Living A Full Life

You don’t need more caffeine—you need better sleep, and here’s how to get it

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 50

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Ever wonder why a single “good night” never clears the fog? We get real about sleep debt—the running tab between what your body needs and what it actually gets—and how that deficit shows up as fatigue, cravings, stubborn weight, low mood, and slow recovery. We connect the dots between blue light after 8 p.m., dopamine spikes from scrolling, delayed melatonin, and the broken circadian rhythm that makes mornings harder and willpower thinner. Then we flip the script with a practical plan to pay it off, step by step.

We walk through the levers that matter most: screens-off routines, a reverse alarm to land the day, cool room temperature targets (65–67°F), and alignment basics so your mattress and pillow stop causing micro-awakenings. We talk caffeine and alcohol timing, why a safe bedroom is dark, quiet, and uncluttered, and how breath work, grounding, and two-minute journaling lower cortisol so your brain stops chasing tasks at midnight. You’ll hear why weekend “catch-up” doesn’t solve a weekday deficit, how REM and deep sleep respond to small behavioral tweaks, and what early wins to expect—better mood, sharper focus—before cravings ease and energy steadies.

We also share how to use an Oura Ring, Whoop, or Apple Watch to track real progress and personalize your routine without obsessing over single nights. If your bed’s part of the problem, we explain when to replace a mattress, what support really means for side or back sleepers, and how smarter materials reduce off-gassing and improve recovery. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s reliability—consistent cues that let your biology do what it’s built to do. Ready to wake clear and steady without another extra-large coffee? Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s always “so tired,” and tell us: what’s one habit you’ll change tonight?

If you are looking for a new mattress don't look any further past Saatva Mattresses. I feel like they are the best mattresses on the market right now for 90% of people. Use this link to save 15% off your purchase: https://saatva.partnerlinks.io/u70ktzxbadly. And if you are in Florida contact us at info@fulllifetampa.com where you can send Saatva a prescription recommendation for your mattress to save you the sales tax on it as well. That's over 20% off.

