How to Fix Your Sleep w/Dr. Peter Martone

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. The more weight somebody has, the more stress they're under. And that stress comes in three areas, emotional, physical, and biochemical.

00:31So when you get poor quality sleep, you put your body into survival. When your body's in survival, you're in a stress state, so you're going to gain and retain weight. Almost every chronic disease out there, some way, shape, or form is connected to lack of sleep. What is going on, everybody? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show. And today, I am super excited to be joined by Dr. Peter Martone.

01:02He is an educator, an injury prevention specialist, and a patient care health practitioner who has been focused on improving patients' biomechanics for over 25 years. He specializes in helping people optimize their health through proper posture, sleep alignment, and foundational habits to support overall well-being. So, Dr. Martone, it is a pleasure to have you on the show today. Well, thank you so much. It's always an honor to connect with people like you that are making such an impact in this world,

01:37because I know how hard it is to create an audience and have a podcast and do it every single week. So, thanks for the impact that you're making on humanity. It's great. Oh, thank you so much. Well, I'm excited to dive into your expertise here. Your work focuses specifically on foundational habits like sleep and posture that many of us might not think about until we experience having pain or having discomfort in our body. So, can you share a little bit about what inspired you to focus on those areas and how they became a central part of your approach to optimizing health?

02:11Yeah, that's a great question. You see, my undergrad degree was exercise physiology and kinesiology. So, I always loved the study of biomechanics, how the body moved in nutrition and in fitness. And then I was a professional trainer for years until I moved into the chiropractic world. And within chiropractic, chiropractic really looked at the structure's effect on neurology. And that's something to me, you know, a lot of times when people think about chiropractic, and even today, a lot of chiropractors practice like this.

02:42It's about just moving bones to improve motion, almost like, you know, to get people out of pain. But I never practiced like that. I would look at the alignment of the structure of the human frame and its impact on the nervous system. And then by aligning the structure, you improve the function of the nervous system, and that's how you get people well. And I did that for a long time, but my problem was I always had pain, right? So, you know, I went through the first 12 years of my practice always having back pain until finally my disc herniated.

03:17I was in a little bit of a mountain biking mishap, but it wasn't even that bad. I've had done much worse before. But then my back tweaked, and I'm like, oh, this is just like a million times before. Then my leg got numb. Then I was seized up, and I couldn't move. And I found myself in the emergency room, hooked up and dilaudid. They gave me so much morphine. They asked my wife if I was a drug addict at the hospital. That's how much pain I was in. And, you know, when you're really at the lowest of low, your brain just needs to start innovating and just saying, how the hell did it get like this?

03:53Like, how have I been working with patients for the decade of my life, and I can't even help myself? So then I started reviewing x-rays, and I found a pattern. And I found that the problem wasn't my lower back all these years. It was my neck because of, you know, the writing reflex, body posture, adjusted head position. And then I theorized, well, I should be able to fix this at night while I sleep. And I started sleeping in different positions, using pillows different ways, fix my neck. And I've never had a back problem again since. Oh, my goodness. I love that story.

04:24I love that you kind of had to go through your own experience to see how you could improve things for yourself. And now you're spreading the word through your work, which thank you. Like, I'm getting to know you here on this podcast. I'm super excited to know a little bit more about what you do, but already high level knowing what you do. It's great work. People need to know about this. And if you guys can hear his Boston accent, it is thick. Oh, it is thick. Wicked thick. Wicked. Awesome. Well, can you also explain a little bit about, like, why sleep is so crucial and what most people misunderstand about getting quality sleep?

05:02Thank you, Nick. Thank you so much. See, let's just, like, kind of look at science. Science, and there's two different types of science. I don't know if people really know it. Like, medicine's based on Newtonian principles, which is very, you know, fact, you know, it's basically to identify a perfect circle. Every point is equal distance. So that point, they really, like, so basically medicine looks at one vertical, and they research one vertical, but everything else is a side effect. Well, no, it's an effect.

05:34Then the other type of physics is quantum physics that looks at the holism of the body, and they're looking at so much different aspects of it. So you can't give somebody one thing and say this is what it does, but let's forget about everything else. So that research still moves into the sleep world. And when they make recommendations and they look at these recommendations, they're only based on one vertical, not looking at the holistic model. And most of the recommendations out there are BSI sleeper. Everybody, no, side sleeper's the best sleeper.

06:05And that research is based on glymphatic drainage, which a lot of people are concerned about, and you should be concerned about. But that was done, the gold standard was that the study was done in 2015, and it was done on rats. And in there, there's a significant study that says we understand that this study was based on done in rats, but we're extrapolating that the human need to sleep the same as rats do. So the same sleeping position for glymphatic drainage is going to be the same for humans.

