Biography
Danielle “Dani” Hamilton is a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and a renowned blood sugar expert specializing in using a personalized circadian and quantum approach to optimizing metabolic health. Her journey into this specialized field was fueled by her personal battle with PCOS, hypoglycemia, acne, and weight loss resistance, which she successfully reversed after learning that blood sugar issues and metaboic issues were at the root.
After working with clients for several years and helping hundreds reverse their metabolic issues like insulin resistance, there were others who continued to struggle, despite doing "everything right." Encouraged to dig deeper, Dani turned to nature for answers and discovered the incredible power of light, water and magnetism to help optimize not only metabolic health, but every single aspect of health. Lit up by the sun's healing powers, she now uses a circadian and quantum approach as a foundation for helping her clients heal.
Dani is on a mission to help the world get back to nature to heal their blood sugar, uplevel their energy, and feel great. She is the host of the top 50 Nutrition Podcast, Light Up Your Metabolism. She is also the creator of the transformative "Blood Sugar Mastery Program."
In this episode, we discuss:
😴 What are the secret to balanced blood sugar and deep sleep— are you doing it right?
😴 How does meal timing hold the key to transforming your energy, metabolism, and sleep?
😴 Are you missing out on simple, free habits that could completely transform your health and well-being?
😴 What’s really behind those middle-of-the-night wakeups—and could it be something you’ve never considered?
😴 Is there a hidden connection between sunlight and your health that you might be overlooking?
😴 Could some of your "healthy habits" be quietly working against your sleep and metabolism?
😴 Are the lights in your environment playing a bigger role in your cravings and hormones than you think?
😴 What really happens when your body’s internal clock falls out of sync—and how can you fix it?
😴 What was Dani’s biggest AHA moment about managing his own sleep?
😴 Links & Resources:
- Apps: D Minder for vitamin D tracking, Circadian Life for sunlight phases.
- Red light therapy and blue-blocking glasses for managing indoor environments.
- Danielle’s Programs: It Starts With Light and Blood Sugar Mastery.
😴 And many more!
SPONSORS:
🪟Ublockout— Can you still see your hand in front of your face when you are in bed? Well, you NEED to know about this company that will get on a Zoom call with you and help you measure your windows for a custom AND affordable blackout solution! Enjoy 10% OFF. Code: SLEEPISASKILL
GUEST LINKS:
Website: https://daniellehamiltonhealth.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daniellehamiltonhealth
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daniellehamiltonhealth
Podcast: https://lightupyourmetabolism.buzzsprout.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH9oPLW019uqEZc_Ftvyn5Q
Blood Sugar Mastery Waitlist: https://www.daniellehamiltonhealth.com/blood-sugar-mastery
It Starts with Light Waitlist: https://www.daniellehamiltonhealth.com/lightwaitlist
DISCLAIMER:
The information contained in this podcast, our website, newsletter, and the resources available for download are not intended to be medical or health advice and shall not be understood or construed as such. The information contained on these platforms is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
Mentioned Resources
Guest contacts
Transcription
Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of sleep as a skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about sleep.
Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.
And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health. And by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.
Welcome to today's episode of the sleep is a skill podcast. I'm so excited to introduce my very, very close friend. Danielle, a. k. a. Danny Hamilton. Danny is a functional nutritional therapy practitioner and an expert in blood sugar regulation with a unique focus on using personalized circadian quantum approaches to optimize metabolic health.
Danny shares groundbreaking insights on how light exposure, meal timing, and circadian rhythms profoundly impact blood sugar and sleep quality. Her journey into this specialized field was fueled by her personal battle with PCOS, hypoglycemia, acne, and weight loss resistance, which she successfully reversed after learning that blood sugar issues and metabolic issues were at the root.
After working with clients for several years. And helping hundreds reverse their metabolic issues like insulin resistance. There were others who continue to struggle despite doing quote unquote everything right. Encouraged to dig deeper, Danny turned to nature for answers and discovered the incredible power of light, water, and magnetism.
Do help optimize not only metabolic health, but every single aspect of health lit up by the sun's healing power. She now uses a circadian and quantum approach as a foundation for helping her clients heal. Danny is on a mission to help the world get back to nature and to heal their blood sugar, uplevel their energy and feel great.
She is the host of the top 50 nutrition podcast, light up your metabolism. And she's also the creator of the transformative. Blood sugar mastery program. Again, Danny is one of my closest friends in the world. I get to spend so much time with her routinely over here in Austin. I can tell you, she walks her talk.
You're going to be fascinated by this deep dive and there's so many practical takeaways for you in this episode. So we're going to get right into it. But first a few words from our sponsor. and please do take a listen to who our sponsors are, because they really help keep this podcast alive. And we only partner with other brands that we truly believe in and that I actually use routinely.
So please check them out. Important question. Can you see the hand in front of your face in your bedroom? Thanks so much. If so, you need to hear about our sponsor who is revolutionizing the blackout shade space and finally making it easy and affordable to get a truly blacked out bedroom. So challenging in the past, right?
So introducing you block out the ultimate solution for creating the perfect sleep environment, ensuring total darkness, comfort and control. So why you block out in particular? Well, a hundred percent blackout guarantee comes with this product provides temperature comfort all year round. So you keep your room warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.
You block out helps in enhancing your sleep quality by maintaining a comfortable temperature, regardless of the season. Acoustic noise reduction. Enjoy a quieter sleeping environment with U Blockout Shades designed to minimize external sounds that can disrupt your peace. Ideal for urban dwellers or anyone looking to reduce noise pollution.
Customizable and easy to install. Tailored to fit your space with a simple 30 minute installation process, U Blockout makes it hassle free to achieve the perfect sleep setting, ensuring your bedroom is a Sanctuary for sleep. And for listeners of the sleep as a skill podcast, use the code sleep as a skill for exclusive 10 percent off and embark on the journey to unparalleled sleep quality.
Remember, light is the number one external factor affecting our sleep. With you block out, you're not just investing in a blackout shade. You're investing in your health, wellbeing, and quality of life. So again, go to you block out spelled the letter U block out, And use code sleep as a skill for a discount and welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast.
This is a pleasure because I am talking to one of my favorite humans on the planet, Danielle Hamilton. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's just a rarity that we're not sitting side by side each other. So this is pretty funny to be doing this podcast. Danielle is a dear, dear. friend, like a, my partner in crime for so many things.
And so I know her day to day life. I know she walks her talk and she believes in every ounce of her being about some of the practices that we're going to get into today that can make a difference fundamentally with your health and wellbeing. So Danny Hamilton, thank you. Thank you. I'm super excited to be here, friend.
And I. It, yeah, it is weird to be interviewed because we talk nonstop all day long about all these topics. I know. And I, I love that what we do is so complimentary. It's also not surprising, um, that, you know, both of us are in these, this field. And I know that you've been leading the way as a pioneer in this of circadian rhythm and sleep. And now I've finally gotten on the train at when it comes to circadian rhythm and metabolic health and blood sugar. And you called it that, you know, circadian rhythms are going to be the next big thing in health and wellness. And I couldn't agree more like that. That is where things are going.
