Interview with Keri Cooper. You’re Not Just Tired—You’re Underslept

Are you tired of being tired?

In this powerful and practical episode of Healthspan Digest, host Aaron Shaw sits down with certified sleep science coach and psychotherapist Keri Cooper to uncover the truth about why you’re not sleeping well—and what to do about it.

You’ll learn:

• Why sleep isn’t a luxury—it’s a non-negotiable for physical and mental health

• The hidden cost of wearing your exhaustion like a badge of honor

• What your bedroom setup, daily habits, and screen time are doing to your sleep (spoiler: it’s not good)

• How you might be sabotaging your own rest—even when you think you’re doing everything right

• Why cognitive behavioral therapy for sleep (CBT-I) is more effective than apps, trackers, or pills

• The one thing you can do tonight to sleep better—no gadgets, no gimmicks

Whether you’re a parent, professional, student, or just someone who wants to feel better and live longer, this episode delivers science-backed strategies and surprising insights that could transform your sleep in less than 30 days.

Connect with Keri Cooper to get better sleep: https://sleepsolutionsbykeri.com/ 

👉 Featuring real talk, relatable stories, and zero fluff—this is your permission slip to prioritize rest without guilt

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Transcript

So let's start by asking how well you slept last night. Do you wake up feeling groggy or tired? Well, the reality is that regardless of what your goals are in life, you have to get good quality sleep. And we all know what it's like to have poor sleep, to wake up feeling foggy headed or...

just low energy. So today, thankfully, we're going to be talking to a sleep science coach. Her name is Keri Cooper. But let's start off by introducing this podcast overall. My name is Aaron Shaw. a healthspan. I'm from healthspan physiocoaching. I'm an occupational therapist and strength coach. And I love talking about all things healthspan. And healthspan is the length of time within our lifespan.

that we are healthy, active, vibrant, well-rested. And I think that HealthSpan has five main pillars. And these are exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional well-being, and preventative care. And these pillars really allow us to live a long life, live a vibrant life, live long careers, be engaged with our family and loved ones. And a client of mine is...

very busy, busy professional, whether they're an entrepreneur, a leader, an employee, a parent, they're taking care of parents, which is often what people are doing these days that are doing both caring for parents and caring for children. And all face common struggles of trying to be healthy and feel well and feel well into our older, the last stages of our life. And sleep is a key.

ingredient of that. It is absolutely essential and that is where Keri Cooper is going to come in and help give us some tips for sleep. So thank you for joining us Keri. Yes good. So Keri is a psychotherapist times 25-ish years. So we've concluded. Been in the psychotherapy business for a long time. She is a certified sleep science coach. She is an author. She is a mother of four.

Keri Cooper (02:11)

Thank you for having me. I love this topic.

Aaron Shaw (02:30)

So I'm sure there was a few moments there where your sleep was probably compromised along the way. Maybe more than once. Really normal. So again, Keri, thank you for coming and joining HealthSpan Digest. And I've got a whole bunch of questions on sleep that I want to, that are, self-serving, because I want to sleep well. But also, we really want to make sure that the listeners have a few real morsels, a few real action items that they can walk away with.

Keri Cooper (02:33)

Absolutely, that's really normal.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shaw (03:00)

But let's start off by maybe telling us like, what got you interested in sleep? What took you down the path?

Keri Cooper (03:04)

Yeah.

So as you were speaking earlier, you were talking about sleep as a pillar for your physical health. And what I've noticed is that sleep is such a foundation for your mental health as well. So in my practice, I predominantly work actually with high school and college kids. And especially during COVID time, their sleep was horrendous and their mental health was horrendous. But even post COVID, I can always kind of see how they're doing by my question when I see them every day, which is how

How have you been sleeping for this last week? And when they start telling me, I went to bed like two in the morning on a school night, when they start telling me this, I'm like, you're gonna go downhill and they know it and now they can track it as well. And then I started also noticing all the parents that would come into my office and be like, I can't show up for my kid the way I want to because I am just so tired. I'm running on fumes. And I'm like, are you sleeping?

No, I'm up late doing work or laundry or dishes. And everyone's doing so much. And it's sleep that kind of gets lost without realizing that if you actually slept, you'd be able to get everything done so much quicker and be more productive, which is why I even give talks to corporations because when their employees are sleeping well, they're more productive.

I wrote two books, Mental Health Uncensored, 10 Foundations Every Parent Needs to Know, and then I wrote a workbook for the kids based on that too. And in both of my books, there's an entire chapter on sleep, where I really dive into the research on sleep for mental health, why it's such a foundation, why it's probably the most important thing you can do, and for the workbook that I have for kids on how to start tracking their sleep and how to start noticing their mood shifts around their sleep. So one interesting thing you said in the beginning,

of this when you're introducing this piece was, you know, do you feel like tired and groggy and all of that from your lack of sleep? And some people do, but some people are so accustomed to not sleeping that they're like, no, I feel fine. But they're not fine. And if they actually slept, they would be like, wow, look at this difference. Because we get so used to these chronic conditions.

