Discover The Top 10 Hacks for Healing Cancer While You Sleep

Misty Williams

Thanks for having me, I’m so excited to be here. 

Nathan Crane

Yeah, we’ve had a great back and forth over the past year or so of you know, I’ve been getting to know you, your work, the great work you do, all the summits you’ve produced. You know, specifically on sleep. I mean, you’ve been interviewing dozens and dozens maybe hundreds of experts by now right? On sleep and health and healing and hormonal balance, and all the great work you do and I love it and I think you have a lot to contribute, not only through your own personal healing story and where you came from and where you are now but also all the great information you’ve gleaned from all of these interviews. 

I mean, you know, as I know firsthand when you’re interviewing the top experts in any field again, and again, and again, and again you start to recognize principles and foundations and strategies that could take decades of research and experimentation to figure out and you’re able to consolidate that into real, practical solutions for people. So you know, I want people to know you have a lot of value and helpful information that’s gonna really help everyone today. And you know, you know what you’re talking about. So I appreciate the work you do and I think we’re gonna have some really great information for everybody today. 

Misty Williams

Yeah, well I love talking about the practical application. I have, as you said, done lots and lots of interviews and you can learn all about the science. And I really enjoy geeking out on the science too and like, I think I have more internal leverage on myself when I understand why something works the way it does. You know, it really motivates me. But at the end of the day we need to practically apply this stuff you know? 

Nathan Crane

Exactly. 

Misty Williams

And so, we’ll talk a little bit about the science of things but I’m excited to get into what practically to do because I think that’s really where we move the needle and like you said, I’ve tried a lot of things and kind of cut through and figured out some of the most effective things that we can all do to get better sleep. And my gosh, when you’re sleeping everything in life is better. The birds chirp in the morning and you wake up ready for the day. You have discipline about you know, what you’re eating and how you’re moving your body, and all of the things because you’re well rested. 

And of course, in situations where God forbid you’re ever dealing with something really serious like cancer sleep gives your body the opportunity to heal and I think that’s the thing that makes me most passionate about this topic is I have worked with lots and lots of doctors and kissed quite a few frogs along the way and tried, spent a lot of money trying different protocols and using different supplements and the fact of the matter is, if you’re not sleeping you’re not healing. And there is no supplement or protocol that is going to outdo the body’s you know, need for deep restorative sleep. So this topic is near and dear to my heart and I’m looking forward to us cracking it open.

Nathan Crane

It’s so true you know, and oftentimes, we think we’re sleeping and the reality is, like we think we’re getting plenty of sleep, and the reality is when you start tracking your sleep you find out, whoa, I’m getting way less sleep than actually I really need. And so we can talk about, I wanted to talk about that in a little bit as well. But tell us you know, what it was like for you going through your own health challenges, dealing with an ovarian cyst and how did sleep play a role in your own healing journey? 

Misty Williams

Well you know, my journey started over 10 years ago when I got that diagnosis of an ovarian cyst. They found out once they opened me up that I had endometriosis so during that surgery, they removed my ovary and the ovarian cyst, three polyps from my uterus and they spent two and a half hours removing scar tissue from my abdomen from endometriosis. I was covered. So the surgery that was supposed to be like, a 20 minute surgery was you know, almost three hours long. And on their way out, they stitched up part of my small intestine. And that’s what made it really tricky. That’s not supposed to happen. 

They obviously didn’t know that it happened and it was out patient, so I went home that night with a list that said if any of these things happen here’s what you do. And when I started vomiting a few hours later I went to the list and it wasn’t on there so it was a really freaky thing like, you know, when it first started happening I remember feeling like, is this because, is this related you know? But I didn’t stop, I just kept throwing up. I couldn’t keep down food or water. I started calling the doctor’s office on Friday, the surgery was on a Thursday. And I left message after message, I could not get ahold of my doctor. The next week, Monday, we were supposed to have a follow up appointment to discuss the surgery, she didn’t show. I called her office and she had gone home sick that day. 

