Dr Maria Elena Lukeides is one of the key change makers behind making TGA-approved MDMA and psilocybin pathways accessible in Australia.
She explains the neurochemistry of stress and how the body stores trauma, the mind-body disconnect in modern life, and how the dopamine treadmill trap is keeping us away from rest.
Dr Maria’s 28-year experience treating adolescents and adults spans across trauma, anxiety, depression, panic disorder, low self-esteem, parenting, relationships, and major life transitions.
In this episode Dr Maria Elena shares:
- Why so many people are chronically stuck in survival mode
- The connection between trauma, burnout and nervous system dysregulation
- Why modern life keeps us disconnected from the body
- The difference between dopamine driven performance and oxytocin based recovery
- Why achievement alone never creates lasting fulfilment
- The impact of chronic stress on sleep, emotional regulation and health
- How panic attacks and trauma can resurface years later
- The “dropping anchor” technique for anxiety and nervous system regulation
- Why rest is more than just sleep
- The role of psychedelics and somatic therapy in trauma recovery
- Why healing happens through experience, not just insight
- How to begin shifting from adrenaline-fuelled living to a more regulated state
Key Quotes
“Trauma isn’t what happened to us. It’s how we then relate to ourselves because of the experience.”
“The mind often created the problem. It’s not going to fix it.”
“Achievement is a false promise when it becomes your only source of worth.”
Episode Resources
📖 PRE-ORDER For the Long Run by Jess Spendlove 👉 https://amzn.to/4t33BPh
Dr Maria Elena Lukeides
🟩 More about Dr Maria: https://www.drmariaelenalukeides.com.au/
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LinkedIn: Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides
Facebook: Dr Maria-Elena Lukeides
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Dr Maria-Elena
Dr. Maria-Elena Lukeides is a doctorate-trained clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience helping people move through emotional pain and unlock their deeper potential. She works with adolescents and adults across a wide range of concerns, including depression, anxiety, OCD, trauma, panic, burnout, relationship difficulties, and low self-worth, as well as supporting those seeking personal growth, emotional clarity, and lasting behavioural change.
Her approach blends evidence-based psychological therapies with insights from neuroscience, behavioural design, evolutionary psychology, and somatic practices. She incorporates breathwork, mindful embodiment, and brain-based tools to help clients feel better, think more clearly, and live more fully.
In addition to her clinical work, Maria-Elena partners with organisations as a corporate trainer and speaker. She delivers workshops, seminars, and keynote presentations on wellbeing, flourishing at work, neuroscience, and mindfulness-based peak performance—translating complex psychological science into practical, engaging strategies that support both individual and organisational growth.
Maria-Elena is also one of the first practitioners in the world to offer psychedelic-assisted therapy to the general public, following Australia’s landmark rescheduling of psilocybin and MDMA. Her work in this emerging field reflects her dedication to integrative, forward-thinking approaches to healing and transformation.
Whether working with clinical presentations, high-performing individuals, or corporate teams, Maria-Elena creates a space where people feel safe, heard, and empowered—with practical tools and psychological insight to support meaningful, sustainable change.
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess Spendlove (00:00.066)
My experience was I was held up. I worked in a TAB while I was at university. Very quickly, I pushed that to the side. And then nearly two years to the day, I was in a meeting at work, and not a stressful meeting, and I had a full-blown panic attack. Dr. Maria Elena Lakitis, welcome to Stay at the Top. I’ve been a patient of yours for over 10 years. I do think a lot of people are just experiencing a disconnection from…
what their body is experiencing to what the mind is experiencing and then numbing out nearly or disconnecting from that to be able to cope.
Dr Maria Elena (00:35.032)
We’re chronically bracing in a world that is tough and we’re using cortisol and grunt to get through our days. And a lot of that is being fueled by these endless minor daily threats. Trauma isn’t what happened to us. And depression in many ways is not about the depression. It’s about how we then relate to ourselves because of the experience that we’re having.
Jess Spendlove (00:56.374)
If there was one thing, one anchor you’d like to leave people with.
Dr Maria Elena (01:00.398)
learn to drop into your body and out of your mind. The mind often created the problem, it’s not going to fix it.
Jess Spendlove (01:08.222)
Maria Elena Lakitis, welcome to Stay At The Top.
Dr Maria Elena (01:11.543)
I’m so excited to be here and congratulations on this amazing podcast.
Jess Spendlove (01:15.374)
Thank you. I am really enjoying levelling it up, bringing on amazing guests, bringing the science into the practical application and hopefully having conversations from a lens that maybe people haven’t heard them from before. That’s the goal anyway. Which I would love to start with an amazing experience I saw on your social media recently. A very well known author.
Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps Score. He wasn’t just in Sydney and you didn’t just attend his show, he came to your private practice. What was that experience? What was the conversation? Tell me everything.
Dr Maria Elena (01:52.776)
He certainly did.
Dr Maria Elena (01:59.244)
Well, to be fair, I had met him the weekend prior and we had been on a very small and intimate learning kind of conference slash retreat with him and his beautiful wife, Lachia Skye. And actually my primary relationship is with Lachia and she’s one of the most wonderful somatic practitioners. And we had a beautiful four-day experience in the Byron Hinterland where we discussed approaching trauma,
and working with patients with trauma, primarily with psychedelics and some of those new novel ways and embodying practices of somatic experiencing and, know, which of course is what the body keeps a score highlighted. So amazingly 10 years ago or when the book came out, it’s probably more than a decade now. And so Lechia had
when she came to Sydney after that retreat had said she wanted to come and see me and Bessel said, I’m coming too. And so we had a beautiful chat and you know, mostly about, you know, my work, my work with psychedelics. I was, guess, given that the rescheduling in Australia only happened a couple of years ago, I’m one of the first psychologists that has been working in that fear. I did my training about a year before the rescheduling. So I was right.
Luckily at that forefront, because we weren’t certain it would ever get rescheduled, but Mind Medicine Australia and so many other practitioners and researchers and professionals in Australia were really pushing. the global evidence is amazing for those treatments, especially in cases where no other treatment has worked before. so Bessel, not just an author, is a psychiatrist and ran one of the first
programs in psychedelics for trauma and is still using psychedelics, ketamine, which is still under the umbrella of a psychedelic at the moment in treatment of people with severe treatment resistant trauma in the States. And so it was fantastic to share our experiences, you know, since the rescheduling and also his vast knowledge and expertise and Lichia’s knowledge and expertise in the area of
Dr Maria Elena (04:20.077)
trauma, trauma recovery and the use of these novel medicines in that space as well.
Jess Spendlove (04:25.164)
Yeah, truly your work in this space is a pioneer, like you said, at the forefront. To my understanding, only a very small minority of people within Australia, and of which you’ve had a hand in helping and supporting and taking people through that process. What, I mean, for someone listening, and maybe some of the misconceptions they might be having, what do you want to explain about the process that you take in this very
methodical scientific way versus potentially what people might be thinking, we go to the jungle and we take plant medicine and we do it ourselves.
