sleep remedies with bedtime bootcamp’s masha maltsava
“During REM we actually experience creativity. Paul McCartney wrote “Yesterday” during REM sleep. The Periodic Table of Elements was also created during REM sleep.”
Masha Maltsava is a fashion photographer who suffered from chronic insomnia. She tried everything and finally found her cure and is now getting 8 hours of sleep and feeling amazing. She's now a sleep coach and has her @bedtimebootcamp channel to share all of her tips and tricks. In this episode, we discuss what the game changers were for her.
What you'll learn:
Why sleep is important
The benefits of dreams
The impact of blue light
Does melatonin work?
Supplements and herbs that can help
Resources:
Blue Light Blocking Glasses from BluBlox (use code MAGNETIC)
Chill the F* Out from Apothekary.co (use code HEALTHACCOMPLICE)
podcast highlights
Aleks: What was your aha moment that led you to be so interested in sleep? Was there like a specific moment? What happened?
Masha: So my entire life I've struggled with sleep. As long as I can remember myself, I've always felt so proud that I can survive on like four to five hours of sleep and feel okay. Lately, since I've hit my thirties, that has changed. I started feeling more groggy, tired, can't focus, can't function, but I still kept sleeping, I guess like around five to six hours on my best nights. And then during the COVID epidemic, quarantine happened and I guess everyone's anxiety levels went up and mine as well. So I found myself not being able to go to bed. I would go to sleep at three, four, sometimes 5:00 AM, wake up at six/seven/eight only getting three to four hours of sleep and I just felt miserable.
So one day a friend of mine recommended this book called, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. And I'm not going to lie if I say that book changed my life. So after I read that book, I started reading more and more studies on sleep, on why we sleep, how sleep is beneficial, why we dream. And I just got fascinated with the science of sleep.
optimal hours of sleep
Aleks: I wanted to touch on something that you said that I think is super important and that's getting only four to five hours of sleep and being proud of that fact. I think as a culture, that's very common here, where I feel like we don't see sleep as this critical activity, that we see it as an interruption to our productivity. That we wouldn't get everything that we needed to get done in a day If we had to sleep eight hours like that's just unnecessary. And I'm proud of the fact that I only need four to six hours.
I've never bought into that philosophy. I'm an eight hour a night kind of girl always and always have been. I love sleep. I think I'm not myself if I don't get any more than that and I've always been fascinated by people who need less and how they can look rested and function appropriately. And I've always been kind of envious of that. But the more I learn, I realized that that ends up catching up with you in the long haul and everyone actually needs around seven to eight hours.
Masha: I'm guilty of that too because I used to be the person who would praise themselves on sleeping five to six hours and thinking it's okay. So what happens is that when you chronically sleep-deprived, your baseline gets a lot lower. So you feel like you can survive in five to six hours, but it's actually not true. So the day that I started sleeping seven to eight, I realized how much sleep I was missing. So there was this interesting study done with hundreds of people who claimed that they could sleep five to six hours and feel great and they were proven wrong. So they made those people sleep seven to eight hours and then five to six hours of sleep. And they found out that there's actually this really interesting gene that allows certain people to survive on five to six hours. But guess how much is the percentage of the people who have the gene?
If you round it up it's zero. So basically almost nobody in this world can function as well on five to six hours of sleep, as people who sleep eight hours, it's a general rule of thumb for everyone. So I'd say seven to eight hours is your sweet spot.
sleep as detox
Aleks: Okay. Seven to eight, if you could summarize why we do sleep. And then you mentioned why we dream, I'm super curious about that. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Masha: I would love to get more into dreaming a little bit later, but I guess. So if I were to put in one sentence, what Matthew Walker is trying to communicate to us is that if we don't sleep we'll very soon, become fat, dumb, sick, and eventually die way sooner than we expect.
Aleks: That sounds horrible. So I know that when we sleep, it's our body's cleansing, there's a cleansing process that happens. And it's a cleansing process, not only with all of our organs, including our brain. So it's something that's necessary for us to reset, is that kind of in line with why, if we don't sleep we would become sick and fat and dumb and die sooner because we're not doing enough of the resetting, what did Matthew Walker say is like the biggest impact?
Masha: Absolutely. So yes, you were totally right. Basically, our brain goes through five stages of sleep every night and we experience about four to five sleep cycles. So each sleep cycle is responsible for its own functions within the body. So as you said, during deep phases of sleep, this is where we cleanse and we rebuild all the organs in our bodies, we detox and each organ actually has its own timing through the night. So for example, your liver usually detoxes itself from one to 3:00 AM. So for example, if you wake up usually at 3:00 AM and you can't out why maybe is because you have some sort of liver imbalances that you need to address your liver. It's so interesting. So yes, we do detox all of our organs, we build new cells, we rejuvenate our brain during the sleep cycles, but also one of the most fascinating things I learned about sleep is actually the REM rapid eye movement sleep.
