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Overcoming Your Insomnia

Posted on:
Posted in: Blog, Podcast
Posted by: Cherie Jewell

Click here to listen to this episode of the Discover Health Podcast: https://feeds.podetize.com/ep/tqk-8dJMZ/media

Watch this full webinar on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/_EvOqhkfXzM

Welcome everyone to this presentation entitled “Overcoming Your Insomnia.” I’m Dr. Trish Murray – physician, best-selling author, and the Health Catalyst Speaker. So, what is insomnia?

Well, according to the American Sleep Association, “insomnia refers to trouble falling or staying asleep. It can affect someone for a short time, such as a few nights or weeks. In other cases, insomnia is chronic and can last for months or years.” The Sleep Management Institute states that, “An estimated 30-50% of the general population is affected by insomnia, and 10% (that’s one in every ten people) have chronic insomnia.”

But how much sleep should we be getting?

Sleep is a vital indicator of overall health and well-being. We spend up to one-third of our lives asleep, and the overall state of our sleep health remains an essential question throughout our lifespan. Most of us know that getting a good night’s sleep is extremely important, but too few of us actually make those eight or so hours between the sheets a priority. For many of us with sleep debt, we’ve forgotten what being truly and really rested feels like.

On average, according to the Natural Sleep Foundation, this is what a recommended sleep average looks like by age. You’ll notice with this trend that the older we get, the less sleep we actually require or need.

  • Newborns (0-3 months old): 14-17 hours per day
  • Infants (4-11 months old): 12-15 hours
  • Toddlers (1-2 years old): 11-14 hours
  • Preschoolers (3-5 years old): 10-13 hours
  • School age children (6-13 years old): 9-11 hours
  • Teenagers (14-17 years old): 8-10 hours
  • Younger adults (18-25 years old): 7-9 hours
  • Adults (26-64 years old): 7-9 hours
  • Older adults (65+ years old): 7-8 hours

Ask yourself, and you might even want to write it down so you’re seeing it – how much sleep are you getting on a regular and consistent basis? How many hours would you estimate you’re getting? Even write it down for yourself so you see it. If it’s a problem, then you’re going to be even more focused on the things we’re going to talk about next.

Not many of us are meeting the mark for recommended sleep based on our age, and so many of us might be feeling the negative effects of lack of sleep during our waking hours. The Sleep Management Institute lists the following as some of the negative side effects to sleep deprivation:

  • Poor concentration and focus or what we call “brain fog”
  • Difficulty with memory, a huge contributor to cognitive decline as we age
  • Impaired motor coordination, such as being out of balance or uncoordinated, which could lead to more motor vehicle accidents because someone is fatigued or sleep deprived as a driver
  • Irritability and impaired social interaction, short temper and a short fuse, easily frustrated and upset
  • Higher incidence of chronic medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and migraine headaches

Knowing the consequences, you may now be asking what can be done about insomnia. Next, we will look at some of the natural and effective ways to get the sleep you are seeking.

You’re not going to listen to a functional medicine doctor speak on anything and not have us talk about diet. Now, Dr. Axe, who is a pretty well-known naturopathic doctor and nutritionist believes that diet is crucial when it comes to sleep deprivation. He argues that consuming sugars and carbohydrates before bed can increase the body’s temperature to burn those sugars off, which is disruptive to sleep. He advises limiting these carbohydrate-rich foods several hours before bed for optimal sleep. How many people are guilty of having, you know, a bowl of ice-cream or dessert that’s sweet and high in carbohydrates on a regular basis after dinner? That’s something you’re going to want to consider not doing.

A diet promoted for optimizing cognitive function by Dr. Dale Bredesen who has created the Recode Program in order to reverse cognitive decline, has created a diet that he called the KetoFLEX 12/3 Diet. That’s again that’s the KetoFLEX 12/3. This diet by name is a ketogenic diet. It’s very low in carbohydrates, but the numbers 12/3 are what I want to go over with you tonight in relation to sleep. The twelve refers to the number of hours that you’re going to want to fast between the time you eat your supper in the evening and breakfast the next morning. We should be fasting at least that long. It could be anywhere from twelve to fifteen hours, but this diet promotes twelve. Now, what does the three represent? The three refers to at least three hours of no food intake between eating your supper in the evening and the time you go to bed. You see, that is an important piece to optimize sleep.

