Change Your Brain Every Day - Sleep Smarter Series: Why Sleep is not Important.... but VERY IMPORTANT

Episode Date: March 6, 2017

We've heard not once or twice but a gazillion times why sleep is important. But today, we're echoing that again and this time we'll have an expert in this area. Today's guest is Shawn Stevenson. Shawn is the best selling author of Sleep Smarter and the creator of the Model Health show featured as the number one heath podcast on iTunes with millions of listener downloads each year. A graduate of the University of Missouri St Louis, Shawn studied Business, Biology and Kinesiology and went on to be the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance. A company that provides wellness services for individuals and organizations world wide.

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amen. 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 Amen.

Dr. Daniel Amen, I'm here with Tana, and we're so excited to have one of our friends with us today, Shawn Stevenson, who is the best-selling author of Sleep Smarter and the creator of the Model Health Show, featured as the number one health podcast on iTunes with millions of listener downloads each year. A graduate of the University of Missouri, St. Louis, Sean studied business, biology, and kinesiology, and went on to be the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance, a company that provides wellness services for individuals and organizations worldwide. Sean has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Men's Health Magazine, ESPN, Fox News, and many other major media outlets. He's also a frequent keynote speaker for numerous organizations, universities, and conferences. To learn more about Sean, visit themodelhealthshow.com, and you will love it.

Welcome, Sean, to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. This is really important to me, Sean. I'm so happy to have you here. Sleep, for me and many of our people, especially women my age, major issue. So, so excited to hear what you have to say. It's my pleasure. You know, as I mentioned before the show, sleep can be one of the nemesis for a lot of people, but every superhero needs a nemesis to overcome. Love that. 60 million Americans have trouble with sleep. It is an epidemic.

And one of the interesting statistics that I often think about, in 1900, on average, Americans got nine hours of sleep at night. And now we get six hours and 40 minutes of sleep at night. And now we get six hours and 40 minutes of sleep at night. If you just think in a hundred years, that kind of change has got to have a real negative impact on us as a species. Talk to us about your experience with sleep. And just to let everybody know, we're actually going to do three podcasts on sleep because Sean, Tana, and I think this is so critical to your mental health, to your brain health, to your physical health, to your weight, to your immune system, and so on. So talk to us about how you got interested in it. Sure, sure. So this was out of my own desperation, first and foremost.

About 17 years ago now, I was diagnosed with something called degenerative bone disease and degenerative disc disease. So my physician at the time told me that I had the spine of an 80-year-old when I was just 20, the ripe old age of 20. And from that experience, basically also getting the diagnosis that there's nothing you can do about this. This just happens. And I'm sorry, you know, so I was given a bunch of medication and a back brace. And I kind of had to figure it out until enough time passed when I can have surgery, because for most people, they just want to get out of pain. And I definitely

would have had surgery then to get out of pain, And I definitely would have had surgery then to get out of pain because I was not aware that there was anything that I could do about it. So it took about two and a half years of a lot of suffering. And by also that fear of doing anything, which is one of the worst things you could do is to do nothing. I became very docile. I gained a bunch of weight. So I became a much fluffier version of myself, put on about 50 pounds and definitely dipped into depression, loss of just a sense of significance and purpose. And I was in college at the time, but I ended up dropping a lot of classes, just barely hanging on. And I was really embarrassed at the position that I put myself into, but I was blaming other people. Why won't they help me? Why can't I get some good news? And by asking these disempowering questions, it kept me in a disempowered state.

And I've always just, some people have a natural, a little bit more natural inclination towards being responsible for their life. And up until that point, I've been very responsible, but I'd given it away. And even though my physicians meant well, they didn't walk in my shoes. And so it really came to a point where my biggest struggle for me was at night putting my head down on my pillow. That's when I didn't know what would happen. I was in such fear because my pain was so bad

that just changing positions, I'd get that sciatic shock down my leg and it would jar me out of sleep. And so I was even afraid to go to sleep, which is just crazy. And so I had my own little personal cocktail of my prescription over the counter. Celebrex Tylenol PM was my favorite combo to go to sleep at night. And little did I know, and I didn't find this out till about five years ago, Daniel, that Celebrex was one of the symptoms was restless leg syndrome. And it wasn't

a thing yet then. There wasn't a medication to go along with it. I'm just like, why won't my legs stop? You know, like I just, I couldn't go to sleep because my legs wouldn't stop. And so to kind of put a bow on this story after this two and a half years, and I was sitting there on the edge of my bed, looking at my prescription bottles, and it just kind of all came rushing into me what I had become. And I become somebody who was a victim. And I realized that I never did take responsibility for the situation that I was in. And so that's when I decided to get well. And a lot of people glance over there, but it's so important because most of us never do that. I agree. It's more wishful thinking. Like, I'll try.