And I, you know, I was on this podcast a long time ago and we talked all about blood sugar and things like that. And it's not that information. Is wrong per se, but it's it's not complete. And so when you tell something that's a half truth or it's not grounded in this, this whole other just realm of what's dictating the biochemistry, it's just, It's, it's really cool to zoom out and see this other layer that, that is so profound in its effects on how our whole body functions.
And even though the science is complicated, the, the strategies are really simple, like touch the ground with your skin, like get outside for sunrise. I mean, it's easy, easy stuff. And so even if you don't understand all the science, it's somewhat easy to apply in your life, these certain strategies to really.
make a lot of change with your health and with your blood sugar and sleep. Oh, so true. I love that. And that's one of the things that I think you've been shouting from the rooftops is, okay, these things, so many of them are free, behavioral, very doable, and can make such a difference with your results, with your blood sugar and your sleep.
sleep and your health and so much more. So we're going to get into all those things today. And I love to how you pointed to our podcast from a while ago. And I think that speaks to the true passion that you have around continuing to enrich just the depth of this knowledge and the information that you can get out to help people.
Because I think for all of us, it's so important to. have people out there that are willing to just keep building on instead of just sticking with our same tenants or whatever, we keep evolving and expanding what's possible. So from that place, let's begin with, you know, kind of how should we be thinking about blood sugar, circadian health, and sleep.
How are they all connected? Kind of take us through 101. Yeah, so I'll just start with a story to kind of ground this in how powerful these practices are for both sleep and blood sugar because it just happened yesterday and I think it's It's just an incredible like to get some buy in here. Um, but so my client in my blood sugar mastery program, she's been working with me for a while and she has hypoglycemia.
So her blood sugar crashes a lot. And she said to me, you know, I just wanted to share a win. My sleep has actually been amazing over the last three days in a row. And she's like, and not only that, I got like three hours of deep sleep every night. And And my blood sugar has been so stable every one of those days.
It doesn't like have this like sharp crash after I eat. It just gently comes down like normal. And my, I think my circadian rhythm is regulating because I'm waking up at like earlier times. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you know, tell us what you did to get these results. And she's like, I was just outside more for those three days.
I'm like, that's it. She was outside people like outside and it's just this is why I can't continue to talk about blood sugar and metabolic health and not bring in the piece about light because it is that profound. And I can't tell you how many clients I've had who said, I wish I started with this stuff because I, my results are just so much better.
And I was just trying, like, we were just kind of like trying so hard for so long. And then it's, there's resistance to sometimes adding things in that are free or that are simple because you're like, well, this couldn't possibly work. It's got to be some fancy contraption and some machine that costs all this money or some fancy new supplement.
And it's like, well, we evolved or we were. Uh, designed to live outside. You know, we lived outside for all of our human existence. And as such, we developed, you know, receptors in our eyes and on our skin for light. And that is what drives our biology. So I think it would just be worth a little, um, just maybe refresher.
I'm sure some of your, a lot of your people know what circadian rhythm is, but others who don't, who are newer to this topic. It really, um, you know, I heard the word circadian rhythm. I'm like, I've heard that word before or that saying before. Yeah. But I didn't really know fully what it was like. I didn't have like a real good grasp of it.
And so I knew it had something to do with like a sleep wake cycle, but that was pretty much it. And so this idea that The body needs to know what time it is is one of the most important things that we can that we need to have optimal health. And so how does the body tell time? It tells time from the presence of blue light, which historically was only when the sun was out, and it was never there when the sun was down.
So it was a reliable timekeeper, a time giver to our body. And so the blue light that's present in the sun would help us tell time. So why is telling time so important? Because think about have you ever taken a really long nap and you wake up and like, you're kind of confused. You're like, Oh my God, where am I?
What day it is? What time is it? Like you don't even, you don't even know who you are at that point. So in that, that couple of seconds, panic, right? Like just total panic. Like, Oh my God, what, what time is it? Where am I? Like you immediately, it's like that movie, uh, memento, like you immediately try to figure out what time it is and it would be stressful.
If you couldn't figure it out, right? Like, you would run out and be like, where am I? Who am I? What time is it? Like, if you didn't know what time it was, it would be really stressful to you just on a conscious level. Why? Why is that? Because If you don't know what time it is, you don't know what the heck to do.
Like, why am I not putting on my pajamas and washing my face right now? Because it's not time for that. Why am I not putting up Christmas decorations? Well, it's not time for that. So I need to know what time it is so I know what to do. And our bodies are no different. They have hundreds and thousands of tasks to perform in every cell at every second.
So how do they organize all of this? It's like. Thinking about like a, uh, the control tower in at an airport to try to keep track of, you know, keep order with all the flights coming in and out and the delays and all that stuff. We need that traffic control center. Say, okay, you go ahead. You hold on, you wait.
Like, you know. Right. And so we have that traffic controller. And that's that suprachiasmatic nucleus, the SCN, in our hypothalamus, in our brain, that's receiving the light information and then directing our biology what to do next. So the reason why you're not asleep right now is because there's, there's blue light in your environment, there's some cortisol in your system, and that is making you awake.
But if it were, if your body was getting other signals, like all of a sudden the sun was down it was completely dark in a couple minutes you'd start getting tired and right so our body our biology is dictated by knowing what time it is so where we start to run into problems Uh, and then there's one more, one more concept about this is that as humans, we're also better designed to do certain things either during the day, earlier in the day, or during the night or at specific times of the day.
So we do certain things better at certain times. So I'll give you a silly example. Let's say it's right now, it's 4. 30 PM, right? Let's say it was 4 30 a. m. And you woke me up. You gave me lots of coffee and you said, Danny, it's time to podcast. Would I be, even though I had all the coffee and all the stimulation and maybe some methylene blue and ketones, would I be as good at podcasting?
No, I wouldn't. My body, my brain is not designed to do that at that time. Right? So things like digestion, metabolizing food and hunting and solving problems and all that. We're way better at doing those things in the day and earlier in the day. And then as the day goes on into night, that's when we're better set up to restore and repair and detoxify and sleep and all those things.
So we're diurnal. And I know you talk about that word a lot, but I didn't know what that meant. And that means the opposite of nocturnal. So we're up during the day. So we're supposed to be alert during the day and we're also again better at metabolizing food during the day. So when we're asking our body to sort of run when we're in line with the sun and sync with the sun, that is ideal for a human body.
Every human body, even I know you talk about those chronotypes and not loving chronotypes and if you're like, not me, I'm designed to be up in the night. According to information I learned from you and what I know myself, it is my belief that you are training your body to be up at those times, right? That we can, and then, therefore, we can train our body to be more in line with the sun, right?
Like my client was doing. Right. We run into a lot of problems when we are asking our body to shift that whole schedule. So I like to think about this. Another analogy I, I just thought of is an analogy of like a restaurant. So let's say your body's like this breakfast and brunch restaurant. Okay. So In the morning, the workers come in, and they're, you know, opening the curtains, and they're prepping the food, and they're cleaning the tables off, and they're doing their whole, you know, prep for all the customers to come in.
