🌙✨ Sleep is the ultimate wellness boost! 💤 Join us on the latest episode of Love and Life Elevated as we explore why sleep is your body’s best friend, how it impacts everything from your mood to your hormones, and simple tips to help you catch those quality Zzz's. Get ready to wake up feeling your best! 🌿 #LoveAndLifeElevated #SleepWellness #BetterSleep #HealthyLiving #RestAndRecover
Change Agents Community with Dr. James Rouse
Wake Up to Wellness- The Power of Quality Sleep
(upbeat music) - Well hello there and welcome to Love and Life Elevated. I'm Dr. Deborah Roush, joining my beloved Dr. James Roush. And today we are waking up to wellness and we're talking about the power of quality sleep. Hope you enjoy the episode today. - Well hello there and welcome to the next episode of Love and Life Elevated. I'm Dr. James Roush. - I'm Dr. Deborah Roush and this is just such a great day for this topic because to be completely transparent, we've only ever done one take with these podcasts. But today I realize in the middle of it that the mics were not on, which is totally fine because it's still recording. But then somehow we noticed that we weren't even recording. So anyway, we're starting over. And today we're talking about a subject that I think everyone can relate to. It's something that affects 95%. Well it affects all of my patients, all my friends, all my family members because we all do it. And that is sleep, but how it impacts some of us more it's a more of a challenge for a lot of us. And it's one of the most important aspects of health in general for so many reasons. - I think this is a topic that every single one of us to your point, Sweetheart, has an intimate relationship with because we all need to do it and we all need to do it well. And finally, the science and the research is coming out and really making people understand this is critical. I think a lot of people for years and years have said, well, you know what, it's a nice to have when I get it, something I would like to do more of, but you know what, my life is busy, I'm doing all these things. So sleep happens when and if I make the time to make it happen well. And now I think more and more of us becoming wonderfully enlightened and sometimes even scared when you can think about, oh gosh, I don't sleep well in all the things that it's impacting in my health and wellbeing from longevity to heart disease to diabetes to Alzheimer's disease, auto-immune function, immune dysfunction, everything under the sun. - Moon energy, anxiety. - There's no place that sleep isn't affecting us and if we can master or move towards mastery and sleep, it literally will transform every area of our life, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. That's the beautiful thing about sleep. And it's not something that is that difficult once you understand what are the things that you need to do every single day to ritualize and help your sleep chemistry naturally to happen. - Yeah, and before earlier when we were talking, you were mentioning how technology has really led to a greater disruption in sleep and our habits and how we can optimize circadian rhythm starting from the moment we wake up. And we work and talk with a lot of, call them shift workers, people who work late hours and more like start in the afternoon, go till two in the morning kind of folks. And this is a huge challenge. I actually also work like I have an overnight nanny patient and her schedule is like, I don't think I could do it. It's amazing. But I have done overnight shifts. - Totally. - Yep, and we'll get to that. But anyway, why don't we talk about from the beginning of the day? Because you wouldn't think you got to set yourself up all day long for a good night's rest. It doesn't just happen a half an hour before your head hits the pillow. - So true, so true. Before we go there, just one little piece on this idea of what's happened over the last hundred or so years. Once the light bulb was invented, literally, once Edison created the light bulb, we went from being human beings who were sleeping on average between 12 and 13 hours a night and then literally dropped to under seven in the last hundred years. So we literally lost roughly four to five hours of sleep just based on the invention of electricity and light. - That's interesting. - I like, oh my gosh, though. - I mean, light is fascinating in and of itself, right? Because we spend so much time under, like right now we're under artificial light. And for people who spend a lot of time indoors, you're exposed to blue light on your computer screen, your television screen, your phone. And then we are getting outdoors less and less. So exposure to morning light, first thing in the morning is one of the best things you can do actually to optimize your sleep later in the day. And one of the great rituals that James and I love to do, we've talked about how we do our morning walk every day, but we're