Manage your sleep to live longer

I cannot overestimate the importance of poor sleeping habits and Chronic Fatigue in accelerating your aging. Your brain washes itself every night when you sleep and it is critical to get 7 to 8 hours of restful sleep each night for this cleansing of your brain to occur. Chronic fatigue from lack of sleep, and stress, elevate the level of steroid hormones in your blood. Excessive blood steroids wreak havoc on your gut and changes the bacterial flora in the gut from a predominance of good bacteria that protect the gut lining to a predominance of bad bacteria that allows leakage of unwanted substances (toxins) through the gut wall (leaky gut).

These toxins invade your nerves and your brain to cause chronic inflammation, brain fog and memory loss. The chronic inflammation makes it even harder for you to sleep and sets up a vicious cycle: Your leaky gut become worse with increasing chronic fatigue, and you must repair your leaky gut to restore your normal sleep pattern. What can you do?

1. You can start to repair the gut by eating the right foods to replenish your friendly gut bacteria. This will immediately begin to repair your leaky gut
2. It is ok to use a high quality, organic Probiotic to help you replenish your normal gut bacteria
3. Yoga and Meditation are great for relaxation prior to sleep.
4. It is perfectly fine to use a mild sedative on a short-term basis to attempt to restore a normal sleep pattern, and allow your brain to wash itself at night.
5. It is also okay to use supplemental tablets of melatonin, the natural sleep hormone, to attempt to normalize your sleep pattern. You should be aware that it can take you weeks to months to restore your normal melatonin rhythm with oral melatonin supplements.
6. Gentle reminder to turn your computer and your TV off a couple hours before bedtime. Gentle reminder that when you hit the TV remote control from your bed, you have turned off the television light, but the TV is still running in the background. You must turn off the electrical current to the television set.

Please let your doctor know if you need a mild sedative to normalize your sleeping pattern. You can purchase Melatonin from any reputable health food store.

More information on antiaging news is available in our HealthChek™ PPP (Personalized Preventive-health Programs), in our virtual Individual Wellness teaching sessions and in our Group Wellness teaching sessions: