Transcription
Dr. Chad: This is Dr. Chad Edwards and you are listening to Podcast number 46 of Against the Grain. Are you tired and fatigued? Are you frustrated with doctors because they just don’t seem to listen? Do you want to fix your pain without surgery? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then we are the clinic for you. We offer Prolotherapy, PRP or platelet rich therapy and stem cells injections, IV nutritional therapies, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, and functional medicine to help you get back on track to optimal health. Call our clinic at 9-1-8-9-3-5-3-6-3-6 or visit our website at www.revolutionhealth.org to schedule your appointment today.
Male: Welcome to Against the Grain podcast, with Dr. Chad Edwards, where he challenges the status quo when it comes to medicine. We get into hot topics in the medical field with real stories from real patients to help you on your way to a healthy lifestyle. Get ready, because we are about to go Against the Grain Tulsa prolotherapy.
Marshall: What’s up? This is the super tall Marshall Morris here with Dr. Chad Edwards. He is a US Army veteran, he’s a board certified family physician and he is an author. He owns revolutionhealth.org. Dr. Chad Edwards, how are you doing?
Dr. Chad: I feel well rested today.
Marshall: You feel well rested?
Dr. Chad: I do.
Marshall: Okay, is that why you’re in such a good mood?
Dr. Chad: Maybe. Man I’ll tell you, the last couple of nights I have slept so good. I could probably use a little bit more, but two nights ago, there could’ve been a bomb go off and I wouldn’t have heard it. But you know we had some storms earlier in the week and we had thunder, and I’ve got a dog that’s afraid of her shadow. She hears thunder and she turns herself inside out. Her head was rammed up in my face, so I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep that night. But I’m still doing okay. Then the last night and the night before, I was out. I woke up just thinking that was some bomb sleep, it was awesome.
Marshall: It just felt great.
Dr. Chad: Yes.
Marshall: Okay, so you’re talking about sleep. What are we talking about today?
Dr. Chad: Sleep.
Marshall: Sleep? Okay. You’ve mentioned to me there’s 12 kind of steps here or 12 steps for good sleep or good sleep hygiene. There’s been a lot of ways to describe it in the past. But get into why is this such a hot topic?. Why is this such a big issue?
Dr. Chad: Well, the first thing. We need to do a podcast on this. But often our focus on in the clinic, our focus on what I call the Healthy Trinity. When we appropriately or maximize each of these three components of the Healthy Trinity and I don’t remember how much we’ve talked about this in the past. It’s exercise, nutrition and what I call the three R’s. The three R’s include; Rest, sleep, recovering from exercise and reducing stress, so those 3 things. Rest is basically what we’re focusing on today. It’s one of these three R’s in that Healthy Trinity Tulsa prolotherapy.
When we optimize those things, people tend to do better, they feel better, they look better, they perform better. Athletes that don’t get enough sleep they’re not going to perform at their highest level. Then when you consider listen to the adrenal podcast when we did a couple of few episodes or podcasts ago. Some of these things, we are in 24/7 fast pace society and we will crash if we don’t get sufficient rest for how we are trying to perform. In the army, I was in Special Operations a lot, and we can’t replicate the stress of combat. There’s a lot of stressors that you just can’t replicate, so you have to stress people in other ways to get a better idea of how they’re going to perform.
Navy SEALs they’re BUDs, you’ve got Hell Week where they basically get like an hour or two of sleep or some ridiculously low amount of sleep for that week. In Special Forces assessment selection which is my lane, we didn’t get much sleep, we were only afforded four hours in which we could lay down to sleep. That didn’t mean you got four hours of sleep, that means you got four hours in which you’re not going to get in trouble if you’re caught sleeping. It’s a stressor, some people do well, some people don’t, but it is a major, major, major stressor. In fact at the end, one of my medics when I was in the fifth group, he talked about being at the SEARS School, which is Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Tulsa prolotherapy.
During their Resistance portion he was sleep deprived during this period of time. He remembers standing in formation and looking at somebody else’s back and seeing grass grow on this guys back. He was hallucinating because of a lack of sleep. A lot of my patients come in and they are not sleeping well. It’s an incredibly important component. When you sleep well and you are well rested, you’re better able to handle the next day’s events, stressors, whatever it is. Sleep is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly important and a lot of people aren’t getting enough of it. This is 12 steps to a better night’s rest, 12 steps to better sleep Tulsa prolotherapy.