Aaron Shaw (05:19)

This is fine.

Keri Cooper (05:27)

whether it be pain, whether it be lack of sleep, whatever it may be. And we don't even realize that we're not functioning well.

Aaron Shaw (05:35)

Yeah. Tell me how common sleep disorders are. it that, is it, I have the sense that it's pretty widespread, whether it be a formal diagnosis, I don't know, but how many, how common is it for people to be under-rested? Like, I'm not sure of the best term for that.

Keri Cooper (05:46)

Right.

incredibly

common from what I'm seeing, just not only at work, but also in my own life. I am a mother of four, as you mentioned, and I always tell this funny story how we were out to dinner one night with a bunch of different couples. And they were all talking about this text chain. And I was like, what are you talking about? I'm not part of this text chain. And they're like, it's our two in the morning text chain. We know you sleep.

And I was like, you don't? What are all of you doing? And again, one's on like the Peloton, one's cooking for the next day, one's doing laundry. And I realized that nobody is sleeping well. And that's why everyone is running on coffee all day long. And then oftentimes, then drinking to fall asleep at night. That's a whole nother issue in this country that I think goes underdiagnosed.

And even if you watch TV ads, whatever, there's so much promotion of sleep medication or sleep rings or sleep this or sleep that to try to track your sleep. And that's actually a message I want to send home to your listeners is that when we start approaching sleep, like it's a battle, like I'm going to conquer sleep tonight. Let me track my sleep and see where I'm at. You start getting anxious about your sleep. Sleep becomes a battle.

And what we've learned from the research of sleep is that the most effective way of treating sleep is really through a cognitive behavioral therapy approach. You have to stop battling sleep and start coming to an acceptance along with behavior modifications. That way you can sleep because so many people, look at their bed and it's just that anxiety hits and their mind is spinning and racing and they can't sleep at night.

but it's because they've linked their bed with their anxiety at that point. They've linked their bed with a battle. And I think that's one of the most important pieces is that you need to look at sleep differently, that it's not a battle, it's not something to conquer.

Aaron Shaw (07:48)

Yeah, that's interesting. I've thankfully rarely gone through periods where I really feel like I would never really have trouble sleeping, but I know people that do and unlike going to bed and being like right now, like whenever I go to bed, I kind of get excited because typically I'm tired and I feel like I've done a lot of my own.

Keri Cooper (08:07)

yeah.

Aaron Shaw (08:12)

work on sleep and because of course I talk about it all the time and so I'm a nerd trying to figure out trying to you know figure out what works best for me but some people look at sleep and they start getting anxious about sleep like nervous about sleep and this almost being preoccupied about I don't know if it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sense but you know like I'm probably not gonna sleep well I just I never sleep well and will label themselves as poor sleepers

Keri Cooper (08:23)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Aaron Shaw (08:38)

And

I think that that seems like, and even this past week I gave a talk, it actually a veterinary conference. so people in the vet field are stressed and high work demands. And when I started reviewing these pillars of healthspan, I mentioned sleep. And I said, is anybody in here a good sleeper?

And out of this big room of people, there was one person who raised his hand. He's like, yeah, I'm actually a pretty good sleeper. And he's like, the unicorn showed up. And everybody else was shaking their heads. I think, wow, there's just the, I can imagine this sense of being worried about sleeping while also knowing I need to sleep because packed my next.

Keri Cooper (09:01)

Thank

Mm-hmm. Right, so that's

when they start looking at the clock and they're like counting down, like, no, I have to wake up in five hours, in four hours, in three hours. This is what I have to do the next day. I'm not gonna be able to function. When am gonna nap the next day? And it's just, you're so in your head and you're spinning. Yeah, so that's where the cognitive behavioral therapy approach really comes into play because we need to change how you're looking at sleep, how you're approaching sleep. But also as a society,

Aaron Shaw (09:26)

Yeah, keep checking.

getting spun up about the whole thing.

Keri Cooper (09:48)

It's like this badge of honor to be busy and to not prioritize sleep, which is a whole nother problem, which is why probably only one person raised their hand, you know, in your group, because it's also not seen to be something that's a positive necessarily. Yeah, what do mean you got eight hours of sleep?

Aaron Shaw (10:01)

It was like shame, shame on you for sleeping well and

Yeah, I think that there's, for me, I kind of get giddy when I, you know, am getting prepared for bed. And I am, I sort of identified myself, I'm very comfortable, at this stage of my life, at least feeling like, it's, for me, this is gonna sound crazy for a lot of people that are listening. But by 830, I'm like, all right, it's time to wrap things up. Because I'm a morning person. That's just the way my circadian rhythms are.

