142: HOST INTERVIEW - Mollie Eastman, Creator of Sleep Is A Skill: Unveiling the Unique Sleep Protocols at Sleep Is A Skill [Pam Nease Interview!]

 Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of sleep as a skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about.

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sleep. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keep Keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

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Welcome to a very unique episode. This is the first of its kind. Why? Well, we are flipping the script and I am getting interviewed in this episode. So joining me is. Pam Neese, and she has just been an awesome supporter of Sleep is a Skill, and she brings a ton of knowledge around sleep for children in particular, but she has been in the sleep business for years and years.

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So it is just a real honor for her to take the time to interview me. To go in more deeply onto many different topics in the area of sleep, I hope you get a lot of value out of this. And again, really thankful to Pam for taking the time to be our interviewer for today. Now we are going to have her back to interview her properly, so you'll get to know her more.

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But I do want to, for today's conversation, give you a little bit of a background on her so you know who is interviewing. So a little about Pam. Pam Neece helps tired parents feel like super parents within three nights or less by teaching their little ones the vital life skill and a beautiful gift of sleep.

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Based in Canada, her bespoke sleep coaching company has been rescuing families across the globe from the plight of sleep deprivation since 2009. Her method is described by 3000 plus raving clients as Loving, simple, practical, and fun. And she brings some of those distinctions to our conversation today.

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Again, just really some thoughtful questions that she brought to the table so that we got to go in really deeply on some of these topics around sleep and again, flipping the script. So I hope you enjoy. Today's conversation. And if you have any questions about any of the topics that we discuss, as always, don't hesitate to reach out at team at sleep as a skill.

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com and at sleep as a skill. com the website, you can certainly do all kinds of things, no matter where you might be at in your sleep journey, you can take our free sleep assessment. You can get our free downloadable PDF called the optimized bedroom. You can sign up for our weekly newsletter. It's been going out every Monday for over five years, as well as get updates on this podcast and updates on exciting things that we are offering.

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Like right now we have recently just launched our aura ring. Sleep audits and our whoop band sleep audits. And we've getting a tremendous response from those as well as our various courses and other things to help support you in your journey with improving your sleep. All right. Enough of all that.

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Let's jump into this very unique episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here at the sleep is a skill podcast. We're all about enhancing your sleep and a cornerstone of that journey often revolves around stabilizing your blood sugar levels. That's precisely where good idea steps in. Good idea is an innovative drink crafted by scientists in Sweden that actively assists in balancing your blood sugar.

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Just a quick, interesting fact about sleep to mention, drinking more than two servings of alcohol per day for men and more than one serving per day for women. can decrease sleep quality by 39. 2%. A sleep foundation survey reports, not even mentioning all the indulgent food and late night effects that often come along with it.

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And as we know, sleep is the key to your body's rejuvenation and repair process. It controls hunger and weight loss hormones, boosts energy levels and impacts countless. Other functions, a good night's sleep will improve your wellbeing much more than just about anything else I can possibly think of on the planet.

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You know, I'm biased, but gotta say that. And sleep is your major to focus on as we head into the fall season and hopefully beyond. And that's why I recommend that if you're going to start taking some supplements on your sleep, often magnesium is a great place to begin. But not just any magnesium supplement, I do recommend getting the magnesium breakthrough by bio optimizers.

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Magnesium breakthrough contains all seven forms of magnesium designed to help you fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up refreshed, which isn't that what we're all looking to do. The sleep benefits are really remarkable. I use it every night and once your sleep is optimized, you'll find it much easier to tackle all the other major aspects of your health.

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And trust me, it is a game changer to test it out to visit mag breakthrough. com forward slash sleep as a skill. You can enter code sleep as a skill for 10 percent off for any order. This special offer is only available at magbreakthrough. com forward slash sleep is a skill. I will also include this in the show notes as well.

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And welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. You are not going to believe what's coming on this episode is the first of its kind. So really grateful to Pam needs for taking the time to actually Interview me on this podcast. You know, it's so crazy, different podcasts. You listen to how people set things up and there's a lot of different ways that you can set up a podcast.

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So some people will do solo cast, they call them, or it's just them talking. Some people do interviews, which is the, what I've chosen to do on all of my episodes to date until now. And today we're going to be, uh, well, it's still, we'll be an interview technically, but. It's this time, instead of me asking questions of the guests, Pam is going to ask me some questions about how I'm relating to this whole world of sleep optimization.

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So Pam, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Oh my gosh. I am so excited. So like I've, I've been following Molly for a long time and the catalyst for this podcast Molly is like, I know that other listeners like me. Avid listeners like me are curious to know more about you and you're very gracious on, you know, highlighting your guests.

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Yes. And getting their origin stories and pulling out all these really fascinating details. And then every once in a while, you'll sprinkle these little nuggets and it's like, wait a minute, I want to know more. I want to know more. I want to know more. And I'm so glad you said that because this is a problem I have, honestly.

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So if I could spend the rest of my life just Learning and going in deep on people's philosophies and this topic of sleep, I could happily do that. It's so many people are like, are you ever sick of talking about sleep? And it's never, and I'm sure you can relate to this and the answer is never. And yet.

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One of the things that I really plan to be more intentional about going into as we close this year and going into the new year is doing more of a flip the script. So I so appreciate you being the kickoff and catalyst to this because it is important. So, you know, with all the work we do with sleep and sleep optimization, I.

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Feel responsible that I share what's going on both with what we see with our clients with what kind of disseminating all of the information that we're getting from all of these experts and then the protocols that we've instituted at sleep is a skill that are kind of unique in the nature of how we're running things.

