Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to episode 18 of the energy balance Podcast. I'm Jay Feldman, and joining me again today is my good friend, Mike Fave. Today's episode is part two of our two part series, talking about how you can fix and optimize your sleep. And today we'll be focusing on all the different lifestyle factors in relation to sleep. So we'll be talking about exactly what we want to be eating throughout the day and before bed to optimize our sleep. We'll be talking about various supplements that can be really helpful. In this regard, we'll be talking about different bedtime routines or morning routines, all of which can play really major factors as far as sleep is concerned. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at any of the links to articles or studies or anything else that we referenced throughout today's episode. And if you are looking to improve your sleep or any other chronic health conditions and you're having a little bit of trouble putting everything together, maybe you're feeling a little bit lost as far as nutrition and lifestyle goes, or you'd maybe like a little bit of extra guidance throughout this process, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/call and sign up for a free call. And I'd be happy to talk with you about how we can adjust these things in order to optimize your sleep and optimize your health. So to sign up for that free call, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/call, and with that, let's get started.

Mike 1:41
There's some studies that show the importance of having some type of social, social interaction in the day and having some type of social support, and that being important for sleep as well. And I know one of the things that I struggled with on night shift was on my nights off, everyone's asleep, so you're basically four days out of the week that you're not working, depending on whatever your job is, but having a lot of isolation and not being in having interaction with other people, not moving around, and not having exercise or anything like that, can also make it more difficult later on to fall asleep. And one of the big things for me was for a night shift, particularly, wasn't a lack of exercise because I was still going to the gym. It was a lack of interaction with other people. You spend a lot of time alone, and that was something that was made it diff I found it difficult for me to fall asleep. And then eventually I read up on it a little bit on PubMed, and they're basically saying the same thing, that a decrease in social interaction during the day can have impact, can have some impacts on sleep, negative impact on sleep so and this goes in with the whole social media thing and phones and stuff like that, I don't think that they are a good proxy for social interaction. I think that they I think that they are actually, like, antithetical to social interaction to a large extent. And they don't, they're not really good, like, it's called social media, but I think it's relatively anti social. It's not the same as face to face interactions and things like that. So I don't think that that can be a proxy for people. And I mean, it could speak to some of the negatives of the lockdown and things like that, a lack of social interaction with other people and things like that. But in general, I as far as sleep goes, specifically, I find, I found that it was helpful to have social interaction, but I'll, and I there. I think there are some studies on PubMed that I picked up during the time that we're talking about that as well.

Jay Feldman 3:29
Yeah, and I'll add those to, I'll, I will add those to the show notes. And yeah, social interaction, social media, is not a good replacement for it, which doesn't mean that there aren't benefits there. And I do think having conversations with people, whether it's on the phone or text or or messaging or social media, there's some value there, but it's limited.

Mike 3:51
Doesn't replace in person social interaction, right? Right?

Jay Feldman 3:55
And you had mentioned exercise, which for you, wasn't an issue, but exercise and activity does help with sleep as well?

Mike 4:02
No, what I'm saying is exercise wasn't an issue for me because I was exercising Right, right.

Jay Feldman 4:06
Yeah, sorry, that's what I meant.

Mike 4:07
But I guess I was exercising regularly every single time that I was off, right, the night that I work, I was walking a ton, so, right?

Jay Feldman 4:16
And that's definitely helpful for sleep as well. So we talked a little bit about, I mean, we've kind of been mentioning psychological stress, and you're talking about social interaction. Having a routine, a bedtime routine that involves having technology off, is also helpful. So that could be, it could include reading. It could include a certain bedtime snack, which we'll talk about, what kind of snacks might be helpful. But, yeah, so having a having any sort of routine is helpful. What it might involve stretching, maybe some yoga, maybe some meditation, maybe just reading a book or having a conversation with your significant other or a friend, or maybe you're drinking some tea. It could be taking a bath or a shower, just having as. A routine that you go to every single night that tells you your body and tells your mind that it's time to start, like winding down and getting ready to go to sleep, can be really helpful. Journaling would be another thing that could be helpful. So throughout the day, in addition to having that routine in the evening, for people whose minds wander a lot in the evening and have trouble falling asleep and they're they have these racing thoughts, there are a lot of different potential issues to consider there. We'll be talking about some things diet and health wise, where just restoring things on the energetic level can a lot of times significantly reduce anxiety, and those racing thoughts relax exactly allow us to actually relax. Yeah, and so we'll be talking about certain things that are really important as far as that's concerned, in addition to but the other side of it is the psychological side. So having some sort of meditation or mindfulness routine or journaling throughout the day can be really helpful for sorting through our thoughts, working on processing our emotions, and can also therefore help sleep considerably, giving ourselves time and space to think. Which we talked about the importance of going outside, which is a perfect time to do that? Where throughout the day, having a period of time where we don't have any technology with us, we aren't actively doing anything, or maybe we're doing some sort of mundane task, like doing the dishes or just walking around outside and enjoying nature, those are times that allow us to sort through our thoughts and our emotions and get those things out. Again. Journaling is another good way to do that, or having a good conversation with a friend that you're fully involved in that you're not distracted during the conversation.

Mike 6:43
Texts and messages and everything, right? Yeah.

Jay Feldman 6:46
How many times do people have a face to face interaction nowadays, or a face to face interaction where they aren't looking at their phone at any point or looking around, but actually sitting and talking for a while, or an interaction even when you're talking on the phone, where you're not also doing something else. It's, it's, there are a lot of reasons for it, but the point being that those are all things that can help on the psychological side, outside of what we're going to talk about, as far as diet and supplements and things like that, that can also help to reduce anxiety and those kinds of thoughts that that don't stop.

Mike 7:22
Yeah, uh, did you want to move on to diet?

Jay Feldman 7:26
Yeah, I do, unless there's anything else you want to add, as far as stress.

Mike 7:29
I think we should, we should run down the list that we have so far, because it's pretty long. Yeah, so it's a going to going to sleep at the same time and waking up at the same time, eating around the same times, not taking extended naps during the day.

Jay Feldman 7:44
But before, sorry, as far as eating at the same time, I think that that's more or less trivial. One thing I would say that is important there, and we'll talk about it's just, yeah, wait, yeah, eating something when you wake up, especially something that has carbohydrates, and also eating enough in the evening time. Or I would say, are more important than eating like lunch at the same time every day? Yeah?

