Want Deeper Sleep? Follow These Expert Health Tips

Foreign this is open mind. Today we're discussing one of the most essential, yet often overlooked aspects of our health, maybe the absolute foundation of our health Sleep. Now we all know how important sleep is, just not in terms of getting enough of it, but ensuring that the quality of our sleep supports our overall well being and health. Sad news is millions of people struggle with sleep issues. Whether it's trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, simply not waking up for fetch, getting up too early, the whole shebang. Now sleep is foundational to everything we do, from maintaining a healthy way to supporting our immune system, even enhancing our brain function. Yet in our fast paced world, many of us aren't getting the deep restorative sleep our bodies really crave and they need. And today I'm sharing my top health and nutrition tips to help you achieve better and deeper sleep so you can wake up feeling rejuvenated and ready to take on the day. We're going to explore how what you eat, how you manage stress and even your daily habits can significantly impact the quality of your sleep. Now by understanding the connection between nutrition, lifestyle and sleep, you're going to be better equipped to make the changes needed for truly restful night. So let's get started. Hi, I'm Dr. Mark Hyman and welcome to Health Hacks. Just got a new puppy or kitten. Congrats. But also yikes. Between crates, beds, toys, treats and those first few vet visits, you've probably already dropped a small fortune. Which is where Lemonade pet insurance comes in. It helps cover vet costs so you can focus on what's best for your new pet. The coverage is customizable, sign up is quick and easy, and your claims are handled in as little as 3 seconds. Pro Tip Lemonade offers a package specifically for puppies and kittens. Get a'llemonade.com pet your future self will thank you. Your pet won't. They don't know what insurance is. 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Good quality sleep is crucial. It can help make or break our health. And today I'm sharing my top health and nutrition tips to help you achieve better and deeper sleep. I want to give you an overview of the importance of sleep. It's critical for overall health, for longevity, for our mental clarity. We literally wash our brains at night. We literally take them to a car wash at night. We don't sleep. We don't get that brainwashing, literally. It's essential to our emotional well being. The importance of a good night's sleep cannot be understated. It helps us maintain a healthy weight, helps support our hormones like cortisol and melatonin. Balances our blood sugar levels, our insulin. It's essential for our brain. It improves our cognitive function. It helps our memory consolidation, our ability to make and recall memories. It regulates our emotions and reduces the risk for depression. Not bad for just a good night's sleep. Now, it's essential also for our immune system. It reduces inflammation. It boosts something called autophagy, which is cellular cleanup and repair. It enhances DNA repair, tissue repair. Physical performance reduces the risk of heart attacks. I mean, it's just an incredible medicine. Sleep is medicine. It's also responsible for, for activating the brain's immune system. When you sleep well, the glymphatic system, it's like your lymph system, but in your brain, cleans up all the waste. And it's a recently discovered system in the brain that plays a critical role in clearing waste and toxins to the brain while we sleep. Which is why when you sort of see people with Alzheimer's, there's often a sleep issue preceding it. In fact, sleep dysfunction or inadequate or poor quality sleep is a major risk factor for Alzheimer's and dementia. And that's really why getting adequate and quality sleep is so important for brain health. Now, during sleep, our brain cells shrink. It allows more space for the cerebral spinal fluid to flow around and clear out the waste efficiently. But what kind of waste does the glymphatic system move? It's not like, you know, coffee grounds, right? It removes metabolic waste, metabolic waste products, and things like amyloid beta and tau proteins, which are associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. Now, for These reasons, good sleep is associated with all sorts of stuff. Chronic disease prevention, cancer prevention, diabetes prevention, obesity and weight, prevention of Alzheimer's, dementia, longevity itself. It boosts energy, vitality, focus, productivity and health span all those things that we love. Now, what disrupts our sleep? Now, there are three main types of sleep disorders. Insomnia, and there's two major types of insomnia. Sleep onset insomnia, where you have trouble falling asleep, and sleep maintenance insomnia, where you tend to fall asleep easily but wake frequently throughout the night. Now, my practice, the most common cause of sleep maintenance insomnia tend to be more chronic conditions like caffeine overuse or dependence, blood sugar imbalance, toxic overload, chronic stress with elevated cortisol and a bunch of other stuff. There's another big issue with sleep that's often undiagnosed called sleep apnea. And that's when you have intermittent periods where you're not getting adequate oxygen during sleep. Now, it can be short bursts of not breathing for a few seconds or longer bursts of 10 seconds or more. And it can lead to, you know, all kinds of damage to your brain, to your heart, your metabolic health. And, you know, it's often associated with snoring and waking up, you know, sort of suddenly in the middle of the night. Mouth breathing is also not great. When someone is taking an air exclusively through their mouth instead of their nose, that's bad. And that can occur during the day or at night while sleeping. And people who struggle to breathe through their nose during the day, like if you have sinus or allergy issues, which are