SUMMARY KEYWORDS

sleep, drinking, people, alcohol, sobriety, night, glasses, called, asleep, artificial light, feel, morning, life, nighttime, light, wake, coaching, good, studies

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + James Swanwick

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

I wanted to jump in before today’s episode because if you’re wanting to take a break from drinking this summer, to look your best and feel your best, or if you’re in early sobriety but want to make the process of navigating barbecues and vacations, having kids at home, work and life and triggers easier and more fun, it’s the perfect time to jump into The Sobriety Starter Kit course. 

You have only one week left to join the course and get access to a huge bundle of special bonuses that are worth $340 at no additional cost. I’ve been working for the last couple of months in adding bonus content to the course that will make the signature framework and the step-by-step video lessons and the modules you work through even better. So these bonuses are going to make the process of taking a break from drinking and enjoying the summer alcohol-free so much easier. So here they are. 

If you join the course in the next week, you will get an invitation to a Live Dry July Kickoff for a coaching event with me on Sunday, June 26. And if you can’t make that specific date or time it will be recorded for you but I would love to see you live. I’d love to answer your questions and give you coaching and kickoff Dry July. 

You will also get a special Empowered Boundaries Codependency Workshop that I worked with Hayley McGee, my favorite codependency recovery coach, to create specifically for The Sobriety Starter Kit for women who are in the process of quitting drinking. 

I’m also beyond excited to share The Ultimate Guide to Non-alcoholic Beverages, which was created by Zero Proof Nation just for The Sobriety Starter Kit. It is incredibly hard to find a comprehensive resource with links to all of the amazing new craft beer options out there that are alcohol free years zero proof, the best non alcoholic wine, sparkling rose, white, red guides to the non alcoholic spirits brands and which ones are recommended per TFS bitters, hot beverages and more you are going to find all of that curated by Lawrence your approved nation in The Ultimate Guide to Non-alcoholic Beverages, which is a bonus for The Sobriety Starter Kit that you’ll get only if you sign up in the next week. 

You’ll also get a really inspiring, Sober Summer Bucket List Guide so you can create your own sober summer bucket list. So you have the inspiration and things to look forward to this summer. That’s going to make it better than any summer you have when you’re drinking and recovering from drinking and doing the same things. 

And you’ll also get my complete Diary of Early Sobriety from Day One to Day 100. So I can hold your hand with my experience as you go through the ups and downs of leaving alcohol behind. If you have been thinking about joining The Sobriety Starter Kit, I really encourage you to go to sobrietystarterkit.com and look up all the details about the course and the bonuses and grab this offer now, it is only available until June 24. And it is a huge value that you’ll get on top of the content within my signature course. 

And if you’re wondering what other women have gone through, because I know a lot of you have tried this before or have thought I should be able to do this on my own, I’m not sure, I really want to stop drinking, or I’ve tried courses before, I’ve tried groups and it hasn’t worked for me, I wanted to share with you what some other women who have joined The Sobriety Starter Kit have written to me to tell me about how it’s helped them. So I’ll just share a little bit about that. 

So Janet wrote me and said, “I found your Sobriety Starter Kit, and it’s changed my life already. I just hit my longest sober streak in four decades. And I feel really good. Thank you, Casey. Your program is everything I needed. It’s remarkably comprehensive, and so very relevant to the desires of anyone wanting to quit drinking.” 

Sarah also went through The Sobriety Starter Kit and wrote me to say that it was the uplifting practical and heartfelt guide she needed to put down the wine bottle, the wine bottle she thought was helping to make her life better. As a working mom, Sarah said “Before I found this course I felt overwhelmed, resentful, depleted, and waking up in the middle of the night, stressed out by everything on my to do list. As a busy working mom, I felt wine was making my life better at the end of the day. But The Sobriety Starter Kit helped me feel revived, empowered and free. It even helped me get through my first sober vacation in 16 years. I just hit 65 days and I’m going on a yoga retreat this weekend to celebrate my new healthy life. This course is a goldmine of amazing content.” 

And Morgan shared with me that this course is awesome and worth every penny. She said, “I wish I’d found Casey’s program earlier, because it’s 100 times easier to stop drinking with her resources, guidance, prompts and information.” 

So if you’re thinking about it, you have one more week to jump in and get the Summer Bonus Bundle for free. You can go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com to check out all the details and see if it’s a fit for you. So if you’re feeling excited about this summer, go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com to check out all the details and sign up.

Hi there, this episode is going to be all about alcohol, insomnia and sleep in sobriety. 

Questions about sleep, about does alcohol help me get to sleep, about when sleep will start? Being really good in early sobriety, about what’s going on and how they can sleep in the first couple of weeks after they stopped drinking are some of the most common questions I get. I know it’s a big thing for a lot of people, especially if you’ve got busy jobs and young children and you’re tired and exhausted and a lot of people go a couple of days without drinking. They’re in withdrawal. They’re scared that they’re not sleeping really well possibly and then they go back to drinking which just sort of perpetuates the cycle.

