A Talk With Tony Soileau And How Jaw Position And Nasal Breathing Protect Your Sleep

Snoring isn’t just a sound problem, it can be a nightly oxygen problem that steals your deep sleep while you swear you “slept all night.” We sit down with Dr. Tony Soileau, clinical director and owner of Smiles by Soileau and Lafayette Sleep Solutions, to connect the dots between the jaw, tongue, airway, and the fatigue that follows you into every morning. If you or your partner sleeps in a different room because of snoring, this conversation puts real physiology behind a very common story.

We talk dental sleep medicine and why a dentist can be a key part of sleep apnea treatment, while still relying on a proper sleep study for diagnosis. Dr. Soileau explains what actually happens when you lie down and gravity pulls the jaw back, how “light snoring” can progress into true obstructive sleep apnea events, and why the goal is not just more time in bed but better sleep stages. You’ll also hear what a modern home sleep study looks like, plus how CPAP works compared to a custom oral appliance that holds the jaw in a safer breathing position.

Then we zoom out to the bigger health picture: nasal breathing, nitric oxide, box breathing, vagus nerve regulation, and why stage three sleep matters for healing, hormone balance, inflammation, and the brain’s glymphatic cleanup. We also cover insomnia patterns and the simple 20 to 30-minute rule to rebuild a healthier association with bed, along with clear guidance on melatonin and magnesium so they’re not used like sedatives.

If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with someone who snores, and leave a review so more people can find better sleep. What’s the one sleep habit you want to change first?

Transcript

Snoring That Splits Up Couples

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Significant other as someone else that unfortunately it's an annoyance. Yes. And that's probably where they're encouraged, I'll say encouraged, to go and see someone.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

And it's affecting their sleep. It's amazing how many of my patients, and this is what I do all day, I sleep in the other room. Can you get it to where me and my significant other can sleep together again?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to Posture and Purpose, where both healing and community come together. Make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Let's get into this episode with Dr. Michelle Car Frank.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hello and welcome to today's episode of Posture and Purpose. Today I have Dr. Tony Swallow with me today. He owns Smiles by Swallow. So thank you for being here. I want to tell our listeners a little bit about you. But first of all, I have a question for them. So for our listeners, do you wake up tired even after what you thought was a full night's sleep? Or maybe you've been told you snore, but you've brushed it off as no big deal. Today's episode might completely change the way you think about your health. Joining me today with Dr. Swallow, the clinical director and owner of Smiles by Swallow, but also Lafayette Sleep Solutions. Dr. Swallow has been practicing in Lafayette since 1994 and has successfully treated hundreds

Why A Dentist Treats Sleep

SPEAKER_01 1:21

of sleep apnea, TMJ, and restorative patients. At his practice, he combines treatments along with other outside working partners to uniquely approach and effectively manage and guide his patients. So again, thank you for being here, Dr. Swallow.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

My pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

So for those of you who may not know, how did you go from general dentistry into sleep and airway health?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Well, it was kind of a progression. I started my practice as family dentistry. And then as I got in more advanced courses, we started doing more veneers, full mouth rehab, that sort of thing. Well, then we started asking a question why do you need this? Well, it turns out most of them had TMJ issues. Most TMJ issues are actually sleep apnea related. We didn't know this. We thought you'd grind your teeth because of stress or anxiety. And some of it is posture related, agreed. Okay, you were in a car accident, you have whiplash, agreed. But the majority was sleep-related. So why am I treating these patients with splints? And 10 years later they're still wearing the splint. If someone sprains their ankle and they put a boot on it, and 10 years later you're still wearing the boot, maybe something else is going on.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

That's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

So as I started exploring more, the term sleep apnea kept coming up and breathing and airway and how the jaw and the skull is related, and as I started reaching more into that, I said, that's my patience. So I realized if I'm going to treat dental side effectively and the TMJ, I must also treat the sleep. And there's such a huge need for that. It just became more and more of my practice.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Absolutely. Like you said, such a need. And was there a specific moment that made you realize how critical sleep is to overall health? And that you said, okay, this is more than teeth. There's a lot more to this story. Was there a moment that you remember?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yes, myself. So I'm at a seminar, this was 2005, I guess, something like that, a while back. And at the seminar, there home sleep studies just came about. It used to be you had to get a PhD. You go into a center, and it's like a hotel room, and you got all these wires hooked to you, and I've done that, and the little tubes with your nose, and the worst is the camera staring at you all night long.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

How can you sleep?

SPEAKER_02 3:46

And then I get a report by going, Dr. Cole, you don't sleep very well. I wonder why. Well, home studies were just coming out. So the company said everyone and all the doctors said, Oh, you can take a home study. I'm like, I can take it, but I sleep fine. I didn't understand the stages. I thought sleep was close your eyes, open your eyes, it's done. I didn't realize what goes on during sleep. So I took the study, thinking I'm fine, and I wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

And that was 2005?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

2005. I had severe sleep apnea. And I'm not that big of a guy. I don't fit the mold, okay, according to the medical world. So that opened my eyes. So then I started working with different sleep specialists around the country, treating myself through them, and that's when I realized the need for this.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Okay, and you brought it to Lafayette?

