Hacking Your Way To Better Sleep – With Dr. Peter Martone

Dr. Peter Martone
The best natural sleep aid is a schedule your body adapts to what you do on a regular basis in the hormones will follow suit. So you need to come up with rhythmic patterns and really be on a schedule. And that’s the best way to be able to get a healthy sleep.

Dr. Mindy
I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again, my name is Dr. Mindy Pels, and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. Okay, resetter is I have another awesome conversation for you. In this episode, we’re going to dive in to sleep. But we’re going to do it from an angle you have maybe never thought about. And that is the position in which you sleep. So this gentleman you’re going to see has an incredible amount of energy. I love his passion for life. I love his passion for sleep. I love his mission of wanting to serve the world through better sleep. This is Dr. Peter martone. And he is the founder of a very unique pillow called the neck Nast. What is intriguing about this conversation, and what you’re going to hear is he has some incredible research and clinical experience, showing that the position we sleep in will determine how much deep sleep we get, will determine if our parasympathetic nervous system can actually regenerate and repair at night, it will affect our heart rate variability, which we’ve thought we’ve talked a lot about here on this podcast. And when I heard him give a presentation at a seminar I was at in March. I have heard a lot on sleep. But I have never heard somebody show proof talk about the sleep position as being the end all cure all for many of the chronic conditions that are affecting us. So I’m really excited for this conversation and to bring it to you guys, because I know so many of you deal with insomnia. I know a lot of you guys have anxiety, I know that a lot of you have chronic pain. And perhaps you’ve never thought about the position in which you sleep. So this is Dr. Peter martone. He is trained as an exercise physiologist and nutritionist and a chiropractor. He’s got an amazing personality, which you will see in this interview, we had some good laughs together. And he has a product that the world needs. There’s a ton to learn in this episode. So we talked about weighted blankets we talked about if you elevate your your bed, we talked about sleep rituals. So if you’re struggling with sleep, there is a lot that you can dive into and learn from Dr. Peter and the conversation I had with him. Enjoy.

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Dr. Peter Martone
Alright, so this is fantastic. I was at a graduation party this weekend. And one, somebody came up to me, guy, Danny was just called Danny Okay, many works. He came up and he’s like, Doc, you gotta help me with sleep. I just, I can’t sleep. Like I am been having such a tough time sleeping. And I’m like, Danny want to do this here in the middle of the bodies. I’m like, I’ll do whatever you want. And there were people, there were people standing around. And I said, I, Danny, tell me like, how do you sleep? What’s the position you sleep in? He’s like, I I sleep on my stomach? And he’s like, no, that’s not good. I’m like, all right, Danny, what I want you to do is if you can do you think you could watch a two hour movie on your stomach? And he’s like, No, absolutely not. I’m like, well, then your, how long can you stay in your stomach for watching that movie, it’s like at 15 minutes, I’m like, you’re starting the night off to fail. Right? You’re starting it out to toss and turn all night long. And he’s like, but that’s the only place like, that’s the only way I can get to sleep. And I’m like, it is because you feel vulnerable. You feel that you are scared when you’re sleeping, you don’t feel you don’t feel like you’re protected. He’s like, Oh my God, he’s like, that’s exactly what it is. He’s like, if I sleep in any other position, I feel like somebody is going to come in and stab me or somebody is going to open up my door. And, and that is really the root cause of sleeping issues that like, fundamentally, we need to be able to set up a sleep sanctuary, where we feel comfortable, we feel safe in our environment, and then create an environment with techniques that help us feel safe in any position. So so when you when you’re looking at insomnia, you’re looking at being able to get to sleep, sleep, stay asleep and wake up well rested. You need to make sure that fundamentally, sleep is a place where you can relax and just be because stress kills sleep. It look at what we’re going through right now. Many right when I you know COVID and this last year that we’ve been in, is this world getting less stressful? Or is it getting more stressful? No. And, and and we need to, you know, come up with some techniques, which we’ll talk about, but really, ultimately, the people are having a difficult time sleeping right now because of the state of where we’re at.

Dr. Mindy
So how do you change your state though, because let’s say your day has been completely stressed, stressful. You sit down, you plop, you turn the news on now you’re even more stressed. How do you and then you decide it’s bedtime, and you and you try to plop into bed go to sleep? There has to be one thing I’m learning for myself about sleep is that I’ve got to start thinking about it earlier in the day, so that I set myself up to succeed. But if the world if you’re living in a stressful world, how are you going to be able to calm your nervous system down to sleep?

Dr. Peter Martone
What let’s let’s look at like the animal kingdom because I love looking at the animal kingdom. And let’s look more in particular the ostrich, what does the ostrich do to feel protected? hides in the woods, it sticks its head in the sand. Right? So it when it feels that it’s in danger, it sticks its head in the sand. It doesn’t matter if it’s, I mean, obviously that’s not a great solution for us to do. But it feels protected with darkness with pressure pressure around it. And so so what I teach my clients and my patients is let’s set up a hinge garage type of thing, or use pressure. That’s where weighted blankets come in that love my weighted blanket, things come in. So So for instance, if somebody’s asleep Can you see? Oh yeah, you can see me Look, yeah, I can see you, this is gonna be like interactive, we’re gonna go back, you’re not gonna fall asleep on me. I want this to be a sleep interview that doesn’t put you to sleep, okay, so we need to need to make sure it’s entertaining. So, so like the ostrich, you can like Lie on your back here. And then you could put something right over your head. Right? Okay, and then use pressure on your chest, use pillows, I don’t care. If you need a Warby, you get yourself a teddy bear again, and hug it, but make yourself feel protected in that state. And then the anxiousness that you feel about being exposed, will start to, will start to settle you down, you have to create, because a lot of people don’t have the self discipline of the mind to be able to clear their mind, right. So the first thing we do is physically set up the environment, lock your door set, put an alarm on, put something over your head, put pressure on your chest, and just set up a nice calming neutral space.