 

I’ve been waiting a long time to find the right guest, the right sleep expert who also understands drinking and quitting drinking to bring on this podcast and when I found James Swanwick I reached out to him and he immediately replied so I was thrilled. James is an Australian American investor, entrepreneur and speaker. He’s also a former Sports Center anchor on ESPN. He’s the creator of The Alcohol Free Lifestyle which helps people change their relationship with alcohol and is the host of the podcast Alcohol Free Lifestyle. He’s the creator of Project 90 which helps high achievers get lifetime power over alcohol and he also has done a ton of work around sleep and is the creator of blue light blocking glasses Swannies by Swanwick Sleep which help improve your sleep. And I found James through an episode on his Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast that was all about the gold standard of sleep and I wanted him to come on and talk to you guys about that. So James, welcome to the podcast. 

 

Casey it’s so great to be here. Thank you for having me. 

 

Yeah, I’m really excited. I kinda laid out, right before we got started, all the questions I usually get about sleep. It’s a huge topic. And do you want to just dive in and tell us what contributes to good sleep? What hurts it and the relationship of alcohol with it all?

 

10:19

Yeah, well, to start with alcohol is a sleep destroyer. No question. And a lot of people mistakenly believe that drinking alcohol will help them sleep in the night. And what’s true is that having some alcohol may, in fact, make you feel sleepy or sleepier, and it may actually knock you out or put you to sleep, so to speak, however, the quality of your sleep will be severely compromised because of that alcohol. Well, yes, having a glass of wine at the end of the night may help you to wind down sufficiently enough to fall asleep. 

 

That comes with some pretty dire consequences, unfortunately, because at a time when your body is supposed to be going into a restorative phase, where the hormones are resetting, the glucose in your brain is replenishing, your muscles are restoring, your body’s trying to relax. Because you’ve had that seemingly innocent glass of wine at the end of the night, your body is now going to work. And when your body goes to work, you don’t sleep the way that nature intended you to sleep. And that’s why so many people sadly wake up feeling tired, and lethargic and irritable. Which of course, we know, leads to people wanting to seek refuge by drinking more alcohol. At the end of the day it’s like, Oh, I’m so tired, and so irritable, I’ll let me have a drink. And it just keeps pouring this gasoline on the fire. That’s the, I think the first thing, Casey to really stress is that even though your listeners may believe that alcohol helps them sleep, it really doesn’t. It disturbs and disrupts the quality of this sleep.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  11:58

Yeah, and I know you mentioned a glass of wine, like when I was drinking, unless I was working really, really hard to moderate and sort of, quote, unquote, be good. In my mind, I was regularly drinking a bottle of wine a night, sometimes more, I always called it going to sleep. But it was definitely for me passing out sometimes passing out on the couch where my husband couldn’t wake me up. And then so many women I talked to, and I know I had this too, have the 3am wake up with the racing heart and the anxiety and just not being able to fall asleep between three and 5am. And I feel like that’s what you described on steroids, right with the withdrawal when the alcohol leaves your body a couple hours later.

 

12:41

Yeah, think about if you’re asking your liver to go to work to break down the toxins that you’ve just poured into your body. From a seemingly innocent half bottle or glass of attractively packaged poison. I like to call alcohol, attractively packaged poison, because what it is, you wake up at three o’clock in the morning because your body has been working. Anything that you can do to infect with in regards to alcohol and sleep, you’re actually better off to have alcohol with breakfast, than you are at nighttime because at least that will give your body 12 hours to get rid of the toxins from your body, which will put your body into a position later near a bedtime to actually be able to fall asleep the way nature intended you to fall asleep. And to be able to sleep through the night as crazy as it sounds. As you’re making your morning breakfast, you’re better off pouring yourself a glass of wine then you are at nighttime. 

 

And I think women in particular have a really tough time with sleep because there are biological conditions that are unique to women like the menstrual cycle, like pregnancy and menopause. And those things can really affect how well women sleeps. And that’s because the changing levels of hormones that a woman experiences throughout the month and over her lifetime, like for example estrogen and progesterone, they have a pretty significant impact on sleep as well. Really understanding the effects of those hormones, the environment, environmental factors and lifestyle habits. And just doing whatever you can to at the very least reduce your alcohol intake or if you are going to drink, have it as far away from bedtime as possible. That’s going to at least give you some kind of marginal improvement.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  14:24

Yeah, and I know that when people drink every day or when I drink every day, my body probably had not had a good night of sleep in years, maybe decades other than when I was pregnant. You really do have a lot of time that you need to catch up on and your body needs to recover from that right. What are the negative health implications from not getting enough sleep?

