221: Dr. Mauro Zappaterra, MD, Phd, Director of Multidisciplinary Care at Synovation Medical Group: Why your Sleep Struggles aren’t About Willpower…it’s your Nervous System

 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.

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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.

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Welcome back to the Sleep As a Skilled podcast. What if the secret to better sleep is already inside you, hidden in the special fluid that gently flows through your brain and spine? Today's guest, Dr. Maro Zara, brings a perspective on sleep that's both cutting edge and ancient trained as an MD PhD at Harvard and deeply immersed in the study of cerebral spinal fluid.

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He brings neuroscience, mindfulness, and holistic healing in a way that challenges the very way we think about rest, recovery, and what it means to truly heal. In this episode, we explore how sleep activates your brain's built-in detox system. Yes, your brain literally cleans itself while you sleep. We'll talk about the science behind the glymphatic system, how breathing patterns impact your nervous system and sleep quality, and why.

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Something as simple as nose breathing or repeating a single word before bed can change your entire sleep experience. He doesn't just study these things, he lives them. He's a physician, a mindfulness teacher, an author of multiple consciousness expanding books, and a dad who once helped his 11-year-old fall asleep by repeating the word toes.

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So whether you're struggling with chronic pain, anxious wake-ups, or just want to deepen your relationship with your sleep and nervous system, this episode is packed with science stories and practical tools to support your journey. So we're gonna jump right in, but first, a few words from our sponsors.

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Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. I think one of the challenges for today's episode is how to condense all kinds of topics into one conversation. So we're gonna do our best, but thank you so much for taking the time to be here, zooming in from California.

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Thanks for asking me to join. Yes, super.

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Awesome. Thank you.

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Yes. And it sounds like we're in agreement on the importance of sleep and sleep, you know, potentially being a skillset, things that we can improve upon. So you can, so assuming we're on the same page with that, excited to hear a bit more about your journey, how you came to be such an expert in a few areas that we're gonna discuss today.

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Yeah, for sure. I mean, I love your, you know, your, your, your, your byline is sort of like, uh, you know, sleep is a skill and it absolutely is. And, and, uh, you know, I just love it. Because, uh, we can refine it, we can work on it. Um, we could do practices that, that help to work on it, or we can completely ruin it.

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So it's, yep.

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And I've done that too. So,

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so I love it. I love it. Very definitive.

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Yes, exactly.

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Yeah. So, you know, from a sleep perspective and really from a. I sort of see it as a nervous system perspective, to be honest with you. Yeah. Um, uh, so I went to medical school and uh, I trained at Harvard Medical School.

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I did an MD PhD and in the middle of my, or at the beginning of my PhD, um, I was always interested in sort of, you know, human health, uh, developmental biology. Um, and in the middle of my, or at the beginning of my PhD is when I met my now wife who we traveled to Santa Fe and started learning about holistic healing modalities.

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Um, I was not very happy at the beginning of my PhD and so she sort of recognized that and said, let's take some time off. And I was, uh, doing cancer research and went to Santa Fe and just started to, you know, investigate in a few different, um, holistic healing modalities, including things like polarity therapy, getting more into meditation, mindfulness, craniosacral therapy, reiki, energy healing, and things like that.

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Acupuncture and Sabrina Co. We, um. Yeah, so it really became, I really started becoming fascinated with the central nerve, with the, with the, with the central nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, the stress response. Uh, I had a few sessions where I became intimately connected with the cerebrospinal fluid, and if you follow any of my work on YouTube or anything like that, I ended up actually changing my entire PhD course and joined a, a, a, a developmental neurobiology neuroscience lab where my entire PhD was on the, um, on the, on the cerebrospinal fluid and how the cerebrospinal fluid is important in embryological development and how it's, uh, extremely important in the adult as well.

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And I was coming from it from a very sort of biological, molecular, biological perspective, but in the, in the process, I was also being trained as a craniosacral therapist, uh, while I was doing my PhD. And so I was in the lab, you know, looking at all the cerebrals spinal fluid and doing experiments on the cerebral spinal fluid while.

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In the, at, at, at home and, and, and, uh, with people. I was palpating skulls and, you know, putting my hands on, on skulls and, and sacrums and backs and human beings and really sort of developing that aspect of, of human touch and also getting sessions myself. And so becoming intimately connected with the ceal spinal fluid from a research perspective, but also from a, from a, uh, from a, from a felt sense perspective of not only a practitioner, but also a, a client getting the sessions and.

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We didn't really know much about the cerebrospinal fluid, to be honest with you. And so that's why my PhD was, was, was a, was, was considered a good PhD because it sort of started to really explore, you know, the, the basic questions of the cerebrospinal fluid of, you know, what does it have in it and what does it do?

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And we were mostly focusing on it from an embryological perspective. And so that's a, you know, that's a completely different story. I've told that story a number of times. There's many YouTubes, uh, that people can, can find. Um, but it's, it's very important from an embryological perspective, if you have kids, you know, uh, the amniotic fluid becomes the cerebral spinal fluid.

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And in us right now, we have about 150 milliliters of cerebrospinal fluid that's bathing the inside of our brains. We have cavities in the inside of our brains called ventricles. There's cerebrospinal fluid, there's a clear fluid in the middle of your brain right now. It's bathing the inside of your brain.

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It's bathing the outside of your brain. It's going all the way down your spinal cord. It's going all the way down to your sacrum. So imagine like your central nervous system is sort of floating or totally immersed in this fluid, and it's providing buoyancy. So if I was to take your skull, your, your, your brain out, your brain has, if I was to weigh it on a scale, it's about 1500 grams or so.

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In the, in the human body, it weighs about 25 to 50 grams. So that's the buoyancy of the cerebrospinal fluid that it provides. It's got a number of functions. We know that it provides guiding cues for stem cells, for development, um, for, for, uh, for. You know, brain development, um, it's, uh, it provides hormones, it provides growth factors, it provides nutrients, it provides buoyancy, it provides like a shock absorption, uh, et cetera, et cetera.

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But recent research has actually shown that we, what we originally thought was that the, the, the, the cavities inside the brain sort of housed the cerebrospinal fluid. And it had this flow where, where it went out and around the brain and we didn't really understand. You know, much of the, much of the function of it in the, in the adult human, except for providing this buoyancy and shock absorption and providing some nutrients until some studies came out that showed that we actually have what they call these, you know, these sort of hidden, hidden caves in the, in, in our brain.

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And, and it's called the glymphatic system. So mostly based on the lymphatic system in the body. Um, and this is provided by, by, uh, by a special type of, um, of cells in the, in the human brain creating what's called the glymphatic system. And what this is, is essentially is a system of cerebral spinal fluid that bathes the inside, bathes the, the brain tissue itself.

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And originally we didn't really think that that was going on because we thought it was just housed in the ventricles, in these cavities and on the outside of the brain. But what they found is that. Specifically during sleep that these caverns, these sort of, these gates open up. This glymphatic, this glymphatic system opens up during states of during sleep and it allows the cerebral spinal fluid to flow into the brain tissue itself, bathing the entire brain tissue, almost sort of like a clearing system where it's clear it comes in during sleep and it cleans all the toxins that build up during sleep, that are during that, that, that cleans, cleans all the toxins that that occur throughout the day just based on just.

