S3E26: Cathy Cooke Wants You to Have Your Best Night’s Sleep

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'In this episode, Cathy Cooke shares her story of how she came to be so interested in the science and study of sleep habits, her trial and error attempts to fix her own sleep, and where she found the right information.'

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Show Notes

Cathy Cooke has returned to our podcast for this episode to talk with us about the importance of sleep and her new Sleep Easy Course to help anyone get the perfect night’s sleep– all naturally.

Go to shieldyourbody.com/sleepeasy and get $50 off Cathy’s Amazing Sleep Easy Method Course with code SLEEP50

She also shares her story of how she came to be so interested in the science and study of sleep habits, her trial and error attempts to fix her own sleep, and where she found the right information. With her expertise, we talk about some of the things that can impact your quality of sleep, including blue-light and EMF exposure, the mindsets you get when checking notifications or emails, and things like maintaining a good diet and good mental health. We discuss the psychological connection to technology, how that can manifest as addiction, and how that affects different aspects of our lives.

Cathy tells us some ways that you can keep a Healthy Home and gives a recommendation on when to disconnect from your tech and cut off melatonin-inhibiting blue light. We also get an in-depth discussion on using blue-light blocking glasses, both during the day and at night, and we touch on how balancing your blood sugar can have a positive effect on your sleep.

In this episode you will hear:

How your sleep habits can impact your wellbeing
Steps you can take if you are struggling with sleep
How to keep a Healthy Home
Technology and EMF addiction
Cathy’s approach to helping those with sleep issues
A deep dive into blue light blocking glasses

Cathy Cooke is a Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist with the National Association of Nutrition Professionals. She uses a functional medicine approach to help people identify imbalances in the body. She is also a Certified Building Biology Environmental Consultant and Certified Electromagnetic Radiation Specialist with the Building Biology Institute.

She assesses buildings for anything that may be causing health problems, including indoor air quality, mold, chemical off-gassing, ventilation, and EMF exposure. Combining Holistic Nutrition and Building Biology, she addresses both the body and environment to help her clients achieve optimal health. She is also the founder of Idahoans for Safe Technology, an advocacy and awareness group for the safer use of modern-day communications.

Transcript

Cathy Cooke 0:00
I really think if you’re someone that’s struggling with health problems in sleep, you got to take it to the next step. Because that EMF exposure you’re getting all day will impact the quality of your sleep at night. Even if you’ve got your Wi Fi router unplugged, and you’re not sleeping with your phone.

Announcer 0:16
Welcome to the healthier tech podcast, the show about building a healthier relationship with modern technology. Now, here are your hosts, R blank and Stephanie Warner.

R Blank 0:29
So today’s interview is with Cathy Cooke, and it’s on a really, really important topic. I hear from people all the time asking about questions about sleep and sleep quality. And Kathy, well, she’s actually going to this interview as the first repeat guest on the healthier tech podcast. And I think it’s because of her expertise that she brings to this topic. It’s obvious why we invited her back.

Stephanie Warner 0:53
Yeah, it was good. As always, it’s always a delight to talk to Kathy, she’s full of so much great knowledge. And this topic I think is especially important to so many people because we all have many people have sleep issues, and I can’t think of a better person to dive into that information. And I’m so excited for everyone, for our listeners to to listen to hear what Kathy has to say on this topic. Yeah, totally. So

R Blank 1:21
let’s get in. All right, sounds good. Let’s do it. Cathy Cooke is the owner and founder of Whole Home and body health. She has been working as an integrative health coach since 2014. She’s a board certified holistic nutritionist with the National Association of nutritional professionals. Recognising that many of our clients were doing everything right, yet still suffering from health issues. She realised that many home and work environments were contributing to illness after dramatically improving her health after limiting radiofrequency exposure from Wi Fi and cell phones. She received training and certification from the International Institute of Building biology and ecology, affording her the expertise to evaluate all areas in a person’s life that may be contributing to illness. And she’s actually our first repeat guest on the healthier tech podcast. And you’re about to hear why. Welcome back, Kathy.

Cathy Cooke 2:16
Thank you so much. Pleasure to be back.