Dr. Mindy
So it’s not really a mindset change. It’s a it’s a body change, you’re trying to tell your body your to calm down, which in turn will tell the mind Oh, we’re safe.

Dr. Peter Martone
Yeah, look at like, How do you feel? Let’s say you put yourself in a place where you’re on like the Tobin bridge in Boston, there’s a lot of traffic going by people of beeping, versus putting yourself you know, at the Grand Canyon, on a mountain, in the middle of just bliss, when the surrounding around you changes, your state will, will follow that. So so there are other techniques where we all hear about, let’s say aroma therapy, right aroma therapy, you can use sense to relax you. Well, I tried that for years to try to like figure out what scent it did. And I’m, I’m like a scientific brain. And I analyze and analyze, but it wasn’t until I meditated on a regular basis with a specific sense, then when to use that scent outside of meditation, my brain connected relaxation with that sense. So yeah, train your brain would sense. So there are different techniques that we use to be able to help people feel safe in calm them down to protect Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
that’s brilliant. I’ve actually heard that with sense that trying to get information in and they’re using their they use a scent. And then when they go to take a test like a student, and they use that same scent scent, it actually solidifies the information that they were learning as they were studying. So sense can be used like that, but I never thought to do the set earlier in the day, calm myself down, and then use it at night as a trigger to go to sleep.

Dr. Peter Martone
Yeah, so I was I was doing my studies are all done on me. Right. So they’ve done on me and my patients. So I was trying to I was trying to see how fast I could get my heart rate down. And that’s what I was using sets. And I found that when I was able to move once I meditated with a specific sense, then to use that sense, like later on in the day, I would come I would calm my heart rate.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, amazing. Yeah. So you’re saying, cuz I’ve interviewed a lot of hormone experts on this podcast. And what I hear you saying is that it’s not so much the preparation of sleep, but it’s what you tell your body when you get into bed, you need to tell your body when you get into bed, your and your brain, we’re safe, we can go to sleep. Is that the way you look at it?

Dr. Peter Martone
Yes. So let’s look at me as more of the practical application person. Right, ah, and there are a lot of people that that dive into the hormones and then they pull out the hormones and they try to regulate the hormones. But when we take like instead of micro biotics when you eat I’m the macro guy that says eat within your environment, right and whatever you eat within your environment in season has to be healthier than eating a pineapple, you know from the other side of the world. Right so when when you look at lifestyle is like so somebody posted me the question like they’re like what’s the best natural sleep aid and I said the best natural sleep aid is a schedule. So so you need to set up a real body adapts to what you do on a regular basis in the hormones will follow suit based on adapting to your lifestyle. So you need to come up with rhythmic patterns and establish those patterns ritualistically in really be on a schedule and that’s the best way to be able to get a healthy sleep, I guess. score if it’s an aura ring or healthy. I helped good healthy sleep is setting up regular patterns.

Dr. Mindy
So going to bed and getting up at the same time is very important.

Dr. Peter Martone
Yes, going to bed getting up at the same time. And then as always get sun when you can. We’re really tied in exercise is important. Not too late. Right? You don’t want to exercise like right, right before you go to bed. You’ll you’ll kill your sleep patterns.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, right. Okay, now now talk about sleep position, because I know that this is like a new concept that I actually hadn’t thought about. From a deep sleep from a restorative sleep perspective. I knew that sleeping and let’s we’ll also, let’s educate our listeners on why you shouldn’t sleep on your stomach. I knew sleeping on your stomach wasn’t great for your neck. But what I learned from you when I listen to you talk in March was that sleeping on your back is such a powerful way to get a deeper quality sleep. And I had never thought about that. So let’s talk about the structure of how we sleep and why it’s so important.

