Reviving Vet Med

Prioritizing Sleep for Mental Health and Wellbeing | Episode 25 | Reviving Vet Med

November 09, 2022 Episode 25
Prioritizing Sleep for Mental Health and Wellbeing | Episode 25 | Reviving Vet Med
Reviving Vet Med
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Reviving Vet Med
Prioritizing Sleep for Mental Health and Wellbeing | Episode 25 | Reviving Vet Med
Nov 09, 2022 Episode 25

Recent research highlights the importance of getting enough sleep whereby adults who sleep less than 6-7 hours per day have a higher risk of chronic illness. Despite knowing the importance of sleep quantity and quality, one-third of adults experience insomnia. Daily stressors, technology, and other factors can also impact a person’s duration and level of sleep.      

In this episode, I recap recent research about the consequences of not getting enough sleep, review important aspects of sleep physiology, and share tools and strategies for getting a good night’s sleep. 


Resources

Ten tools for improving your sleep hygiene (blog): https://marieholowaychuk.com/2019/09/18/10-tips-improving-sleep-hygiene/ 

What do the sleep experts say about pets in the bedroom? (blog): https://marieholowaychuk.com/2018/09/26/sleep-experts-say-pets-bedroom/ 

Online Programs

To learn more about our 4- and 8-week online programs approved for CE credit in jurisdictions that recognize RACE, please visit:
https://revivingvetmed.com/programs/


Newsletter

For more practical pointers and tangible tips related to veterinary mental health and wellbeing, subscribe to our e-newsletter:
https://revivingvetmed.kartra.com/page/newsletter

Questions or Suggestions
Email podcast@revivingvetmed.com


Show Notes Transcript

Recent research highlights the importance of getting enough sleep whereby adults who sleep less than 6-7 hours per day have a higher risk of chronic illness. Despite knowing the importance of sleep quantity and quality, one-third of adults experience insomnia. Daily stressors, technology, and other factors can also impact a person’s duration and level of sleep.      

In this episode, I recap recent research about the consequences of not getting enough sleep, review important aspects of sleep physiology, and share tools and strategies for getting a good night’s sleep. 


Resources

Ten tools for improving your sleep hygiene (blog): https://marieholowaychuk.com/2019/09/18/10-tips-improving-sleep-hygiene/ 

What do the sleep experts say about pets in the bedroom? (blog): https://marieholowaychuk.com/2018/09/26/sleep-experts-say-pets-bedroom/ 

Online Programs

To learn more about our 4- and 8-week online programs approved for CE credit in jurisdictions that recognize RACE, please visit:
https://revivingvetmed.com/programs/


Newsletter

For more practical pointers and tangible tips related to veterinary mental health and wellbeing, subscribe to our e-newsletter:
https://revivingvetmed.kartra.com/page/newsletter

Questions or Suggestions
Email podcast@revivingvetmed.com


Hi everyone! Welcome to another episode of Reviving Vet Med.  In today's episode, we are going to be talking about sleep now. If you type sleep into the Google search bar, you will get almost 7 billion results, which is shocking to me.

Then again, given that most of us spend about a third of our lives sleeping, this really is a very important task that we do. And yet so many of us struggle with it. You might be surprised to know that by the age of 40, most people will have spent about 14 years of their lives sleeping, which again seems almost unfathomable to me.

And I think as veterinary professionals, we pride ourselves on bringing a game to everything we do and I would love for us to aim to do the same when it comes to sleep. I talked to many people in the veterinary space, whether they be on call or doing shift work or even working a regular veterinary practice job where they do struggle with their sleep, and they might experience insomnia on an acute or chronic level. But sleep is something that they have found to be challenging.

So, during this episode, I'm going to recap some of the recent research about the consequences of not getting enough sleep. I'll review some important things to consider when it comes to sleep Physiology, and we will also discuss some tools and strategies for getting a good night's sleep. So can't we just share all this information with you? This is a topic that I'm quite passionate about. It is one that I have researched because of my own struggles with insomnia, and I can't wait to share this information with you. Let's go ahead and get started.