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So thank you. Yeah, I know. I'm so delighted to be here and I had so much fun listening to other people's podcasts. Where they had the opportunity to speak to you. So you've interviewed close to like 150 guests now in the last five years. Plus, I think you said that you've been on over 200 podcasts as a crazy number.

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So I'll tell you during COVID during the pandemic, I did a ton of podcast guesting. Now, some of them would have like three listeners, but it was helpful because it did help me. You know, really strengthen that muscle of sharing what our ethos is, but to your point, I really haven't shared that ethos of our approach to sleep on this, our very own podcast.

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Why? Who knows, but here we are. So many guests like me are wondering, so let's start with kind of a little bit more detail on your origin story. So, you know, for our listeners, when we're, when we're entrepreneurs, they tell us Our story, right? So, you know, we know that you were crippled with insomnia. I've heard you speak about the narrative, you know, and the, these messages that you were telling yourself and these, you know, wisdom is.

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Hindsight is 2020, at least for me. Right? Yeah. So if you could go back in time, like in the DeLorean for the back to the future people, I'm dating myself, but if you can go back in time. One of my favorite movies. Love it. Yes. Right? And then do things differently. What would you do differently? Or do you think maybe you were just set on this path so that you could give the gift of sleep, like me, to children, right?

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Or do you feel like it was kind of destiny? Are you feeling like you, You know, it's a bit of a destiny journey, or do you feel like you wish you could go back in time and do things differently? Oh, such a great question. I feel like I am now can stand in true gratitude for that time in my life. At the time, I had a sense that there is no silver lining here.

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That was my, you know, blind spots because I was so terrified. That I was stuck this way with this, what felt like just this complete inability to sleep and it wasn't just because, you know, some people listening might say, Oh, well, you know, that happened to me at different points with certainly with kids and your expertise.

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And we know there's certain acute periods of time where we might deal with that inability to sleep. My fear was that one, I really felt like I was losing my mind. I really felt like I was on the slippery slope of, am I going to need to be medicated? Is this something where, and I came from a family where there's a lot of mental health issues, a lot of pharmaceutical use.

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And so I saw certain pathways for people that were really close to me. And that was very, very scary. And I'd lived a lot of my life growing up with this fear of like, Is it going to happen to me? Am I going to be one of those people? Then at certain point, I'm going to deal with mental health issues. And this was, you know, mental health related in its regard as far as anxiety, how is managing my life and stressors.

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So certainly that was Portion of it. But my fear was that I was treading on thin ice that then it was going to get really bad and continue not not end really was the fear. And I see that a ton with people that when we go through these periods of life, it's just this future tripping of Is it always going to be like this now?

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Am I stuck like this? Or was I fine before and something happens? I had kids, I'm sure you see, or, you know, I got sick or I got older and now I'm going through perimenopause, menopause, et cetera. Something happens and now this is it for me. So that was part of the fear for me. And. What actually ended up happening was that through that kind of dark nights of the soul, night after night after night, then it brought about that fire to figure this out.

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And now I'm so grateful because it actually has given me my passion and my quest and my journey and I feel 100 percent that I can give my life to this topic. And also, because I know we talked a little bit before we hit record on some of the things that can like irk us that we see that our approaches to sleep and, Problems that people are dealing with.

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And one of the things that I get very concerned about is when I went to the doctors when I was dealing with my sleep issues and was immediately given sleeping pills and anti anxiety pills. And my concern with that is while some people might listen and say, well, that's not supposed to be the approach.

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We are, the gold standard is supposed to be CBTI. I will still say that I went through CBTI and that was certainly helpful but I was one of that kind of, um, the smaller group, if you will, that still didn't respond particularly well to CBTI and that group does exist. So, if we're just given CBTI. sleeping pills and a sleep lab test, you know, going into a sleep lab or testing at home.

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If those are our only options, I think we're really doing a disservice to people. So that's part of my passion to share and get people back in the driver's seat with their sleep to give them agency with this thing that we do a third of our lives on average 26 years. So to answer your question really long roundabout way.

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I now can be grateful because it did really serve as a wake up call and it also spoke to just some of my really poor coping skills that I had to manage both my stressors in life as an entrepreneur in Manhattan, you know, burning the candle at both ends, but also just this open up this whole world of something that I'm really passionate about, which is that circadian health and these bio rhythms and how they affect our sleep results.

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Thanks. Yeah. Fascinating. And every time I listen to you, I just learned something new. And so when you think about all the guests that you've had on your show, like what are some standout ones? Like, I know they're all phenomenal, but what are some standout ones where you just were like, holy F bomb. That was amazing.

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So that maybe some of these listeners can go back and maybe they've been listened like I have because I'm so fascinated with the topic and Molly, but what are some standout episodes that you just were like, Whoa, that was powerful and helpful. So good. Well, the first one that comes to mind is Dr. David Sampson, who has more of this evolutionary anthropology approach, and I've definitely mentioned him a number of times.

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So if this is like a repeat, let me know. But for those who haven't heard of him, he was one of the first episodes that I did. I want to say in the first 10 or so or early on, Fascinated with him because it really aligns with some of the approach that we're taking with sleep is a skill. So one of the things that he did was he studied hunter gatherer tribes, the Hudson tribe in Africa, and then basically took a look at how they're managing their sleep by not having access to any of our modern technology and what we would see.

