Latest / Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes / Nutrition Strategies That Support Sleep And Mental Health For Endurance Athletes Ep 144

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Nutrition Strategies That Support Sleep And Mental Health For Endurance Athletes Ep 144 · Find Your Edge: Training, Nutrition + Longevity for Endurance Athletes

• 0:37
  Coach Carlie: All right, friends, welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast.
• 0:40
  Coach Carlie: I am here with my dietetic intern.
• 0:44
  Coach Carlie: She is amazing.
• 0:45
  Coach Carlie: Her name is Emily Q, and she is literally drinking from the fire hose right now.
• 0:50
  Coach Carlie: I'm having her do so many different things.
• 0:53
  Coach Carlie: So today is all about, and you guys are going to learn a lot from her, as I am as well.
• 0:58
  Coach Carlie: We are talking all about nutrition for managing mental health and sleep.
• 1:05
  Coach Carlie: So, oh boy, what a fantastic topic.
• 1:08
  Coach Carlie: Emily, I'm so excited for you to teach us all the things and give us your experience and all the goodness.
• 1:16
  Coach Carlie: So thanks for uh being part of this.
• 1:19
  Coach Carlie: Thanks for having me, Chris.
• 1:20
  Coach Carlie: I'm super excited to jump in.
• 1:22
  Coach Carlie: You should get extra credit for this.
• 1:24
  Coach Carlie: That's just what you know.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I should send it to my professors later.
• 1:29
  Coach Carlie: That's right.
• 1:30
  Coach Carlie: That's right.
• 1:30
  Coach Carlie: All right.
• 1:31
  Coach Carlie: So if you guys are watching this on YouTube, so great little slideshow here.
• 1:35
  Coach Carlie: But jump right in, Emily.
• 1:37
  Coach Carlie: This is your first slide here.
• 1:39
  Coach Carlie: It's all about the basics of sleep for athletes.
• 1:42
  Coach Carlie: So tell us all the things.
• 1:43
  Coach Carlie: Jump in.
• 1:44
  Coach Carlie: All right.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So as athletes, no matter what sport you do, I know we're mostly about the endurance sports here, but no matter what sport you do, you're putting your body through a lot of stress in your training.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's extra important that we do everything we can to recover and just kind of redo all that muscle rebuilding from our hard training.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So sleep is a major factor of that, probably one of the most important things, because that's when your body kind of does like all of its resetting and everything for from the day.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we I know that you might have heard that like the general recommendation is like seven, at least seven hours of sleep, maybe seven to nine.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, endurance athletes probably need more like eight to ten.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So probably more than you might think, especially in those more intense training blocks.
• 2:37
  Coach Carlie: I'm pretty sure somebody just fell off the treadmill.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:42
  Coach Carlie: Hearing that, like, wait, eight to ten.
• 2:45
  Coach Carlie: There's no way I'm gonna have time for that.
• 2:48
  Coach Carlie: So uh yeah, eight to ten, which is which is crazy.
• 2:52
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, and this is not like you're not pulling this out of your rear end.
• 2:55
  Coach Carlie: Like this is this is well referenced for athletes and uh recovery.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of important things are happening when we're asleep, um, like the muscle repair, like I was talking about, but also strengthening immune functions so we don't get sick and catch infections when we're in a state our bodies are in a state of stress, and also for our neurocognitive performance, too.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, as endurance athletes, we know that our sports are probably 90% mental, honestly.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And just the snap decision making and just like your mental state while you're in training can really make a difference in how your workout goes, how your race goes, all that stuff.
• 3:39
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, totally.
• 3:40
  Coach Carlie: And um, while I'm slip switching over to the next slide, Emily, what's your background in sport?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I have always done endurance sports.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think I my first sport was swimming.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I started that when I was really young, but pretty soon after that, I picked up running when I was in elementary school, late elementary school, and I did, you know, classic track in middle school, cross country and track in high school.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually had a brief stint on the UNC rowing team when I was in college.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was uh rowing, I was a walk-on to the team and I rode for about a year and a half, which was super cool.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And now um now that I've been out of college for a few years, it's just been back to running for me.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably my my first love and will always be.
• 4:29
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, very cool.
• 4:31
  Coach Carlie: We're um, y'all do don't don't think that I haven't tried to get her to do a traffon.
• 4:35
  Coach Carlie: So um it might happen on her.
• 4:37
  Coach Carlie: It still might happen, yeah.
• 4:40
  Coach Carlie: Cool.
