Could poor sleep quality be an unnoticed perpetrator, increasing your risk of serious diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer? Let's talk about how essential sleep is in maintaining, not just your energy levels, but also your overall health and wellbeing. Learning how to optimize your health can be overwhelming, especially when sleep often takes a backseat in our busy lives. In today's episode, we are sharing practical and achievable strategies to not only increase sleep, but improve the quality of it.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
Could poor sleep quality be an unnoticed perpetrator, increasing your risk of serious diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer? Let's talk about how essential sleep is in maintaining, not just your energy levels, but also your overall health and wellbeing. Learning how to optimize your health can be overwhelming, especially when sleep often takes a backseat in our busy lives. In today's episode, we are sharing practical and achievable strategies to not only increase sleep, but improve the quality of it.
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Shop our apparel! --> Love Your Body Now
Follow us on Insta: @loveyourbodynow.podcast
because I think that we don't realize there's actually a lot that goes on in the body when we are sleeping, and there are actually a lot of studies that show a higher likelihood of disease when you are not getting quality sleep, especially over a long period of time. Welcome to the Love your Body Now podcast, the podcast for women who are ready to feel confident in their body right now and redefine what health looks like for them. I'm Savannah, your host, and together we'll be having conversations about what it means to accept and love our bodies now, while simultaneously prioritizing our health journey. We'll be debunking beliefs that do not serve us and diving into misconceptions and unhealthy narratives in the fitness world, so that we can rebuild our foundation from a place of self-love. Hello, welcome back to the Love your Body Now podcast. If you are a regular listener, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast regularly and if you are new here, welcome. I hope you are excited for today's episode and be sure to check out some of our other episodes, all the way back from the beginning. There may be some that resonate with you and if you don't see something that you are expecting a topic that we would cover on this podcast and you don't see it. Please feel free to reach out to me and let me know your ideas and what you think that we should cover on the podcast. If you think it's a topic that is super interesting or that you've been having a lot of questions about lately, please let me know, because I'm always open to hearing other people's ideas especially people who listen to the podcast and different things that we may be seeing trends about. I would love to cover them on the podcast. So today we're specifically talking about sleep and the impact that it has on our overall health, and I've actually been reading a book recently.
Speaker 1:Well, I listen to audiobooks. I don't ever I shouldn't say ever, but I rarely will actually sit down and read a book. I love to listen to audiobooks, especially on my drive to work and on my drive home. It is just a great wait for me to pass the time because my commute is so long, and so recently I started reading this book called Sleep Smarter, and it is by Sean Stevenson.
Speaker 1:I actually listened to his podcast pretty regularly. It was one of the first podcasts that I started listening to in the health and wellness space, and I believe I heard the statistic that his podcast is like the number one health and wellness podcast, and for good reason. He really knows his shit. He does a ton of research. He looks over different studies that are done in the health and wellness space. He just he keeps it real on his podcast and he covers really good topics and really helps to educate his audience. So I love his podcast and I also read his book Eat Smarter.
Speaker 1:I read that a couple years ago and it was so good as well. The beginning part of it is a little slow because he goes over the science side of nutrition and how it works within the body, but then he really goes over things that are really good to know and understand about nutrition. So highly recommend both of his books. But yeah, I've been more focused on his Sleep Smarter book because I suck at sleeping and maybe you can relate. Or maybe you just want to listen to this episode because you want to learn how you can improve your sleep quality, because you hear a lot about it and I want to go over some of the things that I've learned. But obviously, if you are looking for a deep dive into sleep and understanding it and understanding how it affects our health and how you can improve it. All of those things.
