Welcome back to inside personal growth for round true. with Nick Stewart. we have his book right here. Yeah. Sleep fitness for all of you who didn't hear the first pod cast. We're going to put a link to that in this one. But this podcast will stand on its own regardless. Even though Nick did a prior podcast with this.

Oh, yeah. the new material, no new material this time. And as we said, I guess I didn't get all my questions. So we're going to get two more questions, and I promise Nicky can come back on. But Nick, because some people will listen to this out of sequence. I'm going to tell them a little bit about you.

So in 2018, Nick suffered from a sleep catastrophe due to harmful medical treatment. he went without sleep for 17 consecutive nights, which is commonly defined to be the record, and it took him several years to recover. He had to be hospitalized multiple times during that period. And despite the setback, Nick didn't give up. before Nick was a professional level coach helping young adults from violent communities secure internships with fortune 500 companies, he noticed that sleep issues were a recurring problem hindering their progress.

to his surprise, Nick. Nick felt inspired to return to coaching and became a certified sleep science coach. And that is his role today. And if you want to learn more about him, we are going to have a link to their website, which is Sleep Fitness coach.com. You can also email Nick directly at Nick at Sleep Fitness coach.com.

Go out and get a copy of this book. If you're having trouble sleeping, but we're going to cover some of the things we didn't cover last time. with Nick and I think I had given him like 15 questions and we maybe got through about 7 or 8 of them. So he went through that and said, okay, let's do this again.

So, you know, look, I know last time we covered a lot, but let's just kind of dig in as a way that you could, I think, uplevel this podcast so that individuals really understand more about the issues associated with sleep. The common problems people have. So you mentioned that perfect sleep is unattainable and it's more about consistent improvement.

Now you kind of say that throughout the book. What strategies do you recommend for setting realistic sleep goals that avoid this perfection trap? Right. It's like okay, yeah, I'm supposed to sleep nine hours tonight. Oh no, my dog woke me up. Or, you know, there was a loud noise and a boom. And I woke up and I couldn't get back to sleep or whatever it may have been.

Yeah. Talk with us about that. Because look at my Apple Watch. Your Apple Watch, the aura ring, whatever people are wearing. You said in the last interview that they aren't super accurate. Yeah, sometimes they're not. So I'd say the first two things that jump out is one, I want to hit one point that is very common, like you said, for folks, and make that clear.

And then second, I want to do like you said and actually give you guys a layer behind what happens in the coaching and what the method is to get some of these new routines to stick. and I'll surprise you a little bit when we get there. I have some cool tricks, and this is something you can use.

Anyone can use to shape or get a routine to become more consistent in your life. And it could be physical fitness. Could be anything. but I'll get there. So the first thing that comes out to me about the perfection thing is almost everyone I've worked with has that moment like, we'll get to the end of the 90 minute session, Greg, and they'll be like, oh, oh, oh, but I'm traveling in two weeks, like two weeks from now and I'll be busy.

I won't be able to. It's like, settle down, try to think of it like physical fitness. If you missed a workout or two, is that going to destroy the last three months or month of your work? Now you're going to be okay. Like if you miss a meal or you or you, you know, you had ice cream one weekend and you're working on your diet, is that going to blow your whole diet away?

No. So I usually have to remind them, like if that's it works the same way. Just because you have a one off is not going to do it. And then at night when that one, I have people who, like freak out because it hasn't happened. At the same time. Again, there's a rule that I have about a 1 or 2 rules I give clients, and I'll tell you the first one, because even the first one for some people can actually correct their insomnia.

I have a woman who I worked with like a year ago, actually didn't even work with her. She was working with me on some e-course development, but had mentioned she'd been suffering for ten years with insomnia. And just at the last minute I was like, I'm going to throw over this one rule that I have for new clients.

And just this. She was nice to me. And then I checked in with her like 4 or 5 weeks later. So the rule is no suffering in bed. That's the rule. And then, of course, the client will say, well, what do you mean? I say, it could come out in different ways. usually it's like, oh, oh my.

Oh, it's two in the morning. I don't know if I've slept yet. And now I'm starting to get upset. I have how many hours before I have to wake up and get to work. Okay. And then now I look at the clock, and now it says 330. Now it says, for now I'm panicking. Right? That's pretty common for folks.