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You've heard of credit card debt, but what about sleep debt? Every late night, every alarm, every I'll catch up on sleep later, it all adds up. And eventually your body sends the bill in the form of fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, and even hormonal chaos. Today we're unpacking what sleep is, what sleep debt really is, and how it silently drains your energy and motivation and how to finally pay it off naturally. And I'll share some easy changes you can make tonight to start waking up rested again. And this episode is sponsored by Satva Mattresses. If your bed is part of the problem, they've built one of the healthiest, most supportive mattresses you can sleep on. And I'll share how to get that special listener discount later in the show. We've partnered with them as chiropractors, and I'm starting to feel like a real podcaster swinging these things into the podcast, but it gives you a great deal. And we'll talk about that later if it's time to change your mattress. But let's get into what sleep debt really is and why it matters. And it affects a lot of people. Sleep debt is the gap between the rest your body needs and what it actually gets. The body and brain don't just reset after one good night. It can take weeks to recover. If you've ever been on a flight somewhere else and change time zones and get that jet leg, you know what it takes. It's not just one night of sleep, it can take a couple nights to kind of recalibrate. So signs you're carrying sleep debt are needing caffeine to function. It's not the addiction to caffeine, it's the need of energy when we wake up to get that coffee or that caffeine to get us going. This is sleep debt, and you're filling in the gap with an upper, a drug called caffeine. Midday energy crashes, one, two o'clock p.m. We start to crash, that's fatigue. Trouble focusing on remembering things, that's brain fog. Feeling weird at night, tired in the morning, those are all signs of rest fatigue. So chronic sleep debt increases cortisol, insulin resistance, and appetite, which makes fat loss even harder. You can't heal, think clearly, or lose weight while your body's still trying to catch up on sleep. And we need to remember that. So what's really stealing our sleep at night? What's going on? Blue light exposure after 8 p.m. through the literature shows that it procrastinates the circadian rhythm of getting to that sleep portion of the day. So we're tricking our brains with the dusk and dawn of the sunset and sunrise of the day, and tricking it with lights, which throws this all off. And we know that blue light, which is me, that white, bright light that comes off of screens, that's what we're talking about there. And that's why we have like dark mode and other cheats around that to reduce it. But still, uh a screen is a flashlight pointing at your eyes. Either way, you want to look at it, no matter what filters you put on it, that blue light comes out. You can use glasses, you can use protection to help filter that stuff out, but still the light tricks the brain into thinking that it's time for sleep. And that exposure after 8 p.m. really can throw off people's sleep patterns. And this is one of the toughest habits for most people is that they're not willing to turn off the television at 8 p.m. They're not willing to get off the screens at 8 p.m. Because they use screens right to about bedtime and then go to sleep. We're all addicted to our screens, and we all just have created habits to look at the screen. And unfortunately, that has led probably the number one cause of why people have sleep disruption patterns. Uh scrolling through bedtime before bedtime, not only are we looking at that screen, but we're also getting the dopamine spikes with delay, which delays melatonin release, which, if you know about melatonin, is it's a neurotransmitter that helps the body um facilitate better sleep or fall asleep. So we start to impede with those natural rhythms in the body, those natural endocrine rhythms, and then we end up suffering through poor sleep. Late caffeine or alcohol, both of them have been shown to interrupt sleep patterns, unless you're from Europe or the Mediterranean. You can drink your espresso right before bed and go to sleep. But for everyone else, uh, those things tend to throw people off. Poor mattress or pillow alignment can cause restless sleep as well, which causes fatigue the next day because we're not getting restful sleep. And the best bedroom temperature to keep your room at is about 65 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit or 17 to 19 degrees Celsius, is found to show the best results for sleep or falling asleep or getting the most restful sleep. Having a cool room where you can use either covers, pajamas, or clothing to help warm you up in that is better than overheating during the night and having to throw off the covers or interrupt your sleep because you're starting to heat up. You'll never fix sleep debt if your body doesn't feel safe at night. That means dark, cool, quiet, and comfortable sleeping quarters is paramount for good sleep. So what we really need to do is fix the foundation. Literally, we got to fix the foundation. We have to know the sleep environment, the mattress quality, the pillow alignment and temperature, and really and really focus on the making our bedrooms a place of tranquility where we can truly sleep, not having a lot of distractions in it. Televisions in the bedroom, big no no. Bringing our devices to the bedroom, big no no. Wi-Fi radiation, big no no. Making sure we're setting up these things where our bedrooms are in the safe place, quiet place, cool place to help us get the best sleep possible. A lot of people try to fix by buying supplements, but your body can't rest if your mattress is out of alignment with your spine. I switched to SATVA mattresses a year ago. I've been talking about SATVA for a long time. They use organic materials, proper lumbar support, and no chemical off-gassing. And it's been a game changer for recovery for me. And a lot of our patients all love it. And uh got a lot of other chiropractors around the country to do it as well. For me, it was the crunchy, hippie off-gassing that got me. I'm like, whoa, what do you what do you guys do different? They use New Zealand sheep wool in there instead of fire retardants. So once you get the mattress, there is no off-gassing. They don't have warehouses, they don't store these