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#HURDLEMOMENT: An Expert On The Glymphatic System: What Is It & What Does It Do? · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: So it's during deep sleep that the glymphatic system gets activated,
0:05
Speaker 1: and when it does, we are able to clear out
0:08
Speaker 1: all of the toxins that accumulate during the day.
0:26
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, Emily A body here coming to you from
0:29
Speaker 2: the Age Studio. You are listening to another installment of
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Speaker 2: Hurdle Moment from Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast. Reconnect with
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Speaker 2: everyone from your favorite athletes to top experts and industry
0:41
Speaker 2: CEOs about their highest highs, toughest moments, and everything in between.
0:46
Speaker 2: We all go through hurdles in life, and my goal
0:49
Speaker 2: through these discussions is to empower you to better navigate
0:52
Speaker 2: yours and move with intention so that you can stride
0:56
Speaker 2: towards your own big potential and of course have some
0:59
Speaker 2: fun along the way.
1:02
Speaker 3: Today I am so so.
1:05
Speaker 2: Amped to be bringing you my conversation with Luisa Nicola.
1:10
Speaker 2: She's a clinical neuroscientist, a high performance coach, and host
1:14
Speaker 2: of the neuro Experience podcast. Let me tell you I
1:19
Speaker 2: was blown away chatting with her. This episode is one
1:24
Speaker 2: of two that I have in the pipe featuring Louisa
1:28
Speaker 2: and her outrageous expertise. So you want to talk to
1:32
Speaker 2: someone who is a wealth of knowledge when it comes
1:35
Speaker 2: to what is going on in our minds, how the
1:39
Speaker 2: brain operates, how we can level up our regular performance,
1:43
Speaker 2: and that she is the real deal. Now, for this
1:47
Speaker 2: week's Hurtle moment, we are focusing on the glymphatic system. Now.
1:52
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if this is a term or something
1:55
Speaker 2: that you have heard about before, but today you are
1:58
Speaker 2: going to learn all about it. Essentially, what it is
2:02
Speaker 2: is a waste clearance pathway in the brain in place
2:07
Speaker 2: of lymphatic vessels. I know that sounds a little inside baseball,
2:12
Speaker 2: but we break it down today.
2:14
Speaker 3: The glymphatic system is.
2:16
Speaker 2: Dedicated to drain away soluble waste, proteins and metabolic products. Basically,
2:23
Speaker 2: it is responsible for helping us not feel foggy when
2:28
Speaker 2: we wake up. And no surprise, Louisa gets into the how,
2:32
Speaker 2: the why, and all the particulars in today's episode in
2:35
Speaker 2: a way that is really digestible and easy to understand.
2:40
Speaker 2: I know a lot of the time when we get
2:42
Speaker 2: a little sign feet on the show, that can be difficult,
2:45
Speaker 2: but when you are as in the loop and well
2:49
Speaker 2: versed as this woman, it comes naturally. Trust me, this
2:53
Speaker 2: is an episode that you really want to pay attention to.
2:56
Speaker 2: It will drastically impact your every day functioning, your everyday betterment.
3:02
Speaker 3: And I literally went back and.
3:04
Speaker 2: Listened to this audio and took notes after Louisa left
3:07
Speaker 2: the studio. So I'm amped to be able to bring
3:11
Speaker 2: you all this good information. Also want to make sure
3:14
Speaker 2: to highlight how much I would appreciate it. It would
3:17
Speaker 2: literally mean the world if you would ask me a
3:21
Speaker 2: listener question. You don't need to create a podcast to
3:23
Speaker 2: have your voice featured on the podcast. You can just
3:26
Speaker 2: ask me a question and I will check off this
3:29
Speaker 2: big life bucket list moment for you to ask me
3:33
Speaker 2: a question, leave me a voice message, and have it
3:35
Speaker 2: answered in an upcoming episode.
3:37
Speaker 3: Just click on over to the show.
3:38
Speaker 2: Note no topic is off limits and I would be
3:41
Speaker 2: happy to give you my feedback. Make sure you're also
3:44
Speaker 2: following along with Hurdle over on social It's at Hurdle podcast.
