BIO: Dr. Sutton is interested in helping patients find and avoid genetic landmines, and get to the root cause of their health problems as naturally as possible. She has written two cutting-books, the most recent one is The Iron Curse. She also teaches workshops of various health topics such as iron disorders, methylation, brain health, heart health, and much more.
SHOWNOTES:
😴 Low vs. high iron: What’s the real difference in symptoms, and why can both wreck your sleep?
😴 Ferritin ranges decoded: Why Dr. Christy keeps it under ~100, and how men vs. women differ
😴 Your iron panel & action steps: Which labs to request, what ranges to note, and how to talk to your clinician
😴 High iron, low ferritin: When can genes or hemolysis create this confusing picture?
😴 Hemochromatosis wake-up call: How can unaddressed iron overload hit brain, liver, hormones—and sleep?
😴 Brain on Iron: How do Gaba and melatonin suffer when iron goes too high?
😴 Supplement timing: Why morning b vitamins and the right magnesium type matter for sleep
😴 Metabolic rhythm: How blood sugar swings, cortisol spikes, and protein timing shape your nights
😴 Sleep discipline & devices: Could routine and phone boundaries move the needle more than hacks?
😴 Sleep alliance, not “sleep divorce” (see our podcast with Dr. Troxel for more on this) What if separate rooms or staggered bedtimes save everyone’s sleep?
😴 How did progesterone become Dr. Christy’s surprise sleep needle-mover?
😴 Learn more: Dr. Christy’s book “the iron curse”, courses, and ongoing resources for complex cases
😴 And so much more!
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GUEST LINKS:
Website: https://www.drchristysutton.com/
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DISCLAIMER:
The information contained in this podcast, our website, newsletter, and the resources available for download are not intended to be medical or health advice and shall not be understood or construed as such. The information contained on these platforms is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
Welcome to the Sleep As a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as A Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world. Thinks about sleep.
Each week I'll be interviewing world-class experts, ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health, and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.
Welcome to the Sleep Is a Skill podcast. If you've ever looked at your labs and thought everything's normal, so why am I not sleeping? Well, today's episode is for you. In that case, we're going straight to the root causes with Dr. Christy Sutton, a clinician and author who specializes in helping patients.
Bought genetic landmines before they explode into full-blown health issues. She's written two cutting edge books, including her latest, the Iron Curse, and Teaches deeply practical workshops on iron disorders, methylation, brain and heart health, and more. What I love about Dr. Sutton is that her wisdom is lived, not just learned.
She's navigated her own low iron journey with Crohn's and Celiac and plot twist uncovered her husband's undiagnosed, hereditary hemochromatosis, and later a cortisols. Spiking pituitary tumor. That personal and clinical 360 gives her a rare lens on how iron genetics and hormones can quietly hijack sleep.
Today we unpack the iron sleep connection beyond restless legs. Hello, ferritin and iron saturation. What to test, what ranges matter, and when inflammation muddies the waters. When donate blood is helpful and when you need a deeper workup. Cortisol Timing 1 0 1. Why 2:00 AM wake-ups happen and how Blood sugar stability, think protein forward meals and B vitamins earlier in the day sets up.
Better nights, perimenopause insights. Why progesterone move the needle for her own sleep. Real life. Sleep alliances at home, creating routines that actually work for your family. So grab a notebook. This one's rich with takeaways that you can bring to your next lab review. So we're gonna jump right into the episode, but burst a few words from our sponsors.
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If you wanna give it a try, go to buy optimizers.com/sleep as a skill and use the code, sleep as a skill to get gifts with your purchase. And this is a limited time offer, but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results. Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. Today's episode is going to be a delight.
We're gonna get into the weeds on a number of different topics to help support your sleep, but most notably, iron and how iron can play a role in your sleep results. So Dr. Christie Sutton, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you today. Yes, I'm excited to have you here.
I've had the honor and privilege of having consultations with you around some questions around my own iron. So I've gotten to see your knowledge displayed front and center, and I've been a big fan of your work for a long time, so it's really a privilege to have you here. So maybe just beginning at the beginning of how did you find yourself an expert in this area of iron and beyond?
Yeah, so
personally it was. Uh, kind of combination of my personal and professional experiences. So, personally, I struggled with low iron issues because I have, uh, Crohn's and celiac disease and, um, have a part of my small intestine that was taken out that, um, affects a lot of absorption issues. So I've struggled with like low nutritional issues, um, which have.
Made me learn a lot about nutrition and be interested in, you know, the nutrition labs, all that good stuff. Um, and then in chiropractic school, so I'm a chiropractor in chiropractic school, we'd learn a lot about labs and then I took a lot of extra classes. And then when I got out of school, um, I would order a lot of labs, including the Iron Labs and I.
Was more focused on the low iron piece, but occasionally I'd see somebody that had, um, like a high ferritin and I would say, well, you should go donate blood. But then I wouldn't really say much other than that. I didn't have a lot of value to add as far as, you know, long-term management or really why this is happening.
Um, and I would, you know, know, okay, too much iron for with high ferritin, but I didn't even really understand. How important it's to look at the rest of the iron panel. So, um, that change my understanding grew much deeper when I married a man with undiagnosed hereditary hemochromatosis.
Mm-hmm.
