Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the legal learning podcast. I’m your host Jolene. And with the legal learning center, I help prospective law students save $300,000 on law school. If you’d like to ensure you’re remembering all the steps that go into applying to law school, visit legal learning center.com for a free application checklist. Today’s guest is Hillary Samuel founder of asleep at last. I think we all know that good sleep is important for good health. And for studying Hillary, not only helps people improve their sleep, but she can also help people with insomnia, get rid of it forever. So stay tuned if you need help with
Speaker 2 (00:43):
My name is Hillary Samuel and my company is asleep at last and I help people get great sleep. So get the rest and relaxation and energy that they’re yearning for when they’re not getting good sleep. And for people who have insomnia, I help you to get over it forever without medications, and you can lead a happier and healthier life.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I am so excited to talk about this. This is a problem that I think starts in college, maybe for someone even high school, but you know, we start messing with our sleep patterns and then it just goes downhill from there.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Well, there’s a lot of problems with, with school and what they do with teenagers and young people going to college. And then of course, when you get to the work world, so there’s a lot of demands on sleep. So let’s
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Start with the 1 0 1. What are some of the health detriments? If we’re not getting good sleep well,
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Sleep is the foundation for every single thing in your life. So you can think of it. I like to think of it. There’s immediate shorter term and longer term outcomes in terms of what sleep does so sleep. And it’s, it’s your physical self and your mental self. And I think of it as also your spiritual self. So it really covers everything. And so, so you know what it’s like, if you, if you don’t get a good sleep you don’t get a good night’s sleep, how you feel physically, usually tired, drained all of those things. And then your mental acuity is really below par. And that’s something that I think your audience might particularly want to pay attention to because you know, when you have a lot to do, if you’re studying a lot, all of that, you might think, oh, I’m going to, I’m going to just spend more time studying rather than sleeping.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And that actually is not a good choice because even one night not sleeping or just a few nights that sleeping, it impacts your ability to learn. And remember, so you might be trying to cram facts into your brain, but they’re not going anywhere. You know, probably have had that experience of looking at a page and nothing’s going in that’s literally your, your sleep, the sleep before you study and sleep after you study are essential for your memory and learning capacity. So that’s kind of an immediate thing with, with lack of sleep. And also it’s affects your motivation and all kinds of things like that. That is the immediate effects of lack of sleep. And then if you, if you’re doing, if it happens over time, like if you, if you maintain poor sleep habits over time, or you get yourself in a position where you can’t can’t sleep, that’s insomnia where you, you, you want to sleep, but you can’t.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
What over time, what can happen is it’ll affect your mental health. Often depression and anxiety is associated with poor sleep. And and then there’s all kinds of interim things like weight gain we’re more subject to cravings and sugar and carbohydrates become more attractive, all of that. So there’s that physical thing that starts to happen. And then over the long-term, you know, sleep is associated with every single chronic disease. There is. So whether it’s cancer or cardiovascular or any of that I don’t want to worry people and stress about, but really, you know, it’s really all about protecting your sleep because it’s so important for your health and your wellbeing and your happiness. It’s, it’s essential.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
So I think it’s, yeah, no, that’s
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Scary, but I
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Think it’s super relevant for those of us heading into law. And, you know, obviously eventually graduating and practicing law because attorneys are known for having high levels of anxiety and depression. And so if sleep is one factor that can lead to that, then that’s something that obviously the earlier you learn this the better we can maybe try and prevent that as being a contributing factor