Speaker 1:I highly highly recommend checking out that book because it's going to it's going to give you way more information and education on the topics than I will, but I do want to go over some things that I think are helpful for you to know and learn about and just start to be aware of as you are navigating your health journey, because I feel like in the fitness space, the thing that is super big that I see on like social media and just like within the fitness industry is we see a lot of people promote like getting in your exercise right, and I feel like when we think of health or we think of wellness, whatever, we always jump to oh, I need to get back into the gym, I need to start working out, or we get really hard on ourselves because we missed a workout right, and exercise plays a super important role in our fitness and in our health, but it is just one piece of the puzzle. There are so many other pieces of health and wellness that aren't talked about enough. I think the main ones that we see are, of course, exercise and then, of course, nutrition. Those are the things that we see a lot of, but I don't think all of us fully understand how important sleep actually plays a role in our overall health, and it's actually kind of mind blowing after you, like what I've been reading in the book, starting to realize the small things that we experience in our day to day that could be due to lack of sleep. And so, first of all, I just want to start by saying that sleep is so much more important than you may think it is, and if you are not prioritizing your sleep not just, you know, getting to bed by 9pm or whatever, but like in making sure that you get 8 to 9 hours of sleep, which is like the best amount that you can get, it's also the quality. So even if you're sleep and you're getting, quote unquote 8 hours or 9 hours of sleep, whatever, but the quality of it is not good, then it's really not going to be like effective, like we think it's going to be, and maybe you're like well, how do I know I'm getting effective sleep? Well, a lot of times, if you are waking up in the morning feeling like still super fatigued, like super brain fog, and have a really hard time like waking up, that could be a sometimes of like not having good quality sleep.
Speaker 1:I know with when you're like defining good quality of sleep, it has to do with the amount of times you're going through the sleep cycles and you know going through REM and hitting into that deep sleep. I'm sure there are ways that you can track it and obviously you know like you can go to the doctor and do like a sleep test. But that really has to do with good quality sleep is are you going through the amount of sleep cycles that your body needs in order to, you know, recover and get rid of toxins in the body or in the brain? Excuse me, and do what it needs to do while it's sleeping, because I think that we don't realize there's actually a lot that goes on in the body when we are sleeping and there are actually a lot of studies that show a higher likelihood of disease when you are not getting quality sleep, especially over a long period of time. So if you are chronically sleep deprived, that is a really, really detrimental thing for your health.
Speaker 1:Your your likelihood of getting things like Alzheimer's and cancer go up significantly when we don't get quality sleep, especially when it happens for prolonged periods of time. So you think about people who work night shifts. They actually go super heavy into those types of workers who work night shift and he talks about how, if you have to do that for a season of time or for a period of time, like you know, you do what you got to do. Sometimes we're not always in control of our situations all the time, but he's he makes a point of saying do not do this long term because your likelihood of getting diseases, especially cancer, significantly go up, and I've heard plenty of experts in the industry talk about how your likelihood of Alzheimer's goes up as well. Because, again, when we're sleeping, that is when our brain is clearing out toxins in the body and getting rid of waste, and when we're not getting effective sleep, it's not going to be able to do that as effectively and think about it. That's why we're feeling things like brain fog and super low energy is because you have all of this like waste in these toxins that you still have in your body that you haven't gotten rid of during the sleep process.
Speaker 1:It also plays a super huge role when, let's say, you're doing a strength training program and you're really going hard in the gym, lifting super heavy, trying to get stronger. The sleep should be such an essential part of that workout plan Because if you are looking to build muscle which we all should be looking to build muscle you need sleep, because that is actually when it takes place. It doesn't take place when we're up and moving all day after we've done our workout and we have a protein shake after our workout. Yes, our body needs those things, but it does it actually begin to repair the muscle and build the muscle until we are sleeping. So if you are someone who is thinking that you are going really hard in the gym and you're trying to build muscle, maybe you're struggling to see results, I would reflect on how well you are sleeping, how much sleep you are getting, what your quality of sleep is like, because that may be a huge indicator of the reason why you're not seeing the results that you want.