Mike 8:03
Well, we'll get that. We'll get to that one next in in Yeah, and when we go over diet. And then, so far, we have making sure you're getting physical activity during the day, and then making sure that you are having some type of valuable social interaction during the day, even with one other person, or anything like that. And then having a having a bedtime routine, to some extent, it doesn't have to be a strict routine. I drink this for 15 minutes, and then I read this book for 15 minutes, and then I do yoga for 35 minutes. Just some type of general idea of you do something before you go to sleep. It could be like journaling really quick. Could be sex. It could be doing a little same yoga routine, whatever it is. And then the other thing that we talked about was the importance of light and avoiding blue light specifically before you go to sleep, and getting light exposure when you wake up, and getting some sun exposure throughout the day, and then trying to stay away from screens and things like that before you go to bed, but in general during the day, and avoiding fluorescent bulbs and things along those lines. That's the general list in, um, a synopsis that we have so far. And then next we'll talk about specific dietary factors that are important. What number one, eating when you wake up, eating before you go to sleep, and eating enough. And eating enough. And another thing that's really important is eating enough throughout the day.

Jay Feldman 9:24
Yeah, so there was something you had said during that list that I wanted to Oh, you had just mentioned as far as the the sleep routine goes. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it being a strict routine. Some people do really well.

Mike 9:39
That's fine, but I don't want people to think that we say a routine and automatically. It's like, oh, I have to create this, right? It's like, however you go about it, individually, whatever works for you. The point is just to not make it a whole other piece of stress. You know? It's like you're really tired from your day, and it's like, I need to do my sleep routine. It's like, it's your ties. Just go to sleep. Yes. Yeah, you know, maybe do a little bit it. It's, this is, it's, it's the just an example, a suggestion, if you want to use it, and use it if not, and however you implemented that works for you is what works. And as far as however you and I do things, it's sort of, you can do it most of the time if you don't do it all the time because of whatever reasons and whatever, it's not a big deal. It's not supposed to be another point of stress and and things like that. Yeah.

Jay Feldman 10:26
Agreed. And so, so now starting to talk about diet. The a few things I want to mention is, before we talk about what we should do, is that so much of the diet advice out there, both related to sleep but also just related to what's supposed to be healthy is really pretty damaging. As far as sleep is concerned. I think sleep is it's part of the reason why sleep is one of the major issues for a lot of people, being able to fall asleep, stay asleep, not waking up throughout the night, feeling well rested. This the the advice out there, which a lot of it I'm going to be talking about is, or we'll be talking about is the low calorie idea, eating less and exercise more is pretty terrible for sleep, and then another one being low carb, which, again, is also pretty terrible for sleep, and is for a lot of people, one of the biggest things that they notice when they are on that low carb side. And again, it's not universal. There are certain benefits to low carb, for example, that might allow somebody to have improved sleep. I still don't think low carb as a whole is beneficial, even though there are certain things that might be helpful.

Mike 11:26
But Jay, once you're on low carbs, you only need four hours of sleep because you're optimized.

Jay Feldman 11:30
Haha right. Good point.

Mike 11:33
Come on, you're just not looking at it the right way.

Jay Feldman 11:36
Haha Yeah, you know, when you have adrenaline pumping as hard as it is for not eating carbs. It does help you feel like you've got a lot of energy, in the same way that if you drink too much coffee. But yeah, so, so as far as So, but low carb, eating less and exercising more, low calorie diets. Another thing that's talked about a lot is not eating in the evening, whether it's fasting or just trying not to eat too much, eating like a very light meal in the evening, which, if we're talking really late at night, I think, is not a bad idea, but, and we'll discuss that. But just in general, we want to make sure that we're eating enough carbs, that we're eating enough food, and that we are eating enough later in the day and in the evening. And the biggest reason for that is because having good sleep depends on energy. So in the same way that, if I guess, in a parallel way, that when we don't have enough sleep, it acts as the stress signal, and it disrupts our our energy systems, our energy system like it's a two way street, is what I'm trying to say. So by the same token, we want to make sure that we are supporting ourselves energetically, because when we're when we're asleep, that's when we're supposed to have all that restoration and regeneration, which requires energy, it requires fuel and nutrients in order to produce energy so that we can actually restore our sleep. And that's been shown. The importance of having enough energy. Having enough ATP has been shown to be integral to proper sleep and to proper regeneration and restoration when we sleep, and that's not going to happen if we're not eating enough it's not going to happen if we're not eating enough carbs. It's not going to happen if we're eating foods that don't allow us to produce energy. So yeah, I'll let you kick off some of those things and talking about what's important as far as basic things to improve energy, and also in relation to sleep, specifically.

Mike 13:20
Some of the things that I think that are most important, and from direct experience and even from research, having enough carbs is well, I'll talk about that one. First, having enough carbs is extremely important personally. And I remember when we were trying to do ketosis, we were trying to do a keto diet, this the some of the things that were the main issues, particularly for me, and I think for you as well, was an was issues with sleeping, inability to fall asleep, and issues with waking up, waking up very early or not sleeping fully. And the thing that solves that right away, at least for me, was adding carbs back in. And this can one of the things when you lower carbs, and we've talked about this before previously, is you have an increase in cortisol, and you can also have an increase in adrenaline. And cortisol and adrenaline both have, like a an awakening effect, that they increase alertness for, for obvious reasons. I mean, you can go out and get food, so that was, though, that's one of the biggest things. And then other thing is making sure that your liver glycogen is full before you go to sleep. That's something that's really important, so that you're able to provide a constant blood sugar while you're sleeping, because when you drop your blood sugar, you're going to release glucagon, and then eventually you're going to release adrenaline and cortisol. When those things are happening that will wake you up. That's one a lot of people say they wake up in the night. Sometimes they're waking up and they're sweating and things like that, and that's because their blood sugar just dropped, and their their blood sugar maintenance isn't isn't doing so hot.

Jay Feldman 14:57
Yeah, I want to add some some context there, because I was. Something that I meant to talk about and missed. So when we go to sleep, we obviously are not eating throughout the night, and our brain, assuming that it's that things are functioning optimally, is going to be running mostly on carbohydrates, and it needs to have enough energy to regenerate, which is we had mentioned earlier how important brain, like our brain, is, as far as sleep and regeneration goes. And so when we go to sleep because we're not eating, we're going to be relying on the sugar that's stored in our bodies, which is mostly stored in our liver in the form of glycogen. Our brains can't actually store any carbohydrate, so the way that they get their carbohydrate is that it's either we either get it from the food that's coming in, it gets transferred through the blood and then into the brain, or it's coming from our liver, our stored glycogen, which then again, is released into the blood and goes to the brain. And so when we're asleep, because we can't be getting any carbohydrate from our diets, we're not eating, we're relying on mostly glycogen from our liver, and that having that sugar available keeps our stress hormones down, allows us to have enough energy for proper sleep when we don't have when we either aren't using the sugar very well, we aren't efficiently oxidizing the glucose, or our liver is not storing enough glycogen, then we have trouble. We basically, our brain doesn't have enough fuel to get through the night, and so we'll wake up earlier. What's supposed to happen is, for about eight or more hours, we're supposed to be fueled by this, the stored sugar, and that is and then as we start to run out, we're supposed to, as you said, See this increase in stress hormones, and they're supposed it's a normal cycle, and they're supposed to peak around the time that we get up, which is supposed to wake us up. So this slow increase in adrenaline as we run out of fuel, as we run out of sugar, which leads to dropping blood sugar is supposed to wake us up, and that's supposed to be our cortisol.

