Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

Ep.149 Snooze or Lose: Sleep - The Foundation You Can't Ignore

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 149

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Tired of staring at the ceiling at 3 AM, running on empty, and feeling like a zombie by mid-afternoon? You’re not alone—midlife sleep struggles are real, but they don’t have to be your norm.

In this must-listen episode, I sit down with certified holistic sleep coach Morgan Adams to uncover why sleep gets harder in midlife—and more importantly, what you can actually do about it. We go beyond the usual “sleep hygiene” tips and dive into the real reasons women struggle: hormonal shifts, anxiety, stress, and yes, even that nightly glass of wine.

💡 Did you know? Morning sunlight is like nature’s pharmacy, setting your body up for better sleep at night. Or that even one drink can tank your sleep quality by 38%?

We break down science-backed, practical strategies to help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up feeling rested, not wrecked. Plus, Morgan shares her best tips for beating the dreaded 3 AM wake-ups, the one habit that makes the biggest difference, and the supplements that actually work.

It’s time to take back your sleep, your energy, and your sanity. Hit play now and start your journey to better rest tonight!

🎧 Listen now and grab Morgan’s free guide, "Awake Again at 3 AM," at MorganAdamsWellness.com.! 😴💛 She also shares her favorite sleep gadgets and products.

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Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan

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mfolanfasterway@gmail.com

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Michele Folan:

Sleep. It's something we all know we should prioritize, but let's be honest. It's often the first thing to take a hit when life gets busy. And if you're in midlife, you may have noticed that sleep isn't as simple as it used to be Tossing and turning, waking up at 3 am and dragging through the day. You are not alone. You are not alone Health, wellness, fitness and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife.

Michele Folan:

I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend. Here's the truth. Sleep is the foundation of everything your metabolism, your hormones, your ability to burn fat, your mental clarity and even how well you show up in relationships. If you're struggling to get quality rest, it's not just about feeling tired. It could be holding you back from reaching your health and wellness goals. Tired, it could be holding you back from reaching your health and wellness goals. That's why I'm excited to have Morgan Adams, a certified holistic sleep coach, back on the show today. Morgan has helped countless busy women reclaim their sleep, and today she's bringing fresh insights on how to optimize your rest so you can wake up feeling strong, clear-headed and energized. If you've been treating sleep as an afterthought, this episode is your wake-up call. Literally, let's dive in. Morgan Adams, welcome to Asking for a Friend.

Morgan Adams:

Thanks, Michele. It's great to be here with you again.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, you know, I on occasion will have guests back, and these are typically guests A those episodes have done very well and continue to get lots of downloads, and B ones that are just so in line with where my audience is. And we talk about sleep all the time with my clients. We talk about sleep all the time with my clients, and I just said I got to get Morgan back because I know there's new tips and tricks that you've learned since then. So but first of all, before we get started, Morgan, tell the audience where you're from and a little bit about your training and family stuff too.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, well, I'm born and raised in Richmond, virginia. I'm currently here, I'm married, I have two fur babies, two dog fur babies and two kitty fur babies, so it's a house full of animals, no human babies. And I actually started my whole career in social work which is kind of interesting from way back when and then kind of transitioned into pharmaceutical sales and then over into healthcare marketing and communications and I've been in sleep coaching for coming up on four years and I got into that because I had my own pretty significant struggles with sleep for about eight years and was dependent on Ambien, and I really have a soft spot in my heart for women who are struggling with their sleep.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and so how long did it take for you to be able to get rid of the Ambien? Just say, okay, I'm done.

Morgan Adams:

I really don't even remember. It was a while. So it was about 20 years ago that I got rid of the Ambien, okay, and that. You know it's interesting that part of my life feels kind of blurry. Maybe it has something to do with the Ambien, I don't know. But I remember I had a lot of fits and starts trying to wean myself off of it. And really the kicker on getting off of the medication for real was when I met my now husband, who was then my new boyfriend. He was like, look, when you take this medication you act like a zombie and it freaks me out. And I was like, oh, okay, so I did.

Morgan Adams:

You know, just for anyone out there who is on a sleep medication, on a psychiatric medication or really anything that's been prescribed, just from my own experience I would not recommend you taking yourself off of your meds without, like some kind of guidance or plan from your prescribing provider. I didn't know any better. I just kind of went rogue and luckily I got through it pretty well. But that's just something that I always like to mention because I don't want to sound so cavalier like, oh, I just stopped taking the meds. I didn't do it the way that I suggest my clients do it.

Morgan Adams:

So when I work with clients who are on sleeping pills and probably three-fourths of them are, honestly, the way that I position it is you know, I stay in my scope as a health coach and a sleep coach.

Morgan Adams:

I don't venture out into prescribing and, you know, making those medical decisions. So if a client wants to come off her sleeping medications, I will usually tell her to get a taper schedule from her doctor. But most of the time I actually provide one for the doctor to sign off on, because doctors, honestly, if they're a primary care doctor, they are likely not going to understand, like how medications are titrated down for sleep, or they may just be like why you know, like they might understand. So I really want to make sure that everyone is on the same page. So my client will have that written plan in her hands that doc has signed off on or whoever the nurse practitioner has signed off on, and then I help her implement the plan and give her the accountability and support. So I just want to make that clear that I'm not the one who's just like kind of calling all the shots, because I think it's important to stay in your lane as a coach and be appropriate in that way.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and you know I appreciate you bringing that up because I get asked about supplements all the time and I'll tell people what I take, but with the preface of look, I am not telling you this is what you should be taking. My doctor knows exactly what I take, what doses, why I take. It is why I take it, and so I would never recommend someone take something or quit taking something without consulting their doctor first. So, yeah, it's always good to kind of put that out there. Yeah, very wise, you had a journey with cancer.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah.

Michele Folan:

And how did that play into your sleep? And how did that play into your?

Morgan Adams:

sleep, yeah, so a lot of people think that the insomnia and the breast cancer were related. The insomnia came way before the cancer, so there is really no tie in there, but what happened was the breast. Well, so I've had two breast cancers. Unfortunately, the first one was in 2018. And that really was like a massive wake up call on many levels, especially with my health. I stopped drinking alcohol as much. I started really looking at what I was putting in my body and eliminating processed foods, toxins, just getting healthier overall and that diagnosis in 2018 really helped me understand that I wanted to help other women with their health, but I did not actually know in what capacity that would be. I briefly explored being like a breast cancer recovery coach, but I never really really delved into that. And then the pandemic was sort of like the second thing that got me really really thinking about my purpose. Right, and during the pandemic this is where it all kind of ties in During the pandemic, in the very first couple months, my sleep started to get bad again and I was like, oh no, I don't want to have insomnia.

