Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Prioritize Sleep For Improved Mental Health with Dr Tracey Marks - E8
170 Plays1 year ago
Poor sleep quality can have a profound impact on your mental health, leading to increased stress, anxiety, and even depression. We all struggle to concentrate, regulate our emotions, and maintain healthy relationships, all while feeling trapped in a cycle of exhaustion and mental distress. However, prioritizing sleep and understanding its crucial role in mental well-being can be the first step towards reclaiming your emotional equilibrium. In this episode, we delve into the intricate relationship between mental health and healthspan, with an emphasis on sleep. We’ll explore how improving your sleep habits can help you build resilience, enhance your mood, and foster a greater sense of overall well-being.
Dr. Tracey Marks has made significant contributions to the field of mental health through her work as a psychiatrist and her innovative approach to education and advocacy. With a wealth of experience in both general and forensic psychiatry, Dr. Marks has dedicated her career to bridging the knowledge gap and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health issues. Her YouTube channel has become a resource for those seeking to better understand and manage their mental well-being, empowering people to take control of their mental health journey. She continues to inspire and educate, helping countless individuals navigate the complexities of mental health in today's challenging world.
“Take some of the stigma out of mental health and even the discussion of it, and make it ordinary conversation for people.” - Dr Tracey Marks
In this episode you will learn:
- Dr Marks' journey into mental health advocacy and her efforts to educate and empower people to take control of their mental health.
- How Dr Marks uses a bedtime routine including blue light blocking glasses, audiobooks, and sleep aids to prepare for restful sleep.
- The role of sensory cues, such as aromatherapy and weighted blankets, in creating a relaxing environment for better sleep.
- The importance of social connections and finding balance between work and social life for overall well-being.
- The interconnectedness of physical and mental health, with strategies like regular exercise, clean eating, and self-compassion for improving both.
- Practical tips for managing stress and promoting mental well-being, such as guided meditation, breathing exercises, and making small, cumulative changes over time.
Resources
- Get Dr Marks' free self-compassion companion guide: https://drtraceymarks.ck.page/b7dea20257
- Watch Dr Marks' YouTube channel for more mental health education: https://www.youtube.com/@DrTraceyMarks/
- Connect with Dr Marks on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraceymarks
- Shop all the products Dr Marks mentions in the episode: https://alively.com/products/drtraceymarks
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
https://www.zapods.com
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
https://alively.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Health Span Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
with attending to your mental health, it's a daily thing that can sound overwhelming if you just look at what someone's doing like, well, how am I going to do that? Let me write this down. But if you hear a bunch of stuff that happens that people talk about online, pick a couple of areas that you could strengthen or make better. And over time, you get the cumulative benefit from all of these little changes.
00:00:28
Speaker
This is the Home of Health Span podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
Meet Dr. Tracey Marks
00:00:41
Speaker
Dr. Tracey Marks, it is so wonderful to have you on the show, Home of Health Span. Thank you for joining us. Absolutely. I'm happy to be here. As a fellow ETLian, I am very excited to connect with you. I know we didn't touch on that before, yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that. Okay, great. Yes, neighbors. Yeah, exactly.
Journey into Mental Health
00:01:02
Speaker
So for those not familiar with your work, you do a lot not just to destigmatize maybe challenges people have with mental health, but also to really help people navigate that journey. A lot of physical health, it's invisible. People can see and kind of address it. Whereas I say this all the time, we're all fighting a thousand invisible battles. and and you don't really know what someone else is going through. A lot of times you don't fully understand what we're going through, but you do so much work helping people navigate that. How did you get into this? What was it that attracted you to it?
00:01:40
Speaker
I guess there's always been a part of me that likes explaining things or teaching things to people. I don't know that I knew that about myself until I started practicing medicine. And I i would notice that a lot of the things that I was saying to patients, I thought, I don't think a lot of people know this. And it was also a lot of information I was trying to give them yeah when they just want to talk about their relationship. And here I'm trying to teach them about something, even though that additional information could have been helpful.
00:02:10
Speaker
So I I got the bug in me to want to be able to help people beyond the small number of people I was seeing in my office to reach the masses, to help them understand themselves better. Yes, take some of the stigma out of mental health and even the discussion of it and make an ordinary conversation for people. But people are afraid of things that they don't understand.
00:02:40
Speaker
And so I wanted to be able to ah give people a greater understanding of just the ins and outs of their mental health journey to make it better for them to manage for themselves and take agency and being able to know um what to ask for or what they should what they should be looking for and even getting their own treatment and so on and so forth.
Mindset and Stress Management
00:03:08
Speaker
That agency is a really strong point when you get to to mindset and stress management because it can be the the fulcrum on which everything turns. If you're seeing things as happening to you, I am a spectator, I am a victim, i whatever it is, versus Wait, I get to make decisions in this. How have you helped people kind of flip the switch on that? Because I know for me early in my career, when I worked at somewhere, it I felt, oh, this is all happening to me. And I am just this.
00:03:42
Speaker
And looking back, I thought, man, there was such a missed opportunity on things I could have learned in that environment and what I could have gotten out of that experience if I had had the mindset I now have of, oh, this is an opportunity. Maybe I wouldn't have chosen these things that came here. But now that I am here, here are the here's a smorgasbord of choices I have in front of me. I don't know how I personally came to that. But I imagine is this something you hear from people or you help people with?
