The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Sleep and Hormones with Dr. Olinca Trejo, ND - Winter 2024

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

In this Guest Expert segment, Gina discusses sleep and hormones with Dr. Olinca Trejo. Dr. Olinca is a licensed, board-certified Naturopathic Doctor in the province of Ontario. She also holds an honours degree in Kinesiology and has achieved her certification and internship in bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT).You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodwinter2024Topics covered:Stress and Sleep and Introducing Dr. Olinca TrejoWhat are hormones?It is so much more than what you are eating, and whenLack of sleep and how does that affect your hormonesSleep is when the magic happens3 hormones that affect sleep: melatonin, cortisol and adenosineMelatonin supplements: is it right for you?Stress and cortisol and how it can contribute to sleep disturbancesSleep architecture and the stages of sleepStress can present in very different waysThe first few weeks of the program and giving the body what it needsStop forcing yourself to eat a salad, and be in tune with your body's needsMen and their weight loss journey and the impact of hormonesGoing through hormonal changes and the impact on your sleepPeri-menopause and menopause and how sleep can changeWhat can you do to help with cortisol?Supplements to reduce cortisol and help with sleep: different types of magnesium and adaptogensDon't stress yourself out, don't TRY to sleepWhat are the impacts of exercise on sleep and cortisol, and what is the best time of day for different types of exerciseSleep and cortisol and the impact on weight lossHow can a poor night's sleep impact your body and choices that day?What can happen over a prolonged period without sleepThink about what you can do to improve your sleep hygieneIt's a journey, not a quick fixTo learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple,

and Amazon Music. Dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton.

Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. You're going to have this ability to now reframe. Allow yourself time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. The thoughts and the feelings and the behavior cycle can start changing. How does sleep and stress affect you when you're trying to lose weight? That's been the conversation all week. On Tuesday, we talked to Dr. Beverly David. She's a psychologist. We talked about the psychology behind sleep, how it's affecting your brain, and somewhat based on that, how it's affecting your body. Yesterday, we talked to Elena McGinn. She's a sleep expert. She shared some amazing sleep tips with us, talked about sleep hygiene, talked about your

environment, talked about how to get a better sleep. Today, I'm excited to talk to our guest, Dr. Alinka Trejo, who is here to talk about not just sleep, but also stress and the impact on your body when trying to lose weight. So we are going to get real into this today. First of all, hi, hello. Hi, it's so nice to be here again. It's good to see you too. For those of you who are new to the program, Dr. Link has been with us for a while. We've had a variety of different conversations. We're also going to have a whole other conversation on hormones that I know people have been like, just like itching to talk about, especially in relation to weight loss. And that's a,

it's become a huge topic this year with weight loss, um, hormones and menopause, especially, um, okay. Where do we want to start? Do we want to start with sleep and then we'll tackle stress? Do we want to, are they, they go hand in hand? Do we want to talk about one before the other? Yeah, I think, you know what? I think that, um, uh, first we probably need to talk about what are hormones so that people understand just how important hormones are. Um, and also how impactful the sleep or lack of sleep can be with everything else,

how they're kind of tied together, if that makes sense. And so I would say, yeah, I would say hormones, the easiest way that I want people to think about it is that they're chemical messengers that are released through the endocrine system. But they regulate everything from blood pressure to blood sugar, to growth, to fertility, to your sex drive, to your metabolism, to your appetite. They also regulate sleep. And so I think that the conversation that we want to have is also the like, you know, hormones and sleep don't just have to do with like your menstrual cycle. They have to do with stress. They have to do with weight loss. They have to do with appetite. They have to do with how you repair from injury. They have to do with so many things so that even if you're,

you know, a male that's listening to this conversation or somebody who's postmenopause, who thinks they don't have hormones anymore and is listening to this conversation, this also applies to you. Okay. So we're going to be here for the next six hours. Yeah. Buckle up people, grab some lunch and dinner, cancel your plans. But I love this because that's the theme. Like people, they, I mean, this is about bringing awareness to really what's going on and why weight loss is so difficult. It's so much more than what you are eating and when, and I just want people to remember before we get into this, the biggest takeaway is you are already doing so much in following the Libby method, right? Following that food plan, making your meals and you know,

snacks, nutrient rich, you know, being in tune to your body, making sure you're hydrated, maximizing, which is all the other things, managing your stress. Yes. Your sleep. Yes. Moving your body, working hand in hand with your healthcare provider, like being mindful of all the things that add up and make a difference because it's not just eat less exercise more that is going to take this weight off. And it's definitely not going to be what makes it sustainable. So for a lot of people, it's just a much big for most people, it's a much bigger issue. In fact, I haven't had a client who needed to lose weight, because they were just eating all the wrong foods. You know, that going through the drive-thru just like in 30, probably over 30 years, I haven't had a client

like that. Usually there's stress, there's sleep, there's inflammation, there's hormones or something else going on. Okay. So let's get into it then. Do we do we talk sleep first yeah and how that affects you know okay yeah yeah um okay so i i think that it's easier to understand honestly how the lack of sleep maybe um impacts hormones because like i was saying you know there's so many things that sleep regulates when it comes to the hormonal balance. And so when you're not sleeping, typically what we see is that we see, you know, reduced immunity, we see an increased risk of illness, because, you know, the actually natural killer cells and like a lot of the things that prevent you from getting sick or trying to fight viruses and stuff, get them regulated, because you're not restoring a lot of that immune arsenal that you build up

during your sleep. There's spikes in your appetite, right? Because a lot of the hormones that again, regulate your appetite, your satiety are off. And so there's increased risk of obesity because we release a lot more of the hormones that actually build fat and that won't let go of that fat, especially when it comes to visceral fat. There's going to be increased recovery time when you're exercising, right? And so you won't be able to like get back on your feet and be able to keep them moving the way that we want you to. There's going to be memory loss.