Marshall: It’s pretty hilarious because we talked about upper respiratory infection in the past. Throughout my years, playing basketball or going up to Ohio for school, I developed a cold or my muscles would be fatigued. My dad, being a cardiologist, I’d go “Dad, I’m feeling worn out or I have this cold.” And without fail his prognosis, what he would tell me to do, he goes “Well, it sounds like you’re not getting enough sleep.” Upper respiratory infection, “You’re not getting enough sleep.” “I’m tired.” “You’re not getting enough sleep.” “I hurt my knee.” “You’re not getting enough sleep.” It was this constant thing and I say that to pile onto what you’re saying is; would you say that the majority of people are not getting the appropriate amount of sleep or would you say they are?
Dr. Chad: It’s hard for me to say, speak across the general population, I can tell you in my practice, it’s rare that someone gets a good enough sleep. Some do, but the vast majority, no.
Marshall: Vast majority, no, and we have 12 steps in terms of getting better sleep. How to get better sleep.
Dr. Chad: Exactly, so, tell me, how is your sleep?
Marshall: Well, I’ll tell you right now I feel tired.
Dr. Chad: And why do you think that is?
Marshall: I slept maybe four and a half hours last night.
Dr. Chad: Okay. Now, you can get by on that but I would argue that it’s not enough for optimal performance. We like optimal, Marshall.
Marshall: Well, yes, in everything that you do. You talked about the trinity and the trinity is in order to get you to optimal performance.
Dr. Chad: Exactly, and that is out focus in our clinic. We want optimal performance. That’s why we don’t care about normal, we want optimal across the board. The very first thing is, what time do you get up in the morning?
Marshall: I usually get up between 3:30 and 4:00.
Dr. Chad: That’s early. What time do you go to bed?
Marshall: I like to be in bed probably around nine o’clock. Last night I had some work to do, so I was going to bed at about eleven o’clock.
Dr. Chad: Okay. Do you get up at the same time and go to bed at the same time even on the weekends?
Marshall: Absolutely not.
Dr. Chad: Which is easier for you to control; getting up or going to bed?
Marshall: Probably getting up.
Dr. Chad: I would say that that’s true for most people. The first step is get a regular schedule, a regular sleep schedule. Go to bed at the same time, get up at the same time and I would argue even on the weekends. The hard part is controlling what time you go to bed, the harder part is controlling what time you go to sleep. I have been very blessed that when my head hits the pillow, I’m out. Most nights I don’t remember my head hitting the pillow. Within seconds, I’m out, I don’t understand why I go to sleep so easily, it’s rare that that’s not the case. At least in my practice it seems that that’s very rare that that’s the case. I have had a period of time in my life that was very, very stressful and it was probably the worst experience in my entire life Tulsa prolotherapy.
I had about a year and a half where I did not sleep well. Not I understood why and I couldn’t fix that. I was told at one point that I needed to go on an antidepressant, and I didn’t need an antidepressant, I needed all the crap to go away. Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time. You can control what time you wake up, you can’t necessarily control what time you go to sleep, but you can control what time you go in and lay down. For people that have a lot of trouble with sleep, they need to go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time every day, Saturday and Sunday included. 7 days a week.
Marshall: For people that say, “I have a busy day, I had to be,” do you recommend that they go to bed even earlier? Why is regular schedule so important, your body gets adjusted to that or?
Dr. Chad: Yes. The more you shift out of a rhythm, the more difficult it is. I have a post on my website where I go over all of this, and it’s revolutionhealth.org/sleep, that’s the URL for this and we summarize everything. I have links to research on each one of these pieces. If you want more information on these, and where does this data come from? That’s where to find it.
Marshall: Okay. That was the first point, what’s the second?
Dr. Chad: The next one is, have you ever tried to push a rope?
Marshall: I don’t think that’ll work.
Dr. Chad: Exactly. Sleep is one of those things that you almost have to sneak up on. I’m sure you’ve done it, all four of our listeners have probably done it. If you have something stressful the next day and you’re like, “Oh, I’ve got to get a good night’s sleep, I got to go in and lay down, I got to sleep as soon as I can.” If you start thinking about, “I’ve to go to sleep,” how likely is that? Then you start stressing about going to sleep or not going to sleep, and now I’m not getting enough sleep, and it’s like this vicious cycle. Just like you can’t push a rope, you can’t force sleep. The step number two is don’t force sleep. Go into your bed, lay down, and I would give it 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes. If you’re not asleep in 15 to 20 minutes, you need to get out of bed and do something else.
