Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
Dr. Leah Kaylor, Ph.D., MSCP: Mastering Sleep for Peak Mental Health
In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Dr. Leah Kaylor, Ph.D., MSCP, a leading expert in sleep science and mental health, to uncover the critical role of sleep in optimizing mental health, cognitive performance, and emotional resilience. Together, they debunk the most common sleep myths, highlight the dangers of modern technology on sleep hygiene, and explore the serious impact of sleep deprivation—especially among military personnel and high-performing individuals.
Dr. Kaylor shares her personal journey into sleep medicine, explains the direct link between poor sleep and mental health challenges like anxiety and depression, and discusses the hidden dangers of relying on alcohol and sleep aids. The conversation also focuses on practical, evidence-based strategies for building healthier sleep habits, improving daily performance, and protecting long-term brain health.
If you're looking for ways to optimize your sleep, mental clarity, and overall well-being, this episode offers actionable advice you don't want to miss.
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Chapters
00:00 The Importance of Sleep in Our Lives
02:45 Dr. Leah's Journey into Sleep Medicine
06:01 Understanding Sleep and Its Functions
09:03 Myth Busting: Sleep Misconceptions
12:12 Practical Tips for Better Sleep
15:07 The Role of Naps and Sleep Pressure
26:51 The Importance of Sleep in Performance
29:02 Understanding Sleep Deprivation and Its Effects
32:51 Establishing Healthy Sleep Routines
38:04 The Connection Between Sleep and Mental Health
44:28 Avoiding Dangerous Sleep Aids
48:17 Exploring Alternative Therapies for Sleep Issues
Instagram: @securityhalt
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Follow Dr. Kaylor on LinkedIn and follow her on social media today!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-kaylor-ph-d-mp-rxp-a75497222/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuck.p.ritter/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrLeahKaylor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drleahkaylor
Website: https://www.drleahkaylor.com/
Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent, it's hosted by me, Denny Caballero.
Speaker 2:Dr Leah Kaler. Welcome to Secure your Health Podcast. How's it going?
Speaker 3:I'm good. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I cannot pass up an opportunity to speak to somebody that is a professional in the world of sleep, as I always talk about it. We get brought up is a professional in the world of sleep, as I always talk about it. We get brought up in this culture, in the military, that sleep is a reward and you have to earn it, and we're always compromising that one aspect of our lives that, if we actually prioritize it, we could start feeling the benefits of restorative sleep, could start feeling better, functioning better, our memory can improve, and there's so many things are restorative sleep could start feeling better, functioning better, our memory can improve, and there's so many things that are tied to sleep, but we don't put an emphasis on it. So today, this is your episode. We're gonna dive into it.
Speaker 3:I'm so excited and that is why I wanted to get a chance to sit down and talk to you because my book that's coming out is called the Sleep Advantage advantage. It's all about all the advantages and the benefits that you can take if you actually give your body the opportunity and the chance to get the sleep that it truly needs and deserves to be able to perform at your peak performance yeah, absolutely, and it's not about these little cat naps like we have to like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's so the the culture needs to change around sleep and we need to slay and kill the kill the myths. Um, and and I'm so excited to have you here today because there's a little bit of truth in every um you know influencer out there talking about it, but there's a lot of misconceptions. There's a lot of things that are out there that are just like something as simple as magnesium, but not championing the right type of magnesium and then not giving the actually informed information. It's just, you find all these little sound bites in these clips and it's like, oh, I'm going to put this stuff out there and it's great, but today, like having you on here, it gives that extra oomph of like, power and authority that we need.
Speaker 3:Good, yeah, I'm so excited. I agree with you. I think that sleep is becoming a little bit more trendy right now, which I'm very excited about. This is something that I've been trying to champion for several years now, and yet you're exactly right. There are things that I'm hearing about where I'm like, no like. Please, please, please. Let's get back to the basics. Let's get back to basic sleep hygiene. I'm not trying to peddle or sell you supplements or this or that or a smart bed, even though I do have one and I love it. We have been sleeping since the dawn of human time. We don't need all these gadgets and all these different things. We need to give our body the opportunity to rest, because it knows how to do it already.
Speaker 2:Well, let's dive into your background for a little bit. Let's take it back to where Leah got this idea that this is where she was going to become a professional in.
Speaker 3:You know that's a great question and I wish that I could remember. So my interest in sleep started. Well, I was at the Memphis VA Medical Center. That's where I did my residency from 2018 to 2019.
Speaker 3:And I wish that I could go back in time and remember if I even wanted the sleep rotation. But that's what I ended up getting is that we were there and we had all of our interns and all of our postdocs and we all had to go into a room together and no one's coming out until we figure out and everyone is relatively happy with all the rotations that they're going to get for that particular year and, like I knew some of the rotations that I definitely wanted at that point in time and I still am very forensic focused so those were the rotations that I wanted and I ended up walking out with sleep as one of my rotations and again, I wish I could remember if that was one of the ones that I even cared about or was interested in but, nonetheless, that's where I spent a fair amount of time during my rotation or, excuse me, on my internship year, and I ended up falling in love with it.