fixable with functional medicine, they're going to have a major problem with mouth breathing at night and during sleep, and that can affect your sleep. So let's dig into what the root causes of sleep disorders are. The root causes of sleep disorder are different from person to person. So let's kind of dive into what they could be. For insomnia, it can be many things. Stress, anxiety, depression, poor sleep habits, sleep hygiene. We're going to get into that. Chronic pain, reflux, you know, heartburn, hormone changes like menopause transitions, and even certain medications for sleep apnea. The most common form, which is called obstructive sleep apnea, is typically caused by physical obstructions in your airway, meaning you often have excess weight with a big thick neck, with a neck size over 17, you might have enlarged tonsils, you might have a deviated septum, you might have a part of your throat like the actual tissue in the back is large. Some of that can be Treated by surgery with CPAP machines with different kinds of devices. But if you have obstructive airway disease, you really need to make sure that you get this treated. When the muscles relax in the throat at night, the airway becomes blocked. That leads to interrupted breathing, and that can make you have drops in oxygen. It can affect your brain and cause cognitive dysfunction. It can cause diabetes and weight gain and affect insulin resistance. High blood pressure, it's one of the leading causes of high blood pressure is linked to heart failure. So it's not trivial and it's not just annoying that you're snoring. It could be something really serious. Now for mouth breathing, that's commonly caused by allergies or dairy is the most common, but it can be anything that contributes to obstruction in the nasal cavity, even structural issues with jaw, mouth. So that's important to look at and see a specialist at ENT to have a look. It can also be caused by certain sleeping positions. Now, for most people, sleep disorders are a combination of genetics, excess weight, diet and lifestyle factors, which is good news because you can deal with most of it except the genes. What type of diet and lifestyle factors are a problem and affecting sleep? Well, many of them. You obviously know stress, poor diet, and people don't think that what they eat affects your sleep, but it hugely affects your sleep. You know, if you have a big meal and go to bed, you don't sleep as well. That's just one indicator. But there's much more. It could also be too much time in front of screens because that's activating it. Maybe the blue light or just maybe, you know, reading the news or watching a scary movie or something that activates your nervous system and that really can be disturbing your sleep. Environmental toxins, and especially things like mercury. Mercury is known to cause insomnia. For me, it was a big factor. I had insomnia when I had mercury poisoning. So I know a lot about that one. Lack of sunlight. You need sunlight in the morning for 20 minutes to activate your pineal gland, which regulates melatonin, which is your sleep hormone. So really having regular light exposure in the morning to full spectrum sunlight is really important. Without sunglasses, at least 20 minutes, we'll talk about that. And also darkness at night also helps. So it's just how we've evolved with, you know, the sun and the moon and that's it. And we've screwed that up with light bulb. It's had a lot of benefits, but also a lot of harms. There's actually a great book called Lights out. And it was really moving to me because it described how the advent of the light bulb led to this whole increase in chronic illness and chronic disease. A lot of things also can potentially affect you, like exercise. If you exercise at night, it can activate you. So you may not sleep well if the air quality is bad, if your room's too hot, there's too much bright light in your room from weird devices. All of it can affect you. And obviously, hormonal balances, all these things, what do they do? Well, they disrupt our circadian rhythm, whether we like it or not. We're animals, and we have rhythms, and our hormones are rhythmic. You know that for women. But your sleep cycles, your biochemistry, your different organs are active at different times. There's a real timing issue. There's even actually studies showing that giving chemotherapy at different times of the day for different cancers works better. It's called chronobiology. Now, many of us heard of the term circadian rhythm, but don't really know what it actually is. It's basically a natural internal process that regulates your sleep and wake cycles. It's like your internal clock. It's an entire internal ecosystem at work within your body that's closely connected to everything that's happening in your environment. Now, your internal environment responds to external cues to produce hormones and neurotransmitters that are needed to help you fall and stay asleep and help you wake up and stay focused and motivated throughout the day. So what are the main hormones and neurotransmitters that are influenced by their circadian rhythm? Well, you've probably heard of melatonin. That's the main one. Now, melatonin is a hormone produced in response to darkness, and it's controlled by norepinephrine, which is like adrenaline. Right? It's part of the sympathetic nervous system. And the autonomic nervous system is this kind of the important regulatory system. Melatonin is made from serotonin, the feel good hormone. And serotonin is derived from the amino acid tryptophan, which you get from food. Right. 