 

14:51

It’s been linked to obesity. It’s a lot harder to lose weight when you’re not sleeping. Well, it’s been linked to higher levels of stress and anxiety, which shows up as irritability, which shows up in strained relationships. Maybe you snap at your husband or your partner, or you’re more irritable with your kids, you’re not as productive in your work, not as effective in your work. It’s been linked to cancers, all types of cancers, the list goes on. And despite that we as a society are just chronically sleep deprived. And despite that, the education level, like our knowledge and understanding of sleep is still very, very small. 

 

I could probably suggest that most people could name a Netflix TV series, at least one or a TV series that they watch online. But I don’t think anyone could tell me what do you think is the biggest contributor to sleep? What do you think will give you the best leverage with your sleep performance tonight? And people would look at me like what but I don’t understand what are you talking about? What we focus on grows, obviously, you’re doing an outstanding job in helping to educate people around the effects of alcohol. And I acknowledge you for that. 

 

And I think conversations like these are so important to really educate people as to the habits that are not only just compromising sleep, but the flow on effects of irritability and stress and anxiety and weight gain and diabetes and liver disease, and broken marriages and relationships. The people are blaming their partner for a failed relationship, and maybe you should have just gotten more sleep or better sleep. You weren’t reacting so much instead, maybe you were responding to challenges in your relationship.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  16:36

You mentioned that I think you’re, right before I listened to your podcast on the gold standard of sleep, the things that I thought would help my sleep and what I’ve been doing is a few things right. Like I know that I sleep better when I exercise. I always exercise in the morning. Typically I have trouble putting my, typically have trouble falling asleep when I’m not putting my daughter to sleep, which is crazy. My daughter is eight. She wants me to read to her every night and then she wants to cuddle, which I do every night and I always fall asleep in a room pitch dark, she’s breathing. She’s warm. I’ve read for a while with her, we’ve chatted the nights that I don’t love, which then of course my husband wakes me up two hours later to like move me into our bedroom. The nights I don’t my mind is racing. I’m like watching shows before bed, I’m usually up till midnight. And then when I try to fall asleep I like put on maybe essential oils and sleep meditation from like Insight Timer or headspace or something. What is the best way to help improve your sleep quality and to get a good night’s sleep?

 

17:45

Why don’t I give you what I refer to as the gold standard of sleep. It’s what you can do first thing in the morning then later on in the morning, lunchtime, afternoon, evening to ensure you get a great night’s sleep. So go through that. 

 

Yeah, absolutely. 

 

In my opinion, the biggest and best thing that you can do to improve your sleep quality is to manipulate light and I’m going to just explain what that means in a second. So first thing in the morning when you wake up, I invite you to go and go outside or stand by a window and let the sunlight, the morning sunlight hit your skin and without a pair of sunglasses look up into the sky or look around. And what that does is that the sunlight when it hits your skin, and our skin have receptors on it, it tells our body okay this is wake up time this is daytime I am ready to now flood your body with daytime hormones. And when that happens, your internal clock which is called your circadian rhythm, it almost puts on a timer and the timer now is going to go all the way until about eight o’clock nine o’clock at night when your body is now going to go oh okay, now I know it’s time to flood your body with nighttime hormones. I am now going to turn on the melatonin faucet. I’m going to flood your body with melatonin. I’m going to help you to fall asleep. I’m going to help you to sleep deeply. The first thing you can do, first thing you can do in the morning is expose yourself to as much natural light as possible. That sets your internal clock, your circadian rhythm to then help turn on the melatonin later on at nighttime when you’re ready to go to sleep. 

 

In relation to coffee, the studies show that any coffee after 12pm; or sorry I should say any coffee within eight hours of your intended sleep time is going to disrupt the quality of your sleep. For example, if you’re planning on going to sleep at 8am be sure your last coffee is at 12. If you’re planning to go to sleep at 10pm, no coffee after 2pm. Now Casey I’ve had many people over the years who’ve given me pushback over this because they say oh I have a cappuccino at nighttime or I have a shot with dinner I fall asleep just fine. And my response to them as well you fall asleep just fine, but the sleep quality is going to be severely compromised. And there are 1000s of people all over the world who track their sleep using a wearable like the aura ring, for example, and they can track the sleep quality based on whether they had coffee or not within eight hours of going to sleep.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  20:22

Well, I have to say, I have a serious coffee habit that I have definitely been unwilling to kick. I drink a lot of coffee every day, including like, I was going to my son’s baseball game last night at 5:30 at night and went through the Starbucks drive thru to pick up a coffee because it was cold and rainy. Yeah, I heard what you said. And I am definitely going to think about it. People in the past have been like, why don’t you cut down on your coffee? And I’m sort of like, Dude, fuck you. I quit drinking. I have nothing in my life.