Mike 16:46
You have a peak in cortisol in the morning, and that has a weight effect on increasing wakefulness, right.

Jay Feldman 16:53
Both of them do. And so, yeah. So that's kind of the normal cycle if we don't have enough again, as I said, if we aren't storing enough glycogen, or if we're not using the glucose properly, then we will wake up earlier. And sometimes we might, as you said, wake up with night sweats, or feeling really hot, or heart resounding, yep, we have a nightmare. A lot of times that's due to not again, those two things that I mentioned, which we'll talk about dietary things that can be helpful there, but yeah, so that's part of the reason why making sure that we're well fueled, getting enough carbs is so important, and one of the main features to having good sleep. And I would say also, our stress hormones are supposed to be very low when we're falling asleep. So if we're not eating carbs or not eating enough in the evening, that's part of the reason why these things are really disruptive to our sleep. Yeah.

Mike 17:40
Basically, if you want to look at the the rhythms, or daily rhythms of stress hormones, they gent, researchers generally look at tracking cortisol. And so cortisol has a peak in the morning and then it slowly dissipates throughout the day, right? Um, the same thing I think happens with testosterone in males, at least. It sort of mirrors that. So you have a peak of testosterone in the morning and then it will slowly lower throughout the day. And then the other thing is, in contrary to that, you have things like melatonin, and melatonin is at its lowest in the morning and then slowly rises more towards evening, where it actually peaks. So it doesn't really rise over the course of the day. It starts to rise once, once the lights go out, your melatonin will increase, and then in the morning it drops. So you have, they have their sort of like, almost opposite. It's more like melatonin rises at night and drops, and then cortisol slowly rises over the night and then comes to peak in the morning and then drops. And then testosterone comes up with the cortisol, and that's a little bit different, but it comes up with the cortisol, and then it will slowly drop. It will slowly drop. And so these, these are all involved in circadian rhythm, and it's why switching. There's a lot of other hormones involved that have different rhythms in relation to that, but it's why, um, switching your rhythm part of that is so difficult, because a lot of those processes are very ingrained, and they do have outside signals and things like that, but a lot of it is going to happen to some extent, without those out, without those food signals or thing or light and things like that, your body's still going to try and maintain that rhythm, and that's where the circadian rhythm comes in. So the next point that isn't that was important for me, was it's all in regards to handling blood sugar, but it's also in regards to maintaining keeping adrenaline low. So after doing keto, you know another, next thing you found was, well, maybe you can do low fat, high carb. And so on the low fat, high carb diet, I had enough carbs coming in, and I found this for friends, too, and especially if you have a lot of muscle mass and you're working out going really low fat, was something that caused a lot of blood sugar dysregulation, in the sense that you my blood sugar would shoot up after eight carbs, or it wouldn't even shoot up that high. I never was like a high. For glycemic I always stayed very much within in range. I don't have diabetic or anything, but I, because I work in the healthcare field, I do have access to glucose monitors and things like that you can use periodically. But basically, I never had any issues handling Sure. I was actually extremely insulin sensitive. But my budget would go up a little bit after I ate, and then it would, it would crash, because there was nothing keeping it there, even whether I was eating starch or sugars and things like that. Um, and then the other thing is my general, I guess baseline amount of adrenaline or sympathetic activation was high, and they could feel it. I was sweaty. I was, um, I was a very fidgety and very, very hyperactive, um, and I would have a lot of hot flashes and things like that. And so basically, one of the things I had problems was with sleeping, because I would have the butcher so I would wake up a lot, and I would wake up a lot, and I need to get a I'd have to drink some orange juicer or something like that, or eat a piece of fruit. And then I would go back to sleep and I'd wake up again. And a part of this, I think, was number one, from working out having a decent amount of muscle mass, I think increased to some extent, the requirement for fatty acids, because that's what your muscles are burning at rest. And then the other thing, and then to liberate those fatty acids without them having coming in from the diet. To some extent, you do rely on synthetic nervous system and adrenaline. And then the other thing was, is the fat helps to keep the food in your digestive tract, to lower blood sugar and lower slow digestion just a little bit in the small intestine, so it keeps your blood sugar more stable. It allows the meal to last a little longer. And then also, you have the effects of the fatty acids providing some providing energy for muscles and things like that. So I actually have a few friends too who work out as well. And one of the things they were not, they were eating a lower amount of fat, and they basically were, they were waking up multiple times throughout the night. We were all eating a high, very high carb, low fat, moderate protein diet. So the things that I found was adding in more fat is something that helped me sleep significantly better and helped me stay asleep. So having enough fat and having enough sugar, I think, are both important. And the last piece after that is just in general, making sure you're eating enough food overall, because and this goes in with having enough fat and having enough carbs, but not having enough food overall can also generally increase cortisol, and that will increase wakefulness and things like that, and can cause some issues with sleeping. So those are those, as far as diet goes, those those are really important. And then I guess I'll let you talk about, you want to talk about, like protein before bed, or the meal before bed, and then meals when waking up and stuff like that.

Jay Feldman 22:50
Yeah, yeah. So, so just to reiterate, having enough carbs, fats, and we didn't talk as much about protein yet, but and also eating enough are all vital to having this proper circadian rhythm, proper hormonal rhythm, and allowing us to sleep. And I've seen that with a lot of different clients in different contexts, where whether it's increasing carbs, if they're having too few carbs, increasing fat, if they're having too little fat, or both, or even increasing protein, can all help to improve sleep considerably. And this is people who have insomnia and have trouble falling asleep. Falling asleep. This is people who wake up too early and can't fall back asleep. This is people who wake up throughout the night and just will fall back asleep. But it's not as deep those are eating enough is is paramount to this, to having enough energy and keeping the stress hormones down when we want them down, which is basically every time, except for when we're supposed to wake up. That's basically the only time we really want high stress hormones, or just under, in a time, not even high, just under normal, physiologic conditions, you're going to have a rising cortisol in the morning. So it's not, it's not even that. It's high. It's just physiologic.

it's right, I just mean elevated compared to other points. Yeah.

