Essentia: Rise & Thrive Featuring Sleep Coach Devin Burke

Welcome back to Essentia: Rise & Thrive! This week, Jack Dell'Accio, Essentia CEO & Founder, and our moderator Whitney Lauritsen host Devin Burke for a conversation about sleep, insomnia, why meds are not the answer and tips on how to improve your sleep health. 

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You can also read the full transcript of the Essentia: Rise & Thrive podcast featuring Devin Burke here: 

Whitney: Hello, and welcome to Rise and Thrive. This is a series where we explore some of the biggest topics and wellness and how they affect our sleep so that you can learn to wake up every day, feeling rested, recharged, and ready for anything. I'm Whitney Lauritsen the moderator, and I'm joined by Jack, the CEO and founder of Essentia natural memory foam and our special guest today is Devin Burke, an international and TEDx speaker, the best-selling author of the sleep advantage and founder of the Sleep Science Academy, which is one of the top health and sleep coaches in the world. 

We're recording this podcast on clubhouse today to have a live discussion, to tackle insomnia, millions of people, battle insomnia every day, and many doctors offer short-term solutions to this long-term problem. Devin Burke is here to talk about big pharma and its failures and introduce an effective long-term game changing strategy that you can implement if you're live with us on clubhouse, you'll have the chance a little bit later to come up on stage and ask questions of Devin. And we encourage you to visit https://myessentia.com/podcast, to get more information about this broadcast.

So with no further ado, I'd love to start off with Jack to talk more about why he brought Devin on today and why this topic is. 

Jack: Awesome. Thanks Whitney. Devin thanks for joining in so quick, after quickly after recently meeting up, which is kinda cool. I guess a little background on, on disconnection, how we met at the biohacking conference in Orlando just a couple of weeks ago, really?

So it is a very new relationship. And as I was. He approached me. We were speaking about about our products, about sleep. And this guy seemed to know a little bit too much about sleep. So he didn't seem like a regular pedestrian, And it, it quickly snowballed into continuing our conversation over lunch in here in Florida.

And that was just fantastic. That, that one hour lunch that we had allocated Devin, I think we went off to at close to two hours and we were both looking at our watches that were missing our next appointments. So we need to continue this. Streaming on some sort of podcast or some other platform where we can share these thoughts and ideas and knowledge.

Devin Burke: Good. Glad to be here. And Tooley's also joining us. So that's my little, Bernadoodle my six month old Bernadoodle so hopefully she's stays pretty quiet. 

Whitney: You must learn a lot of sleep strategies having a young dog, because they can certainly change when you sleep and how you sleep. Maybe we can weave that in because I have a dog.

Jackie, you have a dog too, right? I think a lot of us have talks and then we need some sleep tips for people who have dog companions.

Devin Burke: That actually, when he asked me what I want to talk about today, that would be unique. That would be unique. And it's a huge problem for a lot of people. I actually get, now that we were talking about it, I have messages and emails from people all the time that say, Hey, I got a.

And I'm going crazy because I'm not sleeping. What can you do to help? So maybe that will be a topic that we can get into and discuss some strategies around because yes, it is a disturbance to sleep with. 

Whitney: I remember those days, and even now I've been older dog and now it's like, she wants to wake up.

In the morning cause she can't hold it as long. So it certainly is a journey having animals, cats. I know it can be disturbing. So yeah, let's give it let's use that as a teaser of something that we'll address later on Jack. I know that you had something that you were really excited to start this conversation off with today, so let's see.

Jack: Yeah, I have tons of things actually, to be honest with you, I went through your book, which is a pretty awesome actually. So it's The Sleep Advantage and the book is one thing that we're going to talk about, but we'll keep it for later on. The most exciting thing I want to talk about is the mental side of sleep.

One of the things though, going through your book is what I really loved. And this is not a question. This is like more of a comment, really at the very start of it. You have the statement. So all those who chose to share their gifts and make the world. It was an awesome statement to start off with. And it really resonated with our conversation that we were having over lunch, where, you know you, when you take on a path that you're driven towards that that you want to share and you want to be able to help people.

I resonated with that in our lunch I resident. And it was right there. When are the opening pages of your book? And I think that's. We sparked through a great connection and we wanted to stay connected which is pretty awesome. It was pretty cool that actually put that in the book as one of the preface that up to the opening pages.

So basically that was one comment, I want to go back to the conference, we w you remember you, you came in to see our breakout session where I was talking with Andy Albright. And I'm not sure if you remember at one part of it. I was telling Andy where he was the very first guy in pro sports that we really flipped the chart on putting sleep as the number one impact.

Part of their routines followed by nutrition, followed by training. Now in pro sports. That's something unique because if we go back 25 years ago, it was training first nutrition. Second sleep was an afterthought. And here I am, I'm going through your book and you have that chart and the chart really exists in your book.

Obviously it's a little more unique in pro sports where they don't always have. They should be ahead of us, but they're not always there. They're not always there, but I loved seeing that prior that, that prioritize here in your book. Do you come across that often that people are not thinking that sleep is the number one issue in that nutrition or nutrition or exercise Trump sleep, but the complete opposites.