So now now we're panicking. And then, Greg, when you're in that state, what's the next like sort of self critical question. You say to yourself there's something wrong. And then that leads to there's something wrong with me. And that's why I think it's chapter three in my book. That's why I have my clients read my book. Now, at first I didn't because I thought it was too arrogant, like, you're my client now, buy my book to hear him.

And then after several interactions with new clients, I realized, darn it, the last 90 minutes could have been saved if you had just read chapter X. And so now I require them to. But that chapter and that's one I'm happy to send to folks for free, is the one about how we're designed to stay awake for several days.

So once you internalize that and you really own it, in those moments in the mid morning when you want to panic, if you're playing with me, then the game is that you got to tell yourself, oh well, I am designed to stay up. It's not like there's something going on. So the rule of no suffering just basically says the second you realize your suffering in bed, out, get out of the room.

Right. It's sort of like Pavlov's dog. Like the like you're you're training this negative association. So take the what's one woman who I ended up telling her, I said, hey, listen, the moment that that kind of thing happens, you love your couch. I love my living room. Great. What's your favorite? What's your favorite, nonfiction or fiction book?

Go to the living room. Dim lights. Just do that. And when you feel like you want to go back to bed, head back. And if you have to do it again, go back. In the year that I've been working with folks, anyone who's done it, the moment that they go back, they've never had to get back up. So I was like, I should go check on this lady, Greg.

So I said messenger and she writes back like neck ten. Yeah, insomnia. And then this I sleep now what about these people? And it happens to all of us at points in our life, you know, you know, maybe have a shoulder injury or a back injury or a knee injury or foot or ankle injury, but you have pain and you have to take that pain to bed as well.

And frequently those pains can be long enough and protracted enough that they literally start to interfere with your sleep. I'll give you an example. I tore my meniscus in my knee. Now the doctor did an X-ray, blah blah blah said, hey, look, go to the orthopedic. Then it started to get better and I said, give me some. physical therapy.

But the reality is I actually have to hang my left leg out the side of the bed to get some relief from the pain, right? So that I can actually get to sleep. What do you what do you kind of. I know, because a lot of doctors go, well, I'm going to give you some muscle relaxants or I'll give you some sleep aids.

I'll give you some things that'll put you to sleep. I'm not a big advocate of that. what do you kind of tell people when a doctor says, I'll give you some sleeping pills? Oh, you want to see? I thought you were going to ask about the pain one. So I would just say, for folks, if you're interested in the, drilling down on Greg's question about pain and sleep, just a couple weeks ago, I was on with a doctor who's a pain specialist.

And so that podcast will come out and probably a couple of weeks. So if you just follow me, you'll get a big deep dive into the question. So you just want to know what happens when the doctor says you're take these sleep pills. Well, I'd like to know that. And I'd like to know what kind of recommendations you might have from somebody who's dealing with a bit of physical pain, maybe like, a back pain or something strange or, you know, they haven't gotten it adjusted or, you know, because there's a lot of people that will just live with it, right?

And not go on for weeks. There and there. Wake up in the middle of the night. I gotta move this way. I gotta move that way. Any. I mean, I'm I'm not certain you can give any recommendations, but I thought, well, maybe here's the sleep doctor. He could give some recommendations. Well, I think the to tackle the first one to your question about when people immediately give you medications, there's this crazy stat, this guy about a CEO from the neuroscience company I know in Canada told me that in Canada, someone with insomnia will go ten years before they tell their doctor.

So it's like I said to him. I said, I really hope that what you just said wasn't true, or but I have a feeling that you wouldn't have asked me on this show if it was. Wasn't true. And I would say, if you haven't slept for three nights or more and you go to your doctor and they hand you something that will knock you out, take it and knock yourself out.

Now, if you're just having infrequent sleep, then have a broader conversation because none of the research on the efficacy and the the long term impacts of sleep medications are terrible. Greg. They're terrible. I have a webinar that I'm going to do eventually, and I've actually had moments where I'm a little nervous about reporting what this like over the population size I tested was over 400,000 international.