There's going to be high blood pressure. There's going to be heart disease. And so I think that the thing that I always tell my patients about like sleep and hormones is that sleep is when the magic happens for your body. And I said this to you before, but I used to think that sleep. Sorry, I used to think that exercise and diet were the foundations of health. And I realized that sleep is actually the base that both of those stand on. And if your sleep is, or that, that base, right. It's like this, or it's too short or whatever. If there's, if there's problems with that base, the other two pillars cannot actually function

for you in the way that you want them to. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Because because no it seems like nobody's sleeping 100 honestly I do I feel in my practice I feel like nobody's having sex and nobody's sleeping um and I do think that most of those things are related because again because of your libido and things like that right so um anyways do you want to dive into like what sleep is like, like stress, like you kind of guide me? Yeah. Okay. So, so we've talked a little bit about, you know, sleep hygiene, like dim your lights, you know, get up, get the sunshine on your face, make sure you have a nice environment. Maybe we could go into like supplements to help us sleep. So do we take melatonin? Do we not take melatonin? Are there other things that we can do besides, you know, making sure our environment is, you know,

conducive to sleep that we're dimming the lights. We're not on our phones. We're not on our devices. We're not going to bed too early. We're not going to bed too late. Is there anything that we can do or take it? Is there anything we can take? We take stuff. You know, it's interesting because I recently, I went on a trip on the holidays and we were talking about sleep pills and someone had some sleep pills. And then I was like reading into them to try to get back on a sleep schedule, right? Because you're, because like, and then I went down this rabbit hole of you know people who are taking sleeping pills it's like cutting people's lives short like you think taking pills to help

you sleep is like this good thing because you're getting that better sleep but actually I was like holy shit I you know had no idea so do we take something do we not take something are there natural things we can take let's start with melatonin because everyone talks about that. Should we take melatonin or not? Honestly, this is for me, I'm always like, maybe. And I think that it's probably because I like trying to understand why we're not sleeping, right? And if we even just take it back to the rule that melatonin plays in your sleep cycle, it's actually very simple. You really, I mean, sleep is a little bit complicated, but if I was to oversimplify it, sleep is regulated by three big things. It's regulated by cortisol, melatonin, and something else that's called adenosine.

And so your cortisol, which we all know about because it's a big stress hormone, it's also a good hormone. And it's a hormone that wakes you up in the morning, that responds to daylight, that makes you feel like, Gina, let's get out of bed and let's get the show on the road. And then as the day goes on, it decreases, right? Because it's getting less of that stimulus from your environment that it's like bright. And then as, you know, the day goes on, what will happen is that cortisol actually is the one that has almost like the break on melatonin. And as cortisol is decreasing, then it kind of starts taking the foot off the pedal, if that makes sense. And melatonin slowly starts increasing, right? The thing about melatonin is that people feel like your melatonin just goes

from zero to 100. And that's what makes you fall asleep, but it doesn't your melatonin just goes from zero to 100 and that's what makes you fall asleep but it doesn't melatonin actually peaks from about like midnight to about 2 a.m in the morning and all of your melatonin production actually happens during the day and the most recent research that we have um says that it's actually you know know, that's like red, almost like light that you get when it's either like the sunset or it's actually that type of light that stimulates melatonin production. And so melatonin is really interesting because at really high doses, which people take, which, you know, are like super physiological doses, we see, you know, you go to the drug store, to your health food store, and you see like threes, fives, tens, like those are massive doses. And the research really says you need a tiny baby dose. Like you need like 0.6 of a milligram. Like

it truly is so small. Melatonin can help you fall asleep ish, especially if it's like jet lag or shift workers or something that has to do again with you losing a lot of that, um, I guess, environmental cue and your body not being able to produce that melatonin through the day, but melatonin is not going to be the one that's going to keep you sleeping. And so a lot of people take the 10 milligrams and they're like, oh my gosh, but then I'm wide awake at two o'clock in the morning. And it's like, yeah, because it's not the 10 milligrams you've already metabolized. And it's been out of your system by the time that like the two o'clock wake up comes. And then at two o'clock when your melatonin was supposed to be the highest and now you're starting to see that again, that like slow increase of cortisol, right?