06:37But the big thing that they don't understand is that the rat cervical spine is completely opposite the structure of the human cervical spine. So when you're extrapolating a sleeping position based on a structure of an animal that isn't even close to the human frame, you can't make – it's not apples and apples. It's comparing like apples and, I don't know, grapefruits. Well, no, that's actually pretty similar. Apples and bananas. Apples and bananas.

07:07Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not even in the same ballpark, but they're just looking at one vertical. And a lot of these recommendations that have been given from our sleep experts are just that. They're based on one vertical. So, for instance, well, it's really important to make sure that your core body temperature drops when you sleep. That is really important, especially even as women age, you're going to notice they don't get good sleep because their core temperature doesn't drop at the beginning of the night.

07:39So what is the recommendation? Take all the sheets and throw them on the floor, right, and sleep with no sheets. But that, due to the allostatic load in the body, puts the body into survival, and that destroys your immune system while you sleep. So now you put the body into more imbalance. So we need to bring a holistic understanding to the bed. And we need to have an anchor that you can't argue. And that anchor is that the nervous system controls everything in the human body, and that the structure of your spine directly affects the impact of that nervous system.

08:16So if we can agree and start from there, and then the first thing that we do is we start with alignment while we sleep, then everything else starts to fall into place. Got it. Got it. And I'm curious because we're going to get to this at some point in the podcast today. But is this a part of the WAY method, the W-A-Y method? Yeah. So- Wait, hold on. I don't want you to elaborate yet. I want to get to it later. It is. Yes. It's very, very much. So it's our mission to help people get way better sleep, awakening the full potential of a well-rested, aligned you.

08:47Yes, it is. I love that. Okay, cool. Well, I'm excited to dive into that part. But you mentioned there, so I just want to kind of put on the listener's mind right now, is that you mentioned posture there. So the normal way is on our side. What is our best way? Is it on our back? Is it on our stomach? Is it like, you don't have to elaborate it now, but what is the best position to be in? The best position is so the WAY method, but our method starts with the body in alignment. So let me ask you a question.

09:18Yeah. What position do you think the body would be most in alignment? On your back. Right? On your back. Right where your body weight is distributed over the greater surface area. In a rat, it's on its side. In a human, it's on their back. With your neck supported, not your head supported. A pillow defined is a support for your head. That's why people do not like their pillows, because you can't support the head and get great quality sleep, because you're going to toss and turn all night long.

09:50But we'll get into that. But yes, on your back. But the problem is, being on your back, it's not a safety position. So most people in their conscious brain say, I can't do that, because the conscious brain really messes everything up. Oh, interesting. Okay. So we're all going to get into that. We get into the weight method then, huh? Yes. That's really where we're going to dive in. Ah. All right. Beautiful. Okay. Really quick, before we get into it, because I want to talk about cortisol and all those things, too, as well with you. How does poor sleep affect aspects of our health, like our energy, our posture, and even people trying to lose weight?

10:28A lot of people listening to this episode right now are like, I want to build muscle. I want to decrease body fat. I want to lose body fat. How does poor sleep affect that? So weight is an insulating layer to the external environment. So what that means is, and I'm going to say that again, weight is an insulating layer to the external environment. The more weight somebody has, the more stress they're under. And that stress comes in three areas, emotional, physical, and biochemical. So when you get poor quality sleep, you put your body into survival.

11:01When your body's in survival, you're in a stress state, so you're going to gain and retain weight. So really, almost every chronic disease out there, some way, shape, or form is connected to lack of sleep. The way that I explain sleep is this. And there are experts that understand sleep as to why we sleep a lot deeper. But just in thinking, think about your body like a cell phone.

11:32And you have all these apps going. And that's performance during the day. Well, at night, what do you need to do? You need to plug in. But if you only plug in that cell phone for 50% charge, you only have 50% performance the next day. So you have to look at sleep as plugging in time. And if you're not working to maximize your sleep, your performance every single day is going to be diminished. And you're going to retain weight because of that. I mean, we can go into leptin and, you know, gremulin and all that stuff.

12:04But ultimately, what it is, is it's purely you're not getting enough sleep or you're not getting good quality sleep because there are very specific milestones and points that we need to make in order to get deep sleep. But sleep ultimately is your plug in time. And if you have any health issue that's going on, digestively, immune system or reproductive in those areas, you have a chronic sleep issue. That's a great way to explain a great analogy for the listeners to think about it easily like that.

12:36But to that, not but, but and to that, sleep struggles, it's a common thing. Like people have a really, and that's why you are in the work that you are doing and spreading this word about sleep. What are some of the most or some of the most prevalent reasons why someone can't fall asleep? They can't fall asleep because they don't, they can't shut off their own brains. You see, what we've done is, is, is we've got this whole thing about sleep wrong.

