Four Simple, Challenging Habits for Better Sleep and Mindset

I want you to drive down the road today, if you're listening to this podcast, and I just want you to stop, not stop on the road. I just want you to don't, I'm going to break here for a second, and I want you to think about something that you did today that made you happy, and I want you to do the dumbest grin about it. You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery. And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey everyone, it's Sebastian, your host for the Restoring Human Movement podcast.

Thanks for joining the Movement Movement. If this is your first time on the show, welcome. You've missed a lot, and we are well into the 200 and maybe 20-somethings, and this is already 2021. Crazy, because I'm recording this in 2020, so I get way ahead with a lot of these podcasts, so I can't tell if you, maybe you guys have figured that out or not yet, but either way, I'd like to invite you to subscribe to the show if you haven't already. This show has really helped me out as a clinician to help me improve my clinical skills as well as help communicate better with patients, but I'm learning all the time, and so I'm hoping you guys can go back into some of these podcasts and just improve on some of your skills and at follow them the journey with me.

Now, the typical format is that I'll do a solo podcast, such as I'm doing today, or I'll do something with a guest and we'll interview. Today is going to be one which is going to be patient and doctor-friendly. Obviously, docs might resonate a little bit more with it because you're just like me, but I'm hoping some of these healthy habits we cover today are things that patients can take home with them. As probably a lot of you have figured out is that 2020 was a challenging year, and there was a lot of things physically and mentally broke down with people, and me included. There's a lot of challenges that I had as well, not necessarily big, big problems, but it was enough to where I feel like I needed to kind of reorient myself, just kind of figure out a problem that's going on and just reorient. So I was going to cover some of the big things that I decided to do, or at least some of the simple things that I decided to do, a little bit more so this year, I guess in the late 2020, that have really been helping me out at least over the last couple months as I've started implementing them. So there is no real, maybe clinical knowledge, especially in, I guess, in this podcast today, but I'm hoping that you can kind of see that we all kind of know that there's a mental aspect, partly with pain and recovery and everyone's recovery story too. So maybe some of these things might be helpful suggestions for some of your clients and just kind of get them out of the woods with some of the, the, the, the things that they've been feeling. So now the first thing I've been working on most recently, and this is probably the one I've been working on probably the longest. I'm working on it for about, God, it's probably been about six months or so now, you know, and it's, it's a challenging one and it's number one is being present. We're going to go through four things today mainly. And I'll tell you the breakdown reasons why I'm choosing what I'm choosing with, with each one. But the first one is just being present. And that is being present with whatever you're doing, whoever you're with, whatever you're reading and so on. And part of the thing with the podcast, at least that, that I noticed is that when I'm interviewing somebody, I have to be fully there because I'm kind of guiding the conversation. I actually don't really like it when it's a one-sided thing, like, Hey Joe, what do you think about sleep? And they're like, Oh, I think it's da-da-da-da-da-da.

And then they stop because I really have to be on point there. And I'm sure a lot of you clinicians who interview patients think the same way, you know, some patients you'll say like, okay, you give them an open-ended question, like, Hey, what bothers your problem? And they say, Oh, well, it hurts when I walk. And then when I, when I sit sometimes, and then when I, when I do this and, and other people will say, uh, you, you know, I don't know, you know, and you're like, Oh, okay. Um, so how about with walking? No. How about with sitting? Nope. You know, and you have to coach them in a little bit, like they're not really open with it.

