“In our modern day society, sleep has become a skill set. There’s an opportunity to learn, just like a skill, how to get great sleep.” – Mollie McGlocklin

Mollie McGlocklin used to be someone who couldn’t sleep. After many years of working into the wee hours, she began burning the candle at both ends and started to experience anxiety and stress which manifested itself into insomnia. 

After researching and trying nearly everything on the market, she found a system of sleep skills using a combination of technology, chronobiology, and accountability to get the sleep she needed. 

Mollie learned all about the balance between the combination of those three key skills and how they apply in our modern-day society to give us a sense of awareness you wouldn’t normally have. 

Today she’s sharing her wisdom with you about how you can optimize your sleep skills so you can get the sleep you need too.  

MOLLIE ANSWERS QUESTIONS LIKE:

• How what we eat and when we eat, affect our sleep
• How temperature specifically impacts our sleep
• How to get the best overall quality of your sleep
• What is considered sleep deprivation

…and so much more!

Get ready, you’re going to want to take notes on this one, it’s packed full of juicy information. Listen via the link above.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

→ Apply to coach with me

→ Continue the conversation in my free online community

→ Get The 4-Day Accomplish Your Dreams Free Training 

→ Mollie’s Website

Full Transcript

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 42, Sleep
Skills.

[music]

Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fearfacing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife,
mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived
through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear
the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join
me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman
you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hey there, Ms. Unstoppable. Welcome to the show. Today’s episode, I have a very special
guest, her name is Mollie McGlocklin, and she is going to be talking about how to get
better sleep. Now, when I asked my audience, in my private online community, if I should
bring her on the show to teach us about sleeping better, they all were so excited, and said,
“Absolutely, yes”, and then they started asking all their questions about how they can get
better sleep. I was blown away in all honesty, because I didn’t think that many people felt
like they weren’t getting good sleep.

If you’re in that boat, you feel like you need to be getting better sleep, you just maybe
have some different sleep issues of falling asleep, or staying asleep, or just feeling tired all
the time, Mollie is here to help you. Mollie used to be somebody who could not sleep at
all. Her story is really interesting because like mine, she become very fed up with feeling
that way. She said one of the scariest moments of her life was when she was in Rome, and
she was at the Coliseum. She said, “Yes, that one. The Coliseum.” She had a huge panic
attack because she hadn’t slept in almost three days. She said that was her tipping point to
really figure out, “Why in the world am I not sleeping, and how can I get better sleep.”

She did so many things to figure out why she wasn’t sleeping. She had doctor’s visits, and
sleep clinics, and courses, and studies, and logs, and we go into detail of all the things she
did on the interview. She has really figured out a really cool balance of how to get
somebody to sleep using science, and using some different tools, again, that she talks
about on the show today.

This interview is packed full of goodness. I think we went almost an hour-long which is
very long for an interview. I try and keep it near 30 minutes. I asked a lot of questions
directly from my community, so if you’re not in my free community, I encourage you to get
over there because we’re always talking about the show behind the scenes, I’m always
asking those members to give me questions to ask my guests, so you can get specific
questions answered that apply to your life. To join that community just go to Lindsaye, L-IN-D-S-A-Y-E, Preston.com/community. A link is always in the show notes for you to get
there too. Again, it’s free, you get on there, you get to ask your questions, and get some
great content, and feedback all the time. Right?

So, back to the interview, I’ve got Mollie on here. We’ve got a lot of things we’re covering
today, including how to get better sleep, obviously, and different ways that you can start to
implement in your life today, so that tomorrow, you can start getting better sleep. Without
further ado, here is my interview with the amazing, Mollie McGlocklin.

Mollie, thank you, so much for joining all of us on The Become An Unstoppable Woman
podcast. I knew when I saw you for the very first time with your little picture, and blurb, I
thought, I have to get this girl on the podcast, and when I dug deeper I thought, I definitely
have to get her on. I just love your branding, I love what you stand for, I love your energy,
and I’m thrilled you’re taking the time to share with us all about sleep today. Thank you.