So the results, I'm pretty confident they figured it out. I'm worried that like a drug company is gonna be like, hey, Nick, come here, get in the black limo and no one sees me again because the results are bad. They're not good. But I'm a holistic coach, and so I never come to extreme on the side, so I'm like, Greg, you.

You know, if you want to work on your sleep and you have pain, my thing is like, you should be seeing a pain management person who's a traditionalist. You should be telling them to head on and be on the medication forever. But maybe for the next couple of months, that's what I need while I work on my sleep with somebody.

To me, that's that's my that's my personal philosophy is to get both and get them on. Interestingly that you bring this up, Greg, I'm releasing like a quick little video about irrational excitement. There's this new sort of jump from researchers in this world that you're talking about who are like, wow, good sleep heals pain. Yes it does. It is on the show.

I called it a pain injection. If you go like that, those 17 nights that I didn't sleep, Greg. Oh, boy. If I had by day five, my hamstrings and legs, they were poles. They were like iron poles. Man. So yeah, I made the video to be like listen, even though I'm a sleep guy I should be like, yeah, sleep is the solution to everything.

But it's like whoa. Like let's slow down a little bit. Like Greg's examples already tells you he's in enough pain. He has the limp, his leg off the side of the mattress, and we think that him magically getting great sleep is going to fix this. This is. This is too far. You know, he needs some pain management, traditionally speaking, coupled with getting a good coach who's holistic can work with him.

now, Greg, I'm sure you've seen there's a lot of sleep coaches out there who and books that like their sell point to you is we can do this with no medication. Maybe they got tricks I don't know about, but personally, I just think having the experience of my own chronic pain in my life that you really need a balance of both and then sifting away, you know, the medication over time.

So that's my answer that, you know, you're okay with that. Is that far? I mean, well, look, whether you go to a physical therapist or you go to a chiropractor or an acupuncturist or whatever it is, or you do, you know, cold plunges or soreness, I don't really care what it is, but if it gets you to a state of of physical equilibrium, meaning everything is like feeling good, right?

You're going to have your most optimal sleep then, right? Yeah. So that brings me to this saying, you know, we didn't cover this last time, but it was question 11. it's really in chapter ten, you explore how societal norms and modern culture impact our sleep habits. And and I and I know you're going to come up with the ones about the blue light, the rest of the stuff, and being in front of screens like you and our you and I are now, what are some of the most significant societal pressures or misconceptions?

Yeah, that negatively affect our ability to achieve healthy sleep. So I love it. I'm on to hearing what you have to say there, my friend. Well, I love it because you've we've already got gotten ourselves into it a little bit. And so this will sound like I'm redirecting, but it's really not because it's kind of part of a whole a holistic approach.

And I'd say the big misnomer. And I was on a show earlier this morning where the more likes, corporate leadership sort of vibe kind of thing in this came up as well. People fundamentally don't understand rest in our culture. Like like I got this morning, this guy this morning, we're talking about how like, yeah, I kind of I've always had this like work until I, I pass out.

Right. Like that's that that's like high achiever. That's what we do. So part of it is really educating folks about rest and I mean passive rest where we are physically passive and mentally passive. And so what the research that I found is that what you want to be doing is if you're computer facing worker A, you want to time how much time you spent at this computer.

Is it 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 or 90. And set a timer and then give yourself a rest or a restorative activity to do. Let's just take the rest. One what I usually have to educate a person on is that guess what? When you go and have your find your old space, it's very restful. Physically. And what I want you to do with your mind is nothing.

Just let your mind wander. This is not a mind. This isn't mindfulness meditation. This isn't just let it wander. It's almost doing what happens in that second deep sleep phase called REM sleep. It's working. It's quickly trying to take all that information from earlier in the day and sort it, organize it, see if there's other solutions. Right. People say, when do we want?

Do the greats come up with your greatest thoughts when they're in the shower because they don't have any agenda with their mind in the shower. So part of it is getting people to understand, like you need little sections of rest throughout the day. And it's not that you're not doing anything. People think, oh, I'm not being productive, and if I'm not being productive, then this whole resting and sleeping thing is just in the way.

