Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
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Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
How Sleep Heals the Brain | Dr. Leah Kaylor on Trauma, Memory, and Recovery
In this episode of Broken Brains, host Bruce Parkman is joined by clinical psychologist and sleep expert Dr. Leah Kaylor to explore the hidden links between repetitive brain trauma, sleep, and mental health—especially in veterans and athletes. Dr. Kaylor unpacks the overlooked dangers of sub-concussive impacts, the neurological toll of poor sleep, and how trauma affects memory and cognition over time.
Together, they discuss evidence-based, alternative therapies such as EMDR and brain spotting, as well as the vital role sleep plays in detoxifying the brain and restoring emotional balance. Dr. Kaylor also breaks down sleep architecture and offers practical strategies for improving sleep quality—ranging from behavioral changes to optimized routines.
This conversation is a must-listen for anyone interested in brain health, trauma recovery, and unlocking better mental performance through sleep.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
02:48 The Importance of Sleep in Mental Health
05:37 Understanding Sub concussive Trauma
08:23 Balancing Pharmaceuticals and Therapy
12:29 Individualized Approaches to Trauma
15:47 Exploring Emerging Therapies
16:34 The Power of EMDR Therapy
32:28 Understanding Memory Errors and Trauma
39:47 The Importance of Sleep
52:43 Improving Sleep Health and Lifestyle Changes
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Website: https://www.drleahkaylor.com/
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Broken Brains with your host, bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma, from repetitive head impacts in contact sports to repetitive blast exposure in our veteran Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma, from repetitive ed impacts in contact sports to repetitive blast exposure in our veteran population and what these two conditions are doing to the brains of our athletes, children and our veterans, resulting in the largest preventable cause of mental illness in this country. We reach out to researchers, experts, authors, patients, players to bring you a 360-degree perspective on this issue, because it's not trained in any medical, nursing or psychological courses. So you have to be informed, you have to know when you or somebody you love has been impacted or you can prevent them from being impacted with this knowledge. Today we want to welcome another wonderful case, thanks to our producer, denny Caballero, over there in the background there.
Speaker 1:Dr Lea Kayla is a licensed clinical and prescribing psychologist, trauma specialist and nationally recognized sleep expert, committed to supporting the mental health and resilience of first responders and law enforcement professionals. What a mission. She has a unique background in forensic psychology, trauma treatment and sleep science, integrating both therapy and medication management into her practice, and we're going to talk about both these key, critical components of sleep therapy. She currently serves as the clinical psychologist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where she provides trauma therapy, psychological debriefings and sleep optimization strategies for agents exposed to high-risk operations which we can assume almost all of them are, and that's part of the pain that they go through, and I'm so glad that they're helping her Education and credentials she's got a PhD in clinical psychology, a master's in forensic mental health counseling, a postdoctoral MS in clinical psychopharmacology and certified in EMDR Very, very important emergency area of therapy and brain spotting and, as we noticed, she's the FBI's designated sleep expert.
Speaker 1:She's delivered trauma therapy and psychology briefings for agents that have evolved in a litany of events that we all know that they go through, and she's provided residency at the Memphis VA Medical Center. She's a sought-after speaker and we got her on our show, man, thanks to Denny, and we are so thankful that you're on here, leah, because sleep is so critical to our mental health, it's so critical to our balance, and yet we never realize how important it is until it's too late. So you know, welcome to the show and tell us please. I mean, aside from this amazing resume, how did you get involved in sleep?
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me Super excited to be here. Okay, so I keep getting this question and I wish I could go back in time and actually tell you, because I worked at the sleep clinic at the Memphis VA Medical Center when I was on my residency year. And while you're on your residency year, you have to rotate through various different rotations, and whenever you're on your residency year, you have to rotate through various different rotations. And whenever you're looking at which residency you want to go to, normally they have ones that are very exciting, very attractive, like the one that you're like. Yes, I have to get this one.
Speaker 2:And so when I went to the Memphis VA Medical Center, there were several that I really wanted and I got them, and I can't remember if sleep was one of them or not. We all have to go into a room, all of the interns and all of the postdocs, and everyone has to come out relatively happy. But there has to be some compromises, and I got the few rotations that I wanted, which were all forensically oriented, and then I got a rotation on the sleep clinic, and so I wish I could go back in time and remember if that was a compromise or one of them that I actually wanted. But I couldn't be more grateful that I ended up with a sleep rotation, because I certainly did not realize how important sleep was. I have only more recently become more of a sleep expert personally and being able to achieve really good sleep myself, but before I worked at the sleep rotation, my goodness, my sleep was kind of all over the place too.
Speaker 2:So it was a learning experience, not only for me personally, but just to get a chance to work with our veterans to really understand the sleep issues that they're having, to get an understanding of what's going on in the brain, what's going on in the sleep cycles, why are these so important, and then trying to educate folks through various different sleep hygiene classes.
Speaker 2:A huge issue that we have within our veteran population and in general too, is obstructive sleep apnea, which, when it's untreated, watch out. That's a huge problem. So helping people who have had some type of trauma or some type of issue, who don't want to wear their sleep apnea mask which now we're getting more and more advances, so it's not as much of a problem but still helping people with that I would do treatment for insomnia, treatment for nightmares. So lots and lots of different things that I learned when I was in the sleep rotation, and so I couldn't be more grateful to have had that education and then realized that there are so many people who are having issues with sleep and just being able to give that education that's what I've kind of decided is my passion and it's, I think so, incredibly important.