95% of serotonin also is produced in the gut. You might be surprised about that. But there is a gut brain connection, and the gut is often called the second brain. There's at least 400 times more melatonin in the gut than in the brain, which is kind of crazy. Melatonin has receptors throughout the body, and it acts as a potent antioxidant. Now, too much melatonin can negatively affect circadian rhythm and sleep, and too little can Negatively affect circadian rhythm and sleep. And that means that melatonin affects more than just whether you're sleepy or not. And supporting healthy levels of melatonin can improve lots of other areas of your health beyond your sleep. It protects your cells against inflammation, supports longevity, the immune system. It may be anti cancer. It also influences the release of hormones involved in reproductive health. What other hormones are involved in sleep? Well, cortisol. Cortisol is often linked to stress. It's the stress hormone, but its role in the body is pretty complex. It's produced by the adrenal glands, which are sitting on top of your kidneys. It plays a key role in your sleep wake cycle. And it influences your energy levels and your motivation throughout the day. And it's controlled by your sympathetic fight or flight nervous system. And it's released in response to both acute stressors, like being chased by a lion, and chronic stressors like job stress, relationship stress, money stress, any kind of stress, political stress, society, any kind of stress we have now, now, cortisol isn't the bad guy. We need it. It's essential for health. But too much is the problem. And that leads to adrenal fatigue and exhaustion. Not necessarily recognized by traditional medicine, but I can tell you it's a thing. And we do saliva tests in our practice at the Ultra Wellness center where we look at adrenal function and we look at it throughout the day because it changes in the morning, noon, afternoon, dinner time and night. So you want to check it throughout the day when it's too high. Cortisol elevations lead to weight gain, particularly bound the belly. Muscle loss. Fatigue, a suppressed immune system can lead to shrinkage of your brain, particularly the hippocampus, the memory center. So you want to have the right amount, not too little, not too much. Right? It's like Goldilocks. Too little and you're burnt out. It's called adrenal burnout. You get fatigue, memory issues, trouble concentrating. And, you know, Bruce McEwen wrote a paper years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine. He's the father of the modern stress research and has written a lot about this and talks about this sort of phases of adrenal dysfunction that go from early adaptation where your cortisols are high, to ultimately burnout where they're low. And that's flatlining. And then you feel tired and wired and you really can't function well. So what disrupts these hormones? Right? Melatonin, cortisol and so forth. It's our diet. You know, eating a diet that Is high in sugar and starch actually raises cortisol. Believe it or not, you don't even have to be stressed. Literally eating junk food, your body perceives that as a stress. Eating sugar, your body perceives it as a stress eating bread, yes, bread, my friends. Your body sees it as a stress, even oatmeal for that matter. Your body releases excess adrenaline and cortisol. Other things can affect these hormones. Poor sleep, hygiene, we're going to talk about what that is. But that's like just poor sleep habits. Like, you know, bright lights at night, working on your computer, answering emails, and then just getting into bed and expecting to fall asleep and have a great sleep. Blue light can be a factor for some stress, lack of exercise, all these things are really important. So we're going to dive into each of these areas a little more and how we can optimize them for better, deeper sleep. So what is the impact of diet on sleep? Now, most people don't think of sleep and diet as related, but they're really related. We all know the importance of balancing your blood sugar during the day because it's critical for focus, for cognitive performance, for emotional regulation, for mood, for just keeping your energy steady and for your overall health. Now, neurotransmitters in your brain require stable blood sugar to be produced and released. Dopamine, serotonin, gaba, all super important to be regulated properly to regulate your blood sugar. Having a stable blood sugar also helps you sleep at night. In fact, I had a patient once who was having night sweats. He didn't have lymphoma and he didn't have menopause. So why is a guy getting night sweats? Well, what happens if your sugar is dysregulated and you have spiking insulin and blood sugar? When your sugar crashes in the middle of the night, it's a life threatening emergency. And your adrenal glands kick in and you sweat and you feel short of breath and anxious and you wake up because you want to start to get something to eat. So it's a common phenomena from fluctuating blood sugar. But having a stable blood sugar is also important for tissue repair, for fat burning, for restful sleep. It helps maintain steady release of hormones and regulate your sleep wake cycle. So it's really important. It also prevents against nighttime waking by reducing those blood sugar dips like I talked about just with this patient I had before. So what causes these blood sugar dips at night? Well, no surprise. When you eat a food that's very carb rich before bed Think of something dessert or sugar or something. Your body digests the food into smaller bits of sugar that are shunted into your bloodstream. Now, the carbish foods then cause your blood sugar to spike because your body digests carbs very quickly and then sends a huge wave of glucose in your bloodstream. Then what happens? Well, then your insulin also spikes and that tells the sugar to get into your blood cells. It helps the blood sugar get in your blood into your cells and that that is used as fuel or stored as fat. If there's too much fuel available. What happens is insulin can often overshoot and then cause your blood sugar to dip too low. That's what happened with this patient. So your body maintains quite restrictive levels of blood sugar. It has to be in a narrow range. And when it goes too high or too low, you can get into a big stress response in the body. So the natural