Tell us about your experience with your patients and people 

Devin Burke: that. Yeah. Jack, I was ignorant to the fact that sleeps the foundation, that extraordinary health spilled on. I, I studied my background is actually in exercise physiology and health promotion, and I studied nutrition and I thought those were the golden pillars.

And it wasn't really, until I started to dive into the science of sleep that I realized that sleep is actually the foundation, that diet and an exercise. Built on. And it is when you ask somebody, how's your health immediately. People think about diet and exercise. They don't think about sleep.

I think that is changing now. I think there's people that are waking up to the fact that sleep is the foundation and actually understanding a little bit more about what happens when we sleep, which is then leading people to be more motivated to. To prioritize it, to protect it, to invest in it to really understand it at a deep level and then start to optimize it.

That was, meeting at the conference was so exciting because the whole conference was about how do you optimize human performance? And there was a lot of tech and a lot of people talking about. Which is so exciting. This is, I think the future of health and wellness people are now realizing that sleep, this pillar is more important.

I'm going to go, I'm just going to say it then actually what they're eating and how they're moving their bodies. And then we can talk about why that is a strong statement, a little bit bias, but but there's, there's real reasons around why I'm saying that. 

Jack: Yeah, definitely. And that's where, I give lectures also at health institutes and I tried doing it.

Have people focus on so many too are focused on their own waking hours and they're not really focused on the sleep and it's, it's, we can say as much and many times it's a third of your day. It seems like even just making that statement, doesn't resonate with people. You can say it, you'd say it's meaningless.

But it really is such an important part of that one-third of the day. And any, and in your book touches into a whole bunch of things on this. And one of the ones that the topics is how it affects your hormones and hormones impacts every critical function of your body. And now here we have sleep impacts your own books.

I think, talk a little bit about that w on what's going on during sleep on something as critical as normal. Yeah. 

Devin Burke: That's when certain hormones get released, growth, hormone, testosterone all these important hormones that not only repair our bodies, but allow us to actually have.

To thrive during the day. Working on sleep quality and understanding that the different stages of sleep and how to optimize, Delta deep sleep and REM sleep, where a lot of these hormones are getting released is so important. And it's so important to understand that when we're not sleeping the impact of the hormones.

So people often say why can't I'm eating all the right foods, moving my body. Why can't I lose weight? And you ask them about their sleep. And then there it goes. We understand, oh, of course. So when you're not sleeping well, you're not sleeping enough. Cortisol gets dysregulated and the cortisol is the fat storing hormone.

So we store fat on our bodies, it's the stress hormone. So it just gets all out of whack and then it starts to affect the adrenal glands. So people start to experience more adrenal burnout, adrenal fatigue, which then puts people in. Hyperdrive this a sympathetic state, which then doesn't allow them to get the sleep that they need.

So the hormones it's such a critical factor as far as, focusing on the different stages of sleep, but understanding how much sleep actually does impact hormones. It, I always tell people you don't really know until you experience it for yourself. Because our health becomes subjective.

We, we, we think that maybe we're, we feel good. We think maybe our hormones are balanced and then, we go and get a hormone test or something, brings us over the edge and we have a health issue. And then we realize, oh my God, Things were definitely not balanced, but that became my norm.

And I think that's why Jack people don't prioritize sleep because they just don't realize, they think that their level of energy and the quality of their sleep and their day in and day out, how they feel, they don't understand that there's another level that they could experience because they've never tasted it because they never done the things to really optimize the one-third of the day.

You know that they could, one third of our lives, we spend in bed. So it's why not look at how to really optimize that one third. I That's to make the other two thirds. 

Jack: I love that you using the word optimize. It's something that we really use a lot here at Essentia we focus on optimizing your sleep environment and you're optimizing the, on the internal side, the mental side of it, the awareness side of it.

And that's something that we're going to, we're going to be touching on as well. One of the things I mainly that come across a whole lot is people trying to use a sleep aids med. And it's not giving the outcomes that they want and the longer they stay on them, the worse it is. So tell us why aren't sleep is working and what is, why does it get worse over time?

There's, it seems like the onset early on get better. But then they fade away and you're not getting what you need out 

Devin Burke: of it. Yeah. So this is a huge problem and a big topic, and I'm glad we're bringing it up. So sleeping pills, their cattle got categorized as hypnotic sedatives, and they're really meant to be short term solutions.

They're not meant to be taken for years, but I actually just read an interesting statistic, 65% of. Are taking sleep meds more on average, more than five years, 65% of people. And my dog is hold on. Hey, apologize. Give me one. 

Jack: Sure. Go ahead. On that topic. And then we'll get and I'll make you get back to it just to give you, I just read somewhere.

Actually I focus a whole lot on NHL players and I just came across this, that basically the player from the golden Knights. I was on sleep meds for seven years until finally. And he never had good sleep and he never recovered well, and he fought through this he's on it. And then finally doctor told him it's normal.

You're not getting any REM sleep. Your baby. You're not getting the deep sleep cycles that you're supposed to on those meds. And then he transitioned. You went out of the sleep. And he changed a whole lot of lifestyle choices and really focused on making those changes. And what he shocked with is that teams are giving sleep meds without doctor prescriptions, just as like a casual over the counter.

