Sleep Is When Your Body Heals

Sleep is when your body heals. The less you sleep the more pain you will have.

“The results clearly show that even very subtle changes in nightly sleep — reductions that many of us think little of in terms of consequences — have a clear impact on your next-day pain burden,”

1. Sleep more in the winter
2. Create a routine and go to bed around the same time each night.
3. Take magnesium before bed
4. Keep your room below 70 degrees5. Block out as much light as possible.

Link: https://neurosciencenews.com

Chronic Pain and Medication

Chronic pain now affects 116 million Americans, and our medical system's first line of defense is powerful pain medications. This is a problem for a variety of reasons, but here are a few reasons that it's a ridiculous route.

1) Pain pills don't do anything to fix the problem, they only cover it up. For example, why fill your car with oil when you can just disable the oil light on your dash?

2) Powerful pain killers take away the pain, but they can also cause serious addiction problems - the destruction of health, relationships, and death.

It is not always the doctor's fault either. Patients need to take responsibility for their own health. You need to be your own advocate.

If you keep going to your doctor for chronic pain but haven't tried to make a change in your lifestyle (nutrition, stretching, posture, chiropractic, massage, acupuncture), you're exposing yourself unnecessarily to the risk opiods bring.

False Food Labels

Food label alert: Don't fall for it!

"Organic, Turmeric, Probiotics, Natural" they

are all buzz words companies will use to try to get you to buy their products. "These must be healthy, they have turmeric and probiotics and those are healthy!"

Yes, these things can be healthy, but not when it's coming with a 23 gram (total carbs minus fiber) dose of sugar which is the same as what's in the same size serving of a sugary coke.

This product is also called "natural defense" making you think that it's going to boost your immune system, however research is very conclusive that consuming this this much sugar is actually going to instantly decrease your immune system and will far outweigh any of the benefits of the probiotics or turmeric. Get ready for a push of buzz words like these in unhealthy products to make them seem healthier.

Diet and Depression

Many people eat themselves into depression. Junk food and processed carbs increase inflammation inside the body and anytime normal metabolism is altered it makes you feel blah which can lead to depression:

"A pro-inflammatory diet including fast food, processed food, and refined sugar is associated with a 40% increased risk of depression according to a meta-analysis of 11 studies."

6 steps to reduce risk of depression:

1. Eat less processed carbohydrates
2. Eat more healthy protein
3. Normalize your vitamin D-3 levels
4. Sleep more during the winter
5. Move more sit less
6. Get adjusted

Source: https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com

What Should I Eat?

Eat this.

There is and never will be a one size fits all diet, however the majority of people would do extremely well if they followed this image.

Why Exercise Won't Make You Lose Weight

Abs are made in the kitchen.

Article: https://www.cnn.com

Intermittent Fasting 101

Intermittent Fasting 101:

Intermittent fasting is when someone is going longer periods of time than normal without eating food.

Not long ago this was something humans did on a regular basis, if you had an unsuccessful day hunting/fishing/gathering food then you didn't eat! This allows your body to burn up all the readily available sugar/carbohydrates in your system and then switch over to burning fat and protein for energy. Most people have more than enough fat on their body to not worry about burning the protein/muscle on their body for energy.

Every night when you go to bed your body is going to be switching over to ketosis for a short period of time before you eat again in the morning. After you eat breakfast your body is now using carbohydrates for energy again given you ate something that has carbohydrates.

When your body switches over to ketosis during a fast it will first start to burn the extra fat stores on your body. The fat you store on your body actually has a purpose! It's there for times when there is no food around, but in this day and age there will always be food around so we just keep on storing it as fat.

Research has shown intermittent fasting to be very valuable from a weight loss standpoint and even potentially in different types of cancer treatment when done properly. Extra sugar is stored as fat on the body, and many forms of cancer use sugar as their main source of food, so it just makes sense!

You don't want to stay in a fasted state long term though because your metabolism will drop and cause other long term problems. just doing it for a day here and there is the best way. Plus if you do it long term you won't have the energy to work, workout or be active.

The best way to do any sort of fasting would be to do it on days where you aren't exercising or as active as normal. Try eating less food on your inactive days and don't eat right when you wake up in the morning or right before bed. Keep your meals to the middle of the day so the length of time between meals is the longest. The day before and after a fast you would want to go back to eating like you normally would.

Sleep Is a Crucial Part of Your Health

One of the keys to achieving long-term healthy living is setting small, attainable goals.

January's resolution: Go to bed by 10:30 pm every night.

Sleep is a crucial part of your health. Without enough sleep your body cannot heal and recover. Following the proper sleep cycle, our bodies should be ready for bed around 10 p.m.

Throughout the day our bodies go through a variety of physical and mental stressors, and sleep is the time to rebuild and repair our muscles and brain. Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. our bodies do most of the muscle repair, and after 2 a.m. mental repair takes place.

If you go to bed at midnight, you will miss two hours of physical repair potentially causing you to wake up feeling tired and even sore, as your body didn’t get to finish repairs from the night before.

The more you can do to get back in sync with the sun’s cycle, the better sleep you will have and the more energized and restored you will feel the next day.

Sleep Tips to Improve Your Health

Sleep is a crucial part of your health. Without enough sleep your body cannot heal and recover. Following the proper sleep cycle, our bodies should be ready for bed around 10 p.m.

Throughout the day our bodies go through a variety of physical and mental stressors, and sleep is the time to rebuild and repair our muscles and brain. 

Between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. our bodies do most of the muscle repair, and after 2 a.m. mental repair takes place. 

If you go to bed at midnight, you will miss two hours of physical repair potentially causing you to wake up feeling tired and even sore, as your body didn't get to finish repairs from the night before.

To get better sleep, try these tips:

• Wear a sleep mask, I use this one from Amazon
  
• Reduce light in the bedroom -- consider using black out shades, cover lights from alarm clocks, don't use night lights.
   
• Turn the thermostat down to 70 degrees or lower
   
• Shut down your computer and TV one hour before bed, use the f.lux computer software to reduce blue light for better sleep or wear blue light blocking glasses.
   
• Turn your phone to airplane or sleep mode at night to reduce disturbances -- even better, charge someplace other than your bedroom at night!
   
• Caffeine has a 6 hour half life, meaning that it takes 12 hours to completely get out of your system. If you want to go to bed at 10:30 pm, your last cup of coffee or other caffeine source should be at 10:30 am.
   
• Try a bedtime meditation to help wind down -- the app Headspace (40% off right now, and only $9.99 per year for students) has a lot of great options, or write down your to do list for the next day to help relax at night. 

The more you can do to get back in sync with the sun's cycle, the better sleep you will have and the more energized and restored you will feel the next day.