Diane Ducarme, Founder & CEO of Migraine Heroes is a leading figure in migraine investigation, blending the wisdom of Eastern Medicine with Western science and advanced technology to uncover the true roots of migraine disease. With an MBA from Harvard Business School, a background in science and engineering, and fluency in seven languages—including Mandarin—Diane brings a rich perspective to the complex world of migraine care. Her journey has taken her from engineering to Traditional Chinese Medicine studies in China and, more recently, neuroscience research at Harvard X. Diane’s approach uniquely emphasizes adding functional foods instead of eliminating them, shifting away from restrictive practices to focus on nourishing the body. As the host of the Migraine Heroes podcast, she shares insights and stories that resonate deeply with migraine sufferers worldwide. Through Migraine Heroes, Diane’s dedication continues to transform lives, offering a holistic path to relief, resilience, and wellness for those navigating migraine disease.
Diane Ducarme, Founder & CEO of Migraine Heroes is a leading figure in migraine investigation, blending the wisdom of Eastern Medicine with Western science and advanced technology to uncover the true roots of migraine disease. With an MBA from Harvard Business School, a background in science and engineering, and fluency in seven languages—including Mandarin—Diane brings a rich perspective to the complex world of migraine care. Her journey has taken her from engineering to Traditional Chinese Medicine studies in China and, more recently, neuroscience research at Harvard X.
Diane’s approach uniquely emphasizes adding functional foods instead of eliminating them, shifting away from restrictive practices to focus on nourishing the body. As the host of the Migraine Heroes podcast, she shares insights and stories that resonate deeply with migraine sufferers worldwide. Through Migraine Heroes, Diane’s dedication continues to transform lives, offering a holistic path to relief, resilience, and wellness for those navigating migraine disease.
SHOWNOTES:
😴 Migraines are not random, mysterious, or permanent
😴 How painkillers can silence symptoms while the real cause grows louder
😴 How functional foods can heal more than eliminating everything
😴 What waking at 1–3 a.m. reveals about your liver, brain, and sleep cycles
😴 How medication overuse can quietly create daily migraines
😴 Why solving migraines often improves sleep health, hormones, and energy together
😴 How deep sleep returns when the brain finally feels safe to rest
😴 What symptom timing can reveal about your nervous system health
😴 How gentle tracking restores trust in your body without obsession
😴 What true healing looks like after decades of pain
😴 And many more
SPONSORS:
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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 Sleepless Skilled Podcast. Today we're talking about migraines and sleep in a way that's rarely discussed with more hope, more root cause thinking, and a lot less quote. I guess this is just my life now, and I say that with love considering I have been someone that has navigated both migraines and certainly headaches throughout the course of my life, and would often see the impacts of that.
Related to sleep, and now I will call out. We've had other episodes on the podcast. If this is an area for you, you could check out one of our episodes, especially with Stasha Goman. Dr. Stasha Goman had some fascinating information on this topic, and it's been alluded to throughout many of our episodes.
Today's guest is Diane Karm, founder and CEO of Migraine Heroes who blends Eastern Medicine Wisdom and Western Science and Advanced Tech with an MBA from Harvard Business School, a science engineering background, traditional Chinese medicine studies in China, and neuroscience research through HarvardX.
Diane brings a refreshingly systems-based approach to one of the most misunderstood conditions out there. In this episode, we dig into why just manage the pain. Can keep people stuck for decades. How migraines can quietly wreck sleep, and how sleep patterns can reveal what's happening in the body and why Diane focuses on adding functional foods instead of restricting everything.
We also get into practical patterns, like what it can mean when someone wakes up between one and 3:00 AM the role of liver, gut health, and so much more through a traditional lens. And why medication overuse. Headaches can become a brutal cycle. Plus, Diane shares how her work has led some users to report dramatic improvements in deep sleep tracked through wearables.
If you struggle with migraines or headaches or love, someone who does this episode could genuinely change how you see the problem and what's possible. So listen up and if it resonates, share it with a friend who's been dismissed, confused, or quietly suffering. We're gonna jump right into this episode, but first, a few words from our sponsors.