Speaker 3:I learned how to do treatment for insomnia. I did sleep hygiene classes, where a lot of people inevitably fell asleep on me, which is fine, and you know, my veterans were very sleep deprived. I learned how to treat nightmares just a lot of really interesting things, and but I think that I got a really really good foundational understanding of why sleep is so important and how many things it touches, because that is, it touches everything. I mean, there's really not a thing that I can think of that sleep doesn't touch. And so that is where it all started.
Speaker 3:And then I joined the FBI. I am a clinical psychologist for them, everything that I'm going to say here today are my own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, biases, whatever, but I've been their sleep expert for over five years now, and one of the very first days whenever I started with the Bureau was hey, what would you like to start presenting on? And I said sleep, because everyone has sleep issues, and I think that it is. You know, whenever we talk about mental health, whether that's law enforcement, whether that's military, whether that's our society in general. I think there's still some stigma around it, and so I said I want to start with sleep, because I think that everyone, no matter who you are, can relate to having sleep issues at some point in your life. Whether that is because you've got chronic pain, whether that's because you have a new baby, everyone can relate to having crap sleep at some point in their life, and so that is where I wanted to touch people and bring them in and then later, maybe if they were interested in moving more into other mental health topics and things like that.
Speaker 3:But that was where I wanted to meet people, where they were at, and bring them in, and so it quickly, quickly took off and I do sleep presentations, probably about once a month. I go all over the country and it's just something that I'm very passionate about, and I think that a lot of people just brush it off to the side, maybe think that they have had crap sleep for years and years and there's nothing more that they can do, or they think that they know everything that there is to know about sleep and getting good sleep, and you know that's just not in the cards for them, and I like to make my presentations very engaging, like a lot of myth busting, just like what you said, to let people know, know there are things that you can do and you can start doing them today to begin to get better sleep, but it is a commitment it is. And what are your priorities?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's also important to understand that it's an aspect of our lives that we don't understand and we're constantly looking for ways to improve our life.
Speaker 2:If we just stop and look at the basics, like the basic principles of how we operate through our day in and day out, you realize that the basic building blocks of our day-to-day life we can enhance them and that's going to pay out in higher dividends and spending money on more apps, more watches, and it's like if we just focused on what we're eating, what we're putting in our body, the amount of time we're spending outside in the actual sunlight, instead of this studio lighting, and then monitor our sleep a little better, we can start actually getting back like you'll feel better, you'll perform better, our metabolism, everything's tied in those into our sleep and and I didn't understand it until I got to this this world of like okay, like I don't want to be a broken veteran. So how do I overcome all these things? How do I get better? And sleep is that final piece, because your brain's always working. You're always thinking when does it rest.
Speaker 3:Yes, and you know, I think that that's one huge misconception. If we're going to do some myth busting is that I think people think about sleep as like wasted time or and and truly it is not. A lot of people think that you know, when you turn off the light switch to go to bed, that your brain and body also turn off, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Your brain and we're talking specifically about REM sleep, rapid eye movement when we're in REM if you were to put a cap with electrodes on someone's brain and they're in REM sleep and then also put a cap with electrodes on someone else's brain and they're awake, they're actively problem solving. Those brain waves look incredibly similar. That is how active the brain is at night, and so this is not, while it is a time of rest and there are a lot of really important recovery things that are happening throughout the night and throughout the various stages of sleep it is not a time that is wasted or that is not useful or not necessary. That couldn't be farther from the truth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other thing I didn't know is everything in your body has time to like, process and go through. Functions of removing waste, and that happens in the brain when you sleep. Functions of removing waste and that happens in the brain when you sleep.
Speaker 3:This is like you are touching on all of my very favorite pieces. So a lot of times, whenever I go to a conference and my presentation is one of the many in the lineup and you don't have an option to go to a different breakout, a lot of people I think are kind of like whatever, like I'll just sit here, I'll zone out, and so I hit them with this at the very beginning. Like I'll just sit here, I'll zone out, and so I hit them with this at the very beginning. And so what I will say and this is the truth is that one of the incredible functions of your brain and this is when we give it the proper amount of time to be sleeping at night is that your brain shrinks up and it allows cerebral spinal fluid to come up and to basically give it, like a little car wash, to come through and to get rid of all the junk, the misfolded proteins, the things that need to be cleaned out, and then it takes it away as waste.
Speaker 3:This should be happening every night. It's very important that this happens every night. I like to think about this, as whenever you put your trash out, today, for me it's trash day, and I'm very happy that my waste management, people came and they took it away. But if we were to continue to put the trash out there and no one came to take it away, it's going to pile up, it's going to start to stink, maybe we're going to have rodents, we're going to have problems. The waste needs to be taken away and it's the same thing in the brain. If we are not allowing our brain to do this very important waste management function, we start to have a buildup of toxins.