This is the reviving Vet Med podcast, and I'm your host, Doctor Marie Holloway Chuck and my mission is to improve the mental health and well-being of veterinary professionals around the world. So some of you might be aware that there was a recent study published that investigated the sleep patterns of more than 7000 adults over 25 years, which is a very robustly designed study, and what they found was quite concerning and a little bit shocking.

And that is that sleep duration is associated with multimorbidity. So, in other words, those people in their study who were older than 50 years of age were more likely to have been diagnosed with two or more chronic conditions if they were sleeping five hours or fewer per night. So, when I talk about chronic conditions. I'm talking about things like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, dementia, arthritis, and even mental illness such as depression.

Incidentally, there was another study that was released recently, separately, that similarly found that sleeping fewer than 7 hours per night led to a higher prevalence of heart disease risk factors among American adults. So, suffice it to say, sleep is incredibly important for our health and well-being. So, when it comes to sleep. These studies obviously focused on duration, and I Think that's a great first place to start?

The research would suggest that on a bell curve there is an average duration of sleep that most of us need, with most of us falling within that middle of the Bell curve 7 to 9 hours per day amount of sleep. Now I say per day because some people sleep at night, some people sleep during the day and depending on the culture. Or the lifestyle of the individual, some people might be breaking their sleep.

Into a nap at some point during the day, and then the rest of the sleep at another point during the day. The point being that most individuals will need about that 7-to-9-hour mark and based on this research that I'm reading, the vast majority would, and that those who consistently do not get at least that 7 hour of sleep maybe. Putting them at risk of other concurrent health conditions.

Now for mental health, because that is such an important topic of mine and one that I want everyone to be versed in, it really is recommended that sleep is consecutive. If you live with mental illness. So, remember that our sleep is divided up into stages. So, when it comes to how we sleep, we. Start out in a very light stage of sleep. We go deeper as the time passes, we get into our deepest stage of sleep where not only is our body not moving, but our brain is also very, very slow. In terms of the brain waves that we're admitting. And then although our body stays asleep and not moving, our mind goes into what is referred to as the R.E.M. Stage of.

Sleep, which stands for rapid eye movement and that is where our brain waves start to really pick up again. And if you were just looking at the brain waves, you would think you were looking at a person who was awake because there's so much activity and there's so much stuff going on. And really what's happening during RAM is.

Where a person is, you know, integrating what they did during the day. They're relearning tasks. They're consolidating their memories. And they are processing emotional experiences, and R.E.M. Is so important for us from a mental health perspective. And basically, what happens during our sleep stages is that we go through these different stages of sleep, going through the entire one through 4 stages and then back into R.E.M. Takes about 90 minutes to 120 minutes per cycle and we go through several cycles in the night.

Now, as the person continues to sleep, whether it be at night during the day, whatever it might be, depending on your schedule, the longer the person remains asleep, the shorter those sleep cycle durations are. So rather than being an hour and a half to two hours, they get shorter. They last one hour and then 45 minutes.

And then 30 minutes and the individual spend more RAM. More time and RAM or more opportunities to be in RAM as the sleep goes on. And this is. Why it's so important for people with mental illness to really try to take all their sleep in one go. Because if they break up their sleep into nap periods or shorter durations of sleep, they're going to have less opportunity to get into those R.E.M.

Now when it comes to insomnia, this is a phrase that, you know, people talk about a lot. You know, a lot of people say, oh, I'm, you know, having trouble sleeping. I'm or, you know, I live with chronic insomnia. If you do, you're certainly not alone because the research would suggest that about 1/3 of adults in North America experience insomnia about 1/4. Of adults experience it short term, meaning that it's less than three months.