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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.
Sleep often. Magnesium is a great place to begin, but not just any magnesium supplement. I do recommend getting the Magnesium Breakthrough by BiOptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough contains all 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.
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This special offer is only available@magbreakthrough.com slash sleep is a skill. I will also include this in the show notes as well. And welcome to the Sleep is a Skill Podcast. Our guest today is Diane. Diane, thank you so much for taking the time to be here
with so much pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Yes, I know this is gonna be a fascinating topic and just so needed, and as we discussed before, hitting record, just not discussed enough. Not enough. Possibility and hope breathed into this area because I think so many people, myself included, at different points in my life have just resigned to, well, I guess this is my life when I deal with migraines, headaches, et cetera.
So maybe a little bit about how you came to be such an expert in this space.
So, yeah, it was an unconventional journey. Um, my sister had migraines, this was 10 years ago, and I, at the time, very sad time when, um, our uncle died of a, of a brain tumor.
Ugh.
Leaving four children behind. It's completely traumatizing as a family.
And my sister was having these unexplained, um, migraines and so she had done to do 3M RI, at the end of which the radiologist said, can you please stop coming back? Um, you know. I don't see anything and I don't know why you're in pain. And so, you know, in between painkillers and sort of unexplained situation, um, we discussed and I said I, I think I know someone who can help.
And I had lived for five years in China. And I had this wonderful, um, Chinese doctor with whom I was only doing foods. Um, and, um, we had a one hour long call and, uh, I had three, was in three pages about her symptoms. And within three months she had no more migraines. And I didn't think much of it because I didn't know, I didn't know the magnitude of how much people suffer.
I, I just, I was ignorant. Mm-hmm.
Um.
Fast forward a couple of years. One of my closest friends tells me, Hey, um, I have had this massive confrontational conversation with my dad. Um, we had a big argument. Um, I, um, I've had, um, seven years of migraines and I'm, I say, I'm so sorry, you've never mentioned, so I don't like to talk about it.
Um, and after this, he is recommending that. I have a lifetime of medication, including injections in my brain, and I thought, oh, wow. Injections in your brain that, that's like, that doesn't sound like a really good idea. Right. If I miss it, you are 36. It means what? 50 years of injections? What do you mean what they're gonna put in your brain?
Don't do that. That sounds unreasonable.
Yeah.
I know. Someone, if you don't mind, we're just gonna chat between we, uh, WhatsApp. I will chat her on WeChat and, and we'll find what's going on. And within four months, she no longer had migraines except, except that her dad was actually a neurologist, a renal neurologist in the us.
And so I thought, oh wow, some of the foods I must have told you to eat must be very close to medication. And I discovered something that I found absolutely crazy was that the medication they were trying to give her or painkillers, I'm like, why would you try to kill the pain? You have to understand where is the pain coming from?
Then fix that.
Mm-hmm.
And I thought that doesn't make sense. But at the same time, then you go back to your western mind, you're like, well, I cannot get it. You have pain. But it's almost like you go, you have a knee accident and you go to the doctor and he gives you painkiller for painkillers for a lifetime.
Like at some point you hope he's gonna repair your knee. Um, and so that's how. I got into it, I thought I, I went because it was 18% of women. I suddenly started to look at the stats. I thought, oh my God, I'm such a bad friend. I have so many of my friends who actually were sufferers and I didn't fully listen or didn't fully hear what they meant when they said, I'm going home, I have a migraine.
And um, and I went on, on Facebook and I saw walls of people in pain walls and mm-hmm. And then. It was a massive calling, and so for the last six years now, I've developed Migraine heroes and I've never been so happy in my life. I, I started at Harvard Business School. I'm an engineer and my background is completely different.
And wow, I have the privilege of transforming people's lives even after up to 60 years of pain. And I think this is, this is the, the happiest side of a vocation I would call it.
That's amazing. Well, I love that you have such a strong why and bringing your skills and your mental aptitude to this topic, so that's fantastic.
