MENOMORPHOSIS
A podcast for busy women riding the rollercoaster of midlife and menopause who are eager to get back to living their best life.
It's never too late to transform, and you’re certainly not too old. And in my opinion, midlife and menopause provide the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Join me each week for inspiring stories and expert insights on topics covering all things midlife, menopause and personal development.
So when you’re ready, let your beautiful menomorphosis begin!
MENOMORPHOSIS
Thursday Thoughts - Rest
On this week's Thursday Thoughts, Lucy and I are diving into the topic of rest.
Adequate rest and sleep have incredible benefits for cognition, disease prevention, and overall well-being, yet so many of us aren’t getting enough.
We explore why rest can feel so challenging for some of us, share different ways to recharge, and offer practical tips to help improve your sleep.
We hope you find something helpful or inspiring in our conversation!
With love,
Polly & Lucy x
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Hello and welcome to Thursday Thoughts. Thursday Thoughts what on earth are they? I hear you ask. Well, my friend Lucy and I meet every week over on Instagram to talk all things personal growth, because she is as obsessed with it as I am, and we decided that we might as well put those conversations out as a weekly podcast. So now you can listen to us chat here on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and we'll be talking about topics such as spirituality, limiting beliefs, the ego imposter syndrome, gratitude, meditation, confidence and so much more. So, if you're ready, here we go.
Speaker 1:Well, we're talking today about rest and and why it's so important and how. So many of us including me as well, and you aren't so good at it. However, I I'm getting, I'm trying to get better at it, but I think as a society, as a culture, as a sati, rest has really bad press in that we've all been conditioned to think that if we are resting, if we are taking some time out, that we actually are lazy and that we should be doing something we've. I don't know about you, but I am programmed that I need to be doing something at all times, but actually, rest is so important. I have learned so much about the importance of rest and getting enough sleep. I mean, I think that kind of falls in to this as well. It's getting enough sleep as well, and if we don't, actually there are some really negative consequences. I was having a quick look actually, just so I had these at hand. So, for example, having enough sleep and rest are linked to, obviously, an improved quality of life and reduced risk of premature death. Basically, it was studies suggest that meeting the recommended guidelines for sleep and rest which is sort of between seven and nine hours a night, but that includes sort of resting your body as well it reduces all sort of types of death by as much as 24% in middle-aged and older adults. So 24% is quite a lot.
Speaker 1:And there was another quite interesting statistic I found, which was people who sleep less than five hours per night are twice as likely to develop dementia compared to those sleeping six to eight hours. Because when you're asleep, your brain does amazing things. There's all this sort of clearing and cleansing of all the toxins and all you know, all the things which can get if they don't get cleared out can actually cause things like alzheimer's and dementia. Um, regular sleep um of seven to eight hours reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. Uh, you know, there, it's just so important.
Speaker 1:And obviously, thinking about cognition and memory, uh, that is so important because, again, when we're resting and this is resting, not just sleeping our brains are doing an amazing job at committing memory to committing short term memories, committing all memories to our memory bank. So, if we're not giving ourselves an opportunity to rest, we're not asleep enough opportunity to rest. We're not also asleep enough, we're not able to, for our brains to actually do all these incredible processes which they need to do. You know, we all feel it. If you, if you have, if you're absolutely flat out and you don't stop, I don't know about you, but I can't think clearly, my brain goes all foggy and you can't remember anything. There's a really interesting. There was a podcast by Andrew Huberman, who I really love, and it was. He's got this. He talks about NSDR, which I've also been learning about, which stands for non-sleep deep rest. So this involves actually not sleeping. This involves you actually staying conscious but going into really deep relaxation.
Speaker 1:So things like a yoga nidra or a body relaxation like meditation or some sort of meditation, and what you're doing then is you are allowing your brain to do, to really relax, you're allowing your body to relax, and it is a brilliant thing.
Speaker 1:He was discovering that. It was a brilliant thing to do after you have, say, for example, you've been in a lecture and you've been learning for an hour, or you've had a really intense meeting for a, for a, for a, you know, half a day or something. The best thing to do is to then totally chill out and really relax, to go and do one of these nsdr protocols, because you are so much more likely to remember and commit to memory all the things you have just learned, which is which just makes so much sense. But who? Really? No, but none of us do that. Yeah, but it's just amazing if you think, oh my gosh, I can actually help myself to remember everything I've just learned or talked about, um, just by giving myself some time out. So it it really is something which we need to be thinking about more and more.
