10 Ways to Unlock the Secrets to Better Sleep

In this episode of Stance for Health, Dr. Rodney and Karen Wirth dive into the importance of sleep for overall well-being. They discuss the glymphatic system’s role in brain health that operates during restful sleep and highlight how sleep deprivation affects balance and cognitive function. 

The episode provides valuable ten sleep tips, such as maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, creating a dark sleep environment, and engaging in calming rituals. The hosts emphasize lifestyle changes, including blue-light reduction and regular exercise, as methods to enhance sleep quality and, in turn, support better health. 

Transcript

[00:07] Dr. Rodney: Welcome to Stance for Health podcast with Dr. Rodney and Karen Worth, where becoming healthy is not complicated.Control your health by focusing on six areas of life that we teach you so you finally have the energy you have to do what you want instead of being a victim of your age. I have over 20 years experience working as a chiropractor and Karen is an author, speaker and longevity coach. We've seen how a tiny change in your habits today can open up your life to a powerful future. Start today and take your Stance for Health. We're really glad to be with you today.

[00:50] There's always so much information out there, isn't there, about sleep that we're discovering how important it is.

[00:55] Karen: Absolutely. Most people know that feeling of not having enough sleep. I mean, you feel irritable, you're tired, and you don't know how to think straight. One of the things that it comes up with our time change that there's so many more accidents depend.

[01:11] Doesn't matter which way the pendulum is swinging, whether you get an extra hour or you lose one. We wanted to talk today about what are some of the problems that are more serious because of lack of sleep.

[01:25] Dr. Rodney: One of the things that I notice the most in practice is that I can typically tell when someone's not getting enough sleep because their balance is way off. Now, that may not be the only reason, but what I've oftentimes seen is someone who typically has had good balance in the past will come in and they'll have bags under their eyes, they'll seem listless, they'll seem tired and they'll just seem out of sorts.

[01:51] And they stand on the scale. When I see someone that can't stand on one leg for better than 10 seconds, that's typically affecting their brain is the lack of sleep.

[02:05] They're probably getting somewhere less than seven and a half hours of sleep. So we could say a lot about what that's doing to the brain. But I like to look at it like you're washing the body's health computer.

[02:20] Karen: Yes, that's a system that's called the glymphatiic - when you add a G to the lymph and so you have glymphatic.

[02:30] Dr. Rodney: It's been within the last 10 years because we didn't have a way to study it. We didn't know that that was actually in operation. When we're sleeping, when you think of sleep, you think of getting refreshing sleep. There's other times where you just feel like you've slept lightly. That's where you're not going super deep and you're in that glymphatic system that you were talking about hasn't actually kicked in. So deep, refreshing sleep.

[02:57] Karen: There's also research that shows that lack of sleep contributes to gaining weight.

[03:04] Dr. Rodney: If you think about anything that affects the nervous system, the father system of the body, you're going to also affect the endocrine system. They were talking about pancreas as being one of them.

[03:15] Adrenal glands, the thyroid, heart disease. What comes to mind when you think of the heart, you think of a muscle, right? If you're not giving adequate rest to your whole body muscles, that's the skeletal muscle that's made you need to restore ATP function to the heart.

[03:32] You got to get it back. And you're not getting proper translation of NAD to or ATP to nad. You're not fueling it. You're not getting the store that you need in order to bring your body back to normal physiology.

[03:47] Karen: And then a final one I'm going to bring up is cognitive decline. And so in rejuvenation lifestyle, we're talking about a lifestyle that will help you to die young at an old age, as Gundry calls it.

[04:04] And so many people say, oh, if I don't need to sleep, my grandparents didn't sleep that much. Well, is that okay?

[04:12] Dr. Rodney: No, we're talking about again, there's a big difference between what's considered normal and what's considered common.

[04:21] And it's all too common for people to not sleep through the night. And it's all too common for people to go to bed late. That's something that's familial. You'll actually learn during different ways to not sleep well and not get to sleep well.

