257: Dr. Melissa Sonners, Chiropractor, Author/Podcaster, The Connection Code: 2 Minutes to Better Sleep

 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.

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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 to Sleep as a Scale Podcast. Now, this episode is for everyone, but especially if you are a woman who has ever felt exhausted in a way that sleep alone doesn't fix that deeper kind of tired that comes from overgiving, overperforming, and slowly disconnecting from yourself. This episode is especially for you, and if you're not a woman, but you love one, your mom, your wife, your sister, your partner.

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Please just share this with her. Now. Today I'm joined by Dr. Melissa Sonners, chiropractor, nervous system alignment specialist and author of the Connection Code. Her work helps women step out of hustle mode, regulate their nervous systems, and rebuild true inner alignment. The foundation that makes real restorative sleep possible.

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If you are working on your sleep, but feel like there's a deeper layer to address this conversation will resonate. So lean in and let's explore how real connections create real rest. And don't forget to check out the connection code in the show notes or pre-order your copy today. Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill Podcast.

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Rarely do we have guests come on a few times, and this guest is someone that I feel like could just be on this podcast on the regular. She's just a delight and a friend, a wealth of knowledge and has some really exciting things coming with a new book and beyond, all of which can really help us when we're talking about this journey of.

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Sleep and sleep optimization. So much of this has to do with our ability to have a say in our nervous system in the state of our bodies, but all without like force or efforting, how to support the conditions to create this natural arising of rich and plentiful sleep night after night. So we're gonna get into all that and so much more.

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But Melissa, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. 

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Oh my God. Of course. Very excited. I love spending time with you. I think this is gonna be a really great conversation for your audience. 

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Oh, I feel the same way. We've chatted about lots of different things that can be supportive about sleep with you in different capacities, and today I really want to highlight some of the things that you're working on and how this could help our audience in their journey.

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'cause we've. Been able to discern that. There seems to be a couple people listening, some people coming our way for acute sleep issues where maybe they were sleeping okay and suddenly it's just become, we could feel like an overnight situation and they're looking for support or it's just been a chronic problem.

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And now they're finally at their wit's end and just looking for new pathways for action. And one of the last groups seems to be. That they're sleeping, but they have a sense that things could be better improved. Maybe they've started to track and they're seeing that, you know, maybe there's some room for me to improve this area of my life.

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This thing we do a third of our lives sleep. So yeah. Maybe if you could just share a little bit about your background and how what you do could be supportive for people with their sleep. 

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Yeah, I love that. I love getting to know more about the people that are listening and those are all really, really important topics.

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So I love to say that I help, um, overstimulated burnt out mamas, and we will qualify that in a minute. Um, downshift their nervous system in real time. And I love to use science back, simple strategies, including brainwaves, which I know we'll get into that take moments so that we can be present for the moments in our life that really matter.

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And so I wanna say, you know, I love the word mama instead of mom because. You know, every woman, although she might not be a mother, is a mama. Hmm. What I mean by that is, you know, we're all nurturing, we're all caretaking. We are all juggling so many things at every moment, and it's, it's too much for a lot of us.

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And a common denominator I found in all the women that I work with is this struggle, challenge slash inability to downshift in real time. And so the way that that shows up for a lot of people, and this works for men too, by the way. I just have a very women-centric platform. I have a women-centric message.

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But I will tell you, my audience is still split 50 50. So I speak to the way Oh 

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great. 

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As well. Um, and I have a lot of men that reach out to me and they're like, thank you. You know, this helps me support and understand my partner better. Um, but these tools work exactly the same for your male audience as well.

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Um, so you know, when I say a lot of us struggle with downshifting, our nervous system in real time, what that looks like is, you know, someone will say or catch themselves saying things like. I, I need a break. I'm tired. I'm burnout. Like how many times have you said that In the midst of our day, right? Oh my God, this is too much.

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Absolutely. Yeah. 

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Just push through until Right. I'll just push through until the end of the day when I can put my feet up and like snuggle with my partner, my children, or my fur babies, and then I'll relax. Or I'll just push through until the weekend and then I can relax. And what's happening in those moments is we are training our nervous system to go, go, go.

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And so I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but I did, and this was part of my demise. When I completely lost myself to a neurological disease. Yeah. Through birth was that, you know, you finally get to sit down, you finally have that space and you can't relax. 

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Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. I have been there. That was definitely part of my origin story with insomnia.

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Yep. Relatable. 

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You can apply this, you know, we can talk about it in the daily because these tools will work in those moments where you have the two minute break. Instead of doubling down and being like, well, I'll relax at the end of the day. 'cause I need, I need two hours to downshift. No, we can downshift in two minutes.

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I have the proof, I have the science. So what that looks like is we start seeding and teaching the nervous system through consistency. That I can be here, I can be ramped up, I can be in go mode, I can be in beta, which we'll talk about the brainwaves later. And in an instant I can downshift into Theta and alpha.