And, um, I discovered he had hereditary hemochromatosis when I was writing this book about genes.
Um, which name is far too long to mention, but it's a book about genetic testing and it has the hemoch, it has two of the hemochromatosis genes in there. And then I created a genetic report to go along with that. And I realized, oh, in the process of all this, like my husband has this gene. And that makes sense because maybe that's why he has.
Whenever he brings his labs home from his doctor, he'll have high hemoglobin or high hematocrit, or high ferritin or, um, that could even be why his liver enzymes are high sometimes. And, um, so, and so he's had, this was, this was a long time ago. This was probably like around the time my daughter got born, which is about 2013.
So, um. He, he was seeing a primary care doctor that was not doing anything about these labs. The labs were ordered, never discussed, and then my husband would bring 'em home, put 'em on the table, and I'd say, oh no, this isn't good. You need to like donate blood. So he'd periodically donate blood, which is in many cases the right thing to do.
But he wasn't really being managed and then he wasn't donating enough and his liver and enzymes kept going up and his iron kept going up, his ferritin kept going up and um, I mean, he just wasn't feeling good. And so I. We finally went through the process of getting him properly diagnosed and we were fir we first went to the gastroenterologist and that was like a huge waste of time.
Um, they just took us down this misdiagnosis rabbit hole, even though like I presented the labs and the genes and I was said, Hey, you know, I think he, these, he's got these genes and I'm wondering if maybe it's the iron that's causing the liver enzymes to be high. And, and he was having some GI issues, which is also very common with.
Hemochromatosis and then the gastroenterologist took us down this misdiagnosis rabbit hole, which wasted all this time. And then finally we got, and I should probably insert this detail, we got referred to the hematologist because I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, my own back. I'm just trying to like give people my story, which I think this is an important detail.
Finally, we got out of the misdiagnosis rabbit hole. Because I had ordered a lab, um, to retest and see if my husband had autoimmune hepatitis because he had been told he had autoimmune hepatitis and he needed to be on this drug for a year, and then they would retest. And so I was, you know, the inpatient clinician wife trying to kind of figure out what's going on.
So then I ordered these labs to show that he didn't have autoimmune hepatitis, like that lab was negative, but he had, um, uh, what he had was, uh, his iron kept going up, his liver kept going up, and his liver enzyme kept going up. So he was getting all this damage and so I took her to the gastroenterologist and they were like, oh, misdiagnosis, okay, we'll take you to the hematologist.
So anyways, we go to the hematologist. Properly, you know, managed, diagnosed, all that good stuff. He has high iron, has the genes, and then we, um, this is an important part of the story for your podcast. Mm-hmm. And then, um, we get diagnosed later because I'm running all these labs and he has high DHEA and occasionally high cortisol and.
We think, okay, all of his problems are gonna get better when we get the iron better. And a lot of them did. Like his liver got better in many ways. His energy got better. His testosterone came up a lot. Um, but then there was this DHEA, which is an adrenal hormone, and cortisol was, which is an adrenal hormone, which I was the only one that ever ran those, but.
And trying to be thorough. I ran them and he would occasionally be high on those and those didn't come down. And so we went to the endocrinologist and. He, um, had Cushing, he had a tumor, a pituitary tumor that was causing him to have, um, Cushing's disease, which is a disease where you produce too much cortisol and it's, you're typically thought of as like, you have all this cortisol and you can get real swollen and everything.
But he was presented in a way that it wasn't typical, like it wasn't easy to diagnose. He didn't have. Check all the boxes. And so the first conversation with endocrinologist was me like saying, I think he might have Cushings. And she was like, no, that's not it. And then he ended up having Cushings and it was a whole to do, to do.
But yeah. So I can talk a lot about how cortisol affects your life and your sleep and you know, DHEA and hemochromatosis. And then as a clinician, you know, I can talk a lot about how. What I use clinically to help people with their sleep. So yeah, I mean, there's lots of different things we can talk about.
Totally. Okay, well one, I so appreciate you sharing that story and thankful that you were able to take the initiative because who knows what would've happened without all of that in the background of you supporting getting that information and getting that answer eventually for your husband. So that's.
Incredible. And then maybe we can begin on what you've uncovered because as you pointed to, you had this lens around for yourself of low iron and other people that you've worked with, and maybe a bit more prevalent conversation around low iron. But then here comes this conversation around high iron and ferritin levels.
So. Maybe just starting there around what you see, how that can impact sleep. So when we hear about iron, most commonly, one of the things that people will speak to is around restless leg syndrome and iron issues there. But sometimes we might not hear much else around sleep and iron. So just curious if you have any other call, its there and then we can shift over to the other areas that you were speaking to.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think like, uh, for low iron, restless legs is really common. Magnesium can also be like a cause of restless legs, but low iron's a big one. I mean, I think with low iron, it's like you're just kind of very tired often just because you're low in iron and you're not getting enough oxygen to your tissues, so you're just.
Like very tired. You need to take naps. You, you know, never really feel a hundred percent rested. You're not like, enthusiastic about life. Um, now that can happen with high iron too. Um, it's just a different cause that can basically. You know, with high enough levels of iron, your brain gets damaged. Your, and if you don't, if your brain gets damaged, you're not gonna be making like the neurotransmitters you need.