[04:36] And that'll seem like, hey, we just see that in our family, right?

[04:41] Karen: That's just the way we are.

[04:42] Dr. Rodney: That's just the way it is. Yeah.

[04:43] Karen: And then also, when you don't get enough sleep, you become depressed more easily. I'm convinced. Let's find out what the top 10 sleep secrets are. How about that?

[04:57] Dr. Rodney: Absolutely. To deal with this problem, let's snip it.

[05:00] Karen: Let's go find a way to sleep in the dark.

[05:05] I'm sure you're saying, oh, yeah, it's pretty dark. Well, let me give you an extra hint here.

[05:11] You need to make sure that your cell phone is not next to you, your alarm clock is not with the time lit up,

[05:21] you don't have any other lights on.

[05:25] And get blackout curtains because the darker it is, the better your sleep. Tell us why Dr. Rami?

[05:36] Dr. Rodney: Well, melatonin levels are so important. Anytime you get light, you basically interrupt its release.

[05:44] But throughout the day, you're supposed to be getting stores of it in the pineal gland so that you get just enough of it, almost like a miniature gallbladder, except for your brain.

[05:53] For melatonin, it squirts it out at just the right time or it drips it out at just the right level. The light will interrupt that. At some level, it'll interrupt its release.

[06:03] Karen: Wow.

[06:04] Dr. Rodney: Isn't that something?

[06:04] Karen: Well, then I'll just take melatonin then.

[06:07] Dr. Rodney: The problem with that is that your body then starts to produce less because.

[06:12] Karen: It doesn't have to. So the other thing that I can do with that, besides making it as dark as possible, is get morning sunlight as soon as you can get into the sunlight and just soak that in for the reason that you said.

[06:28] Dr. Rodney: Yeah, and. And basically you're setting your circadian rhythm to be awake at the right time so that you can go to sleep at the right time. And you've really noticed a difference with that.

[06:40] Not just the fact that you're so disciplined and that you can basically tell your body to shut down. You're awake at that time, you get out of bed, you go outside, you ground,

[06:51] you water the plants, you go out the front door, which faces the east.

[06:56] I'm telling you, this woman practices what she preaches.

[06:59] Karen: Well, thank you for that. Sleep tip number two. Keep the temperature in your bedroom between 60 and 80 degrees.

[07:08] Dr. Rodney: Wow. We like to keep it right in the middle.

[07:10] Karen: At 70, your body temperature drops to its lowest level while you're sleeping.

[07:17] And so it usually happens about four hours after you fall asleep.

[07:22] And so basically a cooler temperature mimics what your body would naturally do. It gets warmer, we shed our heavy pajamas and we use fewer bed coverings. Yeah, it works.

[07:34] Dr. Rodney: It absolutely works.

[07:36] Karen: Okay, ready for this next one?

[07:38] Dr. Rodney: I love it.

[07:38] Karen: Not going to be popular.

[07:40] Dr. Rodney: Bring it on.

[07:40] Karen: Go to bed early.

[07:42] Dr. Rodney: What is early?

[07:42] Karen: The best time to go to bed is between 9 and 10. Longevity was found in the people that consistently went to bed at 10.

[07:54] Not sure what there was about the magic number of 10, but the technical part of this is your adrenals recharge between 11pm and 1am why is that so important?

[08:08] Dr. Rodney: Adrenal glands get their peak download and recharge somewhere between 11 o'clock at night and 1am so if you're already asleep and going in deeper and going into a deeper sleep at that time, you're going to get maximum adrenal.

[08:26] Recovery as a result.

[08:28] Karen: So if we have too much adrenaline, we get adrenal fatigue. That's the irony of that, is that then when you most need it, you can't go to sleep.

[08:40] Dr. Rodney: That's right.

[08:40] Karen: You're so charged up.

[08:42] Dr. Rodney: That in itself is like a vicious cycle. The less you're sleeping, the less you're able to go to sleep.