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And so I can be present with myself. I can be present with my children when they come up in front of me and I'm like going through all the mom math in my head or that email that I just wrote, and like instantly be a hundred percent with them. And it can mean that you can at least even just be present with yourself, that you can put your feet up on the couch and actually cut your breath for a minute without questioning your worth.

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Your lack of productivity. What is it that you're missing? What is it that you're not doing? And so this changes people's day, and I'm sure you know as a sleep expert as you're hearing this, this completely changes the way that we sleep because we've taught our nervous system how to stop when it's time to stop.

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Absolutely. Yeah. I often say how you are by day gets mirrored in your nights. So how you are by day gets mirrored in your nights. That can look like how your glucose is by day will it likely, you know, just drip on into your nights and that also applies to your nervousness. The types of thoughts we're having, there's no kind of just turning all that off that tends to bleed into our sleep results, so I'm so glad that you mentioned that.

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I mean, I'm sure a lot of people listening are like, yes, yes, yes, yes. And yet maybe a sense of, I've often spoken with different clients where they've said, I just can't relax, or I can't. I'm so wound up, I can't take a nap in the day. I can't turn my mind off. I've tried meditating. It makes me more stressed.

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None of this stuff is available to me in so many words. So for that person that maybe even could use some like a, a new identity shift, and knowing that this is available to each and every person, where do we kind of begin if we have found ourselves a bit in downstream and now we're trying to course correct.

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Yeah. I love that question. I mean, really if we zoom out of the big picture and then we can go into details. 'cause Please, I know, always wanna give them some value from this conversation. Like, leave here knowing what to do. 

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Sure. Um, 

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our hard wiring, the way that we perceive our environment, the way that we react to the day, the way that we process stress, the way that we turn on fight or flight, or turn on our parasympathetics, our rest and di Digest is our hard wiring.

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That is our nervous system. So when people say nervous system, you can think of it like you're hard wiring. This is your programming. And a lot of us inherited this from our families, right? So we, in the, if you look at like the environment that you grew up in, whether it's, you know, your parents or otherwise, we'll start to see a lot of those same reactions, right?

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So like for a mom, it might be like, oh my God, I just, I snapped at my kid the way that my dad always did, right? I, I didn't even mean to, it was just my, my reaction. That's your hard wiring. I process stress the same way that I watched my mom do it. That's your hard wiring. That's our nervous system. And what's really cool is that our nervous system is completely malleable, meaning we can change it at any time.

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What the nervous system needs in order to change is frequency and consistency. So here's where this gets really cool. One of the things I say all the time is self-care needs a rebrand. And so when we go back to that person or myself, or if you've ever said this, you know, my old self would be like, yeah, I hear, I hear myself saying, I'm exhausted, I'm tired.

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I can't do it. It's three o'clock. I got a lot more work to do today. So I'm just gonna like push through and then I can relax. The old model of self-care was that we needed this, what, like one hour, two hour time to actually downshift to get into our parasympathetics to recover. Right. And you know, I think for a lot of women in particular, that looks like a massage, a pedicure, um, a day at the spa.

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Like how amazing. Right. And those are all great things. I call those the macro self-care, but what the nervous system changes from. Frequency and consistency. Those are the micro doses of self-care. And that's connection, right? And so everything that I teach, everything I talk about is through that lens. I love microdosing.

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I love microdosing connection because if we're taking what we used to look at as self-care, it's how we downshift. It's how we regulate our nervous system. It's how, you know, you think about like the marketing. When you visualize someone getting a massage, you're like, oh my God, that would feel so good.

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Like my mind would finally turn off, someone would be taking care of me. I would feel nurtured. Like for once I would just stop moving, right? Like we can do those things in the pockets of time that we usually just fill with doom scrolling 'cause there's not enough time to get anything done or with, you know, catching up on those emails.

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I know you and I have had a ton of conversations about like, play right, and not to, I don't wanna do a whole side tangent, but like microdosing play is a way to regulate your nervous system. It's a way to downshift. Um, so these things are, these things are really attainable. They're way more simple than we've made self-care in the past.

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Um. I'm currently 44. A decade ago, I literally lost my mind while raising three small children to, uh, ence, encephalitis and meningitis. And my nervous system basically shut down because I fried it out. I heard the signals that I couldn't do it anymore, and instead of slowing down, I pushed on the gas. Let me just push through, you know, and then eventually I'll get to rest and, and my nervous system collapsed.

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And so in that build back of me getting better, I had to figure out a way. I was like, how can I do this? How can I put on my oxygen mask first? How can I calm myself enough so that when I do lay my head down on the pillow, I can actually sleep? Um, and like I've said, you know, the science is strong, the science is there.

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And at 44 years of age, I'm the healthiest woman I am, and my self-care practices are two to five minutes amidst my day. For the person asking to go back to your question. I know that was like a really long answer. 

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No, I loved it. It was beautiful. 

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You changed the system through frequency and consistency and then the brainwaves is the roadmap and so we can get into that.