Dr Maria Elena (05:03.82)
So my work in the psychedelic space obviously is done in a regular, very highly regulated way. And I think what the space offers actually is that from growing knowledge bases from around the world, I don’t think there’s a one way only, but given that this is treating people that have had many years, often, you know, one of my clients was 40 years diagnosed with trauma. That’s, you know, someone who’s,
quite clinically different to someone who I would say is, we all have traumas with small t, right? I could go and have a whole number of psychedelic experiences and still reveal things from within me that I find help liberate me and cause some sort of deepening of healing, for example. But I would be someone who would potentially be called a wellness seeker.
The rescheduling in Australia wasn’t for wellness seekers. know, so people who are functioning well could use a little bit of help with their things that they’ve experienced in the past, beliefs, traumas even, but aren’t in that category of what we call treatment resistant PTSD or treatment resistant depression. So I think one of the biggest misconceptions it’s that it’s a frontline medicine at the moment or treatment, and it actually isn’t. It’s for the
The rescheduling was very strict and they’re very cautious because it’s brand new. And I kind of see it being rolled out similar to the way cannabis was when it also first got rescheduled where there were very few kind of candidates that were able to be prescribed that and very few prescribers. in Australia at the moment, we still only have, I think about 20 authorized prescribers and they are psychiatrists who are
authorised to be able to assess and prescribe these medications. And we’ve only had a couple of a hundred people through, even though the number of people with treatment resistant PTSD and treatment resistant depression is well into the thousands. And so we’re still very, very careful and at the stepping stone of the treatments. And I think it’s really interesting that we’re having this talk today because wasn’t it just a couple of days ago that
Dr Maria Elena (07:26.72)
America also approved Ibogaine, which is a psychedelic for the treatment of again, treatment resistant PTSD, trauma, and I think addictions, although I haven’t seen. we’re definitely Australia very interestingly was the first country to reschedule for use in the psychiatric slash psychology space. So I think some of the misconceptions is when it can be used and whether or not everyone’s
candidate. And so the two, those two conditions are really, you know, relevant and treatment resistant as a diagnosis means that you’ve tried two to four standard evidence-based treatments in the past, combination of pharmacotherapy and psychological treatments, and none of those have brought you any benefit. The other kind of, I guess, the big myth is a lot of people ask me when I do this work is, so do you just microdose? Do you take it?
guys, it’s not a micro dose. So it’s actually dosing day. So the way that the treatments are delivered is that we have three preparation sessions after the assessment. So there’s assessment and I’ll talk a little bit about the exclusions if that’s relevant. There’s an assessment period, there’s three, once you’re approved, there’s a three preparation sessions. Then there’s the first, what we call the dosing day, which is a full day.
in an authorised space. a space that is running as a psychedelic clinic. there also has to be the clinics that are able to provide these services have had to be carefully conformed to certain requirements and they have to be registered as authorised clinics. So there’s an authorised prescriber, which is a psychiatrist and authorised clinic. You attend the clinic usually early in the morning. You have two therapists with you, a primary therapist,
and a secondary therapist, and you are given either MDMA or psilocybin. And the treatment kind of the dose lasts for about six to eight hours. And it’s a, you know, we try and make it a beautiful, comfortable space with, you know, nice, soft lighting, soft furnishings, know, blankets. So it looks like a really nice lounge room, right? Some pop plants, but you’re invited to lie down.
Dr Maria Elena (09:50.982)
And we have like a kind of mattress that can be pulled out for the floor and we, you know, provide a playlist. So the music is goes hand in hand with this therapy, which I think is pretty unique. So there’s a curated playlist and we put the playlist on. So you hear the music through, through headphones. And we also recommend eye mask as well. And this is because with, with both MDMA and psilocybin.
It really enhances your experience with the outside world. So people who take it recreationally discuss things like feeling a lot more talkative with others, they’re seeing plants and different figures in trees and the sky and people’s faces being a little bit visually enhanced in some ways, altered. So it’s an altered state of consciousness. But because we want the treatment to actually target
an internal experience by actually having the music being played into headphones. So you’ve got this kind of masking effect and the eye mask, actually really allows the experience to become internalized. And that’s where the medicines start really working. And the experience is different for everybody. And I would not say that it’s necessarily pleasant. It’s not an easy
journey. It’s not an easy medicine day, especially for those with trauma. can bring up memories of trauma. People might have a sense of reliving them.
Jess Spendlove (11:25.662)
Is it essentially, it’s accessing where that’s stored or?
Dr Maria Elena (11:31.168)
Sometimes. journey is different. I’ve done, you know, about a dozen, like, know, you’re approximately a dozen people and everybody’s journey is different. And I can only say based on all the research, based on what we know as practitioners who have studied, every journey you have can be, and every individual’s journey will be different. so we try and prepare people as best as possible, which is what that preparation is for.
Often people will also talk about these experiences as being life-changing and, you know, second sometimes to the birth of their children, the most important experiences that they’ve ever had. It can be very mystical and spiritual as well. A sense that you’ve been given insights that you were never able to really get before. And I guess, you know, for me, what I’m, not many of my patients, I would say, who did trauma work with me,
didn’t get some significant gains from their work with me. But what I’m really seeing the difference with psychedelics, because I can’t necessarily say that this is working when nothing else works, because I think the modalities we have are also extremely effective in the non-psychedelic space. But when we do therapy, the way I like to describe it is all the things that I’m teaching you are still hypothetical. Hypothetical.
Hypothetically, you’re lovable. Hypothetically, it wasn’t your fault. Hypothetically, you didn’t deserve what happened to you. Hypothetically, you’re worthy. And in some ways, we all have to latch on to that faith, right? That surely we don’t believe that others deserve the things that happened to them or that we don’t see others as undeserving, unworthy, unlovable. Ergo, it must also be true of us, right? And we have to just take it on faith. What has been beautiful,
to see and experience in that room is that people come out and they’re like, they feel it. And for some of my patients, it’s the first time they’ve ever felt love. Like real experiential love that has got nothing to do with somebody else, which again can go wrong, right? And has nothing to do with like something conditional being in their environment that can change that.
Jess Spendlove (13:37.922)
Wow.
Dr Maria Elena (13:54.284)
And so for me, it is the medicine of love. That is ultimately what I think is bringing some of this healing. Now that kind of overstates it quite a bit. Not everyone’s going to get there or have that experience. And it’s not that they’re failing. They still can get beautiful, great insights that then provide years of therapeutic design sense outcomes and therapeutic insights. had one patient come out and go, my God, that was like 12 years of therapy.
in two hours, the, she’s like saying like these insights were just dropping one after the other, after the other, after the other. And because they weren’t coming from somebody else or through the therapeutic work, it really felt like they were a sense of a real truth. And what’s interesting about these experiences, unlike other kinds of inebriated experiences, experiences that we have under substances, is we come out of psychedelics and that MDMA treatment and people
are saying and experiencing what occurred in that medicine treatment as more real than even our normal reality where substance use and substance use experiences, usually you kind of come out of that experience and you feel as if, oh, that was all fake or that, oh, okay, that’s gone now. That was like a heightened experience that was artificially or superficially altered via the substance. Whereas with these
psychedelics and MDMA, we’re actually having people kind of go, I felt it, that it was more real than this was, I felt that what was coming was so real. And I think this is what has that potential to really change therapeutic outcomes, to really change symptoms, to really change how this person relates with themselves. Because trauma isn’t what happened to us. And depression in many ways is not about the depression.