All the customers come in, and they serve them, and they're doing all the stuff, and then at the end of the, the day, they start cleaning up, and mopping the floors, and taking the trash out, and placing the orders for the next day. And then they close up. That's when everything is working on time as it should.
You know, normal operating hours, let's say. The, the restaurant is at peak efficient efficiency. But let's say someone forgets to turn on the close sign and a bunch of people come in and they, They're, they're seated and it's like, oh my gosh, now the half of the staff has gone home. They're working on this skeleton crew.
They don't have chance to clean the tables and take out the garbage or place the orders for the next day. They're making mistakes because they're, they just worked a whole entire day. So they're like, a hot mess right now. That's what we're asking our body to do, is run on this skeleton crew. And then guess what happens?
The orders weren't placed for the next day. The garbage is building up. We're not detoxifying and we're not prepping ourselves for all the things we need to do the next day. And then we probably end up waking up late. So maybe the shift worker, they come in late the next day. They missed their alarm, right?
And so then our whole schedule is shifted later. And so just as this restaurant was not designed to be open this long or like two in a row, that's what we're often asking our body to do. We're not operating at peak hours, and it's impacting everything in our health, including our sleep and our metabolic health.
Yes. So well said couldn't agree more and to anyone that's listening and thinking, Oh, well, you know, this chronotype, I'm that chronotype, etc, etc. You know, I think what's so beautiful about that is, of course, there can be certain variations like we have our mutual friend, Nikki, she wakes up consistently at like, oh, it's 4 a.
m. 430 a. m. has just kind of always been one of those quote unquote early birds, but then there might be a little bit more like I know you and I are closer to sunrise here in Austin, which tends to be in the like sixes, early sevens, all that. So there can be a little bit of variance here, but it's often still tethered to these rhythms of nature.
Whereas so many of us can talk about this idea of almost just providing this label for ourselves of, Oh, well, I'm a night owl. So I could go to bed at two, three, four, and then be perpetrating all these behaviors that then swing them out even further. And I know this because I did all of that as well. So, you know, it's within reason.
We also see the deleterious effects when people are chronically working and or awake and active at the times where we're meant to be at rest. with shift workers, et cetera, and some of the things that come up for them health wise. So while there can be like a little bit of variance to the most part, we're going to see it's still more activity by day and more rest at night.
And what you're pointing to is so huge and just really illustrating the granularity of what goes awry when we get off time. So totally amazing. And so how, if someone's listening and they're like, Okay. All right. Now I'm like more bought into this idea of staying on time. But then how does that just apply when whatever I eat ice cream and my blood sugar skyrockets and my sleep sucks?
Like, what does that have to do with those components? How do we bridge that gap? Okay. So I think that coming back to like, what are some of the most important. circadian strategies to support blood sugar, I guess. Um, and so, you know, I, I can, I ate ice cream the other day and I had no spike whatsoever, which was crazy.
So all of these strategies are really helping my blood sugar a lot. Um, but yeah, so the idea is not always like, Oh, do all this stuff so you can, you know, You know, you can eat whatever you want, um, but you do get a lot more leeway and you get a little bit more flexibility. And I think that's what a lot of people are going for.
So, um, I think that the first important thing to remember in terms of how light, uh, impacts our blood sugar is that infrared and red light, um, have a, lowering effect on our glucose because they cause the mitochondria to utilize the glucose more efficiently. And so it lowers blood glucose levels. So there are studies where they're giving people, I have a red light on me as we speak because I'm inside.
Um, but That where they, you know, shine the red light, infrared light on people and their blood sugar response is much better, uh, than a group that got blue light shown on them. And so we can make this applicable and really easy to do even without a red light therapy device for free by taking advantage of the time when infrared light is really high in our environment, which is anytime the sun is up.
The sun's light at the peak is 49 percent infrared, so it's basically 50 percent infrared light. It's half. So you have to think, okay, that's got to be pretty important for human beings if we, you know, like if that's what the sun is mostly made out of. And then when the sun is lower in the sky around sunrise and sunset, the quantity of like the.
The percentage of that infrared light is much higher even because some of those other light rays aren't there. So it's basically like you're standing in front of this giant red light therapy panel anytime you're outside around sunrise and sunset. So a keystone Habit to develop is working your wake up time closer to sunrise and getting out there at that time with naked eyes.
And what I see blood sugar wise with my clients is that a lot of them have high fasting blood sugar in the morning. And oftentimes this is due to just our environment because we are inside. We turn on a blue light that raises blood sugar and cortisol. So then that's going to give us a spike on our CGM and then we don't have that infrared light to help the mitochondria use up that glucose that was just released into our system.
So we see a significant spike in the morning. So I have people go outside for sunrise and they're grounded, which is also really helpful for our blood sugar and for energy and, and they get this light on their skin and in their eyes And some, this even works in the shade. Even if you don't have a direct view of sunrise, it's still beneficial.
So what I, what they see on their CGM is like, Oh, my blood sugar started to go up. And then as soon as I got outside, it just started ticking down to like normal levels, which is amazing because what I usually see. is people who have this high morning fasting blood sugar, the dawn phenomenon, they tend to double down on fasting when this happens.
And that kind of brings us into another important part about our circadian rhythm, which I talked about as timing and has a lot to do with light and timing. And That is the timing of our meals and I know you talk about this a lot and the importance of that morning meal is such that it's What it's the secondary time giver to the body food contains light information.
So it's like i'm up i'm seeing the light I'm getting it on the inside. Boom. It is morning. I know what to do My blood sugar response and my morning meal. Oh my gosh, it's phenomenal I could I ate rice. I ate rice and beans. I had You Potatoes. Usually these things spike the heck out of me. I'm out there in the morning.
No spike. My blood sugar went up like 10 points. I'm just, I am blown away at the difference of how good my blood sugar is since incorporating this. It's not just like, okay, I have to be low carb for the rest of my life if I don't want to have my blood sugar spike. It's like, this is where we can have our carbs and eat them too, when seasonally appropriate, which is another concept we can talk about, but it's, it's really effective.
So in terms of the meal timing to support better blood sugar and of course, better sleep, because anything that supports metabolic health supports sleep and anything that supports sleep supports your metabolic health. And according to Molly, Sleep and blood sugar have a bi directional relationship. So I love that concept.
So as we work on one, the other one often gets better. Um, and so, yeah, we want to think about them as like a unit. They go together as this really beautiful unit. So, Meal timing. We do want to eat ideally, let's say within 60 minutes of sunrise ish. And that's really supportive for our metabolic health. And a lot of people are like, but Danny intermittent fasting is good for metabolic health.
Like where have you been? And so, yes, there are studies showing the effectiveness of intermittent fasting, and I'm not against fasting. I'm more pro circadian aligned fasting, which is where we eat early in the day. We're going to front load our meals and then not eat in the later hours of the day. I've talked about how our metabolic health, our blood sugar response to meals are way better earlier in the day.
So we want to take advantage of that. That's also when we're using nutrients. So if you're not using nutrients in the morning because you didn't eat and you had, you know, maybe you had coffee, even if it has stuff in it, um, like fats and whatever, collagen, like, even if it has stuff in it, you're still giving yourself a, you're adding to that stress hormone load that's naturally occurring.