So you're not gonna be making the GABA you need for sleep or like the dopamine you need for focus. And if your brain gets damaged, you're not gonna be able to make, uh, actually, the melatonin. When hemochromatosis damages the brain, you're not gonna be able to make, uh, the pineal gland's, not gonna make melatonin as much as it should and be as responsive to it.
Um, the pituitary gland is not going to work as well, so it's not, your pituitary gland is really important for, uh, controlling your cortisol levels and your DHEA levels and, you know, other things. But, um, so. With high and low iron, you can just get really tired. Um, and that is so individual as far as what it looks like.
It, it, it's so many people present differently with the same underlying kind of problem because there's multiple factors. Yeah. So, um, yeah, so like, um, I think, I think. One thing I see is when people, when they get diagnosed properly with an iron issue, um, they're gonna start feeling a lot better, whether it's high or low iron because, um.
They're gonna be sleeping better and they're just gonna have more energy in general. And so sometimes people like they, if they have high iron and they go donate blood, then they're, sometimes we'll wake up the next day and like had more energy and you know, my face was just, uh, brighter or whatever.
That's not always the case, but, and sometimes it's just because like when you have too much iron, it like rusts out your whole body kind of and shuts things down and it's just becomes toxic. And that creates a lot of undue stress to your liver and your brain and you know, your pancreas and your heart.
And then, um. You're just gonna feel bad and that that can be sleep issues for sure.
So other callouts often on labs that people speak to as it relates to sleep might be around B vitamins and how that could impact potentially iron. Any callouts there things that you're seeing? Like with B Vitamins,
my biggest.
Kind of thing with B vitamins is not to take them too late in the day because then that can disrupt sleep. Um, so generally, I think for most people, if they just take the B vitamins earlier in the day, like breakfast or lunch, then they're probably gonna be okay. Yeah. Um, there's always an anomaly to that, but typically it's when people take 'em too late in the day that they have a problem.
Yeah. And I think iron's the same way too. Like, and that's probably because, you know, iron, a lot of iron supplements have B vitamins in them, but. I tend to tell people to take the iron earlier in the day also.
And as far as iron too, 'cause I know you were saying like a full iron panel, is there anything people should be on the lookout for?
Any callouts around ranges or is it just really a bio individual conversation to get in the weeds on that? But any specific No,
the ranges are important. So the, the iron panel looks at. Your ferritin, which is kinda your stored iron, but it's also an inflammatory marker, so it can go high because you have high iron or because you're inflamed, or both people that have, um, high ferritin's always a problem, period.
And the question is like, what, what is a high ferritin? And the range really, I don't personally like ferritin to go over a hundred. Okay. Um, so. In my opinion, if it's over a hundred, then somebody needs to be worked up to figure out, like do they have a hemochromatosis gene that is setting them up for potentially becoming a lot higher, um, as far as ferritin and having a lot of damage, or do they have some inflammation going on in their body?
And that a hundred of ferritin is a much lower threshold than most, um. Like that's not a normal number for labs. Sometimes labs will stop at 150. For females. For men, often they'll go up to like much higher 400. Um, I think I have a lower range because I wanna catch people early and like in my mind, I've never seen anybody.
Be much healthier because they have a ferritin over 100. Now there's some people that argue with me about that, but they don't tend to be like clinicians. Um, so what I have seen is that if you have a ferritin over 100. That's not gonna make you any healthier, but you know, you're more likely to have a problem, whether it's a hemochromatosis gene or a inflammatory issue that's like either starting or already progressed.
Um, and men tend to have higher ferritin than women because they don't like menstruate and lose blood through menstruation and lose iron. But there's, um, physiologically like we. There's no reason for them to have a higher ferritin. Like they don't need a higher ferritin than us. It's just their range is higher than women's because if you take a thousand men and a thousand women, men are gonna be higher.
And so the bell curve allows them to be higher, but it's not like helping their health. And the ferritin's a really important lab because lab to run, because whether you have high ferritin from too much iron or inflammation. Um, the higher it is, the shorter your life. So like. The higher it is, the more likely you're gonna die from what's called all cause mortality.
So whether it's a heart attack or cancer or whatever, you're more likely to die as your ferritin goes higher, like significantly. So there's a study I have in my book, the Iron Curse, that shows a ferritin starting. They looked at 200, 300, 400, 500, 600. And so it was a direct correlation. The higher the ferritin.
The shorter your life to the point where once they got to over 600, which is where they stopped the study, for whatever reason, it was like 20 years off of your life. Like exponentially shorter life. So for all the longevity people out there, you know, ferritin needs to be looked at closely and um, I think it's kind of overlooked.
I think the whole iron thing is kind of overlooked. It's just, um. Yeah. So, but the rest of the iron panel is the TIBC, the UIBC, the iron saturation and the cer iron and the iron saturation is really like what you need to focus on there. So if your iron saturation is in the high thirties, higher forties, uh, definitely fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, like you're, you're, you have plenty of iron.
Once you get into those forties and fifties, like you have too much iron. Whereas if you have a lower iron saturation, I don't really like the iron saturation to go below 15, but if you have a lower iron saturation, that tends to mean you're lower in iron. Just like if the ferritin, I don't really like the ferritin to get below 50, but if you have a, which a lot of people are lower than 50 because they struggle with, you know, anemia or whatever, especially females.