Keri Cooper (10:32)

Right.

Aaron Shaw (10:34)

you know, work for me, different for everybody, I'm sure, you can enlighten me on that. I think that, I think that find the key for me is accepting this is the way my cycle works. And there are times when I've certainly tried to, you know, or life happens in events or traveling, traveling time zones where I try to finesse that. But man, there's a sweet spot that I realized that it all like the closer I can get to that sleep spot of this is when I wind down, this is when I go to bed, this is when I wake up.

Keri Cooper (10:36)

us.

Aaron Shaw (11:03)

then it's good and exceptions to the rule need to fall outside of that. But it's probably still a work in progress, I suppose. But let's talk about that person who is anxious about going to bed, who's got some anxiety and tends not to sleep well. If they were to come talk to you, what are some things that you would talk to them about or ask them about or, yeah.

Keri Cooper (11:27)

Yeah, there's numerous layers to it. One of the first things I always talk about is what are you doing throughout your day? Because you need to expend enough energy throughout your day to be tired at night. And I think people easily forget that or they say I'm too tired to go to the gym, or I need to sleep late. I can't get up earlier because so I can't go to the gym. So, you know, that's one of the problems is that sleep is used as an excuse so often, I can't work out.

but you need to work out in order to sleep. You need to move your body. And so often people are sitting at a desk all day long, including our kids, and aren't expending the energy they need to, to be able to be tired at night. So that's one of the first things. The other thing is, are you seeing the light of day at all? Like your body actually needs to see daylight. And again, when somebody's in their home office or something and doesn't step foot outside,

That's a problem.

Aaron Shaw (12:29)

So not getting that morning sunlight, or sometime early morning sunlight in your eyes, looked at circadian rhythm some, and it seems like there is something to, our body's being stimulated when the light's on, it's time to wake up, and when, turn that around, and I didn't, I did this not with any sort of intentional or research, but I found myself.

Keri Cooper (12:33)

Yeah.

Right.

Aaron Shaw (12:56)

dimming lights in the evenings. Like when I'm brushing my teeth at night and there's like the stadium light up over the sink, which I can't see it anyhow. And then there's like a light over the shower behind me. Like I actually prefer just that back to kind of be a little bit backlit as opposed to trying to wind down and like having the bright light in my face. And I feel like there's something to that as well. Maybe like the...

Keri Cooper (12:57)

Yes.

There is, and then that goes

hand in hand with the blue light we're consuming. So when we're looking at devices all day long, especially right before bed, your body is not thinking it's time for bed. It's seeing light. So a lot of people will be like, well, I'll watch a show on my laptop or on my phone before I go to bed. That's not helpful at all. Or reading a book on your device, not helpful.

because again, you're getting all of that light in. So, and those are also some of the basic areas that, you know, I go over is how is your bedroom set up? Is there light coming in? Is it on the colder side? Is it dark? You know, what is, is it comfortable? What is happening just in that realm? What does your nighttime routine look like? But your daytime routine is important too.

And then that also goes into what are you eating all day long? Because if you're eating junk food, sugar, all of that stuff, how do you expect to go to sleep at night? And what's interesting is that it's when we sleep that a lot of our hormones are produced. So those hormones that say I'm full, I don't need any more food, or I'm hungry, all of that stuff is happening at night. So when we're not sleeping well, now we don't really have those hormones working.

Now we're overeating and now we're binge eating and it's just this hervendous cycle.

Aaron Shaw (14:42)

Yeah, it sounds like it's just that like I can see it's a if you are tired, like to peek at a snapshot of somebody's day today and if they were tired and so their hunger may be off and maybe they have the, you know, caffeine and then maybe have a little bit of sugar to kind of get that pep through the day and then that sort of sort of crash. So they play the game, which is I talk to my clients about all the time. You know, it's like what's in the break room at the office sometimes.

Keri Cooper (15:06)

Yep.

Yes

Aaron Shaw (15:10)

And it's not typically

fruit or anything good. So it's, it's this food that's give people a quick sugar buzz and physiologically we're going to crave that over a low energy anyhow. So your body's going to see that sweet donut and think, that's definitely your brain says that's what I want. Well, then you start riding this that wave. And if that's during the day, I could see how in the evening it's going to be hard to wind down. And if you're staring at a screen and if you're stressed out about it,

sleep poorly but then you're gonna get up the next day and do the whole thing all over again. Start the cycle all over again. How do you break that? If you're in that and you do feel too tired, too groggy to work out, which is I hear this often, and feel it often too. I there are certainly days when I don't sleep well or I don't feel well rested, but I know I need to...

Keri Cooper (15:44)

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shaw (16:05)

Is it just like toughen out sometimes? Do you have to overcome some of the sense like, know I'm tired, but objectively I know.