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Basic human brain activity, you know, nothing, nothing, uh, to worry about, but that the sleep actually opens up these cha channels. The fluid comes in almost like you're, you're opening up a dam to a river. The fluid comes in, it cleans out the toxins, and then when you wake up, you feel refreshed. You feel rejuvenated.

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You feel. Clean in essence. And this was a, a groundbreaking study because believe it or not, it was the first time that they actually could pinpoint a scientific reason that sleep was important. Mm. Is that they said, you know, people had done these studies of like, you know, it's sort of like after 24 hours of sleep, of no sleep, it's almost like you've had, you know, two alcoholic beverages or something.

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Like, you know, that you have the cognitive ability of, I don't exactly know the, the, the, the correlation, but it's sort of like, you know, the more, the more sleep that you don't get, the more cognitive impaired you're getting. And you know, should we make people sleep before driving cars and stuff? And the number of accidents that happen when people are falling, you know, that don't get sleep.

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And as a intern or resident going through medical school, you know, lack of sleep was, was, was pretty common. Yeah. And so, you know, you're thinking of the decisions you have to make when you don't have sleep and, and, and, and you know you're going, gee, man. I'm not sure. I can think real, real, real good. Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, so just incredible research that looked at, um, this new system in the, in, in the brain tissue itself that, uh, opened up that allowed the fluid to go into the brain tissue cleaning out the toxin, and then when you wake up, it's, your brain is clean. And so, um, you know, just really interested in this, this process.

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And then obviously the importance of sleep. And, and, and so then it, you know, so then it bos the question, well, what. Is sleep. The only way that we can get these, we can get this glymphatic system to be activated or to move. And that's where other research, you know, other research comes in, in terms of looking at other ways that the cerebrospinal fluid is actually able to move.

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And now essentially, you know, some of the hypotheses are that this is this system, this glymphatic system, the cerebrospinal fluid going through the brain is really important in terms of preventing toxins from building up. In the brain and preventing things like neurodegenerative diseases, preventing things like Alzheimer's, even helping with depression or, you know, post-stroke or post-traumatic brain injury, that there might be some toxins that are that, that are, that are present or some scar tissue that actually get in this fluid to flow.

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Is sort of like you're opening up the, you're opening up the gates of the river and in any fluid system, you want that fluid system to be flowing. You don't want stagnation just like a, a flowing river. Um, when there is stagnation there, you know, toxins build up and that then leads to cellular degeneration and, and things like that.

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So we want to be able to, the, you know, the hypothesis sort of, we want to be able to keep this system flowing and cleaning the brain tissue so that we can rid the toxins and we can, uh, you know, stay, our brain can stay healthy and functioning and functioning properly, and sleep being, you know, the first, if not major avenue, to keep this cerebral spinal fluid flowing.

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Wow. Okay. So in this process of just diving deep on this topic, has this influenced any of your, the ways that you're thinking about sleep or suggest for others to kind of shift some of their thinking on the prioritization on sleep or Certainly, or potentially even like the structure to the sleep, so prioritizing that first half of the night, if we think that there's more of a prevalence of glymphatic drainage occurring on the first half of the night.

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Like how do you think about it for the listener, what they might glean from this as it relates to sleep?

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Yeah. Honestly. We've got to get sleep. That's the end of the day. Yeah. I do a lot of, um, uh, so as a, as a, as a, as a physician, um, I run our multidisciplinary chronic pain programs. Okay. And sleep is a really big component that we've talked about, you know, for many years.

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Sure. We see that people, for instance, if they don't get sleep, um, their pain is worse the next morning. Yes. And it's not like anything has, you know, it's not like anything has changed in their, in, in their pathology of the ar arthritis or the tendonitis or, you know, whatever, whatever is causing the pain.

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But if they don't get sleep, their, their pain is increased. And if their pain is increased, they're usually more stressed. Yeah. They're usually more sympathetically driven. And so if their pain is increased, then it's actually more difficult to get rest to be able to activate that, that parasympathetic the rest and digest response.

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Yes. Um, and so you're kind of in a vicious cycle. So we've always tried to look at ways of, of, of, of helping people, of helping people sleep. Um, sometimes we need to use medications. Most of the time we try to do it without medications, but if it's necessary, uh, we will use, we will use, uh, medications. Um, we'll use.

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You know, melatonin, um, will u you know, whatever people are, are, feel comfortable using. Um, sometimes we need to use really strong medications to sort of. Trigger that sleep cycle. And then with anything, even melatonin, if I use it, you know, as you start to develop a cycle that we try to, we try to wean off of it and we try to use all, uh, more natural, let more endogenous, uh, ways of, of, of, of inducing sleep.

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And at the end of the day, for me, it comes down to regulating our learning, how to regulate our autonomic nervous system, in that if we are sympathetically driven, meaning our fight or flight response is on, we're stressed, we cannot find a way to rest and, and, and relax. We're gonna have a really difficult time falling asleep and staying asleep.

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Even if you fall asleep an hour later, you might wake up, yes. And instant. As soon as you wake up, you might trigger the fight or flight response. There might be a, you know, a thought goes on, you start worrying about the day, you start worrying about something and then you have a really hard time falling asleep.

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And so, um, a lot of the practices, and these are also correlated with the cerebrals spinal fluid is a lot of the practices are looking at balancing the autonomic nervous system because we are so sympathetically driven in this society that are. Uh, autonomic nervous system is out of balance. We exercise our sympathetic nervous system more frequently than we exercise our parasympathetic nervous system, because we're always stressed.

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And if that happens, then you are going to get really good. Just like anything else, if I exercise this bicep muscle, I'm gonna get a really strong right bicep muscle, and if I don't exercise the left muscle, it's not gonna be really strong. And so if we continuously activate the sympathetic nervous system, well that, that, that nervous system is gonna get sort of really good at, really good at, at, at, at on.

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Yeah. It's, we're gonna be on all the time unless we, it just blows and then we go into like chronic fatigue and then we go, so it, and then it, it almost like explodes and we can't do anything. We're like completely dead in essence. So if. If we're always on and we're always stressed, right? And we're not doing any activity that's balancing the other side.

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What we want is we want to build that resilience. We wanna build that, that, that, not, not that one is good or the other one is bad, but we want to build balance. We wanna build homeostasis. The only way to do that is to do exercises that help to, that help to bring up the parasympathetic nervous system. So if we're always sympathetically charged, right?

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As opposed to going out and like having a few drinks of alcohol, which many people do, it's like, oh, you know, I'm stressed. Let me get a, you know, let me take a, let me take a shot or have a beer or something like that instead of doing that, right. What are the practices that we can actually put in place that help to.

