yeah, those are good.

Right?

Yeah, I definitely pick the clean, your house cleans itself, 100%.

I asked my husband that, and he said the house cleaning itself, but I think I would pick the eight hours, honestly.

I think I'm leaning towards the house cleaning itself because I feel like then dinner doesn't feel as hard, and then I feel like I can sleep better.

So I feel like it kind of ties into the other two.

Yeah, I would definitely say the same because I feel like when I try to sit down and make it go to bed, I cannot relax if there's clutter in a certain room or in my bedroom.

And so I'm like, if I just didn't see that clutter, yeah, if it just didn't-

You'd get better rest.

Yeah, just like a little snap of the fingers and it's gone, you know?

Or is it the other way around where if we slept more, we'd have more energy to handle it?

You could just handle it better, maybe.

I don't know.

I was a little torn.

I'm going to go with cleaning.

Yeah.

I think we've learned to function with less sleep.

But yeah.

Yeah.

That's a fun icebreaker, Kelsey.

That was a fun icebreaker.

Oh.

I hope you guys liked it.

Yeah.

Well, I'm going to jump in and talk about why we need sleep, because I think that as moms, regardless of what season we're in, there's always things that contend for our sleep, and always things that contend for our hours.

Sometimes we can control them, and sometimes we can't, right?

And especially, I mean, Kelsey, you're in the newborn stages right now.

It's a lot harder to find sleep.

And then Kathleen, you have new routines with new ones.

So yeah, I think we're all in different seasons.

And so I think it's a good reminder to remember why we need to sleep, because I think we've all learned to function on less sleep than what's optimal.

And sometimes I don't know about you guys, but I feel like, I've got to go, go, go.

And like, you sacrifice your sleep for everything else that needs to happen.

But let's talk about why we should not sacrifice our sleep.

So sleep can help our moods.

It can help our cognitive function.

So how our brain is functioning, our memory.

It really helps with our immune system.

This is the one I teach on a lot, just because when you're sleeping, that's when your body starts to repair cells, repair tissues.

It builds immune system cells.

So I don't know about you guys, but one of the things I noticed first off, when I start to not have enough sleep, is I start to feel like I'm getting sick.

My eyes start to hurt, and I start to feel like, am I getting a cold?

Am I getting sick?

And I'm like, I don't have an immune system right now.

I need to sleep.

Like, I really noticed that a lot.

Our sleep also impacts our metabolism, our weight management, our hormone regulation.

There's so many things, I feel like I could go on and on and on about.

But I want us to all jump in because I think that we can all speak to these things and even more of just like, what do our bodies do when they reset and they sleep?

And why should we be prioritizing this as moms?

Because I think maybe it could feel selfish sometimes, right?

To say like, oh, I need to go to bed and I need to sleep instead of cleaning, or instead of doing laundry, or instead of whatever we need to do that is on the never-ending list.

So maybe we could just chat through that a little bit.

I'll share a little tip just real quick that I received from an older mom.

It was actually my mother-in-law.

When I got pregnant with our first, she said like, nap while your baby is napping.

And I actually took that to heart.

And when my first born was born, I napped when she napped.

And honestly, like it energized me.

It was exactly what I needed.

Like maybe yes, maybe there was laundry that needed to be done, stuff needed cleaned in the house.

But the energy that that gave me, I came to it so much more like energized and enthused.

And I honestly feel like it helped me kind of like overcome some of the like baby blues.

Like I had a really hard birth with my daughter.

And actually in that healing recovery process, like I needed that sleep in order to really just recover.

And so I gave myself permission to, I took her advice.

And actually, like when I was able to take naps with my other ones, like if my husband was home and he could take the, you know, my other toddler with my second born, then I did it.

And I took naps when I could, because I really see the value of that, like just being refreshed and recharged.

My mood is so much better for my kids if I get that little time to myself.

And so yeah, I'm such an advocate for naps when you can get one.

Yeah, it made me think of like the rest and recover piece.

