Christine Hansen

Did you know that people who suffer from sleep deprivation or not getting enough sleep are a lot more likely to suffer from a stroke or from a heart attack.   Sleep and heart attacks is a topic that has been talked about a lot in the media, and so I just want to break it down a little bit.  

What is sleep hygiene?  For someone like me who works in the field of sleep this is a no-brainer question. But when I give interviews or when I talk to people and I say, “look, I don't just work with sleep hygiene, a lot of my clients have a perfect sleep hygiene but their problems go beyond that”, I realize that many don’t know what I'm talking about when I mention sleep hygiene. So today I want to give a couple of sleep hygiene examples. #sleeplikeaboss #christinehansen #sleephygiene #sleeptips #sleepcoache  

Sleep trackers are designed in so many different ways. You have FitBit, you have head bands, you have things that you can put under your mattress, you have the Oura Ring... There are so many different ways of doing this, which is in itself an issue (!), because everyone claims to have found the one way of measuring how you sleep.  In the end, the most accurate way of actually measuring your sleep is by really looking at your brainwaves and seeing how they are reacting, because every sleep phase has a different pattern, and even each phase has a different pattern in each sleep cycle.  Find out more in today's episode

What is sleep apnea? Sleep apnea is when your breathing sets out and your body needs to jolt you in a way for you to wake up and continue breathing. A lot of the time we think that sleep apnea is just for people who are snoring really loudly. And it can be.  It has been shown that people who are overweight or have short necks, a little bit wider necks and who snore tend to also have sleep apnea.  Learn more about sleep apnea and what you should look out for.

"So when I take sleep medication, do I get the same quality of sleep as if I sleep naturally?" And here's the answer: “No, you don't.” Sleep medication basically sedates certain parts of your brain. A lot of it has to do with histamines and different hormones and all of those have different reactions when we sleep in each of our different sleep phases.  Find out more in this episode

 “Can sleep issues cause weight gain?” and the very simple answer is YES! There are different reasons why this can happen; one of them is that sleep is there to balance your hormones. During the day, depending on your stress levels and just your regular life, your hormones are a little bit out of balance or a lot, depending on what stage of life you are at and your circumstances.  Sleep is basically like a little plumber who goes around at nighttime and looks at the valves. It re-regulates everything so that it flows nicely. Now, there are mainly two hormones that we're going to look at today and those are leptin and ghrelin and both are responsible for your hunger. They basically control how hungry you are and when.  

Has it happened to you that you do or say something, and you don’t remember any of it?  Sleep and memory are very closely intertwined. Sleep deprivation, not getting enough sleep, has a severe impact on long-term memory as well.   Find out more in today's episode.  

Let's talk about your sleep memories because those can affect your relationship with sleep hugely and we often neglect "to go there". So have a listen.    #sleep #sleeplikeaboss #sleepmemories #bettersleep #howtosleepbetter #sleepcoach

Sleep dept: Can you catch up on sleep? "Is there a way to catch up on sleep?" There's a yes-and-no answer to that. But, the long-term answer is nope, sorry. No, you can't. Sleep debt means that you didn't give your body enough time or enough sleep to do what its job is, which is healing you. Sleep needs a certain time to get the job done, which is why we have 4 to 5 sleep cycles, so that it can basically send out its little army and get its magic done. To find out more about sleep visit www.sleeplikeaboss.com #sleeplikeaboss #christinehansen #certifiedsleepconsultant #sleepdept #fatigue  #getsleep  #goodsleep #howimportantissleep  #sleepcycles 

You have a few nights (or months...hello babies) of disrupted sleep and suddenly your whole sleep pattern is off... what now? Listen in and hear my tips....!  

This episode is really for you people, who don't have any issue sleeping, per se, but who just want to know more about it and who may want to optimize their sleep. It's more about sleep performance, rather than getting any sleep at all.  I will explain the following three things: 1) sleep phases 2) how to optimize your sleep (including purposeful sleep deprivation, which is a technique that I'm going to talk about) 3) what I would do!

One of the things that my clients are very often surprised about, is when I tell them that we are going to do lab testing for parasites. Very often I hear, "What do you mean, parasites? I'm a healthy person. I'm a clean person. I wash every day!"  The thing is, you can get parasites through uncooked meat, through kissing someone, using different swimming pools etc....

Naps can be amazing! I am a huge nap advocate, to be precise Power Naps! I was recently asked if after sleeping 6 hours a night, a 20 - 45 min. nap is ok? So in this episode I will share my thoughts and tips on napping.  #sleeplikeaboss #sleep #napping #naps

“Should I meditate before going to bed?”. I did a consultation this week for a fellow professional, a naturopathic doctor, who is basically stuck with one of her clients. Her client is the kind of person I usually work with and many of my clients are not necessarily the type of people who like to meditate. Meditation can be amazing if you are ready for it, but it can also be a big stress factor if you aren't. It takes time to ease into it. 

"Am I paralyzed when I sleep?" That is a recent question one of my clients asked me. So in this week's episode, I am explaining what happens to our body when we sleep. #sleep #paralyze #sleeplikeaboss

I have too much cortisol. Which supplement can I take? That is actually not the right question to ask here . . .  Listen in and find out what you need to do! #sleep #cortisol

Hyprocretin / Orexin and its effect on sleep . . . and why it might be a sleeping pill ingredient that is not quite as bad . . . I will also look into its connection with narcolepsy and wakefulness 

How to sleep through noise. Busy city? Loud air conditioning? Maybe even added unusual lighting in the mix? That can easily be a recipe for disastrous sleep. In this episode I go basic but..... oh so tried and tested.

Can GABA help you sleep?  What you should know about gaba, how it works and a bit of geeking out on the brain. In a nutshell: The same teansmitter can have different effects on states depending on where it is active in the brain! P.S. there is always an underlying cause as to why things go out of balance. P.P.S. unless you have a seringe to administer GABA straight into your brain to the right region: watch this to make sure you are not inadvertandly increasing wakefulness and inhibiting sleep *oops* P.P.P.S. got one thing wrong minute 3:59 block = GABA traffic jam = higher levels = less sleep In a nutshell: The same teansmitter can have different effects on states depending on where it is active in the brain! 

Sometimes we have “stuff” happening to us that is upsetting, disappointing, infuriating... you name it. And it can keep us from sleeping, making us feel even worse the next day. So in this episode I will share 3 tips with you on how to manage emotional stressors and get great sleep despite whatever scoundrel or scoundreless has upset you.