Morgan Adams:

So I went online and started researching how to get better sleep. I got an Oura ring to track my sleep and I was able to get my sleep back on track, and because I was so excited about all this, what I was doing, I started posting it on Facebook organically and found out that a lot of other women were having trouble with their sleep and so that previous desire to help women with their health. It was like all the stars aligned and I realized, okay, here's something you can actually do with your life as a career and help women with their sleep. You're really passionate about sleep and health and helping women, so why not be a sleep coach? So that's kind of how it all kind of came together.

Morgan Adams:

And I've been doing this coming up on four years, so I took a year to like really get my certifications and health coaching and sleep coaching, because it's one thing to say I'm going to be such and such, well, great, you know you can't really hang your shingle until you've gotten some knowledge under your belt, right? So I had to really spend a while to get the knowledge that I have, and the knowledge that I have now is not the same knowledge I had a few years ago. I keep growing and growing and building my skill set and learning new things. Yes, you do.

Michele Folan:

I've been following you for a long time and don't minimize your certifications, because you're double certified, right? If I remember correctly.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, I've got a few certifications. At this point now, it's just interesting because sleep coaching as a profession doesn't have a standardized certification, so there's been a little bit of backlash with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. They're like okay, some of them are like, they really like sleep coaches. Some of them are like oh gosh, sleep coaches, they're not regulated. I've heard them talk about wanting to regulate sleep coaching and honestly, I'm all in favor of that. Like I would love to see some kind of regulatory, like kind of bona fide certification by a body that's recognized, so that that gives me more recognition, right, yeah, but we don't have that yet. I guess they're thinking about it, maybe I don't know All right.

Morgan Adams:

Hopefully.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, one thing I did want to ask, because I've known a few people that have done sleep studies yeah, do people ever come to you and they bring a sleep study with them and say hey, can you help me make heads or tails of this so that I can use this data for good?

Morgan Adams:

You know, not usually. I mean, I've had a couple here and there, but usually their doctor has been the one to kind of give them the lowdown on what's going on with their sleep. Yeah, so it's not usually. It's kind of the reverse. It's usually I'm the one who's working with them, and I get to a point, usually with a woman, and I'm like okay, I think we need a sleep study for you, and then I'll recommend a sleep study, you know, and then her doctor will usually be the one to kind of determine what's going on, cause I just feel like it's more again, more in scope to have the doctor kind of make the final decision.

Morgan Adams:

I don't diagnose or treat, you know. So if somebody comes to me with sleep apnea, I can't really work with them unless they're already under the care of another doctor. And with the insomnia piece, for sure I can work with them. But a lot of times people come to me with both insomnia and sleep apnea and so we have to make sure that that client is managed appropriately on the medical end with her sleep apnea treatment, because you don't want to be.

Morgan Adams:

A lot of times this will happen in primary care is a woman comes to her primary care doctor with complaints of sleep and she gets misdiagnosed with having insomnia or depression and so she gets put on antidepressants or sleeping meds which end up exacerbating her sleep apnea. And this is a whole other thread. But essentially primary care doctors need more training in sleep science, sleep medicine, to adequately assess, because a lot of times primary care doctors they will dismiss women like us, women who are not overweight. You and I, we're thinner, we look healthy, but we could very well have sleep apnea or sleep breathing issue and they will overlook us because we're not male and overweight with big necks.

Michele Folan:

Uh-huh, oh, I know, and you know what. I wake up sometimes in the middle of the night and my mouth is wide open and I'm like, oh right, I mean it does become way more common in midlife for women to develop sleep apnea, more common in midlife for women to develop sleep apnea, and you may not know, unless your partner is nudging you because you're gasping for air. But you said something that doctors aren't equipped or trained in sleep. Well, they don't get a lot of training in nutrition either. They sure don't. So I mean it keeps people like you and me busy, because people need our help because their doctors aren't able to do everything. So, yeah, yeah. So I do want to ask you a question. We talk about midlife and sleep issues. Yeah, what is the main reason you find that women really start struggling with sleep at this age?

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, well, there are a host of things.

Morgan Adams:

So when you look at midlife women in general, there's like kind of three main issues why I see them struggling with their sleep.

Morgan Adams:

The first one is kind of like an obvious one it's hormones fluctuating, estrogens declining, progesterones declining, and we start to really see those effects in our sleep. The second reason I would say is we tend to be more prone to anxiety and depression in our midlife years and those both leave us more vulnerable to sleep issues. And then, I think you know, the third reason is really sociocultural, if you will, and that is if you have a typical woman in midlife let's just say she's 50, 45, 50, somewhere around there. She may have kids still at home that she's responsible for, she may have parents who are aging, who need her help, and then, on top of all of that, she's probably at the height of her career. Maybe she's a manager at a corporation, or maybe she's an entrepreneur and she's got a lot going on. So all of these demands that she has, combined with the potential hormone issues and the you know, maybe the mood issues, it's like a really it can be kind of a recipe for disaster for their sleep in many cases.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I've been there.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, me too.

Michele Folan:

You know? And then, if someone has true insomnia, what are the long-term ramifications of not addressing that?

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think that sometimes what we need to do is we need to look at what insomnia really is, because sometimes in the studies and in the media they will be referring to insomnia and sleep deprivation interchangeably right, so it's almost like they're separate questions. So if we think about insomnia as having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or waking up too early, having unsatisfactory sleep, we're not satisfied with it and we have some kind of daytime consequences. There's really not a whole lot of evidence that just those things in and of themselves are going to kill you a lot of people who have insomnia. I mean, I look at a lot of message boards about sleep and insomnia and people are really scared. They're really scared that they're going to have some really dire consequences of insomnia. And people are really scared. They're really scared that they're going to have some really dire consequences of insomnia. And the reason why they do, I believe, is because they're seeing studies in the media that refer to sleep deprivation and not insomnia, because there's so much about insomnia that is really tied in with your relationship with sleep. So if we were to say what are the long-term consequences of just insomnia? That is really tied in with your relationship with sleep. So if we were to say what are the long-term consequences of just insomnia, what I would say is mental health issues first and foremost. So we do know that untreated insomnia that's been going on for over a year doubles your risk of depression. So that's a huge risk, because who wants to live their life depressed and not able to have a good relationship with sleep and just the quality of life? I mean, I can just speak for myself and my clients. When you have insomnia, your life shrinks, you start to build your life around sleep and what you can and cannot do, you don't make yourself as available to function socially, so your world becomes pretty small. So I think that's a big consequence, although it may not be, like you know, a true quote health consequence in that regard, of like maybe having diabetes or high blood pressure. So that's really kind of the best answer I have for you as far as, like what the long-term consequences are of insomnia.