Considered solution as if they're just giving a Tylenol or something, that's oh, you can't sleep. Just take these meds. And I, I didn't realize the number that you mentioned, but man, that's a high amount of people taking the wrong direction. 

Devin Burke: Big time. It's and if you look at the research of what these medications, the side effects of these medications, it's bad, linked to dementia, linked to cancer, like massively increased risk of dementia and cancer when using these as not as consistent for more than what they're supposed to be used between 10 and 28 days.

That's what. Set amount of time that people should be taking these medications and it's it's their habit for me. That's the other thing. They're habit forming. They're, people become addicted and psychologically addicted, meaningless, not only physiologically addicted, they feel they psychologically, they becomes this attachment to, I don't take a pill.

I'm not gonna say. And that's a dangerous, that's a dangerous spot because it's first and foremost, it's not true, but that's going to keep you hooked or looking for different types of medications. I talk to people all over the world, mostly United States every day that are looking for help with their sleep.

And a lot of times they're taking, they're bouncing from medication to medication from ambient to Sonata to Lunesta. Those are the three big ones. But these are sedatives. It's like you said, Jack, we're not getting real sleep. It's almost like if somebody ran up and punched you in the face and knocked you out and you're on the floor and it looks like you're saying.

That's pretty much what these drugs are doing, but that is not sleep. You're not doubt. And there's a total difference between being sedated and actually being asleep. Because like you said, Jack, we're not getting into the deeper Delta sleep like that athlete you mentioned, which is where our bodies recover physically or not getting to REM sleep, which is where our minds recover.

So it's, it's a huge. Problem and it's, and they're dangerous. Just to be, and I'm not anti-medication, I think there's a time and a place for medication. Sure. And thank God we have modern medication, again, there's, these, there's a strong link to dementia, strong link to cancer strong link to, just being, people, being addicted to these medications.

And, you really got to address the root cause. And these are just bandaid solutions. 

Whitney: That also reminds me of something I saw you writing and speaking a lot about, which is this overall addiction to stress. And busy-ness so many people feel behind. And I love that you focus so much on high achievers, which certainly athletes fall into that category.

And I imagine a lot of people listening to this podcast, especially here on clubhouse, fall into this category of high achievers. And I am really fascinated by that because I fall into that category too, but I've had to like work on my addictions to things like busy-ness and stress and letting go and really understanding this.

And this comes back to Jack's point about how, even when people hear the statistics about how important sleep is for our life. Not always resonating and perhaps that's because they don't see the return on investment and Devin. I know that you have your talk called the ROI of sleep. And I think that's such a great title because maybe someone feels like they get a return on investment.

They can finally prioritize it. Do you find that to be the case 

Devin Burke: 100%, 100%. And the difficult thing is until you really prioritize it, you're not going to know the difference. That's what makes it challenging for people? Like I said, there's like this baseline that people operate in and until you really feel what real quality sleep, consistent quality, natural sleep, the way that you know, what we were designed to do, which everyone can do, it's a natural biological process.

You really don't know the ROI. And I'll be honest, Whitney. I didn't know the. I thought it was a waste of time. I thought it was a week, had a low performers. I thought it was something I did. When I was dead, like just soon as you lose, all of these, there's all this social programming and social conditioning to hustle, to push sacrifice your sleep.

Sleep is for the lazy sleep is for the weak. And it's completely BS. It's completely backwards. It's a real. It really is and it's. And so it's but now again, it's people, half the people are hearing this information, but taking action on it, the people that are taking action on it are going to start to feel different.

But you won't feel a difference until you take that action. And so I challenge everyone that's listened to this right now. If you're somebody who isn't prioritizing sleep, isn't protecting it is somebody that's burning. The midnight oil is, sacrificing sleep to get more done, just try for a month, the opposite of that and see how much more mental clarity you have, how much more creativity you have, how much more mental acuity, how much more emotional specific.

And see how much more energy you have and see how much more joy you have and then make a decision whether or not you're going to go back to the old way. And I, in my experience, When you've prioritized and protectively, that's, what's possible for you. More creativity, more mentor acuity, more joy, more emotional stability, more energy.

I can go on and on. So it's like sleep is a gift that we've been given to, to really charge our minds and bodies to be creative, to be innovative to, it's again, it's obviously, I'm pretty passionate about the topic here. But there's a reason is because it works. If there is a pill that can give you all of the benefits of a good night of sleep, the entire world would be taken that pill.

And so again, try it on and see if it works for it, try it on, try. Creating better routines, creating better habits around sleep, upgrading your sleep environment, upgrading your mindset around, the type of sleeper that you are. And then and see what the results are. 

Whitney: Perfect. That's what this podcast Rise and Thrive is all about. So what you just articulated is exactly what. We're hoping. And speaking of optimizing, we've talked a little bit about this with some of our guests like Dr. Hyman and obviously a mattress is a huge part of that. And I just saw you post the other day on Instagram.

I think Devin about sleeping on an incline. And I'm curious to hear more about that. I actually now have one of those beds where I can change with like it's like a remote country. I can make my bed go flat or it can be on an incline it's really handy, but I haven't really tried sleeping on an incline unless I'm like in a car or a plane or something.

So why is that beneficial? And are there other, any other things that we can do in our sleep environment to improve our sleep? 