And about 10% experience it chronically and a person who is experiencing chronic insomnia is dealing with insomnia at least three days a week for at least three months of time. Now, insomnia itself is described as difficulty falling asleep. So if you take more than 30 minutes. Sleep waking up during the night with difficulty, falling back to sleep or waking up early in the morning with difficulty falling back to sleep. Now there's lots of different causes of insomnia, and some of these causes are medical and I Say this because. If you are experiencing chronic insomnia and you have yet to speak to your general physician, your general practitioner about it, I strongly urge you to do so because there are many different hormonal imbalances.

And other conditions medically that can lead to sleep disruption. Some examples, hyperthyroidism, mental illness, allergies, sleep apnea, gastroesophageal reflux disease, restless legs.

Syndrome, asthma, hypertension, heart disease, poorly regulated diabetes teeth grinding is a big one. That's something that I really had to address with my dentist with night guards. And then, of course, menopause and the hormonal imbalances that go along with that. So, if you, as I said before, are experiencing insomnia, please speak to your physician. About it, if you haven't already.

Now there are so many other things that can impact our sleep, ranging from noise disturbances, human or pet interruptions, the room temperature not being good, too much lighting in the room, something that we ate that day or before bedtime, not getting enough exercise, not getting enough light exposure outside. During the day, our bedtime routine, our self-talk, you name it, and we're going to talk about it.

And I just want to highlight two, you know that most individuals who are experiencing short term insomnia are doing so because of emotional or mental stress. Very often in those individuals. It is a worry, anxiety or tension that keeps them up at night.

So especially if you are dealing with grief, if you have experienced a recent trauma, there's conflict going on in your life. If you're having anxious symptoms, you know around something. If you're angry about a situation, if you're going through a stressful life event, like a separation, a divorce, a loss of job, etc.

Any of these things can really contribute to our short term insomnia and of course, are things that we want to try to address, either in ways that have worked for you before, whether it be journaling, talking to friends, you know, processing things on your own, or what has worked for me much better in my life has been to of course, speak to a mental health professional.

Now you'll probably recognize or hear as you delve into sleep. A lot of people use the phrase sleep hygiene and sleep hygiene. You know, when I first heard this phrase, I thought, OK, so is this going to tell me how often I should be washing my bed sheets or my pillowcases and?

Unlike the term would suggest, it has nothing to do with your actual hygiene in bed. This has everything to do with all of the activities that you do leading up to sleep that set you up for a successful and sustained sleep.

And sleep hygiene is for many individuals, a very easy thing.

That they can.

Shift in order to improve not just the quantity of their sleep, but the quality of their sleep as well. So the first thing I want to talk about when it comes to sleep hygiene is to really look at your mindset around sleep, and I think many people.

Especially if they have experience with insomnia, they have a lot of anxiety or worry about falling asleep and staying asleep, not getting enough sleep, how they're going to function the next day. If they don't have enough.

Week and a lot of the time that sets us up for not having a good sleep and we want to be mindful of going into our sleep in a way that is proactive, that is positive. You know, so saying to yourself, you know, gosh, it really seems like lately I've been struggling to get a good night's sleep.

What can I do today to set myself up for a better sleep? Because unless you're living with one of these medical causes that I mentioned previously, much of our sleep quality and quantity is within our control. So rather than resigning yourself to not being a quote. UN quote good sleeper. And just throwing up your hands and saying, you know, I'm just, I'm just not going to worry about it because we're I'm going to continue to Worry about it. Because this is just an issue that I've lived with for so long.

Is to really recognize those maladaptive thoughts. You know those unrealistic expectations, or you know whatever negative self-talk you might be saying to yourself that really could be interfering with your sleep. And remember that sleep is not something you can force. You can't make yourself fall asleep. So, when you are lying in bed and you're doing.

All the things that you can do just wheel yourself to sleep. You want to try and do the opposite. You want to try to just let go of effort.

Change that negative self-talk to say things like it's so nice to just lay here. And I just. I'm so relaxed and I know that. I'm going to very quickly just. Drift off to sleep. And if you do find yourself, for example, waking up in the evening to not activate around it to. Not say to yourself. You know, punching. Your pillow. I can't believe I'm awake again. This is so frustrating.