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Balance or activate the auto, activate the parasympathetic nervous system so that these nervous systems, so that the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system can actually start to balance out. And so that if you need the sympathetic nervous system, you can activate it and fire it. But if you need the parasympathetic nervous system to fall asleep, to digest, to rest, you can activate that as well.

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Mm-hmm. Right. Um, and so a lot of this is based on then teaching people the ways of trying to balance the, uh, autonomic nervous system, teaching ways of bringing on the parasympathetic nervous system, whether it's through meditation, mindfulness, um, virtual reality, uh, exercise, you know, yoga movement, humming song, uh, aroma therapy, whatever it might be, as well as breath.

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And, you know, for me, breathing is a really, it's sort of like, wow, you know, everybody needs to formulate or to learn a breathing practice because not only is it related to, it's like a switch, it's like a direct switch into our autonomic nervous system. It's also a, an activator of the cerebral spinal fluid.

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So, so first of all, right, um, um. When we inhale, uh, and this is the, you know, this is all research that has come out of like heart rate variability monitoring and, and things like that. When we inhale, we're activating the sympathetic nervous system. When we exhale, we're activating the parasympathetic nervous system.

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So inhale, sympathetic, exhale parasympathetic. Okay. And so if you breathe in a cycle, if you just consciously breathe in a cycle and you breathe, let's say five seconds in and five seconds out, what you're doing is during the five seconds in, you're activating the sympathetic nervous system. And you might actually feel this, if you have really sensitive capacity of feeling it.

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You can actually put your, you put your, put your fingers on your carotid artery or your radial artery, and you can feel, what you'll feel is that your heart rate actually slightly increases. And that's the, that's a little bit of that, of, of, of a little bit of a sympathetic charge that's going to your, to your heart rate, as well as, uh, as well as the resistance that's from inhaling.

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Your heartbeat will, will, will, will, will beat a little faster. Then when you exhale, there's a bit of a slowing down of the heart rate. Okay? And so when we are sympathetically driven, we have a high, uh, elevated heart rate. When we are parasympathetically driven, we'll have a lower heart rate. And so what we're doing when we're just breathing consciously, like you'll, you'll see a lot of these practices, five in five out where essentially it's sympathetic, parasympathetic, sympathetic, parasympathetic.

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And if you do that evenly, what you're doing is. You're actually exercising both systems. So it's sort of like right hand, left hand, right hand, left hand. And so both your, both your biceps are getting the same strengthening. Uh, and so both your systems are getting that same exercise, right? Which is good because what we want to do is we want to find, we want to actually find activities that we can do consciously that helps bring balance to our autonomic nervous system.

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There is some research to suggest that, for instance, if we extend the exhale, extend the exhale, because the exhale I said was parasympathetic, right? If we want to create a slight dominance to the parasympathetic nervous system, like, dude, I'm so stressed right now that I need a little bit more parasympathetic dominance than what can we do?

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We can extend the exhale, right? So it's sort of like now you hear breathing patterns of 4, 6, 4 in, six out, you know, or four, eight, or, you know, whatever it is. I don't, there's a lot of different, you know, numbers and, and things like that that people can do. There's an infinite number of sort of breathing exercises that people can do.

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But that's sort of the concept of extending the exhale and why you may consider extending the exhale. 'cause what you're doing is because the exhale is correlated with the parasympathetic nervous system, you're sort of extending that nervous system. You're sort of extending the parasympathetic nervous system, almost giving it a little bit of a, like, like, like a little bit of a jolt.

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You're saying, I want to exercise my parasympathetic nervous system a little bit better, a little bit more than my sympathetic nervous system. Wow. Does that make sense?

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That's beautiful. So

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you extend the exhale.

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Okay. Totally go right ahead

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then. Right? So now it's sort of like, okay, so now we're, we're bringing in, so the, the, the respiration is a direct switch to.

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The autonomic nervous system then. Right. And the reason why I like this is because we, you know, we know it. This has been absolutely, uh, you know, studied in the research. We can look at things like heart rate variability, which is intimately correlated with stress and increased heart rate variability. Um, uh, in, in, in people who, who, uh, who, who have a resilient.

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Um, nervous system who can activate the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system. But what's even cooler from a cerebral spinal fluid perspective is that when we inhale, right? When we inhale, what we're doing is, is, um, is actually bringing the cerebral spinal fluid up into the brain. So, like I said, the cerebral spinal fluid is all the way down to the sacrum.

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It's bathing the entire, uh, spinal cord. And when we inhale, we're bringing that fluid up into the brain into the third ventricle, which is a midline structure. It's that midline cavity in the middle of your. Uh, in the middle of your, um, of, of your brain. And when we exhale, like from like, from like mid thoracic level down, or you can imagine like from your heart level down, when we exhale, we're actually pushing that cerebral spinal fluid down into the sacrum.

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So you can imagine now, right, that not only is the breath, this intimate switch into the autonomic nervous system that can start regulating and sort of, you know, it's like a little pendulum. Sympathetic parasympathetic, sympathetic parasympathetic. But now you can imagine that there's this fluid in the middle of your brain that as you inhale, you're bringing up into your third ventricle and you're allowing your whole brain to be sort of flushed with this, with this fluid, cleaning out any toxins.

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And then when you exhale, you're pushing it down into the sacrum, and then you inhale, you bring it back down. And so you're essentially creating sort of like this with, with your breath. You're creating this sort of internal. Pumping mechanism, this internal fluid flush of your cerebrospinal fluid with your, with your respirations, right?

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So it's this connection into the autonomic nervous system. You're now starting to sort of turn on the engine of this internal river that we have inside of us. And now not only are you able to balance your autonomic nervous system, but you're also starting to make this, you know, what I call the internal river, the internal flow of the, of, of the system.

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You're generating this. And so, um, and so you're helping to clean, you know, you're helping to clean, clean the brain as well. So really, really, really, really potent stuff. And as you learn then how to bring on your parasympathetic nervous system more easily and you start to regulate your sym, your, your autonomic nervous system, you will have an easier time falling asleep, staying asleep.

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Or if you wake up. Going back to sleep without triggering into a sympathetic activity and then staying up and going to your phone and activating, you know, many different receptors in your brain with light and stuff like that. So, um, so just really, you know, to me at least really, really cool. So, um, we have always focused on sleep, whether it's using medication, but what we really try to do is really try to, you know, we call, it's sort of increasing self-efficacy, which even a medication is sort of like, I'm taking something from the external world.

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We wanna try to decrease even, you know, even medication or even like supplement use or melatonin use or anything like that. And really. Retrain the body holistically to, to, to get back into a, a good cycle, to be able to fall asleep when you need sleep, to be able to wake up, feel refreshed, feel ready to go, activate the sympathetic nervous system, you know, you need to get up, do your chores or whatever that might be.

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Take care of the kids, you know, go to work. But then you also want to be able to, to relax and, um, and, and eat and digest your food and fall asleep, right? So, so many, it's just, it's, it's just so many interplay of different things here that, that, um. That is is remarkable.

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So I love how you're phrasing this too, like it almost makes me think of kind of like a ratio.

