Podcast: How to Get a Good Night's Sleep with Onnie Michalsky

Transcription of Podcast

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Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena Kerek. I hope you are feeling amazing. Oh my goodness. I can feel spring in the air. I totally, totally love Spring. It feels like. Nearly the end of a long, hard winter. I dunno about you, but I really find that weather affects me and I find living outdoors so much easier when the weather is nicer.

A k a swimming in the sea is really hard when it's freezing cold. Okay, today we are going to be talking to Annie all about how to get a good night's sleep, and I'm super excited to share this conversation with you before we dive in and get to meet Annie and find out all about sleep. Two really exciting announcements for you.

Mindset Miracles for Emotional Eating and Weight Loss Free Event

Number one, my new event for art. I'm super excited about this. This is all new. None of you have seen any of this. My actual clients have. diving into this a little bit, but we are going to be doing a mindset week, so it is called mindset miracles for emotional eating and weight loss, and we are going to be diving into the negative brain and seeing how the negative rain really sabotages.

Your efforts to lead a healthy life and be happy and all of these things that we try and do in life and how your positive brain is really the answer to doing things and getting results, whatever it is you want to achieve. We're specifically going to be looking at emotional eating and healthy living.

Now you might be thinking, okay, this is all great, but how do we change it? And yes, we are going to be covering that as well. So it's gonna be a week long. There's gonna be sessions on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. And if you can, I really, really advise you to turn up live because you'll get so much more out of it.

Now, of course I will record those because I do understand that not everybody can turn up live. So mindset miracles for emotional eating and weight loss. And this is amazing. I'm so excited to bring you this new. .

One on One Coaching Now Open!

Book a call here: https://bookme.name/drorlena/private-coaching-1

Now, the second amazing announcement is that I have opened up my one-on-one coaching again, so yes, I still have my group coaching.

It is amazing. I love my group coaching, but I'm also opening up some spots for one-on-one as well, which really allows me to be a little bit more personal and really a hundred percent gear it towards you. Now, both of them are fabulous. Some people prefer one. Some people prefer. Now the exciting news is that for the first three people who sign up to my one-on-one coaching, I have an amazing discount.

So if you are interested in one-on-one coaching or the group program, then click the link in the show notes to book a call. It starts with having a chat and really thinking about where you are. What you want to achieve and what it would look like if we were to work together. So two things. Sign up for the Mindset Miracles.

Do both of these, and if you're interested in one-on-one coaching or the group program, then sign up and we will chat about that. Okay, let's dive in. I'd give you Onnie and finding out all about how to get a good night's sleep.

How to Get a Good Night's Sleep with Onnie Michalsky

Hello and welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me. I'm super excited today because we have an amazing guest.

Onnie, Welcome Onnie. How are you?

Hey, Orlena. I'm doing great. How about you? I'm fabulous. Now Onnie is gonna come and talk to us about, well, she could talk to us about so many things, but the one that I have chosen is sleep and. I know that so many people lie awake at nighttime thinking all of those things.

What I say is your brain words. So Onnie is gonna talk to us about that particular obstacle that a lot of people face. But before we dive into sleep and worries and thoughts, Annie, would you like to introduce yourself and tell people what you. Sure. So I am first and foremost a mom. I've forgot six kiddos.

I am here in Montana. I'm a licensed therapist as well as, I recently, within the past two years, dove into the life of coaching. And so I have so I'm a mom, a wellness coach and a licensed therapist. And I work with super moms. So moms that are overscheduled so busy, they don't make time for themselves.

I help moms get themselves off the back burner and start reclaiming their sense of self. So that they can be the woman that they wanna be for the family that they love, for their loved ones and for themselves. And six kid, six kiddos. Oh my goodness. I thought I had a lot. And I have four. I only have four

Fabulous. Fabulous. So this topic I think is really, really important. In fact, sleep is one of my four pillars and you know, I'm all about health and wellness and leading. Doing everything we can to lead a long and healthy life. And there's lots of things that we can do. And sleep is one of those things.