To come back up so that it wakes you up at seven o'clock in the morning. Yeah. At two o'clock in the morning is when your own melatonin starts peaking through. But it was never enough because we were on electronics because you never saw daylight because you because of 3000 different reasons. And then it actually doesn't help you sustain that like sleep as much as like you want it to. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's like, you can't just not do all the other things that you need to do and just take melatonin and think that's going to help you. A hundred percent. And melatonin

is indicated for certain things like shift work, or it's sometimes like kids, it can be really good with kids. The problem is that again, it's a hormone, right? And even though the research says, you know, if you take it every day for about six months, it's fine. There's also a little bit of evidence that says like, if you take that every single day, if you don't need it, right? Because as we age, we start producing a little bit less of that. And we'll talk a little bit about that when we talk about some of the other hormones. If you don't need it, eventually your body just kind of expects that giant dose of melatonin, right? And so I think that melatonin can be good, but it's not for everyone. And I think that most of us, when we do take it, we tend to take way too much and we end

up taking the wrong type of melatonin, right? Because if your problem is that you can't fall asleep, yeah, melatonin could be great for you. But if your problem is that you can't stay asleep, unless you're taking a time release formula, it's probably not going to be enough. And so then we kind of then into supplements and we look at then, you know, things that impact cortisol or things that would then impact things like adenosine, right? Because they're the other two hormones that regulate the cycle. And so cortisol, I mean, you and I can talk about cortisol all day long. I know this. We can talk about stress all day long. You talk, we talk so much about this, but cortisol, cortisol is a great thing when it's balanced and it is an awful thing when it's not,

right? And in my practice, what I often see is that a lot of our sleep disturbances, if it's not hormones, because you're going through a life transition, because you're going through menopause or menopause or PMS or whatever it is, a lot of it is actually driven by cortisol because we have so many demands on our time. And yeah, we've had this conversation too, you know know we are mammals and as mammals our stress response was built for short-term stressors that get you out of danger right your fight or flight response was like there's a bear that's about to eat you you run and like you make it to safety and you continue chilling with your girlfriends like it wasn't

supposed to be there's a bear and then there's a tiger and then there's like the fox is stealing your baby like it's not every day at all given times and so if you combine that with the fact that you also have so much stimulus around you all the time that's continuously making your body um increase that cortisol output right because of the bright lights because of your electronics because because because because because because you don't actually get that like really nice peak in the morning. And you don't really get, you might get that drop at like at 1 to 3 PM that everybody knows that you're just like, oh my God, I did not. But then what will happen is that in the evening when you're, and this is actually where we talk a lot about sleep hygiene. And I know that Alana and Dr. Beverly talk about this too, but then we actually start seeing this spike in cortisol right in the evening and so then the problem is that then again

because cortisol is the one that has that break on melatonin just as melatonin is like okay it's my time of course i was like no no wait though wait wait i think it's seven o'clock in morning like i come to 6 p.m but apparently it's seven so like we go again. And so then the problem is that even if you can fall asleep, what the research again says is that your sleep architecture. So the way that you cycle through the different sleep stages, right, that have different purposes. Some of them are for balance physiologically. Some of them are for restoring. Some of them are for actually for you to almost like process a lot of the emotional stuff that happens through the day. That sleep architecture becomes really disruptive. And so then it's not even that you're going to have maybe frequent awakenings or that you won't be able to

fall back into sleep. It's that your sleep quality and that architecture is going to, it's going to be crap. So even if you are sleeping for seven hours, you're going to wake up in the morning, you're going to be like, Oh my God, I feel like I got hit by a truck. And that's because it's almost like your biology is not actually in line with what your circadian rhythm should be. And so it's almost like you have this like misalignment that throws your body completely off and your hormones off and everything else just like slowly or very quickly starts falling apart. Hello. Okay. Because yeah, it's like, um, I'm just, I'm just thinking about all the people, you know, not where, where everyone's at having such a hard

time, especially again, bringing it back to weight loss and trying to lose weight. And this is why the routine of the program is so important and how we make changes along as we go, as opposed to like just getting in there. Imagine what just starving and depriving yourself does on top of your stress and not getting asleep. And then how that has that massive effect. And no wonder people feel like they can't get a handle on anything. This is why, gosh, it's been such a great week with these conversations. I always say to people, like, you can follow the food plan and you can move your body. But like, if your stress is out of whack and you're, you're not sleeping, like that's, that's the ticket. It's not eat even less exercise, even more. It's like, let's look at those things. And then you add, you add like menopause again, which is such a huge conversation right now

on top of that. We're all just fucked at the end of the day. So we're itchy, we're bitchy. We're like, you know, we're all the things, but you know, I think that the one thing that I want, um, especially like your people to understand, because a lot of the people that I meet through your program, they, you know, they're, some of them are chronic dieters. Some, some are people that are like, I have tried everything and nothing works.

