0:02
Hi, I'm Jim O'Shaughnessy and welcome to Infinite Loops.
Search this video
0:02
Sometimes we get caught up in what feel like infinite loops when trying to figure things out.
0:07
Markets go up and down, research is presented and then refuted, and we find ourselves right back where we started.
0:13
The goal of this podcast is to learn how we can reset our thinking on issues that hopefully leaves us with a better understanding as to why we think the way we think and how we might be able to change that to avoid going in infinite loops of thought.
0:36
We hope to offer our listeners a fresh perspective on a variety of issues and look at them through a multifaceted lens — including history, philosophy, art, science, linguistics, and yes, also through quantitative analysis.
0:49
And through these discussions help you not only become a better investor, but also become a more nuanced thinker.
0:56
With each episode we hope to bring you along with us as we learn together.
1:02
Thanks for joining us, now please enjoy this episode of Infinite Loops.
1:11
Disclaimer: Jim O'Shaughnessy is chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, where Jamie Catherwood is an associate.
1:17
All opinions expressed by Jim, Jamie and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management.
1:26
This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
1:31
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
1:39
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Well, hello, everyone.
1:39
It's Jim O'Shaughnessy with another edition of Infinite Loops.
1:45
I am delighted today to have Diane Macedo on as my guest.
1:52
She is the author of The Sleep Fix: Proven and Surprising Solutions for Insomnia, Snoring, Shift Work, and More, and also, of course, a very well-known personality at ABC News as an anchor and correspondent. Welcome, Diane.
2:09
Diane Macedo: Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.
2:11
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Oh, it's fun, because you know, I think you've got your finger on the zeitgeist, because as I was getting ready, reading your book, and thank you for sending it to me ahead of time, I got a notice from Sam Harris' podcast that, what was he doing his podcast on today? A sleep expert.
2:26
And then I got an email from the producer for Infinite Loops, and it's like, "Yeah, we've got to add this neurologist who wants to talk about sleep." And I'm like, "Okay."
2:36
My first question for you is, is there something in the air, is the zeitgeist making us want to chat about sleep?
2:43
Diane Macedo: I think the pandemic has affected that a lot, because I hear a lot that people are finding a dramatic impact, either good and bad, and both are happening, and there are different reasons for that, but I think that is spurring what was already a growing area of health.
3:02
And I think people have been, for the past few years, realizing that sleep is a pillar of health and wanting to get more of it.
3:07
The reason I wrote the book is I think a lot of people are ignoring a huge group of people who feel they're unable to get enough sleep.
3:19
And so while I think the general...
3:19
and I'm oversimplifying here...
3:19
but I think the general trend in sleep is a lot of people focusing on how important sleep is and how important it is that you get enough of it.
3:29
And my book is specifically not necessarily aimed at that, but it's about telling you how to get enough of it, because I have been that person who reads those books and thinks, "Great, I want to get enough sleep," and finds that I can.
3:46
And it's so incredibly frustrating when you're unable to do it, you're sleep deprived, and in the end you feel like it's your fault.
3:51
And so that's who I wrote the book for.
3:51
It's not for the person who just wasn't prioritizing sleep enough and needs to hear how important it is, it's for the person who does go to bed and does try to prioritize sleep and just finds they stare at the ceiling and they're just unable to get enough sleep, for whatever reason.
4:09
That's who I wrote this book for. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
4:11
And I count myself sometimes among them.
4:11
We will get to that later on.
4:11
But this feeds right into the point you make in the book, which I thought was excellent, and really, I think it was the first time I've ever seen it spelled out like this.
4:21
You make the point that insomnia and sleep deprivation are two very, very different things. Tell us about that.
4:32
Diane Macedo: They are, and a lot of people use these terms interchangeably, including people who will talk about clinical research.
4:37
So, you'll have a lot of people put headlines out there talking about how insomnia leads to X likelihood of death, or insomnia will have this other devastating consequence.
4:50
And frequently, what they're actually talking about is research on sleep deprivation, and those are very different things.
4:54
If you are sleep deprived, it means you haven't had enough sleep for whatever is enough sleep for you.
4:59
And often, in medical language and clinical research when they are talking about sleep deprivation, they're often talking about extreme sleep deprivation.
5:09
So, often, that term will refer to people who sleep five hours or less.
5:13
People who have insomnia sometimes can be sleep deprived as a result, but just because you have insomnia does not mean you're sleep deprived, and just because you're sleep deprived does not mean that you have insomnia.
5:24
And I try to explain it this way.
5:28
If you get five hours of sleep every night, you're almost definitely sleep deprived, but if you get five hours of sleep every night because you're either working really late, or you're partying too hard, or you're waking up too early to do whatever, then you don't have insomnia, you just don't spend enough time in bed.
5:42
On the flip side, you might get seven, eight, nine hours of sleep, and that's probably enough for you, but if you're spending 12 hours in bed to try to get those eight hours of sleep, then you are almost definitely an insomniac, even though you are getting technically enough sleep.
6:05
So, big difference in those two because they're two very different problems that require very different solutions.
6:10
And I think a lot of the sleep advice that is out there is for the people who are sleep deprived because they don't spend enough time in bed, not for the people who are sleep deprived because they either have insomnia or some other sleep disorder that needs to be addressed. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
6:28
And I'm a bit crazy and dive down a bunch of rabbit holes and read everything that is down there, so I'm kind of a nut.
6:33
One thing that I thought was really interesting was on how to run a cult, essentially, and you know what one of the first things was? Sleep deprivation.
6:45
Because apparently, we become far more suggestible, it's almost like having your head filled with cotton, and so they are very, very different.
6:52
So, insomnia, in your book you say, it's really how efficiently you sleep.
7:00
Tell us a bit about that.
7:05
Diane Macedo: Sleep efficiency is very simple.
7:05
It's the amount of time you spend in bed versus the amount of time you spend actually sleeping.
7:13
And I hate throwing numbers out there because it's very easy to get to into the numbers, but the general gist is 85 to 90% is more or less what you want.
7:18
But again, as I say in the book over and over, do not get caught up in the numbers because that in itself can create insomnia.
7:29
But when you go to bed, you want to fall asleep fairly quickly, 20 minutes, somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes, usually 20 minutes is what you're aiming for, and you want to be able to sleep more or less through the night and then wake up and feel like you've got a sufficient amount of sleep.
7:46
If you are either taking a very long time to fall asleep at night where every night you're laying in bed, you're frustrated you're awake and you're thinking, "Why am I not asleep? Why am I not asleep? Why am I not asleep?"
7:57
Or you're waking up a lot throughout the night for reasons that you can't explain and you have a hard time falling back asleep and then you're awake for long periods of time, or you go to bed at what feels like a normal hour, but then you wake up super early and you can't fall back asleep, all of those are examples of insomnia. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
8:16
So, I have a long line of insomniacs in my family.
8:20
My father was of the variety where he could go right to sleep, but he would wake up about three hours later and then it was sometimes oftentimes that was it and he couldn't get back to sleep.
8:31
And so he tried a variety of different methods, and you have several in the book that I'd like you to list for our listeners because this is...
8:36
When I was telling people that I was doing this podcast with you, I mean, I think of the, however many people I told, at least 80% were like, "Oh, man, I'm going to listen to that one," because they weren't getting enough sleep or they're insomniacs.
8:52
But now that you've explained the difference, I also note that a lot of people think they're insomniacs but they're really just sleep deprived.
9:02
So, if you have insomnia, you list several methods that could be helpful there.
9:09
You want to share them with us? Diane Macedo: Sure.
9:12
And just to reiterate, if you don't feel like you don't get enough sleep because you're not spending enough time in bed, then you can start with that solution right there, you just spend more time in bed.