So with that being said, um, you have to be right on point because you have to go off of them really quickly. And the same thing goes with interviews too. You can't really necessarily be doing other things and paying attention to other things. So being present in interviews, at least has been one thing that's been helpful for honing in that skill. The other way kind of, I was been working on being present is reading books and reading books is, although it's going to seem like it's not really related. I think it pretty much could be, you know, and, um, reading books is really hard to pay attention. Sometimes just being able to shut everything else out and just pay attention to exactly what's happening in that book. And so, uh, there was, there was a, the time it was, I want to say about three, four months ago, or actually I was reading Lord of the Flies and I've not read the book. I know that everybody who has read that book is going to say, oh, I read that back in like, you know, like freshman year of high school. I know the only we read was Siddhartha. I don't know. Like, I feel like that and plus to kill a mockingbird, which I do remember parts of the killer mockingbird, but Siddhartha, I don't remember shit about it. Like, um, so this book actually going back and going through some of the classics have been really kind of nice because I've never really read them. And I figured if they're standing out throughout the test of time, like you might as well, like those are the ones I'm going to start with. I'm not going to start with, you know, divergence or some other thing that like came out like three, four years ago. Like forget all that. Like I'm going to pick something good for like years and years and years. So with Lord of the Flies, uh, I was sitting at the top of the stairs and, um, or I just come up and, uh, Ali was downstairs and, uh, I came up a couple minutes before and I picked the book and I sat there and the sun was about, sun was about set. It was getting starting to get dark outside, just real nice. I'm like, I'm just going to sit here and just enjoy this and read and just kind of feel the ambience, like sun going down and everything.

Right. And she comes up and she's like, damn, what are you going to read that book for like two minutes, three minutes? Cause, uh, we're going to go watch them. I was like, yeah, um, I'm trying to focus, you know, and the whole point was, can I focus for three minutes? I know it's only going to be like one page, two pages, but like you might not get very far, but the point was, can I focus for three minutes? And I challenge you guys, try, try to read something uninterrupted for three minutes. It's going to be so, so hard for a lot of you. Uh, and especially if it's something you're not interested in, uh, luckily the book, at least at that point was not interesting enough where I had to think about it. Um, they had still gotten to the point where they're still, uh, they, they had not killed the pig. They're not killed the pig yet. So, um, it was not as interesting later on. It was like, Oh, it's easy to pay attention to this book. So, um, challenging yourself to, to be present, or at least me challenging myself to be present has been, has been hard. Uh, I remember, um, back in the day when, so I was, I've been married before now divorced. And, um, one of the things was being able to separate, you know, business time from personal time. Um, and I'm sure a lot of you docs out there are like, Hey, you know, I like, I bring work home. I answer emails, you know, patients have my cell phone number and stuff like that. And so dividing these things out is important. It's really important, you know, and also being able to say like, look, I still got a little, a couple of things to do still when I'm at home. And so I do this now, get home and say, and, uh, say, say, Ali's trying to talk to me or someone's trying to talk to me. And I'll say, look, I just need, I just need two minutes. Just give me two minutes. And then I'm going to put that down and we're going to talk, you know, but, but giving somebody half of your attention each time is not, it's not a good idea. It's not good for the email you're writing. It's not good for the patient that you're managing. It's not good for your spouse or significant other or whatever. And so being present, even if that means just only for a couple moments is still going to be better than, than half paying attention to somebody. And so that's some of the things that I've at least been covering with, with being present, uh, books, um, putting, uh, creating division of work in home. And I forget the last one, I guess, but, uh, oh, podcasting. So the podcast interviews and just being able to have a conversation with somebody, because I don't, I don't know if you guys really think about the last time you had like an hour conversation with someone you really didn't know that much, you know, it's tough. And so, um, why don't you guys try to actually go, maybe, maybe we'll make this a podcast of go out and try something. So number one is you have the option of set a boundary, you know, tell your spouse, Hey, look, I just need a couple more minutes and see how that goes and say, I need a couple more minutes because of this. And I'm going to put it down and pay attention to you. That's option one.

Option two is, uh, try to read a book for three minutes that you're not interested in uninterrupted without thinking about anything else other than what's in the book. Uh, and number three is have a five minute conversation with someone that you don't know and, and is probably not interested in knowing you at all either. Uh, cause that's going to be a challenging conversation. The second thing that I've been trying to work on more so, um, uh, especially actually echo back one time, the, um, the being present thing, actually the, the reason why I think I originally started coming up with it was because, um, it's cause we're so distracted now, not only with phones, but TV and also media. Uh, a lot of media will trickle into your life. Um, and it's easy to get distracted by stuff. So, uh, that's one reason just inundated with stuff.

