Ashley is a Doctor of Physical Therapy with over 20 years of expertise in seating, posture, and pressure management. She began her career leading a pediatric seating clinic before bringing her knowledge to the wheelchair manufacturing industry, where she thrived in clinical sales and training, mentoring new therapists in foundational seating principles. Her career has been built on a deep understanding of how the way we sit affects everything from musculoskeletal health to long-term function and comfort. Ashley has spoken at regional and international conferences, guest lectured at universities, and now leads the Ambassador Community at Anthros—an ergonomic seating company rooted in spine science. Known for her high energy, humor, and ability to connect with anyone, Ashley is on a mission to fix the way people sit—and help others feel and function at their best, wherever they are.
Ashley is a Doctor of Physical Therapy with over 20 years of expertise in seating, posture, and pressure management. She began her career leading a pediatric seating clinic before bringing her knowledge to the wheelchair manufacturing industry, where she thrived in clinical sales and training, mentoring new therapists in foundational seating principles.
Her career has been built on a deep understanding of how the way we sit affects everything from musculoskeletal health to long-term function and comfort. Ashley has spoken at regional and international conferences, guest lectured at universities, and now leads the Ambassador Community at Anthros—an ergonomic seating company rooted in spine science.
Known for her high energy, humor, and ability to connect with anyone, Ashley is on a mission to fix the way people sit—and help others feel and function at their best, wherever they are.
SHOWNOTES:
😴 Could your workspace /chair be wrecking your sleep more than your mattress?
😴 Why pain management actually starts the moment your workday begins
😴 Is sitting the new smoking, or is it how you sit that matters most?
😴 Pelvis first: the missing link between posture and breathing
😴 Why most office chairs support the spine in all the wrong places
😴 Try this: hunch and breathe… then sit tall and feel the difference
😴 How poor posture quietly locks your nervous system into fight-or-flight
😴 Micro-movements, major payoff: small breaks that lead to better sleep
😴 A realistic movement rhythm you can actually maintain during workdays
😴 The posture audit: what a single photo can reveal about sleep issues
😴 Why a dysregulated day can’t magically calm down at night
😴 What would change if you invested in how you sit as much as how you sleep?
😴 Check out Anthros Chair https://glnk.io/2o78n/Sleepisaskill. Enjoy $200 off
😴 And many more
SPONSORS:
🧠 If You “Can’t Turn Your Brain Off” At Night…try a quality magnesium supplement that addresses ALL the necessary forms of magnesium that you need to support calming your nervous system and sleeping deeply. https://magbreakthrough.com/sleepisaskill
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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 Sleepless Skill podcast. Today's episode is a little different because part of what we're talking about, I am literally sitting on right now. And while that might sound like a cliffhanger and maybe a few unintended innuendos, it opens up a much bigger conversation about something Most of us overlook what we're doing.
With our bodies all day long, not just at night. So many people focus on mattresses, pillows, and supplements to fix their sleep, and understandably so. But if you're sitting for eight to 12 hours, in some cases, a lot of my poker players can go for even more in a compromised position. That's tension, pain, and nervous system.
Activation doesn't magically disappear when your head hits. The pillow. So today's guest, Ashley, is a doctor of physical therapy with over 20 years of experience in seating posture and pressure management. She's spent her career studying how the way we sit impacts pain, breathing, nervous system regulation, and ultimately sleep.
And today she leads the ambassador community of Anthros, an ergonomic seating company grounded in. Spine science. So in this conversation we connect the dots between daytime posture and nighttime rest. Why lumbar support alone often misses the mark? How pelvis positioning affects your diaphragm and ability to downshift and why better sleep truly starts the moment you wake up.
If you've ever felt like you're doing quote everything right for sleep, but still can't fully unwind. This episode may reveal a missing piece you didn't even know to look for. So we're gonna jump right into this episode, but first, a few words from our sponsors. As we head into the fall and vacation season winds down IEA time when late nights irregular eating habits and indulgence tend to become the norm.
It's time to get back on track with our health and of course our sleep. Just a quick, interesting fact about sleep to mention drinking more than two servings of alcohol per day for men and more than one serving per day for women can decrease sleep quality by. 39.2% a sleep Foundation survey reports not even mentioning all the indulgent food and late night effects that often come along with it.
And as we know, sleep is the key to your body's rejuvenation and repair process. It controls hunger and weight loss hormones, boost energy levels, and impacts countless other functions. A good night's. Sleep will improve your wellbeing much more than just about anything else I can possibly think of on the planet.
Uh, you know, I'm biased, but gotta say that. And sleep is your major to focus on as we head into the fall season and hopefully beyond. And that's why I recommend that if you're going to start taking some supplements on your sleep often, magnesium is a great place to begin, but not just any magnesium supplement.
