Let’s break old habits and take back control of our circadian rhythm! Kayla Osterhoff explains how biohacking allows us to leverage our environment and behaviors to subconsciously create new neural pathways leading to a healthier lifestyle, including getting great sleep. Kayla Osterhoff, MPH is a current doctoral candidate, a biohacker, a global leader in integrative mind-body medicine, and is formally trained across the health sciences spectrum. From childhood to early adulthood, Kayla witnessed the cost and devastation of mental illness and addiction, but it acted as the catalyst for her health sciences career. She was determined to learn about the human body and understand why some people suffer illness and disease while others don't. She discovered that chronic illness and disease are not inevitable but can be prevented and cured through lifestyle. In this episode of Sleep is A Skill, Kayla gives us five simple biohacks to start doing tonight. Tune in now to learn how you can create a unique biohacking formula that works succinctly with your body.
BIO:
Kayla is a health scientist, professional athlete, entrepreneur, health optimization practitioner, and a global leader in integrative mind-body medicine. She is formally trained across the spectrum of health sciences with a bachelor of science in health ecology, master of science in public health, and currently pursuing her doctoral degree in neuropsychophysiology and biochemistry.
From childhood to early adulthood, Kayla witnessed the cost and devastation of mental illness and addiction. These experiences became the catalyst for her career in the health sciences. She was determined to learn about the human body and understand why some people suffer illness and disease while others don't. She discovered that chronic illness and disease are not inevitable but can be prevented and cured through lifestyle.
During undergrad, Kayla worked in physical therapy, gaining an appreciation for exercise science and movement modalities, which served as the basis for her athletic accomplishments. She went on to study behavioral science and public health in graduate school and worked for many years as a health scientist at CDC while studying for her Ph.D.
Her unique background and expertise across health sciences led her to develop a truly holistic understanding and approach for health optimization, peak performance, and the mind and body’s resilience.
EPISODE LINKS:
Web: https://www.biocuriouskayla.com
Course: https://untapped-mind.thinkific.com/courses/untapped-mind-short
SHOW NOTES:
🧬 Learn About the Core Principles of Biohacking
🧬 How to Change Your Lifestyle During COVID
🧬 The Positives and Negatives to Our Routine Behaviors During COVID
🧬 Easy Biohacks You Can Do For Free
🧬 Behaviors to Start Hacking Your Sleep
🧬 The Top Sleep Hygiene Practices
🧬 What Your Light Environment Should Look Like
🧬 How to Sync Up Your Circadian Rhythm With Nature
🧬 The Hypnotic State and How to Take Advantage Of It
🧬 What Gets Measured Gets Done - Why You Need to Track Your Sleep
🧬 Supplementing for Sleep: Melatonin Might Not Be the Answer
🧬 Guidelines for Eating Best Practices Before Bed
🧬 A Quick Formula for Biohacking
🧬 Setting Intentions to Put Your Subconscious Mind to Work
🧬 Creating Biohacking Goals That Are Specific to You
🧬 Biohacking Your Biochemistry Within the Body
Mollie McGlocklin - The Sleep Is A Skill Podcast - Ep 030
Sun, 1/17 10:09AM • 39:07
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
sleep, people, magnesium, important, asleep, health, stress, area, supplements, subconscious mind, create, parasympathetic nervous system, bio hacking, kayla, therapist, bio hacks, neuroplasticity, bed, readout, little bit
00:04
Welcome to the sleep as a skilled podcast. My name is Mollie McGlocklin. And I own a company that optimizes sleep through technology accountability and behavioral change. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from doctors, innovators and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Let's jump into your dose of practical sleep training.