If you really need to eat something later in the evening, then focus on healthy fats like avocado or sugar-free yogurt. These are great choices for late-night eating because they are high in relaxation-inducing nutrients, such as magnesium and potassium. Now, there are also some great beverages that can provide these helpful nutrients of magnesium and potassium.

Usually, we post things the day after these webinars with links so you can do further individual research on your own and find some of these recipes and things. I love doing these webinars because I learn something new for just about everything as well. One thing I read about that is amazing is called banana peel tea. Yup! I did say the peel. I said, “banana peel tea.” The banana peels are extremely rich in magnesium and potassium.

What I’ve learned you do is you need to first of all buy organic bananas because regular bananas are going to have a lot of pesticide on the peel and you don’t want to be drinking tea full of pesticides. You do need to buy organic bananas if you want to try this. You would get an organic banana, of course, and you’re going to cut the ends off. Then you’re going to peel the banana. You’re going to put the banana peel in a pot with let’s say a cup and a half of water or something. What I did was I took my coffee cup, filled it with water, poured it in the pot, and then put my banana peel in there. You’re going to bring it to a boil and then you’re going to turn it down to a simmer for about ten minutes. You also can add a dash of cinnamon, and when the beverage is done, you’re going to pour off the liquid into your cup with the cinnamon with it. You can even add a little bit of vanilla. It is amazing to drink! I have already noticed that it really helped me start to feel tired in the evening and initiate that process of getting ready for bed.

The other thing I’ll throw out is another benefit of magnesium is that it will help with bowels. If you’re anyone that suffers with constipation, magnesium is something that can help you improve your bowel habits. Wow! Who knew that banana peels were amazing like that? There’s something you could try.

Another natural sleep drink I read about in preparation for this presentation was something called pink moon milk. What the heck is that? I would take almond milk because I don’t do dairy, but you would take almond milk and add a tart unsweetened cherry juice to it. You notice that’s going to make a pink color. If you warm this up, the thing about tart cherry juice is that is a natural source of melatonin. It’s going to start that initiating process of the sleep cycle. There are others that I’ve read about in preparation for tonight, chamomile lavender latte for example and another one called turmeric golden milk.

We will be posting these with the links to read more about the recipes tomorrow in our Discover Health Facebook Group. If you’re not familiar with that or you’re not already a member, go to Facebook and go to our Discover Health Functional Medicine Center Facebook page and then simply request to join our closed Facebook group that you need to request to join. Once you’re a member, you’re in! You’re going to get all the resources that…every single webinar, the day after, we post all the resources that I used to put the webinar together. We also have a community there where you can ask questions. Health Coach Trish shares information all week long, and every week she also does a Coach’s Corner. Don’t miss out on being part of this amazing community, and go to our Discover Health Functional Medicine Center Facebook page and join our Discover Health Facebook Group.

Now, when looking to make changes for better sleep, it is important that we assess what may affect our sleep quality and cause restlessness. Here is a list, from Medical Daily online, of some things to avoid before bed for the best chance at a good night’s rest. This list includes:

  • Spicy foods
  • Greasy foods, such as fast foods
  • Meats and cheeses; these have very high protein count and protein is not good before sleep
  • Caffeine is not good after 3:00 in the afternoon
  • Alcohol disrupts your natural sleep cycle. If you are having trouble sleeping, then you really need to consider abstaining completely from alcohol so that you can see if that’s the trouble of causing your insomnia.
  • Nicotine
  • Dark chocolate, as it’s high in a stimulate.
  • Sugars or carbohydrates

A routine is an essential element when considering a healthy sleep pattern. Setting and following a sleep schedule can help increase the likelihood of falling asleep and staying asleep. The National Sleep Organization recommends setting a consistent bedtime and a consistent wake-up time.

If you are a night owl and you can’t seem to get to bed early enough, the suggestion is not to try and change your bedtime drastically. Instead, slowly subtract fifteen minutes a night to your regular sleep time until you reach your bedtime goal. As for getting up, hands off that snooze button! It’s important to rise at the same time each day without the fallback of the alarm. The idea here is that you get used to the wake-up time, without interruption. It’s extremely important to set a routine if you want to heal your insomnia and sleep better.