Speaker 3:And this is where I get everyone's attention is these toxins are often associated with neurodegenerative disorders, like the umbrella term of dementia, alzheimer's, these you'll often hear words like tangles and plaques and beta amyloids, these when we are not allowing that waste to be removed, that is what we are contributing to, and I want to be very clear when I say this. I'm not saying poor sleep automatically equals you will automatically get dementia. I am not saying that. I'm saying that you are setting yourself up for potentially neurodegenerative disorders in the future, in combination with lots of other factors and genetics that all come into play. However, you ought to be doing yourself a favor and being taken as best possible care of your brain as you can, because it's with you for the long haul.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And we do a horrible job of framing it that way. We do a horrible job of stating that your sleep is crucial to your brain health. It's never addressed that way and the biggest pushback that I get is well, I can't sleep, I just can't sleep. And how do we begin to address that issue? I know because I I do suffer from insomnia and it is. It is something that, like it, can creep back in with your if you get out of your habits. It is something that you have to be able to work at. It's not something's going to go away just by just wishing it to go away. You have to take action, and that's the missing piece. And it to go away? You have to take action, and that's the missing piece. And if we're talking to that point and addressing that to the folks at home, like how, what are some things we can start doing today to address the sleep issue?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that you are hitting the nail on the head, right, like we have to do something. If we're getting poor sleep and we're not making any changes, well then no changes are going to happen. So some basic, easy things. So we'll start with some basic, easy things and then we'll kind of move through. What you do in the daytime can really impact how you sleep. What you do in the evening and closer to bed can really impact the way that you sleep. So what I would say first is, with the easiest pieces, as we're starting to get into our evening routine right now, where the sun, where I live right now, is kind of setting around like seven 30, which is which is lovely. You know, it was very depressing whenever it's setting at like 4 PM, 4 30, like goodness gracious. But one of the things that we can do is to realign and strengthen our circadian rhythm is, if we have the luxury of being able to watch the sunset, that's fantastic for our circadian rhythm. If we don't have the luxury of being able to do that, I get it.
Speaker 3:Then dimming the lights in our environment. That's super duper simple. You don't have a dimmer switch? Okay, turn off the overheads and just turn on a lamp. These are very simple, easy cues where the brain is start to getting information. Okay, like the sun is setting.
Speaker 3:And with this we kind of need to rewind. We need to go back to our caveman ancestors, because, even though it has been millennia, our brains are still the same brains and our circuitry is still very much the same. So if we think about our caveman ancestor, how do they know when it was time to be awake, the sun went up, and how did they know whenever it was time to go to sleep, the sun went down. And so we still have that same brain and that same circuitry. That seems so incredibly simple and that we should have moved past that with all of the advances and all the technology that we have. However, that's not true at all, and so whenever we are doing simple things like keeping all of our overheads on or all of our really bright lights around us on until it's time for us to go to bed, that's confusing to the brain. We want to be able to create this environment where we're starting to dim the lights. So that's one very simple thing.
Speaker 3:Going hand in hand with that, so we're getting a little bit more advanced would also be screens and blue light. And the reason for this? Because I think everyone has heard this blue light, blah, blah, blah. The reason for this? Because I like weaving science into everything so you can understand. Blue light that is emitted from our laptops, from our iPads, from the television, from the phone that we're holding very close up to our face, that emits blue light.
Speaker 3:Blue light is the same wavelength as sunlight, so what we're doing is, instead of letting the brain know, hey, it's time to settle down, the sun is setting and going with that dimming of the environment, instead, whenever we have all these screens in our face and it's producing blue light, the blue light is getting into the eyes, going back to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, going back to the pineal gland, and it's saying oh wait, there's sunlight coming in. Stop the melatonin. Okay, we also need to clarify melatonin is a naturally occurring chemical that your body makes. It's not just the gummy at your local big box store. Melatonin is a naturally occurring chemical that your body makes and that is how our body knows that it's time to wind down, it's time to start feeling sleepy, it's time to yawn, the eyelids are getting heavy. So we're doing ourselves a disservice when we are using screens and blue light very close to bedtime because it's confusing the brain and it's making it think that we should be alert and awake, because it's interpreting it as sunlight.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I realize that that's challenging. I realize that a lot of people like to wind down with television or with watching their favorite funny cat videos or whatever. I get that I understand, and everyone is going to need something to wind down and just kind of decompress from their day. Everyone is going to need something to wind down and just kind of decompress from their day. But I'm here to just talk about a lot of different potential strategies and give you information. One of my catchphrases, I feel like, is you don't know. What you don't know, and I think that that's a huge piece when it comes to sleep is that, yeah, maybe you knew that blue light wasn't good, but now you know why blue light isn't good. So let me pause there, cause I'm very verbose, and let me ask if you have any questions, and then we can keep going on with other ways that people can.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. This is. This is your episode, doc. We got, we keep going, but it's. It's one thing that I I always hear from people is the, the, the pushback to the TV and the cell phone, um, phone, um, and I, I too, when I was hearing that from the doctors, as she was explaining to me, like cbti for, uh, insomnia, it one of the things was like leave your phone outside and if you're constantly drawn to your phone, leave it outside the bedroom. Like we forget that there's such a thing as reading a book, a paper book. We forget that. Like, okay, you want to do an activity. Most people have a couch or a chair in their living room. Sit in that chair, read a book. When you get tired, then go to bed. But it's like having the discipline, having the discipline to choose the thing, because what's the overall objective? To get better. Okay, I want to get better, I have to do these things.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and I think one of the things that you're also touching upon that's going to be very important for people is you just mentioned you have a couch, go on the couch and read, and this is a big problem that I see. So normally and this is this all started at the VA I would have a big whiteboard and in the middle of my whiteboard I would write bed, and I will ask my veterans okay, so what is it that you are doing in bed? And you know I get a lot of funny responses, but it's true, a lot of people are scrolling, they're watching Netflix, they're talking to their partner, they're playing with their pet, they're I. People tell me that they're eating, that they're paying bills, that they're doing work, emails, like all kinds of things, are coming up. And here's the thing Again the brain is our most complex device in the entire universe, but also it can be very simple sometimes too, and this is where it gets to be really simple, whenever I have this diagram of bed in the middle, and then we have scrolling and reading, and playing with the pet and watching funny videos, and we have all these different things that are being associated with the bed.