Mollie McGlocklin: Well, thank you, so much for saying that. I really, really appreciate that.
I did put a lot of thought into the branding for Sleep Is A Skill, and I am so happy to hear
that it resonated. A part of my intention is that it’s more approachable, and a sense of
breathing new life into this area that often, I think doesn’t get the attention that it
deserves. We’ll get into, of course, all kinds of topics around this. For me, when I was
dealing with sleep troubles, I felt like some of the things that I would find, I couldn’t
necessarily find a place to go that I felt could partner with me during this time, which felt
so lonely.

To have this sense of approachability, and just openness, and realness was part of my
intention with the branding, so I’m so glad it resonated and also just thank you, so much
for having me. This is just great to be here.

Lindsay: Well, Mollie, let’s get into it then. Tell us about your whole sleep journey. How did
you develop a passion and eventual business around this topic?

Mollie: Oh my gosh, that’s a good one. Strap in. Basically, it was a wild ride, but essentially,
what ended up happening was as a long-term entrepreneur, for many, many years, my
relationship to my sleep was just one of, I was a night owl, I was justified, and righteous
about it, I didn’t think it was much of a problem. I would say that I got a lot of my best
work done in the wee hours of the morning and that’s how it went for me.

There would be times when the sun would be rising, I’m going to bed. That’s how off the
rhythms of nature I was, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. That’s just how it went for
many, many years until I was so much burning the candle at both ends that anxiety and
stress caught up with me, especially when I started taking my business on the road, and
traveling, and adding jetlag into the mix.

That’s when I experienced my first period ever in my life of insomnia for multiple months
in a row, and it was just really, really hard time in my life. Everything that wasn’t working
culminated, and how it really manifested was just nights after night, after night of
sleeplessness, and then this knowingness that I still had to do things the next day, and I
was still responsible for things, and yet a real sense of, I just can’t do this most primal
thing, which was sleep.

My journey of how to navigate that really was a charged one from a place of I– When it
was at some of it’s worst, I was actually traveling. I was in Croatia at the time, and I went
into a hospital near there after nights, and nights, of barely any sleep. I go in with a Google
Translate, and they don’t know what to do with me. They’re just like, “Okay, here’s–” their
version of Ambien, basically, and they’ll send me on my way. It was a real moment for me
of, “This can’t be my future.”

This can’t be, because it really signaled for me the sense of disempowerment that also, not
only in that exact moment of, okay, that immediate night, or future nights, but it was really
for a lifetime of, “What am I signing up for? Am I agreeing to then have to take something
every single night to do something that’s so seemingly just innate?” From that place, I
became just absolutely obsessed with this topic of how to really restore my sleep.

From that place, I ended up actually– While it felt like one of the worst times of my life, it
actually ended up being one of the best things that could happen to me, because it sent
me down to understand chronobiology, and circadian rhythms, and what it takes to restore
those healthy patterns to your hormones, to your cortisol, and melatonin. What types of
behaviors you need to engage in at what times of the day, so this whole concept of
modeling your days after the rhythms of nature. So sunrise and sunset, and really having
those be a real part of my thinking of how to structure my days, and what types of just
groundedness that brought to my life, even in the midst of–

I lived in Manhattan right in the middle of, which is now Hudson Yards. Someone had the
largest construction projects ever done in recent history at one concerted time. Being in
the middle of an urban environment for so many years, but then how to bring about this
concept of the rhythms of nature, and what that does to your circadian rhythm and
strengthen your circadian rhythm.

How to do those now in a modern-day society without totally retreating to the woods or
something. How to have that balance. It was fascinating, and now my experience by
blending in technology, accountability, and behavioral change has just been so
empowering from a place of a knowingness that I can wake up with great sleep, feeling
ready to take on the day, which previously, even before the worst of my sleep, I did not
have that. I had just a, “I hope I feel good the next day,” sort of [chuckles] way of
structuring in my life. Now, there’s a whole set of tools that weren’t available to me. To be
able to share those with others has just been really, really exciting. I think it’s just so
important to get this message out, particularly in uncertain times, like we’re in right now.
Lindsay: I’m reading on your bio, on your website right now. Of all the actions you took
when [crosstalk]-

Mollie: Oh my God. [laughs]

Lindsay: I have to read some of these becauseMollie: Please, yes.

Lindsay: -it is a list, right?

