Cheryl Buckley Why Sleep Is Crucial

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Welcome back to another episode. And today we are going to talk about sleep and we have a very special guest because she's special because she works closely with us and her name is Cheryl Buckley and she's got more degrees next to her name. She has her mba, her ms, her ldn, her rdn, her cdn, just to say enough. She has a wealth of knowledge that she's going to give to you on nutrition as well as sleep. If anybody wants to reach out to Cheryl, you can even go to her own personal website@Cheryl Buckley.com that's C H E R Y L B U C k l e y.com or she's on our hartman.academy website and she would love to help you answer your questions. And I could personally say she has helped me out so much. I hope you get a lot from this. Now on with the show.

Welcome to Cheryl Buckley's Nutrition Bites. Episode number one, sleep. Welcome everyone. I am Cheryl Buckley, your registered dietitian. On the topic of sleep. Today you may be asking yourself why would a registered dietitian specializing in nutrition focus her discussion on sleep? Well, what I've found over the years of working with people is that if we are not sleeping well, it significantly affects our immune system. We become emotional in the sense of feeling overwhelmed and full of anxiety and sometimes depression. We see that our memory and even our ability to focus on situations become less. It even can give us an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers as well. I really noticed too is that it can really have an effect on people that are trying to lose weight. So there's definitely been that correlation of increased risk of obesity as well. I'd like to do is just kind of get into what, you know, good sleep should look like for a person and why it's really so important. I mean, I think most people know we've heard so much about sleep over the past years and I think once we've gone through Covid and people have been really stressed out, I've seen people's sleep really take a turn for the worse. And we know that most people need anywhere from seven to eight hours of sleep. But there may be a few Outliers, as we call them, that may need anywhere from six to nine hours. But for most of us, the normal sleep duration should be anywhere from seven to eight hours, including four to seven cycles of different types of sleep. So when we think of like the first half of our sleep, it's more of the deep sleep. In the second half of the night, think of more REM like type of dream state sleep. It's important to have these broken out into two different areas because the deep sleep is where our body heals or is what I would like to say can detox and, and really have our ability for our body to clean up from an inside out standpoint. So people might say, well, I'm not really understanding, what does that mean? I mean, it's really our lymphatic system that we're wanting to detox, but also it's all of our major organs. Like think about our kidneys and our liver, they're all detoxing. We're breathing, utilizing our lungs inside and out. So our body is taking the time to heal in this. When we look at the REM sleep, that's really where your mind starts to refresh and feels rested from a mindful type state. We know that if we're sleeping less than seven hours nightly, it makes it really hard for us to get into those deep REM type cycle sleeps that are pretty much like four to seven cycles of sleep in for most people. But it really does create an issue for us of how we're sleeping. Well, the other part I'd like to mention is that hormones play a big role in sleep and it's really an interaction of different hormones and neurotransmitter that really work together to induce sleep. And many things can really affect the proper ways of hormones and neurotransmitters to really work well together. And that can also be interacted with our environment and genetic factors as well. But mostly we know our bodies need melatonin and that's made by the pineal gland that's located right above our midbrain. It's something where we need to make sure that we're getting enough melatonin produced within our body. And that's really what's going to help us with the regulation of those different sleep cycles. The other component that I always like to talk about is, you know, there's a bunch of different tips that we can give on how we can create better sleep. And really it's creating a regular sleep schedule. It's been told that it's important to Establish a routine of when we go to bed at the same time each night, and then the times that we wake up be the same as well. Ways that you prepare for sleep are extremely important as well. Somebody once explained it to me as, you know, if you're getting ready for bedtime, do you just go lay on the bed and close your eyes and go to sleep? Well, the obvious answer is for most of us is no, because our minds are busy wandering and thinking about things and we got to slow ourselves down a little bit. And a way we can do that is just like if somebody was lowering a plane to land. You don't just go ahead and land it, you have to build up to it. And the way that we could build up to it is from doing, taking a warm shower or maybe an Epsom bath. Maybe we do a little light stretching afterwards, integrating maybe some meditation, listening to a guided meditation, or maybe doing some of our own type of breathing techniques to kind of help us wind our bodies down for this wonderful nighttime sleep. It's important that we also create an environment that's really conducive to better sleep. So, you know, I think about when I used to live in Hoboken, New Jersey area, I used to hear sirens and the trash can picker uppers out there smashing things around. And it was really difficult for me to get to sleep. Add in my boyfriend who was a huge snorer, and he, you know, that made it very difficult for me to one fall asleep but stay asleep because I would be awoken by his snoring. So what that enacted me to do was to get some white noise machines. And I actually have a couple that are in the bedroom so that I can drown out different noises. So it's more of a good, peaceful environment for me to fall asleep in. But I also recommend making sure that you have a comfortable temperature, anywhere from like 65 to 67 degrees. You can also have humidifiers, any kind of fans running. Some people like to use airplugs. I also have blackout curtains that I use just to kind of create that comfortable relaxing environment. And then I would also say it's important to maybe avoid napping during the day if you're having difficulties falling asleep at night, because there could be some what we would call fragmented sleep patterns where it can lead to sleep deprivation, insomnia, if you are taking these longer types of naps. If you do need a nap, though, they suggest that it shouldn't be any more than 30 minutes in that day. Some other things that can definitely help you with your sleep is making sure that you engage into a physical activity, regular exercise throughout the day. There's been discussion about do you have to do it first thing in the morning or middle of the day, or if you do it at nighttime, does it really interfere