125: Mollie Eastman - Reversing Insomnia Using Circadian Rhythms and Quantum Biology

Mollie Eastman: Molly Eastman, welcome to the QVC podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I know before we hit record, there's so many things for us to discuss, so this is going to be fun.

Meredith Oke: Yes, it is going to be fun. And I think this will probably be the first of more if you're up for it.

Mollie Eastman: I would love that.

Meredith Oke: There's lots to unpack. Okay. So, Molly Eastman, you are the host of the Sleep is a Skill podcast. You have a Sleep is a Skill company that helps people develop that skill. So let's hear your origin story, because like most people, I'm sure you didn't graduate college being like, I'm going to teach people how to sleep.

Mollie Eastman: I almost certainly did not at all. I was surprised as anyone else, that I ended up in this alignment to work. And it came from really solving my own problems with my sleep. And what that looked like was, as a serial entrepreneur in Manhattan, burning the candle at both ends, stress to the max. At one point, I decided to take all that stress on the road and add jet lag into the mix and, you know, variability. And as someone I know you traveled a lot. You know, travel can really magnify things that aren't working in your life. And when I did that, then I went through this period of insomnia that I had never experienced in my life, and it was so scary. And I went to the doctors, of all places, this little spot in Croatia, and left with sleeping pills. And not only sleeping pills, but this was kind of a little bit more antiquated approach. Left with Valium there.

Meredith Oke: Oh, wow. Old school.

Mollie Eastman: Old school or tiny old school benzos? Definitely. So if anyone's listening and thinking that this is like standard practice, this is not how it should go. And then ended up jumping around was in Budapest and Italy and a couple other places, leaving with things like Xanax, leaving with things like Ambien and just this whole sea of pills, but no real idea or solution or plan or protocol of how to address this over the long term. And as a quick tangent, this is a big passion point for me. I want people to know if they are struggling with sleep right now or know someone who is and is considering, you know, going to a doctor. The gold standard in the United States. And the first line treatment is supposed to be cbti, Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. In more recent years, things like acti acceptance, commitment therapy for insomnia, and other approaches are actually supposed to be what we are given as things to begin with versus just going down the rabbit hole of Medications. So if anyone's listening, that is supposed to be how it goes. And that's not what happened for me. So I found myself then taking these pills. It's not even really helping. And I'm so distraught. I'm so like upset as I'm taking these things, like, what am I doing? Like panicking. And so I end up going down the rabbit hole to understand what does it take to get great sleep. Not just from a philosophical inquiry, but because I had a problem. And I'd shared with you before we hit record that I have close family members who have dealt with different issues with their sleep. And I saw them going down the path of lots of pharmaceuticals and years and years really where their lives took a whole different turn. So the fire was lit for me to figure out how to and fix this. So what I discovered really changed the course of my life and what the biggest thing that I unpacked was this whole world of quantum biology, circadian rhythm, entrainment, and realizing that everything I was doing to manage my health and my life was completely upside down. I'd been identified as like a night owl. You know, I had a lot of labels with my sleep. I said, I'm a short sleeper, I'm a night owl, it's in my genes, I'll sleep when I'm dead. You know, these labels and certainly not serving me in any way, shape or form, but also keeping me fixed in that way of relating to the world around me. So as I started bringing these things in, and I'll tell you too, this, this was a big disruption because I ended up flying back to the United States, went to a bunch of different doctors, also found some physiological things at play. I did have a parasite. I had some other things going on health wise that certainly weren't helping. But I can tell you that some of the biggest shifts were changing the relationship of these rhythms. And I had been someone that would be going to sleep, you know, into the wee hours in the morning. I would say things like, oh, I get my best, most creative work done in the wee hours of the morning. So to turn this all upside down and begin to become this like sunrise loving person was just. I didn't even think it was available to me.

Meredith Oke: Like what?