blessed to live in Colorado where we receive a lot of sunshine. Very, very wonderful. So most mornings, really all year long, especially mornings, we have a beautiful hit of sunshine on our walk. And so usually before we come back from our loop, we'll stop before we cross over to like where our property comes in and we'll just stand and take in the sun. And I've actually noticed a couple of people doing that on the trail, I was on a different trail over last weekend and I saw someone just standing in the sun and I just got so happy. - It's actually quite beautiful when you do it and you just really are intentional about it. And I think there's a lot to be said about the first thing in the morning and how do we begin our day? Are we beginning as a human doing or do we give ourselves permission to begin as a human being? And that starts literally once you wake up in the morning, do you grab your phone or could you grab your heart? And you grab your heart, maybe do a one to two minute practice of breathing and just getting into your belly and your diaphragm and maybe doing gratitude practice, maybe doing an affirmation, a visualization, a prayer. Before you grab your phone is such a great way to begin the morning with ritual that literally catalyzes a physiology that 12, 14, six hours later becomes a sleep augmenter versus a first thing that you is grab your phone, chase an email, scroll on Instagram, all those things which are so easy to do and actually promote dopamine first thing in the morning and so much about what gets in the way of our ability to sleep at night is what we're doing first thing in the morning, really exhausting our neurochemistry and not helping to regulate our nervous system naturally. - Yeah, and one of the things that I love to do is we do have one dog that sleeps with us and she's usually right at my feet and then in the morning the cat comes up and he, so I'm totally, I'm trapped and I'm sandwiched in between dog and cat. So I love to do a gratitude practice right before I go to bed and then also wake up with that same practice and I do something very similar with hand on heart and belly and just give thanks for waking up and then I go into the love fest with the furries and I'm just like oxytocin with the cat, I smother him, I kiss his head and I smother the dog and it's like my favorite way to wake up. But then I do something that's also questionable. - What's that? - Well, I love it, it's very much a ritual but it probably is not a great habit so what I wanna get your input and that is tell me if you do this with your friends or family but I play wordle and connections and strands with my- - Yes you do. - With our adult daughters and my mother and my sister and we share our scores and it's ways to make sure that we all woke up that day, everyone's good, it's kind of a really fun way to keep in communication. That being said, I also think it wakes my brain up so I'm like ready to take on the day but it might be a bad habit that within an hour of waking up, I'm doing that. - You know, I hear something, I love that and it's really, it's a beautiful thought, right? Because there's not just you going on Instagram and doing that. - I'm not scrolling, I'm not scrolling. - You're not scrolling. - I'm not social media, I'm only doing wordle connections and strands. - But you're doing it connecting with family so I gotta believe there's a lot of upside there. - Okay, thank you, thank you, phew. - I gotta believe there's a lot of upside there so as we kind of move through the morning understanding that every great night's sleep began 14, 16 hours earlier and it's all about the circadian rhythm. - Yeah, yeah, sorry, I didn't want to interrupt but I was thinking we didn't bring up when we are standing in the sun like that that we're just totally hitting our pineal gland. - Right, which is sort of the clock if you will of our circadian rhythm and what's so beautiful about the circadian rhythm, it is wonderfully teachable, it's incredibly ritualized and one of the things I would love to really encourage people to do if all possible, make sure you keep a time to get up in the morning and keep religious about it because part of what allows our circadian rhythm to foster a great night's rest is making sure we're getting up at the same time each morning and doing things with ritual because it sets the clock in our neurochemistry and our physiology and once that clock is set through the ritual of time, you really help to kind of recruit all the necessary neurochemistry and nervous system regulation that allows you to sleep well. - Yeah, so it's not about just winding down like, oh well, I have just been relaxing and I've been watching TV on the couch so we don't want you rolling off the couch into bed. That's just not the best ritual. I'm fine with watching TV, you know, that is can be a way to wind down but then taking half hour to an hour to really start to