response to low blood sugar is what? Raising cortisol and adrenaline. Why? Because that raises your blood sugar and mobilizes glycogen in your sugar stores. And so you can actually not die, which is a good thing. But basically you don't want eat sugar at night because you don't need that. How do you tell if your sugar and blood sugar is affecting your sleep? Well, are you waking up pretty much at 2 or 3 in the morning? It could be because you're releasing cortisol and adrenaline. Not only are they effective at raising our blood sugar in times of stress, but they're also responsible for waking us up in the middle of the night. The only problem is you don't want to be woken up at 3am, which is what happens when your blood sugar dips down. What are other signs of blood sugar imbalance at night? Well, do you wake up to pee and feel really hungry? Right. A lot of people have desire to eat in the middle of the night. Do you often feel hangry when you wake up in the morning? Meaning you're just like, I'm ravenous. Do you find yourself wanting a midnight snack? Do you ever wake up feeling dizzy in the middle of the night or morning because you're maybe hypoglycemic? Now, if you answered yes to any of those questions, you might have imbalances in blood sugar that are causing this. So what are the tips for maintaining blood sugar levels for better sleep? Well, I've talked a lot about this over the years, but it's not that complicated. Eat real nutrient dense Whole Foods. 75% of your plate should be colorful veggies and non starchy veggies. They're full of polyphenols, phytochemicals, antioxidants, anti inflammatory compounds. You also want to have a few servings of healthy fats. A palm sized portion of protein, about 4 to 6 ounces. Protein helps stabilize your blood sugar. So does fat. If you're eating protein, she pasture raised, grass fed and finished. Regenerative if possible, to reduce exposure to hormones and antibiotics and to have more nutrient density. You want to eat certified organic veggies and fruits. You can use the Environmental Working Group's Dirty dozen and clean 15 guide to know which ones are safe to eat if they're not organic and which ones you should never eat if they're not organic. You want to cook with spices and herbs that are anti inflammatory. That helps. You want to for sure don't eat ultra processed food. Just that's a hell no. I'll eat, I'll eat sugar, I'll eat, you know, stuff, but I'm not eating anything. It's a factory made science project, right? This is what ultra processed food is. Deconstructed basic raw materials from wheat, soy and corn that get turned into all sizes, shapes and colors of chemically extruded food. Like substances that are technically not food. So don't eat them ever. Please, please, please. Avoid late night sugar. Eat at the same time every day. That's going to help regulate your digestion, your insulin sensitivity, your blood sugar and your circadian rhythm. Also, you want to eat within your circadian rhythm. Your body's programmed to digest and absorb food earlier in the day, not peeing out late at night. This sort of the importance of breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper has some merit. You sleep better on an empty stomach. You know, insulin sensitivity is higher during the day, so you're better off eating a big breakfast and a big dinner. As I mentioned, also your stomach acid and digestive enzyme production go down at night, so you don't digest your food as well. Melatonin, which goes up at night, generally inhibits insulin secretion, which means our cells aren't great at breaking down food at night and you're likely to store it. So typically we, we in America follow the sumo wrestler diet, which is you, you eat a lot at night, most your calories at the end of the day and then you go right to bed. And that's called the sumo wrestler diet. That's how you get genetically thin. People like Japanese to become £300 and they know exactly what they're doing. Also Stop eating two or three hours before bed, I would say three hours ideally. And don't have big heavy meals at night. When we eat late at night, our body puts less energy towards autophagy and cell cleanup and DNA repair and more indigestion. So you really want to let your body heal and repair at night. That's what's so great about sleep. So if you stop eating at least three hours before bed, it gives your body enough time to digest so it can focus on repair and rejuvenation. Sort of like time restricted eating. It's what we've been talking about for a long time. Stop eating for the day at 7 at the latest, go to bed at 10, wake up at 6, have breakfast in a couple hours later. That's a 12 to 13 hour fast. You can do 14 hours if you want. So that's food. What about gut health? Sleep directly affects your gut and your gut directly affects your sleep. How does that work? Well, gut health impacts sleep quality and the production of sleep inducing neurotransmitters like serotonin. So? So you need key gut bacteria to produce essential compounds like B vitamins, GABA 5 HTP, which are linked to sleep quality. B vitamins are really important. They're necessary for producing melatonin and cortisol and play a major role in regulating the sleep wake cycle. During stress, the body uses B vitamins to support the immune system, but this depletes the supply needed for producing hormones and neurotransmitters, which is not good. If you're chronically stressed, it's really important to replenish B vitamins and focus on your gut health. Now, GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter. It's kind of the relaxation neurotransmitter. It's anti anxiety and supporting and it helps calm your nervous system. So your levels of GABA are the highest in the evening and they help you relax and fall asleep. And guess what folks, GABA is also produced by your good gut bacteria. Things like Lactobacillus and Mifidobacterium, but also by Akkermansia mucinophilia, which I've talked a lot about on the podcast. Having