The thing is, is that stress can also present in very different ways, right? Um, under eating is stressful. Uh, reducing carbohydrates is stressful uh over exercising is stressful like uh it it doesn't have to be legitimately a bear that's about to eat you there are a lot of physiological stresses and a lot of things that um like toxic people like there's so many things that i think that are present as big bears or little bears. And I do, and I go back to this conversation all the time. Like the reason why I actually really love the mechanical eating is because it gets your body out of that fight or flight mode because it feels like you're never going to feed it

again. And that on its own releases a bunch of cortisol because cortisol also regulates your blood sugar. And so if you've been starving and if you've been over exercising, or if you've been low carb, because you were a child of the nineties and the two thousands that said like, you know, low carb is the way to go and take all these pictures and said, your cortisol skyrocket high because that's what your body has had to do to survive. And your body can only ever be either in fight or flight. I'm releasing a bunch of cortisol and

adrenaline or in resting, digesting, making babies and losing weight and living my best life. Like you can't be in both. And so it, it is, it is such a broad conversation because I think that, um, it, unfortunately we invalidate so much in medicine when people are trying to lose weight and it's like oh well you're probably not just eating that or like oh you're probably like not moving enough but it is not about that and it is all about the routines and you know a lot of the undoing and you you I think that I said this to you last time I feel like a lot of the times it's like treating a lot of that PTSD that we've created with your body from the chronic yo-yoing and following all of the advice on TikTok that had never, you know, that never had any research to it. And this is actually what your program tries to do, which is great.

Yeah, I mean, this is why this is why the first few weeks of the program, when I say to people, we're not even focused on weight loss yet. We are just like really trying to just give the body everything that it needs so it can make change, address issues, like, you know, undo a lot of the damage that's been done. The neglect, for lack of a better word, the not understanding the impact of not getting sleep for years or, you know, just being stressed out and all of those things that are factored in. Um, I should say, I mean, this is also when you, when you talked about, you know, like, um, low carb, this is why this is not all about salads every day. And if you are forcing yourself, whenever I say that, if you're forcing yourself to eat a salad, you know, lettuce with a hunk of chicken on it, because you think that's going to help you. It's not, it's really about being in tune to your body's needs. I do want to also just talk to

men as well. This is just as much of an issue. Just because we're mentioning menopause doesn't mean it doesn't also, you know, it doesn't, men also don't have to worry about lack of sleep and stress as well. It also impacts them as well on their weight loss journey. Can you just talk a little bit about that too? For sure. For sure. For sure. I mean, you know, I, I, um, we'll talk about men and then I'll kind of move into maybe like women too, for sure. So that they understand like the hormones, the thing about, um, the, it's mostly honestly the high cortisol, right? Like we'll create a lot of these imbalances. And part of the reason as to why this happens is because most of your hormones, like your steroid hormones. So, you know, your testosterone or estrogens or progesterones, they're made from cholesterol, which also is the foundation for cortisol.

And so, again, like I was saying, you know, your body either goes into fight or flight. I'm making cortisol or I'm making babies like it can't be doing the same time. And so a lot of the times what happens and we have a lot of research on this. If you reduce either you, you reduce the time that you're sleeping, especially in men, or you have untreated obstructive sleep apnea, um, or, you know, you have a sleep disorder where even if you're sleeping, it's really, really broken and you're not getting to enough, uh, uh, deep restorative sleep or REM. What will happen is that all hormones start plummeting, right? and you're not getting to enough deep restorative sleep or REM, what will happen is that all hormones start plummeting, right? And in men specifically, there's a number of studies that show that if you sleep deprive men to five hours of less for a short period of time, it only even has to be for, I think it's like a couple of weeks,

their testosterone levels will drop to the levels of about somebody that's 10 years older than them. Wow. And so I think that I mean, what that means is that you're at because testosterone, again, is involved in so many different processes, how I explain it to my patients is that you're aging really quickly, right? Like you're you're losing your libido, you're losing that muscle mass, you're losing that bone density really quickly. You are gaining fat where you don't want to. You go to the gym and you feel like gas, like you just have nothing left in the tank, right?

And that's probably the thing that happens to men the most. And they don't, thankfully, tend to suffer from insomnia as much as women. I mean, the research actually shows that women are twice as likely, actually, to develop sleep disturbances over their lifetime as men. And we all sleep the same up until about, like, puberty or so. And then once puberty takes on, we see this change, actually, in females that happens. Men continue sleeping well which is like you know it makes me want to like mourn my husband sometimes just like don't um like they fall asleep quicker you know their architecture is a little bit better and then as um you know we go through hormonal changes so especially like around uh our fertile years especially we have

babies we see changes in sleep, which makes sense, right? It's a physiological response so that you protect your offspring and your sleep becomes a little bit lighter and it becomes a little bit shorter so that if, you know, there's a bear that's about to eat your baby, like you go get that bear and like you go get that baby. And so, but then we see this like sharp increase in sleep issues that happen around perimenopause and menopause. And it's such an interesting time for all of us, right? Because it's not just like your hormones are changing. It's also that like your life is changing.

Like if you have kids like they're leaving the nest, your parents are getting older. So there's a lot of health stuff that happens with them. Usually, actually, if you have a partner, that's when men start showing a lot of like cardiovascular stuff. And so there's a lot of different stressors. And that's when we typically start seeing the difficulty falling asleep, the difficulty staying asleep or waking up too early because your circadian rhythm starts shifting just physiologically, right? So we sadly see that there's about, I would say like 40 to 60 percent of perimenopausal and menopausal women will have some sort of sleep disturbance. And about 42 percent of them will continue to have that sleep disturbance even after menopause is done.

