Change Your Brain Every Day - Sleep and the Brain

Episode Date: December 8, 2016

How you can help your Brain take you off to sleep more deeply. 20 Ways to enhance your sleep and rest better. Awake relaxed and renewed the Brain Warrior Way.

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amon.

Hi, everybody. This is Dr. Daniel Amen. And this is Tana Amen. Today, we're going to talk about sleep, which is just so important to your mental health, to your brain health, to your relationships, to work, to everything in your life. Yes. And this is one that's very personal to me. As somebody who has struggled a lot with my health, had a lot of difficulty sleeping in the past and with hormonal imbalances and medication. So we want to talk to you about how to turn that around if you're struggling with sleep.

And to know why this is important, people who get less than six hours of sleep have lower overall blood flow to their brain, and they make bad decisions. So decision-making gets worse when your sleep is worse. And I know some of you think you're special because we know a lot of people who are selling programs about how to learn to sleep less. Okay, we're just going to come out and say it. It's not good for your brain. So in one study done by the military, soldiers who slept seven hours or more were 99% accurate on the range the next day. 98. Okay, 98%.

They're really good. 98% accurate on the range the next day. But soldiers who got one less hour of sleep, they slept six hours. It cut it in almost a half. So 50% accurate. Right. So they were 50% accurate. And then one less hour again was almost cut in half again.

So five hours of sleep was like 38%. And four hours of sleep was 15%. So it was downright dangerous. Downright dangerous. So all these programs telling you to sleep four hours of sleep was 15%. So it was downright dangerous. Downright dangerous. So all these programs telling you to sleep four hours, forget it. Well, new research shows that when we sleep, our brain actually cleans or washes itself. And it gets ready for the next day. And so sort of like at home, it cleans up.

And if you don't clean up for a month at home, imagine what your home would actually look like. Well, that's what happens with chronic insomnia for your brain. And a lot of people want that quick fix. So they'll reach for Lunester, Ambien, or a Unisom Benadryl. And it's just, it's not a good long-term solution. So what we're going to do is give you lots of tips today, and we're going to do it in three ways. So sleep envy, people hear me talk about brain envy, you got to care.

Well, you got to care about your sleep, get serious about it, and then avoid anything that hurts it. So those are sleep robbers, and do things that hurts it. So those are sleep robbers and do things that enhance it. So the sleep robbers are a warm room. Right. So I like the room really chilly. You do. And people sleep better when it's a little bit cooler. Cool pillows have actually been shown to enhance sleep. Light in the bedroom. So you sleep with a mask. And not only a mask, I have total blackout shades.

So our room is completely dark. And if we go and travel, you really want blackout shades. I ask ahead of time. Noise. Yep. Gadgets in bed. So earplugs. I actually use earplugs too. Gadgets. Turn them off. So, and that including gadgets, for me, that includes things like lights on computers or lights on certain gadgets that you keep near your bed. They can actually disrupt your sleep. Going to bed worried or angry where you can't turn your thoughts off? Yeah.

Journaling or praying just before bed or meditating just before bed is a really good idea to sort of clear that stuff out. Journal it. Get it out of your head before you go to sleep. Or saying sorry. Absolutely. Going to bed mad is really not a good idea. Or, you know, I'm upset about this, but I love you. We'll talk about it tomorrow. Just that sort of touch connection. Right. Certain medications like asthma medications or antihistamines,

cough medications, stimulants can disrupt sleep as can caffeine. Even caffeine early in the afternoon can disrupt sleep. Alcohol, but a lot of people use alcohol to go to sleep. The problem is when it wears off three hours later, your brain rebounds. Especially if you have more than one, usually it's much worse. Nicotine, even marijuana, when they wear off, can wake you up. People who have restless leg syndrome. Now, for that, we actually recommend fairly high doses of magnesium. You can at least try that, yeah. There are female issues, pregnancy, PMS, menopause.

Menopause. Perimenopause. So this is the one I wanted to highlight. So about 10 years before women go into menopause, their progesterone levels start to drop. Well, progesterone is the brain's natural valium, natural relaxation chemical. And when it drops, all of a sudden women get busier brains. They become more irritable, can't sleep. They go to their doctor and they end up on an anti-anxiety drug like Xanax, a sleeping medication like Ambien, or they start drinking more.

Right. Or all of the above. And we hear this all the time with women. It's like, I hit 35 or 38 and I can't sleep anymore. It happens. It's a fairly normal thing that happens. And I actually, in addition to my thyroid condition where I take high-dose thyroid, that happened to me.

