In this episode we feature:
An interview with Neurologist and sleep specialist, Dr. Christopher Winter
The dangers of dog walking.
Lying kids may be SMART kids.
Red meat makes you hungry!
And more ways you can improve your health today!
For more information, and to sign up for our private coaching, visit tesh.com
Our Hosts:
John Tesh: Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTesh
Gib Gerard: Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard X: @GibGerard
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:08):
Gib, hello and welcome to another episode of the
podcast. I'm Gib Gerard herewith you today with another
special intelligence for yourhealth with Connie Celica.
Edition of the podcast. Ourguest today is none other than
neurologist and sleepspecialist, Dr Christopher
winter, all kinds of great infoabout your sleep coming right at
you. So here, without furtherado, is intelligence for your
(00:28):
health. With Connie Celica,do you have trouble following
the conversation in a noisy,crowded room, leaning in with
your right ear could make asignificant difference. The
Association of Britishneurologist says that's because
the words picked up by the rightear are mostly processed in the
left hemisphere of the brain,the side linked to deciphering
language, and overall, thatmakes our right ear 18% better
(00:51):
at keeping up with rapid fireconversations and picking out
the one voice in the crowd wewant to Listen to compared to
the left ear. When it comes toperfumes, Cologne and home
fragrances, the hottest trend isnature. People want themselves
and their homes to smell woodsyor like the ocean or green
meadow. It's part of the overallback to nature trend that's
(01:15):
taken off over the last fewyears. They're being called
functional fragrances becausethey have therapeutic benefits.
They enhance our mood andrelieve stress, the same
benefits you can get from beingoutside. And this is nothing
new. The idea of usingfunctional fragrances goes back
to 3500 BC, when plant extractswere used in ancient Indian,
(01:35):
Chinese and Egyptian healingceremonies, and today, essential
oils from plants are being usedagain. For example, lavender
promotes relaxation. The scentof cedar can produce the feeling
of being grounded. Citrus andlemon are energizing and wake up
the brain. There's even afragrance called forest lungs,
which is an anti stress perfumecoming up. We'll talk to sleep
(01:58):
specialist, Dr Christopherwinter, host of the sleep
unplugged podcast, he'll help usunderstand the difference
between feeling tired or sleepyand feeling seriously fatigued,
and why knowing the differencematters. But first, if you have
a tough day ahead, you canconquer it better with
blueberries. Eat a cup ofblueberries or drink a glass of
(02:19):
blueberry juice. According tothe National Institute of Mental
Health, the plant pigments thatGib blueberries, their color,
also stimulate the growth of newneurons in the section of the
brain that regulates your stressresponse. In plain English,
you'll be better able to handlehigh pressure situations without
losing your cool when you use astationary bike, are you only
(02:41):
pushing the pedals down as yougo? If so, you're making one of
the most common cardio mistakes.
That's according to Shapemagazine. They say pedaling
exercises offer a powerful wayto strengthen the hamstrings in
your legs and the glutealmuscles in your rear end, but
only pushing down gives themhalf a workout, and you'll give
(03:02):
your lower body muscles a biggerworkout if you also use them to
pull up. In fact, that's whatthe straps on a stationary bikes
pedals are for. Ideally, youshould secure them around your
shoes and then alternate usingone leg to push down while the
other leg pulls up. You'llprobably feel a lot more burn in
your muscles, but that's thepoint. It means you're getting
(03:23):
twice as much exercise as yournormal workout. Okay, listen to
this. Constipation is one of themost common digestive problems,
so what can you do about it? Oneof the most effective cures,
according to the DigestiveHealth Center at Augusta
University, is to drinksomething hot a hot beverage
stimulates your digestivesystem, making intestinal
(03:45):
muscles contract. Any hotbeverage will do even plain hot
water, but Augusta Universitydiscovered that caffeinated
coffee sparked contractions inthe gut that were 60% stronger
than hot water and 23% moreintense than decaffeinated
coffee, so try drinking hotcoffee for constipation. Today,
(04:07):
our guest is neurologist andsleep specialist. Dr Christopher
winter and when it comes tosleep, we often talk about the
importance of sticking to aschedule where you aim to go to
bed and wake up around the sametime every day. But Dr winter
says some people get concernedwhen they try to go to bed and
just can't fall asleep. Here'swhy. He says that's okay.