an unhealthy gut microbiome or, or what we call dysbiosis means you also might have low GABA levels. For example, if you have low Akkermansia, you have low gaba. I talked to Colleen Cutliffe, who is the founder and CEO of Pendulum Therapeutics. It's a probiotic company that uses Akkermansia they found that when they were growing Akkermansia in these large vats, they found in the, in the soup that the bacteria grow and they were very high levels of Gaba, which was being produced by this bacteria. So it's literally like a natural Valium. Also, 5 HTP is important. It's, that's another precursor for serotonin, which is the precursor for melatonin. So you need all of that. So you need five HTP to make melatonin and it's, it's made from tryptophan in the gut. And there's a direct association between poor diet, poor gut health and poor sleep. It's all connected, folks. So one body's one system. And that really kind of highlights the importance of having a good diverse, fiber rich diet with lots of polyphenols to support gut health. So what can you eat and what nutrients you need to support sleep and how do you incorporate into your diet? Well, magnesium is the most important. Magnesium, I call the relaxation mineral. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system which is your rest and relax and de stress nervous system. It promotes relaxation and helps the body prepare for sleep. When you have low magnesium, which affects a lot of people, 40 to 80% of people have either frank deficiency or insufficiency. It can lead to restless sleep, insomnia and an increased risk of sleep disorders. So where can you get magnesium? Well, dark green leafy veggies, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, collards, all those yummy foods. Nuts and seeds are great source. Chia seeds in particular are very high in magnesium. So are the almonds and other nuts. So make sure you have lots of nuts. Omega 3 fats, really important for brain health and reducing inflammation. It's also involved in the production of serotonin and you get that from small fatty fish. I like, I call it the smash fish. Sardines, mackerel, anchovies, salmon and herring. I love all those. Sorry if you don't. Flax seeds, chia seeds, walnuts also are plant sources of omega 3s B vitamins. Really important. B12, another really important nutrient study for sleep. It's linked to sleep quality and sleep duration. B6 is also important for converting tryptophan into serotonin. So you need B6 to get the melatonin. Tryptophan to serotonin to melatonin. And where do you get that from? Animal products, eggs, fish, beef, poultry, liver is a great source. Leafy greens like folate, rich spinach also is great. Another key Nutrient is vitamin D. Vitamin D helps regulate the sleep wake cycle. It influences the production of serotonin, melatonin. And vitamin D deficiency is associated with a high risk of sleep disorders, that's for sure. A 2018 meta analysis of nine observational studies and nearly 10,000 participants published in Nutrients Journal foundation and vitamin e deficiency below 20 nanograms per milliliter was significantly associated with poor sleep quality, short sleep duration and sleepiness. And where do you get it? Well, fatty fish like herring, mackerel, sardines, all this stuff. I said egg yolks, certain mushrooms like porcini mushrooms, and obviously sunlight. But most people can't get enough from those sources, and they need to be taking vitamin D supplements. Unless you're a lifeguard or a surfer, you probably don't get enough vitamin D. Calcium also is important. Now, calcium is involved in the production of melatonin. It helps the brain use tryptophan to manufacture melatonin. And there's lots of good sources. Sheep or goat cheese, sheep or goat yogurt, leafy greens, kale, bok choy, broccoli, Swiss chard, canned sardines with the bones in them, and salmon with the bones. Tofu is great. Chia seeds, great source of calcium as well. It's probably got more calcium than milk. Perfect per serving. Tryptophan also is important. That's something you can actually take as a supplement. It's an amino acid. It's a precursor to serotonin and melatonin. And you can get that from food. Right? Turkey, chicken, eggs, dairy foods, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, almonds, bananas, all are great sources of tryptophan. Melatonin, yes, There are food sources of melatonin. Tart cherries, which are hard to find, walnuts, pistachios, a little easier. And when you have carbohydrates and you have starchy carbs like potatoes or rice may actually help promote serotonin production at night. So a little bit of that. I like a sweet potato at night. Winter squash. You can have quinoa, lentils, chickpeas. It doesn't mean you need to have flour or bread. Now, you also want to feed your gut flora with prebiotics and probiotics that keep the gut healthy. And what are the prebiotic fibers? Well, chicory root is great. Artichokes, onions, garlic are all good. Asparagus, all that stuff is food for your bacteria. You can also take fermented foods which already have bacteria, like their probiotic foods. Sauerkraut, miso, kimchi, natto tempeh kefir. If it's well tolerated, there's I think coconut kefir. You can get goat milk kefir. If you're allergic to dairy and cow dairy. Also, stay away from processed foods. All that stuff is just messing up your system. Stay away from white flour, sugar, ultra processed foods. Don't eat big meals at night. High fat, sugary, spicy, acidic foods. Caffeine too much at night. Alcohol screws up your sleep. Chocolate, all that messes up your sleep if you eat it close to bedtime. What about caffeine? Well, caffeine has a four to six hour half life. That means it takes four to six hours to filter out half it from your system. It binds to these receptors called adenosine receptors, which block adenosine from binding to them, which increases your sleep drive. So basically, adenosine makes you sleepy and caffeine blocks those receptors so you don't