And you know, I’m feeling like, I have left all these messages. They didn’t even call me to tell me that the doctor wasn’t, it just made me feel like I had dropped off the map. And so Tuesday I went and sat in the doctor’s office at nine a.m., told the receptionist I was waiting for the doctor. And she said well, she’s not gonna be here until 12:30 and I said, I will wait. And so I plopped down on the coach and about 10:30, I got a call from the doctor. She told me to go to the emergency room where they did an MRI and discovered what had happened and I got wheeled back for a follow up surgery and they admitted me this time and after the surgery, the nurse came in and gave me Ambien to sleep. And I remember feeling like that was a really curious thing for her to do. Because I had never had a problem falling asleep. And I didn’t know, we’ll talk a little bit about what I found out about my sleep. But consciously I didn’t know I was having any challenges with my sleep. So I took the Ambien, I can’t remember if it was every night that I was in. They admitted me for three days this time. I was really scared to go home. So when I did go home though I went over 144 hours without sleep. 

Nathan Crane

Wow. 

Misty Williams

Not a wink. And I just put together that I was, I had the small intestine stitched up and I was throwing up for six days and then I was awake for six days. And you know, as best we can tell it was likely just this build up of cortisol in my system that just kept me from being able to convert you know, my hormones into sleep hormones. I was really flooded. But that was very scary. Night after night, laying in bed begging God for sleep. Please let me sleep and I would go the entire night and not sleep, and the next day it was like, what? And after the second night and the third night and the fourth night, I mean it was, it was terrifying. And I had had this experience with reaching out to my doctor and not reaching her so I felt very alone you know? I’m going through this and I’m by myself. 

And I went back to her office for a followup visit a couple weeks later and she told be I had endometriosis and I told her, wow you’ve diagnosed me with a disease. What does this mean? What do I need to do to take care of myself? Do I need to make some lifestyle changes? And she said you know, “We don’t know what causes endometriosis, you can Google it. I can put you on birth control or we can do surgery again if it comes back.” And like immediately, it was just like, bells starting going off in my head. 

Like, I just knew, I had had this terrible patient experience where I didn’t feel like she and her office, her clinic, cared about me. But when I asked what to do to take care of myself her only solution is surgery and birth control pills. Like, I just knew this was not a safe place and that I wasn’t gonna get this figured out with this doctor. So I went home and started developing a whole host of other symptoms. I started having crazy fatigue, brain fog. I remember sitting at my desk trying to work and it was like my brain was stuffed with cotton balls and my thoughts like, couldn’t get, I was trying so hard to think something. It was a really scary time and six months later, I went back to my primary care doctor and I filled her in, it was the first time I had seen her. And you know, I started thinking maybe it’s just that doctor. 

You know, maybe this is just about me finding, going back to a doctor that actually really cares. I believe she cared about me too. And she probably did in her own way. But when I told her what I was experiencing she just kept saying to me, “Misty, your labs are normal. Things are fine, there’s nothing here.” Like, you’re a hypochondriac you’re making this all up in your head you know? So it was a really challenging road for me for a long time but I left her office knowing for sure that I needed to find a different kind of doctor. And of course I started thinking alternative health and I had a chiropractor friend who I reached out to. 

And he told me that he would help me and the first question he asked me is, “How’s your sleep?” And so you know, he’s still my friend to this day. We’re great friends. But his way of caring for me and supporting me in getting through this really challenging time was to go back to the most foundational elements of health and making sure that I had those things dialed in. 

Now what I didn’t know was that I had been experiencing terrible sleep for pretty much my entire adult life. And the way you know, if you don’t have all the sleep trackers, the way you know if you’re getting good, deep, restorative sleep is you wake up in the morning feeling refreshed. It’s a pretty easy tell you know? You wake up in the morning and you feel alive, awake, ready to start your day. You know, you’ve got energy. That’s the tell if you’re getting the sleep that you need. So I was a chronic night owl, I never went to sleep before 2 a.m. And so I was sleeping typically about seven hours a night, 2:00 to about 9:00. And I would wake up feeling like I’d been hit by a Mack Truck. Just like I am climbing out of a 20 foot hole in the ground. 

Nathan Crane

I know exactly what that feels like. 

Misty Williams

Yes, yes! And so he started, at that moment, “Okay, all right, we’re getting somewhere Misty. You have got to get in bed. I want you in bed by 9 o’clock at night.” And I remember thinking, 9 o’clock? That was five hours earlier than I was used to going to sleep you know? But I committed, I wanted to get my life back and I didn’t want to see, you know, more things happen as a result of this disease. So you know, it’s been a long road for me and sleep. I have a lot of stories of sleep struggles you know? But I think the important thing about this topic is number one, it’s the most foundational part of our entire healing journey. 