Mike 23:59
So but, but before you continue, one of the things that I want to mention is that a lot of people are quick to jump the gun and label themselves as insomniacs or or they have a sleep disorder and things like that. And I see this a lot where I work, and so then they go get a prescription for there's different drugs, Trazodone, they take melatonin, they go take mirtazapine, and all these, a lot of them are have are psychiatric drugs, to some extent, and they induce sleep. But a lot of the issues I see with people in sleep and things like that are not because they have a need for a drug. A lot of it is actually a lifestyle issue. It whether it involving not eating enough many times, not eating enough carbs, not eating enough fat, and then also just general stress, not unwinding, being on their phone, looking at blue light all night long, people going to sleep with the TV in their face, and having the TV in your face. And then, especially in the hospital, you have the TV in your face. You have the remote for the TV, which has the speaker on it right here. And not seeing the sunlight in months, and then it's like, well, of course, you're going to develop a sleep disorder, and it's not because you have a deficiency of Trazodone. So a lot of times it really is lifestyle things that are affecting sleep, including food, including exercise, including lack of sun exposure and exposure all day long to fluorescent light, including a lack of social interaction and things like that. Those are paramount. It's not because you need a sleeping pill. I don't think in many cases, in many, many cases, I don't think it's because of a need for a sleeping pill. I'm sure there are some rare genetic disorders. In fact, I know there are some rare genetic disorders where people actually develop an inability to sleep, but that is a extremely small percent of the population. In most cases, I think it comes down to eating enough fat, carbs, protein, calories, in general, as a proxy for a food amount, and then getting adequate light exposure and having proper sleep patterns and not having a TV in your face while you're trying to sleep and maintaining your stress levels and things like that. And I think those are it's so often overlooked. It's just like, Oh, you have a sleep problem. Here's here's a pill. And I don't think that that is really in most cases, ever. The answer, I think, is, well, what's going on? What's going on with your life? What do you what are you doing with your life? And then even beyond that, there's other things, and we'll get into it with supplements that people can do to help them fall asleep without causing a lot of other physiologic damage or side effects and things like that from taking a strong pharmaceutical drug. Yeah, yeah.

Jay Feldman 26:35
There are definitely a lot of drawbacks there, for sure. So you had mentioned falling asleep with the TV on, which a lot of people do, and I think that that that is definitely a habit that's worth breaking, that's worth working way out of I know it's something that takes time for people like that. If you feel like you need to have some sound in the background, I know that there are different apps on your phone, or I'm sure you can get the radio on.

Mike 26:54
Because a lot of as a lot of the older people that I see, a lot of older people like to have they feel comfortable hearing people's voices around them. It's like a comforting thing to know other people are around and then it helps and falls even I didn't even know when I was a kid, I like to know that my parents were awake when I was sleeping and things like that, because you feel it's like a safety thing. So you may not need the TV. You can put on a podcast, you can put on a radio and not don't blast it, obviously, but you know, enough so that it's like a comforting of backboard. A lot of people have their nature sounds and things like that, which is a running joke.

Jay Feldman 27:28
Yeah or like, white noise machines. And yeah, like, as you said, there are different you can get, like, actual machine things that create those noises you can do. There are sleep stories that some people like you can do. And again, whether it's podcast or music or TV, there's typically features that will turn it off after a period of time. So that would at least be helpful to so that you don't have the blue light the whole time from something like the TV. But yeah, I think that there are a lot of alternatives that would be better, yeah, and ideally, that you can do with your phone still on airplane mode, things that are downloadable or using something that's not your phone at all. Yeah. So yeah, just as a little side note. But circling back to eating enough, the reasons why it's so why these are so important, is because it keeps our stress hormones down. It allows us to make sure that we have enough glycogen to get us through the day, and it also improves the efficiency of of the conversion of that food, that fuel to energy, all of which are important for making sure that we sleep through the night and that we're able to fall asleep. If our stress hormones are high when we're trying to fall asleep, it's going to be it's going to be really difficult to fall asleep. And if we don't have enough glycogen stored to get us through the night, that's also going to be making it really difficult. That's part of the reason why protein can be helpful as well, is because of its ability to improve liver function, among other things, getting enough protein. But again, same thing with fat and carbs, same thing with getting enough of the various nutrients, vitamins and minerals. When we talk about fat, carbs and protein, we are not saying that all fats or carbs or proteins are equal. It definitely matters which ones you are eating. And so we've done many episodes talking about those things. So I'll refer back to those in the show notes, so you can take a look at those, because we don't have time to go through all of that right now. Yeah, but a couple other important points that you mentioned, as far as what we eat when we wake up and what we eat when we when we're winding down in the evening. They tend to be kind of parallel, where our protein digestion particularly seems to be the most reduced when we're asleep, so throughout the night, I would I should say, so as we get closer and closer to sleep time in the evening and right when we wake up, we typically don't have as as solid of protein digestion. And for that reason, it's, I would say it's better to stick to mostly carbs and fats in the evening if you're going to eat something basically between dinner and sleep, which is often very helpful for restoring liver glycogen that's not there and providing some fuel, whether, potentially as fats to also support your muscles, for example, while you're sleeping, so that the carbohydrate. It can be used for your brain. So having a snack before you go to sleep that includes carbs and fats is typically ideal. Having one that includes protein, for the most part, is to like we just aren't as able to digest it, and that can be make things worse. It can also drop our blood sugar if we have too much protein closer to bedtime, which will increase stress hormones and make it harder to sleep. So for the most part, I would say less protein in that evening time, like right before bed, not not with dinner. Dinner, it's fine to have a normal amount of protein, that being said, having a small amount of dairy protein, for example, if you're having some some warm milk or or chocolate milk or ice cream before bed, I would say those are all fine options, even though you're getting some protein from the milk, and then also collagen and gelatin are really powerfully anti inflammatory amino acids and proteins. And so those can also be helpful to have before going to sleep, and can actually help to stimulate the relaxing side of our of our nervous system. So outside of those proteins, the dairy proteins, and then collagen and gelatin, I would say, typically, we don't want to have much protein in that evening meal or snack before bed, but having an evening meal or snack is really helpful. And another thing I would say, outside of just carbs and protein there, or, sorry, just carbs and fat, is having some salt. Salt is really good at bringing our aldosterone down, which is one of the main stress hormones and can keep us up, and it also is one of the main reasons why we would get up throughout the night to go to the bathroom, to pee, is when we're either over hydrated, essentially, which is never actually over hydration, it's still dehydration just involves a lot of water, as opposed to dehydration that involves not a lot of water. The point being that hydration actually has to do with the water that's in our cells. And when we're over hydrated, there's still a lack of water in the cellular structure. So if we're drinking too much water, especially in the evening, and not getting enough salt, either throughout the day or again, especially in the evening, that can also be worse for sleep. So having some extra salt in that bedtime snack or small meal can be helpful. And so I'll just mention a few suggestions. As far as that, that bedtime snack or meal goes, I mentioned ice cream and warm milk, maybe with some sugar and a little bit of salt, is really good. You could do some chocolate milk as well, or hot chocolate. Yeah, you can do any combination of like fruit or tea with some honey, with maybe some chocolate. For some people, chocolate can be stimulating, but for the most part, I think it's okay. You could do potato chips. Or sometimes potatoes can be a little bit much to digest because of the starch in that evening meal. But for people who digest it well, it can be a good option for helping to improve sleep. Having some potatoes that's fried in butter or beef tallow or something like that, yeah, would be a good idea.

Mike 32:47
I like white rice and fruit. Yeah, white rice and fruit, a little bit of either butter or tallow, fried rice with some salt, and then having a little bit of fruit.