So we need to make sure people readjust their understand of that. Well, you make an important point, Nick, and that is their relationship to productivity. In other words, hey, can you you can still produce, but you can be in harmony with your the balance of your body trying to be productive. It's time to rest. And I have a question for you, because I actually have a doctor who's a hypnotherapist and he works on my subconscious.

Well, now, we do know that the subconscious mind holds a lot, a lot of blockages for us, like how we think about ourselves. Right? you know, negatively, those what we call recurring thoughts that come up that like, you're not enough and they're the ones that actually sometimes come up at night when you before you go, before you go to bed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What what, do you advocate working with the hypnotherapist or anything like that to help people with subconscious, or do you have any ideas for them that you can give to them around? Oh, utilizing that, for anything that's going to get underneath, like you said, that it's like the hood of the car, right? Like we can't see Greg's subconscious, but we know that part of the engine is creating the good stuff and maybe causing some of the not so great stuff.

So. Right. For me, if a client comes to me and says, like, I'm working with hypnotherapist, I might even say to them, oh, cool, you've told me that your issue was X. See if you can't have the next several sessions with them, focus on X, because it might directly unpin this issue that you're having with your sleep, you know?

Yeah. Product product Tivity guilt is one that's come up with some of my recent clients where they're at night. They're they they'll tell me, like, I know it's not true, but I keep having these thoughts of like, maybe my boss doesn't think I'm doing enough. Maybe I'm, you know, like what? And one of the, things that this is a cool thing.

So if anyone is has the same thing where you kind of ruminate on stuff that has to do with, like your, your self-worth at work. There's a great book called chatter that's literally it's it's called chatter and it introduces very cool technique, Gregg. And you should totally try it sometime. If you're having a challenge. There's it's a it's easy and it's weird.

You talk to yourself with your own name. So you're like Gregg, you've been working at this for 20 years. You know that you're one of the top performers at work. You also know that your boss took you aside last month to tell you how much he appreciates you. You're fine. There's some weird mental thing about when you use your name in mental self-talk that, like, I don't know it.

Like it almost shakes. You're so like shakes your inner mental self up first. Yeah, that's actually I, I I I, I what you're saying is, you know, if you really study this and I have is, you know, gosh, start therapy is the same thing right. It's like oh okay, I'm going to go put myself in the chair and I'm going to talk to me, and then I'm going to come back and sit in that chair and make myself that.

And it it works. It works brilliantly. It's weird. I mean, it really does work. Like if you say, hey, Greg, you're old. Yeah. Or hey, so if there was somebody I was upset with and they weren't there, I might say, oh, I'm going to put Nick in that chair and I'm going to ask a question. Then I'm going to go over to that chair and pretend like I'm Nick, and I'm going to answer the question from Nick's perspective.

Right. So I'm getting a little deeper than what it is, but it truly does. It truly does work. Is Gestalt therapy or your own therapy on yourself? So everybody go out and get that book chatter. Because the reality is, yeah, if you're ruminating, it's a it's like kind of the book I give to people. I'm like, oh, you ruminate a lot.

And here you go. Like, this is a cool book that just focuses on that and I yeah, that's and what I'm doing is just in that first question we talked about, you know, suffering in bed. Right. I'm saying have the self dialog with yourself when it happens to go Nick, you were made to be able to stay up this long.

In fact, you could stay up for several more days. So let's dial down the whole anxiety thing. Let's go grab some camomile tea. Let's get up. and that I was surprised. Even this past week, I was talking to a guy, and, he he was down on himself because he had had a real busy week and didn't really do the sleep stuff that we had talked about as well.

But he ends up in reporting to me, Greg, he has sleep apnea and he's like, he's like, oh, but I but I did a couple times, did know suffering in bed. And I was like, tell me about it. This is not it's not easy totally to be in bed at night and then be like, I'm going to get up so that I can help myself, go to bed.

But I think working with me, he trusted the process. He's like, so I just took my mask off, got up, went down to the bathroom. I never told me to do any of the following. He's like, I took a cold, pressed to my head, to my back, and then I just went back to bed, put my sleep, you know, and I fell right to sleep.