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Like if you see someone coming in and they're just tipping the scales proverbially as far as just hanging out too much in that sympathetic dominant state, then you're providing these pathways for action to start uploading on more of that parasympathetic dominant state. So are there different kind of protocols that you would offer for different people that would fit them individuals better?

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Like is it Bioindividuality or is it like, no, listen across the board, the yoga, breath work, meditation, mindfulness, et cetera. Like how do you help people to take that from like, oh yeah, that's a nice idea to then actually applying it in their lives. What does that look like? Because I think, I'm sure just about every listener could benefit from adding more of this into their lives, I'd imagine.

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Totally. We do run groups, so we do a lot of things in. In groups and we try to, uh, prior to enrolling 'em in a group, we do an evaluation That's really to understand how they individually function best. Not everybody will, um, you know, not everybody will, will, will react the same to, uh, mindfulness or to breathing, or to mantra or whatever, you know, whatever it might be.

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So it's really kind of understanding where are they on that imbalance and how, what's what. What method can we get in? What has worked, what has worked for them in the past? Do they have any natural inclination towards anything? Right? Um, how old are they? What's their, you know, what's their experience with things?

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What are their preconceived notions of mindfulness? You know, do they think they, have they tried it before and think it's, it's, it's, it's crazy we're, you know, we're not gonna go there. Do they need more of an active practice because they're, you know, the, the, their mind is very active. We might go towards more of a, of a mantra practice first, or, or a breath in combination with mantra practice.

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So, um, it's very. I would say it's individualistic, but I also have kind of universal recommendations, right? We've got to be looking at the nervous system. How can we get into the nervous system? How can we, how can we find a mechanism, a practice that can tap into the, into the nervous system? Um, and so, you know, so we'll continue to search.

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Um, you know, I have a funny story. The other day, my, my son was having a hard time falling asleep, and we had just come back from a trip and we were, uh, there was a bit of a jet lag. Uh, it was a two hour time difference and it was 11:00 PM where, where we were. But it was, um, it was 9:00 PM where we had been.

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And you know, he goes, I'm not, I'm not sleepy. And, and he'd been in, you know, he, he'd been trying to fall asleep for about half an hour and you could tell he was, you know, he was, he was trying to, trying to get to sleep, but it just wasn't working. And so I just sort of start talking to him, you know, and I said, you know, the, hey let you know, let's just try this.

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Let's just try these, these practices, you know, you could pay attention to your breath, you can take an inhale, you know, you can extend the exhale kind of getting him to start to activate. And he's 11 years old, right? And so, how am I gonna, am I really gonna get him to pay attention to his breath? And I go, you know, there are some, there are some ways of, of just, you know, repeating a word or phrase and as your mind wanders or it starts to think about your day or you know, wants to get up or check your phone or something like that, you just come back to the word or phrase right?

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And I, and I gave him a few suggestions and, you know, he is 11 years old and he is been hanging out with his, his friends. And one of the words they use is, is toes. Like, like your toes. Yeah. Like that, that just happens to be one of the words that they're repeating to themselves. Right. And he goes, toes, you know, and, and, and, um, and so I go, you know, you could use, you can use any word, you know, you can use any word or phrase that like, makes sense to you, right?

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And so he chuckles and all of a sudden, you know, I hear him out loud going like, toes, toes, toes, toes, toes. And I'm like, exactly. You know? And I go, okay, now, you know, as your mind wanders away from toes, come back to toes, right? And I go, and you can whisper it to yourself. You don't have to say it out loud, you can actually whisper it to yourself.

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And, um, and so, you know, and he, and he is chuckling and he continues to kind of whisper it to himself. Literally two minutes later he falls asleep.

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Oh my gosh, that's amazing. And

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he repeat, you know, he's repeating toes to himself. So, was I gonna get him with mindfulness? You know, was I gonna get him to like pay attention?

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No. Was I gonna get him with, you know, paying attention to the sensation of your breath as you're breathing in or out? No. You know, his. It, it, it, it was, you know, what can you, you know, in this moment, what can you repeat to yourself? And, and, you know, he, like, he chuckled, but he came back to it. Right. And if you think about it, you know, even like looking at like, uh, herb Benson's work on the relaxation response.

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That's essentially what that is, is a repetition of a sound or phrase in a complete passive disregard of for anything else. And you just keep on coming back to that. So, toes, toes, toes. You know, and, and, and there's a certain brilliance of, you know, hey count sheep. And that's what that is. Right? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's where's your, where's your mind going?

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And as your mind wanders, you come back to counting the sheep. And before you know it, some people can't even get to 10 and they fall asleep. Hmm. So we try to come in even with kids, and this is why. This is so important because, you know, even like teaching kids how to sleep is, is, is, is, is really important.

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But we need to be aware, right? How are they sleeping? Um, how are they falling asleep? How long does it take them to fall asleep? And when they do, you know, a lot of you like, oh, I'm a really bad sleeper. Like my son, he, he thought he was a really bad sleeper because, you know, he is like, oh, it takes me so long to fall asleep every single time that he tries to fall asleep.

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Um, pec except when he's jet lagged or something like that. You know, he falls asleep within five to 10 minutes and I reflect that back to him, right? It's sort of like, Hey, I just wanna let you know. I know that that is what, you know, you think because it's like that, that's kind of like the game that the mind plays.

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But last night it took you four minutes to fall asleep. He's like, did. I'm like, yeah, yeah. You know? So good. And then the other thing that, you know, that I look at, and this also has correlations with the cerebral spinal fluid and more research is gonna come out on this, I guarantee you, is, you know, being an like nose breathing.

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Huge. Huge, huge. You know, if your son or you are a mouth breather, um, uh, you know, really, you know, or, or kids or, or you know, anybody you know is a mouth breather, really teaching them about nose breathing if they can. Um, obviously if they have obstructions in their nasal passages, you know, GG seeing if, if, if they can breathe with their nose, but the majority of us can breathe with our nose.

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It's just we haven't been trained or we've been so trained to be mouth breathers. But that's another aspect where. Learning how to breathe through your nose is actually showing to have really, really beneficial health properties. Um, um, and, and, and, and as you're breathing in right, the olfactory bulb is up here pretty much anatomically.

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And the olfactory bulb is, is the area that comes out from the cribriform plate. And it's one of the areas where, um, you know, we can actually get like drugs and molecules through into the brain by breathing into our olfactory bulb. And because it comes through the bone of the cribriform plate, we can actually get drugs into that area.

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Intranasally. Hmm. Well, what they're showing is not only is there evidence of like increased nitric oxide production when we breathe through our nose, and that causes decreased blood pressure, um, and, and, uh, and, and better breathing and, and things like that. But that the rhythmic pulsation of the breath, making contact with the olfactory bulb through the nose.

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Actually has some effect on the brain of a sort of like a holistic effect on the brain, increasing connectivity with the brain and sort of creating a more holistic brain, uh, pattern, which is, you know, this is, this is super new research that's gonna come out and it's just gonna blow, it's gonna blow people away of what the rhythmic pulsation of our breath on our olfactory bulb leading into our brain is doing.