ritualize the healthy practices that we do before we actually get into bed. For me, I love a cup of tea, not too close to bed but like an hour to half an hour before bed and there's some really great herbs that help with sleep so I think of like my best evening teas are chamomile, passion flower, I like a little ginger, sometimes some cava, if I'm feeling stressed, I'll add cava, a little lavender but mostly I think chamomile and passion flower are like my top two. - I think those are really great to know about and in the morning rituals, really establishing things that can actually be helpful to managing your stress throughout the day. Every single week, we tend to talk about magnesium because magnesium is a foundational, foundational mineral and I was gonna say that it helps to foundationally support our sleep chemistry by helping us to manage stress and 300 other things that it does. So looking at ways in which we begin the day and I think that that most important thing I can really encourage everyone to do is give yourself permission to establish two or three things that you can follow through on. There's been so much data out there and the idea of what kind of rituals we do first thing in the morning. Rituals are powerful but they're only as powerful as our follow through and there's been a lot done about the idea of self efficacy and basically being a witness to the things that we said we were gonna do. You can call it personal integrity, you can call it your character but when you really value sleep or you value your self care, you value your wellbeing and you establish rituals that you're gonna do to follow through on, when you see yourself following through and being present, that in itself is a sleep augmenter by the fact that during the day, you are establishing more and more opportunities for peace of mind. The more that we do follow through, serotonin levels go up and as serotonin has a healthy level throughout the day through proper eating practices, moving your body, breathing well, self efficacy. Serotonin by day helps to augment melatonin by night. So the more we have our serotonin levels in a good place daytime, melatonin is gonna take overnight. It's a beautiful transition. - Yeah and you know, we talked about cortisol last week and this is one of the reasons why I really love morning exercises because it naturally with circadian rhythm and everything, cortisol levels are rising when we wake up. So it's a really great time of day to take advantage of those higher levels because it's kind of like you're riding the, it's like a wave, right? You're riding the wave to then help it kind of do its normal curve during the day so that in the evening, it's coming back down. So I like to ride that cortisol wave through exercise just like really push it and then I'm good for the rest of the day. I'm good with you exercising whenever you can get it in. This is I think an optimal time for most people, certainly for me. But if the, again, if you have a different type of work schedule and you're sleeping during those hours or you just don't, you're not a quote unquote morning person, I just want you to exercise when you can get it in but preferably not right before bed because then you're kind of spiking that cortisol again. And so it takes a while to come back down. So if you are an evening or late afternoon exerciser, you don't want to like be over pushing it because it kind of can end up being a sleep disrupter. - Yeah, I think one of the things that we definitely talked about last week and a lot of people comment and they love the idea of learning more about cortisol. But one of the things I feel often gets confusing is the fact that we look at cortisol, cortisol is bad. Cortisol is not bad. High chronically high elevation of cortisol can be bad but one of the most beautiful things which you said sweetheart is the whole idea that cortisol first thing in the morning can be a catalyst for giving you the get up and go. But the best thing you can do with cortisol first thing in the morning, give it a job to do. Exercise is one of the primary jobs that it really would love 'cause it can actually help to support you with whatever you do for your movement practice. So use cortisol and give it a job versus having yourself marinate in cortisol by getting up and maybe watching television or getting up and just scrolling on Instagram or just getting up and sitting. And I know for a lot of us, there's a lot about getting up and just taking in the morning and going slow. And I don't wanna judge that necessarily but what I would really love people to consider. You don't have to have a knockdown drag out first thing in the morning with exercise but do something as simple as just getting outdoors, taking in the morning sun and some simple type of movement whether it be yoga practice, it would be some simple stretching, a walk. Anything that you do is helping cortisol to be