They’re able to better negotiate conflict. When people are under-slept, you can imagine that potential tensions could ensue at the workplace. There’s an interesting statistic that I heard recently about sleep-deprived employees. This is a sleep-deprived person in general. If you come into work and say you’re sleep-deprived, you are actually more apt to incorrectly identify someone’s facial expression as more menacing and negative than that person actually was. If I was interacting with you at work and you had a neutral face, like a neutral expression, and I came in sleep-deprived, I might interpret your neutral facial expression, Rosie, as threatening.

Then you could see how that kind of conflict could take place and there might be some misunderstanding and maybe some just lack of communication on the whole. Really, just summarize, good sleep is imperative if we’re going to flourish and thrive in our work life and also in our home life because you think about getting along with your partner and your children. If you are short-sleeved, you are probably more apt to be a little bit snappy. I’ve done it with my husband. I’ve been snappy in the morning if I haven’t gotten good sleep. It really just impacts every aspect of our lives.

Got it. Not only does it impact your relationships at work, but obviously your relationships at home, your any interpersonal relationship, which at work, you’re less apt to want to engage and cooperate with people at work if you’re sleep deprived. One occasion, I think most people are sleep deprived is when you have a baby because babies by the time it takes several months and you’re just like, “You’re barely awake the whole first three or four months until they’re in a good rhythm.”

Hopefully, they get in a good rhythm quickly. What is it about sleep and confidence then? Obviously, my whole goal, and your goal is to get people to have better lives. Women come to me and they say, “Rosie, I want to build confidence, can you help me build confidence?” For me, it’s easy because we build confidence through preparation. The more about yourself, the more you’re able to explain to others who you are and what you do but people cannot see the amount of sleep that you have on you. That lack of sleep, does that impact confidence?

I haven’t seen any studies on that directly, Rosie, but I cannot imagine that it wouldn’t impact your confidence and just working with my clients, anecdotally, they will. I’m thinking of one lady in particular, she is having a really hard time with insomnia. She’s challenged quite frequently with her own thoughts about her ability to do her job. She’s I think what’s going on with her right now, she’s trying to ask for a work-from-home position.

She’s just really finding it hard to kind of get the confidence to make that ask. I think a lot of it boils down to the fact that her sleep has been so shaky that it’s hard for her to kind of feel that sort of self-empowerment to make those asks. I think that’s a really great thread that you’re pulling on there because that confidence is so key in work. When we are sleeping better, I am confident that we’re more confident to put a pun on it like that.

When we are sleeping better, I am confident that we're more confident. – Morgan Adams Share on X

For sure. I imagine that when the same vein, when you are sleep deprived, and say if you had a meeting with your manager and you’re trying to talk about your performance or your accomplishments or whatever, it’s going to be harder for you to explain those accomplishments, to have that ability to advocate for yourself in an empowering way when you’re sleep deprived. What are some of the other examples or case studies that you’ve worked on that show how sleep is just so impactful with our culture, maybe? Obviously, and I’m guilty of going to bed with my phone and watching my show or whatever. They say going to bed with your phone is just so bad for your sleep. Can you talk about that a little bit?

You’re bringing up a really interesting conundrum here, and there’s a word for it. It’s called revenge bedtime procrastination. Have you ever heard of that term before?

No, I have not.

Sounds pretty juicy, doesn’t it?

It does.

This term has been around, I think since the early 2000s, but it really started picking up speed around the time of the pandemic. Basically what it is, it’s when people who feel like during the day, they have no time for themselves, sort of like store up that time at night after everyone’s gone to bed, and they’ll binge watch Netflix, maybe they’ll drink wine, maybe they’ll scroll on social media. Let’s just say they had the intention of going to bed by 10:00. Next thing, it’s midnight and they’re still letting that Netflix episode run on repeat. That can be a real problem.