And engineering a solution. So fantastic that we have you on the case. And maybe a little bit more about, so how have you been able to support so many people? Kind of this out of the box approach.
Yes. So, um, I had had a skiing accident myself. I had lost half of my blood, you know, shrunk in a, um, a kidney and broken a femur, and that's how 12 after 12 years of limping and, and sleeping from, from 2:00 PM Mollie to 8:00 AM the next day is awful.
Wow. I would really sleep on weekends, but I, I would, I would really like my husband who would try to wake me up at 8:00 PM Hey darling, it's. Time for dinner. And I'm like, you know what, just see you tomorrow. I was so smashed tired. So that's how I discovered, um, um, accidentally, uh, how food can completely heal you.
Sure. And I always dreamt of doing sort of a, an AI that you'd have in your pocket that tell you what to eat to, to do what and when. I, I. Was helping my friend. I thought, wow, I can make such a substantial difference in her life. And I thought it would be substantial. But then I've met people, Molly, that exceeded all of my most profound and sad imagination.
Like people who maybe, you know, start to have a few migraines when they were in their teenager years. Start to go and see doctors and take over the counter pills. Then went from ibuprofen all the way to Triptans, then more then became from episodic to chronic. So this is when you have more than 16 days of migraine pain a month and have their entire life completely controlled by the pain.
Um, having, you know, sometimes being fired of their work, not being able to finish university because of their migraines. Um, having their spouse leave them because the. Attend social events and it became, put such a strain on their relationship.
Hmm.
Um, and, and when I, when I met people like that, 'cause I said word of mouth I could help.
I said, I said I could do migraine, I cannot do that. What is this? And this was migraine. And, um, and so. By changing these lives. Like even when you change one of those, you know, a day or a week or in a month, you're just the happiest person. You've, you've given someone their life back.
Mm.
Um, and uh, and so that's how it came about.
And so now it's a full app with an, you know, like nine ais. Like it's this incredibly sophisticated, because women's bodies and men's bodies with migraines are incredibly sophisticated and everything is designed with just one single thing in mind. Help.
Yes. So important. Okay, so no matter what, so anyone listening that's struggling, and just quick point of clarification, does it have to just be migraine only?
Can it be headaches? Can it be both? Any s there?
It can definitely be both and come with everything else because what we've noticed is that when you solve for your migraine, you actually solve for the other things can be, you know, decreasing endometriosis can be, um, that numbness, that half bares, um, you know, those tingling sensation, the constant vomiting, the constant nausea, the sensitivity to light, the sensitivity to smell.
Everything goes. So in the app, we track all of that and we make sure that everything goes, that's our, uh, profession. Um, it's so nice. It's just so special because it's mothers, daughters, it's a lot of women, three to four times more women than men. Um, and, and what happened is that one day, her name was Jade, um, she's on the website.
Jade, uh, called me and said, Deanne, you know, I can never thank you enough for. Helping with my migraines. It's just spectacular. I'm, you know, working so well. I'm so efficient. Everything's so good. I have a question for you. I have this wearable, this was a long time ago before COVID, I think. I have a wearable, and my wearable tells me I have double deep sleep and I've never asked you for sleep.
You are the only thing that changed in my life. Can you explain to me intellectually, how did you just double my deep sleep?
And
I'm like, oh, well, you know, if you don't sleep, like you would say, Molly, you say, you know, there's not a single. Function, bodily function that we cannot not attribute to a lack of sleep.
Yeah. So if you don't sleep, how do you want me to solve for your brain? I need your brain to rest. Yeah. So, yes. And so I explained to her the mechanism by which, you know, her brain was just so much better, um, and her sleep. And so yes, sleep is something. Well, after she mentioned it, we started tracking, uh, 'cause it started to give us a lot of insights on what's going on in your brain.
If you suddenly wake up at 1:00 AM if you suddenly wake up 3:00 AM if you suddenly struggle to sleep, if you wake up with pain, if after you've woken up you have pain. Like all of these things are signs of that we interpret on what, what is your body trying to see.