13:08Right. So one of the problems is, is we think about sleep as, oh, I'm going to get better sleep and have better health. It doesn't work that way. You have to have a healthier life and then you get better sleep. You see, it's kind of a combination. It's not backwards like that. So when we look at sleep, sleep's a nervous system problem. It's an imbalance within your nervous system. So the, the nervous system that controls your body when you're awake and surviving is your sympathetic nervous system, which is where cortisol lives.

13:40When you plug in and recharge or your, you have your survived nervous system. And then the opposite nervous system that counterbalances that is your thrive nervous system or your parasympathetic nervous system. So parasympathetic nervous system controls immune system, digestive system, and reproductive system. So, so, so the, the trick with sleep is being able to pass the torch over to the parasympathetic nervous system. Shut down the sympathetics and turn on the parasympathetics. But the problem is because we, whether our body thinks we're running from a tiger or we are running from a tiger, the physiological state is still the same.

14:20So, so, so this, this parasympathetic nervous system is like a weak muscle. We don't know how in our culture to turn it on in, in, in, in the emotions that trigger the sympathetics are anger, you know, envy, you know, fear, all the things that we uncertainty. This is sympathetic emotions, parasympathetic emotions, love, gratitude, caring, nurturing. So, so it, sleep isn't just a matter that you can't shut down your own brain.

14:54It's what state are you in? So that's what nobody's talking about it. Sleep is a nervous system imbalance. And that's what I'm an expert in is figuring, figuring out how to help people balance their nervous system so that they can live a healthier life. Okay. Well, let's, is this part of the method? Cause we should just type right into it. It is. All right. It is definitely part of the method. We can circle back to any other questions I had around that. Cause I definitely want to dive into cortisol a little bit with you, but you've developed this way method to help people achieve better sleep.

15:25And I mean, geez, when what I'm hearing you say right now resonates so hard in the way that I think about things and what we share inside of our warrior baby community too, as well is like, we focus on the mindset aspects of things. What emotional attachments, what limiting beliefs, what stories are women holding onto that are getting in the way of them consciously showing up on a daily basis to go and take action on their goals. They're living in this state of mind that is emotionally charged around things that don't even matter anymore. So what you just said there in terms of like the pair, the fight or flight, right?

16:00Essentially is we, people carry anger, judgment, resent, um, envy. They carry those emotions with them. And if we can just switch over into the, I'm so interested to hear what you have to say about this. So please explain what it stands for and how it works. Okay, great. So it, you know, you have, it sounds so simple when I bring it up because it's, you know, it's simplicity on the far side of complexity. It took us so long to like pull all of this up to combine the, the, the, the research that's out there in the research, you know, within the chiropractic industry, and then putting epigenetics together to come up with this.

16:42So basically to get way better sleep means awakening the full potential of the well-rested aligned you. So alignment is critically important. That's not just alignment in your body. It's also alignment in your life. So the way method starts with called perfecting the triune of sleep. So the triune of sleep, we have three things that are at play when the body needs to go to sleep. They're all battling each other. And if you don't align these and start with them in the right framework, you're never going to get way better sleep.

17:15You're never going to get great quality sleep. So the first thing is the body. The second thing is the subconscious brain. And then the third thing is the conscious brain. So all the body wants it when it sleeps, it does not want to be in pain and it wants alignment. That's it. It doesn't care. It just doesn't want to be in pain. The average person will toss and turn 20 to 40 times a night because they're in pain. Pain is what makes people toss and turn. That's it. And if you have alcohol and you try to fall asleep in your unsustainable position, you're going to wake up with a sore shoulder and a sore hip.

17:52So I give people – and when you ask, it's funny. They're like, oh, what's the best position? I'm like, well, what position do you sleep in? They're like, oh, on my side. I stay there all night. I'm like, okay, this is what I want you to do. I want you to lie on the couch in a position you fall asleep in and try to watch a two-hour movie without moving. It's not possible because you have to move because you're in an unsustainable position. So what the conscious brain thinks is comfortable, it's not. It's safe. So let me kind of go – I'm going to go all the way back to when I grew up in Malden, Massachusetts on a busy street.

18:32And my bed was on the front porch. As a child, I can always remember kids to play a prank would come and smash on the window. And I thought I was going to get, like, kidnapped every time I would go to bed. So when my parents would tell me to go to bed, I never wanted to go to sleep because I was petrified. The only way I was able to go to sleep was to curl up in a ball, put all my stuffed animals around me, create this cocoon of what? What am I doing? Safety. Safety.