• 4:41
  Coach Carlie: So yeah, now our next slide.
• 4:42
  Coach Carlie: The IOC.
• 4:44
  Coach Carlie: IOC, sleep and mental health.
• 4:46
  Coach Carlie: Oh, do tell us the things, and you're gonna have to give some context of what IOC is.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the IOC it stands for the International Olympic Committee.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: They've released a statement that acknowledges sleep as a major contributor to athletic performance and a key element of athlete mental health.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So in order to maximize all the benefits of sleep, they consider this like optimal sleep health to include sufficient sleep length, so that eight to ten hours we just mentioned, proper circadian alignment, so pretty much a regulated like sleep-wake cycle that your body, like if you've ever heard of the circadian rhythm, which is like your 24-hour kind of cycle, that's what it is, good sleep quality, and the absence of conditions like insomnia or sleep apnea.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: So basically just undisturbed sleep, undisturbed deep sleep.
• 5:41
  Coach Carlie: And then there's reality, what's actually happening in our house.
• 5:46
  Coach Carlie: All right, so dig more into this current research.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, lots of there have been many studies on sleep and athletes, whether it's elite athletes or recreational athletes, but many studies and elite athletes have found that as many as 39% report insufficient sleep like length and 20 to 38 percent poor sleep quality.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So large percentage of athletes here out here are not getting enough sleep.
• 6:13
  Coach Carlie: And lots of-I know you didn't say less than seven hours.
• 6:18
  Coach Carlie: So I know a lot of you out there are getting less than seven hours because you think productivity is the best thing and you're gonna be such a great athlete.
• 6:25
  Coach Carlie: Well.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, bad news for you, I guess.
• 6:30
  Coach Carlie: Yep.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Included in this like bad sleep quality business, we've also there's a large percentage of athletes with insomnia symptoms and general like sleep disturbance.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And some of these consequences of not enough sleep, you can affect your uh cortisol secretion, which is the the known as the stress hormone, and increase some pro-inflammatory cytokines and which can like hinder your recovery from training.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're all about the probably like inflammation can be good, but chronic inflammation is not.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, yep, yes.
• 7:03
  Coach Carlie: And CRP is something that you can test.
• 7:06
  Coach Carlie: We like to test high sensitivity CRP.
• 7:08
  Coach Carlie: You can test interleukin 6, it's a little bit more pricey.
• 7:11
  Coach Carlie: But we also see in our genetic testing certain um genetic propensities for this being higher.
• 7:21
  Coach Carlie: So if you are somebody who is going to be has a larger propensity for releasing interleukin 6, you really have to hammer down on your recovery and on your sleep.
• 7:33
  Coach Carlie: So yeah, go go ahead, Emily.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, probably uh getting to the heart of the issue here that we wanted to talk about.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Sleep disorders are positively correlated with depression, anxiety, and perceived psychological stress among athletes.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So not only is your body not getting all the physical uh benefits of adequate sleep, your mental health is likely suffering because of it also.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: We see that athletes who don't get enough sleep have higher rates of anxiety, which can cause this vicious cycle that kind of causes them to wake up frequently in the night or have terrible falling asleep because of that anxiety.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So negative outcomes all around.
• 8:13
  Coach Carlie: Yes, not good.
• 8:15
  Coach Carlie: And that's so frustrating when you are waking up in the middle of the night and then you know, and then the mind just goes crazy and then you're like, I know I need to be sleeping right now.
• 8:23
  Coach Carlie: So oof, it's hard.
• 8:26
  Coach Carlie: But now we're gonna talk about the fun stuff.
• 8:28
  Coach Carlie: Let's go.
• 8:29
  Coach Carlie: Nutrition.
• 8:30
  Coach Carlie: Nutrition, yes, yes.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: We know that nutrition, not really meant to replace conventional meds or therapy.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Those really have their place as well in mental health and sleep, but nutrition can definitely support the management of any mental health disorders and optimize, help basically help the medicine or therapy do its job.
• 8:50
  Coach Carlie: I'm I'm glad you said that because so many folks come to us saying, I don't want to take any medication, I just want it all to be nutrition.
• 8:58
  Coach Carlie: And I'm at listen, I'm I'm praising all the things nutrition, but like it really has to be a holistic role with like all the different team members coming in, right?
• 9:09
  Coach Carlie: With if you're working with a psychologist, if you're working with a psychiatrist or a sports psychologist or your coach, and like, I mean, these these are this is like your crew, your people, and part of that might be pharmacological interventions, at least perhaps temporarily.