Speaker 2:Totally Funnily enough, this morning I don't think I actually knew that term, although I have listened to Andrew Hewman talk about sleep, but I listen to so many podcasts that half of it just goes in one ear and out the other. It's kind of information overload. But I've definitely listened to him talk about sleep and also a guy called Matt Walker. In fact I did a mini-sode about sleep. Yeah, he's the expert he is.
Speaker 2:He's amazing, yes, and some of the things, some of the negative side effects of not getting enough sleep are absolutely fucking terrifying. But, funnily enough, what I was going to say is this morning. So I slept incredibly badly last night, like I don't know what was wrong with me. I, my heart was like racing, I couldn't sleep and my heart was just, you know, when you're really I don't know, I've just, I anyway, my heart was racing and I just felt really anxious and I just couldn't sleep and I mean, I obviously eventually drifted off, but I think I must have only got about four hours sleep last night and this morning, after I'd done my cock-a-doodle-doo half hour um morning routine club, I actually sat down and did and I quite often do this after I'll do my own meditation, because when I'm doing cock-a-doodle-doo I'm not meditating because I'm, you know, guiding it. Um. So I sat down and normally I do either one of your breath works that you and I did together, or I do a Sam Skelly breath work or I do just my own meditation with. Normally I listen to some kind of music without words, um, and just meditate music. But this morning I tried this thing, which I've done before.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a woman called I think she's called Emily Fletcher, who talks about this specific, uh, meditation technique, which is exactly what you were referring to with Andrew Huberman. It's like a deep rest and the way that she talks about it is that you but you basically do it for 15 minutes and she actually does it twice a day, and there was a time where I tried to meditate twice a day. That went out the window. But hey, um, but, but basically I. So this morning in my meditation, um, I was really consciously thinking about wanting to kind of get that rest that I hadn't had during my sleep, and the way that I did it was I didn't use any music, which is really unusual, um, and I just sort of sat on the sofa with my legs crossed, eyes closed, breathing as sort of deeply and gently as I could, and doing the way that she teaches it is, you basically bring awareness to all of your five senses. So you, whilst you're doing it, you think about just for a couple of minutes, you focus on what you can see.
Speaker 2:And even though you have your eyes closed, you know, we can still see, like shapes or patterns or whatever, and then you focus on what you can hear. You focus on like the loudest sound, the quietest sounds, and so I went through that and then, and then I just sort of went into, um, you know, a meditation where I was just kind of focusing on my breath, and I just did it for about 15 or 20 minutes because, exactly like you say, when we do that sort of deep relaxation, we are completely allowing our brain to rest, aren't we at that point, as well as our body?
Speaker 1:But is it more?
Speaker 2:about the brain resting in a meditation like that? Is that?
Speaker 1:right, yeah, so basically you're shifting your brain waves. So if doing one of these practices that encourage your brain to shift from the beta waves, which is basically associated with alertness and being awake, to alpha waves, which are kind of more of a relaxed focus, and then the theta waves, you know you might get deep sleep. And that's no, that's more sort of light sleep creativity meditation.
Speaker 1:Delta is when you're in deep sleep, okay. So so yeah, it's a it's kind of an ideal state, so kind of alpha theta is an ideal state for relaxation, for learning, consolidation and also just to reduce stress as well, and also also, I think you know studies have shown that it helps with neuroplasticity as well. So it helps to really, you know, if you're trying to learn something new, if you're trying to create a new habit, it really helps with that as well.
Speaker 2:It will lower your cortisol.