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And hopefully keep everything down. Yeah, yeah. Sleep really moderates us keeps us on an even track. So with, with mental health actually depression and sleep go hand in hand and anxiety and sleep go hand in hand to the extent that both of those mental health issues could be caused by lack of sleep. So it’s, you know, if you find yourself, you know, sleeping too, it’s, you know, too short a time and your moods changing you notice, or you’re, maybe you don’t even realize it cause these become our new normals, but people around you are letting you know about that. It’s really something to pay attention to because just improving your sleep, getting the right amount of can improve your moods and get you out of say a depression or anxiety or any of those things. If there, you know, if it’s caught in time, it hasn’t gotten to sort of what they call a clinical situation.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Okay. And you kind of touched on this, but that inconsistent sleep, the pulling the all-nighters type of thing. And Hey, I’ll make it up on the weekend or after finals. So does that have the same impact as consistently not getting enough sleep well?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Neither are good. It’s really good to have consistent sleep, a consistent routine. And so people do think, oh, well, you know, I can make it up, but we don’t, that’s not really how our body works. It doesn’t really make it up. I mean, we feel better for sure if we have not slept and then we, then we get a longer sleep. So, so, so we definitely feel better, but if that’s a pattern, it’s not like, oh, the odd time you do that, you know, once in a blue moon, that’s, that’s not the end of the world, but you know, if it’s a consistent pattern, it’s actually undermining your ability to sleep and sleep really. And your whole body actually depends on some consistency. It helps the whole body to work at its most effective level to, to have a routine. So there’s that part. And you know, your, your question, which is worse, I don’t, I couldn’t say it, maybe it is worse to, to consistently get poor sleep and let’s say you need eight and you only get six hours. You know, you’re really doing yourself severe long-term damage and some of it you might ignore and then it’ll, it’ll catch up with you. And have
Speaker 1 (07:40):
You noticed any difference between poor sleep habits as far as hourly versus the exact hours? So for example, being a night owl and sleeping from midnight to, let’s say 8:00 AM versus 10:00 AM to 6:00 AM.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, we do have the, there’s a word for this called a chronotype. So we definitely have a, a sort of rhythm that is best for us, and there’s a certain variation in the population. And so some people prefer to go to bed a bit later and others you know, like to get up earlier, but we kind of overdo it in our culture. So, you know, some people say, oh yeah, I’m a Nadella. Don’t need to go to bed before 1:00 AM well or a real night owl, you know, it’s, it’s probably actually 11 or, you know, maybe midnight at the, at the latest, but we push it. There’s this sort of feeling of, can I get more done with my day or can I, you know, listen to my favorite X, Y, Z, whatever it might be or, or, you know, have my downtime, all of those things that we kind of try to cram our sleep in.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And so we overdo it. So especially on the night owl one, I think people who tend to get up early, usually, you know, get up when their body tells them to get up and then go to sleep when the body wants to go to sleep. But I think the night ELLs are the ones that tend to push it. And there’s a lot of things that happen in our culture that only happen at night. So, you know, the bar scene, you know, as an example, I used to live in Montreal and nothing opened until 11 o’clock at night. And so I was tired of all of that stuff. And it yeah, it really pushes you into night L territory.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah. I, I’ve noticed definitely that my studying does improve when one, when I sleep consistently, but two, when I do follow my body clock. So if I can avoid those 8:00 AM classes and actually take a nine or a 10:00 AM class instead, so that I can stay up until, like you said, like midnight, just, that’s just my happy place. And even when I studied for the bar exam, everyone takes the 8:00 AM class. They go from eight to noon and they studied the rest of the day at the very last minute I withdrew and I took the night class and it was kind of, you know, considered a bad move at the time. You know, it was, nobody did things online. So it was, and that was kind of almost like you were taking it remote online, like it wasn’t in-person. And so yeah, it was considered second rate, but I just, I’m more at my peak between six to 10:00 PM instead of eight to noon. So, and it ended up working great. I was able to get up and start studying on time without having to leave my house.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So it was, yeah. And that sounds like a wise decision. So, you know, if your chronotype isn’t the so-called norm, you know, how society is working, if you can adapt your life to, to fit it, that is the ideal thing. So for you, you know, you’re studying in the evening and then getting up at a time that feels right for your body is, is exactly the right thing to do. And that’s the other problem for, for night owls in our society is that usually I have to get up earlier than they would want to, or be able to given the time that they tend to fall asleep. And so then a night owl can be chronically sleep deprived for that reason. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
There’s definitely a few courthouses that are a long traffic drive from home. And, you know, when I do have to drive there, it is tough.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
So yes. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
For those who are suffering from actual insomnia, I know you said you work with those people. How long does it take them to get back into a regular, healthy, sleeping pattern?