Um, and so, uh. Really, I have a pretty narrow range for ferritin just because, um, I don't think it gets looked at close enough.
Absolutely. And how about iron? We hear different story, uh, reports of people having oddities, so it's like they have high iron and low ferritin or the inverse or, yeah.
Yeah. So like if somebody has high iron in their blood.
And lower ferritin, then that means that like they have more blood iron than normal in their blood, and then lower levels of iron like in their storage. Hmm. And that's. That's like probably the most clinically challenging thing to figure out. Um, all the other scenarios are easier to explain, but that specific scenario is the most clinically challenging.
And typically when that happens, they have a hemochromatosis gene and they just haven't gone into full blown hemochromatosis yet for whatever reason. Um, because people with hemochromatosis genes absorb iron very, very well. And so, um, they. Will absorb iron like really, really well. And maybe they have a really heavy period, or maybe there's some reason that they're losing iron at a fast enough rate to like keep their storage down or maybe they were pregnant or whatever.
Um. But it's often a hemochromatosis gene. The other, cause, the other thing that can cause that, I'm kind of getting into the diagnostic weeds here, so pull me out if I'm like losing you. But, um, the other thing that can cause that is, um, hemolytic anemia or like any type of, uh, hemolysis, which hemolysis is where like the red blood cells will break.
Um, so that can happen with. If you have a genetic issue like sickle cell or um, thalassemia, these are genetic issues where your red blood cells are not shaped properly and then like they break as they go through the red, the capillaries, and then that can. Cause iron to be released from the red blood cells inappropriately.
And then you might get high iron in like the blood, but you're not really like absorbing too much iron or storing too much iron. So your ferritin will be normal. Um, yeah, I mean you can also see that with like low B vitamins if you're low in B12 or. B nine or B six, then that can cause the red blood cells to get too big and then they break going through.
But
yeah. Well, because if we have practitioners like yourself that can help decode some of this, 'cause it can just be so confusing. Like, wait, some parts of the iron panel are low, some parts are high. How do we. Navigate all this. And in your book you go into much greater detail too for people that if they have these specific abnormalities or confusion around iron and how to navigate it, that can really get cleared up in the book.
Yeah, because I try to lay out the labs and um, like the ranges and things like that, but it's, it's helpful to have, you know, a clinician that kind of understands those things. For sure. I think, well, iron is important for sleep. Yeah. I think that cortisol is probably a bigger player in that. Yeah. Yeah. What do you see
there?
So the typical patterns, which I'm not, I'm I. I'll just go ahead and go through 'em. But the typical patterns are like if you have high cortisol in the evenings, it's gonna be hard for you to fall asleep. Yeah. So like for somebody like that, it's helpful to understand like what cortisol does, so. What cortisol does is it helps to raise your blood sugar.
So if you're fasting all night because you didn't eat all night, then your blood sugar's gonna drop down and your cortisol is gonna rise to keep your blood sugar from getting too low so that you don't die of low blood sugar while you're sleeping. Like that's, that's why when you go to sleep in the evening, your cortisol should be the lowest in the evening and then.
As you go through your sleep cycle, the cortisol will rise to adjust to the falling blood sugar 'cause you haven't eaten all night, right? And so as the blood sugar comes down and the cortisol comes up by the morning, you should have like this cortisol kind of. I wouldn't call it a spike, but the highest amount of cortisol in the morning when you wake up.
And if that spike happens at, you know, the time you wanna wake up like 6:00 AM awesome, great. Get outta bed, go get some food, and that will bring the cortisol back down and then you can. After breakfast, your cortisol will drop and then you eat at lunch and your cortisol will go down lower because you ate again, and now your blood sugar is really much more stable.
And then you go to dinner and you eat again, and your blood sugar drops back down. And so in the evening, your cortisol should be the lowest, but like if your cortisol spikes at 2:00 AM because. Your blood sugar is just dropping and your cortisol spikes, then that might wake you up at 2:00 AM instead of 6:00 AM And so, you know, if you, if you have.
A hard time cortisol will wake you up. Like it keeps you, you know, it's a stress adrenal thing. So if you have a hard time falling asleep, that can be, um, high cortisol. Um, and then you can take something to lower the cortisol. And if you have, um. Or you can, you know, establish lifestyle. You know, you wanna lower the cortisol to help you fall asleep.
And then if you have this issue where you wake up like in the middle of the night, that can be, you know, your blood sugar dropping and cortisol spikes. It can be other things too. You know, it's not like these are the only things that can mess up your sleep, but they're really important. Um, and one of the most important things to kind of keep your blood sugar stable at night is to keep your blood sugar stable during the day.
So like, if you're on this rollercoaster during the day because you're, you know, eating like crap and having a soda and or like not eating or whatever, then when you go to sleep, your blood sugar's gonna kind of stand that rollercoaster because you've been on a rollercoaster all day. So, you know, we're gonna be on a rollercoaster anyways, and the rollercoaster needs to be like this.
Yeah. Okay. But we don't need this because then we're
gonna wake up in the middle of the night. So, and she's got this, the great visual of like, we want the rolling hills, not the, you know, the spike in the crashes. Yeah. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking
about. Yeah. So like you have to. This is why when you wake up in the morning, you wanna have like a nice protein rich breakfast.