Devin Burke: Yes. So this is definitely a secret, not a lot of people know about it's, sleeping on a five to 10%. And you're in, you're on your bed. Now, the reason for that is because science is finding that it actually activates the glymphatic system.

So the lymph system and the brain, which that's really important that's healthy and working because that's what flushes out the beta amyloid plaque that builds up that crease. Alzheimer's. That's really, you want that system working. And so sleeping on a slight incline has been found to increase that and also increase the quality and depth of your sleep specifically deep sleep.

So a really simple. Super cost-effective hack is you can, you can absolutely get invest in, a mat a bed frame that's on an incline. They, I think a couple of companies are making them because they're starting to catch on, or you can put bed risers underneath the, the top of your bed frame, just to rise up to the bed.

You get them on Amazon for 15 bucks. Me personally, I'm actually sleeping on an incline with a, I have a, it's like a sloped foam Hartford. That's underneath my mattress. And there's a lot of ways of implementing this, but yeah, it's a simple, it's at first it takes a little bit of getting used to, but it really, if you're on a gradual incline, it's not that noticeable and I'm finding that I am sleeping better.

I'm a big supporter of this. 

Jack: I have, I definitely have. And in fact, Mechanism. We used to have that mechanism. It's just hard to, there's so many people, many, so many manufacturers of adjustable beds that don't offer this feature. And one of our suppliers had, and we immediately used it years ago, but then they discontinued it because there's not enough awareness that this is an actual healthy position.

And that we actually had that discussion at the conference and he said, like simple hack is just putting sobriety. Really inexpensive in it. And actually it's not a bad idea because it's a permanent position that you want to keep any house. That's something you need to turn on and off.

So that's a simple hack, inexpensive hack that, that's, that makes a lot of sense. 

Whitney: Wow. I would actually love to hear more about hacks. I know Devin you're really into the latest sleep and health technology and cutting edge developments. We've talked on something that keeps coming up in this series is the oral.

And I know that you're into that. Are there other things that you've discovered recently maybe at the biohacking conference or something that you're really passionate about that others might not know? 

Devin Burke: Yeah. Yeah. So on the tech side of things there actually, I got to experience the device called brain tap and it was using light therapy and hypnotic suggestion in your eyes and your ears.

And I definitely felt. Using their technology. I think that's, that can be definitely a, something to explore for people that have issues relaxing at night. Getting into that parasympathetic. I'm a big believer, obviously in the power of our thoughts. Another one I discovered that was really just blew me away was kava.

I always thought kava was damaging to the liver. And I just, wasn't really sure about. The efficacy or how to use it. And I learned so much about kava at the biohack recovery. And I am sold on kava it's it's amazing for helping people get off of benzos ends. A lot of people are on benzos trying to get themselves to sleep and COVID can help buffer the transition from being on benzos to getting off and I've been using it.

And I'm a big fan of the product specifically it's Cabo Plex is the name of the products and oil. Cause that's one of the challenges with comma. It tastes like Sandy mud water. And a lot of times you don't know really the quality here in south Florida, Jack meeting me and Jack, we're going to have to go to a kava bar.

Maybe that's what we'll have our next meeting in person meeting at a, of a bar. But there's a lot of COVID bars here in south Florida, but not many other places have kava bars. It's not really a thing other places. But so again, so the barriers there was actually finding high quality cava and being able to use it.

So now. Are, coming up with innovative products to allow COVID, to be used as a natural sedative, as something that can really calm the mind and body down and can also help with the GABA receptors in the brain, which I thought was fascinating. So those are two, two things that were on my radar.

One more I love. Was, it was a frequency device. And it, it was interesting. I think that the original design, it was from one of Tesla's designs. The bio charger, I believe is the name of it. And I was really, I, I didn't, I believe in energy. I know we're all right. That's all we are is energy.

And using frequency and light to improve our health and wellbeing, I think is going to be the future of healing and of really slowing down the aging process and improving, the quality and depth of our sleep. So the bio charger given give them a shout out that was definitely a cool experience.

And I know. Sometimes it's hard to choose to, to pick and choose well which thing that I do that improve my sleep at night, when you're doing all of that, all the things. But I think every little bit helps. So those are some of the things. 

Whitney: Did you see anything fun at that event that you met at.

Jack: I didn't have the freedom like Devin to really get to see so much. I buy whole focus. My involvement that the conference was educating people about Essentia and what we do on the elimination of stimulants. And it just was awesome to see a community and a crowd. Understood everything.

For example, we were just one of the, those elements of Essentia that lead focus on is the regulation of EMFs and what it does to your blood flow. And we have, we've done a lot of research on this. We have a product that mitigates that product as part of our formula. And in most cases, people are because it's energy and you can't see it and you can't touch it, I guess just they just, it doesn't resonate with everyone, but everyone at this biohacking conference that was like one of the top topics of the week was EMS and how it's impacting the body. And what was really cool is we were one of the few that actually had. Research studies, blood tests. We take an evidence based approach to all this because we, just by tracking people's sleep, we do a lot of and focus on what are the changes?

And what's the reaction to those changes. And cool to see that there were other people focused on EMFs other people talking about it. But what's really interesting to me is not enough people are, the people who actually get ahold of Devin, they're the ones that are on the right track because you can see he's doing his research.