We'll see what happens. I hope this works. Instead of making a real decision that I'm going to get healthier, a real decision that I'm going to lose this weight. And I'm a big fan of lexicon. And the word decision is from the Latin de meaning from and caidea, which means to cut. So when you make a real decision about something, you cut away the possibility of anything else but that thing. And so long story short, when I decided it wasn't like a unicorn came out or a rainbow popped out of, you know, unicorn's butt or anything, but it was like, I'm a very analytical

human being. So I put a plan together that entailed three specific things. One was I asked more empowering questions. What is it that I need to do to heal from this? What is my spine made of? What are the discs in my back actually made of? And I never asked that question before. And when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. We've heard this statement before.

I came across the right books and I learned that things like sulfur-bearing amino acids, magnesium, silica, all these things are needed to regenerate tissues. And I learned that things like sulfur-bearing amino acids, magnesium, silica, all these things are needed to regenerate tissues. And I was on the college diet. I call it the tough diet, the typical university food. And so I'm like hammering pizza and donuts every day. And so, and like Sunny B with fortified vitamin C, you know? So I started to get these things in my body and your body needs the raw materials in order to rebuild you. So that was one. Number two was movement. Your body requires movement in order to heal itself. And we already know how important this is for the brain, but it's also important. The word exercise is derived from the word exorcism, which basically means to get stuff out of you that shouldn't be there.

So it's the main means of detoxification and assimilation. And I came across a study that showed how important assimilation was as far as exercise concern. Third part, and this is the final part, which really led me to sleep, is that you're not healing if you're not sleeping. And once I got my sleep dialed in, it's like the floodgates open. And I got well so quickly. Fast forward the story, nine months later, I get a scan done and my two herniated discs retracted on their own. And I regenerated some

of the juiciness or the suppleness of my disc in my back that was supposed to be impossible. And I increased my bone density to the degree that I no longer had this degenerative bone disease. How is that even possible? And I'll tell you, this isn't a miracle per se. It is in the fact that I became awake and enlightened to the fact that I can make this happen, but it was simply abiding to the laws of the body. And by me having such a dramatic experience of healing, a lot of people asked me how I did it. And that was the birthing of my career, which has led to the books and the podcast and actually being here with just somebody I truly admire in Dr. Amen and his amazing wife. So that's my story in a nutshell. Sean, that's amazing. I'm sitting here and I'm like nodding

my head. They can't see this, but I'm like, everything you're saying completely resonates with me. So I was similar. I'm not going to tell my long story, but very sick doctor on nine prescriptions, some to go to sleep, some to wake up. I mean, heart medication, so many things. And it was miserable. It all started with an illness and it was just like a sweater unraveling. So I want people to really hear this. I was in your position. I'd adopted the model of a warrior. Like what would a warrior do? Because for me, that works. But everything you're saying about empowerment and making decisions is, you know, if you really want to do something, you will find a way. And if you don't, you will find an excuse.

Right. So I'm just a huge fan. It's not that we don't empathize and I hear you empathizing. We know this is a problem for people. So, so excited. I'm like sitting here bouncing up and down. I know she's like poking me under the table. And the one thing you said that resonated with me, and it reminds me of what you often say, is the number one hallmark of self-defeating behavior is blaming other people for how your life is turning out. And being responsible doesn't mean it's your fault. It means your ability to respond to the situation that you are in. So we're so grateful to be able to introduce you and your work to our community. Well, and so many of our people suffer.

Today we want to talk about sleep. And that's just a great introduction on, so why do we sleep? Why is it important? Dolphins sleep one hemisphere at a time, which is really interesting. But talk to us about what you have learned about the importance of sleep. Sure. And so fast forward to the clinical practice and being a consultant for nutrition and doing clinical nutrition work for over a decade and having the opportunity to work with companies

and individuals. I had a great database, which is so amazing. What I love about your work is having that database. You have to be a dolphin. Well, no disrespect to dolphin, but have only one hemisphere of your brain working at a time to not see the patterns. Interesting. And again, no disrespect to dolphin.

But here's the thing is that I saw, and I just heard some women today talking about this at the gym. It's common knowledge. They were talking about a friend of theirs that has type two diabetes. They're like, oh, that's the one that you can reverse with nutrition and with exercise.

