Become a Better Leader - one night at a time!
Tis the season... for 🎄 🎅 🎁 🥂 and maybe a little... 🤯 😢 😫 😡
Also a stressful time of year. One where we get LESS of something we need a lot of ....SLEEP!
Did you know?
✅ Stress goes down, the more you sleep!
✅ You make better decisions when well rested.
✅ An hour of sleep worth more than an another hour spent on that presentation.
This may sound like advice for ‘other people’ well, Dr. Cheryl Tierney, MD, MPH is here to tell you, it’s not.
Cheryl is the Chief Medical Officer of Meliora Health and Professor of Pediatrics at PENN STATE MILTON S. HERSHEY MEDICAL CENTER, Children's Hospital. Her experience as a physician, leader, and sleep expert combine for an outstanding #hustle conversation.
If you want to be the #bestinclass leader, parent, or spouse – listen up!
What I learned in this installment of the #executivehustle podcast, among other things, is that there is GOOD stress and there is BAD stress!
And your body knows the difference. 😵
We dove into how leaders can #leadwell knowing the science of stress and sleep. They can not only 😇 model the behavior they want but ⭐️ educate and arrange the 💻 working conditions to favor improved outcomes for their employees.
Don't miss the powerful lessons from our conversation:
If you are a leader...
▶️ looking to improve decision making and productivity…
▶️ who wants to drive a culture of wellness in organization, or
▶️ struggling with your own stress and sleep habits…
Then this episode has something for you!
Below is an AI Generated transcript of the Podcast. (may include errors).
Welcome to the executive hustle podcast another episode today is with our guest Dr.
Tierney chief medical officer for Meloria Health, Full professor and developmental pediatrician at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. One of my close friends! Welcome Cheryl!
Excited to hear more of your story. Tell me Cheryl, at 7, did you think you’d be doing what you are doing now?
@14:00 - Cheryl Tierney
Oh, no, that's not possible and very unlikely. Yeah.
@14:03 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
What did you want to be when you were seven?
@14:06 - Cheryl Tierney
Nothing with kids, nothing with pediatrics. I had no desire to go into medicine. I actually thought I would follow a little bit of my dad and his footsteps, more computer science.
My dad was in computer science.
It's definitely a science kid, for sure. So science was definitely where I was headed. But there were no, no one had ever had a graduate degree in my family.
Nobody, there are no physicians. So I didn't have any role models in that regard. I was not known for being a kid lover.
Like I didn't babysit and I didn't enjoy hanging out with people that had children. as a younger version of myself, I did not see this coming.
@14:54 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Hmm. So first graduate degree, first physician family didn't all of footsteps. How did this turn events happen?
@15:05 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, when I was in college, I was a computer science major. I knew I was going to be in science of some sort.
Computer science seems like a natural fit, but I was doing really poorly right out of the gate. That my first seat ever, first computer science class, after pretty much being a straight A student with not a lot of effort.
I was dating a pre-med, I had a boyfriend that was pre-med, and I had some friends that were pre-med, and my boyfriend was struggling in physics, and even though I had not taken physics before, I tutored him because it came to me, and as I was tutoring him and hanging out with his friends and then my friends who were
I said, you know, this computer science thing may not work out because I'm not doing well at all. And I said, maybe I'll switch to something easier and try medical school.
And that is truly what I thought. Yeah. And so I did. I, after my first year and not doing well in real life, was just going to get harder from here and feeling that I just didn't have the support.
@16:21 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
There were not lot of women in computer science. Sure, sure, So I switched to pre-med and that was a very natural fit for me.
I started again, achieving my goals and doing well. So you just decided to do something easy, which was pre-med for you.
So just keep that in mind listeners.
@16:40 - Cheryl Tierney
Right. Yeah. for me, compared to how I was doing, was a good decision.
@16:48 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Well, I know many, many families who would agree with you there. This was a good decision for you. And it reminds me of the quote many times I have heard you say, you know, hard will do and impossible.
will just take a little bit longer.
@17:01 - Cheryl Tierney
Yes, I probably wasn't that firm and those beliefs and compares the highest.
@17:07 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
I thought it was that was the impossible.