Speaker 1:I mean, is this like an occupational field? I mean I've never heard of a. I mean, when you go to the doctor and they'll prescribe, say I'm not sleeping, they'll give you Ambien right, all right. But to understand the mechanisms of sleep and how important it is, I mean it sounds like it's a study all into itself.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. I think nowadays you can have a job in whatever it is you want to have a job in, but my general title is a clinical psychologist and then I have the ability to prescribe medications with my postdoctoral master's degree in clinical psychopharmacology.
Speaker 1:So while sleep and trauma, as you talked about in my bio, are where my specialty lies. Yeah, my title is a psychologist. They're usually victims of a lot of subcustodial trauma. Many first responders type A personalities, male and female play a lot of competitive sports before the evening Join our first responder community, our veteran community, and that's just another area. Deal with these folks from a psychological perspective. Are you finding or do you even ask them about the issue of subconcussive trauma if they play contact sports, or have they been exposed to repetitive blast explosions or any explosions or anything like that?
Speaker 2:I would say in my work at the VA which I'm no longer there that I would be much more concerned about blasts and ask questions regarding that topic. But that's a good question. With regard to the folks that I see nowadays, those particular clients, it's not within my standard realm of questions to ask about a repeated brain injury unless there's something that I know of or unless something comes out that there's a question about that, where they're behaving in some way or their speech. There's something about it that I'm like hey, I need to be asking about a brain injury. So it's not something that I would routinely ask about. But that's a great question and it it is very, very important, because whenever someone does have a brain injury, things can go off the rails and it impacts lots and lots of different things, as you know.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, and we're finding that out that because the correlation between mental illness and brain damage doesn't lead to these types of questions, then you know you get your traditional approach by. You know a lot of the VA. They treat the symptoms right. You're obviously mentally you're struggling and you're treating the symptoms, which is you know, and let's talk about that a little bit. I mean, obviously you know you're here to help the force and what is your? You know what is your approach there. I mean, there's a lot of ways to use pharmaceuticals to, you know, help with mental health, and then we all know that sometimes that's not the best approach, given some of the side effects. But there's other modalities out there. How do you balance the use of pharmaceutical drugs in your approach to mental illness with your patients?
Speaker 2:I love this question, and so I will be fully transparent with you that I've only been a prescriber for about six months. I just got my postdoctoral degree in clinical psychopharmacology not that long ago, so I am a baby prescriber, if you will. But the beautiful thing about that is I am a psychologist first and I'm a prescriber second, and so my foundation, the way that I was trained, the way that I've been practicing for all these years as a psychologist, is through behavioral interventions, and I very strongly stand by that. I think that anybody else that you'll find who is a prescribing psychologist because we're getting stronger in the ranks, there's more and more of us that we strongly stand by behavioral interventions first, behavioral interventions first, and then if it seems like pharmaceutical interventions are a good option, then we will move to that, because there's a lot of evidence that when you pair therapy and medication, that you do get this very beautiful synergistic effect, and so we certainly want that. But also, pharmaceuticals are not without side effects, and something else that you mentioned that's really important is treating the symptoms, and this is something that, as I was in my pharmacology program, I often heard that and I'm like well, what's the deal?
Speaker 2:You know somebody who is really popular in my field. His name is Steven Stahl. He's like if you want to learn anything about prescribing, you watch his videos and you buy his book. And he's just for an example, he says, well, I've never treated schizophrenia. And his students are like, well, what do you mean? And he said, no, I treat the symptoms. And that is his whole mindset. And the way that he talks about prescribing and it's very much the way that we're taught now is about treating the symptoms and managing that. The way that we're taught now is about treating the symptoms and managing that. So whenever you ask me about someone coming in and wanting to work with me, what I think about is a very individualized approach. What is going on with this individual? Chances are, just because of the realm in which I work in, there's going to be trauma. Whether it's the work that I do at the Bureau, whether it's the work that I had done at the VA, there's very likely going to be trauma. That's something that I'm just a magnet for.
Speaker 2:And then also, there's usually yeah, like it or not, I'm a magnet for that. One thing that I do want to mention is, yes, I am employed by the FBI, so everything that I'm saying here are my own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, biases, and I do not reflect the beliefs of the FBI.
Speaker 1:I think we call that a disclaimer Good job.
Speaker 2:I need to give you a disclaimer yeah.
Speaker 2:So what I like to do is just get a very individualized understanding of what's going on with the individual, and oftentimes trauma goes hand in hand with sleep. It's kind of like this very ugly cycle of okay, I've experienced something traumatic, chances are, I'm not dealing with it, and then that's showing up in poor sleep or nightmares, and then, when you're not getting good sleep, then that increases our chances of just worse mental health outcomes, worse mood, worse irritability, and so it's just kind of this really ugly cycle. So I'm going to I'm very verbose, I'm going to stop there, because I think that answers your question.
Speaker 1:That's why you're here. Nobody needs to hear me talk. They already know what I think about all this stuff. You know I mean on the issue of repetitive brain trauma, it's your approach. That's very, very exciting because you are taking that individualistic approach.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But when you so, when you deal with, when you're dealing as a psychologist and you're dealing with trauma, and the symptoms of course manifest themselves and they can be treated with drugs. But do you ever look from a causal perspective on the psychology, apart from, like you know, there could be an event in childhood? You know the psychological part, but you know the biological origin. You know ever worked with a combination of therapy, drugs and HBOT or transcranial magnetic stimulation or anything like that, to stimulate the brain and improve brain health?
