Change Your Brain Every Day - Can You Sleep Your Way To Better Health?

Episode Date: November 2, 2017

The grand finale of the memory rescue series is all about sleep. Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the importance of getting a good night sleep, and what can happen to your brain if you don’t get enough of it. Throughout this series, we’ve learned all about the 11 risk factors that can steal your memory early. 

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We are doing our Memory Rescue Bright Minds series, and we're at the end. In bright minds, S is for sleep. Chronic insomnia, sleep apnea are associated with cognitive impairment. Also taking chronic sleeping pills can be associated with cognitive impairment, as can benzos. Benzodiazepines like Xanax, Klonopin,

Valium, Ativan are associated with lower overall blood flow. One of the most impressive things that I've learned over the last couple of years is when you sleep, your brain cleans and washes itself. And if you don't sleep, it's like the cleaning crew doesn't come to your house or doesn't come to your office. Trash builds up and then it becomes much harder to do good work. So I just know this intuitively. I mean, I know there's now there's a number of studies. I read the, I read one study years ago in Lieutenant David Grossman's book about soldiers and how when they don't sleep, if they sleep seven hours, they're 98% accurate on the range the next day. If they sleep six hours, it drops by half. 50%. And then if they sleep six hours, it drops by half. 50%. 50%. And then if they sleep five hours, it drops by almost half again.

And four hours, they're dangerous. 15%. It's like 15%. So it's crazy. But I know that intuitively because I know that when I don't sleep, even just for one night, my sleep is interrupted. I'm not only not nice the next day, I just can't function right. I can't think right. I feel foggy. I make mistakes. It's just doesn't work. They've actually found that people who get less than six hours, they actually have more accidents on the road.

That makes sense. That less than five hours, it's worse than drinking on the road. There's a book called Power Sleep and the author recommends you actually ask people in interviews how much they sleep. And if they sleep less than seven hours, don't hire them because they're more likely to make mistakes. And so as I learned about this research, it caused me to change my habits because I like to stay up late. I'm always writing or doing a project and I'm like four. Well, you think I'm like four all the time. I'm like four years old. I don't want to go to bed. I don't want to miss anything. And when I read the studies, I'm like, it's. I don't want to go to bed. I don't want to miss anything. Not me. I'm like night, night. When I read the studies, I'm like, it's 10 o'clock.

I need to get to bed. I remember when we first started dating, you were like, you wanted to be out all the time. And I'm like, I don't think I can date this guy. And you thought I was going to be like this party girl. And I'm like. Well, you look like a party girl. I'm not a party girl. I like need to be in bed by like 9, 930.

You look like a party girl. I'm totally not a party girl. like need to be in bed by like 9, 930. You look like a party girl. I'm totally not a party girl. I like, and I'm like, I don't know if this is going to work. Like this, this is like. I know we were going to Laker games. I'm like, okay, you're wearing me out. I cannot do this. So I'm like, I like to be home in my PJs, cuddled up and in bed really early.

So. Well, and actually that's good for you. So when I learned about this, I stopped taking early morning flights because we both travel a lot. And, you know, I like won't take a flight before 10 o'clock because I'm not getting up at four o'clock in the morning to get, you know, seven o'clock flight. work we do here at Amen Clinics that sleep apnea actually looks like early Alzheimer's disease on the spec scans. I get these big holes here in the top back part of the brain where we often see it early in Alzheimer's disease. And so it caused me, I screen everybody that's got decreases in their brain for sleep apnea because if you don't uh effectively treat that someone's brain is just not going to get better okay because the brain is the most metabolically active organ in the body right and any form of oxygen deprivation damages cells so you're like murdering millions of cells every night if you don't get your sleep apnea appropriately taken care of.

Right. So sleep is a big deal for me. And it's been a hard thing for me because of the thyroid medication and all this stuff. So if you even move and you like to slay dragons in your sleep, not move. Let's be honest. You slay dragons in your sleep. not move, you like to, let's be honest, you slay dragons in your sleep. Because I am the dragon slayer. Oh my gosh. The kicking and the whatever.

So, but I'm one of those people who, if you even roll over, it wakes me up. So if you, like if you, I have to have blackout shades, my eye mask, my earplugs, five pillows, like I bury myself. I have to, like, it's pretty crazy what I have to do to go to sleep. So you need to tell everybody what you're going to do. I know. So here's the thing. So I am trying to figure out how to like get over this and like tell myself I don't need to be such a baby about sleep. I'm going out to a survival weekend with Chloe where they don't even want us to sleep in tents. We have to build our own shelter, sleep outside with snakes and bugs and bears, which freaking terrifies me. Okay, so I'm actually doing it so I won't be scared.

But I'm like— See, it's new learning. Right. If you think of it from a bright mind's perspective, it's new learning. But the other side, it's also chronic stress but i'm also rereading i'm rereading victor frankl's book about you know man's search for meaning and how people can human beings can't adjust to anything and i keep telling myself i do not want to be scared of this and i do not want to have to rely on all of these aids for sleep so we'll see how I do. Come back. Let's hope I come back. Go to Tana's Facebook page.

Let's hope I come back. We'll find out soon how this is going to work. So interventions for sleep. If you snore, get assessed. For sleep apnea, avoid sleep robbers such as caffeine, alcohol, gadgets, a warm room, light in your room, noise, pets, bears, snakes. Adopt sleep enhancers such as blue light blockers. As soon as the sun goes down, you should put a blue light blocker on your phone. Cool, dark, quiet rooms.

Hypnosis can be very powerful. We have hypnosis audios for you on Brain Fit Life. Meditation, a regular sleep schedule. Turn off your gadgets at night so they don't wake you up. Supplements, we're big fans. And it depends on the kind of sleep problem you have. Oh, no, melatonin and magnesium. So for people who have trouble sleeping, melatonin and magnesium is really helpful.

For people who are anxious, GABAin and magnesium is really helpful. For people who are anxious, GABA and magnesium can be really helpful. For people who are worriers, 5-HTP can be really helpful. So it depends on the kind of sleep issue you have. I love my lavender and valerian tea. Oh, it's awesome. It's awesome. Foods that are melatonin rich, tart cherry juice, sour cherries, walnuts, ginger root, asparagus and tomatoes, and then healthy carbohydrates for dinner like sweet potatoes, quinoa, bananas can increase tryptophan, which can increase serotonin and improve sleep. Obviously, you want to limit alcohol, caffeine, and grapefruit at night. Oh, I didn't know about the grapefruit. Can disrupt sleep.

So I didn't know about the ginger root, but that's so funny because in my lavender and valerian tea, I just intuitively love shaving fresh ginger into my tea at night. It's yummy. So here we are at the end of Bright Minds. So what memory rescue is really all about is if you want to keep your brain healthy or rescue it, if you think it's headed for trouble, you have to eliminate the 11 major risk factors that steal your mind. And throughout this course, we've gone through all of them. And if you are struggling with it and you need to know more, get Memory Rescue, my new book. I'd just be so grateful if you did. And if you want to get scanned, because how do you know unless you look, that we would love to see you at one of our

clinics. We have clinics in Southern California, Northern California, Washington State, a new one in Chicago, Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, D.C., and New York. We would love to see you. We have a whole memory rescue program for you. And ultimately, it's not hard. It's falling in love with your brain, the term we use called brain envy, avoid anything that hurts your brain. We talked about a lot of them in the Bright Minds format and do things every day that helps it. And the one little tiny habit we will leave you with is a game Tana and I have played with Chloe since she was two. It's just ask yourself every day, is what you're going to do today. Good for your brain or bad for it. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain's Way Cookbook we give away every month.