Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / 405. The Neuroscience of sleep and its effects on mood, weight, memory and attention

Transcript

405. The Neuroscience of sleep and its effects on mood, weight, memory and attention · Do You F*cking Mind?

0:11
Speaker 1: Hello, my beautiful beans, and welcome to the ultimate episode
0:16
Speaker 1: on sleep. The effects of a good sleep and the
0:20
Speaker 1: effects of a bad sleep, How to sleep better, How
0:23
Speaker 1: you can turn it around if you have shit sleep,
0:25
Speaker 1: Everything sleep related. I am so excited for this episode.
0:29
Speaker 1: This is an episode that I released back in the day,
0:33
Speaker 1: and I actually went through and was kind of like,
0:35
Speaker 1: I'm kind of organizing my episodes, and I stumbled across
0:38
Speaker 1: this one and I thought, I'm going to listen to
0:40
Speaker 1: my own old episode and it is just honestly one
0:44
Speaker 1: of my favorites because I feel like there's so much
0:46
Speaker 1: information packed in here. It talks about, basically, my aim
0:52
Speaker 1: for this episode is to change how you view and
0:56
Speaker 1: how you value sleep. I want you, by the end
0:59
Speaker 1: of this episode to look at sleep as the foundation
1:02
Speaker 1: of everything that matters to you in this life. So
1:05
Speaker 1: if that is the case, if this is the primary pillar,
1:09
Speaker 1: the primary foundation, then hopefully that would inspire you to
1:13
Speaker 1: put in a lot more effort into your sleep quality,
1:17
Speaker 1: your sleep hygiene, the wind down at the end of
1:20
Speaker 1: the day, and certain things that you can do throughout
1:23
Speaker 1: the day to improve your sleep. People who have a
1:26
Speaker 1: lack of sleep and history of poor sleep are more
1:29
Speaker 1: likely to have addictive behaviors, poor memory, mood disorders, neurological illness, illnesses, degeneration,
1:36
Speaker 1: weight gain. There's so many things that change on a
1:39
Speaker 1: chemical level and on a psychological level when your sleep
1:43
Speaker 1: is not intact. And if you're someone who's thinking, oh
1:45
Speaker 1: my god, I've got really really bad sleep and it's
1:49
Speaker 1: always been that bad, hopefully there's going to be some
1:51
Speaker 1: tools in here that you find useful that you'll be
1:54
Speaker 1: able to start to put into practice to start to
1:56
Speaker 1: improve your sleep. If you're someone that is going through
2:00
Speaker 1: through a season in your life, like parenting or a
2:03
Speaker 1: particular season where your sleep is going to be quite
2:07
Speaker 1: poor for a while, I don't want you to worry
2:10
Speaker 1: too much if it's like just a season in your life,
2:13
Speaker 1: but I do want you to acknowledge wide is that
2:17
Speaker 1: you might be suffering so much during the day if
2:19
Speaker 1: your sleep is so affected at night. Okay, so this
2:22
Speaker 1: is hopefully going to make you value sleep like you
2:26
Speaker 1: would fucking liquid gold or diamonds or whatever. It is
2:30
Speaker 1: sort of a material possession that we value quite highly. Anyway,
2:34
Speaker 1: let's get straight into this episode. There is a lot
2:37
Speaker 1: packed in. There's so much you're gonna learn it's a
2:40
Speaker 1: really sciencey episode as well. So I'm thrilled to bring
2:43
Speaker 1: it to you. Love you guys so much. Enjoy sense.
2:48
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be talking about sleep, the importance of sleep,
2:52
Speaker 1: some fun sleep facts, all things sleep and brain health related.
2:56
Speaker 1: So I think you guys are gonna like this one.
2:58
Speaker 1: I have had a few requests on it, and I
3:00
Speaker 1: also think I've been banging on about this for a while,
3:04
Speaker 1: like kind of dangling the carrot saying how much I'm
3:07
Speaker 1: going to talk about this, you know, sleep episode. So
3:10
Speaker 1: here it is, let's do it. So pretty much the
3:13
Speaker 1: reason I as one of my first brain science deep
3:18
Speaker 1: dive brain fact Hacks episodes. I thought sleep would be
3:22
Speaker 1: the perfect topic to kind of delve into because it
3:25
Speaker 1: kind of is the foundation for all kinds of health
3:29
Speaker 1: physical health, you know, maintaining a healthy weight, mental health,
3:37
Speaker 1: protection against neurodegeneration, happiness, focus, productivity, your relationships. Everything that
3:44
Speaker 1: you can imagine that happens in life boils down to
3:48
Speaker 1: having good sleep. It's probably, if not the most important
3:53
Speaker 1: human behavior that we do ever by far, because really,
3:57
Speaker 1: when you look at everything else, it kind of doesn't
4:01
Speaker 1: really you know, like when you look at all other
4:04
Speaker 1: things that you do for your health, if you don't
4:06
Speaker 1: have solid sleep, it's kind of like, yeah, it's good,
4:09
Speaker 1: but you're still going to suffer in so many areas
4:12
Speaker 1: of your life. Sleep is linked to everything that we do,
4:15
Speaker 1: and with solid sleep, you're going to find that your
4:18
Speaker 1: life is going to change for the better. It is
4:20
Speaker 1: absolutely phenomenal, it's exciting. What I'm going to be aiming
4:24
Speaker 1: for in this podcast is definitely not to scare you
4:27
Speaker 1: or terrify you if you're someone that doesn't sleep that well.
4:30
Speaker 1: My aim is not for you to be like, I'm fucked,
4:32
Speaker 1: I might as well give up. That's not at all
4:35
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. What I would like to do is
4:37
Speaker 1: for you to maybe be able to identify things in
4:40
Speaker 1: your life being like, wow, that sounds like me, or
4:42
Speaker 1: oh I do that, or I do that, So that
4:44
Speaker 1: way you can be way more aware and start to
4:47
Speaker 1: implement some changes within your lifestyle, within your patterns and
4:50
Speaker 1: your habits and maybe your sleep hygiene and all these
4:53
Speaker 1: things to kind of clean up your sleep. Because you know,
4:56
Speaker 1: it's never too early to really start to work on
5:00
Speaker 1: your sleep. Okay, And yeah, I'm just really hoping that
5:04
Speaker 1: this podcast is what inspires you to make that change
5:07
Speaker 1: in your life if you're not already a strong sleeper. Okay,
5:10
Speaker 1: so what I kind of wanted to do first is
5:12
Speaker 1: maybe go into a bit of like history on sleep
5:17
Speaker 1: and how it actually has dropped down with like the
5:20
Speaker 1: average sleep time. Then I'm going to go into some
5:23
Speaker 1: facts about you know, some general facts about sleep and
5:26
Speaker 1: sleep time, sleep cycles. Then I'm going to go into
5:29
Speaker 1: circadian rhythms. I'm going to talk about blue light and
5:31
Speaker 1: the effect of blue light and red light and all
5:33
Speaker 1: of that on sleep. And then what lack of sleep
5:37
Speaker 1: can cause, like weight gain, addictive behaviors, poor memory, mood disorders,
5:43
Speaker 1: and neurological illnesses and degeneration and all of that. So
5:47
Speaker 1: exciting times. Let's try and pack it all in. So
5:50
Speaker 1: let's begin kind of sleep and how we've perceived it
5:54
Speaker 1: across the ages. So I was actually listening to a
5:56
Speaker 1: really really great TED talk. I've got to pause this
6:00
Speaker 1: in a bit. At the end, I'll get back to
6:01
Speaker 1: you on what the guy's name was, because he's a
6:03
Speaker 1: Circadian neuroscientist. He's phenomenal guy, so I need to credit him.