• 9:24
  Coach Carlie: So there are people out there who want to help and help you perform as best as you can and nutrition, obviously, is part of that.
• 9:32
  Coach Carlie: So, you know.
• 9:34
  Coach Carlie: Don't let me go on too many soapboxes, Emily.
• 9:37
  Coach Carlie: No, I love I love the soapboxes.
• 9:39
  Coach Carlie: I I'm fully as prone to them.
• 9:41
  Coach Carlie: Antioxidants.
• 9:42
  Coach Carlie: I know you have that highlighted.
• 9:43
  Coach Carlie: So tell us about that.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been proven that a foundational diet for optimal mental health primarily consists of whole foods and with that have all high nutrient density.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you've ever heard of the Mediterranean diet, like if if you eat similarly, like it doesn't have to be exactly the same foods that are generally documented in the Mediterranean diet, but if you eat a pat a dietary pattern that's like similar to it, you usually have lots of fruits and vegetables and those contain a lot of antioxidants, which really help to eliminate oxidative stress and inflammation in the body.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if you eat a lot of antioxidants, it's usually associated with better mental health outcomes.
• 10:28
  Coach Carlie: But what about a pill?
• 10:30
  Coach Carlie: Can I just eat all my vitamin C and vitamin E as a pill?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you know, you can you can take pills for vitamin C and vitamin E, but we also know that in a lot of fruits, like you know, your berries and things with those nutrients when you kind when you eat it as like a whole fruit, the all the nutrients in the fruit kind of like have synergistic effects on each other and they help each other work better.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: So they like supplementation can help, but often eating the whole foods kind of helps you maximize those nutrients, if that makes sense.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 11:08
  Coach Carlie: Yeah.
• 11:09
  Coach Carlie: Again, then you get all the polyphenols that go with it.
• 11:11
  Coach Carlie: And those, of course, have been isolated and studied for athletic performance.
• 11:16
  Coach Carlie: And anybody who is on excess doses of antioxidants can actually be pro-oxidant.
• 11:23
  Coach Carlie: Isn't that wild to think about?
• 11:24
  Coach Carlie: Wow.
• 11:25
  Coach Carlie: Yeah.
• 11:26
  Coach Carlie: So, all right, let's get into circadian rhythm.
• 11:29
  Coach Carlie: Tell us more things.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think I touched on this a little earlier, but the circadian rhythm is kind of the body's natural sleep and wake cycle over 24 hours.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of based on light and dark exposure.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like think about how you wake up and you feel like awake when the sun's out versus when you wake up and it's dark out in the winter and like you it you're it doesn't, you probably don't feel as awake.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's harder.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, your body's expressing that light when you wake up.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like we turn out all the lights when we go to sleep because it's hard to sleep when it's when when you're in a lit room.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of yeah, what what the circadian rhythm is about.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: It affects your uh and you also your body also has a natural like cortisol secretion pattern that that like kind of repeats daily, and that's kind of part of the circadian rhythm as well.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 12:18
  Coach Carlie: And then of course we were just talking about supplements.
• 12:20
  Coach Carlie: So I see a few listed here.
• 12:23
  Coach Carlie: Yep.
• 12:24
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, tell us about them.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that the any disruption in the circadian rhythm can contribute to just lots of mental health conditions and just chronic disorders.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're having trouble regulating your circadian rhythm, you don't you find that you're not really able to fall asleep or wake up when you want to.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe vitamin B12 is a is a good one.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: It really enhances your light sensitivity and regulates your cortisol secretion and melatonin production.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And speaking of melatonin, this is produced by your body naturally that kind of tells you when it's like time to go to sleep.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And some people have who have a disrupted circadian rhythm, they find that if they take a little bit of melatonin to like kind of help prompt their body to and tell that their body that it's time to go to sleep, that can be really helpful.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: But we don't want to take too much because then our body will stop producing melatonin on its own.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:21
  Coach Carlie: So, and noting here that you've got 0.5 to three grams.
• 13:25
  Coach Carlie: And of course, and this is a more uh heavily body of research that's coming out that shows that these low-dose melatonin are more effective than high dose.
• 13:36
  Coach Carlie: And if you go to the store, I can tell you right now, if you go to the drugstore, you go to the grocery store, you're gonna find five grams, you're gonna find 10 grams, you're gonna find 20 grams, and people don't know.