People that are tossing and turning all night, you begin to set associations. When you lay down in bed and you start stressing about sleep, now sleep becomes a stressor. Stressors can make it difficult for us to fall asleep. We’ve got to break that cycle. You go in, you lay down, if you’re not asleep you get up, go do something else.
Marshall: Then if you’re going to bed and you’re stressing out multiple nights in a row, you’re creating that association with stress in your bed.
Dr. Chad: Exactly, exactly. Step number one, regular sleep schedule. Step number two, don’t force sleep.
Marshall: Cool. What’s number three?
Dr. Chad: Number three is really a bigger category. Don’t smoke. But specifically, don’t smoke in the evening. The nicotine can be activating and it can help ramp you up a little bit. For anyone that smokes, if you have to smoke those awful, horrific things, number one, don’t do it around me because I can’t stand them. Number two, don’t do it in the evening because it’s activating and it works against you trying to go to sleep, and some people have a real problem with that. Some people don’t, but some people do.
Marshall: Okay, so one of the things that if you must smoke, and you shouldn’t have to smoke period, don’t do it in the evening because they could be keeping you up. What’s number four?
Dr. Chad: You got it. Number four, this goes along with it, how much coffee do you drink?
Marshall: Man, I used to drink a lot. No lie, I used to drink two pots of coffee every day.
Dr. Chad: [laughs] Holy crap.
Marshall: I used to. I used to live down in Costa Rica and, man, was the coffee good.
Dr. Chad: I didn’t know you lived in Costa Rica.
Marshall: Yes, man. At Costa Rica, I would put a pot on in the morning, and I’d drink it by lunch, and then I’d drink a whole pot after lunch.
Dr. Chad: Wow. I heard they have a really rich coast down there.
Marshall: Yes, well, there you go.
Dr. Chad: [laughs] Okay, step number four, is no caffeine after lunch. That pot of coffee after lunch, it’s nay on the [unintelligible 00:13:14]. No caffeine and that includes other things. There’s some natural sources, remember caffeine is an activator, so just like nicotine it can activate and ramp up your system. If you’re getting a big Mountain Dew or coffee or an energy drink or something like that, at seven o’clock in the evening, that may be just enough to ramp you up and keep you from going to sleep Tulsa prolotherapy.
Marshall: Let me ask you this, a lot of people that I’ll work with or my friends, they’ll have one of those energy drinks or a Mountain Dew, or a cup of coffee maybe before they leave work or in the afternoon to get them over that hump. What would you suggest as a healthier alternative to the caffeine that they’re searching for to ramp themselves up?
Dr. Chad: I would almost recommend, at least initially, a caffeine detox. Get off caffeine completely and see how you feel. I had somebody in my clinic just the other day that said they recently came off caffeine just because they wanted to be healthier. They felt that detoxing from coffee was one of the ways that they could do that. They stopped caffeine and within two days they said, “I could not believe how much better I felt across the board.”
Marshall: Is there tolerance associated with caffeine?
Dr. Chad: Absolutely.
Marshall: There is?
Dr. Chad: Absolutely, yes.
Marshall: Caffeine, number four. What’s number five?
Dr. Chad: Number five is — I don’t know if this is too personal. Do you drink any alcohol?
Marshall: I do drink alcohol.
Dr. Chad: Do you drink a lot?
Marshall: I don’t drink a lot of alcohol.
Dr. Chad: Do you ever have to have an eye opener in the morning?
Marshall: Not that much alcohol.
Dr. Chad: Do you ever felt like you should cut down?
Marshall: Probably at some point.
Dr. Chad: Do you ever get annoyed by people asking you, “Are you drinking too much?”
Marshall: [laughs] I’ve not. Thankfully, I’ve never had a problem with it. But I do enjoy having a glass of scotch in the evening.
Dr. Chad: All right, that’s cool. What do you call that glass of scotch in the evening?
Marshall: Maybe like a nightcap or something like that.
Dr. Chad: Yes, exactly. That’s right before bed, or winding down, or something like that. Those nightcaps can actually interrupt sleep. In some people they do go to sleep, but it’s not good restful sleep. It can inhibit the whole awesome sleep architecture that we’re trying to go for. Step number five is no nightcaps. Don’t have that alcohol right before bed. It can help you sleep, it’s not the sleep we’re looking for. I don’t want to say dependent, you develop a dependence to it, but it can make it where feel like you need that. Now we’re starting to have a little bit more of a problem.
Marshall: Whether it’s psychological or your body becomes accustomed to it, it develops that need for it.
Dr. Chad: Right, exactly.
Marshall: Okay. Number six, where we get into the halfway point here. What is number six?