And then you automatically have a higher cortisol response, and then you're not eating, which eating can help to lower that cortisol response a little bit. So it's just this. Lots of cortisol, and we know that cortisol and and a stressor that would cause a cortisol and stress hormone release in the short term can be a good thing, right?
We get, it's a hormetic stressor, we can adapt to it, we can get stronger, but the people skipping breakfast, it's not a one time thing, it's a chronic, now it's become a chronic thing. stressor. And I do see that males have a lot more leeway with this and they might be like, I am totally fine. This works for me.
And you know, they might be fine with it. I typically see women after at, at first the skipping breakfast works. And so they're very Like encouraged by it. Yes. But then what I start to see is the plateau coming because that's when the skipping becomes a chronic stressor and either it's driving the cortisol levels too high or you're completely flatlining and bottoming out.
And then this is a typical pattern I see with eating. So if someone's skipping breakfast, typically women, they're skipping breakfast, they're pushing off until. Uh, you know, lunch, maybe 1 p. m. And by this time, oftentimes they're like ravenous. And so then they eat so much and then maybe there's a crash later.
Maybe they need to snack again. Uh, maybe they need more coffee or maybe they're just drinking coffee all morning, which is going to be depleting for our adrenals, um, because we're losing minerals and it's just demanding more cortisol, which is going to. raise our insulin. It's going to block us from losing weight.
Um, and then they're going to have dinner. And because oftentimes if you're just doing these two meals, oftentimes, not always, people are not eating enough protein. And because there was like so much deficit and, and so much demand from the body in the morning, it's going to, It becomes depleted. And then what happens is you end up getting sugar cravings and you're like, I can't stop snacking.
Oftentimes this is exacerbated by our lighting environment in the evening where we have blue lights on in the evening. We have the TV going. And what is that doing? It's raising our cortisol, blood sugar, insulin, and it's driving up our hunger hormones. One time I was in a movie pretty recently and I even had my, my blue blockers on and it was an evening movie and I got hungry.
And I was like, this is from the light. This is from the light. I was like, don't listen to this, but anyway, so like that environment can drive us to have these cravings and the fasting all morning can drive us to have cravings and just be extra hungry. So then You give in to the cravings because you're still hungry and you beat up on yourself and then you double down.
Well, I have to fast tomorrow because I just binged. So, or I just ate all this stuff at night. And that is It's not that you're a failure that you don't have willpower. It's that your your system is failing you So if we can move this earlier, I have a client who was like She's like danny. My blood sugar is ticking up and I was like, okay, tell me about your meals When is it the highest at what meal does your blood sugar go the highest?
And so she said well In the afternoon and I was like, okay, so after lunch, she goes, well, I don't have lunch. I just have breakfast and dinner. I'm like, well, well, well, yes, it's the stress hormones. So what's happening is she's skipping a meal and her blood sugar is actually higher. I need people to hear this information because it's counterintuitive.
We think if I don't eat, my blood sugar will go down. But that's not what's going to happen because of a lot of these counter regulatory hormones. It's going to say, we don't have, we don't have anything to eat. So let's, uh, pump up some sugar. cortisol, which then raises blood sugar. Cortisol raises blood sugar.
So all that to say, eating in the morning is super, super powerful for our metabolic health. It's also going to signal to leptin, uh, once we get a lot of good protein in our, in our meals. So we want a good amount of protein at breakfast for women, I'd say like around the 30 gram mark. And you have to personalize to you men, maybe around the talking a big meal. I like people to think about like papa bear, mama bear, baby bear. So Breakfast is the biggest meal, lunch is medium, and dinner, ideally, is the smallest meal. Do I eat this way 100 percent of the time? No, I don't. This is the general recommendation, right? So um, yeah, so we want to do that, like a nice big meal in the morning, lots of healthy fat, some fibers.
I personally tolerate carbs really well in the morning. Some people are like, if I eat carbs, I'm going to be eating carbs all day. You have to figure out what works for you. And, you know, I can obviously help you guys with that if, you know, in my programs and things like that. Um, but that's really important.
And then if you wanted to skip a meal or do like shove that last meal earlier, I usually find that that's when I get my best sleep because I don't have any food in my digestive tract. And that gives my body more of a chance to repair. So if we're eating a meal late at night, we're also getting. uh, some collateral damage.
So there's a couple of things that happen. Number one, our insulin may stay up too high at night. And we also, um, we could also be influencing cortisol to be elevated because it's, it's, it's. not used to that. Um, also the blue light at night, which I know your listeners are probably familiar with that is also driving high cortisol at night.
And when those two hormones are high at night, they block another hormone, another important metabolic hormone called leptin from docking at the hypothalamus. And this is really important. So leptin is Is a hormone that gives the brain this energy report every night like hey This is it goes to the hypothalamus and it docks there and it's like all right.
Here's the rundown This is how much stored sugar danny has in her liver. This is how much body fat she has This is how many nutrients she has and you know what looks like a little bit of excess So tomorrow, why don't you go ahead and lower her appetite and feel free to burn through? Some of that fat if you need to feel free to use that sugar in the liver You between meals, like we're good, we're good.
Everything is fine here. That's how leptin should work. But in the presence of insulin and cortisol, it's basically going to take over the space where leptin has to dock. It's going to fill up that space. So now Leptin can't give the message to the hypothalamus. So when the hypothalamus doesn't get the nightly report from leptin, it assumes you're starving.
So it's going to say, Oh my gosh, things are bad out there. Probably a famine. Danny obviously has no body fat. She's got no sugar in her liver. Tomorrow I need you to increase her appetite, maybe increase her anxiety so she goes out and gets food, and don't, don't you even think about, uh, well there's no sugar to burn in her liver between meals, so you're probably gonna make her hungry every couple of hours because that's how long it takes to digest a meal, and overnight, uh, Don't touch that body fat because, well, there is none to touch.
So what this leads to when we're constantly blocking the signal of leptin is that all of a sudden something really critical happens and that is we lose our ability to burn stored energy as fuel between meals and overnight. And that is where the start of blood sugar issues starts. start to happen. Um, so then when the blood sugar, let's say you eat breakfast and you, you know, your blood sugar raises a little bit and whatever, and you're using up the energy from that meal.
And then like two, three hours later, all the energy from that meal is used up, your blood sugar will start ticking down. At that point, your liver should be like, Oh, I got you girl and pump out a little bit of sugar to keep it nice and balanced. But what if the body doesn't think there's any sugar in the liver?
What if, you know, and there's other things like what if the thyroid is low and it's struggling to make new sugar there? And like there, there's a couple of other hormonal Issues, but in general with that leptin piece, it's that it doesn't know that it's there with insulin resistance. it doesn't allow the body to do that.
It's like, no, no, no. Insulin is high. We need to be in a fat storage mode. You can't, you can't burn fat right now. So when insulin resistance is there, when there's leptin resistance or low leptin, when there's thyroid dysfunction, when the cortisol is Just it is sometimes too low. Then we're not able to tap into those backup mechanisms to, to sort of stabilize our blood sugar in an easy way.