(04:27):
When I talk to my patients aboutsetting a sleep schedule, it's
really about allotting time forsleep to happen with the
understanding that there will betimes when it doesn't. It's sort
of like saying I'm going to eatbreakfast, lunch and dinner
every day at these times, buteverybody has the experience of
arriving at lunchtime and notbeing particularly hungry, so
(04:50):
you skip it. So when we talkabout a consistent bed and wait,
let's say an individual'sbedtime is 11pm and their wake
up time is 7am I'm much moreFauci. Focused on the wake time,
meaning I need you to be up at7am every day, even if you went
to bed at 11 o'clock last nightand it took you an hour to fall
asleep, that's okay. In fact, wealways tell patients when 11
(05:12):
o'clock rolls around or yourbedtime rolls around, ask
yourself a very simple question,Are you sleepy? Do you think
sleep will happen when you go tobed? If the answer is yes, go to
bed. If the answer is no, stayup. It's perfectly fine. There's
going to be ebbs and flows inour sleepiness. That's perfectly
normal, but that ebb and flowreally shouldn't change your
wake up time, because when thatstarts to change the wake up
(05:35):
time. Took me a while to fallasleep last night, so I skipped
work and slept in until 10o'clock. That's when temporary
little hiccups in your sleep canbecome long term problems.
Today,we're talking to neurologist, Dr
Christopher winter, also knownas the sleep whisperer, and if
you're among the estimated onein three adults who struggle to
fall asleep on a regular basis,Dr winter says there's a common
(05:56):
misunderstanding among patientsand many doctors as to exactly
how to diagnose your issues. Inother words, are you just tired
and sleepy, or are you seriouslyfatigued? So I asked Dr winter
to clear up the confusion andexplain why it matters.
The word tired is kind of aloaded word in the English
(06:17):
language, because some peopleuse it to mean I'm having
trouble staying awake listeningto this radio show. I keep
falling asleep. So I woulddescribe that individual as
being sleepy versus I don't haveenough energy to carry this
laundry upstairs and put it awayin my kid's room. Like I just
feel like I don't have theenergy to I feel like I've run
(06:39):
20 miles, I would consider thatindividual to be fatigued. They
have low energy. And when westart crossing those signals, we
get a lot of problems, meaningthat the fatigued individual is
going to bed believing if theycould just sleep more or sleep
better, they wouldn't feelfatigued. If that fatigue is
(07:00):
coming from a tick borne illnessor a vitamin deficiency, or some
other illness, like long COVID.
It has nothing to do with sleep,even though there might be the
belief that my sleep is bad,that's the reason why I feel so
poorly during the day. So Ithink understanding the nature
of fatigue and the nature ofsleepiness and how we determine
(07:20):
who has what could you have bothabsolutely can really send you
down a path of solving yourproblem in a much faster way,
and it might mean that you'reeducating people that are taking
care of you along the way.
Eating red meat can make youhungrier. Researchers at Wake
(07:42):
Forest Baptist Medical Centerfound that eating foods high in
iron, like red meat, increasesappetite because iron suppresses
production of leptin, the I'mfull hormone leptin also slows
our metabolism. And know this,iron is the one mineral that
your body cannot eliminatenaturally. So the more iron you
ingest, the lower your leptinlevels, and the more likely you
(08:06):
are to overeat. So if you'remysteriously gaining weight, try
cutting back on red meat.
