Sleep Coach Christine Meyer, an ACE-certified Health Coach and Health Education Specialist, talks about the importance of sleep, the far-reaching impact of not getting enough (or good quality!) and what we can do to improve it!

Listen to the Episode

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Links mentioned:

• Amazon link: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
• Recent study linking sleep and Alzheimers
• Episode 7 – Mindfulness and Meditation Can Change Your Life

Connect with Sleep Coach Christine Meyer

• Click here to connect with Sleep Coach Christine Meyer on Instagram @christinesleepcoach
• Click here to find her on Facebook: Christine Sleep Coach
• Visit her website: https://cmyhealth.net/
• Schedule a Sleep Strategy Session: https://tidycal.com/m4dq2vm/better-sleep-strategy-session

Sleep Coach Christine Meyer’s Free Gift

“8 Solutions to Regain your Restful Sleep” is a mini-guide that will set the foundation for getting your 8 hours of sleep.

Want to fall asleep quickly and sleep through the night?
Tired of staring at the ceiling trying to go to sleep?
​Tired of spending your day in a mental fog?
​Tired of relying on carbs and caffeine to keep you awake? And medications to make you sleep?
​Tired of being moody and taking it out on your family?
​Now, imagine calming your mind and body and finally getting the restful sleep that you deserve!

Episode Transcript

Welcome, everyone. I am here with Sleep Coach Christine Meyer, who is a certified health coach, certified health education specialist, and a licensed physical therapy assistant. She has over 14 years of experience in the health and wellness field, and she helps midlife women go from foggy to focused by helping them restore their restful sleep. Her coaching focuses on lifestyle changes, which include stress management and time management skills. She’s a wife, mom, and a new grandma, and she lives in Southern California. Welcome, Christine.

Thank you. Very excited to be here with you. The topic that we’re talking about today is sleep.I think this is one of those things that a lot of people take for granted until they can’t do it, until they start having trouble. What’s funny about sleep is that you don’t notice how important it is until you’re not getting enough. It’s almost like those effects are so far reaching into all the different areas.

This is why I think it’s really important that we start talking about improving our sleep, the benefits of sleep, and how we can get to a place where we’re not so hyper-focused on it that it eludes us. Right? Is that going to happen too? Exactly. Wonderful.What I like to do first is I like to start with the guests talking about your origin story. What brought you to this place where you became a health coach who focuses on sleep? I’ve been a health coach for over 14 years now. Worked for a Fortune 500 company with contracts with companies.

We coached on everything. Weight management, nutrition, exercise, stress, diabetes, heart health. Sleep came later because sleep is relatively new when you think about it as far as health and wellness topics.One thing I found when we discussed barriers was sleep was often a barrier to somebody meeting their health goals, whether they wanted to exercise more, eat better, manage their diabetes. Sleep often came into play, and stress as well, because stress and sleep are so closely related. Often the goals started shifting towards, let’s work on the sleep first so that we can actually get towards those longer-term goals of what you want to achieve for your physical health.I just found it fascinating. I just started doing a lot of research about sleep on my own. For me personally, I got enough sleep.

I managed. I got enough to get by, and I functioned. I was a single mom.I have type 1 diabetes. I was always on the go-go-go, had that long to-do list that of course we think we’re going to accomplish everything in a day, and we’re not going to go to sleep until we do it. That type of personality, and then the next day just dragging myself out of bed and doing it all over, and you’ve got your caffeine, and you’re all good.

I managed to get by that way, and of course not realizing the effect it was having on my health. Then we fast-forward to menopause a few years ago, about five years ago, we started going through the change, and 24-7 hot flashes, most of them at night, and I just wasn’t sleeping. It was just a horrible cycle, and it just really started to affect me, not only physically, but mentally.I just was not myself. I couldn’t remember conversations. My concentration was horrible at work.

I was snappier than usual, moodier with my family, and I just felt like a different person. I felt like I was going crazy, and I thought, I can’t imagine what this would be like just for years and years if someone didn’t get regular sleep. I thought, I really have to work on this for myself, and that’s what’s really prompted me to start focusing more on it in my coaching as well.

It was your own experience. You had a real lived experience of not getting enough sleep, and you felt and you saw how that can be. I imagine that’s extremely valuable for you when you’re working with clients to have that really empathetic, like, listen, I know what it’s like.

I understand how you feel about that. You’re not even yourself. I totally relate to everything that you just said, because with the pandemic and getting older, I’m in my late 40s and things start happening I feel like the effects of not getting enough sleep, I’ve been waking up multiple times per night and just laying there unable to go to sleep. It’s funny, because my husband is like, don’t do that. It’s hilarious to me, and I’m like, what do you mean, don’t do that? He’s like, just go back to sleep, and I’m like, oh my God, why didn’t I think of that? That is brilliant. Thank you. Thanks for that helpful advice, Dr. Husband. That’s great.