REM sleep is the most important thing for all things, brain, focus, memory, concentration. And I realized that all during my years of not sleeping, this is actually when... I guess I should start off telling a little bit more about old sleep phases. So like I said, our body goes through about four to five sleep cycles every night. The first stage of sleep is called wake-sleep, which is when we just start falling asleep and we fall into light phase of sleep. And then after light we follow stages three and four of sleep, which is called deep sleep. And then it's REM sleep.
Aleks: How do you know if you’ve made it to REM sleep?
Masha: So the most interesting part is actually earlier in the night we have more deep sleep because the main function of the body is to detox all of our organs like build new cells, but towards the later sleep cycles towards the morning, we get way more REM. So first two to three sleep cycles, more deep sleep, less rem. The cycles, I guess, four and five, more REM less deep sleep, because the REM is the most exciting phase of sleep to me because I've been missing it my entire life, I guess. And you were asking me about the moment where I started realizing why I need to sleep more.
So I started breaking glasses in my apartment. It would basically happen very often that I would just drop things on the floor. I'll start being so forgetful. I'll start forgetting keys, phone, wallet, like essential things or being late for meetings. And I was just thinking, what is wrong with me? And then when I started sleeping more, I just realized that all that I was missing was REM sleep. So REM sleep is the most important for focus, memory, concentration and during REM, we actually experienced creativity. So when people would tell me, Oh, I had such vivid dreams, I dreamed about something fun. I could never relate because I was never dreaming. I don't remember the last time I dreamt.
Aleks: Do you only dream during REM sleep?
Masha: Yes. So, they say that dreaming can happen a little bit, like five to 10% during all stages of sleep, but mostly when people refer to dreaming state, it only happens to them REM.
Aleks: Got it. So I have a question. You mentioned that REM sleep happens later on in the cycle, and I have this thing where I love morning sleep. I wake up in the morning and if I don't, obviously it's on the weekends, mostly because if I wake up during the week I have to go to work. But there's a period where I wake up at maybe sometimes like 6:00 AM, I'm like, Ooh, I can stay in bed for another hour and a half, two hours. And those two hours of morning sleep are like my favorite, is that because I'm REM sleeping?
Masha: Yes, because your feasting on sleep. And REM sleep is the most important thing for our emotional state. So all things connected with all the psychiatric health disorders and depression. This is all happens to people who don't get enough REM. So when you do get those sweet, sweet couple of hours of REM sleep towards the end of the night or morning this is when you feel the happiest, emotionally stable, and just really content with life, I'll say.
So one more thing about REM that was so exciting to me is building new neurological connections, which means being more creative. So I realized through my photography work, that I stop feeling creative, and I was trying to figure out why it was so. So creativity is built during REM sleep. So, you know how they say sleep on certain problems, like sleep on a problem or whenever you're studying, go to bed and you'll wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and you'll probably figure out the solution. So it's not unusual that every sleep culture has a saying around sleep on it. So basically that happens during REM sleep when you build new connections and you're able to figure out new solutions, new creative solutions to the problem that you experienced the day before. So also Paul McCartney came with his song, Yesterday during REM sleep. Kenneth Richardson wrote chords to satisfaction during sleep as well. Dmitri Mendeleev came up with his periodic table of elements during sleeping as well. So, so many scientists and artists and creatives say that sleep has actually helped them to be more creative and come up with new solutions.
Circadian rhythm
Aleks: Can you walk us through your journey of everything that you've tried and then we'll talk about what works and what you'd recommend for people?
Masha: Sleep is kind of like a game of musical chairs. You can't only do one thing that is going to fix all your problems. So I try to approach it from a holistic standpoint and first fix my sleep hygiene. So that was the first step and sleep hygiene and circadian rhythm. I realized that my circadian rhythm was really off. And one thing towards fixing it is trying to go to sleep and wake up at the same time. So if you were to give one tip to somebody who's trying to improve their sleep, I guess that would be regularity. So going to bed at the same time. So now I actually have an alarm clock when I need to go to sleep and I have an alarm clock for when I need to get up.
Aleks: What are your hours?
