Wake Up To The Importance Of Sleep W/ Dr Jade Wu

Hello and welcome to the Back to Being podcast,

Where I speak with experts,

Practitioners and everyday people about living a more healthy,

Active and mindful life.

My name is Karim Rushdie and I've spent over a decade learning to transform my own chronic pain and stress so I can lead a life worth living.

Now I'm using what I've learned along the way,

As well as the knowledge and experience of my guests,

To share unique perspectives that can help you do the same.

Thank you for tuning in today.

Today I'm speaking with sleep psychologist,

Author,

Researcher and speaker on evidence-based non-medication treatments to improve sleep,

Dr Jade Wu.

Jade completed her PhD at Boston University and her medical psychology residency and clinical fellowship at Duke,

Where her research focuses on treating sleep disorders and those with chronic illness.

An interest in sleep runs in the family.

Jade's dad was a sleep scientist with the Chinese space agency.

Jade and I discuss what sleep is,

Why it's so important and what we can do to optimize the seemingly unproductive activity that is actually the cornerstone of our mental and physical health.

Enjoy the episode.

Okay,

So Jade,

Welcome.

Welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much for having me.

It's a real treat.

Sleep is one of my passions,

Both doing it,

But also learning about it.

So I'm really excited to have you on and to grill you a little bit about what sleep is,

Why it's so important and how we can all improve our sleep.

So before we dive into that though,

Could you just share your journey with listeners?

How did you become a sleep psychologist in the first place?

Well,

So it actually starts a little bit earlier than you might guess.

My father was actually a sleep scientist,

China.

Yeah,

He was a sleep scientist with the Chinese equivalent of NASA.

So the Chinese space agency.

He set the benchmark pretty high.

He really did.

He did some really cool stuff,

Which I mean,

I was too young to really understand.

All I knew was that my dad had a huge textbook about sleep and he went to work and did sleep science with astronauts every day.

So I thought that was pretty cool.

And you know,

As any kid goes through,

I try to do everything other than what he did for a long time.

But eventually my path just kept leading me closer and closer back to this because I think maybe the seed was sown early.

And as a psychologist,

I started finding that wherever I looked,

Whether it was depression or anxiety or even Parkinson's disease,

Which was the focus of my grad school thesis,

Wherever I looked,

Sleep was kind of a linchpin.

You know,

Sleep was sort of the water that raised all boats or the thing that made everything more difficult.

So I figured if we can just improve sleep,

Even just a little bit for everybody,

Wouldn't that really make a big impact?

So that's when I really earnestly became interested in sleep science and became sleep psychologist.

Very cool.

So in your household growing up,

What was the kind of sleep regime like?

I assume your dad took it pretty seriously.

No,

My dad is a basic scientist,

As in he studied the electrophysiology.

So he didn't study the behavior or the clinical aspects of sleep.

So actually he didn't really know what to do about it.

He just knew,

You know,

How it worked at a very sort of basic granular level.

So actually,

Supposedly I was not a very good sleeper as a kid myself.

And my mom has sleep apnea,

Had it undiagnosed for many years.

My dad has insomnia.

So in a way we actually kind of started out not being a very good family of sleepers,

But we're all much better at that now.

And my kids are great sleepers.

I want to get some tips from you.

I suffer from a bit of maintenance insomnia,

But definitely for the kids as well.

That'd be great to get some tips from you later.

But why don't we go right back to basics here and tell us what sleep is.

We spend a third of our lives doing this,

Seemingly unproductive,

Incapacitated,

Vulnerable to threats.

Why do we sleep and what is sleep?

That is actually a more difficult question to answer than you might think.

Sleep is not super well defined,

Believe it or not.

It's a little bit like jazz.

You know it when you hear it.

And sleep is like,

You'll know it when you see it.

But what we do know about sleep is that it is something that occurs in basically all animals.

It's a state of being seemingly mostly unconscious and where usually our bodies are relaxed and we are aware of our surroundings.

And we know that this state tends to happen at regular intervals.

That's pretty much as much as we can say for sure about sleep.

And now,

You know,

With our modern science,

We also know some more details like what does the brain look like when it sleeps?

What types of physical functions are happening with our body temperature,

With our homo levels,

With things like that when we sleep.

Well we know a little bit more detail,

But fundamentally why we sleep and what sleep is,

Is still hard to say.

I mean there are some theories for why,

Like to conserve energy,

To have a time where our bodies can focus on repair.

We can focus on the hormonal actions that need to happen and even just to keep ourselves from getting into trouble,

You know.

Maybe evolutionarily when it's dark,

We should be supine.

We should be not doing too much because that's a dangerous time to be moving around in the bush.

So there are all these theories for why we sleep and at least we know that sleep is very good for us.

And it's not like we can really control it that much anyway,

So we sleep because we want to because it feels good.

Right,

Right.

And how much sleep is enough sleep?

I mean you hear about the different sleep cycles.

There's four or five?

I thought there used to be five and then they combined two of the cycles together.

Is that correct?

So I think what you're referring to are what's called stages of sleep.

The stages,

Yes.

Right,

Yeah.

Stages.

No,

No,

It's okay because I actually don't really like the terminology of stages because stages implies some sort of like video game.

Like you're trying to go further.

You're trying to go deeper and the further you go,

The better it is.

And that's not really the case.

I really like to think of it as different types of sleep.

Almost like different types of nutrition.

Like you know for a balanced meal,

You need protein and carbs and fiber and all those different things.

With sleep too,

You need stage one and stage two and slow wave sleep and rum sleep.

All of these are good in their own way and necessary in their own way.

So yes,

Generally we have what we call stage one sleep,

Which is also called restful wake because it's pretty much like you're awake but you're not quite a hundred percent there.

It's kind of like you're drifting off as you're watching a movie.

You're not really following the plot anymore,

But you're not quite fully asleep.

That's stage one.

And then there's stage two,

Which is also considered lighter sleep,

But it's a little bit deeper than stage one where you're harder to wake from it.

During it,

You're having particular types of brain activity that are actually helping you to consolidate things that you learn during the day,

Which is really cool because if you learn to serve a tennis ball during the day,

You will actually wake up the next morning being a better tennis player than you were when you went to bed.

And I think that's pretty amazing.

So that skill kind of gets integrated into your toolkit while you're sleeping,

Right?

Exactly.

It gets integrated into your toolkit and you actually just get better at it because you're practicing when you're asleep.

