Nikki Cheak (00:01.262)
Before we get started in today's episode, I just want to thank you. Today is episode 30 of Real Food, Real Energy, Real Life. And the first time that I pressed play to record my very first episode, I was so nervous because this has been a passion project of mine for so long. And I want you to know what an impact I want to have on all of you. Even if I'm just helping one person every single day, it will make such a big difference for me.
because of how I want to pour into you. So thank you so much for listening to Real Food, Real Energy, Real Life. It truly means the world to me. So let's go ahead and get into our topic today. We are going to be, you know, talking all about that dreaded 2 a.m. wake up. What's really causing it and how you are going to finally get some sleep.
because I'm sure that this has happened to you or if it hasn't happened to you, it's definitely happened to a friend and you are wide awake, 2 a.m., no idea why, but you're just wide awake and you're like, ping, and you went to bed so exhausted and you were like, I'm definitely gonna get a good night's sleep tonight. But here you are staring at the ceiling, thinking about the dishes or the thing that you forgot for school pickup or, you know,
I've got to return this to Amazon. I wonder what time practice is tomorrow night. Right. And your husband's laying next to you and snoring and you're like, would you just stop? Right. Maybe you woke up and you sweat through your t-shirt or your heart is just pounding for no reason. And you're like just buzzing, right? Not maybe anxious, but you're not sleepy.
And then you fall back to sleep around four. So you've been awake for two hours, maybe you scrolled on your phone and you felt finally fall back to sleep. And then you wake up at six 30 and you feel like you have just been hit by a truck. now morning chaos has totally ensued and you want a cup of coffee, but coffee's not going to do anything because you're already behind. And that was me at one point, right? And I remember thinking to myself, my gosh, what the heck is wrong with me?
Nikki Cheak (02:22.156)
because what I didn't realize back then, a lot of times we don't talk about this, right, is that these wakeups aren't just about stress. They're about your hormones. And once I started understanding all of that and what my body was trying to do, a lot like the forgetfulness, right, and all of these things, like I just started shifting. So.
If you're like, what is wrong with me? I used to just sleep great. And now all of a sudden I am waking up and I don't know why. This is not just aging. It's your body trying to adapt in your hormonal shifts that have hit in your 40s, right? Your cortisol is waking up earlier than it should. Your estrogen and progesterone are dropping and they're messing with your temperature regulation, your body, your actual body temperature regulation.
and your melatonin production, is a natural thing that happens in our bodies is not working right. So even when you are tired, your body is not signaling to sleep properly. And so the kicker is that you just can't like out mindset this or just try and like relax, right? But what you can do is stop setting off alarm bells at 2 a.m. and you can support your body to do this. And inside the six week reset, we work through all of this, right? Because
you bring down the inflammation, you balance your blood sugar, you regulate your cortisol, and guess what? Then you start sleeping better, okay? Because your body is like, I'm being taken care of. So you sleep. So if you're thinking like, yeah, this is like me right now. I don't sleep, but I need to start piecing all of this together. I need help. Then inside the six week reset, this is one of the biggest things that we tackle.
is balancing that blood sugar, reducing inflammation and like that constant cortisol that's waking you up at 2 a.m. So it's not about cutting out food groups or having this like massive diet, but it's just about like changing things in your lifestyle that are gonna support your body. So if you're ready to like stop waking up exhausted and start actually feeling like yourself again, the six week reset is totally where it's at and you can get all the details inside the show notes.
Nikki Cheak (04:40.556)
Let's break this down a little bit more, okay? If your body is waking you up like clockwork around two or three a.m., you're sweating or you're wired or you're just like awake and there's no reason why, it's not because you didn't wind down enough, it's reacting to signals that you've been giving it all day. Most of them without really your permission or honestly without you knowing. So the first thing is that your cortisol is
trying to save you and it's usually at the worst time, okay? So you're having a cortisol spike and cortisol is not bad, okay? It's actually meant to rise in the morning to wake you up. And in midlife, it starts misfiring. So instead of peaking at like six, it's going like, yeah, hey, I'm over here. I'm gonna wake you up at two because your blood sugar crashed the day before, right? Maybe you skipped some meals. Maybe you had some wine or sugar before bed.