Dr. Peter Martone
All right now. So we’re going to talk about the structure by gift. I want to tell you how I zigzag into the sleep industry because understanding the structure really is what brought me to where I am today in sleep. I mean, I’m an exercise physiologist, love biomechanics and kinesiology. That was my undergrad degree. I’m a nutritionist. I’m a chiropractor. And now I’m a sleep expert. How the heck did that happen? Well, in working with with patients now, I’ve been in practice 21 years, but at the time, 15 years, you know, we people always had the same patterns, they were coming in with neck and back pain, and I was adjusting them till I was blue in the face. And I like as I add a chiropractor with a little hidden secret is I had back pain every day of my practice, I had back pain all the time. And it was a kind of a humbling place to be because, you know, I’m helping trying to help people with back pain, and I had it myself. And it wasn’t until a day when I was on my mountain bike and I attributed to mountain biking and skydiving and doing all in hang gliding and rock climbing. I was so hard on my body over the years playing sports. So it’s like, oh, it’s normal, normal pain, right? was until I herniated my disc was in the emergency room. I was on dilaudid because I couldn’t feel my legs. I was in so much pain. And I started I knew it was a really bad place for me because I had I had a shoulder issue, right? I had back issues, I always had pain. And I’m like, how did it come to this, I as a chiropractor, am on a bed in the emergency room hooked up to what I tell people not to take. And I needed it because I had so much pain I couldn’t I couldn’t read it. And and I said something Something’s got to give How can I be at this low place in my life fear from my practice and being able to, you know, have a healthy spine again. And I and I knew there was a pattern, I didn’t know what it was. So when I started being able to get mobile I reviewed 2,000x rays. And I found that the pattern was this. It’s whenever you lose the cervical curve in your neck. And just to reiterate, a curve in your neck is supposed to be not your neck supposed to be nice and curves, your spines. your spine should be curved. That’s the spring that’s a shock absorbers most people think that discs are but it’s not. So once you lose the curve in your neck, and your head comes forward due to you know being on a computer all day due to texting due to poor sleeping position. Your body compensates from that by putting a scoliosis in your spine. So when you lose, then I believe it’s because the body’s taking Dural pressure off of the spine. So when you lose this, you pick up this so I was walking around with this curve in my spine because I had a bad curve in my neck and I was a bad sleeper. But I was using a pillow on in my head like this.

Dr. Mindy
And propping your your head

Dr. Peter Martone
more forward in my head forward. And basically this is kind of my airway picture that I show but I was using a pillow under my head and I wasn’t supporting the proper cervical curve in my neck. So I said Holy mackerel, could that be Could it be that easy? So what I did is I started stuffing towels underneath my neck when I slept and I know that the spine is like clay. It can be remoulded. The older we are the more scar tissue or degeneration we have the harder it is to mold that clay but it can still be remoulded. So I instead of Working on my lower back, I was working on my neck bringing it back. And all of a sudden, something amazing happened, my disc problem went away. And I’ve never had back pain again, since crazy, because what happens is I fix this. And then I took the rotation and the pressure off of my lower back.

Dr. Mindy
What’s fascinating to me about that is if I probably have spent 1000s of dollars on the right pillow, like ordered every pillow on the market, and none of them go under your neck, or they were just way too rigid. There, it was like the pillows that supported a good neck curve, we’re so, so stiff. So talk a little bit about why the pillow makes such a big difference, because I think most people don’t realize that.

Dr. Peter Martone
So one of the reasons we toss and turn all night long, is because the body’s in pain, your pain center, in your sleep center, or right next door to each other. So whenever your body senses pain, you move. So if you give me Remember I said the body is like clay, it will mold to the position that you put it in. So if you give me a side sleeper, right, and you try to watch TV like this, for two hours, you’re gonna have to move because your body is going to be in pain, but your body will adapt, you give me a side sleeper, I’ll give you a shoulder problem, you give me a side sleeper, I’ll give you a hip issue, I’ll give you I’ll give you a libram pole, I’ll give you back pain. Because your body’s molding, we have eight hours a night to, to, to reverse the damaging effect of what we did all day long. And that we can do while we’re sleeping. That’s cool. So yeah, so what basically happens is, is when you use a lot of these cervical pillows, there’s like a, if they’re foam, and then there’s a hole for your head, but it’s still support your head, in their in their heart. When somebody uses a neck ness when the neck next breaks in. It’s like, you know, it’s a it’s a pillow that we we came but when we use a necklace, it’s so soft, people think it’s support. Yeah, which is considered really the opposite, because you’re only trying to support three inches right in that max the three inches from the bed to the base of your neck. So when you lie down, you got to put it the right way, right. So when you lie down, your your head shake kind of just hanging out there and you’re using your head as a weight, right, and then you just light it there. And my body is in a neutral position where I couldn’t why if there’s a TV on the ceiling, I can stay in that position for eight hours. I don’t toss and turn at all. And it took a while to do that.

Dr. Mindy
No, I want to I want to talk about that. Because, again, the logic is beautiful. I totally hear you and I will tell you I’m a side sleeper. I used to be a stomach sleeper. I’m now a side sleeper. And one of the things that really hit me when I heard you speak in March was that forward head syndrome, if you’re already having to deal with that tech snack or being at a computer too much that when you’re sleeping on your side, you’re only reinforcing that curled position forward. I’d never really even thought about that. And I mean that as we age, that’s the last thing we want is to like curl into a little hunchback. We want to be much more open and get our shoulders back more. So how do you go from being a stomach sleeper or a side sleeper to being a back sleeper? Because I haven’t conquered that yet.

Dr. Peter Martone
One hour a night is how you do it. You like I tell my patients and my sleep community, my sleep tribe. Just the light member we talk about habits. It’s setting up the habit. You only need to stay on your back for one to two hours a night at the beginning then going on your side do it because your spine needs to adapt to being a back sleeper.

Dr. Mindy
So okay, one hour a night. And if you know a lot of people have those elevated beds and they love those Yes, like them, okay, so you can’t they can’t sleep without it. So you’re just saying put a pillow at the end. Well, we’ll dive into the neck Nast here in a moment but you’re saying put it under your under your neck with the elevated bed.