Like I think recovery from whether it's illnesses or injury or, I mean, our body is helping us function through the whole day.

And so a lot of times, you know, if our kids get hurt, we're like, oh, you got to get your sleep because that's when, you know, the construction workers come out and they're building and repairing and doing all these things in your body.

I love that.

So it's just giving them that imagery of like, this is kind of even better than maybe a medicine that they could take to help them repair.

And like, you're going to get better faster.

And, you know, so kind of amping that up.

Even my son, you know, I was sharing about talking about sleep and he's like, oh, yeah, because if you don't sleep, you just, your brain just goes crazy and you see things that are not real.

And I was like, oh, this is good.

Like some of this is happening.

Yeah.

So just kind of that thought of the repair.

It just have to remind yourself like, yeah, I've done a lot today.

Like, doesn't matter.

Like if the to do this was super long or, or just, you know, what was on it necessarily.

You need that time to get out of fight or flight.

Just to kind of help you manage even chronic and daily stresses.

Yeah, absolutely.

I was just also going to throw in that it's like right after you have a baby, you, you really do need to rest.

Like your body just went through like the most intense thing that it's physically capable of doing.

And if you don't get that rest, you're going to delay the healing process.

And it also really affects your likelihood of getting postpartum depression and like your overall parenting capacity, I feel like, especially if you have other kids that...

Kathleen and I got that same advice, like sleep when the baby sleeps.

And you're like, oh, well, this doesn't really work now that I've got multiple other kids.

So if I always tell my husband like, my biggest love language right now is like, if you can give me a nap, I'm loving that.

I feel like that's an act of service to me.

And that's like one of my love languages is acts of service.

So if I can get a nap, that's ideal.

But yeah, like one in eight women get postpartum depression.

So if you're able to sleep more and not be as sleep deprived, I mean, we're all sleep deprived in that initial newborn phase.

But if you can get a nap during the day, or if you're, you know, choosing to like alternate shifts at night, that's not really something that has worked for me yet.

But if that is a possibility for you, then I would definitely say do that.

Like, there's lots of options to get your baby fed.

And if you can sleep a little bit longer, stretch at night, then take that.

And definitely don't feel bad about that, because it is going to improve your mood.

We, like as women, we have lots of hormone changes going on, even when we're not pregnant or postpartum, right?

Like our menstrual cycle, there's a lot of hormonal changes.

And so we actually do need more sleep because of all those changes that are happening in our body.

And I always feel like I can handle things 10 times better when I get rest.

It just feels like everything is more manageable, and I can handle the demands of the day.

And not, I feel like my fuse is just shorter when I don't.

So like, I feel like I get angry faster, or I lose my cool faster, and those are things that I don't want to do.

I feel like I'm not as good of a mom if I'm not getting, you know, larger chunks of sleep at least.

So the more sleep you can get, the better.

It's great for, like Danielle said, your immunity.

And even if we're talking about exercise, like your recovery from exercise, it's really important for that.

Like that's when your growth, lots of growth hormones, excuse me, growth hormone is released when you sleep.

So if you're not sleeping, it really doesn't matter how much you're putting in at the gym.

Your body's not going to optimally be able to recover and recovery is really where all the magic happens when we're talking about gaining muscle and things like that.

So sleep, we all need it, right?

Sleep is super important.

And I think we kind of started diving into some of the consequences of not getting enough sleep.

But does anybody else have some consequences that they want to talk about?

I think we should also just lay out.

I forgot to mention that as moms, we are aiming for seven to nine hours of sleep a night.

So that's kind of like our target range that we want to try to hit.

It's an average.

Everybody's a little bit different.

So it's not horrible if you feel like your hour is six or maybe you need more and you need ten.

So just somewhere in that range, seven to nine is the typical range that we need to be able to function.

So but yeah, I feel like there's really thinking the opposite, right, of the benefits that we just said.

So like your immune system can't repair itself.

Your tissues can't repair themselves.