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Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for the vulnerability and sharing your backstory. I know that was certainly a backstory that I can relate to of just. These, almost this real kind of d drawing line in the sand of how things were and how they were after, right? When you finally realize like, okay, we cannot keep going in this manner.

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And certainly for me it was that flare up of once sleep becomes a question mark of if you're gonna get it or not. Things really snap into gear of something has got to change. So I relate to so much of what you just shared there. And then I love this kind of reframe too, because I. I think there can be times where it just feels like, well, this is not available to me, or I've got two jobs, or I'm just saddled with so much to do.

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There's no way I can get, as you pointed, I love that you painted those kind of macro versions of things that we might kneejerk think of as what this would look like and to start redefining in a modern world, how could this look different kind of this like pockets of peace and, and play and joy and connection.

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So. Maybe a bit more on that connection piece. 'cause I could see how do we define connection? Since often when people hear about nervous system regulation, what we often hear is people thinking, okay, if you know I've heard I gotta start doing more breath work, my aura ring. 

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So I'm, I'm with you. Anyone that feels that way, I'm like, please, please sit on a mat and breathe like, 

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yeah.

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Nuts. 

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Thank you. Exactly. And so we have a lot of people that are like, I've also seen people legitimately like frightened of these things. They're like, oh, it gets me even more stressed to sit in a lotus position and you know, all of this. Right. So, so I've sounds like you're. Expanding the aperture of what's possible and what this could all look like.

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And it, I don't know that people always think connection when they think of that. It's like, oh no, I have to go inward and go on a mountaintop or something to chill out my nervous system. And so yeah, maybe share a bit more about what that could look like. 

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Yeah. I'm gonna start with the person who's like, please don't tell me to sit and do breath work.

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'cause I think that's really important. And those are, those are my favorite people. Because we are, I am that person and we are the people that need this the most. Right? And, and I think the message gets completely missed if you tell us to go sit in a mat on a mat and do breath work like not happening.

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And the reason that is, is we've gotta get the busy part of our brain. We've gotta give it a task to hang onto, to occupy it so we can let the other side of our brain start to take charge. And so for people like that, I like to talk about this like, you know, concept of meditation in motion becomes your connection.

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And um, I do wanna go into brainwaves in a second here 'cause that'll help give this more context. 

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Yes, please. 

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But meditation in motion is like, okay, maybe you're not gonna sit on a mat and breathe, but could you like do a puzzle? Could you have a puzzle set up on your table where like, basically we need to act, we need to give the left side of our brain something to do.

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Which is looking at a puzzle, where does this piece fit? It starts to kind of quiet that part of the brain. 'cause that's our worry side, that's our future past side. And then it starts to let the right side come more online. And our right side is more our present time, our flow state, it's our more feminine side, which.

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Men and women need it. It's artistic, it's big picture. Um, it's more relaxed, right? And so something like a puzzle or you know, like a coloring book, repetition, where you're coloring in like the same pattern, like those mandalas, repetition creates predictability and predictability creates safety. And so like for that person, you know, maybe instead of the word connection, we're just looking to create safety and meditation in motion can do that.

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Hmm. I love that. Yeah. And I'm so glad you pointed to the safety piece and just Yeah, the. Not getting ourselves locked into just a particular OneNote of how it is to relax and how might work beautifully for one person might not always appeal. And I love that you suggested the puzzle conversation. Myself and my husband, we have a like puzzle sort of lazy Susan thing that happening on our dining room table and puzzling has become.

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This thing first. So yes to it almost also is making me think of, um, like crocheting or knitting or just some of these things to keep ourselves a little busy, but then downshifting. So yeah, share more. 

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Yeah. So that essentially is putting you in something called alpha brainwaves. And, um, before I go into Alpha, I just wanna say, you know, puzzling, like anything like that, you notice right at the end of a long day when your brain's really busy, you have all those tabs open, all of a sudden they start to close down.

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And again, that's because you're creating a feeling of safety. And one of my favorite resources, we can link it below. It's, I call it the self width checklist. And so these are, I think I have three or four different practices on there that take two minutes or less, um, that are something like a puzzle. You can also do this just by looking up and out.

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You, you expand your gaze beyond 10 feet. Uh, we're all looking at, you know, our screens and things like that, that activates our nervous system. And so when you look up and out, uh, something called expanded gaze, that instantly creates a sense of safety within your nervous system. So anyone who has, you know, symptoms of like, uh, feeling anxious or overwhelmed or fried or overstimulated, these practices in that self-worth checklist are really great for micro doses of safety and connection.

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Um. I wanna talk about the brain noise because this is a really cool system and what I love about this system. You know, I think in this day of information, we're all so bombarded and overloaded with protocols. So like I am not gonna give you a protocol here. I'm gonna give you some information. 

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Yes.