9:21
The irony is if you have insomnia or another sleep disorder, but let's stick with insomnia, if you have insomnia where you do lay in bed and try to fall asleep and you can't or you try to sleep through the night and you can't, the solution is frequently the opposite.
9:34
You actually have to spend less time in bed in order to get better.
9:38
And so, if I can, rather than go through a list, I want to first just explain a little bit about what's happening because that's going to make the list make that much more sense.
9:51
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Perfect.
9:52
Diane Macedo: And I want you to picture the best sleeper you know.
9:55
In my case, my husband, right? Drives me nuts.
9:55
The person who can fall asleep on any plane, who can fall asleep in the car, who the second they put their head on the pillow, the person who can take a nap, even though they're well-rested, just because.
10:08
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So yeah, I just want to insert there, in my case, that is my wife and my daughter-in-law.
10:12
They just, boom, lights out.
10:12
My wife will be to the point where she's shutting the light out and I'm still reading and I say good night and she doesn't respond because she's already asleep.
10:26
Diane Macedo: Yeah, my husband...
10:26
I used to work the overnight shift, which is when my problems hit a peak, and every now and then it would be the middle of the day, I hadn't slept and he would say, "Why don't I come in and lay with you?"
10:34
Because sometimes that would make me feel a little bit more relaxed.
10:39
And so he'd say, "I'll come in and lay with you," which I thought was so sweet.
10:42
And I would get in bed, and he would get in bed, and then I would turn around and say something to him or even just immediately notice that his breathing had slowed to a point where I realized he was sleeping, even though he had slept a full night and I hadn't.
10:57
And then you get more aggravated.
11:01
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Then you get mad.
11:02
Diane Macedo: Like, "What?
11:02
What the heck is going on?"
11:02
So, now I'm even more mad and even less likely to sleep. But anyway, I digress.
11:10
So, everyone who has sleep problems probably has that person that they're imagining now that falls asleep immediately.
11:14
And then I want you to imagine that someone put a gun to that person's head right before their bedtime and said, "Fall asleep in 20 minutes or else."
11:25
They would probably have a really hard time.
11:25
And that's because excitement, stress, nervousness, anxiety, all of these things trigger something called arousal.
11:32
Essentially, it's your fight or flight response, and arousal is a very powerful sleep killer.
11:42
And so when we worry too much about not sleeping, we create our own sleep problems, and often it will start with just a simple, you were excited about something random, maybe you're grieving a death, maybe you have something happening at work that's particularly stressful, any number of things can trigger a few nights of insomnia, and that's completely normal.
12:05
We all go through that every now and then, and that is not a problem.
12:05
When you often hear about insomnia as a sleep disorder, they're not talking about one or two nights of insomnia.
12:16
And the rule of thumb in the clinical world is at least three times a day for at least three months...
12:24
it's a whole checklist of things that you have to fill out.
12:24
But what newer research has shown is, it can be a perpetuating problem much earlier, and more importantly, you can benefit from interventions much earlier than a lot of the traditional clinical wisdom would suggest.
12:40
So, the experts that I've spoken to say two weeks.
12:43
If you have experienced this kind of steady sleep issue for two weeks, that's when you can start thinking about intervening, because at that point, you're not just experiencing this short term stress response to this one little thing that happened, something is perpetuating that problem, if at least three times a week, you are having this issue.
13:06
So, what you want to do essentially is two things.
13:06
You have to lower the arousal that is keeping you awake.
13:13
And one of the reasons that this becomes a perpetuating problem is something called conditioned arousal, which is, you've now spent so much time awake and frustrated in bed that our brain has this kind of mental autopilot feature that recognizes patterns in our behaviors and then it prepares for what's coming next.
13:28
And so if you spend enough time awake and frustrated in bed, that mental autopilot feature starts to kick in and trigger something called conditioned arousal, which is the moment you get in bed, your brain goes into arousal mode because it starts to recognize bed as, "Hey, I know what this is, this is the place where we stay awake and worry."
13:50
And so your brain starts to do that.
13:55
And this is why a lot of people, the telltale sign of conditioned arousal is if you can doze off on the couch or be starting to doze off on the couch, you're so exhausted, and the second you get in bed, you're suddenly, boom, you're wide awake.
14:04
And you think, "What the heck just happened?
14:08
Did I catch a second wind?" No.
14:08
More than likely what's happening is conditioned arousal.
14:12
Your brain has learned to recognize bed as a cue for wakefulness instead of a cue for sleep.
14:17
And there may be other problems at hand, but if you don't address that, you are still going to have sleep problems, and that's what a lot of the sleep advice out there misses.
14:26
So, in order to address that part of the equation, you need to do two things.
14:30
One, is you want to lower that arousal level.
14:30
Easier said than done, but we'll get to how to do that.
14:35
And two, you want to boost your sleep drive.
14:35
And what we often do to make up for insomnia is the opposite.
14:39
We hear all this advice about how doomed we're going to be without enough sleep and we try to make up for our sleep loss by either going to bed earlier, by sleeping in later, or by taking a nap.
14:48
And all we're doing in doing those things is we're depleting our sleep drive so that when it comes time to go to bed, we're not sleepy enough to go to bed, and we're especially not sleepy enough to go to bed because our arousal levels have kicked our wake drive up too high.
15:11
And in order to fall asleep, the most basic thing needs to happen.
15:11
Your sleep drive needs to overpower your wake drive.
15:15
And if we overload our wake drive with stress, and excitement, anxiety, and all these other worries, that makes our wake drive too strong.
15:20
It can overpower our sleep drive.
15:25
And then we sleep in, and we take naps, and we go to bed too early, and now we're weakening our sleep drive, we're making that overpowering of the sleep drive even harder.
15:34
So, we want to do two things, lower our arousal, lift up our sleep drive.
15:38
So, the lowering the arousal part is the more difficult of the two in terms of you have less control over it.
15:43
But the technique that I found super helpful and that all the clinicians that I spoke to found super helpful is something called constructive worry, or what I nicknamed the brain dump.
15:55
And essentially, this couldn't be more simple, and it sounds stupid, I just want to lay it out there that some people might hear this and say, "Are you freaking kidding me?" But hear me out.
16:04
You take a notebook anytime before bed.
16:04
You're supposed to do it, ideally, a couple of hours before bed, but I did it right before bed, I keep the book in my nightstand right before I got up to brush my teeth and wash my face and do all that stuff.
16:18
So, you don't have to follow any of these rules perfectly in order for them to work.
16:21
But you take the notebook, you divide the page down the center or use two pages, and on the left side you just write anything that's on your mind.
16:27
It might be, "Oh, I got to remember to call so and so, and do that thing that I have to do," or, "Oh, that conversation yesterday, that really sucked?
16:36
What am I going to do about that?"
16:40
And so on and so forth, and you just write it all down like a big list.
16:44
And then on the right side of the page, you write down the very next step to resolving that issue.
16:48
You don't have to know what the ultimate resolution is, just the next step.
16:53
And if you have no idea how to resolve this issue, the next step might be to call someone who knows more than you do about it or to research that topic at X source.
16:57
The more specific you can be, the better, but you don't need to have the solution.
17:03
Just, "What am I going to do next to fix this?"
17:06
If it's something that's hypothetical, that you have no control over or something that doesn't have a solution, then the answer is you have to accept and move on. Write that too.
17:15
Write, "I have to," write down, "accept and move on."
17:15
And when you're done, you can't think of anything else to put on the list, the exercises over.
17:19
Your constructive worry time is done.
17:23
And you'd be surprised how effective this is.
17:26
And it works for a few different reasons.
17:26
One, in my case, for example, when I was having all these problems, I was a mile a minute the whole day.
17:32
I had a very, very packed work schedule when I was actually at work, and when I wasn't at work and I wasn't sleeping, I was either listening to podcasts for ideas on things, or researching subjects, or pitching stories, or shooting stories, I never had a mental break.