Speaker 1:Yes, great, yeah. So lower your cortisol, it will help with visualization. So those, so lots of. So I think it was salvador dali. You know one of the most craziest um artists ever. He used to hold something like a spoon or something and would try and nod off. And he'd hold the spoon because then, as just as he was nodding off, the spoon would drop. He'd wake up and that's when he felt like he had his most creative ideas and creative visions, and I think a lot of. I think I've heard that before with other really creative people. That is the time when your brain because your subconscious mind, your conscious mind, is sort of out of the way. It allows your subconscious mind to take over. So if you want to get as creative as possible, that is when to do it. So your brain is just your conscious mind, is basically getting out of the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one thing I'd love to get your thoughts on, polly, is I sometimes wonder, like you know, how do we sort of define rest, like forget sleep, because obviously that's a, you know, completely different kind of rest. But when we're talking about, like the rest that I'm really bad at, because I do really prioritize my sleep and I, I mean, I probably don't get as much as I should, but I'm definitely very conscious, like I need my sleep. When I don't sleep, I'm a fucking lunatic and I can't deal. Um, but in but where I know that I need to be better is is learning to rest during the waking day, um, and just sort of taking that time to truly, truly, just switch off.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm really bad at, and what I'd love to know is is how do you, you know, what is sort of, what sort of constitutes a restful state? Could that be? Like you know, obviously meditation can be rest, but can it be something like a walk in nature or or, or? I mean also, is sitting watching TV or watching Netflix, is that rest or is that not really rest? Because this is, I think, quite something that we need to think about, because so I think we think that when we sit down and veg out and watch something on netflix that that is rest. But actually is that rest or is that just making our brain still work in a different way? Because we're watching to a bit? We're still being stimulated. So actually should we not count that time in front of Netflix as rest?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it depends what your intention for your rest is. So if you want to physically rest, then yes, I think you can probably sit and just, you know, if you've been on your feet all day or you've been, you know, and your body's really tired, yeah I think that's okay to sit and chill and watch tv. But I think if your mind is exhausted, if you have just been on and your mind is busy and it's been racing and and you've had or maybe you've just had such, you know you need a sensory rest because you've had so much stimulus all day with lots of screens, and then actually maybe sitting and watching tv isn't the best thing for you and maybe then you just need to have a real rest and maybe that going for a walk out in nature is the best thing for you then, but that obviously wouldn't be so great. If you need a physical rest, I think it it's really determining what it is you actually need in that moment. And again it all boils down to this awareness tuning into your body. What do I actually need right now? It might be a social rest. You might be, you know, I know, if I'm around people for a whole weekend, for example, even for a whole day, I just need to go and retreat and have a rest from all of that. So it's and retreat and have a rest from all of that. So it's, it's just tuning in what your body needs at that time and I think, ultimately for rest.
Speaker 1:You know, if you were going to give it, I think for me, if I was going to give it a definition, it's allowing your body to be able to return back to a state of homeostasis, of calm, of parasympathetic, you know, tuning into that parasympathetic side of your nervous system. So, as we've talked about before, often we're on on on all the time and that will trigger our sympathetic side of our nervous system, which is our fight or flight, um mode, our freeze mode, and that's okay if we need to be on and if we need to be on the go. But the problem is we're in that mode so much of the time that we forget, we've forgotten how to return back to our rest and digest, which is our parasympathetic mode. So what sometimes we need to do is have enforced restful breaks to help us return back to that state.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of the problem is for a lot of people who might suffer from anxiety, who are extremely stressed. Their systems have got so used to being in this high stress state that they've forgotten how to return back to this homeostasis state. Their, their set point has sort of risen and it's no longer back at the rest or digest. So that is why practices such as meditation, nsdr, protocols such as yoga, nidra, what they're doing, and I would say meditation, for a lot of people is great, but for some people, if they are stuck in a high stress state, it's not even possible for them to get back.
Speaker 1:So actually, what you need to do is get back into your body. So doing something like a yoga nidra, where you're using, you might be tensing parts of your body and then you're you're consciously relaxing them when you think you're gonna need you're sorry, what do you mean by it's a, it's a, it's a, it's actually a yoga prac.
Speaker 1:It's a kind of a yogic yogic practice, but it's um. You can have guided sessions. It's a bit like a uh muscle relaxation, um, it's like an all-over body. It's a guided muscle relaxation. Really often it's like you are guided around different parts of your body. You're asked to tense them and then to relax it, and it's a very chilled process, but it's helping you. What it's doing it's reminding your body how to relax. It's almost reprogramming your system and reminding it what relaxation feels like, and often, if you've got an incredibly busy mind, it's you can't, you can't think your way out of a busy mind. Often you've got to get back into your body and that is where, like, your breath is good, because you can use your breath to help um hack. It's like a hack really to help to tell your body I'm safe, it's okay.
Speaker 1:Your body has probably been. You're very, very stressed, very anxious and working, and your, your body's forgotten how to feel safe. It doesn't feel safe and ultimately, it's about safety. So what we've to do is retrain it to know what that safety feels like, um, and so doing these sorts of practices like a muscle relaxation, uh, like um. Another good one is like to feel, if you can feel your heart beating in your body is just to kind of get out of your mind into your body and it's reprogramming, retraining your body to feel calm and safe and so that over time it can start to return back to that, that state on its own does that make?