I don’t care what you’re healing from. And if you aren’t experiencing great sleep the good news is, there’s a lot that you can do to improve your sleep. And you know, I’m fortunate, I don’t take anything for sleep. I am on over hormone supplement imaginable because of some of, that experience and then they improperly drilled mercury from my teeth and so it crashed my entire HPA axis.

Nathan Crane

Oh wow. 

Misty Williams

So I’m kind of damaged on that front and certainly I do detoxing and stuff. But I don’t have to take anything for sleep. And my melatonin levels are really high. You know, I’m lucky but there’s things that I do and I think that’s where we can kind of start unpacking here together. And I would say, outside of Dr. Andrew telling me “Misty, you need to start going to bed at nine”. And I remember when I started that, by the way I would sleep for 10 or 11 hours and still be exhausted in the morning. And I just kept at it, it’s took six months. And I started doing cold baths, sitting in cold water, about 60 degrees for 45 minutes at night. And I started waking up like, not so far into that pit you know? And now I’m really fortunate, I start waking up usually around 6, 6:30 every day without an alarm clock. 

And you know, I don’t always get out of bed immediately but I have a wonderful experience with sleep. I have deep, I have very refreshing restorative sleep now. I probably had a sleep deficit there that I had to make up. I’m not sure I will ever fully make it up, actually sleep deficits are really bad news for all of us. But the thing that really started helping me to actually be able to go to sleep earlier was learning from Ben Greenfield and Dave Asprey about our circadian rhythms and circadian biology. And they’re big proponents of the amber glasses. And I started wearing those amber glasses almost immediately and it helped, it helped me reset everything. 

I have been a very consistent wearer of amber glasses for 10 years. And I really do think that’s a big part of the reason why my sleep is so great ’cause it’s the cumulative effect of an important habit done consistently over time you know? The reason that I really got intrigued by this not only ’cause I knew I needed to get better sleep but I started coming across a lot of research tying blue light to breast cancer. And I had an aunt that got breast cancer. And so you know, it really drove home to me as a woman that this sleep thing, and this circadian thing is super significant. I mean, there’s just so much research out there connecting these two things together. In fact, there are some who postulate that the rise in breast cancer has mirrored the rise in wiring up our homes and our cities with light. So you know, we can talk a little bit more about you know, some of the circadian stuff but it’s a very easy hack. I mean, these glasses, they used to look like safety goggles. I had a friend call them birth control when I first started. Because they looked ridiculous.

Nathan Crane

You’re not gonna get a date if you’re wearing them. 

Misty Williams

Nope, don’t go wearing that out you know, to a party. 

Nathan Crane

Well, when we, I want to get into these strategies here in a second, some of the science because I’ve looked at a lot of the science as well, correlating sleep or lack of sleep and circadian rhythm to cancer specifically. And there is a very direct causative correlation that you can find right? In regards to sleep and cancer and sleep and just about every chronic health condition. But before we do, I want to unpack or kind of reference something that you said a little while ago that I think is so important for everybody tuning in. The experience you had with you know, your conventional medical doctor experience right? Of look, you’ve got all these symptoms, you’ve got this condition, and here’s what we can do, we can do surgery, we can give you drugs or you know. 

Misty Williams

We’ll watch it. 

Nathan Crane

Or we’ll watch it and see what happens. 

Misty Williams

We’ll watch it and when it gets really bad, then we’ll do the… Drugs or surgery. 

Nathan Crane

And the unfortunate truth is that so many people dealing with cancer had the exact same experience. And that’s how often how they find a symposium or an interview like this right? Because something inside of them tells them well no, that’s not all I can do. And I’m gonna research and learn everything else I can do. Or they have some background or experience in natural health and they say, no, I’m gonna keep researching and learning right? And so it leads them to information like this which is so critical. But I want people out there to know that they’re not alone. Thousands, and thousands, not thousands, millions of people go through the exact same experience. Unfortunately, most people don’t know what they don’t know. They don’t know there are other options. The doctor does not give them true informed consent because the doctor doesn’t know that there are other options themselves. They’re trained in chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. 