Dr. Chad: How much do you exercise?
Marshall: I exercise probably about three or four times a week, playing basketball.
Dr. Chad: In the evenings?
Marshall: Yes.
Dr. Chad: Okay, so not at four o’clock in the morning when you’re getting up?
Marshall: No, no four o’clock in the morning.
Dr. Chad: [laughs] That’s some [unintelligible 00:16:25] basketball right there. Where were we? Step number six, that is we think exercise is very good, it can actually help with sleep. 20 to 30 minutes of exercise has been shown to be very beneficial. But you want to avoid doing that within the last four to five hours before sleep. If you’re going to go to bed at 10:00 or even 9:00, then the recommendation if you’re having trouble sleeping is don’t do that within four to five hours to sleep. Four or five in the afternoon, if you’re going to bed at nine, is when you need to be stopping those kinds of activities.
Marshall: Why is that? Is that just the body is getting too ramped up, getting the heart rate up before bed?
Dr. Chad: Yes, it’s the activation. You’re increasing your metabolism, you got all this catecholamine surge and all those things, and it takes a while for that to wind down. Now, I’ve in the past been able to exercise basically 30 minutes before going to bed and I didn’t have any problem, but again, I sleep pretty well. It doesn’t mean that you have to do this in order to have a good night’s sleep but if for our listeners that are having trouble sleeping, then these are great things to consider.
Marshall: Okay. Let’s take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to get into steps 7 through 12 to have better sleep.
Dr. Chad: Boom.
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Marshall: Okay. We are back, and we’re talking about the 12 steps to get better sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping, here are 12 specific things that you can do to achieve that better sleep. We’re on number seven. We’re getting into the second half here. Dr. Edwards, what is step number seven?
Dr. Chad: Seven swans a-swimming.
Marshall: Seven swans a-swimming.
Dr. Chad: [laughs] Step number seven. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one. Step number seven — it just sounded like the Christmas thing, right?
Marshall: It felt right.
Dr. Chad: Christmas in May or June, wherever we are. You go to bed fairly early, or you try to. What time do you eat dinner?
Marshall: Well, there’s a couple of things here. I try to either eat dinner on my way home from work. Or there’s oftentimes maybe I’ll have a late lunch, then I’ll have a basketball game, don’t want to eat right before the basketball game. By the time the basketball game is over, it’s like 8:30-ish, and sometimes I’ll just wake up early and have my dinner in the morning. So, no dinner.
Dr. Chad: Okay, cool. Are you ever really hungry right before you go to bed?
Marshall: Yes. It’s either like go to bed hungry or like have to put on clothes, go out, find something to eat or something like that. Because I can’t cook, so that’s the thing.
Dr. Chad: You can’t or you won’t?
Marshall: It’s probably a combination of both.
Dr. Chad: All right, I get it. You don’t want to go to bed hungry. Going to bed hungry, you tend to focus more on your stomach and hunger and all those kinds of things. Having something on your stomach and I wouldn’t eat right before going to bed, there’s multiple potential issues with that. But just something light on your stomach so that you’re not really, really hungry, it can also be beneficial. Watching your meal timing and then the hunger can also cause some biochemical changes, it could be that the hunger itself could be a little activating. Avoid going to bed hungry, if you want to do that.
Marshall: Okay. Would you recommend a couple of hours before going to bed, is that ideal?
Dr. Chad: I think two to three hours for most people. Yes, there’s a lot of individuality so I would just be careful with this part, but two to three hours I think is reasonable. Some people need to space it a little bit further, some people may need to eat closer, too bad, because their blood sugar irregularities or something along those lines. Just watch your own biochemical makeup and two to three hours I think is reasonable.
Marshall: Cool. Number eight, let’s get into it.
Dr. Chad: Yes, so this one is tell me about the environment in your bedroom.
Marshall: I’m going for the very bare look without any art work on the walls, the white walls. I know that I’m really selling this right now, [laughs] but you’ve got the blue comforter, and then the white walls, and nothing else.
Dr. Chad: It’s like the Apple Store.
Marshall: My room is like the Apple Store.
Dr. Chad: It’s a thing.
Marshall: It’s a thing. It’s a look, it’s an interior design. The Apple Store.
Dr. Chad: Okay, is that like having the spool as your coffee table and the-
[laughter]
Marshall: That’s right. That’s exactly right.
Dr. Chad: All right. The environment in which you sleep matters. Now, when you turn off the lights when you lay down to go to sleep. How much light is there in your room?