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So they actually brought or rings to that tribe. Yeah, really fascinating stuff. He actually just released a book and I need to bring him back on if he's so willing because what he discovered out of that and the how they were looking at their sleep and their activities by day and at night, really fascinating because it really mimics this evolutionary approach to sleep.

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And I want to. kind of work on in a marketing piece is, you know, we think of like the paleo movement for food, right? It's kind of like the paleo movement for sleep of how did we used to relate to sleep when we were connected to nature and we slept outside? You know, I've mentioned I think on the podcast a bunch of times how even things that couldn't land as fancy and like so extra like a chili pad or eight sleep or what have you really trying to mimic more of how we would have slept on the ground, which have been their coldest place in, you know, the environment than outdoors.

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All day and all night and how impactful that can be that bright light exposure by day, that total darkness by night, the change in temperature, but also even the change in behaviors of things that we would prioritize by day versus night that for me did. It really had me think differently, I think, about sleep and how I language things.

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And one thing I love from a practical takeaway standpoint is what he calls social capital. So one of the things that he was urging is sleep capital can be something that we can prioritize very often, hopefully, maybe more so for some people than others. But our goal, hopefully, is that out of listening to the podcast that you're prioritizing your sleep capital.

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So meaning that most of the time you're dropping, you know, kind of dividends or coins into that bank of your sleep. But then every so often, he's making the argument that as kind of tribal creatures, we're very connected from a social perspective that By taking a little bit of those dividends into our social capital and depositing into that, that that could actually support our sleep.

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So what would that look like? Well, every so often when you need to go to a wedding and stay out later and maybe you have a drink or maybe, you know, is that gonna do great for your sleep? Probably not. But could you make the argument that investing your social capital every so often and just bonding and feeling a part of the tribe?

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could support our overall health and well being. And I think nothing showed that more eloquently than the pandemic just recently in recent years of how loneliness elements really trickled into our sleep results. So we know that that can have really clear markers on the brain and our physiological health as well as our psychological health and then spills into our sleep results.

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So by extension, it almost gives you permission to every so often. be okay and not make ourselves wrong if we do deviate a bit from our kind of proper sleep hygiene, if you will. And that is something that I've found with other guests is this emphasis that people that repeatedly kind of deal with sleep disturbances or issues or are anxious around their sleep, have sleep anxiety, that there does seem to be somewhat of a correlation of this hypervigilance or almost neuroticism and tendencies, right?

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So trying to get it right. And sometimes that can be really boxing us in to our relationship with our sleep and kind of put us in as a victim almost of these new rules or what have you. So how can we rewrite that and allow for flexibility and play and fun and ease? And the whole kind of collection of that.

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So I would say he was a big guest for me that I've mentioned a lot. One of our most popular guests, still right now, our most popular episode is with Dr. Wendy Trexel, who is actually trying to rebrand Sleep Divorce into Sleep Alliance. And so I think that that's been popular from a perspective of a lot of people finding that...

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Weather and this could look like anything that could be in your bed that's disturbing your sleep. So that could be your pets, your kids, your partner, whatever. And so really being mindful of that. Could we think newly are there blind spots? We're not addressing of ways that we could support that. So that's another.

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I think important one. And then you and I were just chatting about or ring and you know, when we had our guest over from representing or ring and some of the things that they're doing right to kind of almost make us think of how tracking with the sleep trackers could shed new light and maybe raise some red flags to be tested for things like sleep apnea or other problems that might.

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Emerge. So I think given how much I work with them, that was an important one, but there's just so many. Oh my gosh. Oh, and Dr. Sachin Panda was fantastic too. I was so excited to have him on the podcast. That was really important to me from that circadian principle and really trying to get out this circadian lifestyle concept because I think most, you know, a lot of people until they're in this conversation might not know what that would look like.

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So he really does a good job with that. And then there's a number of podcasts that also just start to get into the nitty gritty of how could you have some of these apply to your life like the four questions at the end have been really useful for me to see different ways that people are approaching their nighttime, their morning.

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What's in their space and then finally what's made some of the biggest changes like some that stick out. We had dr Shelby, who's a great on instagram must follow over there really great content I liked how she just pointed to the simplicity that one of her biggest aha moments was simply when she started joining a running club And so she had to truly wake up at around the same time every single day including the weekends to you know Manage the running club responsibilities and found that that Really improved her sleep, which can feel like a simple thing.

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But when you actually bring it into practical application can be so helpful. So those are just some that are top of mind. Very cool. Very cool. So when we, when we go back to the aura episode, which I found absolutely fascinating, one of the things that I've always been curious about, cause like I really wanted to get into your bedroom today, behind the curtain of sleepless of scale, it's like.

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You know, I discovered in my journey of getting to know you through your newsletter, which is still my favorite. I open it up every Monday, and I'm like, what the heck? Like a 70 year old is in your cohort of clients. I'm like, huh? That doesn't seem to fit. Like, you know, I imagine these really uber successful entrepreneurs, founders, like biohacker kind of people that are drawn to you wanting to up the game when it comes to sleep.

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And then when I heard about the 70 year old on that episode, I'm like, what? That just doesn't seem to add up. So who are your clients? Like who hires you and pays you money to help you improve them, help them improve their sleep. Such a good point. And I'm so glad you mentioned that because actually if it's, we've had a few people in their 70s and even into 80s and one of the participants that was around mid 70s actually spotted cancer.

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Right, and that might have been the one of maybe I was mentioning. That's the one! yeah. Really? What? What? I know. Through his use of the Oura Ring over many years. So we'd had him on the Oura Ring for a good, ugh, four years or so. So he had a baseline of certain health parameters. And then when things started totally looking very different.

