Tips to Help You Sleep
Trouble falling asleep or getting back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night is something most people deal with at some point in their lives. Whether it’s a minor annoyance or an every-night issue for you, we think you’ll find this short episode helpful. It was inspired by our guest, sleep expert and therapist Katelyn Anderson on the podcast How to Finally Get a Good Night’s Sleep. In it, she talked about the intersection between mental health and sleep and dished out a ton of helpful advice. An important caveat that many of us miss with sleeping tips (like anything else) is that if it’s difficult to fit into our lifestyle, the chance of success decreases. In this mini-episode, we tell you what happened when we tried out some of the tactics she gave us and added some of our own. We hope that you get some ideas and inspiration that you can customize for yourself. Take a few minutes to listen now, and it just may help to you to sleep better tonight!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Sandy Kovach [00:00:01]:
If you have trouble falling or staying asleep, we hope this bonus episode helps. We're using some tips that we learned from our last guest who was a sleep expert and adding some of our own
Lanée Blaise [00:00:14]:
Welcome to imagine yourself where we are Absolutely loving the fact that we have bonus episodes to help show off what we've learned from the previous episode. So I'm Lanee here with Sandy, and today, we are going to give an inside look at how the last episode so affected us. And that was called how to finally get a good night's sleep with sleep expert, Katelyn Anderson. And, Sandy, I tell you, I learned so many things about food and beverages to avoid, sleep affirmations, routines, Just a lot of outside the box things for myself and family. But even after the episode was over, I've been in a continual learning pattern How about you?
Sandy Kovach [00:01:00]:
Yeah. I mean, one thing that we took away from Katelyn and as you mentioned, there were a lot of things that we learned, and you can go back and listen to that episode right for this if you haven't. But she had her sleep hygiene checklist. But the whole aspect of do what works for you was something she really emphasized. And I was having Whole issue on okay. So do I have to get, like, some kind of a blackout curtain thing and be real ritualistic at bedtime. Well, that's my chill out time when I'm finally I'm not thinking about work or obligations. I just wanna mindlessly watch Netflix. Okay? So but she said as long as that works for you, that's okay. But my husband, it wasn't working as well for. But we found something on Netflix called unwind your mind, which was you give your option of 4 different scenes like countryside, train, or beach, or whatever. And they Give you the scene, and they have a nice smooth talking announcer. Imagine yourself doing this. And It totally worked. Oh my goodness. So on Netflix, unwind your mind.
Lanée Blaise [00:02:06]:
So in a way, there's 2 lessons I learned from you, Sandy. The first of all, Netflix has Everything you could possibly desire in life. Well. But also, like Katelyn said, to make it your own And don't turn it into something terrible and stiff and frustrating. Turning it into something that works for you, and that could be like, even if you do watch something else on Netflix, that might be the last little thing that you do before you go to sleep to relax for you and your husband. Yep. That's really wonderful because mine is not quite as concrete, but it's still a overall concept that I've been exploring ever since the things that Katelyn taught us. And it was something that she didn't actually mention. But Sandy, I'm realizing it is so important what we say to ourselves All day every day, but especially at nighttime before bedtime. Yeah. Don't you think that if we can all make a Concerted effort. Can we train ourselves to have a very specific dialogue or, I guess, monologue with ourselves.
Sandy Kovach [00:03:10]:
Well, I don't know what's going on in your head.
Lanée Blaise [00:03:12]:
I mean, I don't I don't know. There's just Lanee in there. So I guess it's a monologue, but to have that When we're preparing ourselves for a restful night and have certain words and thoughts and actual language or even little code words that we have pre allowed that we can give to ourselves to get into that calm down mode. Because I was thinking about Surgery. When they give you that anesthesia and they put that cup thing over your face, I don't know if you've had surgery
Sandy Kovach [00:03:42]:
Yeah.
Lanée Blaise [00:03:43]:
A few times. Yeah. Me too. So it was not major surgery, but the doctors and nurses are very intentional About the words that they're saying and the things they're trying to put in your mind as you're slowly about to go under.
Lanée Blaise [00:03:59]:
to make sure that it's Calm and smooth. They'll say things like, what are some of your favorite songs or what's one of your favorite stories? Because Storytelling is another thing. We tell our kids bedtime stories. You don't want a exciting one, but something easy, I don't know, like the 3 little bears and Goldilocks, whatever. You just think of something very soothing, very calm, or you do kinda think through what are some of my favorite songs, my favorite singers? And you'll just slowly concentrate on that until you perhaps drift off. It's just a way to make sure that you're not thinking about all of the frustrating things in your life before you go to bed. That's just my little take on what I learned since the episode.
Sandy Kovach [00:04:43]:
Yeah. I love it because she talked a lot about avoiding those racing thoughts, the ones that keep us from falling asleep and when we wake up in the middle of the night going back to sleep. So what you're saying and and it's kinda where the Netflix thing sorta gave you a tactic to do that too, and it involved counting. Reminds me of counting sheep, but they were just talking about counting in general. But You're saying filling it with actual things that are pleasant memories in your life or pleasant stories, and I love that. It doesn't have to be anything formal at all.
Lanée Blaise [00:05:13]:
Right. Something very simple. You know? At the end of the day, many times, we really can go back to what we learned as kids. And when we did have a soothing bedtime story, sometimes even parents, like, would read the same bedtime story or kids would prefer to have the It starts to teach your brain, oh, this is what we do before we go to sleep. I really think about all of this because Katelyn Anderson is a sleep expert, But she's a clinical therapist and social worker for over 12 years, and mental health is really important. And just thinking of it from that way of just a way to calm your mind, calm your thoughts, listening to something like the Unwind your mind on Netflix, different things like that, the Calm app, things to help us just take a break From all of the stuff that we deal with during the day. So that's the mental health from a physical perspective. Katelyn is also the owner and founder of Cozy Case. It's a pillowcase that has these tactile and comforting and stability functions to them that kinda brings that whole mind and body connection together, and we're just so proud of her for that too. So Yeah. Lots of ways.
Sandy Kovach [00:06:24]:
Yes. So go back and take a listen to Katelyn's episode if you haven't. She has a lot practical tips. And I wanted to also shout out to the negative self talk episode that you just remind me of. And and it didn't really necessarily deal with sleep specifically, but it just dealt with ways to stop the negative self talk. Blaine is a psychotherapist. Saying no to negative self talk that's a few episodes
Lanée Blaise [00:06:46]:
back. Yeah. With Blaine Lawson, it was just another way that we're incorporating That link between mental health and physical health that is so important in order to have a good life and good day. Yeah. Not Frankie. Yeah. Just To be able to talk to ourselves in different ways and focus our minds on some different for some different results in a different life. How about that, Sandy?
Sandy Kovach [00:07:14]:
All working for the better in sleep and in being awake.
Lanée Blaise [00:07:18]:
Got that right. I just think overall, imagine yourself using your practical tips, What works for you to help your bedtime, nighttime routine to make for a better
Sandy Kovach [00:07:33]:
Thanks for listening, and let us know if you liked some of these tips and if you have some tips of your own that you can share with us so that we can share back with everyone as well. You can find our website and our social media links at imagine yourself podcast