mattresses anywhere. So once you order one, it takes about two to three weeks to get it because they make it for you, put it on a truck, deliver it to your home. And they give you 365 days to try it out and you can return it. No questions asked. Uh, they use it for the veteran affairs and we'll give it to a veteran afterwards if you end up not liking it and switch. Or they'll switch between other of their brands as well: latex, extra firm, less firm, whatever you need there too. So, not meant to be a plug for Satva, but I've loved them. And they check off all the boxes for no off-gassing, no VOCs, healthy, box spring based. I'm a big fan of that because it helps with box spring, it helps with side sleeping, back sleeping, and even though you're not supposed to do it, stomach sleeping, because the springs will contour to the different weights in your body from the hips to the shoulders to the knees. Everything weighs different once you're horizontal. So I'll send I have the link in here for you. If you go to satva.com, you won't get any discounts. So you're gonna have to click on the link here. If you need it, just email us at um info at fulllifetampa.com. We can send it to you, or it's gonna be in the description right here. You can just click on it and and go from there. Paying, how do we pay off our sleep debt? What do we do here? We got five top things, five or six things that we're gonna go over on what we need to do to pay off the sleep debt and and balance out our bill. Because once we fall into this debt of deprived sleep and deprived energy, there's things we need to do to get back out of it. Otherwise, we'll stay in there and then it's catastrophic the longer we stay in there because cortisol, hormonal changes, thyroid changes, autoimmune changes, immunology changes, immune system fatigue all starts to happen, and we get these little signs of more stiffness, more headaches, getting sick more often, feeling unwell more often, being more irritable, brain fog, memory lapse, and these little things go. And we call it aging. And unfortunately, that's not the case. That's not the case. We can have 40-year-olds feeling that way, and we can have 70-year-olds not feeling that way. And that makes me scratch my head as a medical provider because I'm like, well, hang on, why are some people doing better than others? It's because intentionally or unintentionally, they've created these habits in their life where things prioritize more than others, and they're like, my sleep is important to me. I want to make that great, and they've listened to the right things to do that. They've diet has changed, they go for their regular walks, they meet with the close people in their life almost on a daily basis. They do these little things that they feel is normal for them, but make such huge changes and to their wellness. And the same thing can be said for negative habits that happen all the time. The little things that we do where we drink two or three coffees a day, we don't get enough sleep, we only sleep four hours a night, and all these negative habits and how that drastically goes down two separate roads, uh, two separate paths. And you can see the health benefits or risks on both of those paths because of this. So, what we need to do is prioritize a consistent bedtime and wake time every day, even on the weekends. Budget the sleep in if you want on Saturdays and Sundays. If you're gonna sleep in, sleep in. But make sure that Saturday night you're not staying up until 1.30 in the morning because you want to catch up on some Netflix. You're actually getting that eight hours of sleep. So if you want to sleep in until 9 a.m. on those days, make sure you're in bed by 12, 12:30 to get that eight hours. Um, and then create a reverse alarm, an alarm to start winding down 60 minutes before bed. This should be put into your device because you're probably on that device. So if we said 8 p.m. is the time to turn off this blue screen to make sure you get to bed by 10 to wake up for 6, then that's what we should be putting on there, a 10 o'clock or an eight o'clock alarm, reverse alarm saying time to wind down. I have this on my Apple Watch where it automatically does that, where I've set my sleep schedule in it. So it tells me to wind down. It does it 30 minutes before my bedtime, but um, you can change that to 60 minutes or at 8 p.m. or whatever works best for you. So try and cut the screen exposure to one hour before bed use. Once it's done, get away from especially from your tablets and your phones, put them away. If the TV is on, you want to finish a show, at least there's some distance between you and the television. Make sure that maybe you start turning off the lights there, and then you're starting to wind down from that as well. Don't rely on catching up on your sleep on the weekends. Our bodies don't work that way. That's not how we recover. It's one night to sleep in on Sundays is not how you recharge for the whole week. We got to get rid of that myth. That's not how it works. It's a daily circadian rhythm that we need to follow that's been embedded in our DNA over thousands of years. There's no way to change that, override that, supplement that, inject anything, do anything, melatonin, tart cherries. There's nothing you can do to override the genetic programming that is in your DNA as a human being to overlap or override the circadian rhythm of the human body. You cannot do it. So it doesn't equal one day. We have to create nightly rituals, nightly habits that help us improve our sleep. Try and add grounding, breath work, or journaling before bed. This research is almost 100 years old. It shows that unwinding the mental fatigue somehow or somehow, grounding is just barefoot on the earth. You can get a grounding mat if you don't want to go outside. Breath work is deep breath work, breathing in and out, just for a couple minutes, or even just sitting down and journaling the day. Your feelings, your emotions, your stresses, whatever it is, could be a few sentences. That has been shown over and over again through psychology, psychiatry, mental health, and even physiology, how we can change that by releasing stress and even having gratitude for being like maybe you're writing the things that you're happy for for the day, whatever it is. This has been shown to lower cortisol immediately just by doing that act of breath work, journaling, or grounding. Trap your track your sleep quality through all these cool devices that we