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But also what the rhythmic pulsation on the cerebral spinal fluid, on this fluid that's braiding our entire brain. How that might actually create like a residence frequency in the pool of fluid sending a signal to the brain itself. So that other area that we go to is, is, is, is, you know, almost like a trying.

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A quick correction is, you know, when you breathe, you breathe with your mouth. Do you know if you breathe with your mouth or your mouth breather? And then trying to, even just increasing people's awareness around that and saying, look, if you can, even throughout the day, if you notice you're breathing with your mouth, try breathing with your nose.

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And slowly, slowly can you actually shift yourself and become more of a nose breather because the health benefits of that are gonna, it's, it, it, it's starting to explode in the research, but, but you might even feel it yourself, um, as you, as you sort of shift that, that way of, of breathing.

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Wow. Incredible.

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One, with every podcast that we do, we always ask personal questions around how you're managing your own sleep. But given what you just shared there, just like incredible information of things that are coming, anything to kind of put a bow on this topic? I know this huge topic and it's a rule, a spinal fluid and coming into these conversations around the management of our nervous system and beyond.

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So I know this is huge, but any, any final words on that topic before we hear how you're managing your sleep

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from a breathing perspective, I really just love the breath because it ties into so many different areas of managing the nervous system so that we can help improve sleep or managing the nervous system or activating the cerebrospinal fluid and creating this flow in our own, uh, endogenous internal river to help clean the toxins.

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Um, is, you know, the first one is breathe. Because many of us don't. Yeah. And so when you, you know, so when you recognize that you're not, you know, if you're stressed, if you're sending an email, even if you're like looking at a text message, you're probably holding your breath to some degree. So it's the

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email apnea, um, phenomenon.

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Exactly right. Exactly

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right. So that's the, it's sort of like breathe, right? Yeah, breathe. That's number one is, is really learn how, learn, pay attention. Bring your awareness to your breath of just how you're doing it. Right? Am I breathing? And that's the basic question. Am I breathing right now? If you're not breathing, breathe.

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Yeah. Alright, then it's, um, it's, can we, can we take deeper. Breaths, right? Can we increase, can we do some diaphragmatic breathing where we're breathing out or when we're inhaling, we're sort of pushing our belly out. And this is also some, some fun things that you can do with your kids is, you know, you put like a rubber ducky on their belly and when they, and when, you know, on their belly button, and when they inhale, they push their belly up and when they exhale, they bring the rubber ducky down, or you put a little bit of water in their belly.

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If they have an in and they try to get the water, they try to, you know, get the water out of their belly by pushing it up. But they need to inhale. Yeah, exactly. Right. But they need to inhale while they're doing so, you know, fun games that you can do with yourself, or you just put your hand on your belly and, you know, when you inhale, sort of getting, getting a deep, getting, getting a deeper breath, um, even throughout the day as you're walking, you're going shopping, you know, you're checking your text message, um, or you know, you're on, you're on Instagram or something like that.

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Just taking a nice, you know, a nice, a nice deep breath. Um, if you can, um, extend the exhale to try to just, just in that moment, just activating that, that, um. That, uh, that par parasympathetic response, um, Huberman has brought up the, um, the physiological p sigh, which is a really good way, um, in terms of their studies.

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You know, they showed that five minutes of doing a physiological p sigh can produce, uh, psychological benefits and essentially the, the, and, and, and they published it and it's, it's, it's, um, it's totally spot on because essentially the way that they do a physiological side, you know, you can imagine just you naturally doing a physiological side, right?

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What's a sigh? It's a deep, it's an inhale and then a, and then an extended exhale, right? Like if you were just, imagine you just turned in a report, right? You just worked for. Five days on a report and you're turning it in, what do you do? Yes, exactly. Wow. I'm done. Right. And I'm still exhaling even though that I'm, even though I'm like, I'm done.

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Yes, yes, yes. And even with my, even like, yes, right? That is like, I'm pushing out the air, right? So I'm doing these size, we actually do size all the time. And that's sort of like another, kinda like a reboot. Well, well Huberman studied what he calls a physiological sign, which is essentially, you know, you breathe in and so like, like ratio wise, if you breathe in for one second, you get to a point and then you, you, you hold that point and then you breathe in again for a quarter of that, that, that second.

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So if, you know, if you breathe in four seconds in, then another one second in. And you expand even more. So you breathe in, you stop, you breathe in again, another second sort of expanding even more, and then you exhale two seconds. So it's sort of like one a quarter or a half, and then exhaling two. So it, it, you know, it, it, it, it sounds something like this.

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Like,

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so good. Okay. That's what they did as physiological sci. Five minutes of that caused, um, you know, uh, improved mood and psychological. So breathe, yeah, take deeper breaths if you can increase the exhale. Uh, breathe with your nose if you can. Right? If you can, some people have a, you know, have, have chronic sinusitis or, or you know, um, and, and, and so really from a, from a, from a, from a breathing perspective, um, you know, that's 'cause that's getting into the nervous system and it's also getting into the cerebral spinal fluid.

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Yes, and a quick asterisk if anyone is dealing with the obstruction and breathing for the nose. I've shared a bit on here that a little while ago I got this, uh, VI air procedure done. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this. So Cool. So basically in about 20 minutes, I worked with an ENT and they use radio frequency to reshape my nasal passageway.

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So it's like deviated septum. And it was amazing. My respiratory rate dropped about 1.3 breaths per minute overnight on, you know, aura ring and that sort of thing. Granted, I did get that done with a tongue tie release at the same time. So both were supportive of airway and breathing. So it is a little tricky, like not quite an isolated variable, but it's made such a difference for the ease of breathing.

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So if people are dealing with like there's, there's exciting things available as well.

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Yes, and that's why I said if you can, right, because some people can't. So I'm glad you said that because a lot of people

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bull those over and they'll say, tape your mouth and whatever, but then you can't breathe. So that's a problem.

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So that's why I say, you know, my first ones are sort of like, breathe, right? That's number one. Because whether you're a mouth breather or a nose breath, it doesn't matter. We need to breathe. We need to kind of get, even if that, even get in that cycle of breathing, um, try to slow down your breaths or take deeper breaths and then extend the exhale.

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That's it, right? So if you can, and then nasal breathe if you can, or if you, or even if, even if there's a slight desire to wanna try to learn, you know, every single time that you're kind of working through the day and sort of saying, oh, I'm breathing my mouth. Close your mouth. Even taking one or two breaths during the day, periodically, and you're already starting to then retrain your nervous system to close your mouth and do it.

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If you do have an obstruction, then you know, I like it. It, it, it may, it may behoove you to, to, to, to get it looked at. Um, but again, that's why I said, you know, that's why that's not, that's not the top. I say, you know, if you can, but number one is breathe. Try to extend the exhale. Take deeper breaths and slow down your breathing.

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So good. Okay. Well, I'm very excited to hear how you're managing your own sleep. I mean, people seem to really love learning from people who've thought deeply about, you know, each individual area of how they're, you know, bringing this into their own lives. So our first question is, what might we see in your evening sleep routine right now?