Speaker 1:There are many reasons why someone may not be getting good quality of sleep, because when I think of me, I struggle to get good quality of sleep, sometimes very, very regularly, and it's not because I'm not in bed by a certain time. I'm actually in bed fairly early because I really do try to get myself into the sleeping mode and really channel my brain into okay, like you know we're winding down, we're getting ready for bed, and sometimes I will still lay there for a full hour before I even fall asleep, and sometimes it's just a very restless night and it's like okay. So if that is you, what are you supposed to do? Like you're trying to do all of the things and you're struggling to really get good quality of sleep. Well, one of the things that he talks about in the book is sleep apnea, and that may not necessarily have to do with someone like me who struggles to fall asleep, but it is a factor in your quality of sleep If you have sleep apnea, because, essentially, your body stops breathing when you're sleeping and you need oxygen to get to the brain. So, obviously, if this is occurring a lot throughout the night which side note, sorry we have this thing in our home that alerts us when the door opens. So the door just opened and I don't know if you heard it in the background, but the dog just like went running, but he obviously does share some tips on what you can do to try and help if you have sleep apnea.
Speaker 1:It's been a minute since I've actually read that chapter. So this if you are someone who struggles with sleep apnea. This is definitely something I would recommend going to the book and reading about, but it is safe to say that one of the things that is correlated with sleep apnea has to do with weight gain, and so if you have gained weight or if you have a significant amount of like, if you are significantly overweight whatever then sleep apnea you are more likely to experience sleep apnea, and that has to do with more fat around the neck. So, even if you are looking to start your health journey and maybe right now you're struggling with sleep apnea, but you're also working on your health and fitness journey but you're struggling to get good sleep. He does talk about the CPAP and using it as more of like a temporary solution, and I can't speak to sleep apnea. I mean, I do think that I probably experienced maybe it slightly, but not like to the extent of needing a CPAP, but I was not necessarily surprised. But he did talk about how that is something that you don't want to stay on long term. If you, if you can, so if you are someone who maybe uses that regularly and maybe you're not overweight, this book may be a really good thing for you to read so you can start to understand how you can slowly start to get back to a more natural way of sleeping and staying asleep and getting good quality of sleep, because every single person's different, has their own individual needs. So he does talk about that and that would be something that you may want to learn a little bit more about.
Speaker 1:But also like just even the positioning that you're sleeping in. If you're sleeping in a really weird position, it may be more likely that your it's harder to breathe while you're sleeping. So being able to sleep in a position where your airway is open up I know sometimes like I sleep on my back, which I get it like people are like that's crazy weird, I get that a lot. But I sleep on my back and it's important actually where your pillow is placed under you, because if your pillow is placed only directly under your head and not part of your neck, it's actually forcing your head to like close your airway more, so it actually makes it harder to breathe naturally, especially when you're asleep and you're unconscious, but it ends up pushing the airway to where it's like closing more. So you definitely want to let up. Place your pillow to where it's under your neck as well, and maybe even barely to your shoulders is where I like to place it. So then it's like helping opening up my airway while I'm sleeping on my back. So that is just one thing having to do with sleep apnea.
Speaker 1:There are obviously a lot of other ways that we can promote a healthy sleep hygiene. You know, having to do with staying away from screens before bed that's a big one and doing different activities before bed that promote more. I guess like better sleep hygiene whether you're stretching or you're reading a book, but really making sure that you're paying attention to the amount of light that you're being exposed to, because obviously the brain naturally will start to produce more melatonin when it's darker. So if you are constantly exposing yourself to lights, if you have overhead lights in your house like this is something I'm huge on in our house, which it doesn't have to do with everything being sleep, but also just because I'm super sensitive to the lights and bright lights. I hate when we have on our overhead lights, especially when it's getting closer to bedtime. So I always have on like lamps or if we're, if I'm in the bedroom and I'm just like hanging out in the bedroom, I'll turn on our hallway light or like the bathroom light and then I'll have our overhead light off because we don't have lamps in our bedroom yet, but I just really try to dim things down and that should also be something that you do as well as you're getting closer to bedtime, just so your brain can start to like start to produce the melatonin because you're telling it hey, like we're winding down, we're reducing our exposure to light, we're getting closer to bedtime.