19:02And only when my subconscious brain felt safe was able to fall asleep. And that is what the subconscious brain is. That's why we have on our website a free animal sleep avatar test where you can take the avatar test, see what animal you need to sleep with, and how much safety you need to create in order to then move to the next step. I love that. So we have the body, we have the subconscious brain wants safety, and then the conscious brain, we just need to teach it how to get out of its own effing way.

19:33Because the conscious brain messes everything up with all of these excuses and, oh, no, I've always been like this. Oh, I can't change. And it just has no idea. So if you can understand what the body wants and then what the subconscious brain needs, you can put anybody to sleep. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control.

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20:37Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. I love that. Okay, that's great. Quick break. If you're finding this episode helpful so far, it would mean a lot if you could hit pause for just a second, leave a quick rating or a review or share it with someone who could benefit from it.

21:08Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat, and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me. Okay. So I'm thinking in my head to the ones that are probably listening to this being like that. Like they have this thought in their head, oh, I just, I can only sleep five hours. What, what, first of all, what is the recommendation of hours that you should get a night that you need to sleep? So it varies from person to person. But you can't improve what you don't track. So I think you need to track something.

21:39I like HRV, high rate variability. They have rings that do it. They got whoops that do it. They have things that do it. I saw that. Yeah. And then, and then when you understand when you're best of your best day, when you have so much energy and you're like, you're a rock star and you feel like a machine, see what your HRV is. And then you try to improve that either with quality of sleep or quantity of sleep, depending on what we need to do. So I like to, to picture a day when you're at your best and then see what your HRV is and then choose to back in how much sleep you need.

22:14But on average, eight to nine hours, somewhere in the matter of that realm. Okay. Beautiful. So I'm going to put a pin on what I wanted to ask you and kind of circle to this question. But all, anybody that's listening, you guys, all of Dr. Peter Martone's information is going to be in the description below, website and all that jazz. You can check out even more of what he's sharing with us today on the, on the episode. Um, but for HRV, talk a little bit about that because that's something I look at every single time I opened up my aura ring. I'm looking at my HRV and then I, I like to talk about this because I pride myself on my HRV being at like 160 with a max of 200 over.

22:51But if you take that number and you look at somebody else that may be the same age and they're like 70 or 80 and then, but then it can vary across different. Um, so, so many variables. That's why you can't, you can't compare yourself to somebody else. You, that's, you have to, you have to, that, that's why I have a little bit of an issue with trackers and, but, but it, you have to compare them to your own numbers. Right. Right. So, you know, in HRV basic is the way your heart's beating.

23:22It's telling you how balanced you are between your sympathetics and your parasympathetics and your ability to shut them off. Do me a favor, Nikki, make a circle and then look at me through the lens in that circle and then bring that back to your eye all the way back to your eye. So see how you're left eyed and I'm guessing you're right handed. Yeah. Yeah. So let me tell you a little bit about your avatar, how you need to sleep and then what that tells me about your internal systems. Okay. Okay. So somebody that's cross dominant, which I already profiled you as being cross dominant when we got on this call.

23:55Okay. So a cross dominant individual is a brain that goes a million miles a minute. It's tough to shut down. It's its own worst enemy. It compares itself to other people, you know, in, in that avatar typically has immune system, hormonal imbalance and digestive issues that, that, that, that use not, not always, but usually run within the cross dominant individual. So the cross dominant individuals neurology likes to be cuddled. It likes to be, it needs pressure. So in, in our animal sleep avatar, where we have the gorilla, the armadillo, and then the ostrich, you would be more like an armadillo.

24:31You would, you would need pressure on your chest, pressure on your forehead in order to fall asleep because your, your avatar has, has a prefrontal cortex that's underdeveloped. And that causes a little bit of anxiousness or anxiety. But most, a lot of times as you get older or you're, you know, for me, I'm cross dominant and I had that before. I don't have it now because I'm, you know, I meditated, I trained, I have a lot of purpose in life. But if you have absence of purpose and you're cross dominant, you're going to have such a difficult time shutting down your brain when you sleep.

25:06Interesting. I, I, I can align with some of the things that you said. However, for me, it's super easy to fall asleep. Like I have no problem falling asleep. And then, um, I don't have a problem fault, like, or, or staying asleep. So my sleep numbers are pretty, like my readiness score is always like in the high eighties and then into the nineties. But I do resonate with the fact that I have to sleep on my, like I have to fall asleep on my stomach, which. Oh, okay. So, so that's because of the pressure that needs to be created.

25:37Right. So here's the issue. So then that affects your vagus nerve because it affects your, uh, it affects the specific, uh, alignment of your atlas and occiput. So that causes issues digestively, hormonal imbalances in immune systems. So because the vagus nerve is 80% of all the parasympathetic to the entire system. So whether you have them now, or you had ear infections when you were a kid, or you had strep hurts when you were a kid growing up, you're going to translate those into adulthood with heart palpitations ringing in your ears in different things like that.