 

20:56

But I mean, when is your last cup of coffee?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  20:59

Like last night was 5:30. That was pretty unusual. 5:30pm usually yeah noonish. Maybe that’s okay occasionally to PN. And if I’m dragging, I worked at Starbucks corporate for a bunch of years, I kind of got, I kind of got used to everyday the latte station at every break place, which was pretty cool.

 

21:20

What time do you go to sleep at night?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:23

10 o’clock, 10pm if I’m with my daughter. 

 

Okay, as long

 

21:27

as you’re not drinking coffee after 2pm that will give you an opportunity to sleep the way that nature intended you to sleep.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:35

And doesn’t matter how much coffee you drink or not really?

 

21:39

No, not in relation to sleep, because that takes about eight hours for the stimulant to get out of the system. Even if you’ve taken five shots at two o’clock. I think all five shots are going to be out and gone, the stimulating effect will be gone eight hours later. So the key metric Casey really is eight hours. It’s an eight hour window.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:58

All right, you’re making me feel better. I think I can do that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:03

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, the sobriety starter kit.

 

The sobriety starter kit is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

 

24:07

There are studies that show that morning exercise is more conducive to a good night’s sleep then afternoon or evening. They did a study which showed, which seemed to suggest rather that people who exercised in the morning tended to exercise regularly anyway because when they do it morning, it tends to be more of a habit life doesn’t get in the way, you’re less likely to abandon your workout. And it’s very important that we’re sleeping in a very cool environment or that our core body temperature is very cool. And if we exercise too close to bedtime and we raise that core body temperature, then it’s a lot more challenging for us to get a good night’s sleep. If you can exercise during the morning rather than late afternoon or early evening. Really, really important. 

 

We’ve already spoken about the alcohol but I’ll say it again because it’s worth repeating. And that is if you just stopped drinking alcohol altogether, your sleep will transform. Just know that every time you drink alcohol, you are compromising your sleep. But it’s just, it’s very challenging, I think, for people to I guess blame their poor sleep habits or say, Oh, I can’t sleep, I don’t know, I’ve tried everything I just can’t sleep, and they’re still drinking alcohol. Because all of the science, all the studies show us that your body has to go to work to break down the toxins and to flush the toxins out of the body as soon as you drink alcohol. 

 

Next most important thing, we’ve mentioned a few important things, the next most important thing is to block as much light as possible at nighttime. Just as I advise to expose yourself to as much natural sunlight as possible in the morning, it’s imperative that you block as much artificial light at nighttime. Now, just before I tell you, I advise how to do that. Your bathroom light, kitchen light, bedroom light, cell phone screen, light television screen light, the microwave light, the refrigerator light, the speedometer light in your car, all of these lights are emitting an artificial blue light which compromises your melatonin production, which keeps you stimulated, which keeps you irritable at nighttime at a time when your body is wanting to prepare for sleep. If you are cooking food with the lights on and not protecting your eyes, if you are watching Netflix TV series without protecting your eyes, if you’re spying on your phone, if you’re using the fridge if you’re using the microwave, you are compromising your night’s sleep. 

 

Now the way to counter that is to wear a pair of blue light blocking glasses and blue light blocking glasses that have an orange lens. There are blue blocking glasses that have a clear lens, but they’re more for daytime use. And I’ll explain that a little bit later. Nighttime is imperative that you wear a pair of blue light blocking glasses with an orange lens because orange is the opposite of blue. Orange blocks the blue light that’s trying to penetrate your eyes. When you wear a pair of blue light blocking glasses at nighttime, then the light doesn’t stimulate your brain. Melatonin can start to flourish, you can start to feel sleepier, and then ultimately, when it’s time to go to sleep, you remove the glasses and you fall asleep much quicker. You sleep deeper, and you wake up feeling much more refreshed. My company Swanwick Sleep, we produce light blocking glasses, they’re called Swannies, we’ve got about 200,000 people now who use these things that are worn by professional athletes at the New York Knicks and Manchester United the New Orleans Saints. A lot of the sleep science experts are now giving our glasses to their pro athletes because they have recognized the absolute importance of their star athletes getting a great night’s sleep. Block as much of that artificial light with a pair of blue light blocking glasses at night as possible.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:09

When you’re doing that, do you just kind of go about your day and then at some point like is it within an hour of going to sleep you put on the glasses?

 

28:17

Exactly. In a perfect scenario, we would live our life by candlelight and we would never have any electronic and artificial light at all. But it’s 2022. We’re very used to electricity. We’re used to light bulbs, we’re used to screens and it’s unrealistic to think that tonight Casey, you’re going to turn off all the lights and the electricity in your home and start walking around with a candle. However, if the best night’s sleep is your goal, that’s exactly what you should do. You should literally sit in dark and carry a candle around because natural flame at fire does not disrupt your melatonin production. That’s why when you’re out camping and you’re in the dark and you’re sitting around a fire and you’re telling stories, you often get some of the best night’s sleep that you’ve ever had. Because you’re not staring at screens. There’s no lights from traffic lights and street lights. You’re just out in nature. And the only light you have is natural flame. The moment that we start staring into artificial light, that is when our sleep starts to be compromised. 