Educating through YouTube
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, I so, you know, you don't know what you don't know. So it's not as though I kept hearing people say, gosh, I don't know enough. Can you tell me? It was more that when I knew that there's things that people it would be helpful for people to know and in giving people that information. And my primary mechanism of that was YouTube to begin with.
00:04:35
Speaker
I started getting feedback from people of, oh, wow, that's what this means or that's how this looks. And gosh, maybe do I need help? And I started feeding off of the questions that I got. And that helped me see what other people needed to know. But let me give you a personal example of this, what I mean by the agency. So I had like a spot on my arm and I had a friend say, oh, you're not getting annual mole checks. Well, I do know that um The darker your skin, the less of the indication for you to get annual checks. But still, no, I wasn't getting annual checks. So i I thought maybe I need to have this looked at. So I went into the system. I have Kaiser and ah which is just basically a managed health care system.
00:05:19
Speaker
And they don't recommend that everyone get annual checks, probably because it's too time consuming. But I had a spot that I wanted looked at. So I was able to get an appointment made. And when I saw the dermatologist, I said, well, should I make an ah another appointment next year? She scraped it off and sent it away. But should I get another appointment next year? Well, no, if if you don't, I said, well, who are the people who should get annual checks? Well, if you if you've already had cancer,
00:05:46
Speaker
So I'm like, wait a minute. So you need to already you need to get cancer in order to in the future have it checked. And so this basically is just a stopgap to save money. But the issue is people need to know if they're in this kind of system.
00:06:04
Speaker
how do you know what the first sign is? you're You're trying to catch things early as opposed to waiting until it's a problem and then now you'll get me in this follow-up system. So having education out there is to let people know if you have, if your skin looks like this or check for this and da-da-da-da-da and that's You know, I now have to be the one to check my own skin to have a question about whether or not I should get a professional to check it.
Personal Responsibility in Health
00:06:31
Speaker
And so that's an example of it's in my hands. Otherwise, if I if I don't do anything, then yeah, I just get melanoma and wait until it's a problem.
00:06:41
Speaker
Right. and And then it's a ah thousand x worse problem versus correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess ah it's true around it. It also the person has to be in the mindset to receive what you're teaching. It sounds like so. You could be in a in a clinical situation where someone's talking to you and and they're trying to share and then you're trying to educate them. But where their mind is isn't receptive for education right then. They're they're dealing with something else.
00:07:08
Speaker
Whereas I guess what you're able to do with YouTube, with Instagram, with this other content you're putting out is people are engaging with it in a mindset of I'm looking to learn about this and I'm staying on it if it's clicking with me right now. And now I know this resource is there such that if I have an issue in the future around X, I'm going to go search and find out. Great. She has some great content on this. Let me let me learn about that. Is that have you seen that help?
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah. So that's a great point that not people don't always know that I need to learn more about this. It usually starts with some kind of pain point. So a person may be feeling stressed out and then it just so happens. They're watching YouTube for some other reason and and they see this video title come across of you know, notice that your stomach hurts a lot. Why do you think that is? Or the the other signs of stress that are not just in your head, you know, things like that, that might trigger that and ah thought of that person of, huh, I wonder if I can, if this is about what I'm feeling and then they, they watch and as they watch and things are revealed, then they think, Oh,
00:08:16
Speaker
Now I see there's other stuff I don't know. Well, she mentioned this. Let me see if I can find out more about that. So, yeah, it doesn't always start with people just kind of casually watching and and let and hear somebody trying to, you know, give me mental health education. It usually starts with people who recognize that there's something not right about something and they they want to get more information. That makes sense.
00:08:42
Speaker
Now before we started recording you you mentioned you were having a bit of a stressful day so there's one thing of theory. right of Hey here's what i know from my practice from what i learned through my studies in my training and the right answers and then there's a separate of.
00:09:00
Speaker
What's it the mike tyson and everybody has a plan to leave a punch in the mouth ah of how we actually. Implement that day to day so when you are when you find yourself in a stressful situation or in a stressful day what are your go to remedies to to try to self regulate on stress management on getting leveling up mindset.
Stress Management Strategies
00:09:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. So it's not always easy. ah So today, yes, i I was telling you before we started that you caught me on actually a bad day, because I had a plan of these things that I was going to get done. And then all of these interruptions came into being so we had, you know, a ah new cable installation appointment and all of these things that I thought might not take that much, but the multiple interruptions just essentially just kind of
00:09:55
Speaker
destroys my productivity. And I have my own attention issues, not to the extent that I need medication. But if I get in a zone and you break the zone with, hey, ma'am, can you show me this?
00:10:10
Speaker
then it's just the frustration of like every couple of minutes having to stop my train of thought and do something. So that had the cumulative effect of me thinking, okay, I got this interview in an hour and I still haven't gotten this and that done. And that actually happens quite a bit to me as far as um you know being interrupted. So i have i i have I get easily frustrated with a million interruptions. And what do I do about it? I fantasize about running away.
00:10:39
Speaker
yeah getting in my car, just driving and not telling people where I'm going. But sometimes I'll go on a walk. ah Sometimes I'll just pause and do some deep breathing until someone interrupts me from that. But a lot of times it'll be exercise. It'll be like going on a walk in my neighborhood or something, um something physical. Because if I sit and try and I'm not the best meditator, admittedly. And oftentimes there's interruptions even with that.