26:10Because the neurology, um, on that cross dominant, the brain runs so quickly. Uh, it, it, it runs sympathetic dominant anyways. So when you're sleeping on your stomach suppresses the parasympathetic nervous system. Interesting. But the pressure stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. So that's why, um, that's why like somebody like you, or, or, or if a woman's listening, if you have vagus nerve suppression, which cross dominant stomach sleepers will be a very prone to, you're going to feel really good when you're pregnant.

26:44And then when you're not, and you give birth, there's a, there's a huge dip. And then that's why those patients typically have a lot more postpartum because you're, you're, you're getting away with the enormous amount of, of, uh, vagal stimulation while you're pregnant. And then once that shuts off, then you go into a depression. So those women have to be very conscientious about that. Okay. Well, there's lots on pack here. Interesting. I know. And I, and I talk in like, and I, so here's my problem.

27:15I can definitely talk in a vertical, but my brain thinks like, like, like a million different things at one time. So it's so hard. You got to keep me on track. So, okay. Let's go with the, you say gorilla, armadillo. Yes. Perfect. Yes. Oh, gorilla, armadillo, and an ostrich. An ostrich. Okay. Let's say that we profile as one of those. We go to your website, we look at it up and we were, we're seeing, we're in that category. Which one is the most common? The most common is the armadillo. Okay. So go ahead.

27:45Yep. So if that, what, how would you help somebody get better sleep that is in that, is in an armadillo state? So the, the, the subconscious brain is the second step, not the first step. So the first step is putting the body in alignment. Every body needs to sleep the same way on your back, pillow under your neck, at least fall asleep like this. You don't have to stay like this all night because the subconscious brain is at play when you're falling asleep.

28:17Not the conscious brain. It's the subconscious. Cause people like, I'm not in control. You're on in control. It's so funny. You want to be in control the entire night, but you're not in control. So that's good. I respect you for thinking that. So that's great. So you put the pillow underneath your neck, the neck, the head can't be supported. So a lot of people that say, oh, I'm a back sleeper already. You're using a pillow. It's supporting your head and it's doing this. You need to get a pillow. This is a neckness. This just happens to be one that I designed, but you, you want the neck arched and then the weight of the head off of the back of the pillow.

28:53In somebody like you, that's a stomach sleeper. Your sub, your subconscious is looking at that saying no effing way. Cause I will not feel safe. So your conscious brain's like, I can't do that. Right. But we know that your, your, your subconscious, your conscious brain is a stupid brain, right? The subconscious brain is, is just giving the conscious brain the information and it doesn't, you know, it's a two year old. 95% of our day in our subconscious.

29:23Right. It's all subconscious. So the subconscious wants safety. Okay. So the, the, the, uh, the animal avatar that you're going to identify with will tell you how much safety you need to create. Now, now that I know that you're a stomach sleeper, you're going to be like a, a ostracadillo, right? You need a lot of pressure. Okay. Okay. And so when you fall asleep, this is the, this is the key. Your subconscious brain does not know what position you're in.

29:57It only knows based on pressure. So if you can then identify if I'm a side sleeper, I like this. And you put a pillow against the side of your face, you put a pillow against your body, you put a weighted blanket on you and you mimic the pressure being created in the position that you love to sleep in. Once you fall asleep, your subconscious brain just wants the pressure. It wants, that's, what's creating the safety. Your body wants alignment, so it won't move.

30:27But if you can create the pressure for the subconscious brain, it's unbelievable. Got it. Okay. That makes total sense. And nobody's ever talked about this before. So it's, it's such like a new concept. But once you start trying it in the idea is, is listen, once you fall asleep, you are not in control. So within our way better sleep Academy, we talk about the 10 minute sleep ritual. Just worry about what I want you to do for 10 minutes. That's it. And then once you fall asleep, I'm out. It doesn't matter.

30:57So I'm an expert at being able to help you fall asleep. That's it. Well, I fall asleep. Fine. Not just getting to sleep. It's how we want you to fall asleep from positioning to safety to daily habits beforehand. There's so much that goes into falling asleep. That's really the variable that's going to allow you to get way better sleep. Got it. That makes total sense. Now it's more about the posture of how you fall asleep in alignment that you fall asleep. And it's going to make you feel safe. So what I need to do is mimic the pressure by you saying like the weighted blanket or like an armadillo would need to do that when they take your tests and mimic.