Today's medical term after eventamnesia. It refers to when you
attend a highly emotional eventlike your wedding or a concert
by your all time favoriteartist, and even though you were
there, you can't remember manydetails about the event. So what
(08:27):
is going on? Dr Ewen Mcnay is apsychology professor at the
State University of New York,and he says after event amnesia
comes from emotional overload,because when you're overly
excited, your body enters fightor flight mode, just like when
you're really stressed, andstress is a memory eraser. When
(08:48):
we're in the heightenedemotional state, our memory
neurons start firingerratically, plus the more
details and information we haveto process, the more trouble we
have absorbing all of it. But DrMcnay says not remembering an
emotional event can be a goodthing, because when we're wholly
immersed in something, weremember fewer details than when
(09:11):
we're observing something as anoutsider. But what if you want
to remember a hugely excitingevent? Stand still and do a
check in where you think aboutwhere you are, what you're
feeling, smelling, hearing andseeing. Those sense memories
help solidify the moment in yourmind. And that's today's medical
(09:31):
term after event amnesia comingup. We'll hear more from sleep
specialist, Dr Christopherwinter, whose latest book is
called The rested child, he'lltalk about some of the dangers
associated with children who gettoo much rest and actually have
excessive sleep disorder. Butfirst, if you have difficulty
meditating because you can'tclear your mind of distracting
(09:54):
thoughts, try this trick. EmilyFletcher wrote stress. Less
accomplish more. And she says,instead of battling your
thoughts, think of them asguests at a party you're
hosting. Greet them, listen fora minute, then excuse yourself
at a party you wouldn't spendthe whole time talking to one or
two people. So don't entertaintroubled thoughts for too long
(10:17):
while you're meditating thatwill help you stay present in
the moment and reap the benefitsof taking a mental break. What
do ankle sprains, bone fracturesand major head injuries have in
common for a growing number ofpeople, they're the painful
result of just walking the dog.
According to new data from JohnsHopkins University School of
(10:39):
Medicine, emergency roominjuries linked to dog walking
have quadrupled, and whilesprains are the most common
injuries, there are many caseswhere a fall while dog walking
is severe enough to cause armand leg fractures, concussions
and even internal brain bleeds.
So why are these injurieshappening more often? Well, one
explanation is that more of ushave adopted dogs, especially
(11:01):
since the pandemic, so there arefar more opportunities for dog
walking related accidents. A lotof injuries occur when people
have the leash wrapped aroundtheir hand or wrist and the dog
pulls, which can lead to tendoninjuries, bone fractures in
hands and arms and dislocatedshoulders. Experts say most of
these injuries can be avoided bysimply using shorter leashes,
(11:23):
which are less likely to getwrapped around your legs and
trip you up, and by trainingyour dog. Okay, listen to this.
Do you ever yawn in the middleof your workout? Here's why you
do it. Yawning is your body'sway of cooling down your
temperature rises duringexercise, heating up your blood
and brain. Yawning brings inoutside air, which regulates
(11:44):
your body's thermostat, coolingyour brain so you can think more
clearly back with more healthintelligence from neurologist
and sleep medicine specialist,Dr Christopher winter, his
latest book is called The restedchild. Why your tired, wired or
irritable child may have a sleepdisorder, and how to help. And I
asked Dr Winter How we can tellif our child or grandchild is
(12:06):
well rested or if they'reshowing signs of a sleep
disorder.
I think healthy sleep looks likea child that's getting an
adequate amount of rest, andthat certainly changes as
children mature, but mostimportantly, leaves them feeling
refreshed, not sleepy the nextday. So we inherently start to
(12:29):
create problems sometimes whenwe focus on getting a child to
fall asleep quickly making surethat they never wake up during
the night, because when childrenstart to express disorders of
excessive sleepiness, which weoften see that can often be
misinterpreted as a child whosleeps wonderfully, meaning the
(12:50):
child who puts himself down fora nap and sleeps 12 hours a day.
That looks good, until they hithigh school and then they're
falling asleep in class andfalling asleep doing homework.
So we want an individual who'sgetting a normal amount of
sleep, and that amount of sleepis making that child feel
refreshed and not sleepy thenext day, back with more health
(13:11):
intelligence from sleepspecialist, Dr Christopher
winter. He was just saying thatchildren and teens who get, say,
10 or 12 hours of sleep a daycould have a problem with
excessive sleepiness, also knownas excessive sleep disorder. So
I asked Dr winter to share somesigns that a kid who sleeps all
day may have a problem that goesbeyond just being really tired.
(13:33):
One of the things that we dealwith a lot with children is
differentiating what is a normalamount of sleep from what's
excessive. In fact, we did apodcast episode on our sleep
unplugged podcast. It wasepisode seven. Why? No one
cares? Your child is sleepy.