Like there's a lot of links with cancers where they talk about.

You can't fight like the free radicals in your body because of lack of sleep.

And your memory.

I always tell this to my students, like your number one job as a student is to remember what you're learning right.

And if you're not sleeping, you're not remembering.

So it's better to get a good night's sleep rather than cram things in until midnight.

But I think the same is true for us where it's like maybe we're working on a project and it's like, we feel like we could keep going until midnight, but we probably shouldn't.

And just setting those boundaries.

I just want to say that's such a good point on setting boundaries.

And so it's like you have to be intentional in prioritizing health and well, and good sleep.

And I just think, you know, there's some nights, you know, when you have little ones and all day you've spent with them, and you just want to stay up late because you're like, I want time with my husband or myself.

And so you stay up later and the next day you're like paying for it, because you're tired and stuff.

But, you know, so sometimes it's okay to choose those days to like, just have some time for yourself.

But really on the whole, like our regular rhythm should be that we're prioritizing, you know, getting that.

Like for me, I know that I need eight hours of sleep to feel like refreshed.

I've like just seen that over time, seven doesn't feel enough, and nine I just feel groggy.

And so like, if I can hit that window, like that's helpful for me.

But I just think like it really does take intentionality.

And like, I think too, you know, the god of the universe, like he rested himself.

Like it's a gift from god to rest.

And sometimes if we're finding ourselves avoiding rest, maybe it's because we think that like, we have to carry all the things ourselves.

Maybe we feel that if we rest, something won't get done or a ball will be dropped.

And I think it's just really important to kind of ask yourself like, why am I not letting myself rest?

Why am I not prioritizing this?

What's my like, internal belief that's making me think that rest is not good?

And even bringing that before the Lord and just saying, God, would you teach me to rest?

If you're not good at resting, like just asking the Lord to like, just help you in that and teach you how to have self control and patience and all of those things, all of the fruits of his spirit, in order to enter into his rest.

So I just wanted to say that little point, the God of the universe itself, he rested, so it's important.

It's written into our DNA.

I love that, Kathleen, that reminded me, there's a verse in Psalm 127, and it says, the Lord gives sleep to those he loves.

And I just love that.

I think that's such a sweet verse, but it's talking about how, like if you're getting up early, and you're going to bed late, like that's the kind of the context before the verse.

Like if you're doing that, you're like eating the bread of sorrows because you're toiling in vain.

But if you, like God's gonna give you sleep, like you need to trust that he's gonna provide for you even while you're asleep.

And like sometimes if you, you know, if you can't get the house perfectly spotless and clean, that's something that I like to go to bed with a clean house.

And some nights I'm like, okay, there's gonna be a couple of dishes in the sink and I'm gonna do it in the morning.

Like discipline, but also grace, I think, right?

Like having the discipline to choose, is it better to like get an extra 30 to 40 minutes of sleep, or do I really have to pick all this up, or should I do that earlier, or should I get my kids to help me do that before they go to bed, or like thinking outside the box and trying to find some different ways to do that.

So we've been doing that with our kids more, just involving them like in the cleanup process, and they love it.

They think it's fun because they're just doing, like it's part of a project they're doing with us, and then it kind of saves us a little bit of work after they go to bed, so.

Yeah, that's good.

You're modeling it.

That makes me think of a verse that my mother-in-law shared and had my husband and his siblings repeat when they were kids, and she would say it in Spanish, but I'll just share it in English here, and it's Psalms 48.

It says, In peace, I will both lie down and sleep.

For you alone, our Lord, make me dwell in safety.

And I think sometimes the hustling and bustling kind of time back into what Kathleen was saying is, like, are we feeling like we're really in the ownership of our days and our projects, or are we recognizing our safety and our sustenance really comes with them?

So like, sleeping peacefully, it's not just like, oh, I'm going to lie down and sleep because it's too dark outside to do anything else.