R Blank 2:18
Great having you back. Yeah. So to begin, That intro was impressive. I mean, the the part about you, not the Senate. And there’s obviously a lot of disciplines in which you have expertise. Can you try to summarise the variety of areas of focus that you have and how you kind of honed in on those?

Cathy Cooke 2:42
Yeah, well, a very quick overview is just that I suffered from chronic health problems for since I was a kid for decades, as many of us have. And then my research over the years led me to nutrition first, because when I changed my diet in my 20s everything changed for me, but I didn’t make as much progress as I had hoped. So then in you know, the 2000 teens, I realised that the environment was the missing piece for the rest of my my health progress. So as a whole, what I do is helping people identify why they’re not feeling well and get them back on track. And what I have found to be the biggest pieces for that are lifestyle diet in our environment. So combining all of those is kind of what I do to help people feel their best.

R Blank 3:37
So that’s interest so lifestyle, diet and environment. I’m just wondering if there was one thing that you didn’t mention there was I don’t know how to say mood or Outlook Do you feel like those are things that yes, yeah, that that was follow from the three things that you just mentioned, or

Cathy Cooke 3:54
I’m glad you mentioned that because that is another critical piece and helping two people feel their best. That’s an area I’m not an expert in but I strongly believe in the power of our thoughts and our you know, you could say spirituality you could say Outlook, you know, whatever that means your mental health. I think it’s a very, very important component to all of this and I incorporate those pieces into my life and I am really glad you mentioned that because if you don’t have that piece even though you got everything else dialled in, I do think that you will be missing out on a lot.

R Blank 4:32
So in today’s talk, or interview I, what I what I really want to focus on is sleep and there’s obviously a lot of questions I have about that. My sleep as I’ve gotten older has has declined there’s a double quality has declined, at least in certain environments. I know I hear from a lot of people that sleep is sleep quality and sleep quantity. Both are big concerns for A lot of people How did sleep become a focus? For you?

Cathy Cooke 5:04
Yeah, well, it’s you have a common story that as people get older, their sleep quality does tend to decline. And so for me, it’s kind of an interesting situation. Because when I was younger I, I was hypersomnia. So I slept too much and, and I could sleep anywhere, anytime. I mean, to the point where I was diagnosed with narcolepsy in my 20s, which tended to not be an accurate diagnosis, after all, after many years of research, but I could sleep 12 1314 hours a night, no problem, never had a problem sleeping. And then when I hit about 30, it just everything just changed. A switch was flipped, for multiple reasons, likely. And I like very much overnight, I became an insomniac. And I couldn’t sleep at all. And it was very, very dramatic. And, you know, I’m still putting the pieces together as to why that is. But, you know, I have a lot of strong indicators, I had high levels of mercury, which were beginning to get mobilised at that time, I had some hormonal challenges, I had stress. You know, this was about the time where cell phones and Wi Fi were coming to be more popular. And I lived, you know, in a house with some probable wiring errors and some other EMF issues, possibly mould, I mean, all the things. And so it was devastating to me, because as anyone knows, if you aren’t sleeping at night, everything else falls apart. You’re cranky, you’re irritable, you can’t work well, you’ve got brain fog, your relationship suffers, you can’t exercise you don’t eat, right. I mean, it affects every part of your life. And it can really destroy your quality of life, and your relationships and your job and your finances and everything else. So from that day forward, I just dove deep into everything about sleep that I could, because I went to doctor after doctor after doctor after doctor and nobody had any answers for me. They told me all my labs looked awesome. And you know, it was stress. And I got a prescription for you know Zoloft, and one for Xanax and one for several, you know, antidepressants. Of course, none of which helped. So I just had to keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper into the research myself to figure it out. So that was 18 years ago. And I’ve been putting all the pieces together ever since.

R Blank 7:42
So how do you how do you begin? Actually, before we get that, I’m just wondering, in personal curiosity, where I tend to see my worst sleep problems or when I’m in a city. And this wasn’t the case when I was growing up. But But nowadays, if I, if I go into a city, if I spend a few nights in a city, that’s where it really seems to hit me, is that something you see with with other clients or patients?