00:11:11
Speaker
Right. I did see some of your content. It decided that I actually use in my TED talk as well. 47% of the time, we're thinking about something other than what we're doing. great And this need of, yes, our mind wanders, but we need to also have the the conscious mind be able to focus as well. And it takes both. And so we're we're not just manifesting on things in the past.
00:11:35
Speaker
so knowing you're not a good meditator, um which I think is human. I think very few people are are naturally good, which is why it's so important to to potentially work on it. Is that something you still try to work in at times? Or you say, hey, no, I i do more walking meditation because just sitting, if I'm in an environment where I'm going to get interrupted, sitting and trying to do breathing here is not going to help because I'm still going to get interrupted.
00:12:02
Speaker
Right. Well, so because I'm not a good meditator as far as controlling my own thoughts, what I do, what works better for me are guided meditation. So I can listen to something. So sometimes I will put my AirPods in, which hopefully sends the signal to people, I'm doing something, leave me alone.
00:12:23
Speaker
But i'll I'll listen to some guided meditations. And sometimes I'll do some yoga poses as well. I forgot to mention that that's kind of my new thing, the stretching, it's just so relaxing. But still, that's kind of back to physical activity as a way to mitigate feeling tense and anxious because of I'm irritated.
00:12:45
Speaker
I did want to mention something um about what we were talking about earlier, kind of interject. I wasn't thinking of this at the time of this, like this ah someone getting mental health information or any kind of educational information when they're not necessarily asking for it and how receptive they are to that.
00:13:02
Speaker
And I think we've gotten to a point where people are starving for information. They recognize that there's a gap between what you get when you you go to see your doctor and um and what they actually need. So you may have a 10-minute an appointment, and this is not anti-healthcare system. I'm in the healthcare care system. but The fact is our system is stretched. So there are people, a lot of doctors will see a bunch of people a day. You might have five or 10 minutes in there. You get in there, you freeze up. You can't remember what you were going to say. You don't have time to ask a lot of questions. You leave and now all these questions come into your head. And that's where I fill in the blanks for those questions that come into people's head after they've left their doctor or their caretaker.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense when they're they have that hunger for the information. Just on the guided meditations or the yoga poses, are there apps
Fitness and Mental Health
00:13:58
Speaker
used? Do you find YouTube videos or even the breathing exercise? like Do you do 478? What are your specific practices around those different areas?
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, so I do have a subscription to Calm. So sometimes I will look up some things on Calm. um Sometimes I will use some um audios that I've created. So I have a body scan meditation, a 478 breathing meditation. So sometimes I'll just and I have them already on my phone. So I'll listen to those rather than searching around in another app.
00:14:32
Speaker
And then as far as the yoga things, actually during ah the pandemic and I still think they've done it, but Nike has a ah free activity app site and I started doing yoga through their site. OK.
00:14:48
Speaker
And there's a couple of gentle yogas that I do. I can't handle. I'd like to think i'm I'm more physical than that, but I'm not. I can't handle like the power yoga and all that. I'm not in that great a shape. But the gentle yoga where it's calming and breathing and stretching. Love that.
00:15:08
Speaker
We actually were talking about that with a prior guest of how much great content came out of COVID that people were sharing. So one of the guests we had on the show was someone I've never met in person, but it was all my yoga during the pandemic, because she was posting videos. And so I had to her on the show, like, look, you kept when my studio closed, you were my yoga instructor. And I still have them on my computer, still use those.
00:15:31
Speaker
And another less, I guess, health related getaway for me is just ah watching junk television. I mean, I have shows I binge watch and I look forward to getting to them.
00:15:44
Speaker
OK, so any any particular at the moment that you say, well, you know what, I'm now caught up in um the Desperate Housewives. OK, I never watched that when it came out back in the day. I had a small child and I was busy. And so my son has been watching it. So then I started watching it. So yeah, I totally look and there's so many seasons and those older shows have like 20 episodes a season, whereas now they're like eight or 10 episodes.
00:16:12
Speaker
So you can get you can get caught in the system for a long time. Got it. So one of the things you've mentioned several times on when maybe your stress is starting to build, the the way to address it for you is actually more physical. You go to the fitness realm. And yeah, go ahead.
00:16:33
Speaker
ah Well, I don't want to totally interrupt you, but yes, that is, you know, but another way, too, is which I'm trying to get better. It is just saying no to stuff like I have all these interruptions and obligations because of things that I commit to and I over commit to. So now I'm trying to restructure my life to make it a little cleaner. It's not an overnight thing, but to get better at saying no and not feeling guilty about it.
00:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, we're still all just given 24 hours a day. So that's right. I like it in some way. But on on the fitness side, we touched as well, again, before we came in that health is not physical or mental, it is this ecosystem that's all together. And you're saying a lot of times when you're feeling mentally stressed, the right release for you is something more physical to help One get out of the environment that maybe stressing but then two there's something to do with moving your body. Do you have a regular fitness program or you know come in day to day or week to week beyond just when you feel that saying hey i need to get out for a walk.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yes. So I do go to the gym about four to five times a week. I try and make it five. um And I get on the elliptical machine. So I do get an aerobic workout. And I do notice a difference if I don't get that aerobic workout in, and I usually do it in the mornings, that I feel different for the rest of the day. I feel kind of slow. and lazy and things like that. So yeah, my regular routine is to do 30 minutes of aerobic activity and then some um resistance training as well to build muscles. The resistance training kind of drops off sometimes if I went to the gym too late and things like that. But definitely the priority is the aerobic exercise. Okay. And so the the resistance training you do at the gym, it's not a home thing that you're doing.