So that's pretty cool.

When you say practicing in your sleep,

You're sleeping,

So you're not hitting the tennis ball.

You're not serving.

But do you mean that those kind of neural pathways are firing over and over again that are mimicking that action?

Yes,

I do mean that.

You don't know exactly how that works.

It's not like your brain is serving a tennis ball exactly how it is when you're physically doing it,

But somewhere along the way,

Some action is happening in your brain that is practicing in some way or other so that it gets more incorporated into your muscle memory.

Like we talk about,

Oh,

If you practice something a lot,

It becomes muscle memory.

Well,

Part of how that happens is through sleep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Isn't it amazing?

Yeah.

So we were at stage.

.

.

Yeah,

Stage three,

Or it's more commonly called slow wave sleep or deep sleep.

Sometimes it's also called delta sleep.

It's got lots of names.

And this is a deeper stage of sleep where the brain waves are slower.

When you look at it on an EEG reading,

It looks bigger.

That's why we call it slow wave.

And this is a very interesting stage of sleep where you release growth hormones,

You release hormones and neurochemicals that actually repair damage and restore and help you to grow and literally cleans out your brain fluids and gets rid of junk.

And so this is a very important stage of sleep because it really helps us to stay healthy in our brain and in our body.

Right.

And you referred to that one in the course as taking out the neural trash,

Right?

It's all of that stuff that's collected in the brain from a day's worth of use needs to get taken out so the brain can function properly.

Exactly.

And it's a very,

Very important stage.

It is indeed.

Yes.

And also this is a stage where you are the least likely to be woken from sleep.

And you probably feel pretty groggy and pretty poorly if someone suddenly yanked you out of deep sleep.

You might be very confused for a while.

Yeah.

So that speaks to how deep you dive with your brain when you go into that stage.

Right.

So most teenagers are in that stage every morning when they wake up,

Right?

It's funny,

But also I understand the science shows,

You know,

Teenagers should not be getting up at 6 a.

M.

And going to school because their sleep stages or their cycle has shifted a little bit.

And it's like they're being torn from their deep sleep and then expected to go in and do math and science and all those other subjects.

I feel so terrible for teenagers,

For high school students especially.

You're right.

They are not meant to wake up that early because they are biologically hardwired night owls.

First of all,

They simply need more sleep than adults and they need to sleep later.

It's not just because they are,

You know,

On social media and talking to their friends late into the night that they don't want to go to sleep until midnight.

It's because that's literally how they're wired.

And because they're wired to go to bed so late,

They also need to wake up late because they need a lot of sleep.

So at 6 a.

M.

,

I don't know that they're necessarily in their deep sleep because the first half of your night is when your deep sleep happens.

And the second half is more when REM sleep happens.

But you know,

REM sleep is important too.

So they are not getting enough of that when they're woken up so early.

In any case,

All our teenagers are sleep deprived.

I think one of the biggest and lowest hanging fruits we can do in our public health in general is to let teenagers go to school later in the morning.

Yeah,

I mean,

If the jury's out on that and the science is clear,

It's holding back,

You know,

And this isn't just a U.

S.

Thing or I'm in the UK,

But this is globally what the education system is geared this way where they're not allowing the teenagers to operate at their optimal level.

This has got something to do with like parents working,

You know,

The working times of adults and the fact that they need to get the kids to school before they go to work.

I think something like that,

Yes.

But if you think about it,

I mean,

High school ends earlier than the parents and their work day,

Right?

So at some point,

If there's got to be,

You know,

Once my kids are teens,

I'd much rather they get up later,

Go to school later and come home,

You know,

When I'm off work or something along those lines.

So I'm not sure exactly why there's such a mismatch.

But I think part of it may be our collective stigma is against late risers.

We think that when people go to bed late and wake up late,

They're being lazy.

It's their own fault,

Isn't it?

They got themselves into it.

Yeah.

And there's something inherently bad about going to bed late and waking up late.

So we try to instill into our kids,

Into our teenagers,

Oh,

Like,

You know,

Early to bed,

Early to rise makes a man healthy,

Wealthy and wise.

But I'm sure if you're a wired,

Like a morning person when you're 40,

Yes,

But not when you're 16.

And that's a big soapbox that I like to get on.

Yeah,

No,

That's crazy.

Before we get to stage four,

It's made me wonder why in the medical system,

You know,

Again,

If the science is clear on this,

If we need a certain amount of sleep and we got to make it through these four stages to have had the full dose of the sleep that we need,

Then why are doctors and nurses working 24 hour shifts?

I mean,

Is this another subject you'd like to get on?

Oh,

Sure.

I could be on that soapbox for a long time if you want me to.

But yeah,

That's a very,

Very good question.

And the science is clear specifically on this topic,

Too.

We know that when doctors are not well rested,

When they don't get their full sleep and don't get their full sleep at the right time,

By the way,

That they make more mistakes,

That they don't provide as good patient care and patients have worse outcomes under those conditions.

So I think there have actually been some policy changes where residents are not allowed to be on call or on duty for a certain amount of time in a row.

I think they are making some changes and I hope that they will make more.

Yeah,

I hope so,

Too.

I think if you're in a hospital or you're about to get a surgery,

Ask how much sleep your doctor got the night before or the couple nights before that.

So go ahead and stage,

I think we're at stage four now.

Yes.

So this last stage is called REM,

Which stands for rapid eye movement.

And so named because your eyes tend to dart back and forth under your closed eyelids as you're sleeping in this stage.

This is a very,

Very interesting stage because your brain activity,

Your brain waves look similar to when you're awake.

So kind of faster,

More frenetic kind of activity.

But your body is basically paralyzed.

Your major muscles are basically deactivated.

And that's for a good reason,

Because during this stage of sleep is when you do most of your dreaming.

So if your muscles are able to move during this time,

You'd be acting out your dreams,

Which can be dangerous.

And in fact,

Some people have what's called REM sleep behavior disorder.

And that's where their brain is doing REM,

But their body is still active.

They can still act out their dreams.

And often the bed partner really suffers from that.

These are people that get up and kind of walk down the street and try and get in their car and stuff like that.

Well,

That's actually sleepwalking,

Which is surprisingly not the same thing.

So sleepwalking happens during deep sleep,

During slow wave sleep,

Where people have more kind of controlled,

Deliberate movements where they are conscious enough to be doing things like getting in their car and driving,

But they're not conscious enough to know what they're doing.