31:34Because I do tend to sleep on my side and I like the pressure here. So mimic those things, but try and stay in alignment like we talked earlier. Like on your back. Put the body in alignment. Create safety seconds. And then the last thing is get that primitive brain out of its own way. And there are different ways to do that. How do we do that? We have basically a technique within the academy called a calm, right? So it's controlled breathing, you know, alignment and specific stimulation, but mindful release or mindful relaxation.

32:09So how do we do this? Let's start with controlled breathing, spare breathing. It's the type of breathing that stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. First thing you do is you take an inhale, right? And then you exhale. And when you exhale, at the end of the exhale, there's a pause. You fall asleep on your exhale and pause, not the inhale. So what you do is you focus on just letting go.

32:41And you have to let go into that pause. Feel safe in that pause. And think about it. The emotions that live in that pause are love, gratitude, respect, hate, anger and anguish. You'll shorten that pause. So as you give more into that natural pause, you'll hear your heart rate. Maybe it's going fast at the beginning and you take a breath in. But as you let it out and that pause gets longer and longer and longer, that's heart rates dropping, respiratory rates dropping, core temperatures dropping, and you'll be out like that.

33:18Okay. Hmm. Okay. All right. I'm definitely going to have to give this a try tonight. And I want everybody to go to your resources that are in the description below and check out and see which type you guys are. Do you have any specific success stories of your patients that have overcome chronic pain? We have had, I mean, you know, we've worked with tens of thousands of people across the globe now and that have gone through our programs. And, you know, you know, ones that I work with specifically, let's say some clients or their patients in Atlantis.

33:54So they, I mean, we have insomniacs that they can't sleep. They haven't, you know, they just had a baby and he had to go to work. And when he came home, he didn't have any energy to play with the children. So we all, the biggest thing that we did, we recognized that he couldn't get out of his own head. So we said, listen, let me put you in alignment because he was a gorilla avatar. Gorillas are the easiest for me to work with. I said, listen, you're a gorilla. I can help.

34:25I can help you so much. So just lie down like this. He's like, oh yeah, I'll fall asleep like that. Perfect. Just lie down like that. But when you fall asleep, I want you to do something very specific. Don't think yourself to sleep. Remember yourself to sleep. And he's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, just don't think. So your brain can be in control of two things, thinking or remembering. You can think about your to-do list or something you need to do today or something that you need to extrapolate or figure out or rationalize tomorrow.

34:59Blood's in the front portion of your brain. It'll wake you up all night long if you're thinking. Then in lieu of that or the contrast to that, I was remembering. So you can remember a walk you took around a golf course, you know, a basketball game that you played or something when you were a kid, a happy memory, a walk around a lake. Now, you know, I count the windows in my house sometimes. I count people at a party, right? And you remember something.

35:29And because that, I don't know why this happens. I have no science on this. I couldn't find it anywhere. But when you start to remember, you start to, you have to have fallen asleep on that memory once from what we find. And when you remember a memory once and you fall asleep on it, remember the same memory over and over and over again. You fall asleep quicker and stay asleep. That's the only technique we gave him. And now we sleep incredibly well. Wow. That's huge.

36:00I love that. I love hearing success stories of people's work. That's awesome. Let's circle back to cortisol because cortisol is a primary stress hormone. It plays a significant role in sleep regulation. And even people like with a lot of people that listen to this podcast, they get their testing done and their cortisol is out of range at night. And then it's affecting how they feel in the morning or vice versa. They have really good cortisol spike in the morning, but then it dips, but then it starts to rise back up again at night. From your perspective, how does cortisol affect sleep?

36:33It's cortisol greatly affects sleep, but you should be able to, you should be able to still get to sleep. Here's the problem. Most people look at the cortisol as the problem, right? Nobody has ever looked at the suppression of the parasympathetic nervous system, giving an overall state of increased sympathetic dominance. Everybody looks at sympathetic dominance. So they meditate. They exercise the metabolized cortisol. They do all of this, but nobody looks at the parasympathetic inhibition due to cervical dysfunction, which everybody has.

37:10So when you sleep on your stomach or you sleep on your side, you're losing the structure of your cervical curve. So here, let me explain. So here's a curve of the neck. If you don't do things to maintain this curve, the vagus nerve comes right down here, which is 80% of all of your parasympathetic tone, which is the opposite of sympathetic. So if you damage this curve, which 80% of the people in my practice have.

37:43I'm actually feeling this to my core right now. A couple years ago, I went to the chiropractor and you can continue to keep that up. I want you to finish that statement because I'm going to need to hear it. I know I'm going to need to hear it. I went to the chiropractor because I was having numbness. This is years ago. Oh, geez. Yeah, I know exactly where that's coming from. And so I went in and my head has shifted. I have that curve and it's getting worse. And it's from either phone or computer or iPads or things like that. So I've been consciously aware of that through the years, but just wanted to throw that little nugget in there so you can pick them out of the room.