Keri Cooper (16:09)

Yeah, I

mean, some of it is. You can do things while you're tired. You can. And a lot of times people get tired right around that three o'clock mark, which is normal, by the way. Our circadian rhythms kind of shift a little bit at that time, both in the middle of the night and during the daytime. So we do tend to get a little sleepy then. We get even more sleepy when we're coming down from a sugar crash.

So what I say to people, instead of taking a nap at three o'clock or trying to close your eyes, go outside for a 10 minute walk.

It makes a huge difference.

And even if you're tired, you can do a 10 minute walk.

Aaron Shaw (16:52)

Within your capacity, and I think we can all agree, this is what's interesting too, I think we can all agree that a 10 minute walk in the middle of the day sounds glorious. Especially if you're working and grinding through, whether it's at home working and managing your house or in the office or wherever it is, a 10 minute walk outside seems like such a luxury. Especially on a pretty halfway decent day, what a great, just cool to be outside and doing it.

Keri Cooper (17:01)

Yes.

Aaron Shaw (17:20)

and not always but most of the time it's actually pretty readily available that we should be able to do that and I think for whatever reason we set up these barrier barriers and I would even reiterate the idea of being able to do things including exercise when you are a little tired it's okay to be a little tired and and still push through and do something that's a little bit challenging.

Keri Cooper (17:26)

Yes. Yes.

Aaron Shaw (17:44)

mean, your arms and legs aren't gonna fall off probably, like things are gonna be okay, but you may be, me if I'm wrong, but you may be helping to maybe reset things a little bit that'll pay off in the long run.

Keri Cooper (17:54)

Absolutely, you know, even people who work in an office building nine to five you get a lunch break You do Walk around your building for ten minutes outside I have a lot of twenty something year olds that work in the city right now and They some of them especially depending on what you know area business are on work really really long hours

Aaron Shaw (18:01)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Keri Cooper (18:18)

They are now all leaving their office for 10 minutes and taking a walk around their city block just to get fresh air. Sometimes sunlight, sometimes not so sunny, but still just to get that air, just to get a little movement. And it makes a big difference. And whenever people tell me, I don't have time, I don't have time for a 10 minute walk, I don't have time to work out even for 15 minutes a day, I don't have time.

to cook a meal, I say bring up your screen time.

Aaron Shaw (18:49)

You could say that.

Keri Cooper (18:51)

Because I'm pretty no-nonsense. Like, I'm gonna

call you out on what's going on, because that's the only way you have to be truthful in order to fix it. And I say, bring up your screen time. And I remember one person brought up their screen time, and I said, with the amount of time you are on your device, you could have a full-time second job. That's how much time it was. Right. Time is rarely the issue, even though everyone says it is.

Aaron Shaw (18:57)

Yeah.

You could be a professional triathlete if you wanted to be right.

Yeah, 100 % agree. And I think that the fear for some is I can't stop right now because I have productivity demands, right? I have these things I have to do. And yet, X amount of time is spent scrolling nonsense or on the phone. And I know that from my personal experience, when I am

I do have a lot of things to do and I feel like I'm short on time. Sometimes the best productive thing I can do is actually step away from work for 10 minutes and go outside and we have a couple of dogs, there's a certain cycle that forces me to do that anyhow. And sure enough, when I come back from that,

Keri Cooper (20:02)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shaw (20:05)

Whatever that 10 or 15 minutes that I've stepped away, that lost productivity, if you will, I've doubled that in the next hour. Because I can kind of get back in the zone. And so it's actually a net positive. My productivity is better by stopping.

Keri Cooper (20:22)

Absolutely. And, you know, by prioritizing your sleep, so you're waking up, you could focus, you're refreshed, like you can do things, you have energy. People always say to me, like, how do you get so much done? Like, I'm an author of two books. I'm a podcast guest, you know, numerous times a week. I have two businesses. I have four children, all who still live at home. None of are in college yet. And I say, I sleep great.

Aaron Shaw (20:44)

Can you sleep?

Keri Cooper (20:48)

I sleep great and I wake up every morning to work out. That's how my day starts. And my day is productive and I am done, you know, by dinnertime. Like that is family time. I'm not doing anything else. But again, I could be more productive because I'm exercising, because I'm sleeping, because I'm eating well, because I'm prioritizing my sleep.

Aaron Shaw (21:11)

great. You're reinforcing the concept of these pillars of healthspan as pillars of health and they are exercise could may feel like its own thing and nutrition is its own thing and sleep is its own thing. But there's an emotional well being it's they're all pieces of a puzzle. And if you want to have the, you know, best health and performance and just feeling the best, you need all those pieces to be slotted in there and they feed off each other. So it's a win win once they start putting together.

Keri Cooper (21:15)

Yes.

there.