or maybe your stress was just so high that day that it never came back down. And cortisol sees that crash and goes, no, emergency, wake me up, I need to get up. And that's why you're not just awake, you're like alert awake. Your heart's racing, your mind is spinning and you're like, I am awake. And it's not in your head, it's that your body just feels like it's under attack, right? So cortisol is one of those things that you
to work on naturally and through those six week reset, that's a lot of what we focus on. Your hormones are also tanking and your sleep is paying for it. So in perimonopause, your estrogen and progesterone, they're taking a nosedive and they're constantly changing, right? They're up and down like a roller coaster, they're all over the place. And these hormones are doing way more than just managing your cycle, okay? They are regulating your temperature, they help calm your nervous system and they...
help you fall and stay asleep. So when they drop, you start waking up and you're like drenched in sweat. I have definitely had a night, you know, where I've woken up and I'm like, I gotta go change my shirt. This is gross, right? Or you feel anxious or overstimulated at night and then you can't fall back to sleep. So then you just start doom scrolling. Okay. And look, your hormones there are just out of sync and your sleep is gonna show it first. Okay.
Nikki Cheak (07:07.618)
The other thing that is going on here is that your melatonin is off. And melatonin is a sleep signal, okay? It tells your brain, all right, time to go to sleep. But if you're scrolling before bed or you have that glass of wine because you just feel like you need to wind down, then that messes with your melatonin, okay? You feel tired, but your body actually isn't winding down. And when you crash hard at first, then you wake up a few hours later,
That's what's going on, right? Your melatonin rhythm is just kind of going haywire. So, you know, you don't really necessarily know how to work with your hormones, right, instead of ignoring them. And in the six week reset, you know, we focus on all of these things because it's really not about just taking more supplements to get through the night.
It's about eating enough during the day because most women right now in this stage of life are very much under fueling their bodies and not eating the amount that they need to keep their hormones on track. And usually what they think they need versus what they actually need are two very different things. And you want to eat enough during the day because that helps you balance out your blood sugar. Okay. And then it also helps you calm that nervous system. So that when you do all of these things together,
your body really isn't panicking. It's not going into that panic mode anymore. And your cortisol gets back on the schedule that it's supposed to be where it peaks in the morning and glows down in the evening and doesn't peak as early because your blood sugar starts evening out and then you sleep like actually sleep. And this is one of the first non-skilled victories that we see inside the six week reset because you are learning how to fuel your body and actually get the right thing in with all of those.
And so when we talk about the core three in my six week reset, we're talking about macros, movement and strategy. And the strategy is going to be what helps you get to all of these things so that you're not under fueling yourself. So I want to give you something here that you can do to stop waking up in the middle of night, you know, bright and it's going to be something tangible and something that you need to do. So here's where you're going to start.
Nikki Cheak (09:25.486)
You're not going to like me for this. I promise you, but you need to cut the wine and the sugar three hours before bed. Okay. I'm not saying that you can never have them, but I want you to understand that when you're having wine or sugar after dinner on a consistent basis, and then you're waking up at 2 a.m. this might be why I can tell you right now that, you know, I used to, especially during COVID era, I had a lot more wine then than I do now. And now when I have a glass of wine,
I definitely make sure that I have it earlier so that when I go to bed, it is mostly metabolized, right? But if I do have wine later and I'm out later for some reason and I wake up and I have it later, I definitely wake up in the middle of the night and I know it and I can feel it. And that's never a fun thing. So you wanna make sure that you, if you are gonna have a glass of wine, have it early or don't have it at all. I know that's like,
but I really want that Nikki, like why can't I have it? And it's just something for you to test out, right? Like test it out, try it, see if that, you know, see if that helps. Try cutting them out after dinner and just see how your body responds. Okay. And same with sugar, right? Sugar is going to do the same thing. So if you're consistently having dessert, like right before bed, or you're like, I just need that little piece of something sweet. It's not that you can ever have it, but just try and do these things three plus hours before you go to sleep. All right. So,
The other big thing is that you're going to do is you're going to, again, we're going to talk about protein because you know, protein is like my favorite thing, but you're going to protein base your dinner. Okay. So when you're at dinner and if your dinner is like mostly carbs, like pasta or toast while you're cleaning up the kitchen, your blood sugar is going to spike again. Okay. So I want you to make sure that you are getting enough protein at dinner. And if you don't have a way to measure it,
then I want you to think about a palm, like the size of your palm. That's about the size of protein that you should be having. Okay? So maybe it's a piece of grilled chicken or leftover taco meat or some hard-boiled eggs. If it's fitting in the palm, that gives you a good idea, at least a starting point for you to make sure that you are getting enough protein. Okay? So protein, get out, you know, make sure that you're adding that to your dinner. And look, magnesium is something that
Nikki Cheak (11:51.468)
almost all of us are not that are, we're almost all deficient. And so adding some sort of magnesium like a magnesium glycinate or just a form of magnesium, a good bioavailable form of magnesium is going to be one of the most gentle, effective forms that you're gentle and effective things that you can do for sleep and relaxation. My personal favorite magnesium is the Just Ingredients magnesium. I will link it in the show notes, but.
