21. Sleep is Key for Recovery: A Lifeline for Stroke and Brain Injury Survivors

What's up everybody a couple quick notes before we have a depth so Tony one where we talk a lot about sleep and better breathing, and how you can get into good sleep habits and the importance of sleep during recovery and even later in your recovery. A couple of things that I mentioned during the podcasts that I want to just touch on briefly let's see as far as his books, lots of good books lately. One I want to recommend is smart brevity. Obviously, if you listen to this podcast, you know that I could probably you know, utilize this this technique and saying, saying more with less smart birdies a really good book really enjoying it. Again, the Paris Hilton book is fantastic as well finish that up. So started start brevity. Because I was away for a while I was able to catch up on some, some old shows, too, that I really liked. Back in the day, I've been watching suits on Netflix, it has nothing to do with stroke recovery, and everything to do with my previous life of living up in New York and New Jersey. Great show love the characters love the storyline, just a really good show. Kind of rewatched it after watching it for years, highly recommended on Netflix now. And the last thing I want to touch on is Jersey Shore because my daughter has been watching it for the last week. And I've been watching it on downstairs when she's watching it and I just love it. If you don't know I grew up in that area. I grew up on the Jersey Shore. Lots of my life involves the Jersey Shore prior to and even after Miami for a little bit so cool shows. The one I recommend them not choke related. Check it out. And yeah, hope you enjoy this episode with so without further ado, let's hop into Episode 21 of the podcast Good Morning Everybody, My name is Will Schmierer and Welcome back to another episode of Survivor podcast. In today's episode, Episode 21, we're going to be talking about unwinding the mind how sleep and rest play an important role in your stroke recovery or brain injury recovery. We're gonna be talking about sleep not only sleep, but rest and the importance of quality sleep over just quantity and how you can be strategic in your breaks and really take time to allow yourself as a brain injury survivor to take care of your brain and to you sleep to your advantage. I think we're all aware that sleep is an important part of life for everybody. That's no secret. That's not something anybody doesn't know. But I think it is really, really, really super important for survivors. And there are some things we're going to talk about I want to talk about some my experiences some of some thoughts I have in particular about sleep. I think sometimes in today's world even today, even hustle culture is not as much as a thing as it used to be, I think we often forget and especially if you're a couple years into recovery, you might have an issue falling into some old habits maybe not all the bad ones and maybe it's not the end of the world maybe it's a short term thing. Anyways, we'll talk we'll get into all the things we're going to talk about this episode around sleep and how it just you know there's it's like breathing there's there's no harm in sleeping more but you know, you want to be smart and strategic. And the reason this is a topic is because for the last month you might have noticed last week I did not put out an episode. I didn't really announce anything about it. I just I fell behind if I'm being honest and some things are going on in my life. June is notoriously a tough month for me. I think this year in particular. My boys and kids are getting older. My daughter is transferring to a new school in the fall. My boys are again they're getting older they're getting bigger they're it's the first time that they have been out of school after Memorial Day weekend like our correction sorry. So they got out of school right before Memorial Day weekend so they've been out since the beginning of June. Anyways some family stuff going on not on my side. Thankfully it's nothing to do with me and my health for a change which is a nice nice break from that. However there are things going on a little bit more chaos than usual had some things in the tank Nothing I was in love with. So I decided to just take last week off from the podcast and sort of regroup and hopefully, I'm back on track, I do have plenty of systems in place, I should get more episodes kind of in, in production. So I have some more topics for down the road. And again, think this this month in particular. So it's started summer, it's a lot of things going on. Again, not the end of the world. So we'll hop into Episode Two. Oh, and the reason sleep is an important thing is because I've also fallen off good sleep habits. Because the boys again, the young kids are at school, we've fallen into a little bit summer trap lots going on. So I think I'm back on track with sleep, I am definitely making a cut a Cognizant effort to to do that for myself for everybody in the house and get everything back on track. So going into the middle of summer, we should be all good. back to weekly episodes, but I have been doing a lot of things that we'll talk about later in the downtime. Anyways, back into Episode 21, and understanding sleep and the impact it has on brain recovery. So there's lots of things we could talk about sleep, I'm not asleep specialists, I just know how important sleep is to the recovery process from a first person as a survivor. I think what I want to talk about first is like there, I think there is some guilt around sleeping. In particular, maybe you feel guilty sometimes as a survivor, or anybody honestly might feel badly because they feel like they don't they got enough sleep, they slept for seven hours, they should be able