I have seen that play out with a lot of people that I’ve talked with, and worked with. It’s happening mostly, in my experience, with women who are busy executives often moms, sometimes it’s been called momsomnia. A little interesting term for you. What we aim to do in situations with revenge bedtime procrastination is really setting more clear boundaries for ourselves but first, acknowledge the fact that we’re doing it. We need that awareness first and foremost. Then what can often be really impactful is studying some kind of bedtime alarm for yourself.

Let’s just say your goal is to be in bed by 10:00. You can set an alarm on your phone at 9:00, kind of letting you know, “I’ve got an hour more of like downtime and then it’s off to bed.” For the people who are doing a lot of Netflixing or streaming, what you can also do is you can enable your player or your TV to actually stop, have a hard stop after an episode versus the autoplay feature that just rolls right into the next episode because I think we can get into a trance. We’re enjoying a show. I’m guilty of this. Enjoying a show, the next episode happens.

I’m like at the edge of my seat, what happened to the plot? I want to find out. If you have that hard stop, it’s sort of like it makes you kind of pause and say, “Do I really want to risk being sleep-deprived tomorrow? Is what I’m doing right now worth paying the price for tomorrow?” You made that sort of self-reflection that may prompt you to say, “I’m just going to put the, I’m going to put the remote down and get my butt into bed.” Sometimes you just need to actually reflect on the reasons why you want to prioritize your sleep.

If you’re grappling with this revenge bedtime procrastination, you can sit down and make a list of the reasons why you want to kind of break that habit and preserve your sleep. Those reasons could be I want to show up for my kids in a more chipper way tomorrow. I want to be able to present my report to my team in a way that’s cogent and impactful. You just list the reasons why you made me to even like put that list on your refrigerator or your bathroom mirror to constantly reinforce yourself as to why you want to prioritize your sleep.

Sleeping Aids

Now when it comes to sleeping aids, there are a ton of different sleeping aids. Melatonin is a popular one but what happens when you start depending on those sleeping aids? Like what happens when you have your crutch, whether it’s wine or whatever, and you then want to really work on your sleep. Maybe can you talk about an example or one of your clients’ stories that you help kind of wean them off? Like what do the sleep aids do and how to maybe wean off?

I can use myself as a very poignant example of a problem with depending on a sleep aid. I was dependent on Ambien for eight years when I had insomnia. This was years ago in my mid-thirties. That’s actually what prompted me into this field of sleep coaching. I seem to attract a lot of women who are dependent on sleep medications because I have been so open with my story. I’ve worked with, unfortunately, a lot of women who have been prescribed a sleep aid for what should have been a short period of time.

One example, she had a death in the family, which was a very legitimate example. That’s really the way sleeping pills are supposed to be prescribed for crisis situations. If you look at the label on the pill or the insert on the pill, it says they’re not meant to be used over four weeks. Yet this particular client had been on them for 15 years. The physician kept doing refill after refill. She got to the point where she was like, “I don’t want to be dependent on this.” She started to worry about long-term brain health. I don’t want to scare anyone.

There have been some correlative studies showing that with people, especially when they’re older and they’re taking sleep aids on a very regular basis, there has been some cognitive decline associated with long-term sleeping pill use. I think a lot of people are becoming aware of this correlation and they want to stop. What I do with my clients in these situations is I use something called CBTI, which is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia. It’s actually noted by the American College of Physicians as the first-line treatment for insomnia over sleeping pills.

It doesn’t have any short or long-term side effects. What it essentially is, it’s working with your sleep schedule, kind of manipulating your wake-up time, you’re going to bedtime. You’re also working on changing your attitudes, and beliefs about sleep so that you have a better relationship with sleep and then you actually develop more self-confidence in your sleep. When someone is on a sleeping pill, like a prescribed pill, I always have them contract with their prescribing provider. Since I’m not a physician, I don’t want to take on that responsibility.

It’s out of my scope. They sort of, I guess, work with their physician on signing off on a taper schedule. Then what I do with my clients is I help them with that taper schedule and help hold them accountable. A taper schedule essentially means you’re just reducing that amount gradually over time so that it’s not a shock to your system. The CBTI in conjunction with that taper is actually a really beautiful thing because the client is getting a lot of self-confidence about their sleep while at the same time, they’re tapering off the meds.