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Yeah, so this is really, this is, uh, this is really important. So, no, you know, no caffeine. Um, after, for me at least, uh, everybody's different. Um, you know, like, uh, sometimes my wife can't have caffeine after like 10:00 AM or something like that. Like, you know, it's just depending on, um, um, your state. Um, I can't do, you know, I, I have a difficult time sort of falling asleep if I have caffeine after 4:00 PM so no caffeine for me after 4:00 PM um, on, I, you know, I do drink alcohol sometimes on the nights that I drink alcohol.

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I do not get good sleep. So if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're, if you're concerned about your sleep, I'm almost like, it's almost like, okay, I'm, you know, like, I'm not gonna get good sleep. Yeah. Oftentimes what happens is that you, you wake up in that you're sort of awake and it's really hard to, to, to fall back asleep.

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So I do not recommend alcohol as a way to help you fall asleep at all. And so no alcohol. And to me it's very basic. It's, you know, you have a, you, you the same time try to go to bed at the same time every day. Whether it's, and I know for like party, yes, for for party goers and stuff like that, but, um. You know, when I was in residency or, you know, internship, this, this did not work.

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And I, you know, I was a, I was a mess. I mean, we, you know, you get through it, everybody, uh, most people get through it, but I was a mess. And then as I'm, as my clinical practice, as I started becoming more independent and had more of a clinical practice and I could, you know, work on controlling those things.

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But then you have kids and then, you know, that kind of throws it off. And, and, and a lot of things come into, come into, come into the world that throws it off. But if you can, right, trying to find a time every day where you're falling asleep approximately around the same time. So if you say nine 30, anywhere between, you know, nine, 15 and, and 10, you'll notice that, you know, if you have a bedtime at nine 30 and you stay up till 11 or 1115, it, your, your cycle is off.

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There's something off and you will not get, even if you sleep five hours, you still, it's still won't be the same, the same, uh, the same type of sleep. Um. So I all, 90% of the time, I, I luckily now can get to bed at approximately around the same hour. Um, listen to your body, right? Mm-hmm. Like when I'm tired, like my, sometimes she'll be like, you know, my wife will be like, you should just go to sleep.

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And you know, like oftentimes it'll be like, oh, you know, I, I might feel bad 'cause it's sort of like I help put the kids down sometimes and, and it's like, okay, I'm not, you know, I'm not able to help because I'm so tired. And you know, if it's sort of like if your body, if there's some sort of cycle that's coming in and your body is telling you, Hey, it's eight 30, you know, even though it's not your bedtime, oftentimes what happens is that when we push, when we push it forward, when we, when we keep on resisting, um, you're essentially sort of resisting the innate quality of their human body to say, hey, you know, whatever it might be, whether it's the endogenous melatonin that's increasing in your, in your system, you can fight that, right?

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You can definitely fight that. You can stay up, you can grab your phone, you can stay up, you can watch some, you know, CSI thing on tv. Yes. Um, but it's not gonna help in the lung. Right. So, so same time trying to go to sleep. Uh, if you, if you notice that you're, um, you know, listening to your body and then trying to wake up, you know, waking up at the same time as well.

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Um, the other thing that, that, that I don't, uh, do is if I wake up, let's say I, let's say I do go to bed at nine 30 or something like that, and I wake up, sometimes I'll wake up and I'll feel refreshed at four. Not immediately go to a, to, to a screen, maybe go outdoors, um, get some, get some, get some, get some fresh air.

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Um, get some natural sunlight as opposed to any blue light that may come from screens. Um, or even do a small little, you know, a short meditation, uh, as, as, as you're just allowing your body to, to come on. Um, if I have, uh, problems sleeping. So this was a practice during my PhD, probably the most stressful time in my life when I was doing my, when I was doing my PhD.

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Um. Is I so my, because I'm so mental, I was so mental. I still am. Yeah. Is a mental practice really helped for me. Okay. So, so the practice that I started doing in the middle of my PhD that I still come back to is a practice of mantra. And during my PhD, it was simply the repetition of the words I am. And for some reason I was reading this book called I Am That by, by Nisa Gata Maharaj.

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And it was a transformative book for me. It was during my PhD, um, completely transformative for me. And, and you know, a lot of my meditations are based around I am or who am I? But I, you know, I just started, he just simply said the simple, the simple phrase in the book, which is, you know, pay attention to the I Am and that's it.

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And I was like, well. Uh, I'm kind of a big skeptic on a lot of things, but I'm like, well, that seems pretty straightforward and you're not asking me to like sell my house or, you know, yes. Pay you lots of money to do this, so why don't I just do this, right? Like, pay attention to the I am and, and you know, he actually even says like, just repeat.

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I am, right? And so I started doing this and, and it's sort of, it's sort of becomes this orientation. What will happen is that it became this orientation to, um, like I am, I am, I am, I am, I am. And so regardless of what was going on in the outside world, the mantra that I was repeating to myself was, I am, which is in essence sort of the first, like the first spark of beingness that comes from an undifferentiated source is I am.

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Right. And so that really resonated with me. And I still use that if I have a, if I have a hard time, like I'll go into the, I am Sure. And so it'll be just like I am any mantra though. That's why my, you know, I bring the story of my son toes. Right?

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Right. Doesn't matter. Whatever. Or,

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you know, whether you do the rosary, right?

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A rosary can help, a maah can help, um, uh, you know, whatever. It might be a form of prayer, right? If you have a prayer that you repeat to yourself, uh, because of my mentalization, I that really helped formulate this, this practice. And then, right. Again, once you don't need it, then you just, if, if, if you don't need it, you let it go.

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Right? Right. So, um. So when I have a difficult time, I bring, I bring mantra into it.

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Okay. That's so helpful because so many people, it's probably one of the number one things that we hear from people is the struggling with waking up throughout the course of the night and then like not being able to get back to sleep, getting frustrated.

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So that's really useful to be able to bring that in. And then everything you said today is useful because it's helping to build that muscle of tapping into that parasympathetic response when we need it.

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Yes. And another thing, you know, when you're doing these things with the nervous system endogenously and you're really looking at shifting, um, you know, you're not looking at like days or week.

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You're looking at months. Yeah. So giving yourself permission to like, Hey, look, I'm looking nine months down from now. Okay, not tomorrow. Right. The practices that you're putting into place now? Yes. They can help, like, like, like mantra can be immediate. Um, breathing can be immediate, but it may not be. And, and when we're really shifting our nervous system, what I'm looking at nine months from now, right?

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Okay. What is the practice that I'm putting into place now that can help me nine months from now? Okay, I'm gonna start right, not drinking caffeine. Well, that night I might not notice anything, or I'm gonna start trying to fall asleep at nine 30. Well, that, you know, that, that night might be difficult. Yes.