Absolutely, that's when I wrote my books, I wrote about the 10 foundations, five of them are physical. And when people come to me, especially parents, and they're like, my kid can't focus in school. Are they ADD? Are they ADHD? Well, hold on, are they sleeping? Because if they're not sleeping, they're not focusing.

And that's what happens actually a lot to our kids. So they don't sleep. They have to go to school. They have to get up early, right? So now they're on four and five hours of sleep, maybe five hours. They go to school, they can't focus. So they can't learn the information, right? Now they come home and they have homework, but because they don't know what they just learned in school, the homework is taking three times as long. And then you combine that if they're doing sports or clubs after school.

Now the kids are saying, I can't get to bed until 12 o'clock and then I want to be able to relax and watch Netflix. And now it's one o'clock in the morning. But it's because they're not sleeping that their homework oftentimes is taking as long as what it is.

Aaron Shaw (22:45)

That sounds tragic and just completely overwhelming to me. Like that concept of, even being up at that time of night or that time of the morning is crazy, but the idea of trying to do that and be engaged in life and whether it's sports or work or homework aside, it just sounds uncomfortable.

Keri Cooper (23:06)

It sounds like torture. mean, actually sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Literally. is what they use for torture. It is torturous.

Aaron Shaw (23:10)

You're right. That's Literally, literally, right? Yeah.

Yes. What do you think about, you touched on this a little bit, but what do you think about this plethora of wearable devices these days? It sounds like it's a maybe a double-edged sword where it's, no.

Keri Cooper (23:27)

I can't stand them. I'll be

honest, I can't stand them. And actually, when I have people log their sleep, I say, guess, don't look at the clock. What time do you think you may have woken up? How long do you think you were up for? When you're looking at these devices that are like, good job, you got good sleep or bad job, your sleep wasn't good today. I mean, it's not the mentality you want.

And that goes back into that mentality of battling your sleep, that it's something to achieve. And it's like, yes, I did it today. And then when you don't do it, you feel awful. And listen, even people who are good sleepers, you're going to have the occasional off day. You just are. know, maybe on a Saturday night, you had a few drinks, you're not going to sleep great that night. And that's a whole nother issue, by the way, is that when people are go, go, go, then at night, they're drinking that glass of wine and trying to go to sleep.

Aaron Shaw (24:01)

field.

Keri Cooper (24:20)

Your body at night needs to just be sleeping. It's doing so much when you're sleeping. It's processing memories. It's, you know, your growth hormones, especially for kids. It's all of these other hormones. It's, you know, your, I'm blanking, your immune system. Thank you. was just blanking on the word. Your immune system is, you know, kicking on. It can't be digesting food and it can't be trying to get rid of alcohol.

Aaron Shaw (24:46)

Yeah. Like pick one thing and ideally focus on the sleep and not on, don't give your body more than it needs to be doing at that time. So what would be like a general ballpark for before going to bed? How many hours or what kind of timeframe would you say start to?

Keri Cooper (24:55)

Right.

I would love two hours, ideally

two hours.

Aaron Shaw (25:05)

So by two hours before you plan on going to bed, put the fork down.

Keri Cooper (25:11)

Yeah, put the fork down, don't be drinking, and

try to get off the devices.

Aaron Shaw (25:18)

That's the, yeah. Is there an app for that? No. Yeah, so some sort of like make all the devices automatically go dark at a certain time. Like that would be the, that'd be brilliant. Yeah, I, somebody who enjoys an occasional beer and actually would probably enjoy beer, I do enjoy beer or a cocktail or something frequently, I have cut down so dramatically. And I thought I was over a heavy drink per se, but even still having one drink.

Keri Cooper (25:21)

Hahaha!

Yeah.

Aaron Shaw (25:49)

One drink is enough that there's something that happens in the middle of the night when I wake up and I'd be curious your take on this. when I talk to my clients now, my coaching clients now, I, sounds like you, we have similar approach, like an eyes wide open, like put everything on the table, like there's no right or wrong, we're all human beings. And certainly I talk about this stuff all the time, but.

I'm not perfect, you we're not perfect. Like I have good days and bad days and you know, I've been known to eat a donut every now and then and skip work. I like we're all in this together. But being eyes wide open, I know that when I have alcohol it will affect my sleep. And there are certainly times, you know, for days or weeks straight where like I got too much to do.

Keri Cooper (26:15)

Of course. Right.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shaw (26:36)

to indulge in what I want is like, I just want a nice cold beer at end of the day, it's a beautiful sunny day out. The flip side of that is my wife and I have date nights and on Thursday nights, typically we go out to eat and I'll have a cocktail with dinner knowing full well that my sleep is gonna be compromised that night and I'm fine doing it.

Keri Cooper (26:49)

Hmm?