He's attending conferences. He's continuing to learn. And more than just learning is I find a lot of people have they'll they'll get onto something, but they'll do. Surrounded properly. I'll give you an example. A lot of topics we've been talking about is on intermittent fasting or fasting in general.

And people will say, I want to lose weight and they go for fasting, but fasting is way more than just weight loss. But they'll go into it, but they won't look at the nutritional compensation that can interrupt your sleep. They're not supplementing with minerals because that could be something that is now going to affect your sleep.

And that's why. To me, this was such an important connection is because I do have a lot of people that have serious insomnia issues. And one is Devin. I like from what I read and conversations we've had is you take a whole approach. You look at everything, their nutrition, their supplements, things that are meant for onset short-term other things that are long-term.

But I think what was really exciting to hear is really. The mental side of sleep. So I don't know if you want to dive into that, does that's where I think you stand alone and really eventually be America's sleep doctor.

Devin Burke: Yeah. I love first and foremost. Thanks. Thank you for teeing that up for me. It's. This is something I'm very passionate about speaking about because so many people just totally disregard the mental side of sleeping. Amazing. And they just try to focus on all the physical stuff and don't get me wrong.

There is a time and a place and addressing the physical environment, addressing what you're doing as far as what you're eating, what time you're eating. That your general health, all that's very important, but because we can't see our thoughts, Jack and Whitney and everyone listening to this, they, again, it's one of those elusive things you can't see your.

And so people really don't understand how important, how we think about something. It's when it comes to a result. And I always say that sleep is a result or not. Sleeping is also result. And people look at it like a problem. It's a problem. It's not a problem. It's a result. And so most people have these underlying thoughts.

Am I going to sleep tonight is tonight going to be another night where I have a hard time getting to sleep or I have to use something to sleep, or if I wake up, am I going to be able to get back to sleep? They start to actually develop anxiety about sleep, and then they carried their days anxiety into the night.

And so if you don't deal with, or have strategies or tools or support around understanding. How your thinking is actually creating that loop of anxiety. That, that then creates the, sympathetic nervous system response to the cortisol, the adrenaline noradrenaline, the things that keep us up.

If you don't understand the thoughts that are creating that process and start to break out of it, you can actually get, you can get caught in a paradox. And the paradox is people try to force and control something that can not be forced to controlled. And I'm talking about. And this is where, I support a lot of high-performing people that work for massive companies, a lot of responsibility and what got them, there was their ability to focus, to see a problem and solve it, see a solution for it.

But sleep is the one thing that the harder you try to solve or force or fix or control, actually the worst you can get. And it's very paradoxical and there's a lot of paradox in actually helping people improve their sleep from a mindset standpoint, and that's one of them. And so it's understanding that first and foremost, how you think is absolutely going to impact the quality and depth of your sleep for sure.

And then really understanding what can you do or stop doing to start to change the story? In your mind that then creates a different story in your body. And that's really what I'm an expert at helping people do. And that's why I one of the reasons why I get amazing results for people that have tried everything and still can't sleep, I'm usually people's like last resort.

They tried the medication hypnosis acupuncture. CVTI they've been all the doctors. I'm usually the person they call after that. And most in most cases, as long as they're open. I'm able to help people better in that category. 

Whitney: That's incredible. It feels like you should be there their first person, they go to not the last but to Jack's point, some people may not even think to do some of the things that you're teaching.

Societaly it's just not there's not a lot of education or awareness around it, so I'm so glad that you're doing this and it looks like we might actually have a follow-up question. So this is a good time to let the audience on clubhouse know that you're welcome to come up to ask some questions. We have Cody who raised their hand and I'm going to bring them up in a more.

And as a reminder to anyone, who's going to ask a question today. We are recording this for the podcast. It'll be available at myessentia.com/podcast for you to listen to. And if you come up on stage, you're giving us permission to use your voice. So trying to bring up Cody and anyone else who would like to ask a question after that? Kodi go ahead 

Kodi: hi my name is Kodi and I'm in late forties. So I was just listening to Devin's talk, it was telling something about the intermittent fasting and lacking of sleep. Basically I do interpreted fasting of 18 to 20 hours and I do, I take some oatmeal and in the, during the evening, it.

Then in the night I eat some some bread with a lot of vegetables and all, and I also get the nuts casuals, almonds and pistachios. And I do a little bit of workout like running, I do try to do some three to five miles of running every day. And the thing is I have some anxiety issues like the childhood trauma and all but I'm trying to be fair.

I know I too, I'm trying to be in. And I do all this stuff the intermittent fasting and a workout and all those things. So I'm wondering my work card could be any reason for for not sleeping in the night are I'm missing anything like mineral slacking in my body or something like that.

Just wondering any advise on this point, you know how to come up with.

Devin Burke: Yeah. So your question Kodi is, you exercise, you're practicing intermittent fasting, but you're still having issues with your sleep and your. Y. So I'll jam on this for a little bit. And then Jackie, do you have some input would be great to hear from you as well? One thing that I find that people don't understand is that intermittent fasting as well as exercise is a form of.

