108 - Book | Sleep Smarter
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Show Notes:
Welcome to the Nancy Ray Book Club, where once a month I share a summary of a book worth reading, and my top three takeaways from that book. Many of you have joined my 2021 book club and are reading along with me. But if you haven't, we would still love to have you! You can learn more and join by visiting nancyray.com/bookclub.
Also, I wanted to give you a heads up! Next month, the whole month of May, I'll be dedicating it to our mamas. Any listener who’s a mama—it’s for you. We did this last year and I called it May is for Mamas and we are doing it again, so stay tuned! I am excited for what's to come.
I'll be honest—I almost took this book off of my reading list this year, because I felt like it was cruel and unusual punishment to myself to read a book about sleep the year that I would have a newborn baby. Like, why am I thinking and reading all about how to get good sleep knowing I am going to be sleep deprived no matter what? BUT I'm really glad I kept it on the list and read it anyway, because it's helping me now in pregnancy and the tips and lessons that I've learned in this book will help me understand my body and maximize my sleep even during that newborn phase, as hard as it's going to be, as well as prioritizing sleep for our whole family for years to come.
I get pretty nerdy today—fair warning! But I'm really excited about all that. We're going to learn together.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below!
I can’t think of more topics in our lives that directly relate to the quality of our work in our play than sleep. I feel like sleep has a direct effect on my entire being—my attitude, the quality of my work, the quality of my life, the quality of mom and wife and person that I am when I don't get enough sleep, I am like a different person.
I think I chose this book, actually not because it was recommended to me. I actually found it on my own online and thought I need this because I think that in our culture today in America, today, we lift up and praise the busy worker bee, and it doesn't matter how much sleep you lose. As long as you get the job done, that is what matters.
Sleep Smarter has shifted totally my thinking on productivity and life and work and play and how it all comes back to the quality of our sleep.
So I'm going to quickly just review all the topics covered in this book because there's 21 chapters and it's 21 strategies on how to improve your sleep. And there are so many different things covered that are so interesting in this book that I feel like it's worth mentioning all of the topics in case any of them pique your interests and you want to go back and read the book, cause you haven’t. Know that there's a chapter dedicated to each and lots of research in each of these chapters is really great. And then I'm going to share my top three takeaways.
So here are some of the chapters:
Knowing the value of sleep
Avoiding screens before bedtime
The importance of sleeping in complete darkness
Cutting caffeine consumption at a certain time
The importance of cooler temperatures at night
Creating a sleep sanctuary
How sex helps us sleep better
Physical exercise and sleep
How sleep helps us lose weight
How alcohol actually negatively affects our sleep
The importance of your sleep position
Meditation
Supplementation
Being early to rise
The importance of massage
Comfortably dressing for sleep
Connecting with nature and the outdoors
And then at the end of the book, he gives a 14 day Sleep Make-over.
Now that wasn't all the chapters, I'm going to talk about a few extras here in a minute, but I wanted to really share how many different things affect our sleep, and if just one of these things is off, it can affect your sleep. It's just so fascinating, such a comprehensive book.
Okay, so onto my three takeaways! Personally, for me, there were three things that really were fascinating and eye opening for me in my life:
The first takeaway is the effect that light and sunlight and getting outside has on our sleep.
The second one is the importance of avoiding screens, right before bedtime, which we all know, but this is like scientific data that backs it up is really interesting.
And then the third is the role that food plays in our sleep.
So I'm going to quickly kind of talk you through the three things that stood out to me, the most, those three things I just explained and why they felt so applicable to me and the things that I learned.
Okay. So heads up in all three of these: we’re going to dig into like scientific data. I'm going to be really nerdy, really scientific because that is how the book is laid out, but what's cool about that is it teaches you about your body and it teaches you about how things work scientifically.
Takeaway #1
So the first thing we're going to talk about is the effect of sunlight and getting outside and what effect that has on our sleep.
So you've probably heard of the term circadian rhythm, and that is a built-in 24 hour clock where we have a relationship with day and night, our bodies physically do. It's so cool how God made our bodies to work with day and night. And it has these built in times to release specific hormones that help us function at our best.
There's this interesting page in this chapter, and it's a graph. It's like a circle, kind of like a clock, but it's like a 24 hour clock. And it shows different things that happen at different times of day when we're asleep, when we're awake, that's all related to your circadian rhythm and that 24 hour clock. So this graph shows that our melatonin secretion is designed to stop at 7:00 AM.
You know, melatonin is what makes us sleepy and it stops at 7:00 AM, then we wake up and how we're at our highest alertness at 10:00 AM and how our fastest reaction time is at 3:30 PM and how our lowest body temperature usually hits at 4:30 AM when we're asleep. And our highest is usually at 7:00 PM. And how melatonin secretion starts at 9:00 PM makes us start to get sleepy and on and on.