And yet so many people don't prioritize sleep, and so many people as well lie awake at nighttime with all of that churning, churning, churning that's going on. So Annie, over to you. How do you help people? Well, it's so funny that because right before you hit record, you know, we were saying like, what should we talk about?

What are the topics that I usually talk about? And you chose sleep. And just last night, my husband and I are laying in bed and we were talking about the fact that I sleep so well. Like I can fall asleep five minutes. As soon as I lay horizontal, and it hasn't always been that way, but I've done a lot of work to be able to get myself, my mind and my body to shut down to a place where I am out and I sleep deep.

I've, I've been known to sleep through fire. Sometimes like smoke. No, that's amazing. Like even with kids. Like we laugh when my, when our oldest, she I would rest, I was breastfeeding her and my husband, like the baby would wake up and he'd put her on, on my boom and I'd still be sleeping. And so I am a very sound sleeper, but there have been times where I struggled and I've done, been able to do the work and then, Started learning more about treatment of insomnia, and that was under my co my counseling hat.

I started reading more about sleep because a lot of my clients struggled with sleep, and I've recognized that the fact that because I work with Supermoms, because I work with moms who don't leave any time in their day. To process their thoughts. These are the ones that are struggling the worst at night because when their head hits the pillow, it's like their mind says, all right, now it's time to process the day.

Because they haven't left any of that time during the day to reflect on their thoughts, to think about their thoughts, and so they end up ruminating and they end up. A lot of that anxiety comes awake at night, the minute that you want to actually go to sleep. So that is so I created a workshop. I have I'm actually doing a live workshop here in the town next week.

By the time it records, it'll be a couple months ago as by the time this episode drops, it'll be a few months ago. But I also created into a course and I come onto podcasts like yours or, and share with. With listeners all about how to improve their sleep, because you're right, sleep is so important. It is like the, you know, it, it influences our entire day, right?

Our mood, our functioning, our brain capacity. There's so much that's relying on getting a good night's sleep. So when your sleep is suffering, there's a lot of other areas of your life that. Nearly impossible to get together or like to, to focus, to improve if you're not focusing on improving your sleep.

Yes, definitely. And I know that if I haven't had a good night's sleep, I'm like an angry bear and yeah. One of the things I think as well is that you don't notice that you are like that. I remember a time, I think it was around a year ago actually, and I had stayed up late because I was doing some work. I was doing a course and the next day.

Everyone was so irritating. Oh my goodness. And eventually I said like, what's going on? Why are you all being so irritating? And everyone's like we, it's the common denominator. But yeah, you don't notice. You just think it's everybody else, don't you? And you know it's interesting when you read books about sleep as well, productivity goes down, hunger goes up.

It has such a lot of knock-on effects on how we eat, whether we can be bothered to do exercise, how we are thinking, all of these things. It's so amazingly important. And yet people know this and still don't. Fix their sleep. So what are some of the sort of fundamental things that you would recommend people do if they're having problems sleeping?

So one is the basic hygiene, right? Like creating, like making sure that your, your sleep hygiene is in check, and this means. Quieting the room, darkening the room, having the ideal temperature, like getting your environment set up and making sure that it is conducive to a good to sleep. Right. And there's a whole lot of data and, you know, studies that have been do, done to find that ideal temperature.

I think it's, I think it's actually 65 degrees or something like some, you know, to be able to get. Your body's set up, right? But then there's other things that you can do in addition to that. Like that's just the basics, right? Like, you know, we all know there's been a lot of research and I know that there's a lot of like things out about the problem with blue light and like not playing on your phone too close to bedtime, right?

Because of the blue lighting Its, or like being on computer devices, you know, watching television. Like there's certain activities that we know. At this point are not lending to a good night's sleep, but so making sure that those basic things are taken care of. That's all part of the sleep hygiene piece.

But then there's that piece where, I don't know how familiar everyone is with like Pavlov's dogs and like conditioning and recon, like unconditioning, like all of that. So our mind starts and our body just to, just to pause. Yeah. I know what half of socks are. I will just, I'll just tell people that can go one little bit to, okay.