But yeah, and that's a prayer that as our kids, or if they get nervous when they're trying to fall asleep, we'll have them say that verse of like, your God's a big God and he has got this.

So you have nothing to fear, you can sleep with peace and makes you think of all the things they went through in the Bible that you're like, oh, they didn't have the shelters we have, they didn't have the other resources, and God called them to lie down in peace and sleep and rest, and says, I got this, you need to rest.

And so that's one that we like to come back to as a family.

I preached a sermon at one of our chapels, I think it was last year on sleep, and I really started to dive into what does the Bible say about sleep, and I just felt like I had this revelation, and I was processing with my husband as I was preparing this sermon, and just all of the times in the Bible where God spoke in dreams or angels spoke in dreams, and it came to me where it's like, what are we missing?

Like, maybe God is trying to speak to us, and we're not taking the time to rest, like he's telling us to rest, and he wants to speak in a dream to us, or like, it's just another form of communication that we learn about in the Bible where God can speak to us or reveal things to us.

And if we're cutting out our sleep, we might be missing out on something very significant.

And I just went through all the major points in the Bible where life changing, like, history changing moments happened because of dreams.

And I won't go deep into that today, but it just made me think, like, I don't want to miss out on things like that.

Like, that's also part of sleep, like spiritually just being connected.

And, I mean, the Bible talks about Sabbath rest.

Like, rest is such a core value in the Bible, and, yeah, I just feel like it's so important, and I don't want to miss out on important dreams or life decisions.

Yeah, that's really good, Danielle.

Let's, maybe we can talk about some ways that we can make our sleep better if we know that we're going to have it interrupted.

I know one thing that I did this time around that I think really, really helped, especially in the middle of the night, is I switched out all the light bulbs in our room to red light bulbs, like for our lamps and things like that.

So when I turn on the light and I'm nursing in the middle of the night, it's like a red light, which is not so blue light and red light.

So blue light is coming from like superficial lights, like LEDs and screens, and it's basically telling your body, don't make melatonin, don't make melatonin, like it's time to wake up, it's daytime, and it's not daytime.

So artificial light can be one thing that really impacts your sleep, especially today because so many of us are, you know, if you are working late, maybe after the kids go to bed, or you're watching a movie, or whatever it might be, that light is basically telling your body it's not time to go to sleep, so that can affect your sleep quality.

And so you could wear, like, red, you know, blue light blocking glasses.

That could be something that you do that's a really practical, easy thing, and that will reduce your blue light exposure.

But I really noticed a difference in my ability to fall back asleep after I nursed my son and put him back to bed with the red light bulbs and the lamps.

Like, that was a really helpful thing for me this time around.

So if there's any moms out there with newborns, I would 110% recommend that.

And I'm on Amazon, so a very easy, easy thing to do.

I remember when I had my third, like you, Kelsey, I don't know if it was a book or what I was reading, but I was gone away, I actually had a conference for work for two or three days.

So my daughter was old enough, she wasn't nursing anymore, but still young.

And I had to pump a few times, and I actually got to read, like work and read, like just do one mode instead of mom mode.

They were not with me at that conference.

But I read this book that talked about, to make your sleep better, you should actually wear pajamas.

And I'm like, oh, I just sometimes crash in what I'm wearing or maybe workout clothes, but sending that signal to your body that it's time to rest.

And so I had some extra time when I was at that conference, walking between the hotel and the venue, and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to go buy some pajamas.

And just start having that as a habit of like, okay, I've got three daughters and a son.

I should model this to them.

And if I'm not sleeping well, maybe that's with what I'm actually choosing to put on.

But I think even more recently when I put them to bed, I'm putting the pajamas on, brushing my teeth, putting my contacts on, washing my face, and doing that maybe an hour or two before I go to bed, so that I'm priming myself rather than you crash on the sofa, and then you've got to come to tell me, I really want to do all these things, but signaling to your body further enough in advance to help you wind down.

This is something that I was very clicked enough about 10 years ago.

That reminds me of just the importance of routine and having consistent routine with sleep.