Of course, he thinks it’s probably because I’m not, he says, get more tired and you’ll sleep better. And I’m like, if only it was that easy, there’s so many different things that impact it, like your hormones and environment, and like you said, stress and sleep are so closely related. So let’s talk about a term that I think it’s kind of thrown around, and a lot of people don’t know what this means.

Sleep hygiene. What is that? And why is it so important when we’re talking about getting good sleep? So sleep hygiene is basically your behaviors, changing your behaviors and the environment to promote good sleep. So when we’re talking about sleep hygiene, it’s those activities that we’re doing in the evening. Are we winding down to relax? What’s our environment like around us? Changing our just everything we do during the day is going to affect how we sleep at night. And I talk about that wind down a wind down routine an hour before we get go to bed. But even what we did during the day and our mental health, how we’re thinking before we go to bed at night, like you mentioned, waking up several times, that’s those hamster wheel thoughts that go on in our head.

A lot of that’s from the stress and the anxiety and not, you know, managing our stress or just not learning to to wind down at the end of the day. So it’s really important to understand that sleep hygiene is. It’s the evening time, but it’s it’s also our it’s it’s our day.You know, it’s we we need to kind of prep for sleep throughout the day and be more mindful of those behaviors that we have during the day, because that’s going to affect how we sleep at night. 

So I love that you brought up the the concept of a wind down routine before you plan to go to bed, because I think a lot of us might be operating like wind up dolls, right? Like we just go, go, go until we just crash. Like that’s just it.I don’t I don’t personally and I should have a wind down routine. And I think that would help immensely. But I you know, I just I have a routine, but I’m not winding down.I’ll be let’s be clear. I definitely have certain things I do at night. 

And I know that they’re they’re definitely having an impact on how I sleep.You know, one of them is watching TV basically until I fall asleep on the couch, going to bed and then being wide awake, because I just took a 10 minute nap. So now I’m awake and now I’m looking at my phone, right, then an hour goes by and now it’s it’s way later than I wanted to go to sleep. You know, so the wind down routine, I really want to dig into that a little bit more.But I would I love that you said that we need to kind of have a plan for how we’re going to, you know, shape our environment and the behaviors that we’re going to have that are going to impact our sleep. 

So our wind down routine actually starts way before bedtime. It happened.It’s happening all day. Right, right, exactly. And like you said, we’re go, go, go up until it’s time to go to bed.And then we wonder why we’re laying there staring at the ceiling. So and that’s part of it. And so it’s about activities that relax both your body and your mind.That last hour, think of that as your me time. I tell a lot of my clients, think of that as your spa time. This is your time to just relax and be chill, which is hard because we’re used to, you know, we think an hour before bed, we’re getting stuff done.

But again, that has such a big impact. So finding things that are going to relax your body. So that could be stretching, yoga, any kind of relaxation techniques like taking a shower or or a bath.Listening to soft music, turning down the lights. Actually, lighting does play a factor in how we can sleep as well. But dimming the lights, those essential oils, you know, think of those floofy things that we can do reading a book that will help you to relax.Screen time, unfortunately, is not a part of that. And there’s science behind that. And when when I start to educate people on the science behind it, it makes more sense and they’re more willing to do it.

Not that I tell people what to do in my coaching, but once they understand how this is affecting them physiologically, it’s like, oh, OK, so any kind of screens, whether it be your phone, your television, your tablet, your computer, they admit that blue light and that blue light affects our melatonin levels. And melatonin is a hormone that starts to get produced in our body as the sun goes down. And so as things get darker, the melatonin starts producing more and it’s giving our body that signal that it’s time to go to bed.

We need to get sleepy. So if we have all this light coming in, it’s blocking that. Basically, it’s not you’re not going to get that production.

You’re not going to sleep as well or even be able to fall asleep. So people that fall asleep with the television on in their bedroom, you know, that’s that’s a tough habit to break. And that’s part of this, too, is this is coaching.So we’re looking at changing these behaviors that have really been ingrained in us in the evening and figuring out how we can change things. And that does take some habit change.

 So that’s one thing I work on them with.It’s not just here’s what you need to do. It’s it can be tough, especially when it comes to the phone. Sometimes I’m setting goals with people to just get their phone from the nightstand to the dresser in the middle of the night.So they’re not picking it up and looking at it. So it’s it really sucks us in. And with these past couple of years of watching the news and all of that and social media, it’s really easy to get sucked into that.And just the what we’re looking at in general, that information, which is kind of disturbing and can cause stress that can make it difficult to go to sleep as well. So there’s a double whammy there. 