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, there’s a certain amount of variation on that. Everyone’s different. Some people can do it fairly quickly and it’s a, it’s a matter of changing mental habits and or mental patterns and then behaviors as well. So some people are more able to do that than others, or depending on what kind of mental patterns you have. So within Samia basically, and learn sleep your body knows how to sleep, but it’s your mind a buddy’s unlearned that you’ve kind of trained it, maybe through these, you know, what we’ve just discussed is all these in positions from society or different things like that, that have trained poor sleep. And so the person with insomnia has also gotten to a situation where they, they want to sleep, but they can’t sleep. So go to bed and their brain will not stop.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
They can’t relax, they can’t stop their mind from racing. And then they try harder. And that’s kind of what we’ve learned is to try harder when something doesn’t work to try harder. It’s the worst thing to do is sleep because it doesn’t respond to that. It’s the opposite we have to learn to surrender. So it kind of depends. And answer your question, how long I’d say from six weeks to three months in terms of, you know, what you know, needs to happen in terms of the mental patterns and the physical habits to, to get out of that insomnia. And then, then there’s a shift. Okay. You know, from insomnia to not having insomnia, being able to sleep through the night, getting better quality sleep. And then there’s that after part of actually maintaining it, maintaining these new ways, these new routines, these new mental patterns. So that’s kind of another phase to it.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Wow. That’s just so much faster than I would’ve thought though. So that’s amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah. Yeah, because it’s something that’s so severe. So it feels like I’m being trapped, you know in, in this situation I, myself had insomnia, which is actually why I chose to help people asleep. So I know exactly what it’s like. And I, and I got into that situation when I was a student and got to you know, I just wasn’t able to sleep at all. And, and when you’re in that place, you’re, you’re, you’re just mystified. Like why, you know, I could couldn’t, I was able to do this at one time. Everybody else around me seems to be able to do the simple thing, but I can’t, why not. And, and it, it does feel like a trap and it’s really helpful to be guided out of the trap and to get into a place where you’re able to sleep again.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, for sure. I, I know my senior year in high school, I had insomnia and I think since then I haven’t had that. Cause I’ve just been so overworked that I just crash. So not that that’s any healthier, but what I do know what it’s like to lay there hour after hour. And I would just, you know, listen to the radio or I had, you know, my tapes back in the day of, you know, the relaxing music. Yeah. That’s helpful. Yeah. But I would sometimes listen to that tape twice, you know, it would just keep going around and it’s just, yeah, it’s a horrible pattern to get into where you’re like, what else can I be doing? And yeah, people do head towards the medication you referred to earlier and, and it becomes a trap as well, where at night we’re medicating, whether it’s a natural medication or not, you know, it could be natural, but still you’re putting something in there to help your body. And then in the morning you’re putting in the caffeine. So then your body is in this like four state at all times, do you help people also get away from even some of that natural stuff?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah. So, you know, what I help people with is to really naturally be able to use their mind differently and to be in charge of their behaviors. I feel like that is really empowering when you, and it affects so many different aspects of your life. So I call it mental mastery. So when you have mental mastery and you’ve applied it to sleep, you can apply it to other things and you can be so much more effective just in your life. So these, these new behaviors and practices that people learn, you know, have this ripple out effect in terms of, you know, that sort of self-medication, whether it’s a prescription medication or an over the counter kind of thing, it’s really a crutch that actually is, is it’s a coping. There’s a lot of different coping mechanisms that we use to try and just function and manage through life.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