 

What I do, the way I wear my glasses because I’ve got dozens of my glasses here because I own the company and I can have dozens if I want right. I wear my, I put my glasses on about one hour before I know I want to sleep and I keep them on until I turn off the last light and then I crawl into bed and then I remove them. What I don’t do is put them on, use them and then 10 minutes before I intend to sleep, take them off and go and brush my teeth in the bathroom light because the bathroom light is now blasting my eyes and now compromising my melatonin production.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  29:51

But it’s not just your screen. It’s any light.

 

29:54

It’s any light that emits an artificial light. The way you brush your teeth at night Casey is just corrupting your sleep because you’re brushing your teeth in the bathroom without protecting your eyes from the light. And so that’s compromising your melatonin production,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  30:09

There’s a lot of little things that you can do that you talked about, right. Exercising in the morning, getting natural sunlight, cutting off caffeine by noon or 2pm. And then sort of the big ones are the alcohol because I was looking up stats when we were going to have this call on it. In some of the sleep studies, they said, less than one drink for women, decreased sleep quality by 9%. Having a single drink for women could decrease sweet sleep quality for women by 24%. And anything over more than one drink for a woman can decrease your sleep quality by 39%. Which is crazy to me, because that’s a lot of difference. And then the blue light, right, wearing those glasses stayed away from your screen, all that kind of transition time.

 

31:05

Yeah. You mentioned some studies there, we had the University of Washington and Indiana State University both do studies on our Swanwick Sleep blue light blocking glasses, and they put hundreds of people through this study. And the results were that those who wore the glasses for an hour in the last hour before they went to sleep, reported sleeping 14% better. That’s huge. I added a monster movement. And then excuse me, interestingly, the following day, they were surveyed again, the day after their great night’s sleep, they were surveyed again, and they reported a 9% increase in productivity. 9%. Let’s round it up to 10. 10% increase in your productivity is huge.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  31:56

Yeah, I know that people always talk about sober sleep and how amazing it is. And I didn’t believe them until I had sort of my first great night of sleep on day nine. I know for a lot of people it takes longer. But that was the first time that I had a noticeable difference. But you’re right. I mean, whether it’s the sleep or cutting out the alcohol or the combination, I think it’s probably the combination. But once I stopped drinking and started sleeping better, it was definitely, my job was easier. I was more optimistic. I was happier, I had more energy. I’ve heard other things, obviously their sleep meditations, sleep music, weighted blankets, sleep positions, any of that really move the needle or something you recommend?

 

32:43

They can move the needle and certainly listening to sounds that relax you. For example, binaural beats, which is a combination of theta and theta waves, which kind of puts you into a very meditative state can certainly help to quieten the mind because a lot of people really struggle, myself included sometimes Casey, and maybe you’ve experienced with the mind that keeps on racing. There’s so many things and thinking about all the times like racing racing. And then yes, listening to soothing relaxing audio tracks, I am off, or however, chances are if you’re going to listen to those audio tracks before in the last hour before you go to sleep, then you’re probably putting it on your phone or your computer, which of course then exposes you to that artificial light. If you are going to do that, make sure you’re doing it while wearing a pair of blue light blocking glasses. Because well what is the point of view saying oh great, I’ve got this relaxing meditation I’m going to do now she’s going to put me to sleep. But you’re literally sitting in bed with the lights off staring into your phone, which is essentially a mini sun. It’s a sun that’s blasting you. If you are going to use meditations, things like that, or audio tracks, only set them up and use your phone while wearing a pair of glasses. 

 

Oil diffusers are good but you can create, you can burn little bits of lavender scent or cabin meal and things like that. That’s beautiful. That’s perfectly okay and in facts recommended be anything that will get you into a nice relaxed state is a good thing. A lot of people you can also drink magnesium or take a magnesium supplement close to bed because magnesium tends to relax you as well. Some people take magnesium baths of course. And then the other thing is ensuring that you have a very cool environment. And a lot of people get this, well a lot of people mistakenly think that they are cool environment means that staying warm means you’ve got to have like so many donors and so many blankets and all these kinds of things. I would rather you have a cool room and lots of blankets and keeping yourself warm than having a warm room. And just having like a light sheet on you, it’s so so important that you’re in a cool environment. If you have an air conditioning unit, you want to set it to some around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. 67, 68, 69. That’s quite chilly. And a lot of people are like, Oh, that’s quite chilly. But you’re right, it is quite chilly, but it’s okay to then rug up with some blankets are doing as, as long as the environment is cool, because studies are showing that anything above 69 degrees like since you get into 70 degrees, your sleep, your ability to sleep well starts to starts to drop.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:34

That’s interesting, because I think everyone knows on like incredibly hot days or nights, it’s really hard to sleep like tossing and turning. I live in Seattle, Washington, and I think a third or two thirds of the houses here don’t actually have air conditioning. Ours doesn’t. And I know that in the summer when it gets up to 90 degrees, we’re like making the kids take cold showers and putting wash cloths on him and all that kind of stuff.