I do recommend getting the Magnesium Breakthrough by Bio Optimizers. Magnesium Breakthrough contains also. Seven forms of magnesium designed to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed, which isn't that what we're all looking to do. The sleep benefits are really remarkable. I use it every night, and once your sleep is optimized, you'll find it much easier to tackle all the other major aspects of your health.
And trust me, it is a game changer. To test it out, visit mag breakthrough.com/sleep is a skill you can enter code. Sleep is a skill for 10% off for any order. This special offer is only available@magbreakthrough.com
slash sleep is a skill. I will also include this in the show notes as well.
Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast.
This is gonna be a unique episode today and part of what we are gonna be chatting about, I happen to be sitting on, which, you know, it's quite the cliffhanger. I mean, I've literally never started a podcast like that, so, oh my gosh, so many innuendos. Anyway, I'm so happy for you to take the time to be here today, Ashley.
It really makes a big difference in this conversation that we're gonna get into today.
I am so happy to be here. I feel like. I've waited forever. So really excited. Yay.
Oh goodness. Well, I gotta tell you, both my husband and I had that same experience of that level of excitement when we got to receive both of us, your amazing chairs that you work with, and the people are gonna be like, wait, am I on the right podcast?
I think this is about sleep. I promise you we'll connect this to sleep. But for myself and my husband who are. Big workers, if you will, entrepreneurial and spend a lot of the time working. This has made such a difference and because we talk about pain management, sleep positioning, lumbar support, other things that can help people through the many aspects of sleep because pain or discomfort can play a big role and commonly people might understandably think mattress.
Pillows, et cetera, which has a time and a place, but I think we're often forgetting what we're doing all throughout the course of the day, for many of us, for many, many hours. This is a very long intro to say I'm really grateful for this kind of makeover for myself and my husband. We've just been loving, loving, loving these chairs and, and the difference it's made so.
I wanna hear from you. How in the world did you end up in this arena? How has it made a difference for you and your health and wellbeing?
Absolutely. So, uh, I am a physical therapist, doctor of physical therapy and uh, early on I found a love for people who sit. It was pediatrics and uh, people who were in wheelchairs and they are just sitting for so many hours of the day and they end up in these just awkward postures and it's for eight hours.
And I'm like. What can I do with the skills that I have to help them sit better, be more comfortable, be more interactive to the world? Um, and a lot of the people that I work with. Currently at Anthos serve that same disabled community, and so we care about those eight hours of the day that you're working.
What are you doing? What positions is your body being placed in, which can negatively affect your sleep, which we'll get into that. But, um, at Anthros I helped, um, design where it hits the human body. And it's uniquely different than every chair that's out there that with that pelvis support getting you into your natural standing posture, but reducing a lot of that fatigue to reduce the pain you may be feeling at night that's keeping you awake or making you toss and turn.
And so it's a, it's a full circle approach with, uh, better sleep starts the moment when you wake up and what you're doing throughout the day.
Preach. I love that. Yeah, and that's certainly been, I was sharing with you before we hit record. One of my experiences, I was in a pretty major car accident years ago, so have, you know, metal in my arm, metal in my leg, was in a wheelchair, had this kind of full upper torso corset situation for, uh, baby burst compression, L four and L five.
So as a result now largely I'm really grateful that I've been very lucky with not having wild residual pain or what have you. However, I do. See that there are some sensitivities and, and awareness of posture throughout the course of the day with the amount, um, that both my husband and I are working. We, you know, really are aiming to be thoughtful about our positioning throughout the day, and yet one of the things I've been seeing is that I was leaning towards so much more.
Standing throughout the day is actually became one of my preferred positions. But as I know you and I got to talk about. Anything all the time is not great either. So we want variety and, and all of that. And when I would go into my seated position with the old chair that I had, that's when things would flare up a bit more.
And I was experiencing that, especially as I'd gotten older. I just turned 40. And not that, that, you know. Yeah, something to be aware of. But you do see that certain things that worked before aren't working in the same way. So all that to say, curious if you can kind of take us through. So for the average individual, maybe some people have heard sitting being the new smoking or what have you know, what are some of the perils of sitting for long stretches of the day?
How many people are doing that today?
Well, you know, sitting is the new, smoking is a pretty coin term. Yeah. But I would at that in saying the way that you sit Yeah. Is the new smoking or sitting bad? Is the new smoking.
Yeah.
Um, there's tons of research to point to being sedentary and sitting for eight hours a day is not the most healthy thing.
Yes. Um, and so I think it's a healthy balance, but when you do sit, sit with something that actually supports your pelvis lower, that keeps you in the upright posture. Um, and then when you do, you need to break up movements. The body loves that. Like there was a study where, um, it was a nine hour stint and they got up every 30 minutes.