00:35
Welcome to the sleep as a skilled podcast. My guest today is Kayla Ostroff. And if you follow her on social media, you might be connected to her by her kind of bio hacking handles, and she is going to bring to the show a bunch of different bio hacks that we can apply for our sleep results. Now a little bit about Kayla she is a health scientist, a professional athlete and entrepreneur, health optimization practitioner and a global leader in integrated Mind Body medicine. She is formally trained across a spectrum of Health Sciences with a Bachelors of Science in health ecology, Master of Science in public health and currently pursuing her doctoral degree in neuro psychophysiology and bio chemistry. Now we're gonna dive into a lot more about Kayla, what she's up to and how she takes on this area of sleep. From a skillset perspective, I think you're gonna really enjoy what she has to offer today. So let's jump in. Now before we get into the podcast, I do want to take a quick minute to give a shout out to our sponsor better help or as I like to call it a therapist in your pocket. It's the exact app that I use when I was going through my really challenging period of insomnia while traveling overseas. And the ability to maintain a consistent therapist in real life was just really not an option for me since we were jumping around from country to country. So the ability to with using my phone have video calls weekly with my therapist that was paired with it. For me, actually, I connected with a great therapist right off the bat. But I do know other people who have been able to kind of shop around with some of the therapists on that app until they find a great fit for them. And in between those calls, one of the things that I found was really helpful is that you can also send voice notes, text messages, images in between that you no longer weekly video call, so that you do have this really very real ongoing connection and support that I certainly at least in my experience hadn't felt with real life therapists that I've used in the past. And also the pricing structure is much more competitive than a lot of the real life therapists that you can come into contact with. So I found it to be a lot of benefits. I recommend it to a lot of people that are just kind of going through struggles in their life, or just simply want to be able to uplevel and get bringing that level of reflection and awareness into their life, about what's both working and not working. And you can certainly cancel at any time and for our sleepy community, the better help company has hooked us up with 10% off if you go to better help.com forward slash sleep is a skill again, better help calm forward slash sleep is a skill. And welcome to the sleep as a skill Podcast. I am so grateful to have you here today. Thank you so much for taking the time.
03:25
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It's nice to be on the other side of the podcast table.
03:33
Yes, exactly. I know you have your own very cool podcasts. And you know, I was able to take a quick look at that. And lots of great guests all kinds of interesting information there. So I cannot wait to hear more about what you've got going on. And so I think it's a great place for us to start is starting at the beginning your origin story of how you got into this arena. And of course how that plays into our favorite topic over here of sleep.
04:02
Yes, absolutely. And thank you again for having me on. This is one of my all time favorite topics to talk about. And it's definitely something that is really relevant to me personally, specifically for sleep. I am an athlete, and I'm a health scientist and I'm a bio hacker. And so sleep is really relevant in all of those categories as well as overall general health and wellness. But a little bit about my background is I am a health scientist and I am well known as a bio hacker. And I kind of focus on holistic bio hacking in my field of work. Most of what I do is around education. I formerly worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years in global health. And I worked kind of across the spectrum there I worked mostly in infectious disease and the responses so like the Zika response and the Ebola response and left right When the corona response was happening, and now I am focused fully on my health optimization medicine practice, which does touch on sleep a lot as far as the biochemistry and neuro chemistry of sleep with my clients, but I also have a lot of educational materials out there and do a lot of speaking and workshops and that kind of thing around the world.
05:24
Wow, very cool. I did not realize that background. And I'm sure particularly comes in handy on what is going on globally at the moment as it relates to Corona. And I can't wait to hear more about, you know, some of your, you know, the take on that as we get so many questions around sleep, and what's happening right now, maybe we can just actually touch on that real quick and give your thoughts and some of the things that you're seeing as it relates to that and how it's been impacting people's sleep. And you know, the impact on their immune system and the whole world of it.