Masha: So mine, usually I go to sleep at 11 and wake up at seven. So that gives me nice eight hours of sleep. Sometimes it's a little bit less but I'm striving for eight hours of sleep. Then second thing, what really helped is not having technology late at night. So basically having limits for your technology. And that is because of two reasons, first of all, the blue light. So our bodies work on a circadian clock, is the 24-hour internal clock that tells us when we should be awake and when we should go to bed. So in the morning when the sun rises, it's actually really good, first thing in the morning to just go outside, look at the sky, look at the horizon. Even if it's a cloudy day, it will still send the signal to your brain that it's time to be awake, It's daytime, you should be active. Your adrenaline goes up, your dopamine goes up. And then towards the night, what happens is that the light goes down, the sun goes down the and we should lower the lights in our apartment so we don't disrupt our melatonin production. So what happens when we use technology is that it still emits blue light and our body and brain still think that it's daytime and that disrupts our melatonin and we just don't feel sleepy. Or when we go to bed and we feel sleepy but we can't fall asleep because we don't have enough melatonin.
Blue Light Blocking Glasses
Aleks: So you wear blue light blocking glasses?
Masha: Yes. So I started wearing blue light blocking glasses. First of all, I tried to go outside and watch the sunset because they say that yellow Amber light actually helps to buffer against the harmful effects of blue light at night. And then when I get home, I put on blue light blocking glasses, if I'm still watching TV or on my computer or cell phone, and then at 8:39, I tried to have a cut out time for all things technology. So I just put my phone away, leave it in the kitchen. If I must send a text to somebody, I actually will send a voice message. So I don't need to spend too much time staring.
Aleks: Oh, that's a good tip. Quick question, do you have a favorite brand of blue light blocking glasses that you like?
Masha: So I'm actually experimenting with a couple of brands right now. I ordered a pair from TrueDark, that's Dave Asprey's company. And then I ordered a pair from Felix Gray. So I'm going to experiment with a couple of those and report back to you.
Aleks: So quick question. So no technology, around 8:39 you send voice notes. Do you watch TV? Do you read, what do you do?
Masha: I think the other reason why we should avoid blue light and have that curfew is because we actually trigger emotions when we do expose ourselves to technology. So either it's a positive or negative emotion, we still keep our body in the sympathetic state and we don't allow our bodies to relax. So I tried to cut the technology out altogether. So I will let up some candles, create moodier lighting, which is also good for kind of your melatonin production support. And then I'll just read a book or take a bath. Baths are brilliant for relaxation, especially If you add some Epsom salts with magnesium that help you relax, listen to music, a podcast. So all things that help you unwind, relax and feel calm.
Caffeine and alcohol
Aleks: In terms of supplements or anything that you do throughout the day, what else was something that you've tried to help with your sleep?
Masha: Sure. So two things that a lot of people are really addicted to is alcohol and caffeine. And what happened during this quarantine that I realized later is that I was going through this vicious cycle. I wouldn't get enough sleep. I would wake up in the morning over-caffeinated, would drink coffee all day long. Then at night, I would drink a glass of wine and Netflix and chill. And that kind of became my pattern and my sleep started getting worse and worse and worse. And then boom, I read Matthew Walker's book and I learned about alcohol. Do you want to know?
Aleks: Yes, please.
Masha: So what happens with alcohol, when we drink a glass of wine, even one glass of wine, it sedates our bodies. So we think that it helps us go to sleep, but it actually sedates and blocks your prefrontal cortex that is kind of like the head office of our brain. It is blocked and it's just sedated. So we feel like we're really sleepy, but we actually just pass out. And there's a huge difference between passing out and naturally sleeping. So when we just pass out, we completely deprive our brains of REM sleep. And as we talked about, REM sleep is so important. That's why the next day we wake up not feeling refreshed, we wake up feeling groggy. Sometimes alcohol is also really dehydrating so our brain is completely dehydrated. So it's terrible for that.
Aleks: That makes total sense. What would you tell somebody that still wants to enjoy a glass of wine? Are there any tips for making sure that doesn't impact your sleep negatively?
Masha: It's funny to say that, but actually daytime drinking is the best because then you can give your body about four to five hours to actually get rid of that alcohol to metabolize it properly. Or I guess the latest time you should be drinking is the happy hour, It's like four or 5:00 PM. This way you still have a few hours before you go to bed to get rid of that alcohol. And I guess my rule of thumb is to have two glasses of water per each glass of wine or alcoholic beverage.
Aleks: Yes. Just to help flush out all the toxins and stabilize and digest.
Sleep pressure
Masha: Exactly. And then caffeine is another huge sleep disruption. So basically our body sleep and wake cycles depend on circadian rhythm and also this thing called sleep pressure. So the first thing in the morning when we wake up we have very little sleep pressure and very little amounts of adenosine. It's this chemical that is like a barometer for our sleep pressure. So the longer that we stay awake the more adenosine is built up in our brain. And this is kind of like hunger for sleep. So the more time you spend without eating the hungrier you would get. The same thing for sleep is like the more adenosine you build in your body, the sleepier you get.