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Essentially what this is like I called it at the beginning, it's a roadmap and this is a permission slip and it's a remembrance. To almost like back up what you probably feel called to do anyway. We've just gotten so disconnected from that, that we've forgotten. And so this roadmap is almost like, um, like a cadence for your day.

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We have a cycle every day as far as like our brain is concerned, and the brainwaves are the gears of that cycle. And so there's five main brainwaves. And again, essentially like this is your roadmap home. So like if you're feeling outta sorts or overstimulated or too much, I want you to know what gear you're in and so you can start to figure out, okay, I need to downshift and here's how I do that.

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Because even though we're like really, really smart and our bodies are so amazing, right, and so capable, we can also trick the system from the outside in. And we're actually tricking it all the time. Not in a good way. Like our nervous system is adapting to our environment and perceiving that we're being chased by a tiger all the time.

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Right? The stress that we feel to our nervous system can feel like life or death when it's really like an email that's triggery, right? Or we're running late and. Something happens with our child, like it's not life or death, but because the system has hacked us from the outside in, it's, it's, it's, we're kind of perceiving it that way.

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Yes. Oh, I was just gonna underscore exactly what you just said to the, and it's funny to this audience often we might speak about, so like sleep apnea and this an apnea being this kind of secession of, of the ability to breathe and we're seeing and kind of. Pop culture, this renaming of what's being called email apnea of just literally like when we're getting into our inbox and we are not breathing appropriately as a response.

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I definitely know I've been in there periods of burnout and overwhelm and just like a. Stimulus and this particular response, and so you're pointing to something so beautiful, even if it's not actually life-threatening. It clearly, because our body is shifting. It's something's being triggered, right?

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Absolutely. Yeah. I love that analogy. I've never heard that sleep. Uh, email apnea. That's 

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so, isn't that wild? Yeah. You could help a lot of people deal with that. 

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Great. So these tools are going to hack from the outside in and I basically figured out the neuroscience behind, like, gimme two minutes and tell me what input to put put in to call my nervous system.

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And um, so the brainwaves are really a cool understanding for doing that. So basically, like I said, there's five gears. Delta is, and you can hear these names and you can forget about them. It doesn't matter. Delta is zero. So we're in a car, we're in a manual car. We're completely stopped and Delta is asleep.

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And I'm sure my girl, Molly Eastman has said to you guys, once or twice a great day starts with a great night. 

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Yes. Love that. 

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Gear zero essentially is Delta, which is our sleep. We then go into, I'll call it Gear one, which is theta. So if we do nothing, like if we don't, if we don't put screens in front of our face, if we don't incorporate these devices that like.

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Our nervous system hasn't adapted to to be, to be honest, we wake up in theta. Theta is our intuition. Theta is clarity. Theta is a place where if we hang out there for enough time, we will get our best ideas. If you ever hear someone say, I get my best ideas in the shower, that is theta. Right. And so each of these brainwaves, each of these gears has like these beautiful gifts from it that we're skipping over.

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But more importantly for your audience in this conversation is these are low and slow gears. And so what we wanna do is simply spend a few minutes of time in each one in the morning, just like we wouldn't go in a car and go right into Gear three. All we gotta do is spend a little time in Gear One. And I'll give some examples how to do that a little time in Gear two.

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Then we go into Gear three and we're training our nervous system how to move between gears during the day. Okay, so makes sense. So that when you're anxious and overwhelmed and 

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Perfect. Yeah. 

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Zoom call and then you've got like five minutes you can downshift. 

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So good. So we should not be waking up and going straight into whatever podcasts or social media and all the things.

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No, no, no. 

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And I think we all know this. And so then we're like, oh my God, there I go again. Guilt, whatever. Like it doesn't need to be an hour, right? If you're someone who like has to get on the emails to get ahead for the day, or you have to get your kids ready and do breakfast, this can be five minutes.

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Guys, all you gotta do is be super protective of your light sources. So this is that Amber lighting, which I know you guys all know about from Molly and staying off your 

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Yes, we love the light topic. Exactly. And I'm also loving your lighting set up in there. Right, too. Even thoughtful there. 

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Okay, so then we go into alpha, which is our heart space.

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It's flow, state, it's connection. This is where you wanna, like, again, be mindful of your lighting, stay off your devices. This is where maybe you're moving your body, maybe you're starting to have conversations, right? So like my husband, he knows how sacred my morning routine is to me. Like when I first wake up, I'm in Theta.

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I don't wanna talk to anyone. The action step in the is to listen because we've got insights coming. I mean, it might be literally like, this day is crazy. This day is overwhelming. Like it doesn't mean this is like beautiful wisdom that's being dropped down. Right? So you starting to get reconnected with you.

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Mm-hmm. 

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Allowing space for all that to flow so that when you go to lay your head down at night, it's not the first time that your ego, your inner narrator, which we all have, has the chance to talk to you. 

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Mm-hmm. Yes, wise, 

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if you don't think you have an inner narrator, like that voice inside your head that just said, I don't have one of those that that's, that's, that's 

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it.