• 13:45
  Coach Carlie: And I I don't blame you, like, you know, why should you know?
• 13:48
  Coach Carlie: But they're just like, I just need to get some sleep.
• 13:51
  Coach Carlie: I'm just gonna grab this high dose melatonin.
• 13:53
  Coach Carlie: And then there's so many things that we can do prior to melatonin or in conjunction with melatonin.
• 13:59
  Coach Carlie: There's precursors to melatonin too.
• 14:01
  Coach Carlie: So I in our practice, I like different lines of defenses prior to going to melatonin.
• 14:08
  Coach Carlie: There are also some genetic links that melatonin hangs around a little bit too long in the morning, so they feel super groggy.
• 14:14
  Coach Carlie: So that's an interesting one.
• 14:15
  Coach Carlie: So um I'm not saying melatonin is bad.
• 14:18
  Coach Carlie: I just think it's uh there's other things that we can do first, you know, like adjusting caffeine, and maybe we're gonna get into that.
• 14:25
  Coach Carlie: But but first phosphatol serine, because I love this one, this is a cool one.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, phosphatidyl serine, it's uh it's a phospholipid that uh helps kind of prevent high cortisol levels at nighttime because if you if you've got higher cortisol levels at nighttime, your body's a little bit more in that like stressful state, and you'll probably have a harder time falling asleep.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it just helps you with that.
• 14:47
  Coach Carlie: And that rhythm, that um that cortisol rhythm that Emily's been talking about.
• 14:51
  Coach Carlie: So you want cortisol to actually be high in the morning and then it gradually drops off.
• 14:56
  Coach Carlie: It's called a diurnal curve diurnal curve.
• 14:59
  Coach Carlie: And another cool thing about phosphodyl serine, this is actually a really well-researched study for ADHD.
• 15:04
  Coach Carlie: So speaking of mental health, right?
• 15:07
  Coach Carlie: Especially in kids, but can be beneficial for other um brain health uh taken at the right time.
• 15:15
  Coach Carlie: So cool.
• 15:15
  Coach Carlie: All right.
• 15:16
  Coach Carlie: Uh, let's see.
• 15:17
  Coach Carlie: Anything else you want to pop in on that?
• 15:20
  Coach Carlie: Otherwise, let's get into insomnia.
• 15:22
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, and I mean ready for this one.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: The circadian rhythm kind of comes back in all of this too.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: So be thinking about that natural sleep-wake cycle as we talk about these other little disorders.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've if if you've experienced insomnia, you know how much it sucks.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Just having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, or just like finding that you're waking up way earlier than you want to and can't go back to sleep.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it really is associated with depression, PTSD, and it can even be a risk factor for dementia later on.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So things that might help with insomnia if you're eating a that Mediterranean like diet pattern and you're still struggling with this.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's a few options.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Magnesium is a big one that we like to talk about that can kind of help relax your muscles and lower your cortisol levels, like we were talking about earlier.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then this one I hadn't heard of until I started doing research for this podcast, which was uh the valerian root and the hops and the passion flower supplement that goes together.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's usually abbreviated VHP, and it's an herbal supplement, and it can boost the GABA, the neurotransmitter, to improve your sleep length and quality.
• 16:36
  Coach Carlie: Yes.
• 16:37
  Coach Carlie: Oh, GABA is so wonderful.
• 16:40
  Coach Carlie: Uh, you can do GABA alone, but you can also do uh there are some great like valerian root teas, too, passion flower teas that especially if you're like, oh, I don't know about all these different supplements.
• 16:51
  Coach Carlie: Um that those are good places to kind of start to.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of tea, lavender is also proven to be really helpful in the relaxation department.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can drink lavender tea, or even like if you have an essential oil diffuser, use that and it could help, yeah, add it in flavor to your cooking.
• 17:14
  Coach Carlie: Well, dab on the on the on the wrist or on the back of your ears.
• 17:18
  Coach Carlie: Yes, good stuff.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then the one last one that I researched for insomnia specifically is lactium, which is a it's a milk biopeptide that again acts on GABA and has that sedative, like help you fall asleep effect as a result.
• 17:36
  Coach Carlie: Very cool.
• 17:37
  Coach Carlie: And tying this back into again genetics, there are some folks who need a little extra support in the GABA department.
• 17:44
  Coach Carlie: You know, some of these things that are specifically acting on GABA receptors, those are good places to start if you know that that's there, or you can go straight to GABA.