3:47
Speaker 2: I am over at Emily a Body and with that,
3:51
Speaker 2: let's get to hurdling.
4:05
Speaker 3: Today.
4:06
Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Louise and Nicola. She is
4:08
Speaker 2: a clinical neuroscientist, a high performance coach, also host of
4:14
Speaker 2: the neuro Experience podcast How you Doing Today?
4:18
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here. I'm doing really really good.
4:20
Speaker 3: Oh, really really good. We love it. It's the sun,
4:23
Speaker 3: isn't it.
4:24
Speaker 1: It actually is. I'm one of those people who gets
4:27
Speaker 1: affected by the sun in a positive way. I'm from Australia,
4:31
Speaker 1: so I don't do well with New York City at all.
4:34
Speaker 1: And it's weather restrictions.
4:35
Speaker 3: How long have you been living in New York?
4:37
Speaker 1: I made the move in twenty seventeen, okay.
4:40
Speaker 2: And that now as you sit here and you feel
4:43
Speaker 2: really really good on a day like today, how do
4:45
Speaker 2: you feel about that?
4:46
Speaker 1: I just can't believe that I live here. Actually, I
4:50
Speaker 1: was just talking to somebody at IBM and we were
4:54
Speaker 1: literally texting, and he's one of the vps, and I
4:56
Speaker 1: was just thinking to myself, how am I talking and
4:59
Speaker 1: text staying with a VP of IBN, And it was just,
5:03
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like this place is magical.
5:05
Speaker 3: It is well.
5:06
Speaker 2: I mean you literally like walk down the street and
5:08
Speaker 2: run into people all the time that like are the
5:10
Speaker 2: next great things?
5:12
Speaker 3: As are we the next the next grape?
5:16
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so excited to have you in here today.
5:18
Speaker 2: This is going to be one of two episodes. So
5:21
Speaker 2: grateful for us to be able to collaborate in this way.
5:24
Speaker 2: And today, first and foremost, we are going to be
5:26
Speaker 2: talking about the glymphatic system. Now before you tell us
5:31
Speaker 2: what that is, why it's important, what we need to know.
5:35
Speaker 2: I feel as though you should give us just a
5:38
Speaker 2: little bit of a taste of understanding your background, because
5:43
Speaker 2: saying the word, oh, just a neuroscientist, that's kind of fancy.
5:49
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, No, it's look, I study the brain.
5:51
Speaker 1: Whenever you hear the word neuroscientist, it's like brain scientist.
5:55
Speaker 1: And so I went to school. I studied medicine at
5:58
Speaker 1: Sydney University, and the dream was to go and be
6:03
Speaker 1: a physician, Go and be a doctor. And then in
6:06
Speaker 1: year two I was fascinated by the brain. I fell
6:09
Speaker 1: in love with it, and I knew that I was
6:12
Speaker 1: just going to dedicate my entire life to it in
6:13
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form. So went through my degree,
6:17
Speaker 1: went into internship, and during my internship I did a
6:21
Speaker 1: lot on neurophysiology. And that is have you ever seen
6:26
Speaker 1: in those movies where you put a cap on your
6:28
Speaker 1: head and there's all these electrodes coming out of your brain.
6:31
Speaker 1: So that's called an EEG and what you do is
6:34
Speaker 1: it assesses the brain waveh activity, so it assesses the
6:37
Speaker 1: functionality of your brain, and that was remarkable to me.
6:42
Speaker 1: So I started studying that. I started studying epilepsy, what's
6:45
Speaker 1: happening during the brain during epilepsy, And then I went
6:48
Speaker 1: into concussions, and that's how I got into the NFL
6:51
Speaker 1: because I was figuring out what happens if you get hit,
6:53
Speaker 1: what happens to the functionality of the brain. And I
6:56
Speaker 1: really started to dissect that, and that was actually how
6:59
Speaker 1: I went into where I am now into elite sport
7:02
Speaker 1: because to me, our brain comes first. It is everything.
