# 106 WTF-"The Elusive Sleep: Tips and Tricks toTransforming Your Sleep Experience"

#ParentingTeens #SleepSolutions #cherylpankhurst #parentingteensadviceredefindedpodcast

In this episode of WTF (Welcome to Friday), host Cheryl Pankhurst dives into the frustrating world of sleep struggles, especially for those navigating the challenges of parenting teenagers. Cheryl shares her personal journey with sleep issues, from trying various remedies like magnesium, melatonin, and CBD oil, to discovering a new solution that seems to be working wonders. She also offers practical tips on how to cultivate a bedtime routine that promotes restful sleep, including journaling and visualization techniques. Whether you're a parent or simply someone struggling to get a good night's rest, this episode is packed with insights and strategies to help you wake up refreshed and ready to tackle the day.

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Speaker 1
00:02 - 00:16
Welcome to another episode of WTF. That's welcome to Friday or sometimes it's what the. But anyway, you can pick which one you want it to be for today. I'm Cheryl Pankhurst, your host.

Speaker 1
00:16 - 00:36
the podcast Parenting Teens Advice Redefined. WTF is the spinoff of that. So every Wednesday I drop Parenting Teens typically with expert advice, interviews, sometimes a solo on something very specific to your teen. And then this one is just a riff on whatever I want to riff on.

Speaker 1
00:36 - 00:57
Sometimes I'll just have an extension of what I want to say after Wednesday's episode. Sometimes there's something just plaguing me that I really want to talk about. And sometimes I'll get questions or comments in the Facebook group or in one of my DMs where people have loaded in some questions that they're really concerned about. And here we go.

Speaker 1
00:58 - 01:27
That's what we talk about. So today's episode is brought to you by sleep or The elusive sleep, I mean, what the heck is happening with our sleep? I used to be a five hour, hot six hour a night girl, right up until maybe menopause. So we're gonna say 10 years ago.

Speaker 1
01:28 - 01:45
I mean, five solid hours, people would say, yo, you need eight hours, you need 10 hours, and you don't. I never ever did. but it had to be consecutive, like a consecutive five to six hours. I would just wake up feeling like I could take on the world.

Speaker 1
01:46 - 01:53
I never got the afternoon crash. I never got any of those things. It was just great. It was fantastic.

Speaker 1
01:54 - 02:20
And I could even be a night owl and a morning person all at the same time when you're running on five to six hours sleep. Fast forward, to this bullshit, I could blame it on menopause for maybe the last five years but that ship has sailed. I can't even blame it on menopause anymore. I'm way past that.

Speaker 1
02:20 - 02:24
That's long gone. So now what? Now what is it? I don't know.

Speaker 1
02:24 - 02:55
I have tried everything, literally everything. I can't tell you there's anything on the market that I haven't tried. So magnesium worked for a short amount of time. I think what happens in the same with, I started taking melatonin tablets and melatonin gummies with that are full of sugar.

Speaker 1
02:55 - 03:07
So that didn't last very long. And then there was valerian. I took that mixed with melatonin. And then there was the nighty night tea and nighty night extra strength, calm tea.

Speaker 1
03:08 - 03:31
And all of these, all of these remedies that I tried worked for a short amount of time. And then I found my body just went, yeah, no, move on to something else. We're immune to that now. And so then I tried, I had really good results with a CBD oil, a CBN CBD oil with no THC.

Speaker 1
03:32 - 04:09
I guess it's got like a minus 0, 0, 0, 0% to activate, but it is mostly CBN and it was called night, night. And I tried that and I had great results with that for a very long time until I didn't. So What am I using now? So I'm, last night was not a great night, so I'm really starting to notice that if I have a glass of wine before I go to bed, I have a glass of wine at dinner, I have a glass of wine, whatever, up until like seven o'clock.

Speaker 1
04:10 - 04:40
If I have a glass of wine, especially red, I notice that I fall asleep right away, and then I wake up in the middle of the night, And then I'm on to Netflix and YouTube and prime video for about two hours. And then I fall back to sleep and I have the best sleep ever till my alarm goes off and I'm not going to sleep in. So even though the alarm is set, I'm up before the alarm and it doesn't matter what time I end up falling asleep. Is that you?

Speaker 1
04:40 - 04:54
It like, is that you? Were you like all asleep right away? And then two hours later, an hour and a half later, you look at the clock and it's like 11. and you're wide awake, like bright eye and bushy tailed and ready to go.