On the body, it's a healthy stress, but sometimes what happens is because we're not sleeping or because of the nature of our lifestyles and the nature of what's going on in our mind or mental states, we were our body's already stressed and now we're throwing on top of stress, more stress, and that the body can only handle so much stress.

And so there, there is a good amount of stress stresses, not all stress is. The intermittent fasting is a type of physical stress exercises, type of physical stress, too much physical stress layered on top of an already stressed body can actually do the. Of what we're hoping for. And that sounds like something that might be going on with you, Cody, I would suggest maybe doing a hormone panel and looking at your cortisol levels and seeing really doing a deep dive.

Kodi: So basically what I'm doing is I understand that there is a stress on my body. So during the night before sleeping, I'm taking melatonin.

So this helps like really annoying if you have any stress and does this the pills which we are taking substitute the stress by any chance.

Devin Burke: So is the question, are you asking, is, does melatonin help with stress? Was that the question? I just want to be clear. 

Kodi: Question is the pills which are taking like melatonin and magnesium does those help or I have to reduce my physical stress. What do you think about that?

Devin Burke: It sounds like I would explore reducing your physical stress. Magnesium is great. 80% of us are deficient in it. Taking that magnesium is definitely, probably going to be going to help regardless. I'm not a big fan of melatonin. It's a fantastic antioxidant, but actually in a men analysis, it was showed men analysis.

And analysis of all the studies melatonin, and actually show that melatonin doesn't help improve sleep or sleep quality. And oftentimes a lot of the melatonin is a what's on the label is mislabeled. And there was another study that they looked into the actual amount of melatonin in these different supplements.

And they were like way off, 10% off to 400% off. And 

Jack: to add to that, Devin, I think one of the, from what I'm hearing from Cody as well, the, a little bit on and off one of the things that from listening to Cody and what he was explaining there are also could be a scheduling issue is all this activity and all this nutrition happening way too close to.

Time to be preparing for the onset of sleep. So if you're stressing the body and you're stressing when nutrition and you're getting too close and then it gets to the sleep environment, what's the lighting what are the stimulants like? What's the air quality? So there's so many things that, Cody salad, doing all the proper practices, but again, like I was insinuating earlier, but not everyone looks at the full package the time of day, what time is he going to sleep? What was his last meal? It's great that he's taking magnesium because even as the mentioned needs a lot of vegetables, but a lot of our vegetables don't have the level of magnesium as it once did.

So there's still is a a short fall of those. But again, he's got to stop at one point and if he's not getting a few hours between the onset of sleep and exercise and nutrition that's going to be a big interruption and then. All the other stimulants and the environment, 

Whitney: right. And Devin, you have that great sleep quiz on your website that allows people to go through and analyze themselves and then get some tips from you.

So I would encourage any of the listeners who want some more. The support to go check out the sleep science academy.com, which we will link to in the show notes for this episode at https://myessentia.com/podcast. And along with all the different ways that you can get in touch with Devin, if you don't have a chance to ask your question, but we do have Dr.

Christopher up here next, and I'm curious what he has to say today. Thanks for, 

Dr. Christopher: yeah, thanks. And I appreciate all the information that all of your sharing things for pinging me in here and yeah. It's interesting. I completely agree with you. When you were talking about the labels and the inadequacy of what's on these labels, in our, even in our nutritional labels, there's allowed to be up to a 25 to 30% variance, and sometimes it's more extreme.

With even the carbohydrates, Sodi, all the basic nutrition facts and supplements are not there. They seem to have a little bit more rigidity, but with melatonin I've come across a product that I've been working with that is seemingly really great for a lot of the clients that I work with.

It's three milligrams and it's a plant-based or batoning. It's derived out of chlorella, alfalfa and rice through sleep center. And I'll give them the three milligrams. I'll actually give them a 0.3 milligram in a couple of hours before they're getting ready to go to sleep with a magnesium three and eight glycinate and malaise mixture.

And then I'll also have them drink eight ounces of tart cherry juice, a juice extract that is more than a concentrate that they add to a little bit of water instead of just buying the torch. And if they drink those eight ounces, three times. And take this urban Tonin it, if they're a difficult case, again, there's so many other things that play into the variables, but neuroscience makes a really amazing product.

It's like a alpha GABA PM or whatever. And, there's a couple of other things I may add into that. But I just wanted to know if you've played around with the urban tone in with the tart cherry juice. And also dietarily. What are you educating people about for natural forms of, tryptofan and other things that are helping from a supportive standpoint to naturally produce, your serotonins and all that to.

Devin Burke: Yeah some great questions. And it sounds like you have a pretty specific protocol down. I haven't heard of that, that those specific products. But it definitely, I think there can be a place for high quality supplementation under. The supervision of someone like yourself, who's a doctor who understands, chemistry, you understands pharmacology, you understand what they actually do.

And as long as they're coming from a high quality source and they're using the proper ways, absolutely. They can be beneficial. I, I think one of my beliefs is, one of the strongest medicines in the world is the placebo effect. And sometimes I, it's, is it a placebo effect because people are taking this special cocktail.

Or is it actually the cocktail that they're taking, that's helping? I think, it depends on the person, obviously we're all unique and we're all coming from different places and different challenges. But I think at the end of the day, it's important to, to be open to experimentation, do it in a way that is.