It was just really cool looking at this how different times of day, the sun and the night and just the 24 hour circadian rhythm clock that God put inside our bodies really releases different hormones to help us wake up, help us go to sleep and just help us function. I was like, this is so cool.
I was really amazed at the whole thing, and I'd never seen it laid out like that. So the circadian rhythm is regulated by a small group of nerve cells found in that. I hope I'm saying this right. Otherwise I'm going to be mispronouncing it the whole episode that that's okay—Hypothalamus, hypothalamus. Okay. If you, if you're smart and you know that pronouncing that wrong, I'm really sorry. We're just going to go for it.
Okay. So there's a small group of nerve cells in the hypothalamus in your brain. It's considered to be the master gland of your body's hormonal system. So this is all located in your brain. And this is where it signals to different things for your body to release different hormones. Now, this is where it gets so cool light waking up and seeing the sunshine signals to the hypothalamus, to wake up and function.
So our whole body responds to sunlight. Our eyes have these special optical receptors that literally send information to our brain to tell us what to do, what hormones to release. Our skin detects light in response to it, producing vitamin D and all kinds of other things when we're in the sun. Our interaction with light triggers us to produce more serotonin, which is the happiness hormone that makes us feel really good. When we don't get enough exposure to natural light, our serotonin production decreases in our health begins to suffer. So this is why we feel icky when we stay inside.
I mean, literally two weeks straight this winter, it was rainy and cold, freezing cold. It was so hard for me to get outside with the kids, like almost impossible. We really stayed inside for just about two weeks straight. And I felt so sad. Slightly depressed. Very icky. I was so ready to get outside, and then we had this one glorious day of like 65 degrees sunny and I just made the kids stay outside all day. I even made my son like skip his nap—he’s only two. I was like, no, you need more sunshine. You need sunshine more than you need a nap. Like we are going to be outside all day, and my mood, everything changed.
And then I read this chapter and was like, this is why like this totally makes sense. I thought this was interesting too—typical indoor lighting is 100x less bright than outdoor light on a sunny day. Even a cloudy day is 10x brighter outside than it is inside an ordinary indoor light.
So what do we do? We get outside every day. We have to fight and try to get outside every day, even in the winter, if we cover up our whole body, cause it's freezing cold, it's still better for us to get outside for our eyes to engage in the sunlight, get a little sun your skin, allow natural sunlight to be seen by your eyes. He also says don't wear sunglasses. That can affect things because our body is made to have this response to the sunshine. And he says, if you can get outside earlier in the morning, it's even better. It will help you sleep better at night. If you can get outside between six and 8:30 AM, it will signal your body to wake up and be alert and awake first thing, and it's so good for you. But even if you can't get outside then, it's beneficial for you to get outside at least a little bit every single day.
Takeaway #2
Okay ,my second takeaway is avoiding screens before bedtime. If you have followed me or been listening to me, you know, I have a fascination with how we interact with our screens and technology. So this was definitely so interesting to me.
You've heard of dopamine before, I'm sure. Dopamine is this hormone. It's like the drug hormone. You've probably heard of it. I'll explain it a little bit more. This is so interesting. It was thought to be the hormone that controlled the enjoyment or pleasure system in the brain. If you do something that's pleasurable, you get a dopamine hit, but this is where it gets fascinating.
Actually the pleasure is an end result that we get from the opioid system. Not dopamine. Dopamine is a brain chemical that's all about seeking. It's about the hunt. It's about finding what's next when we are looking for something that we think is pleasurable—that’s when dopamine is released.
So why am I talking about dopamine and screens? Well, what are we doing when we're on our phones, endlessly scrolling, we're seeking, we're looking—that’s when the dopamine comes, we're getting more and more dopamine released in our brains as we scroll and seek and search. And look, even when we get a comment or a like on something, it adds to this dopamine experience because it makes us want to come back for more.
So it's important to know how our brains function and work and why sometimes it's so hard to put our phones down and at night we're tired! We don't have as much stamina or energy or willpower to just put the phone down and do something else, because a lot of times we don't have anything else to do other than sleep, but the dopamine keeps us awake.
Now this is interesting too. Dopamine has increased feelings of wakefulness related to it. So dopamine is tied to motivation and alertness. Whereas serotonin—that happiness hormone—is tied to contentment and relaxation.
So, I want you to be aware that there are actual hormonal changes going on inside your body and inside your brain while you're scrolling, which is why that's the first reason why it's not good to look at screens right before you go to bed because you're releasing these hormones that are tied to wakefulness and alertness and motivation versus contentment and relaxation.
The second component of looking at screens is kind of obvious, and you've probably heard about it before, but it's the light that is affecting us. And we've already talked about these optical receptors in our eyes, and on our screens it's not natural light, it's blue light. This is why you see ads for blue light glasses or you can get, you know, these blue light protector glasses, whenever you order glasses as like an add on, because this blue light that we are staring at is telling our body to wake up.