It’s about all they know unless you meet a holistic medical doctor like Dr. Lodi or an integrative medical doctor like Dr. Connealy who, this is what they’ve been studying for decades now because they also saw that the work they were doing in conventional medicine wasn’t actually helping people heal from chronic diseases. And they said there’s gotta be a better way right? And so those are few and far between but there’s more and more of them that are coming up in the field who get trained as a conventional medical doctor, they recognize there’s got to be better solutions, and then they open a practice based in integrative medicine right? And so people who are tuning in, you’re not alone. 

So many people go through that same experience. And yet you’re here, because you’re looking for strategies, you’re looking for solutions, you’re looking for like, yeah, I know I need better sleep or I know I should improve my sleep. I know that sleep is so fundamental to my healing right? In my own life, same experience. Teenager growing up, I was addicted to drugs and alcohol though, that’s a different experience, not the same what you just said, but my own experience. The same experience, night owl right? Up partying all night long, didn’t go to sleep until two, three in the morning and then I’d sleep all day and then do it again. And I was, by 18 years old I was literally almost dead. 

I was a walking zombie you know? In addition to the chemicals and the bad food and the fast food, and the stressful life and the homelessness and all that then add on top of it really bad sleep, I literally, there was a picture of me when I was like 17. I have somewhere in like, a little scrapbook that I made. I literally look like a dead, I look like a zombie. Like the zombies you see on the movies that are like, walking dead, like I look like that you know? And that’s the unfortunate reality is that, so many people are not getting the benefits of sleep that they should be getting because sleep is your, should be one of your top healing strategies, as I’ve said. It’s free, and you can improve it exponentially by implementing these strategies that Misty, I want you to share with us. ‘Cause you know a lot about the strategies and solutions. And so let’s say, if you were to put together like, a top 10 list right?

Misty Williams

Mhmm. 

Nathan Crane

Start at number one, what you think is number one. Maybe work your way down that, what would that be, what would that look like? 

Misty Williams

Well number one would be absolutely the blue light stuff. We have, at my house, we have amber bulbs in our lamps. If you talk to someone like Ryan Sternagel he’s got red, which is even better. Red bulbs, you can get red glasses too. But you want to get the blue light filtered out so you know, we don’t, I’m not as hardcore as I probably could be about no lights on in the house. But we have no overhead light. We only do lamps. And then as the night wears on, I start turning everything off. So I just, I think that that’s an easier thing to control. Your own home environment. If you’re going to watch television, make sure you’re wearing the amber glasses but it’s even better to just cut off the screens. Like, after seven p.m. at night just quit doing screens. 

Find other things to help you unwind you know? Wear the amber glasses, when the sun goes down I put them on. It’s just second nature and habit for me now. But if it’s not second nature and habit for you then set an alarm on your phone to go off every single day right around dusk and wear the amber glasses. That’s been such a huge needle mover for me, plus I’ve shared that hack with so many people and 100% of the people who have tried it have reported improvements from it. So this is one of those things that, it’s not like a 50/50 maybe this will help you. Like, pretty much everyone feels a difference that’s noticeable when they start wearing the amber glasses at night. So that’s my number one, is watching the blue light. You know, amber bulbs, amber glasses and just mindful of light after dark. But outside of that, there’s a whole lot of things that we can do. Think back to 

Nathan Crane

Talk about, talk about the science behind that. How it effects the circadian rhythm. 

Misty Williams

Yeah.

Nathan Crane

And apply that to cancer because it’s a really important point I think people should know. 

Misty Williams

Yeah. So I think the thing that makes this concept easy for me, so I’m a layperson right? Obviously this is a passion of mine and I’ve immersed myself in this all the time. It’s become my world. But my real passion is supporting people in being able to navigate their own journey. And the thing that drove this home for me is this idea that at the cellular level in nature, there are two forces so to speak that actually govern timing, cellular timing. So you, someone gave me the example of, the UPS plant, or the FedEx plant you know? They have this intricate system of packages coming in getting sorted, going out, getting in trucks and going to the person. 