To just have a little bit of distance from it and say, gosh, it's so interesting that I keep waking up in the night. You know what? It's normal to wake up from a light sleep, especially if you just happen to fall asleep, you know, within an hour, you're still going to be in those light stages. I'm just going to take it in stride. I think some other things around our, you know, concept of sleep is to just be realistic and to know that it takes the average person about 10 to 20 minutes. To fall asleep.

So don't get too anxious if it's been a few minutes and you Are still awake. This is normal for your body, especially if you have a very busy day. If you've been very active, mentally or physically before bed, you are going to need time to wind down and we're going to talk about a bedtime routine and how that can help. But the idea is to recognize that.

It will take you some time to fall asleep and it's not realistic to think you're just going to fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow as often as that does happen. You know, for some people, after a busy day.

Again, another thing that we can do to decrease you know these negative associations with sleep. You know what I mean by I remember when I was at the Ontario that college and I was really struggling with insomnia. I would just say to myself, well, gosh, you know, I not sleeping anyway, so I may as well just stay up late and get some work done.

Well, that's not going to be helping me get more sleep, is it? It's counterproductive. So be productive in a positive way whereby you say to yourself, OK, clearly, I haven't. I haven't been sleeping lately. Well, what can I do to set?

Myself up for success. Yes, do I need to incorporate more exercise into my routine? Do I need to get outside and get more natural light exposure? Do I need to have a more routine bedtime? Maybe my bedtime is so all over the place from a scheduling perspective that my body doesn't know that it needs to be in bed at a certain time. And then also focusing on pre bedtime routines.

Now I don't know about you, but I have a 2-year-old at home, and I can honestly say that without her pre bedtime routine there is no way that I would be able to get her into bed and there's some evenings that you know we've been busy, and we've sort of glossed over the bedtime routine and those evenings it is so. Takes so much longer for her to fall asleep.

And as adults, I don't know when, but at some point, we get to the point where suddenly we no longer have a bedtime routine, and we just expect that we're going to lay in bed and we're just going to magically fall asleep on our own. We need that routine. We need those triggers to tell our mind and body you're winding down. You're letting go of your day.

And you're getting ready for a rest, so I recommend doing this about 30 minutes before you want to be in bed and trying to sleep. You can incorporate activities that are not activating and that are hopefully relaxing, so things like reading a book, stretching, doing your, you know. Whatever routine you do in terms of brushing your teeth, cleaning your face, getting your pajamas on, whatever that might be. You know, journaling is something that a lot of people do. Tai Chi, cleaning up clutter, meditating. Lots of activities that you can do. And what I would recommend is just like. You would do. For your child is to do them. In the same order at the same time, every single day.

So that your body knows what is to come. So, the pajamas go on. You wash your face, you crawl into bed, you read a book, you do a little meditation, the lights go out and you sleep and it's the same thing every day. I know for me what I found when I introduced a sleep routine back into my life is that you know, when I would travel or when my schedule would change for some reason that I would have my pre-established bedtime routine and it set me up for so much better success in falling asleep when I was able to work through the same routine.

Now, for many of us, when we're having issues sleeping, it's because our mind is going 100 miles a minute. We're thinking about what happened earlier in the day. We're thinking about what's going to be happening tomorrow. We're sleeping. We're thinking about sleep and how we're still awake and those sorts of things or our mind just won't stop talking and there are strategies that you can use to help with These things so.

If you're thinking a lot about the past, you probably do want. To address what? It is that is coming up for you. Whether you do that by journaling, whether you speak to a mental health provider, talk to someone, and resolve what the issues are that are really bothering you. You know.

If you're thinking about the future, this is something that can easily be helped by moving that future worry time earlier into your day. So, at the end of every one of my workdays, I always schedule about 10 to 15 minutes of planning for the next day. I look at my calendar, I make sure everything's lined up. I look at my To Do List I glanced through my emails. I make sure that the eyes are dotted. The Ts are crossed. You know that everything is in a way that I can let go. And I don't have to think about it until the next day.

