Welcome to DrAxe.com.
I'm Dr. Axe.
Today I want to talk to you about something I came across here, an article I was reading
recently on how, if you don't get enough sleep, or get good quality sleep, it can actually
take years off of your life.
Now sometimes I'll bring up how important sleep is and it's one of the first things
people tend to write off and say, "Well, I'm going to try and do other things" or "We don't
worry about it" but sleep is a really big deal.
In fact listen to this recent medical study.
In the Journal of Occupation and Environmental Medicine, they did a study on over 18,000
women.
And they found women who work the night shift versus women who work the day shift, have
four times more cancer.
Four times more incidences of breast cancer if someone's working the night shift.
Now this is important.
I know for some of us, we can't get around what our hours are at work, but again this
is an important thing to recognize that your sleep cycle is so important for your long-term
health and for your life span.
And specifically the people that came to mind and people they mentioned this article, were
nurses who had to work the night shift.
I know there is a lot of police officers who their schedule is always changing or in general
people working in factories and having to work the night shift.
It can be a big problem for your health.
And I want to give you some solutions for how to still get some good night sleep and
then if you're not sleeping well, some things you really need to start doing.
First off, hey if your job is working the night shift, do your best to try and switch
your shift or get during the day time.
Now that maybe a one or two year process of trying to make that happen but do your best
to get to that point.
If you can't get to that point, what I recommend you do is, no matter what, get eight hours
of solid sleep.
So if you go to bed at 4 a.m., sleep till noon.
Again do your very, very best to get eight hours straight.
Get in a cold dark room and do your best to get that eight hours straight.
That is so, so important for getting your body healthy.
You know our body really is created to really fluctuate what you want to call circadian
rhythm.
So circadian rhythms have to do when the sun sets and it rises.
But your brain and your hormones and even the way your liver detoxes, it's based on
light and darkness.
And so again, you want to make sure when you're sleeping, is in a dark place even if it's
in the middle of the day.
Now, a few other things that are important when it comes to sleep.
By the way let me say how much sleep is important to get.
Seven to nine hours every single night is how much sleep you should be getting every
night.
Seven to nine hours.
And actually I saw a recent study where they said, when they looked at people living in
1910 versus 2010, so about 100 year difference- people back in 1910 got an average of an hour
and a half more of sleep every single night.
They averaged closer to eight and a half.
Most Americans today average about seven hours or less of sleep a night.
Another medical journal said if you sleep less than seven hours of sleep at night, your
chance of getting sick with a cold, a flu or another health problem, triples.
So again, sleep is important.
Here is my top sleeping tips.
Number one, like I mentioned earlier, you want to make sure that your sleeping environment
is dark, and it's a cold environment.
Number two, try to go to bed at the same time every night.
So go to bed at 10 p.m. waking up at 6 a.m.
So you get 8 hours of solid sleep at night.
And I know it may not be perfect every night, but doing your very best to get in that rhythm
of going to bed and waking up at the same time, that's important.
Also nutritionally, do not eat a bunch of carbohydrates before you go to bed.
Sugars, grains, pastas, rices, even beans and fruit.
Lower your carbohydrate consumption before you go to bed.
That's why I suggest for dinner doing organic vegetables, nuts and seeds and organic meat.
So, organic meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
Those are the things you should eat before dinner.
Not a lot of other stuff.
The other thing I recommend is if you are consuming caffeine, don't consume it after
3:00 in the afternoon.
Hey a little bit okay is for breakfast if you're doing some green tea or even some organic
coffee, but when you do it later in the day, caffeine has a 12-hour half life which means
12 hours it's going to stay in your system.
So if you are drinking that at 4:00, it's not out of your system until 4 a.m. the next
day.
And so really it's important that really you only do caffeine if you're going to do it
first thing in the morning, not later on in the day.
The other thing that's really important in terms of sleep patterns is making sure you're
getting proper nutrients.
Magnesium in studies has actually been shown to help you sleep better.
So have omega-3 fatty acid.
So load up on foods high in magnesium like nuts and seeds and raw dairy products.
Also in foods containing omega-3 fats like grass fed beef, flax seeds, chia seeds, salmon,
fish oil ,taking a cod liver oil supplement.
All these things can be vitally important when it comes to sleeping well.
The last thing here is exercise.
I found that when I'm exercising, I sleep a lot better that night, especially when I'm
doing Burst training or weight training, can actually help you sleep better as well.
So try all those principles out, get a good night's sleep, and again, this is important
for you, it's important for your kids.
Make sure that your sleep becomes a big priority.
You'll be healthier for it.
Thanks for watching Maximize Your Health.