38:17And that stemmed from when you had that strep throat when you were a kid, by the way. I had it all the time. That degeneration has been there since then because typically the cross-dominant has a suppressed immune system because they're sympathetic dominant and they have low parasympathetic tone. So this complicates that. So people fight it all the time and do everything and you can make up for it if you are so clean and doing all the right things. But when you don't think about it and as we age, parasympathetic tone just drops and drops and drops and drops.

38:51Neuroplasticity goes away and then the immune systems, hormonal imbalances and digestive issues all take over. But anyways, so when you damage C5 and C6, which is these low points, you lose the curve. So now you have low parasympathetic tone and then that's going to give you an overall high cortisol level because you can't engage the parasympathetic system. So I don't, you know, I fought my cortisol level for ages and I fought my patients.

39:28I'm trying to adjust their neck straight and you can't do it, right? Because they're at home for a third of their life destroying their structure while they sleep. And this is all being done while you sleep because nobody has been taught put the body in alignment first, then create safety. Everybody looks at a rat study and thinks that that's the best way to sleep and it drives me effing bonkers. But that's fine. No, this is good though. It's like you're doing the work that you're doing. So the integrity of this vagus nerve and maintaining the integrity of the cervical spine to me is my anchor.

40:03So I did it because of the dysfunction it caused in my lower back out of causing pain. But fast forward 15 years later, why I'm still doing it is because of the changes I saw in my patients health problems going away because by improving the structure while they slept, immune systems, digestive systems, chronic illnesses. I mean, we have people that are high blood pressure off all their medications, digestion issues, IBS, all of this stuff by increasing the vagal tone because we're improving the structure of the curve.

40:40It's all getting better. So when you ask, what do you think the biggest issues are with cortisol? Well, we can talk about, you know, the emotions and the stress that people are under. But I'm sure everybody in your community are working on those and still asking why. Well, the why that nobody even talks about is that change in that structure. Yeah, heck yeah. So what are some habits or techniques? Is it that pillow that you were talking about? Like, obviously, and the way method too as well. So put a neck nest under your neck. Start improving.

41:10Everyone, regardless of the... Regardless. Got it. Regardless. If you're going to be doing this... Yeah. In this... By the way, guys, for not always to go... You have to have... He's playing with his phone, looking at his phone. You have to have the neck in extension at least an hour to a night. Whether you sleep like that all night doesn't matter. You're not in control. Your subconscious brain is in control. So you just put your neck like that.

41:41Then you do the hot showers or you meditate. And then every time you meditate or any time you do a slow breathing technique, always use a scent to attach you to that technique. So attach your subconscious brain to relaxing or engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. I don't care what the scent is. It can be eucalyptus. It can be lemon. It can be apples.

42:11It could be lavender. But as long as you practice some sort of daily meditation or you get out in the sun. And it's because the sun promotes parasympathetic nervous system. And you do that with a scent every time you're working on strengthening your parasympathetic nervous system. We give 15 different techniques within the academy. But do each one of those with a scent. So then when you go to sleep or any time you want to calm down during the day and you find yourself in a stressful situation, all you need to do is use that scent.

42:45And then automatically you calm the central nervous system. Beautiful. I love that. I can tell you're so excited about what you're talking about in your work. And I thank you so much. I have never heard any like this. I'm learning a lot from you. And I'm sure all the listeners are too as well of immediate action things that I can take away from this podcast. That's why I love this. That's what the whole podcast is about, by the way, too. Like I'll talk and share insights about all the things I'm really good at. And I'm like, just go do the thing now. Go take action. So everybody listening, please take some action on what Dr. Peter Martone is sharing.

43:18I can feel your excitement. And I keep hearing you say not enough people are talking about this. Like what excites you the most about growing awareness around these type of foundational habits of how to fall asleep and what you're doing in your work? Why do you want to continue to grow awareness around this? This is so great. You're right. So, you know, I really want to change the way the world sleeps to unlock, you know, the potential that, you know, a well-rested, aligned potential. Nobody, you know, like sleep in alignment and the limitations the structure, the spinal structure has in your health is so misunderstood.

43:55And, you know, when you go to somebody like, oh, yeah, I'm a chiropractor. Oh, I already know what you do. Just crack my back. They have no idea of the implications of alignment in how the structural alignment and the health of the spine affects the central nervous system. And that I've been spending the last 25 years of my life helping people regain their health when everything else has failed through structural alignment and maintaining that alignment. I am so excited for humanity to start shifting their consciousness to understanding that they have way more control, way more, way more control of their health than they think.