Now, there might be things that I do need to do that I need to write down so that I'm not thinking about them while I'm trying to sleep.

But the point is, is that I have done the worrying and the planning and the thinking ahead of time and I'm then not going to do it while I'm lying in bed. now I talked already about if you're having a lot of mind busyness around, thoughts of sleep itself. So again, make sure you're feeling realistic about your sleep expectations and that you're doing positive action-oriented things to improve your sleep.

And if your chatter is, you know, really bugging you in terms of like, oh, my mind just won't turn off, then this is where, you know, doing a meditation, doing a body scan, doing breathing exercises, even just visualizing your breath, coming into and out of your body is going to be really, helpful for you. And it's something that you can practice with a recording. You can practice it on your own, just with your own guided mind, helping you through that, but that can certainly be helpful as well.

Now I want to also touch on just some general do's and don'ts when it comes to sleep hygiene and one of the OR many of the things that we want to do during the day to set ourselves up for a better sleep is getting up at the same time every day. So a lot of people have the habit of really sleeping in on the weekends and what ends up happening for many of those individuals is that they really struggle to fall asleep before going back to work on, you know, Monday or whatever your schedule may.

So as much as you can keep to within about the same hour of wake up, so you might allow yourself, you know, sleeping in an extra hour. But I would really stay away from getting too far out of your sleep schedule your sleep pattern because then it can really mess up your circadian rhythm during the day. We also want to make sure that we're taking opportunities to relieve our stress in some way.

So don't feel like you can just run around a giant ball of stress all day long and then just magically relax in bed at night. OK, you need to stretch, do breathing activities, relaxation exercises, do a dance party, discharge the energy, go to boxing, whatever it is to discharge that.

Energy and relax throughout the day, not just in the evening and not just before. Said I already mentioned scheduling that worry time for a lot of people making. Lists is Helpful to get rid of that mental clutter, making sure that you are getting some light exposure, some ideally natural light for about 30 minutes at some point in the day, preferably earlier than later. If you are in a.

The circumstance where you cannot be exposed to light, you know because your schedule doesn't allow it, or your workplace doesn't have windows or whatever it might be. You can use a phototherapy light to assist you with this, so making sure that you are exposing yourself to that light as soon as possible after you wake up. I talked about exercise already. Exercise is just such an important way to regulate our mental health, to discharge that energy, to tire out our bodies in and in anticipation of sleep. So really make sure that you have some sort of movement at some point within your day and then ideally at the end of the day, we are going to have an alarm for our bedtime, and I know a lot of smartphones now. Do you have the option of setting a wake time and a bedtime take advantage of that? Set a bedtime and set it for 30 minutes before you want to be in bed so that that is an opportunity to start your bedtime routine.

And set yourself up for a good night's sleep. Of course, a bedtime alarm is what helps us stay away from, you know, the endless Netflix show on repeat where it's just next episode, next episode, next episode, and before you know it, it's 2:00 in the morning and you were supposed be in bed 3 hours ago.

Now, before bedtime, what we also want to do is to manage our pain. If you are a person who lives with chronic pain, make sure that you've taken your meds. You've applied for your ice packs, you've done your stretching, you have given yourself an opportunity to do these things so that they can take effect by the time you get into bed. If you take prescription medications.

Make sure that you know how they impact your sleep. There are medications that can activate us. There are medications that can cause drowsiness, so you want to time those medications appropriately in the evening as well. Before bedtime. We want to avoid bright light, so start dimming the lights.

This is also an opportunity at night as well to take supplements like calcium or magnesium, which are both natural sleep AIDS. If you take them for other reasons, you know you might take calcium for osteopenia you might take magnesium for anxiety, whatever it might be. Again timing. These in the evening. Can be helpful for our our sleep as well.