So by the time when the night comes, you should have really, really high sleep pressure and high amounts of adenosine. And every time you go to bed at night you alleviate the adenosine, it dumps out and in the morning, you should feel refreshed. But what happens with caffeine? Caffeine is actually a molecule that is very similar to adenosine and it attaches it to it and it actually blocks adenosine. So that's why when we wake up in the morning, we feel a little bit groggy or not fully refreshed. We drink some caffeine and it gives us this great buzz, we feel so high on energy and our sleepiness is gone. But what happens if we drink it later in the night, then it blocks the adenosine. And we weaken our sleep pressure.
Aleks: So that's why when you have a cup of coffee at like 3:00 PM and you don't metabolize that caffeine fast enough, it's still in your system. So when it's like 10:00 PM you don't have enough adenosine in your system to make you feel sleepy.
Masha: Yes. So what most people don't know is that the half-life for caffeine is five to seven hours. So if you have a cup of coffee, let's say at three or 4:00 PM, that means by the time you go to bed, that half of that caffeine is still in your body, blocking your sleep, blocking your adenosine and preventing you from falling asleep.
Aleks: Wow. That's so fascinating. So if you're going to drink coffee and caffeine, for the standard person, let's say you do okay with caffeine. What are the tips and tricks on that? Like you said, alcohol, we should do day drinking, happy hours. Rules for caffeine are mostly like first thing in the morning and that's it?
Masha: I would say you should stick to one to two cups of coffee before noon. That is the most optimal timing I guess. You can have maybe one at like one or two, but no later than 2:00 PM.
So as you might've noticed, sleep is actually as much of a day problem as it is of a night problem. So things that we do during the day really affect our sleep. So a lot of times people don't realize that the coffee that you drink earlier in the afternoon might still be affecting your sleep or nap that you take later in the afternoon might be weakening your pressure. That's actually another thing.
Aleks: Because when you're napping, so going back to the adenosine, am I saying it right? So the adenosine, if you are getting sleepy during the day and you take a nap, it alleviates the adenosine so you don't have enough of that at night to fall asleep.
Masha: So it could be a good thing for people who don't suffer from insomnia or sleep disorders. So sleep and napping is phenomenal for your body, but what happens if you don't have really good sleep pressure in general, then you do weaken it by taking a nap after 3:00 PM. So that means you just don't get as hungry for sleep late at night, and you might have a hard time falling asleep.
Does melatonin work?
Aleks: Yeah. Can we talk about melatonin? Because that's like the go-to for everyone. If I'm not sleeping, melatonin is what I take. I personally, when I had trouble sleeping, I was taking valerian root which I think helped a lot, but it was mixed with melatonin too.
Masha: So melatonin is this panacea for insomnia these days, everyone is taking melatonin these days and it might not be the solution. So when you imagine what melatonin is for your body, if you think of an Olympian race. So the runners aligned up to start the race and melatonin is the signal, it's the whistle telling the runners or telling your body when to start the race when to start sleeping. But melatonin does not participate in the generation of sleep itself or it doesn't keep you asleep either.
Aleks: It's just like the whistle that tells you to start to go to sleep, but it doesn't solve like deep sleep or insomnia.
Masha: Yes. So that's why Matthew Walker suggests that melatonin should be mostly used for shift work or jet lag. So when you're traveling from one time zone to another, to be able to just do it better and to tell your body, okay, we should start going to bed a little bit later or earlier, then you use melatonin. But it should not be used as a sleeping aid on a daily basis. More so, melatonin is not regulated by the FDA. So the actual amounts of melatonin and the over the counter pills can be way higher than it's stated on the package or way lower. So you never know what you're actually getting unless it's coming from a credible source or a doctor.
And I have to say though, people who claim that they sleep way better, taking melatonin is actually just influenced by the placebo effect, which just means that sleep is mental. It all depends on our state of mind and if we feel like something's helping us sleep, then it's working.
Aleks: Awesome. I definitely think that it's mental because anxiety has a lot to do with the trouble in falling asleep. Not being able to turn your brain off. So the placebo would work in calming you down, just knowing you took something to help you fall asleep will relax you a bit.