have. You probably have one. Use it, not just not just the hours, use Aura, Whoop, or your Apple Watch and track your sleep. You can see the restlessness, the amount of movement, the deep sleep, the REM sleep, and the cycles that are in there. And then you can learn more about your rhythm and what a healthy rhythm is and try and make adjustable changes to your sleep quarters or your sleep to try and get into that rhythm. It can also be used preventatively for other health issues as well by showing what's happening in your sleep. There could be other effects disrupting the way that you can sleep. So we have to look at that too. But typically, once we fix sleep, a lot of other things improve. Then you'll notice the energy reboot. This is a phase that where you can't quit and you can't change anything. What will start to happen is your mood and your focus will change immediately. That's how you know you're getting better sleep. If you're just an anxious person or you're stressed, or just you're just under a lot of stress because of work, maybe you work for a paramedic or maybe you have a high stressful job, whatever it is, you'll just start to know you're in a better mood. Doesn't change the stresses you're going to impact every single day, but your mood starts to change. That's how you know sleep is changing. And then number two is the focus. You're just like, I am just more focused. I'm getting things done, I'm forgetting less. That's how you know this is where you don't want to stop. Because once the brain fog starts to clear, you get stable blood sugars and fewer cravings that follow that. For some reason, there's that that happens first, the mood and the focus. It's all because of the hormonal changes that happen with good sleep, which then immediately change your metabolism and start your blood sugar or your blood, sorry, your sugar cravings automatically start to go down, which decreases your blood sugar levels, which then gives you more energy. Then you have faster recovery. You're gonna feel better if you start working out, and then you're that's gonna help boost your immune system. It's this beautiful positive feedback loop that ends up happening all because of some focus on our sleep. How cool is it to just focus on sleep, which is something all you got to do is lie down in the bed and close your eyes. That's that's the work you need to put into this. But the thought and the amount of effort that you put into making it better is gonna be something that you need to do is called sleep. How cool is it to just sleep through the success? That's that's awesome, such an easy thing to do. So if you're dragging yourself through the day, start with sleep. Gotta fix it. You can't go back to the same bed tonight and do the same thing and expect something different. You don't need more caffeine, you need better rest. And if your mattress or your pillow or if the temperature in your room or the window is not working, check out Sattva. If your mattress, they say 10 years. I changed mine out about seven, eight. It might never make it to 10. At about the seven-year mark, I'm like, I wonder if we need a new mattress. And I'm in my 40s and I've been doing that uh routinely. I know they say 10-year warranty. Some of them say 25-year warranty. Just because it's a 25-year warranty, it means that it doesn't fall apart, the springs don't rip through the mattress. That's what they're warrantying, is but the structure of it, the material breaks down. Anything, your shoes, even if you leave shoes in your closet um for 10 years, the leather softens out, the leather loses its integrity, the, or if it's not even leather, pleather, whatever material it's made out of, will lose its moldability just over time. That's what happens with gravity, humidity, temperature, light, even light can make things fade. The material starts to wear down. Everything's like that, especially your mattress. It's used all the time. The kids are jumping on it, they just do not last that long. So if you're at that seven-year mark, it's time to change it. If you bought a new mattress two years ago and you hate it, these things like roll out of the box, you know, talking about purple and all these other ones, and you're like, this sucks. But we spent 900 bucks on it. I understand why you're keeping it, but you're hurting your hurting yourself by sleeping on that. It's time for a new one as well. And that's it. And remember, when you sleep better, every part of your life levels up. I give you a lot of information on this one on how it can really improve a lot of things in your life overall. I highly recommend exploring it. Check the captions for the Satva link. You click on that, you get my Dr. Dolce Corey referral, which automatically saves you 15% off anything you buy. The price is there, even though they brand themselves as a luxury brand. Everything comes in a beautiful packaging and boxes, the hand deliver this white glove, bring it into your home, remove your old one, uh, 365-day guarantee. You can return it at any time for like I think it's an$80 restocking fee, totally worth it. These things are like$1,800. Or, or if you go through the luxury brands,$2,300,$2,400, depending on queen or king. So there's the price range for you. You'll save 15% just for doing that on there. So, right now, you're pretty much in the middle ground of all the mattresses out there, anyways. And these guys are way above the top. I don't know how they were able to price themselves in the middle of the pack like this, but they did such a great job. So, price points are perfect. Um, the integrity of it's perfect. The all the recommendations I've gotten firsthand, not from their website or from their marketing campaign. Everyone's loved it. No one has returned a mattress yet. So it's been great, and people have improved their sleep with it. I think it was just mainly time for them to get a new mattress. So it was easy for them to do that, make the change and be happy. So if you need that, go for it. Otherwise, make the changes in your bedroom right now and just improve your sleep. Even if you feel like you're getting good sleep, make sure we're doing the blue light thing, the screen time, the cool temperature in the room, all these little things to help you get the best possible sleep. It just transcends into the entire rest of your life for overall health. Stay well, stay healthy. Thanks for listening and catch you next week.

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host