05:59
Yeah, so it's really interesting, you know, this is a novel virus, meaning that we've never seen this specific one before. So of course, on the science side, it's very new, we're still studying it, we're still trying to understand it, but it is very much a lifestyle disease, right. So a lifestyle virus, unlike many others that we've seen before, meaning that the people who are impacted, did the most have an unhealthy lifestyle, and a lot of that has to do with high levels of stress, a lack of sleep and a lack of general wellness practice. And so what's really interesting about all of this that I've really honed in on and trying to educate my audience and my clients about is that this experience has provided two unique opportunities to create and hardwire into our brain and our subconscious mind, healthy habits. So one is when you experience a traumatic event, whether it be positive or negative, something that is very excitable, emotional, like Coronavirus, it actually puts you into a state of hypnosis where your subconscious mind is highly programmable. So whether or not we want to be in that state we are if we are being affected like most people are by Coronavirus, and all the changes that have happened around it. And it's also very scary. And we're afraid for our own health and our family's health. And we're afraid for our jobs and what's going to happen to the economy and all this stuff. So that automatically puts you into a state of hypnosis. And so again, your subconscious mind is more easily programmable. And that's important because we behave 95 or more percent of the day, out of our subconscious thinking we're only in our conscious mind about 5% of the day or less. So it's really important to understand how our subconscious mind determines our behaviors. And that includes sleep. So if sleep is a habit that we want to get into right now is actually an excellent time to start focusing on it. Because we can more easily make this habit because our mind is a little bit more programmable. And the other thing is when we're pushed out of our normal routines, and we do things differently, even something as easy as brushing your teeth with the wrong hand. But definitely with the Coronavirus, changing up our whole routines, we're doing things online that we used to do in person, it makes our brain you can actually change the shape of your brain, meaning you can create neural pathways more easily, your brain becomes more plastic neuroplasticity. So that's another great opportunity to hardwire in new habits and behaviors. Now on the opposite side, it is also worth mentioning that if we spend this time in anxiety, fear, stress, overwhelm poor sleep, then unfortunately, we risk really hardwiring those habits into our neural pathways and our subconscious mind. So it can go either way. But if we want to leverage the benefits, then we can start to do these more positive habits. Oh, wow. Yes, I
09:21
so resonate with everything you're saying, because that's one of the things I found. There's a good old personal development book of something to the nature of the title being when everything changes, change everything, and just sort of that, you know, that approach or that overall mind shift to that, of course, it can be challenging, because I know so many people are dealing with a lot of different levels of perceived suffering, of course in what's happening right now and real suffering. And yet at the same time, I love that you're speaking to the silver lining that's available in that we can actually kind of reconfigure our relationship to some of these really foundational things that Overtime, of course can help make the difference in our ability to stave off, you know, diseases like this one or other ones that that is really, really crucial. And then, of course, in our day to day life, the experience of improving that sleep and what kind of the fallout is with that. So, I know you have so much information and so much wisdom to see even in our first you know, before we started recording, I love that you spoke to that there are so many things for free for no money that we can make. Yay,
10:27
Yes, exactly.
10:28
And that really resonates with me, I grew up with not a lot of money and money was often a barrier to or perceived barrier to what was available to me. So I'm so grateful that you are speaking to this very important topic. And what there is that we can do from a behavioral standpoint, and what have you, that doesn't cost a thing or, or low cost. So let's dive into some of those things. Because I know there's so much that we can do in the area of sleep. But what are some of those top things that youth that you speak to or point to that are very achievable for anyone?
11:01
Yeah, so I like to call these sleep bio hacks. And just for I know, your audience is probably pretty familiar with bio hacking. But really, the core principle of bio hacking is changing your environment so that you can have control over your biology for a specific health outcome. So if we look at sleep, and we want to biohack sleep, so sleep can be a bio hack in and of itself. But also, if we want to look at biohacking sleep to improve it, then what we're doing is we're changing our environment, internal and external, so that we can have better control over our biology and optimize it for better, more restful sleep. So like you said, my favorite sleeps are my favorite bio hacks for sleep are free. And so I kind of put them in into five categories. So the first one is your physical sleep environment. So we're talking about, you know, the tangible environment around you. And so the best ways to control that for optimal sleep is to make yourself asleep cave of sorts, where you want to make it as dark as possible. So you can get blackout curtains, or you can wear some kind of sleep mask. I like the Manta sleep mask, there's other ones out there, but something that will really block out all the lights. And if you do have some sort of like blue light glowing in your room, then you would want to cover that up with maybe some red tape or something. The other thing is you want to keep the room cool, around 68 degrees and below is optimal for sleeping, a lot of people will leave their rooms more hot than that. So maybe like 70 to 75. But definitely 68 is really the highest you want your room temperature to be when you're sleeping, and then quiet or having some sort of static noise can help you to sleep and stay asleep without distraction. And then also make sure that your your sleeping area is really comfortable in a place that you want to be in. So you can you know, put on some essential oil diffuser or something that will make it really inviting, get some really comfy bedding, hopefully non toxic, and yeah, so I think that's the best way to control your external environment for sleep. But the next one is sleep hygiene. And these are kind of behavioral components, right. So you want to get to bed at the same time every day and wake up around the same time every day, you really don't want to shift that timing by more than 20 minutes. So oftentimes, we'll have like a totally different sleep schedule on the weekend than we have during the week. And that really does harm your sleep. And it kind of knocks us out of our circadian rhythm, which I know you've you've covered on previous episodes of the podcast. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But the other thing is sleeping in rhythm with the rising and setting of the sun, you want to sleep basically when it's dark outside if you have control over that and if you don't have control over that you want to create a an area that feels like it is at night and that there is no light coming in. The other one is simple things go pee before you go to bed so that you don't have to wake up.