Yeah. So basically he did an experiment where he was looking at how dogs salivated and he basically trained them to salivate to a bell because they would be fed and they would ring the bell. And then he realized that if he just rang the bell, they would be so. Ready and waiting for food that they would salivate without the food.

And so it's this, we have this sort of like click word response, as I like to say. You know, something happens and then something else happens. So in the case of the dogs ring the bell salivate, but with us. It can be different things. Yes. And let's, let's talk about how that goes with food, right? Like, so you remove that middle piece, like the food part, and you're still salivating with the, well the dog is still salivating with the belt.

So the same thing happens with our minds, and we like with us humans as it pertains to our bed, our beds. When you start doing all of these other activities in bed, you start like reading, watching television, playing on your phone. Right, we, and then we expect to like put that away and go to sleep. Well, it doesn't work that way because your bed, I mean, your mind starts conditioning.

Your mind is conditioned to equate the bed with all of these other activities, and so, Part of my program is helping to recondition your mind to equate the bed with actual sleep, and that means limiting the activities that you're doing in bed to only to sleeping if you're sick. So like recuperation and sex.

The three things that you need to be doing in bed. Everything else needs to be taken out of the bed, out of the bed, and ideally out of the bedroom. So that you can actually, you know, your mind equates the bed with sleep. So that's part of that piece of improving your sleep. The third piece is to I.

Well to take P, take care of your mind, right? Which is what we're gonna dive into in a couple minutes, is how to deal with those sleep worries and how to clear your mind so that your mind is at peace, so your mind is restful, but also your body. So that's where some relaxation techniques will come into mind.

Come into play to be able to relax your body. And there's all different apps that exist nowadays that can help you get into like some guided meditation, some progressive muscle relaxation that can help you actually relax the different muscles within your body and helping your body get to that state of relaxation.

And then your mind is what we're gonna talk about today is how to create that, that rest in your mind. Excuse me. I have a bit of a sore throat. . Yes, exactly. And I think. Excuse me. What I think about with our mind is that you're absolutely right. Our, our ma our brains kind of need to unravel during the day, and if we don't give ourself that chance to unravel, it happens at nighttime and it may be replaying things that happen during the day or making lists of things that we want to happen, or even those sort of like fantastical worries that we have.

So I remember talking to somebody and she would get really worried about her children drowning Now. I don't know why. But that was her specific worry. Like, oh my goodness. She'd start thinking about what's gonna happen if, you know, my children are in, in this particular place. So how do you combat those specific worries when you are lying awake at bed and you know, you can see your brain going, whoa, whoa.

How do you stop it from happening? So before I get into that, that's, that's a great question, but before we get into that question, I forgot to mention one more thing that's important to be able to improve your sleep or to get a good night's sleep. To be creating that nighttime routine and making sure that you are setting yourself up.

Similar to how a baseball player, like when they're about to start a game and they warm up, like it is important to actually warm up to bed. You're not going to. Go from a hundred to zero, and sometimes that in itself will create some anxiety for us because we're expecting to be able to fall asleep when we haven't actually done the proper warmup.

So creating a nighttime routine of, of increasingly calmer. Activities as you get closer to bed, we'll, we'll also get your mind and body ready to be, to, to hit the, to hit the sack. So, , back to the worries. So it turns out that we worry about three main things that when we're, when we're trying to go to sleep, so we worry about the everyday.

and this is like, did I put that permission slip in my kid's backpack? Did I lock the doors? Right? Like all of the things that you're reflecting about the day, like these everyday things are one of the sources of worry. The second one is, getting to sleep. So you start wearing like, I'm not gonna be able to go to sleep because I had that nap today.

Or I won't be able to go to sleep because I'm too worried. I'm, I'm, you know, I have that report tomorrow, right? Like, so, well, I'm just lying here and I'm not asleep. And I've not been asleep so long that now it's like midnight and I still haven't gone to sleep. Yes. So you're worrying about the sleep itself, about getting to sleep.

And then the third one is you're wearing about the consequences of insufficient sleep. If I don't get enough sleep tonight, I'm gonna bomb that report if, or I'm gonna bomb that presentation. Or if I don't get enough sleep, I'm not gonna be able to get my kids to school on time. Right? Like, you start thinking of like, because I can't, I'm gonna be so tired tomorrow.

