Sleep
“Better Health Begins At The Cell.” -Dr. Bill Cole
Hey guys, today I’m gonna talk with you about sleep. But like always, if you like what you hear here and you’re looking for more information, click on the link above or go to ColeClass.com, coleclass.com, for more information. We have lots of information there on health in general, but this subject in particular also.
With sleep, the longer I do what I do, the more I realize that we as a people are just deficient in sleep. Whether it’s the stress in our lives or just the busy nature of our lives, a lot of us are just not getting the sleep that we need in terms of being able to maintain good proper brain health and body health in general. And it’s starting to have some really damaging, long-term effects in our body. It’s cumulative over time, too.
As this situation goes on, the conditions will get worse. We’re even seeing today that sleep deprivation is associated with Alzheimer’s and things like type II diabetes. Even cancer. Also weight gain. We have a lot of people who can’t lose weight. They also have this tendency to gain weight, and it’s so closely related, oftentimes, to this deprivation of sleep.
The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize in medicine was awarded to somebody who discovered that each of our organs, in fact, our cells of our body, have their own internal clock. The master clock regulating all of these internal clocks is our brain. And that circadian rhythm, if you will, is something our body really has been synchronized to. To match the light and dark cycles of our day and night. Whenever we throw that off, we wind up having more difficulty sleeping. And then, like I’m saying, we wind up having all of these health problems as a result.
So, the tips that I would recommend for you, especially for those of you that already are having trouble sleeping, for those of you that want to improve the quality of your sleep and impact your health in a really positive way, it would be to do some really basic, simple things. I’m going to give you some tips right now.
Number one is, first of all, we have to understand that we need a good 7 to 9 hours of sleep per day. I recommend closer to nine hours, if you can get it. It’s just that I’ve seen something in my patients that works when they get more sleep versus closer down towards that 7 hours or below.
We want to optimize our sleep environment, right? So, our bedroom or wherever we’re sleeping. We want to make sure it’s conducive to good sleep. What I recommend is you want to make that room as dark as possible. You want to put some sort of a shade over your windows so the early morning light, especially in the summertime, is not waking you up too early. Or light from the outside, whether it’s streetlights or whatever it might be, is not interfering with your sleep. Make the room as dark as possible. You want to cover up any LCD lighting. Even the littlest bit of lighting can throw off your sleep.
Definitely would recommend that you get rid of cell phones. Any kind of electronics that are near you. Move them as far away as you can. And that’s going to go just a really long way, if you will, in improving the quality of your sleep. I could do a whole talk just on what we’re finding out about these electronics, and how they’re damaging our health. So, we want to optimize our environment.
Also, temperature. A lot of studies are showing that optimal sleep happens in a 60 to 66 degree temperature range. I personally try to sleep around 65 degrees. If you’re not interested in cranking up your air conditioning to get it to that point, then maybe you want to sleep without clothes. You want to find some way that you can lower the temperature in your room, because it’s going to help improve the quality of your sleep.
Beyond that, there’s some things you can do in preparation for sleep which will have a big impact. Number one thing that I’ve seen is you want to try to go to bed early. You don’t want to be going to bed late, watching television as you’re going to sleep. That’s not conducive to a good night’s sleep. Get really predictable in terms of the time that you go to sleep. The more consistent you can get, the earlier you go to sleep, the more health benefits you’re going to gain from that improved quality of sleep.
Don’t drink anything within two hours of going to bed. Especially as we get older, it’s going to wake you up, disturbing your sleep. Try not to eat anything within three hours of going to bed. In fact, we know through studies right now that, generally speaking, with the whole circadian rhythm thing, that if you want to lose weight, if you don’t want to gain weight, you want to stop eating around 6:00 PM or 7:00 PM in the evening. Try to make it at least two, but preferably three hours or more, before you go to bed. And certainly you don’t want to be eating junk food before you go to sleep. That’s going to really be a negative impact in terms of the quality of your sleep.
And then the other thing that I found with a lot of patients, including myself, is that if I take a hot shower or if you like baths, then if you take a hot shower or a bath before you go to sleep, that really helps you relax, and it’ll improve the quality of your sleep.
So, if you like this advice, click on the link above or go to ColeClass.com
I hope this helps.
Take care, guys. God bless.