14:13
Yes,
14:14
wine. Yeah, wind your mind down before bed, do a meditation, do a little restful breath work something that will activate your parasympathetic nervous system. Or you can use like a self hypnosis, that's something that I work with my clients on and I'm certified as a clinical hypnotist. And then just getting eight hours of sleep, we're really aiming for eight hours of sleep per night. So the third category that I would cover would be setting kadian rhythm sinking so I know that many of your audience are familiar with the circadian rhythm. But that's basically again waking up with a son and going to bed when the sun sets or around that time, but it's also about the time timing of your other behaviors during the day. So you really don't want to eat too close to bedtime. And you really don't want to drink too close to bedtime. And you really don't want to exercise too close to bedtime. So these are also ways that you can sync with the natural rhythm of nature, which will help your body to regulate and be able to get to a more restful state of sleep, when you do go to sleep. You also want to be mindful of your light environment. So you know, once it gets dark outside, oftentimes, we turn on the LED lights that have a lot of blue spectrum light. And that actually signals to our body and our hormones that it's daytime and our body gets confused and says, Oh, well, I was going to start producing melatonin to go to sleep. But now that I got the signal that it's daytime, I'm going to produce some cortisol, some stress hormone to keep me awake. So it's really important to kind of be mindful of your light sources. And that means overhead lights, or what's going into your eyes looking at a screen, you can use red screen covers that kind of block out the blue spectrum of light. And you can get canned essent light bulbs that will not have that blue spectrum of light to signal to your hormones that it's daytime. The fourth area is this one is fun, and it does cost a little bit of money. But there's a free way to do it as well. So tracking your sleep, I think is really key because as a health scientist, I know this and I know that you all as biohackers know this, what gets measured gets done. So we can't really know how restful our sleep is unless we track it. And there's many ways to do that you can use any kind of wearable I think even a Fitbit does this. Now I use a bio strap. I know a lot of people are out using aura ring, Garmin, I think has one as well. But something that will track your sleep not only duration, but your quality of sleep. So you want to know how often you're waking up in the night, you want to know how much light and deep sleep you're getting. You also want to know what your blood oxygen level is, what your respiration rate is, what your heart rate is, and what your heart rate variability HRV This is the most important metric is because your heart rate variability is your metric that you look out to know how well rested you are. This tells you how ready you are for the activities of the day, or how well adapted you will be to stress. So I can't stress that one enough tracking sleep is so important to really know how the quality of your sleep how well you are actually sleeping. And the fifth one is supplements. And this one again costs a little bit of money. But a lot of people think that if I want to go to sleep, naturally, they're going to say, Oh, I should take melatonin, right? Because Melatonin is the hormone that is going to prepare your body and help you to fall asleep, it starts to set in that parasympathetic nervous system and allows you to relax and eventually fall asleep. But what I would prefer is to take the precursors to melatonin so your body can produce it naturally. So some of those really important precursors are vitamin B six, magnesium, and tryptophan, which is an essential amino acid. These are what your body needs to create melatonin, so that you can then eventually fall asleep. So if you have to take melatonin for on occasion, that's fine. But I would prefer training your body how to make it on its own over a long period of time if you need that extra boost to fall asleep. But some other things that can be really helpful are adaptogens, which will also help you to get into that parasympathetic nervous system mode. And my favorites are ashwagandha and holy basil are really good for that calming effect that it can have on your nervous system. And then things like CBD can be really helpful. Anything that kind of helps you to calm your body. And I also want to mention for those who are on different, you know, restrictive diets that might restrict carbohydrates. I like to personally and this is really important for women as well. I like to save my carbohydrates for my evening meal, or the majority of my carbohydrates for my evening meal, because that gives you that feeling of relaxation, and can actually help you to initially fall asleep. But again, you don't want to eat too close to bedtime because then your body's too busy trying to digest and it won't be able to fall asleep. So I know that was like a firehose of bio hacks, but those are my big categories and most of those are free or very cheap.
19:59
Yes, oh my goodness, I love all that. And out of all those things that you spoke to one of the things that I find that people seem to have one of the biggest areas of pushback, or just the difficulty in making this happen, I don't know about you, but some of one of the ones that sticks out to me is the eating earlier. So when you speak to eating earlier, what is some of the guidelines or thinking that you have people practice with that, and then some strategies to help make that kind of behavioral shift?