And, you know, the craziest thing is that for a really long time we used to think like oh you're just getting old and that's what happens to old people but even when women that are really young they go through surgical menopause which means that we have to take out you know their ovaries or the uh for whatever reason they also experience very similar changes in their sleep duration and architecture and quality. And so, and then on top of that, around that time, that's actually when we see women start developing things like sleep apnea, which then also like prevent you from getting that deep quality of sleep, right? And that's an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and like all cause mortality. And so it's, this is where I go back to like your, I always think like, if you have issues with hormones, you for sure are going to

have a problem with sleep. If you have a problem with sleep, you always have a problem with hormones. Yeah. And it's for everybody, right? Because we all, and women also have testosterone and men also have estrogen. We just don't have it in the same ratio. New year, new me. Season is here. And honestly, we're already over it. Enter Felix, the healthcare company helping Canadians take a different approach to weight loss this year.

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find your push, find your power. Peloton visit Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. And that's the conversation today. We're going to have Dr. Alinko back and we're going to talk about menopause specific, what you can do about that. We're going to talk about hormones and all of that.

We want to keep this on the conversation of sleep and stress to really, you know, just really emphasize how important it is that you are making an effort to get that sleep and manage your stress. Okay, because let's talk about those, those hormones, cortisol, right? Because we hear I think, when you're in menopause, or you're like, you know, you're completely just stressed out, your cortisol can actually peak in the evening. Is there anything we can do? Like, obviously, following the program, you know, moving your body, like being in tune, doing the things that you need to do. But is there anything that we can take for like, and also, I know, I'm all bit all over the place. I'm just so excited about this conversation. Yeah, people talk about balancing hormones, you know what I mean? Oh, I need to balance my

hormones. They don't take into account things like cortisol or your hunger hormones or you know what i mean they just think like sex hormones and that's it if i get my libido back i'm gonna feel better about everything um so is there anything that we can take for cortisol yeah so i i completely agree with you i think the most important takeaway from this is that sleep hygiene. So all the tips that you've gotten all week, even if you're like, yeah, yeah, no, honestly, they become way more important, especially as you age. And so I even a sleeping pill does not give you the same quality of sleep that just improving your environment and your sleep hygiene is going to do. Right. So I want to make that really, really, really clear. When it comes to cortisol specifically, there are things that increase cortisol that you, outside of just like light, right? That I know

that we've talked about and like really driven home. So obviously blocking that blue light, but also trying to increase that red light is another way that we can just try to improve and increase that melatonin secretion, right? So you can do it in a couple of ways. One is if you live in Canada and it's a day like today where you may not necessarily be getting that stimulus, getting a light box that you can use first thing in the morning, obviously, like making sure that you talk to your practitioner to make sure that it's right for you, that you can use first thing in the morning to again, get get you back on track with like cortisol is only supposed

to be high in the morning, cortisol is only supposed to be high in the morning. So that's probably my first thing. The second thing that I do is that instead of just, you know, maybe turning up all the lights and not having any screens, because sometimes for people that is not a realistic change, getting proper blue light blocking glasses and red glasses, right? Because we talked about that red light and how important it is. And so there's actually light bulbs that you can use that are melatonin enhancing light bulbs that are, have a little bit of a red tinge. I know. And you actually can get glasses. I actually, mine are downstairs. Otherwise I'll bring them next time to look like a loser, but it's that they're, they're like the

red. And the reason why they're red is because that's actually prompting my, my pineal gland to be like, Oh, we should be producing more melatonin. Right. And so that on its own, I think it's like super, super great. Other things like, you know, um, uh, I know that this is part of your program, but like not having things that are too stimulating, like sugar, which is delicious, but like sugar or caffeine that also increases your like norepinephrine, right? And like your cortisol. Too late in the evening, having really, really heavy meals and having them too late at night can also really impact the quality and the structure of your sleep because it increases your core body temperature, right? Which then your body actually has to drop in order to release that melatonin and getting to that deep restorative sleep.

Making sure that your environment is really cool. And this is especially important for all of my perimenopausal menopausal ladies out there. But your body temperature legitimately needs to drop by about like half a degree to a full degree, which is actually why like sleeping in a cooler room is a lot easier. Right. But your room, like your room needs to be about like 16 degrees Celsius, which is like sometimes uncomfortably cold. Yeah. So that is also like a really, really great one. Avoiding alcohol and nicotine before bed. And, you know, and it's

not because I'm puritanical and I'm like, they're the worst ever. It's just because they impact your hormones and they also impact the quality of your sleep. And so, and then we kind of get into the supplements, right? We get into the supplements that decrease cortisol. Oh, sorry, before I get that meditation. So meditation, mindfulness, breathing, all of the things that are going to get your body out of that fight or flight response and into that resting and digesting. And so we have a lot of research that says meditation and deep breathing will decrease that cortisol, but then we get into supplements. So my favorite and every naturopath favorite and your favorite is magnesium. and we love magnesium for so many

reasons there are different types of magnesium i think that calm is a great one across the board for people um and then there are two other ones that are really great there's one that's called magnesium glycinate or bisglycinate and the glycine piece of it of that magnesium is really great for people that suffer from a lot of like anxiety, high cortisol that don't respond well to magnesium citrate, or that they get a lot of loose bowel movements at low doses, right? But blanket statement, I would say magnesium citrate first, and then I'll move into that one. And then the other one that's really interesting is magnesium threonate. And magnesium threonate is the only magnesium that's been researched to cross the blood brain barrier