SPEAKER_02 4:36

And I brought it to Lafayette.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

That is wonderful. So most people don't associate dentists with sleep. So how exactly does a dentist go on to diagnose sleep apnea?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Okay.

His Surprise Severe Sleep Apnea

SPEAKER_02 4:48

The only way you can diagnose apnea is with a sleep study. There is no doctor, specialist or otherwise, that can just look at you and say you have sleep apnea. Okay. The mold used to be a male who's 65, he's 300 pounds, he's diabetic, heart disease, he has wounds that won't heal, he has all these problems. And then at 65, when they're about to do that third stint in his heart, they say, you know, you might have sleep apnea. No, he had sleep apnea all his life. You're now seeing the symptoms of it. Okay. So it has to be a medical specialist who diagnoses sleep apnea. So we do a sleep study, but I actually have a medical specialist give the scoring for it. So now I know that you have it.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Now we can effectively treat it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Okay. And that medical specialist is here in Lafayette?

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Uh I use several. There's Dr. Philip Noel, he's an ENT in town, wonderful sleep specialist. So there are a few doctors that are just sleep specialists. There is Dr. Connor here in town. Philip Connor, great guy. He's off a pinhook. I always use Dr. David Ware, who's a family doctor in Eunice. Okay. But they're all specialized in sleep.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

So I let them score all my studies. I just like having second eyes on it.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

That's very wise, if you ask me. There's nothing wrong with that. And so, being that you're a dentist, what do you find is the true connection between the mouth, the jaw, and airway and the flow of air?

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Okay, so here's what happens. Right now, we're both sitting up and we're breathing fine. So air is going in and is going out. Okay? Now, breathing should be done through the nose. It's kind of a different subject, but for the most part, air is going in and out. But we're sitting up. So our tongue is sitting right here between two halves of our jaws, and our throat's behind it. So here's the tongue, here's the back, the front, and here's your throat. You're breathing fine because gravity is making the tongue do this, so air can go in and out. Damn, right. We don't sleep this way, we sleep this way. So now gravity can take over, and it's actually not just the tongue, the whole jaw will fall backwards. The tongue goes with it, the tongue goes into the throat a little bit. That's light snoring. It's almost a murmur. The sound is not the issue. Maybe the issue for the person next to you. Agreed.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

But you're asleep. But you're now losing air. Now the tongue falls further. Now it's halfway into the throat. You're losing 50% of your oxygen. You're not getting enough air to sustain a thriving body. You're surviving, but you're not thriving. And then the scary one, now the tongue is here. You didn't stop snoring, you stopped breathing. The problem is you don't know this. You may wake up gasping for air, or your wife may hear you, or your sniffing other, and she's trying to wake you up, but you're sleeping, but you're not going through your sleep stages. The problem is the brain doesn't know. Are you

How The Airway Collapses At Night

SPEAKER_02 7:58

choking on your tongue? Are you drowning in a lake?

SPEAKER_03 8:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Are you choking on a piece of food? Most people don't get that. Remember the last time you you drank something, it went down the wrong way, your chest tightened up, your hearing got loud, your eyes up, you panicked, you seized up, and then 10 seconds later you spit it out or swallow it. That's an apnea event. You were just awake during that time.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Right. There's different types.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

So people that are snoring have an apnea. They are suffocating all night long.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

And usually, like you said, it's the significant other of someone else that unfortunately it's an annoyance. Yes. And that's probably where they're encouraged, I'll say encouraged, to go and see someone.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

And it's affecting their sleep. It's amazing how many of my patients, and this is what I do all day, I sleep in the other room. Can you get it to where me and my significant other can sleep together again? That is almost every other day we hear that.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Are you serious? Wow. That's that's too prevalent. Um so we're glad to have you here and lucky to have you here. So, how can something as simple as the jaw positioning really change someone's health? Um, you mentioned the positioning of the tongue. How much does the jaw and the alignment of the jaw and TMJ play a part in that?