It’s about how we then relate to ourselves because of the experience that we’re having, because of the beliefs and thoughts about ourselves and about the world and about our relationship with the world and the world’s relationship with us. And this, these are opportunities for someone to experientially from the inside out, have a different experience and to hopefully integrate that as real.
Dr Maria Elena (16:16.18)
and as their own and as something that lasts beyond that medicine day moment.
Jess Spendlove (16:21.774)
And then what happens off the back of the medicine day because I imagine it’s not just, oh, we’re all done here, but there’s a lot of ongoing.
Dr Maria Elena (16:30.71)
And so then we have three and I’ll use the word integration, three integration sessions after each. I would say actually a minimum of three because everybody is different and some people have a lot of, you know, need a lot more time to integrate and to stabilize some of the experiences and insights that they gained from that first dosing day. And so we have a minimum of three integrations. We meet usually.
very quickly after that first dosing day, the immediate day after or within the next couple of days. And then, you know, we meet weekly and then we plan after about four weeks for the second dosing day, the same kind of flow occurs, three integration sessions, and then a final third dosing day if required, which, you know, the model is from research shows three dosing days and the integration sessions as
essential, not just additive. And so it’s not just psychedelics. And that’s the other myth. It’s not, the medicine in and of itself. It’s that the medicine does something, provides the basis for insights. And afterwards, the therapy is what really allows those insights to become integrated, meaning what interwoven within that person’s new way of experiencing themselves, the world and the
the world in relation to themselves and themselves in relation to the world. And that is really what that leads to those long-term outcomes that we’re seeing through the research.
Jess Spendlove (18:07.342)
I imagine with that kind of access to such trained clinicians that you’re a, you have a doctorate, you’re a clinical psychologist, as you mentioned, other people involved, psychiatrists. I imagine access to this from a cost perspective is maybe one of the biggest limiting factors for people who meet criteria.
Dr Maria Elena (18:33.186)
Yeah, I think there’s cost is, at least in Australia really, eye watering compared to what we’re normally paying for medical because we have such a generous Medicare system. So the reality is, I don’t know if the treatment really does cost that much. It’s just that there’s no rebates for it. So if you think about how many hours of therapy are involved in that, so you’ve got
You know, two therapists doing three preparation sessions, eight hours on the dosing day, another three integration sessions, another eight hours on the dosing day and so on and so forth. Then we’ve got clinic costs. Obviously the clinics also charge a facility fee, just like if we went to get our tooth removed right from, from a hospital, right? We have to pay an operating theater fee or a suite fee. And then we also have, the authorized prescriber also has to be in the clinic on the day of the dosing.
or is themselves part of that therapeutic diet, the diet meaning those, two therapists who work together on the day to ensure that the person is never left alone. And so Bessel actually tells a funny story about how the two therapists actually, the diet became the standard practice was because they were doing these psychedelic treatments in research and someone had to go to the toilet. But unfortunately in that same moment, even though apparently it was a very, you know, kind of
ordinary session where the person was seemingly just lying down and having their experience, they’d started to cry and need help and the therapist wasn’t there. So they decided after that, that that dyad is essential and really important and also gives the person the encouragement and safeness and supportiveness in that room to be able to know that they’re safe while they might also be
re-experiencing really strong feelings that are fearful or reliving trauma experiences. So it’s a, you know, I would say it’s a very safe from the studies, the safety product, like efficacy of these treatments without the exclusion. you know, sometimes people can’t have, you know, so some cardiac issues and things like that. were a number of exclusions, but the safety profile is phenomenal. So, so that’s also good. just can be.
Dr Maria Elena (20:51.982)
quite difficult in the journey.
Jess Spendlove (20:55.406)
What’s kind of coming up for me as you’re talking here is the connection to the body and the mind and maybe how disconnected, you know, I guess what we’re talking about is people resistant, PTSD, other forms of treatment have not provided relief, support, you know, et cetera. If we kind of come back to whether people have any mental illness or insomnia or anxiety or depression or whether
You know, we’re just high performing people operating in the current world. Do you think a lot of people are just experiencing a disconnection from what their body is experiencing to what the mind is experiencing? And they’re numbing out nearly or disconnecting from that to be able to cope.
Dr Maria Elena (21:42.656)
Yeah. I think it’s one of the things that I see constantly. And again, let’s leave aside, you know, kind of serious presentations, which are, you know, chronic and treatment resistant. And just look at that day to day. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen more stress in my life. And maybe because I’m, you know, almost 50 now and, you know, us 50 year olds like to say things like that. And I find myself sounding like an old person suddenly, you know, in my time, we never, I’ve never seen this before, but I’m.
I am, I’m looking around and there’s like this almost this, it’s almost like you can touch the anxiety in the air. Like people are under pressure and I don’t just think it’s because they’ve disconnected from their bodies. I think our worlds have required it. Like the constant pressure, the technology integration within our lives, you there’s constantly something buzzing, something beeping, something.
You know, alarming us to get onto the next task. Let’s move forward. Let’s go where, you know, having children, but we’re packing them up at 7am, dropping them off at daycare, then rushing to get to work before we’re late to get to those meetings. Then every other time, you know, point in the day is kind of measured in terms of this quick now to the next task, quick now to the next task, quick now to the next task. And if we’re lucky, we leave work at six.
then we commute home in traffic, hoping that they’re not going to get you in trouble for being the last one to pick up your child from daycare, not to mention the emotional toll that that takes, knowing that you’re, you know, you’re driving there with your heart in your mouth. You get them, you pick them up from daycare or from school, you then go home, then it’s dinner time, homework time, unraveling time, know, bonding time, eating time, bath time.
Should I go on? you just getting, I can see your eyes just going stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. Now I’m not saying we have choices in this and I kind of feel like there has been this carving out in the way that modern work demands, modern expenses have forced this kind of slow change, but we’re away from them home more hours than not. If we’re working from home, that’s great, but increasingly now people are forced back into the office.
Dr Maria Elena (23:59.426)
But even working from home, you know, you’re working, you’re not, you know, being in peace, you know, you’re, you’re still on that demand of that alarm clock. So I think that amount of pressure puts us constantly into the head, makes us over-reliant on the thinking mind. And when we’re up here, we’re not here. And here is where we’re able to both be sensitive to.
lower levels of stress and angst. You know, that the, the feelings come up in the body and we’re in the body, we actually have an opportunity to respond when the feelings are a three out of 10. When we’re in the mind constantly running off tasks lifts, know, thinking about how we’re to have to do something, having multiple streams of to-do lists coming up, problem solving strategies, we have to be up here. And so
The body only bothers us when it’s at eight or a nine. It’s fighting for attention. And so that is that disconnection and that we’re chronically bracing in a world that is tough and we’re using cortisol and grunt to get through our days. And a lot of that is being fueled by these endless minor daily threats. You know, the, you’re going to be late for the next meeting, anxiety, flurry, right? My body then hardens, it armors.