17:48
Even when I found time to get my nails done, I would be sitting at the nail salon with my headphones on listening to a podcast so that I could maybe get a story idea to pitch at work.
17:59
And so it's no wonder that my brain was then cycling through thoughts and all these other things in my head when I lay down and hit the pillow.
18:10
That was the first opportunity my brain had to do that.
18:15
And so the first thing that constructive worry does is it just gives your brain an opportunity to process the thoughts and feelings of the day, which is a completely natural thing to do.
18:24
And so if you're doing that at this other time, there's less of a need for your brain to go and start doing that when your head hits the pillow.
18:32
The other part is that conditioning that we talked about, that conditioned arousal.
18:32
You're reprogramming that because now, your brain is learning, "Oh, this is the time that we process our thoughts and worries and think through all these things, not when my head hits the pillow."
18:47
And you're reprogramming your brain to do it at this time and not at bedtime.
18:54
And the other reason we often get repetitive thoughts in bed is memory.
18:57
If I asked you to memorize a phone number and you couldn't write it down, how would you remember it? Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
19:05
So well, I'm a weirdo, and when I was younger, I memorized 100 poems. Diane Macedo: Okay.
19:09
So, you're going to have some special techniques [crosstalk] memory [crosstalk] or something.
19:11
Is that what you were going to tell me?
19:14
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yes, exactly. Diane Macedo: Okay.
19:16
For those of us who are less intelligent than you, Jim, most of us would remember, if you say, "555-6969, remember that phone number," most of us walk away and we say okay, "555-6969, 555-6969, 555-6969," because it's the most natural way that our brains remember things when given no better solution.
19:33
And so part of the reason that we get repetitive thoughts in bed is your brain is just trying to remind you to deal with these things.
19:37
And so if you've written them down via constructive worry, you no longer need that memory, and whether you realize it or not, your brain subconsciously does.
19:51
And finally, the act of doing this, writing down the problems or the worries and writing down the next step to the solution reprograms your brain into a solutions mode where you are no longer just focusing on your problems and thinking about them over and over again, you're now realizing that there are solutions, there are things, there is a way out of that.
20:11
And so it just takes you out of that loop.
20:11
You talk about infinite loops, right?
20:11
Out of that infinite loop of just your problem, your problem, your problem, your problem.
20:19
And all of those things come together to really help you, when your head hits the pillow, fall asleep at night.
20:25
And the part that I found most fascinating is I found after doing this for about two weeks every night, or in my case every day, because I was working overnights at the time so I was sleeping during the day, after doing this for about two weeks every night, your brain just gets the message and you find you don't really have to do it anymore.
20:41
And my experience was I had this after about two weeks, and then in talking to the clinicians that I interviewed for the book, they said, "Yeah, I generally tell my patients, 'You're only going to have to do this for about two to three weeks and your brain is just going to start doing it naturally, and then you don't even need the notebook anymore.
20:56
Save it in your nightstand for when you're having a particularly stressful day or if you have a bout of insomnia, but for the most part, you're not going to need that notebook anymore.'"
21:05
So, that's the first big tip I have, is this exercise of constructive worry.
21:10
And the other main one is the other side of the coin, which is, you need to boost your sleep drive in order to just overpower your wake drive and get to sleep.
21:20
And in order to do that, you follow a list of simple rules, which in science is called stimulus control.
21:25
I like to call it a reverse curfew in many ways.
21:30
But essentially what you want to do is, don't go to sleep until you're sleepy.
21:36
And I don't mean tired, I mean sleepy, when you actually feel like you're fighting yourself to stay awake.
21:41
And then wake up at the same time every day, no matter what.
21:41
Whether it's the weekend, whether you had a terrible night, whether you have the day off, it doesn't matter, you wake up at the same time every single day.
21:51
And if you're ever in bed long enough to feel frustrated about it, get out of bed, go somewhere else, stay in dim light and do anything you find enjoyable and relaxing.
22:03
That can include watching TV, by the way.
22:08
Just do something that you enjoy, and when you feel yourself getting sleepy again, then go back to bed.
22:13
And this does two things.
22:13
It also takes away that association that bed as the place where we stay awake and worry, and so it reprograms that conditioned arousal that's forcing you into this insomnia loop, but it also boosts your sleep drive.
22:28
Because if you have a really bad night, you're going to go to bed pretty late, but then you're still going to wake up at the same time every day, and you're going to stay awake all day, no naps, no sleeping in, etc.
22:35
And so by the time you get to bed, your bedtime, now your sleep drive is that much higher.
22:40
And what that's going to do is it's going to help you to fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and sleep more deeply.
22:52
And if you continue to do this over and over again, and you stick with it, eventually, the problem fixes itself.
22:55
And once it does, you can then get more lux about all of these things.
22:59
But you have to just be rigorous with yourself for a little while.
23:04
And for the most part, the rest of the instructions are just to get out of the way.
23:04
Because often what we do is we try to do all of these things.
23:09
what we do is we try to do all of these things. We try to get the perfect sleep routine, we try to swear off screens, we quit caffeine, we do all of these things that aren't really causing the problem to begin with and we just make our problem worse, because now we're fixating so much on our sleep, and trying our lavender oil on the pillow, and our sleepy
23:27
time teas, and our bubble baths, and all these other things, and that sleep effort, as clinicians will call it, just increases our arousal because it makes us more fixated on sleep and it gives us more performance anxiety around our sleep because now we're thinking, "Well, I worked so hard to make sleep happen, now I better fall asleep." And if you've ever tried to
23:42
And if you've ever tried to fall asleep with somebody staring at you saying, "Are you asleep yet? Are you asleep yet? Are you asleep yet?"
23:51
You can imagine that that would be pretty tough.
23:53
And what we essentially are doing in those circumstances is we are the person trying to sleep and also the person standing over us saying, "Hey, are you asleep yet? Are you asleep yet? Are you asleep yet?"
24:01
So, do constructive worry, do stimulus control.
24:01
There are a few other tips in the book that I think are important, and other than that, just get out of the way and try not to think about it. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Wow.
24:14
I mean, that is fantastic advice, and what you're talking about is something that I have studied and do quite a bit, what you're really talking about is meta programming.
24:24
So, meta thinking is thinking about thinking, right, and if you are thinking about sleeping as opposed to thinking about ways to correct your problem with sleeping, you're going to go into an infinite loop, right?
24:35
And you just gave our listeners the perfect way to break that infinite loop, because I am also a member massively big fan of journaling, for a variety of reasons, and it fits in with what the findings have been about various forms of therapy, psychological therapy.
24:56
And what they've found is that talk therapy is among the very best in terms of getting results.
25:03
And the kicker, which all of my psychiatrist and psychologist friends, and I have many, really hate it when I say is, it doesn't matter who you're talking to.
25:15
It can be to a bartender, it can be to your spouse, it can be to a journal.
25:24
That's why I love that idea, because your brain doesn't know the difference, honestly, right?
25:29
It can prime you for taking something seriously, that's why placebos work, right?
25:36
If you want to placebo to work, the best way for that to happen is to have a real doctor in a white coat with a red or blue pill... not the matrix here...
25:42
but the pill has to be colorful, and the doctor, he or she, says, "These are really expensive, but I think they're going to work for you."
25:56
I mean, that is like, if you really want a placebo to soar, that's how you do it, because your brain is primed for, "Okay.
26:01
Authority figure is telling me that he's got or she's got the answer, and oh my God, it's expensive."
26:08
And we have this thing in our base human OS, that price equals value. It doesn't.
26:15
We've basically proven that time and time and time again, but it's still there.
26:25
But also, getting back to your journaling, it doesn't matter if you're writing it in a book either.
26:30
Your brain doesn't know the difference, literally.
26:30
And so what you're doing, which I think is just bang on, is you're pouring out problems, and I've found through these journaling...