Speaker 1:This also means that exposing yourself to light first thing in the morning and a lot throughout the day is super important for your circadian rhythm, and your circadian rhythm basically has to do with your body knowing when it's daytime and morning time and also knowing, like, when it's time to wind down. So exposing yourself to light a lot throughout your day, but also, if you can, first thing in the morning, is going to have a big impact and be super effective if you do it consistently long term. I know that it's not always easy if you get up super early when it's not even light out, but even like a natural sunlight can help. Obviously sunlight is the best kind of light to expose yourself to. So just like, start to increase your awareness around that, like how much you're actually exposing yourself to daylight if you work in an office. I work in an office and I don't have a window and I feel it so much I am like this sucks, like I. I hate not having exposure to natural light throughout my day. So I do make an effort to get outside a few times throughout the day and it's crazy how much I notice an impact in how I feel when I get out of my office that has no exposure exposure to natural light and I get outside like insane how different I feel going into the natural light and being exposed to it. So just start to find ways that you can start to implement that throughout your day.
Speaker 1:Now I do want to share another tip that was talked about in the book that actually really I felt this one so much and it basically was like moving your body in the morning can have such a huge impact on your sleep and this is the time of day that I typically want to work out anyway. So I will usually get up in the morning and, if you've heard me talk about it in some past episodes, that has been one of my struggles lately. Because my commute is so long for work, I have to leave super early just to get to work on time and I have been struggling to get up, sometimes by the time that I need to in order to have enough time to do a workout in the morning. So the thing that he taught and and this is the other thing too is, if you are struggling with sleep, it can be a huge challenge to constantly wake up in the morning feeling super fatigued, not feeling refreshed at all, and then trying to get yourself up to do a workout. And that's kind of the cycle that I have been in lately, where I go to bed I'm like in bed by eight but I'm not falling asleep. I then I have to get up around probably like between four and four 30 if I want enough time to get in a workout. And it's such a struggle bus because I wake up after not having a good quality of sleep that night and try to convince myself to do a workout because you know, part of me is like why didn't get any sleep? So I really want to prioritize like getting a little bit more sleep, because I can't even function throughout my day if I don't have enough sleep.
Speaker 1:So that has been the battle that I was in and that's also this part of the book really resonated with me and one of the things that he said was I know how hard it can be to be in that position where maybe you struggle with quality of sleep and maybe you struggle with insomnia to an extent. And here I am telling you to get up even earlier than you would normally get up to find ways to prioritize and get in movement in the morning before you go and start your day. And this doesn't have to mean like a full blown, like hit workout, like he was saying. Even if you did like a 10, 15, 20 minute Tabata or just something to where you are increasing your heart rate, you're moving your body, it doesn't have to be like a formal workout plan or whatever, but just something over time, like if you give it, maybe a month of doing that consistently, your sleep will start to improve. So he was just kind of like for the people who struggle with sleeping already I get it like telling you to wake up earlier and get in a workout when you haven't had good sleep the night before. That's really challenging. But he was saying get through it like, push through it for a few weeks and it will start to regulate itself, it'll start to improve.
Speaker 1:So that has kind of been where I'm at with me and like, okay, like this really sucks, like I really just want to like get one more hour of sleep, because I probably only got like five hours of sleep last night. But I'm going to sacrifice and get up earlier to workout or do something to move my body Because I know in maybe three weeks or four weeks of doing this consistently, I will start to feel more in a regular routine and it'll start to get easier. So trust me, if that is you and you're like I have no idea how I'm going to be able to get myself up that early just to get in a workout before work like I'm already so exhausted I already feel so depleted. Just remember, it can start with baby steps. It can start very incremental. I know on the days that I'm struggling to get up and do that, I will at least try to do some kind of really short burst workout. It's like, okay, I didn't get up in time to do like the full blown workout that I wanted to do, but instead I'm going to do like 10 minutes of something where I'm getting my heart rate up and at least I'm still prioritizing movement. Now there are so many more tips that I could go into.