It tightens everything. Our breathing changes. We can’t breathe deeply when all of my belly, my chest is tight, tongue up, jaw clenched. And when we down regulate and we start to pace a bit slower, connect more to the body through somatic down regulation. You know, I’ve got a technique dropping anchor that I know you know well, which is like the super powerful panic attacks and panic and anxiety because it down regulates your system.
But the real magic of that technique is it stops you thinking and it kind of instantly almost right to remember, it just drops you into your body and like, you notice, I was all like this and not loose and soft because you know, enlightenment is a series of softenings, is a beautiful phrase.
Dr Maria Elena (26:19.638)
And it means that we stop resisting or working through life as if it’s a battle that we’re fighting through. And I often think about this because I’m battling through to get to the end of the day. And the only place I’m getting to quicker is my death. If we just think of that as an accumulation of daily experiences, it’s this hustle that is life. And if I’m resisting it with everything I have and trying to get away from it,
At some point there’s an 80 % block. And so of course then I disconnect from my body. My body can’t talk to me because I’m braced. I’m literally saying, do not bother me. We are in threat and attack mode. And so we have this like tiny window, maybe through sheer exhaustion at about 8pm, maybe 8.30 to when we finally collapse into sleep time.
for the body to start to down regulate, for the immune system to start to go and find things to heal if it needs that, for emotion regulation to occur as well. Cause guess what? It’s in those phases that emotions start to get integrated and processed. For us to be able to have a space to relax, to release, to connect.
And one of the most immune superpower things, I don’t know how to phrase it, like the biggest superpower we have is love. And this isn’t some woo, look at this, know, psychologists talking about love. This is science. Oxytocin. Oxytocin, the bonding hormone of the mammal. But it’s under oxytocin.
In that emotionally regulated state where we’re able to be relaxed enough for oxytocin to start to be produced. Where the system can now start to rest and recover. That we feel connected. That we actually are able to enjoy things. It is a state of non-threat and non-doing. You can’t be in oxytocin mode and be hitting goals. You can’t be in oxytocin mode.
Dr Maria Elena (28:37.728)
And scared about what might happen tomorrow morning. is a state where there is nothing else to do. You have successfully navigated your day. It is a homeostasis, a state of complete satisfaction. And what I mean by that is there’s nothing that you want in that state. if you have a baby and you’re breastfeeding or, you know, feeding the baby in that kind of milk drunk.
state that they get in once they fed. And there’s nothing, they’re rolling around, they’re happy, they’re laughing, they’re giggling, it’s such a beautiful thing to witness. And that’s oxytocin kind of, that’s that mode. They’re no longer hungry, they’re not wet, they’re not cold, mom’s nearby, they’re in a state of complete satisfaction of needs. It’s a state of non-wanting. And in that state, it’s not just about rest and sleepiness, because we think rest is sleeping.
Sleeping is part of the rest system, but creativity, art, connection, play is also part of the sleep system. Rest system, I should say. So this restful state is not just about sleepiness or tiredness. It’s actually also the state in which if I’ve got no tasks that I need to engage with and finish, and I’m also not threatened by anything, I’ve
There’s no win or lose. There’s no threat of failure. I’m in a state of no threat.
What happens in that state play, which is what creativity, new ways of thinking, right? Novelty, interest seeking fun.
Dr Maria Elena (30:25.94)
And the body then is able to really regulate and recover and repair in that state. And in terms of like peak performance, people are going to focus on how do I stay in dopamine for longer? And I’m like, no, need to be like, how do I shut down that dopamine system so that I can start, so I can get into oxytocin because the more I rest and recover,
The more I’m able to be efficient in that go world, the more I’m in oxytocin, the more fuel I’m amassing. My body’s able to produce better fuel, better energy. We feel energized. We feel happy. What is happiness? I want you to just take a moment and I want you to think of something that really makes you happy. Do you have something in mind?
Jess Spendlove (31:18.99)
probably just at the moment the phase of life, morning, although she’s starting to refuse the baby chino, but the morning ritual of you know coffee for me, baby chino with Millie, like it’s a non-negotiable and just that protected time and yeah.
Dr Maria Elena (31:39.928)
Yeah. And when you think about that time, it sounds beautiful. Can you drop anchor for a moment? Can you just release your belly? And at the same time, I just want you to gently open your mouth, drop your tongue to the bottom of the mouth and just how does your chest feel? What kind of experience are you having if you bring that moment of joy into your chest, into your belly, into your throat?
Jess Spendlove (32:04.27)
United.
Dr Maria Elena (32:05.374)
yeah, it’s an up and out, isn’t it? So if we think about what happiness, joy, love feels like, it’s an up and out. It’s a bursting, you know, we even have that sense of bursting, bursting with joy. We use these phrases. And so this whole concept of how much more energised we can become when we purposefully and intentionally create opportunities for oxytocin by
You’re having a sense of clear demarcation about, okay, my doing, you know, off the chores, you know, is done. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t do chores in oxytocin mode, but rather than trying to get them off the list, which is making them into either a threat response, which these chores are in the way of me resting and they become threats, which is really dangerous, right? Because when we’re fuelling with adrenaline or fear, our actions, because we can fuel with dopamine or we can fuel with adrenaline.
When I fuel with dopamine, I naturally have a sense of ego inflation or a sense of power. When I complete things, I feel good. Right? My self-esteem is better. feel like, okay, I’ve taken care of the world today. I’ve taken care of my jobs today. I’ve done good. It’s a great feeling. And if I’ve done enough good in the day, then I switch naturally to oxytocin. Okay, I’m done now. Where’s the play? I can relax.
Chores are sometimes, know, the cooking can be part of that. You know, the bonding with the kids, the homework, you know, depending on how we see these things, these things aren’t fixed activities. How we approach them determines are they threats? Are they, you know, goals that we’re going to hit and release dopamine?
Jess Spendlove (33:44.204)
And is that just the inner talk, the reframe?
Dr Maria Elena (33:46.446)
So yeah, for me, absolutely. have a story that I tell in one of my courses that I run. I think it’s the Pillars of Happiness course. And you talk about your daughter and I remember things were very difficult when I had my daughter at that age. I was a solo mom. I was running my practice. I was finishing my PhD. And unfortunately for me and anyone who knows me, it’s like, you know, whether it’s a trait that’s a good trait or a bad trait, but
I’m super house proud. want my house to be perfect. So of course, you know, the chores were always done. Everything was always perfect. So there was an immense amount of pressure on a day to day basis. And there are certain things in terms of housework that I have pet hates with other stuff. just do. It’s almost like I do it in my sleep. I don’t even notice housework mopping. I don’t know why I vacuum like five times a day. If like anything that drops, I’m just like,
it’s an upright vacuum. the easiest thing in the year. It’s just like, like blinking, mopping something about that. And the other thing is hanging clothes on an outside line.