And so, um, I'm not a big fan of, of like, I actually am a big fan of going out. You should go out in the woods and just sensory deprive yourself where there's nothing but raw essentials that you're, that you're going to need. Just find fire and keeping warm and food like crate. You'll sleep so great. So number two is, is sleeping. I've been working on sleeping more and sleeping better. And it's funny. Like I know that a lot of people probably don't have problems with sleep or maybe they don't know they have problems with sleep. Um, I didn't have any problems with sleep until probably God, probably two years ago, maybe. Um, it was right around the time where I started getting more interns and I think it's, I was managing people basically. So it's not about the interns, it's about managing people. Uh, and also at the same time I was doing a little bit of home remodel. And so I had a lot of projects kind of going on at one time. Uh, and it's, it's funny, the, the sleep issues that will come, it seems a little bit more of just, I would call them disturbances, you know, for the most part back then there were disturbances where it was like, uh, you know, you're thinking about a conversation that you had that you could have done better.

Uh, it's just a rewind conversation and one that probably the other person didn't even care about, nor, nor are they remembering that they even really even had, you know, so things like that, just emphasizing ways of saying things better to people. And that would happen with interns, with patients, and you just play that rewind in your head, or at least I did. And it's, it's not helpful, you know, it's not helping anything. Uh, and it's just stealing away from sleep. And so, uh, that was, that was one thing I wanted to help address. And at first I thought it would maybe be like, I just stopped doing as much stuff, stop having so many half projects going, you know, like get the car finished, get the boat finished, uh, finish the, the home remodel, and then just telling interns to train each other or something like that. You know, something that kind of takes away from your plate, almost like delegation of stuff. Um, and, and that did work for a little bit of a while, a little bit of time. And I slept much better, uh, at least towards the end of last year. And it was funny this, this year I slept really good during the beginning of quarantine, really good. You know, we closed the office for about a month, uh, maybe cause there was nothing really to do, you know, it was great sleeping like nine hours feeling so rested, feeling great going out and doing some workouts in the park. It was great. Um, but then I started to sleep a little worse and it was funny. And then, and this kind of goes along the lines of when people internalize their pain or their problem, which I don't encourage people to do. Uh, and I know we have responsibility of telling people what they have and so on, but, um, the, all the little nuances about it is not really that important, nor they should, they really, should you emphasize that, that they, that they know it, just tell them it's telling that, that they, that they, it's going to be harder for them to recover. And the more that they start to internalize and think about little inner workings of what's happening and what's broken and so on, at least that's what I believe.

And so it was funny. I was, uh, my friend at suggested, Hey, you should listen to this Joe Rogan podcast. Like he talked to the sleep guy, you know, the sleep guy goes on there and like, sure. He had a lot of research to probably back up what he's talking about, but man, he scared the shit out of me about not sleeping like seven hours or more, you know, basically said you're going to die of blah, blah, blah, you know, at this age and so on, if you don't get that sleep. And so people need their sleep. And so, uh, I, I kind of, I remembered that, you know, and, uh, just kind of thinking about what's that, was that even helpful for me to know?

Shit. I shouldn't even be telling you now, probably don't listen to that podcast, by the way. Don't, don't listen to it. He has a book. I thought about buying it. Don't read the book. I'm going to say, I didn't buy the book, but don't read the book. I don't know if it's even worth knowing. I think it's just better just to think about what, what will make you sleep better. Basically not the, not the fearfulness of, of not sleeping. And then we all kind of know the, the, the problems with not having enough water, good nutrition, good exercise movement and sleep in your life. I mean, shit, I'm sure we can all probably, our grandmothers told us that, you know, back years and years ago, it's not like it's a surprise. So I don't necessarily want to know anymore. I don't know about you guys, but, um, at that point, as soon as I started thinking about how bad it was, there wasn't sleeping, my sleep got worse. Absolutely worse. So I just started waking up at like 3 AM, you know, going to bed at 10, you know, I don't go to sleep very late, going to bed at 10, waking up at three, like just ready to go. And then realizing that was like five hours of sleep. Right. And so there was a couple of months there where it was like three, four o'clock, you know, five o'clock waking up, still going to bed at nine or 10. I go bed earlier and I'd still wake up earlier. And, um, I tried some spurt of melatonin, you know, I tried, um, I woke up feeling dry. So I thought maybe that was water. Maybe a water was, was, was making it. So I was not sleeping well or whatever, you know, I tried a bunch of things. Uh, and so, um, here's the things that I found out that, that worked for me. Okay. And I, I, I'm not going to pretend to be the expert, but again, these are things that maybe you can suggest to some of your clients, uh, is, is number one, eat earlier and take a walk after, after you eat. I'm finding that, and I'll talk about this in number four, which is going to be shutting out the, the input, you know, after eight o'clock is that you can wind down a little bit more, uh, and you can focus on things that, that make you happy.