Morgan Adams:

Now the conversation can switch very much when we're talking about the long-term consequences of sleep deprivation, which is really defined as more like getting less than six hours of sleep on a regular basis. That's like what we're looking at when we see these studies about problems with health. Those are usually being looked at as people who are, you know, getting very little sleep over a long period of time and those studies are showing correlations with insulin resistance, weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, a lot of these chronic disease situations. But we need to also be careful about that too. Sorry, there's so many caveats here, but in those studies they're looking at correlations. So they're not actually saying X causes Y, because all they have are correlations, so something is linked with something else. Because we're never going to have like a placebo-controlled, double-blinded study looking at sleep deprivation, because it's actually unethical to sleep-deprived people for that long. So the best we have really with sleep deprivation studies are short-term, like you know a few days or maybe even a week of sleep deprivation days or maybe even a week of sleep deprivation.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and we do talk about this with my clients and coaching is that poor sleep can impact your metabolism, and we kind of set the standard for seven to eight hours of sleep at least, because it does enhance the whole weight loss journey. But if you have someone because you said six hours I know there are people listening right now that are getting less than that sleep, and so I want to talk about some of those strategies, if you will. That if I were to come to you as a client and I am really struggling to get that much sleep Because I think about you know, morgan, I want to say this really quick is that just going to bed, not knowing if you're going to fall asleep, would create so much anxiety I could see you not wanting to go to sleep to make that I don't know that effort to go to bed because you just think you're going to lie there. I mean it would be such a vicious cycle.

Morgan Adams:

Right, yeah, what you're describing is very typical with a lot of my clients, and I call it sleep anxiety. That's really kind of what it is, because you're anxious about the consequences of tossing and turning, of what your night's going to be like. You're also nervous and anxious about the consequences of what's going to happen the next day without that sleep. So there's a lot of self-talk going on in that process up leading to bed, and so what we really want to do is kind of create that and it doesn't happen overnight, but we want to create that sense of peace and less stress with the whole process of going to bed and falling asleep, absolutely.

Michele Folan:

So my husband laughs at me because I don't let him turn on any overhead lights at night.

Morgan Adams:

You're so good, me too.

Michele Folan:

Okay, and he's like God. We're like freaking bats. Why can't we turn the lights on? I said because we are resetting our circadian rhythm and we want to, you know. So I know there's way more than that, but that's what we're doing here at the Folan household.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, same here. We're doing the same thing. Absolutely, we could talk about it. There's so many directions we could go. We could talk about how to set up for a proper light environment from morning till night, if you want, I mean, we can go any direction we want.

Michele Folan:

I would love that because yeah, because I, you know we talk about getting morning light, but I want to. I want people to understand what the importance is of getting that morning sunshine, but then how that progresses through the day and how they can also enhance it other ways.

Morgan Adams:

Great Well, so, starting in the morning, we really want to prioritize getting morning sunlight as soon as we can when we wake up. So if you look at the entire year, the sun is shifting when it's rising throughout the year, and so what I'm usually recommending to my clients is them getting an app. The one that I've been using for the past six months, since it's been launched, is called my Circadian App. We should probably put a link in the show notes, because everyone loves it and it's a free app, but you can pay I think what? $4 a month for all of the features of the app and you can get a free month using my code, morgan. But in any case, what you would do is you download the app and your location is critical to how the app works.

Morgan Adams:

So what you will see on the app is all of these different times when the sun is rising, so you'll know, actually, when the sun is going to rise and you can tell in the next few days when it'll rise, so you can kind of plan your schedule. So that sunrise is really a very important time to be out, because that time of the sunrise and when you're outside, of course, no sunglasses or anything covering your eyes. That's really important. It's really going to be sending a very strong signal to your suprachiasmatic nucleus that it is the start of the day and that will help the cortisol, the melatonin pulse, gets situated properly and then you really only need about 10 minutes of that sunlight in the morning around sunrise, and then what we have after sunrise is a very, very beautiful time called UVA rise. So there's UVA light in the, in the around us pretty much all throughout the day and the app will tell you exactly when the UVA light is happening. But the morning UVA light is really like I call I've been calling it nature's like your internal pharmacy, right?

Morgan Adams:

Because what's happening when you get exposed to the UVA light of course without sunglasses is you're going to have all of these neurotransmitters converting amino excuse me, you're going to have all these amino acids converting to neurotransmitters. So you're going to have your tryptophan, which is a neurotransmitter, converting over to serotonin, which converts to melatonin, to prepare your body for the next night of melatonin. You're going to have tyrosine converting over to dopamine and norepinephrine for motivation and alertness. You're going to have thyroid balancing effects. You're going to have appetite regulating effects. So if you're into weight loss, keeping a good body composition. This is the actual key time to be outside. So how much time? About 20 minutes is probably a sweet spot. Now I personally I'm lucky that I can control my own schedule because I work for myself, but I literally don't really schedule clients or podcast interviews or things that I need to be like pinned down for in that period of time of the UVA rise because I want to be available. Okay, I want that free medicine.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, no, I love that. This is. I never knew this. I never knew this. I never knew this. So I knew about the early morning light, resetting your circadian rhythm if I could talk today circadian rhythm, and then even that early evening light I've been told that that is very positive to get that very positive to get that.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, and let me just tag on one thing about how much light. So on this app you have something called a lux meter and it measures the amount of light in your environment. So you basically hold up your camera and you'll get. You hold it up eye level because you want to track what's coming into your eyes. You basically need about 1300 lux in the morning for optimal metabolic function in that morning light.

Morgan Adams:

So if you think about what a lot of people tend to do is they're like, well, I don't want to go outside because it's cloudy, I'm going to stay inside. Well, the problem with that is inside maxes out at about 500 lux. So if you really want to get your metabolism and all of those processes going, you need actually to be outside to get that, because you're not going to get the amount of light from your home. Look, even just opening a window, you're just not going to get it. So because I do have a lot of clients who are like, yeah, it was cloudy or it was rainy and so I opened my window or I just stood by my window.

Morgan Adams:

I'm like no, that is actually not going to work out very well. You know you have to go outside. Now, if you have like a screened in porch, you can potentially get some light benefits from that, but you can't have like a glass window and get the benefits from looking at the glass, because in modern-day homes they're blocking that UV light from you by making that glass in a certain way. Okay, so we've covered the morning and how important that is, and then we want to talk about in the first few hours before we go to bed. So, thinking about the three hours before bed, we want to have our lux at 10 or less, and again, you can use that lux meter in your house. So I actually did. You know, toy around with.

Morgan Adams:

I have overhead lights in my, in my main area where we hang out after dinner, and I was like, ooh, we cannot have these overhead lights on.