Speaker 2:So one thing I'll say is, because I'm at the Bureau and my services are free, because I'm just an employee, a lot of people love free. That's so exciting. But also because of that and because all of my clients are FBI employees, that we have a lot of limitations as far as what it is that we can do. And so, yeah, well, I would love. Like you know, there's so many exciting things, there's lots of interesting things coming out on the market.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I am kind of interested in is psychedelic assisted therapy, and that would certainly be a no-no within the FBI. Like I'm, I wouldn't be allowed to do anything like that. So an example might be some type of ketamine assisted therapy where, yeah, where someone so if you're not familiar with that, any anybody here listening. That would be where we might give some type of psychedelic, and a good example would be ketamine, and then we would go in and do therapy. That is not something that I'm allowed to do.
Speaker 2:I don't know that we'll ever see something like that within the FBI, but there are people out there in the community who do do that ever see something like that within the FBI, but there are people out there in the community who do do that. So, and also as I think that the FBI means super well and I think that there are just a lot of parameters around what I can do and what employees can do, just because we want to keep our workforce safe and we also there's a lot of very strict policies around specific medications and things that are not well regulated. So unfortunately, I don't have the ability to partner with people out in the community who do have access to some of these other cutting edge or very interesting upcoming and emerging therapies.
Speaker 1:Well, that's my job.
Speaker 2:I wish I did.
Speaker 1:I'm here to tell you that you know, ketamine-assisted therapy, the psychedelics are having enormous and positive effects with our veteran population. Yes, and we would like to see the retired Bureau population. I have friends at the Bureau and I understand the handcuffs that we all must operate when we work for. Uncle Sam, right, it's the way it is, you know. But I think you're right and it's exciting to hear that that you're open to the possibility of those becoming more available, Because I mean, FDA ketamine is FDA approved? It is, it's all about. Hey, it's on my record and for the record, it's not really, it's not a, it's not a recreational experience. Let me tell you I haven't done it myself. I mean, it's challenging, it's traumatic, it's also very, very healing. Oh yeah, it's from a closure perspective, it's wonderful. So hopefully we'll get there someday.
Speaker 2:I sure hope so. Yeah, I mean the two therapies that you mentioned when you were reading my bio, that I'm certified in and that I use almost every single time someone walks in my door, is EMDR, which is eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing, and the other is brain spotting, and I think that this is newer, more cutting edge. A lot of people don't know about it even though it has been around for a while, and one of my mentors within the brain spotting community she does psychedelic assisted brain spotting, and so I think that there's just so much out there that needs to be explored that can be highly impactful for clients. But yes, there are just, unfortunately, some restraints.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about EMDR, because most people think about therapy as being therapy. You know I'm going to pay somebody $150 an hour to do something I already know, but I'm going to get a good nap sitting on your couch, so. But we know that therapy can be powerful and very, very successful. So talk to us about EMDR. What does that entail and what are some of the more positive results that you're getting vice traditional therapy methods?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. When I was trained as a psychologist, I was trained in more talk therapy modalities for trauma, because I knew I wanted to be a trauma psychologist and I thought I don't know that, I love this. And then I got to the Bureau and then I realized these law enforcement guys aren't that interested in talking about their feelings. I'm going to have to come up with some other methods, and it's the same thing at the VA too. There's a lot of stigma around mental health and what it is that you have experienced in going into and talking to someone about that, and so I needed to figure out another way to be able to do my job within the Bureau, and that's where I came across EMDR. So I was very excited to become trained and then to continue to become certified, and it has been, like I mentioned, either EMDR or brain spotting are the two most common modalities that I bring out whenever someone comes in my door and wants to do therapy. So, yes, I do think that there's a lot of misconceptions and the media doesn't help us at all whenever it comes to thinking about therapy. I have a couch behind me for those who are just listening and they can't see, and it's very funny, right? It is this stigma, this cliche of come and lay down on my couch and tell me about your childhood, and it doesn't have to be that way at all. In fact, emdr I would categorize as a relatively quiet or a silent therapy, and if you're not familiar with brain spotting, I would consider that a significantly more quiet therapy experience, and the essence of both of these therapies is that the brain knows how to heal itself. We just have to set up the right conditions, and that's what it is that I'm doing when I'm doing either of these therapies. So if you want to dive in particularly to EMDR, what we are thinking about is and it's you know, we're going to kind of pull from sleep too.
Speaker 2:So with EMDR, I'm going to give you a little bit of history. It was created, or founded, I should say, by Francine Shapiro. Unfortunately she's no longer with us, but what happened was she was diagnosed with cancer and she's obviously very distressed and she goes on this infamous walk in the park and she's thinking about this recent cancer diagnosis and she's walking and her eyes are moving left and right, left and right, as she's walking on this path and her eyes are just scanning and she realizes that after that she's gone on this walk and her eyes are moving back and forth on the path, that she starts to feel a little bit better, she thinks, okay, this is pretty cool, there must be something to this. So then she is in her PhD program to become a psychologist and she has to do research. So she decides, okay, I'm going to bring people into my lab, I'm going to ask them to think about something that is distressing to them and I'm going to kind of mimic what happened on her walk. She's going to face them and she's going to ask them to follow her, use their eyes, to follow her fingers as she moves them back and forth, to kind of mimic that experience that she had when she was on the path. And she finds that she brings person after person into her lab, asks them to think about something distressing, has them move their eyes back and forth, and they also experience the same thing where their distress goes down too. And so, okay, there must be something to this.