engaged which is gonna help you throughout the day to helpfully manage your serotonin levels, of course, your stress. And at the same time, I think it establishes a foundation for your circadian rhythm. So it knows what to do 12 and 14, 16 hours later which is to say, oh, let's start preparing for sleep. And some of the things that we do at night are so critical for that because you'd said something honey which is so important. A lot of us are thinking with this new invention of blue light blocking glasses that, oh my gosh, just as long as I'm wearing my glasses, I'm good to go. Well, that helps with melatonin certainly by protecting that blue light from actually getting and disrupting melatonin levels but here's what isn't being protected. Your nervous system getting all jacked up while you're reading the news or seeing what someone's doing on Instagram, that is emotional fodder and that literally stirs us up. And studies show that will knock down melatonin regardless of whether or not you're wearing your dark glasses. That's such a good point for sure. Let's talk about some other strategies and wind down strategies because I'm just so sensitive to our friends that are working night shifts or whether you're under the bright lights in a hospital setting or you're in a service industry and you're like, you're there, you're taking orders, you're on screens but you're under lights. Like what are good rituals that they can do? I think one thing that's really important is to have like a sleep eye mask because if you're having to sleep when the sun's coming up, you definitely want to keep things as dark as possible. So maybe we could talk about also like a perfect sleep environment. - Yeah, so I think beginning with dark, so blackout shades are incredible. And I'm getting caught up in my words today. So blackout shades are critical along with that a cooler room. So room temperature is essential. And I think along with that, really understanding that the bedroom is for Sikhs, sex and for sleep. (laughs) - I'm having a time of things. - You get enough sleep last night. (laughs) - Obviously, I did not. Sex and sleep. - Okay, wait, I really want to, I want to throw you for a loop now because I was hoping we would get to this. So I want to talk about your nudity and your naked habit. So James has been a nudist ever since. (laughs) - I didn't know that you were going to go here today. - I know, just kidding. Firstly, what I want to talk about is sleeping naked because that is also one way to help you sleep better. And it has much to my chagrin, a lot of great health benefits. And I say to my chagrin because I don't sleep naked, but Mr. naked over here, he is, first of all, he's so warm. I think that's part of it. - It is. - But when you look at the actual research on sleeping naked, I'm going to start. I'm going to start. (laughs) So everything from like healthier skin benefits, they say better sleep, better temperature, control. - Yes, yes, in metabolism. - Metabolism, so increase in brown fat. So you're burning a little bit more. You're so for female health, they actually say better vaginal health. So a decrease in yeast infections because less moisture being trapped and bacteria for that matter. Same with men. So more free flowing, so better circulation. So a decrease in any kind of erectile dysfunction. So there's a lot, I mean, actually it's like anti-aging. I'm like, oh my gosh, I just, there's something like, I love a silky pajima. - You've got it, you've got it, you've got it. This is after 31 years and I have been sleeping. - Well, I'm cold, I'm a coldie. - Yeah. - I'm like, I love all the layers and so when you sleep with like a sheet, even when it's 20 degrees outside and I'm like, give me the down blankets and like the thermal underwear. I'm just going to, I'm going to go for it. - Yeah, and I think that's a really cool thing because the research is quite compelling from a metabolic standpoint and all the other things, deeper REM sleep, higher quality of overall sleep, all of this connected to body temperature. So at the very least, if you're not totally stoked about being naked in bed, make sure you go with a very light, breathable fabric that you actually sleep in. So that's critical too. So you know, honey-- - And a little skin-to-skin contact actually is good. And I'm not even talking about sex, right? I'm just talking about when you're sleeping and you have skin-to-skin contact with your mate that that's a health benefit too. - A totally health benefit. - So, sleeping naked, eye black, I mean, eye mask, dark shades, along with that, and this is something we just spoke about a moment ago, honey, the power of gratitude before bed. Dr. Emmons from University of California, Davis, has been studying gratitude journaling for literally four decades. And he's got like 300,000 people that have been part of his ongoing studies on the power of gratitude and simply writing down