Morgan Adams:

I was like you, I was like we're turning these off, and so I've adjusted the table lamps to be on and they are less than 10 lux for that. And I even actually, michelle, I went inside my bathroom and I had my husband unscrew one of the because like one light switch controls two lamps above each sink and I had him unscrew one of the light bulbs so that when you turn on the switch you have basically half the light to equate up less than 10 lux, because a lot of people don't think about this issue and I didn't until like just several months ago, and this is my work, right so sometimes you're oblivious to it in your own setting, but but we go in our bathroom at night and we brush our teeth, we do our skin care and most of those lights are bright because they're made for, like, putting on your makeup, right. So we kind of need to be thinking about like those details too in our home which you know we're not thinking of often.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I use. I use the shower light so I turn on the shower light so that, because those lights above my sink are just, they're awful.

Morgan Adams:

They're not circadian friendly.

Michele Folan:

No, no no, no, hey, Morgan, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back I want to talk a little bit about why we wake up at 3 am. Hey there, if you've been watching from the sidelines telling yourself I'll start next week or I'll start when things aren't so crazy in my life, this is your wake-up call. Another year of feeling sluggish, frustrated, with belly and back fat and stuck no thanks, you deserve better, and I've been where you are. I know how hard midlife changes can be, but here's the truth your body can feel strong, energized and capable again with the right strategy and support. That's exactly what I do in my coaching. So stop waiting. Let's make this the year you actually put yourself first.

Michele Folan:

My next six-week midlife reset starts soon, so grab your spot now. Just email me at mfollin that's F as in Frank O-L-A-N. Fasterway at gmailcom. Your future self will thank you. Okay, we are back. Before we went on the break, I mentioned that I want to talk about why we wake up at 3 am, and then how do we fall back to sleep?

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, this is literally the most common complaint that my clients have and I want to share some information about it. But before I share that, I want you to know that I've actually wrote a free guide all about it and it's called Awake Again at 3 am your Guide to why. You're've actually wrote a free guide all about it and it's called Awake Again at 3am your Guide to why You're Waking Up and what to Do About it. You can get it from my website. So it's got basically the whole kit and caboodle. But I want to share some key insights from that guide to kind of get you started.

Morgan Adams:

First thing I'll say about wake-ups is that they're normal. It's normal to actually wake up in the middle of the night because we have four to five-ish sleep cycles that we go through throughout the night. They last roughly 90 minutes give or take, and after each sleep cycle we do typically have a brief awakening, and that awakening is actually kind of rooted in our biology. So think back many, many years ago. Before we were in our nice safe homes, we were out in the wilderness, right. There were things that could potentially prey upon us. So that brief awakening is really an evolutionary process that's lingered on into modern day life. So we're doing a brief scan for our safety and surroundings and then we go back to sleep. So if you're waking up in the middle of the night, one thing you can tell yourself is you know, you can normalize it by saying, okay, I must have just completed a sleep cycle and everything's okay. Now where it gets to be a little tricky is when we can't fall back asleep. That's when things go awry. And so one thing I will share is that it's very normal to have catastrophic, unrealistic thoughts in the middle of the night, because when you are up at that hour one, two, three, four, whenever it is middle of the night your prefrontal cortex, the rational part of your brain, is still asleep and you're mainly operating from your amygdala, your emotional center, and there's even a concept that's being studied right now called mind after midnight. And what they're basically showing is that in those hours the one to three-ish hours when they measure people's mood over a course of the day that is when people are at their worst mood and they're the lowest emotionally. Which is why and not to get too morbid here, but that's why we see most of the suicides at that time of night is because people have very dire or rational thoughts which they act upon. So, no matter what you're doing like if you're having those rational thoughts at 3 am trust me, I have to coach myself on this repeatedly is I have to tell myself, okay, it's the middle of the night, the things that you're worrying about right now are not going to seem as significant at 8 am. You just have to remind yourself that you're not in your best frame of mind not to act on anything, not to do anything, but really just to almost contract with yourself that whatever you're worried about you will deal with tomorrow, when you have actually your wits about you. Right, yeah, okay. So those are really some mindset shifts.

Morgan Adams:

Want to talk about a few reasons why people are waking up? Yeah, okay, and this, yeah, I list them all out in the guide, but let's hit on a few biggies, okay. The first one that I will share is glucose drops. Glucose like blood sugar dips in the middle of the night. That is very common, and what happens when we have those blood sugar dips is we have a cortisol spike and that's what wakes us up.

Morgan Adams:

So sometimes people will do an overnight continuous glucose monitor on their arm and that way, if they're having the wake-ups, they can see if they can correlate those wake-ups to any kind of glucose crash. And in that case what you will want to do is you'd really want to do a deeper dive into your metabolic health. You'd really want to kind of uncover the reason why you've got that blood sugar imbalance and address that. But one thing that you could test like just anyone can do this if you're getting those wake-ups in the middle of the night is maybe have a small snack like an hour before bed, and the small snack would not be Oreos or ice cream. It wouldn't be that kind of snack, it would be like.

Morgan Adams:

I know like we were really kind of wondering, like, what are we going to make a snack on tonight? You would want to have maybe a few bites of leftover dinner. You might have some Greek yogurt with some almonds or some nut butter and a couple of small crackers, something very small with enough protein and fat and maybe some complex carbs so that you've got that blood sugar stability to keep you awake overnight, right. So that's something you could try to see. If maybe the root cause of it.

Morgan Adams:

You mean keep you asleep overnight? Yes, yes, exactly, thank you, twisted my words. Yeah, yeah, so that could be a little test you could run on yourself to see if the wake-ups are due to that blood sugar dysregulation, then you know. The second one is being too hot, and that doesn't necessarily mean that you're having a hot flash or night sweats, but really you're just overheated. And this is very common when we get into midlife and we have that estrogen drop, because that estrogen is really responsible for temperature regulation. So what you can do for that is, I mean you could lower your temperature in temperature in your sleeping environment quite a bit, you know, maybe lower it to mid-60s. If it's 70 during the daytime, lower it to mid-60s or below that. You could have bamboo sheets, bamboo PJs or nightgown. I actually my hack for this is a cooling mattress pad my hack for this is a cooling mattress pad.

Morgan Adams:

It has been my saving grace for the past three years having one of those in my bedroom to keep me, you know, cool all night long and you can adjust the temperature to your liking, having it be warm when you wake up whatever your preference is. The only downside of the mattress pads is it sucks to travel because you don't have it with you.

Michele Folan:

Oh, so yeah, you can't. That's a tough one, so you miss it.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, because I don't ever sweat unless I'm traveling, and I'll wake up like really overheated in a hotel or an Airbnb and I'm like, oh, where's my, where's my eight sleep? Where is it when I so? Do you have a brand you recommend? Where's my eight sleep?