Cathy Cooke 8:06
Yeah, that’s very common. When I’m doing a concert with somebody, or I’m in someone’s home doing an assessment, one of the first questions that I have is, well, how do you feel when you get away from the house? How do you feel when you go camping? You know, I live in Idaho, most people go camping? And the answer is almost invariably, Oh, I feel great. I feel great when I’m away from the house or when I’m in the mountains. And then they always, you know, their next comment is, but but I don’t have any stress there. So you know, it’s different. And, you know, my mind is often going to Well, true. But what else Don’t you have there, you know, you’re not using your phone, you’re not on your screens, hopefully, you know, it’s getting harder and harder to find those areas where you can’t use your devices. But generally, most people are, you know, they’re kayaking, they’re in the river, they’re swimming, they’re hiking, they’re doing all of these things outdoors, and they’re not on their tech. And usually they’re away from service. So that’s a big component of it. So I do find though, however, one of the biggest comments my clients say after even we do a little bit of mitigating in their house, of you know, turning off their Wi Fi, or mitigating and wiring errors or whatever, the number one comment I get is, I can’t believe how much better I’m sleeping.

R Blank 9:24
So, you painted a picture here, you’re somewhere around the age of 30. You’re having big problems, but every expert that you see can’t tell you what the problems are cut to today, you have a lot more experience knowledge expertise. So I’m wondering, like, what came in between I mean, I know just from reading your introduction, there was a lot of studying involved but but and certifications but how did you know even what to begin investigating to improve your health?

Cathy Cooke 9:56
That’s a brilliant question, because I had no idea what to do, and I just did all the things like it. And this is a common story, you know, for people that don’t feel well is they’ll try anything. And I tried everything, I just, I would read books I would get go online. And you know, someone was saying, Oh, you got to try this thing. And so I would try it. And I mean, it was just trial and error of all the things, which I don’t recommend people do. Because when I did that, I actually made myself significantly worse for a long time, by trying just all these things at random that, quote unquote, experts, or just anybody online was, you know, quoting was the fix for them. I was so desperate, I would just try it. And I would say I hit my rock bottom in about 2015. So that was a, that was a long, that was almost 15 years later. So I got my math, right, not quite 1010 12 years later. So because of all of the things I tried willy nilly, that made me much worse. And then I, I guess, over the years, when I was gathering the actual scientific research, you know, I learned the hard way that I need to pay more attention to that than these random people who did, I don’t know, a peanut butter diet or something and cured themselves, which clearly is not scientific. So I just, I didn’t do it with the methodology that I wish I had done. But you know, at that time, I wasn’t working in nutrition. I was I didn’t have any formal schooling. I was just going for it. So I wish I had had a practitioner at the time, who was skilled and knowledgeable and in the science, but it just didn’t exist, then,

R Blank 11:56
unfortunately. Yeah. Well, and Hindsight is 2020. Exactly. Right there, Kathy.

Cathy Cooke 12:03
Yeah. So so yeah. So in about 2014 15 is, is when I got I started my nutrition schooling in 2013. So that’s when I really started to put the scientific pieces together and got the resource from credible sources, from my instructors from other resources that they gave us. And then that’s when I really started to make my progress.

R Blank 12:26
So I understand from our talks, and from the stuff of that you’ve written that I’ve read, that there are a lot of factors impacting our sleep, and I want to I want to cover those, but because this is the healthier tech podcast, I’d like to start by honing in on specific ways that you’ve seen with your clients, that their relationship with technology impacts their sleep, or I guess, maybe as a starting point, have you seen that people’s relationship with technology impacts their sleep?

Cathy Cooke 12:58
Absolutely. And there’s, there’s many reasons why, you know, it’s not just an EMF issue. But we’ve got blue light, we’ve got the the mental component of being alert, when you’re checking your devices, we’ve got the fact that most people are looking at their emails on their phone while they’re falling asleep. And then they’re in work mode. You know, so So there’s multiple reasons why the technology impacts our sleep, from stress from blue light from the EMF exposure and the oxidative stress, to the mental stress and anxiety. I mean, it’s kind of all encompassing, it affects us in numerous ways.

R Blank 13:38
And so that was large. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong for what I what I heard in your answer, is that’s largely a question of, of the relationship with the phone. Is that true? Or is it other tech as well?