It's supervised and safe and then see the results, try things out and see what works for you. There's so much out there's from a supplementation or a lifestyle had it changed standpoint. It's try things out, get curious. And if they work fantastic, then share them.

And so I appreciate you. I actually wrote the names down of those two specific supplements I'm going to dive in, cause I'm always looking to learn more. But thanks for bringing that to the show today and the question, Jack, do you have anything on that? No, 

Jack: I actually I took the same notes as well as he was mentioning it.

I was very interested as well, so I took the notes on it and the nutrition side, I have a knowledge. Through the collaborations that I work with, but not as my direct. Area of expertise is what I dive into. As far as all of our studies we play around with many different things 

Whitney: and we will link to both sides actually, because Dr. Christopher was sharing some great things. We have a full transcript of this episode at https://myessentia.com/podcast, or whether you want to learn about Ascensia, or you want to learn about anything that we've shared here today. Everything that Devin's been sharing, that's all going to be on the website. And if you tap on my name or jacks, we have the website, LinkedIn, our profiles.

We do have time for one or two more questions. I want to open it up to anyone else in the audience who has questions about sleeplessness, sleep challenges, insomnia. We are here to answer that for you to support you. We want you to leave feeling empowered and informed and no question. It's too specific.

It doesn't sound like because we just want to make sure that you have what you need so that you can sleep well tonight. Hopefully. So we'll open it up for one or two more questions. And if not, we should definitely come back around to the companion animal topic of dogs and cats that might disturb us.

Devin we do have one question and then I'd love to touch upon that afterwards. Oh, two questions coming up. All right. We'll get them all. We're going to start with

If you can pronounce your name. We'd love to hear your question too. 

Ruchika: Yes. Hi. This is Ruchika so my question is I have been on, it's been almost 15 years. I've been on medication to sleep and so I have not slept a single night with me. The medication. So it just makes me wonder if there is anything like if you're basically just I heard a bit about the possibilities, but then I would just like to understand if you guys would just see something about it, the alternate.

Devin Burke: Yeah I would highly recommend you actually make a consultation with me. I would love to speak with you about how you can get off the sleeping medications and restore your natural ability to sleep. We've helped people that have had that been on medication for over 35 years. Successful. And the relationship with the medication and restore their natural ability to sleep again with our process, with our coaching.

In the last couple of minutes here, it would, I wouldn't be doing a service to, to really get into the specifics of the ins and outs of how, but be more than happy to speak with you about your specific situation and see if we might be able to help you. 

Ruchika: Okay. Sure. Devin, I'll get in touch with you and then we'll go from there. Thank you. 

Jack: The question actually touches on a little bit of my curiosity of your process, where when someone comes and see you with challenges and they've got all their habits, all their routines, all their meds, and, do you gradually take them off their current? Habits and routines and then build them up in the right direction.

Is it cold Turkey? You're off meds. And you're, what's your process? How do you flow people to the right direction? 

Devin Burke: Yeah, so everybody's different. Everybody is different. And so to answer a question that the goal is to retrain people to understand that they don't need anything. Then we can reintroduce things that will help improve sleep quality and we'll help them sleep.

So sometimes it's letting go of all the band-aids and crutches in a gradual way that works. Sometimes it's like jumping out of a plane and open up the parachute. So it depends on the person depends on what they're taking. It depends on their lifestyle, their either. There's so many factors that dictate an initial approach.

Generally it's gradually, but really it's getting people understand that kind of sleep is a natural biological process that happens when we allow it to happen and remove the barriers to it happening. So identifying what those barriers are, and then retraining people to understand how to allow versus trying to fight for us control.

That is really the journey where the journey. Hopefully that answers your question there. Jack 

Whitney: beautifully said Devin, and thank you so much for the question again, we're going to be linking to all of the resources. So it's really easy for you to get in touch with Devin. If you're on clubhouse, you can follow him here and read more about him there.

But if you go to https://myessentia.com/podcast, we'll make it super simple for you to find all the resources that you need. We have one more question from the audience and that is from Sarah. 

Sara: Thank you. So I have had years of insomnia and tried many things. I've resisted the pharmaceuticals, but lots of magnesium and other stuff.

And I'm curious if any of you are familiar with NuCalm and I think it was Devin mentioned, it's sometimes hard to tell, like what's helping you sleep better. Cause I tried lots of different things at once, but I think that NuCalm might be the one thing that is actually allowed me. Sleep better and not have insomnia when I do it often enough.

And so I'm just curious if others have experience with it. 

Jack: I have actually used it I'd use it in the in, in different different methods, basically Devin, if you haven't heard of it it's a light therapy as as similar to, I guess BrainTap and I used it about five years ago where I was training for a triathlon and.

So regimented in everything I did from nutrition, exercise sleep, of course, but I also was using it for either planning my onset asleep and I had I use a different program of theirs for waking hours. And I can recall race day. I had eight hours of sleep well, Got prepped, put up, put it on.

And it had a 20 minute nap after waking up from my eight hours with the new on. And then from there hit the beach for the race. It, it was effective. I like Devin. I agree that light therapy is very under utilized, but is still it's been around, but it's a big part of the future.

Devin any you got me you've given your feedback on brain tap. Have you ever heard of the new com? 