Speaker 1
04:54 - 05:07
Oh my God. So frustrating. So once the oil rub wore off the effects, the good remedy effects of the CBN oil wore off. And I have to say it's called night night.

Speaker 1
05:07 - 06:00
You can get it at all the cannabis stores that are on every fricking corner next door to each other here anyway. Once I will say one more thing about that is it's not inexpensive So if you're taking, you know a little bit every night Okay but then as it starts to wear off or you become a little bit of Like more immune to the smaller amounts and you start taking more and more and more Then it gets very expensive and at some points I even resulted into like that sleepies and night haul and all the over-the-counter like sleeping aids, which oh my god, I hated, I hated taking. But sometimes when you have two, three, four consecutive nights of not having a really good night's sleep, you really start feeling the effects.

Speaker 1
06:01 - 06:23
And listen, parents, not parents, human beings, I don't know, can we function without a couple of good nights sleep in a row? I can't. Everything is blown out of proportion. The job, the kids, the housework, the grocery shopping, the parking spot somebody took.

Speaker 1
06:24 - 06:42
Everything for me is blown right out of proportion when I'm tired. I just have nothing left. I'm like dragging my butt around trying to get through the day thinking, oh, I'm so tired, I'm so tired, I'm so tired. I know I'm going to sleep tonight.

Speaker 1
06:42 - 07:01
I mean, go to bed early. I'm going to like go to bed at nine o'clock, close the blinds, pretend it's not still light out. And I might fall asleep for an hour. And then I'm watching Schitt's Creek on Netflix for the next two and a half hours.

Speaker 1
07:01 - 07:21
Not fun. So I do have one remedy that I have been trying. So I thought I'm going to have this episode in case people are going through the same shit I'm going through and it's called Bolton's and it's called heavenly sleep. It's actually liquid melatonin.

Speaker 1
07:22 - 07:37
So even though the melatonin I was taking as a supplement has worn off, I'm immune to it. The gummies, the pills, the tea, whatever. totally my immune system is like, nah, I'm not taking that anymore. It's not helping.

Speaker 1
07:38 - 07:49
This is a dropper I got at the health food store. Again, Baltans. I'm going to drop it in the show notes so that you have a reference to it. And it's incredibly inexpensive.

Speaker 1
07:49 - 08:15
I think it's like 15 bucks for an entire bottle. I'm showing you in case you're on video and it's a dropper. So it just goes under your tongue and you let it sit there for a minute or two and then swallow and that's it. Anyway, that has been so far working for me like a charm, except maybe last night, but that's not the norm lately since I've been taking it.

Speaker 1
08:16 - 08:40
So another thing though, I think about sleep is, you know, we've had these really tough days and we can't help but go to bed with, I don't know about you, monkey brain, like my head just goes through I should have said this. I should have done this. I didn't get this done. Oh, why did I say that to her?

Speaker 1
08:40 - 09:14
Whether you're talking about a friend or your mom or your kids, you go to bed rehearsing your entire day. And if it wasn't a great day, how are you going to sleep? Going to bed where your subconscious brain is now running the story about what happened all day, and how can you possibly have a restful night? And if that's how you're going to sleep, how do you think you're waking up?

Speaker 1
09:15 - 09:48
I think the same way. So I recommend, this has been working for me, is when it's time for bed, first of all, you're getting rid of the screens, just like you teach your kids. No screens two hours before bed so you can actually get some sleep. But if you could get yourself a ritual, like something, a routine, a bedtime routine that might feel really weird at first, but as you go, as you, you know, it becomes a habit, it might work really well.

Speaker 1
09:48 - 10:12
And it could be different things. It could be, you could journal how your day went just to, there's scientific proof that getting your thoughts out on paper releases it from your thoughts. So can you grab a journal, shove it under your mattress and write out how crappy your day was? However, I don't recommend ending with that.

Speaker 1
10:13 - 10:33
Get it all out. But then can you at the end of that say, but tomorrow this is what it's going to be. And even though my day was like this, can you end with five things you were grateful for through the day? and really feel it.

Speaker 1
10:34 - 10:40
As you're writing out how crappy your day was, you can bet you're feeling, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I should have said this. Oh, see, see.

Speaker 1
10:40 - 11:15
And as you're writing, you're validating all the crap you went through and how you reacted to it. But at the end of that, can you end it off on a note going, okay, well that totally sucked, but I had this really great cup of coffee in the morning or I got gas at half the price. Or there was a really great parking spot at the mall today. Or I got blueberries for $2 a pint.