7:05
Speaker 1: It dictates our movements, our thoughts, where we are, our reality.
7:09
Speaker 1: And I thought, if I can put this cap on
7:12
Speaker 1: everybody's brain, I'd be able to really understand how well
7:15
Speaker 1: their brain is functioning. So neuroscientists go through they pick
7:19
Speaker 1: any area in the central nervous system or in the
7:22
Speaker 1: peripheral nervous system, and they study that. And I went
7:25
Speaker 1: into studying neurophysiology, which is literally the functioning of the brain.
7:31
Speaker 2: Kind of snazzy, yeah, And that's where sleep actually comes
7:35
Speaker 2: in because if you go into a sleep study.
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Speaker 1: You have to go in to it's called a PSG.
7:40
Speaker 1: A sleep study. You go into a lab and they
7:42
Speaker 1: hook up these electrodes, they hook them up to your eyes,
7:45
Speaker 1: to your face, and that essentially is neurophysiology.
7:48
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow, okay, so this is such an impressive career path.
7:54
Speaker 3: Fast forward for me a little bit.
7:56
Speaker 2: You did your studying in Australia and now again you
7:59
Speaker 2: mentioned that living here in New York.
8:01
Speaker 3: So what brought you to New York.
8:03
Speaker 1: Oh? You know what, It's such a weird something really
8:07
Speaker 1: weird happened to me. One of my professors way back when.
8:11
Speaker 1: His name is Andy Walsh. He was in twenty sixteen.
8:15
Speaker 1: He was the head of high performance at red Bull
8:18
Speaker 1: and we were on the phone and he was like
8:19
Speaker 1: one of my mentors, and he said, you should come
8:22
Speaker 1: to the red Bull High Performance camp in Malibu. I
8:26
Speaker 1: had never stepped foot in America. I was like, okay,
8:31
Speaker 1: I will get on a flight and I will come
8:33
Speaker 1: for a week. And I went there and it was
8:36
Speaker 1: the most incredible experience. I was around the best athletes
8:40
Speaker 1: in the world and it was a three day experience.
8:42
Speaker 1: And these athletes were talking to me, and one of them,
8:46
Speaker 1: and I won't say who he was, is a Formula
8:48
Speaker 1: One driver and he said, can you do something with
8:51
Speaker 1: me and work on my mind and my brain just
8:53
Speaker 1: to try and get me ready. And I was like sure.
8:57
Speaker 1: I was like, America is a weird place, but I'll
8:59
Speaker 1: do that. And I did, and I worked with him
9:01
Speaker 1: for about an hour and a half and he put
9:03
Speaker 1: me on Instagram and twenty sixteen Instagram wasn't what it
9:07
Speaker 1: was like now. So he put me on Instagram saying
9:09
Speaker 1: I just worked with Louisa, this girl from Australia, and
9:13
Speaker 1: everything blew up and I literally was people like all
9:16
Speaker 1: through California were like, can I come and see you?
9:19
Speaker 1: Professional boxes, et cetera. My day, I was meant to
9:22
Speaker 1: just be here for a week. I was getting booked
9:24
Speaker 1: down and inundated with all of these one on one sessions,
9:28
Speaker 1: which led to me staying for two weeks. And then
9:31
Speaker 1: somebody in New York City and I'm going to say
9:33
Speaker 1: her name because she changed my life.
9:36
Speaker 3: Jaws.
9:36
Speaker 1: She's a boxing instructor for Rumble. She reached out to me.
9:39
Speaker 1: She's like, hey, look, I found you on Instagram. I'd
9:41
Speaker 1: love for you to come and come to New York
9:44
Speaker 1: City and do a workshop with us. So I went
9:48
Speaker 1: to New York and I never went home.
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Speaker 3: And I never went home. Wow, that is insane.
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Speaker 2: Well, we will definitely get into this if you're listening
9:57
Speaker 2: to this in chronological order, we'll get into this in
9:59
Speaker 2: next Monday's episode when we dive into all the ins
10:02
Speaker 2: and outs of how you got.
