24: How to sleep better and make your insomnia the best thing that ever happened to you!

Episode Transcript:

Welcome to the Why You Can't Sleep podcast. If you struggle to sleep and you've tried what seems like everything you are in the right place, there are imbalances in your body that are keeping you awake and you're going to learn what they are in this show. Now let's kick off this episode with an inspiring success story from one of my clients who has significantly improved their sleep by correcting the underlying health issues that were causing their insomnia.

Often our clients start sleeping better really quickly within first starting the program, my client John wrote,

"You were a genius and a true lifesaver. I have been sleeping since Sunday. I wake up, but I am still groggy and I fall back to sleep. Not perfect, but way better than I had been used to. It's night and day. I know I might still have some challenges with some of the other results, but these last days were paradise.

I have been running a marathon with a ball and chain on my leg, and for this week it's free. Just wanted to update you. Thank you. I have full faith I will be sleeping effortlessly and normally.

I have tried so many things over the last 25 years. I have so many tools that didn't work. I have seen maybe eight to 10 professionals. If it were the placebo, I would've thought myself better with one of those. I'm filled with so much gratitude and appreciation for you and what you have uncovered to help me. I look forward to following the full program as I still need to fine tune and eliminate any other obstacles from a good night. All this in one 30 minute phone call and some questionnaires."

Thank you, John. This is what is possible.

Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode. I hope you're having a good week so far.

So I want to share something with you. I know how frustrating it is to try all the things and not be able to sleep, and you've probably realized that your doctor can't help you with your insomnia. He or she does not know why you can't sleep and neither do you, and I know this because neither do I. And I know that this is one of the most frustrating things about not being able to sleep is feeling so out of control, trying to do all the right things, trying to figure it out, and still not being able to. There's really nothing more frustrating. I'm sure that this isn't the first thing you've listened to or watched or read about to try to figure out your sleep issues. And I just want you to know that if you've tried what seems like everything and you still can't sleep, it's not your fault.

There are reasons why you can't sleep that I'm going to talk about in the next few episodes and what I talk about all the time on this podcast. It's not that you are necessarily doing the wrong things on purpose, right? You're trying to do all the right things. If you feel like you have to live with insomnia forever, I don't want you to think that anymore you can sleep normally. All you have to do is just get to the root cause of why you aren't sleeping. And unfortunately, the medical and healthcare system wants us to think that the only solution is a drug or that it's all in our head. So try therapy or do a sleep study, which is really just looking for sleep apnea. And so I'm here to tell you that there's another way besides drugs that have side effects and therapy that doesn't usually work in a sleep study that isn't going to show why you can't sleep.

It'll show that you can't sleep, but it's not going to tell you why. So if you know that you don't want to take drugs, you're right. And unfortunately, the medical system is backed by drug companies and it trains doctors to diagnose disease and prescribe pills or surgery. That's just what they're taught. The only thing they really know to do is to max symptoms. So the difference with me as a functional and natural practitioner is that I believe in being healthy and preventing disease, but being healthy so that you can sleep normally. That's what it's all about, not taking a pill to sleep normally because the reason you aren't sleeping isn't because you're deficient in Ambien. It's because their imbalances in your body or your mind might be affecting your sleep to some extent as well. I'm here to tell you that it is possible to sleep better, and I know that sleep helps us enjoy our days better and helps us be better and relationships be happier.

It helps us be better at work. It pretty much affects our entire life. And so I really want to show you how to do that in this podcast. But today I want to tell you about my story and how I finally figured out my sleep issues. I have been in the nutrition and health and wellness space pretty much for two decades since my twenties, and so I cared about health for a really long time, but I got insomnia in late pregnancy when I was 39 years old. It didn't go away even after my son was born, even after he was sleeping through the night because I hired a baby sleep consultant, and then I became a pediatric sleep consultant to help other parents with their babies and kids sleep because that was so life-changing for me. Once my son was sleeping, then I realized that I still had a sleep issue.

And so for me, I would try to go to bed early because I was so exhausted, and then it would take me forever to fall asleep. And then pretty much every night I would wake up at three or four in the morning and be awake for a couple hours until it was six and my son was waking up for the day. By this point, two years in, I was still working full time. I had started my business as a pediatric sleep consultant on the side. I had a young child and I wasn't sleeping. And not only was I super frustrated and exhausted and all the things that I'm sure you know about, I also felt like a fraud because I'm helping people with sleep and I'm not sleeping. I don't know if you've seen the show on Netflix called Sex Education. It's about a boy in high school named Otis whose mom is a sex therapist, and he ends up in a roundabout way helping his friend, his peers with their sex issues.

And the ironic thing is is that he's a virgin. So that's the kind of fraud I felt like, right? He's a virgin and helping people with sex, which is possible because he is really helping them with relationships. But to me, I also felt like that kind of a fraud where I'm not sleeping yet, I'm helping people with sleep. Luckily, my son was sleeping though, so it wasn't a fraud in that way. All I really wanted to do was to sleep normally again because for all of my life until that point, I slept great and I cared about my sleep as well. I was very sensitive to being sleep deprived. Sleep was always important to me. I remember I worked at an organic farm for a while, managing the volunteers until I had to be at work at 6 45 and the morning. And so I would wake up at six.