And so what happens is the blood sugar will keep ticking down and the liver is like, sorry, I have nothing, no way to help you. And we don't typically burn fat that quickly during the day. We don't go into a lot of fat burning during the day, but lipolysis that, that, uh, The way the body burns fat for fuel, that's generally down regulated.
So now what do we have left? How do we get our blood sugar back up if we're not eating? Is that our adrenals have to come in and pump us with stress hormones. So this is dysregulating again for the adrenals that will lead to, you know, over time dysregulation there. And then overnight, what we see if we get pumped with stress hormones.
we get wake ups. And we get wake ups with a pounding heart oftentimes, or a wide awake feeling, or I'm having a panic attack feeling, or I need to eat something in order to fall back asleep feeling. So that's often how you know that there's a blood sugar component to These overnight wake ups. So yeah, I just spoke a lot.
So I'll let you know. I love that. That's great. Today, I want to talk to you about something that often flies under the radar, but is absolutely crucial for great sleep minerals. Now you've heard me talk about circadian rhythms, light exposure, temperature control, and more, but let's dive into the foundational elements that fuel our body's ability to sleep deeply and restoratively.
Specifically minerals are modern lifestyle with its processed foods and environmental stressors can leave us depleted of essential minerals. This depletion can mess with our sleep quality, leading to issues like restless legs, poor sleep initiation and waking up in the middle of the night. Enter beam minerals.
Beam minerals are designed to replenish your body's essential mineral levels, providing the building blocks your body needs for optimal health. And this includes better sleep. What I love about beam is that they use a hundred percent bioavailable liquid minerals, which means your body can actually absorb and utilize them instantly without any fillers or additives.
Magnesium, for example, is known as nature's relaxant, helping to calm the nervous system, support muscle relaxation, and some argue by extension can promote deep, restful sleep. Beam's magnesium is sourced in a way that ensures maximum absorption and effectiveness, making it a key part of my sleep routine.
But beam doesn't stop there. They've created a comprehensive blend that includes other vital minerals like potassium, calcium, and trace minerals that work synergistically to support your overall health. And of course your sleep, the result, you wake up feeling more refreshed, more balanced. and ready to take on the day.
So if you've been struggling with sleep and feel like you've tried everything, it might be time to look at what's happening on a cellular level. B minerals can help fill in those gaps and give your body the support it needs for truly restorative sleep. So head on over to beam minerals spelled B E a M today and use the code sleep as a skill, all one word at checkout to get a special discount on your order.
Your body and your sleep will thank you. I know for so many people that I'll be speaking with, they might not even realize they're dealing with a blood sugar issue. They think, oh, I'm just having a lot of wake ups, and I must just have to go pee all the time. So, I wonder, when you think about wake ups for people, and I know you do a lot of work with CGMs, and many of our listeners are tracking, often in some way, shape, or form, or tracking curious, what might they expect to see throughout the course of their night on their CGM, if they get one, and or what might be happening if they don't have one.
Yeah, so one of the most important things to remember is that this whole process that I'm talking about where like the blood sugar is kind of dipping And and maybe when it dips, you feel symptoms. So overnight, it might be like the heart palpitations because you already got the adrenals coming in, pumping you with stress hormones.
So you get sometimes and this could be like between meals or overnight. You can get some of those sort of sympathetic. type symptoms where you're shaky, where you're anxious, where your heart's pounding, where you're sweating, your palms are sweaty, hot flashes are common. But, um, before the, the adrenals come in, you may feel lightheaded.
You may feel weak, uh, brain fog, fatigue, headaches. Those are all signs that the blood sugar is kind of dropping, sort of hypoglycemic symptoms, but these symptoms can happen at any time. Any blood sugar number, they don't only happen in the low blood sugar range. And that's where doctors, they don't know that.
And so you go to your doctor and you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm so shaky. I'm dizzy. I'm, I feel so anxious. I'm craving all this food. And, and they take your blood sugar and it's 110. And they're like, well, it's not your blood sugar. Your blood sugar is fine. Well, maybe for you, you feel like you're going to die at 110.
Like I have seen people who her this woman, she's like, I have hypoglycemia. I've had it since high school. She's now retired. We put a CGM on her. Her blood sugar was spiking to three 50 and the crashes. We're at 160. So she couldn't go below 160 without feeling like she was going to die. And just yesterday we were on a call and her blood sugar was 96 and she's like, Oh, I feel great.
So this can, this changes, but, but the idea that I call it kind of your basement, like this number you go below. It's it can be relative to you. So think about like a thermostat sort of turning up. And I think this has to do with the level of metabolic inflexibility, how poor your body is at using those other sources of fuel.
Because if it doesn't perceive that there's anything left in the tank, it's like if we go below this. You know, SHIT is hitting the proverbial fan, so it's driving you to go get something to eat. All those symptoms are to go get something to eat. So what you might see on your CGM is a relative little dip.
And then sometimes on the come up is when that's when you would wake up. However, I have seen on my own CGM. A lot of times these dips and it rises back up and that's when I'm in deep sleep. So you may be laying on the sensor or sometimes your body just does it. So I'm not really concerned with a dip on a CGM unless it's associated with a wake up or feeling like you just slept too much terribly.
So maybe you're sleeping through it and you're like, Oh my God, I woke up. I feel like I didn't even sleep at all. Um, but when I, you know, when I, when I'm sleeping, I'm a, I'm a pretty good sleeper, not as good as you, but, um, well, not this summer. Oh my goodness. Was a whole other conversation, but yes, I'll have to interview you about that for your own podcast.
Yeah. So when I wake up, if I'm, if I see that, like a couple of dips over the night, um, I'm like, oh, I didn't even know, you know, sometimes I do wake up from them and I can connect it to like, oh, look, I didn't, I didn't need enough protein or something like that. Or like I was really stressed and stress drains your minerals.
Minerals are a huge piece of optimizing your metabolic health. I know sleep they're important as well. So. Yeah, so I would expect to see it's not a specific number or anything like that, but more the pattern Um, and especially if there's like a sharp rise. Yes, and even if it's small if there's a an elevation So this is important one quick thing here Is that a lot of people will wake up in the middle of the night and if they only have the finger prick monitor They finger prick themselves and they're like, oh my blood sugar was fine.
So it wasn't my blood sugar Well, it's only Capturing you after it's raised and it's been, you know, so it didn't capture the low. So that's where again, a lot of people almost like gaslight themselves and be like, it's not my blood sugar. Well, it could, it definitely could be. Oh my gosh. So good. Well, and playing or like, uh, Putting a bow on the CGM topic.
So just recently we had this new exciting announcement where we're able to now buy, uh, CGMs over the counter in the United States without a prescription. So even more opportunity for people to at least just give this a go to test this out. Like if the whole world was to, uh, you know, even just have one go around or a month's worth of using a CGM to think differently about the foods they're eating, the behaviors they're engaging in, how much they're saying inside, outside, et cetera.