That's sleepwalking.

That's extremely rare that someone can do that.

So if you have the REM sleep behavioral disorder,

You're just kind of thrashing around,

Are you?

Exactly.

Exactly.

So that's where the bed partner gets punched in the face or gets kicked or gets shoved off the bed.

So not fun for them.

But yeah,

The two are two different types of sleep disorders,

Both potentially very dangerous,

But very different and happening in different stages.

During REM,

That's where your body should be paralyzed.

And during REM,

We're doing a lot of emotional processing.

So whatever it is that happened during the day,

We're sort of running it through and figuring out what emotions make sense for what memories and how we should be understanding or how we should be tagging experiences with what emotions and sorting all of that through.

And it's very interesting because,

You know,

This is also where our dreaming happens.

So obviously a lot of brain activity is happening,

Even though our bodies are not moving and we don't fully still understand why dreams happen or what exactly they do.

But we at this point think that there might be some sort of emotional processing or emotional regulation going on.

So with the REM sleep and the emotional processing,

So let's say you've got something coming up the next day,

An important meeting,

A presentation,

A podcast recording,

And you're feeling a bit of anxiety about that,

Either consciously or subconsciously.

We've all been there where we have a very troubled night's sleep and perhaps dream about the worst thing that could happen happens in your dream with regard to the next day's events.

Is that the connection there?

I mean,

That emotion kind of carries over into REM and gets starts to mess with your dreams.

Yes.

So that is very interesting because we don't quite know 100% how that works or what direction it works in.

Is it that you're anxious during the day so then you're dreaming about the thing you're anxious about,

Which I'm sure there is at least partially that?

Or is it that you are trying to make sense of something at night during REM and then during the day you carry with you whatever your brain can get to the conclusion of?

And I suspect there's a little bit of that too.

So I think it's an iterative process,

Bidirectional process where what's happening during dreaming or during REM is partially determining what you're feeling during the day and what you're feeling during the day is informing what your brain needs to work on at night.

Got it.

Got it.

So these four stages,

We've got to complete them all in order to have a full night's sleep or I mean,

How do you term getting a proper sleep?

Well during a good night's sleep,

We actually end up having a few segments of each of these stages or types of sleep.

So we usually start out in lighter sleep and then we go deeper and deeper until we get to slow wave sleep and then we cycle back up into lighter sleep and then we get back into deep sleep again.

And we do that a couple of times,

Two or three times and then we start to do more REM sleep during the latter half of that cycle so that during the first half of the night,

You've finished pretty much all of your deep sleep and then the latter half of the night you're doing most of your REM sleep punctuated in the middle by chunks of light sleep and being awake.

Okay,

So it's not like sequential,

You go stage one,

Done,

Stage two,

Done,

You're going back and forth between them and kind of topping each one up until it's complete.

Exactly.

Got it.

Got it.

And how long do you need ideally?

And I guess what's the band,

Right?

Because you hear a lot of people say and unfortunately proudly say things like,

Well,

I only need four hours sleep.

I can survive.

And there's been some very famous people throughout history who've said that,

Seemingly productive people too,

But I have a suspicion that that's kind of BS,

Needs a minimum amount of sleep in order to get through those four stages,

Don't they?

Well,

So there is an extremely rare person,

Extremely,

Extremely rare person that needs four hours of sleep and they're fine.

But you're right.

Most people need more than that.

And it depends on a lot of things,

Depends on your genetics,

On what stage of life you're in,

What's your age and what your lifestyle is.

So it's a little bit different for everybody.

You know,

For example,

What's a famous athlete in your part of the world?

That would make sense to your listeners.

Well,

I'm a rugby person and I support Ireland.

So let's say Johnny Sexton is the Irish legend of a player.

Oh,

Okay.

Well,

Johnny Sexton,

I don't know who he is or what he's like,

But I'll bet that he sleeps more than I do because he plays rugby,

Right?

So you know,

His body's needs and his brain's needs are different from mine because I'm mostly a couch potato.

I don't do a lot of athletics and I have two little babies.

And so my lifestyle is extremely different than from his.

So the amount of deep sleep,

For example,

That he needs is probably different from mine.

And maybe the amount of REM sleep that I need is different from his.

What else?

So his body needs more repair and regeneration,

Let's say,

Because he battered around.

Exactly.

Yeah,

Interesting.

But I mean,

At the moment with your two young kids,

You might not be getting it,

But you need more than him.

Certainly.

Actually,

As I was talking,

I was thinking,

You know,

He's a rugby player.

I've got a two year old and a four month old.

Maybe we're not so different.

We're both being battered around quite a bit and running defense and constantly on alert.

So maybe we are not so different,

But the point is,

You know,

We all have different needs and different lifestyles and therefore our sleep automatically adjusts to suit what we need.

So I don't need to sit here and think,

Okay,

Brain,

Do more REM sleep tonight because I need to process some emotions.

I don't need to consciously do that.

My brain will automatically do that for me,

Which I think it's really cool.

And what that also means is that you don't need to control which stages of sleep you get in what proportions,

When and how much you just listen to your body and let it tell you by being sleepy at the time that you need to be sleepy to get the sleep that you need.

So often people will ask,

When should I go to bed?

When should I wake up?

Exactly how many hours of sleep or how many minutes of sleep do I need?

And I say,

I don't know.

In fact,

I know less than you do how much sleep you need.

Your body knows best.

So as long as you are listening to your body and giving it some guardrails,

Like getting up at about the same time every day,

Your body will tell you how much sleep you need and when.

Yeah.

You often hear that one about,

You know,

It's one of the most important things you can do is get up at the same time every day.

I mean,

It's much easier said than done,

Right?

Go to sleep when you start to feel sleepy.

But so much of our modern lifestyle is counter to good sleep hygiene.

And maybe that's a good kind of segue into sleep hygiene.

I mean,

If we are to achieve that optimum situation and listen to our body and get the right amount of sleep for our body and understand it's not the same,

That maybe there's a band,

But for one person it could be six hours,

Another person it could be eight.

But what are the things that we can and should be doing or not be doing in order to achieve that kind of sweet spot of being attuned to our body and going to sleep and getting up at the right time and then getting that good quality sleep when we are actually down?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I would say a few categories of things.

One is to generally take care of your health during the day.

So often we talk about sleep being important for health,

Which is very true.