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Um, if I, if I'm falling asleep at one, you know, 1:00 AM uh, how do I get to a time that's more maybe conducive to, to the regular diurnal cycle of the earth when the sun actually goes down? Um, it's not to go from 1:00 AM to 9:00 PM Right. That's not gonna work. It's to go from 1:00 AM to 1250.

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Yes.

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And then do that for a week,

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right?

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Mm-hmm.

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And then from 1250 to 1240, and then from 12 do that for a week, right? And then from 1240 to 1230, and so you're looking at, you're not looking at, oh, I need to fall asleep at nine or whatever, 10, you know, but in nine months, how can I get to this in nine months? It's to make these increments, you know, these slow shifts and, and projecting your goals out, right?

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And, and not saying that like you need to make, because then if it doesn't happen, then you're gonna stress out because it doesn't happen. You're like, I didn't work. That sucked. And then now you're gonna be in that, in another sympathetically driven state because now you're judging yourself that it didn't work, right?

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And so that's not the place to be.

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That is so good. And the nine months, is that just like an arbitrary timeline, or is that like, it's something that

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arbitrary,

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arbitrary, it doesn't, doesn't matter. Self orient to the future and that Yes. A little Give yourself

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time. Okay. You know, in chronic pain, we say two years, for instance, you know, everybody wants their back pain to be gone today.

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Yes, I totally get that. Right. And I wish that was, but if we put these exercises into place, right? And you want to be able to walk a mile, or you want to be able to sleep six hours or eight hours or 10 hours or whatever it might be, right? Let's think two years from now, let's think where we're gonna be.

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What are the, what are the steps that we're gonna do today to get you to be able to be at your goals in two years? Mm-hmm. Right? Because everybody wants them in. Im immediately, and if you give yourself that, you're like, oh, wow. Right? And, and, and so if you can, right? So if you're falling asleep at 1:00 AM can you just shift that to 1250, right?

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Mm-hmm. Or if you go to bed at one Yeah. Can you go, can you, can you go to bed at 1245? And even if you're up for that, what you're doing is you're just, you're sending your body a little signal, right? And it's, and it's, and. Tiny little nudges, tiny little nudges, not gross. Huge change. Like, don't expect a gross, huge, do a tiny little nudge.

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That nervous system will start to respond.

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Okay. I love that. I've never heard anyone describe it too with, um, having that frame of that future oriented piece for these implementations because, and I think it's so good because one of the things we hear from people, and I was one of these people back when I was struggling with insomnia years ago, was you would hear of some new thing like, oh, breath work, yoga need, or whatever you're doing.

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And might bring that in with like, um, a charge of an expectation or trying to have that thing, you know, get you to sleep or whatever, and it's like good luck. Whereas your way of explaining that really helps take that pressure off. I love that.

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Totally. And you're, you know, you're looking at the changes.

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You might not notice day to day, but if you start to implement them consciously

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Yeah.

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Right? And say, Hey, look, I'm gonna try this nasal breathing. You might not notice the difference, but what happens is that there's gonna be these micro changes that start occurring, um, and you know, you're gonna start increasing the neuroplasticity in the brain.

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You're gonna start increasing these new connections that are made. Your body's gonna respond. Your central nervous system is gonna respond. Your entire body, mind, spirit is gonna respond, but it's gonna, it's, it's, it's not, it's not immediate. So just give yourself that. Right. Put your goals out. Make these micro little nudges.

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I call 'em little nudges. Um, you know, make 'em, make them ma make, make the nudges. Don't expect great changes. What may happen is almost kind of like on the quantum level where, you know, an electron is vibrating and then all of a sudden, you know, you don't even notice a, a, a shift in, in, in electron state or anything like that, but it's vibrating and it's gaining energy.

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It's still the same atom until all of a sudden pop. Right? And then it's sort of, so you might not like, like it, like there's a shift in the energetic field and then boom, it might happen, right? There might be like a quantum shift, there might be a quantum change that you're like, wow, that was really, that was really big, but it took eight months, it took nine months, it took five months, whatever it is.

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But you keep, you keep consciously, intentionally making these little, little tiny nudges that aren't extreme to the system and slowly, slowly it'll start to kind of build.

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So good. Okay. I think you answered some of the questions around what your morning sleep routine is like. You called out, uh, morning meditation, sun, et cetera.

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Anything we left out in your morning routine?

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No. No. I've, I, you know, I've gotta give myself credit or somebody credit or, you know, my practice credit because I've always kind of been a good sleeper and, um, and, um, I don't know where it came. I went to Africa actually in, when I graduated from, from college, I, I said to myself, I, my parents are, are originally Italian and so I traveled Europe quite a bit and, um, I graduated from UCLA and I was kind of looking at a map and I said, where in the world do I.

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Would I not feel comfortable going? Like, where do I not know? Like I could, I, like, I was like, I could fly into almost any airport and kind of expect what I would like. I kind of like felt like, okay, I could go there and I kind of knew where, what the airport would look like or you know, what the area around was.

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And I said, what, you know, what's the area in the world that I, that I don't know what to expect? And I said, Africa, so I said Kenya, right? Like, I have no idea what to expect in Kenya. Like, I don't, like, like I don't know what the airport is like in Kenya in 1998. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and this was right after the embassy had been bombed.

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And so I actually, I went there and, um, and it was true. It was like, you know, it was like, I mean, it was, it was, it was awesome. It was, it was an incredible tip. But, um, we camped the whole way. So, um, I was with a, I was, I was, I was with her with some, some friends and we camped the whole way and. I had to, it was almost like, you know, I'd always felt comfortable sleeping in my bed, in my cozy bed and, you know, going to UCLA.

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And so, and now I'm in, you know, I'm sort of in, in, in the Serengeti camping and, you know, there were times where, yeah, you know, you, like elephants were above our net, our tent eating, you know, eating from the trees. And we thought we were smart because we put our tent under the trees. And little did we know that we are in a, in a fair, you know, in, in an alleyway where elephants come and they eat and, and you know, you wake up and you see this elephant sort of chewing above your tent, you're like, oh my goodness, I'm, I'm gone because it's gonna step on me like it's gonna, you know it.

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And you know, it's sort of like you learn how to, like, I had to learn how to, how to sleep. And so I remember, um, you know, we were in sleeping bags and literally lying down and being on my back and just putting my hands. Like one was on my belly and the other one was on my chest. Almost like I was just doing some sort of like energy medicine, right?

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Energy. Like, like, like so sacrum, sacrum and heart or, or solar plexus and heart. And I'd fall asleep and I'd wake up like six to eight hours later and I would be in the same position. And, um, yeah. And so, you know, it was kind of like going into that un, it was like going into that un uncomfortableness that made me have to get comfortable in essence.

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And, and uh, and so that had a huge, 'cause I came back and I, and, and I was always a good sleeper, but I, you know, I came back and I was like, wow, I can, like, I can really sleep now through, now I

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can really sleep. Yeah. Through a lot

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of different things, right? So I've always kind of been, um, but. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I have a whole, I have a whole thing that I've written on sleep hygiene that I give to my patients if you want, you know, if you want that.