Right.Right. Exactly. Awesome.Fantastic. Feels good, right? Right. Great news.Well, that’s that’s really helpful to know. And I’m like, I’m like one of your clients. I need to get it off the nightstand because I am in the habit of as soon as I wake up any time during the night, I assume I’m not going to be able to go back to sleep and I just grab the phone.I’m like, well, I’m awake for now. So I might as well just read something or pay play some wordle or like, you know, check my email or check Facebook or something like that. But I like that you said I want to clarify something.

So you said reading before bed, but not on the screen. So I have a Kindle that’s a paperwhite.

Does that count? You can try it, you know, supposedly that’s supposed to help.So you’d kind of have to experiment with a lot of things. You do have to experiment. So you could try that still using, you know, low lighting, just a night a table lamp versus an overhead lamp and see how that works for you.You have some of these things you have to kind of do trial and error as to whether or not it’s going to help you. Same thing with kind of drinking alcohol before bed. 

You have to experiment with how much of that can we actually do and get a good night’s sleep.So you can try it. Ideally, paper would be best. You know, those old fashioned books.We remember those. But those hurt more when I drop them on my face. So I’d rather just stick with the Kindle.That’s what I found in my experience. My studies have shown that the book hurts more than the Kindle. 

So let’s talk about the mistakes that people are making. And I don’t want to call them mistakes, but maybe, you know, they’re not aware of the things that they’re doing, but they’re definitely having a negative impact when it comes to their sleep. Right.

So one of the biggest mistakes is that they don’t need. That’s that seven to nine hours. That’s recommended.

You know, some people, you know, we want to look at quality of sleep as well. You could maybe sleep a little bit less and have better quality sleep versus eight hours and tossing and turning. So, again, everyone’s a little bit different.But the science shows that people who get seven hours or less, it does affect their their memory, their cognition. There’s a great book by Matthew Walker called Why We Sleep, which is just amazing. It talks about the science behind sleep.But people feel that if they get five or six and they function OK and they’ve got their coffee, they’re good. And but they don’t realize behind the scenes what’s going on in their body or down the road, how it can affect their health. There are studies now out there about whether sleep could be a contributor to Alzheimer’s disease, and that’s pretty scary.

So if you’re trying to manage your blood pressure or your blood sugars behind the scenes, those things are affected when we don’t sleep well. And a lot of people that are very much into their career, their job, they may not realize that if they slept more and slept better, they’re going to have more focus, more concentration, more creativity with their job. Another, I think, is people think they can just hack their sleep.You know, tell me right now what I need to do to get to sleep quicker. You know, what can I take? What supplements, what foods? And there are maybe supplements that will help. You want to talk to your doctor.There’s foods that could possibly help. But that’s not going to be a cure all. 

Again, it’s it’s your lifestyle, you know, it’s how and it’s how you manage your your mental health.That’s going to really be the major factor. OK, so what I’m hearing is no quick fix. And we need to look at this big picture to see all of the different areas.Physical, you know, physical health, mental health, emotional health, even and how that’s kind of impacting our ability or our quality of sleep. Right, right.

For some, it is kind of an easy fix.It’s like, OK, I stopped watching TV before bed and I’m great for others. It’s a little bit more complex, I think, especially for women. I like to focus on, you know, midlife women.So if there is hormonal things going on, we need to address that. Not us, but I want you to work with your your doctor. 

That’s out of the scope for a health coach.But yes, we need to really first look at the the why and then figure out how we’re going to address it. Because there are medical things that come into play as well that could be affecting how we sleep, medical diagnoses, even medications.

 That’s a really good point, too.So it could just be things that you need to be doing for your health that can have that trickle down effect into your sleep. All right. So you mentioned, you know, how you work with clients and how you create a plan for them and you figure out what things that they might what tweaks they might be able to make in their schedule or their environment to help them improve their sleep.

So let’s talk about working with you as a coach. And what does that look like? Say I come to you and I’m, you know, I’m having trouble sleeping. What does it look like with the process to work with you? Right.So the first thing we talk about in this this goes with any health coaching program is, you know, what’s your goal? Why is it important for you to get sleep? For some people, they just want more energy. They’re tired of dragging all day or snapping at their family. 

Other people do have hypertension or pre-diabetes and they want to manage those conditions.So we want to look at the why and figure out together why you’re not sleeping. For some people, that’s a given. Some they just don’t know.They have no idea why. So we that’s when we look at your lifestyle habits. How are you managing your stress, medical conditions that you may have, you know, hormones and things like that.