And so I remember having dinner parties with my friends and my boyfriend and I would go to bed at 10 and I would just leave everyone in my house still hanging out, and I'd be like, I got to go to bed so that I could get my sleep. I've always really needed sleep. And so I just desperately wanted to get back to how I slept before. What I also wanted was to be in control of my life. Again, I felt so helpless being out of control and not being able to control sleep, which is a bodily function that should just happen. And I also wanted to start my own business. I wanted to make more money. I wanted to not work a nine to five job so that I could spend more time with my son who was just a baby at the time. A lot of things changed by having my son and by going through these sleep struggles that I realized I wanted a lot more than just going back to how I was before.

And so when I wasn't sleeping, I, of course, I'm a researcher, so I googled like crazy. I read so many books. I followed all the sleep hygiene tips that you read everywhere, which drives me crazy now that that's pretty much the only advice that's out there. And I also took so many different supplements. I was actually managing the supplement department of a health food store at the time, so I was exposed to all kinds of supplements and knowledge about supplements that might help with sleep. So I tried so many things and nothing ever worked. I mean, I remember I got to the point where I would be crying in the middle of the night because I was just so exhausted and so desperate for sleep and so frustrated that I couldn't figure it out. I was too tired to work on my business a lot of the time, but I was really determined to figure it out, and I really didn't want to take a pill.

I knew that if I went to the doctor, they would just prescribe a sleeping pill. And I've always been more into more natural medicine like supplements and herbs and things like that, not into taking pharmaceutical drugs. So I didn't want to do that, but I also couldn't find any other information about what could be affecting my sleep because the medical system just says, follow these sleep rules or take a prescription or go to therapy. And I just knew that none of those things were going to work. And so I knew that if I didn't figure this out, I was either going to have to live with insomnia forever, which was not an option, or I was going to have to take a pill, which I really didn't want to do. I probably would've done if I didn't figure this out because I understand that we get to a point where we're desperate for sleep.

And so if a pill is going to help, which it doesn't help everyone, then I probably would've resorted to that at some point. But at the time, I was doing everything I could not to take that because that is just what I believe in. And so luckily, well, first I decided to take another certification to learn about how to help adults with sleep. I'd already learned about kids' sleep, and so that actually helped some, and I kind of dove deeper into the sleep hygiene. I learned a little bit of cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, and that helped me a little bit, but then I went through another stressful period in my life and my sleep just fell apart again. And all those things that I had learned did not help. And so I remember when I was working trying to figure out my business name, I was searching around and I came across someone who was doing this lab testing for sleep.

And I just had an epiphany moment where I just realized that this was the key. I just had a feeling that there was something deeper going on because the sleep rules weren't helping. The cognitive behavioral therapy techniques weren't helping. It just wasn't enough. And so I took the certification through functional diagnostic nutrition that taught me how to interpret these functional lab tests and give recommendations based on the results. And what I love about this certification too is that it's very holistic. It doesn't just say estrogen is low, take some estrogen. Cortisol is low. Take this pill. It is really looking at the person as a whole in a very holistic way by looking at their lifestyle, their habits, their diet, their exercise, and really personalizing all of those things and teaching people how to be healthy in their bodies. But I approached it from a sleep science place, and so I got to do these lab tests myself, and I found out I had crazy things going on in my body that I never would've because I've always cared about Hill and lived a pretty healthy life.

But I still had a parasite that I think that I had gotten traveling in Nepal and India 13 years before. And I really think that that kind of started the cascade of affecting my health over many years. But it took a long time and adding pregnancy at a later age for my body to get out of balance enough for it to affect my sleep. But I think the parasite was really key that had been damaging my gut for a long time. And so that led to food sensitivities that I realized from the testing, I had major hormone imbalance as well. I had a buildup of copper in my body and uranium. So these heavy metals, I had all these different imbalances that totally explained why I wasn't sleeping. It turned out out. And so once I started correcting those, I started sleeping much better. I got to where I was sleeping great most of the time, and I still had some off nights, a few off nights, a months, things like that.

But I was sleeping well a lot of the time, which I think is great. I was pretty happy. And then I learned about neurotransmitters as I kept continuing to study and learn about what affects sleep. And so I decided to do a neurotransmitter test on myself to see if I wanted to use that for clients because I'm always the Guinea pig first. And so I took this test and I found out I was really low in serotonin, and the first thing the owner of the lab asked me was, how was your sleep? And I just laughed because I'm like, oh, that's funny. That's what I help people with, and my sleep is pretty good now. So I don't really think that's an issue. And luckily, I don't have any of the other symptoms of serotonin deficiency, like depression and mental health issues are really common with this.