Right, because that's okay. You know, I love how you said like none of us are perfect. We're not, you know, of course you're gonna and you shouldn't be perfect. And again, that's that mentality that there's gonna be nights where you don't get a good night's sleep. It's okay. It's not gonna destroy you. There's gonna be days where you have that donut. It's fine. There's gonna be days where you have that glass of wine or cocktail. It's fine. It's all about moderation.

Aaron Shaw (27:28)

and enjoy it while you're, if you're gonna do it then, yeah.

Keri Cooper (27:29)

And enjoy, like you should

enjoy life. But again, you don't want to be going through life dragging with a ton of health issues that you can't enjoy life, which means you need to be able to take care of yourself for the majority of the time.

Aaron Shaw (27:44)

So somebody is, let's say, generally a good sleeper. And for whatever reason, they go through a night or two and they start waking up, you know, mid-night somewhere, probably two to and not because of alcohol per se or something. I've heard various, some people, I mean, I get some friends and colleagues that would, you know, well, I get up and I read, or I'll, you know, go start to do some work or something, start, you know, somebody who's a writer, so, you she'll start writing.

Keri Cooper (27:46)

Mm-hmm.

You

Aaron Shaw (28:14)

my personal approach is, this is just because I'm sort of a defiant kind of guy to begin with, is that I'm going to stay in bed and pretend I'm sleeping and see if I can trick myself into falling asleep. Is there like a one strategy that tends to work better than another?

Keri Cooper (28:29)

Well, it's based upon if you are laying in bed awake, are you stressed out? If you are stressed out, get out of your bed immediately. You don't wanna link your bed with stress. If it's like you who, and I'm the same way, if I randomly wake up, it's rare, but on occasion I do, I'm just like, eh. And like, I'll just lay there and like snuggle up and it's fine, it doesn't bother me. So I can stay in bed. But if you have distress over the fact that you're waking up.

you have to get out of bed. That's actually where the sleep issues, think, if we really want to dig to the core, begin, is that you're lying in bed and you're frustrated. You're lying in bed and you're stressed out. And that's when your mind really starts linking that bed with anxiety, with frustration, with stress. So if you are lying in bed, whether it's in the middle of the night, you woke up or you're trying to go to bed and you're laying there stressed out, get out of bed.

Aaron Shaw (29:27)

Interesting. Yes, I would say from my personal experience when I'm in bed and I would wake up for kind of random infrequent time. I think it's the same, it's just the same strategy as you do. Like I don't, I'm not typically stressed. I'm certainly not associating my bed with stress. And because I've been so consciously aware of my health for so long.

I could, if, if the worst case scenario, worst case scenario, I just realized I may be a little bit tired if I don't fall back tomorrow. And also I've had nights where I've slept very little through for whatever reason and still fun, you know, and still I stand like, see your life goes on. Um, but I find that it's like, yeah, I guess since I'm not stressed out about or anxious about the sleeping process, as much as just like, I shrug it off. Okay. This is one of those, one of those nights.

Keri Cooper (30:06)

Right. Yep.

Right. And that's the difference

between somebody who has a sleep issue and someone who doesn't. So somebody who has a sleep issue, if they get up in the middle of the night, it's, my gosh, I'm gonna be so tired tomorrow. I'm not gonna be able to function. When am gonna be able to nap? I have to go to bed extra early tomorrow. Like their mind just starts going. And they try to almost like recoup the lost sleep, which you can't do, by the way. It's just gone and it's okay.

Aaron Shaw (30:39)

Yeah. Catch up on.

Keri Cooper (30:43)

and then they go to bed early or they take a nap. And now their sleep cycle is even more off.

Aaron Shaw (30:50)

Yeah, I can easily see how with the best of intentions, like trying to like, you know, band-aid approach to all the little things as opposed to maybe stepping back and saying, let's, let me create like a sleep strategy. I'm not sure if there's a word for that. But it's like, what's the bigger plan and then recognize, yeah, that may be little, you know, little boo-boos along the way or little things that happen along the way, but I need to stick to the bigger picture plan as a book.

Keri Cooper (31:17)

Yeah, yeah, you

can't recoup it.

Aaron Shaw (31:18)

and

caffeine. Like, that's like, that's not really a strategy sounds like a grasping at straws.

Keri Cooper (31:25)

No,

that was like, you if somebody had a donut one day and felt bad about it, because they have, you know, not a great maybe relationship with food, you can't then eat like 20 cucumbers the next day and think like it's fixing it. You have to be able to know that like one donut's okay.

Aaron Shaw (31:37)

I'm sorry.

Yeah, that's a good analogy. to use that one.

Keri Cooper (31:46)

Hahaha

Aaron Shaw (31:47)

And so what about people who would either go to think there's a lot of over the counter sleep aids these days? Would you say that those are absolute no-nos or in case of emergency break glass and take the so I think even night well now which is was like the cold and flu I think they have something that's like just the sleep better. Basically, just knock you out for the night or

Keri Cooper (32:12)

Yes, they do.