And if you're looking for a natural remedy or a natural supplement to assist with sleep, passionflower herb is a good option. This can be taken as a tincture or a tea. It's especially good for anxiety around sleep. It's something that I take on a routine basis when I feel like I need it for my anxiety.

And really, the only side effects I've experienced with it are sometimes some very vivid dreams, which are very typical, and I think it's probably because I am spending more time in R.E.M. When I do take the passionflower.

The other thing that we want to do at bedtime is to make sure that we are geared down enough so that we can sleep when we get into bed. So, if you're feeling really activated, maybe you. Just watched a really. A show that got your mind, you know, going or you inadvertently read an e-mail that really kind of set you off in some way. Don't say that. You're just going to get down in bed.

And just, you know, magically fall asleep again. You might need to take extra steps to set yourself up for feeling sleepy enough that when you go to bed, you will be able to sleep keeping the room temperature comfortable, which for most is about 18 to 20°C, or about 64 to 68 Fahrenheit, soundproofing is important for some people, so you might need to play white noise. You might need to sleep with earplugs and light proofing is also helpful, so there's a lot of research demonstrating the impact of ambient light on our sleep quality and quantity.

And even for those of us who live in urban areas, the light coming from streetlamps can be detrimental to our sleep. So if you can use blackout blinds, or if you can use one of those, you know eye masks to provide darkness for yourself, whatever works for you, make sure that again, screens are off, that your phone is out of the bedroom. And that's going to help set you up for sleep. As well now.

The other thing to remember, and this is especially important for any students who might be listening, is to only use the bed for sleep and for intimacy. So, when I'm talking to the students, I'm urging you not to study in bed and for everyone you know, really try to avoid. Watching screens in bed, talking on your phone, talking to your partner, journaling all the things that we can do that maybe potentially activating, we want to avoid.

The other reason we want to avoid those things is because if you tend to do a lot of other activities in bed, the body becomes very confused about what it's supposed to be doing in bed. You can create these habits whereby the body thinks well the bed is for all these activities.

So, what are we doing now? Like what's happening versus? If you only use the bed for sleep and intimacy. There's very little confusion for your mind and body with what you're supposed to be doing when You're in Bed so that is something that many people I know have had to adjust. Now. I will say this, if you are a person like me who has always read in bed before bedtime. And it never disturbed your sleep. Then. Of course. Please feel welcome to continue reading in bed. But if you've noticed that your habits have changed over the years and in Changing those habits, for example, watching Netflix on a tablet in bed, you're finding it difficult to fall asleep. Then that's maybe something that you could consider.

Not doing. Some other things we don't want to do are to drink caffeine within about six or seven hours of bedtime. Caffeine has a very long half-life, so making sure that your coffee you know stops well in time, that you can have it metabolized and that you can still fall asleep. Same thing with alcohol. So, alcohol, you know, is a depressant. It can, it does. I should say, based on research studies prevent us from going into the deep and R.E.M. Stages of sleep.

So, if you go to bed with alcohol still in your system, it is going to impact your sleep. You will not feel as rested the next day. I know for me if I've had a few drinks before I go to bed because of the night out or whatever it was. Truth be told that has not happened in a very long time. But nevertheless, when it does happen, I know that I wake up the next morning, feeling more anxious because I have not had that fully restorative sleep from a deep sleep in a REM sleep perspective. So if you do decide that you want to have a drink with friends or whatever, it might be try to do that earlier in the evening. So, try to do that after work rather than before bed.

Some other things that you want to try to avoid are napping for too long near bedtime can really throw off the circadian rhythm, and same thing with exercising, especially with rigorous exercise. I know for me I used to be a person who could just go for runs and play basketball and do all these things in the evening, and now I find that if I. Do any sort?

