Transcript
Speaker: Hello, everyone. Welcome back. In today's episode, I chat with Justin High. Justin is the CEO of Rebalance Health. He is a wellness innovator and he is bestselling author of the book Stress Nation.
Speaker: In this conversation, we talk about all things stress, stress, We talk about cortisol. We talk about how that wreaks havoc on every area of our health.
Speaker: We talk about how technology affects cortisol. We talk about sleep and how it is the center and the most important thing that you can prioritize in your life.
Speaker: And we talk about hormone production. And this whole conversation is just absolutely fascinating. Justin has a fantastic way of simplifying things that have been made to feel so complicated in our lives.
Speaker: I can't wait for you to listen to this one because i really think that you will have an aha moment and be like, okay, this is what I need to do. So enjoy the episode. If you really do enjoy this episode, look in the show notes and you will find a link to Justin's book, Stress Nation.
Speaker: And it might just be the tool that you need to help you to start in a step-by-step way, introducing healthier habits to start making the changes that you need to make in your life.
Speaker: Justin, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Kate. It's very early where you're calling from here compared to I'm a lot more awake. I think it's middle of the day where I am, whereas it's 6am where you are. So I know we're getting straight into it.
Speaker: But what I want to start this podcast with, wiz this conversation with, is to ask you, what is your mission? What are you here to do? We're here to help everybody with cortisol and help people understand the effects of technology and how that plays a massive role in cortisol, which in turn affects your sleep, which in turn completely affects your natural hormone production.
Speaker: And when I'm able to explain that cause and effect, there's a lot of aha moments for everybody. He goes, oh my God, that makes so much sense. Why hasn't anyone explained it that way?
Speaker: And so we really on a mission to help people understand how in the past 30 years, technology has basically rewired our brains to overproduce the one hormone that's disrupting our health.
Speaker: Oh, wow. Okay. I'm excited. too What's the story behind this? What has led you to this being what you do? It was a process of research and development, trying to jump into the space around peptides, hormones, ah the wellness space, and what was driving everybody to jump towards HRT and peptides, always trying to achieve ultimate health, fitness, aesthetic physiques, everything like that.
Speaker: It was just very curious to us, and all of a sudden, Most people wanted these chiseled bodies and they would do anything they could to get them, but they're not truly understanding what's happening. And that kind of evolved into researching more about endocrinology.
Speaker: And there was something about cortisol that just wasn't right in my mind, the way that we've been taught about cortisol, the way that the general public understood what cortisol was.
Speaker: was a disconnect and the effect on the body. And it just kind of rolled into book, it rolled into a company, rolled into a solution, an actual product that can actually help people.
Speaker: That rolled into clinical studies and getting the best clinical validated data in the industry. Okay. All right, what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you my understanding of cortisol and then you can challenge me and you can tell me what was I'm perceiving wrong and and give us what we need to know. How about that?
Speaker: Fair enough. So to me, you know, as a health and fitness coach, cortisol is our stress hormone. And um you're already smiling. You're like, so cortisol is our stress hormone.
Speaker: A lot of us are chronically stressed without even realizing it. We live in this constantly on society where we're always stressed. We don't realize it. And when our cortisol is is really high.
Speaker: It affects all of our other hormones. so then I work with a lot of women during perimenopause. Perimenopause ends up so much worse when you're when you're heading into it with your cortisol super high.
Speaker: So there's so many things like sleep, lifestyle, food, exercise, so many different lifestyle factors that are going to affect cortisol. It's all about really learning to spend a little bit more time in the parasympathetic nervous system.
Speaker: That's my nutshell. You're spot on. Your nutshell is spot on. I think where I dive in here is cortisol is known as a stress hormone. It's known as your fight or flight hormone.
Speaker: But that's about it, and people don't truly understand it. Cortisol is your body's alarm system. It's designed to help keep you safe. It's not the enemy. Cortisol helps regulate your blood sugar, yeah helps regulate your sleep-wake cycles, your immune response, inflammation.
Speaker: Cortisol is a fabulous hormone. In fact, almost every molecule in the human body has a cortisol receptor. It is the most important hormone, in my opinion. And how does it affect things? Well, it's designed to keep you safe.
Speaker: If you go back to a very cheesy analogy, if you're running for your life from a bear or burning building, cortisol is the alert hormone. It tells you it's time to run. It's time to run. It's time to get alert. It's time to get into action. And then adrenaline kicks in and adrenaline is the action hormone, right? But cortisol is the one that's saying something's not right. It's just spidey sense, okay?
Speaker: What cortisol does when it's in the elevated fight or flight state is it starts to turn off other systems in your body. You don't need metabolism when your cortisol is high.
Speaker: Why? Because you're running from a bear. Your body's in survival mode and it's trying to figure out, okay, I need to store all the food and energy sources I can. So that's why people are having a hard time with their stomach fat, right? little belly fat that stays around, right? It's because your cortisol is high and your body's thinking, I need to hold onto that.
Speaker: I need to hold onto that because I'm still in this high alert state. And I don't know when the next time I'm going to eat. You could be eating at the same time, but your body is in that alerted state and it wants to preserve its resources.
Speaker: You certainly don't need libido if you're running from a bear or a burning building. And so that's why libido gets turned off. Right? The body is very clever. The brain is very clever in how it utilizes cortisol to turn systems on and off.
Speaker: Even like your digestion. Like, you know, a lot of people have stomach issues and stressed. Absolutely, 100%. Acid reflux, GERD, all comes from cortisol because that flap in the esophagus for the stomach, it's controlled by cortisol.
Speaker: So cortisol is designed to keep you safe. And if your body doesn't think you're safe, it's going to be elevated. Simple as that. When your cortisol is too high all the time, you're living in this perpetual state of stress.