Jess Spendlove (34:52.098)
funny we’ve all got our thing.
Dr Maria Elena (34:53.292)
We’ve got our things, right? So I remember like getting out there and being like, always, you know, pegging the clothes on the line. And I’m like, you know, muttering to myself as I do, because, know, anger is my love and language. And I’m like, and I’m the only one that has to do this and look at the clothes and they never finish. And I remember just stopping and going, all right, so don’t do that yet. What’s going on with you? And I had a chat to myself as you do.
And I’m like, well, I want to hang them out in the sunlight and I don’t want to put them in the dryer because I want my daughter to have that experience of smelling sunshine on her clothes. You know, like that special kind of smell and aroma that happens when things are freshly laundered and they’ve been out in the wind. And, you know, it’s one of those things that I really valued when I was growing up, that smell of fresh laundry, laundered clothes. And so I stopped it now with every peg I started saying, and this is how I love my daughter.
and I would peg a singlets on. And if it was one of mine and I’m like, and this is how I love myself. So rather than seeing these things as obstacles to my rest, which makes them into a threat that I need to navigate, right? So I’m going to produce adrenaline. And that’s the other part of the story. So if I fuel with something that I feel I can successfully navigate, I’ll produce dopamine. And after it’s done, I get this reward buzz. It’s like, I joke about when I finished the samurai Sudoku on the weekend.
the excerpt on the good weekend and I’m walking around town like I’ve got an extra bounce to my step because I’ve mastered that that type of reward is what dopamine gives us. The problem is that if I’m running this motivational system, this self-talk is running, my God, now I’ve got to, if I don’t get to work on time, I’m going to get fired. If this doesn’t happen, I’m going to get in trouble. If I don’t do, great. Now I’ve got to do the chores at home. Now I’ve got to cook, I’ve got to clean. When am I going to rest?
All of these now become fueled by adrenaline because they’re seen as fearful obstacles. And even if I successfully do them, which we all do, I don’t actually get rewarded for that. All I get is relief. And what comes after relief is just exhaustion. And so, you know, when you talk about this disconnect and I’m like, yeah, I’m seeing these people in this loop.
Dr Maria Elena (37:10.006)
Right? Where they’re being fuelled by adrenaline the whole day is about a series of consequences they’re trying to avoid of threats and punishments, perceived threats and punishments or real and actual threats and punishments in their days that they’re trying to avoid only to get to home, at which point they collapse into a state of exhaustion, the parasympathetic nervous system, only to wake up again because if they don’t go to work now they’re scared. And so we have this cycle, which is a beautiful way of describing burnout and what we’re
going through and because we don’t have a choice, we need to keep going to work no matter how exhausted we are, no matter how like this, this cycle of threat of navigating perceived consequences, their lives just barely hanging in there. Right. It’s not reinforcing and rewarding, is it? So we have to increasingly produce more and more adrenaline to get us over that line, to get us into the office, to get us to keep going because the alternative is just always more fearful.
Jess Spendlove (38:09.078)
If someone’s hearing this and thinking, this is the loop I’m in. Where, and I’ve been in that loop, you know.
Dr Maria Elena (38:17.558)
I’ve been in that loop. I’ve been in that loop.
Jess Spendlove (38:20.138)
fall back into that loop. That loop is, you know, it’s the default mode and it is how a lot of people are operating. If someone’s hearing is having an aha moment, can you offer a few invitations or, you know, places for them to just begin to make that shift?
Dr Maria Elena (38:38.018)
Yeah. And I want to thank you for using the word invitation because I want to acknowledge that it’s not just here are your three strategies in the round. Take off, you know, your five step guide. I do. I do have a five step program. No, I don’t because this is a really hard and it’s kind of this, like you said, it’s the default mode, right? We’ve all got brains that are hardwired. Well, they’re softwired the brain quite frankly, but we’re wired.
Jess Spendlove (38:45.794)
to take off as well.
Dr Maria Elena (39:03.736)
to be better safe than sorry. So we’re looking for that threat response mode more often than not. It’s our default, you’re right. And so I think we need to at least compassionately understand that the brain will naturally fall into that. I think it’s that simple thing, that example maybe of the peg where rather than seeing it as the obstacle to my tiredness, you know, this grunt thing that I didn’t want to do, that I resented, actually going, this is cuddling on the couch with my daughter.
is a wonderful way of expressing my love and it feels comfortable and nice. But perhaps even more important is washing these clothes and putting them on the line and also loving myself in that way, because it’s the way that I want, right, to also wear my clothes. That’s just a small example. And so I would say is connecting some of these activities more broadly to things that you do actually value, like even when work is tough, right.
Is seeing your colleagues a part of your day, you know, going in there and bonding as a team, something that gets you through or is your work something that you can somewhere attached to the significance of that? I feel like my work has been.
such a North star in terms of leading me out of my own burnout is kind of showing up in the room because they’re showing up and I’m showing up. And we’re both these humans in some level of suffering, right? Life is hard to navigate and going, I’m going to show up for that and understanding how important that is for them and for me. You know, not because
Not from that perspective that I’m helping them, but that that’s kind of like holding space for that and being part of that, being part of that struggle as well. am another human also walking this path, being able to connect with what I see as something that deeply drew me to my work. Now, not everyone gets to do something that they connect with deeply in their jobs.
Dr Maria Elena (41:12.142)
And I actually think part of the problem is that we assign falsely too much value and purpose into identifying as our work badge or label or whatever our, you know, deployment at work is. I mean, I always joke is no one has their LinkedIn profile on their tombstone nor will they want to. And if you think you’re going to be lying on your deathbed thinking that just one more project under budget would have just, you know, made this life worth it.
And so I invite everyone to every now and again, think about this deathbed moment, not in a morose or morbid way, but in a way that’s clarifying, in a way that’s clarifying in terms of what is really important and how do I get to live more for that? And so regardless of whether I have a good day, a bad day, it’s tougher, it’s not tough. The only reason or one of the reasons for my life and the purpose in my life is my daughter.
I think once you have kids, kind of comes with the packaging, right? You know, it’s really, even if you wish you could have more interests or more purposes outside of that, it just seems to filter so much of everything we care about becomes, you know, them and their happiness. And that’s, think.
Jess Spendlove (42:29.55)
doing better and shifting and all
Dr Maria Elena (42:31.19)
Always right and changing and being like the question is always like, am I being enough for her or is she getting enough or you know, is she happy? Is she going to be happy? How is she going to, to go and that, that, that real kind of, know, for me, that’s the apex purpose. And so the work doesn’t matter. And so I kind of have got stuff to do at work. You know, I can make them dopaminergic or I can make them threat based. can subtly shift the way that I view these and go, okay, can I gamify my day?