 

36:01

Yeah, it’s so true. Isn’t it? Super, super hot summer day. Hard to go to sleep that night? Yeah, yeah, cool, cool, cool environment, even in the dead of winter. A lot of people want to blast their their room with hot air. Maybe you live in a snow. The temptation is to do that. Again, my recommendation is just make sure whatever you do, just keep your bedrooms temperature below 69 degrees between 65, 69 degrees because that is going to ensure you get a great night’s sleep. In fact, I remember I was in Park City, Utah, at the Sundance Film Festival about six, seven years ago and had this beautiful mansion that we were renting several friends of mine and I and it was very cold outside and my friends had blasted all this hot air throughout the home. And by the time I went to sleep, I was like, man, it’s so hot. And I was literally sleeping in a singlet and a pair of shorts and only had one sheet and it was freezing cold outside but stinking hot in my room. Yeah. And I ended up opening the window of my bedroom that I was sleeping in to allow the cool snowy winters air to come in and just cool that room down. And as soon as I did that, I was able to sleep beautifully that night. And when I woke up Yeah, a little chilly. But I just rubbed up with an extra blanket and dinner and it was actually quite cozy. I slept great.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:31

It’s cool to like, have the room at a cool temperature, but then still layer on blankets. So you’re not cold as long as your sort of head is out or whatever.

 

37:40

Exactly. And a lot of people think as well, that it kind of mimics how we felt as unborn babies in our mother’s womb. Like if you think about it, when we’re in our when we’re in their mother’s womb. We’re kind of encased in this protective layering, aren’t we? Like it’s kind of dangerous outside but we’ve got this. We’ve got this coverage going on because we’re safe in the mother’s womb. And you can, a lot of people suggest that when it’s sleeping in a cool room, but you’ve rubbed up in with dunas and blankets and things like that. It’s quite a comforting kind of unconscious feeling of safety, because it mimics that same feeling that we had as unborn children. Anyway, that’s not my philosophy. That’s just what some people say. People say and it seems quite nice to me.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:28

Okay, I have to ask you what, what is it do not I assume that’s an Australian thing. Okay, good. It’s my honor. Or

 

38:35

yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, it’s like a duvet. So do

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:39

I just like I don’t totally know what that is. That’s

 

38:43

asking. It’s my funny Australian accent. And

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:46

I like the Australian accent I mentioned before we jumped on the call that I had gone to the University of Melbourne first semester and played rugby there. And I know you played rugby as well. That was kind of

 

38:55

cool. Yeah. Amazing. What position did you play Casey?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:59

Oh, wing forward in the scrum.

 

39:01

Oh, wow. Okay, you were like a they call them a flanker or a breakaway as well. Yeah. You were fast to the breakdowns. Speedy and you had good aerobic ability and anaerobic ability. A

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:12

lot of catching lots of tackling.

 

39:14

Yeah. Nice.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:16

What about you?

 

39:17

I played that same position for many years. And then I also played fly half, which is the number 10. I did a bit more kicking and passing and not as much tackling.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  39:27

Yeah. Did you binge drink as much as I did playing rugby?

 

39:31

That’s crazy. The answer is yes. When I moved to Los Angeles in the early 2000s, I joined the Los Angeles rugby club. And at the end of games, we’d all go back to the team pub, which was called Shark Eyes at Manhattan Beach. It’s kind of like this infamous bar and slash pub right on the Pacific Ocean about 40 minutes south of Los Angeles airport. And if I was lucky enough to be voted the most valuable player of A game on that day, then the reward that they would give me was I had to skull like a half pitcher of beer, which is awful. I had literally another word of saying skull is like child drink a whole thing. And they’d all be going Chug, chug, chug, chug, chug. And I’d have to drink this Bud Light or bad, or whatever it was. And I was like, ah, and I would often feel just so awful afterwards. And like, what is the point of this thing, but that was part of the culture was like, you go into battle, you play rugby, you get beaten up. And then afterwards, you go back to the pub, and you drink beer with your comrades and you and you, you bond over this substance that is so damaging to us. So

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:40

I think that’s where I sort of definitely got into the habit of binge drinking and sort of thinking of, blacking out is not a big deal. And being funny, when you scored a try in my college they made you like it was called shooting the boot you had to chug out of a dirty cleat that was brought to every game like it was definitely interesting, but total initiation into sort of that drinking, that drinking culture. 