Of rigorous activity after dinner, I find it difficult to wind down for sleep, so just be mindful of that exercise is really. It's something that has a lot of inter individual variability in terms of its impact on sleep, and so it if it doesn't impact you again, it's not something you. Necessarily need to change. Now an additional thing I want to talk about, of course, is technology and in a perfect world, we would all be off our screens within at least one, if not two hours before bedtime. Now I fully acknowledge that most of us are using screens before bed. We're watching a show, we're on our E readers. Maybe even more doing a little work before bedtime. The important thing is to give yourself some sort of buffer before bed, so for me I stopped texting messages at about 9:00 at night and I turn off the TV at 10:00 at night with the intention of being in bed by 10/30 10:45.

So offer myself a little bit of time where I'm not feeling activated by messages and emails and things like that and where I'm not being exposed to any screens, you know, whether it be a show or anything like that.

So if you can allow yourself a break from screens and there's different reasons for that number one, it is activating for most of us and #2 the light that is emitted from screens also prevents melatonin secretion, which is our natural sleep hormone. So what you can do to also mitigate that is to use some sort of blue light emitting filter so the blue light filter prevents that blue light emission. From hitting your eyeballs and preventing melatonin secretion so those filters are incorporated into a lot of our devices, most smartphones have a built-in filter that you know you'll see when the sun sets that you're suddenly your foam looks a little bit. Orange and that's because of the blue. Light is not being emitted anymore. Depending on what sort of computer. Or tablet you have, depending on how old it is, it may also have software.

Edit in it. If not, there's a software called F dot Lux Flex F dot Lux. If you just type that into your search bar, it'll come up and it is software that you can download for free for any device that will basically calibrate to your exact location and as your sun sets.

The color in the waveforms that are emitted from your device will also be adjusted. So that's an option as well. A few more tips. I highly recommend keeping your phone out of the bedroom. I basically say do not use your bedside table as a charging station because of the desire or the urge to want to check it in the middle of night when you wake up, when it can be very activating and speaking of waking up in the middle of the night if you do.

Find yourself waking up in the night and lying in bed for 30 minutes or more. You want to interrupt yourself, get out of bed and do something, not stimulating until you feel rested enough to go back to sleep.

Now you're probably thinking to yourself, oh my God, the last thing I want to do is get out of bed at 3:00 in the morning. I hear you. And what I'm.

Saying is because if you develop a habit of lying in bed at night and thinking and processing and stewing and sitting, you your body will continue to do this. You need to break the habit.

It's almost like sleep training, but for middle of the night awakenings for adults. OK, so you will need to get out of bed, do something non stimulating. Repeat your bedtime routine, whatever you need to do and then only go back to bed when you feel like you are ready for sleep.

A few other quick thoughts and I will link to some additional information for this, but sharing your bed with pets is very controversial. I'll share A blog that just gives a little bit more information on this, but the research basically says that pets in the bedroom are helpful in general, but pets in the bed.

Especially under the covers can be very detrimental to our sleep. Not surprisingly, but just wanted to throw it out there.

And finally, I did mention magnesium as a natural supplement when it comes to sleep. Magnesium is a powerful electrolyte, and it helps to reduce cortisol. It also acts as a muscle relaxant and a mood stabilizer. And I see tremendous benefits of taking magnesium, not just for my mental health, but also. For my sleep. So I do take magnesium glycinate.

Before bedtime, there's many different formulations. The best formulations for absorption are glycinate or citrate, and so I recommend trying it out if that's something that you haven't tried before. It's of course natural. It should not be interfering with anything else.

So that's it for this episode of reviving Vet Med. I really hope you found this information about sleep helpful and that you will pick one thing to change or try when it comes to your sleep today after listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to copy the link and text or e-mail it to a friend or a colleague, and I would also of course appreciate it if you would subscribe to get these podcast episodes whenever they first are released.

 I'm excited to share that I am planning my next round of online programs for the coming year, if you are interested in any of those programs, I have programs related to boundaries to burnout prevention and to workplace Wellness. You can find more information at my website, mariehollowaychuck.com, and you can sign up for the wait list. There as well.

I want to thank my amazing assistant Jamie for producing this episode, and I want to thank you for listening through to the end until next time. Take care of yourselves. Bye now.