Can I start to, even something as simple as write down the tasks that I’m doing, then tick them off and say something about, you killed that, I killed that. Oh wow, P’s get degrees, 51. Wow, that’s fantastic, right? Because the way that your brain knows to reward you or not with dopamine or to perceive something as a success or as failure is up to you, is based on our expectations. We’re the ones actually labeling the hashtags.
You know, it’s almost like if we have this like Instagram file in the brain and it gets to kind of all these moments in the day are going to be hashtagged and it’s up to us to kind of redefine what those hashtags are going to be or to become more intentional with them. And so we turn these things that we think are threats going, but I’ve done that. It’s not threatening. I’ve done these deadlines before. It will be okay. So starting to have a language of self-soothing. when you start to.
And here’s why we need to be better connected with the body to feel the armoring where we’re walking around to drop anchor, which is a very simple kind of technique where we release the soften the shoulders, open the mouth, slightly release the jaw and drop the tongue on the bottom of the mouth. And we just take some long, deep, slow breaths in and out circular without holding.
Maybe about four or five counts in and four or five counts out. within one or two breath cycles, people notice that they’re in the body potentially for the first time that day. And the benefit of being in the body is I can’t even begin, right? So let’s not talk about that. But what we do when we drop anchor, we start to drop anchor even as a game, often enough.
Dr Maria Elena (44:51.648)
in each and every day is you start to notice when you are tensing, when you’re up regulating, when the armoring in the body starts. And when we are able to let go a little bit and we’re looser and we’re softer, we reverse the impact of cortisol and adrenaline. So it’s that opportunity to then shift mindsets and go from threat mode, pressure mode, stress mode into potentially dopaminergic mode, which is
I can do this, I’ve done this. So let’s just break this task down. Let’s tick things off as we go. Let’s just focus in on the present moment, not on the 28 other things that I’m gonna have to do after this. So we can slowly train ourselves to stay in a state of dopamine, to detect earlier and earlier when we’re going into adrenaline and stress, that connection with the body. And then to kind of have a clear demarcation.
Of for me, every time I left my office, my job was that job. There was, you know, sometimes I still had to make phone calls or answer emails, but my life is what happens after work. So I was in oxytocin mode straight away. Mindset shift, body shifts. It’s playtime. And of course it’s not always joyful at home. There’s lots of demands and stressors or, but
If we’re doing it from that perspective of bonding and connecting and loving, it’s rewarding and reinforcing, and that should be our purpose. Whatever’s happening before your day at work and whatever’s happening after. There’s so much buzz about AI and the impact of AI and so many podcasts that I listen to, and they’re all talking about, there’s going like the biggest impact is going to be this loss of purpose. like, I can’t wait for people to lose purpose or identity.
if it’s related or fused with their work role.
Jess Spendlove (46:47.756)
Do people have purpose though? Do you think outside of work?
Dr Maria Elena (46:53.57)
think whether you know it or not. If you’re going to work and your life’s all about work, that is your purpose. You may not like it, but that’s what your claim to purpose is. And so that’s where you’re trying to derive meaning. And it’s sad, right? Cause people are like, I don’t want work to be my purpose. And I’m like, well, if there’s nothing else you’re living for, what you’re doing most of the time at work and where you’re kind of cultivating all of your energy. And if work is something you’re worried about, scared about, stressed about.
80 % of the time, then that’s what your purpose is by default, not because you’ve chosen, but even from a threat system or where you’re getting most of your sense of selfing or reward because there’s two pathways. There’s the oxytocin pathway and the dopamine pathway. And so we have a lot of lives that are so disconnected. We are living increasingly isolated lonely lives and that’s the reality.
doesn’t have to be hopefully, but it’s become like that. And so if we’re not getting enough oxytocin or a sense of meaning and purpose and this fulfillment that comes in that, in that zone where we’re connecting with others, we’re part of that, you know, love family. So it doesn’t have to be family members necessarily, but there’s dogs or people around you. Dare I say cats? I’m not a cat person. So, you know, I kind of feel like dogs are dogs, you know, maybe dogs.
I think we’ve misspelled dogs and I wonder if we need to reverse the G and the D sometimes. But if we don’t have, you know, a lot of reward coming from that oxytocin network, then we’re going to become over-reliant on the dopaminergic network. And the problem with that is that dopamine, we call it like the happiness chemical, but it isn’t happiness, it’s power. It’s ego inflation. It’s a sense of feeling good. And the danger with that is that then
My ego might get better and better, but then that often is incongruent with healthy, happy relationships. And it doesn’t last because what serves the ego today, what rewards my ego today doesn’t reward my ego tomorrow. So it’s a very tricky pathway. And it also leads to a lack of fulfillment because dopamine increasingly requires more and more hits. Right?
Dr Maria Elena (49:17.368)
Bigger, better, faster, stronger is the dopamine arena. Always, because what brought you a sense of achievement when you were five, no longer makes you feel special when you’re 35. And so when we follow the dopamine route, route, I think lots of people are going to kind of go, my God, right. This, this, drops for them. When we follow that dopamine route, when we’ve been used to kind of feeling good about ourselves and productive and
Jess Spendlove (49:20.782)
goalposts moving.
Dr Maria Elena (49:46.606)
you know, contributing part of this achievement world is no matter how much we achieve, we get to that podium of achievement. It’s like, okay, once I get there, it’s like, this doesn’t seem good enough anymore. Next. Next. But in order for that next to have value for us and to actually be, to release the same amount of dopamine, it now has to be harder, take longer.
And so we start to cultivate lives where the more experience we get, the harder we’ve worked, the harder we now must work and keep working. That’s a trap to me. It’s a slippery slope because to me, you know, maybe because I’m lazy, but I’m, which I’m not really lazy, but I like to joke about that is expertise for me. Shouldn’t it be defined by getting the most for the least? having the most bang for your buck.
Jess Spendlove (50:24.769)
free slope.
Dr Maria Elena (50:40.942)
Like being able to come into the office for one hour and earning the salary of 10 people, that to me is success. But this dopamine thing, right? Is that in order for me to feel good about that, I need to actually be working harder and harder. So at a stage where I’m supposed to kind of work really hard, they told us just study hard, do well in the HSC, then get through uni and then you’ll be good. And we’re actually working harder than we’ve ever worked before. And we’re like going.
When, when’s that safe space? Where’s that space where I feel achieved? Where’s that space where I’m going to feel good enough? But because that good enough is based on dopamine and achievement, we never get there. It’s a false promise.
Jess Spendlove (51:25.164)
I have to say since having a child, those thoughts just automatically, as we kind of touched on before, occur a lot more. It is a reference point. you know, I think it’s also not being, I must do this. And it is kind of removing the pressure we put on ourselves. You know, it’s not swinging from one thing to the next, but that that check in point, the check in question for me at the moment in this season is, will I look back and think I’ve worked too much?