Oh, fascinating. Okay. So that is now tracked in the app.
So if anyone's listening and they are struggling with headaches, migraines and or maybe their partner is struggling or kids or what have you, so in their sphere, downloading that app and then starting to kind of get more present to, as you pointed to it, sounds like very sophisticated in many different.
Areas to kind of help pinpoint certain mm-hmm. Triggers or maybe walk us through what that would look like.
Yeah. So, um, basically when you download the app, you um, you can track your migraines daily and when we encourage you to track not only the pain level. But the pain timing, like what time did the pain start?
And so for some people it will start in the middle of the night. Yes, yes. Um, they might be very anxious to going to bed because they're like, wow, at some point I'm gonna hit, get hit so bad. I'm, I'm stressed to wake up. Um, um, and so, uh, we're gonna track that, that, that level of pain, that timing of pain, all of the symptoms that come.
It could be acne, bloating, um, it can be, um. Trending sensations. It can be eye discharge, it can be hemorrhoids, like lots of other things that will indicate alongside the Caine axis, alongside the vagus nerve. What other problems are going on? Um, and um, and then we're gonna ask for energy. We want it to be super high bowel movement.
We want them to be perfect. Um, um, and, and so we want a perfect sleep. And so as we track that, we're gonna add foods and as we add food, we solve for root causes and very, very softly, the migraine are gonna decrease in intensity and infrequency. And the sleep is gonna get better. Like we have lots of people, for example, taking melatonin, melatonin can give, make your mind very dizzy on a daily basis and people will not necessarily associate the melatonin with the dizziness.
Um, but if that's you, it's really important to solve the root cause of wine or not falling asleep, making you fall asleep, naturally letting go of the melatonin. Cleaning your large intestine from those toxins or those hormones that were synthetic and haven't been experts. Right. Rightfully so. And um.
Then, and then, you know, just be able to sleep. And so all of that we do, um, uh, inside that app, there's a lot of humans inside that app. You wouldn't, like if you were trying to make money, that's not how you do it. 'cause there's, there's four humans in the chat of the, including me of the app. Like it's completely conceptualized.
When I started this, this was 2019. Seven investors said, I we're really keen to invest in your company. And one of them said, oh, you solve their problem. Hmm. That's problematic. Can you make them sick longer? And I was like,
excuse me. Wow.
Yes. Can you make them sick longer? And I'm like, oh, okay. So if you say that, probably everyone thinks the same.
There were investors in the US, in Australia and New Zealand where I'm based. I thought, okay, no, my goal is not business. My goal is health. You know what? Let's decouple that and I'm just gonna be on my own. And so that's what I've done relentlessly. And yes, it's a bit slower, but you know what? There's an executive from Google and she's been observing me for the last year and a half, helping me for the last eight to nine months.
Um. Every week and she said, you know what? I can either grow, grow Google, or I can grow you. Um, I choose to grow you. I think this is phenomenal, the lives that you're changing. And so super, like massive vocation as well. And she says, you know what? Screw it. I think this is. Too important. Um, you know, our, our women, our children.
Like just, let's just move the world forward. Um, and so, yeah, I love that. So there's a lot of love and a lot of intent, a lot of integrity on it. Do you matter? And then also we always want everyone to be VD really well. Yeah. Like, it's not like just, oh, we're happy with 80%, 90% of people having success. No, no, no, no, no.
We go all the way for the weirdest profile possible. So that's, you know, um, and so in sleep we have found quite, um, like some typical patterns and sometimes very, uh, atypical patterns, but always that willingness to go all the way for every single one human that were. Um, devoting ourselves to
Oh, that's amazing.
And certainly mourning the, what you said about the time of day being so important. 'cause we talk about that a lot for diagnosing of sleep disorders, so, of which there's over a hundred sleep, wake disorders and so commonly getting missed. And one of the kind of possible symptoms for many people, especially women, can be morning headaches for sleep apnea and or upper airway resistance syndrome, which is just.