to get up, do all these things. And eventually it wears our body down. So specifically with survivors, and I'll just tell you my point of view, as always, because the 90% of this podcast is my point of view. From the first person perspective as being a survivor, I think I know I for one have felt many times guilty of sleeping too much. Maybe not sleeping enough sleeping in late. I love a schedule. I love being sort of regimented, but I'm also a younger stroke survivor. So I'm four years old, I have three kids ones in college two are much younger. Thankfully, I've sleep trained to everybody, nobody's really, except for my wife. Nobody wakes up at 5am. So that's out of the picture. However, I noticed at least during school, it's pretty good. The boys go to sleep relatively on time. I mean, everybody lights out by 1010 30 by myself, even 11 during the school year, so everybody's pretty good during school, but summer has kicked in, even here in Florida. I know it's nice and warm all year round. The sun's out later, there's things going on just different things life in general. But uh, you know, it's easy to get away from these these good habits that we established, especially if you have children during the school year, even if you're working. I think, as an adult who works for somebody else, you have to be at work at a certain time. Summer just lends itself to being longer days. So we kind of get away a little bit from those habits. And what I've noticed for myself is that I really start to I wouldn't say break down but I definitely notice when sleep is not at my best. I am aware of it. I tried to keep good track of it. And I think what happens with me and you might feel this way the same. In the summer I get a little off track I wind up saying up a little bit later, right. You know waking up a little bit later as a result and it kind of just gets into this cyclical pattern where i i have personal trouble like waking up super early. And it's weird because I always thought my my distaste for the mornings was tied to previously being an alcoholic and staying up late drinking. I no longer drink. I don't smoke cigarettes, I don't do any bad things anymore for my body in general. So I guess I'm just prone to enjoying the evening rather than waking up early. But I am trying to get back on track. When one of the things I want to do for myself is I'm not going to feel shameful about sleeping in during the summer. I don't feel ashamed for staying up late. It's, you know, it's just it's a constant process. And one of the things that's tricky about sleep is when you do get off track. I would say it's harder than other things. I think it's pretty hard. It's harder than you think to get back on track with good sleep habits. So you probably heard people talk about sleep habits. If you're somebody who has trouble sleeping, or has children, you know, things can get off track pretty quickly. However, it takes a bit more work to get back on track than it does to get off track. So I have gone back to breathing exercises, both on the am and the PM, they do kind of eat into my days a little bit. I mean, there's a lot of things, I find that I operate better. And I don't know, if it's related to being a stroke survivor and somebody who has MS. Like, I feel like in the mornings, even when I wake up at 630, or seven, or even eight, it doesn't matter the hits seems like I need like a good bit of wind up to get going for the day. So my optimal time honestly is like, anytime after 10am, I'm ready to go. I mean, even when I'm running late, I noticed when I run at like nine in the morning, that first hour is really a bit of a grind. You know, and that's because that's because I wake up if I wake up at seven, I have breakfast, it just takes my body longer to get ready. And I've felt guilty for a long time. That's one of the things I've had a conversation with myself about is I'm not going to feel guilty as a stroke survivor about sleeping liters, sleeping, whatever, like, you know, it, everybody obviously can do as they like, but I feel like sleep is so important that as a survivor. If I get off track, if I say up a little bit later than I should. If I then have to take an extra hour to sleep in in the morning, I'm going to do it because as a survivor, I'm at my best when I've got gotten a full like, honestly, I would say I'm almost at nine hours of sleep sometimes. And so that isn't necessary for every adult. But I feel like as a stroke survivor, that is something that I need. And that extra hour honestly is probably totally worth it when I start doing the math. Yes, it's less, one hour less of my day. But I think I'm getting more productive hours out of my day. And also I work for myself, so I don't have to be at my desk at any particular time. I do like to schedule I like to be on track, I do get anxious when I'm not hitting certain benchmarks that I set for myself. It's not really any different than working for somebody else. It's just I'm hard on myself, and I feel guilty at times. But I realized I I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to feel guilty for saving an extra hour. Because it gives me if it gives me a better day overall if it gives me just that needed sleep or rest. You know, what puts me in a better mood for the day. So I'm not angry or anxious or, or lashing out at my kids. You know, I mean, my boys are young, my daughter is older, but I don't think it matters their age necessarily. Kids are kids, they have a way of getting. They don't mean to but if they do, and you know, I just noticed I've been in a funk, to be honest. And yeah, there's lots going on. But I think I sometimes I get ideas late at night. That's one of the downfalls of kind of working at my desk in the evenings even though I'm kind of free thinking typically in the evening