• 17:53
  Coach Carlie: And I know you were mentioning magnesium too.
• 17:55
  Coach Carlie: There are several different types of magnesium.
• 17:57
  Coach Carlie: I like to think of magnesium L3N8, which is great for anxiety, higher anxiety.
• 18:03
  Coach Carlie: But some people, the the cheaper version, the cheapest version, but it's not as well absorbed magnesium oxide.
• 18:08
  Coach Carlie: And then you have citrate, which tends to help loosen stools for anybody who tends to be a little bit more constipated.
• 18:16
  Coach Carlie: And then there's glycinate and glycine.
• 18:19
  Coach Carlie: Honestly, you can uh also supplement with glycine, but magnesium glycinate is a nice sort of gentler on the stools, helps people often fall asleep, and then there's three and eight.
• 18:31
  Coach Carlie: So now that we're heading into the hotter times of the month, another thing to think about is it's lost in your sweat and we can't make it ourselves.
• 18:40
  Coach Carlie: You know?
• 18:41
  Coach Carlie: So, and if you ain't eating a lot of leafy greens, you're probably not getting a lot of magnesium.
• 18:46
  Coach Carlie: So just like Emily said, that Mediterranean style diet is really good.
• 18:51
  Coach Carlie: Cool.
• 18:52
  Coach Carlie: Okay.
• 18:53
  Coach Carlie: Depression.
• 18:54
  Coach Carlie: I mean, depression's not cool, but tell us about it.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we know how d common depression is.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's also like, especially, you might not think this at first because as athletes, we're constantly producing dopamine with all the um exercise and training that we're doing, but it's actually pretty depression's pretty common in athletes because of a lot of internal or external pressures to perform, especially if you're competing actively and like it's just part of over-training syndrome.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can get that kind of chemical imbalance in your brain because of that.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: The mechanism behind it is that like when you're training really intensely or extensively, you can initiate a stress response in the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal or HPA axis, which is just a set of glands in your body that produce a lot of hormones.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And speaking of pituitary, that's where melatonin comes from.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cool.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So all this relates.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So a little few other supplement options to talk about that can help with depression.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: We see that vitamin D and B12 are often really low or deficient in people with depression.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're deficient in those, if you get lab stun and find that, like, okay, this might be contributing to your depression, a lot of the times you'll be prescribed vitamin D or B12 supplementation.
• 20:13
  Coach Carlie: Yes.
• 20:14
  Coach Carlie: Okay.
• 20:14
  Coach Carlie: And um, seeing that real real food is great, and also I find this hilarious that we're talking about sleep right now.
• 20:20
  Coach Carlie: And I don't know if you can hear them or not, but my dog is snoring.
• 20:24
  Coach Carlie: I love you.
• 20:25
  Coach Carlie: So yeah.
• 20:26
  Coach Carlie: Um, but Emily, remind us of good food sources, not necessarily of lavender, because you know, uh, but D, B12, and omega-3s.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: So vitamin D, you'll find that in your milk products, your dairy, like milk's got a lot of vitamin D, yogurt, B12.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think you find that a lot in animal products.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So meats, uh, I think eggs, fish.
• 20:54
  Coach Carlie: Yep.
• 20:55
  Coach Carlie: So any vegan or vegetarian, just make sure you're getting your B12 tested.
• 21:00
  Coach Carlie: The range is very broad.
• 21:03
  Coach Carlie: Um, so we have slightly tighter functional ranges, especially relating to athletic populations.
• 21:09
  Coach Carlie: So I like to see at least 500.
• 21:13
  Coach Carlie: Uh, but again, all that you know, we're not necessarily just picking and choosing one thing, but it's all goes together.
• 21:20
  Coach Carlie: And then omega-3 fatty acids, where do those come from?
• 21:23
  Coach Carlie: Oh, our fatty fish.
• 21:25
  Coach Carlie: Love our fatty fish and some nuts as well.
• 21:28
  Coach Carlie: Yeah.
• 21:28
  Coach Carlie: Are you are you a sardine person?
• 21:30
  Coach Carlie: I can't do sardines.
• 21:31
  Coach Carlie: That's like a hard pass for me.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, salmon is good.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I love salmon.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sardines are like, ah, I don't know.
• 21:39
  Coach Carlie: If you want, okay, you're braver than I am.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: In my food science class, my professor, who's awesome, she's a huge fan of canned fish because of like the affordability and like the protein content.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And she had us all try some sardines just like on a cracker.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of scared.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've never had sardines before.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember trying it, and my first thought was this wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also like I don't like actively like it that much.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I it's just so-so for me.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, yeah.