00:18:33
Speaker
It's both. Um, I don't do it as home as much. My husband has a full rack of weights in the um garage, but that started with COVID, but I do go. I use, I mostly use the gym equipment for that. But if I don't have enough time in the morning, sometimes I'll save a little bit of lifting, say after I finished working. Um, and cause I could do it really quickly. Right. I guess. And you have the equipment there that it's something you haven't even, you can just do right there.
00:19:02
Speaker
Correct. yeah Our garage is no longer a place where we can put our cars. It's a gem. The at-home gem. Realizing you probably have more equipment than most people would have at home, what what would be the go-to if you were having to do it at home? Is it like a 10 to 15 minute routine that you say, here, I'm going to hit these different groups? Or what is it that you do on that?
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, so with the resistance training, I pick um muscle groups each day. So I'll do my arms or upper body one day and then the next day I'll do lower body and I just kind of alternate back and forth. So I try and and um keep that going during the week. If I didn't get enough time to, say, do biceps then in the morning, then that's what I'll try and do later on. I don't like doing a whole lot of working out at the end of the day because I'm tired. I don't feel like it at that point. Well, that can impact sleep, too, which I'm sure we'll touch on if you're working out too late versus it. It's interesting what you were saying about feeling more sluggish at the beginning of the day. I mean, it's
00:20:06
Speaker
that that movement, that activity is almost like coffee on steroids, right? It is what gives us all the endorphins, all the energy to to to get going. And so when you're doing that, you have the The reactivity of maybe I do some breathing or yoga poses or a walk, but then I have this base that I know I hate five days a week. I'm already starting from this really good place because I'm going out and doing this. Whether it's at home or at the gym, you're working that in.
00:20:38
Speaker
The other piece that I've seen from your content that that you touch on that can impact on the mental health, because again, it's all talking to each other, is the nutrition side, where you talk about sometimes intermittent fasting, some of these other ah protocols or practices. Can you say a little bit more? Because I don't know how obvious that is to a lot of people about that interconnectivity between what they're consuming in their body and then what the impact on their mind might be.
Nutrition and Mental Health
00:21:08
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. So the idea behind whatever diet you choose, because I'm not necessarily a pro like one specific diet, you know, pro carnivore, I was at one point into these different diets, but it's about eating as clean as possible and reducing highly processed foods.
00:21:29
Speaker
And what's wrong with the highly processed foods? um You get lots of free radical formation and inflammation. Inflammation not only affects you physically, but it affects our brains as well. Also, highly processed food increases the amount of bad gut bacteria that we have. And so if you've got bad gut bacteria that has lots of implications for both physical health as well as mental health.
00:22:00
Speaker
So, promoting um good bacteria with clean food and nutrient dense food is the way to go to improve your mental health as well as your physical health. At one point, so I've always been in, I shouldn't say always been into, but I've tried different diets. The best that I've ever felt actually was when I was eating a paleo.
00:22:26
Speaker
And I broke that when I went to a family gathering and had some cake and then it was over for me. I went back to eating grains with that. But then second was the Mediterranean diet. And i was I was inspired to try the Mediterranean diet when I did a video on the Mediterranean diet that at that time had been studied and shown to help depression independent of other factors. So, independent of people not being on medications or getting therapy, the diet itself had positive effects on mood. So, I said, oh, I'm going to try it myself. And this was right before COVID. And um I felt wonderful on it.
00:23:10
Speaker
And um things change when I started getting help with someone helping me cook. And then they weren't cooking the same way. And then again, just kind of fell off that. But now, I mean, I still focus on trying to ah keep processed foods to a minimum. I eat less meat now. I still eat meat, but I eat less meat. And Mediterranean diet is less meat, not no meat. Eat a lot more fish.
00:23:35
Speaker
So, you know, I can't say that I'm perfect at ah this wonderful diet. In fact, I got way off track um during covid ah sitting at home, sitting in, you know, unless walking around like I was doing when I was working out of my office and other things that came up. I had a sick parent living with me. And so I was eating lots of scones, um emotional eating type stuff. yeah So it's it's It's something that I think about on a daily basis as far as what I am eating and trying to stay on track as far as eating healthy, healthy, meaning um less processed foods and not necessarily some specific type of diet. But yeah, I slip up, you know, like everyone does. But it does make a huge difference in how I feel. Yeah. I mean, that's helpful, at least on two different fronts. I mean, one,
00:24:32
Speaker
the in of one study, right because you can read these studies, is but feeling the difference. And so many people do, there if they eat one way and they have for years, they don't realize what they feel like, maybe 60% of what they could feel like if they were on something else. Because you're you're in you're swimming in the water every day, so you don't recognize that it's been polluted.
00:24:58
Speaker
And it's only when you go to one of these others, you say, oh, wow, this this is really different. I feel so much more energetic and and enjoying it. And then the other piece on that, so people play with that song to see, hey, maybe you don't think you feel bad today, but maybe you don't know what feeling great feels like. So maybe play with that a little bit, experiment. um And then two, don't set the bar too high for yourself, because even Professions, physician who know these things, we're still human. We're still struggling. the You talked about the, I how you phrased, but like eating our feelings, the stress eating during COVID, right? Yeah, so many people dealt with so many different ways because we're still human beings. So don't don't beat yourself up mentally if you don't, if you're not a robot around the diet.