@17:10 - Cheryl Tierney
Maybe I would have given it another semester or two. And that I probably worked the hardest for the for the seeds I got in that first year than I had worked in any course ever.
So it just really felt like maybe the better choice was to jump ship and change direction, change course. And then I thought I would do adult medicine.
Okay. I did not have interest in peeds at home and felt that my image back in the 80s and early 90s was doctors were took care of adult patients.
And of course I had a pediatrician myself so I knew at some level that wasn't true. But most doctors I knew took care of adult patients and I was not, you know, drawn to children.
at that point. So I started down the path of internal medicine was my first thoughts, which, of course, almost every decision I thought I would make changed course and went a different direction.
So I landed a very simple.
@18:16 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah. And so you were wildly curious about what else could be and you've explored those things.
@18:24 - Cheryl Tierney
What are besides computer size?
@18:27 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
What else was there besides adults? And here you are.
@18:30 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah. I think when thinking about like those lessons learned, if I look back at how my life course went, to me, the reason one of those life lessons is don't be so sure yourself.
You know, be open to the possibility that some of your decisions may need to be reexamined. And if it isn't going the way you thought one of
is to continue down that path and plow through the, know, the model of the possible will just take me longer, right?
the other one is knowing when it's okay to change your mind.
@19:11 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Right, right. How's that showing up for you right now?
@19:15 - Cheryl Tierney
Well, in my current role, I'm a chief medical officer of a company that crosses five states. take care of children with disabilities with and ADHD, neurodevelopmental disabilities, and I thought I would be an academic medicine my whole career.
know, I never considered leaving academics. I loved a lot of things about it, but because I had an opportunity to, I think, make a greater impact for a larger number of people, I had to figure out a way to become comfortable with some more uncertainty.
know, that's the hardest thing I think for people is to become comfortable with uncertainty. And medicine is all about being comfortable with uncertainty, but even changing career trajectories and paths and taking a risk is another example of that.
Because what I'm doing now is really rewarding, but risky. And that is another one of those areas of how much risk and uncomfortableness am I willing to endure.
So for the potential, you know, bigger pay of being successful, helping so many more kids.
@20:32 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah. What are you learning about yourself in this journey right now?
@20:37 - Cheryl Tierney
Man, uncertainty is hard. You know, I feel like sometimes you trade one stress for a different stress, right? Life isn't without stress at all.
How to manage stress in a really, you know, we're going to talk about that, but managing stress and having tools to manage stress.
What is good stress and what is bad stress?
@20:58 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Okay. Yeah. Good stress. That'll be a new one for me. Thank you. I'll be looking forward to that part of this conversation.
@21:05 - Cheryl Tierney
That's definitely better stress and worse stress.
@21:09 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Okay, good job. Let's start there.
@21:13 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, let's start there. So, you know, there's our body perceived stress by producing cortisol and tightening your awareness and becoming little hypervigilant.
And you know, you there's a lot of biochemical changes that happen in your body when you have stress. But your body can tell the difference between stress that is good stress.
So, you're doing something exciting, a new job, a new opportunity, a new project, a new deadline.
@21:45 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
But for something you really enjoy. Okay.
@21:48 - Cheryl Tierney
You know, your body does sense the difference between stressful situations that bring you down and stressful situations that empower you.
@21:58 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Okay.
@22:00 - Cheryl Tierney
and deciding, you know, when you think about burnout, when you think about being overworked, these are all much more negative stresses that take control on your physical health, whereas stress that brings you up, motivates you, empowers you, is exciting to you, actually your life.
And you have to be able to really be mindful of, of course, always having your toolbox full of strategies for mitigating any kind of stress, but being able to also recognize when something is more toxic stress for you, and it's going to, you know, I say this a lot of these phrases, but, you know, you only live once.
@22:50 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah.
@22:52 - Cheryl Tierney
do you, how much time do you want to spend doing things that are not serving you versus how much time do you want
spend even exciting stressful things that empower you and motivate you and make you feel good at the end, even though it may be stressful getting them.
@23:10 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Right, right. So, wow, that's a great revelation for me in thinking about, you know, stress just not as one big thing, but they're being good stress and they're being bad stress and being able to differentiate between those two things and thinking about how much time am I spending in either of these sort of states of being, maybe, as way of thinking about it.