10:03
Speaker 3: To here today.
10:04
Speaker 2: But what we are going to do in this specific episode,
10:07
Speaker 2: Like I said, talk about the glymphatic system. So you
10:11
Speaker 2: mentioned the importance of sleep. Can I tell you I
10:13
Speaker 2: haven't going to bed at like eight o'clock lately.
10:15
Speaker 3: I've seen on your regularly. Yeah, yeah, what about you?
10:18
Speaker 3: What do you go to sleep?
10:19
Speaker 1: I lights out at Neuroathletics, which is my company, is
10:22
Speaker 1: ten pm late.
10:23
Speaker 3: Lights out of my company.
10:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, lights out, and that's for all of my all
10:27
Speaker 1: of my athletes, it's lights out. And the funny thing
10:29
Speaker 1: is I track them on the back end so they
10:31
Speaker 1: can't lie to me.
10:32
Speaker 3: Oh wow, this is intimidating.
10:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:34
Speaker 2: Why don't we kick things off here by you explaining
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Speaker 2: to us what the glymphatic system is.
10:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you've heard of the lymphatic system. Right, we
10:42
Speaker 1: go and get lymphatic massages. And we knew, you know
10:45
Speaker 1: before twenty years ago when knew, Okay, go and get
10:48
Speaker 1: a lymphatic message because it kind of moves around the
10:50
Speaker 1: limp of fluid in your body and detoxifies you. Twenty
10:54
Speaker 1: years ago, neuroscientists they discovered that the brain has a
10:59
Speaker 1: limit fatic system and that is wonderful because they found
11:03
Speaker 1: out that, oh, if our brain has a lymphatic system,
11:06
Speaker 1: that means we can clear away the waste products that
11:10
Speaker 1: accumulate during the day. Waste products such as environmental toxins,
11:16
Speaker 1: waste products such as alcohol, or different things that you eat,
11:20
Speaker 1: some of the bad things that you eat. It gets
11:21
Speaker 1: built up in your brain and they just realize, Wow,
11:25
Speaker 1: what happens is this lymphatic system actually activates and it
11:31
Speaker 1: clears out all of the debris. They called it the
11:35
Speaker 1: glymphatic system because we have particular neurons in the brain. Okay,
11:40
Speaker 1: So neurons are nerve cells, and there is one particular
11:43
Speaker 1: one called glial cells and it actually comes from the
11:46
Speaker 1: Greek word glue. And what happens is when this system activates,
11:55
Speaker 1: they basically clear out a pathway for your cerebral final
12:00
Speaker 1: fluid to wash through them. Okay, and it goes out
12:04
Speaker 1: and it clears out your brain. There is only really
12:08
Speaker 1: one way to activate this system. It doesn't. It's not
12:12
Speaker 1: just on right now. It has to be activated, and
12:15
Speaker 1: it activates during N three stage of sleep. Okay, and
12:22
Speaker 1: that's powerful, all right. So if we know that there
12:25
Speaker 1: is this system that gets activated during deep sleep, just
12:29
Speaker 1: for everybody listening, we've got four stages of sleep. We've
12:33
Speaker 1: got stage one, Stage two, Stage three, and then we've
12:36
Speaker 1: got stage four. The first three stages of sleep is
12:40
Speaker 1: called non rem sleep, okay, non rapid eye movement sleep.
12:45
Speaker 1: So as we start to fall asleep, we're in light sleep.
12:49
Speaker 1: That's end one. We move into end one, and we
12:53
Speaker 1: move into end two, Stage two, and then end three
12:56
Speaker 1: that is our deep sleep stage. So it's during deep
13:00
Speaker 1: sleep that the glymphatic system gets activated, and when it does,
13:06
Speaker 1: we are able to clear out all of the toxins
13:09
Speaker 1: that accumulate during the day. Now what happens is people
13:15
Speaker 1: listening are probably like, oh, that's great, you know, we
13:17
Speaker 1: just can you know, drink what we want, eat what
13:19
Speaker 1: we want, and just gets cleared out. However, have you
13:23
Speaker 1: ever woken up in the morning you've kind of felt
13:25
Speaker 1: like groggy and it's like foggy in the morning, like
13:28
Speaker 1: you get brain fog.