And we talk about how to optimize our sleep so that we can help our health.

But it's also the other way around too.

We can't just expect sleep to work for us and perform for us.

We also need to feed into our health in order to have good sleep.

For example,

Having good nutrition,

Having good exercise and activity and taking care of our immune system,

Taking care of our health in general,

And taking care of our mental health,

Having time to rest during the day and having time to process our emotions and take care of our needs and not burning out.

All of these things in general will feed into our health and allow us to sleep better.

And when we sleep better,

Sleep also helps us to be more healthy so then you're on a positive cycle.

So I think in general,

Taking care of our health and then diving into more specifics,

I think a few tips that are really important.

One is to not do too many substances.

So I'm talking about coffee,

Alcohol,

Nicotine,

Other recreational drugs,

And basically anything that really alters our natural state.

And coffee,

I think,

Is what I really want to focus on because I think we,

As a modern culture,

We're really quite reliant on coffee.

I mean,

I don't know how it is where you are,

But in the United States,

It's really culturally pervasive that everybody drinks coffee and often drinks a lot of coffee to the point where we don't even maybe realize how much coffee is affecting us.

I think it's the same the world over,

Although I'd say.

.

.

Really?

I think we've lived in China for many years as we were talking about before the recording.

And there,

Okay,

It's going to be more tea than coffee,

But caffeine is still there.

Green teas and varieties there.

In the UK,

People drink a hell of a lot of tea,

So red tea and black tea,

But a lot of coffee too.

So when you talk about coffee,

Is it the caffeine or is it specifically the coffee?

That's something to perhaps clarify.

It's a great question.

It's the caffeine.

Coffee has a lot more caffeine in it than a lot of other.

.

.

Even tea,

Even black tea doesn't have nearly as much caffeine as coffee does.

So I just use coffee as sort of a shorthand for too much caffeine.

And what too much caffeine does is it makes your body run on false fuel.

So it's giving your body that jolt,

That kick when it maybe doesn't have the real energy to back it up.

Yes,

I call it fake energy.

Exactly,

Fake energy.

When we get into the cycle of we feel so tired,

We can't get going for the day.

So we drink coffee or very strong tea,

A lot of it to get going,

But then we're tricking our bodies into going when it really shouldn't or when it can't.

And then we've also missed the opportunity to listen to our body to figure out what it is that we actually need.

Like,

Do we need hydration?

Do we need a good laugh?

Do we need more sleep?

Do we need rest?

What exactly is it that we need to truly fuel up and do it properly?

And instead we do caffeine to paper over what we really need.

And then we end up getting more tired and more ragged and run down.

And then we feel like we need more caffeine in order to keep going in that state.

So then we end up not getting the sleep that we need,

The rest that we need,

And maybe even just like the mindful connection with our bodies that we need.

Does the caffeine,

Remember,

It impacts certain stages of sleep more than others,

Which then adversely impact the quality of your sleep?

Right.

So if there's still a lot of caffeine in your system when you go to bed,

That can certainly impact all stages of your sleep,

But particularly deep sleep.

Because what happens is during the day,

You're building up sleep drive with this chemical called adenosine.

Adenosine basically accumulates throughout the day in your brain to tell your brain that it's been working,

It's been awake.

And the more adenosine accumulates,

The more sleep you need,

Essentially.

So by the end of the day,

You've accumulated a bunch of adenosine.

And so that's when your brain knows,

Okay,

Now we need a lot of deep sleep to undo the damage of the day.

But what happens with caffeine is the chemical of caffeine binds to the same docking sites in your brain,

On your brain cells that adenosine does.

So caffeine is basically tricking your brain into thinking there's less adenosine than there actually is.

So in other words,

It's tricking your brain into thinking that it needs less deep sleep than it really does.

So if you still have a lot of caffeine in your system,

Then your brain thinks you don't need a lot of deep sleep and it kind of bypasses maybe some of it or all of it.

And you end up not having very restful sleep and not getting the full benefits from sleep that you can.

So that's kind of scary.

And caffeine has a pretty long half life,

Doesn't it?

Like nine,

10 hours or something like that.

I used to drink a lot of coffee.

I used to work in hospitality industry and run a bunch of restaurants and there's a coffee bar in each restaurant.

So we were just drinking coffee instantly,

You know,

Eight,

Nine,

10 cups a day.

And I then went cold turkey and something very interesting happened when I went cold turkey,

I developed an extreme sensitivity to caffeine.

So nowadays if I have a coffee after,

Even after 11 a.

M.

,

I won't sleep that night.

I just cannot get to sleep.

But if you have a coffee at noon,

There's like half that cup of coffee worth of caffeine is still in your system at 9 p.

M.

Or 10 p.

M.

Potentially.

I think people have different levels of sensitivity.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So for some people,

So that's why you hear advice that ranges anything from like don't have coffee after 5 p.

M.

All the way to don't have it after 10 a.

M.

And really it kind of depends on the person.

But it's really hard to also know what your own sensitivity is and metabolism is if you've gotten into the habit of drinking a lot of coffee,

Then you're kind of just used to it.

So yeah,

So I would say,

You know,

For most people,

If they feel like they're doing everything else right,

But they're still not getting quite good sleep,

One thing to try is maybe to cut down on coffee,

Maybe go gradually,

Maybe just cut down 25 percent first and see what happens.

Then cut down 50 percent and then see what happens.

And you know,

You may find that drinking less coffee will just instantly give you the boost to your sleep that you need.

Or you may actually have some withdrawal symptoms and then the benefit from from the decreased caffeine later on.

So,

So interesting.

I mean,

The coffee lobby is so strong,

Right?

We hear research coming out all the time about the health benefits of coffee.

And this is what friends who still drink a lot of coffee say to me when I'm saying,

You know,

Just ease up on it.

No,

Didn't you see the last research is good for your heart or it's good for this or it's good for that.

But you never hear of any research saying coffee is good for your sleep.

And I think,

As you said earlier,

Sleep is the linchpin when it comes to physical and mental health.

So as long as it adversely impacts sleep,

Those other benefits,

I mean,

Very hard to even that out or to justify,

You know,

Continue to drink coffee.

You know,

You can drink coffee late into the evening.

Yeah,

OK.

There's a few people I'm going to send send this one to and you can make the argument on my behalf.

I want to come back just quickly to what you said while you were talking about coffee.

That was thing is so important.