Yeah, so obviously I don't love them. I'm not into absolutes. I don't want to say there's never a time to take them.

And some people are on sleep meds. And when they come to see me, I don't say like, just jump off your sleep meds. But what I say to them is make a decision. If you're going to take your sleep meds, you're going to take them at the same time every day. Not do this, let me see, am I sleeping? Am I not sleeping? Do I need to take it now? Because again, that's all that frustration and anxiety. If you choose to take them, take them.

take them at the same time take them consistent or however your doctor has prescribed them or if you're doing something over the counter and then say okay i'm going to take them every other day like figure it out but talk to your doctor about that because the sleep meds are no joke like that needs to be overlooked by a doctor even if you're just taking over the counter ones your doctor should know about this and you should have a plan with your doctor about that

Aaron Shaw (33:12)

Yeah, for sure. seems like it's, I can see it. I'm sure if somebody has chronic sleep problems and they haven't really had it attended to how it would be great to see what's available off the shelf. At the same time, I could also see that could be a slippery slope for somebody in not, not really perhaps being addressing whatever the primary issue is with their, like they're not following the, you know.

Keri Cooper (33:25)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shaw (33:37)

dark room, cool room, regular sleep times, but I can kind of sleep anytime as long as I take this pill, it kind of knocks me out. Like that's not really a, or there are consequences of that long-term health consequences.

Keri Cooper (33:49)

I mean, it's also what kind of sleep are you really getting?

Aaron Shaw (33:53)

Right, yeah, being knocked out versus like a natural, sleep.

Keri Cooper (33:56)

Right. Yeah,

I think there's a quality of sleep issue

Aaron Shaw (34:00)

Yeah. So what do you think would be the number one or top couple things when somebody comes to see you seeks out your expertise? What are what tends to be the low hanging fruit that some people are often overlooking?

Keri Cooper (34:16)

I mean, one of my most important takeaways with that is that we have to change the way we look at sleep, both from not battling it and from prioritizing it. That is like the overall theme of working with me. And then, yeah, we go into the basics of make sure your room is a little bit cold, make sure that, you know, there's nothing wrong with the sound machine, use the sound machine, there's noise because sometimes people don't even realize how the noise is impacting them.

Make sure it's really, really, really dark in your room. Like those are the basics. And then like I said, we look at your day to day. Are you expending energy? If you're not, you're not going to sleep. When are you drinking caffeine? Are you drinking alcohol? Those are the places we look at. But for anybody here and you're listening and they're like, where do I start? The most basic place to start on trying to adjust your sleep routine

is to consistently wake up at the same time. I'm not so concerned about what time you go to bed. I'm more concerned about you waking up actually at a consistent time.

Aaron Shaw (35:24)

Well, let's kind of tie that in a little bit with, you may have, I'll give you the opportunity to give another tip here. So in all of my episodes, I do want to have the listeners have one action item that they can do, and in this case, start tonight. So what would you think of, we've touched on several things that can improve our sleep. And we know the difference between being foggy headed and being asleep.

Keri Cooper (35:41)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shaw (35:50)

are not sleeping well, but what is one thing somebody could do today, tonight, to improve their sleep and therefore probably improve their healthspan, their lifespan, their capacity to work or school? What would be one thing that they could do?

Keri Cooper (36:04)

mean, the number one thing is to actually prioritize it. So think about what time do you want to go to bed at night? Don't be doing the dishes at midnight. you have to, that's the first step. You have to want to prioritize it. You have to realize that it is a foundation for both your mental and your physical health.

Aaron Shaw (36:27)

love that. think when you prioritize something, it would indicate that it's a value to you. And if it's a value, like true personal value, you can incentivize or you have more incentive to say, sleep is important to me. And if I can think back to, again, these rooms of people that I've been speaking to, everybody can acknowledge like, man, you know, I could probably sleep a little bit better. And certainly when I don't, there are consequences in my life during the day. And so it is important.

Keri Cooper (36:34)

Yes.

Aaron Shaw (36:58)

then if it is a priority, if it's a board and you make it a priority, it seems like it's a lot easier to say, I'm going to take, therefore take action. And start doing some of these things. I love the idea.

Keri Cooper (37:05)

Right. And that's

why, you by the time people get to me for a sleep coach, they have decided to prioritize their sleep. So we're already starting off in a great place. You know, no one's forced to come see me. So it's by the time they say, yes, I need help with this. And you know what the good thing about the sleep coaching is that by the time they get to me, they want to prioritize it already. So we're already through that hurdle.

Aaron Shaw (37:16)

Really filtered them through. For sure, that's great.