The Natural Sleep Foundation lists exercise as a way to combat insomnia. They explain that exercise triggers an increase in body temperature and the post-exercise drop in temperature is what promotes falling asleep. Exercise may also reduce insomnia by decreasing arousal, it decreases anxiety, and it decreases depressive symptoms. Insomnia is commonly linked with elevated arousal, anxiety, and depression, and exercise has strong effects on reducing these symptoms in the general population.

Exercises related to better sleep include:

  • Aerobic exercise
  • Strength training
  • Yoga or other quieting movements

Participating in a regular schedule of exercise can make it a habit. Again, creating a habit is extremely important and a routine so that it helps you with your energy levels and prepares you for sleep on a regular basis.

This is one reason why we have created Discover Health Movement Membership! This is a program that gives people access to regular movement exercise to promote flexibility, strength, balance, cognitive function, and better sleep. Our Discover Health Movement Membership provides three classes per week that are all online. The classes are called Discover Yoga, Self-Myofascial Release, and Movement for Longevity. To learn more about this amazing exercise program, all you need to do is go to our website www.discoverhealthfmc.com/#Movement. That’ll bring you right to the program.

Try incorporating these activities well before bedtime for the best results. You see, a good rule of thumb is not to eat or do vigorous exercise within three hours of sleep time.

Stress is one of the leading causes of insomnia. In turn, by reducing stress, adequate sleep is possible. One way to reduce stress is being mindful of your breath. Slow, deep breathing actually helps the body override your sympathetic nervous system, which controls our fight-or-flight responses, and lets your parasympathetic system, which controls our ability to relax, take the wheel instead. When you practice deep breathing while in bed, you’re giving the body permission to quit being on high alert and instead to relax.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at some recommended exercises for mindful breathing for stress reduction.

I’m going to take you through a few of these exercises of deep breathing. They’re a little different from each other. There are a lot of different ways you can do this. I want you to consider some of these breathing exercises for stress reduction and better sleep.

The first one is called pursed lip breathing. What you’re going to do is you’re going to take a breath in. I’ll tell you what you’re going to do first, and then we’re going to try it together. First take a deep breath in for a count of four. Then you’re going to sort of purse or pucker your lips and exhale for a longer time and a count of six.

We’re going to do this for a couple of rounds. Take a deep breath in, two, three, four. Now, you’re going to exhale with pursed lips for a count of six, five, four, three, two, one. Take a deep breath in, two, three, and four. Then exhale for a count of six, five, four, three, two, and one. Then inhale one more time for a count of two, three, and four. Exhale for a count of six, five, four, three, two, and one. Awesome!

One thing you want to realize is that when we inhale, that is something that happens and enhances our sympathetic nervous system again which is your fight or flight nervous system. When we exhale, that is more of a passive relaxation activity that enhances our parasympathetic relaxation nervous system. That’s why with many of these breathing techniques you want to inhale for a shorter amount of time than you are exhaling.

The next one is called diaphragmatic breathing. Our diaphragm is a huge part of our breathing. It’s a large muscle that goes and separates your thorax from your abdomen. With this one, put one hand on your chest and the other your bellybutton, let’s say. What we’re going to do is focus on belly breathing. As you breathe in deeply for about four seconds, you want to expand the hand that’s on your bellybutton, your belly as much as you can definitively. Don’t force it, just let it expand. Then feel the air expanding your stomach and your belly, and then you’re going to breathe out slowly through your lips. Again, we’ll do a count of four in and count of six out.

Let’s try this. Put one hand on your chest and the other on your bellybutton. Now, breathe in for a count of one, two, three, and four. You should feel that hand on your belly get expanded. Now, exhale two, three, four, five, and six. Then inhale again and feel the hand on your bellybutton rise, three, or come out, four. Then exhale and feel that hand go back in, four, three, two, and one. Do that again. Breathe in for one, two, three, and four. Then exhale five, four, three, two, and one. When you expand your belly, and you get that belly kind of coming out on the inhalation and then coming back in on the exhalation you’re emphasizing the movement of your diaphragm.

Let’s try one other one. There’s one they’re calling in this called yoga breathing, but it’s really alternate nostril breathing. What you’re going to do is place your right thumb over your right nostril. And you’re going to breathe first through the left nostril. Let’s do that.