and doing some brainstorming and doing like little things for my business in the evenings. Things that I want to do and explore things I want to read things on the wall learn things they want to bring to this podcast, like I do a lot of I wouldn't call it research but it kind of those intangible things that they're nice to do. And during the day. You know, again, it's everybody's take but I like to do things that just I have the freedom in the evenings to just kind of explore. That's my time to explore whether that's watching TV, whether it's reading a book, podcasts wherever, it's just a little bit unfocused, but somewhat focused time and I enjoy that and it's just, it's always something I've enjoyed. Anyways, back back to the importance of sleep and taking breaks. I mean, that was a good kind of tangent on taking a break during the day. That's how I kind of wind down the evening. But again, the don't underestimate the importance of sleep and there's different stages of sleep. The first couple of stages are or Moreover, they later sleep. You know where you can easily be a walk in or You know, there's a deep sleep where you're that REM sleep or you're dreaming. And a lot of these things are important for physical restoration. In that deep sleep where you're really hard to wake up, there's the dreaming occurs during REM. And, you know, because stroke is a brain injury, allowing the brain to get into these different levels and you know, trying to everybody, not only not only get a quantity of sleep, but like quality. And this kind of ties into breathing, I do a lot of breathing exercises before I go to bed. Honestly, sometimes that's why I stay up late because 20 minutes of breathing exercises gives me a neck it gives me I know I can feel I feel more refreshed when I wake up. I know it sounds silly, but it works for me, gets me to go, you know what I want to do the breathing exercises, even when I don't because I've been doing them for so long, but it just gets me right into sleep. It regulates my body it down regulate my body so that I get to sleep I get, you know, my brain gets that full recovery, my body gets that full recovery from all the running that I do during the days, keeps my immune system in good healthy place. And honestly, the other thing is that I do recommend everybody who honestly even to you know, have trouble sleeping. And I don't know if everybody has this but you may not but like if you snore or you have trouble sleeping definitely sleep I hadn't even really no sleep specialist existed until after my stroke. But I now have a sleep apnea mask, I really don't need it as much anymore because of my changing breathing because I've leaned down because I'm in shape now because I run every day. However I keep using it because I keep waking up loving life I feel refreshed because the mask I am breathing better. For me through my nose, though. You know, again, deep sleep, reduces inflammation, regulates hormones, keeps the immune system in a good check promotes neuroplasticity, which is super important is stroke recovery. Because honestly, we're trying to rewire our brains whether you think so or not, that's exactly what we need to do. Because I know for me, I'm reminded of every day, these little things add up. And I've also noticed when I get better sleep, my brain, I just don't have any of that brain fog, that sometimes happens. So when you don't sleep well as a survivor, even if you're not a survivor, your caregiver, your caretaker, just a family member with somebody who's been through a stroke. You know, you can use these lessons and in these these things about sleep and memory and recovering attention, like these are all important things. And it doesn't matter what you've gone through in life that they play an important role. So again, I am a runner now, you know that I've been running for nine months, probably going to cross 2500 miles for the year here at the end of June. Which is fascinating to me. Again, because I he and I've talked about this many episodes, but I hated running my whole life until last October when I just figured why not. I don't smoke, I don't drink, it should be able to run. So little awkward still in physical therapy. So that's been going on this month too. So there's just a lot of things going on. So the running is good. And I've really started to I'm not into super big races. I'm not into the metals. I don't care about any of the the silly things that I consider not really that important growth running, but I like running for health running for fitness. It helps me sleep better. But as usual, I've been over probably overdoing it, I would guess and I'm bordering on overtraining. So sleep is really important in my recovery. And not everybody is a stroke survivor and necessarily a runner, but if you're still in physical therapy or you're doing regular exercise, it doesn't have to be physical therapy, but you're still exercising as a survivor and you're getting yourself a good healthy shape. But let's not disregard sleep for recovery, not only from your brain injury, but also from the work you're doing every day to get better. You know and trying to maintain you know, I I'm the worst at this. I try really hard to maintain consistency of schedule. I'm not good at it, but I'm getting better You know, I do work on my desk in the evening, but I'm trying to turn the light levels down on trying to get in the good habits of bring noise levels down. I mean, the kids who go to sleep a little bit earlier, I'm not trying to save too much later, but maybe a little bit of time for myself in the evenings. You know, and the only reason I don't do that in the morning is kind of can't get myself to be a 5am riser. I've tried, it's just not in my DNA, I can do six, I can do seven. Obviously, I could be later. But