Michele Folan:

Where is it when I so? Do you have a brand you recommend? Yeah, I do?

Morgan Adams:

I like eight sleep the best. I used to use the ChiliPad for a while but then it broke and it's a long story I won't get into but basically they were kind of temporarily out of business and I desperately needed the pad. So I went ahead and sprung for the eight sleep and it's much easier to maintain and there's a sleep tracker embedded as well. But in any case they all do the trick. It's just a matter of like how high tech you want to be and how much maintenance you want to put into it. But I highly recommend exploring some kind of cooling device on your bed. It's really a game changer.

Morgan Adams:

And then the third reason for the wake-ups is sleep disordered breathing. So that would be either sleep apnea or upper airway resistance syndrome. And quite often what will happen is if you have a sleep tracker and you're looking at it and you see all these like little small white ticks where you're waking up, that can be indicative, like they're really brief, and sometimes you're not even aware of them, you're not even like fully aware that you're up, but your sleep does get disrupted and fragmented. And so that is why I'm very much a proponent of every woman in midlife getting a sleep study, yeah, especially if they're having trouble sleeping.

Morgan Adams:

But I really do feel like we think about when we get our physical. You know, usually we'll get a physical by our primary care doctor and they'll do like a blood pressure check. They'll do these things for us, but yet why aren't we getting our sleep breathing measured, like we get our blood pressure measured? It's such a, it's a vital sign, and I'm just like so, like why aren't we getting our sleep breathing measured, like we get our blood pressure measured? It's a vital sign, and I'm just like so, like why aren't we doing this? Yeah, and I think it's honestly because they're overlooking women and because we don't present in the same way that men do.

Michele Folan:

Right, yeah, we don't have the big barrel chests and, like you said, before the thick neck and all of that.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, before the thick neck and all of that. Yeah, but I know so many women who are even in their 30s. I've got clients in their 30s who are tiny, thin women with sleep apnea. They would have never suspected them at the doctor's office of having sleep apnea. So I would say that it would be very well a good investment to have your sleep breathing measured if you're having frequent wake-ups at night.

Michele Folan:

Okay, I may know the answer to this question, but are there any foods or beverages that you find that disrupt people's sleep more often?

Morgan Adams:

Yes. Well, the two that come to mind are caffeine. Too much coffee in the afternoon seems to be kind of a deal breaker with a lot of people in their sleep and alcohol. Yeah, so the problem with alcohol is that as we get older, our livers don't process it as well. So the few drinks that we may have had in our 30s on a weekend will pretty much trash our sleep in midlife. It's like our bodies are just not able to handle it and our sleep gets very disrupted. So we basically have a lot of our deep sleep and REM sleep suppressed when we have alcohol. It increases the risk of sleep breathing issues. It hurts your circadian rhythm, it makes you hotter.

Morgan Adams:

I mean interesting story. I was at a restaurant with my husband and there were women there at the table next to us who I think might be in their late 50s at the table next to us who I think might be in their late 50s and they were ordering their second glass of wine and they were asking for a bread basket refill whilst they were complaining about their hot flashes and night sweats. I'm tangling here a little bit, but just the whole point is, those are the kinds of things that you have at dinner. That can kind of wreck your sleep. So the alcohol and you know I'm not going to say like never drink, but like really think of be strategic. If you're going to drink, be strategic about what you're going to do and plan, plan to have alcohol earlier in the evening Maybe, like when I drink alcohol I will drink it like four or five in the afternoon.

Michele Folan:

I'll have like one drink A little day drink in there. Yeah, like a little late afternoon.

Morgan Adams:

You know, my husband and I usually go to dinner around five. I might have a cocktail at five and then that's it for the night no more, whereas before, years ago, I would have nightcap drinks after dinner, and that is just like a recipe for disaster for your sleep. So just if you want to have alcohol, at least be strategic about it and time it so that you're having it earlier and maybe cutting back, like having one instead of two. That could make a huge difference, because they did a study showing that more than one alcoholic drink can impact your sleep quality for women by 38%, and so it goes up for each drink you have. Your sleep quality takes a dip for each drink, so you're really leaving a lot of sleep quality on the table, yeah.

Michele Folan:

You know you brought up REM and deep sleep before, and for those that wear Sleep Tracker, they can see how much REM and deep sleep they're getting versus light sleep. Yeah, is there a certain amount that you would look for in terms of your own sleep quality?

Morgan Adams:

Generally speaking, you're looking at like 20 to 25% REM sleep for a healthy adult and probably 15 to 20% for deep sleep for a healthy adult. But the caveat here there's a couple. Number one is that the sleep staging is the least accurate of all the areas of sleep. They're measuring on a tracker, so you can't and this is embarrassing, but I wear four sleep trackers, oh my God and on any given night you'll see different stages of deep sleep according to which tracker I use.

Michele Folan:

Okay.

Morgan Adams:

So I kind of just I don't get too hung up on it, I just kind of eyeball the average and call it a day, right, I'm not going to get all hung up on it. And then the second thing I'll point out is that they're looking at healthy young adults in their algorithm. They're not looking at anyone with a sleep disorder. They're not looking at people who are in midlife and beyond. They're looking at probably like a 25-year-old, healthy person, probably like a 25-year-old healthy person.

Morgan Adams:

And I had a situation recently where my 55-year-old client was telling me that she and her 23-year-old daughter were comparing Oura Ring scores and deep sleep scores and I was like stop, do not do that, because you're at an unfair advantage, because when you get into your late 40s your deep sleep is starting to really decline. Your deep sleep is starting to decline even earlier than that, but once you hit your late 40s you've got about half the amount of deep sleep you had when you were younger and it keeps just declining. I'm not trying to depress anyone, I'm just being a complete realist. By the time you're in your 70s you don't have a lot of deep sleep. That is just our biology. So I always point that out to people who are in midlife and beyond, because you're going to see some dips and I've seen, certainly over the five years that I've been tracking with my Oura Ring, some decrease in the deep sleep, yikes.

Morgan Adams:

I know there's some things you can do. I mean it's not gloom and doom, but you kind of have to be more conscientious about your habits Not drinking the alcohol, sleeping in a cool environment. Exercise is a very, very reliable way to get more deep sleep. Get more deep sleep. They've done like a meta-analysis of 13 studies showing that exercise helps middle-aged adults and older get deep sleep. So we have some things at our disposal to help us with that.

Michele Folan:

I started on progesterone in 2021 after my hysterectomy 2021 after my hysterectomy. That was a game changer for me personally, just addressing my hormones Are there any natural sleep aids or supplements that actually work that you have in your armatarium?