SPEAKER_02 9:15

It's everything. Okay, so let's kind of start connecting the dots with all of that. Okay, first, let's just talk breathing. How are we supposed to breathe? It's amazing how many people don't breathe correctly. We we're not trained for that. Most people breathe with their shoulders, and they say, Well, I carry my stress in my shoulders. That's that's not exactly right, but okay. Okay. That's what I hear every day. So what happens is the research has shown that you start learning to breathe in correctly at about five years of age. We walk like our parents, we breathe like our parents, we watch and mimic what they do. So if your parent is stressed out, sitting on a couch, I know I'm exaggerating, but they're breathing with their shoulders, rapid breathing, that's not the way it's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

So, what is normal breathing? Let's just start with that. Exactly. We're not designed to breathe through our mouth. The mouth is for speaking and chewing. You may breathe through your mouth very quickly under stress. Go run 100 yards fast as you can. You're gonna be this way. What you're really trying to do is rebalance your CO2 and oxygen. CO2 is not a bad thing. We make a bad thing out of it because of the environment, all that, but it's a very good blood gas for us. And you're trying to balance it. So you're only gonna breathe that way for a few minutes, then you go to normal. The way we are supposed to breathe, okay? It's called stacking. Our tongue is supposed to brace on the roof of our mouth. Not press, but just go to the roof. When you do, that aligns everything. So when you align, then your tongue is on the roof, your palate should be directly above your ribcage, your rib cage should be directly above your viscera, and everything should be in a straight line. So when we breathe in through our nose, a lot of wonderful things happen. But when we say belly breathing or diaphragmatic breathing, that's not exactly right. Our belly shouldn't expand.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Our rib cage should open this way so we can get air in. The diaphragm should go down, and the reason it's coming down is all of our viscera, our guts, our intestines, are going into our pelvis. And when it comes down, we have the pelvic floors like a little trampoline, and then it pushes everything back up and that pushes the air out. So the ribs should come out, the stomach go down. That is a normal breath. It should be nice and calm and silent. Now, you can breathe out through your mouth if you prefer, but the air should go in through your nose. When that does, we do a lot of good things. One, we clean the air, you humidify it. We have so many people settling as asthma and allergies and all this stuff. It's because they're breathing polluted air into their lungs through their mouth. The nose filters the air. It warms it so the oxygen goes through the lungs into the blood better and it humidifies it. We also release nitric oxide, not nitrous oxide, that's laughing gas. Nitric oxide. Nitric oxide dilates our blood vessels. It causes the oxygen to get into the blood cells better. So we get better, so the whole body feels better. That's why when you stop and just breathe deeply and try and relax for a second, you become more calm because your blood vessels are dilating. So you should breathe into your lungs, expanding your ribs. But if you're doing this, which a lot of people do, chest breathing, you actually never feel the entire lungs.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Are there any are there any such things? I'm sure with YouTube and everything else we have now, are there any courses or classes or techniques that you teach or that you advise?

SPEAKER_02 13:07

And as a performance coach for for different colleges and different sports teams, there are for the average person, and we can get really into box breathing and seven to eight breathing and all and and vulgarva breathing and all this, that honestly just start with breathe through your nose, breathe out longer than you breathe in. Just start with that. If you breathe in for three seconds, breathe out for six and slow it down. Okay? Best time to practice it in the car while you're just driving. Slow your breathing down.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Make it a habit.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Make it a habit. Now, are there breathing techniques for different situations? If you wish to relax, you're having a very stressful day. I do this at my office. I'm running a business,

Nose Breathing And Box Breathing

SPEAKER_02 13:55

and sometimes things don't go perfectly my way. That's life.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

So I'll sit at my desk. Okay, it's better to breathe standing up because if I need my viscera, my test to go down, they can't. I'm sitting on a chair.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Better to stand up.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Okay. Then it's called box breathing. You're gonna breathe in for four seconds. That's not the important part. Hold for four seconds. You have to give the oxygen time to get from your lungs into your blood. If you do, okay, wait, I I didn't get any oxygen transfer.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

That's not how it works.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

That's not how it works. And as you hold it, you build up CO2, which then dilates my blood vessels, which lowers my blood pressure, which allows me to relax. So it's box breathing. Four seconds is the common one. So four in, hold for four, breathe out for four, and then hold for four, and you just keep going around. You will be surprised if you can do that four times, five times, you'll actually begin calm and get somewhat sleepy. It's a great technique if you wake up at three in the morning and you can't go back to sleep. It's one of the techniques to get you there.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Okay, I'm gonna start my homework immediately. I'm gonna start my box breathing. So with and I guess every generation thinks they're dealing with a lot of stress.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

But in present time, have you seen an increase? Oh my god. And with with stress and breathing. I mean, it's so important. But how do you train someone? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

You have to go at it from all directions. That's the problem. So the three big ones, I was thinking about that on the web here. What are the three biggest things? First, think in terms, if I ask somebody, what is a good diet? Oh God, they're religious. You have to be vegan, you have to be paleo, you have to be, oh my god, and they won't stop. They're designated. If I ask someone, how should you work out? Oh, you have to do HIT, you have to do cardio, you have to do interval, and oh my god, they're religious. Okay. And I'm not saying they're wrong, just saying they're very okay. How should you sleep? Nothing. We spend a third of our lives sleeping. We plan to go to work, we plan to go work out, we plan to go on vacation, we plan to go to dinner. We do not plan to sleep. So I changed my daily routine to make certain I can fall asleep at the right time and go through my stages correctly. Okay. So what are the big ones that disrupt sleep? Okay. Diet is a huge one. We don't realize that. If and we'll get into why, but if you eat that bowl of ice cream at nine o'clock at night, good luck getting deep sleep. You may sleep, but you're not getting deep. Screen time. Oh gosh. Gotta get off the screen. That one affects sleep greatly. Okay. And then anxiety. Okay. People just they don't know how to turn it off.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Especially in this world that we live in.