And it's another key aspect of the course,

The foundation of the course.

The first phase of it is all about mindfulness,

Right?

Cultivating mindfulness and a huge aspect of cultivating mindfulness is tuning into the body,

Strengthening the mind body connection.

And I think,

You know,

For those people who are perhaps drinking coffee or other stimulants and are doing everything else right,

But their sleep is still suffering or they're still suffering from poor sleep.

Being attuned to your body and be able to listen to those signals and those messages that it's sending you is going to be so helpful.

Very hard to make the right decisions if that connection is broken.

Right.

Or if you're spending too much time up in your head and you're not tuned in to what's going on in the rest of your body.

Exactly.

Yes.

Well said.

I totally agree with that.

You talked about looking after your health during your waking hours,

Fundamental,

And it's kind of a chicken and egg.

We're not quite sure,

But they probably both benefit each other's sleep.

So it benefits health,

Health benefits sleep.

Then your diet,

Nutrition,

And I guess substances is within that.

It's things that we put into our body.

So easy on the stimulants.

And then you've got the other class of substances,

The sedatives,

Right?

Alcohol and other medications.

And you will always hear this thing that sedation is not sleep.

So maybe you could speak to that a little bit because I'm with you on coffee,

I'm with you on caffeine.

We're also fighting that good fight,

But what about when it comes to sedatives,

Both recreational but also prescription sedatives?

Yeah.

That's such a fantastic question.

So first of all,

Alcohol is sort of the most readily available sedative.

And this is truly not good for your sleep.

That may be surprising to hear because a lot of people say,

Oh,

You know,

It helps me to go to sleep or I pass out.

It's a nightcap,

Isn't it?

We even have a word for it.

It's a nightcap.

It helps me.

Yes,

Exactly.

And what alcohol does is it kind of knocks you out,

It sedates you,

But it does not help the quality of your sleep at all.

In fact,

Alcohol tends to keep your body temperature higher,

Keep your metabolism going higher.

And so that ends up punctuating your sleep.

You end up waking up more,

Even if you're not aware of it.

And it keeps you from having as much deep sleep.

So the quality of your sleep is going to be certainly negatively affected if you drink alcohol too close to bedtime or too much.

Right,

Right.

I mean,

Is there a formula or is it again kind of it's different for everyone?

It's metabolism.

It comes back to being attuned to your body,

Doesn't it?

And listen to the signals you touch on temperature there.

You said that,

You know,

Alcohol keeps your body hot.

And I know that light is also a key factor.

Maybe you could speak to those two a little bit,

Temperature and light,

Because the temperature one is fascinating.

Particularly why this could be a myth,

You tell me if it is,

But I heard that the reason you are more prone to kind of relax into a good night's sleep after a really hot shower,

Hot bath or sauna.

I always thought it's because I'm nice and warm and cozy and,

You know,

Reminds me of being in the womb or something like that.

But it's quite the opposite.

It's actually because it cools your core body temperature,

Isn't it?

Well,

It's a little bit of both.

I mean,

If you're relaxed in your bath and sauna,

Then of course that's going to help you sleep because you've put a nice close to your day,

You're feeling good,

You're relaxed and all that.

At an emotional level that relaxes places part.

Oh,

Sure.

Oh,

And plus your muscles are more relaxed.

You know,

Everything's just kind of like,

Huh.

So that definitely helps.

But yes,

Also,

If you come out of a hot bath or shower,

Then your body will cool after that,

Right?

It'll sort of cool down to get you back to homeostasis.

So the process of cooling down may sort of help nudge along the natural process that your body would have done anyway,

Which is cool down as you get into the later evening and into night.

And yes,

Temperature does have an effect on sleep and all else equal,

You know,

Having that nice natural cool down into the evening is good for sleep.

But I think it's a little bit overplayed in our popular culture,

Maybe in part because there's a lot of mattresses and pajamas and other sort of products that depend on you believing that you need to cool down your body in order to sleep well.

Yeah,

Keep you cool,

Circulate the air,

You see all the ads for the,

You know,

The mattress technology and stuff like that.

Right,

Right.

Exactly.

So I wonder if maybe in our collective understanding,

If the temperature thing may be played up a little bit more relative to the other things that matter.

That's interesting.

I was sort of like some,

You know,

Evolutionarily as well.

I mean,

It kind of makes sense in terms of just the circadian cycle.

I mean,

We're not nocturnal creatures,

Humans at least.

So it kind of makes sense that we've evolved to sleep when the temperature goes down.

Not only does it get darker,

But it also gets cooler,

Right?

And that way,

That's kind of like a signal to us to get some rest.

So you are absolutely right on that.

So the circadian piece is what matters.

Circadian rhythms,

You know,

Our 24-ish hour rhythms of everything that happens in our brains and our bodies,

Our body temperature,

As you just said,

Our metabolism,

Our cognition even,

Our activity levels,

And of course our sleep and wake.

So our sleep and wake follows the general circadian rhythm,

But our circadian rhythm also follows what we do about sleep and wake.

So again,

It's a bidirectional two-way street.

So what keeps our sleep good quality and keeps our sleep makes it so that we are able to sleep easily when we should be sleeping is by keeping consistent rhythms.

So for example,

Getting up at the same time each day,

Having lots of light during the day,

Which is another really important sleep hygiene components,

Having not too much light at night,

You know,

Being active during the day,

Moving your body,

Which partially is what makes your body warmer during the day and not having too much high level activity at night.

All of these things help to keep our circadian rhythms on track.

Tell that to my daughters who want to have a wrestling match,

You know,

Every night just before bed.

Oh yes,

I can relate to that.

Kids almost have some sort of second wind,

Like one last burst of energy right before bed,

Before they fall asleep,

My son does that too.

Yeah.

And you want them to get that energy out,

But at the same time,

As you've just said,

You know that that activity could stimulate them a little too much and they don't get to sleep.

What about light?

You were talking about light there,

So getting a lot of light during the day,

Not much during the night,

Not all light is created equal,

Right?

So in terms of which kind of light is good during the day,

Which kind of light is worse in the evenings?

Yeah.

Anything that includes a short wavelength light or blue light is going to stimulate our circadian rhythms and tell our brains that it's daytime.

So during the day,

We want to get lots of that.

And ideally through broad spectrum light.

So the best thing you're ever going to get is still sunlight.

Even if it's cloudy,

Even if it's overcast,

Which I know at least in Northern climes and in cloudy spots,

That's,

You know.