Speaker 3:Your brain wants to get into bed and it thinks I have all these exciting things that I can be doing. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I have so many options, so many exciting things, and so the brain has an entire menu of options whenever it gets into bed. What we really need to be doing is restricting the bed to the three S's. Yes, you know this, and this is a big piece of CBTI Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia. The three S's are sleep, sex and sickness. Those are the three things that you should be doing in bed and that, when we erase all these other things, we are creating a significantly stronger association between bed and sleep.
Speaker 3:I think that this is a relatively easy option for people like take all of your activities, even if you don't want to cut them out. If you want to keep your screens, do that somewhere else. At least save the bed for sleep, sex and sickness. You should be sleeping every night. I don't know how often you're getting lucky. And then, with regard to sickness, hopefully that doesn't happen to you very often.
Speaker 3:The reason why we say sickness is because I'm not someone who is a big proponent of naps, and that's a whole nother conversation. However, when you can feel that you're fighting something off, when you kind of know that you're starting to feel like the beginning twinge of a cold. Listen to your body, get that extra rest, do what it is that you need to do to fight that off. Because, again, sleep is very highly connected to the immune system and we can also talk about that too. But when we restrict all these other activities to somewhere else and we really focus on sleep and bed, that's when we're going to be creating the strongest association possible and that's what we really, really want to be doing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And another thing to go off that that I always hear from the people that want to champion the idea that I can sleep anywhere when I want, like it's not that important. I take naps. Whenever I can get downtime, I take a nap. Sleep and a nap are very different. And they are not the same.
Speaker 2:Come to find out. We feel like, oh man, I feel great, it feels great. And you continue this cycle of just taking naps in your car during lunch break, and then you continue and continue. And it's this cycle of just taking naps in your car during lunch break, and then you continue and continue, and it's a cycle that continues. You stay up late, you can't function, doze off during lunchtime, and then you tell yourself, well, I'm functioning, when the reality is, and I have a feeling you're going to tell us it's actually not the best thing for us.
Speaker 3:And I think what you just said right there is I'm functioning, okay, but functioning is a spectrum Are you functioning well or are you functioning and I encourage you to be very honest with yourself about this. But yes, 100%. So I will. This is always a big part of my sleep talks is naps, and I'll ask people who likes to nap, and inevitably we get a lot of nappers. You will read tons of things out on the internet. There are tons of research studies out there. I'm going to tell you what I think and do with it what you will. That's what I have to say.
Speaker 3:When it comes to sleep, you should be the normal, average, healthy sleeper should be going through various different cycles of sleep throughout the night. You'll be going through light sleep. You'll be going through various different cycles of sleep throughout the night. You'll be going through light sleep, you'll be going through deep sleep, you'll be going through REM sleep, and each sleep cycle lasts 50 to 90 minutes and you'll normally go through several complete cycles a night. Like I said, each of those cycles does something really important. Like we talked about REM, the brain is shrinking. That's coming up with the cerebral spinal fluid. It's getting this brain car wash. But whenever we talk about deep sleep, this is super important for all the wear and tear and micro damage that our body has, and so that is where it gets the opportunity to go in and to kind of like repair what's happening so we can continue to function and protect ourselves from injury. So lots of different functionings are happening.
Speaker 3:Now, whenever you get a nap here for 20 minutes or 40 minutes over here, people will ask me oh well, what stage of sleep am I in when I'm in a nap? I don't know, I'm not sure it depends. You know, how exhausted are you? How much time are you giving your body? Because, yeah, there's just so many different things that come with napping that it's just kind of mysterious. Whereas if you're giving your body the amount of time that it needs which for adults that's anywhere between seven to nine hours of sleep per night, then we can more predictably know that you're going to be going through these various different sleep cycles. Again, if you don't already have a known sleep disorder, and we can guarantee, or at least have a really good idea, that the brain is going to do and the body is going to do what it needs to throughout the night so that you can wake up feeling really rested. And one thing I'll say, even though I'm telling you that I'm not a proponent of naps, and I stand by that if you are in a situation where you're very sleepy, you're behind the wheel, you are operating heavy machinery stop, go, take a nap, for your own safety, for the safety of others, however. So I want to put that disclaimer out there.