Mollie Eastman: Yeah, what exactly. And my husband, you know, so we've been together almost 14 years and we work with actually a lot of high stakes poker players, you know, especially with sleep, because they are a group that is, you know, in a casino designed on purpose to confuse the circadian rhythm. No windows, lots of Blue light, lots of stimulus, lots of excitement. And we were living sort of that poker esque lifestyle for a long time, very late hours and it just took a number on my nervous system, my sleep, et cetera. So discovering that I could really restore this element of sleep, which as I shared, wasn't even that great for me before, just getting it back to baseline was still incredible. But then getting to get in this conversation of optimization, which I didn't think was on the table for me was a whole new world. So it's changed my life so much that I decided to start this company. Sleep is a skill and I really stand in that, that no matter who's listening or where you might be at with your sleep, that it is a skill set and that we can transform this. And even if you're listening, you're like, well, my sleep's not that bad, it's fine, we can still up level it. There's absolutely things that we can do for everyone listening because it's an area of mastery and it's a lifelong kind of process. And even when you think you've got it handled, trust me, rest assured, no pun intended, that something will come along, there's a death in the, you know, a loved one, you lose a job, you know, something happens where sleep will get challenged in some way, shape or form. And to have some of these tools in your toolkit is really, really important.

Meredith Oke: Absolutely. It's so interesting to me that you, you lived a life where you spent time in, in an environment that was like scientifically designed to short circuit all of our, all of our sleep patterns and our sleep rhythms. And now you live in a world where you can scientifically design the opposite. It's beautiful.

Mollie Eastman: Yes, exactly. And it's just amazing the difference that that makes on your biology, your physiology, your psychology. And I want to give people hope too. If they are listening and they don't have the perfect circumstances or what have you, or they're dealing with their shift workers or wherever the case may be that I believe those people. It's even more important for us to educate on these topics because you really want to be dialed in on some of your habits and environments if you've got some of those obstacles at play, but also from a place of hope and perspective that if these poker players and people we work with, people in kind of the medical space and what have you, if they can make a difference in those environments, just, you know, anyone can.

Meredith Oke: Yes. And it's, you know, like there's, what I'm hearing is like there's so many different tools and so no matter what, what the situation is like, there will be something that you can pick up and put into play that will be helpful.

Mollie Eastman: Absolutely, yeah. Because it's not a single answer. And so many people say, what's the one thing to support your sleep? And you know, one of the things that's been really interesting is we have one of the largest databases of Oura Ring users. So from a sleep optimization perspective, I should clarify. So we're really on the ground with this granular data to see what does it take to move the needle measurably. And now of course these are consumer grade trackers, but we do bring in different sleep data from a more medical grade sleep data as well. But we get to see longitudinally what are some of these things that really make a difference for people. And I get people coming in from all different walks of life for some people and some of these basic changes that can make such a difference. So we start bringing in a consistent wake up time, we add the sunlight exposure, we start shifting over their glucose, we do some blood work and we discover, oh, they've got B12 deficiency or whatever. So we start finding some of those things and then their whole life has changed. Other groups, it might be so much of this stress and rumination and thought patterns and what have you. So it really is nuanced and it's often not just one thing, it's often kind of a puzzle where there's going to be a number of things we're going to hit at.

Meredith Oke: Right. And I love how you frame this sleep as a skill. I think that's brilliant. I think it's a great title because just right there in the title, you're changing sleep from something where it's like, let's see what happens. I don't know, like, I'll lie down and maybe I'll sleep, maybe I won't, maybe it'll be terrible, maybe it'll be good, who knows? And it's like, it's so empowering to think of it as a skill set where we can learn all as many of the variables as possible and then utilize them as needed.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah, and it's such a paradox too because I don't know about you, but part of the reason I got myself into that problem with insomnia, which to define that is difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, part of the reason I got into that issue was being a type A personality was, you know, let me figure out the protocol, the plan. And it is this sleep is A weird world in that it's this mix of setting the stage and then practicing acceptance and letting go, which can be very hard for the achiever, the Type A, what have you. So, but to your point around why I believe with every ounce of my body that it's a skill is that, I think, analogy. We had someone on the podcast, I think they were part of breathe, right. If you've seen that, which trains your breathing. And one of the analogies they use for sleep was as compared to surfing. And so they pointed to great surfers. They'll check the weather, they'll check the conditions, they'll find out where to go to get the right waves. They have all the gear, you know, they've prepared their body. They're, you know, all this knowledge, but then they go out into the water and then they just wait for the waves to come. So what I think, and I hope can be empowering for people, if they are struggling in some way, shape or form with their sleep, is that a lot of what we're going to do is shift the attention to the days and shift the attention to where we have that power for kind of action and things we can do. And then when the nights come, then that's an opportunity for us to practice some of these skill sets around acceptance, letting go, how can we downregulate, vagal tone, et cetera. And so there's. It's juxtaposition, and it beautifully is illustrated with these rhythms of nature. You know, as diurnal creatures, we're meant to be active by day and at rest at night. And so during that active part, there's tons of things that we can do that help support that we've really set the stage for great sleep later in the evening.