13:30
Speaker 3: Never I wish the answer was never of course, of course, and.
13:34
Speaker 1: This is either because of what you've eaten or you
13:36
Speaker 1: know how well you've slept. What happens is sometimes we
13:39
Speaker 1: actually don't activate these stages of sleep. Sometimes we go
13:43
Speaker 1: to bed and we don't activate stage N three or
13:47
Speaker 1: we don't activate REM sleep. So if we don't activate
13:50
Speaker 1: this deep sleep stage, we're not going to activate that
13:53
Speaker 1: glymphatic system. And if we don't activate that, we're going
13:56
Speaker 1: to wake up with brain fog. We're going to wake
13:59
Speaker 1: up with not the mental clarity that we want.
14:02
Speaker 3: That makes sense, Yes, it makes sense.
14:04
Speaker 2: So the natural next question is how can we assure
14:09
Speaker 2: that we engage this phase three of sleep.
14:13
Speaker 1: Well, okay, it's a double edged sword, right because we're
14:17
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, we can optimize, just like
14:19
Speaker 1: we do in our daily lives. But let's talk about
14:22
Speaker 1: what blocks REM sleep and what blocks in deep sleep.
14:27
Speaker 1: So many things block it. First of all, lighting, Okay,
14:30
Speaker 1: we've heard of that light blocks your sleep. It basically
14:35
Speaker 1: any form of light, whether it's coming from the computer,
14:37
Speaker 1: the TV, the sun, it tells your body and your
14:40
Speaker 1: brain that you're awake. So we don't want that because
14:42
Speaker 1: if your brain says you're awake. It's going to keep
14:45
Speaker 1: you awake, so it's not going to get you into
14:47
Speaker 1: deep sleep or rem sleep. That's the first thing. One
14:50
Speaker 1: of the biggest things that blocks you from having a
14:52
Speaker 1: really good night sleep is alcohol. And I know we've
14:55
Speaker 1: heard of that before, but if you look at alcohol,
14:57
Speaker 1: the active ingredient in alcohol is ethanol. Ethanol is a sedative,
15:02
Speaker 1: so you basically every time you drink, you're knocking yourself out.
15:06
Speaker 1: You're not really sleeping, So that is blocking you from
15:10
Speaker 1: getting into these sleep stages. So once we know that, okay,
15:16
Speaker 1: there's certain medications which we won't go into. Caffeine can
15:19
Speaker 1: obviously block you as well, how can we assure that
15:22
Speaker 1: we are getting into these deep sleep stages. First and foremost,
15:25
Speaker 1: you want to have a regular sleep routine. Your brain
15:29
Speaker 1: likes to be consistent, which is why lights out is
15:33
Speaker 1: ten pm. So sleep at the same time and wake
15:37
Speaker 1: up at the same time every day. If you can.
15:44
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Speaker 2: strap today. So the follow up question to that is
19:16
Speaker 2: a lot of people may feel as though they can
19:20
Speaker 2: continue with consistent bed and week times during the week,
19:23
Speaker 2: but that shifts a little bit on the weekend. Would
19:25
Speaker 2: you say it's detrimental to sleep in on the weekend
19:29
Speaker 2: or would you say an extra hour or so isn't
19:31
Speaker 2: going to make that much of a difference.
19:33
Speaker 1: An extra hour or so isn't that much of a difference.
19:35
Speaker 1: And I always say over consume rather than under consume.
19:39
Speaker 1: I actually put up on my Instagram. There was a
19:41
Speaker 1: wonderful study that was done in a really high stringent
19:44
Speaker 1: journal around six months ago, and they basically concluded that
19:48
Speaker 1: you cannot over index on sleep. So you can't get
19:52
Speaker 1: you can't overdose, but you can. It is very detrimental
19:56
Speaker 1: for you if you underdose. So I always say over
19:59
Speaker 1: index sleep. In saying that as well, it's really important
20:05
Speaker 1: to know that you sleep is not like a bank.