Morgan Adams:

Wow, Well, I've tried a lot. A lot of companies send me their sleep supplements. I do use pretty much every night erbitonin, which is a plant form of melatonin very low dose. Melatonin is a very controversial supplement in the sleep world. There's a lot of variance in terms of opinions that people have, but I actually think it could be a good use case scenario for people in midlife, because there's a concept that I did not invent I forgot the name of the guy, but he called it melatonopause. Basically, our melatonin, like our deep sleep, starts to decrease in midlife. There's a graph that I have that basically shows the big slump after 50. So personally, I don't find any issue with people who are in midlife and beyond supplementing with a small dose of melatonin. So I use that. I use something called cuddle sleep and honestly, I use it mostly because I think it tastes so delicious.

Michele Folan:

It's like a little oh, so you do it before, before you go to bed. Yeah, like you would having a herbal tea or something like that.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, To me it's like I've got a sweet tooth and I kind of want a little dessert, sort of without a dessert. So I just make this little sleepy drink and it's got some really good ingredients in it. There's a lot to it really. I kind of go back and forth with supplements because I guess at the end of the day I really feel like if you are relying on supplements as your first step in correcting your sleep, you're kind of majoring in the minors, right. So in my world, supplements are really the last thing to be added for most people, because I want to focus more on teaching people sustainable habits that they can have for the rest of their lives. And then the supplements come in as a tweak. Mainly, your mileage may vary with supplements.

Morgan Adams:

There are certain ingredients that have been looked at and studied a little bit more than others. But I mean, I read a lot of you know I jump in or like, look at a lot of posts about midlife sleep and what's working for people and just the variance of answers they give for supplements is just like there's no like real consistent supplement that seems to work for everybody. So I just kind of say to people experiment with things if you want. Honestly, there's quite a bit of a placebo effect with a lot of supplements, I think. So a lot of things. People will say, oh, that definitely worked for me, but did it work for you because you thought it would work for you, or did it work for you because the ingredients were that powerful, Like? I just feel like these are questions that we kind of have to ask ourselves. I mean, you know, I'm not sure how much that little chocolate drink helps me sleep, but I like the ritual of doing it. I find enjoyment from it. I might be wasting my money, I don't know.

Michele Folan:

Well, you know what, though? You have that drink, drink and it's your body signal to start winding down. So it could be that mental thing, because I do herbal tea every night before I go to bed and I'm doing the dishes and I'm heating up the water, and that's kind of my little routine, right. And then I go put on my pajamas. Now it's still light out and I feel like a big old dork because I'm putting on my pajamas and it's still light out, but that's.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, me too, me too.

Michele Folan:

You know, the other thing that I know gets touted quite a bit for helping women with sleep in terms of a supplement is magnesium.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, that's probably the most popular one Now. I used to recommend magnesium glycinate as the magnesium for sleep, but I recently heard I believe it was Dr Matt Walker share some new information. Walker share some new information. He was talking about magnesium threonate being probably a better choice because there's more potential to cross the blood-brain barrier. So now my you know, I mean my opinions are going to change, you know, as we move on and as we get more data. But right now, if I were to pick a magnesium that I would use, I'd probably go with the 3 and 8. Glycinate probably isn't a bad choice. There's at least eight different types of magnesium and sometimes it's nice to have a full spectrum, but some people find it really helpful. I honestly never really felt many effects from magnesium, but certain people swear by them. But I think if you're going to start with something, that might be a good starting point, because there's probably more data on magnesium than there is on other types of ingredients.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I know that it's recommended a lot for bone health. The only issue you get sometimes if you get a high enough dose of magnesium, even even the glycinate is that you get some gastrointestinal issues yeah, that's particularly true with magnesium citrate.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, so I I'd say, if, if you're going to experiment with magnesium, maybe maybe don't go with the citrate. If bowel issues are an issue for you, that might not be the the preferred one. And, um, you know, watch the dosage like, try not to get too high, too fast, try to kind of keep it moderate, like two to 300 maybe at first.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, start low, go slow. Yeah, yeah, I not to share too much, but I still have issues just taking a small dose of the magnesium glycinate.

Morgan Adams:

So I, yeah, well, it just that's just a case in point to show that everyone is so bio-individual what's going to work for you may not work for someone else.

Michele Folan:

Alrighty, I have just a case in point to show that everyone is so bio-individual what's going to work for you may not work for someone else. All righty, I have just a few more quick questions for you. I know we're kind of going long, but these are kind of important. What are your thoughts on CBD for help sleeping?

Morgan Adams:

Yeah. So there's not a ton of data about CBD that I could find, because I've been asked about this topic before. It seems to be the best option for people who have potentially a lot of anxiety and also with pain. Those are sort of the, I guess, the demographics I would probably steer CBD toward. Now you may hear that you should start low and go slow. All of the people who have sold me CBD have counseled me on that and it makes sense from a general perspective as far as any supplement or any medication.

Morgan Adams:

But I did actually hear something interesting about CBD on a Matthew Walker podcast a while back. He delves into real sleep-specific issues and he was talking about lower doses of CBD, under 25 milligrams, potentially promoting wakefulness. So I throw that out there. If somebody is taking a low dose of CBD and it's not helping their sleep, perhaps it's because it's too low, right. So he did actually show a study that showed that sleep quality was best at like 80 milligrams. The study showed a higher boost in sleep quality at 80 milligrams, which seems like kind of a lot. So I I think that with this kind of like conflicting data or conflicting up you know advice, it may just be worthwhile to experiment with the different dosing and if you find that, I mean it's, it's probably not a bad idea to start low and go slow. I mean also in terms of money, these CBD supplements are not cheap Correct At all, and so if you immediately jump to the high dose, you could go through a bottle in a couple weeks and it would be expensive overall. So it may not from a cost perspective. It may be worth trying a lower dose first, seeing how that works for you. If it doesn't really help you with sleep, maybe bump it up.

Morgan Adams:

I've personally tried a lot of CBD products. Several companies have sent me their products, so I haven't really had to shell out my own money for many of these, fortunately. But they've been like gummies and like the oil tinctures. Nothing has really moved the needle for me very much with CBD and I'm tracking my sleep pretty rigorously. However, I have friends and clients who tell me CBD has been a game changer for them and clients who tell me CBD has been a game changer for them. So, just like with any supplement, your mileage may vary according to who you are, but it seems to be a pretty benign type of supplement. I don't know of any ill effects that people have reported from taking CBD, so it's a pretty benign thing to try, okay.