00:25:51
Speaker
Right. And it's hard to eat healthy. I mean, it it because you got to go grocery shopping. I mean, the last thing I want to do is work all day and then, oh, wait, now I got to go grocery shopping or even like sit down and make this big meal after I've worked all day. So, yeah, going and getting fresh food fruits and vegetables. Like I want to go to the grocery store once and have everything I need for the whole week. But if I buy a bunch of fresh stuff, it may not last all week long. I don't want to go to the grocery store twice.
00:26:19
Speaker
Especially fish, right? You don't want wiggles. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, yeah, i if i had ah if I had a and a chef and a shopper and all that, everything would be wonderful for me. But yeah, for the average person who's working and they're trying to do things quick and easy, yeah, it's not that easy to eat healthy quick and in a quick and easy way.
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, a wake-up call for me was back when I was in school and trying to be healthy and just going and buying some apples. And I saw how it got w rung up. And I was thinking, wow, cost per calorie of buying these apples versus a bag of potato chips. It would be three times more calories and cost one tenth as much as I spent on these three apples.
00:27:06
Speaker
There's no wonder people have a really hard time. We are subsidized. It is way cheaper to poison our body than to eat healthy, separate from the time it takes to eat single ingredient foods. or you know like That's right. yes the whole foods you're you're Your groceries bill is definitely going to go up, and especially if you want to take it to the organic level on top of that. I did want to mention that I also did intermittent fasting, and I guess I'm still doing intermittent fasting, but I increased my eating window. so and The reason I'm mentioning in this is because I did notice a big difference in my sharpness
00:27:44
Speaker
When I was doing intermittent fasting, I had a window that was 1 p.m. to 7, so I guess it's a six-hour eating window because I was writing a book at that time. My book, Why Am I So Anxious? And I'm not the best writer in the sense of I can just sit down and just motor it out.
00:28:02
Speaker
um I need to be in the right frame of mind. I need to kind of know what I want to say and and whatnot, and take me a while, just kind of sit and get settled. When I was writing in intermittent fasting, I could sit down and boom, bang it out. and i don't I can't normally perform like that in a writing sense. and I think I noticed it more in retrospect of, wow, there was so little resistance to me to sit down and write, and write a lot.
00:28:30
Speaker
i I increased my eating window because what I did notice with the intermittent fasting was that I was kind of eating two big meals and I like eating um oatmeal. I use whole oats and I put it in a rice cooker because it takes a while to cook the whole oats, but I don't want to have whole oats at 1 p.m. I'm ready to eat something real. So I wanted to be able to get in more breakfast and then a lunch and a dinner. so now I start around 10 a.m., which is still abbreviated from what I used to do. Yeah. So you're looking at an eight or nine hour window as opposed to the sex. Correct. Yeah. I just expanded the window. Yeah. that I mean, that makes a lot of sense. is If you're eating too much in a meal, too, you can get that food coma. So that can be some of the trade off for that early clarity. You kind of lose later. um But it seems like one of the the other big benefits is on
00:29:30
Speaker
shortening how late that window goes so that you've digested much more of your food before you get to sleep and certainly want to talk more about sleep and it's tied to mental and physical health as it impacts all of it. But especially when you're on a six hour window Were you able to get all the macro and micro nutrients you wanted through your diet or did you supplement at all or did you supplement with proteins or vitamins, anything like that? so Very good point. That was the other reason that I expanded my window was I didn't feel like I was getting in enough nutrients in those two meals that I was eating.
00:30:10
Speaker
and so And I was not supplementing. i do The supplements I currently take are um magnesium and curcumin, but that still didn't like I didn't take a multivitamin, vitamin which is probably what I should have been taking, given that I didn't feel like I was getting in enough vegetables. So yeah, that that that was the other issue with having such a narrow or so or short window is not getting in enough food.
00:30:38
Speaker
And on the days you work out, do you supplement with protein at all? I don't. i I have tried that in the past. I hate the way it tastes. I'll hold my nose and try and get it down. But I just can't get into the protein powder. OK, there's some good ones out there. I'll say there's a lot of innovation.
00:30:57
Speaker
I know and I need to get back to, I even bought some collagen protein powder that I was going to try. Yeah. I just, I just haven't had the discipline to do it because that's, it's kind of filling, you know, you make the shake or something and then now I'm full or half full and then I'm not going to want to eat vegetables. I'm going to want to, you know, anyway. Right. Yeah. It ends up being more my breakfast, right? I put the berries and the collagen and the protein and then that's,
00:31:25
Speaker
especially so it's not so heavy in my stomach, so it's a way to get more calories in, but not have to take up too much time. Now, we briefly briefly touched on that on not eating too late as its impact on sleep and sleep maybe one of the best indicators for depression and all these other things um as you look on the mental health side, knowing the importance of sleep, what is your routine and and kind of protocol to make sure you're protecting that?
Optimizing Sleep
00:31:57
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. So, I've always been a big sleep person. my In fact, my first book was ah Master Your Sleep. It came out in 2011. And because I just thought it was so important and I noticed ah with patients, I would ask everyone who would come to see me, new patients, how's your sleep? And I can't tell you how many times that the answer would be, it depends.
00:32:21
Speaker
Now, some of some people just say terrible, but the others would say, well, it depends, ah you know, blah, blah, blah, and it should not. depend Well, no. the the The depends answer was not on how to sleep. It's how much sleep do you get? Then it depends and it should not depend. So I've always felt that the focus on your day what should start with um bedtime as opposed to bedtime being something that happens at the end of your day. Your whole day should be planned around when you go to bed.