and that's the magnesium that's specifically studied for um alzheimer's and dementia oh okay uh-huh and so that i mean it's expensive so i would say try the first two first um but if there is a lot of history of uh you in your family, it might be the first one that I go to, but that one's really great. And then the kings and queens of decreasing cortisol are going to be adaptogens. And so adaptogens are herbs that will decrease or help your body modulate at cortisol. The two best studied ones are going to be wethenia or ashwagandha and rhodiola. I really like an extract of ashwagandha that's called KSM six,

six, because it also has been shown to increase testosterone. And so that's for my, I'm not sleeping. And I also have low sex drive kind of thing. And then the, the last but not least that actually has a ton of research for cortisol specifically is phosphatidylserine.

And so phosphatidylserine or PSP, you're going to see in a lot of formulas. It's expensive, but it works super well, especially if you're somebody that can only exercise and move in the evening. Because, again, exercise can increase cortisol. Right. And we want you to exercise because exercise causes that or helps us build that adenosine that causes that sleep pressure, right? Which is the third thing that we were talking about. We're talking about cortisol, melatonin, adenosine. But plus vitriol serine will kind of help bring down that cortisol that you released right after you exercised so that you can still exercise and then you can fall asleep. Those are probably my top ones.

Great. I adore you, my goodness. Okay, so I do want to talk about exercise. But first, I know everyone is including me is we're frantically writing these down. But are these are we walking into the health food store and buying these or we should really be checking in is the message here that there is something you can do. And they should go their health care provider about it and talk to them about these types of things? Yeah, 100 percent. You know, it's and I think I may have mentioned that earlier, but the most important thing for you to understand is why you're not sleeping. You know, if you're not sleeping because you're getting hot flashes, you can take all the ashwagandha and phosphatidylserine in the world. And that's not going to prevent you from breaking out into a sweat in the middle of the night. You know, if you, you know, it's, it's, there's not enough magnesium in the world, you know, that's going to treat obstructive, obstructive sleep apnea. So the first thing

that you need to do is work with somebody to say like, you know, I'm not sleeping. And sometimes you don't even understand why and I think that the hardest thing I don't know if you've ever suffered from insomnia I have and I find the hardest thing about it is that there's this anxiety sometimes that comes along with like you see that it's getting dark and you're like oh shit like it's coming because like you you're almost afraid of going to bed because you're like I have no idea what it's going to be like am I going to go am I going to fall asleep am I? And then if you and your brain said it like, if I don't fall asleep within five minutes, that's it. I am not falling asleep.

Your own cortisol will increase because you're already getting anxious about the not sleeping. This goes along with Dr. Beverly, the psychology behind sleep. She's like, don't try to sleep. Don't try to sleep because it does mess with your head. But further to that, like you're saying, because it increases your cortisol levels. Oh, I just feel you have got. Listen, if you were just listening to this conversation today, you have got to listen to the other two conversations that we had. Dr. Beverly, Alana McGinn, along with Dr. Linka. This is just, oh, again, it's awareness, right? And if you're walking away being like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? The exciting thing is there's a lot that you can do. I want to back it up to exercise because should people, if they're not sleeping, should they not exercise at night? Because I get asked this all the time. What's the best time to exercise, morning and night? I'm like, whenever you can get it in, it's a benefit. But are you saying maybe not in the evening?

I know. Yeah, let me eat my words. Okay, no. Exercise, like I would say across the board, every study shows that exercise improves sleep, right? And it's going to improve to improve the quality, the duration, and it's going to decrease those awakenings in the middle of the night, right? It promotes healthy aging. It's yeah, it's like amazing exercise. Amazing. A lot of you're using that energy, though, during the

day, you're like, you know, you're you're using your energy. So you sleep at night, but maybe not right before bed though. A hundred percent. So exercise, again, it helps you with that sleep pressure, right? The adenosine buildup in your brain that makes you really tired. Um, the thing is, is that exercise in very intense exercise, right? Can increase your cortisol to an extent your body adapts to these things. And so if this is what your routine is, eventually your body's going to be like, Oh, Gina, just exercise at seven o'clock. And like, that's OK. In a perfect world, if, you know, I could micromanage your schedule, I would do a lot of the aerobic HIIT training, more intense exercise earlier on in the day to especially if you are somebody that struggles with energy during the day, because your cortisol is mismatched and we are trying to fix your

circadian rhythm, that exercise is going to help you peak that cortisol earlier. You might actually feel better. Right. And then I would leave a little bit of the lower intensity things like walking, like a weight training, like, you know, yoga, things like that a little bit later in the evening, which are a little bit more relaxing and have a less strain on your adrenals. But I like you, I would rather you exercise than not because you're afraid of spiking your cortisol. Yeah, I mean, exercise getting your heart rate up, it evokes that fight or flight response in your body. So you don't want to be doing that right before you go to bed necessarily. A hundred percent. And at the same time, if you're chronically in fight or flight mode,