I was like, dude, this is a victory, okay? Before, you just stayed in bed and you were suffering. Like, you don't need to be so down on yourself today. You did this twice. Yeah. And you did the same thing. And it took, what, less than five minutes out of his whole sleep time. Yeah. Right. So there is, like you said, you said you have to if you're being just that disturbed mentally over something, you know, we we call it the brain dump, right?

A lot of people just unfortunately, they take all these list to bed with them. Oh, I did it. I got to do that. I'm supposed to do this? I'm going to do that tomorrow. I'm sure you've heard this a zillion times. You know, why wouldn't you? Just as a simple thing, David Allen is the guy that came up with this.

I think you just do a brain dump. You say, oh, yeah, everything is on your mind and just write it all down so that tomorrow morning you don't lose the paper. It's sitting there, right? You want to put it next to your bed? The other thing somebody told me during one of these podcasts is when they have those recurring thoughts, they literally have like one of those little handheld tape recorders.

Next to him. Well, you don't need a tape recorder. Just put your iPhone over there and say, hey, I'm going to record this note under the iPhone or whatever it might be. But the reality is it gets it off of your consciousness and on to this ubiquitous, recording device. Right? It's like, hey, it doesn't matter what it is really.

Right. Or not like piece of paper. But the reason the woman told me she used recorder because she didn't have to turn on the light. Right? And I thought, okay, that's really anything that I can talk into that'll take my thoughts off my head that I've got doing. I'm just going to talk to it and say it. Baba, baba, baba bam.

Put it, put it away. so you you, Greg, your listeners are so lucky, man. I mean, I just want you to know, like, your listeners are so lucky because I know that to you and me, it's like, oh, we've we've heard this and we've talked about it, but like, a lot of people don't know that, you know, and like to add on to some of the things we've talked about today, right?

When I get people who are starting mindfulness meditation, which we should talk a little bit about, if we can, is, I say, if the same thought comes up 2 to 3 times, yeah, grab the piece of paper and write it down. Same thing at night. Like if or I'm sorry. During those resting ten minute periods, I'm teaching folks who are like more concerned about burnout.

They're like, hey, listen, I'm a little worried I'm going to get burned out. I need help with this. I teach of these rest periods, but I'm like, always have a little notepad next to you. Yeah. Don't. Because your brain wants to do right. Right is what it wants to do is go. I've had idea X I'm going to show you.

I have to keep it. I have to keep it. So I better keep thinking about it. This these these little note things. Nick. Here. This is what I do. Greg's bringing out the toys. No, I'm giving out this. Do you see this? I can't do it. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Oh. Is that is that like a pocket.

Pocket. Yes. This is, these are a 799. You get two of them on Amazon. They called notebook. And your pen fits right there. Yeah I carry this thing everywhere. Right. So my point is this. It's like, look, whether you use recorder, is that this or it doesn't matter to me. The point is, if you have something that comes in, have someplace to record it.

So you don't forget it. Yeah. Then what you ruminate on night at night. I know this because I have many years of sleeping. That you ruminate on the stuff you forgot, forgotten. Then your mind's going, I'm thinking I. There was something I supposed to do. There's something I supposed to do. And. And then you get wrapped up into trying to figure out and remember what it was you were supposed to be doing.

Right? And I'm saying record that as quickly as possible so you don't forget. and wow, there's one other thing about having those dedicated rest periods, and I've actually had a guy come back and tell me this himself. No cell phone right during that time, like, and I already knew that if you're engaging with the cell phone in a rest period, they won't let you get to the default mode where your body is restoring itself energetically for the day.

And he came back a week later and was like, hey, by the way, this one led to no neck that first week that I was doing some of those rest periods throughout the day and I like, wouldn't shut up about how like, great I felt. The next week I brought my cell phone and it didn't work. It's like, so whatever you coach on this, the next time, like make sure that they don't bring their cell phone for that.

I mean, they can bring it as a timer, but if you're interacting with it, you're not going to get the restorative energy that you need for the day. Right. And that's the other thing you bring up that's important. You know, like we all have, whether it's an iPhone or an Android or whatever, we've got it. I never put this by my bedside.