 

Well, what a bunch of that asleep. A bunch of the stuff you’re describing, I think is great, both for good sleep, which is so important. But also I know when you’re in early sobriety, one of the things that’s really helpful is creating a night routine, an evening routine, because you’re no longer sort of sitting on the couch or mindlessly watching TV the way you’re used to. And in the beginning, it can be hard to know what to do with yourself. In the evenings, some of the things you’re talking about sort of winding down, putting on the glasses, cutting out caffeine, like settling in with the bye bye neural beats. All those kinds of things, I think are a good routine. What about some people obviously do like, a lot of people take a hot bath and stuff like that, is that does that help? Does that hurt you?

 

42:03

Well, a hot bath is okay, as long as you’re not doing it within the last hour before you go to sleep because your core body temperature will rise quite, quite high. And remember, we want to have a cool body temperature for optimal sleep. Yes, a hot bath is very relaxing. And that’s terrific. But my advice would be do it, do it probably even two hours before you go to sleep to give your body enough time to lower its body temperature.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  42:27

Yeah, and I’ve heard you say before, like, don’t eat within three hours of bedtime. And that’s kind of good too, because it helps to shut down the kitchen where a lot of us are used to getting our drinks. And then just move to another room where you don’t normally drink. If you want to move up to your bedroom and start reading or watching a show or whatever not it helps to get out of the kitchen, which would help you not eat,

 

42:52

Thank you for reminding me about the impact of food on our sleep. Certainly, if you can ensure that the last bite of food that you put in your mouth happens three hours before your intended sleep time, that is also going to improve the quality of your sleep. This is actually really important. Because if you’re eating within that three hour window of sleep time, then again, you’re putting your body to work to digest the food. And you’re doing that at exactly the time that your body remember is wanting to prepare for sleep to relax to shut off we wanting to put it into a dormant state. But if you start eating or you’re continuing to eat or you’re snacking within three hours, what happens your body’s now having to go to work again. I actually will set an alarm in my phone for 30 minutes before I want to complete a meal. 

 

For example, when I was going to sleep at 9pm. When I was going through that phase, I would have an alarm that would go off at 5:30pm. And the alarm would say last meal in the next 30 minutes. That was my reminder that I had 30 minutes now to either go out to dinner or to prepare food and to eat. And then that was it. Once six o’clock rolled around, done. If 9pm was my intended sleep time, I brought it forward and I’ve moved back over the years depending on what time I go to sleep, but if you go to go to fall asleep at 1030, then you make sure that the alarm goes off at seven and it says you got to eat and finish eating in the next 30 minutes.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  44:23

Yeah, and what is the optimal amount of sleep? I would assume that everybody’s a little bit different. 

 

Yes, seven

 

44:30

to eight hours is is great. Seven to nine hours is great. A lot of people that’s just unrealistic, but the answer is get as many as you can, but more than just as many as you can. Let’s ensure that the quality of the as many as you can is as high as it can be. Because you could sleep nine hours but you drank alcohol and ate food in the last three hours before you went to sleep. And you can wake up feeling tired and lethargic as opposed to someone who only slept five hours, but they didn’t drink, they didn’t eat. They slept in a cool environment. And they slept five hours and they woke up that person could be feeling a lot better than the person who slept nine hours. Because it wasn’t a quality nine hours. I know, people were always fixated on how many hours how many hours. That’s important, very important. But equally important is the quality of those hours.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:27

Yeah. And I laughed, because I remember many times that I would not be able to motivate in the morning and sort of skip yoga and not dragged myself out of bed and been laying there but have the worst sleep ever, regardless of whether I pulled myself out of bed at 10 or 11am. I hear you on that in terms of the quality of sleep. I would say for anyone listening to this. I know I get a lot of questions about sleep, how to beat early sobriety, insomnia, when will we sleep? 

 

Well, James has provided so many amazing suggestions, I think, don’t get overwhelmed. What this is, what I’m hoping this episode will do is give you some really good ideas about ways to improve your sleep that aren’t what we’ve been doing in the past, which is drink a couple glasses of wine, think that’s helping us go to sleep, wake up, sleep poorly, and all that stuff. But there is an adjustment period between the way you’re out of the habit of falling asleep naturally, you’re also in withdrawal in the first couple of weeks. If your sleep isn’t great, just please stick it out, it will get better. And some of the suggestions that James gave, I think are really good anyway, because in early sobriety routine is really, really helpful. And the goal is to kind of slow down and lower the bar, you don’t have to add a million things to your list. But trying to get sunlight in the morning, going for some exercise in the morning, even if it’s a walk, winding down, at the end of the day, maybe reading a book or watching a show, but we’re blocking the blue light, putting on some sleep music, keeping your room cool. That’s all ways where you can think like, wow, this is a period of just extreme self care, I’m actually caring for myself, for the first time in a long time. And if you can’t do it all because you’ve got you’re a nurse and you work at night, or you’ve got kids or your husband’s out late and you’re dealing with all this stuff or picking up kids at 9pm. Like we get that right, like just it’s information to try to make incremental improvements.