because your body feels like I'm running away from it, I'm running away from it, I'm running away from there. Exercise can be one of the most effective strategies to actually get your body out of that fight or flight mode because it feels like okay great we ran away from the bear we can move on yeah and so it it kind of like yeah yes i want to talk about this running away from the bear thing because it's it might seem extreme to people but when i was at the canadian obesity summit in the spring this is whatever this is what all the obesity experts are talking about the way your body is is trained to be in that fight or flight mode all the time constantly overstressed overstimulated and how your body adapts to that and feels the need to store fats because of that right or reluctant to let go of that so it's very much a real thing we're not just being extreme here

for the sake of conversation it very much is how your body is wired. And, you know, although we've come a long way with technology, our bodies still function on a very primitive level. A hundred percent. And you know what, there's in that same conversation, there is, there's a lot of focus right now on the impact also that cortisol in sleep specifically will have with your appetite hormones, which, you know, I think relates back to weight loss. And there's a really fascinating study that got published on JAMA, which is one of the most well-respected journals in medicine that showed that if we can actually decrease that fight or flight response and we can improve people's duration and quality of sleep, naturally, people will actually eat, I think, less than about 270 to 350 calories per day. And they when they undergo like

a weight loss program, they'll be a lot more likely to build that muscle mass and lose a lot of that fat and visceral fat, right? Because you can still be doing all the right things. But again, if you're not sleeping in that cortisol is high, your body will still find a way to be like, no, no, no, it's self-preservation. I want to survive. I can't let go of this fat because eventually we have to run to safety. Yeah, I can't. Again, this conversation, I keep having to bring it back. We're going to talk more about hormones, but this is how that all factors into all the things that you really need to focus on when it comes to losing weight. If you're just looking at the food I'm eating every day, that is not it. You are missing it. A lot of these things you are doing just with following the living method, making tweaks each week, continuing to show up, listen to our guests. Um, after you get, I know, I know from previous conversations we've talked about after you don't get a good night's sleep, talk about the impact of not having a good night's sleep on your body. The next day, the foods that you're eating, how your body's processing those.

Uh, I don't, do we still have the six hours or are we just like down to the. I know. Listen, I'm like, I know. I know me, too. And I'm like, oh, God, there's so much stuff I want to talk about. OK. In the short term and in the long term and sleep or sleep deficiency. Right. Or sleep disruptions or just sleep problems will cause problems in your mood. We know, we know that it increases your risk of developing both anxiety and depression. It increases your risk of developing actually digestive issues. Most importantly, when it comes to weight loss, it increases your insulin, which is that hormone that regulates a lot of whether your body actually uses the sugar that you've eaten for whatever it is that hormone that regulates a lot of whether your body actually

uses the sugar that you've eaten for whatever it is that you're doing that day or you're storing it as fat right it increases your hunger hormones and it decreases also your satiety hormones and so you're going to be way more likely to overeat and not mindfully eat and stop when you're full because your body just feels like okay one more one more thing, one more thing. It decreases a lot of those neurotransmitters that make you feel like really good and well rested and amazing. And what we know is that, and I think we chatted about this on our previous conversation, but we know is that people tend to gravitate towards quicker energy, ultra processed foods, and make food choices that they wouldn't typically because they just want that quick energy and that quick hit of dopamine

so that they just feel a little bit better than they did when they woke up in the morning. It will also have an impact, obviously a little bit more in the longer term, on things like your cardiovascular system, your immune system, because it regulates everything else, like your cardiovascular system, your immune system, like, you know, but it's because it regulates everything else like your blood sugar, but it increases your risk of a lot of cardiometabolic diseases mostly. But for this conversation, truly, when it comes to weight loss, what I want you to remember is that even one night of bad sleep can increase that insulin by about 30% or so, right? And so one night of bad sleep can

happen to all of us. It's no reason to panic, but it's when it's happening over and over and over and over again, right? That then if it's only one night of sleep increases your insulin by that much, imagine what happens over a prolonged period of time. And something that I really like testing in my practice is actually your fasting insulin, right? And your fasting blood sugar, because I will see people that are like, I literally am eating like lettuce and chicken, and I don't eat any carbs, and their insulin is still like in the hundreds, right? Which makes no sense because they're not eating carbs. But the reason why that happens is because they're not sleeping well. And that's sometimes where we pick up things like sleep apnea, especially in people that live alone because they don't have a partner that says like, hey, you were snoring like

a trucker or like you stopped breathing. But it's that, you know, that's actually really weird. Your insulin is way too high. Your blood sugar seems to be really, really off for what you're eating. You're not losing weight. You feel really tired. Let's send you for a sleep study. And nine times out of 10, honestly, it comes back as like, oh yeah, yeah, they probably have not been getting enough oxygen for the last 10 years. I don't know.