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That was part of it because he didn't even feel that markedly different, but it was enough that these signs were popping up through wearable data. So he kept going back and the first couple of doctors were like, you're fine, you're fine. And then as he kept going back and back and really requesting more testing, that's what they discovered that he had.

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And then he was able to spot it so early, it was this instance of cancer and now he's cancer free now, but it was a scary time. But to have. That in the background, I think is so powerful, but to answer your question, a couple of things, we do have a particular niche in poker. So I'm sure you sprinkled that throughout some of the podcast because it is just noteworthy that we work with a lot of high stakes poker players.

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And with that, it's fascinating group because, and largely does skew male because just out of right now it's opportunity for women to get into poker, but it does skew more male dominant. So we do have a lot of men that are looking to get that edge at the poker table, and so through that by really optimizing for their sleep, particularly because they are in an environment like a casino for the live players, when they're in a casino, it's designed on purpose to confuse their circadian rhythm with no windows, the lights are just always blasting, and they've got Yeah.

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The kind of addictive things in their environment, whether slot machines, poker, you know, what have you. So through that and by this, the variable schedule of tournaments, if they're tournament player or cash game, then you find yourself going to bed all kinds of different times. So the equivalent of, uh, kind of randomized shift worker.

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So instead of like a routine shift, they've got variable schedule shifts. So with them, they're a great kind of. test group because if we can help support their sleep, then we can certainly help, you know, the average individual on anybody, right? Yeah, totally. Oh my gosh. And they're kind of almost like chess players in a lot of ways.

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So they're like a cognitive athlete. So they need to be able to emotionally regulate for long stretches of time, sometimes, you know, 10, 12 hour long times at the table, hours of just sitting there and being able to be mentally and emotionally sound, if you will. So, bringing in sleep optimization can really make a lot of sense for them and they really do well with the metrics since they are so gamified anyway.

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Yeah, they're a wonderful group to work with, but outside of that, so for our cohorts and then just various one on ones, a lot of them, I would say for our one on ones, because they are so intimate and they take a stretch of time, over time, we've really expanded the length so that we get further, really get in there.

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So most of our packages are around six months. Yeah, so out of that time, usually it tends to be really high performers that. really want to get in there and make a difference with their sleep results and really change those metrics measurably. So just got off a call with someone that's working with Microsoft and, you know, a high achiever over there.

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And we had Almost literally, it's nearly at 50 percent improvements in her HRV, um, was just one of the calls that we just got off of. So they can be so rewarding, those, because it was such a stretch of time to really work together. And then with our cohorts, that can bring in lots of different walks of life.

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So it's people that are interested in improving their sleep. They might have an acute sleep problem going on right now. They're really struggling. And so now they're just saying, let's. Do it. Let's go. Maybe they've never even tracked before. So because we require the use of an or a ring to participate, they might have just purchased an or a ring just to go through this program.

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So it might be brand new. We might be kind of explaining all that to them and then walking them through these kind of core tenants and are. framework is all through circadian rhythm entrainment. And then we're bringing all of these components of sleep optimization through that framework in, you know, those eight weeks.

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So that's that group. And then on the people that just want to dip in, then we have, um, more recently, we've gotten great response to something called our ORA ring audits and WHOOP ban audits. Um, and the WHOOP is the newer one that we've added in there. So what's cool about those is that people can come in for a 60 minute long, kind of deep dive into their stats, and then we go over their stats, give them personalized things to work on for the next 90 days, and then we reach back out to them.

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Within those 90 days, they send screenshots of their improvements so that we get some objective data to see, oh my gosh, I've improved, you know, whatever. My wake up time, my sleep efficiency, my deep sleep, et cetera, et cetera. So different. Options for different people and then we will have a self paced program coming out as well.

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So in case, you know, you want to just do it on your own and not be on zoom calls or what have you, then that's another thing coming. It does not make you nervous. The zoom ones and sorry, not being on zoom. Like, cause I've heard you say a few times, like when there's the, what do you call it? The Hawthorne.

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Is that? Like when somebody is monitoring you and I think, I think for me, after giving the gift of sleep for more than a decade, when I first started, I wanted to give my services away for free. Like, I was just so passionate about, especially, like, anyways, I could just go on and on and on. Anyways. But what I learned over time that it's actually good for people to have a skin in the game from a financial perspective, as well as, you know, that accountability, like I've had so many parents say, Oh, Pam, You know, if we, if we, if we hadn't been talking to you today, we would have done XYZ with our baby, or we would have done ABC with our toddler, you know, but because we knew we had to hop on a call with you the next day, and like you, I felt some really rigid protocols and procedures, because in it's an unregulated, unlicensed industry, and I take it really seriously, so.

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Love that. The courses, I find the courses and the books and everything so helpful. And people have said to me for years, like, you should create one. Yeah. But it makes me nervous because of the accountability piece. Ugh, you're so... Well, one, I just want to say that I have to resist my urge to go into interview mode because I'm so excited because I know we're going to have a whole episode to go in more on your story because I still have so many questions.

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So I'm going to call myself back. But I, I completely relate. And so what you said about the Hawthorne effect for people, if anyone's like, what is that? It's Hawthorne effect. Sometimes it's referred to as observer effect, but just this phenomenon in psychology that it appears that when we have a sense, and I think from a common sense perspective, we can probably relate.