26:42
and I've been journaling since I was 18 years old...
26:42
is sometimes you write down things that you weren't actually consciously thinking about, and sometimes they're big things.
26:52
And so you're like, "Oh, okay, that's interesting. That's new."
26:52
And I also love your idea, though...
27:00
because it's very stoic, right?
27:04
So, I'm really into Taoism and stoicism.
27:04
I think that they're really a nice mixture. The stoic response...
27:10
and I think they're often just really misunderstood, it's like, if there is some problem that you cannot take action to solve, put it out of your mind, right?
27:21
And so many people are like, "But I still worry about it."
27:21
Well, okay, but do you want to spend your time working on problems that you can actually solve or do you want to spend your time worrying about problems or social gesturing that, "Oh, I'm so worried about X"? Right?
27:35
And that is a great way to do both the talk therapy with yourself and the brain dump.
27:43
And by the way, I think brain dump is a much better name, because- Diane Macedo: Yeah, than constructive worry, right?
27:47
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Exactly, right?
27:49
Constructive worry, and I'm like, "Oh, God, okay, here I am in college again, and the PhD teaching the class is telling me about constructive worry. Oh, boy."
27:54
But you say brain dump to anybody- Diane Macedo: I have to give credit to Jason Karp for that one, because he's one of the people I interviewed in the book, and he was the one who said the words brain dump to me, which I had heard before, but as he said it I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's way better." Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
28:15
He has done amazing things.
28:15
He is such an Uber impressive guy, and I'm sure you've heard the story about how he basically treated himself when all the doctors were telling him like, "Ugh." Diane Macedo: Yeah. I put it in the book.
28:28
I found it so fascinating.
28:30
I called him back up when I was writing it and I said, "Jason, can I interview you?
28:34
I need to tell this story."
28:34
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I got to have him on the podcast.
28:36
But this again, brain dump. Speak English.
28:36
Talk in phrases that people understand. Okay.
28:42
We all know that you know these $10 words, okay?
28:48
I have found, personally, that my goal in trying to explain something to somebody is to simplify it to a point that it's as simple as it can get.
28:55
Not simplistic, but simple.
29:01
When you can habituate something, I mean, sometimes the results are miraculous. And I have a few.
29:07
I wrote a thread about it so I won't go into it now, but I didn't believe it going in, right? I was like, "Okay."
29:12
My trainer had said, "If you do this, this, and this, you're going to habituate it."
29:16
I'm like, "I don't think so."
29:16
But then I did it, and the time is also interesting to me, because he also said 14 days.
29:21
Anyway, just that alone I think is fantastic advice, because it's going to help you not only with your sleep, I think if it you get you in the habit of journaling just in general, I think that's really great, because when you have to write something down, you quickly understand whether you understand it or not or whether you actually feel that way.
29:46
So, I think that is fabulous advice.
29:54
One more story and then I want to ask you another thing about some of the sleep aids.
29:56
So, one of our best friends was the senior producer for Oprah Winfrey.
30:02
And, oh my God, she was like what you described yourself as, on steroids.
30:10
We would vacation together with her and her husband and my wife and I were looking at her like, "Katie, just stop."
30:17
And this was back in the days when everything was a magazine, and literally, she would have like 50 magazines and like you, she was looking for story ideas.
30:27
And then one night after everyone had gone to bed, I woke up and saw the light, I went out and I'm like, "Katie, you got to not do this." She couldn't stop.
30:38
She ultimately stopped when she left the show.
30:38
But we talked about and she was like, "I really should have listened to you guys."
30:43
Because it's a drive I think in certain types of personalities, and hey, that's why she was the producer, that's why you are where you are, but there is a way to mediate that, I think, and that sounds like a really, really great way to do it, because it also gets talk therapy involved in there as well. Sleep aids.
31:06
So, there's a bunch of apps right now that are like, "If you use this app, you're going to sleep much better."
31:13
Through a venture capital fund that we have, Positive Sum, which my son runs, we have an investment in Eight Sleep.
31:19
My son is like endlessly, "Dad, get Eight Sleep," because we have what used to be called Select Comfort but now it's called I think the Number Bed or whatever. Diane Macedo: Right.
31:33
I think a lot of the efficacy of these things, I think a lot of times it depends on how you're viewing that particular tool.
31:37
You'll often hear things like, "4-7-8 breathing will make you pass out in three minutes, and use this technique to..."
31:44
I once had someone tell me backstage at GMA, because I was talking about the insomnia I was suffering from at the time, and she said, "Hold one nostril and breathe in through that nostril, and then hold the other nostril and breathe out through the opposite nostril."
31:59
And her words to me exactly where, "You'll pass out."
32:04
Newsflash, spoiler alert, none of these things worked for me, and the same when I tried to meditate myself to sleep, because in my mind, I thought, "Well, the reason I can't sleep is because I can't shut my brain off," which is what everybody tells me who suffers from insomnia, at least, that's what people tell me as well.
32:24
And so I think we then hear about, "Oh, meditation helps to quiet the mind," or, "This kind of breathing helps to do this, that, and the other thing," and so we try it with this idea that if we just do this thing, we're going to fall asleep.
32:35
But you go back to doing that thing I was saying before where you try the meditation app, or you try the breathing trick, or you try the Eight Sleep or whatever, whatever it is that you're trying at the time, and then you're staring at yourself saying, "Are you asleep yet? Are you asleep yet? Are you asleep yet?"
32:51
So, one, you have to go into all of this with a passive attitude.
32:51
You have to care but not care, which is a difficult thing to do- Jim O'Shaughnessy: That is Wu Wei, that is the center of Daoism, actionless activity, care but not care.
33:04
I'm going to just start writing down all your phrases. They're really good.
33:09
Diane Macedo: Well, I feel a little bit like the surf instructor in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, played by Paul Rudd when I say that.
33:15
He's telling him, "You just do nothing, do nothing, do nothing."
33:20
And then when he does nothing, he says, "Well, you got to do more than that."
33:23
But I love the analogy of it's, imagine you're inviting someone to a party or inviting someone to a dinner party.
33:27
If you want that person to come, you don't want to stalk them obsessively, "Hey, are you coming? Are you coming? Are you coming? Are you coming?"
33:31
Because then they're going to think you're a crazy person and they're not going to want to come to your party, right?
33:37
But you do want to create a nice environment that will make them want to come.
33:41
If you invite people to a dinner party, you don't want to stare at them and make sure that they eat their meal, but if you want them to sit, eat, and enjoy, you do still have to set the table, and prepare a nice meal, and create a nice environment.
33:55
And so that's what you want to do with sleep.
33:55
Sleep is not something we do, sleep is something that happens to us, and we often miss that point when we try to make it happen.
34:04
So, the objective is not to make sleep happen, the objective is to create a nice environment where sleep will be more likely to arrive.
34:10
And once we've done that, we get out of our own way.
34:14
Where I think Eight Sleep...
34:14
I don't know a ton about the app, but I know that their mattress and mattress pads have a very specific temperature feature to them, and I think temperature is kind of a surprise solution.
34:26
It was one of the biggest surprises, if not the biggest surprise to me when I looked at my sleep environment and how that was contributing to things.
34:37
And our body temperatures ebb and flow throughout the day.
34:42
It's minimal changes that we don't notice, but they play a crucial role in certain biological things that happen, including sleep.
34:48
And so we have higher body temperature, slightly higher core body temperature during the day and a slightly low core body temperature when it's time to sleep.
34:59
And then as it's time to wake up, our body temperature naturally rises again with our circadian rhythm.
35:03
What often happens if you have insomnia or a few other sleep disorders, is those temperature rhythms can be disrupted.
35:10
So, if you have a circadian rhythm disorder, for example, jet lag is the most easy one that most people will be able to relate to, but a lot of people have more mild forms of circadian rhythm disorders all the time, because you're a natural night owl, or you wake up early for work, or vice versa.