Jay Feldman 32:57
Another thing that we used to make that I haven't had in a long time is we used to do a cinnamon sugar rice, or like a cinnamon and honey rice, which is really good to taste, almost like an oatmeal. But just make rice, add some cinnamon and something to sweeten it, whether it's honey or maple syrup or sugar, that's like a good one for people who do well with white rice. And as you said, juice is a good one as well. You can add some salt to that juice, maybe some extra honey or sugar, if, if you need some more concentration, as far as the carbs go, and I would say, typically, it would be a good idea to at least make sure you're getting some fat close to that. If you're not going to have any fat in that bedtime snack and all get lost, what's that?

Mike 33:35
To make it last.

Jay Feldman 33:36
Right, right. If you're just having those carbs sometimes, especially if you have a decent amount of muscle, or you just have a relatively high metabolism, the carbs alone will get used up by your entire body, and you don't have enough for your brain. So that's why it's helpful to have some fat in that evening meal. And any of those evening snacks or meals are also good throughout the night as as potential snacks. If you wake up and are having trouble falling asleep, or even if you're not, a lot of times we're waking up because we have some high stress hormones, whether it's aldosterone, which could be because we haven't had enough salts, or we had too much liquid, or adrenaline and cortisol, meaning that we're running out of fuel. And so in both of those cases, it can be helpful again, to have something small and easy to digest that has some amount of carbs and fats. In that case, sometimes just some carbs is enough.

Mike 34:19
And a glass of juice in the middle of the night is helpful, right? Everybody knows the midnight snack.

Jay Feldman 34:25
Yeah, there's a reason why, why we have that. And there's a reason why oftentimes, when we wake up in the middle of the night, or when we wake up in the morning, we're really hungry, that's because we're low on fuel. It's entirely normal. It's supposed to be like that, and that's why we break the fast of not eating throughout the night with breakfast.

Mike 34:42
Yeah, the other thing I want to add to the food stuff is, so when you say dinner, I think the timing of dinner is important, not making sure you're having it like, probably, like at least two hours before you go to bed. Because, especially if you're going to include protein and meal, if you're. So depending on how you situate your meals. I mean, if you do your three main meals in the day, depending whatever it is, you know, say eight o'clock in the morning, then a meal at noon, and then a meal at four or something like that, and then you have, you have another meal. Well, that's, that's probably what I would do.

Jay Feldman 35:16
Nobody has three meals like that.

Mike 35:19
I do

Jay Feldman 35:20
Okay, well, for a normal person, let's say seven or eight for breakfast, 12 ish for lunch, and then, like, five or six for dinner.

Mike 35:27
Okay, well, I eat more than that, so my last meal can be, depending on what it is. Can be mainly carbs, and then that meal is okay to have closer before bed. I find that, like, what you're saying is very helpful, um, but that last meal, the actual dinner meal that contains protein. And for me, that would be like lamb or shrimp or fish or something like that, that would be, I would say, it's helpful to have that, like two to three hours before you go to sleep, because on times that I've eaten it later, then I have to wait two hours because I won't fall asleep if the protein makes me hot. That's another thing that I want to mention, is getting body temperature down or having a cool room is also important for sleep. If you're too hot, you're not going to sleep, and I know that personally very well. And something that protein does, besides having an awakening effect and alerting increasing alertness, to some extent, it also has a thermic effect, so it'll increase temperature, it'll make you feel hot, and that can also impair sleep. And then, obviously, your digestive process is working to process the protein. That's also an energy dream as well. So not having protein directly before bed is very important, as the exceptions you said, are okay. A lot of people like to have a little bit of yogurt for the Casey, or they have milk, or they have the collagen peptides, which don't require quite as the collagen peptides specifically don't require quite as much digestion before they but when you're going to sleep there, the protein is already broken down, and the peptides and it's basically absorbed and it's glycine content is helpful for relaxing. So I think that those are really important. That's really important. Point is to avoid protein too close to bed. And then the other thing that I think is really important is avoiding foods that irritate your intestines, because irritation of the intestines specifically. And this is something that for me was, uh, one of the biggest thing is eating some foods that irritate my intestines or that my body doesn't agree with, those directly impaired my sleep, and it caused blood sugar drops. It caused things like bruxism while I was sleeping, which is grinding of the teeth. And it's basically, it's like you have something bothering you. It's like somebody's pinching you, but it's your intestines. And those types of things are, I think, are huge for people, like, I'm eating enough. I'm eating enough bad. I'm eating enough protein. I'm not eating it too close to bed. I'm maintaining my schedule, but I still keep waking up in the night. So I think the next thing to consider is, well, maybe you're eating something that doesn't agree with your body, or you have some type of intestinal dysbiosis, or something going on in the colon, and then you're eating a lot of fibrous foods, and it's feeding that, and when it hits that part of the colon that's housing that this biotic population, then they produce a whole bunch of metabolites, and those interrupt your sleep. So, and I give an example. Something for me is some fruits, some specific fruits, like, for me, Mango gum can when it hits my colon, it can cause some irritation because of the FODMAP, specifically in mango. And if I eat it before I go to sleep, and it can tend to cause some bloating and gas and stuff. And that will wait, actually wake me up in the night, and I'll be uncomfortable from that. So I think it's really important to avoid foods that, you know, bother you. And everybody has their their specific foods, you know, I can't there's pro there's a list of possible foods you really have to figure out works for you, because some things that that that don't bother me at all bother other people, and some things that bother other people, that don't bother other people, wreck me. So really, there's a lot of individual tolerance to those things. So I think that that's really important to determine and figure out for yourself, is what foods bother you specifically, because those can be things that can hamper sleep, directly. For a lot of people, definitely,

Jay Feldman 39:07
yeah, the production of toxins from our gut is one of the most damaging things for us, metabolically. And considering that, it definitely can take a toll on us, on our sleep, for sure, and we did. We have a few episodes talking about gut and digestion? So I'll link to those in the show notes. Definitely check those out where we did talk about foods that are ideal, not ideal, what to do to improve our digestion, things like that. So yeah, eating foods that you know you don't digest well, or that are leading to any sort of gut toxin production throughout the day or in the evening can definitely disrupt sleep, for sure.

Mike 39:43
And do you want to go ahead? Go ahead.

Jay Feldman 39:45
I was just going to say in the evening meal, especially, we want to eat something that's easy to digest, which a lot of the things that we mentioned were especially because they're Yeah, yeah. We aren't talking about eating a lot of raw vegetables or something like that, or even cooked vegetables before going to sleep. We're talking.