Mollie: Yes.

Lindsay: “I had phone calls with countless doctors. I reached out to sleep clinics, I joined
all the top sleep solution courses, I scoured the latest sleep studies, I kept a detailed sleep
logs, I read all the mastering books on sleep, I bought every sleep gadget, I called wellness
centers, I joined Facebook groups, I tried hypnosis. I did the relaxation meditation events, I
got bloodwork done, I sought out breath-work gurus, I took every major prescription and
over the counter sleep aid. I tried every supplement, I turned to alcohol to fall asleep. I
journaled my frustrations, I tried heavy workouts”, the list goes on and on.

Mollie: It’s ridiculous.

Lindsay: Oh, my God.

Mollie: It points to my personality too. It makes sense why I’d be someone that would also
be overtaken by this concept of insomnia, because my brain is one that goes, obviously.
Literally, one of my weekly newsletters is called Mollie’s Monday Obsessions. I’m an
obsessive personality. Thankfully that obsessiveness ended up being a blessing on the
other side of it, because I went deep on this topic.

To your point, when you rattle off all of that, number one, that’s tiring, it’s exhausting.
Number two, by doing each one of those, it was upsetting because each one of those that
you listed off, it was like, “This is going to be the thing. This is going to get me to sleep
tonight,” and then, “No. Sorry, wasn’t the thing.” It’s also expensive. Some of these things,
the cost is adding up, and the mental emotional cost of putting your hopes into these
baskets of like, “Yes, absolutely. This is going to be it.” “No. Keep trying.”

Out of all that, I learned a ton, and I was able to pretty much put together a bit of a
blueprint from this concept of chronobiology and circadian rhythm, which is really getting
its time in the light right now, which is really a lot– It’s new. It was only in 2017 that the
Nobel Prize was granted to three guys around some of their findings in the circadian
rhythm arena, which is this concept of that there’s essentially many, many, thousands of
little clocks throughout our body, and in virtually every single cell, that we have these
little miniature– [laughs] miniature, to visualize them.

These little clocks that are trying so desperately to keep us on time, because we’re only
just beginning to understand more and more particularly on a mass level of the impact
that it has on us, both physiologically and also psychologically when we start skewing off
of that. That’s really the exciting stuff behind there. To your point, I went through all of
those things, and many of them didn’t work along the way.

Lindsay: What did work Mollie? What changed the game?

Mollie: What I started to discover was that a lot of this was around, for me and for many of
the people that I’ve worked with, it seems to become this blend of awareness around your
sleep. What I mean by that is, nowadays, because of the fact that I’m making this argument
that in our modern day society, sleep has become a skill set. If that is the case, then from
that place, there’s an opportunity to learn just like a skill, how to get great sleep.

Part of the problem is, some of our modern day technology, our lighting, our lack of total
darkness in the evenings at particular times, our indoor lifestyles that disconnect us from
some of those external cues that are important for that circadian rhythm. Temperature,
movement, all these things get thrown off, our meal timing. All of these things really make
a difference.

What I’ve found is that by blending this nice magical mix three, where is the
accountability, technology and behavioral change, there’s suddenly a sense of awareness
that you won’t normally have. What that looks like on the court is virtually every single
one of our clients through Sleep Is A Skill, if they’re open to bringing in technology into
this conversation, we have them wearing certain sleep trackers. I get to see on the other
side of it almost like an ESPN readout of their sleep numbers, and it also relates to some of
their bio tech numbers.

We’re looking at things like HRV, which is really great indicator of some of their bodily
stress levels and psychological stress levels. We get to see those and for myself, that made
a big difference as well. Also, we’re getting to bring in this concept of all the behaviors
that can impact your sleep to restore the levels of your cortisol, and melatonin, just to
break it down as a binary for those two, but there’s certainly more at play. Even just
looking at those as some of the clear rubric, that by bringing those in, it makes a huge
difference. What that looks like as far as the specifics, it has to do with this idea of
circadian rhythm entrainment.