Not quite realistic.
Yeah.
Um, but we're able to do three minutes of just light activity and they had better sleep quality. So I think we can pull from that into a realistic perspective, saying, getting up, taking breaks. Alternating the way that you are sitting, standing treadmill, whatever opportunities it is.
But when you do sit and humans sit longer than they should, it is realistic. But when you do sit, sit well and make sure that your body is in that natural alignment, not only for your. You know, for your breathing as well as for your musculature to not carry that pain into the night.
Yeah. And with the average person's office chair, what are some of the problems that we're seeing there?
Oh, well, the office chairs really weren't. Built for the human, to be honest. Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's why, like, that's why we created Anthos. The World does not need another office chairs. There are millions of office chairs out there. Yeah,
yeah.
Uh, but when we went and tested all of them at the largest furniture, uh, show in the world, they all had one way of supporting the body.
And it was with the lumbar support. So that's like your body's a building and you wanna support it at the base, which is the pelvis, but that lumbar support is just pushing into the fifth floor. Trying to lift below and hold it up. And so from a biomechanic perspective and the way in the industry that we used to serve were like they all have it wrong.
Like to design a chair to sit in for a period of time that actually does some good for you to improve your posture, you need to start at the base with a pelvis and have an independent upper back. For individuals of different shapes and sizes. So it's not rocket science, but it's really gonna help you and it's actually gonna do some good to undo a lot of the work that you've done from sitting poorly over the past however many years you've been sitting.
Yes, yes. So when I first received this chair, I think I was sharing with you, there's probably still so many things I need to continue to unlock. 'cause I'm still relatively new, but so far loving it. But each time I've made some of these adjustments, it's just been so a moment of like, why? Don't all these chairs have this?
So for instance, even the arms and the ability to angle those inward, I'm pretty short. And you know, usually kind of corresponding limbs that are also short and that's what I've got going on. And so having that and being able to angle inwards and just the customization. What are some of those customization options that are available on here that you might not see in standard chairs?
I think, I think it's important to note that like every piece of Antho, like doesn't exist in a catalog. Like the arm rest pad was matched. It was built to match your forearm and naturally align there. It's not, um, pieces, but yeah. So the cushion is so important, right? Yeah. Whenever you have. Sitting in an office chair and you know you have an uncomfortable cushion, what are you gonna do?
You're gonna put a pad underneath it. It is gravity. It takes the most weight. Um, and so making sure that we're taking off pressure into that, into that cushion and taking the pressure off of your sit bones, um, is huge. Um, as well as those two upper backs that are both adjustable. So from a customization standpoint, you can make it as beautiful as you want to, but it is therapeutic in the way that.
Both of those three posi, um, pieces work together. And then instead of like the back opening up and you laying down and watching tv, the whole chair stays together and tilts is one. So your posture is not sacrificed throughout the day, even if you wanna rest and relax back.
Even for anyone listening that is saying, okay, fine.
I just wanna learn a little bit more about how should I even be thinking about the amount of time I'm sitting throughout the course of the day. What are some of those generalized practices? Like I know for a while Andrew Huberman, for instance, was talking about like a one-to-one ratio, or. Different ways of looking at that.
What, um, in your estimation, what have you seen as an important way of thinking about how much time you're kind of oscillating from a standing position, seated position, or maybe even just adjustment tweaks throughout using the chair? Are there ways to think about this?
For me, it's, you know, it's something that like, if you want to make a habit, it has to be something that is realistic.
You know, that study that I pointed to every 30 minutes, it's not realistic, right? Yeah,
yeah.
If you were to say, I wanna get up two times before lunch, two times, you know, and that's either transitioning to a standing position. Um, be careful for standing too long, especially if you're at risk for back pain.
Um, so just don't think you need to power through it. Once you are standing and you start to lean to one side, or you start losing that beautiful posture, it's time to sit. Mm-hmm. Um, and two times before lunch and at least two times in the afternoon. So it's just like, this is your. Something that you can attain.
And a lot of people set timers, they set themselves breaks on their calendars 'cause you just get so ingrained. But body loves those little micro movements. Get up, move your body. Just go. If you're working from home, just go walk or use the restroom. Um, get some of that activity in there and so you're not.
I'm stuck in that one position for a period of time. So that works for me. There's science that goes the other way. There's huberman, but you wanna set yourself up for success with something that you can actually attain. That's realistic.
Yeah, we see that a lot, especially in the world of sleep optimization.
'cause you can go to town on all these different things. But if you're not utilizing these things or making these behavioral shifts, then what good is it? So I'm curious for you on like a busy day when you're kind of just. In the zone, what would be some of just the bare minimum baseline amount of, or ways of thinking about that movement piece?