 

47:45

Yeah, little improvements over time add up to massive, massive change. So there’s a couple of ways to do this, you could just do a complete overhaul of everything and just go right, here’s what I’m going to do this, this, this, this and this. And that can work. If it seems too overwhelming, just doing, just getting a pair of blue light blocking glasses, for example. Or just ensuring that the alarm goes off when you wake up. And instead of it saying wake up, it says Wake up and get sunlight. And then you go and get natural sunlight. That can be a huge game changer for you in terms of the level of your sleep, particularly for women, because 67% of women actually lose sleep when they have their period, as well. And then in addition to exposure to blue light to change in the hormone levels, and then there’s cramps, and there’s breast tenderness, there’s headaches, the change in temperature. All those things can influence a woman’s sleep really, for women in particular, just doing anything you can to change your current habits is going to relieve you a lot of the stress and pain that you may find yourself in. So yeah, my invitation to you is just whether it’s a complete overhaul you sleep or you just do a little thing this week, and then you do a little extra thing the next week, do something because otherwise just going to continue to be a miserable lifestyle as it relates to sleep.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  49:19

Yeah, and I know a couple years ago, I don’t remember exactly when it was but there was a huge conversation around sleep with Arianna Huffington book, The Sleep Revolution. Were there any parts of that that you felt like were really interesting? I’m sure that that you’re well versed in all the sleep literature.

 

49:39

Yeah, I think a lot of the stuff that came out is knowing your Chrono type as well, which is you naturally someone who goes to sleep late or early. Are you someone that’s more productive in the morning or in the evening time? There’s also you mentioned Arianna Huffington. There’s also a doctor called Dr. Michael Bruce. He wrote a book about your About Your Chrono Type. And essentially, it helps you to decipher whether you are best sleeping late at night or sleeping earlier, and what time you should wake up in the morning and what time you should sleep in until etcetera, etcetera. So, understanding some of those things can also help, in my personal opinion, of studying sleep now for seven years and also invested $100,000 past into these university studies is light manipulation in the sense of exposing yourself to natural light first thing in the morning and blocking as much artificial light at night. In my opinion, that’s going to move the needle the most, and then certainly just really monitoring your food and alcohol intake, especially so close to bedtime.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:47

That’s great. Well, where can people find these glasses? These Swannies?

 

50:52

Yeah, thank you. Our website is Swanwicksleep.com. And then they’re also available on Amazon. If you type in Swanwick, or Swanwick Sleep. My last name is spelled Swanwick, but it’s actually pronounced Swannack. And, yeah, they’re also available in Sleep Number stores across the US and sport check stores in Canada, but the easiest way really is online at Swanwick Sleep or on Amazon. Very cool.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  51:21

Well, I want to check those out. Especially because like I said, I often fall asleep with my daughter and my husband stays up till midnight, just scrolling his phone or watching TV. I kind of want to have him try it because he always says that he never gets a good night of sleep. And I’m always like, Dude, you got to come to bed earlier. You’re killing me. Oh, yeah, I definitely want to try some for him. I like how it goes.

 

51:44

Yeah, for sure. We’ll send you out a pair of Casey after we wrap up here. You can try them out and maybe motivate him to get himself a pair. But if he’s scrolling in his phone late at night, his sleep is definitely 100% being compromised.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  51:59

Yeah. And tell us about the Alcohol Free Lifestyle podcast. It’s a great one.

 

52:04

Thank you. I haven’t drunk alcohol since 2010. And I coach I guess you’d call them high performers, executives, entrepreneurs, mum and dads people in the you might identify as being in middle age like mid mid 30s 40s 50s 60s. That’s kind of the demographic I tend to work with. And we have this podcast called alcohol free lifestyle and Apple podcasts and on Spotify. And we interview a lot of graduating clients who go through my 90 Day stop drinking experience, which is called Project 90. And those interviews tend to be very inspiring and motivating for people who listen to the show, to help them to either reduce moderate or, or stop entirely. And then do these little tips as well on how to stop drinking or reduce or how to socialize and have fun without alcohol. And yeah, it’s fun. That’s awesome.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  52:57

Well, thank you so much for being on here. I’ll definitely put all of your links. For anyone interested in finding the podcast and your classes and all the work you’re doing in the show notes. Anyone can just go to the notes for this episode. And you can find all the ways to get in touch with James. 

 

Thank

 

53:14

you, Casey. Appreciate you having me. 

 

Yeah, it’s

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  53:16

great to talk to you. 

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  53:18