Cathy Cooke 13:49
Oh, yeah, definitely. Other tech, um, the I mentioned the phone, because that’s the what, how the majority of people, what the majority of people are doing. And so that’s going to be their biggest impact, but it certainly doesn’t have to be the phone. I mean, just, you know, having your Wi Fi router on. And you know, a lot of people like to say, we’ll unplug your Wi Fi at night, which I completely agree with. But that’s not far enough. That doesn’t go far enough for in my opinion, because, for me, what I noticed is it doesn’t matter if I’m sleeping with the Wi Fi on as much as the exposure I gotten all day. And what the cumulative effect that it had on my body during the day. So a lot of people are like, no big deal. I’m working all day and I’m in this high EMF environment, but I unplugged my router at night and I don’t sleep with my phone. So I’m good. And that’s definitely a step in the right direction. But I really think if you’re someone that’s struggling with health problems in sleep, you got to take it to the next step. Because that EMF exposure you’re getting all day will impact the quality of your sleep at night even if you’ve got your Wi Fi router unplugged, and you’re not sleeping with your phone. So So your question is a big one, because it encompasses a lot of things. But it’s both the the cumulative effect during the day, and what’s happening at night and your behaviours.

Stephanie Warner 15:11
So that’s really interesting. And I wonder, how long do you recommend that we unplug or disconnect? Before we get to go to sleep? Again? Is there a recommended dose? You would say?

Cathy Cooke 15:24
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I kind of like to tie this in with the blue light. So blue light exposure, you know, for seeing artificial light at night, even sun, any kind of high blue frequencies of light, then our brain is not making melatonin, and we get the signal that it’s daytime, and it’s time for us to be alert. So I typically recommend that people shut down their blue light exposure about two hours before they want to be asleep. And I would say that that’s pretty optimal for, you know, the screen time as well. Because we want to start to tell our brain, alright, we’re winding down. We don’t have to be on alert. We don’t have to be checking texts in work messages. And all of these things are doing anything stimulating. So I like to say two hours, everybody, of course, is going to be different. But for most people, that’s that’s kind of the sweet spot.

Stephanie Warner 16:21
Great, that’s us too. Great. I think two hours is completely that’s that seems doable to like, tether ourselves away from our tech. And before before I asked that question, you would mention that if somebody is really struggling with sleep, it’s not only about disconnecting from devices, they should take the next step. And I was wondering what that what that next step would be, if you’re really, really having a tough time with with sleeping,

Cathy Cooke 16:48
oh, my gosh, there’s so many. I mean, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to make it sound like it’s overwhelming, you need to go to change your life. Because everything that I recommend for sleep, it’s all just good habits. You know, it’s it’s good diet, it’s good mental outlook, like we mentioned before, it’s reducing your EMF exposure and all the things. But if your question is tailored, a little bit more towards the EMS side, it’s just cleaning up your home environment, you know, and the best way to do that, of course, is to have an assessment by a professional like a building biologist, which is what I recommend to make sure it’s not only your Wi Fi and your phone, but it’s the wiring in your walls, it’s wiring errors that you may have throughout the home that are causing magnetic fields while you’re sleeping. It’s the dirty electricity, you know, all of the things that are a little bit more technical and cumbersome, but they all impact sleep. So if you really wanted to take it to the next level, you’re going to have a full assessment of your home. And you’re going to mitigate all of these fields so that you can create a really nice sleeping sanctuary and not even a sleeping sanctuary, but a low EMF home in general, which is going to be health promoting all the time that you’re there, not just while you’re sleeping.

Stephanie Warner 18:03
Great. So thank you for that.

R Blank 18:04
So I want to get to something else. But before I do, there was just a thread that you mentioned that I wanted to pull on just one little bit, which is the psychological relationship of that people have with their tech and how that’s impacting their sleep? What is it that you’re referring to there? Let’s start there.

Cathy Cooke 18:24
Um, are we talking about like, the realm of addiction? And behaviours?

R Blank 18:29
I don’t know, you’re the one who brought it up. So you tell.

