Nov 10

Nov 10 The Power of Sleep

Hi, I'm Liz Moser, a Mayo Clinic and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach.

I was just at the doctor's for my yearly physical. She asked about how much alcohol and caffeine I drink (none!) How much I exercise (if you're up on my blogs, you know I'm ramping up my cardio, and my NEAT, or non-exercise activity thermogenesis) And we talked a lot about my whole food plant-based diet. She was impressed and wished she ate fewer animal products.

All told, we were together for about an hour, and at no time did she ask about my sleep hygiene or habits. Not a word about how much I sleep and how refreshed or not I feel when I wake in the morning.

That doctors should inquire about sleep habits never occurred to me until I read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Mathew Walker, Ph.D. Why We Sleep is my latest book group book. Shout out to the three women in my group. Love you guys!

This book blew my mind in so many ways—way more than I could do it justice in a short vlog. So, therefore, I’m only going to touch on what I thought were the highlights.

I think sleep should be a topic of conversation in a yearly doctor's visit because routinely sleeping less than 6 hours a night weakens our immune systems. Furthermore, lack of sleep is directly linked to diabetes, BMI, Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular health.

I bet you didn't know that when the United States loses an hour in the spring because of daylight savings, cases of heart attacks increase the next day. And the opposite happens in the autumn when we gain an hour, heart attacks decrease. That’s pretty crazy data isn’t it?!

Dr. Walker has worked with our military and several professional sports teams as a sleep consultant. He also advised Google and Nike to develop employee sleep workshops and onsite napping facilities for their employees because productivity and creativity increase after a restful sleep.

That said, although Dr. Walker recommends an afternoon siesta if you feel you need a nap, please keep your naps before 3 pm to ensure a good night’s sleep. Also, when you fall asleep at night in front of the TV, consider that a nap and those late-night naps do not support a restful night of sleep.

Weight loss and maintenance. Research shows you will lose lean muscle instead of fat if you attempt to lose weight while starving yourself of sleep. If that wasn't bad enough news, sleep deprivation also leads to increased food cravings the next day and overeating, mainly processed sugary and fatty foods. I’m now asking my clients to gauge their sleep to what they consume, and the severity of cravings the next day. Do they notice a correlation? Yes, they usually do.

REM, rapid eye movement or dream sleep, directly facilitates the absorption of new information. Have you ever noticed a difficult concept you're trying to learn somehow becomes achievable the next day after a restful night's sleep? That's no coincidence. REM sleep facilitates learning and problem-solving. It heightens creativity; increases work productivity and the processing of emotions. Dr. Walker describes our REM dream state as a soothing balm for our feelings. Rem is our personal nightly therapy session.

Furthermore, much of our rem sleep happens later in the night, in the last hour or two of sleep. If you shortchange yourself of that precious time by going to bed late and waking early in the morning as many do, you are robbing yourself of cementing new knowledge, generating memories, and emotional soothing.

It sure surprised my clients and me to learn that 25% of the caffeine consumed from tea, coffee, chocolate, sports drinks, or sodas is still in your system 8 hours later. Do you regularly reach for chocolate or a soda in the early afternoons when your energy naturally dips? Your unevolved and ill-informed boss may offer vending machines instead of nap areas. Ha! Well, if you reach for that caffeine, then a quarter of that is still in your system when you attempt to fall asleep at 10 or 11 pm. No wonder you have a hard time getting to bed and a restless night’s sleep.

On the other side of the coin from caffeine and stimulants are alcohol and prescription sleep aids such as Ambien. Despite their drowsy effect, they do not enable restorative sleep. In fact, think of them as sedation. Please put them in the same category as anesthetizing drugs you would be given before surgery. Being unconscious is different then restorative sleep.

How much sleep you need is personal and varies from individual to individual. That said, the recommended window is 7-9 hours. And to really give your body a chance to show you what it needs, perhaps the first step is to stop influencing it one way or another with caffeine and other stimulants or alcohol and other sedatives. With those minimized, or better yet, entirely out of your system, you are now ready to ascertain how much sleep your unique body requires.

No surprise, Dr. Walker recommends a regular seven-day-a-week sleep schedule. A set time that you go to bed and wake up. There is something unsexy, even boring about this. Right?! That means your Saturday night has the same bedtime as Monday, and you wake up at the same time on a Tuesday that you do on a Sunday. However, if your doctor prescribed this for your cardiovascular health, blood sugar levels, or expanding waistline, would you head her ‘prescription’?

I have lived this set sleep and wake lifestyle for several years, with only a few exceptions throughout the year for social events. On those days, I still wake at my usual time (to complete my morning routine) and then extend my afternoon meditations or take a nap. I can attest that it's doable, and it generates restful sleep, facilitates steadier moods, and a calmer demeanor in general.

Since reading Why We Sleep, I’m experimenting with shifting my bedtime from 9:30 to 9, giving myself an 8-hour sleep window, as Dr. Walker recommends. Even though I've felt rested with my 7 ½ hour schedule (while being caffeine-free) I don't want to rob myself of any early morning REM sleep. Particularly now that I just started practicing the piano and relearning French. I want to give my brain ample time to process and absorb this new knowledge.

I’m Liz Moser, a Mayo Clinic and National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach, and thank you for reading this blog about sleep and the need to treat it as yet another powerful tool in your ever expanding wellness toolbox. If you have any questions about this blog, health, wellness, or wellness coaching with me, please reach out via my website at lizmosercoaching.com.