Speaker: And your body was never designed to do that. Your body was designed to be in a normal circadian rhythm. And when it needs to, it'll get alerted and then come back down. But because of the way we live our lives today, predominantly over the past 20 to 30 years,
Speaker: We live up here all the time. And so our bodies are not operating the way they should. Now, what happens then is you can't fall asleep. You can't stay asleep.
Speaker: And you make all your hormones, your estrogen, progesterone, your testosterone, your HGH, all that stuff happens primarily when you're sleeping. If you're not sleeping, your body is not making the hormones it needs to function for the very next day.
Speaker: You make your hormones at night for the next day. And so too many consecutive nights of poor sleep, high stress, and your health starts to unravel. And it shows up in brain fog, in libido, waking, muscle mass loss, hair, skin, and nails, anxiety, depression, recovery, all linked to your natural hormone production.
Speaker: And so it is critical that we learn to reprioritize our lives and be maniacal for preserving our sleep. Because once we get our sleep back, Our hormones are made naturally and life starts to look a lot better. You start feeling like yourself again.
Speaker: And the problem, how we got into this place in the first place is quite simply technology. Ever since the late 90s, we've had email, internet, social media at our fingertips.
Speaker: That gives us the gateway to content. We have access to unlimited content, whether it is entertainment, news, work, financial, what have you. It's all in the palm of your hand.
Speaker: And so every single time that device buzzes, notifies you, beeps, your cortisol goes up because you don't know if it's good news or bad news. And until you pick it up,
Speaker: your anxiety starts to grow. You don't know. And so what this device has done is trained our bodies to be in a perpetual elevated state of stress. We never used to live like that. And that's what's happening.
Speaker: The phone is the first thing people pick up in the morning. It's the last thing they put down at night. And yeah, we can talk about blue light, sleep hygiene. We can talk about all that stuff. But the bottom line really is we were never taught how to use technology as human beings in the way that we need to function.
Speaker: We are still the same humans that we were thousands of years ago. We still need sleep, water, food, and exercise. Yeah. And the rate that it's developing as well.
Speaker: faster It's getting control. It's completely out of control. yeah And it's a good thing. Look, I'm not saying that gonna be a Buddhist monk and stop using technology. That's not what the book is about. That's not what we're about. We're about understand the cause and effect.
Speaker: Knowledge is power. And if you understand how to use technology for your health and to preserve your sleep, you can manage all the variables, right? It's easy to manage, but we never used to sit on our bottoms and look at screens all day long, then go home and we watch TV with our family all day long or night long and they go to bed.
Speaker: Where's the life there? Where is our life? As humans, we need to be out in the field, lifting, carrying weights, moving things around, you know not sitting stationary. We were not designed to do that.
Speaker: And that is the big problem. We can get into discussions about nutrition. We can get discussions about exercise. But if you break it down at the very, very simple level, you need to eat healthy, clean, organic foods if possible, and simply consume less calories than you burn.
Speaker: That's it That's it. Consume less calories than you burn. Everyone's going to have a diet or a routine that makes sense for them and their bodies. That's fine. Some are paleo, some are gluten-free.
Speaker: you know But if you look at all the diets that have been around for the past literally 30 years, it's insane. It's absolutely insane. And the bottom line is eat healthy, eat in moderation, and make sure you eat less calories than you burn.
Speaker: Then you will not gain weight. I think you made a really good point there, which I think it all stems down to, which is priorities. And you said we need to reprioritize our lives.
Speaker: And no matter who I work with or whether it's been from my own experience as well, when something is off. It really does come down to what am I not prioritizing in my life? what What am I putting ahead of my health, of myself?
Speaker: Why am I so stressed? Why am I so busy? it like And I find at the core of it, like and I had to do this, to literally deconstruct and reconstruct your life in a way that but works better for you.
Speaker: Absolutely, 100%. And that can be such a ah ah huge task. And especially when people come to me they're like, hey, just want to lose weight. I'm like, yeah, but you're going to be on that same cycle because at the end of the day, we're not getting to the root cause of all of these problems, which does come down to stress, which does come down to the way our society is built and how our lives are built.
Speaker: And so what do you suggest people do? Because someone will be like, oh my God, this makes so much sense, but I'm so trapped in my own life. Well, obviously the first thing I recommend is read my book, because that's going to give you all the tips and so forth. And there's no there's no catch 22 there. I mean, Stress Nation was designed to help people eliminate the technology trap and regain their lives and and rest.
Speaker: But there's 101 suggestions, right? But basically set yourself up for success. You want to try and achieve seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. And that might sound extremely daunting.
Speaker: but set yourself up for success. As we age, our bodies slow down. And there's nothing you can do about that. There's just nothing. That's called aging. It's the natural evolution as we get through our you know our years.
Speaker: So you think as you get older, some things get easier, but it's actually the opposite. As you get older, everything gets harder. You used to be able to party all night, study all night in college, whatever it was, and you could get up the next day and do it all over again. It's because you had more of your hormones that your body was producing in your youth.
Speaker: You are making less and less and less as we get older. And so you have to prioritize sleep. You have to prioritize how you enable your body to regenerate, to recharge.
Speaker: And that requires that seven to eight hours. so So if you wake up every day at six, just work backwards. How many do I need to go to bed by 10? If I need to go bed by 10, when do I need to eat my last meal?
Speaker: It's certainly not an hour before bed, right? You need to eat your last meal two to three hours, if not more, before bed. Consume all your fluids way before your last meal. Why? As we get older, our bladders can't hold as much. So you're going to get woken up in the night to use the bathroom. That's going to instantly disrupt your sleep.
Speaker: So unfortunately, we've got to kind of take a step back from our ego that tells us I'm entitled to that glass of wine. I'm entitled to that chocolate pudding or whatever it is. And just go, you know what?