And so we were starting to eat earlier and going on walks and that's what we did during quarantine too. You know, bunch of walking, bunch of exercise, um, eating, cooking. I mean, it's great, you know, and now going back into work, you know, I'm there at like seven 38 o'clock. Don't leave until, don't get home till about seven 38 o'clock. It's a long day. Well, you know, that's about three days a week or so. I know, I know only work three and a half days a week at the office with patients. However, those days are notice are days where I sleep the worst. And what I tried to do, what I, what I eventually started to do is I tried to take time out breaks myself. Uh, in the old office, we had this carpeted room, which was cool. Cause you get to lay face down this really plush carpet and just lay there and just zonk out. Um, I started closing my door a little bit more too, in this office. And I started bringing a novel to work again, to be present in the novel and not in those other things. Um, also too, I realized that I can, uh, and the, the interns are really good at this, good about this this time around, because I gave them a little bit more, um, uh, insight into what was happening. Uh, I said, Hey, look, can you train each other? And so one person would learn one thing and then they would teach the other ones and they would train each other. And I realized that was helpful. And, uh, one of my friends said, uh, I called him on the way home one day and he said, Hey, uh, how's your day going? I'm like, Oh man, it was just a lot. And like, we weren't even super, super busy. It was just a lot. He's like, how so? And I said, Oh, what people had questioned about blah, blah, blah. And so, and he's like, Oh yeah, the hay man's. I'm like, what's the hay man's?

He's like, it's when someone walks up to you and says, Hey man, can you, uh, look at this for me? Hey man, can you, uh, can you, can you, can you get me a pen? Hey man, can you, I'm like, you're exactly right. It's a bunch of hay man's just a bunch of hay man's. As soon as you don't one hay man, someone asks you another hay man, you know, and it's not malicious or anything. And it's not even that bad. It's just constant bombardment of shit of other stuff of other people's stuff. Um, and it's not that it's not part of our, my business, like my office, but it's other, it's like, get your own pen, solve your own problem, you know, and, and train somebody, you know? And so that was really helpful, you know, being able to break that down so that they can teach each other. Um, but also to being able to find those times throughout the day where I can just take a break and mentally check out from what was going on there. And so, uh, I always have an open door policy, you know, to my office, if they need to come in and talk to me, they can. Um, but, um, kind of like what they had a policy at Lululemon, it's just, if you don't know how to do something, or if someone comes to you with their problems, a patient says, Hey, I need you to send me this. And they come in and ask me to do that. Or they like, wait for someone else to know that's your problem. It's the person gave you that problem to solve. You solve that problem until that problem is solved. Don't give me your problems. Like you just solved that problem. So I found out that I'll just recap with, uh, I feel like I'm storytelling a bunch of podcasts anyways. So sleeping more has been very helpful. Recently I've been able to sleep really good, really good. And so I'll go to bed around nine, nine 30. I'll wake up around six o'clock or so. So that's enough sleep. Um, and I feel good. You know, I've been working out more. I've been, I've been lifting, not only say more, but I've been lifting, um, just challenging enough. I've been doing the, uh, the, the Dan John mass made simple, uh, program with slight modifications. I just needed something to follow.