three to five things you're grateful for before you go to bed. And it's relationship to not only helping you with a better quality sleep, length and strength of sleep, but also what you do the following morning. His gratitude research tells us that if you do gratitude, not only will you sleep better, but when you wake up, you will perform better at your life. You're gonna be more likely to move your body. You're gonna be more likely to be more productive. You're gonna manage your stress more, helpfully. You're also gonna eat less sugar and saturated fat if you do gratitude. Like all these far reaching benefits of what happened when you do that before you go to bed. And I think it's also a way that you and I talk a lot about bookends, having a bookend that gets you away from what you've been doing all day long, performing and giving and doing all the things that you do as part of your human doing day, establishing a firewall. At the end of the day, you say, I'm no longer doing. I'm now moving into being. And a gratitude journal exercise, I think, is a really great way to have that firewall that separates the day of going for it, to being in it and allowing yourself to surrender to the evening. - Yeah, I love that. And let's talk about some other sleep support aids. So you mentioned melatonin, which is a hormone produced by the pineal gland. And it's not my first go-to to recommend because some people just don't wanna add something like melatonin to their ritual. It is probably more useful when jet lag is involved or you're crossing a lot of time zones and your body, your circadian rhythm is like, I don't know where I am or I don't know what to do. And actually during the pandemic, I was kind of recommending melatonin a lot more because in higher doses, it has some really powerful anti-inflammatory activity and some immune system benefits. But yes, I would say melatonin is helpful for me. And that would be something to talk to your healthcare provider as to whether or not that's for you or not. And not that that's like a, ooh, I'm scared to try melatonin type of supplement, but just consult with your professional before you do that. Otherwise, I like to look at natural foods and teas and agents that are kind of already in existence to see how they can support. So we've talked, I think last week, we've been brought up some of our favorite nighttime sleep supporting foods like oats, cherries, dark cherries, walnuts, I mentioned chamomile tea, what else? - Well, what's really cool about the dark cherries and the walnuts naturally occurring melatonin that's actually in the food, which is pretty cool. We can't go without speaking to magnesium. The mineral that actually has so many benefits. Magnesium 3.8 is my favorite before bedtime, along with that, things like GABA can be helpful, L-theanine. These are all things that can actually help to augment your natural sleep chemistry, but I think sweetheart, what I always lean towards when I can is recommending to my patients that do what you can with lifestyle before you start adding in a pile of supplements. - Totally, yeah. - And something's gonna be wonderfully healthy, but just balancing your blood sugar throughout the day is gonna be healthy. At night, not doing the things that are stimulating to your system or hard to digest. We know there's a lot of data out there combining a strong tryptophan experience where you get a protein along with a good, complex carbohydrate to help tryptophan cross the blood-brain barrier, 'cause when tryptophan is high in your system before bedtime, it's gonna help your body convert naturally into melatonin. So these are things that we can be doing, but I think the biggest thing around food and supplements is really looking at nutrient density. We don't wanna be overeating before bed, but we wanna have foods that your body can naturally turn into metabolic activity, and sleep is a metabolic activity. So having blood sugar be steady through the night is critical. So really steering clear of sugar before bed, not too much alcohol, if any alcohol at all. It's a really great thing to avoid, if you wanna sleep better. And along with that, really looking at what you can do to combine all these rituals, ideally with food, two to three hours before bedtime. Be done with eating so your body can digest and assimilate and you can start to relax. So you really start to come down and you're almost pre-gaming for a good night's rest. - Yeah, honestly, I had just very similar thinking. I was gonna emphasize that low sugar before bed. If you're a dessert person, okay, that's okay. But just a very small amount, like after you've had a very protein-based, protein-forward meal, because a reactive hypoglyceumia in the middle of the night is gonna wake you up. If you are somebody who gets up in the middle of the night to eat and snack and have sugar, that is most likely because you're not fueling properly at dinner