Circadian rhythm entrainment is how we really operate within Sleep Is A Skill. For it, this is
what I did, was starting to bring in these elements that are known as Zeitgeber, which is
just German for time giver. Basically, those are the things that will tell our bodies and have
told our bodies for thousands of years, back to ancestral and hunter gatherer days, what
time it is. It’s so basic, and yet it actually, it’s so crucial. If you start at the top of the totem
pole, the overarching thing is consistency. That’s king when it comes to sleep. The
specifics of what to be consistent about what’s the most important, the top, the number
one, is getting your light, right.

Getting connected to the timing of your light and the timing as it relates to your darkness,
and how many of us are really in a dark deprived society, and we’re not being exposed to
darkness at the levels that we could. Getting those two right can make a big difference.
What that looks like is you have to get yourself outside, particularly in the mornings,
getting the light exposure because we’re talking thousands of lux that’s output by the
sunlight, versus just a couple piddly, a couple 100 lux that’s inside that many of us are
exposed to and we’re still just understanding the effects of this right now. It’s a big
conversation. That’s one of them.

Below that is temperature. Temperature can get manifested as it relates to both your
external temperature, even like your thermostat can, believe it or not, impact your sleep,
how it is set throughout the day and the evening, but also getting yourself outside.

Temperature shows up for in our bodies and other ways as well. Meal timing is something
that will warm up the body, because digestion is a really taxing process. Also, movement
will warm up the body. Timing those things in particular ways, strategic ways can make a
difference, also, even thought timing. That was a big one for me, because of course, part of
this came from just rumination and anxiety and that sense of being wired, but tired.

Really starting to move the rumination pattern to earlier in the day. A lot of what we’re
saying is that we’re addressing all of these things around sleep often during the daylight
hours. If you’re trying to impact your sleep at night, then you’ve really waited too long and
just relax and get comfortable. [laughs] If you haven’t done some of the prep work during
the days, then what’s likely is, it’s not always set up powerfully to get you that sleep that
you’re looking for in the evenings. I know those were a lot, but those are some of the
things that you can bring in to make a real difference with your sleep. It’s a whole
paradigm shift around the structure of your days and how they can look.

Lindsay: Yes, Mollie. That was so much like a bombshell right there. You’ve answered so
many of the questions my audience had than I had.

Mollie: Oh, good.
Lindsay: What impacts sleep the most? You brought up, eating at certain times, the light at
certain times. I do want to go back to the eating part, though. What about our diet? How
does our diet impact our sleep?

Mollie: Great question. It’s real, real interesting, and because I have myself and others
hooked up to some of these sleep tech items, then we get to have a lot of stream of data
around some of the ways that that sleep gets impacted when we eat particular things at
particular times. What’s cool is one of the things we have set up is these series of sleep
bots. Each morning when we’re working with people, they get these bot questions that
come at them to debrief how their night went and then set themselves up powerfully for
their days, so how their days will go from the place of the circadian perspective.

When we look at the meal thing, it can just be such a vicious cycle for so many people. I
was actually just on a client call before this, and we saw this reoccurring pattern with this
one client of this late-night eating. With it, then we saw all these biomarkers that were
impacted as it relates to the quality of their sleep because of this persistent late-night
eating. What that looks like is even say, if you’re eating some of the healthiest things that
you can dream up, but you’re doing them right before bed– You might be like, “No, I don’t
do that. I do a couple of hours.”

Even a couple of hours before bed, depending on the volume of the food that you’re
eating, can really– You can see it in those numbers. What that looks like is heart rate
being higher than normal because now your body’s having to process something in your
gut that distracts it and takes away from its primary function, which one of the most
important functions that we’re finding right now– There is a ton of important functions
during sleep.

One of the things that we’re really getting hit over the head with, no pun intended is its
ability to really cleanse the brain. When a large proportion of the blood flow is being
misappropriated to the gut to deal with digestion, then what we’re finding is the heart rate
is going up because it’s having to deal with that, so you’re not being as rested throughout.

You’re not having the experience of being as rested when you wake up the next morning
because the body was hard at work on doing multiple things that distracted it from some
of its most important functioning, which has to do particularly with the brain, but then you
have some other key functions, so you’re left and more depleted than you could be.