Cathy Cooke 18:33
I mean, this just goes so this can go so many different directions. But when you ask that question, that’s what came to my mind. So in fact, I, I had a meeting with a client just yesterday, whose family member refused to shut down their phone at night. They absolutely refused it. And long story short, because they had a phone addiction. And they were very readily admit, you know, admitting that it’s like, I can’t, I can’t stop, I can’t stop looking at it. And it’s all of the things that they do on the phone. It’s looking at social media is playing games, with their friends, mostly those things, those two things. And it’s actually the even the physical habit of turning your wrist and looking. I will often see this behaviour, especially in younger people, even if they don’t have their phone on their body. They still search for it. And they still do this behaviour where they’re turning their wrist and looking at their hand because it’s this constant motion.

R Blank 19:33
Yeah, yeah. Earlier this year, I did a digital detox and and I went somewhere where there was no cell service at all, and no Wi Fi not nothing. And but my phone had music on it. So we were listening to music on my phone, and I caught myself at one moment. I was just sitting in a chair and I reached over grabbed my phone and loaded WhatsApp now fingers What am I doing? Like, there’s literally no nothing I get accomplished by doing. I felt so stupid I put the phone down. But I so I can relate to exactly what what you’re talking about.

Cathy Cooke 20:12
Yeah, it’s fascinating. We’re just so used, it’s, it’s kind of like smoking when people stopped smoking, and they’re still trying to have this connection between putting a cigarette to their mouths. And so they chew gum or chew on a pencil or, you know, whatever, it’s that same kind of thing. So, so we’ve got, we’ve got that addiction. We’ve also, I think, there’s a possibility that some people have an addiction to the way that the EMF, the radiofrequency actually makes them feel. I actually have a client who’s a physician who admitted to me, I was in her home, this was in another state, and we were doing an assessment. She’s like, Kathy, I have to admit to you that I’m very nervous about this, because I’m physically addicted to how the EMF makes me feel. And I’m worried about the withdrawal if we if we get

R Blank 21:00
rid of it. Wow. Wow, I’ve never heard that before.

Cathy Cooke 21:04
Yeah. So I think I, I think that’s a plausible scenario for some people. And one of the reasons why when we do disconnect, we feel very uncomfortable

R Blank 21:17
with a lot. You know, with a lot of these issues, what I found, particularly as, as we we pursue topics related to healthier tech, and this podcast, is with a lot of this stuff, it’s really hard to tease out the separation between how the what results the EMF is triggering, versus what results, the experiences and devices themselves are triggering. And so when you’re talking about increased rates of anxiety, for example, I think that’s a good example, how much of the anxiety is being triggered or caused by the EMF versus the way that Facebook is being engineered? Right. And I don’t know if we’ve gotten to that point where it’s actually but I feel like the number of different public health issues that we’re identifying, it’s becoming a bigger problem that we don’t know what the cause is, except for that it’s the phone, but we don’t know what about it is actually the harm.

Cathy Cooke 22:10
Yeah, you’re exactly right. And that’s why it these are such difficult questions to answer.

R Blank 22:15
Well, that’s why we have experts like you.

Cathy Cooke 22:18
Well, I mean, it’s all the things right. And the research is largely being done in the mainstream is largely being done on the the psychological impacts, and less on the EMF side. But thankfully, we’ve got a lot of researchers that are progressing that research, but you can’t How do you tease it out? I don’t think you can. Because both are many. There are several things happening all at

R Blank 22:44
once. Yeah, no, to tease it out. You would have to expose people to equivalent levels of EMF but no phone, and then you’d have to expose people to phones, but no EMF, and that experiment is just impossible. Yeah. But as you pointed out, right, there’s a bunch of factors involved in. And I mean, we just talked about the psychological relationship with technology, as well as the EMF exposure from technology. But those aren’t the only factors impacting our sleep. So when you work with clients to help them improve their sleep, beyond the tech and beyond the radiation, what are the various aspects of their lifestyle, that you kind of hone in on that you try to see where you know, get their take their pulse, and help them work on?