All of it. would be so eye opening. So now this is available question for you. How do we manage the beeps and the buzzing and the alarms throughout the course of the night? What do we do about this? That's a really important question. And I love that you asked that because oftentimes people start my program and you know, I really want to make sure they're getting good sleep because if not, their blood sugar is going to be a hot mess.
And that's the reason why they joined my program. So they're like I put on the cgm and it woke me up five times last night. I'm like, well, that's gonna make your blood sugar worse. Like we don't want to make anything worse Here. So what I recommend is as long as you are not a person who has a medical necessity for waking up when your blood sugar drops, such as someone on, you know, who has type one diabetes, you would let, let me just put it this way.
You would know, you would know if you need to be woken up. Um, but for the average person, I want you to turn your phone off and put it in another room. It saves the data. So what I do recommend is for you to turn off most of the alarm, like these low alarms, unless you really need them, because I find that.
These devices are also fallible. What if you're laying on it and it's accidentally reading low and you're in a deep sleep and then it bolts you awake and you have all this anxiety? How good is that for your sleep? That's gonna, you know, so we don't want this technology to disrupt our metabolic health.
We want it to improve it because of the data that we're getting. So, um, that's a important thing. You have total, like, there are certain CGMs where you can't turn off that low alert, and I think the lowest you can put it is like 55. But sometimes, again, if I'm laying on a sensor, it can easily do that. So I just turn my phone off, all the data is saved, and put it in another room.
And that's also important for Sleep and metabolic health is not charging your phone right next to your bed. Anyway, exactly. It's so yeah Okay before we shift over because I know we're gonna learn a lot from you on what you're doing to manage your own Sleep from morning to night to the whole thing So before we get there any other kind of closing thoughts you have on this huge topic of blood sugar light Darkness sleep the whole world of it You Yeah, so we talked a little bit about infrared light and how important that is.
Um, eating your meals outside is a really simple, easy strategy to have a better blood sugar response to your meal. Um, I would say the only time you may not see a better blood sugar response is if it's extremely hot and you're sweating and you're actually getting sort of like a sauna, sympathetic impact.
So your blood sugar may go up, but it's not bad for your blood sugar to go up in heat, as long as you can tolerate it. So heat and cold are beneficial, potentially hormetic stressors for our blood sugar. So we can lean into those, but just know that you would see oftentimes like a on the CGM, you just want to make sure you can recover from anything stressful.
So whether it's heat, cold exercise, this is really important. So if you're like, Oh my gosh, I put on a CGM and I'm really, I'm really crashing after, after a workout. Like, I feel like I need to go home and rest. That workout is too much for you. And that's not a good thing. We don't want to push through it.
That would be like telling someone with a sprained ankle to push through and go for that run. No, don't do it. You need rest, right? Exactly. So, um, you know, if you go into a sauna or you're outside in the midday sun and you're like feeling super faint and you're like, oh my gosh, and you need to lay down, it's a little, it just means it's a little too much for you.
So just, I want you to have what we used to call an acro yoga. I used to be an acro yogi. Um, It was called, uh, Accurate Self Assessment. So, like, you really want to have accurate self assessment with how you're doing with some of these stressors, uh, because that is, it can make things a lot worse. So, things like stressors.
Fasting, especially in the morning is a stressor. Lowering your carbs and going into ketosis is a stressor. Exercise, heat, cold, those are all stressors. So keep that in mind as you're designing a plan. If you're like, Oh my God, I keep, I'm doing all the things right. And I'm doing all the, you know, everything everyone tells me, but I'm not getting better.
It feels like these are making me worse. It could possibly be that. So you want to focus more on a gentle approach. And if. you put on a CGM, you may see that this is associated with these blood sugar drops that I'm talking about, the relative blood sugar drops. And so I help out a lot of people who fall in this category.
Um, so back to eating outside, that's a really nice strategy for, for morning time, evening time, maybe when it's not super hot to get outside and just improve the blood sugar response from your meal. I think you probably have talked about blue light enough on this podcast that I don't need to spend my time talking about it, which is great, but that's going to be really supportive.
Any blocking blue light, no blue light at night, um, really helpful. Molly and I are like the two people out with our orange blue blockers on it's social events. So you can follow our lead and, um, we can influence you to, to be nerds in public. But I, I. Don't like lights in my eyes. It You would've died with last night's event.
It was so bright. You would've, oh man. Oh my gosh. Like so huge and white and ayy. Yikes. Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm a little happier that I didn't go. So in addition to that, one other thing I wanted to talk about is vitamin D. Yes. Because vitamin D is so important for our metabolic health. Yes. And a lot of people are like, well.
I take a supplement, so I'm fine. And I would say that if you have a vitamin D deficiency, it's not necessarily that you have that supplement deficiency, it's that you have potentially a sunlight deficiency. Yes. And so when it comes to getting vitamin D, I think that we've just been really grossly misinformed.
And so a couple of things to note that I, I believe in, in smart sun exposure. Um, and I'm going to kind of walk you through what that is. But I also believe that, that, you know, the storage form of vitamin D, which is what we're testing for, is that it, it's not the whole picture. And to supplement with vitamin D.
feels kind of like if someone says like, Oh, I, I didn't eat the steak. Instead, I just took a B12 supplement. It's like, The steak has it's like the whole thing. It's got all the protein. It's got the amino acids. It's got the zinc It's got the copper. It's got the minerals. It's got the vitamins It's got all these things in it and we're just like one b12 supplement does not take the place of the full steak Right and then same thing with the Sun there's so many different benefits and in the midday Sun I mentioned that infrared is still there protecting us and helping us.
It's 49 percent of midday sun and only 10 percent is UVB light, which is the light that makes vitamin D. So a common misconception I get is that people often think that any, the sun out at any time you're making vitamin D and that's not the case. So vitamin D can only be synthesized from strong enough UVB light, which is present all times of year around the equator, but also in during summer months in the northern and the southern hemisphere.
So what you would need to do is you can get an app called D Minder. And when that number is at about, I think like a three to four, that's when you can really start making vitamin D, but you need a long amount of time in that sun to synthesize enough vitamin D. Um, so the D Minder app can tell you what that UVB index is, and that will let you know kind of how strong the sun is.
But before we even get to the vitamin D part and the UVB part, we have to back up. We have to talk about the Fitzpatrick scale. So the Fitzpatrick scale is basically how light or dark your skin is. So a Fitzpatrick 1 would maybe be someone with like Irish descent, freckles, just like only burns basically, potentially light eyes, lighter hair, red hair, something like that.
And a Fitzpatrick six would probably be someone with like African ancestry with very dark black skin never ever burns ever. Um, and so the reason why skin color is so important is because of a substance called melanin and melanin acts like it does a lot of amazing things. Like it can split the water molecule and put it back together.
It's an, it, like can be made into a battery like it's it's amazing melanin is so cool but um for our purposes it's also sunscreen so someone with dark black skin who's a Fitzpatrick six we want to think about it's almost like akin to that person having on like an spf 100 all the time right like Total like but what that means is that if you think about where their ancestry is from and how much sunlight they were exposed to They needed that much pigmentation in their skin to protect their skin from burning So they don't burn because they have that natural sunscreen But that also means they need more uvb light to make sufficient amounts of vitamin d So then on the flip side, I have people I have followers and they're like It's I live in Ireland and it's, it's not very sunny out a lot of the time, it's cloudy so much of the time, like, what do I do?