Meredith Oke: Okay, so let's get into it, into what those things are. And yeah, the rhythm, obviously the light cycles and the darkness cycles. And then I really want to circle back to the CBT and the act, because I think that's really interesting. I didn't actually know there was a subset of those specifically for sleep.

Mollie Eastman: Good, I'm glad you said that because I hear that all the time. And I definitely want people to know that there are these entire practices in place that have really high efficacy. Some of the numbers for CBTI are up at over an 80% effectiveness rate for people that are dealing with insomnia. So it's insomnia specific, but we can certainly get into all that for sure. I'll say the framework that I use with people is something that is really aligned with this concept of rhythms and it kind of encapsulates and includes things like our thoughts. So what the paradigm or the way that we have people approach this is kind of a top down approach. So we begin with timing as a whole. Understanding why timing and circadian health and this conversation of quantum biology is so important for the management of our sleep. But we begin with light dark timing, and that also is this anchoring of our sleep wake schedules. So, meaning that people have probably heard of this term sunlight anchoring. I believe Dan Pardee out of Stanford was part, part of kind of coining this. So anchoring your day with bright light exposure out, you know, outside getting your sunlight. And I know this is the podcast for this. Everyone certainly gets this information.

Meredith Oke: You can never hear it too often. You never know who's listening. Talk to me about morning sunlight. It's my love language.

ll asleep exactly at whatever: 10:00

Meredith Oke: Really stick to, that makes a lot of sense. So just like we're going to feel hungrier if we were out surfing all morning versus reading a book on the couch. There are days where we will be more sleep hungry than others, depending on.

Mollie Eastman: Okay, exactly. And that's where the wake up time. And so people say, well, what if I have a really rough night? And so am I supposed to still wake up at around the same time? And the answer is really, ideally yes, around the same time. Now there can be a little bit of variance, of course, so, so say you're out and about till really late. Are you really stressed out or waking up? We can move that out, say like plus or minus around 30 minutes, something along those lines, maybe max, like 45 minutes, an hour. But hopefully that's very rare and we're looking to really keep it super tight. And because what's going to be so valuable there, even though it could sound like really cruel and unusual punishment or something, it's going to help support us keeping that rhythm consistent. And if we think if everything hearkens back to the rhythms of nature and how, you know, our hunter gatherer, you know, ancestors would have lived, we imagine that they would have been sleeping outside on the ground or close to the ground, which would have been part of the coolest area in the environment. Which brings us to our second piece, which is temperature timing. So that temperature timing piece, we want to keep ourselves nice and cool while we're sleeping. But mirroring those hunter gatherer kind of ancestors, they would have been out on the ground and then the sun would have rose and it's Pretty hard to avoid that bright light. Like you're pretty much going to be getting up at around that time.

Meredith Oke: Anybody who's ever been camping is like.

Mollie Eastman: All right, I guess we're up now. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And that's what's so cool about it. Because also, and we think about what happens when the sun appears suddenly the earth starts getting warmer too. So those are two cues at the same time, so that we're getting bright light and then we're getting a warming of that temperature in the environment. Of course, since most of us are indoors, we're no longer getting either of those changes often. So we're not getting the light piece and we're also not getting any change with our temperature. So those two things together are really important. So we want to bring those about. And of course, I know I'm skipping to temperature, but with the light dark timing being the first one, we can never jump over the darkness piece. So we really do need those two parts to our day that are unequivocally clear. We want a high amplitude difference because that can really help with that onset of sufficient melatonin production in the evening. We have certain studies that point to even around 30 minutes in ordinary room lighting causing a 90% drop in melatonin for certain participants. Lots of different studies. And it does depend on what's the brightness of the light.

Meredith Oke: But say like a standard LED bulb.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah, exactly.