Speaker: That's going to keep me up all night. I'm going to feel like shit the next day. Is it worth it? So have your treat at lunch. Have lunch. alcohol sparingly because alcohol is a stimulant. Everyone thinks it's ah it's a suppressant. It's not. Within a few hours, it metabolizes into sugar, and that's what wakes you up in the night.
Speaker: So a lot of people that have a glass of wine say, yeah, i wake up about two or three hours before fall asleep. That's why. All you have to do is look at your resting heart rate after drinking some alcohol and to know that it's not proper sleep what your body is doing. So it's a lot it's a lot of like, again, like you said, prioritizing your life.
Speaker: Like you know what's right and what's wrong. You know, should I have the salad with protein or should I have the hamburger and pizza? but You know which one, yes, there's healthy variants of it, I'm not gonna get into that, but the point is, you know what you should do, but you justify in your amount mind which one you want based on a whole series of different factors that give you the ability to make that choice.
Speaker: And so if you just understand some fundamentals there, as we get older, You have to eat earlier. You want to consume your fluids earlier in the day. You want to set yourself up that as you get ready for bed, like an hour or two beforehand.
Speaker: No screens, no technology. Does it make sense to watch a horror movie before bed? No, it's going to keep you up. So does it make sense to turn on the news and figure out what silly things are happening in the world with our politicians and around the world? No, it's going to drive your cortisol up and keep you awake. Does it make sense to work out before bed? No, totally. It does not make sense to work out because elevating...
Speaker: Your heart rate and working out increases your cortisol levels. So there's just some basic principles that we should learn about sleep hygiene, how to sleep, you know what temperature a room should be at, you know not working on our bed. All those little things all contribute to our psychology about what we associate our bedroom and our bed with.
Speaker: And it really should be associated with sleep and intimacy and everything else. Don't do in the bedroom simply because you want to keep that as your sanctuary for sleep and preserving that space.
Speaker: Yeah, and I remember hearing that, you know, it was just such a good analogy that if you bring your phone into bed with you, you're basically inviting the whole world into your sacred space.
Speaker: You know, that it we're kind like, you're reading news, you're watching everyone's opinions on Twitter or on Instagram or TikTok or whatever you're watching it on. And you're bringing in, whether it's positive or negative, it's other people's energy into your safe space. And even as a child, I was born in the 80s, I grew up in the 90s.
Speaker: So we had technology, we had technology, TV, you know, like, but so I, but I would be out with friends. And when I come home as a teenager, I would have ah break from the outside world, you know, cause like if I have i have kids myself and it's, you know, it's tough. Like you being a kid is tough unless parents like give them that break from that technology.
Speaker: They don't get the same break. Like I used to love coming into my bedroom, putting on a box set, watching an episode of friends or something, you know, that we're having, but it was away from other people.
Speaker: And kids today don't have that. in a lot of adults today, particularly if we're not, if we're bringing the phone into our bedroom, we're never getting that off time from that outside world. It's kind of like the opposite. you you I was born in the 70s and grew up in the 80s in England. And so for me, I was outside in the park playing football, soccer. I was you know out with my friends and we didn't have the level of technology that the kids have today.
Speaker: And so when we came home, we would watch whatever we watched for like half an hour. And like you said, it was a break from something else, but we then got on with doing other things.
Speaker: It's the opposite today. Everyone is on the devices. They're not outside. They're not interacting with people. They're interacting with the devices to act with people like we are now. This is kind of how people interact in the modern world, especially post-COVID, right? We have lost that outside connection, actually meet someone and connect.
Speaker: And that's a problem. That's a very, very big problem. We are getting nonstop electromagnetic frequencies, you know exposure to our bodies. We need to go outside. We need to ground. We need to get sunlight. We need to walk.
Speaker: We need to be out. and Another thing that's really interesting when you talk about health and wellness is exercise. We're a big proponent of you got to lift weights and you need to walk. And what people don't realize is is you can actually stay on the the the treadmill or on a cardio machine for an hour.
Speaker: but you can actually eat more calories that you burned in that hour in literally two minutes in the kitchen. And when you're doing high intensity cardio, you're actually breaking down the valuable muscle as well as fat that you're trying to keep, trying to keep that muscle.
Speaker: And so walking is the best low intensity exercise that you can possibly do. Plus it's outside, plus you're getting all that wonderful sun exposure and you're helping your body reset.
Speaker: And sunlight is very important. And so I'm big proponent for working out, lifting weights. Why weights? Because that's great for bone health. It's great for muscle strength, et cetera. as we get older, it's harder to keep the muscle on.
Speaker: And so it's very important to make sure that we understand how our bodies are designed. How you do it, I don't have a dog in that race, right? It's really straightforward, right? Because some people want to do CrossFit training, others want to do strength training, other people want to do yoga or they want to do martial arts. So it doesn't matter.
Speaker: Do some exercise and understand the cause and effect associated with it, but definitely, definitely a big proponent, anyone over 50 needs to be lifting weights to help keep their body healthy and to put their skeleton structure under load.
Speaker: I couldn't agree more. Literally, my motto is walk and lift weights. Unless you're into something else, keep doing that because what you enjoy doing, you're going to keep doing. but What are your thoughts on, it's you know, it's it's I don't know what it's like in the US at the minute, but here in Ireland, it's very, very trendy to be running again. Running is like the new cool and doing half marathons and marathons and, this you know, endurance training, high rocks is another huge craze at the minute.
Speaker: And all of this is Very, like obviously, you know, endurance training is very hard on the body and on the hormones. I'd imagine I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. And then high rocks being very high intensity.
Speaker: I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well. Again, the the fabulous forms of exercise, but just understand that running is going to break down muscle and fat. And so you really have to lift weights quite religiously to counteract the loss of muscle mass that you're receiving from running.
Speaker: Yes, it's going to be impactful on your joints, your skeleton. That's all part of that process. But again, if it's something you love and you like to do, go for it. Mm-hmm. But just understand the cause and effect that it has on your body and what your goals are, what your objectives are, right? It's a fabulous way of losing weight.