That’s just around timing, but also even the types of foods can impact your sleep quality.
That’s a more lengthy topic. Particularly even if you just started with getting connected to
when you’re eating and keeping those things consistent, because what we find is that
when we start deviating all over the place and we start, say, on the weekends, we go to
bed late and we wake up late and we do brunch, and we do all these different things that
are out of the norm of our normal sleep and eat patterns.

Then, what we find is something akin to metabolic jetlag, which is basically how it relates
that we’ve put ourselves through our own self-created jetlag as it relates to metabolism.
That can be problematic for our sleep overall. Also just the cues to the body of what time
it is. It’s constantly trying to get a sense of that because the circadian rhythm is dynamic,
and it has the ability to shift.

If we are doing too many things off-kilter in changing our meal timing, then it can really
confuse things, including those key hormones that I was pointing to before red cortisol and
melatonin. Those are the things we really want to keep in check for both our sleep health
and our physical and psychological health.

Lindsay: Yes. Mollie, what I’m hearing is consistency over and over, going to bedMollie: Oh my God.

Lindsay: -at the same time, waking up at the same time, eating around the same time,
having similar habits throughout the day around the same time, am I getting that correct?

Mollie: You are. We’re talking seven days a week, which is why it can be challenging
because how do we do that in a society that’s structured for, okay, sure, maybe you do that
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but then maybe Thursday, Friday comes around and you
don’t want to be a weirdo, so you want to engage and be a part of society, but then how to
do that and maintain a consistent sleep-wake and eat schedule, and that’s where it can get
a little tricky for people.

Lindsay: Yes, for sure. Well, another question on what can impact our sleep, what about
temperature? This was something that came from my audience. They said, “How does
temperature specifically impacts sleep?” Do we need blankets? What’s the ideal temp? Tell
us, Mollie?

Mollie: Yes. Temperature is a big one. On that concept of circadian rhythm entrainment,
right below light is temperature is one of the most important cues to the body of what
time it is. The way that temperature gets played out is–

One of the things that you can think about it as is if there’s a chart of the day, and you
start, say, around 6:00 AM, and during that period, with the design of a healthy person with
a healthy and strong robust circadian rhythm, you’ll see this nice rise of cortisol, which is
really wonderful because it helps us get going and almost natural coffee if you will, and so
you do that.

During that period, there’s nice rise and it keeps you going throughout the earlier part of
your day. It keeps going, keeps going, and then it starts to have this drop, later on by
design, so that then we can switch over in the evening hours slowly to melatonin
production. Now, when temperature gets thrown off, and since what many of us are
experiencing are a part of indoor living, by census reports, it’s some of the thrown out
numbers are over 90% of many of our days in the Western society are spent indoors of
some type.

Often, we’re in our own space, and then maybe we get into a car, which is just another
indoor space, and then we go to work for another indoor space, and then back again.
Because of all this indoor living, the temperature element gets confused and never really
used to be like this for thousands of years, we were much more connected to the outside
world than we are now.

What we’re missing is some that key cues that would happen, as the sun would rise, the
temperature would you go up in alignment with that cortisol that we talked about and
then what would happen is in the evening, when the sun would set, it would obviously get
cooler and that would help be another cue to cortisol to start lowering, and also that cold
and darkness that would allow for melatonin to come out, and melatonin is known as the
hormone of darkness.

All of those things worked in tandem, but because so many of our cues are off, we don’t
have that. If that’s the case, number one, a quick fix is that if you are inside, you can shift
your temperature to be warmer during the days and cooler in the evenings, and often
testing and pushing the envelope a bit with your willingness to make it a bit cooler.

Some people hesitate to do that, but really playing with those numbers to bring that down
because we do see that that tends to without being up– We don’t want it to be
uncomfortable, but certainly definitely on the cooler side, because that can help foster
slow-wave sleep. What you want to do is then ensure that the temperature is very cool and
dark in your bedroom and then with that, you mentioned the blanket conversation that
helps support a cool environment.

Breathable materials, and what have you to ensure that you’re not having to wake up with-Some people talk about waking up middle of the night feeling sweaty and all of that. We
don’t want to have any of that, because then that can shift some of your sleep stages that
we’re trying to cultivate.

Lindsay: Yes, such good knowledge, Mollie. I feel like I’m reading a textbook.

Mollie: Oh good.