20:08
Speaker 1: There's no debt that you can pay back. So if
20:11
Speaker 1: you sleep six hours this week, you can't go and
20:15
Speaker 1: repay that next week and just say well, I'll just sleep.
20:17
Speaker 1: You know, twelve hours you can't do that. You've lost it.
20:19
Speaker 1: That's it, gone, move on. Okay, Yeah, so let's keep
20:24
Speaker 1: talking about other ways that we can optimize our sleep.
20:27
Speaker 1: You can stop consuming caffeine from twelve pm onwards, regardless
20:33
Speaker 1: of medications. Obviously, you know you have to talk to
20:35
Speaker 1: your physician for that. You can minimize alcohol. I never
20:39
Speaker 1: say to anybody completely get rid of alcohol, because that's
20:43
Speaker 1: really you know, people like to enjoy your wine here
20:45
Speaker 1: and there, But what the science says is if you
20:49
Speaker 1: can have your alcohol early in the day. I'm not
20:53
Speaker 1: promoting day drinking either, then that would be the best
20:56
Speaker 1: for your sleep cycles. And then there's a really important
20:59
Speaker 1: one I want to talk about, and that is temperature.
21:03
Speaker 1: So we know that in order to fall asleep and
21:06
Speaker 1: stay asleep, our core body temperature needs to drop at
21:09
Speaker 1: least two degrees. So if we really want to be
21:12
Speaker 1: getting into those sleep stages, we need to look at
21:16
Speaker 1: minimizing the temperature or you know, doing something where you
21:21
Speaker 1: are getting cold at night. So for me, I sleep
21:24
Speaker 1: on a temperature controlled mattress. The only other way is
21:27
Speaker 1: if you've got somebody literally, you know, icing you down
21:30
Speaker 1: during the night, because it's the It's not the same
21:33
Speaker 1: if you have the thermost out or the air conditioning down.
21:35
Speaker 1: So messing around with your temperature and your core body
21:39
Speaker 1: temperature is a real big thing.
21:40
Speaker 2: That's interesting, right because I also sleep on like a
21:44
Speaker 2: temperature controlled mattress topper. But with that said, I recognize
21:49
Speaker 2: that like this is something that could be a luxury,
21:53
Speaker 2: and certainly it can come with an expense. So for
21:57
Speaker 2: someone who may be wanting to take more ownership over
21:59
Speaker 2: the temperature regulation for their sleep routine and doesn't have
22:03
Speaker 2: access to something like that, I'm sure that one could
22:08
Speaker 2: lean into something like wearing certain fabrics that are much
22:11
Speaker 2: more breathable to bed, being smart about what types of
22:15
Speaker 2: either a comforter or a blanket, or switching those up
22:18
Speaker 2: depending on the season. And then to your point about
22:20
Speaker 2: the thermostat, all of those are perhaps a little bit
22:23
Speaker 2: more accessible when it comes to gauging that temperature and
22:26
Speaker 2: getting into between the.
22:27
Speaker 1: Sheets, absolutely, and also looking at things that raise your
22:30
Speaker 1: body temperature, such as eating. It shouldn't be going to
22:32
Speaker 1: sleep unless you've eaten three hours before, so always say
22:35
Speaker 1: have that window. Drinking that raises your core body temperature.
22:40
Speaker 1: So these types of things can really help as well.
22:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so we've talked about room temperature being very important,
22:47
Speaker 2: being considerate about when we're eating and when we're drinking
22:50
Speaker 2: in proximity to that bedtime. What else is something that
22:53
Speaker 2: we should take into consideration when it comes to seeking
22:57
Speaker 2: out that phase three deep sleep.
23:00
Speaker 3: That deep sleep.