Speaker: But again, i'm a big proponent of you've got to put some muscle mass on it as well. Yeah, and it could be a huge time commitment, particularly if you're training for ah marathon, let's say, you know, you have long runs to do. If you're ah mom with two kids at home or a dad, you may not have the time to lift weights and do the endurance training. And then that's when it becomes a bit of a problem.
Speaker: Again, it's about priorities. It's looking at what you're trying to do. Also understand, mean, my son does marathons and you know he tries to get in his three, six, 12 mile runs. He tries not to go anything greater than 18 miles just before the big event, but he's working up to it. He's training appropriately for it and so forth.
Speaker: It's really important to understand that if you overtrain, that is not a good thing. And people always think more is better. More is not better.
Speaker: Running, especially long distance, is going to increase your cortisol. And we actually deal with the Nike running team here in Boulder. There's a big athlete training center here. And they're always asking us how we can support the athletes in reducing their cortisol because that's their biggest problem is their elevated coral cortisol, which prevents their body from regenerating and restoring the themselves.
Speaker: And that's the most important thing. Recovery is key. So if you're doing this type of training, just be extremely mindful about recovery, not overtraining and protecting your joints and your body as you're going through it, the proper equipment, shoes, et cetera, all of that play a part in it.
Speaker: But I'm not a big proponent saying something as good or something is not. It's just, to me, it's what are the causes and effects? What are the and pros and the cons for each exercise? And how do you counterbalance it so that you become more balanced and even in your life?
Speaker: that's No, it's a hugely helpful answer because there's so much information out there and people are like, oh, well, running so good for my heart and I, you know, or high intensity. I need to be doing certain amount of high intensity exercise for my heart health and is walking enough.
Speaker: And what about my cortisol levels? And it can all just feel a little bit too much. And I think you're so right. It is about weighing up. water What is your goal? but Like what is most important to you right now? What stage of life are you at? What's most important?
Speaker: And what's like, everything has pros and cons and everything has, everything you put time into has a trait. Like there's it you have to trade your time for it and you're trading other things for it as well. In relation to high intensity interval training and cortisol, because it really gets a bad rep in relation to cortisol.
Speaker: Well, again, everything in moderation. i mean, everything in moderation. I'm a big believer in that. And if high intensity workouts are proven to be fabulous for you, but if you over-train and you do too much of it, then you're going to have really difficult time with cortisol.
Speaker: You have a really difficult time with recovery and you're can be prone to more injuries. But if you do it within moderation and you train sensibly with the guidance of professionals, you'll be absolutely fine.
Speaker: I'm a big believer, you know um you know, once a week I jump on the treadmill and I'll do uphill sprints, you know, 15 seconds on, 45 seconds on, you do that 10 times, you're exhausted, you're done, right? Absolutely done at the highest sync line.
Speaker: Those are great for you. But again, you're doing that within moderation. It's not, I'm doing that every single day. It doesn't make sense, right? so but using and mixing it up, using all the different tools makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: But I know it can be very overwhelming. It's just take a step back and think logically. If I'm running a marathon, does it make sense to have nothing but a protein diet? No, absolutely it does not make sense.
Speaker: Right. You've got no fuel to burn. Right. If I'm trying to lose weight and shred, does it make sense to stay on a carbohydrate diet? No, it doesn't make any sense. Right. and So it's losing a little bit of logic and understanding the cause and effect.
Speaker: And through all of that, to me, the biggest thing is protect your sleep. A good night's sleep starts the moment you wake up. I love that this whole conversation is very much like and I would always talk about sleep in relation to training, in relation to cravings, nutrition, general health.
Speaker: But I love that we're talking about this in relation to hormone production. Can we dive into this a little bit more? What exactly is happening while we sleep? What hormones are we regulating Without getting into the scientific and confusing terms that doctors may may want to utilize, just think about this.
Speaker: Your body is recovering at night. It's generating the HGH, the testosterone, the progesterone, the estrogen for men and for women. We we make all of them, okay, just in different ratios. We make them at night.
Speaker: As long as we're getting uninterrupted sleep and we're getting at least 60 to 90 minutes of deep sleep. deep sleep, right? Light, deep REM. You go through those cycles four or five times in a night.
Speaker: The first cycle is the longest. The last cycle is the shortest. But we regenerate as human beings in these phases. If you don't get uninterrupted sleep, or if you don't get the amount of sleep that you require as a human being, and everyone's the same, I know there's gonna be someone that says, but I can survive a four hours.
Speaker: You've trained yourself to survive four hours, but from a biological perspective, you're absolutely falling apart, guaranteed, and studied over and over and over again. So I always, always one person says, I'm fine on four hours of sleep.
Speaker: You're not. What happens is as we get older, we make less and less of our hormones, right? It's just the aging process. Men lose 1% testosterone levels basically every year after mid-30s, right? Women get to about mid-40s and everything just falls off a cliff. Estrogen, progesterone, it all drops down into the enterperimenopause, okay?
Speaker: And so as you hit the lower levels, you're making very, very little hormones. All of them together is one calorie. You're making very little, but your body knows what it needs to make in order you to function.
Speaker: And if you compromise your body's ability to make that, all the symptoms that you're experiencing are exacerbated. Hot flashes, exacerbated. Brain fog, exacerbated. Recovery just drags on. You feel lethargic. You don't have the energy. you don't have the strength.
Speaker: You need to let your body recover. And sleep is where that happens. And it's really that straightforward, really is that straightforward. So if you're making 10% of the hormones you made when you're in your 20s and you don't get your sleep and you only get to make 6%, you're 40% less effective the next day.