Speaker 1
11:15 - 11:23
That never happens. And eggs were on sale for $3.25. That never happens. I talked to my best friend for an hour.

Speaker 1
11:25 - 11:34
anything, anything. And don't just start listing off. Yeah, I got this great coffee, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, you have to like feel it.

Speaker 1
11:35 - 12:13
You have to feel how actual grateful you are for that feeling, for that thing, for whatever came into your day. If you go to sleep with the five things that you're grateful for, then you're going to wake up and go to sleep with your subconscious thinking about all the things you're grateful for. And if you get into this habit, what happens is all through the day, even if you're having the shittiest day ever, your brain is looking for something to be grateful for because it knows when you go to bed, it's going to want the list. It's going to want the list of five things.

Speaker 1
12:14 - 12:31
So your brain is now looking for the five things that you're grateful for. You hear about that reticular activating system where, oh, I'm really thinking of buying a blue Toyota, and then there's blue Toyotas all over the highway. Never seen a blue Toyota in your life until you decided you might want to buy one. It's the same thing.

Speaker 1
12:32 - 13:11
Your brain now starts looking for things that you're grateful for. And so it'll start pulling more out of your day to be grateful for. So when you get to bed, you still might have had the shittiest day ever, and you might want to get that out of your system and get it into a journal. But then, new page, but, but, yeah, I had this fight with my boss, and the grocery store guy was such a jerk, and all my bills came out that shouldn't have come out, but, I remember, and your five, 10, 15 things to be grateful for will start popping

Speaker 1
13:11 - 13:27
into your head because it becomes automatic. So now you're going to sleep with gratitude and peace, maybe a little bit of joy. And then how are you waking up? With gratitude, peace, a little bit of joy.

Speaker 1
13:29 - 13:49
If the journaling doesn't work, you can always try a visualization or even after you've journaled, close your eyes. Take a couple of really deep breaths. And on every exhale, you are letting go of everything. And even though just talking sounds like, yeah, okay, Cheryl, I can let go of everything.

Speaker 1
13:50 - 14:16
No, if you're actually breathing deep and letting it go, you can feel that sense of relaxation. And then you want to visualize what tomorrow is going to be. and really think about, well, I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna have had this great, great sleep. And I'm gonna take my beautiful white linen duvet off after a good night comfortable sleep.

Speaker 1
14:17 - 14:27
I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna make this great coffee. It's gonna be fresh, gonna be hot. It's gonna be so good. And then the kids are gonna start to get up.

Speaker 1
14:28 - 14:47
And then we're going to have, you know, a nice breakfast together. Or we're going to talk about what lunches we're going to make in the morning. Or we're going to talk about what dinner's going to be like that night. Or how our days are going to go in a very calm, peaceful, joyful way.

Speaker 1
14:47 - 15:26
And it might seem like complete fiction right now. But if you go to bed visualizing how the next day's going to go, Now your brain is going to bed with calm, peace, a little bit of joy, and you might just have a good night's sleep. So that has worked for me as well as, I told you, Bolton's sleep. I'd love to hear what your strategies are, what your remedies are, if you're still struggling, or if you've just found the perfect thing that works for you.

Speaker 1
15:27 - 15:46
I want to know because I want to share it so people we're not all the same. This is just what works for me and I'm wondering if you got up you happen to hear this podcast going. Oh my god. I haven't a good night's sleep in ages I'm going to run out and try this bulletins or I'm going to, I'm going to give this journaling stuff a shot.

Speaker 1
15:46 - 16:03
Maybe run over to chapters and you know, get a really cool journal that you're going to feel like you really want to write in. It's going to be motivating for you and give it a shot. Thank you for listening. I'm so glad you're here.

Speaker 1
16:03 - 16:39
This is so much fun in case you can't tell. Even when we talk about shitty things like not getting any sleep, I still enjoy it. I am really super grateful you're here and I want you to know that lifing is just not always for the faint of heart. And no matter whether you're a parent, not a parent, just dealing with life on your own, whatever it is you're going through, let's take a deep breath and love yourself and look after yourself even the same as you do for everybody else.

Speaker 1
16:41 - 16:51
Take a breath, be kind, and be kind to yourself. Have a wonderful Friday, and I will see you next week. Cheers for the coffee.