Speaker 2:And eventually it becomes EMDR eye movement desensitization and reprocessing and basically what we're doing is and she one really interesting thing that she said before she passed was that she wishes that she didn't call it eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. She wishes that she called it something different, because, even though eye movement is in the title, there are plenty of other ways that you can get. What we call bilateral stimulation is just a very fancy word for saying that we are moving both sides of the body at the same time, so that we're activating both hemispheres of the brain so that they can talk to each other. So that's what we're doing whenever we are doing some type of EMDR. We're asking a person to come into the therapy room in what is hopefully a place where they feel calm, where they feel as safe as they possibly can, and then we go back in time and we think about whatever the traumatic event is that they'd like to work on. And one thing I want to mention whenever I say trauma is, you know, depending upon how well versed you are in the field of psychology, there's big T trauma, little T trauma.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, emdr is very, very robust and you can categorize just about anything as being traumatic, because we all experience things very, very differently. So I want to mention that because you may have people listening who think, oh well, I never was deployed or I never did this or I never did that, so EMDR wouldn't work for me. And that's not the case at all. Emdr is incredibly robust. So what we do is, again, we ask someone to come into the therapy room. We ask them to think about what it is that was traumatic to them.
Speaker 2:And then an interesting piece of it is we ask them to think what is it that I'm saying to myself? And just to give you an example, maybe we're thinking about a first responder. Maybe they did everything that they possibly could and yet the victim died at the scene. And so in their head they keep looping on I should have done more, I should have done more, I should have done more. And so the traumatic memory and this I should have done more kind of gets stuck together.
Speaker 2:And so what we need to do as therapists who are doing EMDR is we need to figure out some other belief that the person would rather have, and even if they don't believe it at all 0% it's a statement that we come up together with that is going to be aspirational. So, when you're finished with EMDR, what would you rather believe? And so, in this example, maybe we would say I did the best I could with what I had and so what we do, and if you're doing traditional EMDR, at first we'll have the person think about whatever that traumatic event is and we'll have them think about what that original statement is. So I should have done more. I should have done more. So we'll have them hold both of those in their mind at the same time and then you can either do the eye movement or there's other ways that you can do it.
Speaker 2:So for me, as someone who used to do a lot of EMDR, doing this all day long, and for the viewers, who are the people who are listening, who can't see me, after a while you end up with just one really big bicep. One arm gets just super tired. So I have tappers A lot of other psychologists do too where basically it's almost like a little pebble in each hand and it vibrates back and forth, and I can control that. You can also do it with headphones and you can control a tone in the left ear and the right ear. There's lots of different ways to do it. Emdr can also be done with kids and adolescents. It's really, really effective. And a more fun way would be maybe throwing a ball or a toy back and forth or marching or drumming, so whatever ways in which we're moving the left and the right sides of the body.
Speaker 2:That's really what the bilateral stimulation is. It's just a very fancy word and the person will continually ask them. As a therapist, I will ask them how distressed they're feeling and oftentimes, as we do any type of treatment where we're thinking about something that's traumatic, our distress will likely go up. And as we continue doing this bilateral stimulation, our distress will likely go up. And as we continue doing this bilateral simulation, eventually the distress will go down.
Speaker 2:And I'll just work with the person and I'll normally ask on a scale from zero to 10, how distressing is it so zero, no distress at all, 10,. I couldn't feel more distressed. And we'll normally see a little bit of a roller coaster, like maybe we'll start somewhere in the middle, maybe like a five or a six. Normally it will go up a little bit of a roller coaster, like maybe we'll start somewhere in the middle, maybe like a five or six. Normally it will go up a little bit and then normally the distress does go down. And so I'll work with the person to determine okay, do you think that stopping at a three is a good place to stop, or do you think that the distress can go down even further? And I spend a lot of time again just trying to individualize this experience for them. And sometimes people are really happy with a three like, wow, my distress has really gone down or no, I want it to go down even further. Let's keep working. You want to?
Speaker 1:get rid of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what With EMDR it is so beautiful because after one to three sessions, people tend to feel significantly better. So not only is there not that much talking for people who want to do therapy or would like to have the results of therapy but don't want to talk, but it's very, very rapid and very effective and very scientifically and research-based. So let me come back to the process here. So we are having them hold in their mind the traumatic event and then what it was that they were saying to themselves and that was a maladaptive statement. That was I should have done more. I should have done more. So after we get the distress to a level where we're happy with, then what we do is we hold the traumatic event and we hold our new statement that we came up with. So I did the best I could with what I had and basically what we're trying to do is install this new thought and we're trying to replace the old thought, basically. So another way that you could think about this is if you open up a Word document, if you type into it, if you make changes, you can highlight things, copy paste, whatever. When you click save, it saves. So then when you open up that Word document again, all the changes that you made will be there and will be saved. And that's what we're trying to do with this memory network of what it is that that traumatic event was. We're trying to go in and we're not changing the content. I don't have a magic wand. I can't take away your traumatic memories. If I did, I'd probably be making a hell of a lot more money, but I cannot do that. But what I can do is I can change the way that you think about that experience. I can make it more adaptive. So that's what we'll do. Next is we have the person think about the traumatic event, hold it with their new statement and then we do more bilateral stimulation and I'll keep checking in with the person. Okay, how true does that statement feel now? And as we continue to do more and more of that bilateral stimulation whether that's the eye movements or what other modality we're going to use the statement starts to feel more and more true, especially even if at the beginning it was a zero. Yeah, I don't feel this at all. This is not true at all. As we do the bilateral stimulation, we are installing this new thought and it becomes part of this neural network and it's pretty incredible. And then, as we start to wrap up EMDR, what we one of our final stages is we know that the body keeps the score.