Speaker 3:But when we get to the point where we are awake all day long and then our sleep pressure, also known as adenosine, builds up, then we have enough sleep pressure or sleep drive to sleep throughout the night. When you are taking naps here and there throughout the day for various different lengths of time, maybe more than one nap then things get a little screwed up. Our sleep pressure isn't the way that it should. So what should be happening is we sleep throughout the night, we wake up, our sleep pressure, our adenosine, should be very low, and then it should build and build and build and should be very low, and then it should build and build and build and build all day long, and then that is where we feel, at the end of the day very tired, sleepy, fatigued. Eyes are heavy, yawning, like all these signs that you're.
Speaker 3:I like to call it the wave of sleepiness. We need to ride. That wave of sleepiness is what we need to do, but a lot of times we don't do that. But let me go back to someone who naps throughout the day. So if you are awake, your adenosine should be building, or AKA your sleep pressure. But if you take a nap, then that adenosine is going to dip down because you're not having as much sleep pressure. You gave your body some sleep, so by the time that it should be your bedtime. A lot of people struggle then with being able to fall asleep or sleep being fragmented or just not very high quality sleep. It's because the sleep pressure isn't built up the way that it should be. So one easier way to think about this is I love Thanksgiving and I love like I will fast all day long until it's time for.
Speaker 3:Thanksgiving dinner Cause I want to freaking load up Like I'm. This is the day where I will endorse binging and I will be a part of this. Like I want to crush it. I want everything on my plate. I want to make room for dessert, Like it's the American way, damn it.
Speaker 3:I've, I'm here for it, and so that's the way that I like to think about sleep, and getting a good night's sleep is staying awake all day long and then preparing yourself to have a really good night's rest. Now, if we are, it's Thanksgiving day and we're having a snack here, we're having a snack there, maybe we're even having like breakfast or lunch. Those snacks are like naps, so depending upon how long your nap was, what time of the day the nap was, this is going to impact how hungry you are for your Thanksgiving dinner or how much sleep pressure you are going to have for a good night's rest. And so I like that analogy, because then people will start to get a little bit better of an understanding of like oh okay, I see how I'm getting in my own way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we tend to think that we can have our cake and eat it too. In reality, as folks stay awake, um, it's hard and I get it. I was there, I lived in that. That mentality of like sleep's a crutch, like no, it's not like the, that is like the dumbest thing is we breed it into our culture where it's like if you make this ruck, if you get to the patrol base, you might get sleep. If you don't, you're not gonna get asleep. And it's like it pays to be a champion, it pays to be a winner, so we win, we'll get sleep, and it's the end of the day like we're just sleep deprived zombies. And it's like I get it.
Speaker 2:It's needed for like the selection process. It's needed for like the pain and the misery of a high performing you selection process to become an elite member of SEALs, green Berets, rangers. But when you get into the force, you have to look at everything as is it going to enhance my performance or is it going to limit my performance. And that's what we have to change. It's not about changing you know the way we we assess and train. Like going through hard things, like ranger school is still going to suck. Guys, I can't help you with that Special forces selection assessment still going to suck.
Speaker 2:You go to jungle school. It's going to suck On the backside of it for your normal life and then when you're going into training and preparing for your next mission and your deployment, this is where the stuff comes in. It's about understanding that now you're a performance athlete. Welcome to the elite, welcome to the US military. Now you have to look at your performance, and it starts with sleep, and then we can start the conversation with okay, if I don't prioritize it, how else am I going to suffer? And I will tell you that your rest of your body and your performance is going to suffer too. The two areas that I like to focus on to like let people know, like hey, this is going to help you out big time is your performance cognitively. It's been measured like your ability to focus and retain data is insanely affected, and I want you to get into this with us and let us know the science behind that.
Speaker 3:I think that you're making an excellent point, and so this is very exciting for me, because just this week I started writing my second book, which is the Sleep Advantage, but it's the military edition.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, yes, it's so exciting and I'm in there, oh nice.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's so exciting and you know I'm in there we know about sleep deprivation, but I talk specifically about Sears School and we purposefully do sleep deprivation and there's a point behind the training and this is exactly what you talked about. However, that's not how we live our lives and that's not how we should live our lives. This is a very specific, time limited training that you will have in your back pocket if the worst of the worst happens, and you will hopefully be able to function as best as you possibly can because you've had this training. However, this is not a way of life now. This is not what it should be.
Speaker 3:So, whenever we are thinking about sleep deprivation and this sounds ridiculous, but the research out there and the bodies that be, with regard to those who put out information on sleep and sleep research consider less than six hours to be sleep deprivation, and I'm sure people are like, oh my God, they're rolling their eyes. They're like, oh, that's hysterical. I haven't gotten six hours of sleep and I can't tell you when. But really think about it. We use sleep deprivation as a torture technique.
Speaker 3:Just let that sink in, and when we're sleep deprived, things go off the rails. Whenever we are sleep deprived for only 24 hours. And again, people are probably laughing that this is something that happens to them on the regular, based on their job, their position, life demands. I get it. When that happens, you are at a level not that you are intoxicated, but you're functioning at a level of very mild intoxication and that means that your reaction times are slowed, that your thinking is fuzzy, your ability to make decisions not so hot. There's a lot of things cognitively that are going wrong and if we continue to push that limit of 36 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, things go off the rails to the point where it looks like someone may be having a psychotic episode.