Yeah. And have protein at like all of your meals. So, and snacks if you need to. But protein, protein, protein is going to help. And a complete protein, not just, you know, an incomplete protein, but a complete protein, um, is going to help to keep your blood sugar more stable and then not overdoing all the sugary.
Stuff, you know, um, if you're gonna do carbs, do more complete carbs, have fiber with your food so that your sugar is slower to be absorbed. Because if the, if you go up slow, you're gonna come down slower. If you go up fast, you're gonna crash. So the whole day needs to be like loading on protein and some carbs.
I think, you know, most people need carbs to be able to, I think, sleep properly. Um, but. We in America, just like way have gone outta control with carbs. And so, you know, it needs to be like healthy carbs, like sweet potatoes or rice or whatever works for you, you know? Um, so, but, uh, eat that protein and then maybe eat some protein, like definitely for dinner, but maybe even need a snack to kind of help you, like before bed to kind of help you get.
Your blood sugar through the night, especially if you're really stressed out, um, then you might need like a little bit more protein to kind of help regulate your blood sugar. So there's the diet piece and then, I mean, I don't think any of us. Most of us, myself included, like fully appreciate how much stress really has an effect on our sleep.
Yeah. Um, just because it's so hard to remove it, you know, it's not like I can just say, oh, my stress is gone and now I'm sleeping better. 'cause it's like so insidious. But like I have a patient the other day who, she's just, um, she's been a lawyer forever and she just went into her own practice. She had been working in a firm that was like a toxic environment.
She had this really high stress level for a really long time, and she's, instead of just retiring, she's going into her own practice. So it's like low key. She doesn't really have to work, but she's gonna work for people that she wants to work for. And it's just a totally different mindset. So now she's not dealing with this toxic boss situation, and she was like, I have no idea how much it was affecting my sleep.
I. That the first night of me being done with that place, I slept like a log. I've slept amazing since then. I just kept waking up and I would wake up and I would like ruminate. My mind would ruminate about all these things work related, and I never like realized it was this constant stress that was just messing up my sleep and now it's like I'm a whole new person.
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That's one of the reasons why it's so important that you're addressing this because we see people, you know, it's like the top 10 things to do to improve your sleep and all these things might be great, the supplements, the this, the that. But there's so many things fundamentally from a how we're managing our lives and our stress load that are a little bit trickier and might take some bold action or just.
Take some steps that maybe scare us or take something. But on the other side of that can be some of that peace that sleep really thrives on. And
discipline. Yeah, discipline is synonymous with sleep. You know, the body loves a routine. Sleep routines are so crucial. Um, and it has to be. To be healthy, you need to sleep at night, not work at night.
Like they've done so much research on people that they are nocturnal, you know, they work at night and it doesn't matter how well they take care of themselves, they're more likely to die earlier of cancer, heart attacks, all these things the body needs, like the normal circadian rhythm of you're awake during the sunlight hours and you sleep at night.
Um, so I mean that exactly like you need the discipline of. I'm going to wake up at this certain time. I'm gonna go to bed at a certain time. I'm, you know, going to maybe put my phone in another room while I sleep at night, so I don't wake up and look at that. Um, maybe like, I really wanna stay up and watch Netflix and binge on Netflix, but I know like, that's not gonna really be a great idea.
You know, it, it. It's huge discipline and it's boring, but it pays
off. Oh, so true. Well, this is a perfect segue to every guest that we have on the podcast. We ask them four questions around how they're managing their own sleep, and so this will be great to hear the more, the better it seems often for, for sleep, but.
Yeah, I mean, I've got lots of, lots of things to say about that. I am married to somebody who's extremely protective of his sleep, and part of that is because he's been through all this trauma of like having this pituitary tumor that caused him to have high cortisol and like that really affected his energy and affected his sleep in ways and so.
He's like super protective of his sleep because if he doesn't sleep well, he is not gonna feel well. And then it's like, you know, nobody can handle life like that. But so, um, I also have an 11-year-old daughter that will not sleep alone. Hmm. So we have done what a lot of people are doing, but are not talking about, and that is, um.
My husband sleeps in the guest room, and then my daughter sleeps in our, well, we all fall asleep together. Yeah. In the big bed. Yeah. What should be my husband and i's bed? Sure. Okay. Because my daughter will not sleep alone. Mm-hmm. Okay. So it used to be that I would go and I, one of us would like lay with her and she'd fall asleep and then we'd go to our bed and then she would just wake up and come into bed and it was like, why do we even bother?
Mm-hmm. I know she's gonna like, outgrow this and not wanna be around me someday. So I'm, I'm like, okay, this is just, we're just gonna be patient human beings here. So, um, so my daughter and I and my husband like fall asleep together in this big bed, and then my husband wakes up and moves to the guestroom and he sleeps the rest of the night there.
And like. A lot of people have these really weird, atypical, non-traditional sleep situations. Sure. And I think it's really Okay. I think you just have to do like whatever gets everybody well rested. That's, that's what you need to do. Yeah. You know, whether it's you sleep on the couch or you sleep in the guest room, or you sleep in different rooms or I don't know.