Michele Folan:

You know, I too have people sending me samples of things, and I did try the CBD the other night. Now I did wake up at like 2 in the morning, so I don't know if it's when the CBD wore off. Could have been yeah. So I'm going to try it again. These were gummies, and don't ask me what the milligram was and I even asked them. I said so I'm kind of on the small side, should I do one or two? And he's like, no, go ahead and do two. And I said okay, so I did, and I did fall asleep very quickly. So I you know.

Morgan Adams:

That's why I wanted to ask you and a couple other follow-ups to that, the person who sold it to you or the company. Like I, usually tend to seek counsel from the people who own the company, or if it's an independent distributor. One of the, a friend of mine, sold the CBD and she I got counsel from her on how to dose it because she knows her product and sold the CBD and I got counsel from her on how to dose it because she knows her product. If you're confused, I would go to the company and explain, just like with what you did, because they are going to know their product better and I think that's a good starting point.

Morgan Adams:

Also, gummies, though I feel like if I had to choose a CBD delivery route, I would probably personally go with the tincture, the oil that goes under your tongue that had to choose a CBD delivery route, I would probably personally go with the tincture, the oil that goes under your tongue. That seems to work a little bit faster. With the gummies, it has to go through your digestion process. And then the gummies they have sugar in them, which you know. I mean it's not like you're not like pounding the gummies like a bag of them, but still I mean if you're kind of watching your intake at night and you're watching your calories and you're trying to do a real circadian fast. That might kick you out of the, you know, because they do have calories, yeah. So I tend to veer toward the tinctures myself if I'm going to experiment with that.

Michele Folan:

That's good advice, all right. My other question was if you have a client, Morgan, who says, Morgan, I cannot fall asleep unless I have a couple cocktails at night, how do you coach a client through that?

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, that's a tricky one, but in my coaching I have my clients fill out a sleep journal. It's a Google Doc. I prepare for them a spreadsheet that they input their sleep statistics. And when somebody is drinking on a regular basis and they're complaining about their sleep, what I'll do is I'll go over the data with them and I will point out to them okay, notice, on Saturday night you had three drinks. Notice how many wake-ups you had. Notice, you rated your quality of sleep a two out of five.

Morgan Adams:

Okay, so it's like if you objectively point out that the data is indicating poor quality sleep based on the amount of alcohol they're having, it is sort of like a wake-up call for them. In a way, it's giving them the information that hey, guess what, there's no denying this anymore Like, the amount of alcohol you're having is impacting your quality. You're waking up a lot. You didn't have a good rating of quality. You said that you were hot, you sweated. This isn't just random.

Morgan Adams:

So I think that when you can show somebody through, either you know it doesn't have to be. If you're out there listening you could just use a sleep tracker or a ring or a whoop or whatever. You'll see pretty clearly how it impacts you and you have two choices you can either proceed on and complain about your sleep and keep drinking, or you can make some changes about your sleep, about your alcohol intake, and then watch your sleep improve. So I know that kind of sounds like a little bit of tough love, but people appreciate the honesty, you know. At least my clients appreciate the.

Morgan Adams:

You know I'm not it's not, you know, dogmatic, judgmental. It's just like the facts of the facts. But the numbers aren't lying here. Alcohol does help us get to sleep a little bit more quickly, so it's accomplishing that end. So in a situation like that, where somebody's really anxious about getting to sleep, what I would try to work with them on is finding a substitute. Maybe we'd go to a supplement that might be probably the first approach Maybe something with L-theanine, something with GABA, something that's been, you know, studied to be a little bit more relaxing.

Morgan Adams:

I mean even, you know, cbd might even do the trick for some people going back to looping back to CBD no, I don't sell it people, but yeah, or offering, like you know, and maybe it's also the ritual of the drinking of it. So if they're wanting that experience of a cocktail, then maybe turn to one of the alcohol-free alternative mixers. There are so many out right now. I mean you can get them in cans, I mean you could get pretty much anything these days as a non-alcoholic substitute, so potentially they could have that as a stand-in for a cocktail or your good old cup of herb tea.

Michele Folan:

That's what.

Morgan Adams:

I do. Yeah, I mean, that's always a great option, but I think it's also just getting out of the habit of doing it. You know, once you've proven to yourself you can do it for a couple of nights, then I think that gives you the confidence. Hey, I can continue doing this, right.

Michele Folan:

Okay, all right. Good, we talked about sleep apnea a little bit, but I have seen some influencers on social media wearing mouth tape and so I know I am a back sleeper and I get the nudge from my husband sometimes because I'm breathing. Funny, and I was curious about your thoughts about mouth tape.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah. Well, truth be told, when I first started my work as a sleep coach, that was when I first discovered mouth tape, and I pretty much was sharing it with all of my clients. That is not really what I should have been doing, but I own that when you're going through some of the coaching training, the apnea part doesn't get covered, I don't think, in some of my courses. So what I have learned about mouth taping is that it's as I've gotten more comfortable with the topic of sleep apnea. Mouth taping can actually backfire on people if they haven't gotten their sleep breathing assessed. So these days when I'm working with people, I am not recommending that as just like a kind of like everyone try this, because we don't, you know, unless they've been tested for sleep apnea. Now, if you have been tested for sleep apnea, you're clear you don't have any sleep breathing issues. Sure, it's something you can try. If you're going to try it, though, I would definitely recommend trying it during the day, maybe putting it on your mouth for an hour or two while you're working at your desk, just to see how comfortable you are and how well you are to well, how well you are that you're able to breathe through your nose, because some people do have trouble breathing through their nose. So you just want to be careful.

Morgan Adams:

You know it's I think it's it was a little bit overplayed as like sort of like everyone needs to mouth tape. I mean that was, you know the thing. There's not like a whole lot of evidence out there that it helps your sleep quality that much. Now we are supposed to be breathing through our noses. I mean, that's the way we're designed to breathe, so it's ideal to breathe through your nose and for sure you are going to probably breathe more slowly if you're breathing through your nose. It helps with your parasympathetic nervous system regulation to do that nasal breathing.

Morgan Adams:

But I haven't seen really even in my own data looking at my sleep and my readiness. I didn't notice a huge effect from mouth taping or not. I still tape. It's out of habit. I feel kind of naked if I haven't taped. I feel kind of like what's going on. I want that on my mouth. I do notice that there are times when I've traveled and forgotten my mouth tape, that I will wake up with a dry mouth and that's basically a sign that you're probably doing too much mouth breathing. So bottom line is if you're thinking about doing mouth tape. I would urge you to have your sleep breathing assessed to make sure that you're okay to be putting something over your mouth and that you're able to breathe through your nose okay.

Michele Folan:

Okay, all right, that's great advice. I like that, and I am waking up with a dry mouth and I don't think I'm. I'm not stopping breathing, but I am breathing through my mouth and it annoys my husband. But you know, whatever, I make him wear a mouthpiece because he does have sleep apnea. So, yeah, you know, I know you've probably got a million of these, but could you share a client success story with us?