Mike 40:00
Well, if you do and say, say you don't tolerate milk, well, that's not going to be a good food to eat, right? Yeah, wrecks your stomach. Don't drink that because we said it was good that in your individual circumstance, and it may not work for you, and in that case, something like a glass of juice or some fruit or something like that, or even if you had some some cooked potatoes or potato chips, or you had the rice or or whatever it is, some honey and tea and a little bit of chocolate, whatever works for you, then that may, that may actually be better, or for some people, even maybe chocolate chip cookies that are cooked with rice flour or something like that. So sounds good to me, yeah, there's everybody's gonna have over. The goal here is to lay out some principles and some ideas, and for people to experiment with them themselves and figure out what works for them and and nothing here is necessarily set in stone. There's different iterations of what you can do from here, and some things may work and some things may not, but these are general ideas to say, well, if not, but what are all the boxes that I can check to try to get my sleep on track? And a lot of these are my are little ones. Some of them are huge ones for some people. So it really is comes down to that experimentation. And they're supposed to be real. They're supposed to be general, because we don't know anyone's specific context to then say, well, you need to be doing this. This is the if I was going to work with somebody and they were having sleep issues, these would be the things that I would go through with them to determine what's going on, eating enough or eating enough fat or enough protein. What's your sleep habits look like? What time you're waking up, what time you're going to sleep? What's your daily schedule? Are you working out all those types of things? Those are what I would go I would go to to look at, to see, to see what's going on. And I guess the next thing we can go into is specific supplements. If all this doesn't, doesn't work, and you're still having a hard time sleeping, or even if you're trying, you're in the process of figuring it out, and you want some things that'll just help you get to sleep at night. There are certain supplements that you can use that aren't going to have some dependency effect or some ridiculous side effects, like things like Ambien, or some psych drugs like mirtazapine that are prescribed off label for sleep and things like that. So do you want to start with some things?

Jay Feldman 42:14
Sure, one thing that we just real quick as far as diet goes is alcohol. A lot of people who don't sleep well will use alcohol, basically as as a drug, to help them sleep. And when you are drinking, your sleep, quality is not the same. So even if you're getting to sleep and you're sleeping through the night, it doesn't mean that the quality is the same. And as we talked about, that quality is so important in addition to just quantity. And so definitely, alcohol is not ideal as far as liver health goes, which is such an important component of sleep. And then it's also not ideal as a sleep supplement, because of that too it drains it drains us of glycogen, essentially, because that's required to detoxify the alcohol. And then in the long term, it's going to drastically impair our liver health, which is going to impair our ability to store glycogen, to use it properly, to properly oxidize glucose, it depletes vitamins and minerals. There are several factors here going on, but yeah.

Mike 43:08
So the on, on that, on that tangent with alcohol. So a lot of people like alcohol, um, it is a barbiturate. So it does have some, some GABA properties. GABA is a relaxing, uh, neurotransmitter in the brain. So there are other things that you can use that raise or and agonize or or affect modulate GABA in a certain way to help you sleep. Um, some of the easiest ones to talk about are things. There's amino acids. Specifically, there's taurine, um, which has some GABAergic properties. Then there's glycine, which we talked about in that's in collagen that doesn't necessarily affect the GABA system directly, but it glycine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter itself, so the combination of taurine and glycine together can be helpful. Vitamin b3 in the form of niacinamide has some GABAergic effects. Vitamin C has some modulating effects on GABA. Things like magnesium have set it to sedative effects. So you can have a combination of something like a taurine, maybe some collagen protein. Or if you if collagen protein doesn't agree with you, then glycine directly as a supplement. And then you can have a little bit of niacinamide. And then you can have it with something like all these you can put in a chamomile tea. Chamomile Tea has some GABA properties as well. It's been known to help us sleep. And then you can have a little sugar in there, which is helpful for liver glycogen, whether it's honey or sugar, or you make the tea and fruit juice, or something like that. And then you can add different types, and the fruit juice will have some vitamin C, but you can add something like Camu, camu or acerola cherry for your for your vitamin C directly. Both of them are very high in. Vitamin C, and now you have something that can help you sleep directly. And they all have some some inhibitory effects in the nervous system. A lot of them are actually health supplements. A lot of them have a lot of health benefits, and they don't have side effect proto profiles that are damaging to your body, like a lot of drugs. So you can take a combination of different things like that. Another thing you can add in there is theanine, which is also an amino acid that that's actually they track, or was initially found in green tea, and that has inhibitory properties within the nervous system as well, and has shown to be helpful for sleep and things like that. And then there are, there's something that something that I've personally used, and I'm not necessarily telling other people to try this or not, but when I wasn't able to sleep on night shifts, one of the things that helped me a lot was antihistamine drugs like Benadryl or cyberphene. I'm not in high doses. The problem with those is they do have side effects, and they're not good for using long term and but if you're really having trouble sleeping, those can help. And the problem, though, is they can make you feel like a zombie the next day, particularly cyber heptadine. And then another drug that I've used that's been really helpful for sleep is something called benabut. And benabut is basically, it is literally GABA with a change to its structure to allow it to cross the blood brain barrier. And I found that that has actually helped me sleep really well. And I'm not, I don't I actually wake up feeling refreshed, and I don't feel like a zombie the next day. The problem with that is there is some there's reported dependency with it. I've never found it to cause dependency for me. But any of this, a lot of the sleeping stuff, or the drugs and stuff like that, I don't think they're good to use on a regular basis. The other the other supplements, are a different story. They don't work the same way that a drug like Benadryl or cyber heptadine or phenibut do, um, but so those are okay, but they tend the these other drugs tend to have side effects, and specifically FeNi, but has some dependency properties. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't rely on that long term. There is some, there is some risk associated with those, and then specifically within a but if you do develop a dependency coming off of it, you can get rebound anxiety and things like that. So I don't think that that's good long term, but I will say that if I was having a really hard time, it was like I had to wake up at five o'clock in the morning and it was 1am and I needed to sleep for my job, I would take a little thin about and that would definitely help. One thing I would recommend, though, to stay away from as a supplement, is melatonin. And there's so melatonin will is exogenous. Melatonin can and do it can indeed help you fall asleep, but it has some negative effects associated with it. Some of them is like inhibiting star Pro, the star enzyme, which is a enzyme in the production and steroidogenesis and things like that. And I don't think that that's I don't think that that's good long term. I think if you want to have melatonin, then I would turn off your blue light and start to maybe use red light at night and things like that. I think that's a much better strategy. So those are some of the supplements that I would recommend directly at night to help you sleep. And Jay can talk about some of the other ones that you can use during the day, or some therapeutic approaches that you can use consistently that may also help with sleep. Yeah, definitely.

Jay Feldman 48:27
And you had mentioned magnesium, you glossed over it, but I just wanted to reiterate that that's one that people find is definitely pretty helpful. Yeah.

Mike 48:35
Specific forms, magnesium glyconate and magnesium gluconate, I think are the ones that work the best and that I've had the best experience with. And then there's magnesium tourate People talk about as well magnesium and taurine, yeah, specifically for sleep, or magnesium three and eight, right? But those, they do help with sleep, but those tend to have a lot less magnesium as as an amount just just if you're going to use those take I would know that they aren't really great in terms of supplementing the large amounts of magnesium, as much as they have their own direct different effects.