Speaker 2:So there's oftentimes, whenever we think of a traumatic memory, maybe we start to have a little bit of a fight or flight response. So maybe our palms are starting to feel sweaty, maybe our heart's racing, maybe the chest feels really heavy. It's going to look different for everybody, but what we want to do is we want to strip away that physiological experience from the memory. We just want you to think about the memory as if it was. When I asked you what you had for dinner last night. Hopefully it wasn't that exciting or that traumatic. I hope it's just a general memory where you can tell me yeah, I had mac and cheese, whatever.
Speaker 2:So what we're doing is I'm asking the person to do a body scan. So I'm asking the person to think about what that traumatic event was and then to just scan mentally from the top of their head down to the bottom of their feet, looking for any areas where they may be holding tightness, tension, something that feels uncomfortable. And when they identify what that is, then we will shift our focus. So say, for example oh, I'm really feeling like these butterflies in my stomach when I think about this traumatic event. So what we'll do is we will shift the focus and the focus will be completely on those butterflies in the stomach, and then we do more bilateral stimulation.
Speaker 1:So this is an ongoing process until you release the memory or release the emotion that's associated with the memory. So it just becomes a thought.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. That is the end goal. Is that at the end you can think about this traumatic experience because, again, it's still part of your lived experience, it's still a part of who you are, but you can bring it up and it won't be as emotional, it won't be as vivid. Tell people is that sometimes, whenever we've experienced something traumatic, it feels like it's right here.
Speaker 2:And for those of you who are just listening, I have my hand in front of my face and my hand is the traumatic memory. So I'm having a hard time engaging with Bruce here, who's my host, or I'm having a hard time engaging with life or my family or my work, and what we really need to do is we need to take this trauma and move it out of the way. That's what we need to do Because oftentimes, even if this trauma happened last week, last month, last year, 10 years ago, sometimes it can just get in the way, in the way of us being present and living our life in the way that we want it to. And so that's what EMDR and brain spotting will do, is it kind of takes that memory and puts it back in the memory filing cabinet chronologically where it belongs, just to give a little bit more brain science, because it feels much in alignment with broken brains is that the hippocampus and again, another disclaimer that I'll give is the brain is the most complex device in the entire world.
Speaker 1:That's why we need to protect it.
Speaker 2:We very much need to protect it, but also it's still very mysterious to us. So we know a lot of what happens, but we don't know everything that happens, and so we believe that the hippocampus is where memories are made and stored and we're just going to leave it at that. However, one very interesting thing about the hippocampus is that it is covered in cortisol receptors. Cortisol is our stress hormone, so when something happens to us that is very stressful if it could be traumatic, if it's life-threatening our body is going to release cortisol, because that is what it's built to do. That is the stress hormone. So cortisol magnetizes to the hippocampus and then the hippocampus can't function correctly.
Speaker 2:That's why we end up with memory errors.
Speaker 2:That's why a lot of times people will say I don't know, I'm just missing pieces.
Speaker 2:Or I don't know, I can't think about it chronologically, I can't tell you from beginning to end what happened.
Speaker 2:Or it may be also why sometimes people have the memory but they're like zoomed in on maybe broken glass, or they're zoomed in on hearing a scream instead of seeing the whole picture like we normally would. So we get a lot of memory fragmentation and a lot of memory errors, and another memory error that we would see too is that, instead of the event happening and maybe it's an event that happened super, duper quick, but instead the brain feels like, oh my gosh, I was in there for minutes or hours when, in actuality, that event happened very, very quickly. And so these are some memory errors, some issues that we're seeing whenever we have something very scary happen to us and cortisol is released. And then that's why people have issues with their memory, and that's why things like EMDR and brain spotting are beautiful, because you don't have to have that full memory, you don't have to be able to explain to me what happened from start to finish. We can work on those pieces, those fragmented pieces, because that's oftentimes what we end up with when something traumatic has happened to us.
Speaker 1:So talk about this brain spot man. That sounds like some kind of I don't know. It sounds cool, it's so cool I've never heard of that before. Then I do want to get to sleep too, because it's so important. But yeah, let's talk about brain spot.
Speaker 2:So brain spotting is my new favorite and I like to think about it as EMDR is like younger, cooler cousin, if you will. So the person who discovered brain spotting his name is David Grand, and he used to be an EMDR trainer and he would travel all around the world and he would teach other mental health professionals how to do EMDR, and then he found that well, you know, maybe there are some changes that we need to make, or I think people respond a little bit better this way. So he has a book. It's called Brainspotting by David Grand, and in his very first chapter and it's a very easy read, if you're at all interested I highly recommend you pick it up Not sponsored. I don't even know David Grand, but he talks about Another disclaimer.
Speaker 2:I'm full of disclaimers.