It is five different forms of magnesium and helps with all sorts of different things. But when I definitely, when I take it, I sleep so much better than when I don't. And so, you know, I will put that in the show notes if that's something that you want to look into, but you know, try pairing that with something like an herbal tea or stretching. Look, putting your phone away early so that you're not scrolling or putting on blue light blockers several hours before you go to bed. Look, I get it. I'm not trying to be
this, you know, suck the fun out of your evening. But if you're not sleeping and you want to find ways to sleep better, these are going to be three of the ways that you're going to do it. And it's again, it's cutting out that sugar and alcohol at least three hours before bed, adding that protein to your dinner and taking some sort of magnesium supplement. Again, my my favorite is just ingredients and I'll link that in the show notes. But look.
I want you to try one of these things tonight. And if you do, if you try these and you go for a few days and they're going really well, I would love it if you sent me a message on Instagram or just hit reply to one of my emails, because I want to hear how your sleep shifts, because so many of my moms that I coach will tell me, my gosh, I am sleeping so much better because I'm starting to feel my body properly. I am starting to move strategically and I am implementing strategies that are going to work with my body.
and not against them. And so we do all of those things inside the six week reset. look, you, at the end of the day, you can survive on bad sleep. We do it all the time. We're moms, okay? But if you've been feeling like you can't focus and you're snapping at everyone and you don't even want to work out because you're just too damn tired, and this is a thing that just goes on and on and on, right? It's not just mom life.
Nikki Cheak (14:13.848)
Okay guys, it's your body just running on fumes and you need to help it. So sleep isn't just about feeling better. It's not just about feeling restored. It's your body's repair system because when your hormones are in balance and your metabolism resets, you start to feel better and you sleep better. And if you're sick of dragging yourself through the day and you're second guessing all the things that you're eating, then this is one of the biggest reasons why, right?
When we fix it, we also stop feeling like we're chasing our energy all day long and you start feeling better, okay? Maybe it's not perfect, maybe it's not like you did when you were 25 pre-kids, but you start feeling better. You feel clear and you wake up feeling better and that version of you is the best, right? You feel it and you're like, I wanna feel like this all the time. So.
If you're tired of being tired and if you're waking up at 2 a.m. and you're feeling foggy by 2 p.m., then let's stop guessing on how to do this and actually fix it. And inside the six week reset, this is one of the things that we focus on all through, Because you're balancing your blood sugar, you're building simple dinner and routines that work for you, and you're supporting your hormones in a way that work with your life. And when you get your sleep back, I mean.
how much of that changes, right guys? Like your energy changes, you wanna work out because you feel better. You don't have as many cravings and your fat loss, ding ding, that one gets way easier. And so you can get all the details of the reset in the show notes or you can DM me on Instagram at NakedCheekWellness and DM me reset and I will send you all of the information. And listen, if this episode hit home today or you know a friend that it would help, send it to them.
or rate and review the show, it is the easiest way to help other midlife moms find the support and feel a little bit less alone. And I honestly read every single one and they truly mean the world to me. So next week, we are gonna get into something that hits way deeper than cravings or cortisol. And we're gonna talk about the identity crisis happening underneath your health habits. Because this season of life, it's not just hard on your body, but it's also messing with yourself.
Nikki Cheak (16:35.116)
And next week, I'm gonna show you why prioritizing your health now isn't just about weight loss, it's actually about finding your footing again before everything else pulls you under. I'll see you there.