One phrase I used to say, you know, you mentioned earlier, gosh, this is a lot more overwhelming, this is a lot more uncertain, this level of leading where you are now.
So, as a foreseer, one of my phrases was, I'll sleep when I'm dead.
@23:51 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, we both said that together, rooms.
@23:54 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
We said that a lot.
@23:56 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah.
@23:57 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Were we raw?
@24:00 - Cheryl Tierney
I would say, yes, to an extent that we will, that because, I mean, we're going to talk a little bit about sleep and how important sleep is, it was a metaphor, you know, the stuff, but it wasn't like legit, don't sleep.
@24:17 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
I don't know.
@24:19 - Cheryl Tierney
That would be bad advice, hopefully no doctor or giving that advice, of course not. It was a metaphor for, you know, put it aside, your health, your emotional security for some goal.
Right, some from some big, that hairy goal, right, that's the.
@24:54 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
The be had, yes, that's right.
@24:56 - Cheryl Tierney
But. and I think if it's small, something that's very time limited, I don't think it's a bad idea to sacrifice a little bit for a very large payout.
it's something that motivates you, it's exciting to you, brings you joy. again, you have to really kind of look at are these toxic stresses in your life, or are they healthy stresses?
Because it's impossible to think you're going to go through life and lead and have no stress in your life.
I mean, you're responsible for people's livelihoods. They're practical realities here. They're just practical, right? So you have to be able to figure out how to manage that in a healthy way.
know, exercise, sleep, healthy eating, you know, ways of unplugging from your daily job to be able to pursue things that
and you joy and happiness. My husband and I talked about this a lot, like my husband has so many hobbies, he's a musician and when he retires like has things he likes to do, you know, and I'm like, okay, well, that's great.
@26:14 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
if I retire, what am I going to do? My hobbies have been my job. I appreciate you saying that because I often wonder, is that a red flag?
You know, and should you really consider like that is a warning sign that maybe we're not taking some of these things seriously.
@26:38 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, this, this is where, look, I don't want to take an assumption that all leaders that are, you know, CEOs are looking at this or married or have a spouse because of a single course, but if you have an important person in your life, whether that's your spouse or a parent or child or a front best friend, and they're saying to you, hey, you know, you need to reevaluate.
your choice, your life choices here because my husband would say that to me all the time, like, I'm looking at you and it looks like you're burning the unbelievable things.
And I was fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I love it, I love it. And now in retrospect, in the position that I'm in right now, I'm like, oh yeah, I think people that know you, that love you, see things that maybe you don't see.
absolutely. should listen to, you should listen to your inner voice, don't ignore your inner voice, but you also need to listen to those that love you and are around you that may be giving you good counsel.
@27:34 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, and when they're speaking versus when they're shouting, you know, yeah, yeah, big difference.
@27:41 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah.
@27:42 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
So I read a statistic somewhere where we're on the topic of sleep that there's 20% more heart attacks on the spring forward day for daylight savings because of this disruption of sleep.
So there's got to be something real with sleep and our health. or something like that to be so profoundly real and hard attack.
People are having hard attacks on just for one hour of sleep. I found that one hard to believe, but it is a true statistic.
@28:15 - Cheryl Tierney
So I guess I have to believe it. But yeah, I sat on the American Sleep Council and as an advisor and the American Sleep Association, sorry.
And one of the things that we have been asked to weigh in on is whether not, we should we get rid of daylight savings at?
And if we do, should it be in the spring ahead or fall back?
@28:43 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Well, data, I would think, are pretty clear.
@28:46 - Cheryl Tierney
Yes, yes, and there is right. That's where that data comes from is to take a look at losing an hour of sleep on a regular basis has clear health implications.
I've given a lot of advice with them in pediatrics to particularly more diversity, where every change in their schedule is really disrupt or the daylight savings which we're about to go into right now is whether it's fall back or spring ahead is a change that change in routine can be very long lasting.
And I think adults don't even realize that change. So if you travel a lot to different time zones, even just daylight savings, where you are losing and gaining sleep on a regular basis, you have to really plan out how you're going to do that in a way that's the most healthy to your body.