feel sleepy. Now, caffeine's blocking effect delays this sort of sensation of sleepiness until the caffeine wears off. And then you get a crash when the adenosine binds to the receptors. Now I remember when I never drank coffee and I got to medical school, I'm thinking, oh, I should drink coffee now. And I never would get tired in the afternoon and then I would drink coffee in the morning and then I would crash in the afternoon. It's exactly what was happening. So often people have more energy when they stop drinking coffee, not less. Stop drinking caffeine by 12 noon, 2 at the latest, so that you can fall asleep at the normal bedtime around 10, without the caffeine in their system. Also, alcohol. Sorry folks, but alcohol is not good for your sleep. And I know that I wear an aura ring, so when I drink anything I can see the effects right away. So consuming alcohol close to bed really negatively affects your slow wave sleep, your deep sleep, and your REM sleep. Even one glass of wine reduces your REM sleep and it keeps your heart rate higher and lowers your heart rate variability. Even if you feel like you sleep well after drinking, it's likely due to its set of effects and it can lead to fragmented sleep. So you think you're okay, but you're really not. It also reduces heart variability, which indicates sympathetic nervous system activity. And the higher heart rate variability, the more complex your heart rate, the healthier you are. And when you have too much stress, it goes down. And when you drink alcohol, your heart rate variability goes down. And it's an extremely important predictor of health and longevity. Now if you do drink Try to drink earlier in the afternoon or evening with plenty of water. Ideally, you want to stop drinking three to four hours before bed. Not getting enough key sleep supporting nutrients is bad. Blood sugar imbalances are bad. Gut dysbiosis is bad. Too much caffeine is bad. Alcohol is bad. All that messes up your sleep. And not getting enough sleep messes up your life. It also messes up your health. And it, by the way, leads to poor food choices. It is a vicious cycle. I'm going to explain that. But there are serious consequences of sleep deprivation, which is you want to eat sugar and starch all the time. And I can tell you that for sure, because I used to work in the emergency room or be up all night delivering babies, and all I wanted was sugar all night long. And all the next day, any carb or sugar I could get my hand on, it was like an addict. And normally I wasn't like that. So it's definitely the sleep deprivation. And they've done studies like this on young college students and it shows exactly this. Lack of sleep leads to all kinds of cravings for unhealthy foods like sugar and carbs, because this happens because leptin levels decrease without enough sleep. Leptin is the hormone that makes you feel full. And what else happens when you eat sugar and starch or when you don't sleep? Your ghrelin levels increase without enough sleep. And ghrelin is the hunger hormone. So one, your appetite, I'm full hormone goes down and ghrelin, the hunger hormone, goes up, that's a bad combo. And that causes increased appetite and desire for high calorie foods, a greater craving for sweet, starchy foods, salty foods. So chronic sleep loss is actually linked to higher body mass index and weight gain. In fact, the study found that when healthy participants had their sleep shifted just by one hour each day and restricted sleep to stimulate jet lag, they were pre diabetic after three weeks. That's crazy. And their resting metabolic rate dropped by 8%. So you basically burn 8% less calories a day if you just didn't sleep. That's amazing. Now, what else affects sleep? Well, sleep hygiene. What is sleep hygiene anyway? People talk about it. What is it? Well, it refers to a set of practices and habits that set you up for a night of high quality sleep on a regular basis. These habits help create the ideal conditions for a restful, uninterrupted night's sleep. Good sleep hygiene starts when you wake up in the morning. Pay attention to your habits. What's Getting in the way. So how do you optimize your routine for better sleep? Well, let's talk about what those are. Create a sleep sanctuary. Make your bedroom your sanctuary. It should be dark. Blackout shades are ideal. Cool 68 degrees or lower. I like to sleep at 63 or 4 degrees and quiet. If you don't live in a quiet spot, get these silicone earplugs. They work or white noise machine. But make sure you do the right thing. If you don't have blackout shades, using eye mask, you can get a cooling pad. If you can't regulate temperature where you are, there's eight sleep, which is a great sleep pad that goes on your bed that can cool you at night. Also, you might want to try mouth tape that forces you to breathe through your nose. If you're a mouth breather, helps activate your parasympathetic nervous system. Well, we're trying remove distractions, right? Just keep prep out of your room. Get the electronics out of the bedroom. Limit artificial light. You know, there's things that are kind of lit up in your bedroom at night that have weird lights on them. Like things that are plugged in. Just cover them over the black painter electrical tape. Just make sure you don't have any light in your room because your mitochondria are paying attention, your skin is paying attention. If your eyes are closed, only sleep and sex should be allowed in bed. So move your TV computer, workstation out of your bedroom. Also, probably a good idea to limit blue and artificial light at night. You can get these red light bulbs at night. You can use candles. You can lose blue blocker glasses. Screen time not good. Before bed, try to reduce or eliminate screen time at least an hour or two before bed. And make sure you can use apps like F Lux to change the settings on your computer. There's ways of shutting the setting on your phone so that it changes and removes all the blue light before