Well if the packages aren’t coming in and those first steps of the process, happening properly what you’re gonna have is packages that end up getting dumped in the floor because the belts aren’t on at the time because the package didn’t come in at the right time or packages got sorted to the wrong place right? Or maybe they get to the end of the conveyor belt and there’s now a pile of packages and the end result of, this package arrives at its destination within 24 hours or 48 hours is not happening, just because of the timing issue that’s created by that package not being where it’s supposed to be at the right time at the very beginning of the process. 

So, in our bodies, the two forces that govern those processes are light and magnetism, light and magnetism. So when we are exposed to blue light after dark we are allowing signaling to go into our body that’s not supposed to be there that hijacks what the body does to move into our parasympathetic nervous system and to get ready to unwind and go to sleep. 

It’s just this hijacking that happens. So it is just crucial that we start aligning with how nature intended for health and healing to work in our bodies. Like, we are meant to have light hit our retinas first thing in the morning sending a signal to our brain that it’s daylight which causes cortisol to surge which helps us get up, you know, and feel refreshed in the morning and start our day, and then over time the sun goes down and our cortisol starts going down so that our body can actually start making sleep hormone and we can go to sleep when we’re supposed to sleep. So, that’s why this light thing is so significant ’cause essentially what we’re doing is we’re allowing this chaotic signaling to keep our body from being able to do the things it needs to do in order to restore, repair, and heal at night. The other force, magnetism, you probably have heard, if you’ve participated in summits like this, and Nathan I don’t know if you have anyone talking about EMF’s but 

Nathan Crane

Oh yeah. 

Misty Williams

You know, that’s the big concern with wifi, is that we have all this magnetic signaling, not just wifi, we’ve got our cell towers and so much stuff, this signaling is actually getting picked up at the cellular level by our bodies and it’s creating a lot of chaos in the signaling governed by magnetism. And ultimately, the earth’s magnetic field, we learn it as Schumann resonances in school, that field actually governs a lot of the functions that happen in our cells. So you know, we’ve got these signals from our external environment that are very disruptive and that’s what’s creating the chaos inside and keeping our body from doing the thing it needs to do to heal, or keep us in good health. So it’s so important. 

So blue light comes in through the retina, hits the SDN, signals to the brain, the pituitary gland you know, all these other processes happen, but it’s important to know that blue light also is picked up by your red blood cells that are coursing through your veins, so in all the capillaries in your skin. And when those blood cells are picking up blue light they actually start signaling for the body to reduce melatonin production. So you don’t, it’s not, the signaling isn’t only going through the eyes, but your skin, the body’s largest organ and your blood cells and your skin are also picking up this signaling and it’s influencing your entire system. So I hope that’s helpful and kind of gives people, you know, an impression or idea of why this is so important. You can’t skip this. You can’t like, ignore the light thing and just think melatonins gonna do it for you. People have to take increasingly more melatonin all the time. And you know, what we ultimately want is for our body to produce this, to keep us in the very best health that we can. 

Nathan Crane

Well, and if you’re taking melatonin supplement what happens is you’re still, but you’re still exposed to blue light you know, in the evening. You’re fighting against your body’s natural biological process right?

Misty Williams

That’s right. 

Nathan Crane

Your body’s trying to follow what nature has intended for us which is sun goes down, you know, cortisol goes down, melatonin starts coming up, says it’s time to slow down, get ready for a nice, deep, restorative sleep. You’re watching TV, you’ve got regular lights you know, LED lights that aren’t blue light blocking, you’ve got your phone or whatever even lights you know, coming off of alarm clocks and things like that right? You’ve got 

Misty Williams

It’s crazy. 

Nathan Crane

Surrounded by light and yes, and then your brain’s going okay, the day’s actually not done yet. Let’s keep cortisol up and melatonin down. Then you’re taking melatonin and you’re fighting this natural biological process versus swap out all the bulbs for blue light blocking bulbs, which we’ve done as well, wear the glasses you know, in the afternoon and into the night which we do as well, I don’t do it enough as I should. But what I’ve done is all of our screens, you know, these guys right? 

Misty Williams

Look how fashionable those look. 

Nathan Crane

Hey, look at that, woo! 

Misty Williams 

Those are stylish.