What are you saying about Scotland?

Are you trying to imply something about Scottish weather?

I cannot wait to visit Scotland.

I've heard it's very beautiful and you know,

You may have lots of cloudy days,

Whereas in North Carolina where I live,

It's sunny all the time,

But then it's so hot that I can't go outside.

So maybe it's not so good a thing after all.

Yeah,

For us it's greener,

Isn't it?

Exactly.

Exactly.

So whatever type of weather we want to go outside to get our dose of sunlight,

Because that's the broad spectrum light that is going to stimulate our circadian rhythms and tell our brains that it's daytime during the day.

And then in the evenings,

We want to avoid that broad spectrum light and we want to avoid,

You know,

Fluorescent lights that include that short wavelength light too.

So it's best if we have like dimmer,

Orangey,

Yellowy lights.

But if we're using our devices,

We can turn down the brightness level and also turn on the night shift.

Night shift mode,

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you have your iPhone and I think it's called something else on Android where it turns your screen a little bit more orange.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yep,

Exactly.

And that way you get less stimulating blue light.

I'm sure you get this question a lot.

Kindle,

Backlit Kindle.

Is there any research into that?

I mean,

I know phones,

Computers,

Tablets,

Et cetera,

That have blue lit screens,

But if you're just using a Kindle that's backlit,

Is that going to negatively impact the sleep?

I don't think Kindles are much of a problem because first of all,

It's pretty dim.

And two,

It's just not enough to really stimulate your circadian rhythm because you're getting much more bright light probably from your phone and from other places in the evening.

And also I want to clarify that if you get enough daylight,

If you get enough exposure to broad spectrum light during the day,

Then that negates whatever small amount of light you're going to get from your devices in the evening.

So yeah,

So if you're playing rugby,

For example,

Outside for an hour,

Or if you're even just taking your dog for a walk for half an hour during the day and you get lots of light,

Especially if you do it in the morning,

Then that's enough to make it that any devices you use at night will not make a difference.

Okay,

Very interesting.

So you can offset that impact.

Uh-huh.

Okay,

Okay.

I want to ask you about sleep and pain and the relationship between the two,

But before I do that,

What are some of the symptoms or the signs that you're not getting enough sleep apart from the obvious one,

Right?

You're tired,

But how does that show up in your life and in your health psychologically,

But also physiologically?

Yeah,

So not having enough sleep can really impact everything.

It can impact our ability to think well and to regulate our emotions at the psychological level,

The feeling tired,

Of course,

And feeling sleepy,

Like you said,

But it also really impacts our physical health and wellbeing too.

It impacts our ability to metabolize,

The nutrition,

The sugar and insulin and weight and all of those factors are impacted,

Our immune systems are impacted.

And when you're getting to the topic of pain,

Having not enough sleep will increase inflammation levels and also decrease our ability to heal from injuries and regulate the healing that our body needs to do.

And of course,

If we're speaking of chronic pain,

We know that there's a psychological component to pain as well,

Our ability to cope with pain,

Our ability to turn our attention to other positive experiences,

Our ability to be mindful and regulate our attention,

Our mindfulness,

That's all impacted by lack of sleep as well.

Yeah,

I had a really fascinating conversation with Dr.

Howard Schubiner,

I'm not sure if you're familiar with him.

He's one of the world's leading experts in brain generated pain and unlearning pain.

And what you're saying just there,

I mean,

All pain is brain generated,

It's just a certain proportion of it is linked to a structural issue.

Right.

They're finding that actually a much larger proportion of it than they thought,

Particularly when it comes to chronic pain,

Is not linked to any structural issue.

But regardless of whether it's solely brain generated or linked to a structural issue,

Not getting enough sleep is going to make things worse.

It's either going to make it,

As you said,

Harder to heal,

To reduce inflammation,

But also psychologically,

It's just going to make it harder to work with it,

Harder to,

As you say,

Turn your attention to better experiences,

Better things,

Or to turn your attention to the pain.

I mean,

A lot of what we do when we're dealing with pain is distractive techniques,

Self-destructive coping mechanisms,

Whether it be eating too much or watching too much or using substances.

So sleep really is that linchpin.

I mean,

It keeps kind of coming back to this again and again.

Yes,

You're absolutely right.

All of what you said is so on point.

When it comes to pain,

So much of it is,

As you said,

A brain generated phenomenon experience that there are such direct psychological effects on how much pain we perceive and how much suffering we experience from the pain.

There's not just the physical sensation of how painful it is,

But also you can either feel the pain or you can feel the pain and think,

This is the worst.

This is so unfair.

I can't cope with it.

I won't be able to live my life.

I'm a misery to be around.

All of these thoughts that you can have about the pain.

You sound like you're in my head eight years ago when I was in that place.

It's that second arrow,

Right?

The old Buddhist parable of the two arrows.

Life shoots the first arrow at us,

The pain,

The loss,

The old age,

The sickness,

Which are just part and parcel of life.

But that second arrow that we shoot ourselves,

The self-loathing,

The criticism,

The fear,

The worry,

It's so difficult to deal with when you're not getting enough sleep.

But it's a vicious cycle because pain itself prevents you from getting the sleep that you need.

Yes.

It's a real pickle.

And the reason I understand so well is because I've experienced chronic pain by itself.

And so one ray of hope I can offer for folks is that,

You know,

From my personal experience,

I had chronic pain for probably about 20 years and I've been a good sleeper.

I've been a fantastic sleeper.

So I think the two are not necessarily,

I mean,

They are linked.

They certainly affect each other,

But you're not doomed to poor sleep just because you have chronic pain.

That's a good reminder.

Yeah.

But is that because you've got good sleep hygiene?

I mean,

Why is it that,

Or are you just naturally a good sleeper?

Is it because you're following your own advice,

Everything we've been talking about,

You know,

For the last 30 minutes or so about how to get a good night's sleep?

Or is there something else to it?

Well,

I think the real answer is that I have a good relationship with sleep.

You know,

As we talked about earlier,

I was not born into a family of good sleepers.

We all have sleep disorders and you know,

I've struggled as a kid,

I was not a good sleeper according to my parents.

So you know,

It's not like no matter what,

I'm a good sleeper.

So it's not like that.

And it's also not that I have perfect sleep hygiene either.

I break every single quote rule that I tell my patients about sometimes,

You know,

And I've gone through.