Dr. Peter Martone
Yeah, so elevate your bed, roughly. I mean, I know it. So you lift up the bed or you can use a six to seven inch bed wedge. So it’s about five to eight degrees elevation. Now the problem is is then people lose sleep on their side, it’s a lot easier to keep your jaw shut, or your airway closed because your chin is tucked in, that’s what’s destroying a spine, by the way, because when your chins talk to you reversing the cervical curve, so we need to now be able to adjust the airway. So if you’re sleeping on your back, a lot of people will start snoring because they’re not used to being able to keep the airway shut in that position. So the research from from surgical rooms when somebody is on the anesthesia, that head position plays an extremely important role in being able to open up your airway. So when people sleep on their back, when it’s called the jar angle, when people sleep on their back, when ends up happening is they use a pillow which is defined as a support for their head, in their chins a tuck their chins and tucked, right closes down the jaw, which closes down the airway. And they’ll start snoring. When you use a neck mask or something on your neck. Now your airways open. Now we need to just just be now we need to just train the person how to keep that shot, you can use a pillow underneath your jaw, you can use sleep tape over your mouth, you can suck the the tongue to the roof of the mouth to keep it closed. There are different techniques, but that’s one of the biggest things to get used to is being able to keep that airway closed.

Dr. Mindy
So I’m laughing because if you saw my sleep setup, I’ve got a chilli pad underneath my bed. So I get the temperature, right, I’ve got like three or four blankets, and then a weighted blanket, I’ve got air con on Macs in the room. Now ever gonna put a neck nest and some mouth tape. My marriage may not survive through all of that,

Dr. Peter Martone
well, you know, when you sleep, I just want to let you know what your time in the okay. Could be you and your husband’s time. But this is a sate This is a sacred place. In order for you to be who you are at 1,000,000% energy as as you are, you need to. So you’re an iPhone that has every app on during the day, you require so much performance out of that, that little that machine of yours, you need to log in and recharge or you can’t be the best you and I love it. So you need to reset as you would say,

Dr. Mindy
I’m gonna, I’m gonna say that next time somebody says to me, Hey, you need more self care, I’m gonna be like, No, I just need to close down some of the apps. I love it. So okay, now talk to me about some of the science. So you know, my brain goes to Okay, I’m looking at you on the pillow. And I’m thinking yeah, I can see where you open up the pathways. I’m also know that when we sleep, our brain shrinks at night. And so we end up getting more cerebral spinal fluid. Do we have any studies that are showing that when you sleep on your back with a good pillow, your brain heals. I know you have like x rays where you’re seeing pre and post changes to the cervical curve. Talk a little bit about that.

Dr. Peter Martone
Yeah, so let’s look at at the research, right. And when we look at the research, a lot of the research says that’s or the the major research study that is quoted states that it you get better glymphatic drainage or or drainage, cerebral spinal fluid drainage sleeping on your side. Right. So besides sleeping. So I went out and I looked at that study that was done in 2015. And I looked it up. And at the beginning of that study, there’s a significant statement that it seems like everybody is reading over. And like, well, what’s the significance statement? Well, it says that we understand that this study was done on rats, it but we’re extrapolating that the same sleeping position is best for humans. And then blah, blah, blah, blah glymphatic drainage area here this is increased when this increased with this. So I’m going to show you something Mindy. These are the two spines. In the for those of you that are looking, oh my gosh, the one on this side is a rat. And the the one on the other side is the human spine. Look at the cervical curve in the human spine. See how it goes in this position here? Yep, look at the cervical spine in the rat.

Dr. Mindy
completely opposite

Dr. Peter Martone
complete is complete. pletely opposite. So like dogs and rats, they have a cervical spine that nobody like when you looking at the data, you can choose to look at certain aspects of it and ignore other aspects. I looked at it and I said, it is no way that the surface area of a human is greatest when you lie on your back. So your weight is distributed over the greatest surface area, on a rat, its surface area is greatest on it side. So when you’re looking at the way that they sleep, they they’re designed to sleep in a different position that we were. So I look at the the when I look at a study or when I look at the the structure and how we’re supposed to sleep, I don’t look at the glymphatic drainage, because that’s going to happen it’s marginally better in a rap on your side, I look at the damage to your cervical spine, because you have brain with movement is where you get the most amount of flow. Yes, breathing creates a little flow at night. But when you get up, everything in the body is supposed to swell. That is how it that is how we’re designed to happen. And you’re supposed to move and pump all that limp out during the day when you’re mobile and you’re moving. So moving is the greatest area of flow in and of nurturing of the spine and in the in the brain itself. So when I look at the study, I say, Well, what I’m not looking at that as a variable, I’m looking at the destroyed cervical structure that’s happening in people’s lives that are causing parasympathetic imbalance in their nervous systems and in looking at how can we, as a world create a healthier spine and you can’t do it on your side?

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, yeah, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I love the way you explain that because I dive into studies all the time. And they make these claims on the top of the art of the study and you’re like it’s easy to get hooked in to the sensational headline but when you dive in, there’s always some little nuance that people aren’t looking at so that was I feel like you need a mic drop on that. But yeah,

Unknown Speaker
go back to sleep now.

