Kick Starts

Sleep Essentials: Why Quality Sleep Is Vital for Mind and Body

• Sylvia Flanagan, LMFT, Motivational & Behavioral Coach • Episode 46

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This episode delves into the crucial role that sleep plays in our overall well-being. It highlights the significance of obtaining quality sleep for maintaining good health, emotional stability, and cognitive sharpness. I define the four stages of sleep, from the transitional stage to deep sleep and REM sleep, outlining their impact on our physical, emotional, and mental health.

I discuss how sleep aids our emotional resilience by processing and organizing daily experiences, enabling better emotional understanding and coping mechanisms. Listeners will learn how sleep contributes to the brain's detoxification process through the glymphatic system, essential for memory consolidation and cognitive function. Additionally, the discussion extends to the effects of sleep on appetite regulation, metabolism, and overall physical health, emphasizing the pivotal role of sleep in maintaining a healthy body weight and stable blood sugar levels.

Furthermore, the cognitive benefits of sleep are highlighted, explaining its role in memory consolidation, learning, and neuroplasticity. Tips for optimizing sleep quality are shared, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, creating a conducive sleep environment, and more . Overall, this episode on sleep serves as a guide to understanding and harnessing the foundational power of sleep for overall health and well-being.

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Speaker 1:

Hi, this is Sylvia and welcome to Kick Starts, and if you've listened to my show before and you like it, please leave me a rating and if you're on Apple Podcasts, leave me a review. I would so appreciate that. It definitely helps to motivate me and it also helps me to get picked up when people search for podcasts on either Spotify or Apple. So today I'm gonna talk about sleep. Sleep is something that some people like to do and some people just do it because they feel like they have to, but sleep is actually the cornerstone. It's foundational for good health cognitively, emotionally and physically. I think we all know, when we've all heard, that we'll literally go crazy if we don't sleep, but we'll actually die if we're deprived of sleep for long enough, and even one night of poor sleep is gonna make an impact on how we feel. I think by the end of this episode, you're definitely gonna know why you feel bad when you don't sleep well, and I also hope that by the end of this episode, you're gonna know a lot more about the silent and behind the scenes power of sleep and how it's absolutely crucial for good emotional, cognitive and physical health, and I hope you have a basic understanding of the negative impact that takes place when you don't get enough sleep. Hopefully you'll be motivated to get a lot more and also I hope that you'll look at sleep as the tool that's instrumental for everything you do when you're awake, as it's a foundation for all of your goals and aspirations when you're up and running.

Speaker 1:

So there's four different stages of sleep. There's three stages of non-rim or rapid eye movement sleep, and then there's rapid eye movement sleep. Stage one sleep is the transition from being awake to being asleep and it typically only lasts for a few minutes. The brain waves start to slow down and they start to become a little bit irregular. Stage two this is called light stage sleep and the brain waves slow down even further and there's bursts of different brain wave activity and the heart rate and body temperature starts to decrease. Stage three is known as slow wave or deep sleep, and this is the deepest stage of non-rim sleep. Brain waves are a lot slower and during this stage it's really hard to wake somebody up. And if you do get woken up, this is when you're gonna feel super groggy for quite a while. The last stage is REM sleep, or rapid eye movement sleep. The brain is really active during this stage it's very active, just like when we're awake, and this is the stage where vivid dreaming takes place. And it's amazing because our muscles are paralyzed so that we don't act out our dreams, but breathing, essential body functions and also horizontal eye movements are all that's going on while we're in REM sleep. Everything else is paralyzed Throughout the night. We cycle through these four stages of sleep, with REM sleep getting longer each time. The cycle takes place until the last cycle of the night, and that's when REM sleep is the longest.

Speaker 1:

Mentally and emotionally, sleep does a ton for us. It really does everything for us almost, or at least it sets the stage for it. So during REM sleep the brain goes through and processes and organizes whatever emotional experiences we had from the day. It takes memory from the day, especially emotionally loaded or charged ones, and it basically organizes them. What happens is the brain takes the new emotional information, it connects it with existing neural networks in the brain and this helps us understand, integrate and cope with our emotions a lot better. Put another way, when you have an intense emotional experience during the day and so when you have these intense emotions, whether they're positive or negative, they leave an imprint on your brain and during REM sleep, the brain goes back to those memories and processes them. This processing helps regulate their intensity and helps prevent you from feeling overwhelmed by them when you're awake. It's like going through a box of pictures and arranging and organizing them to make sense grouping them based on a trip, maybe a year or people, instead of having them just thrown in a box and it rearranges them in a way that makes it easier to access and understand by the brain. By integrating and processing our memories and emotions, we're then able to use them and make sense of tough things that have happened in the past. We're able to learn from them and come up with healthier ways of responding when we have similar situations in the future. Because sleep processes and organizes our emotions and memories, we're given emotional resilience and we're able to take life on and take on new challenges, and sleep's job helps us from getting emotionally overwhelmed from day to day.