Put your thumb over your right nostril and close that nostril. Now, take a deep breath as a count of four. One, two, three, four through your left nostril. Now, take your index finger and close the left nostril. Let the right nostril open and exhale. One, two, three, four, five, six. Now, keep your index finger on your left nostril and inhale through your right nostril for a count of four. One, two, three, and four. Then close with your thumb your right nostril and exhale through your left nostril for a count of six, five, four, three, two, one. Use your index finger and close your left nostril then breathe in through the nostril that’s open. Then close the nostril and exhale through the opposite. You’re constantly breathing in one side and exhaling when closing the other nostril. You’re switching sides throughout. That’s called alternate nostril breathing or they’re calling it here in the script I have, yoga breathing. All of these are options.

You can also play with your count. You can inhale for a certain count, let’s say four. You can also hold your breath for a count of seven and then exhale, let’s say, for a count of eight. Or you can do the numbers that feel comfortable to you. Let’s say you breathe in for a count of four, hold your breath for a count of five, and exhale for a count of six. The point of this, folks, is to introduce you if you’re not already familiar with it, the fact that there is such a variety of deep breathing exercises that you could be doing on a regular basis every single evening in your preparation for sleep. They only take a few minutes to do!

Meditation is a great way to work on breath and to focus on the centering of the body, which also helps to relieve anxieties and stress. A mantra is a phrase or sounds that are repeated over and over to soothe and relax the mind. You see, the mind is what we need to kind of get in control of and drive, meaning the mind is just going to ruminate and ruminate all it wants to unless we do something and have a practice to train it not to do that and to keep it more focused. Here are some mantras using phrases that could be tried:

  • I am calm and still.
  • I welcome sleep into my being.
  • I am breathing deeply and calmly, becoming more and more relaxed with each breath.

For best results, what you would do is pick one statement that you’re comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be something somebody gave you or I told you. Make up what you feel works for you. What you’re going to do is you’re going to repeat one of these mantra statements of your choosing with deep breathing twenty times in a row or until you begin to feel more relaxed and sleepy. You can do this just lying in bed.

You can also use a sound. One of my favorite sounds in the yoga world is OM. Just say, “OM.” You would do that as you take a deep breath in and on your exhale, you would state and say the sound, such as OM, for the count of six or longer. This will have a similar effect as a mantra.

With any of these activities you are, again, giving your mind a practice to focus on to quiet the rumination and allowing your rest, digest, and relaxation nervous system to come on board.

Our cell phones, tablets, computers, and other electronic gadgets have become such a huge part of our daily lives that it’s often hard to put them down—even at bedtime. Keeping your phone on your nightstand may not seem like a big deal, but, folks, technology affects your sleep in more ways than you will ever realize. Whether you’re surfing the web, playing a video game, or using your phone as an alarm clock, you’re probably keeping yourself from a restful night.

The National Sleep Foundation warns gadget users of the ill effects of late-night phone, computer, and tablet use on sleep. The blue light from these gadgets suppresses your naturally occurring melatonin, which is a hormone responsible for regulating your sleep cycle. Gadgets also keep the brain more alert. They’re not something we want when we’re trying to get to sleep.

Folks, again, melatonin is a hormone. It is not a sleeping aid, meaning it’s not a sleeping pill. I’ve had so many patients when I talk to them and ask them if they have insomnia and I ask them if they’ve ever tried melatonin, they say to me, “Yeah, but it didn’t work.” In my mind that means they’re thinking it’s like a sleeping pill. If it’s not causing them to fall asleep or stay asleep then it’s not working. Well, I will tell you that melatonin is a hormone that will initiate the sleep cycle and taking it as a supplement can be of benefit. The bottom line is if cortisol, our stress hormone, is too high, melatonin can help balance it better. Melatonin can initiate better our sleep cycle but really it is not meant to be taken as like a sleeping pill.

The solution to gadgets is limit the computer or technology use. Limit gadget use in bed or close to bedtime. A good rule of thumb is, again, stopping all screen time at least one hour before bedtime.