It's like this wasn't something you could even talk about. But we were seeing over 70 percent reversal for type two diabetes, you know, five, 10 years ago with people making some adjustments and actually getting educated on how the whole system works from the beta cells in the pancreas, the insulin sensitivity, all of that stuff. But they were able to get it under control and help them to get off things like metformin, sometimes even insulin. But there was always this percentage. And I know you guys have experienced this, this percentage of people that wouldn't get the results everybody else was getting. And ironically, it would keep me up at night sometimes. And I was a sleep guy, you know, but I wasn't the sleep guy yet. And it wasn't until I started to ask people what they were doing when they weren't eating great food and exercising,

because sometimes they were exercising too much and still not getting results. Once I, and when I asked that question, I was like, one of the most difficult things to do is to get people to make a complete lifestyle change. So what are the things that are clinically proven to help them to improve their sleep quality immediately without them turning their life upside down? And I would find those things, have them employ them. And it's like, again, the floodgates would open. They get the results that they've been looking for. One of those, and this is where something really visceral is going to connect with people because we all, we don't wake up like, you know what?

I want to look so horrible today. You know, I'm just, my goal is to look bad. We all want to look good and we all want to feel attractive. And a big part of that is managing our weight. And I found out that sleep is more important and I'm a nutritionist. So keep this in mind. Sleep was more important than food and exercise combined in changing your body. There was a great study from the University of Chicago, and they put the study participants on a calorie-restricted diet, kind of traditional stuff that I was taught in a university setting. And they monitored their results while in one phase of the study, they got eight and a half hours of sleep and they tracked everything.

In another phase of the study, same people, same diet, but they sleep deprived them. Now they're getting five and a half hours of sleep. At the end of the study, they found that when the individuals were well-rested, they lost 55% more body fat, same diet, nothing else changed except sleep. And they lost, that's a lot. Like you can't get that number from CrossFit five times a week, 55% body fat loss. And so this is really the key. And the question behind the scenes, just to touch on this really quickly, I always ask how, like, what is it that caused this change? Number one, a lot of people don't know about this, but

melatonin, this glorified sleep hormone is also important for fat loss. This is crazy, but listen in everybody, like get closer to the speaker. This is crazy. So the journal of, um, pineal research found that melatonin increases your body's production of something called Brown adipose tissue. And basically this is a fat that burns fat, right? This is the quote, good fat. And it burns the white adipose tissue, the kind of gooey stuff that a lot of people are trying to get off their bodies. And you're not producing melatonin properly. If you're not falling in line with a natural sleep cycle. That's just one thing.

Then we can talk about human growth hormone, cortisol regulation, testosterone. Right. That's how sleep is so powerful for changing your body. And then the new research that I'm really interested in, that when you sleep, the glymphatic system opens up in the brain and the brain actually cleans or washes itself at night. So I'm telling Chloe this. So Chloe is our 13-year-old. And when I learned about it, she was like nine.

And so I'm telling her about how important sleep is and how if you don't sleep, your brain will get dirty and then you'll get sad and you won't be able to learn. And she goes to her mother. She's like, I'm going to bed. I have to go wash my brain. That's awesome. I love that. I should send you my kids. You know, what's so fascinating is that for me, it really clicked when I saw in the research, same as you. This glymphatic system is 10 times more active when you're asleep than when you're awake. This is when your brain really does that deep cleaning and your brain cells shrink 60 percent to make even more room for this.

And, you know, we're seeing now one of the big things behind Alzheimer's is the inability of the brain to detoxify itself as you talk about as well. And it's scary because so many of us don't know that it's related to our sleep quality. Well, and brain function is also, you know, what's good for the brain is good for the rest of, you know, your heart and everything else. And we have a, we know of a study. I love the whole warrior metaphor. It's what I, you know, that's my whole metaphor for, for life. And one study they did with soldiers was that soldiers who got seven hours or more of sleep at night were 98% accurate on the range the next day, one less hour of sleep, one, six hours, they were less than 50% accurate. And then at five hours,

they were what? 24% accurate, 38% accurate. Okay. And then at four hours they were dangerous. It was like 15% accurate and brand new study. Actually, I was trying to find it from the, from AAA, your chances of getting into an accident. If you only get six hours of sleep are like 400% higher than if you got seven hours of sleep and your chances of getting into an accident, if you only got four hours of sleep is like 1400 percent higher. And it's just, you're dangerous. That sleep is absolutely essential. So I want everyone to stay with us in the next two podcasts. We're going to talk about the things that interfere with sleep in the next podcast with Sean.

And then in the one after that, we're going to give you Sean's prescription on how to get the best sleep of your life. So Sean Stevenson, Sleep Smarter, stay with us. 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.