Lindsay: You’re so knowledgeable.

Mollie: That makes me happy.

Lindsay: Oh my goodness, I love it. I love it, love it, love it.

Mollie: Yes. Amazing.

Lindsay: I feel like I’ve gotten a good gist on things that can impact your sleep and ways to
take that. I hope everyone out there listening does too. I am curious how many people
right now are considered sleep-deprived? What is considered sleep deprivation?

Mollie: Yes, great question. There’s lots of different stats that are thrown out. Whether it’s
by World Health Organization, even the CDC had made comments around a few years back,
and there was a controversy of whether or not it was an epidemic of sleep deprivation that
we’re dealing with, and then how to categorize that area. Whether it’s, do we put it in if it’s
less than seven hours? Do we put it in if it’s more in the realm of under six hours? How do
we categorize sleep deprivation?

If you go even into a self-assessment of feeling that we’ve gotten insufficient sleep, then
the numbers are pretty astounding, in the United States alone. What we’re dealing with is
even if you’re being cautious or conservative, then we’re looking at around the 40% range
seems to be some of the numbers that are thrown around. There’s different ones at
different categories. It’s a longer question, but largely you can assume that there is a
decent chunk of the population that is dealing with insufficient sleep as they deem it.

Then, even beyond that, we’re also dealing with what could be unexamined insufficient
sleep that people might be of the sense that, “Oh, I’m fine. I get seven and half hours, eight
hours every day. It’s not a big deal.” That group they might not have considered if we were
to hook them up to a polysomnogram and then see some of the quality of their sleep. Then
what’s likely based on just the environment that we’re all a part of that there’s room for
opportunity or room for growth to improve that sleep in a way that they might not have
considered.

I think there’s going to be more and more of that coming out the more people are testing
out some of these this wellness tech that’s coming out. I was just at this huge tech event
earlier in the year CES and one of the largest tech events in the world and they have– The
sleep tech arena was huge. It points to the sign of the times that so many of us are starting
to notice this chronic fatigue state and what’s possible to bring that back around if that
makes sense.

Lindsay: Yes. From what I’ve heard earlier from you talking the reason so many of us are
sleep-deprived is because we’re out of rhythm, the circadian rhythm with the lights and
sounds like the pattern of our day-to-day of not being consistent and things of that sort,
right Mollie?

Mollie: Yes. Now, that’s exactly right. There’s all kinds of things that we’re not even
touching on that can impact things. Sound is another one and so this idea of sound
pollution. If you’re in an urban environment just this– We’re only just beginning to
understand, how does this impact our vagus nerve which is really this experience of our
central nervous system. How much on high alert are we having to be when there’s
constantly anyone that’s been walked around I don’t know LA, New York, any of these big
city environments? There’s constant noise. There’s constant construction, horns beeping,
all kinds of stuff. We do what we can to tune that out but even things like that can keep
you on a bit of a high alert hyper-aroused state. Then how does that play out when we go
to lay our head on the pillow at night? How do we then calm from those states reliably?

That’s just one area of the sound conversation.
It’s going to take some examining and then also just fitting of our environment but also
learning new statics and strategies to be able to activate a parasympathetic response more
regularly throughout our days that we can start to teach our bodies to calm. Again, we’ve
got some big things that we’re dealing with in our society right now with unprecedented
times. With that, a lot of people are more on edge than they maybe had been and so it
becomes more important than ever to learn some of these tools and how to make a
difference with both just calming that nervous system and then how that spills over into
the evening and to into the nights.

Lindsay: Yes, so that goes into an emotional mental health issue?

Mollie: Yes. Absolutely.

Lindsay: Well, you mentioned earlier sometimes it’s not always about the amount of sleep
we are getting but the quality, right?

Mollie: Yes.

Lindsay: One of the questions from my audience is how much should we be getting as
somebody in their 30s and when should we be concerned? What would you say to her?

Mollie: In our 30s, so what’s interesting is there’s different seasons of our lives that tend to
have more different averages around sleep. In our 30s, we’re often looking at aiming still
around to that seven-eight hours of sleep but we also to your point about the quality we
are looking forward to be able to quantify that as to how rich the sleep is. There is a
particular type of sleep architecture that we usually like to see that we don’t always see
when sleep is chronically off its scheduling that we were speaking to that consistency.