I've never been a 5am guy and my wife, kind of, she enjoys waking up that early, she gets into her day says she's kind of got that side I've got the other side doesn't necessarily work out for everybody. Can we share? Absolutely. But yeah, I just haven't gotten there myself. So again, I do kind of use that long distance runner strategies for sleep and recovery. You know, I think they're applicable to anybody, as a survivor, they're, they're very much the same, you may not consider yourself a runner, you may not be a runner, you may not be interested in being a runner, but I think the strategies and a lot of these cases do apply. You know, and, and to that, to that effect. You know, another thing with the power of getting good sleep in physical recovery, and always even the brain recovery, not even physical work, but it just helps increase blood flow to your muscles, you're getting oxygen nutrients. You know, I did talk a lot about this in the earlier episode, a couple of weeks, a couple months back about breathing up, breathing and sleep are kind of like, there's a lot of crossover, there's a lot of similar benefits. So again, we're breathing every day of our life, from the day we're born to the day, we're dot till the day we die. So we're doing the same thing with sleep, day to day we're born to the day we die. Um, and then, you know, even when you have one of those bad night's sleep, you feel it. And so the more I'm not going over optimizing guy, but I think you know, if you can, there's a couple of things here. Obviously, sleep is important breathing is born, we know those two facts. Thing is, if we're doing it every day, and when our bodies need to do it, we can't live without it, whether it's breathing or sleeping. You know, again, I'm not an over optimizer. But if we're going to do it, it does make sense to like, do it the best we can, so we can get the most out of it. Maybe that's not everybody's take, but it's just like, oh, yeah, that that kind of makes sense. Like I honestly, I didn't think about that for a long time. Like, okay. But you know, we kind of know the body needs eight hours of sleep. All right, yeah, makes sense. Got it. So why not get the best eight hours you can get for your body? You know, and that's, that's one of those things about. I'm gonna say this specifically for survivors, because stroke is a brain injury, you might if you haven't seen a sleep specialist, and you have any issues with sleep, I'm going to recommend this. I mean, I'm not again, I'm not a doctor, but you can talk to your doctor about it. But it's a conversation worth having. And I'll tell you why. Because throughout these episodes, I kind of realized things sometimes like I've had a lot of questions, because I had a lot of issues. And not everybody has all the issues that I had. And we don't always think to ask these questions as the survivor as a caregiver, caretaker, loved one family member, etc. But also doctors are great, right? Most of them are amazing, but they don't think to ask every question to every patient every time. So they're not always seeing these things. Like, I think if we sat, you know, they really sat down and thought all the way through, but they're busy people. And if you say XY and Z, they might want to talk about something else that they thought of from a previous meeting with you, but like they get off track, they forget. So they're human to like they want to help, they are going to help they're going to answer your questions. And so sometimes it's important to bring things you know, you know, as survivor, probably if you're listening to this podcast, you need to be your biggest advocate for yourself. And don't be afraid to ask these questions. You know, sometimes we don't want to ask them for any number of reasons, but I feel like you know, they are super important and just because your doctor hasn't brought it up before it is something to who definitely have a discussion about because again, I didn't even know sleep specialists, specialists were a thing. Until unfortunately, it's too late. I already had the stroke. And I already had sleep apnea. And you know, I'm glad that my stroke doctors at Brooks recommended sleep apnea machine because I got on the right track. And to be fair, I mean, I think I think, I don't know, I never really had a problem sleeping. Which is one of the things I've actually not had problem with most of my life. But I see great now, could I see better? Could I be better with my schedule? Absolutely. But no matter what, when I do go to sleep. Even from an hour short, like I get good quality sleep, I know that I put quality above all else. You know, and quantity is something I'm working on. And again, one of the big things that I would take away from this is an error I myself this often, you know, you do hear these things. Like, I'm not gonna tell you to not turn your phone on after like nine o'clock. Like, let's not be ridiculous. But I do think there are some little things you could do. If you do get get checked to see if you have any sleep disorders like sleep apnea, like myself. That's a huge help, right. Another one is, I am pretty good now about turning off all TVs in the room, which is thing I was not good at, for the first 3536 years. 