Aura Ring

Got it. I know one of the big popular items for sleep is the Oura ring. I don’t have an Oura ring. You do. You have one.

Yes.

Tell us about that and how you use it because obviously the point of us having this conversation and we’ll get into how you work with your clients and like other things that you can do, tips and tricks and stuff like that. When it comes to the Oura, tell us about why you selected the Oura and how you use it.

I got my Oura four years ago during the pandemic because my sleep started to kind of get a little shaky and I was very determined that I was not going to go back to full-blown insomnia. I got the Oura ring and it was really eye-opening. I’ve learned a lot about my own sleep through it. I won’t bore you with the details of my own sleep, but here’s where I find it to be a really useful tool. For people who are okay sleepers or they want to really optimize their sleep, I think it’s an amazing tool if you’re able to look at the data that you get from your dashboard and you’re actually able to make behavioral changes based on that data.

For example, in my case, I’ll use me, I noted that when I had too much alcohol, guess what happened? My REM sleep suffered, and my deep sleep suffered. My next day readiness and recovery suffered. I thought to myself, I do not only like the way I feel, but I don’t like these bad scores. I decided to stop having as much alcohol instead of having maybe three drinks, I’d have two and maybe now I’m down to one. I’m looking to see like, what’s the sweet spot for me I’ve figured it out. For people who have that sort of insight and are able to make behavioral changes based on the data they’re presented with on their wearable, then it’s great.

Now, where I don’t see as much value is for most of my clients personally, I’m working with a lot of people who have insomnia. People who have insomnia typically have a lot of anxiety about their sleep. What happens when you use a wearable tracker for sleep, it will often exacerbate somebody’s anxiety about their sleep because they’re putting so much focus on the minutia of the numbers. They’re like I only got a 5% deep sleep, what’s going to happen? I know I need that for my brain cleansing, am I going to get Alzheimer’s?

They just kind of spiral. When I’m working with clients who have true insomnia that’s linked with anxiety about sleep, I will say, “Let’s maybe, why don’t you hold off on buying an Oura ring for now, and let’s get your sleep into a good spot before you start tracking it.” I think really the ultimate way to gauge your sleep, Rosie, is by how you feel in the morning. Checking in with yourself and really how am I feeling if you’re performing well all day, you’re feeling well there’s really not a huge reason to get all up in arms about your sleep.

The ultimate way to gauge your sleep is by how you feel in the morning. – Morgan Adams Share on X

If you’re one of those people though, he’s sort of like in the middle, you’re sort of kind of teeter-tottering in the middle. Here’s a really good suggestion so that you’re not too wrapped up in the numbers is where you’re ring and then pick one day on the weekend to download your data. Take a look at your data, sort of looking at trends versus like the daily headlines, because that takes a lot of pressure off the performance piece and gives you sort of, you get to step back and observe what’s going on versus being hyper-focused on the number each morning.

Workplace Culture And Sleep

I can definitely see how if you already have anxiety, and you’re seeing that your numbers are not as high as they should be, it just kind of gives you more anxiety. I like that you recommend your clients to kind of hold off a little bit until they almost kind of regulate their sleep and then start looking at the data. That makes a lot of sense. Now you and I have kind of talked about how the workplace culture is as far as some companies are sleep-friendly workplaces. I would assume most are not right now, but most companies neglect sleep. They’re not going to be worried about the sleep of their employees when they’re worried about their KPIs and their bottom line and all that stuff. What do you know about workplaces that are sleep-friendly?

Here’s an example of a workplace that is not sleep-friendly. This is a very poignant one. I had a consultation with a woman last week who was a really high biller for her company, like the highest biller in the company. She was staying in the office very late at night. You know what they did? They actually invested in an inflatable mattress to keep in her office so she could sleep at the office. I share that as an example of what not to do. That is like the complete opposite and of what they should have done. There are a few things that people can do from a cultural standpoint.