Cathy Cooke 23:30
Yeah, great. So why mentioned blue light? That’s often one of the very first things I do with clients because it’s immediate, you know, I’ve actually got some blue light glasses, blocking glasses right here. I’ve got them everywhere. It’s like actually, look at this, I’ve got two I’ve got three more right right here because I know is like I could just pick them up anyway. I cannot live without these, these changed my life. The very first time I use these at night, I fell asleep within 10 minutes, when before it would take me hours, three to three hours maybe to fall asleep. And so I love that this is a very immediate response for people because some of this stuff is going to take time. You know, if we’re working on our mental outlook, or our stress, our blood sugar, infections, all these things, which I’ll talk about in a minute, that’s going to take time but boy, you know, managing your blue light and managing your circadian rhythm can happen immediately. So that’s one of the very first things that I help people with. And the circadian rhythm is part of the blue light exposure, which is you know, the Earth has its own timeframe. Its own circadian rhythm. The sun comes up at a given time every day and and then it goes down at night and all of the earth creatures are doing their things based on the sun in the moon. And we should be to have Um, we, you know, our body gets its cues from the sunrise and the sunset and the moon and where the sun is at a certain time of the day in the sky. And so we need to be in touch with that, and most of us aren’t. So, you know, we do things like getting outside and getting certain sun exposure different times during the day, and possibly watching the sunset at night. And, you know, just getting our circadian rhythm re entrained. So that we get our bodies cycle back on track. And then after that, I really work with people on their blood sugar balance, which is something that most people are not giving any consideration to when it comes to sleep. But it’s very, very important, because our hormones are involved with our blood sugar. So when our blood sugar dips, we get a cortisol response to help tell the liver to put sugar back into the bloodstream to bring us back into balance. And anyone who’s had cortisol or adrenaline knows how that makes us feel. Right, we get anxious, yeah, we get pumped, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a sign to move and get going. So if we’re having cortisol fluctuations throughout the day, and at night, we’re going to wake up, and we’re not going to sleep well. So that’s very, very important. So those, those are kind of the foundational steps that I take along with the EMF exposure. And then from there, you know, we have to address the stress, everybody knows that. But I kind of use some specific targeted tools with clients to make it a little bit easier, because I don’t expect anyone to sit and clear their mind for an hour every day, which I mean, it’s awesome if you can, but most people in my experience, don’t have the time have the patience for that. So we work on stress, we work on appropriate exercise, for people, we work on specific diet, this is going to be health supportive. And, you know, for some people, we got to take it a step further and deal with maybe it’s a parasite, I mean, there’s a lot of people in the world who are parasites, and that will absolutely interrupt our sleep, because parasites are most likely are usually the most active in the middle of the night when we’re sleeping, which is like, Come on, guys, you know, like, can you do this thing during the day, not while I’m sleeping. And then there’s other infections like bacterial overgrowth, you know, CDiff I mean, all kinds of other more serious medical conditions, that is very person dependent, you know, right. So, so sometimes we have to work with that. And you know, beyond that, there’s some of the mechanical things. You know, some people who have sleep apnea, or they have congestion from a deviated septum, or you know, some of these more physical things that have to be addressed to. So it’s really broad and comprehensive. So we address the foundation with all people and then with specific people, we have to get very specific to their situation.

Stephanie Warner 28:10
Right. And that was a thorough list of things to consider. And I’d like to go back I had a, maybe it’s a silly question, but I do wear blue light glasses as well. I’m wearing mine right now. And they made a huge impact on my headaches made. So when I’m looking at a screen, I now don’t have I was having migraines, and I don’t have them now. So that’s been super important. I never thought about wearing them at bedtime. So my question is kind of tactical tactical. Do you actually wear them while you’re sleeping? Or do you put them on for a little bit of like that two hour period before as you’re winding down and unplugging? And so yeah, would you recommend?