Rampant, especially sleep apnea. So that ability to start pinpointing the time can help denote, is that something that we might be dealing with? And then as we treat, that makes such a difference there. So I love that. Have you seen some of that kind of crossover too on the sleep? Component or as people are logging, kind of being able to uncover certain sleep disorders or,
yeah, absolutely.
And it's, we also, um, therefore correcting them, like trying to understand, um, from a systems point of view, if you wake up at a certain time, what does it mean? So, for example, let's imagine someone who, um, has had, uh, started to have, you know, migraines even in their childhood or in their adult years, and they start to medicate softly.
Yeah. They start over the counter drugs, et cetera. And then little by little they're gonna need to up, they're not gonna need to, they're gonna be told to, um, increase. The dosage and the potency of the medication because it doesn't, doesn't work anymore. As you start to do that, you start to intoxicate your liver as an organ and therefore intoxicate your liver system, which is highly connected to your brain.
In particular from a migraine perspective, you're gonna feel the, the liver connected to your brain, um, around your temples, right and left across your eyebrows. On the top of your head, there's gonna be very linked to your eyes and your sensitivity to light, aura, visual disturbances, seeing guts, prisms, et cetera.
And so if you have had a lifetime of medication, your liver is gonna have a really high level of toxicity. And when your liver is sleeping or resting according to traditional transmission, one to 3:00 AM so gallbladder 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM liver, 1:00 AM to 3:00 AM then that, um. Disturbance of the liver trying to do such a hard job and not being able to complete it is gonna make you wake up.
Um, anywhere between one to 3:00 AM. Without a very specific reason and struggling to fall back asleep. Um, now it doesn't mean that necessarily at that time you wake up with pain, you can, not necessarily, but as you reset the liver system, then that phase of night is more. Peaceful again, you can have other patterns such as a person waking up from four to five ams, and that will be more specifically targets to either lung or things that they have on their minds.
Um, and then you address that or sometimes blockages inside of, um, their blood vessels. So you see in the brain there's 645 kilometers of blood vessels. If you have taken a lot of medication, uh, sometimes you can have small impurities or had a lot of surgeries, small impurities inside of these vessels.
And so as the blood circulates, if you have blockages and your body starts to wake up, that can induce, um, pain as well. Um, and so and so our. Art and our role is to clean those blood vessels, to restimulate liver, reactivate these, and as we do that, then the body can do it's normal. It's normal function.
Wow, okay. And so how does this typically work? Will people, so they download the app, they start logging for a period of time, and then it's. Utilizing kinda AI and other means to help ascertain what might be going on for them? Or is it more like they learn through some of the content in there, or both?
What could people expect?
Both. I think one, one key aspect is understanding. We're trying to have people come in the journey, in the intellectual journey with us. We find once they understand, okay, why have I been. Suffering for 30 years consecutive of unexplained pain. Yeah. Once you start to explain them, and we do this onboarding call, um, which is incredible.
It's 90 minutes. It's um, um, you know, free of charge, and we do that. Wow. Because people, I would say in a third of these calls, um. A lot of people cry. I also encourage people to come with their spouse because for the first time they understand and it's almost like a huge relief that comes on their shoulder of like, I'm not crazy.
Yeah, I am. I've been dismissed so much. I've been taken so not seriously. And everyone, I feel my body is so erratic and I'm so tired of each time trying something new and then it works a little bit and then it no longer works. So it's a huge moment when their spouse sees how much they appreciate even more the sufferance.
Also for the spouse, it's a lot because all of the logistics of the children et falls on their shoulders. Um, and so I really encourage them to come together, and that's the first step. Once you understand in plain English, you're like, oh, wow, I, I, I can do this. This is feasible. Like, I understand. And then inside the app, the main part is that we're gonna just add foods.
We're not gonna remove anything, we're gonna let you know of your triggers if you want to have trigger foods, it's our job anyway at the end of the day to no longer triggers. Um, so a trigger is a food or something, a stimuli that will immediately launch a migraine attack. Um, and, um, and so as we add foods, their, their body are gonna restore and reset to their, uh, happy, happy place.