Jay Feldman 49:07
Yeah. And so as far as glycinate goes, that one has glycine in it, so that's why it's also helpful.

Mike 49:12
And gluconate is just bonded to Gluconic acid, so right? The citrate, I've tried magnesium malate and magnesium citrate, and both of them had an irritating effect of my intestines, so I tended to stay away from them. And then magnesium oxide is more of a laxative, so it's not like, well, absorb your pants, then take a lot of magnesium oxide.

Jay Feldman 49:35
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those are definitely a few good options, any of the having enough of all vitamins and minerals can be important as far as sleep goes. So we could literally go down the list of everyone from A to zinc, and they can all be beneficial as far as sleep goes. They can also all potentially be harmful, if you have too much or too little and you're creating imbalances. So improving. Diet is always the first thing that should be done as far as nutrients go, and then other aspects of lifestyle as well. But yeah, so magnesium can be helpful in general, doing things that improve liver health, which, as we said, fixing your gut and improving your diet are really the main things, but there are definitely some supplements that can be helpful, specifically for improving liver health, which then can lead to improvements in sleep. So you mentioned taurine, niacinamide, you had also mentioned DNA, and those are all pretty helpful as far as sleep goes. Some other ones would include vitamin b1, which is thiamine, Vitamin k2, caffeine and aspirin, methylene blue. Those are all good options that are really helpful for sleep or sorry for improving liver health. I wouldn't necessarily take them all before trying to fall asleep, because some of them can be pretty stimulating, but although not necessarily, ideally, something like caffeine shouldn't be stimulating, and for people who can't tolerate it before going to sleep can actually really improve sleep. So it depends on your tolerance to these things and and ideally, we shouldn't be getting stress responses to anything that's metabolically stimulating that we're taking, whether it is caffeine or methylene blue or vitamin k2 or thyroid or progesterone or pregnant alone, or any of any of anything that is generally stimulating to our metabolism, we should be noticing a relaxing effect from it, maybe more energy, but not adrenaline and not stress. And that's another thing I wanted to mention, is that within this bioenergetic space, there are so many people who jump on these metabolic, pro metabolic supplements. Aspirin is another one, where you end up with so many of them and not being able to fuel yourself enough, nutrient wise, and having too much energy being used on other things that you end up in a stress state, basically, and that can directly impede sleep and cause insomnia. So the things that could potentially help with sleep can also potentially cause issues with sleep, not necessarily the ones that you were talking about as much those are, for the most part, less metabolically stimulating, but some of these other ones.

Mike 52:09
The reason I use those specifically is because those are all generally sedative. There's not really going to be I mean, especially my experience and experience with other people, they tend not to irritate the intestines. They tend to be pretty much sedative compounds. Um, they don't really have a lot of negative side effects associated with any of them. And they're like, they're more food than they are drug. A lot of them are mostly feed compounds. They're they're not dependency forming or anything like that, right? Yeah, very little risk for most of them very little risk.

Jay Feldman 52:42
Yeah and yeah and so all of these other pro metabolic things, B, vitamins, k2, caffeine, methylene blue, thyroid, progesterone, pregnant alone, they can all be helpful in certain contexts for sleep, but they can also make sleep worse. So it's really important to be paying attention to how you're experimenting with these things, making sure you're eating enough, definitely not going overboard being being very careful with what you're using and very dose is important, yeah, and not just throwing everything at it at once. Approach exactly which is which is common, because we want to have a solution to our problems. But it's really important to try those things one at a time, because I definitely know people where having an having aspirin too late in the day can cause insomnia, and that's actually been that comes to me. Yeah, me too with aspirin. Of course, people know that with caffeine, same thing can be true for thyroid. That being said, the opposite can be true for thyroid, where some people, when they have thyroid and evening, it helps them relax and helps them fall asleep. Same with progesterone, where I again, I know people where having progesterone or pregnant alone or DHEA earlier in the day even can impede sleep. But for others, having it even right before bed or earlier in the day can really help sleep. So it's so so much dependent on on the context. But I just felt like it was worth kind of mentioning those.

Mike 53:57
So I think that that's really important, that most people, you have. People have to experiment for themselves with these things, because for me, I can, if I take them, and if I take pregnancy, DHEA earlier in the day, I feel great, but if I take it later at night, it definitely impairs my sleep, and progesterone as well. Progesterone earlier in the day, it actually makes me sleepy, and then at night, it actually impairs my sleep. It makes it harder for me to fall asleep, so and aspirin as well, that's something. And then thyroid does for me. I know some people makes it keeps them awake, but thyroid, when I've used thyroid, I don't have any issue with it, taking it at night, taking it don't really it doesn't really inhibit my sleep or anything like that. So it really comes down to people, overall this, this is again, with general and then you got to try and see what works for you. But I think being careful in what you're using is important, especially when you start using stronger things like, like hormones, um, and drugs, as far as like vitamins and things like that. Have a much larger therapeutic range, but it's still important to make sure that you're that you test them and see that they're not causing your issues. I mean, I've had people, oh, it's B vitamins, I'll be fine. And they start taking them, you start getting headaches. And it's like, you need to make sure that you're that if you got to spend, like, at least a week tracking how you feel when you take that those compounds, and making sure that you're not having an issue using it, because a lot of times they can, they can really cause issues. And then the other thing is dosage I could take. If I take three milligrams of progesterone, I'm okay. If I start taking six or nine, then I start getting symptoms. And so it really, really depends on what dosage. The same thing with aspirin. You could take a 325, aspirin, you're okay. You start taking grams in a day, and you start getting stomach problems and dry joints and things like that. It's like, okay, well, maybe I shouldn't be taking a gram, which some people do fine with again, which, yeah, some people do fine. But it really depends. It's you got to play around with the compound yourself. There's a lot of trial and error involved. It's as much of an art as it is, is a direct science that you gotta you have to play around with it. You have to see how it goes. And sometimes, in one period of time, you'll be taking something and it'll make you feel like crap. And then you change something. Later on, you change your diet, you use some sort of some herbal antimicrobial, and you fix something in your gut, whatever it is, and then later on, you come back to that compound, and now you feel amazing. So really, like a lot of your individual context and a lot of your own individual experimentation comes into play, these are just general, general ideas or general things that are on the safer side to try, especially before you go and use some of these pharmaceutical drugs, because some of them are just really out of control, especially then some of the ones to mention that can are that have problems. Are the hypnotics and things like Ambien. And then some of the benzos are, are can cause huge problems down the line, especially with dependency and getting off them. Those include Ativan, San ax. There's things like, what is it? Some of the antipsychotic drugs like Seroquel, some of the other psych drugs like Trazodone or mirtazapine, they have a whole list of other effects and side effects that can be potentially problematic, things like melatonin as well, too. And then they have a new they have new analogs of melatonin, I think is ramelteon is one of them. So a lot of these can be problematic. A lot of them are potent, and a lot of them come with side effect profiles, more so than some of the your basic vitamins and amino acids and things like that that you can play with. And then even some of the more natural compounds, like herbs or herbs, or some of the hormones and things like that, and then even some of the older drugs. So it's really there's like a spectrum of possible damaging and dangerous side effects, and it's best to, number one, fix your lifestyle and your diet and things like that first, and then you can find sleep aids on the safer end of the spectrum in times that you're having a hard time, right? And use them in a in a graduated way, so that it's like, okay, I tried vitamin C and and taurine and glycine and Gat and, um, and chamomile and and I'm still having a little bit of trouble sleeping, so I did a little niacinamide. And then after that, you still having an issue. Then it's like, Okay, I'm gonna try a little bit of fenabut, or I'm gonna try a drop of sipro, or I'm gonna try something like that, and not just slam everything all at once, and then, oh, the doctor gave me a Ambien. So I'm just going to use ambient. It's like, that is, that is not the answer. I mean, at best, a lot of these things are band aids for a problem that is systemic, right? If you're not sleeping on a consistent basis, there's something else going on. It's not just that you're not sleeping. Whether it's psychological or there's an actual physiologic issue going on, or some side of hormone imbalance, or whatever it is. It is a physiologic problem. It is a it's not sleeping as a symptom, or something other going on and blocking it or covering it up with some random drug. Is not the solution ever it is only is. It is only a band aid for the symptom.