Is it like what you said, kind of splitting the day where you just make sure a couple movement key pieces before noon or something and then Yeah. How do you think about that?
Yeah, it's if I'm gonna have like a long meeting in the morning, right? After every meeting. I'm getting up, I'm taking for a walk.
If you've got a meeting that's last, that's lasted an hour, yeah. You need to get up from that position. Go move, come back, reengage. Um, yeah, I have, I do some squats because glutes are very, very important for lower back health as well as when you get older. Gravity is also not your friend. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
I'll get up, I'll do some squats, I'll go for a little walk, I'll come back in and then I'm also. Representing myself back into the workspace from a good mindset and then I'm ready to, versus just hammering all day without any breaks. I mean, I, some days I have to put those breaks into my calendar 'cause it gets a little bit, but you choose you and then you're not in this sympathetic fight or flight state all day.
You get to have a little bit of those parasympathetic breaks.
Okay. And is that how you think about it too? Like, okay, these are my parasympathetic breaks. Yeah. Curious if you can kind of walk us through that for people that they just landed on this podcast because they've been dealing with sleep issues and maybe are newer to some of that language.
Well, and it's. It's always, you wanna be thinking of your nervous system all day, right? So getting up and moving is shifting from that sympathetic state and then moving it into a parasympathetic, relaxed space. But you can also have those transitions while you're working. So that's an easy thing to where like, get up.
Okay, that makes sense. But if you are sitting in this flexed posture all day, you are inadvertently compressing your diaphragm. Shallowing your breathing and placing yourself into that sympathetic state, and you might not even realize it. So if you're sitting at home right now, get into like a hunched posture and try to take a deep,
so true,
right?
But then now sit up. Like my mom used to say in church, sit up, Ashley shoulders back, and it rings true today. But sit back, shoulders back, pelvis up, and now try to take that same deep breath and you can feel your diaphragm expanding. Yeah. And that is the parasympathetic state that you wanna spend a lot of your period, a lot of your day in that state.
Mm-hmm. Which will transition to better sleep. And it comes from me. I've had my own battles with sleep, if we wanna get into that, but, uh,
yeah,
it's a little. Little tidbits of paying attention to your posture. And it's hard, you know, you have to be, you have to have a chair that supports you in the right places.
'cause if you're not thinking about it, you're just gonna collapse. And this is a position of rest for the body that's going to seek it to try to focus on work. And so it's really crucial, even if it's not anthro, ways, we can position our body to hold that upright posture and then promote that hormonal regulation throughout the day.
Yeah, that's so interesting. So much of the things that we'll talk about at sleep is a skill and, and other thought leaders in, in the world of sleep will speak to the massive importance of if you are struggling with your sleep, we wanna get a hold of how are we managing our health and wellbeing and certainly our nervous system by day.
And so we're looking to kind of bring in these pockets of peace or pockets of this parasympathetic response throughout the course of our day. And I guess until right this second, I never really thought about how we could tether that to even our workspace and our work environment and how we're. Seated 'cause certainly we'll speak to different ways that we could modulate breathing, but such a different angle in at looking at kind of how your structure is.
Is it pulling for that ability to breathe well or not breathe well? Yeah. So I wonder how you think about that. So through, you know, maybe can share too what you were sharing around your sleep. Were there different times in your life where you found that? Kind of modulating that, how you were seated or the structure there made a difference as it related to sleep or totally separate topics?
A hundred percent. No, a hundred percent. Um, sleep is my eternal equilibrium.
Yeah.
Like I know I do, right? Yeah. I know if I am doing the right things, if I am balanced by the way that I sleep, and that is something that. Has been a struggle, you know, through different parts of life and different things that come on.
But
sure.
When I brought in the posture piece, um. I had changed jobs, I had transitioned into sales for those, you know, for position and devices that help you sit. I was still on the train of, you know, fixing the world's sit in my relentless pursuit to help
everyone.
But I found myself sitting in a minivan.
And driving around the state of Florida and you, anyways, sitting in a car we all know is difficult.
Yeah.
But I'm sitting flexed. I'm driving all day.
Yes.
And that was when I started to have the, I couldn't fall asleep. And I, I went through everything. I'm like, what has changed? I would have the anxiety, I would do the dim lights, I would stop, not work out in the evening.
I was doing all the things, but I was sitting like this all day. And so I, um. I got through it. I looked inward. I did some research. I learned a lot about it, and I'm like. So that is affecting my sleep. So what do I do? Right? So how do I hold myself up? How do I, I, you know, I just had to adapt my car, but I noticed a significant difference in my ability to get back to that parasympathetic state and wind down and be able to go and get a deeper sleep and stay asleep after I made some of those modifications.