And I wanted to increase a belt line a little bit, you know, I want to add a, add a belt loop. Um, and so that's been good. I've been drinking more water. I've been eating more. We've been walking more. We've been eating earlier. Uh, and I've been taking those mental breaks in, in reading those novels. And so as you can see, all this is kind of tying together into what I, what I think is, is helping me at least mentally and physically, cause they go together. Okay. The third thing, actually I'll switch the third and the fourth thing, because I think the third thing, which I thought, which I would just smile more, um, is going to come along with number four, I guess. So, but let's, let's flip those. Let's say number three, we're going to call it, uh, shutting out the news inputs, negative thoughts after eight o'clock and start talking about things that you appreciate and things that make you happy. And so I know how it is now. Like, like we, during, during quarantine, so we had Hulu, we still have Hulu. We were watching a little bit of Hulu. Um, every, every commercial, we had the commercial version. Every commercial was, was about current situations and it was a lot. It was like, dude, I don't, I don't want to know this right now. I don't want to, I don't want to think about this right now. I've been thinking about this all day. We've been talking about this with people all day. I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to leave me alone, you know? And, and I know news is important. I know being informed is important, but it's overkill sometimes. And I think we should shut it out to a certain point. I mean, sleeping, we're shutting it out. Hopefully you guys aren't dreaming about current, current political or, or, uh, social things going on when you're sleeping. Hopefully you're just sleeping and zonking out because you need to repair, you need to recover.

And kind of the rule of eating early, going on the walk, and then talking about things that make you happy at that point in time, it all ties together. And so instead of bringing up and say, Hey, you, we got 10 minutes. Okay. And we're going to talk about those things. We can talk about those things or vent our frustrations or whatever it is till that time. And then we're done. Okay. What made you happy today? Well, you know, I was able to, uh, I was able to work with Dawne Costantino with a case and she had this case that, that she needed a little help with. And so I coached her through that. And so it worked out well. And so I'm, I'm, I'm happy that I could, that I could help her out. And that's, that's maybe one example, you know, kind of spinning these things the other way. Cause I know that could have been one of the, Hey man, you know, Hey man, can you, can you help me with this case? Yeah. Okay. It's not my problem, but, but the outcome, but focusing on that outcome as being a positive, cause it is positive.

I don't, I don't, I don't mind. I like, I like helping Dawne Costantino with her cases, you know, but in the moment it could be a little bit of a, of a, Hey man. And so later on, I can kind of, uh, restructure that in, in, from a negative thing into a positive thing, or at least not looking at it under a microscope, but looking at it under a big picture of this is what I was able to accomplish today. And this one makes me happy, you know? Um, now there's many ways for you guys to do this. Obviously, um, I won't tell you what to be happy about, but you know, maybe thinking about a couple, a couple things on your walk. If you're able to go on a walk, I know it's probably called where you're at now, but if you're able to go on a walk, um, with somebody, talk about something that makes you happy and listen, then when, when they talk about something, listen to what makes them happy and engage in their conversation versus doing a, Hey, I sat on a chair. It made me happy today. Oh, cool. Great.

Well, I went on a run today. It made me happy. Uh, how about we flip that a little bit and we put part one of, of the, the structure that I put out and put down to the end of this. So, um, what are you happy about? Well, I'm happy about sitting in this chair. Oh yeah. What was it? Uh, what was it about the chair? Was it a special kind of chair or yeah, yeah. The chair was like, so it was a really plus chair. It was just gaming chair. Like I've never sat in a gaming chair before. It's got this head cushion on it and like this lumbar support. It was great. And it even like, it had like a vibrating massager on it. Really? Like, where'd you go to, you know, kind of engaging in an actual fricking conversation again? You know, I feel like we've lost that over the last year. Just sometimes just engaging in a good conversation that has a good, happy end result. Okay. And I'm not saying that everybody's been negative over the last year, but there's definitely been a lot of things that people have been, um, challenged with this last year and, uh, agreeing or disagreeing with stuff. Either way, um, it comes with conflict. And so sometimes the conversation about a fricking chair is, it's just so good, you know? And so I think we're, we're, we're here to, to feel good. We're here to be happy. Um, we're here to, you know, be present. We're not always present. Sometimes we're planning for the future all the time. We're thinking about what we could have done better. We're living in the past, just being the present, sleep more, shut out some of the things that bother you after eight o'clock. And the last thing, and this is going to be a short podcast today. The last thing is just smile more.

Okay. I want you to drive down the road today. If you're listening to this podcast and I just want you to stop, not stop on the road. I just want you to, to, to, to don't, I'm going to break here for a second. And I want you to think about something that you did today. They made you happy. And I want you to do the dumbest grin about it. You know, you know, you remember like your, your mouth goes up, you know, smile about it. You don't have to show teeth or anything. Don't be a, don't be a weirdo if you're driving on the road. You know, I don't want, I don't want people looking into your, into your car thinking you're a weirdo.