Speaker 1:Get it working when you work for the FBI. There's a lot of disclaimers out there.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you have no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So he's working with. Her name is Karen and she's a client and she is getting ready to go to the Olympics for figure skating and he's doing EMDR with her and the way that he liked to do EMDR, one of the adjustments that he was doing was he moved his fingers much more slowly than we typically would. And as he was moving his fingers slowly across her visual field, he noticed that her eyes did something weird, that they kind of wobbled when he got to a specific spot and he's like, okay, this is weird. And he's like, okay, this is weird, but let's just go with this, let's stop and hold on that spot where the eyes were wobbling.
Speaker 2:And even though him and Karen had been doing EMDR for over a year in preparation for her to get ready to go to the Olympics, and they had worked on lots and lots of different things during this short period of time like 10 minutes where he has his fingers stopped and he's just asking her to stare at the spot where her eyes wobbled, she is having this experience where all these things are flashing through her mind very quickly Things about ice skating, things about her family, her grandmother passing away, all kinds of things are just flying through her visual field and she's just processing things very rapidly.
Speaker 2:So after about 10 minutes David puts his fingers down and he's like okay, you know, that was strange. Like I think both of them kind of come to this realization of like all right, I don't know what that was and that never happened in our time together because they've been working together for over a year. Happened in our time together because they've been working together for over a year. And basically the reason why she's seeing David Grand is because she's having some performance issues in that she's trying to do this triple axel loop and just can't, cannot land it. So they have this very interesting experimental therapy session. She goes to practice the next day, lands the triple axel loop and never has a problem again okay okay, right, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:so he decides to kind of experiment with this with some other clients too, and so he is watching, as he's moving his fingers across the visual field, what their eyes are doing, what their facial features are doing, and just kind of really getting in tune with what's happening, and and that's what the entire book is about is his narrative of what it's like to work with these different clients, and he realizes that the brain is holding on to various different things in brain spots. So let me ask you a question. We'll ask your listeners to do this too, which is fun. So what I'd like you to do and I'm not going to ask you to tell me, but what I want listeners to do, this too, which is fun. So what I'd like you to do and I'm not going to ask you to tell me, but what I want you to do is think about the best gift that you've ever gotten.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, did you notice what your eyes did?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Okay. So your eyes like went off to the side and then they came back to the center. So what we believe is happening is that our eyes are an outgrowth of the brain and we believe that when the brain is working and I just gave you a problem to work on that it's obviously busy on the inside. It's like, okay, we have all these files, let's look for the gift file, and what your eyes did by moving over to the side, that's where your gift file is. Your eyes are letting me know where that is located inside your brain. So that is how we find what we call a brain spot thousands and thousands and thousands of things, and it can be very positive things or it could be negative things like trauma and experiences that have happened to us. So we can work on whatever it is that the person wants to work on.
Speaker 2:And that's why I pick brain spotting more times than not over EMDR, because brain spotting is a lot more flexible. Emdr, in my opinion, is a bit more rigid. So I like brain spotting because it can be more fluid. I can work with the person, especially if the person's starting to get distressed, which is often what will happen in trauma work. So what I can do is I can ask the person to cover one eye, cover the other eye and maybe that lowers the distress. So there's just a lot of really interesting cool things. And I like that your podcast is all about the brain because I don't feel like I have to explain so much to the listeners about how incredibly complex the brain is and like why this works and it sounds a little insane, but it's incredible, incredible.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Now let's get to sleep, because we all need to sleep, we all might not need therapy, but we all need to sleep and sleep is absolutely one of the critical components out there. I honestly believe that you know my son, due to his inability to sleep, with his schizophrenia and mood disorders he was going through. It was one of the contributing factors to that tragic day. And I also know that hey, I retired from the Army. I had massive sleep apnea. I thought it was because of my three chins at the time.
Speaker 1:So you know, and I hated those machines, hated them, despised them, never wore them. I threw all those pills in the trash. Can? I started running five miles a day and I got rid of my sleep apnea. But you know, you know. But it is something that I would like our listeners to know more about. You know, because it is related to the brain. It could be related to trauma.
Speaker 1:So talk to us about sleep. You know it's. You know how do you know? Because what I'd like them to know is just have you to understand more about sleep, so they can, you know, look at themselves from a sleep perspective, Because ever since I got this aura ring, I've never been so dialed into sleep in my life. I look at my sleep score every morning. Oh it is crazy, man, what this thing can tell you. It drains the heck out of your phone. But let's talk sleep, let's talk, sleep, sleep's great.
Speaker 2:Let's talk, sleep, sleep. When I go to conferences, which is usually at least once a month, I have a captive audience and normally people may be really excited to hear this person or this person, and then I get up on stage and they're like, oh, sleep, whatever.
Speaker 1:Do it every day.