The first thing if you are a leader is to lead by example. In the past, I think what happened a lot of times in companies is the boss would be like, “I stayed up till 2:00 AM working on this presentation bill. The bill is like, “I didn’t stay up that late. Am I a loser? Am I not a team player?” It’s that sort of leading by example, I think, that is so critical. Not glorifying the late nights and if you are in charge of other people. Let’s just say you’re a night owl and that’s your natural chronotype. You are writing an email at 9:00. I don’t advise that, but let’s just teach their own.

If you’re writing an email to your employee at 9:00, have that scheduled to arrive in their inbox during business hours? It’s those kinds of things that we need to be careful of. Also, what I would also recommend is when a boss is looking at their team. Is to ask the team members what their chronotypes are. Essentially, are you a morning lark, or are you a night owl? Then sort of everyone’s going to be happy all the time about when a meeting is, but if we could perhaps move 8:00 AM meetings to 10:00 AM.

I think there’s been a lot of pushback on that because that really disempowers a lot of people from working with their natural chronotypes. I think if employers could maybe perhaps consider a hybrid model where you’re maybe in the office on some days, and then you’re able to work from home from other days, that actually would be supportive of a good sleep-friendly culture for sure.

Sleeping Toolkit And Glasses

For sure. We talked a little bit about a sleeping toolkit that you have. What are some of the things that you normally do with your clients with that toolkit?

The toolkit, I kind of mentioned a couple of things from it earlier, but the toolkit is really I guess what I call sort of a skill set that I have personally in terms of helping people with insomnia. The most impactful one is the CBTI, the cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Not everyone is appropriate for that. Not every single person I work with is going to receive those techniques. For the most part, most of them do. There’s also looking at nutrition and movement. What is someone’s chronotype? I also incorporate mindfulness for the right client.

Got it. I love it. You try to make sure that you give each individual the tool that they need that’s right for them instead of like, is there one that maybe is a common one that you haven’t mentioned already? Also, I noticed you have glasses and they’re tinted. Talk to us about glasses, because I know people talk about having either different screens or glasses and stuff like that, that will impact the amount of light that you’ll receive from computers. Let’s talk about that.

One of the tools that I apply for everyone because everyone needs it is focusing on circadian biology and circadian health and to kind of distill that down into something that’s kind of easily understandable. It’s really managing our light and dark environment, our light and dark environment really can affect our circadian rhythm for better or worse. What we really want to keep in mind is the fact that our ancestors, think about hundreds of years ago before the light bulb, we were all outside.

I know it’s hard for us. We’re working in offices usually or our homes. We’re not like outside gardening all day but if we can just pop outside for a couple of minutes here and there, it really makes a difference. Then with mitigating the darkness, one of the tools we have that’s becoming more and more popular are those blue light-blocking glasses. The ones that I’m wearing now are yellow lenses.

I am actually a full disclosure and affiliate for VivaRays, which are the ones I’m wearing but other brands that are reputable are Raw Optics and RA Optics. There’s another brand called True Dark, which is good. The other ones are escaping me, but there are a couple more and their names are not coming to me right now. I think that the bottom line is if you’re getting blue light blocking glasses, look at the website thoroughly and make sure that they’ve tested the glasses for their ability to actually truly block the blue light and make sure they’re doing that because so many of them on Amazon, the cheap ones will not.

Got it. I really liked that and I was not aware of all of the benefits, but what if you live in a place like Seattle that’s rainy all the time?

I would say before you turn to the fancy biohacks, all of those sleep gadgets out there, and believe me, I use them, I like them. Companies send them to me. I don’t have any problem with them but if you are starting a sleep optimization journey, start with the basics, like I mentioned, the sunlight. Start with the things that are free and accessible before you graduate up to the more fancy things because really we have most of what it takes within ourselves and within nature to improve our sleep.