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We have a sense that we're being watched in some way, shape, or form. We tend to act a little differently. then we would if we weren't being watched. And that's been one of the really cool things about our programs with utilizing wearables. Now I know sometimes people will say, Oh, well, you know, we have concerns about wearable tech and as people are going to get stressed and what have you.

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And certainly there is a time and a place for everything. However, I will say that one of the things that we've largely found is actually a relief in stressors for a number of people because. One of the things that I've seen time and time again, I mean, I almost wish because I wasn't tracking during the time when I had my whole breakdown, but one of the things that can be really helpful is, you know, there's this phenomenon known as your paradoxical insomnia and the sense that You go through the entire night and you wake up and the next day you say, I didn't sleep a wink.

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And yet, if we were, you know, hooking you up, and I'm sure that happened for me, it seems clear that for many of us, we get a little bit of sleep for most people. Like just a little bit, you know what I mean? And so, That can be helpful. We've found because most of these wearables are pretty good more than around the 90 percent or so of knowing.

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Are you asleep or are you awake? Are they perfect? No, but that's an area of the metrics that they're pretty solid at so you can. you know, estimate if they say you got around five and a half hours or something, it's probably somewhere in that range, give or take. So I found that actually to be a big relief for a number of people that actually thought that they got 20 minutes and we actually did grab more sleep than what they might have thought.

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So one, I found that, but two, if you don't have a sense of a pathway for action, then naturally if it just feels like you just keep getting these crappy scores and then you have no sense of what to do to make a difference with them, then certainly that would be disempowering. But if we are standing from a place of empowering and giving lots of new behavior changes that we can bring in that we know tend to make a measurable difference for people, then this can be something where over time they start to see, oh my gosh, my.

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Sleep efficiency has gone up and that can relate to wake ups and those things that can really frustrate people. I've improved my wake up time. I've improved my heart rate. I've improved my HRV, et cetera, et cetera. So one with that Hawthorne effect, you nailed it. That can be so, so helpful. And that's been a big hesitancy for me of creating a self paced course.

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Now, one of the things, and I'll share this, just, you know, chatting with you is that. One of the things we're going to test is still, of course, I don't want to let go of having no accountability because it's one of the ethos and one of the intersections of my kind of mantra with Sleep is a Skill. It's an intersection of technology, accountability, and behavioral change, right?

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So bringing that all together as part of a brand value, then how could we do that with DIY courses? Well, One of the things I'm going to be testing is offering these DIY courses so people can do it at their, you know, pace that works for them. But then we have standing calls so that they can join in on the group calls to get their specific questions answered.

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They can also share, well, this is happening with my Whoop, my Biostrap, my Aura, my Garmin, my Apple Watch, my whatever. And then we can address then what could be some things that can often make a difference for you from an education perspective. And see then what comes out. So then they still have a place to go, like a forum to then get those things addressed.

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And so that's going to be one of the things that we're testing going coming soon to a, to a sleep as a skill near you. So what is your vision for your company? Like you've, you've gone from one on one coaching. You these group coaching, which I think is so cool from a gamified perspective, and I can see that really working with adults.

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Yeah. Again, it makes me nervous about because there's so much guilt as moms, especially. Oh, totally. And so if my baby isn't sleeping as well as my friend's baby, you know, so the group coaching makes me nervous again, too, because of this competitive nature and what might work for one 5 month old baby. May not work for another five month old baby, right?

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So it's also individualistic. And when you're lost in a sleep deprived fog as a mother, you know, again, right? So, so you've got, you started with the one on one, you did group. Now you're looking at the self paced course. Like, where do you see your company going? Are you going to create your own tech? And like, what kind of hypotheses do you have that you want to?

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Prove or disprove like. Yeah. Oh, I love that. So a couple of things. One, uh, we just got linked up with a book agent. So now we're going in the steps of bringing this whole concept of sleeping a skill to the masses because I really want to get that out. And one of the reasons I feel passionate about the sleep is a skill ethos is that and like you said, the narratives and labels that whole piece.

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One of the things that I feel strongly about is that And I was one of them was this sense that, Oh, I'm a bad sleeper or I am fill in the blank, right? Yeah. I'm sure. Oh my gosh, you have I'm sure heard it all clearly. And so with that, then the fact that this can actually go into the bucket of a skill set and that we can improve and improve on this area and that it by virtue is this bi directional relationship to improving our life as.

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a hole. So for me, my mission on the planet is to help people give agency with their sleep to circadian health, really. And so what would that look like? Well, one, I think one of the places that is being, the mark is being missed so often is this beautiful component of our 24 hour cycle and this sense that As we become these indoor creatures, something I cite all the time and probably have said it on this podcast, but certainly in my presentations and what have you, is the study that was done in 2001 by the EPA.

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Uh, you probably have heard this, but, uh, in EPA, they did a study. They found that the average person, at least is American centric, but you can assume that it extends to the globe. So that the average American was spending around 93 percent of their time indoors, and that broke down to largely an indoor.

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space and as well as automobiles. And the reason that's important is because as we've become these indoor zoo like creatures, then we're continuing to get disconnected from nature and the rhythms of nature. You know, and I lived in New York City, Vegas, all these places that are like the exact opposite of being connected to the rhythms of nature.

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And so that you could have a 24 hour lifestyle if you so chose, and I certainly chose to do that. I did that. I lived upside down like a vampire basically for, you know, a whole stretch of time. So I saw what that looked like. And then we also were seeing emerging research come out of the deleterious effects of living our lives kind of upside down from a mental health perspective, from a physical perspective, cancer rates, diabetes, and then just our sleep wake cycle.