Um. There was some famous actress that she was like, well, we have three rooms. The one room that I sleep in, one room he sleeps in, and then the one that we have sex in, it's like, yeah, well, you're like, you got a higher tax rate than me. So,
well, I mean, you're pointing something huge because out of. All the episodes we've done, our most popular episode to date is around, there's a Dr.
Wendy Drexel who wrote Sharing the Covers, and she was exploring the topic of sleep divorces, among other things, any topic under the umbrella of sharing the covers. So it could be for pets, kids, whoever's in in the covers. But she was trying to also help de-stigmatize this idea of like a sleep, divorce, and rename a sleep alliance so that.
We're creating this alliance and we're actually, to your point, like we're having, being in communication to create a workable solution. 'cause there's a lot of different things that can come up, different schedules, snoring, dealing with sleep disorders. There's a lot. And so to find that workable solution that's huge versus just suffering or resignation or what have you.
So I love that you've created that for yourself.
Yeah. Yeah. I also should probably. Confess that like I never sleep trained my daughter. Yeah. And. Maybe if I had done that, she would've figured out how to sleep through the night by herself. Right. But I didn't, and I'm not saying that was good or bad. I'm just throwing that in there.
Um, well, no judgment here. The conversations on sleep is skill are all adult focus expertise in the world of training for children and babies. That's like a whole other domain that we haven't. Really done much content on. So, you know, stay tuned. Oh,
you've gotta do that. I mean, you have so many moms out there that are just like, all they think about is sleep.
How do I sleep? How do I get this child to sleep? I know we're thinking that's probably gonna be one of the next kind of niche. Yeah, yeah. You should do that. Yeah. So when I was growing up, I have a sister who's like two years older than me and we're thick as thieves and, um, we shared the same bed for. Um, up until I was in, we were in high school, so we just didn't have enough room in the house to like not share a bed.
So it was never, it wasn't an option until high school and we moved and we had our own beds and it was like, okay, I have my own bed in my own bedroom. This is kinda lonely. And I didn't realize like how much I just grew to like, that was, I wanted to have somebody in bed with me. And so I think about that and I think about my daughter.
I'm like. That would be kind of hypocritical of me to say, you need to go sleep by yourself. When in fact, you know, she just wants to have companionship, which I think is a good natural thing for a young child, you know? So, um, so that's, that's a little bit about that. Now, um, I also have a lot of things to talk about as far as what do I do for my sleep.
I am in perimenopause now. I'm 42 years old, so I'm like entering that really, um, you know. All over the place. Face. Yeah. And um. My, I, my sleep has definitely been affected by the kind of hormonal changes and I didn't realize how much my sleep was affected by low progesterone until I just started taking progesterone, and it helped tremendously.
Um, and it also helped with other things like. I had been dealing with a lot of hair loss and, um, when I, if I stop taking progesterone, then all the hair loss will come back. And so, um, and the sleep issues will come back. Um, but now that I'm in that perimenopause phase, it's like I have to work harder for good sleep.
Um, and I'd have to take progesterone. Um, and, um, I have to take, I, I pretty much. Most days, evenings will take. Um, and, and it's worth noting like one reason that progesterone helps with sleep is because it converts into cortisol and then that cortisol helps to like keep your blood sugar stable throughout the night.
So that's kind of just an interesting side note. So, but um, I do have to be good about. Not just progesterone, but I also often take gaba, which helps a lot. Um, and that can also help with anxiety and stuff. Yeah. Um, you know, magnesium, I tend to take like magnesium three eight. Um, and um, 'cause it crosses the blood brainin barrier and then affects more.
'cause there's different types of magnesium. So like magnesium citrate affects the gut and it can help with calming your brain. But it more so like. Affects your gut, whereas magnesium three and eight. And to some extent magnesium glycinate. But really magnesium three and eight, that magnesium crosses the blood-brain barrier more, and then it affects your brain more and not your bowels as much.
So, um, and then I'll often take like melatonin to help me fall asleep and sometimes even l'theanine. I mean, like, I'm at a stage in perimenopause where I have a whole sleep cocktail and it works. Sometimes I have to tweak it a little bit, but, um, it is what it is. And then I have to, you know, be good about if, if I have to be good about exercise, but I have to work in like de-stressing exercise.
It can't just be like, you know, hard workout because that doesn't always work. I need to do that. But I also have to work in like, I really have to go for walks and I have to go on walks where I. Often I have to leave my phone at home and go for a walk. Yeah. Otherwise, it's like I ca the phone is bad. I'm addicted to the phone.
I'll admit it. Same, you know, and so, um, it's bad and. I have to also, if I really want, like I will sleep better if it's just in another room. Yeah. Um, but I'm so addicted. Sometimes I have it next to me still, and that's something like I have to work on if I'm being honest. So there's those things, and then I have to be such a stickler about light, like there can be a new light at all.
Zero. Everything has to be dark and the fan has to be going, and even if it's cold, like I still need that fan going and I have to have like just the right texture sheets and pillows and, but I think most people are like that.
Yeah. Oh no, we hear that a lot. A lot of preferences as it relates to getting great sleep and when we get accustomed to some of that and then it can get thrown off at times when if we travel or those things aren't available or what have you.
