Hello, and welcome back to Practicing Human, the podcast where every day we're getting

a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Miscarra, and in today's episode we are going to talk about reducing

urges and impulses.

More to come on that in a moment.

First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

So lately I have been trying to increase the amount of time between my last meal of the

day and when I fall asleep, ideally, to give myself about three to four hours between

dinner and when I am in bed.

The reason for this is that it's pretty well documented that in most cases that improves

sleep.

If you're not digesting food while you're trying to sleep, your body's not working as hard,

your heartbeat is, your heart rate is lower, and you're more likely to access what's

called deep sleep, which is more restorative.

So I know this for myself as well, but sometimes when the day gets full, meals can get put off,

and I do find myself eating later in the day, or snacking closer to when I'm going to

go to bed, especially there are these things called paliopuffs, which are like a healthy

version of a cheese doodle, but anytime I have a healthy version of something, I give

myself a little bit too much permission to go into that.

So I've been getting in this bed habit, what I would characterize as a bed habit for me

in the last couple weeks of not every day, but if I find myself hungry in the evening eating

those a little close to midnight, not midnight before you go to bed, which is usually around

...