unknown 17:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

And so how often do you see that people maybe come to you, and I hate to say as a last resort, but this is the overweight, diabetic, middle-aged guy.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Often. How often? Because if you think about it, um, I'm a dentist. Why why would I go to a dentist if I have sleep issues? Right. Okay, I get it. So usually they've tried a CPAP, which which does work. A CPAP now is not designed to put air into your lungs. It's designed to open your airway. So if your tongue, your tonsils, adenoids, soft palate's in the way, you just keep cranking up the pressure until it moves it. And that's wonderful. Um, and some patients sleep so well with it. For me, I couldn't stand it. It didn't work for me. Okay, the hoses, the mask, and all this, the apparatus, it didn't work as well. Okay, so for me, a sleep appliance, which just holds your jaw where it is right now, you're breathing perfectly right now. That's all I'm doing with it. So when you lay back, as I said, when you lay back, I'm just holding your jaw where it was. So your tongue doesn't go into your throat, so you can breathe normally. Usually it's at a point where they can't wear the CPAP, they're now getting worried. Um, most of my practice is the VA. I do do fee for service, but I treat a lot of veterans. PTSD, anxiety, depression, we now know is tied to sleep, and it won't get better.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

No.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

So they're desperate.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

And that's when they're referred to me. Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

And so you at that point you go through the sleep study.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

We go through a sleep study, figure out what's going on with them. But it's more than just an appliance. And I can do that because that, yes, getting air into the lungs is a big deal. You you need that to sleep. That's a given. Okay, that's a given. But sometimes their diet is destroying their sleep. Sometimes it's their medication. Screen time is a big one. Um something it's the PTSD is in a way. So we have to help them with all of this. If they want to wake up feeling amazing, if they just want to sleep, fine. But if you want to wake up feeling amazing, you have to go through your stages. And healthy. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

You know? So poor sleep and sleep

What Wrecks Sleep Every Night

SPEAKER_01 19:20

apnea. Uh being a chiropractor, you know, of course, everyone asks me, what's the best mattress? What's the best pillow? I wish I had the answer for the best for that certain person. Because of course those things are important. But I'm more concerned about their nervous system. So, how have you seen sleep or lack of affect the nervous system overall?

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Let's go into that. Now, for your viewers, I promise I'm not gonna go too deep into this. I might use some words you haven't heard, but I promise I'll keep it very shallow. Next episode we'll get more in depth. Next episode we'll get more in depth. The nervous system plays a big role. Okay, so keeping it simple, we have our autonomic nervous system. It's autonomic. We don't think about digesting, we don't think about our heart beating, it does it automatic. Autonomic, autonomic. It's broken up into two parts parasympathetic, sympathetic. Won't go too deep in that. Sympathetic is go, go, go, go, fight or flight. Okay. Parasympathetic is relax and be calm. And it's not an on or off, it's not like hot water, cold water. It's a pendulum. And it should swing in millionth of a second. Okay. Parasympathetic is when we heal and we digest and we're calm and we restore the body. It's also where, and I promise I won't go too deep, our lymphatic system opens. Okay. So in the body, we have a sewer system. It's called the lymphatic system. So throughout the day, our cells break down, we have metabolic waste, no big deal. We sense it in our bloodstream, we have little gates open up, we push that stuff in the lymphatic system, flush it out, and you flush it out. Okay. We have the same system in our brain, but it's called the glymphatic system. Okay. The glymphatic system flushes out waste. People with Alzheimer's, people with Parkinson's. We know what Alzheimer's amyloid beta proteins. We have so you have all this metabolic waste. You have to get rid of it. Now below the neck is 24-7, no big deal. But in the brain, it's only open during stage three of sleep. So you have four stages of sleep, one, two, three, rim. Very important things happen in each one. But the lymphatic is only open in stage three. No stage three. You don't flush the brain's toilet. That stuff builds up. So yes, you slept, but you didn't heal.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Your physical body or your mental. So, how important is the autonomic system? It's huge. The box breathing we were just talked about activates the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is one of your cranial nerves that controls your autonomic system from parasympathetic to sympathetic.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

So important.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

So if you box breathe, you're activating that nerve, which will then swing your nervous system back to parasympathetic, and it'll allow it to swing so you can go through your stages. So how important is it? It's it's everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yes. And how do you feel about bringing up the vagus nerve? And I'm sorry if some of our listeners have to go and grab a dictionary, but I'm so sorry. The polyvagal theory. Have you studied the polyvagal theory about the vagus

CPAP And Oral Appliance Options

SPEAKER_01 22:45

nerve? So again, we'll have to do another episode because that's getting deeper. But it has so much to do with also with chiropractic and the spine and the nervous system as a whole.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

So I'm glad to hear you um mention some of those things. And speaking of chiropractic with pain and inflammation, you talked about flushing out the body. I know that's a very primal resource that we have as humans, but how important is that sleep for pain or inflammation in the body?