So we certainly hear that. And of course we can see measurably some of the changes when that's there on different wearables or what have you. And it does become this fine line too of, because we do a lot of people tuning in that deal with insomnia. And so it can be this difficult process often of how to both set ourselves up for success, but then also how to deal with acceptance and surrendering when that's not available to, you know, it's a very, mm-hmm.
It brings a lot of paradoxes at play. So, but we hear that a hundred percent. Is there anything else we would miss in your, because the first question is always, what's your nightly sleep routine looking like right now? Is there anything that we might have missed there?
No. I mean, so typically my husband and daughter, sometimes they'll go to sleep a little bit before me 'cause they tend to be a little bit more like, um.
Early to bed people. I have a little bit more of an nocturnal streak, but I'm, I try to fight it just because it's not necessarily like to my best interest. Yeah. So typically I try to go to bed much earlier than I would if I wasn't married to my husband, but he, like once everybody in bed and asleep by like nine 30 sometimes earlier.
Yeah. And, um, we're just kind of like boring old farts, honestly. Like that's just kind of where we are. It's okay because that's just the stage of our life and I don't really think it's that fun to stay up late anyways. Like I don't really wanna go out and like stay out late and drink. I just wanna kind of like have my normal, boring night routine and then like be able to get my stuff done the next day and like feel good.
Oh, I hear you. Same. That's perfect. Okay, so that's your nightly sleep routine. What might we see in your morning sleep routine with the idea that how we start our day could impact our sleep? Oh girl, I gotta work on that. I hear
you. I used to, I, I'm in a new phase now. I used to like wake up early five work on my book.
I was writing the Iron Curse. I was so productive. And then it's like after I published that book, I was just like. I'm done. I, I'm, I'm just gonna not get up in the morning anymore. And I think I like burned myself out for like, not just that reason, but like other reasons. I just had too many things going on.
And, um, now, um, I often will not get out of bed until it's time for my daughter to get outta bed to go to school. And, um, I. If I allow my phone to be next to me while I'm sleeping, which is a bad idea, but I do it sometimes I'll wake up and I'll look at it and I'll lay there in bed like a total loser looking at it and um, like that's the worst.
Yeah. I
get it. That's really the worst. I need to, I need a screenshot that comes up. It just goes to, you're a loser. Put your phone down. Great. Talk between the hours of like nine 30 and 6:00 AM You are a loser. Put your phone down. I can't. That's amazing.
A new app add on. It's the whole screen. There's nothing else you can do.
Amazing. But I think like that's probably more common than not. Of course. Yes. It's an epidemic and I feel like there's a big push to act as if this is not happening and yet, right, right. Like, no, it's happening. Like
I am the health holistic, health professional and like I'm gonna act like I'm not having, no, the struggles are real.
Like I deal with them too. I'm addicted to the phone too. I can't go to the bathroom without it. Sometimes it's like bad, but yeah. I'm aware of it. That's the first, and I'm really trying to break it. Um, I mean we see addiction as addiction to like alcohol and drugs, but these phones are like made to take our.
Focus and they just re our brain and then we don't sleep as well. And I think, and it's, I, I've tried this and then it's like a habit I haven't really fully, completely committed to, but I've tried this thing with the phone where it's like I have an agenda of like, I'm gonna get these things done. Like I'm only gonna look at my phone to do these things.
And I like, will write down what I'm trying to do so I don't get distracted. And sometimes that's helpful, but. Inevitably is like, I'll get that email that takes me for a loop, or I'll be like, oh, lemme just order that from Amazon, or whatever. So it's, I know this is not what you wanna talk about,
but it's a problem.
It's a problem. Listen, I think this is so refreshing too, because often we'll hear people, oh, you know, wax on about this, like beautiful routines or what have you, and yet, and not to discount, I'm sure some people really have it dialed in, but I think more urgent often for the listener is the. Relatability of understanding, okay, we're all dealing with this and what is the first step?
Awareness and calling it out in ourselves to see, okay, this is something we wanna take on, which I appreciate. I
agree.
I
think most people know have the tools for what they need to do for sleep. Yeah. I think the real problem is
discipline. Absolutely. I love that. Is there anything else in the morning routine that we might have missed that it's an umbrella or things that are working or not working?
No, I bought this
alarm that would like turn the sun on. It was like a light. Yep. Sure. Yeah. I don't use it. I should,
but I don't. Um, but I, I have it sitting there and I'm like, oh, I should really use that, but I don't, um, my morning routine is pretty much like. Drag my butt out of. The bed. Yeah. Um, get breakfast ready, get like my daughter ready for school. Do that, get to work on days that I don't go to work, it's more casual and I'll, you know, once she's at school, then I'll, you know, maybe exercise or whatever, but I, I think like most people, I'm just trying to get through the day.
Like, I haven't figured all this stuff out really. I'm just trying to get through it like everybody else. There's a couple things I've figured out and I'm, you know, like iron, I've got that figured out, but a lot of things I have not figured out entirely.
And for you, with your own low iron in the figuring out process, is that something that's like an ongoing thing that you're tweaking or you just have that handbook?
Yeah, so I have to like pretty
much almost always. Be eating a lot of red meat. Yeah. Or like taking some iron thing. And if I don't, I'll go low. And my situation's really complicated. Okay. Because, um, I'm a female. That's menstruating. That's not that, that's not complicated. That just is what it is. Um, but what makes it complicated is that.