Dr. Mindy
Okay, let’s talk about literally my new favorite sleeping hack. And it’s put out by chili pad. So I gotta tell you that when I first heard about chili pad, I was a little dubious. I didn’t quite understand how making my mattress cold was going to help me sleep better at night. But what I have since learned after trying chilli pad out for several months I’ve been consistently using it for the past six months is that two things are happening. One when you lower your body temperature you need to get it down five degrees from when you’re what it is when you’re standing in your room when you get into your sheets and it you bring your body temperature down by five degrees. It actually helps you go to sleep it will stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. So when I get into bed with my chilli pad, I can control the temperature of my mattress and I’ll put it down to like 67 get in bed it’s a little cold but the sheets are warm on top and it is enhances my body’s and my minds ability to go to sleep. The second thing that I’ve noticed with the chili pad is getting up in the morning is easier. So check this out. When you raise the temperature of the bed in the morning. It actually encourages you to get out of bed. So half hour before my alarm. I will set the chili pad temperature to go up so that everything in the bed is warming up and as it heats up it naturally wakes me up in a not an obtrusive way like an alarm would. It just gently wakes me up and it propels me out of bed. So on my whoop which I monitor my sleep all the time on I am seeing better recovery deeper sleep and I’m getting to bed quicker and when I wake up in the morning I’m more rested. So chilli pad you guys just nailed it. I love this product. I got to tell you my husband was very dubious when I first said we were going to put this on our bed and the cool thing about chilli pad is that both sides are different have different controls so your partner can control their side. You can control your side everybody gets the temperature that they want. So check out chili pad you can go to their website or you can go to Dr. Mindy Pels, calm and find a link there. And if you use resetter code 20 So that’s resetter 20, r e s e t t e r 20, they will give you a discount on the toy pod. amazing product, I It is literally been a game changer for me for men to pause, so much so that I actually was starting to sleep in a different room for my husband to keep the temperature cold, and the chilli pad brought me back into our bed, it’s been not only a game changer for my sleep, but of course for my marriage as well. I hope you enjoy it. Talk about HRV. So the other thing that I’m thinking is that we’re in forward head posture all day, we are stressed from the world being stressful, we are in the sympathetic dominant state. And we are not only destroying our spines, but our nervous systems are so anemic of the relaxation part of it. So what I also gathered from you the first time I heard you speak on this is sleeping is supposed to be the time that we’re enhancing the parasympathetic nervous system. But if you’re on your side, or you’re on this on your stomach, you may not be getting parasympathetic response, you may be staying in a sympathetic dominant state. Is that accurate?

Dr. Peter Martone
Yeah, I mean, that many, this is really everything right in or like regulating how well your body’s able to shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic, stay empowered parasympathetic, in heal. So we have two different nervous systems in and I’m sure you’ve explained this to your listeners. And they’re they’re in they need to be imbalanced on each other. So one of the one nervous system, which is sympathetics, are designed to help you survive help you live to help you react. And then the other nervous system is to help you thrive, right, so it’s survive versus thrive. So a cell cannot be in growth in defense at the same time. They’re there, they’re in counter action. So in order to you can’t run from a tiger and, and have sex behind a tree. At the same time, you can’t eat a big meal, and go go for a marathon swim, right? Because there are certain systems in your body. And it’s really interesting, when somebody has a problem, they don’t have they have a problem multiple systems, they it’s because they’re all connected. They don’t they don’t have an issue with like the digestive tract or the reproduction issue or homeowner irregularity, they have a balance issue in the nervous system or in their state. So if you are in sympathetic state where you it doesn’t matter, if your brain thinks you’re running from a tiger, or you are running from a tiger, you’re in this survival state, that’s you running all your apps at the same time. So the contrary to that, or the opposite is the thrive state is where your body grows in repairs. So the the growth systems, the major ones, is reproductive system, immune system, and digestive system. So how many people have hypersensitivities, they have asthma, they have hormonal imbalances, they, they have gas and bloating, diarrhea, constipation, that because they have a suppressed derive state, the sympathetic states are cardiovascular that’s, that’s brain in the blood in the front part of your brain where you’re thinking, you’re in control, you’re reactive, you’re Moody, that’s like the sympathetic state, we live here. You live here, over a long period of time, and you just keep suppressing and beating yourself up internally. So there’s something that’s called heart rate variability, it is a sense. So if you live in the sympathetic dominance for so long, and you’re suppressing your parasympathetic iya thrive system, you’re going to drop what’s called your autonomic activity index, your flame starts burning, lighter, and lighter and lighter and starts withering away, think about like a big fire. And then over a period of time, when it starts to wither away, you just get this little flame. So that’s what’s happening inside to people as as a state. And that’s why we get sick. That’s why we get cold but we don’t get cold because somebody coughed on us. We we get COVID because we run ourselves down and then we get sick. So it’s, that’s the, that’s the inside out we need to be more focused on ourselves. So when you wake up that you can take your heart rate variability, and you can get a score in that gives you how well you arrested how ready you are for that day. So when my patients asked me, Doc, how much sleep do I need? I’d say well, first you need to get a heart rate variability monitor Yes, just put it on, do wear it for a couple of weeks, give me your number, your average number. And I’ll tell you, if it’s enough, you want heart rate variability numbers to be high. So you need more sleep, or somebody’s heart rate variability numbers off the charts, they can get away with 567 hours of sleep, I need nine hours of sleep. Because I just I run like you just, I’m a machine in my head. And I’m always thinking and from the time I wake up to the time I fall asleep, I’m always on go. And that requires a lot of downtime for me to be able to maintain my energy.