Um, and so that's gradual, but it's beautiful to watch. Beautiful. Because people feel it. It's not like you. You give a report like they feel a bit like when people work with you. They wake up and they're like, oh my God. And I have energy. It's not my personality that I'm a lazy sort of needs to sleep in.
Always tired, never enthusiastic person.
Yeah.
You know, I'm full of life. I'm full of possibilities. I don't have to be so anxious. To go to bed. Yeah. You know, I don't have to be so anxious to go to, you know, to, to, to sleep. Um, I'm gonna just have a good night. I'm gonna have a good time, and tomorrow will be a great day.
Uh, amazing. And you're helping to support that versus, as you pointed to from the business perspective, the want to, oh, let's. Keep them stuck in that state and you're ensuring that that is not the direction for these people, which to your point, for so many of them might be like decades worth of suffering.
Decades. It's beautiful.
Decades. And look, I often, I often say, look, in 1969, we went to the moon. Mm-hmm. Is solving for someone's migraine harder than going to the moon? No. No, it's not. Is it complicated? Yes, absolutely. Everyone's different. It takes effort. It takes a lot of effort. Yeah, it takes a lot of determination.
But so does going to the moon, and that happened a long time ago. Okay.
Yes.
So like if you really try now, the big problem is migraine is a huge, huge cause of visibility. Arguably the first one. For women under 50. However, when you start to plug in how many deaths come from the disease,
mm,
it really falls and drops down beyond, um, uh, behind cardiovascular diseases.
It loses precedence. Sure, it loses relevance. So from a societal point of view. Um, is it in pain that you're, you know, in pain? Is it a problem that you're in pain every day? Well, you know, you medicate, so you pee. You know, you're, you're still alive. You still have two legs to, you know, there's, there's no urgency, no emphasis, no effort.
You know, like if we were really trying,
yeah.
You know, there's nine of us. That's it. You know, if you're really trying, yes, you can, and you can always, 'cause the brain is always very logical. It's
so
bad. It's like in your work, it's like someone says, I don't sleep because I don't sleep. You're like, no, everyone can.
Exactly. Yes. And that's why we really stand on this ethos that sleep is a skill, and I think this applies for what you're speaking to, that we just, it's a matter of kind of rolling up our sleeps and kinda getting to the source of it. So I love that. And before we, you know, every person that we do bring on the podcast, we ask for questions around how you're managing your own sleep.
But before we get there, I know this is a huge topic and we only just scratch the surface, but is there anything that we wanna make sure that we underscore or emphasize in this huge topic of migraines, headaches, and sleep?
Yes. Maybe the role of medication in the mix,
please.
Um,
yeah,
if you can, I think that the hardest pattern of all is if you.
Starts to have medication overuse headaches. So meaning you've taken so much of the similar types of medication that you start to have migraines triggered by the medication that relieve to your migraine the previous day. Oh yes. These are profiles where you're gonna wake up every single day in pain.
The pain will wake up and this is gonna last for. Decades, literally. Mm. Because it's, it's extremely hard to get out of the cycle. So try to discuss with your doctor to find ways and strategies, track, see what your triggers, try to make your life more manageable to avoid, to be in that more chronic stage.
Um,
yes.
Yeah. And I really want to ins on that, 'cause that's gonna inform your, your sleep. You're no longer sleeping. You're no longer sleeping. Your brain is no longer resting. And you're in a very, very vicious se, se cycle. Yeah. Which is, um, hard alone to get out of.
And so, and that's yet another thing that the app would help us kind of pinpoint.
Yes. So, so we're logging that we're taking these and we're starting to see this through line. Oh, the medication rebound effect.
Yes. Yeah. And so what we found is that people were truly able to de medicate, uh, from migraine. Then also beyond, right? Um, if they were having thyroid issues, that doctor would say, oh, your thyroid's a lot better.
We might cut that dose by half and then see if we don't remove it all together, et cetera. So as you do that, your level of toxicity decreases and um, your deep sleep, you know, comes, you know, can come back. And just being really mindful of the trade offs. Um, of course people cannot, you know, it's awful.