35:28
And so what's often happening is your body temperature and the rest of your circadian rhythm is sending your body wake signals.
35:33
So, in this case, a higher body temperature when you're trying to fall asleep, that makes it that much harder to fall asleep, or your body temperature is rising before you actually want to wake up, forcing you to wake up earlier than you want to.
35:47
What clinical research has found is that a lot of insomniacs who struggle to wake up throughout the night have an elevated core body temperature throughout the night, just in general, and then those who are like me who struggle to fall asleep and stay asleep have an elevated core body temperature all the time.
36:06
And so this is a chicken and egg thing where if you do the things that you and I just spoke about and you're able to lower your arousal levels, that will help this problem.
36:16
If part of your sleep issue is a circadian rhythm disorder and you do the things that I lay out in the book to get your sleep schedule more in line with that natural body clock, with that circadian rhythm, that will also help this issue.
36:29
But in the meantime, before you've done all those things, if you're just like, "Okay, great, but what can I do now where I don't have to wait two weeks for this to kick in?"
36:38
To me, body temperature is one of those quick things.
36:38
Making the room dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, like cave dark, and dealing with body temperature issues I think are two of the quick fixes that actually work.
36:49
And you can do that a number of ways, but having something like the Eight Sleep, or like a Chilipad, or like the BedJet, these kind of bed temperature control systems, they're very expensive, and so they're not affordable to everyone, and luckily, they're not the only solution available.
37:04
But if you can afford them, I don't know a single person who has one of these that says it wasn't worth it.
37:14
But I think it is worth if you want to take the time to...
37:14
I know that we only have a certain amount of time...
37:18
but to also maybe walk through some of the science that's happening there and some of the cheaper solutions for those who can't afford to go out and buy these devices because they are expensive.
37:25
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah, that's a great point.
37:28
And the body temperature thing is interesting, and also the circadian rhythm thing is also very interesting, because in my particular case, so I'm genetically predisposed towards autoimmune disease, and luckily, the only way that it has presented thus far is in skin problems, psoriasis, rosacea, and body clock disorder.
37:47
So, on the plus side, I can go to Hong Kong, and boom, I'm on Hong Kong time.
37:56
My poor wife, it takes her days and days and days.
38:03
She's the one who could fall asleep right away, right?
38:07
And so, obviously because I'm an obsessive researcher, I looked into this because the episodic nature of insomnia is not typical, right?
38:13
So, when I'm not in one of... what I call them jags...
38:20
when I'm not in one of these jags, I sleep fine, and I sleep well, and etc.
38:27
I'm a night owl, which I think I'm going to ask for your opinion about, but I've heard from other sources that whether you're a morning bird or a night owl, it has a pretty high genetic component to it.
38:36
But what I found with the episodic nature of insomnia was doing a lot of the things that you suggest, which I'm pretty happy about, have you saying that maybe I was heading in the right direction, but did you look at any of those kind of cases?
38:54
I would call it an edge case, right?
38:54
Because it's not traditional insomnia, it probably has other origins.
39:02
And believe me, I've been to all the doctors in terms of, "No, you're fine," because I'm like, "Well, why is this happening?"
39:06
But did you look at that at all or no?
39:13
Diane Macedo: So, are you asking circadian rhythm issues?
39:14
When you say you're in a jag, you mean you feel kind of jet lagged?
39:18
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yes, yes. Diane Macedo: Okay.
39:21
Not only did I look at it, I lived it, because I had both.
39:21
I had insomnia, everything I just described that when... Super simplifying.
39:29
I had insomnia, when anxiety keeps you awake...
39:34
again, over-simplifying the description of insomnia there- Jim O'Shaughnessy: Sure. Diane Macedo: ...
39:37
but I also had a circadian rhythm disorder, and that's actually where my sleep issues started.
39:39
They started with a circadian rhythm disorder because I am a night owl and I started working early morning news shifts, and I didn't realize that I was having such a hard time sleeping because I was trying to go to bed when my body clock still wanted to be awake, because I naturally would fall asleep late, and then I was waking up at three o'clock in the morning when my body naturally still wanted to be asleep.
40:04
And all the time I spent awake in bed trying to go to bed at an earlier hour so that I could get enough sleep before my morning shift, then led to me having conditioned arousal, a. k. a insomnia.
40:17
But it all started with a circadian rhythm disorder, and that got worse and worse because my hours got worse and worse.
40:26
And not everybody is going to have this in the extreme forms of jet lag, when you're talking about you traveled to Hong Kong and you're completely thrown off, and not everyone's an overnight shift worker, so you may not experience it in these very dramatic and obvious ways.
40:40
But a lot of people don't realize, if you're a night owl and you have, "normal work hours," and you wake up in the morning to go to work at 6:00, or 7:00, or 8:00, even nine o'clock in the morning, for some, that's essentially you're jet lagged by maybe three hours, four hours, five hours every single day of your life.
41:01
And so, there are a different set of solutions for that problem, which is why...
41:01
I hate being that person that's like, "Go back and read the book," but the whole reason I wrote chapter one of the book, which is called Identifying The Problem, is just a quick synopsis of the most common sleep disorders, because many of them are often confused for insomnia or they coexist with insomnia, which was my case, and it's so easy to just assume that because you're not sleeping well, in whatever form, "Oh, well, that's insomnia."
41:28
And that's not really the case.
41:33
And if you have another problem and insomnia, you'll have to address them both, and if you have a different problem to insomnia, then you don't want to waste all this time using all these insomnia solutions when you actually have a different problem entirely.
41:45
And so for circadian rhythm issues, it's all about just teaching your body clock when you want it to go to sleep and when you want it to wake up, and the easiest way to do that is to just change your schedule, but that's obviously not realistic for most of us to just change our whole life schedule to match what our body clock wants to do, so the next best thing is to trick your body into thinking you changed your schedule.
42:08
And that's where the book goes into how to use light, and darkness, and exercise, and food timing, all of it is aimed at just tricking your body into thinking you're operating on a different schedule so that you'll fall asleep and wake up naturally when you want to.
42:24
And part of the reason why it's more than likely part of the reason that you have an easier time traveling than your wife does and she's such a better sleeper than you are, generally speaking, is because her circadian rhythm is so strongly entrained, which means she's getting those sleep signals and those wake signals at the perfect time of day for her normal every day life at home.
42:42
So, she's able to fall asleep so easily and able to wake up singing and chirping in the morning, which probably bothers you because you feel tired.
42:57
But when you take that person and you now put them in a new timezone, they have a much harder time adjusting because their clock is so well entrained to where you are at home.
43:08
Whereas like you, "I didn't sleep so well at home, but when I traveled, I also didn't have a very hard time, because my circadian rhythm wasn't so well entrained at home."
43:18
So, it was kind of just loosey-goosey, it didn't really know what time it was anyway, so now when I'm traveling, it's just like, "Oh, okay, well, I don't know what time it is, but I normally don't know what time it is, so not a whole lot has changed."
43:28
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Right. That's a great answer.
43:28
And that also brings up another thing that I saw in your work that I wanted to ask is like, should we be blaming Edison for all this?
43:35
Did all this start with light bulbs?
43:40
Diane Macedo: Being that we've just talked about how much stress can play into sleeping issues, I think they were probably just different.
43:43
I don't think we had circadian rhythm disorders before the light bulb because light is the most powerful signal to our brain to have where to sync that body clock. So, no.
43:53
When we were living in caves or working just out on the farm in the sunshine all day long and then coming in at night and being in the dark, there was likely no such thing as a circadian rhythm disorder, but you probably had a lot of people with insomnia, right?
44:09
Because if you're sleeping at night and you're worried about all these other things, if you're living in the cave and you're worried you're going to be attacked by a tiger at night, you're probably not sleeping so well.