00:32:53
Speaker
yeah and so you set a bedtime so this is what i do i i have my bedtime which is mostly ten i shouldn't say it depends but um my bedtime is ten sometimes i don't always get to bed by ten but ten so then an hour before that is when my wind down is so i don't want.
00:33:13
Speaker
uh, anyone calling me, asking me for something between nine and 10 o'clock, because that's my wind down of kind of getting myself ready, getting myself in a relaxed mood by whatever means that is that could be watching television. It could be listening to something on my phone.
00:33:30
Speaker
And then about a half an hour before. Oh, another thing I do. Sorry, backing up even more. So I wear blue light blocking glasses, which have an orange lens to them. These are the ones that I use. Just get them off Amazon. I wear the I put those on two hours before I want to go to bed. So I i try. i Sometimes I'll put them on around seven, but usually around eight o'clock, I put the glasses on.
00:33:57
Speaker
that And then I about a half an hour before my bedtime, I'm brushing my teeth and, you know, all of that prep stuff. Then I get in the bed. I actually I listen to a book, actually listen to Harry Potter. I've been listening to the same passage for 10 years. But anyway, I listen um on like the speaker in the room and I put on um eye covers.
00:34:24
Speaker
Okay, I like these because are those Monta or what what kind of those these um, I don't know the brand I got them on Amazon, but I like them because they have the divot so that you can open your eyes underneath the mask and not feel like your face is getting squashed.
00:34:42
Speaker
um I've been using eye covers at least a decade, probably more than that. So now I don't know how I would sleep if I went to someone's house and there was, and you know, a light outside the bedroom. I mean, I've got to have it jet black in the room now. And these help only recently since I've gotten older.
00:35:04
Speaker
I, um, as I've gotten older, I've started sleeping naturally sleeping less. So my usual usual is about seven hours. Now it's starting to be like six and a half, six 45 minutes. And I'm like, well, so now I am using sleep aids at times. So so One of the things that I will do from time to time is use melatonin four hours before I want to go to sleep. So it's this whole, I know this kind of sounds complicated, this whole routine of things, but if I can remember or if I'm not doing something that keeps me from doing this, I will take a small dose of melatonin. The the idea is it's low dose melatonin four hours before you go to bed that helps
00:35:49
Speaker
you naturally produce melatonin in preparation for sleep because our bodies normally will produce it about two hours so before ah we go to sleep. So this helps kind of get that going. So I'll take that. I only have one milligrams. I couldn't get 0.5, but 0.5 is the ideal. I'll take a one milligram melatonin, also like around six ish or seven o'clock.
00:36:19
Speaker
um And I'll start feeling really tired and sleepy ah around tennis. And so you don't do the, I guess there's L-theanine and GABA. There are all sorts of sleep supplements that your go-to is melatonin. That's one of my go-tos. And actually another go-to is CBD gummies. Yeah. Yeah. You're definitely not the first person that's mentioned that. Yeah.
00:36:41
Speaker
How in advance do you do those? The gummies? And I just want to clarify, I'm in Georgia where ah marijuana is not legal yet. And so I'm using the ones that you can get ah commercially with a legal amount.
00:36:59
Speaker
of THC in it. I will take it. So if I've like forgotten the melatonin issue or it's been a weekend where maybe I stayed up a little late and so I kind of want to get back on track, I'll take it about an hour before I want to go to bed. Okay. That's about how long it takes for it to work. And you talk to someone, the light sensitivity you can address with a mask. Do you have any audio ah ah sensitivity? Do you do earplugs? Any kind of thing?
00:37:27
Speaker
um that I don't do earplugs. I used to do earplugs. And I think there were a couple of times, it was probably when my son was young and yelling, um where ah the volume got a little too loud for me. And I noticed I started having a ringing in my ears. I'm like, Oh, no, I so I don't put things in my ears anymore. I just listen with it in the room.
00:37:54
Speaker
And how about temperature? Because temperature can be another thing people are sensitive to, you know, some of the recommendations that you heat up so you can cool down. So like a hot bath or hot shower before bed or keeping the room cool. How are you on temperature?
00:38:08
Speaker
Correct. So yeah. So one way um to trigger the onset of sleep is taking a hot bath or shower, or it could be a foot bath. So it doesn't have to be your entire body. I don't usually have time for that or think about it enough to be able to do it well enough in advance because it needs to be a few hours. I mean, I already got my, you know, my routine with the, Oh, is it time for me to take melatonin stuff? So that's like, I can't do that.
00:38:35
Speaker
yeah But I do um listen or none. Listen, I do ah turn the thermostat down. um We used to do sixty eight, but it's probably more like 70 now. And I like to have a ceiling fan going. My husband doesn't like it, but I like having that that breeze on me. Oh, and you know, and another thing I do is, oh, I love my weighted blanket.
00:39:01
Speaker
So I started using a weighted blanket maybe a couple of years ago now. And I just I know before I started using the weighted blanket, I I would have a lot of cover. So I like to have a cold with covers. I can't imagine laying in the bed with nothing on top of me, not even a sheet like that would be so unsatisfying. So anyway, I have a weighted blanket.
00:39:24
Speaker
weighted blankets have been shown to ah be soothing and help with anxiety, actually through kind of our pressure touch sensors and our sympathetic in the parasympathetic. Does it do anything? Okay. Yeah. Trigger a parasympathetic relaxation response. So, um, so yeah, I, I get under my blanket and I have the fan going and I have it chilly in the room to facilitate sleep. So it's dark cold and some weight on me.