Just give a little grin. I think you might notice as you do this, that you kind of, your, your brain gets kind of lifted, you know, in a positive way. So what is something today that you felt the outcome was positive? Think about it. And once you got it, I want you to give a dumb ass grin. There you go. So sometimes just doing something like smiling is going to bring all these things together. You know, obviously maybe that, maybe that thinking about what happened earlier this morning is not going to keep you in the present, but it'll accomplish, it'll accomplish some things, you know? So the mind is very powerful. You know, I think we all know that via your biopsychosocial approach to pain management and managing people's pain and, and sometimes just having a positive outlook, having healthy habits like sleeping, being present, smiling more is helpful, you know? And I know that you guys have probably had people who are, um, they're, they're, you've had your, your clients where you're like, man, these, they were just a pleasure to work with. Right. And you have other people that are challenging and they weigh on you a little bit. Right. I've had those too. And, um, kind of looking into their shoes a little bit, um, and hopefully giving them some tools to cope with this as well in a favorable way and looking at all the positive things that are going on rather than just the negatives, um, might be helpful to them. And, and I'm not telling you to be somebody's psychologist. Um, but I think living by an example, like as chiropractors and PTs and strength coaches, we, we have the opportunity to, to see people, um, for more time than they might see maybe their orthopedic surgeon for, you know, we get to be with them more. And it's certainly strength coaches and trainers. I mean, shit, you guys get to see people sometimes two, three times a week for an hour. I mean, your interaction with them means something, you know, it puts, there's more weight on that than there is than when someone spends just 30 minutes with them once every two, three weeks, but you're, you're a coach, you know, we're all a coach and we're all also creating a situation in our offices or in our training facilities that is an environment. Okay. Number one, you can't, you can't create a good environment if you're not in good mental, physical health anyways, but this environment is kind of like, think, think of it as like your dojo, you know? Um, or I guess as a, let's go back to a Van Damme thing. Okay. So Van Damme, uh, he let's go to blood sport. No, no, no. What's the one, what's the one where he was from the palm trees, hang the palm trees. I think it was, uh, I think it was kickboxer actually. You know, the whole thing is like the whole thing is an experience. The whole thing is an experience and you, you're creating an environment for this person to get better.

Um, and I know we're all probably familiar with the dynamic systems theory by now. I hope so, you know, where there's internal constriction. Sometimes there's a, you know, you got your, your joint that's locked like the meniscus, you know, you have your task constraint, uh, meaning you hand someone a, you know, a weight and tell them to squat it. They can only do certain types of movements. They can't do all movements. There's a, so there's a task constraint. And then there's, there's the environmental constraint, um, where it could be a slippery surface. Um, but also too, from a mental aspect too, there's, there's also this dynamic system, dynamic systems environment that will, that will create the outcome as well. Uh, and so a negative environment won't, won't, will have a certain type of outcome on the patient as well. And so their, their mental output and their physical output will be expressed by that environment as well. So once you can say that your offices, your training facilities, the, the aura of it, or the tone of it, whatever you want to call it in your positivity or negativity is important. Okay. Um, probably long winded preaching today, but either way, I hope this was helpful to you. This was just kind of like more off the cuff.

Um, but I do think those four things have really helped me out and I hope it helped you out. So I guess this was more of a self self-help one. It helps me kind of break down and talk about it a little bit too. Um, all I got is four bullet points on a piece of paper right now. And so everything else is off the cuff, but, um, I want you to try some of those things. Uh, if you're struggling, struggling with any of sleeping or, um, uh, being present, uh, this week, that'd be great. Uh, and if you have any positive outcome from it, just, just let me know on social media that is, uh, at performance HB. And so those four points one more time. So number one, being present. Number two is sleeping more. However you think that should work. Number four, oops. Number three is shutting down news and inputs by eight o'clock and talking about what you appreciate and what makes you happy.

Number four is simple. Just smile more. Okay. And I hope to see you guys next week. Again, it's usually 45 minutes to an hour long format, but this is a special one, just getting it out there. And so please subscribe to the podcast and please share it with someone you think might benefit from it. So, uh, I'll talk to you guys next week and thanks for being part of the movement movement.