Masha: But there actually a couple of tips on that as well. So one is I guess doing relaxing things at night, not looking at your phone. And another thing that I have to say is that melatonin is a byproduct of serotonin. So in the mornings, we tend to produce more dopamine, especially when we are in our work mode when we're trying to achieve things like get the new job or lock-in that new deal. But at night it's way better to stop working and enjoy the things that will build more serotonin in your body. So it is all those things that are building appreciation and gratitude and happiness within yourself. So dopamine is more like outward neurotransmitters and serotonin is more inward. So basically, I don't know, calling a friend talking to a loved one, writing in your gratitude journal, all these things will help you feel a little bit more at ease, relaxed. And they say, if you're really anxious at night, about the next day, you should just write things down on your to-do list and put them on the paper as opposed to worrying about them.
Masha: Speaking of melatonin, since that's such a misconception that it helps better sleep. It's only really like the thing that starts your sleep cycle but doesn't help you stay asleep and it doesn't help you achieve that deep sleep that we've talked about that is so important for creativity. How is deep sleep different than REM sleep? I thought REM sleep was deep sleep.
Masha: No. So the difference between deep sleep and REM sleep is that during REM sleep, your brainwaves are really high. They almost resemble your brain waves during a waking state. So your mind is extremely awake and alert and active. And actually, if you look at a person's eyes, then you'll see that the eyes are going left to right left to right. So it's a very active sleep phase. So your brain is extremely active.
But the interesting thing about REM sleep is that your body is almost paralyzed. That's why sometimes during a dream, you feel like you can't get out of a dream or you feel that paralysis. This is because it's a safety mechanism for your brain not to start acting on your dreams during the night.
sleep supplements
Aleks: Oh, interesting. What are some supplements that you take? Do you take any?
Masha: Yes. So melatonin is great for jet lag. I have to say that. So if you're trying to train your brain to go to bed a little bit earlier or later, that would be great. And the rule of thumb is basically, it takes one day for each hour of travel to compensate and to regulate your circadian rhythm. So if you're traveling from New York to LA or LA to New York, it will take you three full days to adjust your brain to the new time zone. And this is when melatonin can help. Otherwise, I would say magnesium is really good. Magnesium glycinate or magnesium threonate are most beneficial for relaxing your brain.
Aleks: Everyone likes those calm powder. Is that what you use or no?
Masha: It's great, but it has a little sugar in it. So I do, it's kind of like general magnesium, which is great, but I feel like there are a couple of brands that do a little bit of better job at magnesium supplements.
Aleks: What are they?
Masha: So there's a company called Jarrow. I feel like they're not expensive at all and it's just really good quality.
Aleks: I have some Jarrow supplements, so you can get those on Amazon.
Masha: And then I'm very into herbal medicine as well. So I love taking ashwagandha that helps you with stress or reishi mushrooms that also boost your immune system and helps you unwind. Valerian root too —all those herbs that just kind of help you relax a little bit at night are phenomenal.
My main thing is trying to help people sleep better, drug-free. So I'm very anti-drug but pro-supplement. So that is one thing. And mostly just adjusting your routine, living by your circadian rhythm, caffeine, and alcohol we've covered that.
meditation
Aleks: All those things we've talked about. Meditation?
Masha: Oh, yes. I started meditating about a year ago and meditation has been a huge, huge factor in my sleep quality. So I think meditation, first thing in the morning that helps you just kind of put your mind at ease, get really focused. And Meditation at night, I try to do one before dinner that really helps put your brain from sympathetic, that fight or flight system to parasympathetic, which is more relaxation, detoxification rest. So meditation has been extremely helpful. I highly recommend it.
Aleks: Amazing. What do you use to meditate because I've been doing a couple of different things. I've been doing Biet Simkin's breathework.
Masha: Yes. Breath is amazing as well.
Aleks: And it only takes like 10 minutes. I sit there for 10 minutes. I do the breathework when I first wake up, but what does your meditation look like?
Masha: Sure. So for about two years before I started the meditation that I'm doing now, I used to do Headspace and it was great. But then I found out that still being connected to a device and meditating with a device, doesn't allow you to fully access those parts of the brain and deep relaxation state. So because you're still listening, you are still paying attention, you're hooked to a device to tell you what to do. So it's more of a mindfulness practice, which is great for anyone who's just starting to meditate or wants to get into mindfulness. But I feel like the full deeper meditation is actually when you do nothing.
So basically I do Ziva meditation, which is a trifecta of mindfulness, meditation, and manifestation. So for the first couple of minutes, you just come to your senses with your body, you focus on your vision, hearing, touch, sense of smell. And then you just look within, then you meditate for 20 minutes and then you manifest and kind of aim for the things that you would like to achieve in life. So it's completely device-free, you just meditate with your own head. You don't need to sit like a monk, all you need to do is just sit, be still, and be present with your body.