Marshall: It’s pretty dark.
Dr. Chad: Okay. Do you have any light?
Marshall: No.
Dr. Chad: No LED’s, no nothing.
Marshall: No LED’s, no-
Dr. Chad: Can you wave your hand in front of your face, and see it at all?
Marshall: No [laughs], it is dark.
Dr. Chad: And that is one piece of this, the adjuster environment it’s a big category. It’s a lot of things that go onto that. How much light is in your room? A lot of people have an alarm clock right on their nightstand and it’ll be staring right in the face. Then especially if you’re having trouble sleeping, you look over the clock, and you’re like, “Crap, I’ve got to get up in three hours, and I’m still not asleep.” And that stresses you out about not going to sleep, and now you’re trying to push a rope again. I turn the alarm clock away, and sometimes I’ll turn it face down. I actually use my iPhone as my alarm clock, and so I’ll turn it face down, and of course there’s no light coming off of it at all.
I’ve got a white noise machine that I use with that, and there’s a little LED light on the top of it, so I’ll put my phone on top of that to cover up that LED light. My intent is that there’s absolutely no light whatsoever in that room, and that for many people can make a big difference. Now, tell me about the temperature. How do you set your temperature in your room?
Marshall: My current temperature is 70 degrees. I set it at 70.
Dr. Chad: And that’s pretty good.
Marshall: While I can, I’m going to put a check in that box for me.
Dr. Chad: Boom, we’ll take what we can get. You get an A in that category.
Marshall: Okay, good.
Dr. Chad: I haven’t seen it, but I’ve got this vision of this very sleeked out room. I might give you a night there too. It’s cool. It sounds like it’s got a good vibe. The temperature, you want the temperature cool. Having the room cool and piling on blankets is a better way to go. I know for me if it gets above 72, I’m telling my wife, “We’ve got to turn the air on. We’ve got to something. I want it cooler. I sleep better in those kind of things, and I like it a little bit more cool.” So mine 72 or below, a lot of literature says 68 to 70, 72 somewhere in there. If your room is 75 because you’re trying to save money and you’re sleeping well, great. If you’re not sleeping well, suck it up and turn it down a little bit.
Marshall: Okay. Temperature 68, 72 that’s the sweet spot if you want to get better sleep, if you’re having trouble sleeping, let’s try that.
Dr. Chad: Exactly. Now one more piece on that is the noise. And I would throw in the white noise machine. There are studies, again these are reference on the revolution.org/sleep web page where it’s talking about the white noise machines, and it’s provided like a fan noise. Mine has a white noise app on my iPhone and I use a certain one and it works great. Love it, in fact when the sound goes off, like if the electricity were to go out, my speaker died, then the lack of noise actually wakes me up.
Marshall: Really?
Dr. Chad: Yes.
Marshall: Interesting.
Dr. Chad: And no noise, just lack of noise. When it shuts off, it wakes me up almost every time. Those things have been shown to be as beneficial as sleep medicine in some studies. I strongly recommend them to a lot of people, it drowns out a lot of extraneous noise, especially if you’ve got traffic that you can hear if you live near a street, rail road or something like that. Bringing that volume up on that white noise machine to drown out most of that stuff, and you may be surprised how much better you sleep.
Marshall: Cool, so big deal. What is the next step here?
Dr. Chad: So step number nine, do you worry? Do you have any worries?
Marshall: I try not to. I try so hard not to. But working pretty hard during the week and so I’m thinking about what do I have to do tomorrow, what’s the next thing tomorrow?
Dr. Chad: Right, it’s common. A lot of people have so much stress that they’re dealing with and their mind is constantly going. It’s probably one of the things that I hear the most, “Why can’t you go to fall asleep?” and they would say, “My brain just won’t shut off.” And there’re some things that we can do to help with that, some people are actually on Benzodiazepines, like Valium or Xanax or Klonopin or some of these kind of sleep medicines to help with that. They can’t help, ultimately it’s not the fix that I would recommend. Of course if you listened to the last podcast, then those medicines are killing you anyway.
When you see some of the studies on Ambien, that stuff is just freaking awful as far as some of the potential side effects. My former mother-in-law woke up one morning and she went in and thought somebody had broken into her house, and pillaged her home. She made an entire thanksgiving dinner level of cooking, baking the whole bed, woke up and had no idea she had done any of it.
Marshall: Oh, gosh.