00:39:54
Speaker
And then when you're saying your sleep now is shortening, is it you're just waking up earlier? So even laying there, because it sounds like you're trying to be pretty consistent when you're going to bed. So if you're getting less, is it you're taking longer to fall asleep or it's you wake up and you just can't fall back to sleep?
00:40:09
Speaker
the latter wake up and can't fall back to sleep. So I'm waking up, um, yeah, earlier than I would like. I mean, it's not super early, but, um, yeah, I'm not sleeping as long. And, you know, instead of me springing out of bed, like I did 15 years ago, if I wake up a little bit early, I'll sit there hoping I'll fall back asleep and don't, and then finally just get up, force myself up.
00:40:34
Speaker
um and One more thing, I forgot about all these things. um I'm a big proponent, or I love aromatherapy and essential oils. And so I will spray myself with this blend that I created ah that has relaxing essential oils in
Embracing Self-Compassion
00:40:52
Speaker
it.
00:40:52
Speaker
Um, and includes, uh, things like clary sage and ylang ylang, like this little little blend, but there's lots of different relaxation or relaxing blends out there. Anyway, I'll put that on my chest. Um, and I have gotten in bed before and sat there listening to my book and thinking, why am I not feeling sleepy? Oh, and then I get up, spray my chest and then get back in the bed.
00:41:17
Speaker
Hearing all of this in the triggers, right like the listening to Harry Potter, and it's the same passage. I remember a growing up at a stereo, and it was Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever. Free Fallen was the first song, and that if I was in the car, if I was anywhere, it just put me in I'm going to bed mode.
00:41:36
Speaker
And I think about the the routines Tiger Woods would have before every shot or Michael Phelps had before every race of you're going through these steps. And so your mind is, I'm already winning because I did step one and I did step two and I did step three. And so I i know I'm going to win because I've won every step of the way. And this is what happens when I win. And it's a little bit like that was sleep of I know I'm going to sleep now because I have the smells. I'm hitting all the senses. It's dark. I now have my mask on. I'm hearing the sounds that I usually hear, the story I usually hear to go to sleep. I'm smelling the things. I feel the the heavy blanket. it's It's all triggering of this is my cocoon. This is my place.
00:42:15
Speaker
and This is super helpful because it gives a realistic picture of hey, here's here's how I create microcuminant in mind. But again, back to the nutrition side, encouraging people to experiment with your end of one, find what it is, it can become your routine to help you on this. Because and and that's the idea of profiling amazing people like Dr. Mark's to get some different examples of what this looks like. So thank you so much for for sharing yours.
00:42:43
Speaker
You're welcome and thanks for putting it in that perspective. I never thought of how I am indulging all of my senses in my bedtime routine, but that is exactly what I'm doing. yeah So thanks for helping me see that. My pleasure, my pleasure. One of the things you know that we talk about the five pillars and one that I think especially coming out of COVID more and more people have a ah difficult time with is this social connection side, this social connection purpose.
00:43:13
Speaker
And you know when you're practicing, you're getting that interaction with people. And I guess from your community, from what you're sharing, you can get the questions back. There's there's some of that that's getting developed. um But is is that a practice you'd deliberately try to cultivate? and Do you have any kind of weekly routines? Or hey, on Friday nights, we get together with these friends twice a month or anything like that to to really we We can all work so much and and care about health so much, but what are we doing to to cultivate those relationships that can be so important? You mentioned the blue zones. And whereas the diets could vary kind of between these, it seemed like the real connective tissue was how socially connected and engaged these communities were.
00:44:01
Speaker
And I'm worried we might focus too much on what's easy to measure. Oh, here are the number of calories I ate, or here are the number of hours in the gym I had, or here are the number of hours of sleep I got. But what about the depth of the relationships that I built? And because it's not easy to measure, maybe we're not putting enough time into it. Is that something, especially someone like you, who's so steeped in mental health, is that something you think about in your own life?
00:44:29
Speaker
I do and i'm i I'm reminded from time to time of how important it is when I indulge a little bit more in spending time with friends and what here's what I mean by that. So yes, I'm in a book club and we meet once a month. i'm involved i I go to church and i'll I'll see people at church and things like that.
00:44:52
Speaker
But I've always felt like I don't want someone asking me to do something on a Sunday because I feel like Sunday is when I need to be able, I call it, get my mind right for for Monday. So I need my Sunday wind down where I can just watch television or do whatever I want to do in preparation for the for the week ahead.
00:45:16
Speaker
But occasionally, and and that's mostly what I do, although sometimes I'll end up doing some working a work instead of relaxing. And someone will invite me to something that's on a Sunday. And I'll think to myself or even say to them, depending how close they are, you know, I don't do Sundays, right? So I go to this thing.
00:45:35
Speaker
And I come home and I feel so much more relaxed and energized. I don't feel uptight about having to work the next week. And I'm like, OK, I really should do this more often, do activities on Sundays. Yeah. And it really does make a difference. It's amazing our.
00:45:58
Speaker
our conscious mind, what it tells us we need and want versus what we actually want. I don't even know if I brought this up on the show before, but there's a study on people on train rides and you can do the same on plane of, hey, do you want to talk to the stranger sitting next to me? Absolutely not. Putting headphones in, I'm reading, I'm working, this is my time to be productive. I'm not talking to a stranger.