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Okay. Let's separate again, let's go back to the autonomic system. We have sympathetic and parasympathetic. Okay. Sympathetic is inflammation. Most people think inflammation is healing. No, no, no. Sympathetic is inflammation, parasympathetic is healing. So best way to describe that. Horrible situation, hurricane comes through, a tree goes through your roof. Okay, we've all seen that, been through that, heard that. Okay. Inflammation is the carpenter shows up, your roofer guy, with the wood and the shingles and the nails and all the stuff. That's inflammation. You have an injury, and the body through the vagus nerve is sending all the stuff to fix it. Enzymes and proteins and cells and collagen, all this stuff to fix it. That's not healing yet. It's just there. It's swelling. And what do a lot of us do? Take an anti-inflammatory because it doesn't feel good. Yes, you decrease the pain, but you increase the amount of time to get back to healing. Healing is in parasympathetic. So when you have a wound, it looks like a big mass of spaghetti. The cells are all twisted up, everything's all out of alignment, but they're there. In the healing phase, it lines all that up and it flushes all the bad stuff out. But that only occurs during parasympathetic. And the biggest time we get parasympathetic is stage three of sleep, which is why you're sick or you don't feel good, you sleep so much to try and get more stage three.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Healing.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Now healing. So there's inflammation and there's healing. It's two different processes. But if the body's not lined up right and you have this chronic pain, you're gonna constantly stay insympathetic. So you will never go into stage three. Yes, you slept. You probably stayed in stage one. I hear this all the time. Oh, I'm Doc, I'm a light sleeper. I sleep great. Okay. And then the more I start talking to them, like, well, let's see, you grind your teeth, you have all this dinner work, you have heart problems, you have diabetes, you have wounds that won't heal, but you sleep great.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

I see it all the time.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

No, you sleep light. Right. Very few people understand the stages, and we can go into that if you like, but if you don't get all four of your stages, you're gonna stay sympathetic and stay inflamed.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

In a constant state of repair instead of healing.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

A constant state instead of healing.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Have you seen a connection between metabolism or hormone um transition during uh the sleep cycle?

SPEAKER_02 26:06

Very much, very, very much. When we sleep, we go through four stages, okay? Stage one, which is very light sleep, okay, it does very little for you. Stage one is the new uh stage new mom stay in. Someone has to hear the baby.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

So in stage one, your brain, part of it is asleep, yes, but a big part is still wide awake. So sound temperature, if someone says something, someone turns on the light, that sort of thing, you will wake up. So you're sleeping, but it does nothing for it. We've all done that. We slept, we wake up, we're exhausted. We stayed in one. From one, we go to two. Now, in two, you're still sympathetic, you're still awake, but your nerves are starting to turn off. All the nerves to your brain. Sound, light, smell, heat, that's all going away. Once that goes away, we're into stage three. Stage three is the one you want. It's where your hair grows, your skin grows, you regulate metabolism, regulate your hormones, everything is reset. You flush out all the metabolic waste in the brain. From three, you then go to REM. Now, RIM, part of your brain is wide awake again. It's actually having a party, okay? It's going 90 miles an hour. But in this stage, it's also where basically it's emotional therapy, and this is where metabolic syndrome comes in. You say you can treat anxiety with your diet. It's very true. The studies are showing now there's not a lot of them, but they're coming out, or I haven't found a lot of them, but this is what we know. People with high anxiety, uh, they've had a traumatic, serious, some bereavement, uh, a divorce, they lost their jobs, someone died, a very tragic event. And they're having trouble with that. Okay. What happens during REM is the emotion is stripped off of that memory. Uh I'm a person, I have a 17-year-old son, he has his truck, he parks it in a parking lot at Arca with a whole lot of other 17-year-old sons. He's

Sleep Stages Brain Cleanup And Mood

SPEAKER_02 28:15

constantly getting little dents and dings in his truck. And when I see it, I'm oh, I guess so upset. But the next day I'm calm. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:22

Why?