44:37And for me, where I want to live is I want to start. I want to sleep with everybody in America. And I want I want them to just think about me for the first 10 minutes. That's it. And then I'm out. I'm done. I love that. I think this is such an important you're doing God's work here, Dr. Peter Martino. You are. This is so important that people understand the how like better ways of sleep hygiene. But this is so much beyond that, that concept, like it's so much further. And I'm super excited for this message to get out to everybody that's listening to this podcast.

45:08You talk about an app. You talk about an academy. Share a little bit about what it is like inside of the way method and inside of your practice. Like what exactly do you offer to everybody? Yeah, that's great. We have launched something that's called the Way Better Sleep Academy. So the really the essence between having, you know, every when you think about it, sleep, it's a waste of time. Right. You're spending eight hours doing nothing. So if you're not working to maintain or getting way better sleep, it's just nobody wants sleep.

45:40They want who they're becoming because of good sleep. Right. So they don't want to waste time. So our whole understanding, our whole model is in order to have way better sleep, which is an outcome, you have to have way healthier habits. And ultimately, why? Because we want a way better life. So way healthier habits is a structural roadmap. Every month, like January is gluten free and we do cleansing. And then and then we also talk about physics. So we change some of these habits health wise in three areas, eating right, being fit and thinking well.

46:14So and then we have a sleep change every month. So that's the healthy. That's the way better health. And then we have the way better sleep, which is talks about, you know, you know, understanding the body, putting your body into alignment and then, you know, taking your animal sleep avatar. How you know the 15 things you need to do to create safety. And then we move to the conscious brain, stimulating the autonomic nervous system. So we do everything in order to get good sleep. And then ultimately, where I am so much so passionate about, I'm passionate about both of those.

46:48But it's a way better life. I'm a mindset person. If you can't tell, you know, pretty positive. But I was never like that. Full of energy too, y'all. I'm not watching Dr. Vibartone on video right now. He's full of energy. He's standing up. He's moving around. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's tough. It goes along with my ADD. But with that cross dominance and that high degree of energy, you can go enthusiastically into a really bad place, which is where I was. My best friend had just died right in front of me.

47:19You know, I went into a deep, deep depression. And I found myself in a really, really bad place. So in order to come out of that and be able to sleep and be able to not be self-destructive, I was 205 pounds and I was a mess. I had to find myself. And having the way better life is the mindset roadmap to be able to create a way better life. Because ultimately, you're a product of your daily rituals because you're in your rituals are driven by your beliefs because your beliefs drive your actions.

47:51So if you are not happy with where you are, we have stinking thinking. And in that stinking thinking, it may be you might think you're doing the right things, but it's just the people around you that are suppressing your state of health. So that's why you got to look for new leaders like you. And, you know, you follow people that are doing where you want to be. And then you're just back in the lifestyle habits. So that's what the whole academy is all about. Love that. Love that. We align on a lot of things there in what you said in terms of like who you are now is different than who the person you are becoming.

48:26But you need to start showing up as that person right now. So how can you do that? And it was a bunch of those action items that you're just talking about on this episode today and also in the resources that you're sharing. Like I said, you are doing God's work. I think that in fitness, in this field, sleep is not talked about enough. So thank you for bringing your insight into today's episode and sharing your expertise on how powerful the connection is between sleep, posture, and just overall health and overall mindset.

48:56Your insights have been very eye-opening to me personally and I know to our listeners too as well. And there's a lot of actionable takeaways here to improve everyone's well-being that's listening to this episode. Before we wrap up, if you could just leave our audience with like one key takeaway of a piece of advice to start optimizing their health right now today, what would it be? Well, understand that you have more control in your health and well-being than you think you have.

49:30And it starts from the very second your health day for me starts when you plug in. So it doesn't start when you wake up. It starts when you plug in at night. So my 24-hour health day is very, very different than that. Let's get up and start my day. No, let's plug in. Then you're starting your day. And understand that the deeper you plug in, the more performance you're going to have out of your body the next day. So please respect and give yourself the time and respect that sleep deserves.

50:03Because, you know, sleep is a necessary action to have great health. But remember, it's also a byproduct of great habits. So there you go. Amen. I love that. And I'm going to put everything in the description below. But where can everybody find you? I have to say both. I like them to hear it so they can go and do it. And then I'll like it. I love that. That's great. If they want to take their free animal sleep avatar test, then you're in our world. You can go drsleepright.com, drsleepright.com, D-R-S-L-E-E-P-R-I-G-H-T.com.

50:36And then they can follow me on Instagram and TikTok. We do some pretty crazy things. And that's at drsleepright. Awesome. Well, thank you, Dr. P. Martone, for being on this episode today. Such good insight. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Keep doing God's work. Thank you. Hey, really quick. Before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all of the difference, helping more women discover the tools they

51:10need to transform the fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.

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