Like you start thinking about the consequences of not getting enough sleep. So those three things combined can create a whirlwind inside your. And the more you're trying to go to sleep, the more you're worrying about what's, what's happening. And what about big things? So I would think that included in there somewhere are big things like finances and mm-hmm.

Does that count as everyday things? Yes. Yeah. Ju like being able to make the bills or like, you know, the paychecks, like finance, finances, your relationships, like, you know, different things people said to you. All of these things. And again, because you're not giving yourself that time in the day. To actually process these thoughts.

Your mind is activated at this point because it's the only time usually that you're giving yourself time to think. Like, have you ever made it today? You're like, I didn't even have time to think today. Like, right. And that's the time where you're in the mor like, and you think, oh, well I'm gonna be so exhausted because I was so busy.

But the minute your head hits the pillow, that's when your mind is like, no, you can't go to sleep yet. We've got way too much to process . And so those are the nights. And then the cycle continues, right? So we worry about these things and the best way to. To stop them is to understand them, and I've got a tool that I'm gonna give to your listeners that's gonna help you.

I'm gonna walk through it right now, but there's a tool that I'm gonna give you so that you can actually use it to make sense of your worries, to get them outta your mind so that when you are going to sleep, your mind has already done the work. And so it's gonna help minimize the worries or the thoughts that are racing through your mind.

So we're looking, it's, it's the A, B, C, D format. Okay? So A is the activating event. B is the belief, C is the consequence, and D is the dispute. Okay, so let's go back to that activating situation. The activating event. So when you're lying in, And these thoughts are coming to you. You wanna start, you wanna start recognizing what is the thought, right?

Because a lot of times the thoughts are racing through your mind and it's, it's hard to slow it down. And so that's where you're going to work on relaxing your mind, relaxing your body, and keep a pen and paper. On your nightstand, actually turn on just the little light, like a little night light and scribble down some key words of the things that you're worrying about.

Okay? So when you're doing that at night, you're just writing some keyword words, okay? Now, this is a process. This isn't something that you do one night and. You're cured, . Like it's, you can't expect we're not, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, so this is gonna be something that's ongoing. But once you start getting into the habit and it becomes more of something that you do, you're gonna reali, you're gonna see improvements in the way you sleep in those worries decreasing.

So you're looking, so you're writing down the keywords, right? So then the next day, When you are feeling your best, I'm gonna come back to that activating event. I'm gonna come back to the A, b, abc D I just forgot to mention this cuz you're not doing this in bed. This isn't something you're doing in bed.

You're a, you're just putting down key words in bed the next day. You're gonna come at your at a time schedule. If you have to schedule it, schedule it 20 minutes, it's gonna be your wary time. And I know that sounds ridiculous to actually put a wary time, but studies have shown that it works. So during the query time, 20 minutes max, you wanna put a deadline on it?

You wanna be intentional, you wanna schedule it. So you're going to sit down with your pen and paper or with the tool that I'm gonna send you, and you're gonna, it's a, it's different column. So you're gonna look at what is the what, what are you wearing about, like, what is the event? What's happening? Are you worried about your finances?

Are you worried that you're not gonna be able to pay your electric bill? Right? So you're gonna put that as the event. The belief, what do you think is going to happen? Okay, this is where you can play the script to the end. If you don't pay your electric bill, what are the consequences? What are all the con, what is the worst case scenario?

And you're gonna continue working that and seeing how are you feel the consequences? How are you feeling? What is the intensity on scales? Zero to 10. Let's go with this. I'm gonna go with this example, okay? Instead of the, the finances, you're lying in bed thinking in the meeting that you have the next day with a potential client, okay?

So when you sit down with your paper, your situation is your the meeting, right? The meeting that you have, the belief. What did the event or these situation, what what do you think is going to happen? Is I need to land this client. She could hate me. I'll forget to say something important. I'm not good at this job.

I'm not a good salesperson. Right? All of these thoughts that are leading you to just stay awake and, and ruminate on this situ. So what do you think or the consequences, how are you feeling? What is that intensity? So these thoughts that you're having may lead you to feel discouraged, may lead you to feel disappointed.