And that’s just my constant kind of recalibration. And if it feels, you know, there’s been some weeks or, you know, months within this last, say, 18 months where I’ve thought, I’ve gone a little bit too far there. And then I’ve wound that back. But that question for me is a big one right now.
I did want to touch on one more thing before we wrap up and there’s just so much I’d love to cover. It is around insomnia because I really see a lot of what we’ve touched on today interconnected and we’ve mentioned here, you know, we have a long standing relationship. I’ve been a client or a patient of yours for over 10 years and I came to you off the back of a very traumatic experience at the time for a period of time I had.
PTSD. I’m happy to, I did mention it in a previous episode without sharing what that was. And I think for context, I am happy to mention it, but I do want to, guess, give a warning rather than just throwing it out there. So my experience was I was held up. I worked in a TAB while I was at university and a week after graduating from my master’s. So that was the experience. And in the very short term, I had
the insomnia and, you know, I guess how you would think someone would, you know, experience that moment. But very quickly, I pushed that to the side and I just got on with things as I do racing through life. The open-me mode and then nearly two years to the day, I was in a meeting at work and not a stressful meeting and I had a full-blown panic attack. It was in a hospital, which that kind of, you know, worked out.
Dr Maria Elena (53:28.29)
Dofamine mode.
Jess Spendlove (53:42.058)
somewhat okay, given I just went to emergency, but this went on for three months, full-blown panic attacks. I was having cardiac investigations, ruling that out because that’s how it presents and you when you’re having anxiety and panic attacks, you catastrophize them, which then exacerbates them. But I had worked with another therapist and then I did get referred to you. So I came to you in this state two years on.
This phantom memory, this body experience, this subconscious part of my brain remembering the trauma, which I hadn’t dealt with, and on top of that insomnia, attached with all of it. So we’re seeing then statistics around sleep. 60 % of Australians are having difficulty falling asleep, and then around 15 to 20 % are experiencing insomnia.
And even with everything else we’ve touched on sleep, as you said, this is a key phase of rest, so much around our emotional regulation, our ability to heal and process things, like is being impacted. What are you seeing in this space? And do you think this is a byproduct of everything we’ve spoken on today?
Dr Maria Elena (54:55.426)
Yeah. I mean, we’re not having enough time in that rest and digest mode. You know, that, that space where we’ve got four or five hours of being able to down regulate of an evening to kind of start that process of being able to have our stress systems, our, you know, worries, our anxieties kind of, you know, peter off into the background that we switch into a sense of this is where I need to be.
This is, know, my safe space. This is my happiness where we intentionally create that switch and that crossover into a different kind of from doing mode into receiving mode in some ways, even like, know, cause it is a sense of, you know, getting that reward for working. So when we’re going from stress to the second stress, which is the second job at home to then collapsing into sleep, the body hasn’t had a time to switch sets.
So we’re in this constant set of cortisol, adrenaline, worry, reminders, mental stress, physiological stress. The body is just used to producing all of these kind of chemicals to assist us to get through. And most of us are on the go 12 to 14 hours a day. You know, if we kind of start to really think about when we get up in the morning, whether it’s even going to the gym and things like that, which are necessary and really important for our mental health, but they just add.
so much time. And so when your body is used to needing to produce like these go hormones and these go chemicals for 12 to 14 hours, that’s not what the design of the human being is. The homo sapien sapien is not supposed to be doing 12 to 14 hours of work. so I do see
a lot of this kind of impacting quality of sleep. Sometimes people might be getting the quantity and I think that’s another kind of sleep issue that we need to also address and acknowledge is that some people who, you you just ask the six to eight hours a day question, they’re like, yeah, for sure. But that quality sleep isn’t there. I do caution against hyper fixation on sleep because I do think that what I call orthosomnia,
Dr Maria Elena (57:12.898)
where we then, you know, similar to orthorexia where that fear and like there was almost like this disordered thinking and phobia almost of eating things that weren’t healthy. that’s an unhealthy way of being. And I also see people becoming almost phobic in the way that if something’s interfering with their sleep or their sleep routine or not getting enough sleep, then there’s almost a catastrophisation. Now I’ve got to say every mother that’s ever had a baby,
every new family, not just mother father as well, will kind of tell you that yes, while optimized sleep is amazing, you’d be surprised on how little you can get by on. And that would have been true for every single human being in, you know, for millions, for millennia, right? And so if it caused, you know, death and illness that quickly, does that make sense? We wouldn’t have really survived. So I want to kind of not say that it’s not important, but that there is
a danger to swing too far the other way. And that orthosomnia, like that sense of, you know, hyper fixation on enough sleep, correct sleep, sleep hygiene, all of these things is probably going, that anxiety is going to interfere with sleep itself. And so, you know, I think that needs to be acknowledged and said, but I do think we need to look at our sleep routine starting two to four hours prior to sleep. You know, and you know, you’ve got
You’ve got a book coming out and it’s got a great chapter which you were very kind to ask me to contribute slightly to. But what I loved about that chapter is all of the stuff that you’ve already learned and been implementing in your own life. one of the best ones is like that writing your worries down earlier. And I would just suggest that not before bed. I would write those worries down before you relax.
So maybe it’s just after doing the dishes and you’re just about to hit the couch, watch something or listen to a podcast or talk with your partner or your kids or, you know, with the dog, settle in. That’s when I would, I would just before that write that worry list or that list, kind of just anything that’s in here as generative as you can, like as much as you can generate of all, like even that sense of got to make a doctor’s appointment, you know, anything that the brain might knock.
Jess Spendlove (59:18.84)
Get it out.
Dr Maria Elena (59:28.974)
on the door of attention at 3am going, do you know we need to go make that appointment with the doctor for that thing, know, it’s that once a year checkup that, you know, if you don’t get, because that’s what it’s going to do, it’s going to find that opportunity if you’re kind of going from one sleep cycle to the next. Food for me as well is another way that we can use to kind of get the body to down regulate in a different way. you know, I don’t know, there’s not a lot of perfect science on it, but I’ve been increasingly
become interested in even things that are less energy dense for the body to digest. So if I am struggling a lot, I now switch my food at night to rather the things that take a little bit more energy, meaning like things that are gonna take a lot more energy for my body to break down and utilize. things like super cooked pumpkin or having my vegetables cooked so they’re really mushy and soft.
You know, things that are going to be super easy for my, for my belly to digest so that it has less, you know, less need for a lot of energy so that again, my system can down regulate sooner. That’s just a slight thing that I kind of have found that, you know, I’m kind of interested in foods that help you, you know, a somatic nervous system down regulation.
Obviously, you know, slow release carbohydrates are part of that. You don’t want anything that’s going to spike your cortisol or insulin a little bit later and you’ll be the expert on this. But even sometimes avoiding meat as much as I love my protein and my meat. But if I am going through a really tough time or I’ll have meat that’s super boiled in broth or, know, in soups and things like that. So that again, I’m really looking at that quality of how much load on my system some of that is.