Speaker 2:Yep, I've seen it. I've seen it, and there's a lot of courses in the US military that require you to stay up super late some days back to back, and one of the things that you realize when you're in these courses is you see people change in their behavior and it's like if, and then you started looking at yourself like, okay, that guy's absolutely batshit crazy right now. How much longer before that's happening to me? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or am I too, and I just don't realize it yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. We start to see things that it yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely we start to see things that aren't there, we start to hear things that aren't there. That's what it's like to have a psychotic episode, and that is what we're inducing when we get to the point of pretty intense sleep deprivation yeah, it's not fun, folks, and and I I I'm speaking from, not somebody that's higher and almighty Look, I mess this up all the time.
Speaker 2:I currently can tell you there's two days this week where I will not be sleeping, but that doesn't mean that we don't self-correct when we can't Look, you gotta make deadlines happen. I get it. But stop operating in the deficit. Stop operating in this idea that you can just kick the can down the road and start prioritizing and understand like, okay, like you have a mission, a train up coming up and you're going to have to stay up super late. Don't let that become the habit. As soon as you rotate back, you're not in that training environment. Get back to your normal. That's the one thing that I see guys mess up so often is something happens, it's training or deployment. They come back home and, instead of just getting back into the discipline, they continue to let it get out of hand. And there are some great tools out there. What are some ways or what are some things that you recommend to help somebody establish that routine in that habit?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and one of the things that I want to mention before we jump into that is especially people who do any type of night shift or rotating shifts. So one of the things that we know from the World Health Organization is that when we are working a night shift, so basically the person is awake and working when they should be sleeping, and vice versa. When a person is on a shift like that, that is a known carcinogen.
Speaker 3:That means yeah that means that we know that this is something that has the potential to cause cancer.
Speaker 3:Again, I'm not saying that one necessarily causes the other, because, again, genetics, other dynamics come into play. However, we know that this is not good and this is not natural for the body. So I think that that speaks to your point of yeah, you may have this crazy week or this crazy day where you have to go, you have an early morning call out, you've got whatever going on. But getting back to that consistency and one of the if I could only talk to you for three minutes and I could only give you one tip it's not sexy, it's not exciting, but it's the best tip that I can give you is consistency. Going to bed at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every morning I know that that can be very challenging for people, just depending upon what their schedules look like, all the demands that they have on their time. However, that is one of the best possible things that you can do for your body is consistency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I champion that idea and we'll throw out to you, if you're listening, the idea that we have to stay up to like 10 or 11 pm sounds super attractive when you're young, let me tell you. Let me tell you the sweet spot when you get to bed at like 7 or 8 pm fucking amazing and then wake up earlier, like that is, that is the greatest. Like you have all sorts of influencers giving you like cheat codes for how to be a better and more successful person on earth, how to be the best salesman, read this book. Let me just tell you this Go to bed early. If you can go to bed at six, fuck hell. Yes, dog, you're going to be crushing it. Go to bed at 6 PM, wake up at four and and why I'm throwing this out it sounds ridiculous.
Speaker 2:At at in my twenties and early thirties I would have said you're stupid, denny. I want to go out and have a nightlife. I will tell you this Figure out your ideal sweet spot. Don't let somebody tell you Like for the longest time I was operating on just what other people were telling me and just going off that oh, I got to be in bed by this time. I have to wake up at this time, and if you're out of the military, even better. It's a perfect time for you to explore. And if you're out of the military, even better. It's a perfect time for you to explore.
Speaker 2:I realized that I function better when I can wake up early, and when I can wake up early I can do work. I don't have to worry about the rest of the world. The little one's still asleep, wife's asleep. That's prime time for you to do the things that you always wanted to do, like read that morning meditation, read your Bible, do your prayers, go to the gym, do all those things that are you centric, that you want to do for you. And the only way you get that is if you go to bed early, if you are able to beat the clock, get that rest you need. Because if you try it and yeah, I tried going to bed late and then waking up early that that deficit you're never going to beat. That You're never going to beat. That You're going to always be tired. You're going to be the most like trying to be productive, dude around with just giant bags and just always being that you're half ass productive, just like constantly behind the ball because your cognitive performance is directly linked to your sleep.
Speaker 3:It is pride myself on being very elderly at heart and like I'm in bed at nine and I have been for a very long time. But again, I practice what I preach. I'm very serious about my sleep hygiene. But another reason why I'm so serious about this and another book that I love and if you're very into science, why we Sleep, by Matthew Walker.
Speaker 3:He talks about specific hormones that are released at night and that they're only released at a very particular point in the night, and so if you're someone who's staying up until midnight, until one o'clock, well, sorry, you missed that window, and if you continue to keep missing that window, you're going to keep continuing to miss out on these very important hormones that are being released only during that very specific window in time. So I think that you've read this book before, or you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's something that we tend to think that hormones are this, uh, these magical, magical little fairies that only happen here, like it. It's not that you. You have hormones in your gut. The systems are connected and not getting the right amount of sleep and being sleep for the right amount of time. And that's why I said, like you gotta be, you gotta take ownership of this and you have to explore what your cycle is, what your best optimum sleep times are, because, I get it, some people don't need eight hours of sleep. But you got to figure that out, you got to take ownership of this problem. And hormones are important.