23:01
Speaker 1: So let me just tell you the difference between REM. Okay,
23:05
Speaker 1: So RAM stands for rapid eye movement, and that's because
23:08
Speaker 1: when you go into a sleep lab, what we see
23:11
Speaker 1: is that you've got these the EEG spits out these
23:14
Speaker 1: horizontal I would say waves on you when it reads
23:19
Speaker 1: from your eyes. So basically you are completely paralyzed during
23:22
Speaker 1: REM sleep, but your brain is awake, Okay, you're ticking,
23:26
Speaker 1: whereas with deep sleep it's not the same Okay, with
23:30
Speaker 1: deep sleep, so many things happen. Okay, We've got the
23:33
Speaker 1: release of a lot of hormones such as IGF, so
23:37
Speaker 1: a lot of things happen during deep sleep. It's not
23:40
Speaker 1: just glymphatic system. You get these hormones that are really
23:42
Speaker 1: responsible for protein synthesis, rebuilding, the muscle repairs. So you
23:47
Speaker 1: really really want to be optimizing for that. So when
23:51
Speaker 1: I said to you that these things block it, it's
23:53
Speaker 1: really imperative that we understand what it's useful for. I
23:58
Speaker 1: think that education, you know, trumps everything. So if we
24:02
Speaker 1: know that we're working out, and I know a lot
24:04
Speaker 1: of your listeners a fitness enthusiasts, if they're working out
24:07
Speaker 1: a lot, then we really want to optimize for this.
24:10
Speaker 1: And if you really want to optimize for this, you
24:11
Speaker 1: really want to be, like I said, minimizing drinking, watching
24:14
Speaker 1: what you eat, caffeine, temperature control, Slowing down the mind
24:20
Speaker 1: is a big one. Okay. So a lot of my
24:23
Speaker 1: clients I work as well in the hedge fund space
24:26
Speaker 1: and they just go, go, go twenty four seven. So
24:28
Speaker 1: their brain is so active and they say to me,
24:30
Speaker 1: Luis that I'm really tired, but I can't quiteen my
24:33
Speaker 1: mind down. So it takes them a lot of time.
24:36
Speaker 1: It's called sleep latency. The time that it takes you
24:38
Speaker 1: to fall asleep takes them a lot of time. So
24:40
Speaker 1: I tell them, you know, you may want to supplement
24:44
Speaker 1: with GABBA and GABBA stands for gamma amino brutaric acid.
24:48
Speaker 1: It's our chief inhibitory neurotransmitter, so inhibitory, so it inhibits
24:55
Speaker 1: the action of your neurons firing, so it helps your
24:59
Speaker 1: mind calm down. So that's one thing we put in place.
25:02
Speaker 1: And then something that I've started to do to calm
25:05
Speaker 1: my mind down is I've stopped replying to emails and
25:10
Speaker 1: Instagram and things like that from eight pm onwards.
25:14
Speaker 3: Yep.
25:16
Speaker 1: And I just want to touch on one more thing,
25:18
Speaker 1: and that is light exposure. So we have these things
25:24
Speaker 1: called retinal ganglion cells, and every time they sense light
25:29
Speaker 1: from the sun, it sends a message to this area
25:33
Speaker 1: in the brain called the super super chismatic nucleus.
25:37
Speaker 3: Say that five times fast.
25:38
Speaker 1: Yeah it's crazy, but that signals to the brain you're awake,
25:43
Speaker 1: so it releases quarterso and at night, once we've been
25:46
Speaker 1: up for twelve hours, they're really susceptible so any form
25:50
Speaker 1: of light can activate this and signal to your brain.
25:54
Speaker 1: I'm awake, let's run away from the lion. So you've
25:58
Speaker 1: got you're really not calming yourself down. So how do
26:01
Speaker 1: we do this? I wish you could come into my apartment.
26:04
Speaker 1: It looks like it looks like a lab. You can
26:07
Speaker 1: do this by getting rid of the overhead lighting, wearing
26:11
Speaker 1: blue light blocking goggles glasses if you can, and maybe
26:16
Speaker 1: doing some floor lighting. Okay, because these ganglion cells are
26:21
Speaker 1: actually at the bottom half of your retina. So mother
26:25
Speaker 1: nature created this because when we walk outside the sun,
26:29
Speaker 1: the solar angle of the sun comes down and activates them.