For some people, noise actually is necessary for falling asleep, which is why many people turn to watching TV in the bedroom. But, folks, that is not a good idea. First of all, it’s got the blue light and it’s going to cause you to be more alert. Good hygiene for sleep is you do not want a television in your bedroom. But a proper noise machine is a great alternative to the distraction of TV and is a more soothing way to possibly leading you to sleep. There are many options to include sleep-inducing sounds such as white noise, ocean waves, waterfalls, rainforests, and rivers. Again, we will post a link to a sample of a noise machine that works, providing relaxation white noise, tomorrow in our Discover Health Facebook Group. Again, if you are not already a member of our Discover Health Facebook Group, be sure to join as we always post all the resources there after each of these monthly webinars. It’s a great place to interact with like-minded people sharing how to improve their health.

The North American Essential Oil and Aromatherapy Experts state on their website that, “Essential oils can act by triggering the central nervous system and circulatory system to promote sleep in the body.” They list several natural sleep aids on their website, and here are a few:

  • Lavender Oil: a natural sedative with anti-stress and anti-anxiety properties
  • Cedarwood Oil: a natural sedative that decreases heart rate and has a soothing quality
  • Chamomile Oil: a natural sedative with anti-stress properties

There are several ways to incorporate or utilize essential oils into your nighttime routine. Let’s talk about some of these options.

Here are some tips from The North American Essential Oil and Aromatherapy Experts on how to incorporate essential oils into your nighttime routine for better sleep.

One of the most common things people use is to purchase and use what’s called a diffuser. What you’re going to do is put water in this gadget that’s called a diffuser. You’re going to turn it on and it’s going to diffuse steam, if you will, but it’s not hot. It’s going to diffuse like an air moisturizer into the air. You’re going to add two to four drops of an essential oil of your choice into that diffuser in your bedroom, let’s say, approximately thirty minutes before you go to bed. It’s going to fill the air of your bedroom with the lavender or the chamomile or the cedarwood, for example.

Another option is to put the essential oil droplets in your bath. Add five to ten drops of the desired essential oil into warm running bath water before getting in. Of course, it’s going to make the air smell wonderful and you’re going to get some on your skin and possibly absorb some into your body.

Another option is to use an air freshener. Mix one cup of water with four or five drops of essential oil and put it in a spray bottle. Then mist the spray bottle around your bedroom before you go to sleep.

Another option, so there are so many ways to do this, is to do a foot massage, and to use essential oils on feet for sleep. Add two drops of essential oil to one tablespoon of a carrier oil, whatever type of massage oil you have. You can even use olive oil for that matter. Massage the mixture on the bottom of the feet and all over your feet in a circular motion until fully absorbed. The other thing about you rubbing your feet, folks, is reflexology. If you’ve ever heard of reflexology, there’s many different nerve endings in your feet that correlate through your nervous system to many different organs of the body.

Finally, another way to engage with essential oils is called direct inhalation. A simple way to enjoy the sedative properties of essential oils is to inhale the aroma from the bottle itself. Hold the bottle a couple inches away from your nose and just take a couple of deep breaths. Practice the deep breathing and hold the essential oil bottle two to three inches away from your nose and you’re getting the oils and the scents and the aroma of the oils in order to initiate the response.

Not only are teas a nice soothing drink, but some herbs in herbal teas are also used to combat insomnia. Some of the best herbal teas to optimize sleep include some of the things we just read about or talked about with the essential oils:

  • Chamomile
  • Lavender
  • Valerian Root increases GABA which is a neurotransmitter that boosts sleep
  • Passionflower also boosts GABA

A warm bath or foot soak before bed is another effective way to help the body relax into sleep. An Epsom salt bath with lavender may help because the Epsom salts have magnesium in the salt which is a natural relaxant, and the lavender is a natural sedative that can put the body at ease. There are so many ways to use these different herbs.

The Institute of Naturopathic Sleep medicine states that a warm bath before bed is effective because it lifts the body’s temperature and then drops it. Sleep is then induced by the sudden drop in your body temperature. Playing with body temperature of your room in your home from day to night can be very effective in helping you sleep.

Because body temperature plays a role in the amount and the quality of sleep one gets, room temperature should be considered a contributing factor. A room that is too hot will elevate the body’s temperature, causing the body to work to then cool itself, and in turn, disrupts your sleep pattern. The Natural Sleep Foundation claims that an optimal room temperature for the best sleep is approximately 65 degrees.