Nathan Crane

What I’ve done, all of our screens I’ve got apps on them that reduce the blue light as the sun goes down and eliminates it and the screens are like, orange right? Like, all these different things to get the blue light out of your house to be much more in tune with nature. And yes, the deeper you get into sleep and the longer of sleep, the better quality you sleep. As you mentioned, the parasympathetic nervous system, that is your secret sauce to healing, the body healing itself from cancer and all chronic diseases right? There’s a module in my upcoming master class called Becoming Cancer Free and the module is called Parasympathetic Master. And it’s all about the things you can do to enhance and activate your parasympathetic nervous system as often as possible because it is your best friend when it comes to healing. And sleep is one of the best strategies you can do to activate your parasympathetic nervous system deeply and effectively right? So I love that, I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time on just one thing so far. 

Misty Williams

I know! It’s such a big one. 

Nathan Crane

But it’s, it’s a big one right? That’s why you opened up with number one. So, I’m glad we did, maybe we can cruise through some other simple things we can do. 

Misty Williams

Yeah, let’s, let’s connect another one to it that I think is really important that kinda fits right along with this light thing. And that is making sure your room is pitch black at night. So, if you are laying in bed, once your light, your eyes have adjusted to the darkness and you hold your hand up in front of your face and you can see it, your room is not dark enough. So we put up room darkening curtains. Once we did that, and we started noticing all the ways that light is still coming into the room. It’s coming in underneath the door, it’s coming in, I had a curling iron that’s off but still has a little light on it right? So we had to shut the bathroom doors. I have an air filter that runs in the room right, that has lights on it so we had to figure out how to turn those guys off. We got rid of alarm clocks entirely. We don’t need an alarm clock in the room. 

My partner and I both just wake up naturally in the morning, so they’re not necessary. The smoke detector had the little light on and we had to put the black tape over it. So you know, making sure your room is really dark at night so that your skin isn’t picking up the light. Like, some people put the mask on you know, thinking the mask is going to be enough but it’s actually not enough because your skin has receptors as well for light and effects your melatonin levels. So darkening the room is really helpful. And you will definitely get more deep sleep if you’re sleeping in a dark room. And the other thing that kind of goes along with that is make sure your room is cold. Cold and dark is how our bodies are designed to sleep the best. So in our home, in the summer time, I live in Texas, it’s very hot here. But in the summer time, we have the thermostat on 70 overnight. And we also have one of the OOLER pads from chiliPAD on our bed, and those 

Nathan Crane

Wait a second, you think 70 fahrenheit is cold? Is that what you’re saying? 

Misty Williams

Well in the summer in Texas, in the summer in Texas it’s a cold temperature. 

Nathan Crane

You must live in Texas, yeah. 

Misty Williams

In the winter, I know it’s all contrast. In the winter, we have it set on 60 overnight. If I had my way we would just turn it off, we don’t need heat at night at all. But Roderick doesn’t want it to get too freezing so I have to accommodate my partner. But yeah, we keep it really cold. I actually feel, I feel like it’s even colder than 70. It’s a nice temperature for us but you know, I think each person can see kinda how their house responds. The important thing is, is that you’re cold. If it’s warm, if I am warm, I am not sleeping. And especially women, as we get older this is very much tied into our hormones as our hormone levels go down, we’re heating up at night when your estrogen lowers. 

So I’m super sensitive to temperature. So I need it really, really cold. And I’ve also experienced in my own life as a woman, I’ve experienced estrogen being really helpful to my sleep. Progesterone gets a lot of air time, we do need progesterone to sleep well. I’ve noticed that I absolutely, in 2019 I kept waking up in the night. I would have these waking up, and I’m not going back to sleep and it would drive me crazy. And CBD really helped me. 

Whenever I would wake up and my body didn’t want to go back to sleep I was able to take CBD and that helped me get to sleep but adjusting my estrogen was the thing that helped the most you know? So I was really fortunate that, that hormonally I could make some adjustments that would help me sleep. And you know, there’s a lot of women in the Healing Rosie community that are experiencing the same thing. You know, you get your hormones where they need to be, make sure your progesterone is up within range and your estrogen is within range and that can have a pretty dramatic impact on your sleep too. 

Nathan Crane

What are you doing to balance out your hormones? Mostly supplements? Or there are other things you’re doing? 