00:46:18
Speaker
And they do these things and everybody after when you said, Hey, you grew, you have to talk to the strangest thing next year. And then these others, we didn't give that so much happier. Didn't feel any less productive, so much more engaged. And I'm reminded but of it all the time.
00:46:37
Speaker
you know in the winter when you think about all the christmas party everything going on and it's dark and it's the weather's not great and it's late and you're like do i really want to get in the car and go and do this and like now it's gonna be easier to sit on the couch watch netflix like it always is going to be easier to sit on the couch and do that. But that's not life. And you'll always feel better doing what you think you don't want to do. You'll get in it in this past Christmas. It was Christmas where I didn't want to go my away for the times. Like you need to go. And I did. And I had the best time. I didn't drink or anything, but I just had the best time seeing friends and talking. And it's
00:47:14
Speaker
Well, finding ways to to challenge our assumptions. Like like you said, of hey I don't do Sundays, but when I do Sundays, I feel really good. Maybe I need to rethink, do I do Sundays or not? i yeah Should be my break? I don't know.
00:47:36
Speaker
I'd love for that to be the case. um Yeah, I went, I went on a trip recently and I, uh, well, you know, the Atlanta airport, uh, recommended that you get there three hours before. So I, I had to go and I was going to, I knew I was going to be there, but I was like, okay, I can get some work done. Um, so I took my, lap I always take my laptop with me when I travel, but it took my laptop. I was like, okay, I can, I can at least get some work done during the time I'm sitting around in the airport.
00:48:02
Speaker
And these friends, it turns out the thing that I was going to um these friends were going on the same flight. And I thought, oh, if I spend my time with them, I'm not going to get my work done. All right. So I.
00:48:17
Speaker
I chose to just not do my work and like engage with them. And they were people who I hadn't seen in a while. So we had a lot of catching up to do. And that was just so much more enjoyable than if I had sat there and cranked out work in the airport, even though that's what intellectually what I wanted to do, because then I checked stuff off the box that I got it done. But I felt so much better just putting the laptop away and chatting with them for a couple of hours.
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah. And hopefully for our listeners, this this is a call to action for many of the time. For many of us ah at times, the right answer is put away the laptop. Just engage with your friends. Just be there and be present. Just connect with people.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's life, right? Just connect with people. That's right. That's a beautiful life. Well, Dr. Marks, you shared so much and you do on your YouTube channel, on Instagram, Dr. Tracey Marks, and then your website, markpsychiatry dot.com. Is there anything else you want to share with our listeners before we sign off? And we'll certainly put it in the show notes as well.
00:49:22
Speaker
Sure. um My latest thing that I'm into right now ah is working on being more compassionate with ourselves.
Gradual Changes for Lasting Benefits
00:49:35
Speaker
We all have a certain amount of negative self-talk that bubbles up some more than others. um We can be very critical of ourselves. And so I've been like talking more in some of my videos and whatnot and focusing on how to change the language of how we speak to ourselves.
00:49:56
Speaker
and um Acceptance and commitment therapy is a type of therapy that has self compassion and values and meaning and all that is part of the model of that just ah as for reference point of reference anyway, but one of the difficulties He says, well, you know, instead of saying this, say this, well, how do you even know what to say? Like, where does the vocabulary come from if you're so used to not being very compassionate towards yourself? So I created a what I call a self-compassion companion. It's a guide that has 71 phrases divided among like 11 different categories of things you could say instead.
00:50:40
Speaker
under certain circumstances, say to yourself to get used to using that kind of language out loud, as well as then it start being something that you think naturally it becomes reflexive. And it's free that I'd love to offer for your audience. um And you can get it at self talk help dot.com. It's a free guide.
00:51:03
Speaker
Thank you, Dr. Marks. I equate mental health. that People understand with physical fitness, you can't go to the gym once or one week or one year and say, okay, I've done physical fitness for my life or for nutrition. I ate healthy for this week or month or year and now I can just have cheeseburgers with bacon for the rest of my life and I'll be fine. But For some reason, with mental health, a lot of times people will think, I went to this event, I had this aha moment, or I read this book, I had this aha moment, and and tomorrow everything's going to be different, and it always will be.
00:51:36
Speaker
Well, no, it's it's actually a lifetime of work just like everything else, because our biology it works against us in a lot of ways. and And we get these different triggers, or we have a lifetime of patterns that we're having to override and and retrain and learn the language for that takes practice and repetition. And so the guide that you put out, the the work that you do to help people with that work, just a huge thank you to you. It's so important.
00:52:03
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, it gives me a lot of pleasure to create things, tools, guides, and things like that that help people because you're absolutely right. It's it's ah it's a daily thing that can sound kind of, I guess, overwhelming if you just like look at what someone's doing like, well, how am I going to do that? Let me write this down. But you it's it's It's the cumulative effect of little changes that you make. So no, you're not going to go from eating fast food every day to suddenly having this super clean diet. You remove little things at a time and you adjust over time so that these things become routine and it just becomes natural. And similarly with attending to your mental health,
00:52:48
Speaker
Pick areas. If you hear a bunch of stuff that happens that people talk about online, pick a couple of of areas that you could strengthen or make better. And over time, you get the cumulative benefit from all of these little changes. That's a really, really good point. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Marks. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And to all our listeners, thank you for tuning in. And again, all ah the links, everything will be in the show notes.
00:53:17
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Health Span podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on the lively.com. Enjoy a lively day.