Dr. Mindy
So have you seen changes in your heart rate variability and your patient’s heart rate variability, just from changing the position of their sleep, just

Dr. Peter Martone
changing asleep position 25 to 30%.

Dr. Mindy
That’s crazy. I mean, again, my aha of this discussion is that I have always known Gosh, if I’ve been under a lot of stress, I need to sleep more that makes logical sense. But when you wake up, and you’re not rested, when you zoom into the next day, I never really thought that just because I am sleeping doesn’t mean my nervous system is repairing. And what I hear you saying is if you are curled in a ball, you’re on your stomach, you’re sleeping, you’re tossing and turning, but your nervous system isn’t repairing. Is that accurate?

Dr. Peter Martone
Yeah, in it in it, you know, it is accurate. In I need, the better we see the data, right? So. So some people get good quality sleep when they’re on their side, but most people toss and turn all night long. And there’s so many variabilities. To that, what I would I like to do is I like to kind of pull everything back and say if what is the most neutral position, I can put somebody in what’s the most, what’s what gives them the highest percent chance of weight being well rested, and not moving all over the place in what’s going to improve the structure, what’s the best mold for their spine to be in and we start there, right. And once we start there, it might not work the first night, maybe not the first week, maybe not the first month. But as we do that over a long period of time, you will start to see spines transform, like many you and me we really understand the the Atlas, right, which controls the parasympathetic nervous system, it’s the top bone in the human body, it is the one that the brainstem really comes down and sits right on. So when you look at it, and for those of you that are listening, I’m going to show an X ray have an atlas that is out of alignment causing this patient had a lot of digestion issues, reproductive issues. She had, you know a lot of anxiety she was living in that sympathetic dominant state, which was amplified by her Atlas misalignment. So that’s the one right here it’s jammed right up underneath the occiput. It touches a skull. And then afterwards, after we changed our sleeping position, we adjusted her now you can see it’s in complete alignment, her entire life changed just by changing your sleeping position.

Dr. Mindy
So if you can change the Atlas with a sleeping position, then my thought is you can change you can lower blood pressure, you could overcome constipation, like things that we are throwing either medications or even supplements at. If you can just change the pillow and change the Atlas you’re going to change some major pieces to the body. Absolutely. And let’s look at let’s look at the spine like clay. Right. So if we look at the spine like clay, the harder the clay is, the more difficult it is for that clay to remould. So hard clay in the body is degeneration is scar tissue is old injuries.

Dr. Peter Martone
So what happens is somebody that is older has a more difficult time to be to reshape their clay because there are more pressure points in the body fights that a little bit more chiropractic care in a sense, what we can do care practically is we can take your clay and we can put it in water that makes it more moldable but just like me I was getting adjusted but I still had back pain. If you exposure clay to the same mold. You’ll just still have the same patterns and you’ll be dependent on care to keep yourself either ever yeah well said. So so that is why I love couple in chiropractic care with using a neck nest. Because what happens is They get the benefit with the adjustment. They take the clay, they put it in water, and they are able to restructure their spine a lot quicker by adding both of those two things together.

Dr. Mindy
Do you see that your patients hold their adjustments better the corrective work that you do need less adjusted corrective work when they are using the proper pillow.

Dr. Peter Martone
Absolutely. Without a doubt it is. It’s fantastic once somebody starts to create a new mold for their spine, and that I was that when I was thinking about the name, right, the name, neck nest, what the heck is a nest? It’s like, it’s like, it’s a place for you to head to nest every night. You know what I mean? It’s like, I love it, the sock little nest that you put your neck, that’s why I call it nicknames. I was thinking about neck pod, but the pods are to us, you know, like, like, the you know, the the was like the neck molds. But that doesn’t sound. That’s why we came up with a necklace. But it really is. It’s really you got to look at your pillow, like look at in the 1500s. Right? You know, you know, one of the one of the campaigns that we were working on is did we get it wrong? Were they in the 1500s? When you look at what they use for a pillow, and then now modern day pillows have evolved to a soft, fluffy support for your head. When you go back to your original 1500s pillow is a block of wood underneath your neck. That’s right. They support you now, they cared about wrinkles. But I mean, you know, it’s, but it’s still, I believe we got it wrong. And we’re trying to bring it back to structure and be able to, to I mean, we bring we might get these really comfortable beds to be able to allow us to adapt to these poor sleeping positions. It’s destroying us minds. Yeah,

Dr. Mindy
it’s comfort is not comfort, it destroys a lot of things in our lives, right. I mean, this is how we got an obesity problem because everybody has access to food. So we made our bed so soft ever do people aren’t sleeping? Well, I love it. I love that idea. So if you I am again thinking about the application of this, and I want to just sort of walk our listeners through this. So what I hear is you can use a pillow like the neck Nast to balance your nervous system out and increase your HRV you can use it to overcome forward head syndrome, which is where your head is is coming from from all the texting, and then and then and the computer work. But then what I’m also hearing in your story is we could use it for pain, somebody has chronic hip pain, they could get a neck Nast and try it to see if it resolve their pain issues. And I’m thinking what about our teenagers who are so wrought with anxiety? Could we get them sleeping properly, and restoring their nervous systems at night. And now we’ve got a more well balanced kid during the day that the application of something as simple as a pillow. Is is incredible. And I know you probably think like this, but like is it? Am I thinking this through properly?