I think it's easy to have a routine Monday through Friday when you have to work and you have to wake up at a certain time, and then it's like weekends, sleep in.

But it's actually healthier for your body if you go to bed and wake up at the same time every day of the week, if that's possible.

I know that there's different demands with kids and work and schedules, but as much as you can get to a regular schedule and routine, that will help your body have higher quality sleep.

And as Cristiana was saying, just the bedtime routine, keeping that consistent too.

So I love that idea about pajamas, like an even just like starting that bedtime routine with pajamas and reducing blue light.

I always try to reduce blue light an hour before bed, just to give my brain that break and just to realize it's time to sleep.

Something that I've been really aware of in this season is trying to not have caffeine.

I mean, I usually set my cutoff time at like 3 p.m.

And that's like for tea.

So that's not like full on coffee or shots of espresso or anything, but just like even caffeinated tea.

So that way my body is not staying away from caffeine also.

So that's something that I've been trying to keep in mind as I have my bedtime routine too.

I love that.

Well, maybe staying on the kind of food slash drink.

We can talk a little bit about, obviously some seasons of motherhood, you can't really control your sleep like a newborn or I currently have, usually all four of my kids come into our room at some point in the night.

So I have been experiencing all of the effects that we've been talking about, the negative ones, like can't remember things, just bubbling my words at times.

I'm like, I can't even talk these days.

But with that, realizing that we're not a victim of circumstance, that there are things that we can do during our day to help kind of recover after a bad night's sleep.

And one of that really is looking at the food that we eat.

And it's so important.

Like I know myself, like if I've had a bad night's sleep, all I want the next day is just like coffee and sugary things, like chocolate and stuff just to boost my mood and all of that.

But really that doesn't serve me well.

It honestly makes it worse.

And so if you've had a bad night's sleep, it's really important to start your day, especially with like a good form of protein, like a good healthy fiber.

All of those foods we talked about in the last three podcasts about macronutrients, like it really does come back to really focusing on your nutrition on those days and just starting your day off well.

Even maybe even a herbal tea, starting your day off rather than that caffeine spike can sometimes be helpful just to like ease into your day, rather than just like because your body is already tired and exhausted and kind of running low.

So to just like amp it up and on like caffeine right away, sometimes can be hard on your body.

So even starting with like a herbal tea and then like having a good like eggs and whole grain toast or yogurt and nuts and seeds and stuff, like starting off with a good breakfast is going to just help the rest of your day kind of go better and help stabilize those blood sugar levels that are already being affected, like our hormones are affected by that lack of sleep.

And so if we can help our bodies out by really being intentional the next day and just saying, okay, that was a hard night, couldn't control it, but I can control today and or elements of today.

So just helping yourself out in that way.

I just want to comment, if anybody else has comments on food stuff.

It made me just think of one thing, like talk about this a bit with our students of when you're staying up late, pulling these all-nighters, studying, like we talked about hormone change a bit.

So the hormone that makes you feel full is depressed.

So if you were going to be late-night snacking and studying, whatever you might be doing, that's going to go lower.

So if you do opt to eat a late-night snack, you're not going to feel full.

And then tied to that, you also don't really have that sensor of how much is too much.

So it's a lot easier to get into just binge in a bowl of ice cream with all the good stuff and be like, oh, there's the carton.

Like if the evening gets a little bit late.

So just aware that hormone shifts and sleep deprivation are real.

And just being like, okay, maybe my cutoff of eating is going to be 9 p.m.

Because I know when I get into that sleep deprivation mode, like it's hard to manage, like portion size or something like that.

So yeah, I think too, if you have a really large meal, really close to the time when you're going to go to bed, your body is working really hard to send, you know, sending blood to that area to help like digest all of the food that you just ate.

And instead of letting your body relax, it's like working really hard to digest the food, which can sometimes impact your ability to fall asleep.

Something else that I was thinking about was, sometimes it can be like the bedtime routine can also help your mind unwind as well.