Meredith Oke: You've got the recessed lighting in the ceiling.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it is remarkable how much of a difference it can make. Now, of course, you know, there's variants. I don't want people to like lose their minds if they're exposed to a little bit of light or what have you. But ultimately we want to do what we can to create that environment because that can just really help make this more automatic. And the whole slew of effects that happen when our melatonin begins to uptick, when our body temperature goes down in the evening, all of these things just really help set the stage so that you don't have to do too much. Because right now, you know, a lot of people are, they're getting like these meditations and they're doing like sleepy time teas and yogas and all the things. And those are great. And I'm not saying that those aren't really valuable, but I think there's an opportunity for a lot of this to kind of just get handled. When we set the stage so it's got our light dark, like our body.

Meredith Oke: Just will just know. We don't need to do a whole bunch of stuff. It's like, oh, it's dark. Getting dark. Sleepy time.

Mollie Eastman: Sleepy time. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, I think these timing components, they can sound like a lot too, because what we'll go through is light, dark. We talked about the sleep, wake timing there, temperature timing. Then we can look at meal timing, Huge one. Exercise timing, thought timing, which you and I chatted about a little bit. And then finally, our drug timing, or chronopharmacology, the timing of the different types of drugs that we might have, whether supplements, prescriptions, foods, or caffeine, alcohol, thc, et cetera, all of those can play just such a huge role in the body knowing what time it is and what to be doing when. So I'm happy to go through some of those, but I think it's just knowing that if people are listening and saying, I'm exhausted, I don't know what to do about it. Like, we want to examine all of those tiers and see what might be out of alignment for them.

Meredith Oke: Perfect. I love this. Okay, so we did. So we did the light, we did the temperature. Okay, let's do food. And I really want to get into. There was another one before. Was there another one before? Thoughts, anyway.

Mollie Eastman: Oh, yes, exactly. Exercise, exercise. Okay, okay.

Meredith Oke: All right.

ars we've learned about since: 2012

Meredith Oke: Right, I totally noticed that because life is life. And sometimes I dinner late because for whatever reason, and I always wake up in the middle of the night with a slightly elevated heart rate.

Mollie Eastman: Yes, exactly.

Meredith Oke: And I'm like, oh, I've just finished digesting to go back and get real sleep.

Mollie Eastman: Exactly. So frustrating. And you'll see that too, especially for the wearables that will paint the picture of the arc of your heart rate, your hrv, et cetera. Then often it can be this kind of the backwards of what we want to see. So we'll often see higher heart rate and it's taking the whole night for it to drop down to its kind of its lowest point. And now you got to wake up. And that's when people feel really zombie like, and they're dragging. So what's really important for us to know is that we can play with this. And for the people that say, well, I'm not hungry at breakfast, like, listen, I was one of those people for sure. I trained myself. And I actually thought it was like a badge of honor. I thought it was like, so cool because I don't need anything until lunch. Turns out that was not serving me. And I see that with a lot of people that just, you know, after decades of managing their lifestyle in that way, it makes sense their body is not having those hunger cues. But we can change that the same way with circadian rhythm and treatment. And if anyone's ever dealt with jet lag, you know how, and certainly I know you lived in Hong Kong. Like when you go from United States to Hong Kong and you're totally upside down and suddenly you're, you know, bowel movements are at like weird hours, right?

Meredith Oke: And like, you know, just totally not hungry, and then you're starving at A weird time.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah, exactly, exactly. But we also know and trust and we know that, oh, okay, well, I'll adjust in a few days. And it's not that big of a deal, but we don't have that same awareness for some of our day to day cues. But we can change that in the same way, just without getting on a plane and your own day to day life. So what we can do is start incrementally, kind of pushing things back to front load things. And you can do it gently the same way you would kind of, you wouldn't move your bedtime wake time aggressively for the most part, you know, five hours or something. You would, you know, inch it back. And so we can do something like that with your meal timing too. And what you can anticipate and expect is commonly drops in that heart rate uptick in hrv, drops in respiratory rate, drops in body temperature, and then commonly richer sleep in the sleep staging. Do know that the sleep staging classifications on the wearables are some of the least accurate pieces of data on the wearables. So they're making their best guess. It's not on the head. And that's really what we do need, is brain based data for sleep staging. But it's still, it's continually getting better.

Meredith Oke: Sleep staging is like how your body's preparing for sleep.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah. So looking at things like your deep sleep, your rem, your light sleep.

Meredith Oke: Oh, the stages of sleep while you're asleep.