6:06
Speaker 1: But he released a TED talk and he was talking
6:09
Speaker 1: about how the perception and how humans have you know,
6:16
Speaker 1: perceived sleep has changed across the ages. When you look
6:19
Speaker 1: at like old old literature and plays and poets, the
6:23
Speaker 1: way they talk about sleep is almost like this mystical,
6:25
Speaker 1: magical thing that we do, and it's kind of healing
6:29
Speaker 1: and whatever, and then you wake up. So we had
6:30
Speaker 1: quite a positive relationship with the concept of sleep, even
6:33
Speaker 1: if we didn't really know what it was. Then you
6:36
Speaker 1: look at as technology got better and better and better,
6:41
Speaker 1: our sleep got worse and worse and worse. So first
6:44
Speaker 1: you had the invention of of course electricitis you're able
6:47
Speaker 1: to pierce through the night and you've got light whenever
6:49
Speaker 1: you want it. Then we had, you know, obviously decades
6:53
Speaker 1: later we had television, but even television at one point,
6:55
Speaker 1: I think even until the seventies would literally be like
6:58
Speaker 1: good night, bye bye, and the tear it would just
7:00
Speaker 1: be off and there'd be nothing on during the night.
7:02
Speaker 1: Then TV started going throughout the night. Then we had
7:05
Speaker 1: the Internet. Then we had our mobile phones with internet
7:08
Speaker 1: with entertainment, and now you look at where we are now,
7:10
Speaker 1: we've got absolutely everything on demand. So we have at
7:14
Speaker 1: our disposal everything we want to be able to be
7:17
Speaker 1: entertained no matter what time of the day it is,
7:19
Speaker 1: when we are not designed to be that way. I'm
7:22
Speaker 1: going to be talking about circadian rhythms and how we've
7:24
Speaker 1: got this internal body clock that is locked into place
7:28
Speaker 1: no matter what you do. We've got that clock, and
7:30
Speaker 1: it is based around the sun. Okay, and the sunlight
7:33
Speaker 1: and all of that. But anyway, I talk about that
7:35
Speaker 1: later on. So we then started seeing sleepers like, you know,
7:40
Speaker 1: almost a burden of like you know, we are. It's
7:43
Speaker 1: annoying that we have to do it. We kind of
7:46
Speaker 1: if you look at the motivational speakers of like how
7:50
Speaker 1: to make it in business and how to make it
7:52
Speaker 1: in your career, a lot of it is like I'll
7:54
Speaker 1: sleep when I'm dead, or sleep, you know, sleep faster
7:57
Speaker 1: if you want to achieve things. But all that was
8:00
Speaker 1: really doing is creating this notion of like glorifying being busy.
8:04
Speaker 1: And this is just something that I think about society
8:07
Speaker 1: that we need to kind of change in our society
8:09
Speaker 1: that being busy all the time is something that that
8:12
Speaker 1: people should aspire to do. I think we feel like
8:14
Speaker 1: bad if we're not busy, and it's like a negative
8:17
Speaker 1: thing to not be busy. So then because of that,
8:19
Speaker 1: we looked at sleep as kind of being this kind
8:22
Speaker 1: of weird behavior that we had to do, can't really avoid,
8:25
Speaker 1: but let's just limit it. Let's just stay up late
8:28
Speaker 1: into the night and work really hard. Let's wake up
8:29
Speaker 1: really early and pump ourselves full of stimulants so we
8:32
Speaker 1: can function throughout the day, when in reality, we didn't
8:35
Speaker 1: like pause to think, wait a minute, what if I
8:38
Speaker 1: was to actually sleep properly, really mend my sleep patterns,
8:42
Speaker 1: really like get some good sleep hygiene, and see how
8:44
Speaker 1: that could positively affect my life. Because what you're going
8:47
Speaker 1: to realize after you listen to this episode is that
8:50
Speaker 1: if you sleep more, obviously within reason. I'll explain ideal
8:55
Speaker 1: sleep times in a sec But if you sleep the
8:57
Speaker 1: right amount, which is probably in most cases more what
9:00
Speaker 1: you're already sleeping, you're actually gonna have to or not
9:03
Speaker 1: have to, you will be able to work a lot
9:05
Speaker 1: less because you're a lot more focused, a lot more productive,
9:08
Speaker 1: and your memory is intact. Okay, So it's very very
9:14
Speaker 1: counterproductive or counterintuitive to sleep less to work more. You
9:19
Speaker 1: literally do not get ahead, not at all you think
9:22
Speaker 1: you do, but the work that you're doing when you
9:24
Speaker 1: should be sleeping is average at best, and the memory
9:27
Speaker 1: consolidation that should be happening when you should be sleeping
9:30
Speaker 1: isn't happening, okay, So then that then it's got this
9:34
Speaker 1: carry on effect. Poor memory is linked to so many
9:37
Speaker 1: mood disorders and neurological disorders, and memory consolidation occurs when
9:42
Speaker 1: you sleep, So then you get you start to understand
9:44
Speaker 1: how you know, sleep can be quite heavily linked to
9:48
Speaker 1: mood disorders as well. So that's kind of the history
9:52
Speaker 1: of how we've you know, perceived sleep. Now it's getting
9:55
Speaker 1: a lot better. We're getting a lot more science around
9:57
Speaker 1: why we sleep. And it's not just to like, you know,
10:00
Speaker 1: it's not just for some downtime or to preserve some energy.
10:03
Speaker 1: There's so much that goes on when we sleep, consolidation
10:06
Speaker 1: of memory, clearance of toxins, neuro like plasticity, synaptic pruning
10:14
Speaker 1: when necessary. There's all these things that are going on,
10:17
Speaker 1: like supportive roles that other cells play within the brain
10:21
Speaker 1: when we're asleep that might not happen when we're awake.
10:24
Speaker 1: The brain is just as active and at times more
10:27
Speaker 1: active when we are asleep. It does not fully rest.
10:31
Speaker 1: It just switches modes and goes into like recovery and
10:35
Speaker 1: prevention and preservation mode kind of thing when we're asleep. Now,
10:40
Speaker 1: what are the ideal sleep times for people? Because it
10:46
Speaker 1: varies as you go through your stages in life. And
10:48
Speaker 1: what I've read this really interesting paper that humans in general,
10:53
Speaker 1: humans adults at least in like first world countries where
10:58
Speaker 1: you know you've got access to all technology thing like that,
11:01
Speaker 1: we've actually dropped down. We're sleeping on average in the
11:04
Speaker 1: last I think fifty years two to three hours less
11:07
Speaker 1: per night. That's terrible, Like, that's really really bad. So
11:10
Speaker 1: what are the ideal sleep times we've got? Okay, I'll
11:13
Speaker 1: talk about different populations. For babies, it's around fourteen plus hours.
11:17
Speaker 1: They need a lot of sleep. There's a lot of
11:19
Speaker 1: neurological things going on in the brain, neuro like, synaptagenesis, neurogenesis,
11:25
Speaker 1: all these connections that are occurring, so they need a
11:27
Speaker 1: lot of sleep for that. Then children up to the
11:30
Speaker 1: age of thirteen need about nine to eleven hours of sleep.