What is the intensity of that? And then are there alternative outcomes? Okay, so the worst case scenario is if you don't land the client, How can you dispute that? How, what are, what is the evidence that goes against the belief that you hold? So all of those thoughts, what is the evidence? Maybe you wrote down all the important points already.

Maybe you've reviewed the slides. Maybe you've a, you feel as prepared as you can. Now again, you're doing this work at your most alert time during the day at your optimum best. So that night when you go to lay in bed, you can remind yourself, I have done this work. I'm not gonna solve all of my problems at midnight, when I'm tired, when I'm, you know, overwhelmed by the day when I'm just like ready to, to, to fall asleep.

So you're gonna give yourself that reminder that I already came out with these alternative. You can remind yourself of those alternative. Because you've already done the work, you've already made the time to reflect and worry. And I say that in air quotes, even though I know this is a podcast and you're not seeing me, right?

Like you made that time to worry and to work out your worries at a time during the day when you're at your best self, rather than at night when the world's against you. Like when you, when you're feeling like just de. You're not gonna, you're not gonna come out with these viable solutions, but yet you've already done the work.

So you can remind yourself of these solutions. And you might wanna even keep your log next to you in bed, like on the nightstand, so that you can remind yourself like, Hey, I've already come out with the solutions. Like this is not holding any weight because I've already looked at the evidence that goes against these thoughts that I'm having.

Perfect. And so you just keep doing that night after night? Yes. Until you've. A battery of positive thoughts that are gonna help you knock your worries away. Absolutely right, because our thoughts that we have are based on like those underlying beliefs that we hold. And so even though in the beginning here I said like, your thoughts are, it's gonna be hard to like pinpoint specific thoughts because it seems like they're so racing that they're racing through your mind, but they're coming from some core beliefs that you hold.

And so you're gonna notice some pattern. , right? Like the thoughts that are coming to you, the worries that, that are happening to you at night, they are, there's a theme to them, and when you sit down during the day to do that work, you're going to start realizing, like you can take some of that evidence and use it against other thoughts because they're based on those underlying beliefs.

Fabulous. And this is the system that you used to teach yourself to go to sleep? Yes, absolutely. And how long did it Absolutely. So how long did it take before you saw results? So, Okay, so my story goes back to 2011 when I was the Supermom, right? , like I was totally overcommitted had no time for myself, felt extremely guilty about making time for myself.

Hadn't ever journaled, meditated, like none of that. And so, . I would like, I was homeschooling at the time cuz why not? Right? Like it was just one more thing to do that like would make me a better mom. And so I. Had struggled with sleep during that time because I was so running on at high speed that it was hard for me to, to slow down.

So once I started making that time during the day to journal to like that and feeling like I was worthy of focusing on worth, I was worthy of like making that time for, then I was able to see an an a huge improvement with my. And then when I started, when I went back to become a therapist and started doing some classes on insomnia and treating insomnia, I realized there are some real viable, like, like proven tools and tactics that would really help me get to sleep, right?

And so I do have a nighttime routine. I do have, like, I do make sure that my environment is, is set. And so these are things that I have implemented and that I've worked with clients that we've, we've worked together to implement some of these things and there are, there is improvement. Fabulous. Fabulous.

Connect with Onnie

Onnie's website: https://www.momswithoutcapes.com/

Onnie's FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/momswithoutcapes

And where can people find more from you and your services that you offer? Sure. So moms without capes.com is my website. Come join my Facebook group if you're on Facebook. That's my favorite place to be and it's Moms Without Cape. Same thing. You can come listen to my podcast. Everything's Moms without Capes,

So also, I want you to go and grab that resource I was talking about, and I'm also gonna give you 20% off of the My Sleep Matters course, which is it's specific for moms who Struggle with Sleep, and that can be [email protected] slash fabulous. For all of you listeners and friends of ORs, come check it out,

Perfect. Perfect. Fabulous. Thank you so much, Annie. Thank you for spending some time with. Yeah. Thank you. It was my pleasure.