Speaker 1:I want to rant this morning no, no, it's brilliant.
Speaker 2:I mean, gosh, as I knew you were going to be much better at talking about this than I am. Um, and I think you know it's. This is where, for example, doing breath work or meditation every day in the morning, first thing, is a really good way of just getting your body back into that state, isn't it? And sort of getting your nervous system back into balance and getting back into a parasympathetic nervous system, and that there's that sort of cumulative effect of doing those kinds of practices every day.
Speaker 1:I do try your body needs to know what it feels like for you to be able to return back to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry no, no, no, not at all. Um, maybe we could talk a little bit more about sleep, because obviously sleep is like so, so, so key, and I feel like I've learned in the last, probably the last year, only the last year or so, actually how incredibly. I mean, obviously we all know that sleep is important, obviously we all know that we have to sleep every night, but I don't know that we all know truly how detrimental it is to not get enough sleep. I'm always saying to my sister I always worry that she doesn't get enough sleep. She's always on the go. She's got four kids. You know she's a full-time teacher and you know she gets a pearly. She goes to bed too late and I'm I've sort of said to her, but this is one of those situations where I just have to let them because I cannot control how much sleep she gets. But, um, you know it is worrying if we're not getting enough sleep, and so maybe we can talk a little bit about the kinds of things that we can try and do to optimize our sleep, and one of those things and I'm saying this to myself as much as anybody else is getting off screens for an hour before we go to bed, and one really, really key thing that I've heard various people say on various podcasts is that one of the most important things, one of the best things that you can do in terms of your sleep habits, is to go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Now I don't do this because I get up at five during the week, but at weekends I don't always get up at five. You know, sometimes I'll get, I'll quite often sleep into a more like sort of seven um, 7, 30, and so obviously there is quite a big discrepancy there between the week and the weekend. But Matt Walker, for one, says, I think his sort of biggest piece of advice in terms of sleep is to go to bed and get up at the same time as much as you can. Um, because, going back to what you were saying, the, the, the health implications of not getting enough sleep are huge. You know, we're talking stroke, we're talking cancer, we're talking heart disease. All of the big scary things are massively affected by by our sleep, um. So, yeah, I was going to say something else. I know what I was going to say.
Speaker 2:I was talking to somebody about this literally just the other day how shift workers are. If you are a shift worker, you are in the category of somebody who is going, who is not going to live as long as if you're not working shifts, so that just goes to show somebody who is working. You know it is. It is an unhealthy way and obviously some people have to do this. I mean Christ people in the NHS people. You know it is. It is an unhealthy way and obviously some people have to do this. I mean christ people in the nhs people, you know nurses, doctors.
Speaker 2:But maybe if you're a shift worker, then it's even more important to try and prioritize those little bits of rest when you're not working but when you're not asleep, so you can kind of maybe it's even more important to add in those, you know, maybe a 15 minute deep relaxation during the day or what you know when you're not at work. Um, because, yeah, I really think that it's so important to prioritize sleep. It really truly is one of the pillars. We take it for granted. We just, you know, we think, yeah, yeah, of course I sleep, you know, of course I sleep every night, but it's so important to get those 79 hours if we can.
Speaker 1:But it's also such. It's probably one of the biggest issues we have. It's so interesting. So this amazing breath science course I'm doing, last week, our theme, our topic is well, actually these two weeks, it's about sleep and disorders, sleep disorders, disorders, sleep disorder, breathing and sleep. Um, and on the call it was really fascinating because of the our group, pretty much most people had some sort of issue with sleep and it was an incredible. It was incredibly emotional. It brought up a lot of emotional responses because I think we all know that we are meant to be getting an awful lot of sleep. We were meant to be enough sleep. We know we nowadays, we all, I think have a much greater awareness how important it is compared to you know, god, in the 80s people were like, yeah, right, you know, look at margaret thatcher, she lives on four hours and that's how we're meant to be. But I think we now realize that. But getting enough sleep is a completely different kettle of fish, because a lot of us don't, and then obviously, it then can induce that anxiety.