Speaker: Just logical. So it's it's very simple in theory. But if you're 46 year old woman in the throes of perimenopause and you are not sleeping through the night, your symptoms are hugely problematic and they are preventing you from getting a good night's sleep. And I'm i'm saying this because This is a lot of women.
Speaker: Where do they start? Is this a case that we do got to get to the doctor, get whatever treatment in place that needs to be in place, whether that is hormone replacement therapy or whatever the doctor thinks is best to be able to prioritize our sleep? Do we need to get ourselves to a level that we can prioritize sleep? Because it can very much be a vicious cycle.
Speaker: It's funny. I have a product from Rebalance Health with three IRB clinical peer-reviewed studies, and I've reduced perimenopausal symptoms by 94%. Okay. okay How?
Speaker: Simply by supporting cortisol. HRT is a fabulous tool. I'm a big believer in HRT. It's not for everybody. Some people can't take it, don't wish to take it Our product is complementary to HRT. There is no HRT for cortisol.
Speaker: Cortisol is something that is affected by your outside environment. You can't control it, right? It's the stressors that's put on your body that cause the cortisol to go up, and that could be external, or that could be the stressors that you put on it from exercising and so forth. But essentially, you cannot control cortisol.
Speaker: Sure, you can meditate. The second you stop meditating, guess what? Life kicks in and... cortisol can kick up. And so controlling sleep is key, but it also involves, as we started from the beginning, health means your sleep, your diet, your exercise, and changing your routine to prioritize sleep. And when you start to prioritize your sleep, you make meaningful changes in your life, things start becoming easier for you to achieve.
Speaker: And that's kind of part of the rationale behind the book. The product line Rebalance Health is fabulous, works very, very, very well. Fortunately, it's only available in the US right now.
Speaker: And it's a simple mint lozenge that's got all adaptogens in it from Ayurvedic and Chinese medicines. And you take the mint lozenge, you suck on it throughout the day, and you take one specifically formulated for night, and it helps you fall asleep and stay asleep.
Speaker: But it does involve having some mindfulness around how you live your life. Really simple. just You've got to make some changes in order to prioritize sleep. So dealing with kids, families, um finances, political, everything you can imagine that's going on gets in the way of your sleep.
Speaker: And you've just got to learn to shut it off, turn it off, and give yourself the opportunity to wind down before bed. And you can't do it 30 minutes before. And you can't do it an hour before. You've literally got to shut it down three hours before. Don't touch the phone. Don't touch the screens.
Speaker: And start to put yourself into a calm space so that you can fall to asleep easily and stay asleep. And what's happening is if you think about cortisol and melatonin and they're in a relay race,
Speaker: Okay, cortisol has to come down the hill and hand off to melatonin that can take over. But if cortisol doesn't go down the hill, it just keeps going up, it can't get to hand off to melatonin and therefore melatonin production doesn't happen.
Speaker: And all of a sudden you're wide awake, your brain's going crazy and you can't stop thinking. And we've all gone to that point of no return where we're busy working late and then we're rushing around, we're go collecting kids from football and we're like, ugh.
Speaker: And then it's just, you're like you're lying in bed and you're like, I have to get up in six hours, i have to get up in five hours. We've all done that. And I think anyone listening can relate. And it's just, I love how you simplified this.
Speaker: What time do you need to get up tomorrow? And we got a reverse engineer from that.
Speaker: I just wanted to interrupt the podcast for a moment to talk to you a little bit about Kate Hamilton Health online coaching. So we have two coaching options available.
Speaker: We have our elite coaching and we have our group coaching service. Our elite coaching service is bespoke individualized coaching, which will help you to finally break free from diet culture with one-to-one anytime support from your coach and and with access to a safe, supportive community.
Speaker: This is a higher ticket coaching option and the coaching is by application only. If you go to my website, KateHamiltonHealth.com, you will be able to apply for elite coaching through there and we will be in touch to organise a call and to get you up and running.
Speaker: In relation to our group coaching, our group coaching starts on the first Monday of every month. When it's full each month, we do close the doors. With the group coaching is about building the habits, body and energy of the healthiest version of yourself and finally make it stick.
Speaker: We include personalized calories and portions, food lists, recipes, meal plan ideas, step goals, home or gym based workouts, depending on what you want, changed every eight weeks.
Speaker: Mindset work, app access. So that's the Kate Hamilton Health app, which will be your hub for everything. Weekly yoga classes, WhatsApp group community, weekly group Q&A with myself, fun challenges, daily habits form, weekly self check in. fortnightly check-ins with your coach, a library full of lifestyle guides, a library full of lessons, seminars, and all of this is updated regularly.
Speaker: We have weekly group Zoom calls with myself and the team, regular guest seminars where we get experts on to talk more to you about different topics that we need experts on for.
Speaker: And then we have in-person events twice a year that you will get at a major discount as being a member of the Kate Hamilton Health community. As I said, this starts the first Monday of every month. If you go to my website, KateHamiltonHealth.com, you will see when the next group coaching intake is starting for you.
Speaker: So we close the doors as soon as that intake is full or the Monday before the group coaching starts. So usually that last Monday of the previous month. So if you head over to Kate Hamilton Health dot com, all of that information that I've talked through is on the website.
Speaker: You'll be able to book your spot for the next intake there. And i will chat to you all then.
Speaker: Right, and it doesn't always work. I've i've got two kids, one's 20, one's 18. I've been through the process. It's not always easy to do, but it's the goal. It's the objective.
Speaker: And you start making some small changes that can make big impacts in how you fall asleep and stay asleep. The temperature of your room should be nice and cold. Your body temperature drops when you fall asleep.
Speaker: You want to sleep naked, not get wrapped up in in different materials that may... Keep the heat in and prevent you from falling asleep. It's very important to set yourself up for success.
Speaker: And that takes discipline and practice. Just like working out, just like training for a marathon, you just need to rethink how you structure your day to preserve your sleep.