@29:47 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah. mean there's chronic implications for these sleep disruptions for us as adults, whether it's affecting our eating patterns, it's affecting our cognitive patterns, you know, and that
or executives and leaders who, you know, their thoughts and their decisions and their guidance to an organization, that's their livelihood, impairment to that seems quite costly.
@30:12 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, I give a lot of advice to college students and, you know, they stay up late cramming for a test or studying at night, giving up sleep.
And we talk a lot about how how you solidify learning when you're sleeping. Stress goes down when you are well rested.
You make better decisions and better choices when you're not tired and you're much more likely to do well on those tests, not by putting in an extra hour of studying at the last minute, but by going to bed and getting an extra hour of sleep.
And this has been shown time and time again. And yet so many people completely disregard that and they just want one more hour.
of cramming material and then are surprised when they don't perform optimally. You know, the airline industry has figured this out to make sure that people have certain number of hours off between working that you can't fly more than a certain amount of hours per day.
Like it's really important for critical decisions like that. medicine is starting to try to get a little bit into that by work hour restriction.
only in training, it's not even in real life. You can be sleep deprived once you get out of school training.
There's no work hour restrictions for the attendings that are out there, the faculty. But there are for trainees and students.
So with at least headed in the right direction, but there's more work to do.
@31:40 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
So for an executive that learns this, understands this. Stress is reduced when we're well rested. We're going to make better decisions when we're well rested.
Healthier employees make better decisions and are going to be more productive. How can they change the narrative? How can in their own company, how can they create an
that's more supportive of rest and sleep and reduce stress.
@32:03 - Cheryl Tierney
What would be your advice to leaders? Yeah, I mean, first you have to say it out loud, like what your values and not make the assumption that people just know that you're a company that values work life balance and rest like real rest and sleep habits, right?
And so I'm a big proponent of making it a clear where your values are by actually stating them. And I think for someone who is, know, I run staff meetings twice a month with all of our employees and we talk about how, you know, you have a wellness benefit or for companies that offer wellness benefits, the types of things that you want to maybe think about in using those wellness benefits.
There's a reason why companies are adding wellness benefits because it's not just a nice thing to do to say, Oh, look, I, you know, I gave them a pizza party and I, they have their wellness benefit.
It's not the same category. It's really because you will perform better. Your employees will perform better. So you have to say it out loud.
Second is, you have to offer education to your employees so that they do understand that, that it's not just a value, a value that the company holds.
These are our company values, but also we want you to understand the science behind why good sleep habits and getting a good night's rest and not working.
You know, you want good productivity, but you want people to be able to turn it off and be able to be present with their families and engage in fun things.
one of the things we've done at our company is we have a social, virtual, so we have a Slack channel that we all learn.
It's called our social Slack channel, and I encourage and I post. there, we encourage everyone to post pictures of the things that they're doing with their families and on the weekends and after work hours.
Or if they go for a walk at lunch, which we really like when the weather's nice, it's not raining, it's not too cold.
And you go out post pictures of you being out and about like we want to see evidence that you're doing it.
And then it's motivating when you see your colleagues doing these things. It's also as you permission to do these things when other people are doing them and being visual about it.
@34:30 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, so not even just talking to talk about walking the walk yourself, motivating them, encouraging them, doing it yourself and showing them that it's okay and giving that permission.
@34:41 - Cheryl Tierney
hear you saying that. Yeah, sleep's a great topic because, I mean, it is my area of expertise. I said, niche in sleep medicine.
So, you know, we do a lot of sleep visits and sleep counseling. And you know, our company is around helping kids and families sleep better.
So, this is an easy one for us to talk about. And it is, I do think that walk the walk, you know, even my children, I used to say to them, like, I can't give advice all day to families about what they should do and not take my own advice.
@35:15 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah.
@35:16 - Cheryl Tierney
that goes against like who I am as a person. So, we've always had habits that have promoted good healthy sleep hygiene and good sleep habits.
And then to know when to seek medical advice, medical care, that it could be a medical problem interfering with your sleep, because there's habits, but then there's also medical conditions that interfere with sleep.
@35:35 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, absolutely. So, let me explore that. So, if you're willing to share, you are medical professional, you have to sleep expertise.