20:34
Yeah, that's a really important one that I think a lot of folks don't realize is important and really has a major impact on your sleep. Once you start wearing a wearable, you will be amazed by the difference if you shift your eating window to further away from sleep. So one thing that I just want to mention is the most restful hours of sleep, based on sleep research studies are between the hours of 11pm and 2am. So you really want to be asleep fully asleep during those hours. So I typically recommend, if possible, to try to get into bed around 10pm, especially if it takes you a while to fall asleep. So that you can be fully asleep by 11pm. And stay asleep through those, that window of really restful sleep. So if your bedtime goal is 10pm, then I would recommend backing up three hours from that. And that would be where you would want your latest food to happen. So whether that be you know, a lot of people be like, Oh, well, I eat dinner at five, but then they have maybe dessert at 9pm or, or late night snack. So if whatever your last bit of food is going to be try to make that three hours prior to your actual bedtime.
21:51
Yeah, oh, my goodness, I completely agree with that one. I do early time restricted feeding schedules. So then do those nice and early. And you know, of course with for women being mindful of different parts in your cycle and get a little bit of strategy around the stress levels of that because you know, I'll go more aggressive, aggressively early at some points of the of the cycle and can be Yeah, you can really see the benefit for your sleep when you do play with that and test that out. So I love that you're speaking to that. Do you have any strategies for people that as they make that habit change, to shift over to, you know, just the mental obstacle that goes into for many people, I've found that it's just sort of this passive thing? Oh, well, I'm used to being able to just nibble on something and those hours before bed. Yeah. Have you found any winning strategies around that?
22:39
Yeah. So something that I actually teach and what I touched on with the whole Coronavirus, and how our subconscious mind plays a role in behaviors and our neuroplasticity plays a role in behaviors. Well, the same thing goes with if you want to change your eating habits, right. So the way that I like to do this, and the most powerful way is to really tap into that subconscious programming to change it. And also to work on creating those new neural pathways. So one way is repetition, right, but I actually teach my clients and I have a course that's all about this changing your brain and your subconscious mind to create the habits that you want to create and the life that you want to create. So one is using the benefits of neuroplasticity. So you can actually trigger neuroplasticity by doing new things, having new experiences that you wouldn't normally have. So, and also repetition as well. But if you can kind of trigger that neural plasticity, and then you create that new neural pathway, which is eating at a different time of day, and then you stick to that for a while so that you can have some repetition there, then eventually that will become your new neural pathway, and the old neural pathway will kind of fade away. And the other thing is the subconscious programming. So if you have some sort of programming, and we all do we have these underlying subconscious programs running right, and if, let's say your family always ate really late at night, or if your upbringing kind of programmed you to seek food for comfort and to to like calm yourself down and relax, then you want to kind of explore that programming and the best way to do it is to do like a self guided hypnosis. So you can listen to a hypnosis recording, and try to focus on with the intention of focusing on what is this pattern? Where does where is the initial pattern come from? And then how can I re pattern that and it's definitely more complex than that. And I kind of go into all of that in my step by step course. But if you can repattern those programs, and you can use neural plasticity to your advantage, then you have a really powerful way to create a new habit very quickly and The other thing I mentioned is you can actually use your sleep as an extra bonus to really reprogram your subconscious mind by, let's say you want to eat earlier, and you're not quite able to do it yet. But before you go to sleep, just jot down the intention. My intention for my subconscious to work on tonight while I'm sleeping is trying to create a new behavior of eating earlier in the day, I want to eat at 5pm instead of 8pm, or whatever it may be, write that down, and then forget about it and go to bed. And with that intention, you're It's crazy how much your subconscious mind can kind of work in the background without you having to consciously really do anything.
25:44
Hmm, I love that one I have not had have a single person mentioned that concept around kind of creating, setting your intentions before bed. I think that's really powerful. You know, people will speak to the old adage is of sleep on it, you know, kind of let it meditate, a little marinate all those different isms. But I think that's a really cool way to further have this area of our lives that we do a third of our life, to really have that be working with us in alignment with all these changes that we're looking to take on. That's really, really powerful. So is that something that you do regularly? Or is that you're just dealing with something as a part of your nightly routine?