Speaker 2:Right now, everybody's talking about testosterone. We're always oh, testosterone, testosterone. It's not the only one you got to worry about. There's a whole slew of them, and if you're only worried about what you're testing, what your testosterone levels are, you're missing out on everything else. There's a whole slew of things that can help you feel better.
Speaker 2:We're now like we have a hyper-focus on anxiety and depression, and I would, you know, I would not be doing this podcast of service if we didn't talk about that, because those two are, are, are.
Speaker 2:I would say I would argue that anxiety and depression are probably the most prevalent right now within our force, in the wide military and within the civilian world as well. Well, what if I told you that if you actually addressed your sleep, you could actually be looking at improving both of those? If you're, if you're suffering from those and I'm not saying that's the only thing, um, I'm saying that it can help improve your feelings, it can help you feel a lot better, and it certainly is tied to depression and anxiety. And if you're not addressing it, you're not trying everything. If you really want to be a performance-driven individual, you have to try every single thing. So when we're looking at anxiety and depression in your background, how have you been able to see it manifest and quickly be addressed by just not only with medication, but also being able to focus on the sleep of the individual?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So as a clinical psychologist and then also a prescribing psychologist, so I do have the ability to prescribe mental health medications.
Speaker 3:Whenever it comes to mental health conditions, I get tons and tons of referrals for sleep issues, and I'm putting that into quotes, for those of you who are just listening, and what it turns out whenever I meet the person to go ahead and do some one-on-one sleep coaching or consulting, or putting together like an individualized plan for the person, we start to talk a little bit and then I'm like, oh, actually, you know what this is? Unaddressed anxiety, depression, trauma that is manifesting as a sleep issue, and that's probably nine times out of 10, what's actually happening. And here's the thing, though it's kind of like this weird chicken and the egg like cycle of if you're having anxiety and depression and it's untreated, well then it's going to make your sleep worse, because when you go to lay down okay, maybe your mind is racing, it's going to go through all the things that you did today, all the things that can go wrong. It's just going to like anxiety is going to start to snowball. Or again, when we're thinking about depression and anxiety and depression go hand in hand, they're best friends.
Speaker 3:So depression? Sometimes people will tell me I'm sleeping and I'm I'm sleeping for 10, 11, 12 hours, especially on the weekends, when people have more of a luxury to be able to do that and I'm like, okay, well, now we're getting into a territory of untreated depression, and one thing that I will clarify is everyone is going to look different whenever it comes to mental health concerns. So when we're looking at the DSM, which is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, that's like basically the book when I ever come to it.
Speaker 2:DSM-5, the standard.
Speaker 3:DSM-5, text revised now. And so when we're looking at that and it's describing either anxiety or depression, it can look like sleeping too much or sleeping too little, and we have very much a spectrum there. But oftentimes sleep is going to be impacted, and so when we're not addressing our mental health issues, it's manifesting as sleep. But when we're not taking care of our sleep issues either, our mental health is not getting any better. Because if we're not spending time and we talked about the various different stages, but REM is really really important for kind of almost like an emotional reset, if you will If we're not spending enough time in REM, we are not going to be able to have our emotions regulated.
Speaker 3:So think about whenever you've not gotten a great night's sleep maybe you didn't get as much sleep as you wanted Chances are you're feeling a little on edge, a little snippy. Maybe you're not your best self. That's when you don't have enough RAM, that your body hasn't had the time to do this emotional reset and kind of work through what it is it has, it's needed to work through. And so, yes, we we would be remiss if we didn't talk about how these go hand in hand, and you know also if we want to go down the road of nightmares too. That is your brain's way of attempting to process things that are very emotionally challenging.
Speaker 3:And when we have a nightmare especially if we're having a nightmare night after night after night after night and we can talk about specific treatments for that your brain is trying to help you, even though it might not seem like it, and I'm sure that that nightmare feels just never ending, and then it makes you maybe not want to go to sleep either, which is a whole nother problem. But whenever we're having nightmares, it's because we haven't addressed or processed whatever it is that we need to during the daytime. So when the brain switched over into nighttime, it's like okay, let's give it a different try, let's try and work through this during REM sleep, and our adrenaline and our cortisol are too high to be able to process it successfully, and that's why we're having nightmares. So we'll just leave that there. Well, nightmares, I think, is just a huge prevalent problem, and there are other ways to address that.
Speaker 3:If we want to go down that road, we can talk about that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, and and what I want to pause and just address with nightmares is like if you're suffering with nightmares, reoccurring nightmares, you're not alone. There's a vast majority of us that either are dealing with it or have overcome it. And I will tell you this the easiest way to move forward is to just sit down, talk, reach out, get help. Just sit down, talk, reach out, get help. There's nothing wrong with telling your provider, telling your mental health provider, that you're dealing with nightmares. It's a common thing. If you have served in the military for the past 20 years or law enforcement, you have been impacted by something, absolutely 100%. I will tell you right now things will get better. You'd not. You're not going to always deal with this. I assure you that there is a path to having peace and putting all this behind you. I just recommend that you get help today. There's nothing wrong with reaching out for professional. In this episode description, I'll put a couple of links for places you can go. Uh, reach out today.