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But it's just, you know, yeah. Everybody's so unique and so different that it's sort of like, you know, creating a little, um, uh, you know, almost like a, like a, like a, like a sacred ritual for yourself. Um, uh, the majority of things that, like, I don't do, I don't like, I don't watch, like CSI, I don't watch. Um, the only thing I watch at night is, uh, is I do watch sports.

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Okay. Um, but I don't watch, you know, I don't watch like traumas. I don't watch like dramas. Like all if you think of like what your nervous system is doing during all these eight o'clock, nine o'clock and 10 o'clock shows, yeah, it's insane. And so if you just see a murder mystery, right? If you watch a murder mystery and you're involved in that.

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Just imagine what your nervous system and your, what your energy is doing. Right. And then you're asking yourself to completely switch out of that and go to sleep. It's just, it's like, it's like they're putting the wrong things on tv. Right. So just like really paying attention to that. Right. So I wrote a whole piece on that, uh, or, you know, just like the recommendation.

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So, so, you know, so if you, if you want me to email that to you, or, or, um, yeah. Or you know, that'd be great.

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We can leave that in the show notes. That'd be wonderful. Well, then the third question would be, what might we see on your nightstand or like in your environment? Anything in the environment or an absence of things?

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I don't have a nightstand, so nothing. Oh, there you

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go.

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I don have a nightstand. I actually wake up without a, without an alarm, so I don't have an alarm.

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Oh,

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have no electronic items in your bedroom, so do not have your phone next to you. I, you know, the, the electromagnetic waves that are coming off of that, um, in our house we have a timer that turns off the wifi at, at midnight, um, and then it comes back on at 6:00 AM So for six hours, essentially we, you know, it just, the wifi is on a timer.

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We don't have to think about it. Um, so I recommend that. And then my room is as pitch black as I can get it. Yes. Um, with the only, if you need a light, and this would be more for like kids or anything like that would be, you know, a, a a, a red, a red, a red light, um, if you need it. But, you know, I've, I've now trained my son who's 11, um, and he used to want a nightlight and he used to want all these, you know, he used to want the, the, the door open and stuff like that.

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And slowly, slowly over time, I've trained him to want, you know, to essentially want no light. And he's noticing the benefits. So, you know, if you can get like, blackout wi, um, uh, curtains or, you know, things like that. So I try to, I try as black as, as black or dark as possible or as you feel comfortable. Um, and yeah, so I don't have a nightstand.

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Um, I don't, I, when I go to bed, it's just, that's it. It's the bed, it's the bed hovering in the middle of a room and. A pillow, finding a comfortable pillow. Yeah. Is big. Finding a comfortable mattress, being cozy. Some people like it. I like it. A little bit cooler, um, on the cooler end.

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Yeah.

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And um, so I don't have anything on my, so I wake up and I get, you know, it's sort of like I might do a small little meditation when I wake up in bed, but I get up

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so good.

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Okay. And then the last question would be what so far has made the biggest change to your sleep game? Or said another way? Biggest aha moment in managing your sleep.

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I do have to say that, you know, that Africa trip really did, it was quite amazing. I like

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it.

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Bit of a paradigm shift. Yeah. The, I am the I am meditation mantra.

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Yes. Was during the most stressful time in my life, was. Incredible. It just a huge, because it was also this, um, this, uh, my wife and I, we, like, during that time period, we also, we, we, we, we, we would wake up at like four in the morning and do these extensive meditations together. And a lot of the meditations were just based on who am I?

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And so the I am just became this, um, this inquiry. And so that was, you know, that was really, that was really powerful. And then. Learning and integrating the breath with the I am. So it's like, you know, I like inhale. I exhale am inhale, I exhale am and just integrating those and then bringing in the breath and really just, you know, really just focusing on, um, where my mind is going and all those, you know, you can imagine the, I am the mantra, the breath all sort of orienting the nervous system and the thought patterns towards the present moment, relaxation, parasympathetic nervous system comes up.

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Um, and then, you know, another thing, just bringing this back to the cerebral spinal fluid is if you can, and I do have a, a, a program on YouTube, it's free. It's called the Awakening Awareness Program that guides somebody. It's 24 sessions of lectures and meditations, sort of getting somebody to feel comfortable meditating on the cerebral spinal fluid.

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But even as you're doing the I AM meditation or mantra, you bring your awareness to where your third eye would be in the middle of your brain. And so you actually, instead of like, a lot of times we like close our eyes, we close our eyelids and we just close our eyelids. But with this, it's when you're bringing in the cerebrospinal fluid and you're bringing in the breath, it's almost like with your eyes and your eyelids are closed, you're kind of looking up and in.

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It's almost as if you're directing your eyes, literally like your eyes, like they're, they are looking up and in into the third ventricle, which would be like into this, into the energetic third eye of our. Our body, and I call that the third ventricle, which is where this fluid is housed. Um, and, and in a lot of my YouTubes or in the awakening awareness, when we get into the cerebral spinal fluid, we go into the anatomy of that, that that's also really been a big thing of is, is for me, is sort of bringing my attention to this pool of water in the middle of my brain that from my sort of spiritual work is connected to divine universal consciousness.

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Hmm. So I'm sort of

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like tapping into that as well.

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Wow. That's a powerful shift or kind of a vantage point to come from. That's beautiful. Okay, so I'm clear that people listening are definitely gonna wanna follow you, learn more from you, check out your social YouTubes, you know, work with you, et cetera, et cetera.

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What are the best ways to do that

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for a work perspective? Uh, Instagram, it's Dr. Zapp. Then from a YouTube perspective. So a lot of the things I put free on YouTube and I'm doing, um, so there's the Awakening Awareness Program, which is a 24 session. It's all on YouTube. It's a playlist on YouTube. Um, if you like it, subscribe, you know, like it make a comment.

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Um, but that's a free program that essentially takes you from step one, which in my perspective is resourcing. Finding a resource that works for you, um, a place that you can direct your attention to. And then it goes through and it sort of builds on concepts of mindfulness and concepts of learning interception and, and, and, and really that that increased perceptive ability or quality of our body.

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At the more subtle levels, and then coming up into embryology, how we were developed in the womb, our connection with the fluids of the womb and into the cerebrospinal fluid. Um, and a lot of the things I do, I lead, uh, meditation. I lead mindfulness for chronic pain patients twice a week. That's free. Uh, people can join if they're interested, but it's really geared towards neuroscience of chronic pain and mindfulness for that.

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And I put a lot of things on, on, on my YouTube channel, um, of discussions I have and, and things like that. So the two best ways, and I, and, and I try to respond as best I can to the Instagram feeds. And then if anybody is, you know, my email, which is holding space eighteen@gmail.com.

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So good. Ugh. Well thank you so much for taking the time to be here to share your wisdom.

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So much value in such a short period of time. So I so appreciate it and absolutely wanna continue to, I'm certainly gonna continue to follow you and bring some of these practices into my own life, so thank you for sharing these.

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Great, yeah. Thank you so much for having me on.

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Thank you. 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.

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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 and 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.

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