So something that I have started doing, because I like to journal, but in this season of having a newborn, I feel like I don't have the energy to do it.

At the end of the day.

So I use a journal that's one, it's literally called One Line a Day, and you write like one or two sentences about your day in it.

And then you get to do that throughout the year, and then it has five years of lines.

So every day you can like look back and see what you were doing that day a year ago.

And it's kind of fun to just like, okay, I can do like two lines in a journal, right?

And that like helps me just unwind a little bit.

And then I do write down five things I'm grateful for right before I go to bed.

And I feel like that gets my head in like a really positive, relaxed place.

Even if it was a hard day, like you can still find something that you're grateful for.

And you might just have to work a little bit harder to think about what that might be.

But I do find that that helps me fall asleep faster too.

That ties back to our gratitude, Power of Gratitude episode.

I did really quick just want to speak to working moms who travel, because I travel a lot, and I have some other mom friends who I know travel to different countries as well, and that can be challenging, right?

I often travel to places where I switch my nights and my days.

And just some tips around that, if you actually create sleep deprivation before you travel, it helps you get on the schedule of where you're going.

So an example is, if I'm traveling to the Philippines where my nights and days are completely flipped, and I'm leaving at noon, which would be like midnight there, right?

Then I would actually stay up the night before as best as I could and try to not sleep.

So then when I get on the plane at noon, I crash and I sleep, and I'm sleeping because it's actually sleep time there.

And so then when I land, I'm adjusted.

I have very little jet lag now because of this.

And so then I land and I'm rested, and then I jump into my days, and I usually don't have much trouble falling to sleep when it's nights.

And then I do the same thing coming back.

But actually, usually when I come back, I'm so tired from the trip that I just crash and sleep the whole time anyway.

But just being aware of when you're shifting time zones, even if you're just going to the East Coast and it's three hours, it is an adjustment for your body.

And so just calculating, is it important for you to jump to that time zone, or are you not staying very long?

But just being aware when you're traveling to try to prep the day before.

I also try to completely cut out caffeine the month before I travel, just so that when I do need a cup of coffee to wake up, it really impacts me a lot more than if I have it all the time, and then I don't get caffeine headaches either.

So those are just some travel tips for our travel working moms out there.

Does anybody have anything else to add just on bedtime routines, sleep tips, things that you do before we wrap up?

I might just share this as a short one.

This is relating to kiddos, because like both of my boys, like we're waking up, like just so like angry and crying.

And I was like, what should I do with that?

And the tip that someone gave me is like, give them a protein snack before bed, like a cheese stick or like even a cup of milk or something.

And also the calcium in there can help kind of stimulate sleep as well.

But ever since I've been doing that, like especially my son, Jeremiah, like he's three, he doesn't wake up crying anymore.

And sometimes that can just be like, and like I know myself, I do have a naturally high metabolism, so I wake up like ravishing, like really hungry.

I always have been like that.

So it's like, if you are someone who wakes up kind of like really like hungry like that, it might be helpful to have just like a little like protein snack like that.

Obviously, it's not too big, like we're talking about, but just like a cheese stick or something before bed just to kind of help you with those in the morning.

But I don't know if anybody out there has kids with that problem.

So maybe trying a little snack like that could help you out.

Yeah, I think it'd be really great for us to do an entire episode on just like kids in sleep and maybe just what we've walked through with our own kids and helping them get on routines because I feel like we could go on and on and on about that.

But, you know, mamas, we just hope you're encouraged today to just really take a look at your sleep patterns and how much you're sleeping and just try to find one step this week where you can make your sleep routine better, your bedtime routine better, and hopefully get better quality of sleep so that you can be a better mom.

We bless you today.

Thanks so much for listening to the Beauty of Better podcast.

If you liked today's episode, don't forget to subscribe.

Connect with our community and check out other resources on our website at beautyofbetter.com.

We hope this podcast helped you take the next small step to find the beauty in becoming better.