Cathy Cooke 28:53
Yeah, I’m glad you ask that because there’s a difference between blocking blue light during the day, and blocking blue light at night. And so during the day, we’re doing it because we’ve got all this, this very, very blue frequency hitting us from our screens. So we want to filter that out, but not a tonne. So your glasses that you have on are very faint. So they’re going to achieve that, you know, relieving eyestrain and headaches, which is awesome. It’s going to relieve that from your daytime exposures of your screens. And I don’t recommend that people wear those outside because we want to see the sunlight outside, right. So if you have glasses, even prescription glasses, most prescription glasses these days do have some blue light filtering. If people are outside and they can do it. I like for them to take their glasses off so that their eyeballs get that full spectrum of light. But at night it’s totally different. So you know, you’ll see these glasses are much darker, and I’ve got ones that are even darker than this. And so it’s kind of all on a spectrum, no pun intended, but it’s it’s blocking more of the blue light at night when The darker lenses, and even some of the green, which is going to just ramp up that level of, okay, it’s daytime, or I’m sorry, it’s nighttime. So just like, you know, I always come back to Okay, what did our ancestors do? What what did we inherently do in nature and what have we involved evolved with, and they would have seen only light from fire, right. And fire campfire is fine, because it’s a lot of red and yellow, it doesn’t really have the blue. And so you know, these orange glasses, you can see if you put them on, it’s almost like you’re seeing by candle light, or by fire. And so these are much stronger in their effect to signal to our brain, it’s nighttime, we’re winding down, and then you can start to produce melatonin for that signal that it’s for sleep. So you don’t have to wear them while you’re sleeping. Just a couple of hours before. But the key here is once you put them on, you have to commit. So you can’t put them on, go to the bathroom, turn the light, take them off, wash your face, brush your teeth, and then go to bed. Okay, because you’ve just given your body this huge signal. And when you turn the light on, and you took your glasses off, so you just kind of blew it. So you got to do all your things, wash your face, whatever, then put them on, because from that point forward, you’re not going to tick them off until you’re in bed and all the lights

Stephanie Warner 31:28
are off. Yeah, okay, great. I’m gonna I’m writing this down. So I’m like, I need to get a dark pair now. That was that was really great. And there was another thing that that you said that I have not really heard before. And it makes lot perfect, logical sense. And I wanted to see if you could dig in a little bit. You were talking about the balance of blood sugar. So, you know, without going too far into the weeds that makes a tonne of sense to you know, work on how much sugar you’re having, I guess before bed? Is there a, you know, again? Is there something simple for our listeners? Like maybe don’t consume it, but don’t have that ice cream or dessert after dinner? Or is there something that we can do to start working on that a little bit and being a little more mindful about our sugar intake? Before bed?

Cathy Cooke 32:16
Yeah. Well, ironically, sometimes a tiny bit of sugar can actually help you to sleep. Depends depends on the person. So I know I know. So well. It’s about it’s about balancing your blood sugar during the course of the day. Okay, so it’s about making sure that each meal has the appropriate combination of macronutrients. And our macronutrients are fat, carbohydrate, and protein. So you need to make sure that you’re having adequate protein, fat and carbohydrate for you. And that in how you know, as you go from meal to meal without being hungry, so you go from one meal to the next perfectly satiated. And then that’s when you know that your blood sugar is stable. So for some people, having just a tiny bit of sugar, I’m talking about like, you know, maybe half a banana and some almond butter before bed, that can actually help to put you into sleep. Because you’re getting a little, you’re getting actually a little bit of all three macronutrients. And then that slow sustained release will help to keep your blood sugar stable. So it gets a little bit more nuanced than that. But that’s kind of the basic overview.

R Blank 33:35
So this is we just in the past few minutes touched on so many different areas, so many different topics. And so it’s obvious that your approach to optimising sleep is a it’s a very involved one and one that you’ve you’ve taken almost almost 20 years to kind of formulate through hard won experience and personal experimentation. I understand that you’ve now consolidated those years of work and learning into a course. Is that Is that right? And eight week course.

Cathy Cooke 34:08
Yep, yep, exactly. So I did because as you can tell this is there’s a lot to do here. There’s a lot of information. And there’s a lot of small, simple and big behaviour changes that we can all make to sleep better. So I wanted to be able to bring this to more people. And so I created what’s called the sleep easy method. And it is an eight week programme that goes through all of the things we just talked about and then some. So it helps you learn in detail how to balance your blood sugar, how to do the blue light, how to reset your circadian rhythm, appropriate Stress management techniques, appropriate exercise if you’ve got you know, bigger issues to deal with like infections like I mentioned, and a whole entire module on just going through your house room by room mitigating EMF laughs so it’s a huge, huge programme. Yes, everything I’ve learned over the past 20 years to help people sleep better. And I’m really proud of it. Because, you know, I sleep well now. And that’s, that’s a very emotional thing for me to say because it was 15 years of pretty intense suffering. And now as I’m guiding people through the programme, and they’re telling me I slept through the night for, you know, last night through the night, for the first time in my life, or my child slept through the night, for the first time in her life, it’s like, it’s amazing. It’s absolutely amazing. So yeah, I’m really excited about the programme.