Speaker 2:You can't get to sleep, and then you're worrying you're not getting sleep, and then it can cause major problems, and that's the last thing we should be doing is worrying about it.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think what I understand is, yeah, getting up at the same time is probably the the most important thing, but actually, if you are struggling with sleep, maybe not fretting too much about this the going to bedtime although obviously it's recommended that you do go to bed at the same time but if you're struggling, actually what's recommended is that you stay up for longer until you actually feel really tired, but can but keep getting up at the same time keep getting up at the same time, so keep that going um, as in allowing yourself to get like so.
Speaker 2:If you're, if you're absolutely knackered, rather than getting up later, still get up earlier, with the hope that the following night you're absolutely knackered.
Speaker 1:Rather than getting up later, still get up earlier with the hope that the following night you're going to go you're going to want.
Speaker 2:You're going to need to sleep earlier, rather than lying until midday, to catch up with the sleep that you feel like you've missed yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1:So just yeah, just keep that. Wake up time is absolutely key because there's so, it's so hormonal, there's like a big rise in cortisol, um, when you wake up, which is great, but you want to keep that going. One of the biggest things and matt walker talks about this, um, as does andrew huberman is to get outside, for within, like the first couple of hours of waking, get outside, get the sun in your eyes for 10 minutes at least, and ideally when the sun is still relatively low in the sky. That is also going to set your circadian rhythm in a really good way. So if you can get that sunlight in your eyes first in the morning, and also ideally, if you can get it as the sun is is lowering at night as well, and go and get some sun in that sun then, but at night also, it's important just to keep all the lights. You know, as it starts to get darker, keep the lights low, don't have a big bright overhead lights on and sort of it's kind of trying to live like we used to live all those thousands of years ago, before we had electricity. Getting your body right, keeping a window open, keeping your body temperature cool that's another big thing which really apparently helps with sleep.
Speaker 1:Um, don't, don't have your heat. I never have the heating on in our bedroom. I always have the window wide open. I'd much rather be cold and getting snuggled into my duvet, and generally I sleep well. I can't bear it when I go to someone else's house or a hotel or something, and it's just really hot, heated room. You know, I never sleep well, um.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think it's a. It's just something, though, which I think we don't want to. The last thing you want to be doing is getting worried about it. It's just about never worry about it. Just try and do. You know we all know about good sleep hygiene now, about you know we shouldn't be looking at our phones, trying to keep your phone away from your bed. Um, eating is an interesting one, because actually that was quite a controversial one in our course about whether you should eat or not before bed. But there are certain foods, um, which actually are very helpful, apparently before you go to bed, which they've got an amino acid in called tryptophan. So something like turkey's got tryptophan and it's fat-needling to help. Tart cherry juice is meant to be very, very good, but again, what the research apparently says is it depends who you are. It's like all these things. It's about finding what works for you.
Speaker 2:One thing I just wanted to add before we finish is going back to what you were saying about getting sunlight. Just to mention that, especially given that we're in the uk, it actually doesn't matter if it's cloudy, you it's. It's if it's completely overcast, you still want to try and get outside. You just want to try and get outside, if possible, for a bit longer. So if it's a bright, sunny morning, then 10 minutes is fine, but if it's if super cloudy and, like you know, rainy, then you're going to need more like half an hour if possible. But it's still. The point is, it still counts, even when it's overcast. So it's still worthwhile getting outside first thing if you can, even when it's really really cloudy. So I just wanted to remember to say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I think, ultimately, if you're tired, have a rest in the day and just check in with yourself, do I need to have a break from screens? Do I need to have a physical rest and just literally just sit down for now and just no, because actually you'll get more done. We all think I can't possibly rest because I've got so much to do, but in the grand scheme of things, you will be so much more productive if you give yourself a little break, uh, and then, and sort of like a reset, and then start, start what you need to do. Yeah, so I'm talking to myself as well, because I'm not very good at doing that. Yeah, yeah, all right, well there we go?
Speaker 2:I think we're. Do you already done? It's half past and um, thanks for your all your your sort of words of wisdom this morning. I feel like I've been pretty useless on this one, but it's really interesting to hear your um. No, it's, it's just really really interesting to hear your take on it, to be honest, and it's definitely something that I need to focus on more. Yeah, and probably most of us do. Yeah, um, but hopefully this has been um interesting or helpful to somebody else and we're back all right back on thursday or friday.
Speaker 1:Friday are we back on friday because we're getting another one in the can I?
Speaker 2:think.
Speaker 1:I think okay, all right all right, have a lovely day.