Mollie Eastman: Exactly.

Meredith Oke: Got it.

Mollie Eastman: Yep. Exactly. Yeah. And so with those, and because that's another pain point that people come around is they'll say, oh, I'm not getting any deep sleep, I'm not getting enough rem. And, and so I do get concerned too, because, and I get it, for a long time we might be looking at these wearable, wearable data. But if anyone had, for instance, the OURA ring for many years and then saw when the change update came and suddenly all your stages look totally different, that can help underscore why we don't want to make major life changes based on especially the sleep staging. But I would say they've gotten better. And, and at the same time, some of the other pieces of data, so the hrv, heart rate, respiratory rate, body temperature, were you asleep or were you awake? Some of those are a little bit more on the higher levels of accuracy. So you can kind of define or discern more things from that. But it all goes back to that meal timing and meal type. Of course, you can't step over the meal type because if you're having foods that are spiking and crashing you with your glucose. What is happening by day is often getting mirrored at night and that has to do with your glucose regulation, but also your nervous system regulation. So if you're in a sympathetic state all day, it's common that we're going to see that at night. So that's really why we're putting the flashlight on the day to see what can we do there to support that. The evenings work more routinely. So I would say the most basic takeaway from this meal timing conversation is just inching things back. And we had Dr. Sachin Panda on the podcast who has a lot of research out of the Silk Institute, a great book, Circadian Code. If people want any more information on the meal timing piece of this. But he'll speak to of course, two to three hours before bed having last bite of food. I'll say anecdotally from wearable data and then even a study that's coming out of Whoops. Where they found the difference between people having two hours before bed last bite of food and four hours before bed having last bite of food. It appears that the four hour before bed last bite of food group really had much more favorable results measurably. And then more anecdotal data from our wearables is that we see four, five, even sometimes six hours or more before bed yielding some really great and favorable changes for people. So there was bio individuality but experiment there, right?

Meredith Oke: Yes. I, I remember when we moved our meal, our dinner time earlier after we, we read Dr. Panda's book and I was shocked what a different, like what.

Mollie Eastman: It took to date.

Meredith Oke: It was, it was really profound. Like after the light it was absolutely the, the biggest change. And we try like once a week. We're usually more in like the two to three hour window but often on a Sunday we'll try. We'll like have our main meal of the day at like 4pm and not eat again 100%. And that sleep is so. I don't even have my OURA ring on very often anymore. I lost it. But I could like. It's like, I don't know how to explain it. It's like the sleep is so pure.

Mollie Eastman: Yes, it really is. Now for an extreme example, people might have heard of Brian Johnson and all the money he's putting into now he's I think terrified of the sun. So I don't know what to say.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, now he looks like.

Mollie Eastman: But what I will say is that one thing that has been of interest is I really appreciate his underscoring of the importance of sleep in this idea of, you know, preserving longevity, if you will, or creating an environment for longevity to thrive. And one of the things that he has been gotten a lot of press around is that his, his last bit of food is around 11am so. Wow. Saying that.

Meredith Oke: Not to say there's a fasting window.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah, there's a fasting window. I'm not saying at all for people to misconstrue and think that they need to stop eating 11am But I'm saying that we might have gotten things wrong for all those decades when it was really in vogue to skip breakfast and push things out.

Meredith Oke: Absolutely right.

Mollie Eastman: And so that maybe this exploring, this front loading could make a lot more sense. And you, your felt experience is what we see for a lot of people too, the ending in more of kind of that, you know, senior citizen timeline special. I'm right there with you, by the way.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, like you can't even get a meal in Europe before 7:30pm Totally.

Mollie Eastman: I know, exactly. Yes. And so if we ever get dinner together, we're definitely getting like a 4pm I was funny.

Meredith Oke: We were living in France and I, I went to Florida for like a coaching conference and we, we were out walking around at like 4:30 and all the restaurants were filled with. And I was like, oh my gosh, such like early eating Mecca.

Mollie Eastman: Yes. I know. My husband and I, because my husband has mild sleep apnea. And so we've been able to get it really down a lot. But he's a stickler too in having food earlier as much as possible. So we'll have like, you know, a couple's dinner or whatever. It'll be like just. We're always the ones that are taking the reins for getting. Oh, or a reservation only get 5:00. Sorry.