bed. At the end of the day, you can use those blue light blocker glasses, a red light app on your phone, all those things. Because blue light does inhibit melatonin production. It may not be as big of effect as we think, but there's certainly a role. Make sure you kind of dim your lights in your house around 8 o' clock at night. If you don't have a dimmer switch, put them in. Use lamps. Use incandescent bulbs. If you can go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, this is really important. People don't pay attention to this, but your body is a circadian machine so it does well when you set it into a routine and schedule. Get 20 minutes of morning sunlight. That helps regulate your circadian rhythm and improve sleep quality. Helps regulate, you know, cortisol, melatonin. Make sure you exercise. Getting outdoor exercise first thing in the morning also really helps reset your Circadian rhythm. Just 20 minutes every day you just take a walk, you know, take your dog for a walk, you know, you can go for a walk, call a friend, listen to audiobook. Habit stacking is great. I like to listen, to learn and so that's a great way to walk and get, get active, both your mind and your body. Do strength training. That helps three times a week to build muscle and balance your hormones. Make sure your diet's sorted, you know, and get yourself on a whole foods nutrient dense diet during the day. Last meal no later than seven. No late night snacking, please. Caffeine intake, make sure you limit that after noon, especially after 12pm or if you're really sensitive, just cut it out altogether. If you're stressed and we all are, to tell you the truth, just do practices that help to reset your nervous system. Take. Take an Epsom salt bath. Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate. Has benefits, incredibly helpful. I do that regularly, almost every night. Magnesium sulfate is basically got sulfur which is detoxifying. Magnesium is relaxing, gets through your skin. You can put 10 drops of lavender oil in there. I call that my ultra bath. And lavender reduces cortisol. Do guided meditations. Yoga Nidra. You can do yoga and stretching and breath work before bed. Maybe you can use a meditation or reset your nervous system with various apps like Calm or Headspace. I like binaural beats. You can use nucalm. That's one of my favorite apps, nucalm. Maybe also write down what's in your head. You know, all this stupid stuff is in your head every day and sometimes it's just good tonight to just write all down and let go of those thoughts. Maybe you listen to coming music, you know, don't watch the news, don't scroll through social media. You got to read a book, do a puzzle, do something that's kind of just calming. Deep breathing also really helps. Try the 4, 7, 8 technique. Breathe in for 4, hold for 7, breathe out for 8 and repeat. And just do that for a few minutes. All right. What else can you do to help your sleep detoxify? What am I talking about? Well, your immune system is really important to identify and neutralize toxic exposures. And the number one way it does this is through your detoxification Pathways which are most active while you sleep. In fact, your body does a lot of its waste elimination during sleep. First, you want to minimize exposure to environmental toxins that interfere with sleep. And there's a lot of them out there. There's like 80,000 toxins. And I test for them and it's amazing how many people are so polluted, literally. So where are you going to be looking for these personal care products? Look out for ones that are organic, paraben, phthalate, preservative and fragrance free. You can look at the environmental working group website ewg.org and look at their Skin deep app. And it's a great app. They can put in the products you use, make sure they're not full of crap. What are the good ones, one of the bad ones? EMFs sometimes are affecting people. Different people are sensitive. Some people are not. But they can definitely interfere with sleep through melatonin suppression. Change the brave weight patterns. Increased wakefulness, stress response. So, you know, you can have one of those devices that automatically shuts off your WI fi at night. Some people build a Faraday cage in their room. They literally put a sheet cloth over their bed that blocks out all the EMFs in the room. Really help with deep sleep. I notice when I go camping, I sleep way better. The EMFs also affect wakefulness. They affect your stress response. They change your brain waves. So that's not good. Also, folks, don't sleep with your phone next to your head or under your pillow or in your near your bed. Don't charge your phone next to your bed. You know, if you leave your phone in your room, just turn it off. Like literally just turn the whole thing. Power down. Unplug anything that's plugged in next to your head. Turn off a WI fi router at night. You know, just be smart. Cookware, don't get exposed there. Teflon's bad. Watch out for those nonstick cookware things. Plastic. Stay away from plastic, my friends. I know it was the greatest thing. Dustin Hoffman said the future was plastic in the movie the Graduate. Well, it was. And it's also the end of us if we keep using plastic, both in the planet and our health. We're getting microplastics pretty much in everywhere. Sperm and penises and plaques in the arteries. It's. We're, we're kind of polluted pretty bad. If you're using storage containers for your food, don't use plastic ones. Use glass or stainless steel. Air filters are great. Water filters are great. I recommend air. Dr. Aqua Tru. Are Great. Remove any scented plug ins or air fresheners. Those are full of toxic chemicals. So you know, it's a lot of stuff I'm asking you to do. Just don't worry about doing all of it. Doing the best you can. It may seem daunting to replace all of your skin and hair products. Do it over time. Change your cooking tools and the household items and skin care products. Just sort of slowly do it and