Devin Burke: I think that if I'm not mistaken that's I was introduced to that. I think Tony Robbins is someone that uses that it's is it electro stem to the vagal nerve with some type of lyposomal. Delivery process or is it a light therapy? No. 

Sara: So what I, I'm newer to it and it, Tony Robbins is into it. And I think it used to be a lot more complicated and expensive and it's more recently been available, Teper to regular people. And so they've evolved. They went from like a alpha stem type device which is, I think you just use one of those words to like a little sticker disc that you put on an acupressure.

But it's actually neuro acoustic software. It's music. It's like music therapy that helps you essentially meditate, but they would say it's not meditation, but it puts you into what I'm not gamma the opposite Delta waves or something. And it can help you NAF. And I don't know if there used to be a light component to it, but but it, yes, it does stimulate the. Parasympathetic nervous system. 

Jack: You're right. Actually, now that I realized I was combining that with the light therapy that I was using two devices at the same time, it was actually completely effective for me. I put the goggles with the light and I'd have the audio of the new colleges confused the brand.

But I was, yeah, I combined the two and it was pretty awesome. Definitely. 

Sara: It's stack it all. They're like, it's all good. Just stack up. 

Devin Burke: Yeah. I'll often follow up with them. I haven't heard anything from them for a while, but I do a couple of years ago. I remember I was at a conference and I did get to experience it.

And there was definitely a shift in my state, I would say from using the the stem on the bagel nerve, I think on the neck, if I'm not mistaken with some lyposomal Gabba, I think that's what it used to be. I'm very curious. I'll have to look into what is. 

Sara: That's what it used to be the alpha stem type device combined with the Gabba cream or a tuneable at some point that they were giving people, but they've improved 

Devin Burke: on it since. Wow. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for bringing it back to. 

Whitney: Wow. Lots of things. Lots of takeaways here today. I then there's one final thing that we promised we would touch upon. We're about to wrap up, but Devin, any tips on sleeping when you have companion animals, especially puppies, kittens, anything that might be a little needy.

And how have you personally adjusted to that in your life to make sure you're not too distracted or lacking sleep? 

Devin Burke: Yeah. So it's one of those things, like if, when you have a baby, you just want to expect that it's going to be challenging. It's going to interrupt your sleep.

You're going to get up in the middle of the night. The trick is where people get stuck is they start to worry about it. And then it cascades into like insomnia. Like I get people all the time and I asked them, when did this start? They said I usually it's when they have kids, but sometimes it is, oh, I got.

And I was up in the middle of night taking them out. And then I started, that my body got in this pattern of waking up. And then I got worried about not being able to get back to sleep. So just know that it seems pretty common sense advice, but just expect number one, that your sleep will be disturbed.

There's no getting around it. Do you have a puppy or a baby? Just expect the next couple of months, they're going to be pretty sleepless and know that your body. Knows how to sleep and it will sleep again. And as soon as the, you get that baby or puppy on a schedule, things will get back to normal.

So part of it's just really just a practicing. It's an opportunity to practice acceptance. And that's one of the big core pillars. What we teach in our program is acceptance of whether or not you have a great night of sleep or terrible day. The welcome, whatever that I brings and having a puppy or baby gives you the opportunity to do that.

Whitney: I love that. And I love your whole philosophy Devin. It's really quite unique as we've said a few times, because I think the mindset piece of this is huge for all of us and just hearing that puts me at ease. It makes me excited to sleep tonight and reflect on everything that you've shared. Thank you to you and Jack and everyone.

Who's come up to ask questions today. This has been. Really a wonderful discussion in this series for rise and thrive. And we are going to link as promised to the sleep science academy.com to Devin burke.com. His book, his social media, all these different places that you can reach. Devin. We have show notes for this episode, with the transcript, the recording.

If you want to share it, that's all at https://myessentia.com/podcast. Devin. Thank you so much for being here today. Any final words from you or Jack before we wrap up? 

Devin Burke: It was a pleasure to be here and I just hope that people take action with some one, one tip or one piece of information that they got, whether it was from me or Jack or one of the other people that came on and shared.

Just take action. Don't let this hour go by and not take action on. Or else it's a wasted hour. 

Jack: My, on my side, I just say Devin again, the connection was immediate. That was easy to speak with you at at the conference. Easy, great conversation at lunch. This was a fantastic hour. Thanks for joining us.

And it's going to continue because we will keep our conversation going that's for sure. And hopefully everyone benefited from this cause that's our goal. Healthy people and make the right connections so they can get help themselves or get the help that they needed. Really I'm thrilled that you came on roast today.

Devin Burke: Thanks for all you're doing witness. Thank you so much for pulling this together for us and holding us to a great conversation. And Jack, I look forward to having a cava with Yetta Khobar in the near future 

Jack: here. Definitely. I'm there. 

Whitney: Thank you. And we will be back with another episode of Essentia: Rise and Thrive very soon.

So be sure to stay tuned on the website here on clubhouse and make sure to follow anybody here that resonates with you. That's the beauty of clubhouse and podcasting is just a big network of people with incredible information. We'll be back again soon and until then, best of luck with your sleep.

Jack: Thanks. Thanks everyone.