Speaker 2:Well, but I think and this is to your point is that people have been sleeping like crap for such a long time that that is their new normal, that they don't know what it's like to get a good night's sleep. Or maybe they're sleeping decently, but they again don't know the difference between a decent night's sleep and a really good night's sleep. And I think that normally I like to do a Q&A because I think that it's really important that people get the answers to the questions that they're looking for, versus me just talking because I could talk all day to you about sleep, because I love it so much. But it's really important that I interact with people and I get them to ask questions, and normally at the beginning it's crickets, and I'm totally used to that, and then I start to answer a few questions and start to hit home why sleep is so incredibly important. And then time's up, it's time for me to get off the stage and people are like wait, wait, wait. You didn't answer my question, I didn't get a chance to talk to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, exactly, I'll see you at the back of the stage. So one of the things and again, I think if people are already tuned in and they're listening to your podcast, they already understand the importance of the brain. But let me talk a little bit more about brain health, and I think that this is one of my best attention getters brain health, and I think that this is one of my best attention getters. One of the coolest things that the brain does is that when you are sleeping and again, you have to give your brain enough time to cycle through the stages and we have light sleep, we have deep sleep, we have REM sleep and the average adult should be sleeping between seven to nine hours per night. I feel like I can hear people laughing. Yes, that is true, that is what is recommended for adults seven to nine hours. And when you are doing that, the brain does this incredible thing it shrinks up and it allows cerebral spinal fluid to come up and give the brain kind of like a brain car wash fluid to come up and give the brain kind of like a brain car wash and it gets rid of misfolded proteins and toxins and things that just shouldn't be there and then it takes it away and gets rid of it out of the body as waste Very important. But why is this important?
Speaker 2:Think about it. I don't know about you, but we put our trash out once a week and it's very important that they come and get the trash, because if they didn't come and get the trash, well, we're still making trash, we're still going to put it out on the curb and if nobody comes to get it, it starts to pile up, it starts to cause problems, going to smell. Maybe we're going to get some rodents, like it is an issue. So in the brain, if we're not consistently allowing ourselves to get a good night's sleep and let this trash crew come in what should be every night, that trash is starting to build up and that's a problem. So when I talk about this, some things that people may have heard about before would be plaques and tangles and beta amyloids. Yeah, you're shaking your head.
Speaker 1:So what do these terms, what are they often associated with? Well, from the perspective of repetitive brain trauma, damage, damage done to the brain by impacts to the brain, and the results of that damage are usually or sometimes tau, amyloid, concentrations, tanglements stuff like that, neurodegenerative disorders.
Speaker 2:So the umbrella of dementia, of Alzheimer's, where we are essentially, if we're not taking care of our brain now and every night, allowing this trash crew to come in, then these plaques, these tangles, these beta amyloids are hanging around and they're starting to clump together and they're starting to build up, and we will pay for that much, much later in the form of potentially a neurodegenerative disease. Now again, here's another disclaimer for you. Remember there's a lot of things that play into something like Alzheimer's. There's a genetic component to it, there's lifestyle factors. So I'm not saying that poor sleep will 100% cause you to have a neurodegenerative disorder, but I'm also saying you're not doing yourself any favors either.
Speaker 1:Is there any correlation between, like when you go to your doctor and they give you Ambien or sleep aids, what's the difference between that kind of sleep and the natural? Or is there a difference between prescription induced sleep and then sleep? That's natural that you kind of cycle.
Speaker 2:Excellent question, if you can. Natural sleep is the best sleep because we've been sleeping for the dawn of human time. The brain and body knows how to sleep and it knows how to move through the stages of light sleep, deep sleep, rem sleep. There are medications that will make a person sleepy and there's various different classes. Not all are created equal. There are some that really mess with what we call sleep architecture, and sleep architecture means that the person should be cycling through these various different stages and a sleep cycle is normally 50 to 90 minutes and normally, again, if you're giving yourself seven to nine hours, as adults should, then you'll be cycling through. You'll go through, I should say, like five-ish sleep cycles, and that's really really important that we're doing that because different things need to happen at different times. That we're doing that because different things need to happen at different times. With regard to deep sleep, that normally happens in the early hours of the evening, like closer to when you go to bed, versus REM sleep, that happens in the earlier hours, closer to when your alarm is going to go off. But you should be cycling through these various different things. So if we're using sleep aids and again, not all are created equal, there are some that will mess with what we call sleep architecture. Where it may be suppressing various different stages, you're still sleeping, but you're not getting this beautiful movement through the cycles like you should.
Speaker 2:Now you mentioned Ambien. That is considered a Z drug, and Z drugs are meant to preserve sleep architecture, more so than other medications that are either for sleep or that the side effect is sleep, and it's often used as a sleep aid off label, so it is a better choice. However, again, you're talking to a psychologist first and a prescriber second, so I would always try and get the person to make behavioral changes and lifestyle changes first before moving to a medication. And also, something that is really important that we don't talk about enough is black box warning that comes with our Z drugs. So our Ambien, our Sonata and the black box warning for these in particular is all about sleep behaviors, and so this is where you know.
Speaker 2:Maybe you hear a funny anecdote, but it's really not funny in that, especially if someone's never taken an Ambien and they take one and then they realize that they wake up the next morning and things maybe are out of place. Things look kind of strange, and the reason why there's this black box warning is that because people may do unusual sleep behavior. So maybe they get up, they try and cook something, they try and drive, they're doing things on the computer. So they're abnormal sleep behaviors and we see that in these Z drugs. So it's very, very dangerous and I think that it's important that people know that because if you do have an experience like that on one of these drugs then it's game over. No more. We can't prescribe that to you anymore because it's too dangerous.
Speaker 1:I got a family member that started getting heavy and, uh, she didn't know what was going on. And when her husband kept telling her she was eating, she goes what are you talking about? And he and he, likes they, there would be chocolate, ice cream, handprints on the wall, she would go nuts. And he filmed her one night. She couldn't believe it. Yeah, it was ambient. She was, uh, it was sleep eating, you you know. And she's like you know why am I getting heavy? Because you're eating at night.