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Because during REM sleep will remove that emotion. The memory is still there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

So important.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

And we figured that out by cardiologists giving certain medications to lower epinephrine. They're trying to lower blood pressure. Now, below the neck, you have epinephrine in the brain, it's norepinephrine, but it's lowering the norepinephrine too. And we'll find a lot of people with anxiety, with depression, PTSD, they have high norepinephrine during REM sleep. And when they lower it, all of a sudden the PTSD gets a lot better. And the anxiety and the depression, they're just a totally different person. Well, the same thing happens if your vagus nerve is not being controlled, if your digestion, your gut, because the gut has to send stuff up to the brain during sleep. We know that in REM sleep there are receptors that open up inside the brain for vitamin D and vitamin B, specifically B5, pentathenic acid. Well, we're not supposed to take B5. I do take a B complex, but we're not supposed to take it. It's supposed to be made on demand. So you're going into REM sleep, you need to deal with those emotions and all this. You need vitamin B and some other things as well. The vagus nerve is supposed to go down to the gut, tell the bacteria, hey, we need some vitamin B, kick it up to the brain. But if your metabolic health is not there because of highly processed food and preservative and all the stuff, you have what's called a leaky gut. Okay? So it's not gonna put you through your stages well. So, yes, you're gonna be moody and anxiety and depression. We all know this. If we eat right, we feel so much better. This is why. But I'm a wonderful example. You go to the camp, donuts and soft drinks and everything you eat at the camp. And then Monday's just not a good day. Okay, right. So metabolic health absolutely ties into it.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

And in your practice, how have you seen that overall posture can play a role in sleep, either habits or sleep health?

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Posture is everything, okay? Because if we don't have good posture, we can't have good breathing. Okay? Um, a good example of posture. Let's take elite athletes that run a marathon, and they've been very well coached. They're professionals. When they get to the end of the marathon, they stay upright, they lift their hands, and they walk like this. What are they doing? They're trying to expand their rib cage and get and let their viscera go down and get as much oxygen back into them. They need to recover. People that may have done a very good job of their marathon, but now they're leaned over this way. They can't breathe. They're doing this to try and lift the head to try and get air in. But their posture is not allowing them to get as much air as they could. We also don't realize that our spine is supposed to twist and move. When we take a deep breath in, it's like an airbag on our spine to stiffen it. We need that at times. If I want to, if I wanted to push this table, if I don't stiffen my spine instead of this way, I'll go backwards.

SPEAKER_04 31:39

Yeah, your brain's.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

So you need air, so that spine has to bend. But then to get to air out, it has to twist. And so does the neck. So if I'm tight, whether it's my pelvis, my spine, my rib cage, my neck, because I do a lot of research. I'm on a computer, so I'm like this, and this tightens up. Yes, I I won't sleep as well because I can't breathe as well. It is absolutely tied. If I could get, and I'm not saying that just because you're a colleague and a friend, but if I could get all of my patients to come see you and you line up the spinal cord, even if it just takes one appointment or ten, and you reactivate the vagus nerve and get the body just flowing like it should, they would sleep so much better.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Yeah, we're trying to get the word out. We're trying. One day at a time, right? And so, how you said if you could get your patients to see a chiropractor, how can chiropractic care and sleep studies or what you do, how can they complement each other other than postural?

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Absolutely. Okay. Because once you line up the body, you're going to increase blood flow. One of the things that you need for sleep is you need a resting heart. Your heart rate needs to be around 64 beats per minute to stay asleep, which is why you don't want to get out of bed if you don't have to, your heart rate will go up. Well, if you connect the dots, if I need a slow resting heart, I need blood flow going to it. The more you can correct the way the body moves, you open up those channels, the blood flows freer. The heart doesn't have to work as hard. If I can get the heart to rest, it's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

You're not supposed to be running a race while you're sleeping.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Not at all.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

If I can get it to rest without a lot of medication, then the sleep will be better. And then the heart can heal. And then the sleep gets better. So it creates a domino effect.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Really, it does. It does. Yes. Well, uh, and thank you for um mentioning that. So if someone out there that's listening suspects that either themselves or someone they love has sleep apnea, what would the process look like? What would their first visit with you look like?

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Well, the first thing to do is simply call my office, okay? We do a complete exam. Now we do do a tooth exam, I fully respect. I have Smiles by Swallow for sleep, and I have Louisiana for dental, Louisiana Sleep Solutions for sleep. They may be under this door, and I respect that. Do not have to see me as your dentist. But we have probably 10, 15 different appliances that we can use to position our jaw. Everyone is different. It's not one size fits all. Put on the mask. Right. We do the dental exam, we do scans, we don't take impressions. I make a three-dimensional model of their skull on the computer, and we use this to send off to have the appliance made. At the same time, we do a sleep study. I didn't bring one, but essentially it's a big Fitbit watch. You do not have to go into a center. It's a big Fitbit watch with a pulse ox that goes on your finger, and it's got a little sensor that you tape right here, just anywhere in this area, so I know everything about your heart. That's the study. The next morning you literally throw it away. But it sent all the data to the cloud overnight. So when I get there in the office the next day, I know everything about your sleep.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

That's amazing. Simple and easy. And easy. And easy, like you said, as compared to the past.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Inexpensive as going into a sleep center.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Right, right. And so what other alternatives? I know you have an appliance, but other than um what people may be familiar with, a mask and the hoses, what does this appliance look like?