Dr. Chad: None. There were multiple stories that she told about that kind of thing, it was shocking some of the stuff that she did. She would go out into her garage, and where her car was backed out. She had stuff hanging from the ceiling and she had spray-painted them in a way that she wanted spray-paint them. She wanted to get that done but she went out and did it in the middle of the night in her sleep. Those ones are hypnotics. You’re not sleeping, it’s not sleep, but you think you slept. Anyway it’s-
Marshall: You just don’t remember being awake.
Dr. Chad: Exactly. Not being able to turn your brain off is a big deal. Learning how to deal with your worries before you go to bed, can help calm some of that stuff down. That’s step number nine; deal with worries before bed. Try and get them taken care of if you can. Sometimes it’s bigger than what you can take care of.
Marshall: Cool. What’s number 10?
Dr. Chad: Light exposure. We covered that in the adjust the environment. Also getting light during the day, making it very clear and distinct, and especially when you get those overcast days where you’ve got lots of clouds and things like that. Getting some light therapy can make a big difference. In the summer, it’s not a big of an issue especially if you’re outside playing a lot and things like that, but getting a little bit of light exposure can help.
Marshall: Okay. Light exposure, it’s good for the soul, it’s good for a lot of things. We talked about it in one of the previous podcast episodes, light exposure and the importance of it.
Dr. Chad: Absolutely, yes.
Marshall: Number 11.
Dr. Chad: Yes, so this one is a big deal, and I hear that basically what it is, there’s no reading in bed, but we going to expand that a little bit further. You get some people that like to open books and read and they would read before they go to bed. But what I see more common is screen time. Whether that’s your iPad, your phone or TV, television, or laptop computer, sitting in bed using those devices. Now those devices trigger in your brain in such a way that they are a little activating. They can keep you awake a little bit. We want to minimize that screen time in the short brief period before bed, much less in bed. But what I would ultimately say is for step 11 is nothing in bed except sleep and married people stuff.
Marshall: Married people stuff. I’m picking up what you’re putting down.
Dr. Chad: Exactly. Those are the only two things, you don’t do anything else. You want to associate lying down and going to bed, with going to sleep. That’s it, because it’s that same Pavlovian Response that we talked about with some of the other stuff, the schedule, and timing and those kinds of things. If you go and lied down in bed and you think, “Okay, it’s time to watch TV,” your brain’s activating on some level and you’ve got to shut that off.
Marshall: Okay, and what is the final step here?
Dr. Chad: The last one is a sleep journal. Basically this is just logging or chronicling how you are sleeping, what time you went to bed, what time you woke up, what was your environment, what did you eat. Trying to figure out, it’s problem solving sort of, but it’s data collecting on how are you sleeping, and what is influencing your sleep. It’ll be shocking for them when they write down a lot of this stuff, and they’ll figure out, “Oh, every time I had trouble sleeping, this was going on. It can really be an eye-opener for how you’re sleeping and what’s influencing your sleep.
Marshall: Cool. I’m going to quickly recap all 12 of the steps here and then kick it to you for the close.
Dr. Chad: Cool.
Marshall: The 12 steps for a better sleep hygiene. Number one, regular schedule. Number two, don’t force the sleep. Number three, no smoking in the evening. Number four, no caffeine after lunch. Number five, no nightcaps. Number six, exercise 20 to 30 minutes, four or five hours before bed. Number seven, don’t go to bed hungry. Number eight, adjust the environment. Number nine, deal with worries before bed. Number 10, the light exposure that you’re getting. Number 11, no reading in bed. Number 12, keep a sleep journal. Okay. Dr. Chad, to you for the close.
Dr. Chad: These things can make a dramatic difference in how people are sleeping. If you’re having trouble sleeping, and you come to my clinic, this is one of the first things that I’m going to recommend. Make sure that you get into a good sleep schedule. If you have shift work and you work nights or days and you’re constantly adjusting, it can be a big disrupter to sleep. Do the best you can with what you have. Follow these 12 steps. We will often see good, good, good results and it can make a big difference for a lot of people. When you optimize that sleep, you’re reducing stress, improving your immune system, reducing your chances of getting an infection, and having Marshall there yell at you because you are not getting enough sleep. All of those kinds of things. Focus on those 12 steps. If you’re not getting any better, come see us.
Marshall: Okay. For more information, go to revolutionhealth.org/sleep to access all the show notes.
Dr. Chad: You got it.
Marshall: Boom.
Dr. Chad: Thanks, Marshall.
[music]
Male: Thanks for listening to this week’s Podcast with Dr. Chad Edwards. Tune in next week, where we’ll be going Against the Grain.
[Audio end 00:31:55]
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