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So I think so many. Of the generalized approaches to sleep are missing this huge environmental factor. And since we're all living like this, most of us, it's like, you know, the goldfish in the thing, they don't even realize like they're in the water. And we just don't even think of this as being odd behavior.

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But if you were to go back to like that, uh, Dr. David Sampson, I mentioned the anthropologist, a lot of how we're managing our lives are very foreign or alien to how we would have been managing things for thousands of years. And that's so still entrenched in our DNA. So I really want to bring that message, but make it more practical.

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I know I'm getting out there with all these, this language, but point being of like how to make that be a lifestyle, a circadian lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. In modern day society where you're not ostracized as like the crazy person on the street. Yes, right. Yeah, exactly. And I love my time, you know, so it's like there's these how the tech and the comforts of modern society are there and kind of Pandora's box has been open.

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So we're unlikely to all go, you know, live in the woods or something. So if that's the case, how can we mimic nature today? And so one of the things I foresee is Circadian aligned homes and design. So building biology I think is gonna be super important from a futuristic perspective. Yeah. Hospitals being more circadian aligned.

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We know sleep in hospitals is like abysmal. And then also bringing this to, and I don't touch the topic of kids at all at as far as sleep. I leave that to, to you experts on that topic. But I think, you know, even being able to bring that into that conversation of how children. Teenagers and all human beings would be served to have more of that clear day and night.

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And certainly we'll go into that with you when we have you on. Yeah. And that's what I love about what I do is there's a lot of nonsense on the, on the internet. My clients call it BS and they're, you're pulled in so many different directions, but I try to make it as simple as possible and make it easy in today's society.

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You don't want to be that parent going, I got to get home to put my kids to bed. Right. So I really want to, I really want to show parents where they can still have a life, but make sleep fun as well as a priority. So when you think about you being, you know, an expert for luxury hotels, like, and you mentioned, you mentioned the buildings and stuff, I'm like, well, what about, you know, this.

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this tech of blue, blue blocking glasses. And then there's the naysayers on the internet. We know some like blue light. No, no, no, no. I've got research papers that point. It was like an extra 15 minutes or something about those. Right. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on the circadian glasses? Has anybody sent you a pair of those yet for you to test?

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Because I know people are sending you stuff all the time. Yes, totally. I'm really jealous. I'm really jealous that you've got all this aura data. Oh, you know, because I wish I could have all the thousands of families. Their data on a, on a subjective, sorry, an objective measure because it's all subjective, right?

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Totally. Anyways, I'm so jealous that you've got all this data that you have. I wish we could create a baby aura, a baby aura ring that would actually be safe on the toe. If anybody's listening, you know, an aura ring on the toe, baby's toe, where they can't, you know, be harmed. Yeah, exactly. I know. Yes, all that data.

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I think we should create that, Molly. I know, and then it's... Then I deal with, you know, the extreme biohackers and the concern of the EMFs. And then it's like, it's so loaded, because then absolutely, oh, you want, you want all this tech, but then you don't want it to be radiating you. So how to have it all, it's really tricky.

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But yes, for the blue light glasses, so there's certainly the blue blocker glasses, of course. Right. And then there's also the ones that will kind of shoot the blue light into your eyes. Yeah. Yep. So, um, couple things about that. One, I like that concept and I have those and I've used those for especially long haul travel to be really helpful.

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So you're like when you're in the cabin and on a flight and it's super long and everyone else is in total darkness and instead of and still sometimes I'll be the person that then clicks on the light above me and even though everyone's sleeping they hit me but I'll put on those glasses and that helps you to kind of have it all.

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I think those can all be really, really great. Now, my concern with some of these and this goes into a deeper topic of kind of health geography and where we are on the planet. And so I actually moved to Austin and part of the reason was to have more opportunities to be out in nature with, in a way that works for supporting sleep.

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Now, of course, there's a lot of asterisks with this and I know you've dealt with your some of your own issues around the when we, you know, sun and our eye health and a number of things. So this is a big topic much longer than Then this, I do have concerns where if we do go fully into the tech space where we start to have the sun is sad, so seasonal affective disorder lamps, which can be so great, but if we're really tethering our hopes to tech and just having those or having the glasses or the indoor options, then we're missing out on some benefits that we've done in a way that works in a healthy way, that we get a lot of benefits also from the sun that we're not gathering.

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So this is a long way to say that the topic of light and the disbursement of light is a big one. And how can we as much mimic the benefits of the sun, which is that full spectrum light that has more red hues available in it, especially with sunrise and sunset. So if we are going to have some of those faux options of light indoors, can we at least balance them with some red light is one of the things that I would suggest for people.

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So. I'll often have kind of red lights all, you know, all around my space. And so then I can kind of bring those in if I am getting a lot of blue light. And just by virtue of even like right now, if anyone's watching any of the video options here, the windows that are behind me, because of the nature of our current building biology or lack of building biology.

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Windows block bunch of the spectrum, some of the spectrum of light. And so now I'm being exposed to a lot more blue light because of all these windows. Now that can be beneficial at some points, but are there concerns that we're having an overabundance of blue light? And so that's where just the physicality of getting outside at certain points can have some benefit when done in reason.

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Mm hmm. And how do you build that into your day? Yeah. And right. Yeah. Oh, application. Right. Totally. Yeah. So, like for me, one of the things that I'm doing is I'm on a lot of Zoom calls. So, in between my Zoom calls, I'm going out onto, we have a little like balcony terrace thing and I'm just taking some time to just remind because the body and the eyes are sampling its environment all the time to get a sense of what time it is and what to be doing when.