• 22:11
  Coach Carlie: I I wish I could get into it more.
• 22:14
  Coach Carlie: I do like anchovies, but they're super salty.
• 22:16
  Coach Carlie: I mean, you can you can rinse them.
• 22:18
  Coach Carlie: I'll put them on things sometimes, but you're right, like it's so much cheaper than buying uh like, I mean, fish oils are not they're they're they're not cheap.
• 22:27
  Coach Carlie: They're great, and especially if you have those high uh propensity for like inflammatory genes or you know, mental health, massive, and also great for managing triglycerides.
• 22:35
  Coach Carlie: There's just so many different things that they're fantastic for.
• 22:37
  Coach Carlie: But yeah, if you can canned salmon, another one, then you get extra calcium because little bones in them too.
• 22:44
  Coach Carlie: So canned salmon's wonderful.
• 22:46
  Coach Carlie: Think outside the can, think outside the box, you guys.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Forgot to mention vitamin D from sun exposure, of course.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:54
  Coach Carlie: Although the dermatologists would all be mad at us, but maybe for a short period of time, yeah, uh, we can get our vitamin, because you can't overdose from vitamin D from the sun, but you can obviously do not great things for your skin.
• 23:07
  Coach Carlie: But yeah, that's a little bit more specific to it's easy to supplement and it's generally cheaper.
• 23:13
  Coach Carlie: It's a little harder to get from the diet, like you had said, milk.
• 23:16
  Coach Carlie: Plant-based milks usually have it fortified.
• 23:18
  Coach Carlie: But yeah, if it's not yogurt or milk or plant-based milks, or you could get it.
• 23:23
  Coach Carlie: I think fish has some too.
• 23:24
  Coach Carlie: So you could get a double whammy of the mushrooms, the only vegan source of vitamin D.
• 23:30
  Coach Carlie: So eat your mushrooms, people.
• 23:32
  Coach Carlie: And I know mushrooms are now like the thing to put in your coffee and all the other things.
• 23:37
  Coach Carlie: So I mean, I'm not sad about that.
• 23:38
  Coach Carlie: So it's all right.
• 23:39
  Coach Carlie: So tell us about anxiety.
• 23:41
  Coach Carlie: And then we just said depression and insomnia.
• 23:43
  Coach Carlie: Now we're on to anxiety.
• 23:44
  Coach Carlie: What do we got here?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is also well, anxiety is also very common in athletes for all the same reasons that depression is really common in athletes.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: You just have this pressure to perform and to do well in your competitions and races or whatever you have going on.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually well documented that like performance anxiety can like cause physical symptoms to occur while you're competing or racing, like cramping, diarrhea, nausea.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's a ton of GI symptoms, really.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's also a negative cycle that we're perpetuating.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And like you might be anxious because you your race didn't go well because of GI symptoms, and now you're just kind of stuck.
• 24:26
  Coach Carlie: So um it also Or you just generally give up, like, and not necessarily like in the event, perhaps during in the event, but like afterwards, you're like, oh, this is just too hard.
• 24:36
  Coach Carlie: I'm not dealing with this anymore.
• 24:38
  Coach Carlie: And then and that makes me very sad.
• 24:41
  Coach Carlie: Like we need to stay active and healthy.
• 24:45
  Coach Carlie: And yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So again, with along with that Mediterranean like diet, if you need a little, a little boost in the in the calming of your anxiety, we know that your gut microbiome really plays a part in your overall mental health because of the the gut brain axis.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: And pre- and probiotics go a long way in making sure you have a diverse and healthy gut microbiome.
• 25:11
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, love it.
• 25:12
  Coach Carlie: Prebiotics, especially Mediterranean diet, um, artichyps, you guys, like okay, throw them on a salad, good form of not having to buy another supplement.
• 25:22
  Coach Carlie: Exactly.
• 25:23
  Coach Carlie: Just eat your food.
• 25:24
  Coach Carlie: Uh probiotics, we got more yogurt, kimchi.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any favorite probiotic foods?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Fermented foods um and cultured foods.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I like yogurt.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I do fine with yogurt.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:37
  Coach Carlie: Cool.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not as big of a fan of kimchi, but I had an old roommate who loved sauerkraut.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Was she German?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because she was, uh I think her back her family background was Czech actually.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 25:51
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:53
  Coach Carlie: Yeah.