So many research studies have been done on this. And one of the ones listed in this book showed that people who looked at screens or read from an iPad at night, felt less sleepy and had shorter REM sleep compared to those who just read a regular old book.
So I personally have been sleeping with my phone in a different room for a few months now, and I've loved that practice. I read a book before I go to bed. I have really been falling asleep faster and easier because of it—I can testify to this. but what I do is I still scroll quite a bit in the bathroom before turning it off and heading to bed. And it's like, I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes before I actually go to sleep.
He recommends 90 minutes. The author recommends 90 minutes before you go to sleep, break up with any kind of screens. Let your eyes start to adjust and only produce the serotonin hormones and not the dopamine, which I thought was just so interesting.
So what to do, if you must look at a screen, if that's what you just know you're going to do, you can maximize it by turning on nighttime mode, which gets rid of some of that blue light or get some blue light blocker glasses, the filters in your glasses.
But the best option, if you can, is just to stop looking at screens altogether 90 minutes before bed.
Takeaway #3
Okay, third takeaway from this book. That was so interesting to me. Every, I feel like I'm saying that every time it is so interesting, it's the role that food plays in it or sleep. So 95% of your body's serotonin that feel good hormone is located in your gut, not in your brain, it's in your gut. And serotonin is the building block for melatonin, which, which is the hormone that makes us sleepy. It makes us fall asleep and get good sleep. Here's what's crazy. The human gut is full of neural tissue. Okay. This is so creepy to me. This is weird and creepy, but I learned it in this book. And I'm going to tell you about it because I think it's important and it's actually true. I mean, obviously true, but this is, it's just weird. So there's literally, brain-like tissue found in our gut, and it's now been nicknamed our second brain. Oh, that's just so weird. But the gut has been found to have more than 400 times melatonin than the brain, and so there's all this melatonin in your gut, 95% of serotonin is in your gut, and then there's all this neural in your gut.
So what you eat goes into your gut right now, there's this one nerve that connects your gut to your brain, and it's called the vagus nerve. When researchers at UCLA researched about this vagus nerve and how it communicates from the gut to the brain, they were shocked to find 90% of the fibers in the vagus nerve carry information from the gut to the brain, not the other way around.
So 90% of the information is going from the gut to the brain. So basically what you're eating is the primary system calling the shots with your brain function in every area of life, not just your sleep, but it certainly has a direct effect on your sleep.
So he goes into detail in this chapter about all the different kinds of food you can eat to stay healthy and get good sleep, which I'm not going to go into here, but one thing that he really emphasizes above all the other foods and supplements and minerals is that one of the largest minerals that's lacking in our diets today is magnesium. He said, estimates show that around 80% of the us population is deficient in magnesium and getting your magnesium levels up directly correlates to your sleep. I can also say this has been true for me in my life. I have been taking magnesium supplements for years. They absolutely help me sleep better.
So last thing I'm going to say about your gut and what you eat is that a sugar crash can actually wake you up and disrupt your sleep. So I'm really sorry—this was really sad news to me. And it might be sad news to you, but here it is. If you eat something sweet right before you go to bed, it's like the worst thing you can do. It's going to cause your digestion to work harder than it should while you sleep and disrupt your sleep. I'm sorry that I just broke that news to you. I love me some good chocolate chip cookies and milk before I go to sleep, but I'm working on eating healthier and not doing things that will disrupt my sleep because I'm learning how important my sleep is.
So just to recap, the three main things I'm focusing on personally, after reading this book is getting more sunshine during the day, avoiding screens late at night, and eating healthier whole foods throughout my days.
And some other things I'm going to be doing that will hopefully improve my sleep as time goes on is focusing on really blacking out my room completely, moving my body at least a little bit every day—specifically lifting more weights, and hopefully replacing our mattress in the next couple of years.
So lots of great tips—lots of incredibly important information in this book! I definitely recommend it because I never understood how important sleep was in my life until I read this book.
Work & Play Cornerstore
Okay, it’s time for the Work & Play Cornerstone where I share a book I'm loving and I thing I'm loving. You can always had to nancyray.com/cornerstore for quick access. And it'll take you directly to my Amazon affiliate store so you can see everything I've recommended here on the podcast or on Instagram.
Today, I'm going to be adding the book, Sleep Smarter, as well as Blue Bonnet’s liquid magnesium supplement to the Cornerstore.
So you've heard all about the book, this magnesium supplement, I've just been using it and loving it for probably about six or eight months. Now it's kind of like yogurt, which is weird. It's not yogurt, but it's a liquid supplement and you just have two spoonfuls of it before you go to bed, you can pick it up at whole foods or order online, but no matter where you buy it, I just think it's really easy and really great.
I'm going to close with words from Leonardo da Vinci, who said:
“A well spent day, brings happy sleep.”
Thanks for listening!