And I'm like, yeah, this isn't going to work in my life. So that was when I started progesterone therapy. So you might want to just talk to your doctor and see if it helps because for me, I mean, it knocks me out cold. Well, and thyroid conditions is another one, hyperthyroidism or being treated as you are for thyroid cancer. It just sort of revs your system up and makes it harder to settle down. If you have pain conditions or some untreated psychiatric problems like ADD, depression, anxiety, OCD, dementia patients tend to sun down. People have reflux, any GI issues. For men, they have enlarged prostates and they're going to the bathroom all the time. Snoring can

really mess with your mate. Sleep apnea is a huge problem in this country where people stop breathing. They snore loudly. They're chronically tired during the day. It's just so critical to get that treated. Shift workers. Yeah, that's a killer. As a nurse, I actually took a job in a unit that I really didn't want to work in to get off night shift because it just really messes with you. So it's miserable. Stressful events, the death of a loved one or divorce, a major deadline at work, and jet lag. I know for me, if I'm not really careful about my habits, jet lag can really jump on me. So those are some of the robbers you want to avoid if you can. And so quickly, we have 22 ways to help your sleep. So a cooler room, a room that's completely dark, noise-free or wear earplugs, turn off the gadgets.

So, and how long before bed? Is it like two hours, an hour? How long before bed? Well, you know, one of the things I do, because I work a lot, is I put blue light blockers on my phone and on my computer. So when it's dark outside, the blue light blockers turn on. Okay, good. And so I don't get the white light that turns off melatonin production that helps me go to sleep. So we'll get there. So we're really good about not going to bed mad at each other, but try to fix that before to go to bed and maintain a regular sleep schedule even on weekends if you can, because your brain likes routine. Yeah. Actually, I read a study that said it's not necessarily as much about how many hours as much as, I mean, that is critical, but even if you get the same number of hours, but you don't go to bed at the same times,

the circadian rhythm gets messed up and it's almost as bad for you as when you miss sleep. So a nighttime ritual, so a warm bath with magnesium in it. Yeah, so Epsom salts and maybe some lavender. But whatever the ritual, it can be meditation, a massage, listening to a hypnotic tape from Brain Fit Life. There's a great sleep tape. I often do that, actually. Yeah, I really like that relaxing music, especially when we travel and I'm in a different time zone. Some people like to read themselves to sleep. I've done that for years and years. I just try not to read Stephen King or Dean Koonce. Get a boring book.

Something, you know, I sort of want to read it. I think I should read it, but it cannot be like Dean Koonce's intensity. Stimulated, where you want to stay up all night. That won't work. If you're having trouble sleeping, don't take naps. Sound therapy can be really helpful. We actually have special brain enhancing music made with a special beat to help with sleep and brain fed life. Sometimes a mixture of unsweetened almond milk, a teaspoon of vanilla, the real stuff, and a drop or two of stevia can help. Don't eat for

two or three hours before bed. It's a brand new study where people who ate closer to bedtime had a higher incidence of strokes and heart attacks because your body doesn't like it when you eat after dark. It thinks something's wrong and you actually have a stress reaction to late night eating. Exercise during the day, not at night. Yeah. If I exercise at night or I take a karate class at night, it takes me a couple hours to come down. And a trick that I read, sometimes I'll do this on the road, wear socks to bed. Researchers have found that warm hands and feet were the best predictor of rapid onset sleep. So the room a little bit cooler, but your feet a little bit warmer. Yeah, that's what I like. I like big blankets. Kill the caffeine.

Cold room. If you wake up in the middle of the night, don't look at the clock. You just don't want your brain going to the bad place in your head. Hypnosis, as we said, can be helpful. Lavender. The scent of lavender in multiple studies have been shown to enhance sleep, decrease anxiety, help your mood. Natural supplements I like, like melatonin, 5-HTP, especially if you're a worrier, magnesium and GABA. So I really like this one. I take a significant amount of our time release, our restful sleep, along with about 400, sometimes 500

milligrams of magnesium. And then the 5-HTP, I don't like it dropping my frontal lobes because that's my brain type. So the GABA though can actually be very relaxing. Helps a lot. I mean, I'm out within 20 minutes of taking that cocktail. And if you have to resort to medication, but here we've given you 20 things to do before you do medication. Stay away from benzodiazepines like Xanax and sleep medications like Ambien. I like Trazodone, Gabapentin. Sometimes I'll use Amitriptyline with my patients. Well, we hope this is helpful. Make sleep a priority in your life and your life will be better. Thank you. Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can

win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.