SPEAKER_02 35:29

I should have brought one. I will next time. I'm so sorry. Right, that's okay. Um like a small, thin football mouthpiece. Essentially, it fits on top and bottom. The whole

Posture Chiropractic And Better Rest

SPEAKER_02 35:40

point is, like, because I wear one every night. My jaw is in a perfect position. I'm breathing fine, I'm not making snoring sounds. It's where it needs to be. I just need to hold it here. So it's a very thin piece that fits on the top, thin piece on the bottom, and it's got a little rubber band that just holds it in this spot. So if I lay down, roll over any position, it just holds it here. If I need to get up and go to the bathroom, if I need to drink water, no worries. It just simply holds it here. So think football mount piece, but very, very thin. Okay. Because the but sort of like the Invisalign retainers, if your viewers are familiar with that, to move teeth, similar to that.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Okay, okay. So my husband will be your next new patient for sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

Happy to see.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

And I know we talked about, you know, television, phones, you know, all the electronics at night. Are there any habits? Like if you could leave our listeners with one healthy habit at night, besides putting the phone down in electronics, do would you say box breathing is the most important? We could start there.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Yes. Okay, so break it up into number one, let's take what a lot of people have: insomnia. Okay, the bed is now not a good place. So what happens is our brain is very associative, okay? Um I went into my shed last week, I got stung by some wasps. I don't want to go back in the shed. Right. Okay, so our brain's associative. So if you went through a bad time in your life, again, a divorce, a death, something like this, and you just can't stop thinking about it. If you got in your bed and tried to sleep, but you can't sleep because you can't turn it off, you're now associated with the bed. And this is very common, and it may be something years ago. You're already over what happened, but your brain still sees the bed as not a place to sleep. You have to just be honest with you. Use the 20, 30-minute rule.

unknown 37:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

If you're laying in your bed and it's 20 to 30 minutes and you're not sleeping, just accept tonight is not your night. Get out of the bed. Now it's very specific what you do when you get out.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Right, don't go playing your phone.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Don't go, don't pick up the phone. Right. Okay, there and we can get into the phone, but please don't do that. Go to another room away from it. You want the lights low. You want about 30 looks. That's how bright a light is. It's dim. It's almost too dim to read a book, but read a book. There are podcasts, there are audiobooks specifically designed for sleep. So there are stories that you'll listen to, but they're kind of monotone. Okay? Please don't drink anything with sugar, eat anything with sugar. Gosh, no. Just go find a place away from the bed and stay there until you become sleepy. Don't argue with it. Just stay to your seat. It may take 15 minutes, it may take an hour. You're not sleeping anyway. When you begin to get sleepy, just a little, go back to the bed. Start again. If you can fall asleep, great. If you're like, nope, soon as I lay down, I'm wake again. You're still associated. Repeat.

unknown 38:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

I have so many patients, that's their problem. Even though I get air into their lungs, the bed is now associated with not sleeping.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

It's more of a mental ill.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

So everyone has a TV in their bedroom now. Everyone has the phone in their bedroom now. So I'm not gonna sleep, I'm gonna watch TV. No. You have to get away, start again.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yes, start a new association with sleep, I guess you could say. How do you feel about melatonin and magnesium? Because I was um, you know, there's there's some You bet.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

Okay. Melatonin, the first thing to remember is melatonin is not a sedative, it does not put you to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Please, does everyone hear that?

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Melatonin tells all the chemicals in your brain, all the neurotransmitters, hey guys, it is time to sleep. It just brings everybody to the table. Okay? Right. But it doesn't force sleep. I like melatonin jet lag. Okay, melaton's supposed to work with light. Okay, it is now nighttime, your eyes sense that, so you start making melatonin.

First Visit Home Sleep Study Walkthrough

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Well, if you're working night shifts and now it's daytime, but you have to sleep, if you take melatonin, it'll convince your brain it's time to sleep. The problem is people take too much.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

They take it every single night.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Every single night. So if I take a lot, you really only need to take maybe 0.1 to 3 milligrams max. If I take 10 milligrams, 15 milligrams, that is still in my system at five in the morning. So I'm trying to wake up, but my brain is going, no, it's still time to sleep. So those people will say, Well, I take melatonin, I fall asleep. Okay. How old you wake up? Oh, I struggle to get out of bed. Exactly. I don't have a problem with melatonin if you need it for short periods of time. Now, magnesium, same thing. Keto remembers magnesium, there's 11 forms of it. Be careful which one you take. Uh I like glycinate and threonate, but magnesium doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier very well. So it's not a true sedative. I'm a huge believer in magnesium because it's not in our soil anymore and we need it for our muscles. The reason that it helps people sleep, and I and I agree with it, is it's not a sedative, it's relaxing the muscles. If you again, if you can relax the muscles, blood flows better. If you relax blood flow better, you relax the heart. So, yes, anxiety during the day, I'm a big believer in magnesium. Yeah, but it's not a sleeping pill.