Like if you have to wake up and feed your children and go to work and, and smile to your husband in spite of the pain, of course it's awful to do all of that. And if you're gonna be in pain, it's impossible. Think of your short term options and think of your life the full rest of your life in front of you.
Yesterday I welcomed a woman. She's 70, gorgeous woman. Gorgeous. And I love her growth mindset. Yeah. You know, and her husband said, you know what? Just, you know, you can abandon. There's nothing that's gonna work. And I'm like, no. Go. You like we're gonna prove, you know, I, I'm, I'm your last person. I'm your last person.
Just, you know, you still have. 20 years, 25 years in front of you, make those counts. You know, be the grandma you wanna be. Yeah. Absolute.
Oh, that's beautiful. So much hope and possibility. Fantastic. And I'm so grateful that you're doing the work you're doing, um, making such a difference. And so every person that we do bring on, we ask these four questions and I'm very.
Given that you're certainly as evidenced, you know, someone that looks at some of these components of our lives, so the, with the tracking of the app and kind of engineering health. So I'm very curious, you know, your answers to these questions. So the first one is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now?
My nightly sleep routine. So for me, I, I count, I I my five cycles of 90 minutes. I really do. And so I'm always go clockwise seven days a week. Um, and so my clockwise is 11:00 PM 6:30 AM um, and. And I don't like to sleep over because I hate to be woken up middle of cycle. Mm. So usually I love to wake up naturally.
I, I find if I, even if I do five cycles and a half, that half is gonna make me quite tired if I'm woken up in the middle of my, of, of my dream. Um, and so that's, uh, 11 to six, uh, 30 am Um, and no screen time, uh, before those two, hopefully for an hour is sometimes not always realistic.
I love that. That's beautiful.
Okay. And then what does your morning sleep routine look like right now with the idea that how we start our day can impact our sleep,
I have a morning routine of face yoga, um, which I love with
face
yoga you said.
Oh,
cool. I need to do more of that. Okay. What does that look like?
Gorgeous. Um, it's just a time where, um, you take a time to wake up your face to the world and to life.
Um, and, um, it comes with a few sentences of how you see beauty in the world and how you're gonna make, you're gonna make in your. Um, foods that choose health, beauty, and radiance. And you start to project the beauty in nature that is gonna surround and make your body nicer. And I find it incredibly powerful because when you, um, receive those sort of low hanging bad idea foods, you re, you have this calling back to your morning at the start of the day, and you let them pass.
Much easier. Does that make sense?
Yes.
Like you, you just, you, you, you recognize that moment where you've chosen this morning I chose me, I chose my health. I chose my sleep. Um, and therefore this did not belong to the desire this morning for how the day would run. And, and it's just. You're not saying no to something, you're saying yes to yourself.
So that's my morning routine. I, I love it. I love it. So I do it with creo spoons, with my hands, um, and with small caps. Really nice, quite nerdy. Um, but I love it.
Wow. I love that. Not, not at all. That's great. And kind of just such a created way to start your day. That's fantastic. And then the third question would be, what might we see on your nightstand or in your kind of sleep environment?
Oh, I love a, um, a silky uh, uh, uh, eye mask.
Oh.
I find because they reset your foreheads nicely. Yes. I find there's a, a beauty element to how it's just repu your, you know how when sometimes you, you fall asleep and you're thinking about something that is, you know, require you to think. Then you have your, your 11 lines, your line lines that come back.
Yes. So I find the face masks. It's like, okay, now it's time to. Peaceful thoughts, happy thoughts? Mm. There's no, we're not gonna do the, we're
not doing that here. Yeah.
I love that. Need that tomorrow. And we're just gonna ease into sleep. And I love that sensation. Oh, I also always add a few, um, lavender drops on my pillow.