But it was def com for a little bit.
I bet it was
bad.
And I'm not being to laugh at, 'cause I've certainly been through this period of time and I know those are so challenging, but I'm so grateful that you're certainly had been able to troubleshoot along the way and get yourself to this new state on the other side of that and make those discoveries and then help other people in the process.
What were some of those tweaks that you were able to make even, you know, as far as driving is concerned, for those of us who drive a lot.
Yeah, so what I did was I just modified my vehicle. So you've got a, you've got a car, right? So I bought, um, a lumbar support off of Amazon. Yeah. But I cut it in half and I put it lower 'cause, right?
Like a lumbar support is just meant to take space in your lower spine. It's not help to lift it. And so I cut it in half and then I doubled it. To have that pelvis promotion, and then I put a, and if you get your pelvis up, your back is way far away from the seat. And so I had another lumbar support that helped with my upper back, but I knew the pelvis was the most important and what I had done for kiddos even before anthro, uh, and so I just utilized that same technology into that.
Um, and then I also stopped working at a period of time, you know?
Yes.
If you keep it going and you're always on. Um, so I think the combination of both of those and having that work life balance, positioning my body in a position of a para at the sympathetic state throughout the day, it was, it was a combination of a couple of things.
I can't say that it's exactly it, but yeah, that was the path I went down after multiple nights of not being able to fall asleep and struggling for a while. It's the worst. I
could not agree more than, and the languaging too. I, I absolutely echo of the ultimate equilibrium as far as knowing if something is not working in our lives, whether structurally, whether nervous system wise, and often they're all little pieces of many aspects that might need some course correction.
And certainly that was my experience. And one of the things we see all the time was. So many individuals we work with is often kind of taking a bit of a audit or assessment of what's going on in our lives and starting to kind of break down what's working, what's not working, and so great that you were able to make those changes because so many people can identify with this and that.
Travel long stretches at a time and how much that could be constricting, how they're breathing their nervous systems ability to feel safe and like all is well. 'cause ultimately that is kind of what we're going for with sleep, is the ability to feel like we can rest our head on our pillow and all is well.
And if we've been in a constant state, right? Yes. Yeah.
And I think it's like. It just, I, you know, if I have struggles, like, so that was a, that was kinda like a rock bottom for me. Was that first anxious, not being able to fall asleep. Of course,
yeah.
Later in life you'll have bouts of stress to where I'll, I'll wake up at three and can't go back to sleep, you know?
And so I'm like, reassess what's going on. Modulate that as much as possible. Get back to a routine of what works, what doesn't work. And it's just a, I feel like it's a constant thing that. We just need to keep an eye on and make sure that we're staying in that circadian rhythm. When things change, it's just so important and what you do is so important and so I'm happy to be here and help spread that word.
Oh, well the feeling is mutual and thanks for sharing your story because it's so true, and I love how you said to keep an eye on it because that's one of the things we'll often speak to too, is this idea of sleep being a skill, but I never wanna. Act as if, or put out into the world or confused that while this is an ongoing skill, the same way my husband and I love Japan.
And so you go to Japan and you'll see how many people have just a lifelong mastery and quest around certain areas of that they work in or what have you. And I share that from a piece of how it relates to sleep is I think there's this opportunity where we get a lot of the elements. Down. We can kinda learn some of these basics, but then there's always gonna be things that will be coming up throughout the course of our lives and shifting.
So it's never like, oh, you're achieving some level of perfection. 'cause sleep, imp, perfection do not go hand in hand. It can be actually quite a problem. And then performance anxiety around sleep, sleep, anxiety, fixation, all kinds of problems. So it's this weird dance. Of both learning education and yet at the same time, letting go and allowing for those kind of not so great sleep nights.
And knowing that we'll be resilient and fine, but to also be aware and to tweak where we have a say and an element of control there. And certainly we have a say in how we are sitting and standing throughout the course of the day. So if there are some of those concerns about. Kind of poor sitting. Why can't we just either tweak the way we're seated and just sit in that way all eight hours, or just stand all eight hours?
What's the need too for that variety?
Yeah, I mean, it's the, it's the micro movements that, you know, are contribute to the positive health, right? Mm-hmm. So if you're in one spot, if you are, um, sitting forever or you're standing forever, our nervous system and our blood flow and our circulation system does not like that.
It likes movement, it likes attention, and neither do the muscles, right? Like, so if you're. Staying put one day, they, you know, all day long, like, they like movement, they like that lubrication. Um, but then they, they like to be placed in that optimal alignment for the majority of it, right? So if we're standing, make sure we're standing with our shoulders back, hips in alignment, feet, you know, under our shoulders.