You are also a executive who has practical realities and stressors and responsibilities. What are your sleep habits and what are the results of you employing them?
@35:54 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, I'd say that a couple of things that I counsel on. and then I try to live my life in accordance is not using your bed for non-sleep activities.
And look, do pediatrics, so I just talk about not using your bed for non-sleep activities for adults, it's for sleep and .
But for pediatrics, hopefully just sleep. And so not like hanging out in your bed to do homework. You know, my daughter loves to sit in her bed and live her life in don't tell me you can't sleep when you know it's roughly what it is that's causing these problems.
So not using your bed because your brain, I joke, this is what I said, your brain is smart. It knows that there's more than one thing that happens in this space.
And when you spend too much time doing other things in bed, your brain won't turn off to go to sleep very easily.
So if you're going to watch television, don't do that in bed. If you're going to read a book, table anywhere but the bed.
It's not your bedroom. That's the problem. It's the actual bed. The second thing is to turn the screens off 60 minutes before bed.
That's a hard one for me. I'll be honest. I struggle with that one a little bit myself but I have done a lot to put the plug to where I plug my phone in and across on a different spot so it's not easy to just grab my phone and look at it once I put it down to go to sleep and put it because the blue even it with the blue light filters and the sleep mode and the night mode there's still a small amount of blue light that gets through that suppresses your natural melatonin production.
It makes it really hard to fall asleep. If you wake up in the middle of the night as you get older the older executives there's none of them on this call by the way.
@37:56 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
I know we have no video for listeners but there's no older executives on us.
@38:00 - Cheryl Tierney
Better pause has been rough for me, but when you get older, you're more likely to wake up in the middle of night, so sleeping in a cool environment that will help you sleep better.
It's better to sleep in a cooler environment with pillows and blankets and things like that than a warmer environment with less blankets.
Your body actually sleeps better in cooler temperatures. So there are definitely some things, those sorts of things that really will help you and then some people will meditate or listen to some white noise or something to just kind of help clear their mind.
@38:36 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Those that have like racing thoughts or can't shut off the day.
@38:41 - Cheryl Tierney
That's really rough for a lot of people. Luckily, that's not my biggest issue is that whatever reason I can, for the most part, unless there's something unique that happened that day, but for the most part, I can shut it off.
lot of people can shut it off and using something that helps you focus on white noise. and some people like the sound of rain that will be helpful.
@39:04 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
How about dogs snoring? Does that seem to help for people because I get that in stereo when I'm sleeping?
@39:10 - Cheryl Tierney
just want to know. there any research behind that? That can be a white noise.
@39:15 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, it's not anyone out there if you're experiencing that. You're not alone.
@39:21 - Cheryl Tierney
My cat snores so I do have a loud breathing cat that between my husband and I at night.
@39:30 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
It's she likes to be right in the middle of things.
@39:32 - Cheryl Tierney
That's like her children before on bed.
@39:34 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
have a cat that crawls in bed. Yeah, you know, some people I think struggle with the falling asleep and then there's the waking up in the middle of the night.
You know, whether it's to go to the bathroom if you're getting the up and age or or wakes you up or for me it has been, you know, before I retired as CEO even now like those thoughts the things you've done you haven't done or you're redoing them in your head, know,
those things wake you up. You know, any advice or research around kind of helping folks with those challenges?
@40:07 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, I mean, if you're a woman going through menopause, I do recommend seeing this goes off and untreated is going to see your internist or your gynecologist about potentially using hormone therapy or treatment for menopause because menopause is a huge change that impacts sleep.
It's not just hot flashes, like people will say, well, I don't get hot flashes at night.
@40:30 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
So, you know, but you just have fragmented sleep from menopause. That is a symptom.
@40:35 - Cheryl Tierney
And that was actually, I was such a good sleep for up and soul menopause. And then I was up like four times a night, like just kept waking up.
I did go on home personally, went on hormone therapy. And now I could sleep through the night again. And it is because the health risks of treating menopause with hormonal therapy are less than the risks of
chronic, night awakenings and poor sleep. It's really just a risk-benefit analysis and there's risks of treating menopause with hormones too, so have to see your doctor to see if it's appropriate for you.