But they’re not ideal. They’re not even something like melatonin really it’s been shown that melatonin can be helpful for, for jet lag, but it’s actually not really doing much for sleep. We really need to activate our natural melatonin, which is, you know, our brain makes it and it makes it exactly when we need it. So getting into habits that really make that happen is so much more effective than taking a substance. You could be taking it out at the wrong time, but anyhow, it actually doesn’t really, there might be a placebo effect, you know, where if you’re taking something so you, so you’re relaxed, there’s that aspect, but in terms of what it, what melatonin just sort of singling out one thing does it’s it’s not really effective if you have insomnia. So, and, and then the prescription medications are meant for short-term and they’re effective over the short term, but over the term, they, they stop being effective. Your body gets habituated and then you have this kind of groggy feeling the day after. So they’re, they’re, they’re not a good solution either. Yeah. I was reading on
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Your blog about how yet we’ve kind of messed with our body chemistry and, and through a lot of different ways. And the article I was reading on was about, you know, light pollution and, you know, even like pollution in our own homes. And, you know, cause I’ve thought about light pollution as far as the city goes, but not, you know, as far as nature goes, but not as far as my own home and my own melatonin production and all that. And so I thought, you know, I think I’m going to try to start, you know, it’s, it’s more for my kids because they like lights on in every single room, right. There can be no shadows in the house at nighttime. And I I’m like, maybe I need to like have softer lights
Speaker 3 (18:16):
On at night. Yeah. They move them. Yeah. Get them slowly
Speaker 2 (18:21):
A new normal. Yeah. Because that is affecting them and children need more sleep as you age, you need less sleep. So obviously infants need lots and children need, you know, a bit less than an infant and teenagers need more than an adult. And so you really, it’s, it’s so essential for, for the developing brain as well as, you know, maintaining a healthy brain as an adult. So yeah, for your children, I’d really recommend that don’t mess with their melatonin. So probably as you probably read about blue light. So I think more and more people becoming aware of that, that blue light is a particularly difficult thing for our night time. And so we never encountered blue light in nature. And so the way our body’s been designed in a sense to, to release the right hormones, to tell her, you know, our bodies, what to do.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
We have two different ways of operating in the day and the night and our bodies function completely differently accordingly. And so at night there’s melatonin, which you’re talking about as a supplement is what triggers the body’s nighttime physiology. It’s, it’s a completely different thing. And it sort of tells the whole body how it should be operating and sets up all the messages to go to sleep. So so that’s so important for, you know, no matter what age you are to really have you know, low light at night, not have screams to, to really eliminate that blue light when, when your melatonin needs to start coming online.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah. I was loving your blog. So I highly recommend everybody go check that out because it had their brief there to the point, but they have a lot of good point. Everyone has a different topic obviously. And I just learned a lot just by reading a handful of articles. So that’s great. And thank you for saying
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Here that,
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So now law students, not all law schools are the same, but most of them, your grades a hundred percent base on one final. Oh, there’s no midterms, there’s no papers. Oh. And so you’re, yeah, you’re doing this very fast paced, slow and steady kind of thing. You know, where you’re supposed to be studying from day one for this one day and, and then it’s graded on a curve. So even if you do your best, you know, you’d never know how you’re going to end up. So of course students start yeah. Over caffeinating and under sleep being and whatever patterns of good sleep and so forth and nutrition they were doing at the beginning of the semester may start falling apart. So do you have any suggestions on how to kind of maintain as best you can that sleep and that rhythm through that chaotic period?