Dr. Peter Martone
Look at you. I see Mindy, I see you having a revelation. I’m just gonna let this sink in. Amen, sister. That’s all I can say to you. Absolutely. It’s why I am so passionate. Listen, the Lord He has he has he brings out paths for you and lays things in front of you. And I never thought I would be in the sleep industry. But it’s it’s it’s what I’ve been called to do. It’s Yeah, it’s zigzag didn’t do it because of my underlying knowledge on the structure and then being able to figure out what we can do to fix it. And the way that I can help this unit help humanity is to be a loud voice to teach people to change their sleeping position.

Dr. Mindy
You know what I equate it to fasting. The thing I love about the fasting world is that you’re tapping into an intelligence that will self repair. And when you take food out of the equation, the body goes into this just accelerated healing state. If you’re eating crappy food all day and you start fasting, now you’re creating some healing. Same thing with that pillow. If you are sitting at a computer all day, if you’re inundated with stress, physical, emotional, chemical stress, and you go into bed with a pillow like the neck nest, and you’re rebalancing your nervous system. To me, that’s the only way we’re going to be able to overcome the damages that the modern world is is giving us because there’s too many damages. There’s there’s too much crappy food. There’s too many stressors for our teenagers. There’s too many opportunities for Tech’s next to appear for us because we’re on so you have to have something to counterbalance all of that.

Dr. Peter Martone
What better way What better bio hack to improve Your energy by 30%. than to do while you’re sleeping. Right right to simply do while you’re sleeping. But if it’s if it’s sad, if it sounds, it sounds so easy, then everybody would do it. Right? We wouldn’t have to know netmask returns at all right? But I’m going to tell you it is not easy. Because when I mean, we have sold 1000s, and 1000s, and 1000s of dentists all across the world, and the number one complaint is, can’t do it. And you can do it right. You can do it. You’re just not giving yourself enough time. And and we’ve created also that this this sleep thing called that 30 day sleep quest, where I teach you how to do it over 30 days, little lifestyle changes, like sleep elevated. Put something over your forehead, when you use covers. Like you’re not supposed to be covered from head to toe. You don’t want to have your hands and your feet underneath the covers at all times. You don’t want to play tug of war with your spouse all night long, right? Oh, you should have your own blankets. You can trust me you can snuggle cuddle, you know, at the beginning of the night, Mindy. But when it’s time to go to sleep, you give me my space, snuggle cuddle write it because what if you snuggle cuddler, right? was just ate late, or maybe had a glass of wine, they’re going to burn up and be a furnace. And in order for you to get to sleep, your body core temperature needs to drop two degrees. And if you’re sleeping next to a furnace, it I mean, I could see if you’re in the wilderness, Mindy and you and you want to snuggle to stay warm. But no, I love you. But let’s write it. This is my space. So you want to have your hands and your feet out of the coverage. You want to be really protective of your body core temperature, your core temperature needs to drop quickly. Your heart rate needs to drop. These are all things it’s like, how do I have to know all of this stuff you don’t. All you need to do is don’t eat so late. Make sure you’re in a cool environment. Use your own covers feel protected. There are ways and techniques that I teach people how to get this done. Right?

Dr. Mindy
That beautiful, beautiful. So okay, tell us about the neck neck because I just want to make sure that we put a good shout out for your product because it is ridiculously unique. And I also like that it’s soft. So I told you the first time I saw it, the first thing I thought is there’s no way that’s going to help it’s too soft. The second thing that I that I thought was It’s so soft, it’s going to break down so easily that I’m gonna have to buy myself another one. So explain the mechanism behind this pillow because people listening they did they are not seen it and I encourage you I will put a link to Peter’s website so you can go check it out. I think it’s actually neck NASA calm. It’s super easy. It’s

Dr. Peter Martone
super easy. Yeah, the neck nest when you use one that has two different phases. There’s there’s a when it comes it comes a little stiffer. You know the Phil it’s a downfield, it’s a down in duck that law, the pokers. And the point goes on in it. So so the the fill is, you know, it’s fluffed up when you first get it and I tell people kick it, lie on it sit on it driving in your car with the behind, you want to break the fill, and then when the fill is broken in now it becomes soft and almost like my my neck next is flattening out. It’s so soft, it just doesn’t it doesn’t support my neck anymore. That is when the magic of the neck this happens. And I teach people it’s three steps to using a neck this once it breaks in, you put it flat on the on the bed, then you angle it up slightly. And then you put the neck nest underneath your neck like a nest. And for those of you that are watching it, step one, flat, step two angle, step three back. And once you do that three step approach to the neck nest, your neck is in a perfectly neutral position. And getting that right is a little difficult. But we do a lot of education on that and teach people to really understand that when you get a neck mess, the first four weeks of the break in period, but the rest of the life of the neck and so I’ve been using my neck neck, the same neck ness for four years. And it’s uh it’s it’s, it’s still still

Dr. Mindy
it’s probably like an old pair of shoes where it’s like your favorite when you put it on now. That’s amazing and you’ve been so gracious they You’re gonna give us my grip 10% off. So you guys, if you want to try one out, we will leave a link that I think they just go to neck NASS calm, you really,

Dr. Peter Martone
you know it, you come up with the intention, the anchor of Alright, you know, this guy is a little weird, you know, he looks a little weird, he’s got a shock shirt on, it’s a little weird, like weird. What he’s saying might make a little bit of sense. So so you just start one to two hours a night on your back, throw the neck nest on the floor, when you’re done with it, I don’t care then go to your side. But just start using it like that and start getting used to it. And you know, and next thing you know, you’ll be, you’ll be a lifelong backseat.