Do you keep your room cool for sleeping? Again, it doesn’t have to be exactly 65. Play with the temperatures and figure out what works best for you.

If someone is optimizing most of the sleep hygiene things that I have discussed and still is not sleeping optimally, then CBD oil or bath salts or other products in the CBD world could be tried. I have done a podcast in the past on CBD and what’s called the endocannabinoid system. You see, CBD is an endocannabinoid, and we have that system in our body, the endocannabinoid system. You may not have heard of it before, but we all have it in our bodies and most of us are depleted. Supplementing with CBD oil can help many aspects of one’s health including sleep. It also acts as a sedative and can help with anxiety. There is a link listed on this slide here for this presentation. That link will take you to the previous podcast and also the blog on my website. We will also post it in the chat for you, this link to my previous podcast on CBD oil.

We at Discover Health Functional Medicine Center carry products by cbdMD, the company you see in the products on the slides. This company grows its hemp organically here in the United States. That’s extremely important for you to know. If you are taking any type of CBD product, you want to make sure it’s not grown in particularly China because they may be using a lot of pesticides and there are a lot of toxins in the soil. You want them grown in the United States, and you also want to know that it’s grown organically. Also, this particular company produces what’s called a medical grade level of CBD.

Now, another modality I would absolutely not want to miss informing people of to improve sleep and optimize cognitive function and optimizing your overall health. This modality is called brainwave entrainment. Now, the word entrainment means to synchronize two or more rhythmic cycles. Brainwave entrainment is used to synchronize a person’s brainwaves with some external stimulus. One of the most commonly used external stimuli is sound. Vision can also be used as well as I believe tactile things can be used as well. The point is, some external stimulus is going to cause your brainwaves to synchronize with that external stimulus and to quiet your brain function and your brainwaves overall.

You see, our brains transmit electricity amongst the vast array of nerves and produce brainwaves. On the slide, you’re looking at different speeds or frequencies of brainwaves. Each one of these brainwave speeds or frequencies…now they’re all happening in our brains all the time at the same time, don’t think that we’re even in a delta state or a theta state or an alpha state and that’s all there is. That’s not how it works. We have billions of neurons in our brain. What we want to talk about and think about more is what is the dominant frequency at any given time? What is the purpose of that dominant frequency? Let’s talk about four of the most common brainwave frequencies that are occurring all the time, but again one is dominant.

First of all, let’s go from the bottom up here. Delta. Delta waves, and you’ll notice the wave they only show two hills here, are the slowest frequency and they’re between one and three Hertz. This wave frequency or when you are dominant is associated with deep dreamless non-REM sleep. This is where you’re trying to go during parts of the night when you want to be in your deepest form of sleep.

The second one up from there, brainwave frequency, the next fastest or the next step up in frequency is call the theta frequency. It’s between four and eight Hertz. This frequency or level is the one in which people naturally progress into sleep from and is associated with creative insight, a feeling of deep connectedness, and cognitive and memory enhancement. We want to enhance the time we’re in theta to improve our brain function and our memory, for example.

The next frequency up is called alpha. It ranges between nine and thirteen Hertz. This frequency is associated with calm levels or mental activity. Typically, a very peaceful and relaxed state, kind of if we’re doing something automatic like walking down the street or walking in the woods or something like that. Also, meditation and the breathing techniques we were doing earlier will help you get into an alpha state. A relaxation practice will help us come into an alpha state on a regular basis.

The final frequency I want to go over is the fastest frequency. As you see, it’s fourteen to thirty Hertz. This is the fasted frequency that we live in on a regular basis as a dominant frequency. Again, it’s associated with being awake and alert, but so many of us live all of our waking hours like every minute of every day in this frequency as a dominant state. It also becomes associated with an overactive thinking pattern and increased stress. It can lead to a feeling of anxiety and feelings of frustration. Obviously, if you can’t get out of this state and you’re always in a dominant state of beta, you are absolutely not going to be able to go to sleep.

