2839: 4 Tricks to get a Better Night’s Sleep by Ashley Ann Lawrie of Free Form Fitness on Rest and Recovery

[00:00:00] Überlass deine gesunde Ernährung und die Gains nicht nur deinem Bauchgefühl. Denn bei der Ernährung gaukelt uns unser innerer Schweinehund manchmal ganz schön was vor. Sag stattdessen Hallo zu deinem neuen Coach, Yasio. Yasio ist die meistgenutzte Ernährungs-App Europas, made in Germany. Egal ob Massephase oder ein bisschen Abnehmen, tracke Kalorien, Proteine, Carbs, Fette, Bewegung und Intervallfasten. Und mit den Tasty-Rezepten bist du ready für deine Ziele. Let's go! Lade die Yasio-App jetzt herunter.

[00:00:30] Lade die Optimal Health Daily 4 Tricks to Get a Better Night's Sleep By Ashley Ann Lawrie of FreeformFitness.ca And I'm Dr. Neal Malik, your host. Welcome back to Optimal Health Daily or welcome for the first time if you're new here. This is the podcast where I act as your very own personal narrator and read to you from some of the most popular health and fitness blogs online. But I'm going to keep this intro nice and short, so let's get right to it as we optimize your life.

[00:01:02] 4 Tricks to Get a Better Night's Sleep by Ashley Ann Lawrie of FreeformFitness.ca One of the most neglected aspects of health and wellness is our sleep. People do not realize that they could have the best workout regimen and nutrition and not see results because of poor sleeping habits. It's the blissful six to eight hours of your day when you get to make effortless gains. It's our natural way of repairing and recovering the body and preparing us for the next day.

[00:01:30] With more caffeine, more light exposure, and increased daily stress creeping into our lives, we're putting this crucial part of our lives at risk and thus putting our own long-term health at risk. Here, we want to share with you why sleep is so important and the quick fixes you can make to improve your sleep. What happens when you sleep? Your brain cycles through five different phases throughout the night, each varying in brain activity and varying levels of deepness, or how difficult it is to wake you up.

[00:02:00] The most important phases of sleep are the deep sleep phase, where your healing delta waves occur, and REM sleep, or rapid eye movement sleep. During REM sleep, we are temporarily paralyzed, allowing us to experience dreams, working through situations and emotions without moving the body. Deep sleep, as explained in a TED talk, is the most important phase of sleep, since it's the phase that includes the delta waves.

[00:02:26] Studies have shown that delta waves are associated with repair and recovery in the brain. Individuals who experience longer bouts of deep sleep wake up feeling energetic and rejuvenated, whereas those who experience fewer cycles of deep sleep can suffer from learning impairments, poor memory, and emotional instability. What can you do to improve your sleep? 1. Vitamin D Participants in a double-blind study were either given a placebo or a vitamin D supplement,

[00:02:56] and their quality of sleep was monitored. In the group that was given vitamin D, their sleep quality improved significantly. Where the placebo group took close to an hour to fall asleep, the group taking vitamin D took an average of 39 minutes to fall asleep. The length of time they slept also improved after taking vitamin D. For the individuals supplementing with vitamin D, they were taking 3,000 international units, or IU, of vitamin D3 daily. 2. Melatonin

[00:03:25] Your sleep and wake cycles are controlled partially by the melatonin production in your body. Your exposure to natural sunlight, as well as your leptin and ghrelin levels, all affect how much melatonin your body produces naturally. This is why avoiding late-night munchies is important for good sleep, as well as getting sufficient amounts of sunlight when possible. If your job requires shift work, or you find yourself trapped inside a building all day with no exposure to the sun,

[00:03:53] supplementing with melatonin 1-2 hours before you plan on going to bed may help boost your melatonin production and make it easier for you to sleep. 3. Blue Light Filters You may have noticed on your phones a built-in feature called a blue light filter. All of our devices, tablets, laptops, and mobile phones emit a blue light. This blue light is the kind of light used in happy lights to help our bodies phase shift into an awakened state.

[00:04:21] When we use these devices late into the evening, our brain registers the blue light as a signal that it's still daylight outside, and therefore does not produce melatonin in sufficient quantities to put us to sleep. Turning on the blue light filter on your phone, tablet, or laptop blocks this blue light and enables our brain to respond to the decrease in blue light by increasing our production of melatonin, and therefore preparing us to sleep.

[00:04:49] 4. Manipulate Leptin and Ghrelin As mentioned previously, leptin and ghrelin work with melatonin. Ghrelin signals the body that we are hungry, and leptin is released when we are satiated. After a certain number of leptin secretions, paired with a decrease in exposure to sunlight and blue light, the body starts to ramp up its production of melatonin. If we're eating late into the evening and are not turning on that blue light filter,

[00:05:17] then our body does not know that it is supposed to be preparing for bed. Aim to eat your last meal of the day one hour after you turn on your blue light filter. There's a lot of research on how sleep is incredibly important to our overall health. Try using a few of the tricks mentioned in this article, and let us know if they help you get a few extra Zs. You just listened to the post titled 4 Tricks to get a better night's sleep

[00:05:44] by Ashley Ann Laurie of freeformfitness.ca and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:06:16] Dr. Neil here for my commentary. A couple of other suggestions that I would add. All of the suggestions today by Ashley Ann are fantastic. But just a couple of other suggestions to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. One thing that scientists have noted is that it helps to keep the temperature in your bedroom cool and as dark as possible. Think of yourself like a bear trying to hibernate during the winter.

[00:06:46] You sort of want the environment around you to be cold, but you want to be sort of snuggly in your bed. Now, what if you have trouble falling asleep? Well, you can use the well-known psychologist Dr. Viktor Frankl's advice. Instead of stressing about how you can't fall asleep and running that through your mind over and over again, lean into it and try and stay awake for as long as possible. The reason this works is it refocuses your attention.

[00:07:13] Now you're no longer thinking about how stressed you're feeling because you can't fall asleep. And by relieving your brain of this tension, you may find magically you fall asleep. The last thing I'll say is whenever you hear a list of suggestions like these, hey, go ahead and keep your room cool and dark, turn on your blue light filter, think about eating one hour before bed and so on, you probably don't want to try all of these behaviors all at once.

[00:07:41] Instead, pick one or two at the most to try and then see how it goes. And when I say try, I mean every day you should give just one or two of these an honest try at least for two weeks. So try the new behavior daily for at least two weeks or if you were listening earlier this week when we were talking about the 30-day trial, maybe try it for 30 days straight and see how it goes. Don't give up on these suggestions so soon.

[00:08:09] But if after two weeks or even 30 days, it's still not working for you, then move on to the next suggestion. All right, that'll do it for another edition of Optimal Health Daily. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for sharing this show with someone. I hope you're having a great weekend. And of course, I'll see you back here tomorrow as usual where your optimal life awaits.