• 25:53
  Coach Carlie: I I kimchi is fun, but if I open it in the house, it smells like something died.
• 26:01
  Coach Carlie: And it's and then my kids come home and they're like, what is happening in this house?
• 26:05
  Coach Carlie: So it has to be like a very has to be consumed outdoors.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: It takes them getting used to, yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think my dad, my dad is the only person in my family that liked kimchi.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And my mom was like, whenever she bought it, she was like, This is just for you.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, yep.
• 26:21
  Coach Carlie: It's a little too funky for the rest of us.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and our old friend Gabba is made in the gut, actually.
• 26:29
  Coach Carlie: So yes, yes, keep that gut happy, you guys.
• 26:34
  Coach Carlie: Love it.
• 26:36
  Coach Carlie: All right, cool.
• 26:37
  Coach Carlie: And then we got B complex vitamins again.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, so that that includes your B12, I guess, but also all the other B vitamins are super important in supporting your nervous system, in producing other important neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine, and also in just energy production in general.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: So they're pretty um good workhorses.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this one is a newer one that I didn't know about, but lithium can also help balance neurotransmitters and stabilize your mood.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:07
  Coach Carlie: Yeah.
• 27:08
  Coach Carlie: And if you get high enough dose, that's basically like we're talking pharmacological.
• 27:13
  Coach Carlie: Uh so that's not my personal like go-to.
• 27:15
  Coach Carlie: That's like, I think that lithium should be taken in conjunction with a functionally informed psychiatrist who can make sure that you're supported all around.
• 27:27
  Coach Carlie: Right.
• 27:28
  Coach Carlie: So yeah.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't want to go the that the pharmacological route and want to stay a little more, I guess, quote unquote, natural, yeah.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Also, chamomile extract and passion flower extract can also calm anxiety and things like that.
• 27:43
  Coach Carlie: Yeah.
• 27:44
  Coach Carlie: Um, chamomile is so great.
• 27:46
  Coach Carlie: Speaking of like, you know, teas.
• 27:47
  Coach Carlie: I knew we were talking about like lavender teas.
• 27:50
  Coach Carlie: I like to get, especially in the summertime, a chamomile lavender tea.
• 27:55
  Coach Carlie: So like two in one.
• 27:58
  Coach Carlie: Um, and then I'll brew it and then I'll ice it.
• 28:01
  Coach Carlie: Ooh, that sounds cool.
• 28:03
  Coach Carlie: Yes.
• 28:04
  Coach Carlie: And then have that with like a little, maybe if I'm feeling fancy, I'll put it in a wine glass and then add maybe a little bit of seltzer.
• 28:12
  Coach Carlie: It makes me feel real fancy on like a Tuesday night when I know that I need to get up in the morning on Wednesday.
• 28:19
  Coach Carlie: And uh, you know, wouldn't it be nice if I could have a glass of wine?
• 28:22
  Coach Carlie: But like my sleep will hate me in the morning.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Of another, like really good just nutritional strategy for sleep is to reduce or eliminate alcohol and limit your caffeine intake, especially later in the day, because that can really keep you up.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:39
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, for sure.
• 28:40
  Coach Carlie: So, but chamomile is chamomile is fun.
• 28:43
  Coach Carlie: Like at, you know, sometimes you gotta go basic, y'all.
• 28:45
  Coach Carlie: Just some good chamomile tea.
• 28:48
  Coach Carlie: Um, maybe at the end if you're like, eh, I don't love tea again, try it iced or try it in conjunction with something else, like a chamomile passion flour combo, or you know, squeeze some lemon into it, maybe steep it with a little bit of ginger, like you know, that's yeah, you know, explore.
• 29:05
  Coach Carlie: All the combinations.
• 29:06
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, definitely.
• 29:08
  Coach Carlie: Cool.
• 29:09
  Coach Carlie: All right, so I guess we're wrapping it all up.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so to if if you want like some good, like basic take-home points from this podcast episode, I guess it's just that if you're an endurance athlete, you need more sleep than the general population in order to maximize that recovery.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't get good sleep, it could really take a toll on your mental health and just, and even if you're not like officially diagnosed with any of these things, that conditions that we talked about, like it could definitely affect your training and just your general quality of life day to day.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we know that nutrition in the forms of both whole foods and supplements can be used together with conventional meds and therapies to help treat these mental health conditions if you eat.
• 29:59
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, definitely.