26:24
Yeah, so part of my nightly routine is I'll do a little breathwork calming breath work, where if you let your out breath be longer than your in breath, then that activates that parasympathetic nervous system. So I'll do a little bit of that I might do a little meditation or self guided hypnosis. And then yet right before bed, I'll just jot down a little intention. And it's so crazy how your mind will kind of work it out for you while you're sleeping.
26:49
Oh, yeah, that's so interesting. Very cool. Okay, so then I like to how you underscored the importance of tracking your sleep? Yeah, I completely agree that it's such an interesting thing, how much? You know, we're, we're looking to how sleep was before for many 1000s of years. And yeah, hunter gatherer days, and all these ways when we were super connected to the rhythms of nature. And for many of us, we're not going Pandora's box is open, where we're very technologically inclined,
27:19
we're not going to go live in the desert with no technology. I mean, that would be great. But it's not going to happen, you know?
27:27
Exactly. Highly unlikely. So within that, how do we make friends with this technology to actually help this to get out of a little bit of the mess that we've created for ourselves as particularly in the Western world around this deficient or lack in Sleepers of consistency, and by bringing in this element of tech. So what I love that you would call that the importance around HRV, and blood oxygen level respiratory rate, for those people who maybe have Inklings around that, or maybe frustrations around some of those readouts? What are some of your ways of understanding and reading and understanding those metrics, and parsing out what to do if certain readouts aren't favorable to where you're looking to? To get them?
28:12
Yeah, so one thing that I think people really struggle with, and something that I think the biohacking community is very guilty of is pushing a one size fits all goal to everyone. And that's just not feasible, right. So my suggestion is get your wearable measure for a few nights, write down what your baseline is, right. And then pick a percentage of improvement that you want. So for instance, if your respiration rate is at 18, or 20, if that is pretty high, then make your goal to be 16. And then see if you can improve over time. Same thing with heart rate variability, this is my biggest pet peeve where some of these big biohacker guys, they happen to be usually guys come on to Instagram or YouTube or whatever, and they're like, you have, you have to try to work to get 150 HRV, this is the best score, this is what you should strive for. If you don't have that score, then your sleep is
29:11
poor, right?
29:12
That's not the case. If your heart rate variability, if your baseline is 35, and you get up to 55, that's excellent. So you really want to improve from your own baseline, and don't let the pressures of other people get to you.
29:28
That's a very good point, particularly in that HRV conversation, and so much goes into that number and yes, gender, age range health, you know, your environment, as you know, so it's such a nuanced area. So to stress yourself out around that of something that kind of gives a readout of your stress. kind of ironic. Yeah, yeah, totally. Got that. Okay. So you'll suggest having that tracking system and then creating those goals around that and stepping In towards making a difference with that. And part of what you spoke to on those top, you know, kind of five things are how to make some of the consistent changes to make that available in the supplements category. How do you have people proceed with that? do you suggest, like testing beforehand? Or do you think there's certain elements that work? That would be great for a lot of people to take on? What is your approach?
30:27
Yeah, so my preferred approach is for especially my clients, I recommend that they get a full metabolic panel done so that we can check out what's going on with your micronutrients and their biochemistry and how that's working. So I do that with my health optimization medicine clients. But you know, it can be pretty expensive, because you have to pay to get all of these comprehensive labs, and it takes a lot of work to unravel all of it. And you may end up needing quite a few supplements, which you know, is great to know and put your finger on exactly what it is and what the dose is the proper dosages. But if folks can't afford that, then magnesium is one that I would recommend to anyone because it is neuroprotective. And it really helps to kind of keep that parasympathetic nervous system able to be active, and it is very calming. So there are different types of magnesium. So typically, I'll ask somebody, are you supplementing with magnesium? And if the answer is no, it's a very, very, very high chance, especially if they are an American with an American diet and an American lifestyle, that their magnesium is depleted. So that one is a safe one for basically anyone unless they have some allergy to it, which I don't know if that's possible. If essentially it is, then I think magnesium is a safe one for anyone to supplement with. And I really like l 318. That one is very good for your brain function. But there are other types out there. So just you can play around with it. And you can just start with like a cheaper version. As long as it's magnesium. It can be citrate like Nate three and eight, whatever it may be. And then you can kind of play around with it and see which one works best for you. Some people have a better reaction to different types than others. So again, I think there is no one size fits all, I think kind of playing around and testing it out for yourself is
32:27
the best option. Yes, no, I think that's a really, really identify with your approach on that, who gets really important. So the goal, of course test and get the full readout so that we know are dealing with and then if you're going to recommend kind of one item to begin supplementing with I think that is a very wise assessment that magnesium can be one of those. What about for those people that they get back the metabolic panel and they are deficient in magnesium, which, you know, we'll have a lot of clients that will come our way that will know this to be the case, and then the frustration of but I'm supplementing with magnesium and it's still not budging. How is your experience been with that for people and some of the approach to help change those numbers and influence those numbers?