SPEAKER_01 41:27

Yes, I mean if I could get that through to some of my patients, it would be great. But now I'll just send them to you. Well, okay, sure. Okay, so now I just have some maybe I don't want to say personal questions, but some on the lighter side. Absolutely. What is your actual bedtime versus your ideal bedtime?

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Two parts of that. So let's take like last night. Um, my son is this amazing lacrosse player. He's 17, he's he plays multiple teams. Well, we played Newman last night. Oh New Orleans.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Game started at 7:30. I didn't get into bed till one o'clock.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Oh my.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Okay. So because of my son, things like this, uh I have hunting for heroes at the camp. We take wounded veterans hunting at my camp. We're up to all hours of the night. So, what is my ideal bedtime? I like nine o'clock. Okay. Uh, I stop all phone usage, take the phone away from me uh at eight o'clock. So no dopamine hits from you know that rapid file on Facebook when you scroll. Okay. So nine o'clock. That an a good average time is seven to nine hours of good sleep going through your stages. If I can get to bed committed to sleep at nine o'clock, I

Insomnia Reset And Supplement Truths

SPEAKER_02 42:50

do great. Doesn't always happen.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Right. Life takes away. Life comes in. That happens. So are you a fall asleep in two minutes person, or is your mind constantly racing? Which person are you?

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Both. First, you shouldn't fall asleep in two minutes. That's crashing. It should take 20 minutes to drift into first stage of sleep. Okay. I'm running a business, uh, I'm a professor at different colleges, I'm helping my son's lacrosse team, I'm camp. So when do you sleep? Not. Okay, that's so that's why I get good at it. Right, right. Okay. Um if I can, and I'm one of those that have to get out of the bed sometime. I have to breathe right, I have to listen to certain songs. Uh I can usually get to sleep within 20 to 30 minutes, but I have to work on it. It doesn't just come naturally.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah. So was some of your own sleep uh habits um an inspiration for dig digging a little bit deeper into this?

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Absolutely. Because it was okay, I woke up feeling horrible. Why? Oh wait, I woke up feeling Great. Okay. Why to that too? And then I started realizing I can't eat past six o'clock. Uh I'm a big believer in the keto diet. I don't want to get into that. That's for me. More Mediterranean though, because I really like fruits and vegetables. I don't have a problem with that. But if I eat past six, I do not sleep as well because I'm still processing.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Okay. So I kind of finally figured that out. Okay. Oh, let's go to the movies and I'm eating popcorn at eight o'clock, and I sleep like horrible.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

So yeah, I kind of learned on my own. This won't work for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Sometimes that's the biggest inspiration. What over the course of all these years have you heard? What is the weirdest sleeping habit? Like, can you share with us, you know, um PG sleeping habit that you can share?

SPEAKER_02 44:51

That that was help making someone not sleep?

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Um, or just a habit that they've shared or uh anything you'd like to share.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

The okay, the the strangest one, I guess, was I had a lady who was constantly cold. So we couldn't figure out why she would sleep good night good. Her husband would go offshore. She had uh I forget the name of that dog, a bull mastiff or something. It's basically a cow. It's a big cow dog. Yes. So she she would sleep next to it because she was afraid when he was gone. Oh so then when the dog wouldn't sleep with her, she would freeze. So she started putting heaters in the bed. I'm like, there's there's so many wrong with that. Yeah. From a fire hazard to whatever.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

I had another lady who would actually take a glass of water and put it on her chest. And I'm like, okay, why? She had very expensive bed sheets and she wanted to stay still at night because she had restless leg. So she convinced us if I put a glass of water here. I won't move, so I won't spill it on my sheets. And I'm like, Are you kidding? Does that work? You know? And she goes, No, not really, but it's the best thing I have. So I'm like, um, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

That's pretty weird. That's yours. I hope she's not listening, but and can you give us one word to describe how you truly feel after a good night's sleep?

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Amazing. Amazing. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

And healthy, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Or actually normal.

unknown 46:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

The way I'm supposed to feel. You're not amazing, shouldn't be an outside word.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

It should be this is how I wake up. Normal, not abnormal. Normal. Not abnormal.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Okay. And my last question of the day is

Funny Habits Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 46:40

usually how do you maintain your posture while pursuing your purpose in life?

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Always pushing further. I'm never done. As soon as I say, Oh, I know all of this, it's time to retire.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Right. Okay. Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

I always push further.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Well, I uh even the short time I've visited with you today, and from what I've known about you, that's definitely true. I know that to be true. So this is just uh phase one. We're gonna go into several episodes with you. Hopefully you'll be our guest again.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

As often as you like.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

Thank you so much for being here. And until next time, sit up straight, stay happy, stay healthy, and stay adjusted.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Thanks for listening to the Posture and Purpose Podcast with Dr. Michelle Car Frank. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Until next time.