Keri Cooper (37:33)

And then honestly, it's normally under a month to put someone back into a good sleep pattern.

Aaron Shaw (37:39)

Good, so from, so within a month of somebody who said, I'm ready, I know I need to kind of, I need to the way I do a few things, need some guidance from somebody, from somebody like Keri Cooper, you would say generally speaking within a month's time, they should feel like things are kind of starting to get back on track. That's good, that's encouraging. I'm sure.

Keri Cooper (37:46)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's a quick

turnaround. Our brains are always learning and they're always changing. So once we start changing the patterns and the routines and the thought processes, it goes.

Aaron Shaw (38:13)

That's great. I'm sure there are people listening that could say that they haven't slept consistently well for months and months and years or decades, whatever it is that. So if you're listening to this and you feel that you've not been sleeping well and that is your norm, take it with some hope that with some proper guidance from.

Keri Cooper (38:21)

Years. Yeah.

Aaron Shaw (38:39)

Keri Cooper, could actually within a month's time actually probably sleeping much better than you are now, which is encouraging. It is, as I've spoken on other episodes with this regarding sleep, is the, it's like the legal performance enhancing drug. To speak from the athlete's point of view in various sports is always like, what's the trick, what's the...

What do you, whether it's Gatorade on one side or illegal drugs on the other side, like what's the hack? And I feel like the biggest hacks is sleep well, like master that sleeping. All the beautiful physiological processes that we want to perform well, know, physically plus, you know, cognitive strength and memory and all the risks of dementia and Alzheimer's, like all of these things are hormones. All these positive things happen when we sleep. That's where the magic happens. And if you...

Keri Cooper (39:34)

Isn't

that amazing? Isn't it truly amazing how much actually happens when we sleep? And I think people don't realize that.

Aaron Shaw (39:41)

Yeah. And I think of it as, you know, being in the, you know, fitness and exercise space that I often get asked, you know, what's the best workout or I want to run or I want to bike or I want to lift weights or I, know, I'm losing muscle mass. How do we regain that? we can talk and if anything, it's like, I don't want to say it's easy, but it's pretty straightforward. Like how to program somebody to let go. can, if this is where you're at, yeah, of course I can give you ideas and you can become stronger and build your cardiovascular health and all this other stuff.

Keri Cooper (39:51)

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Shaw (40:11)

But unless we put it in part of the equation, which is the sleep, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you like doing squats or deadlifts or jumping jacks or running or riding a bicycle. If you're not sleeping, you're missing the equation. The equation is incomplete and your results are gonna be subpar. so, know, to flip that on the other side, if you have a pretty good program and you have sleep put in there, you're gonna get so much more ultimate return because

Without that, you're kind of suffering for nothing, especially if you're going doing workouts and doing hard things. You are breaking down your body. We all know what that delayed onset muscle soreness is and that achiness is. To me, that is a physical manifestation that we're all probably fairly familiar with.

But we recover from that when we sleep, right? And I think that there's a whole lot of other things that we recover from by sleeping that we don't really feel. We don't have like the soreness of, you know, the physical soreness of being foggy or not making a good decision or something.

Keri Cooper (41:12)

Right. Everything.

yeah. It's always funny around January when everyone's always posting about, I'm gonna go to the gym and eat healthy. And I'm like, sleep. You need sleep in that equation or it's not gonna work.

Aaron Shaw (41:23)

Sleep.

Yeah, maybe next year is the year of sleep. There could be a trend of, it's not how much you lift or how much you bench or how often you go to the gym. It's how well do you sleep? Like how rested, like I challenge you to who can be more rested tomorrow. Like that should be the real challenge. Well Keri Cooper, any other last minute tips that you would think to share or highlights or?

Keri Cooper (41:41)

Right?

I think I also want people to just really understand it can get better. Even though you've suffered with it for a long time, it can get better. Like you just need a better plan.

Aaron Shaw (42:03)

Yes, and we know the person that can help you with that. Keri, I will share all of your contact information on this episode. if any listeners want to learn more, I've got a great website with some interesting statistics on that. A little eye opening on how profound, really even like the national financial consequences of poor sleep is astounding. So if you're talking, know, budget for...

Keri Cooper (42:12)

Thank you.

Yes. Uh-huh.

Aaron Shaw (42:31)

you know, big business or small business or personal, get your sleep in order and everything will be better, I think. So, Keri, thank you for joining me and for any listeners out there who are gonna want to invest in your sleep, I would highly advise that you do that, because if it's not dialed now, life is so much better when you do get that under control. So reach out to Keri and if you have any questions.

Keri Cooper (42:43)

Thank you.

Aaron Shaw (42:57)

about anything health related, healthspan related. it's exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, or preventative care. Feel free to respond to this episode, send me an email, and we'll do another episode on it. So, until next time, get a good night's sleep tonight. Cheers.