[08:48] Karen: And the practical part of this,

[08:51] do your best to establish a steady sleep rhythm through consistency. How do I get to bed early? Now, when you are used to going to bed always at a certain time,

[09:04] it's best to not just do drastic all or nothing. In bed at 9 o'clock and awake till midnight, that's not a good thing either. So we'll talk about that in a minute.

[09:16] Number four,

[09:18] keep your bed as a place to sleep.

[09:22] Dr. Rodney: I think we've done pretty good with that. I'm just doing the checklist here.

[09:26] Karen: How many people have a TV in their bedroom and fall asleep with it?

[09:31] Dr. Rodney: Used to.

[09:33] Karen: And work in bed and then drift off to sleep while they're doing that, only to wake up in the wee hours of the morning? Now, the reason that this doesn't work is that when you get in bed and you're used to doing other things, your body does not respond.

[09:50] It has muscle memory and it remembers that.

[09:54] So you're not alone in this habit of TV watching.

[09:58] That's very, very, very common.

[10:00] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. Used to have a TV in the room.

[10:03] Karen: Approximately 90% of people surveyed recently did have a TV.

[10:07] Dr. Rodney: Wow.

[10:08] Karen: But move the TV out of the bedroom and make it a sanctuary for restful, peaceful sleep. Okay, here we go.

[10:20] Dr. Rodney: What else? What else you got there?

[10:22] Karen: Tip number five, Go to bed every night and get up in the morning at the same time, even on weekends.

[10:30] Now, the study published by the Journal of Clinic, Endocrinology and Metabolism stated that sleeping more on weekends may actually be bad for you because you're changing your sleep patterns over short period of time and you're causing your natural circadian rhythm to become out of sync.

[10:53] Right. So on the practical side, there is that circadian rhythm. Get the morning light as early as possible.

[11:01] Limit blue light after sunset.

[11:03] Dr. Rodney: Ah, there it is.

[11:05] Karen: So what does blue light do to your brain?

[11:08] Dr. Rodney: Just pretend that I'm holding broccoli. And broccoli has a stem. Somewhere between the stem and just where those branches start to enter into what looks like the tree branches. We'll call that the midbrain, the mesencephalon.

[11:22] And that's where you get this production of melatonin. And if you have blue light, you're hyper stimulating that area so that it's harder than to enter into sleep or rest.

[11:37] Karen: And people are finding that sleep is getting more elusive all the time and not connecting it to that blue light coming from their devices. So on the practical side with that is turn your off your computer and devices three hours before bedtime.

[11:58] Or we have blue light blockers now. They're extreme.

[12:02] Everything looks weird, but it.

[12:04] Dr. Rodney: What does it block? About 99% of the blue. Yeah. And they're sitting right there on my desk.

[12:11] Karen: You can also make some changes to your devices where they will lower, not eliminate, but lower the blue light. Number seven, Establish pre sleep relaxing rituals.

[12:28] So the technical side of this is Dr. Epstein, who wrote a book called Guide to a good Night Sleep Sleep, talks about the need to separate daytime activities from what you do preparing for bed.

[12:44] So the reason for this is our body craves routine and likes to know what's coming.

[12:52] So create a pre sleep ritual.

[12:55] Clearly establish association between certain activities and sleep. So that could be taking a warm bath,

[13:04] reading from a devotional book.

[13:07] Anything that can help you to do that.

[13:11] Any thoughts?

[13:12] Dr. Rodney: Yeah, I, I actually, I like that.

[13:15] That seems a little different to me because we listen to scripture. Yes. Entering the. Into the day and also before the day ends,

[13:25] we do breathing exercises. Yeah. So breath work on both ends of the day so you can enter the day with rest and end the day with rest.

[13:34] Working pretty well so far for us so far. Yeah.

[13:37] Karen: You can also do your stretches.

[13:40] Dr. Rodney: Okay.

[13:41] Karen: And you can basically do other relaxation exercises. Don't exercise hard. You need an hour to 30 minutes.