Never, ever, ever, ever. Right. Because if I did and I recorded into it, I literally then would be encouraged to go look at whatever was on the damn thing. So I think the idea that the woman told me where she had one of those, like, little digital recorders, this is probably the best, alternative. Yeah. They're cheap. They're super cheap.

Yeah. you know, get one. So no, you mentioned that. No to sleep plans are the same. And the idea of introducing a little anarchy into sleep solutions. How can people balance trying a structured sleep plan and allowing for flexibility and personalization? I've never had a structured sleep plan. I have a structured time, I go to bed and sometimes I fall asleep very quickly, and other times I don't.

But when I'm not falling asleep quickly, as you said, I will allow myself to get up and go downstairs and get a cup of tea, or walk around or go outside and get in the fresh air, do whatever it is that I need, and then I go back up to bed and I usually 90% of that time fall asleep.

Right. So what is this? What is this balancing between structured and flexible? Yeah, yeah. And I remember that question when you originally had it. And one of the things will sound funny when I say it, but don't come to a fight with one weapon. yeah. Load up, stack the deck I give. I'm not sure if I shared this with you before, but there's a Hindu god has called Durga and she said she is the one with the eight arms with eight different weapons.

I didn't share that last time, but that's okay. So. So my answer, my it's sort of part of my answer is that. So let's pretend that we were like, no, I really want to follow the traditional, endorsed sleep insomnia program from the National Science Academy. Okay. That's going to be CBT in my book. I would say, fine, use use to certain things that you liked.

I will also tell them don't use the journal exercise they give you. And I'll tell you exactly why in a moment. I'd also say we need to work on your physical environment. CBT says nothing about anything that has to do with your physical environment. Well, I've had people who've just adjusted things in their physical environment and had major changes to their sleep.

So to me, CBT is missing some things and also can make people miserable in other areas. But the first thing, if you really wanted their sleep restriction method, I always call it the surgery. The medical surgery of insomnia because a it can be very painful. It can be, a little stressful, and some people sometimes are terribly offended by it.

But if I had someone who was like, I'm dead set on using that, I'd be like, cool, let's use it. I've done it with several clients. Let's use that. But let's take a couple things from other places. And like I said to you, Greg, my thing to them is why is this whole thing going to work? Because we're stacking the deck in your favor.

We're not just going CBT alone. We're not just going hypnotist alone. We're looking. How many things can I add that really? It's just a matter of time that whatever that issue is, it's going to lose. It's going to fall away. It's going to disappear. In my work with people, sometimes I get the question like, what was the moment when your insomnia ended?

And I'm like, it's it doesn't really work that way. No, no, no. And and hopefully we can sneak back because I want to share an excerpt from a book and a little offer for your for your guys or your listeners is that when it comes to sleep issues, really for most people, I've had a couple people who were like, wow, you know, like, I did it for a week and I'm fine.

But for most of us, it's like shedding skin, you know? So once and I'm going to share this, this method that I used, I use this method over time. I can't even remember exactly when it finally, but I finally realized like, oh, it's over. It wasn't like I did the one, two, three for those 12 weeks and bam, that sleep issue that I was having when I woke up every three hours is gone now.

It just sort of, over time, sloughed off like skin, like a snake was scratching. Makes my aggression. Well, yeah. Because like gradual progression in the way you're explaining it, it's like, look, if we're having a pain or discomfort associated with the sleep and we psychologically need to alter and as you said, not just psychologically but physically, right. Physically alter our space psychologically, work on ourselves, hypnotherapist, physically work on yourself.

You know, chiropractic, PT, whatever the heck it is. The point is you're trying to get the body to this state. I'm just going to say it have kind of homeostasis, right? It's like, okay, I want to get to that homeostasis place because that's where I rejuvenate the cells in my body is like, okay, I'm rejuvenating myself. So I get that, you know, to come out of whatever you did, this insomnia for 17 days just didn't happen.

Like, boom, okay, I'm done, I'm done. I'm there. It was a gradual progression. And then you realize, hey, I'm sleeping through the night. This is kind of cool. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think that I think people get anxiety over, let's face it, the number one in my book, reason for Sleepless Nights, is anxiety over shit that we make up.