33:18
Yeah, so
33:19
typically, folks are, if they're if they're working with me, they usually have some sort of symptom, or they're trying to reach peak performance, and they're hitting kind of a plateau. And so that's kind of a sign that there is some metabolic issue, and that there's probably some mitochondrial dysfunction. And so if you're familiar with the citric acid cycle, the Krebs cycle, which actually is involved in your cellular respiration, your cellular energy, right production, magnesium is a cofactor in almost every step. So it's really important, but it also gets used up. So if you have any dysfunction anywhere along that cycle, typically it is going to really use up that magnesium and another thing is stress, whether it be like physical stress, or emotional stress, and all these things are causing oxidative stress, cellular damage, that is also going to deplete your magnesium. So a lot of times people have to do a pretty hefty dose, but the best way is to take magnesium along with doing some stress hacks, right. So you really it's really about managing your stress level, whether it be use stress, which is positive stress, like physical activity or you know, being very vigilant at work, or if it's emotional stress, or if it's just you know, daily stresses of life. Managing that stress with things like meditation or exercising which exercising is a tricky one because it can also cause level of stress, but things that can really lower your stress level or help you manage your stress, sleep being one of them is really important to keep those magnesium levels up. Wow, so
35:13
good. Oh, my goodness, you're giving so much information in here. And I have
35:17
a
35:18
feeling that anyone that's listening to all this wisdom that you've imparted is going to want to know more about you and what you're offering. And I know you'd mentioned how you have a course and you've few different pathways that people can really dive in more and work with you. So what are some of those ways that they can be a part of what you got going on? Yeah. So
35:38
first, I'll point out the free ones, because everybody loves that, right? Yeah, I have a podcast is called bio curious. And like you I bring on health scientists and different experts in the field of health and wellness. And we deep dive into different topics across the field of health and wellness and holistic biohacking. So that's a great resource, and it's free. And also, my Instagram page is somewhere where I provide lots of education and free resources there. So definitely check that out. My handle is at bio curious underscore Kayla. And then if you want to check out my website, I have a co op, a biocurious Co Op membership where I have in depth biohacking guides and community resources. And different right now they're all online events for the members. So that's a that's a very inexpensive offering. And then I also have my course that I just released recently, which is called untapped mind. And it talks all about that subconscious programming, and neuroplasticity. And I can provide the links to all of this stuff. Yes,
36:51
totally.
36:52
And I do, I do have a health optimization medicine practice where I work directly one on one with folks. And that is by application. And I actually don't have any slots available right now. But I will have one opening up soon. So if folks are interested in that, just inquire to me, you can shoot me an email at biocurious Kayla at gmail, or you can direct message me on Instagram. And I'll get right back to you. And I can provide more information about that.
37:22
Oh, so great. Yeah, we had the opportunity to connect on Instagram. And definitely, definitely follow her. And check out all these cool offerings. She's often putting out lots of cool information. And I really appreciated your visuals on the circadian rhythm on your Instagram, which I thought was so so well. Well done. Thank you. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I really appreciate you taking the time and on this shared missions, always great to connect with more people that are really out to make a difference in this. So So underrepresented area. And I think that this is just you know, we've only scratched the surface on all the information that you have. So thank you so much for taking that time.
38:06
Absolutely. Thank you, again, so much for having me on and any chance that I can, you know, help and join forces with somebody who has the same mission to really move the needle forward for folks on their health and wellness. I'm always excited to do it. So thank you for offering the opportunity.
38:21
Awesome. No, it was a pleasure. So thank you, and then we'll have to have some sort of part two in the future. Maybe we'll do an ID live or something to further spread this information. So this is great.
38:32
That would be awesome. Let's
38:33
do it.
38:34
Awesome. You've been listening to the sleep is a skill podcast, the number one podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday I send out something that I call Molly's Monday obsessions containing everything that I'm obsessing over in the world of sleep, head on over to sleep as guild comm to sign up