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, sure. So there is a woman I'll call her Pam, and she is a business owner and a mom to two children, very active children and she had been prescribed Ambien since she was in college and I think she's about 40. This was a couple years ago she's probably about 40 now and the doctor just kept prescribing it year after year after year, and, as we, you know, we may have talked about this earlier, but that's really not the way sleeping pills should be prescribed. They shouldn't be refill after refill after refill. So she needed help getting off of her sleeping pills. Not only was she on sleeping pills, but she was drinking several nights a week. She was having alcohol several nights a week, and so the way that I chose to proceed with her was CBTI Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia and what we did for her is we really looked at her consistency of her sleep-wake patterns and we got her getting up at the same time every morning, not lingering in bed, going to sleep around the same time, and we also were able to reduce her alcohol. So she did not completely stop alcohol, but she basically made the decision to limit her alcohol to only the weekend and to cap out at two and to start drinking earlier. So when we were able to decrease her alcohol use and quantity, her sleep quality did get higher.

Morgan Adams:

And then I introduced a mindfulness component to insomnia, or a mindfulness approach to insomnia. That involved some meditations, and she really found that to be very helpful in terms of getting more in touch with her feelings and thoughts during the day. And what I've noticed about this mindfulness for insomnia approach is that it not only helps my clients sleep better, but it also actually has been helping them during the daytime with their issues that they face during the day with their friends and their co-workers. Being more mindful in the present is helping their relationships overall. So it's kind of neat to see clients make gains in their sleep and overcome the insomnia, stop the sleeping pills, reduce alcohol. But also, just for this lady in particular, she was more present with her children. You know she was, just as a business owner, very distracted and with this new approach she was able to like really focus in on her children when they needed her, yeah, and when they were asking for her attention.

Michele Folan:

You know and I will say this too is that you know when you're sleeping. Well, you don't realize it right away, but your whole world changes. It sure does. I mean how you deal with people, your patients, I mean everything. It's amazing. So you've talked a little bit about some of the things that you do, but was there any one thing, morgan, that you did with your own sleep habits over time that just made the biggest impact for you?

Morgan Adams:

I would say with my habits. I think that probably the consistency piece was really a game changer. So getting to bed around the same time each night, waking up around the same time each morning, has been very helpful in terms of just well. Sometimes I go back and forth waking up too early, which is another perimenopausal symptom with sleep, but it's getting a little bit better. It kind of comes and goes, but I generally wake up, you know, on my own around five. I have an early bird chronotype, so that's like very normal for me to wake up in the morning. Light. That's been great. Getting daylight throughout the day, having what I call light snacks oh, I like that Throughout the day, has been very helpful in terms of just, you know you're getting 95% of your intracellular melatonin during the day, so that daylight is actually helping your sleep. People sometimes forget that, that what we do in the day very much influences our sleep.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, so is there any truth to the idea that you get your optimal sleep like between 10 pm and 2 am? Is there any truth to that

Morgan Adams:

There is some degree of truth to that. Yeah, because we're getting a lot of our deep sleep in the very beginning of the night. So I think you know you will get deep sleep no matter when you go to bed. But I feel like from a circadian perspective, like a 10 o'clock bedtime is probably preferable than a bedtime of midnight. I feel like the people that I've worked with and the people that I've just known throughout the years, they tell me they feel better overall when they go to bed a little bit earlier.

Morgan Adams:

Now, I'm not advocating everybody do that, but if you're a midnight person, you may have actually created your lifestyle as a night owl. A lot of times people will say, oh, I'm a night owl and they think that's what they are naturally. But when they change their habits, especially at night around the light and the food, they discover that they are not as much of a night owl as they thought they were. So, yeah, I've known many, many people to basically change their habits and move their circadian rhythm a little bit earlier, to kind of shift that rhythm and feel better overall.

Michele Folan:

Well, I guess too, the other part of that is, you don't want to go to bed at 10 o'clock if you're not truly tired.

Morgan Adams:

Yeah, great point. Yeah, you really want to rely on the cues of your body to tell you when to go to bed, and that's one of the reasons why I'm really advocating for that very consistent wake-up time, because about 16 or 17 hours after you wake up is when your sleepy chemical called adenosine builds up and you need to release that adenosine and the form of that seven or eight hours of sleep so you can kind of reliably count on having that feeling of sleepiness come over you around the same time if you're waking up at the same time.

Michele Folan:

Okay, I have a more, another kind of more personal question for you. What is one of your own self-care? Non-negotiables? What's something you do for yourself every day Exercise?

Morgan Adams:

every day? Okay, Every day. The only time I don't exercise is if I'm like legitimately sick or I have like a travel day where I catch a flight at five or six. Because I'm a morning workout person, I usually work out around eight and so if I'm traveling I miss the workout, but it's pretty much a non-negotiable for me. It's really. It's kind of the way I keep my energy level. I feel kind of like I'm not really ready to get to work and do things until I've had that 30 minutes of either strength or cardio. I just feel like that I need that to kind of set the tone for my day.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, it's great. It's not a surprise, is it?

Morgan Adams:

No no.

Michele Folan:

And I actually encourage my clients, whenever they can, to try to, you know, work out in the morning. So, and speaking of clients, how do you work with clients? Morgan? Yeah, I work with clients one-to-one.

Morgan Adams:

So, and speaking of clients, how do you work with clients, morgan? Yeah, I work with clients one-to-one, so with women who either have insomnia or they want to optimize their sleep. I work with them for, you know, two, three, four months usually, and get them in a better spot for their sleep. And yeah, that's generally what I'm, what I'm doing, how I'm helping.

Michele Folan:

Okay, and then where is your website? How can they find you?

Morgan Adams:

MorganAdamsWellnesscom is my website. There you will find the guide that I mentioned, the 3 am wake-up guide. You can also find a link to schedule what I call a sleep clarity call. If you feel like you're somebody who could benefit from working with a sleep coach, we can have a chat and talk about that. And then my Instagram handle is morganadamswellness. You can find me there, follow me, dm me and say hi, I love to talk about sleep, so do not be a stranger. Yeah.

Michele Folan:

And I do follow you and I love your tips because every once in a while I'm like, oh, I kind of forgot about that. That's a really good one. So I recommend everybody give Morgan a follow. And this was great to catch up. I really appreciate you being here. Always great information. Thank you for inviting me again. It's been awesome. Hey, thanks for tuning in. Please rate and review the show where you listen to the podcast. And did you know that Asking for a Friend is available now to listen on YouTube? You can subscribe to the podcast there as well. Your support is appreciated and it helps others find the show. Thank you.