I had that foot of my small intestine removed, and because I had that foot of my small intestine removed, I have to take a bile sequester or else like I'll have diarrhea. Basically, that's what'll happen, and so I have to take this bile sequestrant so that I don't have to go to the bathroom all day and the bile sequester will.
Bind the iron and makes it hard to absorb the iron. And so I'm fighting this like uphill battle.
Yeah. Yeah. And
so it's just, it's a complicated thing that I just kind of have to manage myself and then I have to take other. Soluble vitamins and
stuff. So yeah. If other people have kind of complicated iron topics or things that they wanna delve into, we'll, of course talk about this more at the end.
But you have I think, courses as well that people could Yeah, I've got a lot of
courses. I do have a big iron course that dives deep into iron. Okay. And then I have my book. And then I don't have one specifically on sleep, but I talk about sleep. I don't think there's one course where I really focus on sleep, but I have a gut health course that's really good and I talk, and then I have like a brain health course on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and that's really good.
I have the M-T-H-F-R course age-related macular
degeneration, a heart course. Okay. Got it. Well, just good to know in case anyone is listening and they're saying, well, oh, I've got a complicated situation or needs help and understanding of how to dive into this, then those resources are available. Okay. And then the third question would be, what might we visually see on your nightstand or in your environment?
My night guard, which I don't wear all the time, but I should 'cause I clench. On my right side. Sure. But I tend to have it there. I often will like take it out in the middle of the night because it just, I don't like it. And so I'm like, my night, night, Christie takes it out night. Night, Christie. Sabotages morning Christie and takes it out.
Yeah. So, um. I'll have my, I'll water my night guard. Um, more often than I'd like to admit. I'll have my phone there. Yep. And, um, a, you know, a lamp and, um, I have a journal. I have done journaling. I think it's really a good thing to do. I just don't do it regularly. Um, just because I, you know, it's like everything else.
It's good intentions, poor follow through, so many hours in the day. But I think, I think I, I have a book there, but I'm not as good, I'm not as good about reading before, bad as I should be. Mm-hmm. And, um. I don't know. I, I guess I, I like to write books more than I like to read them. That's not a bad thing at all, I think.
I think I read like for information purposes and then I like watch TV to relax.
Yeah.
So often before I go to sleep, I'll like to just. Relax and watch tv.
Yeah. Yeah. We do see that a lot and 'cause I think that's got villainized along the way mm-hmm. At points. And yet we've seen, and we've had different sleep experts speak to, uh, really trying to sound the alarm, that that doesn't always have to be the case at all.
And that often it can actually be quite, you know, kind of. Relaxing for the, assuming we're choosing our content wisely and what have, not watching horror movies or something, but, but it can actually be a calming practice and can help kind of a patho the response that this is when we wind down and that's part of the evening routine for a lot of people.
Yeah. I like to hear that. That's good. Yeah, totally. Yeah, we definitely have different podcasts that can go in more deeply into that. Actually the professor that's, uh, the creator of Wink Sleep is a big advocate for that, and there's others as well. That's fantastic seeing what we would see in your environment.
And then the final question is, to date, what would you say has made the biggest change to the management of your sleep? Or said another way? Biggest aha moment in managing your sleep.
I think the progesterone was a pretty aha moment for me.
Definitely.
And I should have started it earlier and I didn't.
And so it, and, and part of the reason I didn't start it earlier is because my progesterone on labs was already like, was always like totally fine. Yeah. And so I thought, well I, you know, I don't really wanna take hormones if I don't need to. And but boy was I wrong? Like I. Clearly needed it because my sleep got better, my hair stopped falling out.
You know, a lot of things got better and um, when the sleep gets better, like everything gets better, right? Yes. I mean, I feel like when, when I have a really complicated patient come in and it's like this. Just not of all these different problems, you're like, where do I start? Like let's just start with getting your sleeping better.
Yes.
And that often allows so many other things to now, like they have the bandwidth to move on to the next thing. So, and sometimes people come in with weird problems that you're like, I don't exactly know why that's happening. Or, but, but if we can just like get you feeling better and sleeping better and healthier, then maybe it'll go away.
And sometimes
it does. So, so the progesterone for you, in your case, was one of those needle movers that just really shifted things. Mm-hmm. Totally. Great. Beautiful. Well then for people listening that are saying, oh geez, I. Some support or my doctor doesn't seem to understand this iron topic or beyond.
Would love to get some guidance from someone like yourself that has just really delved deep into this topic. Where can they follow you, learn more about you, the book, the courses, all the things. Yeah,
so my website's dr christie sutton.com or they can find me at Instagram at Dr. Christie Sutton. And then I have a whole like iron website@ironcurse.com.
But those are good places, so Oh, perfect.
Yeah. Well, I so appreciate you getting that message out and helping to demystify this, and especially on the hemochromatosis side of things. There's not many. Voices that are really helping to weave through or swim through the confusing aspects of this and different life stages that people might find themselves in, if it's women and menstruation and how that could change things.
There's just, there's a lot there. So really grateful that you're getting that. Uh, information out and for taking the time to be here today. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Thank you. You've been listening to The Sleep Is a Skill podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level.
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