Meredith Oke: I know everyone's always like, sorry, what time did you want to meet? We're like 5:30. They're like for cocktails, right? We're like, no, dinner, sitting down, ordering. Yeah, we'll have to come to Austin and we can all go out for dinner at 3, please.

Mollie Eastman: Yes, exactly. Do you know Dani Hamilton too? Okay, so she's a blood sugar.

Meredith Oke: Oh, Danielle. Yes. Okay.

Mollie Eastman: Exactly. Yes. So she's a really close friend and so we're always doing a super, super early. She's actually coming over in like an hour after this and so really, really early. That's so funny.

Meredith Oke: I know, it's. I saw a tweet the other day. It was like getting up early, eating dinner at 4, gardening all day, old people. You had it right all along.

Mollie Eastman: I'm sorry, I feel like I saw that too. Yes. It's old wisdom. Right. Y.

Meredith Oke: Like, of course. Like, that's the rhythm. All right, So I want to dive into the thought.

Mollie Eastman: Yes.

Meredith Oke: The thought piece before we wrap.

Mollie Eastman: Totally.

Meredith Oke: Because I find that really interesting. So just from my personal experience. Right. Like, obviously, you know, we've been on a similar journey. My sleep is usually really good because I do all the things, but when it's not, it's often because I've had an email or an interaction and I. That has triggered me in some way and I'm like, and now my sleep is. Now I'm awake worrying.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah. And I absolutely want to get that message out for people because, you know, if you're like nodding your head or, you know, having some element of. I've been there. You're not alone. And we actually have research to support this now. So in that whole domain of what we talked about, all these timing pieces and skipping over movement, the big takeaways, there's just making sure we're getting as much movement. I shouldn't say as much, but getting some gentle movement and sufficient movement by day, ideally when the sun is out and having a nice alignment there. But then when we get to thoughts, one of the things, I've kind of coined it, this idea of thought timing on purpose. Because we have lots of research to support that. The types of thoughts we're having at different times throughout the course of the day are very, very different, particularly in the wee hours of the morning. And so one study that we can reference is called the Mind After Midn. And one of the things they found in that study was that there were very different types of thoughts in those wee hours in the morning, say 2, 3, 4 in the morning, then 2, 3, 4 in the afternoon. And what shakes out is some real world consequences. So it seemed to have a bit more of this almost flawed logic, black and white thinking and sadly, suicidality rates going up in those wee hours in the morning because. And I think many people can relate where things just look bleaker and right. More challenging in those hours of the night. And so I hope that the takeaway can instead be one. If you've ever been there and you're thinking life is just really not working for you in those hours, it's really by design. And that's one of the things why. One of the reasons why we can postulate that there's these problems when people are working outside of the rhythms of nature. So shift workers, for example, having higher depressive rates and all cause mortality rates going up as they age and they're working outside of those normal rhythms, a lot of things come up. And if we are creating that for ourselves by going to bed much later consistently, you might be met with some of these kind of symptoms and that thought issues. So a personal, you know, a step that we could take that hopefully could be empowering is one almost like a personal contract with ourselves. I know it's easier said than done, but to know that if we know that intrinsically this is kind of how things go, that we might not be able to. We might not buy in to some of those thoughts as much as we would if we didn't understand this. So if we're thinking the worst case scenario, have that trust that in just a few hours it's going to look very different and not just like, oh, that's weird. I guess it, you know, kind of evened out. Buffed out. No, it actually is meant to do that for a whole slew of hormonal shifts and things that happen in the body. So standing in that. And then I would also say another great book that I really love for this conversation and actually brings. It's one of the few books around sleep and rhythms. It brings in HRV is called the Power of the Downstate. And what's really interesting about that is it speaks to exactly what we're talking about that we really want to create two clear parts of the day, even from a thoughts domain. So an up regulation, so they call it kind of a rev state. So like revving up, like, you know, action taking. You're sending those emails, you're having those difficult conversations, you're dealing with the rude comment on Instagram or whatever. Like you're doing all that stuff by day, but then in the down state in the evening. And we can align this with these rhythms of nature so you can use nature as your guide. So as the sun is starting to set and what have you, then that's where we want to bring in that downstate activity. And that changes the type of thoughts that we're engaging in and that we kind of create healthy boundaries for ourselves so that we're not going down the paths that could bring about more upregulation when we don't want to be facilitating that. Now, to circle it back to some other entire, you know, areas of psychology that people could explore, explore or have support in if they are really struggling with this. Because of course, what are some of the big Reasons why people might have sleep issues, depression, anxiety, you know, other mental health issues. And yet it can be a big question of chicken or the egg. Like, was it what started this? Was it the sleep? Was it the environment? You know, so that's. That's there. But you can explore things like cbti, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for insomnia, ACTI Acceptance Commitment Therapy for insomnia, or act, and these can all kind of give you tools and protocols that can support you. So just a personal story. One of the things that really helped me when I was struggling with my insomnia was one of the tools that comes out of act, which is that this concept that even if you aren't sleeping, if you're resting, that you're still getting benefits for your body, even if it's not like how you'd perfectly like to have it. And as my type, a sort of self, I'm like, well, I should be sleeping. And yet I'm supposed to be in.