And if we're sitting, same kind of concept, shoulders back. But that movement is so crucial. I mean, not to plug Anthros, but we actually, yeah. You know, give you that extension to undo a lot of that forward head posture, which contributes to headaches. Neck pain, shoulder pain. We can go on and on. Yeah. About stuff.
And having those little micro movements to open up the chest, open up the diaphragm throughout the days is huge, and incorporating that into your day. Whatever chair you're sitting on is important.
I love that, and I love that you kind of spoke to some of those other symptoms we might see with headaches, neck and shoulder pain, et cetera.
'cause sometimes we might not correlate that, oh, we're just getting older X, Y, Z, but not kind of reverse engineering that. Maybe it doesn't have to go that way. So we might see some of those symptoms. Do you know if there are many studies looking at things like HRV, heart rate variability or some of these other things that people are heart rate or.
Other aspects of kind of posture or how we're seated or standing throughout the course of the day. Anything there? I
wish they would
that right?
I wish they would. They should. We should. Um, yes, please. My legs just throw the whoop on, like, you know, we could figure this out or, yeah,
it's nice.
Um, they, they've done a lot of studies in, uh, the cardiovascular health.
Um, with, in increased standing because of the blood pooling. Sure. But not looking at heart rate variability specifically. Okay.
Sure,
sure. But I love it and I think it's, you know, it's important where you are spending your time, right?
Mm-hmm. Like
we invest a lot into a mattress 'cause we want really good sleep.
But if we're. Skimping on what we're sitting on or how we're or workplace in our setup is throughout the day, we're taking those postures. We're taking some of those aches and pains into the mattress with gravity assisted, placing our body in those risk positions to where you open the fridge and you throw your neck out.
Right? Yeah. Like just. Sitting is not gonna cause a herniated disc, but if you're sitting poorly, your body's placed into a compromised position to where you would injure yourself, picking up your kid, or something like that. Mm-hmm. So keeping that into alignment, carrying that less aches and pains into the bedroom, to the mattress to help have that better sleep, longer sleep, um, type of quality, and not be having those aches and pains at night.
Ah, so well said. Before we transition into asking about how you're managing your sleep, and I loved how you shared kind of how things have been back in the day and all that has transformed now. But before we check in on, on how you're managing that, curious if there's anything in this big topic that we have left out that we wanna kind of put a bow on.
I think there, you might not realize the way you're sitting throughout the day. Posture is a very subconscious concept, but if you're finding yourself achy, at the end of the day, if you're finding yourself carrying some of that chronic pain into the bedroom at night when you're sleeping. Have your significant other just snap a picture of you throughout the day.
Oh, that's, you Dunno about it
because they're like, I'm fine. And lo and behold, they're typing like a zombie and they're crunched over looking at their laptop day. So you might not even realize it, but it's. It's a huge part of your day that you're spending eight hours, eight to 10, some 12 for go-getters.
Totally.
Yeah.
And so have you sitting of another, or a friend roommate, just snap a picture of you the way that you're sitting and take note of that and how can we improve that by making adjustments to what we're sitting on, where our screens are, where our desk is, how our feet are placed. There's a lot of, um.
There's a lot of research that points to improving those workplace ergonomics that can help improve that sleep by reducing those aches and pains and not having, um, that stress carry with you throughout the day. So just something to think about. Take a look at what you're sitting on, take note of it. Um.
Maybe that Amazon chair might not be helping you. It might be time. Exactly. Take a second look. But, uh, think about that. And if you're struggling with sleep, you know, or sleep hygiene through the day, right. What's our, what is our day like? And don't expect the day to be great and it's horrible. And then it flips like a switch at night and you get into that parasympathetic state.
With you.
Yes, it is so true. And it's so interesting 'cause so many people often will really only be thinking about their sleep when it gets dark out and it's close to bed. And now if, if that's the only time you're thinking about that. From a perspective of supporting it that could be problematic. So love all of that.
That's such a great sentiment and I love the suggestion too, of having someone else take a picture even, and then if, don't let this hinder you. If you're like, well, I don't have anyone around or what have you. If. I saw some social media person that for a period of time from a productivity perspective was like recording just on a little tripod themselves.
They were like lived alone or something. Th them working throughout the course of the day of somehow this, I don't know, was giving some sort of accountability. And it was interesting actually from a postural perspective because you see how much they move throughout the day and. Yeah, you know, angles. So even if you don't have someone with you, you could still set up your camera or whatever somehow.
'cause you only probably need to do this. So I would imagine too many times. And you get the idea of what are some of your tendencies. So that's a great kind of tactical and process that we could all do like today, maybe. Thank you for that. So we do ask four questions for everyone that comes on the podcast.