Jay Feldman 59:18
Yeah, and it's a band aid with harms and..

Mike 59:21
Exactly, and so it's do no harm should always be the first way of going about things.

Jay Feldman 59:27
Yeah, and even relying on these more natural, more safe supplements as sleep aids, again, is a band aid. It's a much healthier band aid that's not going to come at the same cost, but it's still not the solution. So as you said, it can be really helpful for acute instances when you're having trouble sleeping. It can be helpful for working to improve your sleep as a whole during that transitionary period. But it's not the solution.

Mike 59:49
Yeah, and it should never be. I need I can't sleep, so I need to take X, Y and Z every day. It should be like, I have a big exam coming up tomorrow, and I'm having a hard time sleeping, so because I'm having some anxiety. Variety. So I'm going to take some candle meal with XYZ substance, and I'm going to then I'll go to sleep and I'll wake up refreshed. It should be more for those issues, or I ate something that irritated my stomach, and I kind of have to wait till it works this way out. So I'm going to use X, Y and Z to help with that issue. I'm going to sleep. It should be for acute situations, right? And as you fix you figure out what the underlying problem is, and solve that problem, and not just the sim. I can't sleep, okay, I have acne, okay, I have I have Ed. It's like it there's always, there's always a underlying, systemic problem that needs to be fixed. And in the meantime, you can use things to solve the symptom while it's there. But solving the symptom is never that is never the solution, ever.

Jay Feldman 1:00:43
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So I don't know if I have too much to add. As far as the supplement side of things goes, I would say also that it's entirely understandable to want to go to any of those things, to want to use the sleep aid, whether it's pharmaceutical or not. Not sleeping is really uncomfortable while you're in it. And of course, it's uncomfortable the days following or day following to be tired all day. So yeah, I mean, it's totally understandable, and that's why we want to be doing the things that will help to improve sleep in the long term. And just to recap, some of those, eating enough carbs, fats and proteins, eating enough throughout the day, working on our gut health, making sure we're getting of salt and minerals like potassium, magnesium and calcium throughout the day, and that that's balanced with our water intake, not having too much liquids. And yeah. And then we had mentioned some of these supplements that can be helpful. Do you want to recap some of those really quickly?

Mike 1:01:39
The taurine, glycine, vitamin C from foods, orange juice, camo, Kim, acetyl a magnesium, chamomile tea. What was the niacinamide? Then we had theanine. And then some of the stronger compounds we talked about was, I'd say I would put phenibut first, and then after phenibut, we can talk about cyber heptadine and Benadryl, just because Benadryl and cyberphene will make, at least, in my experience, will make you feel like a zombie when you wake up, at least for the for a little while. And they do have a long half life. So if you take them and you're only going to get four hours of sleep, and then you're going to go to work. To work. I mean, this has definitely happened to me. I took psycho heptadine Because I couldn't sleep, and I woke up, and the drug was still in effect when I woke up, and so when I was at work, I was, like, my mind was not 100% with me.

Jay Feldman 1:02:36
Yeah, yeah, that's not good. Yeah, definitely. And they're, they're known to cause drowsiness like that. So yeah, yeah. Also collagen, gelatin and glycan are ones that are helpful, both before bed, if needed, but also throughout the day. We should be getting a good balance there of amino acids from those protective ones in the collagen and gelatin, hopefully in the foods that we're eating and if not supplementing some of them.

Mike 1:02:59
So yeah, and obviously, with all this, one most important things that helps the sleep, and this is documented pretty consistently, is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are known to help people sleep. Number one, they have a stress lowering effect. Then there's talk about it, pushing tryptophan into the to the brain to produce melatonin from serotonin and things like that. But in general, carbs, across the board, seem to be very helpful for sleep. So those are and things like a lot of people do tea with honey, things like that, or even if it's a little bit of rice that's known to help people, or some fruit or juice or something like that. I think that that should form the backbone of any type of sleep thing, and then you add the other things into that.

Jay Feldman 1:03:46
Yeah, definitely. I mean, and that's just normal, like maintenance, like normal feeling yourself, just like at any other point throughout the day. And we've talked about how important carbs are. So definitely check out those up. Or I'll link to those episodes so you can take a look. And, yeah, there has been some some research showing, for example, that high glycemic carbohydrate snacks or meals before bed reduce the amount of time it takes to go to sleep. And I know there's others as well, showing that that carbs are helpful for sleep in various capacities. So, yeah, yeah. All right, we'll leave it there. All right. I hope you enjoyed that episode that's going to wrap up this series, talking about how we can fix and optimize our sleep. If you did enjoy this episode, please leave a review or a like or a comment wherever you're listening. It really does a lot to help support the podcast. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at any of the references from today's episode, whether that is articles or studies or anything else that we mentioned. And of course, we did talk through a lot of different factors regarding how we can optimize and fix our sleep, and I know this included everything from nutrition to exercise to in the previous episodes, when we talked. Optimizing our circadian rhythm and how light affects our sleep. And of course, sleep is one of the most important factors of our health, and issues around sleep are extremely common, whether it's insomnia, where you can't fall asleep, or you can't stay asleep, you're waking up throughout the night, or you're just not feeling well rested in the morning, those are all things that can definitely be fixed if we implement the right strategies. So if you are having trouble implementing those strategies, or you just like a little bit of extra guidance, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/call, and sign up for a free call, and I'd be happy to offer you that extra guidance help guide you through this journey of improving your sleep and getting your energy back. So to sign up for that free call, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/call and I'll see you in the next episode.