What that ends up looking like is if we hone in on what it could be which is a healthy sleep
architecture, we see slow-wave sleep at the beginning of our nights and so that arguably
there’s of theories as to why that goes first is that because it’s the most important sleep
stages or maybe that’s been discounted as from many different camps, but there is an
argument that it’s a very valuable and important part of our evening so we want to protect
that. Then we move into intercepted by little periods of light sleep, but then we move into
more REM states closer to the morning hours and then shift into slowly into light and then
wake up usually plus or minus a few things. Usually, that’s what we see is a greater weight
of slow-wave sleep in the beginning of the night and then REM when things are working.

When things are not working and say we’re going to bed at all different hours,
unfortunately, for shift workers, this is something that they often see that’s why it’s been
categorized as a possible carcinogenic to participate in shift work, unfortunately, which is
so troubling because it’s such an important part of our society. Then also there’s many of
us that are not shift working and certainly, this was part of my story that I wasn’t a shift
worker, and yet the way I organize my life almost looked like it in some ways because it
was all at different times of going to bed and eating at weird times and what have you and
so what the impact of the result was that sleep architecture that we were discussing
begins to get severed and played with in different ways.

Your body still trying to maintain its semblance of a normal schedule, but you’re going to
bed later or different hours, and then it’s still trying to jump into the stages that it likely
had been if you were being consistent so that might mean sacrificing some of that slowwave sleep and moving into REM at odd times. All that spells is just waking up feeling off,
feeling tired, feeling dragging, and you might even be like, “I don’t get it. I slept in, I slept
for whatever.” It might be like a weekend and you sleep– “I got nine hours and why do I
feel like this?” It speaks to what we’re discussing around that quality and how much the
body really really wants to be governed by someone that’s going to bring in almost a
parenting to yourself in a way that we might a small child’s we really want to do that same
level of sleep training for ourselves.

Lindsay: Yes, so prioritize yourself, right?

Mollie: Yes, imagine. Novel idea.

Lindsay: Many of this and of course, this is my realm is just mental and emotional health.

Mollie: Sure. Absolutely.

Lindsay: Just– and self-care. Taking care of ourselves. I have one more question for you,
Mollie, before we wrap this up and it comes from my audience and I must admit I’m
curious about this too because especially after you have a child, you spend those first few
years not getting enough sleep and I’m just coming out of that stage. My son’s about to be
two.

Mollie: Oh, wow.

Lindsay: Somebody from my audience asked this. She said, “No matter how long I sleep I
feel like I’m always playing catch up to the amount of sleep my body is saying it needs.
Does that mentally tired feeling ever go away?”

Mollie: I feel for that state of, “How can I get this back and will it ever come back?” That
sense of being rested. What we know is that there was this period of time when there’s
this conversation run a sleep debt and that your sleep debt is accruing and that you have
to pay off that sleep debt and until you pay that off then you’re in trouble. There’s many
different camps in this conversation around sleep because the truth is there still so much
that we don’t understand about sleep, which really does make for a really exciting area
because there’s so much to still be discovered and mind as far as the thinking behind it
and the reasoning but to bring solace to that conversation around, “Will I ever get back to
feeling great in a lot of ways?”

What’s possible is by restoring these things piece by piece, behavior by behavior what’s
possible is getting that sense of rejuvenation of vitality in their mornings when you wake
up and then throughout your day that likely you might not even ever really had in recent
years in adult years because even for many of us, even when we thought we were sleeping
great we might not have been bringing in some of the things that are possible to bring in
when you really get these behaviors pinned down.

What I stand for is that some of your best nights of sleep can lie ahead of you if you’re
willing to do what there is to do and it’s not always easy. Some of these things are
challenging. I’m talking to you right now and about blue blockers on and I’ve got like red
lights around me as far as just really trying to be mindful and create a strong environment
around the connection for my body of knowing that, “Okay, the sun has set so we’re
turning over that conversation around light and getting connected to how to help produce
melatonin in a way that’s going to be beneficial.” Some of these things, people aren’t
willing to do.