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Exactly. 

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Yeah. We're creating space to listen to that. I always say amigo your ego, like befriend your ego. We're not trying to, if it doesn't have nice stuff to say, don't get on Instagram and scroll. Like listen, create space. Yeah. There's. Then we go into alpha connection, present flow. Um, this is where you can do your puzzle.

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Like that's, that's activating alpha brainwaves. This is where you're starting to kind of move around a little bit more meditation, in motion journaling practice, or connecting with your partner beta. This is what's really important to hear. Beta is gear three and beta is our get stuff done gear. 

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Hmm. 

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And things like if we're on emails, if we are, um, on our phones, our devices, anything, we are in beta.

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And so as far as like the sleep conversation, I want you to think about like, in your day, what gears are you living in? Are you creating space for theta and alpha, or are we living in beta, which is our highest speed, one of our highest speed gear. And then wondering why we can't fall asleep at night. 

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Yes.

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So we're retraining the nervous system by taking our nine to five. Not that any of us work nine to five anymore. We're all working probably way more than that from our devices and inputting little micro doses throughout our day of data and alpha. 

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Mm. 

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So creating moments where, okay, you know, it's two o'clock, I'm in the middle of the workday, just got off a zoom call.

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I've got five minutes. Instead of hopping over to email and staying in gear three, staying in beta. Let me go for a walk without my phone for five minutes. Downshift, you're teaching your nervous system. I can go from high to low. Let me log off my emails and hit that puzzle that's on my lazy. Susan, you're downshifting from beta to alpha.

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Mm. And so this isn't just about in the moment, but what will start to happen is that your day will start to feel easier because you are spending more time in present time flow and over time. What this leads to is in any day, in any situation, in any moment, when we get triggered, when we get stressed, when we get overwhelmed, I'm not saying it doesn't happen, it happens to me all the time.

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Even though I teach this stuff, I can very quickly regulate myself. Mm. This isn't about like numbing or distracting out. 'cause I think that's, that's one of the main tools that we have been using, to be honest. 

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Mm-hmm. 

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And in the middle of my workday, something really yucky came up, I gotta keep going so I gotta push this down.

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Mm-hmm. 

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Right. It's not pushed down, it's, it's putting a beach ball under a ocean and it's just gonna pop up. And I think for a lot of us, it probably pops up when we lay our head down to sleep. We're at 3:00 AM 

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That's right. I could not agree more. Oh my goodness. Okay. So since this is such a useful and practical conversation for people, and I feel like you've already given us so many great takeaways and just new, also like a reframe on potentially, how could we gamify this and have this be fun of just these, the microdosing, right?

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That's. It's like a whole other way to look at this, as opposed to, well, who's got a chunk of uninterrupted hours to intersperse? No, no, no, we're not saying that. And maybe particularly like hot button times throughout the day, especially to maybe take care of or be protective of the, you know, the mornings and maybe the evenings and those transitionary brain state times.

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Okay. Now I will say. One thing we've been seeing is we've been learning a lot by seeing how every guest that comes on, how they're managing these kind of routines, the evenings, the mornings, all of this. So get to that in just a second. But before we do, was there, 'cause I know this is a huge topic, but was there anything major too that we left?

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Out of this conversation or that we wanna kind of put a bow on, at least for now. 

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Yeah, I would just say then at the, at the later half of your day, you just go in reverse, right? Yes. So we go from year three and then we're gonna downshift to alpha, right? So your meditation in motion, your puzzle, your knitting, um, nature is amazing.

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Like going for walks, moving the body, uh, and then down into theta where you would just like create space to listen, right? Downshifting, um. Journaling, like getting it out on paper is, is really key and it's a lot of information and it can be really simple actually. And so a lot of the resources that will drop, uh, I talk about this a lot, not only in the book but in my YouTube channel and things like that so people can message me and, um.

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You know, I, I want people to be able to integrate this easily, so any questions can be addressed later, but I think that's a good, 

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yeah, that's great. A hundred percent. Yeah, and, and good call too about the YouTube channel and other ways that they can kind of keep staying this conversation because it is.

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So it could land as like this radical new integration for a lot of us because not many. And you can't look to what everyone else is doing. 'cause most people are just in the scrolling trance or just the automaticity or the reactive ways of being. So we really have to be thoughtful and then look to people like yourself for some of that guidance or reminders or inspiration.

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So really appreciate that and highly recommend that people follow your work. It's certainly your book, which I know we'll get to in just a second too. Okay. So. Every person that comes on, we kind of get a sense of how you are relating to your sleep throughout the course of the day. So the first question that we ask is, what is your nightly sleep routine looking like right now?

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I with also give you the caveat call out or any element or space to share. I know you're in the midst of a book lunch and maybe like. Travel or all these different things, or a jam packed schedule. So if there's particular things that have been helping you in the space of this. So for other people, they got big things coming.

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How we think about those times too. 