11:33
Speaker 1: There's a bit of leeway there, and then we've got teenagers,
11:36
Speaker 1: and teenagers need eight to ten hours of sleep. I
11:40
Speaker 1: think we're so used to thinking, teenagers are more like
11:42
Speaker 1: adults than they are like children, But when it comes
11:44
Speaker 1: to sleep, they are more like children and they need
11:47
Speaker 1: more time. And for whatever reason, teenagers are more wired
11:51
Speaker 1: to go to bed a little bit later and to
11:53
Speaker 1: wake up a little bit later. That does not make
11:55
Speaker 1: them lazy. That is their circadian rhythm and their clock.
11:58
Speaker 1: That's just how they're wired, and they need that sleep.
12:02
Speaker 1: So I don't care what anyone says. I don't care
12:05
Speaker 1: what parents think about their child or whatever. They're trying
12:08
Speaker 1: to pump up their child with so many activities and whatever,
12:10
Speaker 1: they still need about ten hours of sleep for a
12:13
Speaker 1: lot of them. Because there's a lot of changes that
12:17
Speaker 1: go on in the brain when you're a teenager. Around
12:19
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen, your brain is going through this huge wave
12:22
Speaker 1: of synaptic pruning to make your brain more efficient. Also,
12:26
Speaker 1: there's a huge link between there's a lot of mood
12:29
Speaker 1: disorders that arise at around the same time that your
12:32
Speaker 1: brain is going through a lot of neurological changes, like
12:35
Speaker 1: we're talking physical changes are happening in the brain, and
12:39
Speaker 1: around that time there's this massive surge of mood disorders anxiety, stress,
12:43
Speaker 1: and depression around that age. Of fourteen and fifteen. And
12:47
Speaker 1: there's a huge kind of link between this because depression
12:51
Speaker 1: and mood disorders are also linked with lack of sleep,
12:54
Speaker 1: and the lower your hours of sleep, the higher the
12:58
Speaker 1: rate of a mood disorder. Okay, so it's really important
13:01
Speaker 1: that when children are going through this stage, especially if
13:04
Speaker 1: they're changing schools, they're going from primary school to high school.
13:06
Speaker 1: They're having all these neurological changes that cur in the brain,
13:09
Speaker 1: they need to at the very least be getting a
13:11
Speaker 1: good night's sleep. So that's something to be mindful of
13:14
Speaker 1: if you have children, or if you're a teenager right
13:17
Speaker 1: now listening to this, you have to be mindful that
13:19
Speaker 1: at that age, sleep is what's going to actually be
13:22
Speaker 1: a preventative mechanism towards some sort of neurological disorder because
13:27
Speaker 1: of all the changes that are happening in your brain. Now,
13:29
Speaker 1: adults need seven to nine hours sleep. That's like an average.
13:33
Speaker 1: Everything I'm talking about here is an average. You're going
13:35
Speaker 1: to have some outlies here and there, but it's seven
13:37
Speaker 1: to nine hours. Older adults, it's the same. I think
13:39
Speaker 1: some people think that it's less or more. It's the same,
13:42
Speaker 1: but older adults might have more broken sleep where they
13:44
Speaker 1: might have like a nap here and there, but it
13:47
Speaker 1: is the same amount of time. Now, what I want
13:50
Speaker 1: to talk about is sleep cycles, because we cycle through
13:53
Speaker 1: these four stages of sleep, and we do it about
13:58
Speaker 1: in a good night's sleep. We do all those four
14:01
Speaker 1: stages four to five cycles throughout the night. Okay, so
14:05
Speaker 1: stage one is a light sleep, and that's kind of
14:08
Speaker 1: where you almost awake, but you're not, and it kind
14:12
Speaker 1: of feels like, you know that where you're kind of
14:14
Speaker 1: fading off, and then if someone was to talk to
14:16
Speaker 1: you almost wouldn't be able to remember what just happened,
14:18
Speaker 1: but you know that you want to sleep. That's stage one.
14:22
Speaker 1: Your heart rate is already slowing down all of that.
14:24
Speaker 1: Stage two is just even deeper. You're now already asleep,
14:27
Speaker 1: your body temperature starts to drop a bit, your heart
14:30
Speaker 1: rates even slower. You're starting to really get relaxed in
14:32
Speaker 1: stage two. Stage three is your delta sleep, and it's
14:35
Speaker 1: called delta because of the slow delta brain waves that
14:39
Speaker 1: are happening at that point. And this is the stage
14:41
Speaker 1: of deep sleep. And here you're releasing human growth hormone
14:45
Speaker 1: for repair of muscles and different neurotransmitters and neurotrophans for
14:51
Speaker 1: repair within the brain. A lot of things are happening
14:54
Speaker 1: within the cerebral spinal fluid, and there's a lot of
14:57
Speaker 1: clearance of toxins within the brain. All of that's happened
15:00
Speaker 1: in this stage three, and then you've got your stage four,
15:03
Speaker 1: also known as REM sleep stage, which is rapid eye
15:07
Speaker 1: movement sleep, and that's where your areas, if your brain
15:11
Speaker 1: stems start to actually release some signals and chemicals to
15:15
Speaker 1: actually paralyze your body to an extent, so you don't
15:17
Speaker 1: physically act out your movements while you're in this REM
15:21
Speaker 1: sleep stage, and that's where you're getting your most vivid
15:23
Speaker 1: dreams at Your brain is very active at this point.
15:26
Speaker 1: Your eye is actually moving a lot, so the only
15:29
Speaker 1: muscle that's really not sent that paralyzed kind of message
15:32
Speaker 1: from the brain stem is your eyes because they're darting around,
15:36
Speaker 1: but your body stays still. And really interestingly, there is
15:39
Speaker 1: these REM sleep disorders where people actually act out their
15:43
Speaker 1: dreams and it can be actually quite violent, but they's
15:46
Speaker 1: fully fully asleep and their movements don't wake them up
15:50
Speaker 1: normally for most people, if you do do this massive
15:52
Speaker 1: jolt it will wake you up because it's not natural
15:55
Speaker 1: and we should normally be quite relaxed and only have
15:58
Speaker 1: like minimal movement, just like tossing in your sleep, but
16:00
Speaker 1: not acting out these these dreams. Now, keep in mind
16:05
Speaker 1: that you're not still the whole night, because you're not
16:07
Speaker 1: in that rem stage the whole night. You cycle through
16:11
Speaker 1: this about four or five times, and when you look
16:15
Speaker 1: at when you wake up, sometimes when your alarm goes
16:18
Speaker 1: off and you wake up, you're thinking, oh my god,
16:21
Speaker 1: I feel like I just got hit by a truck.