That's hardly ever going to come true. So if you're in the world of making stuff up, go ahead and make all that stuff up you want about, hey, my world is falling apart and my job so I'm going to get a job. Sucks. I'm not making enough money. I can't make my pay. My bills were you can go make all of that up.

But I can tell my listener years and years of insight, personal growth, 90% of that never comes true, right? At least not in the way you thought. No, not in the way you thought it was going to come through. So your idea around meditation, mindfulness, presence is so important. You know, I've been studying this for years and years and years, and it's not a matter of studying.

It's a matter of practicing you. Because now you just nailed one of the first things that and I and these little cards came in over of the week, a hundred mindful prompts for self-care and stress relief. We have good synergy moments. So one of the things was this, this came in from another author's author. There's also a book called Ideas Idea Space.

But I'm going to just just wait for a second. Hang on. Nick, we got time. We got a little bit of time. I'm gonna try and pull one of these cards out, and they're in categories, right? Because we actually, we screw ourselves up in categories. Right. so I'm just going to pull one up for the 100. Okay.

Look, on one side it says I don't know if you can read this. You probably can't listener. But I'm going to read. Oh it started it started to learn the rules like a pro so that you can break them like an artist. Pablo Picasso, do something daring today and he turn it over. strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many others lives.

What actions did you take today that have caused ripple effects? And what were the intentions behind them? Right itself. Writing prompt. They are. They're all. But they're also good mindfulness prompts because to be mindful of what it is that I'm doing, I want to be mindful of my intentions. So when you tell people to set intentions and be mindful, right, using that and and you like we said last time, remember this, I think I said it last time, act as if a camera was following you around 24 hours a day.

And did you like what you saw? No. You haven't. That's cool. I've not heard that before. And then if you didn't like what you saw, then what the hell are you going to change about it? Right? Right. So in other words, what is your day look like? What does next day look like? I'm going to do the following with my iPhone.

I'm going to take picture of them all day long and then I'll play it back for him. He's going to look ahead. He's going to go, wow, I didn't know I was doing that. I didn't know I was doing that right. Yeah. So those are the kind of things that if you're trying to I think in my humble opinion, I'm not the sleep coach here, but those are the things you're in good shape,

I said you're in good shape, Greg. Yeah, I was saying that those are the kind of things that affect me. Yeah. Number one, address this if you would. The self-imposed anxiety that we place on self, which affects our sleep. What are you going to tell the listeners about that? I would say grab the chatter, book a B, talk to a therapist, see what do you need to build in a pre-writing routine that happens in your nighttime routine before bed period?

Always the research is painfully there. It's way less. Yeah, prescription was painless, Mr.. Doctor. That was I. I literally spent like I think I think this one guy and I spent almost 4 or 5 hours on a session together. And at the end, he the both of us, I think, thought we're going to be dead exhausted by the end of this.

And instead, when we had his sort of nighttime and daytime routine set up based on this method that I was going to share with you today, we we both we were like, fine, because we realized what you just said. We're like, this is easy. We've structured it to be easy, even though it's going to be very powerful and impactful and work over the next several weeks.

It's easy. And that first, with clients, I would laugh at myself. I'm like, you would think I'm going to come out with this really sophisticated thing, but instead all I've done is said, you know, when the sun goes down, make sure you wear these these blue blocking glasses. Until bedtime. Now, you look really handsome, Greg, where are these?

And everything looks amazing. But after the sun goes down, throw these on, you know, 60 minutes before bed. Do your free writing and then the mindfulness thing or whatever, and then go to bed and put your CPAp thing on. I'm like, after all this, my recommendation is free writing. It took six years to be like, this is the thing that's going to help you the most with your ruminating thoughts, you know?

And and truth was in less than four weeks of of this guy is one guy that I was working with recently of just doing a little bit of free writing, even just talking to me about that. That was something on his mind has resolved. Yeah. Is resolved to nothing. And now he doesn't have to structure his nighttime sleep.

He just goes, oh, I just feel like it's time to go to sleep. And he does. And I'm like, bro, this is a big victory. Like a lot of people, we still have to be very regimented and like do things at certain times. Like you've now moved to a place where you're, you're you're listening to your body, you know, like he was down on himself and I'm like.