But I think more times, or it would be appropriate, people suffer in silence alone. They just think, well, it's just menopause and then I can't do anything about it.
@41:21 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Well, menopause can less eight years and that's a long time to go without sleep. So, for the conversation with your daughter.
Absolutely. One to two nights without good sleep and I think, you know, people are impaired, right? was reading something the other day that, you know, driving while sleepy is the same as driving while drunk.
@41:43 - Cheryl Tierney
Right, intoxicated, that's correct.
@41:45 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, so I mean, this is just not something to suffer in silence with, like you suggested. And, you know, sleep is, I think, a foundation for all of our other health habits, our eating and our exercising and our menopause.
itating, you know, if we don't have this foundation, it just seems like we don't have anything else.
@42:05 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, I mean, people don't realize that our weight, so even if it's just for, you know, for this alone, your weight is, and where your set point is, for where your weight is, is impacted by sleep deprivation, sleep deprivation, reset your clock, where the scale of like where your set point is, for your weight, higher.
So it's actually good for losing weight too. So if you're, you've been on a diet, you know, you really struggling, one of the first things that you want to look at is your sleep habits, because that is can be part of the problem, for sure.
And there's so much more research in the last 10, 15 years about obesity and impaired sleep, and their relationship together.
It's definitely worth a look up for people.
@43:00 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
home. I have interest in more details about it.
@43:02 - Cheryl Tierney
It really does impact your weight as well and your weight impacts your health as well. So these things are very interconnected for sure and your ability to manage stress is so much better when you've had a good night's sleep.
I mean, I think everyone can relate to going a couple of days and not sleeping well because it happens to all of us and then your stress level goes up, your cortisol goes up, your mood goes down.
It can trigger depression. increases anxiety. You know, it makes you more irritable. These are all things that, you know, think about a toddler that doesn't sleep well.
Think about what they're different about what they're going hate.
@43:43 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
And then we're just big toddlers walking around the office trying to lead teams of people doing work, right? could that possibly good could come out of that?
Exactly. just big toddlers with tantrums walking around the office. I often say leaders bring the weather and... what kind of weather are we creating if we are not sleeping well the night before?
@44:05 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, sure, and recognizing. Some people just, that's just they're normal to not sleep well, and they just don't realize that how that impacts their mood and their behavior and their health throughout the day.
And if you are, you do engage in good, healthy sleep habits, know, I've seen lots of people where their habits are very good, but they wake up a lot.
That is a sign that you could have a legit biological medical sleep disorder. Things like periodic removement disorder, restless sleep apnea are all things that are treatable.
And there are sleep experts. know, I do pediatric sleep, but there's adult sleep professionals. And that's their job is to help tease out the hey, really doing, you know, everything or most things right.
And it's not helping.
@44:53 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
So people that have gone through, you know, all of the things you've suggested, right, they're doing the screen time, they've got cool environments.
and they're shutting stuff down, right, they're doing all these things and they're still experiencing these disruptive sleep patterns. Your advice is get more help, seek actual specific help from the medical professional because there could be something that they they can't even treat themselves.
@45:17 - Cheryl Tierney
Right. would be, these are treatable. mean, if you had, there's so many more treatments now and recognition of, you know, for example, sleep, periodical and movement disorder, restless leg, it can be treated with medication or even iron therapy.
from iron, mean, iron deficiency, and this is, this is again, like where your diet impacts your sleep too. So, you know, if you're, if you're eating processed Twinkies for lunch every day.
@45:44 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
They still make Twinkies.
@45:46 - Cheryl Tierney
You know, they too, actually. That's fun. You know that. I want right by them in the aisle, but I, but I was like, oh, I've never loving Twinkies.
But anyway, they, so if you have a healthy diet across the package food at lunch, you know, you know, if you're busy and you don't have time to cook, your diet can be poor, like if you're not eating iron rich foods and you're iron deficient.
@46:07 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, you know that you would just be suffering, right? Thinking, I, you know, I have to stop watching television.
I didn't do that, so I was doing that. And people just blame themselves a lot. You know, I think when they think it's all under their control and there's just things that aren't or you don't know yet, right?