And the first one is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now?
So it starts early. So I, the go-getter and me, uh, the overworker, um, I have to shut it down from work. Um, you know, five, 6:00 PM is the max for me.
Sure.
Um, and then that is. That's the beginning of my nighttime routine, I feel like, because I have to own that.
Yeah. I, I will work until forever. Um, so that's when it starts. Um, early dinner as often as possible. Some things are outside of our control if we're doing dinner with, you know, with family, but as early as possible, um, limit carbs at night.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
For not only diet, but all the other blood sugar spikes and.
I really like to get in the hot tub.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I don't, I mean, I'm gonna stay cool at night. You know, temperature thermostat is down, but for me it's just a relax red light, just kind of shut things down. Uh, blackout curtains are a must. Um, I fail at the screens.
Oh yeah. Most do, I feel,
and it's not really my phone, it's my significant other, loves to just fall asleep to Dateline and there's not much I can really do about it.
And it's, you know, if I'm balanced and I'm in a good state, I can get through that. Yeah. And, but if I'm not, then we have to readdress some things that we talked about earlier.
Yes.
Uh, so yeah, that's my, my nighttime routine is very calm, relaxed, get into that state, have a glass of water, and uh, yeah. So pretty
much that is perfect.
Yeah. I love how you noted the ending of your workday because we've asked everyone the same question, but not everyone notes that, but especially I think for those of us who are kind of could make our own hours or flexible from a perspective of a sense of maybe we should keep working or what have you, and yet we know somewhere that that's gonna backfire and yet every day it might be.
We might really need that discipline and that clarity. So I think that's great that you've gotten clear on what works for you and we see that be a big thing for so many of the people that we work, especially entrepreneurs or you know, high performers that could have that guilt where they feel like they should still be on in some way, shape, or form.
So, but how important you actually yield higher productivity for many individuals when we do create that kind of clear on and offness so that we don't get burnt out. Dealing with a nervous system that's just always sympathetic leaning or that tone is so augmented.
It'll be there in the morning. You wanna get up early, go tackle it in the morning.
Yeah. With your morning routine, it will still be there. Have your own set your own personal boundaries to prevent burnout to get you back into that parasympathetic state.
I love that. Well said. And then what does your morning sleep routine look like right now with the idea that how we start our day could impact her sleep?
I live really close to the beach, so there's sun everywhere and so I get up. I try my best to not look at my phone.
Yes, I understand. Yes. It's delo.
We're all honest here. We're all friends.
Yeah, totally.
Yes. Not for a period of time to, I don't take any action to anything that I see. 'cause that just puts me into a different state, but I'm like, okay.
Life is good. We're gonna put that there and then I go outside to get that natural light.
Hmm.
Um, I'm out there maybe 10 minutes. Uh, make coffee. Uh, probably not good for you, but I'm a coffee girl.
Oh, yes. Joy. That's important. You know,
just I can't help it. I'm sorry. Yeah.
And you can sleep great with coffee too, you know?
It's like
Yeah. I'm not
drinking everything in moderation.
Yeah. Yeah. It's in the morning only, and then I've gotta move my body, so I take my 14-year-old Harry Potter. Dog on a walk and as long as he physically can and, uh, get that body movement and just align myself for the rest of the day. Food.
Sometimes I'm intermittent fasting, sometimes I'm not. I just really listen to my body and if I do eat, it's heavy protein.
Okay, cool. And where did you say you're located? I think I missed that part.
Uh, Florida.
Florida. Okay. And you're right by the water. How nice. Much
sun. So much sun. Too much sun.
I love it.
That's awesome. Okay, and then the third question would be, what might we see on your nightstand or maybe in your environment? I know you mentioned the blackout curtains. Anything else that we,
blackout curtains. Check temperature down. Like for me, I have. I'm more tolerant to heat and so my down is like 74, which would be hot to a lot of people, but that works for me.
Um, I'm a little OCD and so I need to have like my chapstick there. I need to have my cup of water and then begrudgingly, I definitely have my phone charging.
I
understand next the nightstand.
Okay. The honesty. Yes, exactly. I wanna
see. Yeah, but I don't, you know, I'm. I've been able to, you know, modulate myself enough where I'm not getting up.
I'm looking at the time I'm not, you know, I'm not in an anxious state. Sure. I believe that I, you know, get out of alignment and get back there. The phone needs to be somewhere else because we know that pattern.
Yeah, I, I'm glad you noted that too. 'cause it does seem to kind of, some of these things can have an accordion model relationship.