16:22
Speaker 1: That's probably because you just got woken up. In your
16:24
Speaker 1: REM stage. In that cycle where you're in that deep,
16:28
Speaker 1: deep sleep, your muscles are all paralyzed. You're just in
16:31
Speaker 1: this hectic, crazy dream. Your brain's really in a different
16:34
Speaker 1: model together versus when you cycle out at the top
16:37
Speaker 1: of that kind of cycle. If you imagine like a
16:39
Speaker 1: wave that dips up and down, and when you're up,
16:42
Speaker 1: it's kind of the lighter stages of sleep. If you
16:44
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning at that light stage, you're
16:46
Speaker 1: feeling fresh, energized, revitalized, all of that. There are some
16:50
Speaker 1: apps that actually measure I don't know how they do this,
16:53
Speaker 1: but they actually measure which state you're in, and then
16:56
Speaker 1: you can set your alarm with a range of time
16:59
Speaker 1: and at wakes you up in your lightest phase of sleep,
17:03
Speaker 1: so that that could be something that you do. What
17:05
Speaker 1: I recommend, though, is that you always sleep with the
17:08
Speaker 1: curtains drawn back so you have natural light entering, because
17:11
Speaker 1: that is what kind of triggers you to wake up,
17:13
Speaker 1: is sunlight. So what's happening in the brain when we're
17:16
Speaker 1: actually falling asleep, we get a release of a hormone
17:20
Speaker 1: or a neurotransmitter, it's the same, but both of melotonin. Okay, Now,
17:24
Speaker 1: melotonin regulates the sleep wake cycle. When there's more production
17:29
Speaker 1: of melotonin, that's what triggers us to then get sleepy
17:32
Speaker 1: and fall asleep. And then the more we can suppress
17:36
Speaker 1: melotone and the longer we can stay awake, which is
17:38
Speaker 1: not necessarily a great thing, but in general, that's how
17:41
Speaker 1: it kind of works. Meloton it's very linked to the
17:49
Speaker 1: circadian rhythm, which uses the light dark cycle to regulate
17:53
Speaker 1: your sleep patterns. So even most blind people have some
17:56
Speaker 1: detection of light within like their eyes. So the part
17:59
Speaker 1: of the brain which receives input about light and then
18:02
Speaker 1: communicates that to the brain. It's called the super chismatic nucleus,
18:08
Speaker 1: and that is directly it's literally directly next to the
18:13
Speaker 1: optic chiasm, and this is like a cross in the
18:17
Speaker 1: brain of whether two optic tracks converge. Right. So there's
18:20
Speaker 1: a lot of signals to do with light that are
18:23
Speaker 1: coming in through the eyes above that nucleus, and that
18:26
Speaker 1: nucleus then kind of sets off that circadian rhythm. So
18:31
Speaker 1: light and dark cycles of the sun and night time
18:34
Speaker 1: is what regulates your cicadian rhythm. And there's a lot
18:38
Speaker 1: of studies that have been done about like shift workers
18:41
Speaker 1: and jet lag and all of that, and there's no
18:43
Speaker 1: escaping it. Our body is set to the clock of
18:46
Speaker 1: day and night fair enough. If you move to another country,
18:49
Speaker 1: you have to adjust to your new circadian clock, but
18:53
Speaker 1: that clock then adjusts to the day and night cycles.
18:57
Speaker 1: That's just how mammals are wired. I think all pretty
19:01
Speaker 1: much all species and plants are wired. That's just reality.
19:04
Speaker 1: You can't escape it. If you are a shift worker,
19:07
Speaker 1: your sleep is just not as good. It's not studies
19:10
Speaker 1: have been done. If you're a shift worker, you are
19:12
Speaker 1: your chances of inflammation, your chances of lower immunity, your
19:16
Speaker 1: chances of cancer, all these things, they are just higher.
19:19
Speaker 1: Your sleep is poorer, you're more likely to be stressed. Again,
19:22
Speaker 1: i'm talking about population sy I'm not talking about every
19:25
Speaker 1: single shift worker. But ultimately, if you're always awake during
19:29
Speaker 1: the night, and you're always awake during and always asleep
19:32
Speaker 1: during the day, you are not going to have as
19:35
Speaker 1: good a sleep as somebody who's sleeping based on the
19:38
Speaker 1: circadian rhythm. That is just how it is. You are
19:40
Speaker 1: going against your natural genetic makeup, Okay, so it's super
19:46
Speaker 1: important to be aware of that. What's also really interesting
19:48
Speaker 1: is that is the link between cortisol and your circadian rhythm.
19:54
Speaker 1: So cortisol, as we know, is a stress hormone, and
19:58
Speaker 1: it's actually quite necessary we need, Okay. The problem is
20:01
Speaker 1: when we've got heightened levels of cortisol at the wrong
20:04
Speaker 1: times or chronically throughout you know, the day or days
20:07
Speaker 1: or weeks or months. Okay, that's when it becomes an issue.
20:09
Speaker 1: And I've spoken about this some previous episodes as well,
20:12
Speaker 1: but basically, cortisole production happens by this complex network called
20:16
Speaker 1: the HPA access, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access Okay, and
20:22
Speaker 1: if something is disrupting that HPA access. It also disrupts
20:27
Speaker 1: your sleep cycles. They're very heavily intertwined, and cortisol production
20:32
Speaker 1: has you know, peaks in the day of when it
20:35
Speaker 1: goes up necessary peaks like for energy or for alertness.
20:39
Speaker 1: So one is in the morning around kind of eight
20:41
Speaker 1: or nine am, and then it's got its massive dips
20:44
Speaker 1: and lows, so one of them being midnight. Okay, there's
20:48
Speaker 1: been all this study done on like, yes, I deal
20:50
Speaker 1: sleep times, you know, seven to nine hours for adults
20:52
Speaker 1: and all of that, but what's also looked into heavily
20:55
Speaker 1: is being asleep before midnight. And there's a lot of
21:00
Speaker 1: studies and data to show the importance of being asleep
21:02
Speaker 1: before this time. And it could very well be because
21:07
Speaker 1: that is your lowest point of cortisole production. You want
21:11
Speaker 1: to be asleep at that time because that's when other
21:13
Speaker 1: things are happening in the brain. That's when you're not
21:15
Speaker 1: getting this stress hormone of adrenaline and you know, fight
21:19
Speaker 1: or flight or action or alertness that is at its
21:23
Speaker 1: lowest and other areas of the brain are taking over.
21:25
Speaker 1: So once you start to understand the link between cortisole
21:29
Speaker 1: stress the circadian rhythm day and night cycles. You start
21:32
Speaker 1: to realize why it is so important to sleep at
21:34
Speaker 1: night and ideally be asleep before midnight. You know, some
21:38
Speaker 1: people say nine pm night, not as long as you
21:41
Speaker 1: kind of asleep before the lowest point of that cortisol.
21:44
Speaker 1: That's kind of what you're aiming for, all right, So
21:46
Speaker 1: I think that's really fucking interesting. And then of course
21:49
Speaker 1: there's a whole, you know, shit ton of things that's
21:51
Speaker 1: also going on in the brain, like when you get
21:55
Speaker 1: that release of the melotonin you know, based on you know,
21:58
Speaker 1: the light and dark and all of that. There's also
22:01
Speaker 1: then the brain stem and the hypothalamus and cells here
22:04
Speaker 1: that are producing more of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABBA that
22:09
Speaker 1: I've spoken about a lot. It's the major inhibitory neurotransmitter.
22:13
Speaker 1: It's basically what inhibits activity throughout in between cell to
22:18
Speaker 1: cell connection and firing and all of that. So when
22:21
Speaker 1: you get more GABBA, it really helps you reduce activity.
22:25
Speaker 1: It helps you calm down, especially with your muscles. Everything's
22:28
Speaker 1: like more relaxed, and it helps you sleep. It also
22:31
Speaker 1: helps you recover better. Okay, your muscles and all that
22:34
Speaker 1: recover If you have like a good release of gabba
22:36
Speaker 1: when you're falling asleep. So the brain stem and the
22:40
Speaker 1: hypothalamus is quite heavily involved in the onset of tiredness
22:45
Speaker 1: and falling asleep with those you know, neurochemicals and everything.
22:49
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about the influence of blue light on
22:55
Speaker 1: your sleep. So just very quickly, I'll touch on different
22:58
Speaker 1: light waves that are perceived through like by photoreceptors. Photoreceptors
23:04
Speaker 1: are receptors for light within the eyeball. We've got cones
23:08
Speaker 1: and rods. Cones are for color and rods are basically
23:11
Speaker 1: for light and dark. So the cones that detect color,
23:14
Speaker 1: they detect the different lights, and the intensity of the
23:19
Speaker 1: light is based on the wavelength. The shorter the wavelength
23:22
Speaker 1: like little up and down like a little line, is
23:26
Speaker 1: more intense. It's a stronger light versus like a long
23:30
Speaker 1: wavelength where the peaks and dips are really high and low.