with with your sleep? And there was some research that was done showing that nighttime exercise really did not disrupt the sleep. But it's just really important that you do get that physical activity every week, Whether it be from a cardiovascular conditioning standpoint or resistance weight training, or body weight training from the muscular standpoint, combining the two together. So engaging in any type of regular physical activity is going to be super important as well. Some of the other things that I like to talk about is stress management and some of the relaxation techniques we can use. I've just seen through Covid just the amount of stress people have been under and their ability to be able to go to sleep has been negatively impacted. So a way we can minimize that exposure to stress is trying to balance that time between work, family, and rest. And other things we can do is, you know, establishing those daily routines and priorities and making sure that you give yourself ability to in time to basically relax throughout the day. Maybe it's journaling as a good way to de stress and setting realistic goals for yourself. But it's really important that we take stress management and incorporate these relaxation techniques, Whether it be for meditation, box breathing, engaging in physical activity, just trying to balance that work life, you know, family criteria, and then again, trying to find a way to communicate our emotions or our concerns. And sometimes people find a good way, you know, like exercising. But also it could be from journaling. So making sure that you incorporate those types of things will be really good for you as well. Okay, so I would say a couple of the last things we need to hone in on I will kind of incorporate around circadian rhythm. And one of those is our exposure to sunlight. And it's really important that the circadian rhythms are developed by the way we wake and by the time we are going to sleep at night. Vitamin D deficiencies have been associated with different sleep disorders and symptoms, such as maybe less of a sleep duration, poor sleep quality, and maybe being feeling very sleepy. But some things you can actually do to help is to allow natural light in your house first thing in the morning. And I always recommend, you know, looking towards the east where the sun is rising. If you can get outside anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes in the morning, a light walk to expose yourself to that sunlight is going to help with your natural Circadian. And a way to downplay that as we go into the nighttime is to reduce the amount of lights in the house. Maybe we take the, the temperature of the house down a little bit so it's cooler. And also, you know, staying off our laptops, our iPhones, our iPads, the TVs that are emitting all these blue lights. We know for a fact that all those blue lights actually, as it hits the, the eyes, triggers the brain to wake up. So it's exactly what we don't want to do at nighttime. So reduce an exposure to blue light. And then there's even been a suggestion to go for a walk around when the sun is setting to kind of help sync that circadian rhythm for nighttime. One of the last components that I would talk about would be diet. And you know, people ask me all the time what diet can help with sleep. And you know, obviously we want to balance our hormones and things of that nature. But I really do find a more, you know, anti inflammatory meal plan, such as a Mediterranean diet can help. But it really does need individual personalization for everybody. But I can also tell you that, you know, consuming caffeine or alcohol really close to bedtime can really contribute to sleep difficulties. And you know, caffeinated beverages are not just, you know, coffee, it could be black tea, it could be a Coca cola, and it may last up to several hours after you have taken it. So it's really important to, I always say, you know, try to limit caffeine by 12pm so that it cannot affect your sleep later in the evening. We do know some people have issues with heartburn. So maybe, you know, staying away from citrus fruit, fruits or maybe really heavy, rich spicy foods also can contribute to sleep disruption and cause digestive issues when consumed close to bedtime. So if we limit that and try to, you know, maybe do more of an anti inflammatory meal plan. There have been a couple studies that I found of interest that kiwis were mentioned that, you know, there's more research that's new, need it for this, but that kiwis actually can help us improve our quality of sleep by helping us fall asleep faster and actually sleep more. The study said anywhere from one to two kiwis before bedtime was helpful. We do know that kiwi has three times the amount of vitamin C versus an orange, which I thought was kind of interesting when I did a little bit more research on that. And then the last study was the tart cherry juice. We know that this is a natural source of melatonin for us and that we need to reduce the amount of time that we are awake. And this particular product really has done that for over an hour or more of sleep. So when we fall asleep, the amount of sleep that we are further sleeping into that deep rest was continued from anywhere from 6:60 to 80 minutes. So definitely independent studies conducted that are definitely showing that tart cherry juice and kiwi fruit can help with sleep. But like anything else, more studies are needed. I do know that magnesium is one other nutrient that I did want to speak about outside of vitamin D. We had talked about deficiencies that that could cause some issues with sleep. We also know that magnesium, a lot of adults are missing out on magnesium and may be deficient in it. And magnesium can help for sleep time. The only thing that I suggest is that if you are looking at taking a supplement with that, you need to be careful because some of the magnesium supplements can cause GI distress and we don't want to have that type of issue caused. But it's something that I can go into further in another subject, but that's pretty much it when it comes to sleep, is that we really need to follow a regular sleep schedule. Make sure we create an environment that's conducive to better sleep, avoid certain stimulants and other foods that may impair our sleep, try to avoid napping during the day. And if you do have to nap, don't NAP more than 30 minutes in the day. And let's get our circadian rhythm in circumstances. So expose ourselves to sunlight in the morning and then when we're going for a walk at sunset and making sure that we have the appropriate amount of vitamin D and magnesium within our diets to ensure that we're not deficient in that where it can affect our ability to get into the sleep cycles. And then I would also say engaging in regular physical activity really does help help improve our sleep, but it also keeps us healthy as well. And then lastly, really incorporating some type of stress management and relaxation techniques to help you wind down and prepare yourself for sleep. I hope you found this helpful and I am going to be doing more podcasts, but for now, this is a podcast on sleep. Thank you.

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