39 years probably. I'm still not great at it. Because sometimes I do like to watch a thing before bed. But I try to limit that. And I tried to make the screen darker TVs pretty far in our bedroom. So I don't do it often. I try to read books, I try to put something on that just eases me to sleep. And honestly, I don't know why I do it. Because it's like within three minutes of my head hitting the pillow, I assure you I'm out because I know at least from Audible when I put that on in the evenings, I never make him more than three minutes into whatever chapter on of any audible book. Which is, you know, I'll make that recommendation. If you are somebody who enjoys a little TV before bed and you have troubles maybe turning it off or you know, the sleep timer is great, but not every week. It I don't know. If you have an issue with getting TV off in your bedroom, because you enjoy watching something reward sleep. Let me yes, maybe audible maybe a book. I do have some good recommendations this week for books. But yeah, just make those small changes. I try to make it pretty cool in our bedroom now. Because I like it cold because I'm a still big ass dude. You know, six foot eight 325 There is no bed that is you know, I would sleep in a nice barrel if I could. But my hope my wife has not so down with that. So you know, we keep it pretty cool. It's not exceptionally cold. But yeah, I try to keep it as cold as she'll let me. And we've gotten into a good rhythm. And I do I do really I started to recognize that when I turn off all the lights when I turn off all the TVs and just have a book, it is much easier to get a good night's sleep for me. So yeah, I would say yeah, to over optimize, and I was being sad about it. But I do think there are some things that you can do and definitely look into plenty of books worth thinking into and back to if you want to look into a book if you need some help with techniques for sleeping better. I kinda I haven't finished it. But I did look into sleep smarter by Sean Stephenson. It's okay. You know, I wouldn't say it's earth shattering. I think although I think honestly, I think a lot of people know what to do when it comes to sleep. It's just a matter of establishing that habit and recognizing how important it is to your body. Because I think that's, um, I think that's where a lot of us go wrong is we until you start to recognize like, Oh, I didn't sleep that great last night. I I should have gone to bed earlier, I would have felt better today, I wouldn't have been upset about these things that I normally wouldn't get upset about because I didn't sleep well or, in my case I didn't really sleep well the last two or three weeks. And that's taken a toll on me. In fact so much so I had to miss last week's episode because I just was not feeling myself. Honestly, there are some of the things related to that. But you know, again, back on track, not feeling guilty about it, just recognizing when I need to make these changes, and I think you know these these are not I'm not saying anything brand new today, I'm not saying anything. Probably dark, don't already know. Although I will say, if you do have trouble sleeping there are you know, definitely talk to your doctor, consider going back and listening to my breathing. Episode I should have written down which episode it was, but I did an episode earlier on May back in April on breathing and I want to do more about breathing because I actually have course, I'm going to release hopefully next week it's going to be a free email course on calling to breathe better, feel better. A five day email course gonna email out some stuff on you know, when people sign up, you're gonna get basically a newsletter a day for about give or take six or seven days. And it's going to include my favorite breathing exercises. And then you know, just some different little tips and techniques for people who are interested in breathing better because I find at least on Twitter, I talk about breathing people are like, Oh, I didn't know this. I didn't know this, I didn't know this. I like this, like, you know, and kinda like opening up people's eyes. I do talk a lot about stroke and strokes of being a stroke survivor on Twitter. But I also talk a fair amount about breathing because I it's just been a really big game changer. For my recovery, and honestly, my overall health and quality of life. And I would say sleep is number two. You know, if I had to say what are the three biggest changes for me, overall, I think obviously, that I think this goes without saying as stroke survivor now. I made a lot of mistakes to have a stroke at age 37 There's no doubt about it, I own them. I I encourage other people who are listening who are even, hopefully haven't had a stroke, if you are making bad choices in life, I wish I hope somebody gets through it doesn't have to be me. I just hope somebody is able to help you recognize us. Um, you know, I know for myself, if somebody had just grabbed me and said, well, here is what's gonna happen if you don't stop drinking, don't stop smoking, don't see a doctor. And unfortunately for me, it was too late. When disaster struck, thankfully, I'm alive. I've got every opportunity now to change my life and have been doing that ever since. It is not without pain. This is not without difficulty. It is not without frustration. But I think changing my nutrition, you know, which was pretty terrible prior to my stroke, being an alcoholic and cigarette smoker. Those obviously aren't related to nutrition but you throw in some not great intrusion prior to my stroke. It's very easy to change my diet for me, exercise, got back to exercising, change my diet and I focus on sleep. Those are the three big things and they sound obvious, but they may not be obvious to everybody. And then the the other one, you know, I would I would say honestly breathing is right up there with exercise because I changed my breathing last year because I found oxygen advantage and Patrick McGowan and went down the rabbit hole. I've done a little bit of Wim Hof. I know there's some stuff going on with him. In the news, I try not to pay attention to that stuff. Because the breathing exercises that I do are really simple nasal breathing exercises. Nothing extreme is just things you can do to improve quickly. And it's led me I tell you, I can tell you words because I've said