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And then communicating to that suprachiasmatic nucleus to all of its peripheral clocks to tell all of those clocks and, you know, organs and cells in our body what it should be preparing for. And so every time we go out and sample some of that outdoor environment, that tells it something about what time it is because of the solar angle of what's happening with the sun.

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And so that is really, really important as someone that Used to do the exact opposite. I was, my mom literally used to call me an indoor cat growing up. I like literally never went outside or barely went outside. And then in college and what have you, I was avoiding the sun or I'd wake up super late, I would feel awful, have headaches and just, ugh, a mess.

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And so I would often not get outside too far, far later in the day. And then I would live upside down because then I would have a be in darkness. for a lot of the day. And then when the night would come, that's when I would finally be ready to switch on all the lights. So I'm living in this upside down world.

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The body doesn't quite know what to do with that information. And so that's one of the things that I think I'm really passionate about is how our not only our environment, but also our behaviors, our thought patterns, our activities, the things we're engaging in, the people we're talking to, the content we're consuming, all of these things can be more circadian aligned.

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Transcribed Fascinating. And like my favorite podcast where somebody interviewed you with Corey. Corey. Oh my God. And I think, and I think he said something like, well, did this really work when you were in a relationship with Blake, right? And he said something like, well, you know, it was N of two, right?

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Like totally as eco chamber, right? So, so when you think about, you know, this behavioral change that you had experience doing before. Right, even before he did sleep at the sleep is a skill. Like, what is it? Like, how is it? Is it like that? Q was action reward. Is that like, is that part of the whole when you when you're trying to get people to change?

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Yeah, exactly. Is that really kind of key to your success? Because. You know, I know better. Yeah, but I don't necessarily do better. So you're very practical tip of waking up 7 mornings in a row exactly the same time. Well, yeah, on the weekend, I was like, huh, no, I go sleep in. Right. Totally. Of course. I heard your voice in my head.

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I'm like, no, calm. You got to get out of bed. That's amazing. I love that. Yeah. Well, okay. So it's so tricky because with behavioral change, then one of the things that we're looking to tether things to, I don't know why I keep using that word today. But one of the things we're looking to affix a new behavioral change to is something that we're always going to do.

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And one of the things, presumably, hopefully, that we're always going to do is wake up. And so one, can we do some work on creating that consistency? So one of the things I like to affix the process of Waking up every day with is then I often say to clients, can we like fall out of bed outside almost? So how can we have that consistent wake up time and then it's married to Bright light exposure as quickly as possible.

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Now, there's always asterisk Some people say i'm waking up super early and it's still dark out and you know there's lots of things we have to bring in but For the most part, how can we take something that we're almost always doing? That's another piece of success for TM, Transcendental Meditation, is that one of the things they've done is every, when it, for eternity, you wake up and you do your 20 minutes of, uh, kind of Vedic meditation.

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And one of the The things they pointed to is that they know that if someone always just has the simplicity of okay, when I wake up, I meditate versus where do I put this or do I feel like it or whatever. So same rules apply for any of these behavioral changes because we can learn all this stuff about sleep, but unless we're actually applying some of it to periodically and not making ourselves super wrong if we don't always do it perfectly.

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But most of the time, maybe Pareto's principle, 80 20, most of the time that we're doing these things, then if we can make it simple and clear, where do I put these things and when? That's one of the reasons that I love the diurnal piece because we try to kind of create day mode and night mode and almost like we're part of the Amish or something that we know that as the sun is setting, we only have so much time to hopefully finish a lot of the work that we're doing.

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Can we shift over now? I know there's Special considerations and certain people shift workers or certain things that they got to deal with, but can we create your own day mode night mode and so activating excitatory behavior kind of happening on the day mode side of things and then when the environment changes and we start moving over to that red lights in the space candles.

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blue blockers, all the things, then we're changing some of our behavior with that. So that can help inform our behaviors. So that was a big change for me in my own life because for so long I didn't have a divide. It was just sort of all, you know, work, no play or off time at all hours of the day and night.

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And that clearly didn't work. And then when you took your path of trying to teach yourself to sleep, you know, it started with the, the norm of. Here's a sleeping pill, Molly. Yeah. Do C B T I. Yeah. Right? And do a little bit of sleep hygiene. Exactly. Thanks. Nice? Yeah. So how long did it take for you to clean up your own sleep?

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You being the guinea pig, you're like, you were your first client, right? Yeah. So how long did it take you? Because now you cure, you cure people in like a 10 week. Yes, totally. So really great point. And so one thing, so in my own journey, my acute period of time with my sleep spanned a good, the most intense and while traveling was a three month period straight.

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Then thereafter it was, then we came back, my husband and I came back from the travels because of my sleep. And that was another series of a few months of. Really funky, you know issues with my sleep and then it was a big couple milestones Of we went back out to travel and I was so fearful that I was going to come back again or what have you and then when I Didn't I still had some rockiness, but when I was still able to then see wow, okay, so I can Sleep that was the big thing.

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I can actually sleep even if it's not perfect still can do that That was a huge source of empowerment. And so that whole stretch of time took a good like Six to seven months or so, but then there was a lot of sleep anxiety, even thereafter of, is it going to come back or is something going to happen?

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I'm going to just going to slip into like the wrong gear and then, you know, it's going to plague me again. Now that kind of stuck around for a good, I would say even still like remnants would, I would think I was good. And then it would come back if I. had to go on some trip or something, so that was a good another year and change thereafter of like some of that residual fears.