Speaker 1:

Just as our physical bodies get restored during sleep, we get emotionally restored and balanced during REM sleep. That's one reason we feel so refreshed and energized after a great night's sleep, or we feel so punchy, edgy or emotional if we get a crappy night's sleep, and we're definitely more likely to feel anxious if we don't sleep well because the amygdala the structure that triggers the fight or flight response and activates emotion it's more active with poor sleep and the prefrontal cortex isn't as active Another reason why you're likely to feel foggy and not very sharp when you don't sleep well. As Matthew Walker, a sleep expert, said, with poor sleep the brain is too heavy on the emotional accelerator pedal without enough break. Aside from anxiety, not getting enough sleep is going to leave most of us feeling punchy, sad and just more emotionally unsteady.

Speaker 1:

In terms of physical health, sleep is beyond essential, and our immune system has to have good sleep to work well. When we're in deep sleep, our body produces proteins called cytokines and they help regulate the immune system and regulate inflammation and they fight off infections. Cytokines play a huge role keeping us safe against bacteria and viruses, and they help us from getting sick and just contribute to our overall health. Bad sleep compromises our immune function and leaves us more open to getting infections, and it slows down the body's healing process. If you make time for good sleep and you make it a priority, you're going to strengthen your immune system, get sick less and fight off illness better. If you do get sick. Without good sleep, you're just inviting what you don't want. Your body will most likely produce more of what's called pro-inflammatory cytokines, which increase inflammation and just leave you more open to illness and infection Plain and simple. In addition, sleep basically does a check and repair to our whole body. Each night, when we're in deep sleep, our body gets recalibrated and restored. It repairs damaged tissues, facilitates muscle growth and releases growth hormones that repair and regenerate tissue. Without good sleep, these things don't happen so well, so you're most likely going to heal slower and have a higher chance of getting injured. But with good sleep, you can speed up healing from injury and have better physical ability and lower your chances of getting injured in the first place, and you can have that daily check and cleanse from the cellular level up.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about weight and appetite. Sleep plays a really big role when it comes to regulating our appetite and metabolism. When we're sleep deprived, our body produces higher levels of a hormone called ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, and at the same time, bad sleep lowers the levels of a hormone called leptin, and leptin tells us when we're full. So basically, when we don't sleep well, we're not going to think we're full when we would normally think so, and we're going to be hungrier than we normally would be Because of the way these two hormones get imbalanced. It also makes us crave crappy foods like sweets and carbs. So when we don't sleep well, we're going to crave bad food and probably eat too much of it. Not only that, but poor sleep messes up our insulin sensitivity and our body has a harder time regulating our blood sugar. Just one night of bad sleep can change blood sugar levels the next day, and chronic poor sleep leads to increased chances of obesity and diabetes. So by making good sleep a priority, you support your immune system and help prevent illness, keep your hunger hormones in check and create a platform for stable blood sugar and healthy body weight.

Speaker 1:

In addition and I don't have time to go into it in this episode but several large-scale studies have linked chronic poor sleep to cardiovascular disease, alzheimer's and cancer. It's just not worth it. Make room and do your best to try and get good sleep. Hey, it's me Quick Break, so you want to buy me a coffee A virtual coffee, that is, if you like my podcast. Consider supporting me in fueling my inspiration. Any support received goes to my heart and not to my pockets, and helps pay for the various expenses needed to produce the show. Coffee's $5. Just go to wwwbuymeacoffeecom. Backslash kickstarts. I'll also put the link in the show notes. Thanks so much for any support.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about cognitive health. Good sleep is going to determine how well we think and how well we learn and how well we remember. Most of us know about the lymphatic system, which is the body's drainage or sewage system, in essence, where the body gets rid of its waste products. But what you might not know is that the brain has its own waste removal system called the glymphatic system, and this system works when we sleep. The glymphatic system detoxifies the brain from things that build up during the day when we're awake. So if we don't sleep well, we're not able to detox the brain. That's one night of bad sleep, and the brain can't remove toxins so well. So that's another good reason to do your best to get a good night's sleep. Also, if you're a regular listener, you already know about neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to reorganize its structure and function on a cellular level and regional level when we face new experiences and receive new information, when we get new input. Essentially, it's about our brain's ability to adapt and change over the course of our life, when faced with change, setback or opportunity. It's where new neural networks are formed and where outdated or unnecessary neural networks are pruned, and it also involves the growth of new neurons called neurogenesis. Well, suffice it to say less sleep means less neuroplasticity, because good sleep is the foundational ingredient for when it takes place, and sleep is where it takes place.