23:35
Speaker 1: So red light is kind of the most gentle if
23:38
Speaker 1: you want to say wavelength. Then you've got green, and
23:41
Speaker 1: of course you've got colors in between all of that.
23:43
Speaker 1: We're talk red. Then it goes orange yellow. Then you've
23:45
Speaker 1: got green, which is medium blue, which is shorter, and
23:48
Speaker 1: violet or ultraviolet is the shortest still, and it's the
23:51
Speaker 1: most intense and the most kind of damaging as well,
23:53
Speaker 1: is the ultraviolet. But blue light forms part of white
23:57
Speaker 1: light that we get from the sun. The sun emits
23:59
Speaker 1: all off the colors in that spectrum and that's why
24:02
Speaker 1: you know, when it gets refracted you see rainbows and
24:05
Speaker 1: all of that. But the blue light the reason, let's
24:10
Speaker 1: fucking hope I get this right. The reason the sky
24:12
Speaker 1: is blue is because the blue light actually bounces off
24:16
Speaker 1: objects really easily, and that's why you get a lot
24:20
Speaker 1: of a like a bouncing off and a refractory thing
24:23
Speaker 1: of blue light which then projects upwards, which causes the sky.
24:27
Speaker 1: But the actual sunlight is obviously a white light, and
24:30
Speaker 1: it's a mix of all the lights. That blue light
24:34
Speaker 1: suppresses melotonin. When we get blue light, we get a
24:39
Speaker 1: suppression of melotonin, and that's what wakes us up. That's
24:42
Speaker 1: what keeps us in this alert, awake state. Okay, it's
24:45
Speaker 1: a good thing during the day to have that input
24:48
Speaker 1: of blue light, especially from the sun. One of the
24:50
Speaker 1: best ways to wake up and you know, start your
24:53
Speaker 1: day strong is to be in outdoor sunlight. You want
24:58
Speaker 1: to have, you know, sunlight enter in your room. You
25:00
Speaker 1: don't want artificial lights. Get that light in. Don't look
25:04
Speaker 1: directly at the sun obviously, but just be exposed to sunlight.
25:08
Speaker 1: It is the best thing to wake up the brain.
25:10
Speaker 1: There's so many health benefits you're gonna get. There are
25:12
Speaker 1: people that have done all these studies on how it
25:14
Speaker 1: even like he was depression and anxiety to just bathe
25:16
Speaker 1: in the sun first thing in the morning. Okay, very
25:19
Speaker 1: good for you. It starts this kind of like cascade
25:22
Speaker 1: of events in the brain to wake you up and
25:24
Speaker 1: be nice and alert. Okay, Now when is it a
25:27
Speaker 1: bad thing? The bad thing is when you have too
25:29
Speaker 1: much blue light at night time. Like I said, it
25:31
Speaker 1: suppresses melotonin. So if you're being exposed to a lot
25:35
Speaker 1: of blue light later on at night, you're not getting
25:37
Speaker 1: a good release of melotonin at night. You're not getting
25:41
Speaker 1: that bathing over of the brain, of the neurotransmitters to
25:44
Speaker 1: help you fall asleep, gab or all those things. And
25:46
Speaker 1: then you're not gonna have a deep sleep. You're not
25:48
Speaker 1: going to get those deep cycles of sleep that I
25:50
Speaker 1: spoke about before. So what do we do? Okay, the
25:55
Speaker 1: first thing you want to look at is limiting the
25:58
Speaker 1: blue light before you go to bed dearly two hours.
26:02
Speaker 1: But if you can't do two hours an hour, some
26:04
Speaker 1: people say you need to start limiting it from like
26:06
Speaker 1: four pm. That's fucking ridiculous. If the sun is still up,
26:08
Speaker 1: it shouldn't really matter. The sun is emitting blue light.
26:12
Speaker 1: So if the sun is up, don't worry about being
26:15
Speaker 1: around blue light. Okay. The problem is when the sun
26:18
Speaker 1: goes down. You have to mimic that for your circadian rhythm.
26:21
Speaker 1: When the sun goes down, that's when you need to
26:23
Speaker 1: be a bit more mindful about the blue light. Okay.
26:26
Speaker 1: So that's when maybe an hour or two before you
26:29
Speaker 1: go to bed, you want to switch that kind of
26:32
Speaker 1: filter on, or your devices. You might want to wear
26:34
Speaker 1: the blue blocking glasses. You might want to also look
26:38
Speaker 1: at your light bulbs that you're using. The best light
26:41
Speaker 1: bulbs to block out blue light or for no blue
26:45
Speaker 1: light are the incandescent light bulbs, but they're actually the
26:47
Speaker 1: worst for the environment, and the ones that are really popular,
26:50
Speaker 1: LED and all of that have quite a strong blue
26:52
Speaker 1: fluorescent light that comes from it. But that's okay because
26:55
Speaker 1: what you can do you can still get those lights
26:57
Speaker 1: that are better for the environment, but you put like
27:00
Speaker 1: a filter over them that's gonna emit like a like
27:02
Speaker 1: a red or an orange glow that blocks out the
27:05
Speaker 1: blue wavelength. So it's still you can get around that fine,
27:08
Speaker 1: but just be aware of that and do that. Also
27:11
Speaker 1: with your screens, the TV everything is emitting a blue light.
27:15
Speaker 1: You can put a filter on it, but it might
27:17
Speaker 1: not filter out all the blue light. So one of
27:19
Speaker 1: the if you're someone that struggles to fall asleep, you
27:21
Speaker 1: need to get rid of devices when you're going to sleep.
27:24
Speaker 1: I don't care what you say, it is an absolute must.
27:26
Speaker 1: You are kidding yourself if you think that just a
27:29
Speaker 1: little filter the nighttime filter is going to do the job.
27:32
Speaker 1: It won't. So what I recommend you do is you
27:34
Speaker 1: grab a book and you have a back light like
27:37
Speaker 1: a lamp that has like an orange red glow that
27:40
Speaker 1: it's going to be the best thing to start releasing
27:42
Speaker 1: more melotonin. You're not too stimulated with, you know, a device,
27:45
Speaker 1: it's more a book. It's a lot more calming and
27:48
Speaker 1: you're able to fall asleep a lot easier doing it
27:51
Speaker 1: that way. Or you can listen to a podcast or
27:53
Speaker 1: something like that instead. Now, I want to talk about
27:57
Speaker 1: what lack of sleep can cause. And the first thing
28:00
Speaker 1: that I wanted to touch on was weight gain, because
28:04
Speaker 1: there was a lot of studies done, in particular in
28:06
Speaker 1: the United States. These studies were done and it showed
28:09
Speaker 1: that people, and this is wild statistic, people that get
28:13
Speaker 1: less than five hours of sleep a night, so five
28:17
Speaker 1: hours or less have a fifty greater chance of being obese. Okay,
28:23
Speaker 1: there is a huge link between lack of sleep and
28:27
Speaker 1: weight gain, and there's very good reasons to back up
28:31
Speaker 1: why that is. So firstly, let's touch on the neurotransmitters
28:34
Speaker 1: of grellin and leptin. Okay. So remember neurotransmitters are chemical messages. Okay.