Stephanie Warner 35:38
I can I can imagine how gratifying that must be. And I just want to ask one question, is this course going to be helpful for people who have you’d say, maybe normal sleep disturbance? Or is this only? You know, is this more appropriate or good for people with significant sleep issues? Is it really good for everyone? Ah, yeah.

Cathy Cooke 35:58
You know what? Stephanie, it, it’s, it’s good for everybody. Because this while this programme is targeted towards getting people to sleep better, the entire programme is about how to live better, and how to be healthier. So it doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with sleep or not, because everything in there is going to increase your quality of life by making you a healthier person. Awesome.

R Blank 36:25
So yeah, that sounds great. How much does this course cost?

Cathy Cooke 36:30
It is rarely sold for 299, which I think is an amazing deal. Yeah, because it’s just it’s, it’s so comprehensive it but you know, I wanted to make it affordable enough for people to be able to afford it.

R Blank 36:44
Yeah. So 299, it’s an eight week course. Where can our listeners find this?

Cathy Cooke 36:51
So it is on the shield, your body.com website, and you could just type in shield, your body.com forward slash sleep easy. And the programme is all right there.

R Blank 37:03
Excellent. And we’ll have that link in the show notes. And I understand that you have a coupon for the listeners.

Cathy Cooke 37:09
Yes. Yeah. So I was so excited to jump on the podcast with you guys that I gave you a $50 coupon. Wow.

R Blank 37:17
So what is that?

Cathy Cooke 37:19
The coupon is sleep 50. And you will save 50 bucks off the programme.

R Blank 37:25
Excellent. Cool. So that’s great. So so it’s normally 299. With the sleep 50 coupon, it’ll be 249. And we’ll have the coupon code and the link in the show notes. Kevin, it’s great having you back. You’re not only the first repeat guest on the healthier tech podcast, I suspect you are going to be the first three peat guests that time will tell how ironic I am. But before we sign off, what is one specific and actionable and achievable tip that you have for the listeners to start improving their sleep?

Cathy Cooke 38:08
Um, well, I mentioned it right at the beginning, turn your Wi Fi off at night and don’t sleep with your phone. You know, start there. You don’t need technology while you’re sleeping. So disconnect a little bit earlier, and wear those blue light blocking glasses.

R Blank 38:25
Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Kathy, for coming back on to the healthier tech podcast. This sleepeezee method course sounds amazing. And I wish you the best of luck with

Cathy Cooke 38:35
it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate having the opportunity to bring this to everybody. So thank you.

Stephanie Warner 38:41
Yeah, thank you so much. I’m looking forward to checking out the course. And I’ve wasted a lot more than 230 or $300 on sleep gimmicks that didn’t help me. So I’m really excited. I’m really excited about this. Thank you.

Announcer 38:56
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the healthier tech podcast. Remember to check the show notes for all the links and resources mentioned in the show. Please like and subscribe to the healthier tech podcast on Apple, Spotify or your podcast platform of choice. Get your free quickstart guide to building a healthy relationship with technology and our latest information at healthier tech.co

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

R Blank

R Blank is the founder of Healthier Tech and the host of “The Healthier Tech Podcast”, available iTunes, Spotify and all major podcasting platforms.

R has a long background in technology. Previously, R ran a software engineering firm in Los Angeles, producing enterprise-level solutions for blue chip clients including Medtronic, Apple, NBC, Toyota, Disney, Microsoft, the NFL, Ford, IKEA and Mattel.

In the past, he served on the faculty at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering where he taught software engineering, as well as the University of California, Santa Cruz.

He has spoken at technology conferences around the world, including in the US, Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and he is the co-author of “AdvancED Flex Development” from Apress.

He has an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and received his bachelor’s degree, with honors, from Columbia University. He has also studied at Cambridge University in the UK; the University of Salamanca in Spain; and the Institute of Foreign Languages in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.

Connect with R on LinkedIn.