Misty Williams

Well, you know, certainly, I have, I’ve done all the lifestyle stuff for a really long time you know, that help your hormones. Your body makes hormone, your sex hormones with LDL cholesterol, T3, 3T3 from your labs and vitamin A. So I make sure that I’ve, my body has the building blocks that it needs. But because of my unique situation I am very not common. That I’ve had, I’ve not been able to move the needle on my hormones because of the dysregulation, not just the dysregulation that happened but it went untreated for five years. That’s really the tragic thing, it’s almost like my body forgot how to do it you know, after so long. But there’s certainly, I love Magdalena Wszelaki, hormonesbalance.com is her website. She teaches a lot about what you can do with your diet and things like seed cycling to help balance your hormones. 

But for most women, as we start moving into menopause we really need to consider, especially if we’re experiencing a lot of symptoms, doing bioidentical hormone replacement therapy because hormones are what keeps us young. Hormones keep our energy levels up, it’s really good for our skin and our hair. Obviously it effects our sex drive. But hormones effect your sleep and how you’re able to sleep and I really think that’s the number one reason why women should consider hormone supplementation because when you have good hormone levels you sleep great.

My mom and my aunt, their sleep is awful. And you know, I talk to them about the amber glasses and they try a few of the tricks but they just can’t quite get it there. And I think a big problem for them is just the depletion of hormones. You know, they just don’t have the building blocks to make melatonin and all the other stuff that your body needs to be able to sleep well at night. So you know, certainly they can supplement those things and they do notice some improvements. But I have benefited and I know so many women that have benefited just from maintaining your hormone levels even after you go into menopause. For some women, they start experiencing after 10 years, in menopause that you try to introduce hormones into their body and their body has a really hard time because those functions, it’s like, it’s like amnesia you know? Kind of what I experienced going untreated for so long. So I’m just a fan of maintenance, I think women should all have a really good hormone doctor that’s helping them with their hormones. But you know, I’ve had so many things, so many times that I’ve had sleep challenges, I’d trace it directly to hormones. Make a few tweaks and changes and I’m good, I can sleep again. 

Nathan Crane

Good, so we’ve got three minutes left. I said 10, but I think we’re gonna get through five. Which is good, 10 may be too many for people, for most people anyway right? So let’s 

Misty Williams

You can, you can split a few of these up and it counts as two or three. 

Nathan Crane

But the amber glasses, actually, we’ve already done quite a few. 

Misty Williams

Yeah. 

Nathan Crane

The amber glasses 

Misty Williams

Yeah, we have. 

Nathan Crane

In the afternoon through the evening, turn off the TV’s and phones and screens you know, at least eight, nine o’clock at the latest right? Try and be in bed by nine o’clock, there’s three. Right, replace your light bulbs 

Misty Williams

Room darkening curtains. 

Nathan Crane

Room darkening curtains, replace old light bulbs with blue light blocking. 

Misty Williams

Cold room. 

Nathan Crane

Cold, cold or cool, like comfortable cool right? You’re not talking about laying there shivering. You’re talking about 

Misty Williams

Listen, pile on the blankets. 

Nathan Crane

Yeah, should be cool 

Misty Williams

I sleep so great 

Nathan Crane

And then warm in the blankets-

Misty Williams

when the room is cold and I have a down comforter, I have a weighted blanket, I mean, we, weighted blanket has to come off in the spring ’cause it just makes me too hot but in the winter time, pile it on. It’s so cozy. 

Nathan Crane

Right, yeah, it’s nice. 

Misty Williams

And you don’t need to be cold. 

Nathan Crane

It’s nice to, yeah. It’s nice, yeah you want to be warm in your blankets but the room in general. 

Misty Williams

The room is cold. 

Nathan Crane

Yeah. 

Misty Williams

There’s something I think the signaling honestly is respiratory. I think there’s something just about breathing in that cold 

Nathan Crane

Well that’s why the, the evidence has shown when you take a cold shower even a cool shower, even two minutes before bed right? Yes, you do release a little bit of norepinephrine you do have a little bit more of mental clarity but what happens is, your whole body cools down internally. Your internal system kind of cools down and it’s easier to get to sleep. And I’ve done it so many times and it, you know, even in the winter, here in Santa Fe and it’s 14 degrees fahrenheit outside and the water coming in through the faucet is very cold, I’ll do it two or three minutes before bed and I always sleep really great when I do that. So you know, that’s, cool yourself down. That could be another one. You already talked about earlier is that the cold baths you were taking before bed right? So I guess, I think we’re at nine so one more. 