26:32
Speaker 1: People aren't watching us right now, but it activates them
26:34
Speaker 1: from above. So if you've got the overhead lighting coming
26:37
Speaker 1: from above, it's going to activate them. So you can
26:40
Speaker 1: minimize that by putting lighting on the floor.
26:43
Speaker 3: I love hearing that. You know, it's funny.
26:45
Speaker 2: The apartment I live and now doesn't have overlet headlighting
26:49
Speaker 2: in two of the rooms. And I'm sure this is
26:52
Speaker 2: not the reason, but they clearly.
26:54
Speaker 3: Did me a fever. Yeah, you did me a fever.
26:57
Speaker 2: For someone who is really implementing all of these strategies,
27:01
Speaker 2: they're working their damn hardest to get the best quality
27:05
Speaker 2: sleep possible. If they do wake up every now and
27:08
Speaker 2: again and do have that brain fog, maybe they didn't
27:11
Speaker 2: get as much of that Stage three phase three as
27:13
Speaker 2: they had been hoping for. Is there anything that they
27:16
Speaker 2: can do next day to help alleviate some of that?
27:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, first and foremost, hydrate. We really underestimate hydration.
27:24
Speaker 1: And I'm sure we're going to talk about this more,
27:26
Speaker 1: but hydrating not just with water, hydrating with electrolytes. Your
27:30
Speaker 1: brain literally runs on sodium and potassium, so getting electrolytes
27:36
Speaker 1: and just flooding a system with that, that's the first thing.
27:38
Speaker 1: Second thing is the moment that you first see sunlight.
27:41
Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about from inside an apartment because
27:45
Speaker 1: windows actually attenuate the sun, so you have to go
27:49
Speaker 1: outside and see sunlight. And the moment that you do that,
27:52
Speaker 1: you start your body and brain starts to calm down
27:55
Speaker 1: twelve hours after that. So I would say go straight
27:59
Speaker 1: outside at sea am, you know, and get as much
28:02
Speaker 1: natural sunlight as you can, and then working on ways
28:05
Speaker 1: to minimize your brain functioning at from about eight pm
28:10
Speaker 1: onwards that night, because you're really I always say you're
28:14
Speaker 1: optimizing for sleep the night before, so the way you sleep,
28:19
Speaker 1: you wake up okay. And if you go into that cycle,
28:22
Speaker 1: and we see this so often, you know, if you
28:25
Speaker 1: have some sleep deprivation the night before due to alcohol,
28:27
Speaker 1: you wake up, you don't feel good, and then you
28:29
Speaker 1: end up falling asleep maybe earlier that night, and then
28:32
Speaker 1: you wake up earlier and it's just a mess. So
28:34
Speaker 1: it's this cycle. So to break the cycle, you just
28:37
Speaker 1: have to do what mother nature says, and it's literally
28:39
Speaker 1: just clearing out your system, drinking as much water as
28:42
Speaker 1: you can, decompressing eight pm onwards.
28:45
Speaker 3: So much to learn here and so interesting. Again.
28:48
Speaker 2: The glymphatics is not something that we're talking about all
28:51
Speaker 2: the time, but super critical to us performing the best
28:54
Speaker 2: that we can on a regular basis. So excited that
28:57
Speaker 2: we were able to sit down and talk about this.
28:59
Speaker 2: How do the hurdlers follow along with you? How do
29:01
Speaker 2: they keep up with you?
29:02
Speaker 3: Give me your details?
29:04
Speaker 1: Well, we have we have a great newsletter that goes
29:06
Speaker 1: out every week on this. But if you just go
29:08
Speaker 1: to my Instagram Louise and Nicolon, you'll see in the
29:12
Speaker 1: in the bio there there is a link to.
29:14
Speaker 2: Everything beautiful I'm over at Emily Body and at Hurdle
29:17
Speaker 2: Podcast another hurdle conquered.
29:20
Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time.