So if we are really struggling and things aren't working and we're starting to kind of reverse engineer. Then, okay, yeah, maybe that could be a time when we're kind of abstaining from things that could take us into kind of an activated, heightened state or what have you. But then there's other times where we see some of these relationships to screens as actually being really workable for people for a period of time.
And for some people there's even certain research of it being a calming mechanism, like some sort of adult, you know, pacifier or something, you know? Oh, cat reels who
watches reruns of Grey's Anatomy while
called. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, totally. And so there is a lot more nuance. That is available and kind of workable structures and systems.
But yes, to your point, if something's not working and then we're seeing things have tipped the scales, then adjusting as well. Great. Okay. And then the fourth question would be, so far to date, what would you say has made the biggest change to the management of your sleep? Or set another way, maybe biggest aha moment in managing your sleep
work life Bill.
Ugh. Stress.
Oh good.
Is just, you know, when you,
yep.
And sure. Like you're, the people that you work with, like you just, they all have this passion to just go and go and go. And that can have. Ramifications that show up for me, they did specifically in my sleep. And so being able to have that balance to be able to shut things off and get myself into that, um, calm state is, it's huge.
And it's a constant battle. I battle it. Oh,
totally.
Day. And something I have to keep.
Yeah, as a ruminator. Overthinker, yeah, I get
it. Yeah. I don't know where the study is, but it's work life balance. If you are properly aligned in that and you have really good boundaries and you work hard and you rest hard, um, for me, my sleep is just incredible.
Yeah. And there's so many interesting studies at at different angles of this. Like there's one, I'm looking at med students over an extended period of time when they're just like working too much and then looking at burnout and then some of the impacts of that where certain things alleviate. But then over time, for many people it's kind of this, this chronic and sustained strain on the body and nervous system measurably so, so there's different ways of quantifying what could feel like the.
Unquantifiable, is that a word? And yet, yeah, to your point, you're really hitting on something so huge there and that work-life balance. It's interesting 'cause out of this conversation, I guess one of the interesting things that I'm taking is I never thought or had almost a visual for myself of the management of the amount that I'm working from a structural perspective.
And I'm sure you're, you're like, hello. That's what I've been thinking for. No, but for me, like this. To feel is like a new, just another brick in the wall of a reminder that, okay, this is another way for me to think about, to be kind to my body and mind from, okay, I've been sitting way too long. I need to have that variety, have that movement, and just another way of managing that parasympathetic versus sympathetic nervous system.
Because I think for me personally, I've thought of it as, yes, so much of need for a balance or what have you, but for some reason this was more of an aha of seeing. That that structural component is impacting the psychological piece too. So that was great.
So then get that movement into right before you go to bed, you know?
Yes. Like get some of those, like rotations, twists, really get exercises to kinda relax your body right before you're going to sleep. And so take those movement breaks and then incorporate that into right before you go to bed, if you suffer from low back pain or you have some aches and pains in the central column.
I love that. Well said. Okay. That's great. Okay. And then for anyone who is interested in learning more, both from you, for your company, I know you've also shared too that with Anthros that there's also a lot of thought leaders that share on your page and platform and what have you. So what are all the ways that they could learn more?
All the ways. So, uh, our website is www.anthros.com. So you can see we have tons of blogs, tons of education to kind of, yeah. Teach you what you can do, you know, to undo a lot of that stress throughout the day, to how to sit to if Anthos isn't right for you. What are some other chair alternatives? Um, so we've got an occupational therapist on our team as well.
Agonists, all kinds of experts that are on there where it could be just a guide for learning for you. Um, and we are also on Instagram at Anthros Chair, Twitter, all the things. Yes, all the social media platforms at at Anthros chair. So take a second look at yourself. Take a second, look at the way you're placing your body for long periods of time throughout the day and invest in you, especially if you're taking it with you to the nighttime.
Yeah, so important, and I know you had set us up too with a link that we'll put in the show notes that could get people, I believe, 200 off. So we'll include that for sure. So in case people are curious about giving that a test, I mean, I can certainly say for both myself and my husband and my husband's very.
Straight shooter from New York, you know, just does not rave about something if he doesn't genuinely, genuinely really like it and he won't stop talking about his. Aw, he loves it. Loves it. And also for, you know, poker players, especially online poker players. I mean, you are just. Sitting all the time at crazy hours.
And so to be able to have that kind of ability to not only just sit more comfortably, but also kind of the adjustment features throughout the course of the day and night, what have you, really great. So thank you so much for taking the time. It means so much. And also for sharing about your own sleep story that makes a big difference for people to hear that they're not alone and that there's a light at the end of the tunnel once we kind of get up under what's not working.
Yeah, I'm happy to be here and thank you so much. It was awesome.
Aw, well thank you. Appreciate it. 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. Every Monday, I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet.
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