Misty Williams

We’re pretty close! 

Nathan Crane

We’ve got two minutes for one more. 

Misty Williams

There’s a couple of things. You know, there’s a lot out there on supplementation. It would probably take us more time then we have to really dive into supplements. Certainly, melatonin, gaba, tryptophan there’s a lot of different supplements that can really help people get to sleep that are having, that are struggling getting to sleep. And I would use any of the, CBD is another one. I would be, if I was having trouble sleeping I would try supplements in a heartbeat. But what’s really worked for me longterm, I’m 45 years old now, so 10 years of really working, it’s the lifestyle stuff that pays the big dividends. 

And so we’ve talked about a lot of things that you do at night. And I barely touched on this but I want to bring it back up, what you do first thing in the morning is really significant to setting that curve, that cortisol curve to be strong in the morning and then wane as the day goes on and slip into you know, a pretty low level going into sleep. And it’s really important that you hit light on your retina first thing in the morning. You know, you probably have heard about sun gazing, going outside, letting the sun hit your face. 

But it’s really, really important and that signaling is way more powerful and the discipline of creating that over time is more powerful than what you can create with supplements. So I think that ones important and another little, like, this is so obvious whenever I say it, but it’s a game changing one. Be mindful of what you’re engaging with after six p.m. Don’t eat like, finish eating by six. Give your body several hours to digest your food so when you sleep, you can actually move into restorative, repairing sleep and your body isn’t you know, focused on digestion through that time. But don’t talk to your partner about finances, don’t have that fight that you’ve been needing to have with them. You know, be mindful of the kind of arguments that you’re getting into. 

Don’t call your parents up and chew them out because of something that they did or said, or something happening in the family dynamic with siblings, or you know, whatever is going on. Handle that stuff in the morning. So just being conscious about your lifestyle, let’s do this, the things that are more stressful earlier in the day. And let’s leave our evening time as our decompression time and let’s not engage with all the stressful aspects of life. I know that’s not possible 100% of the time but a little discipline around that can really go a long way. 

Nathan Crane

Yeah, that’s a great place to end it. That was a bonus, that’s, we got 11 strategies! Woohoo! I know you have a great resource I want to share with everybody tuning in, healingrosie.com you know, Misty has a quick start guide there that can just 

Misty Williams

Yes. 

Nathan Crane

It’s her Healing Rosie quick start guide. 

Misty Williams

Lots of tips, yup. 

Nathan Crane

Go get that, join her newsletter. Learn more about the various aspects of how you can enhance and accelerate your own healing and be connected with a community of other women going through health challenges who are seeking greater health and vitality and longevity 

Misty Williams

You know, you kinda, you touched on it at the beginning of how you know, you can feel really alone in this journey especially when you’re not getting supported by your doctors. The whole purpose of Healing Rosie was kind of to address that. You know, I needed so much support. It took me a long time to find it and create it in my life. And we have an awesome Facebook group, I think there’s around 7,000 members now. I hardly post, I respond to posts but I don’t really post much in the group because this group posts 20 or 30 times a day. 

But it’s a wonderful place to go and get support. You can ask your questions and hear what’s working for other women and just really feel like you’re not alone on this journey. And so I would invite anyone to join the face, just search for Healing Rosie on Facebook and you’ll find the group. But I think it’s probably the most valuable resource I have and I’m so honored that I was able to create this space for so many of us to come together and get what we need from each other. 

Nathan Crane

Well Misty, thank you for taking the great lessons from your own you know, chronic health challenges and turning it into something that has served so many women around the world. You know, I just honor and appreciate you for the amazing work that you continue to do and inspire women all over the world dealing with all kinds of health challenges. So, thank you for that, thank you for being here. Thanks for being you know, a good friend and collaborator, great speaker and thanks for all the good wisdom you’ve shared with our community here. 

Misty Williams 

It was my pleasure, thank you for having me Nathan. 

Nathan Crane

Of course, always. And I want to thank everyone for tuning in to the Conquering Cancer Summit. Please share this with friends and family. Together, we truly can make a difference for the future of humanity in ending the cancer pandemic. Thank you and I wish you ultimate health and happiness. Be well.