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah. Hard, especially because, and you’re describing a very particular aspect of society where there’s a certain pattern that emerges and there’s loads of those things that kind of bias us to in a way where we’re really compromising our sleep and that that’s really awful, that situation that you’re describing. So the first thing is really to know that you’re going to do your best with ample sleep and that sleep is actually creating it’s it’s when your body creates or your mind creates those memories and learning. It’s when your memories go from short-term storage to long-term storage. So if you are not sleeping then you’re not getting the benefit of that. So, so just that knowledge is helpful to know that you can’t really over time compromise your sleep and really do as well. So you may still, you know, people, I’m sure students have done terrible things with their sleep and managed through the exam.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I’m sure that’s happened, but you’re not going to do your best. So if you think of yourself more as like an athlete you know, how would you train as an athlete? It’s the same mentality. And, and so, you know, if you sort of think of an athlete, an athlete, isn’t going to, let’s just imagine it’s a marathon. You know, it’s a similar idea of this exam and athlete. Isn’t going to just compromise their routines in order to get to this, this event and this day of, of a marathon. No, they’re, they’re going to do everything they can to optimize their body and their mind. So as a, as a law student, you still want to do that. You still want to think of your body and your mind as optimizing it all the time so that you can do your best at the end.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
And I totally know it’s easier said than done, but one of the key things is to maintain a routine and to decide what is your, your bedtime, what is your wake time and just make that a ritual in your life that you’re not going to mess around with and how, you know, how to be most efficient during wake-up time rather than trying to encroach on your sleep time and B how to study better, how, you know, there’s all these tools to be more efficient with your time when you are awake, rather than try to have more time, but not sleeping. Yes. Okay. So
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Hillary, if people want to work with you, how does that work? You know, what’s the schedule like, cause I know a lot of the listening are students or they’re busy workers, so, you know, how much time does it take to work with you? How does that whole thing work?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Well, if someone has inside to help people that are just not, you know, doing their ideal sleep, you know, they just have poor sleep patterns, but I’ll just talk about insomnia at the moment. So if someone has insomnia, meaning that they they’re trying to sleep, they can’t sleep. And this has been going on for a little while. Then I start with a consultation and it’s, it’s, I don’t charge for the consultation. It’s just to see where they’re at, what the, if they’re a good candidate for it, the approach that I use. And so the approach that I use is called cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. And it’s really considered the first line of defense against him, Sonia, and it’s much more efficacious than medications. And I use, I bring in other pieces, I, I work with energy psychology and I also come from a functional medicine background.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So, so I look at these other aspects. But the core thing with, with insomnia is to to use cognitive and behavioral therapy. So your mind cognitive and behavioral. So the, the therapy part is really just changing those things. Looking at what’s the root cause of insomnia and changing those that, that thing at root cause. And that’s why it’s so effective. That’s why once you’ve learned this it’s for life, you’ve addressed it at root cause maybe things in life would, would change. And, and you’d find yourself backsliding, but you know what to do. So I start with this this consult, make sure the PR you know, it’s the right match that the person who’s booked me is, is a good match, you know, a good candidate for this treatment. And then, and then we worked together one-on-one once a week and I set up as a eight week program so that you know, we, we, we meet for 15 minutes, there’s homework to do in the in-between we track sleep. We look at what’s going on with, with, with sleep, with the person’s sleep and each week there’s, there’s something new to bring in. So, so over time, there’s like a, a basket of tools that are there and a shift in, in, in habits, mental and physical habits.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
That sounds great. Awesome. Okay. So if they do want to work with you, where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Well, my website is called asleep@last.com. So I sleep a S L E E p@last.com. And so they, they can, they can find me there if they click on the start here button they’ll take them to where they can book for a consult if they feel they have insomnia and we can take it from there. Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Well, thank you so much for your advice today. I really appreciate your time. Okay. Before we get into my top takeaways, a quick word from our sponsor, do you know if you need to take out student loans, check in with Juno first, do you know, can often offer law students one to 2% lower interest rates than the federal government and with no origination fees and oftentimes cash back as well. Visit advisor.legal learning center.com for sash Juno. For more information, my top takeaways from this chat with Hillary number one, sleep problems can cause both short-term problems like focus and long-term problems like depression. Number two, consistent adequate sleep can help you get the good grades. That kind of goes along with what I just said, but just make sure you’re doing it. Number three, if you have sleep issues, including insomnia, it can be gone forever in just a few months. Now the full transcript is available at legallearningcenter.com/asleepatlast, the show notes will be there as well. And if you learned something today, if you benefited at all, I would really appreciate if you would go over to iTunes or Spotify and just leave a review, let others know what you think of the show. It helps us help more people. Thanks.