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Yeah, great question. I'm super protective of my sleep. I'm someone that needs like eight hours. 

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Yes. Yeah, 

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I feel hungover. I don't, I mean, I'm not a big drinker, but like I don't function well. 

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I get it. Yes, totally. 

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We've also got three kids, so our kids right now are 15, 13, and nine.

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And so I don't have, um. Not that I don't have. Let's see. Uh, I, I've needed to get creative as a mama, right? Because I don't, I don't always feel like the evening is my say completely, like mm-hmm. And stuff that comes up last minute. Like my 15-year-old, oh my God, I forgot to tell you. I have a project. I need a poster board tomorrow.

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We need to run to Michael's right now. You know, like, yep. 

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Totally. 

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So I have a few hard and fast rules. I won't go on digital like after a certain time. Uh, I won't check emails. If my kids need me to check something, like for a classroom assignment, I'll go in and out really quickly. Like I'm, I'm really boundaried with that 'cause I get pretty spun out pretty quick.

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Totally. Yeah. Yep. I'm sensitive like that too. Need the guardrails. 

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Yeah. I feel like a canary in a coal mine, like since I had this stuff happen with my brain. Mm-hmm. Like things for our brain I feel very quickly, which is such a gift now. 

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Sure. Yeah. 

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So digitals I'm very protective of. I won't go on. The other one is lights.

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Like light sources are a non-negotiable in our house. Um, my kids know it's coming. They actually do it on their own now as well. Like, I'm like, it's time to make melatonin and all the lights go off. And the only light sources are like red or amber. Uh, I don't know how people sleep in traditional lighting in their home.

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I 

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know. Same. Ugh. 

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I, I, I can't. Yeah. So, um, if I'm in an environment where I can't control the light, I do my blue light blockers that, I mean, I lay with my kids to go to sleep. So like that's really nurturing to me. Reading them books. Um, my husband and I both do it. We kind of like go to each of their beds.

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We end up a lot of times like falling asleep in there and then moving into our bed. And it's honestly like one of my favorite things. I don't think I'll ever regret doing that. Um hmm. I fall asleep really well next to our kids. Aw. So that's been important to me. 

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Yeah. 

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When I travel, I need to bump it up a little bit.

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Right. So, um, blue light blockers. I take some supplements sometimes. Um, Quicksilver's got one that I love. Lip ol. I don't know if you've used that. 

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Yeah. Yeah, I have used that one. That's a good one. 

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I do magnesium. Um, I think theanine is like in one of the supplements that I take. 

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Mm-hmm. 

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That stuff, I am in a busy season right now, but all that means to me is, um, I've gotta be way more protective of like digital worlds.

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Mm-hmm. '

‍

cause I'm in a busy season. One of the things I'm trying to do more of is use the outside in tools. Mm. So I'm going sauna and ice right now, even if it's just quick. So like a few times a week I'll get in, we have a home sauna and then I'll either jump in our pool really quick. Um, yeah. Because teaching my body how to Right downshift, um, it's creating like a hormetic stress that I've gotta regulate from.

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Mm-hmm. 

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Flexing that muscle on a high level. 

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Sure. To 

‍

be instantly into parasympathetic. So those are like my big ones when I need to bring them out. Um, those are the big ones. And then did you wanna know morning routine or just 

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Yes, I did. How'd you know? That was perfect. Yeah. The next question is, what might we see in your morning, quote unquote sleep routine with the idea that how we.

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Starter our day could very well impact our results with our sleep the following night. 

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So my old morning routine used to look like I had a power hour, and I would get online and I would do the emails and I would get ahead of the day and I would slam the coffee. 

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Yeah, right. Yeah, 

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right. 

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I I hear that. Yep.

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I still have morning coffee. Mm-hmm. So like a lot of people will say, can't do it, shouldn't do it. Um, I love it. It's very nurturing for me. I just do like a very low caffeine. I do four, same. 

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Yep. 

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I hit the coffee machine, like I am one of those girls, and then I go, I sit on a pimp mat with my red light. You know, I use the word meditation, but meditation just means become familiar with yourself.

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Mm-hmm. 

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And so I'm sitting there in, in the nothing, and that's taken me a while to be able to do, to sit in the nothing and just kind of listen, like, okay, what am I feeling about today? Like. Am I overwhelmed? Is there a lot? I don't know, just space for the nothing. I crave it. Yeah, 

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sure. 

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Daughter often joins me.

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She comes out and then, um, yeah, we kind of, I guess we kind of amp up from there. Then the kids are up and we're getting ready for school. But the, the main things that I do, the foundation in my morning that's really key is I don't have bright lights on. Mm-hmm. I'm not on away sometimes, sometimes I'm on them, to be honest, within like 15 minutes, which I don't love.

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Yeah. But I do sometimes need to get on Slack before I drive them to school. 