28:41
Speaker 1: Grellon sets off signals to promote feeling hungry, and leptin
28:45
Speaker 1: sends signals to make you feel full. Okay. So you
28:47
Speaker 1: go through these cycles in the day whenever you need
28:49
Speaker 1: more nutrients, whenever you need you know, more energy, calories,
28:53
Speaker 1: all of that. Okay. Now, sleep is critical for the
28:57
Speaker 1: regulation of these neurotransmitters, actually for the REGs all neurotransmitters,
29:01
Speaker 1: but in particular, let's talk about leptin and grellin. Okay,
29:04
Speaker 1: people who are sleep deprived have higher levels of grellin
29:09
Speaker 1: being produced and lower levels of leptin, so it kind
29:13
Speaker 1: of skews the production and it makes more of the
29:15
Speaker 1: hunger neurotransmitter and less of the hunger suppressor. Okay, Therefore,
29:21
Speaker 1: you struggle to feel full, you struggle to feel like
29:24
Speaker 1: you have enough energy or calories. Even though you do,
29:27
Speaker 1: it just doesn't feel that way for you. So it's
29:29
Speaker 1: not even about overeating all this, and that you might
29:31
Speaker 1: genuinely be like, I'm so hungry, and this could be
29:34
Speaker 1: because of a skewed release of the hormones and neurotransmitters
29:39
Speaker 1: that you're getting, and not to do with the fact
29:41
Speaker 1: that your body actually needs those calories. And then the
29:46
Speaker 1: other problems. So you've already got this issue going on, right,
29:49
Speaker 1: You've got more grellin, less leptin, you're feeling more hungry,
29:52
Speaker 1: you're not as easily satisfied. And then on top of
29:55
Speaker 1: all of that, when you are fatigued, which occurs if
29:58
Speaker 1: you're getting less than your idea amount of sleep, whether
30:01
Speaker 1: you feel it or not, you are fatigued, your body
30:03
Speaker 1: starts to work differently. The part of the brain that
30:06
Speaker 1: controls impulses does not work as well. No way near
30:09
Speaker 1: as well, So you struggle to control your impulses, and
30:13
Speaker 1: at the same time, because of the decrease of impulse
30:17
Speaker 1: control in your prefrontal cortex, more activity in the amygdala,
30:20
Speaker 1: which is the emotion center, you're seeking out more reward
30:25
Speaker 1: or fun seeking behaviors. You start to really seek these out,
30:29
Speaker 1: and when this happens, you're more likely to want fatty, sugary,
30:34
Speaker 1: calorie danse salty foods to satisfy these like thrill seeking
30:38
Speaker 1: behaviors or reward seeking behaviors. So it's this too pronged
30:42
Speaker 1: effect that you're getting. You're getting lack of impulse control,
30:46
Speaker 1: an increased seeking of reward, which you then do in
30:51
Speaker 1: foods like impulsivity, all of that, and then you're also
30:54
Speaker 1: feeling more hungry and you're struggling to feel full. So
30:58
Speaker 1: because of that, you are then obviously gradually daily gaining
31:04
Speaker 1: and gaining and gaining weight. Even though you're trying to
31:06
Speaker 1: do everything to control everything, to control your impulses and
31:09
Speaker 1: suppress these things, it's a lot harder to do it
31:12
Speaker 1: when your brain is constantly sending you signals being like,
31:15
Speaker 1: seek out these foods, seek out these foods. I'm hungry
31:17
Speaker 1: I'm not full, and hungry I'm not full. All this
31:19
Speaker 1: is happening likely because you are not sleeping enough. It's wild,
31:23
Speaker 1: but it's that simple now talking about this lack of
31:27
Speaker 1: impulse control. The lack of sleep is then linked to
31:34
Speaker 1: stimulant over use, So having too much nicotine all the
31:40
Speaker 1: time to kind of stimulate you throughout the day, all
31:42
Speaker 1: this coffee throughout the day, and then of course other drugs,
31:46
Speaker 1: and then of course things like later on in the night.
31:49
Speaker 1: Because you're overstimulated, you then do things like you're drinking
31:52
Speaker 1: alcohol to kind of calm down and relax. So we
31:55
Speaker 1: then start to have less of an impulse control because
31:58
Speaker 1: we rely on these stimulants and relaxance for us to
32:03
Speaker 1: get us through the day, to keep us alert, and
32:05
Speaker 1: then to wind us down at the end of the day.
32:07
Speaker 1: The problem with that obviously health problems. But the problem
32:11
Speaker 1: with that is we think that let's take coffee for example,
32:14
Speaker 1: because I don't even think coffee is unhealthy. Okay, coffee
32:16
Speaker 1: is actually fine for your brain. But the problem is
32:19
Speaker 1: that we think that a stimulant equals brain performance. No,
32:25
Speaker 1: it doesn't. The only thing that's going to help you
32:27
Speaker 1: with your brain performance is a good night's sleep and
32:29
Speaker 1: a good diet and exercise, literally the fucking boring things
32:34
Speaker 1: that you've heard about for your whole life. That's the
32:36
Speaker 1: only thing that's going to increase increase your brain performance. Okay,
32:40
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, A stimulant makes you more alert,
32:44
Speaker 1: so you'll be buzzing, you'll be more awake, But your
32:48
Speaker 1: brain is not going to necessarily perform better. Okay, So
32:52
Speaker 1: that tenth coffee isn't going to make you perform better
32:55
Speaker 1: than your first coffee, not at all. But you'll be
32:58
Speaker 1: buzzing more and you're less likely to fall sleep, so
33:00
Speaker 1: we'll keep you awake. The same goes for nicotine, The
33:03
Speaker 1: same goes for other drugs. All these things, you know,
33:06
Speaker 1: we seek out because we've got less of an impulse
33:08
Speaker 1: control and we're feeling tired. We seek out the things
33:11
Speaker 1: that are going to stimulate us more. You notice that
33:14
Speaker 1: as you get a better sleep, you stop seeking out
33:17
Speaker 1: these things. Your behaviors start to change without even having
33:20
Speaker 1: to really force yourself to control yourself. And then separate
33:23
Speaker 1: to all of that, when people turn to booze at
33:25
Speaker 1: the end of the day to kind of calm down
33:28
Speaker 1: and to you know, to start to slow everything down,
33:31
Speaker 1: you're you're turning to a sedative. If you're taking a benzo,
33:34
Speaker 1: if you're taking a valium, if you're taking alcohol to
33:37
Speaker 1: help you fall asleep, that's not helping you fall asleep.
33:41
Speaker 1: You are sedating yourself. That's not the same thing. And
33:45
Speaker 1: that's why if you take a valium or a benzo
33:48
Speaker 1: or something like that, you might wake up feeling like
33:51
Speaker 1: like shattered, Like yeah, you slept, but it felt like
33:54
Speaker 1: you were almost like knocked unconscious until you woke up.
33:57
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like a fresh, nice, beautiful sleep. You
34:00
Speaker 1: feel like, whoa, that was a bit hectic, especially if
34:03
Speaker 1: you take a little bit too much. The same happens
34:05
Speaker 1: with alcohol, because what happens is you are literally sedating yourself.
34:08
Speaker 1: But the natural onset of neurotransmitters and the suppression of
34:12
Speaker 1: other neurotransmitters isn't occurring naturally and properly. Like I was
34:17
Speaker 1: explaining before, you're literally just dulling down your system enough
34:21
Speaker 1: that you then just snooze off into an abyss. Okay,
34:25
Speaker 1: very different the two things, and just be aware of that.