44:19
So, Edison did not cause our sleep problems, no, but the invention of electric light is paramount to circadian rhythm disorder and how to overcome it.
44:28
Because what often happens now is instead of what I described before where you're working outside all day long in super bright light...
44:33
the sun will give off 100,000 lux of light to our eyes, and that's a really clear signal to our body clock that, "Hey, it's daytime, it's time to be awake."
44:45
And then you go home at night and you're completely in the dark, or to your cave at night, or wherever it was you were going, and now you're in the pitch black.
44:54
That's a very clear signal that, "Okay, now it's nighttime and now it's time to sleep."
44:57
What we do every day, we wake up in the morning, we're indoors, we turn on the lights inside, or the sun's up so we have the windows open, but we're still inside, and then we go to work, and then we go home.
45:06
And in all of these locations, we are exposed to dim light by what science would define as dim light.
45:12
So, you spent all day in dim light, and then you come home at night, and you turn on all the lights and you're again exposed to dim light.
45:20
And so now our body clocks, they don't really know when are we supposed to be awake exactly and when are we supposed to be sleeping?
45:25
What you really want is a sharp contrast.
45:30
You want to get a lot of light during the day and a minimum amount of light at night.
45:35
And that doesn't mean you have to live in a cave, it doesn't mean you have to swear off screens in the evening.
45:39
I want to shout that from the rooftops.
45:43
Jim O'Shaughnessy: That would be a deal killer for me, so I'm glad to hear that.
45:48
Diane Macedo: Well, for a lot of people, it's just not realistic.
45:51
If you have to work late, you have to be staring at your computer screen, and a lot of people think, "Well, now my sleep is just doomed, there's nothing I can do about it." No, that's not true.
45:58
You just want to get that contrast.
45:58
So, if you're limiting light as much as you can at night, just don't have the lights on full brightness if you don't need them, don't have all the lights on in the house if you're watching TV, etc.
46:06
Lower the brightness on the screens if you're working on them, and change the color filter so that you're not getting exposed to that much blue light.
46:14
Just doing all that will mitigate a lot.
46:14
And if you're in a position, for example, if you're working late at night and you have to be looking at this bright computer screen that's right up in your face, which means it's affecting you even more if it's closer to you, then focus on the other part of the equation.
46:25
Get more light during the day.
46:29
And no, we all don't have the ability to sit out sunbathing all day long or even for that 30 minutes in the morning that scientists often recommend, so if you can't get out and get that bright sunlight, just buy one of these $20 sun therapy lamps off Amazon or wherever you like to buy your home goods.
46:50
And I, for example, put it up in my bathroom while I'm getting ready in the morning.
46:50
So, now I'm getting my recommended 30 minutes of bright light when I wake up, because my problem, like you, is that I'm a night owl, so I want bright light first thing in the morning to help me wake up.
47:02
Put that on in your bathroom while you're getting ready, put it on your desk while you're working during the first half of your day.
47:06
And so now you may not be outside farming the land or exposing yourself to the bright sunshine but you're still getting those light signals that's telling your brain, "This is when we're supposed to be awake."
47:19
And then at nighttime, even if you can't do all these light limiting things, you've gotten so much bright light during the day, you're still getting that contrast and your body clock still knows what to do.
47:27
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah, that is great advice, which leads me to the next question, which is, you often hear so many people talking about, "Well, you can't have caffeine, you've got to modify your diet." Enlighten me.
47:41
Diane Macedo: I think the best rule of thumb here is to ask yourself, what do you think caused your sleep problems?
47:48
If sleep habits caused your sleep problems, then sleep habits are going to solve your sleep problems, more than likely.
47:53
But chances are if your sleep habits weren't the cause of your sleep problems, they're not going to be the solution either.
48:02
So, I like to ask the question, "What changed?"
48:02
I like to ask the question what changed between before I had sleep problems and now?
48:04
If you always had a cup of coffee in the morning and you used to sleep great, and you still have a cup of coffee in the morning and now you don't sleep great, chances are the coffee is not what's causing your sleep problems, because you always have that cup of coffee.
48:18
The exception here with caffeine that gets a little tricky is there are things that change your caffeine sensitivity or the rate at which you metabolize caffeine.
48:26
So, you might take a new medication that makes you more caffeine sensitive.
48:31
For example, birth control makes a huge difference in how we metabolize caffeine.
48:37
So, all the women out there who are taking hormone contraceptive or anyone else who has to take that kind of a hormone, that can have a big impact on how you metabolize caffeine, so now you may grow more sensitive to that cup of coffee you always have.
48:49
Apps and things like that or quitting smoking, if the cup of coffee didn't affect you before, it's not the cause.
48:54
So, caffeine should not be where you start to address your sleep problems.
49:00
The same thing with the screen time.
49:00
If you used to watch TV at night then go to bed and you slept fine, then your TV wasn't the problem.
49:05
Cutting out TV from your evening ritual is very unlikely to solve your sleep problem.
49:11
On the flip side, if you started having sleep problems when you started gaming at night before bed, then maybe start there.
49:15
But I think too many times, because the sound like the quick and easy things to do and they make for a very appealing short article, or listicle, or television segment, it's what we often hear about, and so that's often where people start.
49:35
And that's the mistake, because it's almost like we're sitting with our foot on the brake and we're trying to figure out how to make this car go and we're focusing on all these things that teach us how to slam on the gas, and the car is still not going anywhere, and we can't figure out why, and we're getting more and more frustrated.
49:49
And what we really need to do is just focus on the things that teach us how to take our foot off the brake. The car is going to go.
49:57
And only once we get to that part, now the car's rolling a little bit or foot's off the brake, now, if we need to, we can focus on how to go ahead and press the gas in a way that's advisable.
50:07
But we need to figure out the take the foot off the brake part first, and that's figuring out the root cause of what's really causing your sleep problem and addressing that.
50:16
And we often are doing things the other way around, and that's one of the big things that my book tries to drive home too.
50:24
For me, sleep problems are an infinite loop in and of themselves because sleep problems beget sleep problems.
50:29
If you don't sleep well, that can cause anxiety.
50:29
Anxiety causes issues with sleep.
50:36
If you don't sleep well, that can cause weight gain.
50:36
Weight gain causes issues with sleep.
50:40
So many things that are caused by sleep deprivation then make it more difficult for us to sleep.
50:45
And so I like to teach people to focus on the difference makers.
50:50
Find whatever your difference maker is going to be.
50:50
As a night shift worker, I knew for me a big difference maker was going to be how light was influencing my sleep.
50:55
So, I started there, and I knew that anxiety was a big factor for me, that racing mind when I was going to sleep.
51:07
So, constructive worry and light were the two things that I started with, because I also thought I could do them pretty easily without causing myself a lot of hardship and a lot of stress.
51:15
Everyone's going to find, as they read this book, there's maybe a different difference maker that sticks out to you that you think, "Oh, that's a big problem for me, and that's an easy enough solution that I'm going to start there," but those sleep improvements then begets sleep improvements.
51:27
And as you start to get better, you gain momentum, you start to feel more sleep confident, and that just continues in an infinite loop now in the positive direction.
51:47
And down the line, when you feel like you've got things under control but maybe there's more improvement to be made, then you can start on things like, "Oh, maybe I can cut back on my caffeine intake."
51:50
And now you'll need it less because you're sleeping better.
51:55
"Maybe I can refine my diet a little," which now will be easier to do because you're sleeping more, and getting enough sleep means we don't crave bad food as frequently as we do when we're sleep deprived, and all those things then become easier to pursue, but they're not the starting point 99...
52:10
I'm making that statistic up...
52:10
but 99% of the time, based on the sleep clinicians that I've spoken to.
52:15
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So, as I'm listening to you I'm just like, your message is so great because it also is so applicable to so many other items that people stress over, or worry over, or obsess over, and you've got to go the far more intelligent way, as I'm listening to you, which is, let's look at root causes. Right?