And I'm like, you have probably a very, very small amount of melanin in your skin. So you don't need a lot of sunlight. You don't need a lot of direct sunlight to reach vitamin D sufficiency. So when humans lived in the place that they were sort of their ancestors were from, like, I, I don't know where we all originally sort of were.
Yeah. It was kind of fine. But then we started mixing and matching. And so, you know, I have a Swedish and Italian heritage. So some of my mitochondria is from where it's real light and dark, but I tan like, luckily, like an Italian. So moving, I moved to Miami, Florida, and For the most part, if I build up enough of a tan or a solar callus, I don't really need to use sunscreen.
But chances are, in the tropics like that, like if I were on a boat out in the Keys, at some point, I would probably need to put, to cover up, to use a hat, to put on some, you know, mineral based sunscreen, because that was not where, that's not where my ancestors are from, so that that sun, my skin, is not Set up for that sun, but it's easier to put on clothes and protect yourself and get in the shade than it is to Create sun which is what happens when people with darker skin move to closer to the poles That's really hard.
So if you have black skin and you're living in canada It's really hard because you're just not getting enough sun to make all this vitamin d. So I tell them Like if this is you go on tropical vacations in, you know, in the winter and get as much sun exposure as you can. So for the people with lighter skin, so for the people with darker skin, higher Fitzpatrick scores, lots of sun, lots of sun, lots of UVB.
But for people who have lighter skin and need to be more careful in the sun, here's how we do it. We always want to start, and the people with darker skin can also follow these recommendations. We want to always start with exposing our skin to that morning light, sunrise, And all that UV, sorry, the infrared light, we use these infrared panels to heal sun damage, to reduce inflammation.
It's an antioxidant, anti aging, it builds collagen. Well, guess what? So does the sun at that time. So we can prepare our skin for the, to receive all that. That light, that stronger light. And then in UVA, that's the next window of time. UVA light has tons of benefits for our body. It makes endorphins and helps us produce dopamine and serotonin and norepinephrine and thyroid hormones.
I mean, Talk about wanting to feel good, like, go out in that morning UVA light when the sun is about 10 to 30 degrees off the horizon. But that UVA light also helps us build melanin, so it's preparing our skin by sort of giving us this built in sunscreen. to go out during the peak hours of the sun. So if you're paler, you want to stick with like morning light, UVA, work your way up for that a little bit.
And then in the evening, you can again, get the benefits of that red light therapy panel and quotes from the sun by watching sunset. So then if we just exposed our skin to the UVB, then we're good. Now we get to heal and so it's like okay nice and soothing So the sun think about it like it's like more of a multivitamin than a one thing, right?
Yeah, so we want to take advantage of all the different pieces We would have been outside for all these different pieces and nature doesn't make mistakes We've been out there for thousands of years without sunscreen without sun without skin cancer and only nowadays Are we running into problems and my question is like how come we're not demonizing the blue light, you know, but anyway, yeah We want to get morning sun, UVA, and then just slowly build your tolerance in that UVB window of time.
There's an app called Circadian Life and that will tell you when all these time periods are in your location, but you want to just build up that sort of like what I used to call a base tan is basically like a solar callus. So I can go outside and be out there for hours without burning because I, I, sort of put the sunscreen in my skin already by exposing it.
And then I'm really sure to do lots of red light in order to mitigate some of the damage. And so the sun and getting UV light is also a hormetic stressor. And so we want to think we want the right amount of the stressor, just like I wouldn't tell you, Hey, go run, You know, 600 miles. You're going to break down.
It would be stupid. So, um, that is, it's the same concept. We don't want to burn. And then another important thing to avoid burns is making sure you're not wearing sunglasses because we also need bright days and dark nights. Molly talks about that all the time. So if we're putting on sunglasses, we're dimming that signal, which is not what the body wants.
It's like, we're finally outside. Went the brightness, but what happens is that if the eyes are not receiving the message that the UV light is coming in, it won't know to make the right melanin to protect you. And you're more likely to have a sunburn. So, and then just keeping in mind that sunscreen blocks almost all conversion of vitamin D.
So a lot of people are like, I'm outside all the time. And it's like, I don't know why my D levels are low. I'm like, do you use sunscreen? It's like, yeah, all the time before I go out. So. So I'm not saying don't use sunscreen. I'm saying be smart. Consider maybe going in the shade, which you still get you, um, infrared in the shade.
It bounces off of leaves. So you're still getting lots of benefits in the shade. You have to get direct skin exposure for UVB in order to get vitamin D. So keep in mind, if you only have your arm showing, that's not a lot of surface area. for the vitamin D. So you want to expose as much skin as possible.
Um, but that's how I recommend getting vitamin D. And then a lot of people say, well, what about over the winter? Like the, I don't, the sun isn't strong enough. And I ask, well, what's the color of your skin? Because if your skin, if your ancestors were from a place where there was traditionally no UVB over the winter, then you're probably going to be fine as long as you built up all those stores over the summer.
And so, yes, maybe we want to lean into something like a cod liver oil, which has a natural, like naturally occurring vitamin D in it. So maybe we can look at a couple of food sources, like I believe lard has some vitamin D, but overall, I Unless you are super mega deficient or you have some sort of health problem, I really think that it's not necessary to supplement with vitamin D and it's actually inappropriate to do so during the winter where melatonin, your probably favorite hormone, is going to take the place of of some of the functions of vitamin D.
So I think about it like a little Venn diagram, um, where, you know, melatonin is also an antioxidant. It's also acts like a hormone. It's also anti inflammatory and anti cancer. So, um, in the winter we want to lean into the darkness and lean into the cold and that will be really supportive there. So, yeah.
So great. There's so many gems in there. And I think it really just expands this conversation around blood sugar management from just like, Oh, be mindful of carbs and what have you. It's, it's a whole other conversation. So it's so beautiful. And how much this shows up in our sleep. So we have a little rapid fire ending here.
And I know you had to answer some of these questions when we had you on last, and I know there's going to be a whole new layer here today. And I know we'll learn things from you on going through these. So the first question that we ask everyone is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now?
So it starts at, well, it starts first thing in the morning, but we'll start at sunset. Um, as soon as the sun sets, we got the amber fire toned lighting going on. Blue blockers go on because my neighbors, unfortunately, are not circadian aware. Yes. And the light pokes in. Um, And I have this thing that really saved my life called app block, which, um, blocks me from being on addictive social media sites at night.
So good. Um, I don't always do the same thing every night. Sometimes I meditate. Um, and if I do, if I use the computer, we do a, uh, a meditation program, both of us. And so if I'm using my computer, I use Iris tech to keep my screen fully read. Um, and then I make sure I turn out my wifi in the evening. And I like to try my hardest to lean into that first wave of tiredness, because I find that that is when I get my best sleep.
Like if I give into that, and oftentimes if I'm doing something like watching TV or using my computer. I sort of push through that and then I regret it. Yes, that's kind of the night routine. I love that So well said well in the second question I think is probably where your brain likely for good reason went to initially which is what is your morning sleep routine?