34:27
Speaker 1: So if you're always medicating yourself to fall asleep, you
34:30
Speaker 1: need to seek other ways. There are ways to supplement
34:34
Speaker 1: a little bit of melotonin, but that's something that you
34:37
Speaker 1: need to be speaking to a doctor to get the
34:38
Speaker 1: right amount, because you also don't want to be pumping
34:40
Speaker 1: yourself with too much melatonin and then like screwing up
34:45
Speaker 1: your body's natural production office. So it's definitely a great
34:48
Speaker 1: aid to actually help you fall asleep properly and naturally,
34:51
Speaker 1: but just make sure that you're understanding what dose you
34:53
Speaker 1: need to be taking so you're not screwing up with
34:57
Speaker 1: your neurotransmitter system. Okay, another thing that what happens with
35:01
Speaker 1: poor sleep, You get things like micro sleeps, You get
35:04
Speaker 1: lapses in judgment, your reaction speed goes down dramatically, accidents occur.
35:08
Speaker 1: There was this really interesting study that I had to
35:11
Speaker 1: focus on in one of my semesters, and it had
35:14
Speaker 1: to do with people that had been awake for longer
35:17
Speaker 1: than seventeen hours. Just seventeen hours had the same reaction
35:21
Speaker 1: time on the road driving a car than people that
35:24
Speaker 1: were above the legal limit of alcohol. And the reason
35:27
Speaker 1: why zero point zero five, at least in Australia zero
35:31
Speaker 1: point zero five or above is illegal is because your
35:35
Speaker 1: reaction time isn't good enough. Okay, it's not good enough
35:38
Speaker 1: to swerve out of something, or to hit the brakes,
35:40
Speaker 1: or just to react just in general to lights, to
35:42
Speaker 1: different things, and you are a hazard on the road. However,
35:45
Speaker 1: when you were when you haven't slept for seventeen hours,
35:48
Speaker 1: the same effects occur. So it just goes to show
35:51
Speaker 1: why so many accidents on the road are due to
35:53
Speaker 1: sleep deprivation, because they literally your brain starts to mimic
35:58
Speaker 1: similar behaviors as when you're too it's really quite hectic.
36:03
Speaker 1: Another thing that happens is you have poor memory. Your
36:06
Speaker 1: memory starts to go down because when you are asleep,
36:08
Speaker 1: your brain is consolidating your memory. Everything that you've learned
36:13
Speaker 1: in that day is now getting packaged quite nicely into
36:16
Speaker 1: your memory. And this is a lot of scientists believe.
36:19
Speaker 1: Sleep scientists believe that this is why your dreams can
36:22
Speaker 1: be the way they are, because not only are you
36:24
Speaker 1: consolidating the memory for the day, but you're also bringing
36:27
Speaker 1: it into this memory retrieval system. So it might have
36:30
Speaker 1: something to do with the part of the brain that's
36:33
Speaker 1: storing the memory is right next to the part of
36:35
Speaker 1: the brain that can retrieve other memories. You might get
36:39
Speaker 1: this weird mix of maybe something that happened throughout the day,
36:42
Speaker 1: but also something that happened ages ago, and with this
36:44
Speaker 1: and like a weird kind of mystical connection of everything.
36:48
Speaker 1: That's what they believe is happening when you're consolidating your
36:51
Speaker 1: memory and you're dreaming. And they found that people that
36:53
Speaker 1: are height like really heightened anxiety have quite scary dreams
36:59
Speaker 1: or even nightmares versus people that don't have a mood
37:02
Speaker 1: disorder who might just have just weird, you know, dreams
37:05
Speaker 1: that they can't make sense of. If you are trying
37:08
Speaker 1: to increase your memory, sleep is the number one thing
37:12
Speaker 1: you need to be doing. If you're cramming for an exam,
37:16
Speaker 1: don't pull an all nighter. Ever, it's not worth it
37:19
Speaker 1: because you literally don't end up retaining that information before
37:23
Speaker 1: the exam. It just doesn't retain. You will hold onto
37:25
Speaker 1: maybe the things that you just did by like route learning, repetition, repetition,
37:30
Speaker 1: but concepts don't get retained. You know, ideas and concepts
37:34
Speaker 1: of how things flow together. That's not going to get retained,
37:37
Speaker 1: and you're going to bum out on your exam. Pulling
37:40
Speaker 1: an all nighter is the worst thing you can do
37:42
Speaker 1: for your memory, and it is the biggest waste of
37:44
Speaker 1: time ever. The best thing you can do is study
37:45
Speaker 1: for a few hours and sleep a good night's sleep,
37:47
Speaker 1: and then go into your exam. You're much better off
37:50
Speaker 1: doing that. And so that is with anything in your life.
37:52
Speaker 1: Your memory. How good your memory is is a direct
37:58
Speaker 1: reflection of how good your sleep is. Okay, and because
38:01
Speaker 1: of that, that is then heavily linked to a lot
38:03
Speaker 1: of mood disorders. If you have poor memory, poor memory
38:07
Speaker 1: is directly linked to a lot of mood disorders. Anxiety, stress, depression.
38:11
Speaker 1: That is all linked to not being able to remember things.
38:15
Speaker 1: It impacts your work life, your daily life, your relationships, everything.
38:20
Speaker 1: And then you get more stressed. You're releasing more cortisol.
38:23
Speaker 1: Cortisol than inhibits, you know, your ability to form new
38:26
Speaker 1: memories and to preserve your memories and to consolidate your memories.
38:31
Speaker 1: And there's your vicious cycle of anxiety, stress and depression
38:35
Speaker 1: and poor memory. Okay, hectic, I know it sounds hectic. Anyway,
38:39
Speaker 1: Let's continue more things neurological disorders and illnesses. So things
38:43
Speaker 1: like schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, Parkinson's disease, dementia, dementia with lewy bodies.
38:49
Speaker 1: There's a whole more, like a much bigger range I
38:52
Speaker 1: won't go into. But these these degenerative diseases are all
38:57
Speaker 1: heavily linked to sleep disorders. Now, this is really interesting.
39:02
Speaker 1: So they found that, and this is what they were
39:04
Speaker 1: trying to figure out. And we're still not sure in
39:06
Speaker 1: the science. It's still a big question mark. But does
39:09
Speaker 1: one cause the other? Or for example, does all these
39:12
Speaker 1: sleep disorders end up causing the the degeneration this particular
39:20
Speaker 1: kind of degeneration, or was the degeneration already present but
39:24
Speaker 1: asymptomatic and the only symptom that you could see was
39:27
Speaker 1: through the sleep disorder, Like, is that sleep disorder part
39:30
Speaker 1: of that degenerative disease that you're ultimately it's going to
39:34
Speaker 1: manifest out when you're sixty or seventy. We're not quite
39:37
Speaker 1: sure yet. But what we've been able to figure out,
39:39
Speaker 1: and when I say we, I'm referring to scientists in
39:42
Speaker 1: that field. What they have been able to figure out
39:44
Speaker 1: is that you can at least look at the patterns
39:48
Speaker 1: within the sleep disorder, and if you can target the
39:51
Speaker 1: patterns of sleep disorder, you can then better you can
39:54
Speaker 1: have preventative measures for that disorder later on. So it's
39:58
Speaker 1: still very beneficial to if you do sleep disorder, to
40:01
Speaker 1: be getting that looked at as soon as possible, because
40:04
Speaker 1: you can prevent the onset or at the very least
40:08
Speaker 1: learn how to manage something that's going to occur later
40:10
Speaker 1: down the track. Okay, but when I talk about sleep disorders,
40:13
Speaker 1: that's different to sleep deprivation and lack of sleep. A
40:16
Speaker 1: sleep disorder is something like rem sleep disorder like I
40:19
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, where you can't control your movements
40:22
Speaker 1: in your sleep, or where you're fully paralyzed but you're awake,
40:25
Speaker 1: like sleep paralysis, things like that. That's what I mean
40:29
Speaker 1: when I talk about a sleep disorder. Now, what can
40:34
Speaker 1: we do to improve our sleep? Okay, there's so many
40:39
Speaker 1: things that we can be doing, and it all comes
40:41
Speaker 1: down to just the most basic basic things. Number One,
40:46
Speaker 1: you want to get your circadian rhythm as as perfectly
40:51
Speaker 1: as possible. Okay, really time it with the day. So
40:54
Speaker 1: the first thing you want to be doing is wake
40:56
Speaker 1: up with the sun. And I'm not talking about like
40:58
Speaker 1: wake up before the sun rises. You don't have to
40:59
Speaker 1: do that. I'm talking about do not use blinds, do
41:01
Speaker 1: not use shutters. You want the sun to wake you up.