Me too.

We're only human.

Yeah,

There are definitely times when I've drank too much alcohol or had too much caffeine or,

You know,

Use my devices in bed.

All of the above.

All of the above.

So truly like,

You know,

I do not have perfect sleep hygiene.

And in fact,

When a patient comes to me and says that they have impeccable,

Perfect sleep hygiene,

I know that they're trying too hard.

That they're too rigid with their sleep routines and the way that they think about sleep and their relationship with sleep is too strained.

So really,

I come back to the idea of listening to our bodies and really living a fulfilled life from every dimension.

So the reason that I sometimes have terrible sleep hygiene is because,

You know,

Maybe I in that moment,

I really needed to connect with my friends.

So I stayed up talking with a friend or I really needed to just let loose and get a change of scenery and have a few drinks and,

You know,

Just have some fun.

Or I had too much caffeine because today was different and there's a particular thing I really needed to get through.

And so I allowed myself some false fuel,

You know,

Fake energy.

Yeah.

And sometimes that's okay because we are full holistic human beings with different needs in all different aspects of our life and we need to honor all of those.

Everything is balanced in moderation.

I love that Jade,

Couldn't put it better.

And it's so good,

I think,

For people to hear that from someone who's an expert in this field because we do,

And I'm guilty of this myself,

I mean,

When we get too rigid about it,

It causes more stress than it's worth.

And I think those activities that you mentioned,

You know,

They charge us up in other ways,

Right?

And it is so important to do those things once in a while and to seek that balance.

And another plug for mindfulness,

Because you're talking about the relationship with sleep and at its core,

Mindfulness is all about this,

It's come up on a couple of other conversations,

It's all about relationality.

It's the way we relate to ourselves,

To others,

To the world around us,

And to all the different components of the human experience and sleep being such a fundamental one.

That's why that's my kind of soapbox is just mindfulness is so beneficial on so many levels and having that stable base can help us then to make the other changes we need to make.

We might know that we're not,

You know,

Don't have the best sleep hygiene,

We might know that some of our lifestyle habits are,

You know,

Making things worse,

Particularly when it comes to chronic pain.

But unless you've got that stable base,

That stable foundation,

It's very hard to make a lasting change.

Absolutely.

That is so,

So true.

And I'll just give you one last example for how mindfulness is really important to sleep,

Because often we interchangeably use the words tired and sleepy.

So we think they're the same thing.

Often people will say,

Oh,

I'm so tired,

I need to go to bed.

But really,

What they are is not necessarily sleepy,

Like they need sleep,

But rather they're tired.

They're tired because they have been sedentary all day,

Or they've been bored all day,

They're stressed,

They're overworking,

They haven't had any fun,

They haven't laughed in a couple of days,

Or they haven't,

You know,

Connected with their kids or their family or their friends.

So when you're not mindful,

You only have one flavor,

And that's just,

I'm in pain,

I'm tired,

I need to just crawl into bed.

And when you only feel that one flavor,

You don't look to actually see what you maybe really need in that moment.

And you blame everything on not sleeping well.

And that's not good for your relationship with sleep at all.

Whereas when you are mindful,

Then you can be a lot more nuanced in understanding what your body needs in that moment.

And you may find that getting up and going for a walk is actually the answer to feeling in pain and tired in this moment.

Oh,

I love it.

I love it.

And exercise is one key component of this framework that worked really well for me,

And I'm sharing with others.

And it's interesting to talk about relationships.

It's not about curing the pain or getting rid of the pain.

It's just about changing the relationship with the pain because then everything else,

You know,

Everything else changes.

But when it comes to exercise,

One of the best things you can do when you're feeling fatigued is exercise.

It creates mitochondria production increase and there's more fuel in every single cell of your body.

So you can really relate to that and happy that you shared that with listeners.

Of course.

Yeah.

I love that concept and I tell myself and my patients that every day.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well,

Look,

I'm going to start to wrap things up.

I want to hear a little bit about your book and projects you're working on at the moment.

But the last topic I'd like to pick your brains on is some of the treatments that you and your colleagues and team offer that are non-medication,

You know,

Non-prescription drug treatments for sleep issues.

And within that,

Maybe you could also speak a little bit to,

You know,

There's so many supplements out there touted as being good for your sleep,

Whether it's GABA or melatonin supplements or CBD increasingly these days.

So maybe you could kind of answer a two part question.

One,

What's your view and position and some of the research into some of these supplements and their efficacy.

And then what are some of the non-medication treatments that you prescribe to your patients?

Sure.

I love this question.

It's so important.

So first of all,

When it comes to medications and supplements,

Really,

Really talk to your doctor before taking something,

Even if it's over the counter,

Because often,

So we actually know this from behavioral research that when something was sold over the counter,

People are less likely to read the warning labels and to follow instructions and take things properly.

They end up taking too much or thinking the wrong thing or taking something that interacts with their other medications or just taking something that is not good for them.

So I just want to be very clear that even over the counter supplements should be a discussion with your doctor.

And so a lot of these over the counter medications,

Well,

First of all,

They're not approved.

They're not evidence based for solving sleep problems.

Some of them may not hurt.

Some of them might even help a little bit.

But if you have sleep problems,

Any sort of supplement is going to be too little too late.

Nothing like melatonin.

There are so many out there.

I don't even know where to begin to name them.

But none of those is going to solve your insomnia.

None of those is going to solve your sleep apnea.

None of them is going to solve you not having a good relationship with your sleep.

Now the other class,

The prescription medications,

Those tend to be more efficacious in that they tend to knock you out.

But again,

They're mostly sedatives,

Aren't they?

Exactly.

Yes.

There are a few classes of medications.

Some are sedatives,

Some are antidepressants,

Some are antipsychotics.

So there are lots of different types of medications that are used to solve the insomnia problem.

But that doesn't mean that they actually solve the root of the problem.

They just knock you out.

So sedation is not real sleep.

So that's why non-medication treatments,

I don't just practice those because I'm like hippie-dippie and I don't believe in medication.

That's not it at all.

I think medications are human ingenuity and so useful and so wonderful and we need them.

And when it comes to sleep problems,

Especially sleep problems like insomnia,

They simply are not very effective long-term and not in a real way.

So that's why according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine,

American College of Physicians,

Based on all the research evidence out there,

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is actually the best treatment for insomnia.

More effective,

Longer lasting,

And fewer side effects than sleep medications.