Meredith Oke: Deep sleep for another 47 minutes.

Mollie Eastman: Exactly. Exactly. That will get you further and further from sleep. So having some of these ways of thinking and knowing and trusting that you're still getting some benefits from even just kind of calming your body, slowing your breath rate, relaxing, you know, being in a dark room, being in a supine position brings down the heart rate. We know that that can help still facilitate kind of restoration. So that's just one element, but there's entire aspects and things that you can bring in that can help with how you think about what do you do when you wake up in the middle of the night? Do you stay in bed? Do you go out to another room? Do you bring about, like, deep breathing? Do you read a book? Like, all kinds of things so that you have more kind of studied and verified approaches.

Meredith Oke: Right. So it's really like the way we might learn tools to navigate relationships, to navigate different situations in life. It's like we're learning. There are cognitive tools we can learn to navigate our way to sleep.

Mollie Eastman: Exactly. And I think that it's really important, too, because one of the things that frustrates me about the traditional approach in the sleep world right now is people will say, well, just do CBTI and you'll be fine. Or get a sleep study and figure out do you have sleep apnea or not. And those are the kind of the tool, two levers. And I don't mean to be reductive, but there can be. Those are the big ones. And I think what's beautiful is the work that you're pointing to that as we bring in all of these domains of quantum biology, circadian rhythm, entrainment, that. That can also help change the physiology of what you're working with, of the type of hormones that you're working with, of where you're start. You're starting the base point so that it can make things a lot easier, so that you're not ruminating because you have no serotonin and melatonin because you haven't been outside in weeks and like, you know, sort of things. So I. But I think it's not to discount too, because those can all be really helpful, especially if you've got trauma in your past or things are happening. You know, people have stuff, and I've been there. And so I think it's important for us to pull from all of these modalities and know that there's a lot available.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, I really love that, Molly. And to layer it on, like, the foundational pieces of solid rhythms with light, with darkness, temperature, food.

Mollie Eastman: But then.

Meredith Oke: Yeah, layering on the psychological and emotional support.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah.

Meredith Oke: That we might need. And it's not one or the other, but they all work together. They all work together in the quantum field.

Mollie Eastman: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I'll just say the last one to put a bow on it all is drug timing or chronopharmacology. And this one's really interesting because you can do all these things, but if you're, I don't know, just having pots of coffee late into the night and alcohol and THC and what have you, then that's going to absolutely show up in your sleep. But the empowering thing is that we can kind of shift some of those from a timing perspective, but also awareness perspective on certain prescription drugs that we might not be aware of that might be impacting our sleep, supplements that could be impacting our sleep both negatively and positively, depending. So just really taking an audit of the things that are going into our body, the time and the impact that they might be having, because there are times where we might get some. Whatever blood work or what have you done, and be able to see that certain people are dealing with things physiologically and really make a huge difference often. And it can be by removing some of these things that they're taking, which we often can see come into play as well. So at its core, what I hope for people to realize is a couple things. One, if you're struggling with your sleep, that there are people that can support you and that there are so many things you can do. And certainly listen to this podcast for sure. A lot of these things are gonna, for the average person can often help take care of itself by doing many of these things. Now if there are additional things, if you're still struggling, then you can work with people on some of those approaches. I mentioned cbti, acti and I absolutely believe that everyone I think should be tested for sleep disorders because There are over 100 sleep weight disorders. There's so many people that I've tested where they say sleep disorder, I don't snore, I'm not overweight. And yet we find out sleep apnea, upper air resistance syndrome, period of limb movement disorder, restless leg, all of these different things that they just might have no clue that they're dealing with and that can make such a difference. And you can see some of those signs on your wearables too. So if you are seeing a lot of restless sleep, if you're seeing difficulty with your heart rate stuff stabilizing, if you're having a lot of wake ups throughout the course of the night, there's just a number of signs that can also point to that we really want to get you tested.