over time you'll find out the best stuff and just shift your purchases to new ones. So just try to find toxin free stuff when you're shopping. Like for example, next time you run out of shampoo and next time you go grocery shopping, make sure you get organic food if you can. And, and if you need to shut those old plastic food containers, get glass containers. Just these small changes do add up. The more you reduce your toxic exposure, the more effectively your immune system and your brain. Your glymphatic system will heal your brain and help your body detox. You also want to support your detox pathways. Sweating is great. I love a sauna. I try to do a sauna almost every day. Exercise also is great. Hot baths are great. Really important to help remove toxins. Certain foods are really good at removing toxins. The whole broccoli family, cruciferous vegetables are great. Broccoli, collards, kale, cabbage. They have glucosinolate, sulforaphanes and isocyanates. All these plant chemicals that upregulate glutathione and really help. Also, supplements can help with sleep. What can you be taking? Well, a multivitamin that can fill in missing nutrient gaps in your diet. Magnesium is my number one sleep supplement. About two to 400, even 600 before bed. Usually start with magnesium glycinate. That helps a lot. Melatonin also can be very helpful. 0.3 to 3 milligrams wouldn't go higher than that. That can help reset circadian rhythms, especially when you're traveling or in time zone shifts. Now it's generally considered for short term use, but evidence is less care for long term, especially in children. So be careful that melatonin use among kids has actually increased dramatically, which is crazy, 530% between 2012 and 2021. And it may interfere with development, delay puberty. So it's a hormone. Be careful. B complex also helpful. Really important for serotonin production. As I mentioned, melatonin, vitamin D3 also important. A randomized controlled trial found that supplementing with magnesium, melatonin and B complex for three months Once a day, one hour before sleep had a significant effect on sleep disturbance system was highly effective for the treatment of patients with insomnia. Now that's better than taking a whole bunch of drugs. Additional sleep supplements for deep sleep and relaxation may include herbal supplements or teas, things like valerian root, passion flower, magnolia, rhodiola, chamomile, lemon balm. All calm the nervous system. And for people who are tired, wired and stressed, there's certain adaptogens can be helpful like ashwagandha at night, can help with high cortisol at night, help you get to sleep for your tired and wired people out there. Siberian ginseng or eleutherococcus, also very helpful, can help relax the nervous system and promote better sleep. Probiotics, believe it or not, may help. Uh, probiotics and gut microbiome plays a role in everything, including sleep. And probiotics support gut health and a healthy, healthy gut can hence the production of all kinds of neurotransmitters that are made in the gut, like serotonin and melatonin, which are crucial for sleep. So all that's really important. In fact, there's a probiotic that is out there that apparently helps with deep sleep. And a number of my patients have tried it and found it helps their deep sleep. So there's all kinds of research needed, but it's a very exciting field. 5 HTP also very helpful. This is a precursor to serious serotonin. It's a neurotransmitter that helps regulate mood and sleep by increasing serotonin levels. 5 HTP promotes relaxation. It helps promote sleep quality. So that's great. Gaba, another great one to take. I like something called 200 milligrams of Zen, which is Gaba and theanine. I take that at night. It's our inhibitory neurotransmitter. So it's sort of like the natural Valium. It makes you stay calm and easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. L Theanine, that's another one. I think it's great. It's the amino acid that's found in green tea that promotes relaxation without causing drowsiness. It increases the production of gaba, serotonin and dopamine, all of which help improve sleep quality. And L Theanine, which comes from green tea, also reduces anxiety and stress, making it easier to achieve deep restorative sleep. As we bring today's episode to a close, I want to leave you with a reminder of just how powerful and essential quality sleep is for your overall health. And well being. Now, we often overlook the importance of a good night's sleep and rest, but it's truly the foundation upon which so many other aspects of our health are built. From mental clarity and emotional resilience to physical vitality and exercise performance, to long term wellness to longevity itself, the benefits of deep restorative sleep cannot be overstated. Now, we covered a lot of ground here today. We explored how your diet, your lifestyle, even your environment can either support or sabotage your sleep. Whether it's making sure you're getting the right nutrients, creating a sleep friendly environment, or managing stress effectively, there are lots of ways you can take control and improve your sleep quality. Remember, it's about progress, not perfection. Start by making small, manageable changes. Whether it's just adjusting your evening routine, incorporating more sleep supportive foods in your diet, cutting back on late night screen time, whatever it is, just try to do the basic things. And I encourage you to reflect on the tips we've discussed and identify a few that resonate with you. Try implementing them consistently and see how your sleep and ultimately your life begins to improve. Make sure to prioritize your rest. Remember, you deserve to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day. So thanks for joining me today and don't forget to rate, review, review and follow Health Hacks wherever you get your podcast. Stay healthy, stay informed and off. See you next Tuesday for another episode of Health Hacks.