41:04
Speaker 1: That's going to start a natural release of the neurochemicals
41:07
Speaker 1: that you need to be alert and awake. That's number one.
41:10
Speaker 1: Get outside if you can in the natural daylight. Then
41:13
Speaker 1: you've got to look at your sleep hygien at the
41:14
Speaker 1: end of the night. Everything I spoke about blue lights, stimulants,
41:17
Speaker 1: things that gonna keep you highly aroused and suppress melotonin
41:21
Speaker 1: you want to get rid of. Okay, you want more
41:23
Speaker 1: like dim lights, books, less activity, less TV. Things like
41:28
Speaker 1: a podcast or sleep sounds or sleep stories are phenomenal
41:32
Speaker 1: for that. Okay, that's what you want to be doing.
41:34
Speaker 1: You also want to be exercising every single day. Exercising
41:37
Speaker 1: produces a neurotrophic factor called brain derived neurotrophic factor that
41:42
Speaker 1: also really helps regulate your sleep as well. These neurotrophies
41:45
Speaker 1: that get released during intense exercise then also play a
41:49
Speaker 1: really positive role in how you sleep. Meditation is another
41:52
Speaker 1: great one. Meditation is what helps regulate your quartersol production levels.
41:57
Speaker 1: So the more you meditate, the more you the brain
42:01
Speaker 1: regions with each other. You're getting the prefrontal cortex, which
42:04
Speaker 1: is the logical part of the brain, calming down the
42:07
Speaker 1: really emotional flight or fight cortisol producing part of the brain.
42:12
Speaker 1: Those areas talk a lot better with each other, they
42:15
Speaker 1: connect more, and meditation really enhances that activity. It really
42:20
Speaker 1: enhances that and it really lowers down excessive production of cortisol.
42:24
Speaker 1: Meditation is never going to stop you producing necessary cortisol.
42:28
Speaker 1: You never have to worry about that. You're always going
42:30
Speaker 1: to have the proper arousal when necessary, but it will
42:33
Speaker 1: suppress unnecessary chronic levels of cortisol. When your cortisol levels
42:38
Speaker 1: are down, inflammation is down, you sleep a lot better.
42:42
Speaker 1: So it's this kind of notice that it kind of
42:44
Speaker 1: circles back. Everything circles back to that circadian rhythm, the
42:49
Speaker 1: production of melatonin, cortisol when it's at its high, when
42:53
Speaker 1: it's at as low. So you need to be implementing
42:55
Speaker 1: all these things throughout your day. Again as usual, always
42:58
Speaker 1: look at what is causing you dress in your life
43:00
Speaker 1: and eliminate. Eliminate, eliminate, cut the dead weight, cut the
43:04
Speaker 1: toxic people. Everything I speak about in my podcasts. When
43:08
Speaker 1: it's not even that deep dive into science, you need
43:11
Speaker 1: to do it for your own brain health as well,
43:13
Speaker 1: you hanging around with toxic people is doing you no favors.
43:17
Speaker 1: It's doing you a lot of disservices when it comes
43:19
Speaker 1: to your aging. And when I talk about aging, this
43:22
Speaker 1: shit happens earlier than you think. Okay, the onset of
43:25
Speaker 1: a lot of things happens way earlier than you think,
43:27
Speaker 1: decades before you even see any symptoms. So I know
43:30
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine your future self, but try to
43:33
Speaker 1: and start doing things now. And the number one thing
43:36
Speaker 1: you need to start doing is cutting out stresses. And
43:39
Speaker 1: that includes toxic people, narcissistic people, bad situations, jobs that
43:44
Speaker 1: don't fulfill you and don't cause you bring you happiness. Okay,
43:48
Speaker 1: what is stressing you? How can I get rid of it? Okay,
43:50
Speaker 1: it's not good enough to sit there and say, oh, oh,
43:54
Speaker 1: you know, that's just how it is. Because if you
43:55
Speaker 1: just live your life just how it is, nothing's ever
43:57
Speaker 1: going to change. You have a lot more power and
43:59
Speaker 1: cont then you give yourself credit for. So start to
44:02
Speaker 1: use that power, use that control, start to regulate things
44:06
Speaker 1: in your life. So you're a lot happier, less stress,
44:08
Speaker 1: you sleep better, you're happy, you're more productive, you're more creative,
44:11
Speaker 1: your relationships are better. You be living your best life
44:13
Speaker 1: just by learning how to really get your sleep down. Pat. Okay,
44:17
Speaker 1: mood disorders go down. When your sleep is better, your
44:19
Speaker 1: anxiety drops, your depression drops, everything gets better. Oh, I
44:24
Speaker 1: love sleep so much. It's just incredible. Best thing ever. Also,
44:27
Speaker 1: very quickly, how do you know if you're getting enough sleep? Simple?
44:31
Speaker 1: If you need to use the snooze, you're not getting
44:34
Speaker 1: enough sleep. Okay, you should, and I understand that it
44:38
Speaker 1: might be like a habit, But if you put it
44:40
Speaker 1: this way, if you have to hit the snooze more
44:41
Speaker 1: than once, you definitely are not getting enough sleep. If
44:44
Speaker 1: you wake up and you're shitty and aggravated, you're not
44:47
Speaker 1: getting enough sleep. If you don't want people to talk
44:49
Speaker 1: to you in the morning, you are definitely not getting
44:51
Speaker 1: enough sleep. And if you think that you can't function
44:53
Speaker 1: without a stimulant like a coffee, you are not getting
44:57
Speaker 1: enough sleep. Like I need my coffee in the morning,
44:59
Speaker 1: but purely because I I love the taste so much.
45:01
Speaker 1: I can easily function without one, though, So that's how
45:03
Speaker 1: it's got to be. It's fine to have the morning coffee.
45:05
Speaker 1: I love that shit. It's a great ritual. But ask yourself,
45:08
Speaker 1: why do I want this? Is it because I like
45:10
Speaker 1: the ritual and the taste and the little boost that
45:12
Speaker 1: it gives me, or is because I need it to function?
45:15
Speaker 1: They're two totally separate things. Guys, thank you so much
45:17
Speaker 1: for listening to this. I've been so excited about doing
45:20
Speaker 1: this podcast. So much of my like love went into
45:22
Speaker 1: this episode, so thank you so much for listening. Please share,
45:26
Speaker 1: Please rate, and review, share it on your Instagram. You
45:29
Speaker 1: guys are so great at spreading the word of this
45:31
Speaker 1: podcast for me. Love you all so much, and as always,
45:35
Speaker 1: be kind to yourselves, be kind to your brains, don't
45:38
Speaker 1: take shit from anyone, and especially don't take shit from yourself.
45:41
Speaker 1: Dunker