I mean, I do have five hours to stay. So yeah. I'm going to take a pee break, get a coffee and come back. Wow. I just, I love this conversation. Um, I mean, the exciting thing with you is we're really just getting into this conversation and there's so much that we can talk about it. And I don't want to overload everybody today. I got so many questions. We want to talk about the importance of, you know, increasing your muscle mass resistance training, um, to help with your insulin, help with your hormones, to help with

all that stuff. We have, we have so much more we can talk about. We've, we've, we barely even touched on stress. I know it's sort of all part of the same thing, but you're going to be back. And this conversation is about bringing awareness to what's going on. So if you're like frustrated with the scale, I mean, it's still too early to get frustrated with the scale yet, but you know, for a few more weeks in and you're frustrated with the scale, this is to be like, okay, maybe, maybe I do need to focus on my sleep and the importance of that and how it could be really, truly impacting your body beyond just you dragging your tired ass around the next day, right? Like it really does have an impact. Okay.

But how do we wrap this up? Final words, but I'm going to leave it on you. I'm going to put it on you. Final words to wrap this up. Oh, my God. Sleep is magical. Sleep is truly, if you're not sleeping and if you're not sleeping well, it doesn't matter what you take. It doesn't matter what you do. Things fall apart on you. I want you to think about, you know, because I know that this conversation comes up a lot about sleep aids and things like that. And even supplements. They're floaties, right? And I want you to think of them as floaties that you can use when you feel like you're drowning. But you need to learn how to swim on your own.

And you know how to swim on your own. You were born knowing how to swim on your own in this case, right? And so we have stuff that's available to you to help you. the root cause that most of us have when it comes to sleep issues are things that are simply treated by improving your sleep hygiene, improving your lifestyle, changing what you're eating, changing the way that you're thinking, letting go of, you know, the sense of self that only comes from doing and doing and doing and doing and doing and increasing your cortisol as a result, and getting a little bit more sense of self from the just being right and being a little bit more kind and mindful especially to yourself um and i i feel like especially when it comes to weight loss and hormones and sleep and all of these things i want people to understand that it's

it's a journey right and we're so used to uh wanting a quick fix all the time and there aren't quick fixes yes zopiclone and benzodiazepines and all these things like they feel like it's a quick fix and listen like i think they're amazing for a quick fix because it helps us break out of this anxiety that i'm talking about very, but they're not supposed to be long-term and neither is ashwagandha. Um, and so I think that I want, I want people to keep working at it. Even if you feel like things are not improving on the scale. And we chat about this a lot, but it's like, it's all about those non-skill victories because you're right. This is like way too early to be saying like, this isn't working for me. Cause I promise you that even if your skill hasn't moved as much as somebody else's that you see on Facebook, your energy is probably better and your sleep is

improving. And it may not be perfect, but it wasn't perfect to start with. And this is a chronic problem that impacts most of us. It's not going to be fixed by like week four of a program. It is years and years and years of unlearning and retraining and trial and error. And just because you didn't have one good night of sleep means that that's it. Nothing that you're doing is working. And, you know, not because you're waking up in the middle of the night a couple of times, like means that you're not sleeping well. Like none of that means that you should give up. You should continue working at it because this is about not just like your, like, I guess like your lifespan, it's more about your health span, right? And the quality of your life. And I truly believe that the quality of your life is truly about the sleep, your diet,

and the movement piece. And so I want you to even if if you don't think that you have sleep issues, work on your sleep hygiene, because it can always be better. It can always be better. Yes, I, I went through this where I don't need to do that. And I can still do this. And boy, was I wrong. I know you want to believe that having your office in your room is, is, it's fine. That just staying on your phone is fine. That watching TV in your bed is fine. That it's fine. You know, it's all fine. It's not fine. It's not fine. And there is that it's uncomfortable to make change, but I am telling you, you catch a couple of good nights sleep and you realize how you're all pulling it together. It'll be a game changer. It'll be a game changer. Um, I know people are Dr. Lincoln

Trejo. I know people are going to want to find you. They're probably searching you up right now. Um, you are going to be back. So I want to tell everyone I am going to be back. We're going to, we're going to talk a lot more about hormones. We're going to talk about so much. Um, she's going to be back, but, um, I know people are going to want to, uh, hormones. We're going to talk about so much. She's going to be back. But I know people are going to want to find you. Where can they do that? I'm at the Halton Physiotherapy Clinic in Burlington. I have a practice online.

If you're in Ontario, I would love to see you virtually or in person. We're in Burlington. But I'm going to be back. And I'm so excited to be back. My jam, as you can tell, is hormones. So it probably felt like we were all over the place, but I get so excited about this. And we are going to chat about like menopause and hormones. Cause I knew that I saw some of the questions pop up and I promise I will, we'll get to it. But right now let's just like start simple and build on it. It was hard not to go there. I know. I always,

I always try to say, it doesn't matter. You could be like, talk about the immune system. And I'm like, but menopause, like the perimenopause, like, you know, I will always find a way to bring it in. I know it's the worst. It is my toxic trait. I know. Well, I can't wait. I can't wait to indulge in your toxic trait because we've been wanting to have this conversation for a while. It's taken us a while to find the right person to have this conversation. You can really break's taken us a while to find the right person to have this conversation who can really break it down to people in a way that there's takeaways there. It's such a complicated, big, huge, massive conversation.

But we're going to have it. So Dr. Alinka, everybody, thanks for everyone who's watching and joining us live. And thanks for everyone who's listening on our podcast, Way In With Gina. Dr. Alinka will be back with us. And I already can't wait. Have an amazing day, everyone. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

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