Speaker: Once you get your sleep under control, you will get yourself back. That's what we hear all the time. Wow, I finally feel like myself again. I'm more even. You saved my marriage, my relationships. Thank you so much. Because we all get short-tempered and we all get moody and we're snappy when we don't have sleep.
Speaker: And we're all running at 100 miles an hour. We need to learn to slow down and function. one of the things the book jumps into is we used to have endings to ah to different parts of our days.
Speaker: We don't have endings anymore. Like we used to work nine to five. When you left at five, you didn't have a cell phone tethered to you. You didn't have email tethered to you. So you were pretty much gone from the building.
Speaker: We would see you the next day. You had an ending to work. Now you have that phone with you. You are on call 24 seven, just like doctors and nurses because boundaries have been blurred.
Speaker: There are no endings anymore. Yeah, that's so true. And especially when we work from home as well, it can be even worse. And even when we are in the office, as you say, everyone's contactable all of the time.
Speaker: And I think as well what what you're saying in relation to prioritizing sleep and you know managing life and kids. It really is moving away from that perfectionist mindset, isn't it, as well? to you know I think sometimes even with diet or exercise, and like you if we look at this from the the perspective of sleep, that we need to move away from the all or nothing mindset. If I can't do this perfectly, what's the point?
Speaker: Whereas it we are what we do most of the time. It's not about what we do 100% all the time. Every moment's a new opportunity. And I mean, I have this conversation with my wife all the time where she's trying to stick to a sudden meal plan. All of a sudden she pivots. She goes, I'll start again tomorrow. I said, well, you made a mistake just now.
Speaker: Just get back on it now. like So you made a little mistake. Start now. why Why give yourself permission just destroy yourself for the rest of the day and then start again tomorrow?
Speaker: Okay, so you had... chocolate bar, you you had something you shouldn't have, what have you, it doesn't matter. Forgive yourself and move on start now. And so every opportunity, there's every there's a new opportunity every moment, and it's whether or not you decide to choose it and live your life that way.
Speaker: Because there's no reason why we shouldn't all be far more disciplined, but we've given ourselves excuses and reasons as to why we we can deviate. Yeah, and I do think that our art access to media and technology has like magnified this perfectionist mindset, like where we're looking at all these things where, oh, I have to have the perfect nighttime routine. I have to have the perfect morning routine. I have to be...
Speaker: ticking all of these boxes. Otherwise I'm a failure. And then there's this fear of failure. And it's like, if I can't do things perfectly, what's the point? Whereas if we're like, okay, yeah, i I'm after eating half the cupboard of cookies, whatever. Okay. We need to try and reflect on that, learn it, pick myself up and go again, rather than it's like the guilt and the shame and the stress that we attach Yeah. To every time we, in inverted commas, fail.
Speaker: Whereas if we think about like a kid learning to walk, they have to fall down, pick themselves up, fall down, pick themselves up till they get it. and i think What you're saying is we're actually human. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's part of it is technology is borderline perfect, right? Yeah. I mean, it gets things done efficiently, quickly, the way you want it. And we're human and we we are designed beautifully with flaws.
Speaker: And we have to accept those and not beat ourselves up about them and not feel guilty about it. We're all human. We make mistakes. Forgive yourself, move on. Yeah. So what if you have a night, if someone listening is like, i've I've only slept four or five hours the past few nights. Okay, let's just try better today.
Speaker: Try it again. Try again. Try again. Try again. Try again. Exactly. 100%. Try again. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and go again. The guilt is often worse than the actual event.
Speaker: It is. The guilt is always worse in whether, no matter what we're talking about here, it's the emotions that we attach to to it. It's the guilt. it It ruins everything. It is. And so you you have to learn to be kind to yourself.
Speaker: Forgive yourself, be kind to yourself. You're human and you're perfectly you're perfectly flawed. Bedtime is hard. you know when you take yeah especially like You know, when you say like, okay like, for example, I get up at 5.30 to go to the to be in the gym for six.
Speaker: So if I count backwards from that, like I need to be in bed at 9.30, which is fine. Most of the time I put my eight year old to bed. He's my my youngest. So he goes to bed but bit before that. And then I try and get myself to bed.
Speaker: But sometimes it just doesn't happen. But for a long time, what used to hold me back, it was the giving up the midweek Netflix. That's hard. It is hard. And a lot of people are not willing to trade it.
Speaker: That's where you have to have conversations with yourself. Am I am i willing to trade? Am I willing to to stop? I'm the same as you. I wake up every day at 4.30. I'm at the gym at 5. And then I come back and I get on with my day.
Speaker: But I'm in bed by 8.45, 8.30. Yeah. yeah Just that's my how my body is. It's a lot easier when your kids get a little bit older yeah and you try and set good kind of protocols for them as well.
Speaker: But I find it very interesting if you think about the phone. I was talking about this yesterday. Apple has a platform in there called Screen Time. And we used to set up Screen Time for our kids so they would you know not overuse their phones.
Speaker: I wonder if there's a single adult that's listening that's ever set up Screen Time for themselves. Yeah, I actually have. ah you know i was You know, you know that app and I'm always talking to my to anyone who will listen about it.
Speaker: Opal. Have you heard of the Opal app? So basically, yeah, it's like a ah screen blocker. So I get blocked out of my phone at 9.30 p.m. every night. And like i I paid the premium. So like it's a hard block. I cannot get into any of my social media apps at all until 7 a.m. the following morning. It's it's gone.
Speaker: So even when I'm in the gym, I can't be scrolling. I'm like, I have to be. focused and present, but I had to put it in place, which, and again, this is where it comes back to the guilt. I felt a little bit like a failure. i was like, why can't I just not go on my phone?
Speaker: And I think we need to realize that we're fighting a losing battle. Like these are addictive, divisive. They're made that way by geniuses that want to steal our attention. And we have, so I actively was like, no, I'm putting this blocker in place.