Speaker 2:Mission 22 is a great program that I like to highlight and throw out there because I know that it's helped certain individuals. I get no kickback from it, but I will put a link to their program as well at the episode description, because, yeah, nightmares can be pesky and oftentimes, for a vast majority of us, it's kind of why we're avoiding sleep. I certainly was, but I will also say this One of the last things that I want to touch on is that you should never, ever, ever be chasing bottles of alcohol, chasing alcohol in any form or any drug, in order to get sleep. That's one of the most dangerous things that our collective warrior tribe has been dealing for a long time.
Speaker 2:Alcohol is not your shortcut to sleep. It may seem like it, but it is a very dangerous and slippery slope and it will only lead to heartbreak, not only for yourself, but the people you love. So, please, if you are listening to this and you're identifying with any of the issues and any of the things that we're speaking about, resonate with you. Just know that alcohol is not your key to sleep. Resonate with you. Just know that alcohol is not your key to sleep. Um, it is not something that anybody, any trained professional, will ever recommend for you absolutely not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, and I'm so glad you mentioned this because I put a lengthy chapter in my book called like there's a difference between sleep and passing out yes.
Speaker 3:There is a difference, and a very big difference, right Like whenever it comes to using alcohol as a sleep aid, and it's unfortunate that we do this, but this is something that is very common because alcohol is very readily accessible, it's easy to get our hands on, we don't need a prescription, and it's socially very acceptable, too, to get off shift and to go to the bar. Whenever it comes to drinking alcohol, it's going to work against your ability to fall asleep. Yeah, it's going to make you feel sleepy. It's a sedative. That's what it does. However, once it gets down into your stomach, it turns into sugar and it's only going to keep you awake. It's going to make your sleep very fragmented. You're not going to be able to cycle through those sleep stages that you should be. So, while you may be, I don't even want to say like tricking yourself into sleeping, but that is not quality sleep whatsoever.
Speaker 3:So, again, thinking about what are your other options, and I couldn't agree with you more with regard to seeking help from a mental health professional If that's not something that you're ready to do yet. Trusted friend, family member, co-worker, pets, journaling, things like that. You know my specialty is sleep, but my other specialty is trauma, and so I'll just throw this out there too that yes, we have treatment for nightmare, which that's called imagery rehearsal therapy, if you want to look into that further. But for those and when I started with the FBI, I very quickly came to realize that, and especially with the VA too y'all don't like to talk about your feelings, surprise, surprise. So I needed to figure out other ways where I could still get the job done, get it done very quickly and make sure that you are OK on the other end in a very quick and effective way. Because whenever it comes to talk therapy while it absolutely has a time and a place if you're not willing to talk, it's not going to work.
Speaker 3:So I became certified, and I am certified in EMDR eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing as well as brain spotting. So a lot of people don't know about brain spotting. I like to think of it as EMDR is like younger, cooler cousin, and you know these could be episodes in and of themselves about how these modalities work. But what's beautiful about them is that there's not a ton of talking. It really is much more of a silent process. We have gotten a much better idea of how the brain works and how to capitalize on various different ways to get the brain to process things and to heal itself, without so much emphasis on reliving or re-exposure, or emphasis on talking, because also, too, not all parts of the brain have language, which is just so incredibly interesting to think about. So I'll just put those out there for people to explore further, and maybe we'll do another episode on that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We got to bring you back, um, and I got to get you on a few other shows. Um, yeah, that's a a nice thing about owning your own podcast production company. I can get you on any other show that I produce which I'm going to because I enjoy this conversation, everybody listening. Please do me a favor. Pause right now. Go to the episode description. There you'll see a plethora of links to Dr yeah Kaler's work. Go ahead and peruse them. If people want to get ahold of you, doc, where can they go?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have a LinkedIn, but I also have social media and my YouTube is starting to grow. And it's all Dr Leah Kaler, and that's also the name of my website. And then, if you are interested in having me come and talk to your department or your squad, I would be happy to do that. You can reach me at info at drleahkaylorcom.
Speaker 2:Perfect, and you'll see all those links at the description. It's been absolutely a pleasure having you on here today. I'm like blown away so much fun talking to you about this stuff, because I'm passionate, I've lived it, I've been on the other side and it's, I'll tell you, just like mental health. Sleep's a journey. You're going to have good days, you can have bad days, but the important thing you need to understand and I'm stealing this directly from my good friend, eric Simcox, shout out to you Eric is a and his surfer cool guy voice came in.
Speaker 2:You know, when you get through insomnia, just know that some days it'll come back, but you know you've gotten sleep before and you'll get sleep again. Don't get too stressed out about it. Don't get in your head If you're going through a bout of it right now. Just know that you can take a deep breath, go get a workout, get uh, get some endorphins and then go home, have a good meal, wait for the sunset and then listen to my voice. Let it lull you into an awesome sleep. I'm Denny Caballero. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 2:And don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom forward slash SecHawk podcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhallcom for exclusive content, resources and updates. And remember we get through this together. If you're still listening the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week.