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And that's one of the things that we speak to, so some of our promise with our cohorts is that we go through the skills and that you see those measurable changes on our wearable data. And then also subjectivity. So subject, you know, your subjective experience is improving. And though that this is a skill set, like any great skill set, you know, you go through sleep 101, or it's the same as if you were going to learn piano or something, you would have some of the fundamentals, but then we're going to continue to improve and go to, you know, the next levels.

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And I think that's the same opportunity with sleep. And I'm seeing that in my own life at different points. You know, I think I've shared with you, I've had Um, my husband's dad is dealing with the ALS and then I was in hospice and, you know, with travel or work things. And, you know, so it's then continuing to improve upon our muscle of adaptability, resiliency, and Continual improvement that Kaizen approached, if you will, to sleep.

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So amazing because, you know, when I look at my own personal journey, it wasn't called chronic insomnia in 1999. Sure. And, you know, for years, clients have said to me, you fixed my kid. Can you fix me? Yeah. And I, and I say, I've got the girl. That's the best. Miss Molly, because, you know, it took me 20 years, literally.

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20 years to clean up my own sleep and become a decent sleeper and I'm so excited because you can get there you can get people there so much quicker and so much easier and yeah it's just well I so appreciate you saying that I know. The work you do is in a whole other class. I always say, like, I don't touch the kid topic, and I know this is like a whole other world.

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So just refer out, check out Pam Neece's content and information, because I know that the passion is there and that you're looking to really do this uniquely and in a different way than most are doing that. So I really appreciate that. Yeah, my own family doctor said to me, Pam, you got to start coaching adults.

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And I'm like, No, they're way too complex. So once again, I'm just so grateful that, uh, you're, you're with us, Molly. Yeah, I feel it was destiny. I'm sorry that you went through that really difficult time, but I'm glad that you're on the other side and you can give the rest of us hope that even no matter where you're at in your sleep, you can make it even that much better.

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Yes, absolutely. Oh, so good. Hey, so I think we've run out of time to do your four questions. Like I'm watching the time here. I know I was just thinking that maybe we'll have to do kind of a part two or potentially we can add it on. I know we're gonna have you come on the podcast and we're gonna deep dive on all the things you do and all their decades of knowledge and what you've gleaned through all the deep practice that you've had.

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So I'm very excited about that. But so maybe we'll have to do a, a round two, if you're That would be great. And it's only one decade so far, but I hope

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Oh my gosh. I mean, and for all of us, and that's one of the things I say too, is. I mean, I'm just as fascinated every time I'm speaking to people of different things that I can bring in to continue to uplevel my own sleep and the, you know, the sleep of my clients. So every conversation that I get to have, I'm so thankful because in the four questions that I might say, Oh, well, I hadn't considered putting on.

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using the Theragun with the relaxing music with the candles with the whatever, you know, who the heck knows people have all kinds of stacks that it's like you try that out and it becomes your new favorite thing. So we'll circle back to those for a later time. Right. So you're not doing evidence based research, let's say, but you're doing action based research.

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Totally. And how can we have a hybrid of these things? Yeah. Your clients are your teachers, right? Yeah. Oh, totally. And this comes, too, from so many people, and you know, every person that we've had on the podcast, if we're asking those questions, often we assume that part of the reason people are interested is because they've given their whole life to sleep in some regard.

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So both through how can we infuse to have both evidence based, but also that experimentation, because I think that it becomes this dogma sometimes of like evidence based approach, which is so great. I appreciate it, of course. And yet, you know, I think there's an opportunity for us to explore what are some late breaking things that people are doing.

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And maybe it's free part of the offering, and so it doesn't have the moneyed lobbying behind it to get, you know, a meta analysis done, which is time, you know, consuming and expensive and yet can have a lot of validity to it. So, so yes, how can we have it all? And , how can we have it all? Love it. I love it.

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Amazing. Ah, well, Pam, thank you so much for taking the time to do this and it's just getting me even more excited for our conversations with you that are to come and for our part two where we can go in even more deeply and then we'll have to, we can do a roast of all the things that you've seen for me, my repetitive.

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nature on some of my, uh, my languaging on different podcasts. It was, we'll go into one of my favorite phrasings. Oh man, that's going to be fun. And then the four questions. So we'll do that in the future, but thank you so much for taking the time. Also, anything you want to share for people that maybe are listening and are struggling with their own problems or challenges with their own kids or soon to be kids, any resources to share right away.

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Oh, well, when they come to the website, they'll get what's very similar to you. So there's like a sleep assessment as well as a free sleep plan. So, and then a lot of free resources on the website. So the best place to come is the website. I've kind of taken a little bit of a break from social media. One of your guests said, I'm not a social media influencer.

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And I'm like, yes. I'm not a social media influencer either. I'm a professional. I own a bespoke sleep consulting company. And so I'm for that parent who's looking for that tried, true, proven advice and that one on one experience. Absolutely, which time is of the essence when that is happening. So it's so important to have that proven protocol.

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That's fantastic. Well, I so appreciate you. We'll make sure to have that information in the show notes. And then for anyone listening that wants to learn more about Pam, we will be having our deep dive interview in the future. So stay tuned. Okay. Thanks, Molly. Thank you. Transcribed by https: otter. ai You've been listening to The Sleep Is a Skill Podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level.

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Every Monday, I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun Facts. I've never missed A Monday for over five years and counting, and it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to Sleep as a skill.com/newsletter to sign up.

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