• 30:01
  Coach Carlie: I mean, usually some of the lowest hanging fruit that I've had in my practice is moving the caffeine up.
• 30:08
  Coach Carlie: Like, you know, again, we see that in genetics.
• 30:11
  Coach Carlie: Some people process it really quickly and some people don't.
• 30:15
  Coach Carlie: And the people who don't, you know, you could be having your coffee or uh your energy drink or your espresso or you know, or your tea, whatever it is, earlier in the day.
• 30:27
  Coach Carlie: And it could take 10 to 12 hours for that to be fully out of you.
• 30:31
  Coach Carlie: That's a long time.
• 30:33
  Coach Carlie: Right.
• 30:33
  Coach Carlie: Um you know, if you have anything that says pre-workout in it, some people are sensitive to even like a dark chocolate right before they go to bed, which you know sounds delightful, but might be just that little tiny bit of caffeine that's gonna set them off.
• 30:49
  Coach Carlie: So usually that's a good place to start.
• 30:51
  Coach Carlie: And then again, are you eating mostly whole foods?
• 30:54
  Coach Carlie: What's your stress look like?
• 30:56
  Coach Carlie: Do we need some like nervous system settling strategies to get you to sleep a little bit better?
• 31:03
  Coach Carlie: So, you know, there's there's some or what you know, when is your meal time?
• 31:08
  Coach Carlie: All various things that we look at as nutritionists and trying to help you optimize your sleep so that you can just generally be a better athlete.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So with all that said, even it is so hard.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is so hard to at baseline to get the amount of sleep you need.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I know at least when I was um competing in in rowing, like with the just the rough training schedule and the the hard classes and like trying to balance a social life with all of that, I was not getting enough sleep.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember how my mental health suffered for it during that time.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Did you see that amongst your teammates at all?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: I had some, I'm really lucky.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think I don't like coffee and I don't really like alcohol.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I've never really touched either of those.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I had some teammates that were drinking like two Celsius like a day because they were just so tired.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: So they needed the energy drink, but then all that caffeine was probably keeping them up and they probably couldn't sleep.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 32:09
  Coach Carlie: And well, like you had mentioned chronic inflammation, it's the same kind of thing with uh your adrenal glands.
• 32:15
  Coach Carlie: They gotta put out adrenaline, like they uh very serve a wonderful purpose in our bodies.
• 32:20
  Coach Carlie: But if we keep hammering them with all this caffeine, they just get so tired.
• 32:26
  Coach Carlie: Yeah.
• 32:27
  Coach Carlie: So then we dig ourselves into this deeper hole that's just so much harder to get out of uh with all this um caffeine.
• 32:36
  Coach Carlie: It's you know, but there's a lot of messages around like all the different things that we have to do to like be an awesome human.
• 32:42
  Coach Carlie: But at the end of the day, like, you know, if you're eating the Whole Foods, if you're um getting some exercise, but not too much, and you know, being around your social support support crew, supplementing wisely, so strategically, based on you know, your health metrics, uh, understanding your body and what it needs, then it can be hopefully ironed out and simpler than it seems.
• 33:07
  Coach Carlie: And sometimes you gotta pull in, you gotta pull in some other team members for your care team to to help you in this process.
• 33:15
  Coach Carlie: So uh you're not alone, right?
• 33:17
  Coach Carlie: Exactly.
• 33:17
  Coach Carlie: If you're struggling with sleep, or if you're struggling with mental health.
• 33:21
  Coach Carlie: So you we see you out there.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, your providers all just wanna wanna work together and help you.
• 33:28
  Coach Carlie: Yeah, for sure.
• 33:29
  Coach Carlie: Um, all right, Emily, this was super helpful and I'm excited to learn more from you and have everybody else learn from you as well.
• 33:38
  Coach Carlie: So, everybody out there, if you have any questions, any comments, uh send us a DM on Instagram at the Endurance Edge, however you want to you wanna get it to us, because if there's any specific topic that you want to hear about, I totally want to hopefully have Emily learn and then also you guys learn in the process.
• 33:56
  Coach Carlie: So we're all learning here.
• 33:58
  Coach Carlie: Absolutely.
• 33:59
  Coach Carlie: I a hundred percent do not know it all.
• 34:01
  Coach Carlie: I am constantly learning.
• 34:03
  Coach Carlie: This is just such a fascinating journey, all to help you guys make life easier.
• 34:08
  Coach Carlie: So thanks again for listening to the Find Your Edge podcast, and we will catch you next time.