and throughout the rest of the day. So as James said, thinking like smaller portions, but leaning with like protein vegetable for your evening meal is really great. If you do need that snack or something to just satisfy your craving before bed, go for like a steel-cut oats or a Greek yogurt is really awesome too. It's just that little hit of dairy and protein. I like berries. - If you were gonna recommend one dessert that you think was gonna be, if you do want something before bed, you want something after dinner, that's not gonna disrupt sleep chemistry, what would be your go-to dessert? - Well, I just kind of said it, like it's not gonna sound like dessert for most people, but if it's, so sometimes if I've made steel-cut oats recently and I have leftovers, all I need is like a quarter cup of cooked steel-cut oats, few walnuts, maybe if we have any dried Korean berry, like a couple of stuff, like something to add that tiny bit of sweetness. If we have, it's not really berry season anymore. We're just like getting through, you know, cherry and peach season here. It's like a tiny bit of fruit, but not much. I think that's really-- - Those are great ideas. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes I'll do, this is weird, but I'll take like the Greek yogurt and I'll mix a tiny bit of vanilla protein powder in there. So it's already pretty protein-high. That gives it a tiny bit more sweetness. And again, I'll throw some kind of a tiny bit of nuts in there, or hemp seeds I love with yogurt too. - Those are all such good ideas. So I think as we kind of close for the show today, the thing I would love people to really connect to, let's talk about the two most important things in the morning and the two most important things at night that you can do to help begin your sleep journey to really ritualizing healthy sleep chemistry. Two things in the morning. - Two things, okay. I would say gratitude and exposure to sunlight. - Beautiful, I love that. Evening, I'm gonna go with gratitude again, but also really the bookend. Give yourself permission at the very end of the day to say, I'm done with it doing, I'm moving into being, and doing simple things such as a breathing practice, your gratitude journal. And on top of that, I really love the idea of just taking maybe a 10 to 15 minute walk with your partner or your dog or just yourself, and slowly go for a walk outdoors. You don't have to, this is not speed walking, a way of just kind of winding down and getting your chemistry just to kind of let go of the stress, move from being stressed into being blessed, and allow yourself to really start creating this connection to circadian rhythm. Get your times into a place that you really know. This is when I do my walk. This is when I do my gratitude journal. This is when I stop watching television or this is when I put my phone down. Get clear about timing because that is absolutely the most important thing that your circadian rhythm is gonna connect to. The ritual of time and you honoring that ritual. - And if you live in a place where an evening walk just isn't possible or you're single and you don't wanna go out when it's dark, just grab a mat and do some stretching and some deep breathing for 10 minutes. And it doesn't even have to be super deep breathing, but just focusing on your breath and really bringing it in low to the belly. Versus shallow breathing. So just stretching. We're under stress, over stress, under stretch. How about that? - How about that? That's perfect. So I hope that you walk away and go, okay, I know sleep is critical. I know it's important. I know I can improve and I'm not gonna be scared about whether or not I'm getting enough sleep. I'm gonna start really putting a lot of energy into being proactive, how I cultivate and really ritualize my healthy sleep chemistry. - And if you sleep naked and you wanna share, let me know and then I will. - You wanna share, how do you? - I want them just to like raise their hand in the comment section, like guilty. - Yeah, I would love that. I wanna know I'm not alone in that, you know? (laughs) - I remember when I used to always like if the when the girls were still in school, if they had friends sleeping over, I'm like, you're not sleeping naked, just in case. - Remember? - Oh my gosh, you did. - When we had friends sleeping over. (laughs) - Yeah, I'm terrible. I'm like the sleeping naked, please. (laughs) - Well, thank you, honey. This was a great show and something I think that you and I have had our ups and downs with sleep. And that's why we love talking about this, 'cause we've gone through paces and spaces where sleep was an issue for both of us and we are continually working on this right alongside of you. So we hope you have a beautiful day. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next Wednesday. Much love and every blessing. - Bye for now. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]