You know, that’s just something I’m interested in and it may or may not be very effective. But you know, that writing your worries down, writing all of the to-do lists down. But then the next step to that is that is creating a commitment to look at that during the day tomorrow so that then the brain starts to trust that you’re efficient. And so it doesn’t have to remind you at 3am, 7am, 3.45pm, 4.45pm.
Dr Maria Elena (01:01:44.462)
It’s like, I don’t have to remind her more than once she’s written it down. I know Jess has this. He’s going to get to it. So we also need to, you know, work hand in hand with that system that is trying to make sure we don’t forget anything, right? Do everything that we need to do. So we need to also have that commitment in being able to, um, eke out some time the next day or once a week to get to that worry list, um, as well as we can. The other thing as well is.
Jess Spendlove (01:01:47.918)
We’ll get to it.
Dr Maria Elena (01:02:13.038)
Tidiness is your best friend when you have a sleep issue. And this is the one that’s hardest because we really don’t believe we can get through with tidiness. But if we can maintain a set wake up time and then know that in order for us to sleep well, we won’t be able to go back to sleep until 16 hours has passed. And if that eight hour, 16 hour waking, eight hour,
sleep window is the one that works for you, then it’s a nice way of like, if I sleep in, you know, I had a bad night and I sleep in two to three hours, most people try to go back to bed on the same time, but now I’m not going to queue for sleep for 16 hours later. So I’ve just pushed the whole rhythm. And so I see this so often where people are like trying to go to bed, but I tried to go to bed at night and you can’t try to sleep because effort and sleep are inconsistent.
Jess Spendlove (01:02:54.601)
The whole
Dr Maria Elena (01:03:06.872)
There are two different systems. can’t be on and off at the same time. So sleep is what happens when we stop doing anything. Sleep is what happens. Sleep comes to us. You do not sleep. It is not an activity that you are doing. And most of us have this mentality and most of us are parented in that way. We were told go to sleep. It’s a task that we can do. So we sit there and we try a little hearts out, but that’s inconsistent. So things like watching some TV. I’m one where.
You know, the older I get in that 3 a.m. waking up and you know, sometimes four or five times in the evening. But I don’t struggle with that all within seconds. I’m back asleep because I just roll over, put on a show on my phone that sits near my bedside table. It’s familiar. It’s, you know, repetitive. I’ve seen that show 5,000 times. I can roll over and go to sleep within seconds often. And so there is no sense of me having stayed up or been awake for a long time.
It’s very easy for me to go back. And so I’ve developed zero anxiety about that normal sleep wake cycle that happens during the phase of evening. So there’s a lot with sleep that does have to do with misperceptions about sleep being a skill that we can do, that we will achieve sleep. All we’re doing is creating the right environment and the right mindset so that sleep can come to us. And if you haven’t slept and you can’t sleep tonight, that’s okay.
If you’ve been in bed for about 10 minutes to 20 minutes and you haven’t gone back to sleep, grab your pillow, go back out to the lounge room, watch some TV or read a book or just cut your losses. And odds are that’s enough to reset for the next night. And so you, once Jess’s book comes out, I do, it has a wonderful chapter on sleep and some expert tips. And I do recommend everyone reads that.
Jess Spendlove (01:04:55.748)
Is that a fabulous?
Jess Spendlove (01:05:00.886)
very grateful that you contributed and there were so many sections in there that I could have asked for your expertise but I did really want a psychologist to contribute from a cognitive behavioural therapy perspective with insomnia so there was no one else that I thought of or I would have wanted to
Dr Maria Elena (01:05:19.672)
contribute. was a great honor. So thank you. But again, I think it’s such a vital part of that rest and digest system, that system that allows us to reenergize and to release also trauma. And I think this is one of the things psychologically is that how much work, whether you want to call it the subconscious or that part of the mind that isn’t active is responsible for in terms of emotional healing and psychological adjustment.
Jess Spendlove (01:05:49.23)
We’ve covered a lot of ground here today and to kind of bring it all together if there was one thing, one anchor, one tool or action point or invitation you’d like to leave people with, what would you like that to be?
Dr Maria Elena (01:06:03.242)
learn to drop into your body and out of your mind. The mind often created the problem. It’s not going to fix it. learn to get into your body.
Jess Spendlove (01:06:13.262)
we’ve got the dropping anchor technique. I’ve been doing it for years and even just having this conversation today, it’s a reminder that that’s a tool and things drop away and then you can pick them back up. So being kinder about that as well, that’s definitely been a journey for myself. My very last question that I ask all of my guests is what three things help you stay at the top?
Dr Maria Elena (01:06:40.366)
My my daughter, not necessarily in that order. And food.
Jess Spendlove (01:06:47.736)
When you’re talking about the slow before it is, it’s nearly like the holidays or when we’re away and the slow meals and you’re not watching the clock and you’ve got nowhere else to be and you’ve been there for five hours. It’s medicinal. mean, there’s people there, there’s laughter, there’s delicious food. There’s so much in that.
Thank you so very much for joining me for today’s conversation. If people want to follow along, I mean, I’ll have links in the show notes, but where’s the best place for them to connect?
Dr Maria Elena (01:07:18.156)
Yeah. Well, basically we’ve got a perimenopause retreat for women in perimenopause. We do these beautiful luxury retreats where you get, you know, a lot of body stuff like so sound baths and pilates and breath work and meditation, but also expert workshops. So with GPs and myself talking about all aspects of, you know, health and we often do burnout retreats and retreats for
for women in perimenopause as well. And that’s about to be announced by the time this show comes out. think we’ll be well on the way of, people would be able to find that out about that perimenopause retreat in August in the amazing Villarreal ad in Byron Bay. And, but most of my stuff, think, you know, I’m not very active on social media. So, but I am trying to get better at posting things, but I run a breath work and drop in meditation once a month.
in Paddington in Sydney. And I also have, you know, a very comprehensive website. I’m often doing online courses, courses, as well as these retreats and yeah, follow me on Instagram and or check out my website.
Jess Spendlove (01:08:31.246)
Perfect, we’ll have the website and the link to the retreats and I would love to come to one. I’ll have to book in when I’m able to get away from Millie. That is the dance at I won’t mind.
Dr Maria Elena (01:08:42.987)
Giving like a mummy daughter one actually or a mum and child one. Yeah, like a mum’s and bubs. Yeah, would be, I think that’s the population that most needs it, right?
Jess Spendlove (01:08:52.342)
Yep, balance the both. That would be amazing. Dr. Maria Elena Lakitas, thank you so much for joining me on Stay at the Top. Just incredible conversation. Otherwise, if you haven’t already subscribed, make sure you do. You won’t miss an episode. Next week, I’ll be back with a solo episode helping you all not only reach the top, but sustainably stay there.
And if you haven’t already pre-ordered for the long run, the link is in the show notes. And yeah, there’s some incredible guest experts in there as well as everything I’ve learned over the last 20 years of doing this as well. Anyway, I’ll see you all next week. Thank you so much for joining.
Dr Maria Elena (01:09:38.808)
Thank you.