Speaker 2:she didn't believe that and you're hitting the nail on the head, right is that? Luckily she had someone to show her this and literally show her video evidence, because there are people who maybe live alone and they don't have someone to show them this and then it's not until you know you wake up and you're behind the wheel and you're at Denny's and you don't know how you got there, or you got the red and blues behind you, potentially that too, there's a lot of different things, and so having this sleep behavior can be super dangerous, but a piece of it is is that there's anterior grade amnesia, so you don't remember that you did it.
Speaker 2:That's why she she's like no, this, this didn't happen to me. It's not because she's in denial, it is because of the amnesia that's also playing into this. So it's it's just very dangerous and I think that we don't talk enough about that.
Speaker 1:So, as we I guess we get ready to close I mean, people know, when they're not sleeping Outside of going to your you know friendly pharmacist and getting some sleep aids what can they do to improve their sleep health? You know, I noticed that if I go on a five mile run I can't help but go to sleep that night. I mean, what are the lifestyle habits that can help them improve their sleep quality? Because in the people that we deal with with repetitive brain trauma and brain damage, you know, they're on so many drugs sometimes they just can't get sleep and it's hard for them and it is such a challenge. But they, you know, we all know how important it is. What can they do to improve their state of mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think one of the things that you mentioned is exercise, and that's fantastic, right? Exercise is fabulous If it's within the recommendations of what you're allowed to do with a brain injury. You know, depending upon what stage you are in recovery, that will be. You know, make sure you talk to your doctor first. Another disclaimer, however if this is within your realm of you're allowed to do this, then exercise is great. Exercise is going to help you fall asleep quicker. It's going to help you fall more deeply asleep. It's going to keep you asleep throughout the night.
Speaker 2:However, when you sleep or, excuse me, the timing of your exercise is really, really important. So I have a lot of clients who, yeah, they're busy all day long and then the only time that they have to exercise is like 9 pm. Not the best, because whenever you exercise think about it I'm in bed too. My bedtime is nine o'clock. But when you exercise and if it's moderate to vigorous, which usually exercise is your heart rate's going up, your blood pressure is going up, your body temperature is going up, cortisol is being released, adrenaline is being released. A lot of different things are happening, and so this is great for exercise.
Speaker 2:It's not great for sleep, so you're putting your body into a state that's basically incompatible with sleep and a lot of people are like, oh no, it's fine, I'll be able to fall asleep immediately. Okay, well, if you do, you're still setting yourself up for not the greatest night's sleep. So I stand by exercising, but exercising earlier in the day if you can. Morning exercise is the best and if you can, bonus points for exercising outside in the sun, so getting fresh air, but also whenever the sun is at a low angle in the sky so it's rising. If you can be outside without sunglasses on, that's going to strengthen your circadian rhythm is looking towards the sun, because sun is one of our most powerful cues for anchoring into our circadian rhythm. Yeah, if you go again, I keep talking about this could go on forever.
Speaker 2:Well, we could. We could because I just love talking about sleep, which means you have to bring me back. I'm very verbose, I just talk.
Speaker 1:I know this is great. This is great. I mean, people already know my position. So, dr Leigh, how do people find you? What do you recommend? Do you have a website? Can they contact you? And what's next for you? Where do you go from here? Are you going to have your own podcast show or sleep counseling webinar.
Speaker 2:That would be pretty good right. That would be fun. That would be really fun. So I do have a website, drleakhaylorcom. If you want to get in touch with me, info at drleahkaylorcom. I am in the very beginning stages of YouTube because I want as many people as possible to have free sleep education.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So that's very important to me. I wrote a book. It's called the Sleep Advantage. It's coming out on October 1st and it is for first responders. But I couldn't help myself so I wrote a second one. It is the military edition.
Speaker 1:So that one will be coming out, probably later. Maybe we're looking at winter time. Good for you. Make sure we get copies of that, and when you start your podcast, I get the best podcast producer in the world on this call right now, so just just let you hit. No, thank you so much for coming on the show. What a fascinating talk. I mean, you know, sleep is so essential and we, we and sleep deprivation causes so much problems and we, we, we absolutely have to get on top. So thank you so much for coming on your first show, first episode of broken brains. I think we just got to dedicate a whole podcast to sleep. Have you come on? Because it is just so endemic in our space man, whether it's veterans, kids, athletes, first responders, you know, and whether they're, you know, going through the trial, the troubles are going through always have sleep problems and they're always using drugs to get to define it, and we got to fix that. So thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1:I cannot appreciate it and thank you for your service to our first responder community. Selfish service is one of the highest virtues a person can have and God bless you for doing that for those boys and girls. They need it so bad. As we come to another end of another great episode of Broken Brains, I want to remind you the only book for parents on repetitive brain trauma and contact sports was written by us. It's for free on our website. Please go download it, give it away, inform yourself, be knowledgeable, not just with sleep but on repetitive head impacts for your kids, and remember that our our only summit, the world's only summit on repetitive brain trauma, will be held here in Tampa, hosted by the Mack Parkman foundation, September 2nd and 3rd.
Speaker 1:Dr Leia would love to have you come by and talk to us about sleep and it's it's impact on on the body and the brain, because we're helping hundreds, if not thousands, of people heal themselves. To all of you, Another great rest, another great episode. Take care of those brains. It's the only one you have and we'll see you next time on broken brains with bruce parkman. And thank you so much. Take care thank you thank you, thank you.