Always. Really? I love that. Oh yes. Beautiful. It's, it, it helps to, uh, calm your mind. Because I work, I'm based in New Zealand. You can hear me from my accent. I'm French speaking. And so I, I work across time zones. Yeah. Like my team is Project Run the World and all of the customers we work with are from Iceland to New Zealand via the us, Canada, South Africa, all of Europe.
We have people everywhere. So. You know the, the phone sort of never stops, so the pillow drops With lavender, they allow you to go into a Zen mode extremely fast, and because it's then becomes a memory of your scent, memory of their smell, and so I love that routine. It comes also from South France, so it has that really good vibe.
Ooh,
do you
have
any special brand or anything you like? I feel like I need to get some of these.
It came from a very small market. Okay. And, uh, um, you're something more artisan like and it has a really good yeah. Vibe. Therefore, you know, it took all of that beautiful energy from the lavender south south of France.
Oh my gosh, yes. I find this just a few drops. It really. Eased down the thoughts, um, and signals to the brain, Hey, now no more thinking resting.
Love that. Oh, it's so important. Yeah. We kind of refer to that as thought timing from a circadian perspective. So this idea that so many elements of our day impact our circadian rhythms, including, you know, so light timing, darkness, timing, temperature, timing, meal timing.
Mm-hmm. Exercise timing. Thought timing in that we can kind of usher certain types of thoughts or corral or help support training ourselves to maybe not go there as you were speaking to like, okay. Just happy thoughts for this time being.
Yes. Yes, and definitely, and I, I find preceding that one of the things I really love if I have a lot on my chest is I go for.
It's gonna sound bizarre. A digital walk. So I, I go, I go for a walk and I call someone, um, I'm gonna call my mom, my sister, et cetera. And yes. You know, if I have something on my chest, I'm gonna just let it out. Yes. And the physical movement plus the talking just gets that energy out and it's out of my system.
And then, you know, I can go to sleep. Really? I
love that. A digital walk. That's beautiful. Yeah.
And like you're just, you know, in nature, et cetera. I'm really extrovert. So for me, just alone doesn't, you know, I'm like, yeah, I still need to talk. So, yeah.
That's great. Amazing. Okay, that's fantastic. And then the last question would be, so far to date, what would you say has made the biggest change to your management of your sleep?
Or maybe said another way. Biggest aha moment in managing your sleep.
Yes. Two, if I may cheat, one is I noticed I spent a lot of time in Asia that if I was having any meals with MSG, so monosodium glutamate, I would wake up at the time of the liver, like, like in one go.
Hmm.
Um, so that I really, I'm trying to be really mindful of two things, not having it in the first place, if I can.
Grab the that's in there and if it is inside, it makes me really thirsty before going to bed. I know then I have a come my infusion and that's gonna help my liver process that MSG faster and then I'm gonna stay asleep. Um, so that was a huge hahaha moment. And then, um, at some point I was using, um. Over ring.
Um, and I was scoring 95% on sleep, so I didn't keep it 'cause it was adding blue tooth to my sleep, which, you know, I'm like, okay. Sometimes to measure. Yeah. And then sometimes to let down. And the biggest insight I got from there is if I was reading a little, then I always had amazing deep sleep. Um, my REM would be a bit more substantial.
And so now I try to read. Just two, three pages sometimes. Um, and I know that then my REM is a bit, yeah. Is a bit more
Very cool. Oh, I love those insights.
Where to be.
Oh, that's great. Okay. And then for anyone listening that they're struggling or they know someone that's struggling with headaches, migraines, what are the best ways to follow you?
Work with you? Get the app. All the things.
It's all things. Migraine Heroes. So Migraine Heroes Podcast where we share a ton of like, you know, insights and, and, and help to hi, hack your way out of your migraines, uh, the Migraine Heroes app and migraine heroes.com for the website.
So good. Well, I so appreciate you doing all the work that you're doing.
Clearly passionate and lit up and inspired and making such a difference. So I'm so grateful that you just delved into this, even with this other background that sounds like it's serving you so well. It's like what we needed. So thank you so much and thank you for taking the time to share it with us.
Thank you, Molly. Thank you so much for having me.
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