Dr. Mindy
We’re gonna get all our resellers to use one and then check it with their HRV. So I’m actually really excited to take it over a big group of people and see if we start to see changes. Have you seen changes in deep sleep because that’s what also a number I’ve been chasing.

Dr. Peter Martone
Yeah, so deep sleep, we’re actually in so deep. What you find is, people’s deep sleep vary based on how active they are. So one night, you might not need a lot of deep sleep. The next night you exercise, your body needs a lot of repair. And my brain goes a million miles a minute. So I require a lot of REM sleep, I require a lot of a lot of like, like so deep sleep repair at a deep core level. REM sleep is is trying to manage your hard drive and defrag your hard drive and put things into compartments and make something out of your life. So I require a lot more REM sleep than I do deep sleep. But when an exercise that require more deep sleep, we’re working on different supplementations and different techniques to be able to maximize both of them. But we’re still in love it that stuff should be out in August or September. And our tribe is trying some different things and in monitoring it with their with their offerings.

Dr. Mindy
That’s beautiful. Well said. Okay, wrap it I want to respect your time so I know you have another appointment after this. Rapid Fire five questions for you. These are customized for you. I stopped I stopped you this morning.

Dr. Peter Martone
That’s perfect.

Dr. Mindy
Okay, here’s my first question. Why bees? What is it that you were gonna

Dr. Peter Martone
leave the bees save the world? Yes, I had my beehive just so interesting. Like I almost I was almost late to this because my hive de queens so my queen must have went on a little flight and got eaten by a bird or something. Oh, no, I saw I lifted up in my there’s no Queen there. My high was dying. So I had to go get a queen and I reintroduced to my hive, we sell 60 pounds a honey, raw local honey, every two weeks in my office. It helps empower my patients, digestive tracts, it helps with energy helps the brain focus, like the Russians used honey and they found that the only food that increase your IQ when they were doing the study back. Okay,

Dr. Mindy
so cool. I love it. I knew you had a little a little thing with that. Okay, what about the best book that you have ever read that or a book that influenced your life that you’re like, everybody needs to read this book?

Dr. Peter Martone
I would say, you know, it’s it’s breaking the habit of being yourself. Right? Yes, yeah. So you know, a lot of times we ritualistically do the same things. And it’s so difficult because it’s so ingrained to change and change takes work. And reading that book, it teaches you how to change.

Dr. Mindy
I love that book. Well said okay, if there was one person alive today that is inspiring to you that you could sit down and have a personal conversation with who would it be and what would you want to talk about?

Dr. Peter Martone
One person to have a conversation with Well, it you know, this is not a this is independent right now of any political stuff. Believe it or not, it would be Donald Trump and let me tell you why because a lot of people that hate me for saying that he had been up against such adversity right? And so many people are against him. I almost feel like I’m you know, because I’m this this person that’s coming out and I’m talking about things in a different perspective that is contrary is that is so much different than what the normal you know, it’s I’m not in line with the normal thought process right? It’s in it’s in it I’m thinking differently so how do you shut all of that stuff off and focus on with the you know, with the purpose at hand is

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, fascinates Did you have pillow haters,

Dr. Peter Martone
not pillow haters, but People that are so ingrained in their way of thinking. It’s that research. Oh, no sigh sleeping is the best, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Look at this one. And I’m like, Well, what are your variables? What do you what research? Are you accepting? And what are the variables of that research that you’re accepting? So so because I’m coming at it from a very structural point of view, and looking at it as as spinal biomechanics, people can’t see that, because I’m coming from a chiropractic mindset, which isn’t really adopted in the current paradigm.

Dr. Mindy
I really think well said, because I really think that if we stop if every human took a step back and looked at the poor health of the world, I think we would all agree to some level, we need to do something different. Like what we’ve been doing has not gotten us to a place of superior health, especially here in America. So I love what you just said, I call it nuanced, where we’re willing to look beyond the headline and go deeper into the nuance of something to think for ourselves. So yeah, yeah, I love that. I don’t want you to have any pillow haters. laughs last few questions. If you had, if you could have a conversation with your 20 year old self, what would you tell him?

Dr. Peter Martone
Your limitations are in your own mind?

Dr. Mindy
Well said Well said. Okay, last question. If you had a message for the world that you could get into everybody’s mind, what would that message be?

Dr. Peter Martone
Be the change you want to see in this world, don’t let anybody influence you. You know, if you want to, if you want to see something and you want to see change, you’re not happy with what’s going on around you. Lead by example, regardless of the, you know, the the riffs or that you think it would create the change you want to see.

Dr. Mindy
Hey, resellers, I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews. And those of you that have left me comments on iTunes. I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you’re enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I’ve learned in just interacting with so many people is that we’ve really lost the art of deep conversations. And for me, the reseller podcast stands for having meaningful conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say give you guys a shout out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me, because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it’s impacting your life. So please let us know if there’s anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you to make it better. We are now officially in season two. And we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have that mindset changers can give and to really deliver you something that you’re not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube from the bottom of my heart. I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you and let’s get healthy together.