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Mm-hmm. I 

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think, you know, I love looking at things from like a both and perspective, not just an, or like, I can either have this, you know, low ti stimulatory morning or I can do my work. I I can do both. Right? Yeah. So just few minutes to empty and clear the slate.

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I can keep my red light filters on and I can check in on slack and like dip in just enough to know what's going on. 

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Totally. Oh, love that. Oh, and quick question. Given your household, do you fit HBO in anywhere on these lineups, and if so, like is there a preference for daytime, nighttime, any callouts there?

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Yeah, I do it in the night, so in the rare occasion if I have like one of those 3:00 AM toss and turns that I'm like, sure. To get in the chamber. I get in the chamber then. 

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Nice. Oh, I've never heard anyone say that. So that is amazing. Good call. 

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It's the easiest time for me because I'm not, 

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yeah. 

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You know, it's, it's like not the best way to look at it, but I feel like I'm not neglecting anyone, right?

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Mm-hmm. 

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Totally. The plight of motherhood. 

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So I love the night 'cause it's not interfering with work, it's not interfering with the kids. Um, yeah. Weekends, you know, on like a Sunday if they have activities. Um, I do love, I do love hbo. I mean, when it comes to brain stuff, it's, it's one of the powers, like the biggest hitting tools out there.

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Totally. Oh my God, I am loving mine thanks to good old Oxy Health and it is amazing. And now I'm doing it as often as I can in the evenings especially, so I'm happy to hear the, that you're a evening fan too. I mean, it sounds like you could do different. Times of day certainly. And I've been really liking that.

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It's really interesting to see at certain times. Are you tracking daytime stress with Aura at all? 

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I haven't been doing daytime, no. 

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No. Okay. So, um, it's been interesting 'cause Aura, if you're wearing it by day. Depending on settings and generation and all the things you can see your daytime stress. And now that's very layered.

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Like the title I think could almost use some potential rebranding 'cause people get stressed about the stress and it's a whole other topic. Talk about nervous system regulation and, but I will say it's very interesting seeing when you might have been in a stress. State for whatever reason, that could just be you just ate, you were hot, you were dehydrated, you were all these things and or psychologically stressed as well.

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But I'll see different points where I might have been running up higher at either stress state or engaged, they'll call it. And then I'll get into the HPO and they go, woo. Like nice and down. It's like really incredible. The difference. 

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Yeah. I went in, um, so this last Sunday was Super Bowl. I mean, I'm sure.

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Yep. 

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You passed that, but I went in, I did like an hour and a half. The kids had activities and I fell asleep on the couch at 7:00 PM 

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I was surprise. 

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Yep. In the best way. Like I, yes, I needed that macro dose of shutdown. 

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Mm-hmm. 

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If I could pick my ideal time for hbo, I would wake up, I'd go in there, have like a meditation theta.

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Come out, have my coffee, do my day. That would be like my peak. Mm. If the kids weren't around and you know, 

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I hear that completely. The other thing that's been wonderful too, now I don't know if we'll keep this going or not, but as of right now in our household, we've made this packed mainly 'cause my husband's like.

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Paranoid about bringing stuff into the HBO and whatever. So what's so interesting is now we've had no electronics in the hbo and so it's just a time for physical books journaling, and I've got like a in there and I got the whole thing and it's. So nice. I am getting through so many physical books, more than I've done in ages, and I see knee-jerk times where I might be reading something, oh yeah, what's that thing?

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And I'd wanna, you know, go research it, go check it out, get more answers, more info, right? And it's like, mm, no, we're just gonna be with this book and be in the inquiry, and it's wonderful. So yes, yes, yes. Love that. 

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You know, you're double stacking your time. Right? 

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Exactly. Exactly. 

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Breathing, you're not holding your breath.

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Looking at the devices. 

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Yeah, it's been wonderful, so love that. Okay. And then in your environment, what might we see on your nightstand or around, you know, your space, in your evenings, in your bedroom? 

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Not much of anything. I mean, 

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I love that. Yes. 

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On my doorknob next to our bed so I can grab, I love a sleep mask.

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Mm-hmm. 

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Nightstand isn't even by our bed in our room. There's really nothing. I mean, it's. Yes are, are for sleep. 

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See that's what I, I just, I love out of doing, I don't know, over like 300 episodes I've seen too. 'cause there certain people maybe be coming in from different angles around sleep and some people might say like, listen, I'm still struggling with sleep, or I'm still navigating sleep ed.

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I have noticed. A trend where the more things like the attachment to, well, I have this neuro stem and this thing, and vagus nerve, blah, blah, blah, and stacks of books and journal. The more reliance, seemingly informal correlation between struggles in their or their self relationship to their ability to get great sleep and to downregulate and have all this work.

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So. Love that. 

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I think that's full circle of like what I'm here for and 

‍

yeah, 

‍

what's really important to me and what I'm sharing is we've just gotten too much into the age of information and overwhelming knowledge, and it's really everything I want to empower people with is a remembrance that everything you have is in here, we've just recorded.

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Yes. 