Look like and to your point this sleep starts in the morning when you first open your eyes So what would that look like it does? So the first light I make sure to get in my eyes is the light from sunrise. Yes So if If the sun isn't up yet and I'm awake, the orange blue blockers will go on, red lights in the house will go on, but I get outside for sunrise.
And then sometimes if my cats are being extra needy, I catch sunrise through an open window that faces east. Um, and I get outside for sunrise, ground, eat breakfast and then have coffee after breakfast, which is another thing I didn't talk about, but the coffee timing. Is huge. So yes, love that. Okay.
Amazing. I play with my cats because they demand it You're a good mom. I love it Okay, and then what might we see on your nightstand and or in your environment? Okay, you block out shades Best investment ever for my sleep that's on my windows, but my nightstand has several pairs of blue blockers a lamp with You a red light that is not plugged in, so I don't like to keep things plugged in around my bed.
My Oura Ring charger also not plugged in, um, a glass of mineral water, and some books that I haven't gotten to because I never quote find the time to read, but I'm going to change that. I'm going to try to do five minutes of reading every night. I was on another podcast earlier and she suggested that. So if anyone wants to join me on that venture, because in my mind, I'm like, I don't have enough time to read.
It's like, you spend hours a day on your phone, girl. You can find five minutes. So I'm going to try five minutes of reading. That's great. Amazing. Well, if you want to join me, I know we do our morning journaling and I've been, Oh, I do journaling too. Yeah, you do journaling. Exactly. I've been loving the morning reading, which I had gotten away from for so long.
And now that I've been bringing it back, it's been so nice. So I just bring it outside. It's just a nice little peaceful time. And I just like I'm absorbing it. differently. My mind is in this whole other state. So anyway, it's been my new favorite thing. She talked about that on the podcast. I'll have to send it to you.
Yeah, because we have different, she recommends journaling and reading. Those were the two things so good in the morning and in the evening because of our brainwaves at that time. And you just called it out talking about on this. So this other, but not my husband, Blake, who people But the other Blake that I just, you know, this meditation expert that was also speaking to morning and night around journaling and with the kind of positive reading.
So I think these people are onto something. We got to bring this in here. So good. Okay. And then lastly, I'm very curious your answer on this one. What to date so far, would you say has made the biggest change to the management of your sleep? So I've always been a pretty good sleeper. So I'm going to answer this as like, what I find really makes my sleep worse because I have my aura ring and I, I know alcohol.
So I, I actually stopped drinking alcohol. So that's the first one because it would make my HRV like 10 all night or like a single digits and I would wake up feeling totally unrested. So most of the reason why I gave up Drinking is because of how it impacted my sleep. Um, I would say a late meal is like curtains for my sleep.
I mean, but not in a good way. Like, not good. You block it. Not. Yeah, not like you block out in that sense. No, eating late is probably one of the worst things that I can do for my sleep. And then, of course, the light. Like I mean that is such a game changer. So even when I saw that movie I did have my blue blockers on but the brightness I was like, I need my red lenses that darken like I just need to not see movies when the sun is down because it's just So bright and then all that light is also on my whole skin, you know, yeah, so I'm sure last night your sleep was not very, not as good because you were under all those lights.
And so I would say the alcohol, the meal timing, and also don't accidentally take a supplement that has caffeine in it. Right beside bed. Been there. Been there, done that. Yeah. And then I would say stress, if in a period of like intense stress, um, my sleep suffers. So, the new practices that we have of meditation and journaling and doing trauma therapy and having a modality to help support stress is, uh, and movement.
Okay. There's a lot of things that help it, but I know the true answer is that it can't be so reductive. Like I love how you're pointing to that, that, you know, in order to get great. sleep. It was just lavender on my pillow. That's all I need. I'm just kidding. It's not that that was a total joke. You know, sleepy gummy or something.
Yeah, it's totally not for us. No, I've never really seen a sleep supplement really, truly make a, make a difference. Continuous difference. Yeah, maybe I'll have that like one off night Yeah, or like placebo traveling something could help support but there's nothing like if only it were that easy a same thing with blood sugar Yeah, it's like oh, what about berberine?
It's like that's not gonna fix your blood sugar Like yeah, it might help lower it a tiny bit But it's not fixing your metabolic health. So I made a post recently. It's like, you don't need more Burberry and you need more sunrises. So yeah, it's like you don't need more melatonin. You need more daylight because that's where the melatonin comes from.
Yes. Preach. Oh my gosh. It's so good. And what a relief because it's free and available and you know, yeah, 95 percent of our melatonin is produced by light during the day. Infrared light, like Mind blown, right? The understanding. Why didn't they tell me this? Right. And it was so, for so long, it's been confused as only a brain based phenomenon.
And to understand that there's this subcellular melatonin and how this is produced is so important for us to get. And in case anyone's listening and being like, oh yeah, well, easy for you guys to say, just get outside. Like, well, I have kids, job, etc. Totally hear that and I think this is another reason why you want to follow Danny to learn what are some of these workarounds to when whether it's the red light panels or you're in Canada and Fitzpatrick scale of six and you know what are some of the things and accoutrements that you could be getting to help support what are the workarounds the whole world of it so how can they follow you Uh, so my podcast is called Light Up Your Metabolism and I recently changed it and my Instagram is Danielle Hamilton Health.
I post a lot of really helpful graphics and things there and I have two programs. So one of them I'm working on, it's coming out soon, it's called It Starts With Light. So that's going to be a program to help you kind of Add in these little pieces little by little help to understand some of the science around it focus on supporting metabolic health But molly's program like if you're struggling with sleep, you need molly's Your program is so good.
I took that program. It was so good. It was so well organized. Like it talks about a lot of these things too. So, um, I'm not stepping on your toes. Um, but no, and then when you said the complimentary nature, cause the amount of people that I have going to you to figure out wild world of metabolic health, that's just, I mean, their minds are blown when they dive into what you have to offer.
So. Thank you. Yeah. And um, my signature program is Blood Sugar Mastery. That's my coaching cohort program. You get tons of one-on-one support from me over eight week period with the option to extend it. You get video modules and you get a community where you can be in touch with me. A lot of this stuff has to be personalized and that's where, you know, for.
For the average person, they're okay. But I see people who are like, I'm trying everything and I'm, you know, my blood sugar is crashing, not doing well. So that's where I really help people out. So thanks for having me on. Thank you for joining. I can't believe that we're not just. sitting next to each other doing this recording, but I know too bad, too bad next time or next go around.
But so many gems. Thank you so much for sharing your passion, your wisdom, all the evolution of where you're taking people and, and yourself and sharing your own journey is just so, so amazing and inspiring. So excited for all that you're offering for people and for taking the time. Well, thank you. Thanks to you friend.
And thank you for all that you've taught me. Aw. Thanks friends. All right. More to come. You've been listening to The Sleep Is A Skill Podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday, I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet.
Fun Facts. I've never missed A Monday for over five years in counting, and it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to Sleep as a skill.com/newsletter to sign up.