Speaker: And then and for a long time in the evening, I kept reaching for it and I'd go on my phone And I couldn't look at anything. And I found myself like scrolling through photographs because I needed to do something on my phone.
Speaker: And then i was like, why are you scrolling through photographs? Okay, put it down, read a book. And that's what I've done, but it took that. And for a long time, this I mean, like the step by step and you know picking yourself back up.
Speaker: like I kept reaching for it and I still do sometimes, and which is is fascinating. So I think a screen time or ah but an upper block like Opal is just amazing. You can set the, how hard you want the blocks to be. You can set for how long, depending on, I suppose, yeah, how how you feel you need it.
Speaker: You could take it one step further. I just removed all social media apps from my phone completely. And put it on your laptop instead. It's on my computer, right? you well You just log into the browser, right? and you And you log in, but it's another step. So it's not convenient.
Speaker: You know, people people talk about stopping a stoplight or traffic lights and then reaching for their phone. Mm-hmm. Right? Because it's that dopamine hit that they want.
Speaker: That's really not a really good dopamine. It's an empty dopamine hit. And they're constantly grabbing their phones to try and get some stimulation. Interesting in the book, I did research and it was the average person touches their phone over two and a half thousand times a day.
Speaker: Oh my God. And the heavy users, three and a half thousand times a day. And there's things like, we talk about Jomo, the joy of missing out.
Speaker: And then we talk about that in the book. There's a joy now in not being addicted to the phone. There's a joy and I just don't care because half the stuff on social media isn't even real, right?
Speaker: AI has gotten real grasp now. People are posting really what they want you to see in their lives, not what's really happening in their lives. So it's a facade. And there's a joy in coming to terms with that and go, you know, I want to speak to Kate.
Speaker: going to pick up the phone. Hey, can we meet? Can we chat? Like, let's actually have a real connection versus I've checked in with Kate on social media. I see what she's up to. I'm good.
Speaker: I've checked in with my friend. It's very interesting how the dynamic has shifted through social media. Whereas we don't have connection. We don't have real relationships with one another because it's showmanship.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's definitely something that I crave, like I crave community and connection. And i think a lot of other people do as well.
Speaker: And I think it's the only way forward for us. So even though I run an online business, we are very much looking more at doing more in-person events even this podcast I'm looking to bring it to a studio to meet people in person because although the flexibility of working from home and having an online business is fantastic we need like you said we need to be around people and I'm an introvert I like to be alone like I enjoy my alone time very much especially when you have kids you know it like the alone time is so important but
Speaker: It's made me realize as I've set my life up, as I have it, I do crave that community and that in-person contact. And I think everyone is coming to that point.
Speaker: I would agree 100%. It's getting out of control. It is simply getting out. And the pace in which it's evolving, like just imagine, just think about six months ago and what AI could do six months ago versus what it can do today and how quickly we're moving forward.
Speaker: These are all wonderful tools. Again, I'm not against it. What I'm concerned about is we haven't been taught how to use it responsibly as humans and we are all addicted it. to it.
Speaker: And we have to learn to take a step back and use it for the tool that it is. Yeah. And with in like when you mention AI and social media, I just think about my mom, like my mom is in her late 60s, but she loves Facebook for keeping, you know, connection with her friends, you know, and people she hasn't seen in a long time. So when Facebook like was set up years ago and, she you know, she learned how to use it, this was this was so great for her.
Speaker: But now she's afraid of like it should always be liking things and you know sharing things. But now she's when she sees something, she's afraid that it's not real anymore. Because she doesn't know the difference between what's real, what's AI and what's real.
Speaker: You know, I can tell you that I'm beginning to not be able to tell the difference. it scar Me too. It's getting that good. and You don't know. In fact, we've actually done some um AI commercials.
Speaker: And everyone thinks we're using real actors and they're real people, but they're not. It's all AI generated. And so it's very difficult. another Another few months, it'll be impossible to tell between real real life and AI.
Speaker: What do you think that means for social media, you know for short form content, for people who've built businesses on social media followings? If they've got a decent following, I think it'll be fine. If it isn't, if they're building up, it could be a wonderful tool leveraged in the right hands the right way. I mean, I think it could be a very, very helpful tool.
Speaker: The problem that I have is that the internet is not... accurate, that's the big problem, right? There's good information out there and there's a lot of misinformation out there.
Speaker: And so what AI is doing is it's regurgitating a combination of accurate information and inaccurate information. And so it's just disseminating confusion faster.
Speaker: It used to be what's in the library and what's in, you know, Encyclopedia Britannica used to be that simple. And when the internet came out, it was pretty solid. But over the past, I think, 10, 15 years, it's gotten pretty bad. Like you can't trust information. You can't trust AI or chat GPT, right? You have to double check it. it doesn't get it right.
Speaker: all the time. It's crazy when you think about how much we've come on. Like, if I think about when I was in university and, like, I remember doing my thesis, like, and we're talking, like, 2005, 2006. Like, so it's not, like, in my eyes, that's not really that long ago. It actually, it's 20 years ago, but, like, it doesn't feel that long ago.
Speaker: and I remember researching, I would be in the library taking out physical books. And when I'd be, you know, you'd be doing your references and your bibliography, it would be books and pages of books that you'd be quoting, not websites. Like, yeah, we had the internet. It was basic. sick A hundred percent. i was ah I'm a few years behind you. I graduated in 98.
Speaker: But you're 100% correct. you We're referencing books. And we have come a very long way, which is a great achievement. But again, we trust it too much. We rely on it too much. We're addicted to it.
Speaker: And that's not how the human body was designed. And so... The book, the products are just about, again, moderation, understanding the cause and effect in the most simplistic way possible because it's too easy to get complicated.