And so we need to find out or we might be afraid to find out, right? And I think I hear a lot of empowering stuff from you're like, these things that you would find out are still treatable.
Yes, help for you.
@46:35 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, I can't tell you how often a parent will tell me on a consultation that they think their child doesn't sleep just because it's genetic, because they're not a good sleeper.
And I try to explain that you probably have a treatable sleep condition you're suffering with. And now, you know, we will treat that your child, but also you.
And a funny story was I had a colleague of mine that wasn't you know her years hasn't slept well and she just wanted to learn about sleep so she sat in on a consult I did for sleep and it turns out that she had the Satan condition that the child had and after she got iron treatment she actually needed iron infusions she's sleeping so much better that was all just because she decided to sit in on one of my consultations and listen to the advice I was giving to the family and you know so it is important you know always feel like I'm preaching this all the time but it has such positive impacts on your ability to lead and your emotional state and your health and your ability you know we want you to live long past retirement and enjoy retirement and beyond and sleep disruption is just one of those things that might you know limit that your ability to do that your love and into the future right so you know there I feel like you were you was the doctor speaking right but just before that I heard the leader speaking you know we want
@48:00 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
people to be at their best, performing at their best, and making good decisions for the company, right, as a leader.
So how do I empower them to do that? And, you know, earlier, you shared one, we have to say that last, but we have to say, look, your sleep and your mental and your emotional well-being is important here.
And it's important here. And here's what we're going to show you. It's important. We're going to, you know, educate you about it.
We're going to encourage those important practices. We're going to motivate you to do them. we're going to model them, right?
You're Cheryl's going to take a walk outside at lunch today and post a picture about it on the social Slack channel, right?
Those kinds of things. Yeah, that's just wonderful. So other things you shared today, Cheryl, I think they're just so great that I want to highlight becoming comfortable with uncertainty has been part of your journey, you know, as a young professional, as a growing leader, as a seasoned leader, as somebody who's changed paths and careers and still experiencing that today.
I just, I highlight that again, another quote from you on going to continue to use becoming comfortable with uncertainty.
And I think that I think that relates to parenthood as well as it does to leadership. So thank you for sharing that with us today.
I love the dichotomy you shared between stress being good stress and sort of bad stress and the kind that feeds you and is maybe temporary and time limited and something that you can come into and go out of and then there's this bad stress that is bringing you down more the burn out kind maybe the kind that's pushed on you and you have no control over right and getting people to be thinking about it in that way so that they can notice which one of these am I under and can I do something about it because if you don't notice you can't be empowered around that and I think that's a very powerful outcome and then just these sleep habits you shared right using your bed for sleep or
as an adult, 60 minutes of screen time free before bed, cool environment, and then something that's calming you down, whether it's a meditation or white noise, something that's just getting you ready for sleep, just great advice there.
And if you're still suffering after all of those good habits to seeking medical advice, right, there are treatable conditions that could still be contributing to sleep at that point if you've already put into practice all of those things.
So just an amazing conversation today. just totally blown away by everywhere we went and all of the great advice that we've been able to share for folks today.
So thank you so much for that. I really appreciate everything you shared.
@50:43 - Cheryl Tierney
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking with you today. I appreciate this and all the things you're doing.
@50:48 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
I love your podcast. Oh, thank you. If people want to learn more about you, are what you're doing or the sleep parts, the autism pieces, anything, where can they find you?
@51:00 - Cheryl Tierney
about your company, please share. Yeah, they can check out our website. That's the easiest would be www.mealyora-health.com. And there will be a lot of information for families that might be seeking care.
And as we grow, we add everything to our website. It's there, so that would be great.
@51:20 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Thank you. Great. And if they want help with sleep, where can they go? Because I'll add things to share I'll also put in the show notes.
@51:26 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, that's where particularly for children in 16 months to 21 years old, we do sleep consults there so they can report some appointment for a sleep consultation right there.
@51:39 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Yeah, awesome. And we'll have all that in the show notes so people can find that. Thank you again, Cheryl.
It has been magic today.
@51:46 - Cheryl Tierney
Yeah, thank you so much.
@51:47 - Kirsten Yurich (kirstenklyurich@gmail.com)
Thank you. All right, take care, guys. Bye.