[13:49] Dr. Rodney: From exercise because that does stimulate the adrenals and kidneys quite a bit. Yes.

[13:55] Karen: Now this is a great, great one.

[13:59] Dr. Rodney: Is this one of your favorites?

[14:00] Karen: Regular exercise improves the quality of your sleep.

[14:03] So the National Sleep foundation reports in a journal of Mental health and Physical Activity,

[14:11] they're showing the research that shows the importance of exercise to improve your quality of sleep. Now, the changes are not going to be immediate,

[14:22] so keep that movement going to improve your sleep. And as you get older, they found that weight training had the most impact on sleep. Why do you think that is the resistance training.

[14:33] Dr. Rodney: It really made sense that resistance training somehow actually has an effect on the conversion of tryptophan to melatonin. And resistance training is unique in that regard. It's just the difficulty of the level of work where you actually have to stimulate your adrenals in such a way and stimulate the myokines.

[15:00] And this is a combination of things. That are stimulated through resistance training.

[15:06] Karen: The most important part of this is consistent exercise.

[15:10] At least go for 30 minutes. It could be an energetic walk. And if you're getting the morning sunshine or even the afternoon sunshine, Sunlight stadium for the circadian rhythm. Okay, this is the one we do.

[15:26] Do controlled breathing exercises.

[15:29] So that slow,

[15:31] deep belly breaths,

[15:34] and that will override that sympathetic system that controls the fight or flight response. Unless the parasympathetic, which controls our ability to relax, take the wheel instead.

[15:45] Dr. Rodney: Oh, good one.

[15:46] Karen: So this is what we do. We listen to scripture while practicing deep breathing while we're in bed. It's very dark. He's got the phone turned away because we are listening to scripture on his phone.

[15:59] And basically, you just gave your body permission to quit being on high alert, and instead you can relax. And the word of God is coming in there. And I love it when the psalms come in there.

[16:13] That we have nothing to fear of.

[16:16] Dr. Rodney: Hmm. Yep. Gets your body out of that fight or flight mode even more.

[16:20] Karen: Now, if you're having a lot of anxious thoughts,

[16:24] that's because you finally began to relax, and the thoughts you've been pushing back all day long come flooding in. Have a notebook by your bed and write them down and say, okay, I'm turning these over to you.

[16:38] God, give me an answer in a dream. I know you'll give me an answer tomorrow. I'm moving forward with this. And that's going to help you relax and fall asleep.

[16:50] And the last sleep tip is monitor your response to chemical sleep disruptors. So researchers of Michigan's Henry Ford hospital Sleep disorders and research center and Wayne State college of medicine analyzed the sleep disruptive effects of caffeine consumption at different lengths of time before bedtime.

[17:16] Here's what they found.

[17:18] Caffeine consumed even six hours before bedtime resulted in significantly diminished sleep quality and quantity.

[17:26] Dr. Rodney: Wow. Yeah.

[17:28] Karen: So we try not to have any coffee.

[17:32] Dr. Rodney: Nothing past three, in essence. Right. Because we're trying to start thinking about going to sleep at 9.

[17:38] Karen: Find out what works for you.

[17:40] And different metabolisms find it differently. But tea, chocolate, alcohol, and pain medicine also contain caffeine. And we eat our square of chocolate after dinner, and we sleep just fine.

[17:55] Dr. Rodney: Unless it's hazelnut coffee. I wonder if that's the issue.

[17:58] Karen: That could be it. So we have been talking about or an issue. Sleep secrets. And we want to send this to you. So just send us a message that says secrets.

[18:13] Because we want you to have a rejuvenation lifestyle. We want you to go the distance. We want you to be as healthy as you can be as you take.

[18:23] Dr. Rodney: Your stance for health. Thanks for listening.

[18:28] Thank you for joining us at Stands for Health podcast, where getting healthy and staying that way are not as complicated as you might think. Subscribe now and discover steps and small changes that can increase your energy and open the door to vibrant health and longevity.

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