Speaker 1:

When we don't sleep well, a lot of things happen, and I'm just going to touch on the basics. First off, it negatively impacts our memory. During deep sleep, our short-term memories from the day are made into longer-term memories. It's like taking files in your computer's temporary drive and transferring them to your hard drive. So when you don't sleep well, what you learn during the day isn't going to get made into a longer-term memory nearly as easily. Also, we're not going to learn new skills and retain new information nearly as well if we have a bad night's sleep or if we have more of a chronic sleep problem.

Speaker 1:

There's so much going on on a cellular level and if we sleep crappy, then the brain doesn't go through its detox. Like I just said, the amygdala is more activated and the prefrontal cortex isn't as functional, and then it makes it harder to learn. In addition, when we don't sleep well, we're not going to be as sharp or be able to focus so well. That's because the glymphatic system that I just talked about also clears out a neurotransmitter called adenosine, which builds up while we're awake and makes it difficult to focus and pay attention towards the end of the day. So if we don't get that deep sleep, then we don't get the brain cleanse and reset button for the following day. Bad sleep also messes up the balance of other neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, which help us stay alert, pay attention and feel motivated Cognitively. Without good sleep we're just toast.

Speaker 1:

I know, with just one night's bad sleep I can't think well to save my life, and sometimes just stringing a sentence together seems hard. So that's just a real general summary on how sleep impacts just about every area of our life in one way or another. But before I end I want to just put some tips out there on sleeping better, even if you already sleep well, just maybe to help you sleep better and for people who don't sleep well. Definitely I hope the tips help you get a better night's sleep. But first I want to say something about sleeping pills, and I want to clarify that I'm not giving any medical advice here. These are just the things that are showing up in research. Sleeping pills fall into a category called sedative hypnotics and while they do sedate people, they don't give the same type of sleep as natural sleep does. They help people fall asleep and stay asleep, but they usually suppress REM sleep and deep sleep, so they're not getting the restorative benefits of natural sleep. An overwhelming amount of studies have also shown that sleeping pills aren't more effective than a placebo pill, so I encourage you to do some of your own research online and factor that in before deciding whether to take sleeping pills or not. Studies have shown that CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, is much more effective than sleeping pills and safer. But here are some tips to help you sleep better and get a better night's sleep.

Speaker 1:

First, alcohol, caffeine and food. Don't drink alcohol before bed. Alcohol also affects our sleep architecture and messes with the stages of REM sleep and the stage of deep sleep, so you're not going to get the restorative benefits that happen with the alcohol in your system. As far as caffeine goes, don't ingest it later in the day. The half-life of caffeine is about six hours, so six hours later you're still going to have 50% of the caffeine in your body. Try and limit your caffeine and your coffee to earlier parts of the day and lastly, don't eat a big meal before sleep, because digestion is going to interfere with sleep process.

Speaker 1:

Second, keep your bedroom dark and cool. Our body reduces its core temperature by about one or two degrees when sleeping and we're going to have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep if we're in a warm room. Third, have a sleep schedule and make sure you keep it during the weekends as well. Go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time, and if you stay up later one night, get up at your regular waking time the next day and avoid sleeping in, because sleeping in is going to mess up the schedule even more than if you just went to bed later. So waking up at the same time is more important than going to bed at the same time, but definitely try to do both. Yeah, you might be tired the next day, but you're going to be more likely to fall asleep that following day and get back on schedule a lot more easily.

Speaker 1:

Fourth, stay away from electronics right before bed. If possible. Have a room with lower dim lighting and read or do something else that's relaxing, but don't watch TV, don't go on your phone or your computer. Have some sort of winding down ritual before bed. Fifth, if you find yourself laying in bed and having a hard time going to sleep, get up and go out into another room and read or do something else relaxing that doesn't involve a lot of stimulation. The brain is extremely associative and you don't want your brain to start associating bed with the place where you lay awake and are unable to sleep. So go out to another room and read a book a real paper book until you start to feel groggy and then go back to your bed.

Speaker 1:

Sixth, if you have a hard time sleeping in general, try not to nap after 3 pm because it's going to make it harder for you to fall asleep that night.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, the basics Fuller exercise, stress management, a healthy diet, mindfulness and relaxation techniques, deep breathing exercises all of these things are all going to help you sleep better. So I really hope that this episode has helped you understand and respect sleep a lot more than you did before listening to it. Sleep is just so foundational to basically everything we do during the day and everything we need. It sets the stage, and it sets the stage for our emotional health, our cognitive health, our physical health, and hopefully you can come to appreciate it more, make room for it, make time for it and, like I said, respect it and utilize it to your advantage and start to enjoy it a bit more, especially for those of you who tend to overwork and push yourself too hard. It's not being lazy. You're actually doing one of the wisest things you can for your productivity, for your longevity and for your overall health. You got this.

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