52:41
Listicles, I hate listicles, I hate prescriptions, because it's like, "If you don't do this, this, this, and this, and this, well, you're going to fail."
52:55
And it's just like, well, I just refuse.
52:55
But what I loved about- Diane Macedo: And then you feel like a failure, which when it comes to sleep makes you feel worse, makes you more anxious, makes you sleep worse, and again, the cycle continues.
53:06
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Exactly, exactly.
53:09
And so, what's so great about this is I'm already like doing a wheel here where you can use the style that you've outlined for us here today...
53:15
man, you got a lot of books in you, I think, because this wheel, this flywheel, right, it becomes a beneficial flywheel, right?
53:28
Compounding works both negatively and positively.
53:28
We always hear all the tales about positive compounding, which is great, right?
53:38
But there's negative compounding too, and when it keeps going...
53:38
it's like the old line about Hemingway, "How did you go bankrupt?"
53:44
"Gradually and then suddenly."
53:44
So, that's what can happen with these, like a sleep problem.
53:51
If you just keep doing the wrong thing or reading without addressing...
53:57
I love your metaphor of keeping your foot on the brake.
54:00
Are you a natural Daoist?
54:00
I think you sound like one, because a Daoist would say, "Just take your foot off the brake, man, woman, just take the foot off the brake.
54:06
What are you stressing over?"
54:12
But I love that because it addresses root causes and it just makes so much sense.
54:20
So, I think, A, fantastic, I recommend everyone get this book when it comes out. I really enjoyed it.
54:24
B, as you're reading this book just hear me in your ear a little bit and think, "Huh, Diane has really done a really cool thing here.
54:35
I wonder if this is applicable to other things that I might be having trouble with?"
54:41
Because I think it is, I think there are so many people who get freaked out about, "Oh, I can't do this, I can't do this."
54:48
Well, yeah, you actually can.
54:53
And one of the things that I love that you put, the positive momentum.
54:53
Momentum is an amazing thing in life, and we don't have enough time to talk about it, but that's another podcast in and of itself, from finance, to careers, to personal relationships.
55:04
If you can get momentum going the right way, it becomes a virtuous thing, a virtuous cycle.
55:12
And as you say, when you're sleeping better, you're like, "I'm sleeping better," and your brain is getting the message, "Oh, sleeping better. Okay."
55:24
I love the way that you do that, and also, by the way, not that they're not important, things like the eating, or the screens, or the caffeine, but they're not the root cause.
55:35
And I love your suggestion for how to deal with that. Plus...
55:43
and I'm going to get a plug in here for journaling because I love it...
55:46
journaling, it's like a superpower, and many people just can't get in the habit, "Oh, I don't want to do that, blah, blah, blah, blah," but man, I mean, it's made a massive difference in my life.
56:02
Diane Macedo: Well, I recommend journaling in the book, as you know.
56:04
It's one of the tools right below constructive worry.
56:04
I save journaling, for me, for particularly something that's very stressful or traumatic.
56:09
I don't journal every day, but I find that for me, journaling is a way for my mind to untangle what's going on, and I didn't know this until I finally started reluctantly doing it.
56:21
But what I find is my brain is always trying to figure things out, and I assume all of our brains work that way.
56:32
And so oftentimes, we continue to harp on these emotions that we're having over something that's really affecting us and we just keep harping on the emotions, "I'm so sad, I'm so sad, I'm so upset, I'm so upset," whatever the emotion may be.
56:43
And what I found is, in those times, when I start journaling, I'm able to articulate in a way that I'm not able to when I just try to do it in my head, why I'm feeling the way that I'm feeling about that particular situation.
56:59
And what I find after that happens is now that I figured out why I'm feeling that way, I still feel that way, I'm still sad, I'm still upset or whatever the sentiment may be, but I'm no longer fixated on it.
57:10
I no longer have that loop going on in my head saying, "I'm so sad, I'm so sad, I'm so sad, I'm so upset, I'm so upset, I'm so upset," and I think it's because now that my brain has been able to make sense of that and untangle that and say, "Okay, I feel sad because XYZ happened and that affects me in this way," now I don't have to fixate on those thoughts.
57:33
And so those kinds of thoughts...
57:33
again, I still feel sad, but that sadness is not keeping me awake at night with these repetitive thoughts going on and on and on in my head.
57:43
And what I encourage people in the book to do is, if you're new to journaling or whatnot, and you just think, "Well, I don't even know where to start," well just start with the sentence, "I can't sleep because..."
57:51
Because journaling is one of those things, there are no rules.
57:55
You don't have to stick to any kind of a topic, it's just a stream of conscious, what comes to your head just blurt it out onto the page.
58:00
And the other benefit to that is that...
58:05
I haven't mentioned this yet.
58:05
We are more prone to catastrophic thinking at the times when we're naturally supposed to be asleep.
58:13
And so what will often happen is, if you find a freckle during the day, you found a freckle and you might think, "Okay, I'll call the dermatologist about that tomorrow and make an appointment," if you start thinking about that freckle at 3:00 AM when you're up at night, you will start planning your own funeral.
58:26
And meanwhile, there's no reason to believe it is anything more than a harmless freckle.
58:31
But our minds turn off the part of our brain that focuses on rational thinking and other things like that, those things will naturally turn off when we're asleep, and they do so on a schedule.
58:45
And so if you're awake when you're supposed to be asleep, that part of our brain that controls rational thought is still off, so we're much more prone to this kind of catastrophic thinking, which is why when you get used to worrying about not sleeping and you're awake
58:59
at night, you get all these catastrophic thoughts about what's going to happen to you if you can't get enough sleep tonight, so much so that I would actually start thinking I'm going to die prematurely because I don't sleep enough. When you journal, you write all those things
59:10
When you journal, you write all those things down on the page, and when you're able to then read those back in the light of day when your rational thinking cap is back on, you start to see, "Oh, this fear that felt so real to me in the middle of the night now seems completely ludicrous."
59:25
And so the next time you have those catastrophic thoughts in the middle of the night, you're able to tell yourself...
59:35
and it doesn't always fix the problem entirely, but it at least helps you put some perspective on it because you can say, "The last time I felt this worried and afraid of something in the middle of the night, when I thought about it the next day I realized that it really wasn't that bad.
59:48
So, maybe this thing that's keeping me awake this time really isn't that bad either."
59:53
And so I found journaling had kind of a dual, if not multiple purpose benefit to me when I used it as a sleep tool, which is why it's one of the other things I recommend in the book.
1:00:08
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah, that's great.
1:00:08
Alan Watts refers to worry as the infinitely peelable onion.
1:00:11
Get rid of one worry, and the next one comes, and it might be a little bit bigger, and get rid of that one, and then an even bigger one comes, and it's just like you continue to peel the onion and [crosstalk].
1:00:26
Diane Macedo: Well, those layers are important, right?
1:00:26
And as we were saying, which layer you try to target first can sometimes determine your success, because if you focus on the wrong layers and you spend all this time pulling, and pulling, and pulling, and you feel like you're not getting anywhere, eventually you just say, "Ah, forget it," when there actually is a solution out there.
1:00:41
And so I just want people to know, for those who maybe where caffeine is the problem or where screen time is the problem, there are also solutions in the book to explain how to go about that the right way and how to address those problems strategically.
1:01:00
So, it's not just, well, quit caffeine and give up your screen time, you don't have to do that.
1:01:05
Using caffeine at specific times of day makes it more effective than other times of day.
1:01:10
So, maybe your solution, at least to start, if caffeine is your problem, is to just change what time you have that morning cup, or strategically teaching you how to taper off of it.