You're missing the victory. Yeah. And my goal for you is to not have to remember any of this crap that I teach you about sleep, because I think one of the points I wanted to make when I came back to your, to your show was that and this was a big turnaround, and it's something I want to give you, your audience for free, is that I learned sleep knowledge does not equal good sleep.

And I'll give you two examples. One, I'm going to read a short paragraph from a new book I have not published yet. And then from clients, Greg, I would have clients who, when they first meet me, are like, oh yeah, I know. And then they would tell me about sleep phases. There's the deep wave sleep phase. Then you transition into that and that would tell me all these things and I would listen and go, oh, that's cool.

Greg, how are you sleeping? Oh I'm not, you know, I'm I'm getting less than four hours of sleep. So it's like pretty clear. It's like, well, as much as, you know, it's not helping you. And I was in the same boat. And so I just want to share this little written piece. And then if we have time, I'll share quickly what the method is.

But if not, I got a cool offer for your listeners. So I wrote it hit me hard. They're in my home office, buried under an avalanche of sleep research and self-help books. When I realized something unsettling no pill, no medication app, and no midnight Reiki session was going to save me from my sleep disaster, my shelves were heaving under the weight of books with the highlighted pages.

Dog eared corners, and scribbled notes. Piles of scientific journals are stacked along the floors like monuments to my obsession. At that moment, I could see it was all for what it was a self-created sleep university. But here's the thing I was still a hollow, desperate insomniac for all of the facts and figures I crammed into my head. I wasn't any closer to getting a decent night's sleep.

And so I share that because, hey, if you feel like you know a lot about sleep, but you're not sleeping well now, you know one doesn't follow the other. Perfect, right? Right. There is no correlation there. Exactly. But we all think that there really is. so I'll leave it at that. But I'll say that there was a three part method that after I basically stopped all sleep research and started studying everything and anything on change and eventually came down to this three part method.

And I'm looking at our time, and I don't think we'll have time for me to share it with you, but where are you going to what do you want to give my listener? Yeah, I'm going to have a gift for him. They're all sitting there going, oh, this is guy's gift. Yeah. So, so so what? What? I came up with the art of doing the same thing I did to sleep.

But I did the change research. I came down to this little method called the habit lock. And so in this little 100 page book that I published, probably in a year from now, it's done. I actually share exactly the thing that I used, so that I reinforced these habits that are hard to reinforce by human nature, and eventually did release myself from insomnia that no doctor could help me with for two and a half years.

So my free thing for your listeners, because you're awesome and you had me come back, is if you email me Habit Lock, I will send you the unpublished book for free. The entire thing. It has so it has big myths about change that I do. And then it will go through exactly this little three part system. And why it when you calculate up all the percentages of probability of it working because of the different ones I put in, it gives you a 300% chance of success.

So I always ask, is that a good enough percent for you to to give it a whirl. Right. Do you need it any higher than that. So it's say it's good. So great. Well good. So we're going to have we're going to put your email address in the blog entry. and for all the listeners who are listening right now and want to write this down, just send it directly to Nick at Sleep fitness.com and then ask for the habit blocker, lock it right.

Habit lock. Habit lock I'm sorry. Habit lock. They don't have to say who you are. And I will reply and I will tell you the pre published full version okay. And Nick again pleasure having you back on the podcast. Pleasure. Speaking about some of the things that people could do that are very simple. Really quite simple. Yeah.

To improve their sleep quality to inst and to improve their sleep quantity, and for them to rejuvenate their bodies every night when they go to bed, because that's really what they're trying to do. So I want to thank you for all your wisdom and your knowledge and support and expertise and everything that you've provided to the listeners over the last two podcasts.

We'll post this along with the link to podcast number one, but thanks so much for being on insight, personal growth, and taking the time to be with the listeners today. I love being here. We love working with you, Greg. Take care. Take care. Chief. Namaste. Stay. Hi, brother.

Thank you for listening to this podcast on Inside Personal Growth. We appreciate your support. And for more information about New Podcast, please go to Inside Personal growth.com or any of your favorite channels to listen to our podcast. Thanks again and have a wonderful day.