Also, some of the easiest ways, unfortunately, to mess with our sleep, and I wish it wasn’t
the case, but it is the case is, drinking is one of those easy things that just, oh my God. If
you went to and hooked up to some of these different trackers and sleep tech, the things
you see when you have a couple drinks as far as your numbers are just overwhelming, as
far as how much it splinters and impacts our sleep, unfortunately. The reason I’m saying
these, is some of these things are so ingrained in our society, that it can take pulling some
of that away to restore the sense of homeostasis and balance to our bodies, that many of
us really haven’t experienced because we didn’t even know how much of a difference it
was making if that makes sense.

Lindsay: Yes. What I hear, Mollie, is yes, you can go back and you can restore that sleep,
but you have to think outside the box and do things that are a little “unconventional.”

Mollie: Absolutely. Yes. So well said. [laughs].

Lindsay: Mollie, you have given us so much information today, oh my goodness. It was like
a novel. I love it so much. Great content. Tell us more about your sleep reset course, and I
know you have a podcast and as we’re recording this, it comes out in about two days, but
as everyone’s hearing it, it’s already launched into the world, so, tell us about all the things
that you do.

Mollie: Oh, thank you. Yes, all of the things, so many things are happening and it’s an
exciting time right now. Yes, the podcast is exciting because we’re just bringing in all
kinds of industry leaders and experts in this area and get to really nerd out on this topic of
sleep and go deep and it’s just awesome. Super excited about that, and then, also the sleep
reset course is launching this month. Yes, by the time this is coming out, we’ll have been
launched.

What’s super exciting with that is I’m really looking to create the thing that I wanted when
I couldn’t sleep, because during that time for me, I was just so, there was so many
emotions, but one of the most primary ones or the prominent ones was just the sense of
loneliness and shame, and that it shouldn’t be this way, but having no real sense of where
to go or where to turn.

That’s really what I’m committed to creating with this, and then, it’s super actionable, so,
it’s a hybrid type of course. It’s a mix of both learning, some of this education around
circadian rhythm and treatment, but then lots of on the court, so bringing in those sleep
bots and the daily so it becomes a 45-day interaction around these tools and testing, and
you definitely try things and it doesn’t work out and you’re like, “Oh my God, I can’t, there’s
so many things to bring in.” To get that support along the way, I think is really invaluable,
so, that’s happening.

Then, even at the sleepisaskill.com website, we also have that Mollie’s Monday Obsessions,
which is just chock full of lots of information about all the things I’m obsessing over in the
world of sleep, which is a lot. Each Monday, it’s always something really committed that
that’s giving just free, valuable content and new ways of thinking about this area of sleep
and breathing new life into it. I think just anyone that’s dealing with sleep, definitely at
least getting that newsletter, I think can make a difference to have this top of mind and
start experimenting, which I think is a fun way to approach this area that often can have
resignation around.

Lindsay: Yes. They can find everything at sleepisaskill.com, correct?

Mollie: Correct, absolutely.

Lindsay: Is that the name of the podcast too?

Mollie: Yes, the Sleep is a Skill podcast. A hundred percent. Yes.

Lindsay: Perfect. Mollie, thank you so much for all your wisdom today, and like Mollie said,
if you are out there and you’re suffering with sleep deprivation, or you just want to know
more about your sleep and the quality of your sleep, because I didn’t get to ask all the
questions that my audience had, but some of these people asking me about dreams and
waking up from dreams and that to me, and Mollie, I think you would agree, is a sign of not
getting deep enough sleep, would you agree?

Mollie: Yes, dreams are an interesting area. There’s a lot there, people can get into lucid
dreaming, oh my God, we would need a Part 2 to go into that one.

Lindsay: Another day for that.

Mollie: Yes.

Lindsay: This is just the tip of the iceberg, everybody. Mollie, has so much more out there,
so, please go follow her. I follow her on Instagram too, she’s great to follow. I’m excited for
your podcast, Mollie. Thank you again.

Mollie: Oh, thank you, and thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I know you’re
making such a difference in the world and I just really appreciated the time and the
platform to be able to share more about my favorite topic. [laughs]

Lindsay: Yes, thanks, Mollie.

[music]

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