Again, if it comes to if you have think you have anxiety or depression, hormone imbalances, if you think you have sleep apnea, we want to partner up with your your clinicians to get those medical things addressed. But we’ll we’ll we don’t know what it is that that’s affecting your sleep. We’ll kind of do a little inventory of all those things and then work together to figure out what do you want to start working on.

And a lot of times that is stress because again, it’s we’re laying in bed thinking. We have a hard time winding down. So we look together and then it’s just it’s about goal setting, you know, and tiny habits if needed.

Because again, it’s we’re ingrained in these habits in the evenings. We’re addicted to our devices. So that’s a big one is how can we slowly find a nighttime routine that’s going to work for you? How do we help you manage your stress during the day and eat better exercise more. It all comes into it comes into play. So I have a couple different coaching programs and one’s kind of a one and done. I call it 90 minutes to better sleep where we do sit down, do kind of like a little bit of a sleep analysis of what your habits are.

And I give you my recommendations. Here’s what I recommend. You’re on your way if you don’t feel like you need the coaching. And then we have I have a four and 12 week program where people that do need more of the the guidance, the partnering up for habit creation. We do by by weekly calls with some support texting in between. And we that’s when we sit down with setting those smart goals and really digging in and creating a program.And it’s it’s the client doing it, not me. You know, as the health coach, we don’t tell people what to do. We’re here to support them and give them our input.But you’re the one in the driver’s seat determining, you know, how are you going to make this change? Because we don’t want it to be stressful either. 

What’s one thing when we do and we wake up in the middle of the night? I need to go to sleep. I need to go to sleep.I need to get back to sleep. And that has the opposite effect. You know, it’s like saying, well, don’t think about a pink elephant right now, Lori.And you’re probably going to do it. That’s the worst thing we can do is stress out and think, I have to make sure I get to sleep tonight, because that can actually have the opposite effect. And then what? And then it just exacerbates the problem.Right. I love that. I love that you have that one and done consultation where you can kind of, you know, have a meeting with somebody and give them some recommendations if they think that that is what, you know, they need to get started. And then, of course, they can come back and say, listen, that was great. But I still need, I think I need more in-depth, you know, coaching. Let’s can we work together to create like a program and work together longer term.

I love that you have those options. Because everybody’s different. You know, some people just want, tell me what to do and I’m going to go do it.And other people, we need more of that support for sure. Right. And with habit development, we all know that, you know, it would be great if we could just flip a switch and be like, great, this is how I live my life now.

These are the things that I do. But our actions and our habits are so ingrained and they’re so grooved in. It takes a lot of like deprogramming or, you know, kind of crowding them out with the things that we want to do. That it can help, you know, it can take a while. It can take three months, six months. You know, I like that, that 21 day fix, if only, right. It could take quite a while to get into a place where these are automatic activities that we’re doing. Right. Right. When I tell people about the electronics and not using the phone, there’s usually some silence for a bit because that’s just, you know, that’s a, that’s a big one for people. So it can take a little bit of time and that’s okay. 

You know, just like with any other habit, we’re trying to change that nighttime’s a big one for people.These are, I mean, it’s something we do every day. Everybody does it every day. And at some point, you know, you’ve lived your life.You’ve gotten to a place where you’re comfortable with what you’re doing, whether or not it’s working for you is another story, but we’ve got these habits. So it’s good to know that we can get support specifically for improving sleep and that just improving your sleep can have such an impact on these different areas. You know, being more productive, being more focused, being in a better mood.I would sign me up for that. I would like that. Not feeling so stressed and just being able to have more energy to get my workouts in or have the time and patience to cook, cook a healthy meal instead of grabbing a bowl of cereal because I’m hungry.

So all of these things that’s so far reaching to everything that we do. Right. Exactly.Exactly. 

Now, Christine, you have a free gift for our listeners and this is your eight solutions to regain restful sleep Mini guide.So we’re not promising anything. It’s just it’s just something to kind of give you some ideas of where you can get started. And of course, you can follow up with Christine book her consultation call book, just a consultation in general to see if you want to work with her longer term.If you know you need something a little bit more in depth and with more support. 

So I’ll be putting that in the show notes. And I’m also going to put the link to that that book that you mentioned, why we sleep.I’ll put that in the show notes as well. 

Because like you said, so much research is coming out about sleep and how important it is that I think, you know, it’s important for us to all understand what’s going on when we’re sleeping. Right. Exactly. 