Speaker 1:Like every single chapter of this book is a different topic within, like sleep and how you can improve sleep. But the last thing that I'm going to go over has to do with caffeine, and I've talked about caffeine on the podcast before, but this is something that I have been doing for a really long time. I don't even I might have heard it from his podcast a long time ago, where I learned this, but actually I might have learned it in his Eat Smarter Book, because he does talk about how, how long caffeine stays in the body and basically he goes on about being super aware of when you are drinking caffeine and having a cutoff time of when you are drinking it. So something that I do not do is I will not drink coffee past noon, like noon is my limit. I will. I will try to be done drinking my coffee somewhere between 10 and 11, because it actually will stay in your system. I think that the number is like up to six to eight hours after you've had it. So that means that even if you drink coffee at like one or two pm in the afternoon, it can have a huge impact in your sleep quality when you go to sleep later that evening because it is still it hasn't like filtered through your system yet. So that is something to keep in mind.
Speaker 1:If you were someone who likes to drink a lot of caffeine throughout your day and maybe you're not getting great sleep, I would look into that and play around with a cutoff time and see how your sleep improves. And just know that whenever you're doing like trial and error with your sleep routine and your sleep hygiene, I would give it at least like a month of testing things out, because I know even me personally, like I will try things and I'll give it maybe a week and I'm like, oh, it's not working. A week is not a long enough time to really see if something is working for you, and if you're super dedicated to really improving your sleep because you know how important it is for your health, then you need to give it a little bit more time. So and that goes for anything in our health and wellness journey just just trying something for a few days or a week or two is really not enough time to see a difference in anything. So just be patient, and maybe it would also help to log journal whether it's whether you're doing it for your sleep or you're doing it for other areas of life and You're trying to improve something. It may help to have a journal and just make notes of how you feel, how something went, and to see if it had any impact, to really start to know and see if something actually works, because it's it's going to help a rate like raise your awareness a lot more when you are like consciously making an effort to track it and to analyze it, as opposed to just like kind of going through the motions and then you wake up on day 30 and you're like trying to figure out Whether or not it worked or not. But it's hard to compare because it's slowly, slowly, slowly starting to improve and then you don't really notice the huge impact it's had. So those are my tips that I have really taken away from the sleep sleep smarter book.
Speaker 1:Again, he goes into so much more depth about different things that I didn't even mention in this episode. So if you are someone who is seriously wanting to learn more about how you can improve your sleep, be sure to check out his book sleep smarter. It is on audible. It may be on other audio Platforms. It or you know. Of course, if you're someone who likes to read it, then do that order from Amazon or whatever, but highly recommend his book.
Speaker 1:He also has episodes on his podcast. The health or the model health show is the name of his podcast, but his name is Sean Stevenson, so be sure to check them out, especially if you love this episode or love this podcast and you love learning about health and wellness. He is like probably my number one recommendation to educate yourself and learn more about Everything health and wellness and to keep up to date too. He shares very up-to-date information. So I hope you loved today's episode and, again, if you have suggestions for future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out and let me know.
Speaker 1:All right, have a great day. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. You have no idea how grateful I am to have you as one of the love your body now listeners. If you are loving this podcast, it would mean the world to me if you subscribed and left a review. This helps me get the message out to more women just like you who are also committed to their journey. And if you love this episode, please be sure to share it with someone who you know needs to hear today's message. Together, we can help more women recognize their self-worth and build their confidence from a much deeper place, just like you're doing right now. Let's help change the world, one woman at a time. All right, talk to you soon, friend.