that before, but I'll say it again. I can't give you a better testimonial for fixing your breathing. The being a now 40 year old stroke survivor with Ms. Former alcoholic former cigarette smoker who hated running his whole life and played sports by the way. Never went running on a regular basis my entire life. And now I run about the last 90 days since April 2 of this year I have been running about ya know I think since April 2 I've been doing a at least double digits in terms of mileage on running every single day. So by July 3 I will be at about 900 miles because 10 At least 10 miles a day for the last 90 days. So it's it's exciting. It's It's interesting. It's fascinating to me, hopefully it is to you. I just I just can't give you better testimonial for the power of nasal breathing. regulate your body improving your health. It's led to you know nasal breathing has led to me running getting in better shape I was already doing running, I was already getting in better shape, but I'm getting even better. Like I just keep getting better three and a half years into my stroke every, I'm getting stronger. Yes, my sleep this past month has taken a little bit of a hit and a little bit of a dip. But I am where I'm at, I'm catching it before anything gets too off track. And that is evident to me because I have been putting effort into this since the middle of last week and my mileage is back up, my body feels good, I feel stronger. And I've also put a lot of effort into my sleep in the last week, and that I can tell you these all these things better breathing, better sleeping, has led to better rest and better, better overall health. And I feel much, much better. As the days go on now. So yeah, I want to encourage everybody to really look into this, I should probably put some links in the show notes of this episode. But again, don't get into a ton of about rest. In this episode, Ben it is kind of tied to sleeping. But I feel like also a stroke survivor before we hop off here. Don't feel a shame. You know, I think one of the hard things to talk about as a stroke survivor is that things take longer. Right, we need to take more breaks, generally speaking as the shocks of our I don't care who you are, how old you are, what kind of brain injury you've had, it just things take longer. And I think other people who have not been through this do not understand the importance of rest the fact that things take us a little bit more time. It's not that we can't do it. It's not that we're we become nothing hopefully as I have been to as to at a cognitive level. And yes, that does happen sometimes with brain injuries. But generally speaking, there is some fatigue, there is some anxiety, there is some some mental well being we have to see care of in a different way that somebody who is not a stroke survivor or brain injury survivor doesn't really understand. So when you see things you can, maybe this is me again, I'm I'm a little younger than most stroke survivors. But I feel like there is some times I don't care what age you are. There's the way you were. There's a way you are now we know there's a difference. Hopefully, it's not a tremendous difference, but it might be and I feel like there is I think there's a little bit of guilt sometimes because other people, even my even our spouses or partners or people around us in our daily lives. They may think they understand but don't really understand. You know, so it is a little bit on us, which is sometimes annoying. Because it's hard to explain these cognitive changes that we've gone through our lives are different. They just are, it's, it's, I can't say it any different than that it's just different and other people don't always understand. And so it's hard to stay strong as an individual and go through these changes and deal with all the other things we're dealing with. So back to my point in wrapping this up. We have a lot of things to deal with as stroke survivors as brain injury survivors, I encourage everybody to let go of any feelings you have when it comes to guilt. If you need more sleep, take more sleep. I think in the long run, the payoff is there for you to get that extra sleep. If feel like you've gotten off track you feel like you need help with scheduling things. Take the time to to reflect and don't let yourself go too long without making these changes because you can get on track. It happens it's part of life we all do it in every facet of our life but I think specifically as a stroke survivor and brain news are when you get off track with sleep you feel those effects really quickly, much more so than I think prior as best as I can remember so don't feel guilty Don't feel ashamed don't let anybody shame you for for what Keno the things that you need to do to take care of yourself. Myself included this this is basically a reminder to myself to not feel that shame. And you know when somebody else in your life is a stroke survivor Hopefully that's not the case. You know those people you could talk to the other survivors in your life. And you should because maybe they have some good tips too. But, um, yeah, as far as as far as the guilt and the shame never, never take that, you know, you've got to live your own life, you know, and you're doing the best you can as a survivor. Taking rest, taking breaks, realizing you can't just do everything the way you used to, that's fine. But again, make sleep a priority because better sleep, better nutrition, better breathing, better exercise all work together. For you to be able to have the best quality of life for you, yourself, your family, everyone around you. It's just, it makes everything that much better. So anyways, we'll leave it there for this episode. Thank you for joining me for episode 21 of the wobble survivor and we'll see you next week. Bye for now