Meredith Oke: And that would require going to like ordering a sleep study kit. You can't do this with your ordering.

Mollie Eastman: Great question. So as of right now, now I anticipate that in the very near future we're going to see wearables that can also be more diagnostic. But yes, right now we can't do that at the moment. So you can order online for a couple hundred bucks. At home sleep tests, which is super exciting and those are more geared towards respiratory based sleep disorders. But there's even a new test that is a little more expensive that you can hook up to your limbs as well. So you can see more information is our closest thing to an in lab study at home. So that's available. So it's kind of like this Venn diagram, like an in between. And then if there's more severe, more things that we want to get more information on, then you can go in lab. But we can have those tiers where it can just be a couple hundred bucks to test at home. And I mean that can change the course of your life. Like few things I've seen overnight make such a difference than discovering we have some of those sleep disorders, treating those. And then people, it's like the sky is brighter, the colors are, you know, it's just amazing.

Meredith Oke: Yeah. And that's really good for people to understand that. I didn't realize there were so many different types of sleep sleep disorders. I was kind of like, yeah, I have sleep apnea or you don't.

Mollie Eastman: Exactly. Yeah, totally. And that's the thing because we also know that so many people are running around undiagnosed, especially with those respiratory based disorders, and we know that that's going to uptick all kinds. So certainly all cause mortality rates go up, cardiovascular issues, our mental health, and so much more.

Meredith Oke: Amazing. Molly, this is so good. I feel like we went on like such a journey. It was amazing. And yeah, thank you for layering in all of these other super important things. And I also just want to quickly say I had sort of the inverse of your experience where I was sleeping 10 hours straight and waking up feeling exhausted. So your earlier point about the quality of sleep, sleep that, you know, this is just so key.

Mollie Eastman: So key. And so hypersomnia. So sleeping a lot and kind of unclear the reasons why and not feeling really rested on the other side of that is something else that we want people to be aware of. So I'm so glad you mentioned that because that's a, that's a big one too.

Meredith Oke: I didn't know it was called that, but yeah, I had. I was just like fatigued all the time and still sleeping a lot. And that. That's so demoralizing. Do you know how it's hard? I have to work to set aside 10 whole hours to sleep. That's a lot.

Mollie Eastman: Still not even feel like.

Meredith Oke: I still feel like crap.

Mollie Eastman: The money's worth it.

Meredith Oke: Okay. Oh my gosh, Molly, thank you so much. This was delightful. And people can find you at. Sleep is a skill, is it? Sleepisaskill.com exactly.

Mollie Eastman: Yes. Sleepisaskill.com you can do all the things. We have a sleep assessment there. We have a podcast comes out every week with different, different sleep experts. I think we might be getting you on the podcast too, to speak to sleep experiences as well. So. And different maybe for many people, what you're speaking to can land as like a whole new world of things that they can do for their sleep. So. But yeah, the sleep podcast and then we have a sleep newsletter that goes out every Monday for over six years called Sleep Obsessions. So I'd love to have people over there. And I just want to say that I so appreciate you kind of creating a forum to be able to discuss things like this and underscoring the importance of sleep, because I truly believe that it can just change the course of people's lives. And I really want to protect against people having to go down the path of sleeping pills and pharmaceuticals and understanding that there's so. And I'm not not making judgments around medical, you know, states or choices, but I want people to know, especially when we talk about those sleeping pills, that things like benzos and Z drugs are really meant for short term use. And sadly, we see so many people on these for years and decades and there's a whole other world available.

Meredith Oke: Yeah. It's really important. And thank you for all your work on this, Molly, and it was delightful to have you.

Mollie Eastman: Oh, thank you. This was so fun. More to come. We'll have to have our 4:30pm dinner.

Meredith Oke: Love it. Okay, we'll talk soon.

Mollie Eastman: Okay, thanks.