If you are not sleeping well and you’ve been implementing most of what I’ve discussed previously tonight, then your brain is not able to get into a delta wave cycle well or even down into a theta wave cycle well, and you are living too much of your life in the beta state. If this is resonating with you and you feel like you’ve been doing everything you can to find your way into better sleep, then folks I implore you to look more into this modality of what’s called brainwave entrainment as a technology through audio stimulus that can guide your dominant beta wave state to are more desired frequency, and as a result, change your life and your ability to sleep and function. I can tell you that I’ve used brainwave entrainment for about four or five years now, and I’m a huge proponent for it for my sleep and for stress levels and for cognition.

If you want to learn more, one of the best ways to learn more is on my website in the shop of my website www.discoverhealthfmc.com I have a link to a company called Active Minds Global. If you go to the shop of my website and you look for Active Minds Global and you click on the link, it will take you to their website. There they will explain and educate you an enormous amount more than I’ve even talked about tonight about brainwave entrainment and their soundtracks that they have. They’re not overly expensive to buy. I actually just did a  podcast recording with Morry Zelcovitch, the owner of Active Minds Global. He and I talked about brainwave entrainment. If you watch my podcast, upcoming will be also a recording where I’m interviewing the owner of Active Minds Global about brainwave entrainment. Again, I have personally used this modality for years now in order to optimize my sleep, reduce my perception of stress, enhance my brain function, and optimize my overall health. I am a huge proponent of this modality.

I’ve covered a lot here today. You may be feeling a bit overwhelmed if you’re not already familiar with what I’ve covered, but you’ve got this! Because you deserve a good night’s sleep. I believe that with what we have offered here today, you’re going to be well on your way to breaking the cycle of insomnia.

Let’s just take another moment and summarize a top ten list for optimal sleep hygiene. That’s a term used within the medical world and out in the world. Sleep hygiene. What are the top ten things? It’s sort of a summary of the things we’ve talked about in this presentation:

  1. Establish and stick to a scheduled bedtime routine. Be a creature of habit as this is awesome for your body’s circadian rhythm.
  2. Shut off all screens for a minimum of thirty minutes before bed and optimally one hour before bed.
  3. Keep your bedroom cool during the night. 65-degrees Fahrenheit in research has been found to be optimal, but everyone is different, and you should experiment to find what is optimal for you.
  4. No food and no vigorous exercise three hours before sleep.
  5. Eliminate alcohol from your world and watch your sleep improve.
  6. Avoid any form of caffeine past the afternoon. Remember there are many different sources of caffeine: coffee, tea, soda, chocolate, etc. Instead, try some banana peel tea, for example.
  7. Put a relaxation practice into place before bed. Do some deep breathing with counting or use mantras or just read a book or, of course, take a hot bath. Don’t forget to also try some essential oils.
  8. Have a consistent exercise routine in your day. If you don’t already have one or are looking to optimize, go to discoverhealthfmc.com/#Movement and join our Discover Health Movement Membership today!
  9. Avoid having any screens in the bedroom as a rule.
  10. If you implement all of these steps and still are not sleeping optimally, then try some CBD and start using a brainwave entrainment modality to shift your brainwave frequencies so that you can get into the theta and delta and alpha states and out of the alert and anxious beta state.

As usual, as I stated earlier, we will post all of the resources that I used with links so that you can follow those links and learn more. We will post all of them for you in our Discover Health Facebook Group tomorrow. Again, if you’re not already a member, be sure to join!

Thank you so much for attending this event! It means a lot to be able to share with people who are ready to make a difference in their health. Sleep is such an important part of our health that we all need to assess whether it is optimal, and if it’s not, work to improve it especially as we age. Our sleep is not going to get better as we age if we don’t work at it. It is time to implement some of the things we discussed.

If you’re having any troubles, please reach out if you have questions or concerns. We’re here to help! The best way to communicate with us at Discover Health Functional Medicine Center is to go to our website www.discoverhealthfmc.com. If you are new to us, you can even sign up for a 30-minute consultation. It’s free! You can also ask general questions again through our Discover Health Facebook Group as member. Another option is just email us at with any questions. If technology is not your thing, then just give us a call. Our phone number at the office is (603) 447-3112.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this. Thank you so much for participating! I truly hope this has helped and that I’ve talked about something you haven’t tried yet if you are having issues with insomnia. Your sleep is such a huge part of our overall health. Thanks, everyone!

 

Watch this full webinar on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/_EvOqhkfXzM

References

Resources

Recipes

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