During deep sleep, which is approximately
45 minutes every hour, we actually clean out
all the sludge from our brain.
Our brain is very active actually in deep
sleep.
It also does what is called unconscious mental
processing.
So deep sleep actually increases the activity
of those genes that are responsible for removing
toxins.
We also know that in dream sleep you release
psychological stressors.
And now there is new research that shows that
there's a protein that gets activated that's
part of your epigenome, which is like a chaperone.
It never sleeps.
This protein is active in a dream state, in
deep sleep.
It's basically cleaning up your body of accumulated
stresses and toxins.
If you're sleep deprived you have a high risk
for obesity because there are certain hormones
that are known as ghrelin and leptin that
change your hunger and satiety levels.
They also change steroid metabolism.
So even if you didn't eat too much you get
to belly fat, lack of sleep.
And then the belly fat acts as an endocrine
organ, a hormonal organ that messes up steroid
metabolism.
So it's a vicious cycle.
Deep sleep therefore is associated with inflammation,
with leaky gut, with loss of creativity, a
loss of energy, Alzheimer's, risk for many
inflammatory disorders.
This research is pretty new and a deep sleep,
which means about seven to eight hours of
sleep every night without drugs or induced
by alcohol, is absolutely essential for your
body to remain in good health, to remove the
amyloid from your brain that causes premature
dementia and Alzheimer's and to actually self-regulate
the cellular activity in your entire body.
I couldn't emphasize that sleep is probably
the number one thing our society needs to
pay attention to.
And most people in our society, 70 percent
or so are using a sleeping aid to sleep, but
it doesn't give you normal sleep anyway.
So you're not refreshed in the morning, you're
not getting natural sleep and you're risking
yourself too addictive tendencies as well.
Besides, it's not doing what sleep is supposed
to do.
So when you go to sleep make sure there are
no distractions; make sure that you had a
good active day, paradoxically the more exercise
you do the better sleep you get; make sure
that your bedroom has no distractions.
You shouldn't have a TV set in your bedroom,
you shouldn't have your computer in your bedroom,
you should not have your phone in your bedroom,
nothing.
The room should be totally dark because darkness
helps increase melatonin.
You should not associate your bedroom with
anything other than sleep or sex, but if you
do associate it with entertainment or anything
else that's going to interfere with the quality
of your sleep.
The room should be dark and you can use things
like aromatherapy, et cetera, to relax your
body.
You can do breathing awareness, but you shouldn't
have to try to sleep.
Trying to sleep is act actually stressful.
The more you try to sleep the more insomnia
you'll get.