So Christine, could you actually dive a little bit deeper into what is happening in our bodies when we’re sleeping? Like during throughout the night, what’s going on behind the scenes? 

Right. So this is where we get to get kind of nerdy and sciencey. But it’s just it’s fascinating. And it’ll give you more about the why of things. So we have five stages of sleep. You know, we have light sleep, which is we call stages one and two. We have deep sleep, which is stages three and four. And that’s all our non REM sleep .

And then we have our REM sleep, which is our dream sleep. And we cycle through that throughout the night. So we go from awake, light sleep, deep sleep, back up again, up into the light sleep. And then we hit REM and then we cycle back down and we go through about four to five of those cycles throughout the night in the in the earlier stages of the evening. We’re getting more of the deep sleep, the stage three and four, and then towards the earlier hours of the morning, we’re getting more of the REM, the dream sleep. And they both have their their purposes. And this is why it’s really important to get.

FAQ with Sleep Coach Christine Meyer

Who is Sleep Coach Christine Meyer?

Sleep Coach Christine Meyer is a certified health coach, certified health education specialist, and licensed physical therapy assistant with over 14 years of experience. She helps midlife women reduce brain fog, manage stress, and restore restful sleep using lifestyle-based coaching.

What free resource does Sleep Coach Christine Meyer offer listeners?

Sleep Coach Christine Meyer is offering a free mini-guide called “8 Solutions to Regain Your Restful Sleep.”
It includes simple, foundational strategies to help you fall asleep faster and sleep through the night.
You can download it using the link in the show notes.

What problems does Sleep Coach Christine Meyer specialize in helping women solve?

Sleep Coach Christine Meyer helps women who struggle with:
• Waking up multiple times per night
• Not being able to fall asleep
• Brain fog and low daytime energy
• Mood swings and irritability
• Stress-related sleep disruption
• Menopause-related sleep changes

Why is sleep such an important focus for health?

Christine explains that sleep affects:
• Cognitive function and memory
• Mood and emotional regulation
• Blood pressure and blood sugar
• Hormone balance
• Weight management
• Stress levels
• Long-term brain health

Poor sleep impacts almost every part of physical and mental well-being.

What is “sleep hygiene”?

Sleep hygiene refers to the behaviors and environmental habits that promote good sleep.
This includes:
• A nightly wind-down routine
• Reduced screen time before bed
• Dim lighting in the evening
• Relaxation practices like stretching or warm baths
• Managing stress during the day
• Creating a consistent sleep schedule

What are some common mistakes that sabotage sleep?

According to Sleep Coach Christine Meyer, the biggest sleep disruptors are:
• Using screens right before bed
• Not allowing enough wind-down time
• Relying on caffeine to push through fatigue
• Ignoring stress or anxiety
• Underestimating how much sleep you actually need
• Sleeping with the TV on
• Having inconsistent schedules

Is there a quick fix for sleep problems?

Not usually. Christine emphasizes that “sleep hacks” rarely fix the root issue.
Real improvements come from addressing:
• Lifestyle habits
• Stress patterns
• Hormonal changes
• Environmental triggers
• Medical conditions or medications

What types of coaching programs does Sleep Coach Christine Meyer offer?

Sleep Coach Christine Meyer offers:
1. A 90-minute Sleep Strategy Session
A one-time consultation that includes an assessment and personalized recommendations.

2. 4-Week or 12-Week Coaching Programs
Ideal for women who want accountability, ongoing support, and help forming sustainable habits.

How does Sleep Coach Christine Meyer help clients who wake up at night with racing thoughts?

Sleep Coach Christine Meyer focuses on stress management tools, coping strategies for nighttime anxiety, and building routines that calm both the mind and body before bed.

Can Sleep Coach Christine Meyer‘s approach help women going through perimenopause or menopause?

Yes. Christine experienced menopause-related sleep disruption herself and uses lifestyle strategies to help midlife women improve sleep quality. She also notes when it’s appropriate to involve a medical provider.

Is reading before bed okay? What about a Kindle?

Christine recommends avoiding bright screens but says a Kindle Paperwhite may be fine for some people. It requires personal experimentation, low lighting and calming content are key.

Does Sleep Coach Christine Meyer address medical issues like sleep apnea?

As a health coach, Sleep Coach Christine Meyer does not diagnose or treat medical conditions.
However, she helps clients identify when something may require medical attention and encourages collaboration with healthcare providers.

Where can I learn more from Sleep Coach Christine Meyer?

Download Sleep Coach Christine Meyer’s free guide “8 Solutions to Regain Your Restful Sleep” using the link in the show notes and connect with her to explore coaching options.