So anyway, I was sort of supplementing with five HTP, which is a precursor to serotonin, and my sleep got even better. So I feel like that was the final piece of the puzzle that really solidified things for me is to now I'm sleeping great like 98% of the time, and if I don't, it's usually because of extra stress or because if I drink alcohol, sometimes I don't sleep well. Or if my son wakes me up and things like that, I usually know why it's happening. And I think 98% of the time is frigging amazing, and I have a feeling that most of you would be totally happy with that. And really, I think that's all I can expect because no one sleeps great a hundred percent of the time. Even my husband, who I consider a great sleeper sometimes has off nights. It's just what happens.

I put all these pieces together to figure out what could be causing sleep issues for people and how to figure that. And unfortunately, there's not just one thing that causes insomnia. It's not like every single person I work with has a parasite and that's all we need to work on. So there's always more than one reason, and it's different for everyone. That's where the lab testing comes in. It shows exactly what's going on in the body, so we know because for someone else, it's going to be something completely different. Now that I've worked with a hundred clients, I put together this program that's looking at the big picture, that's looking at the body and the mind so that we don't miss anything that affects sleep. I just want to say that after this journey, not only am I sleeping better, but it's really transformed my whole life.

I mean, because of this, I'd gotten into entrepreneurship and personal development and life coaching and emotional hell, and I feel like I used to have so much drama in my life, and now I just feel a lot more even keel and things aren't as big a deal anymore, and I just feel happier in general. And also, I think part of that too is because I'm really, I figured out my life purpose and it's to teach others how to be healthy so that they can sleep. And I like having an impact on other people's lives in this very long circuitous, roundabout way. My insomnia has led me to this place where I wouldn't be if it hadn't happened to me. And so I'm actually really grateful that it happened as miserable as it was. And so I hope that this can be your journey too, and it's not like because you have insomnia, you're necessarily going to help other people with insomnia.

It's whatever your purpose is meant to be. You could find through this journey. So I hope that that is the end of your story too. The first thing you want to do is figure out your insomnia, and then I think you'll be in a better place to figure everything else out. This gives me this idea of wanting something versus committing to it. Actually, they sound similar, but they're two different things. I feel like wanting is I'll try, but then we tend to give up if we hit an obstacle. Whereas as you can see in my story, I was committed to figuring this out. I was going to make it happen no matter what. That's how it was. I'm not saying I'm like that about everything. I mean, I want to lose five pounds before I go to the beach in a month. Am I committed to it?

No. Am I going to stop eating chocolate right now? No, I haven't decided that. So it's like I want that, but I'm not committed to it. But I was committed to my sleep to figuring it out. And so I think we can see it too, as wanting is wishing you deserved it or wishing that it's possible and committing is believing you deserve it and believing that it's possible. So I'm wondering, do you just want to sleep better or are you actually committed to sleeping better? As you've been learning from this podcast, the way to sleep better is to find the imbalances in your body that are keeping you awake. I created the Insomnia Insight Program so you'll know what these imbalances are and have a plan to fix them in just 30 days. In the Insomnia Insight Program, my team and I use four functional lab tests as well as assessments to look for everything that could be affecting your sleep so we don't miss anything.

Then we will give you a personalized, holistic 90 day plan to get your body back in balance so you can get the deep sleep that you want. You'll know exactly which supplements and habits your body needs. No more trying to find the magic pill or following advice you find online that just doesn't work for you. You'll also get support for six months with weekly live coaching calls and daily chat messaging to get all of your questions answered. This will ensure your plan is successful so your sleep keeps improving. You'll also have access to valuable trainings such as Smart Sleeper Habits where you'll learn evidence-based habits that will help you sleep more peacefully. You'll learn Smart Sleeper Essentials so you can fall asleep fast and stop the 3:00 AM Wake-ups by finding the perfect diet for your body and by balancing your blood sugar. And the Smart Sleeper mindset will help you get rid of negative thoughts and anxiety about sleep so that your mind doesn't sabotage you.

The program also includes bonuses such as how to get out of fight or flight and calm your nervous system, how to minimize toxins and support your liver, how to make changing habits easier. Also, that you can restore your health and sleep deeply. There will also be challenges so you stay motivated to follow your protocol and to celebrate as your sleep keeps improving. There will be monthly bonus trainings to further improve your health mindset and sleep. There will also be customized case reviews available. So if your sleep hasn't improved in three months, you can submit a case review where we will review your results and plan until you exactly what to do next to make sure you're successful in the program.

And if you sign up from this podcast, you can get a special bonus, a Customized Sleep Jumpstart plan. We will give you top three action steps to improve your sleep right away as soon as you sign up while we're waiting for your test results. The investment for the Insomnia Insight program is $2,500 plus the cost of the lab tests, which are around a thousand dollars. There is financing available from advancecarecard.com. You can find out more about the program and sign up at the link in the show notes in the Insomnia Insight program. You'll know the imbalances that are causing your sleep issues, and you'll have a plan to fix them in just 30 days so that you can sleep better and make the difference you're meant to make in the world.

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