Tidal flex is a big one,

Right?

I mean,

A lot of these prescription drugs come at a very high cost when it comes to damage to the body and even psychologically and neurologically.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So,

And especially given that they don't really give you better sleep in turn,

It really feels to me like it's not worth it.

That being said,

If anyone is hearing this and wanting to come off of their medications,

Also do that with careful supervision from your doctor because there are especially some sleep medications that you really,

Really have to come off very gradually and in a very controlled manner.

If you come off too suddenly,

First of all,

You will definitely have rebound insomnia.

It's going to make your sleep worse.

And two,

Some medications,

Especially benzodiazepines can be actually quite dangerous to come off too quickly.

So definitely don't play fast and loose with your medications.

They're so hard to get off.

I mean,

That just speaks to the.

.

.

Yeah.

That in and of itself is a terrible side effect,

Isn't it?

Exactly.

The dependence.

So how about the Pongletopapal therapy,

The CBT as it's known,

How does that work?

So a patient comes in to you,

They're insomniac,

So they're just not getting good sleep.

They've tried prescription drugs,

They've tried OTC,

Supplements and drugs and it's not working.

How do you work with them?

Well,

We try to do the elevator pitch.

Essentially,

It's about improving one's relationship with sleep.

We kind of hit a big reset button to get back to basics,

You know,

Kind of take away misconceptions that have built up over the years about sleep.

We teach people about how sleep really works.

We do some myth busting.

We diagnose,

We assess,

You know,

What is getting in the way of good sleep,

Whether it's behaviors,

Like simple behaviors like drinking too much coffee or complex behaviors,

Like trying too hard and having perfect sleep hygiene and sort of putting all their resources into improving their sleep.

So anything in between that,

You know,

Can sour the relationship between you and your sleep.

We figure out those and then we take those logs out of the fire and let the fire burn itself out and restore you back to a more natural trusting relationship with sleep so that your body can take care of you and you can trust your body to do so again.

Because believe it or not,

Even if you've had insomnia for 20 years,

Your body still does know how to sleep and it wants to sleep.

So we just need to get the barriers out of the way and you can trust your body to take care of you.

Great.

Of course it differs from person to person,

But is this a long process?

I mean,

How long is the course of treatment?

Are there programs that define,

You know,

Start and end points or is it just kind of an ongoing process until improvements are made?

It's usually a pretty structured process and it's usually shorter than you would think.

So usually I see patients between four and eight times and usually these are spaced about one or two weeks apart.

So usually within a couple of months,

Three months we're done and you can start to see improvements as early as like one or two weeks in.

So that I think speaks to the adaptability and the resilience of the body because once you start making changes,

It really does improve pretty quickly.

Wow,

That's fantastic.

Great.

So I want to give you a chance to plug the new book.

You've got a new book coming out.

Maybe you can share a little bit about it and why you wrote it and what you hope people are going to get out of it.

Oh,

Thank you for the opportunity.

So this is a book that I've been very excited to write.

It's called Hello Sleep,

The art and science of overcoming insomnia without medications.

So this is based on the latest clinical science on insomnia.

So cognitive behavioral therapy,

But also elements like mindfulness,

Which I know you're a fan of and other elements like chronotherapy,

Like using light strategically to help our sleep and our circadian rhythms.

So I've basically packaged together all of the best stuff in behavioral sleep medicine and non-medication approaches to insomnia and put it into a program that is basically based on what I do with my patients and what has worked really well with countless patients that I've worked with.

Essentially,

I wrote it because I only have so many hours in a day.

I can only see so many people one-on-one and I really wanted to spread the good word and help more people to sleep better because we know that insomnia is such a prevalent issue.

Millions of people have insomnia and it just seems such a shame that such a straightforward treatment and something that works so well and that really isn't rocket science,

That it's not more available to everybody.

So that's why I wrote this book.

Fantastic.

Great,

Great.

I think when the intention is to serve and to share the good word with others,

I'm sure it's going to be really,

Really well read and a great success too.

Oh,

Thank you so much.

And by the way,

I do talk about chronic pain in it as well.

Okay.

And people may not fear that just because they have chronic pain that they're doomed to have bad sleep.

You can actually treat your sleep even when you have pain,

Even if you have pain.

And it's a slightly different journey,

But it's definitely doable.

That's great for listeners to hear.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Get off the,

Well,

Consult your doctor,

Get off the prescription drug slowly and then find a sleep scientist and try CBT,

Cognitive behavioral therapy instead of the medications.

What are you working on that's exciting right now?

What current projects have you got going on before I let you go?

Well,

I just became a sleep.

Com advisor.

Sleep.

Com is a website that does provide a lot of good resources for sleep.

And I'm really excited to be part of the team to advise on the content.

Very cool.

Yeah.

And I'm also working on more perinatal sleep.

So sleep specifically during pregnancy and the postpartum period,

Because as a new mom myself,

I've really gone through the experience of the roller coaster of sleep changes around this time.

And I wish there was more,

More evidence-based information out there for moms.

So I'm working on building up some sort of resource hub course,

Maybe write a book.

I don't exactly know what it's going to look like yet,

But this is something that I'm really excited about.

Awesome.

I'm much needed as well.

So Jade,

Where can people find you and your work?

We'll drop all of this into the show notes,

But it'd be good to hear where you think the best place is.

So my website is drjadewoo.

Com.

So D-R-Jade-Woo,

Exactly how you think it's spelled,

Dot com.

And then on Twitter,

I'm also,

I'm at jadewoo.

Phd.

So yeah,

You can find me or you can just Google me.

I'll probably show up.

Jadewoo sleep.

And yeah,

And I'm always happy to hear from people.

So they're welcome to drop me a line through my website or sign up for my mailing list and to be for secure about my new projects and my new book.

Cool.

Well,

I can attest to that because I reached out to you just cold and you graciously agreed to come on and speak to me today.

Oh,

I'm so glad.

I'm so grateful.

And I think listeners,

There's so much in the last hour and a bit.

So yeah,

Just very enriching.

I learned a lot and think it's going to be illuminating for those that listen to it as well.

So Jade,

Thank you again so much for joining me and for sharing your time with us today.

Well,

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

This was a really fun chat.

Okay.

Thanks for listening,

Guys.

Thanks again for listening to the back to being podcast.

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Until next time,

Be kind to yourself and others.

I wish you well.