Speaker: Again, that's why you go back to diet. Consume less calories than you burn. Do some sort of exercise that involves lifting weights and walking. And if there's anything else you're passionate about, great. But understand how it all impacts sleep.
Speaker: And as long as you... Literally protect your sleep so that you set yourself up for the best success. You'll start feeling more like your former self. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker: And with the technology technology side of it, it's the information overload. It's about bringing it back to basics and letting go of the technology when you don't need it and keeping things simple.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, think about, we used to go to the video store, Blockbusters or a local video store. And if we were lucky, there was a copy or two of the movie we wanted to watch behind the cover, right? There wasn't- yeah 500. was literally like three or four.
Speaker: And if you were lucky, it was there. If you weren't lucky, came back next week to see if it was back in. Right? I know. And you'd be so disappointed if it wasn't there. Or me and my sister used to fight. we used to like We used to, like my mother be giving out. She's like, I'm leaving in five seconds.
Speaker: Pick a TV or pick a, yeah, it was a video. Pick a video. And we'd be fighting. Oh, what this one? Oh, that one's crap. You know, and we'd be fighting over it. Yeah, that that doesn't exist anymore. Right. Then it evolved to Netflix and we used to get CDs and DVDs in the mail.
Speaker: and again, you'd get one, two or three DVDs a week, right? So you were limited based on the plan you were on. And then you put it back in the mail. You had to wait for again. There was only so many copies.
Speaker: And then as soon as streaming hit... It was a great privilege. It was a great advancement in technology, but also there went our sleep because now we have unlimited movies streaming to any device that we can obtain in our homes and around, um you know we even on our phones as we're walking around outside or on the bus, whatever, you can get content.
Speaker: And we've now become addicted to that. So people now binge watch on the weekends. They don't watch one or one episode. They watch six episodes. And they sit on the couch. We were not designed to do that.
Speaker: And that's what's happening. We are basically rewiring our bodies and we are craving that dopamine hit. We're craving content and it's really not that healthy.
Speaker: We don't know how to be bored anymore. No. How many phone numbers did you used to remember as a teenager, as a kid? I can still remember the ones that I need to know. Like my friend my childhood friends, I can still remember their house phone numbers.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. And my parents' phone numbers. I like i know them off by heart. But like my own children's phone numbers now, I have no idea. right Right. So again, it's just, I use nostalgic references as a way of explaining how far we've come in being so dependent on technology and how that dependency has completely rewired our brains.
Speaker: It really has. We've completely rewired brains. It's instant satisfaction. You need to find something out, you ins instantly Google it. Instantly, you in yeah everything is constant. Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. but and Hopefully not. Hopefully we start to learn. And that's part of our mission is to help spread the information to help people understand and learn that it isn't rocket science. It's very much fundamental, basic science.
Speaker: principles that we have to apply and you don't have to be a doctor you don't have to be a scientist to understand it your sleep is where you make your hormones you don't get sleep you don't make hormones you're going to feel like shit it's that simple yeah talk to us a bit about the book before we finish up so your book is called stress nation it's available on is available on amazon you can get it all over the all over the world.
Speaker: And not to toot my horn, but we wrote the book. It got published last month. In the first week, it was a national bestseller in the US at number six. And I think that speaks to the chronic epidemic we have.
Speaker: It's a true epidemic in terms of stress, anxiety, and technology. People are looking for solutions and they're not that difficult. We just haven't really been taught it or explained to in a manner that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: And you've just got to put up some boundaries, so some parameters, just like you used to have a curfew when you came home. You need a curfew around your device. Congratulations on the book. That's fantastic news that it's doing so well.
Speaker: And it is a testament to exactly this is what people need. This is, you know, we are all searching for that peace, really, like that peace, whether that's a healthy body, healthy mind. You know, we want to simplify things. We want to get healthier. We want to work. We all want to reduce our stress.
Speaker: No question. And again, finding endings to different parts of your day is important and setting yourself up for success. And in the book, then you give practical tips on step by step, this is what we need to Everything from breath work to to different exercises, different routines, different habits, and most importantly, explaining cause and effect. There's a big section on perimenopause to help women truly understand what's going on.
Speaker: I think women have been convinced that they're broken and they're not, and... Perimenopause is not a disease or a medical state. It's a simple, beautiful phase of life, just like puberty. We all went through puberty, and menopause is a similar phase.
Speaker: Men go through a very similar process as well called andreopause. It's much longer. It lasts between mid-30s and 70s, and men go through the exact same changes as women do, but at a much, much lower intensity, right? Maybe a fraction of a percentage, right? Men get hot flashes. They gain weight. They lose their... mental faculties, right? They get brain fog, they get word salad, they start losing their hair and so forth. Same as women going through menopause, except women go through it in a much condensed period of time of seven to 14 years.
Speaker: And so everything is exacerbated. Yeah, we will share a link to your book in the show notes because I think this is going to be hugely beneficial to a lot of listeners.
Speaker: Where is the best place for people to find out any more about you your products, as well as the book? Have you a website or social media? What's the best place? Yeah, best way is go to rebalancehealth.com.
Speaker: We do have the book on that site as well. If you want just the book and we offer a free educational course is stressnationbook.com. Amazing. Two different places. So thank you so much, Kate.
Speaker: Justin, thank you so much for coming on. it This has been such ah such a great conversation and I've i've taken a lot from it personally and I know everyone else will too. Wonderful. Wonderful.
Speaker: I just want to say thank you so much for listening to the podcast. And I would just ask for one thing from you, if at all possible, could you make sure that you subscribe to the podcast? It really does make such a difference.
Speaker: If there's a particular episode that you've enjoyed, please do share it in your WhatsApp groups, share it on your stories, tag myself and the guest in your stories. All of these things really do help.
Speaker: to grow the podcast. And obviously, if there's anything you'd like to reflect on, please do leave a comment. It would mean the world to me and I will see you on the next one.