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And so it's doing less. Like we are taking overwhelmed people and we're giving them more protocols. We're giving more things to focus on. 

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Yes. 

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I mean, even if you look at like the hierarchy of, um, hormones and insulin, like the top of that chain, we're upstream right at the beginning of all of that.

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That influences everything is oxytocin. 

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Mm-hmm. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

That's when we're in play and joy and connection. Right. Like we've got to get back to the basics. We've got to, especially for the women, like we are over masculinizing self-care, ugh. Couldn't 

‍

agree more 

‍

and protocols and like, no, we are masters at this, you guys.

‍

Hmm. 

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Rhythmics cyclical beings. And we're getting feedback that it's not working and instead of tuning in and listening to that, we're doubling down on what can fix me. 

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Yeah. 

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Couldn't agree. A rebrand? 

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Yes. Yes. Completely. Couldn't agree more. Okay. And then the last question would be, so far to date, what would you say has made the biggest difference in how you're relating to your sleep?

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And or said another way? Biggest aha moment in managing your sleep. 

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The thing on the outside would be like, I've changed lighting and my boundaries around devices. Right? Sure. To external things that are very different in my world that impact my sleep, but that had to come from me changing the insides first.

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Mm-hmm. 

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That had to come from me listening to those signals that I was constantly getting, that a lot of us are getting that are like, God, I'm starting to feel relaxed. This is really good. And then peaks almost like subconsciously pulling us out of that joy or calm or contentment because it's unfamiliar.

‍

That's re-patterning like our, our nervous system will create, will crave a familiar hell rather than an unknown heaven. 

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Yes. 

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We are used to chaos and overstimulation. We will pull ourselves out of moments of calm. And for me, the night has changed because. Of light and screens, but ultimately those things change because I realized that I deserve contentment and I need to start being content when contentment shows up.

‍

Mm. Wow. That is meta. Yes. 

‍

That work. That's the nervous, exactly. That's upgrading our hard wiring. That's cycle breaking, which we're all here doing. 

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Yes. 

‍

Often through frequent, consistent micro doses of connection. 

‍

Mm. So good. Melissa, you're doing the Lord's work now. For people listening that are saying, yes, preach.

‍

I need more of this in my life. I need more reminders of this. I need to go deeper on this. Certainly more than under an hour conversation could allow for, I wanna learn more. Where can. Go to do that, to get your book, be a part of your world, follow all the things you're doing, your YouTube, et cetera. 

‍

Yeah.

‍

Well, the first thing I would want them to do is start listening more to themselves. 

‍

Hmm. 

‍

They have all the answers. Right? So like my number one goal from you from this conversation would be that 

‍

I love 

‍

that. Don't let my channel and platform be yet another input into the brain when you need space to create your own clarity.

‍

Mm-hmm. 

‍

However, as you are getting comfortable with that transition and learning how, and creating and craving anchors to stabilize you, right? While you're starting to sit with yourself more, or while you're starting to like untether some of these old patterns that are not yours, you inherited them. I'm happy to help you with that.

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And so I would say, um, the book, the book is probably one of my favorite tools because. Reading a book is very nurturing. It's alpha brainwaves, it's a downshift, you know, I love like a book in hand rather than on Kindle. 

‍

Mm-hmm. 

‍

To our brain and activates both hemispheres. So just reading alone will regulate you.

‍

Um, I've got my YouTube channel, which I know will link, and then my website, dr melissa sonner.com. Uh, dr melissa sonner.com has a ton of like, uh. By the time this comes out, I think I'll have this free little masterclass, like a 15 minute video on more of this and some other great resources and free things that they can.

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Delve into. 

‍

Oh, that's amazing. Okay, well, we'll make sure to have those things in the show notes so that people can easily just take those steps. And I love how you prefaced all that with really just leaning in, trusting ourselves and in the process. Some of those resources that you mentioned can be kind of a, a buddy in that process along the way.

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I love it. 

‍

To remembrance. It's like, this is, I'll shine the light so you can help find your path back, right? 

‍

Mm-hmm. 

‍

We just get a little lost along the way, so let me light it up so you can get there, you know, more quickly. 

‍

Oh, so great, Melissa. Well, thank you for the work you're doing and for taking the time.

‍

I'm sure you got a jam packed schedule with this book launch. So everyone check out that book and more. But thank you for just sharing your wisdom today. 

‍

Well, Molly, thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing. I mean, sleep is. So important for regulation and, um, I love everything that you're sharing for free on your platform.

‍

It's such an incredible resource. So, and also what you've done personally, I know, be able to share this. I'm so proud of you and it's, 

‍

aw, 

‍

it's my pleasure to witness this. This side of you shining through because of all the stuff you've done. So thank you. 

‍

Oh, well, thank you. I know we're both very mission driven, so more of this and more of our own, you know, kind of doing the work.

‍

Right? Doing the work, yes. So good. Thank you. You've been listening to The Sleep As 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.

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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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