1:01:19
And maybe the solution to your screen time problem, let's say you're addicted to screens and you find that you're just scrolling through Instagram until 4:00 in the morning and that's why you're not sleeping, just changing the color filter on your phone can really significantly help that issue.
1:01:34
And so I'm all about trying to give people practical tools that they can use rather than just giving them strict orders to do things that are really hard and difficult to follow and unlikely to happen in the long term.
1:01:49
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And I just second and third and fourth it, because that just seems to be such a consistent problem with people.
1:01:54
I work with people on different issues than sleep, and the urge for instant success, the urge for, "Oh, I want something that is going to get rid of this problem immediately," it's a very rare thing.
1:02:15
And so I think in your book, which again, I recommend everyone get, you do a really great job of saying, "Okay, so here's the main stuff, but if you've got these other problems," you also have solutions there.
1:02:28
This has been fantastic, Diane, and tell us now...
1:02:35
and I have a question for you at the end, which we ask at the end of all of our podcasts, but obviously, it's going to be available on Amazon, but in all bookstores?
1:02:45
Are you doing any book signings that we should know about?
1:02:47
Diane Macedo: So, the book is out December 14th.
1:02:47
We will be doing a virtual event either that day or the day before, so more info to come on that.
1:02:59
It's sold really, anywhere books are sold.
1:02:59
And right now you can actually get a little pre-order incentive for everybody if you pre-order now, which it is available for pre-order.
1:03:09
I have a free video out where, with purchase, people can watch a video of me explaining how chronic insomnia happens and the best solutions to fixing it.
1:03:19
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Very, very cool.
1:03:19
I got to ask, what's next?
1:03:22
What are you going to conquer next now that you've conquered sleep?
1:03:25
Diane Macedo: What I'm already researching, because despite everything I talked about in the book, I can't fully take my foot off the gas ever, it seems.
1:03:34
I'm now looking into how this all pertains to children, because there's a lot out there on how to sleep train babies, which, as a parent of a newborn, I can tell you is very crucial [crosstalk].
1:03:44
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Congratulations, by the way on that. That's wonderful. Diane Macedo: Thank you.
1:03:48
The irony of doing interviews about sleep when you have a newborn at home and aren't actually sleeping.
1:03:54
Jim O'Shaughnessy: That's cruel.
1:03:56
Diane Macedo: But for a very different reason, not because I can't sleep, just because for completely normal expected reasons, she's keeping me awake.
1:04:03
But there's not a whole lot of information out there for parents of children with sleep disorders or parents of older children who have sleep issues.
1:04:09
And a lot of it is actually very directly related to all of the things discussed in The Sleep Fix, but the approach is very different because the underlying issues that are causing that arousal, for example, are very different in children than in adults.
1:04:26
So, that's now become my new area of fascination and my new area of research.
1:04:31
So, likely, more to come on that front.
1:04:31
But I'm going to take my time on that one because I've got a three year old and a newborn, so they will be my case studies as I go along, so that one will be a ways down the road but that's where my attention is pointed at now.
1:04:45
Jim O'Shaughnessy: That's fantastic, and that's another universal problem, right?
1:04:48
I'm a grandfather now so I don't have to deal with those issues.
1:04:52
I get the grandkids when they're fun, and papa can be just so much fun.
1:04:59
"Daddy, how come papa is so much nicer to me than you are?"
1:04:59
And I just go, "Ha, ha, ha."
1:05:04
Diane Macedo: You don't have to make them go to bed at a specific time.
1:05:10
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I love them.
1:05:11
Diane Macedo: But what I learned is a lot of these problems, they can start really early.
1:05:14
I was someone labeled a bad sleeper from a very, very young age, and we often don't realize what things like that can actually do and how that can become a cycle in and of itself when you start to think of yourself in a certain way.
1:05:30
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Oh, no question, and that's a whole nother podcast, because it's not only you.
1:05:34
They've done research where they randomly tell teachers, school teachers, that randomly selected kids have done really well, they scored at the top of the ranking for intelligence on the tests.
1:05:44
They don't tell the kids. That's all they do.
1:05:48
They come back a year later, and guess which kids are doing the absolute best in school?
1:05:54
The kids that they told them scored at the top.
1:05:54
So, it's not only what you think, it's what other people who are important in your life, like your teachers, think.
1:06:01
It's amazing and it's kind of mind blowing.
1:06:06
But maybe we'll cover that in a different podcast.
1:06:12
Well, this has been really, really fun.
1:06:12
And so, I think you might know because you know someone who's actually been on this podcast a couple times, that we do ask, at the end...
1:06:23
My son, who is the king of all podcasts, he asks, "What's the nicest thing that anyone has done for you?"
1:06:28
Which I think is a great question.
1:06:28
So, I couldn't use that one, so I came up with another one and it's this.
1:06:33
We're going to wave a wand and we're going to make you the empress of the world for a day.
1:06:37
You can't kill anyone, you can't put anyone in a camp, but what you can do...
1:06:44
you've seen the movie Inception, right?
1:06:49
Diane Macedo: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jim O'Shaughnessy: Okay.
1:06:50
So, what you can do is you can incept two ideas in the entire population of the world and everybody's going to wake up the next day after having a great night's sleep and they're going to think that the two things that you're going to name are their idea and they're going to do it. What's you got for me?
1:07:10
Diane Macedo: I did know about this question and I realized that the second you said, "I'm going to come back and ask you this question," I went, "Oh, no, he's going to ask me that question that I forgot to prepare an answer for."
1:07:20
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Which means your answer is going to be much better. Diane Macedo: I suppose.
1:07:25
It'll be off the top of my head.
1:07:27
I'm going to steal this idea from my husband, though, and that is, I think everyone should have to be able to accurately describe somebody else's argument before they can then go ahead and voice their own in any argument, discussion, or debate.
1:07:43
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I love it.
1:07:44
Diane Macedo: So, before I can give you why I disagree with you, I have to, to your satisfaction, describe to you what your position on this argument is.
1:07:54
I think that's more relevant now than ever.
1:07:57
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Fantastic.
1:07:57
That's called creating a steel man as opposed to a straw man.
1:07:59
I'm totally down with it. That's a great one. Number two.
1:08:05
Diane Macedo: I'm literally trying to think of what number two is as we're speaking right now.
1:08:08
I think number two is a similar vein, but it's a wonderful question, and again, I got to credit my husband, because he was the one who told me about this quote, and I think it's from Morgan Housel but I'm not positive about that.
1:08:19
But essentially, the question often that we should be asking each other is not always about facts and statistics and whatnot when trying to support an argument but it's more about, what is it that you have experienced that makes you feel differently about this issue than I do?
1:08:42
And so it's not about logically why you think this, that, the other thing and why I should think this, that, and the other thing, but what is it that you experienced in your life that makes you view this topic differently than I do?
1:08:49
Because I think we can just learn so much more about each other when we approach things from that vantage point.
1:08:54
And I know for me, the older I get, as I start to focus on that, I realized how differently I view the world than other people and how that affects how we all come to the same conclusions about how to make this world a better place.
1:09:10
And so maybe if we could put our minds together in a more compassionate way like that, we can actually come to more common ground and more agreeable answers to that.
1:09:19
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I love them both.
1:09:21
Morgan is a good friend of mine, and had him on the podcast when he- Diane Macedo: I hope I didn't botch his quote, in that case.
1:09:27
Jim O'Shaughnessy: No, no.
1:09:27
He's very good with the pithy quotes because he's really good at putting the sentence together in such a manner as it becomes profound, and he's really, really good at that, and he's a great guy too.
1:09:44
Well, this has been so much fun.
1:09:44
Thank you, and I love both of your examples.
1:09:50
Diane Macedo: Thank you so much for having me, and I'll also wave my magic wand now that all children sleep through the night. Boom.
1:09:56
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I love it.
1:09:58
Diane Macedo: And may we all. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Okay. Bye. Yeah, may we all.