Because for a lot of parents,that's what they want. They want
the child that can fall asleepeasily and sleep through the
night, and at some point thatcan become problematic. And this
(13:56):
is where you really start tolean on a parental instinct, if
you feel like your child isshowing signs of excessive
sleepiness, and it's not becausethey're staying up late playing
video games, then I think that'sa very reasonable referral to
either your primary care doctoror a sleep clinic, because one
thing that we have seen explodein the last five years is the
(14:18):
number of children dealing withissues related to fatigue and
excessive sleepiness. So ifyou're noticing this, if your
child's noticing this, if yourschool is letting you know that
your child seems excessivelysleepy, a lot of times, there's
sort of a blame of, well, yourchild needs to get more sleep,
and it's the parent that knows.
No, my child comes home, takes atwo hour nap, tries to do some
(14:43):
homework, goes right back tosleep, sleeps entire weekends
away. It's not from aninadequate amount of sleep.
There's something that's makingtheir sleep not make them feel
fully rested the next day, andthat always needs to be
investigatedto quickly get a creative boost.
Blink, according to the Gerard.
Internal psychonomic bulletin,momentarily closing your eyes,
(15:03):
even by blinking a few times,can help you come up with ideas
or solve problems, because eventhat short moment of blocking
out the world reduces the amountof information your brain is
processing, allowing it to focuson the problem at hand. And that
can be enough to spark creativeinsight, more intelligence for
your health. From neurologistand sleep specialist Dr
(15:25):
Christopher winter and in recentyears, we've heard a lot about
machines and apps that promiseto help us fall asleep with
soothing white noise or pinknoise, for example, or nature
sounds. So I asked Dr winter ifany of that sleep sound
technology actually works.
I don't think we need any soundto help us fall asleep. I don't
think that there's anycompelling research that any of
(15:47):
these things, Pink Noise, whitenoise, brown noise, really does
anything above and beyondsilence. I don't have a problem
with these types of noise. Infact, we did a whole podcast.
Episode Four was on white noiseand sleep that. Look, if you
live live near loud traffic, oryou've got a partner who snores,
who will not address his or hersnoring, yeah, maybe white noise
(16:10):
is a great way to sort ofcondition the environment, but I
don't think these noise machinesare offering us anything beyond
silence, which I feel, stillthink is a is a great way to
sleep. So, you know, when yousee that the ad on your social
media about how this color noiseis going to put you to sleep in
30 seconds, it's it's all bunk.
I mean, so it's just differentnoise. It's like the equalizer
(16:34):
we used to have on our stereo.
You can push up the mid levelsor push up the bass or the
treble. That's essentially whatall these different noises are.
They're different frequenciesthat are enhanced over others.
But there's been no compellingresearch that shows that any of
these things are dramaticallyimproving people's sleep, and
it's impossible not to sleep. Sothe idea that we need pink noise
(16:57):
or green noise in order to sleepis really not a real thing.
Do you have a favorite food youfind yourself eating day in and
day out? According to TuftsUniversity, as long as the food
you're eating is healthy, it'sperfectly fine to eat the same
thing over and over. Theresearchers looked at the eating
habits of nearly 7000 people andfound that those who ate the
(17:18):
widest variety of foods tendedto eat the most unhealthy foods.
They also had the worstmetabolic health, which means
having less than ideal levels ofblood sugar, triglycerides,
cholesterol, blood pressure andwaist circumference, and those
factors directly relate to aperson's risk for heart disease,
diabetes and stroke. Meanwhile,the people with the healthiest
(17:41):
diets actually ate a prettysmall range of foods. So the
researchers concluded that thesaying everything in moderation
is not the best advice. It'sbetter to eat fewer foods for
the most part, as long asthey're healthy. Here's an email
I received at Connie atintelligence for your
health.com. It comes from SarahTyne, who writes, is it bad to
(18:02):
pee in the shower? My husbanddoes it, and I told him, it's
germy. Who is right. Well,Sarah, it's not as unhygienic as
it seems. According to urologistDr Yamin brombach, about 90% of
urine is water. The rest is madeup of salts and compounds that
are filtered out of your body.
And although urine loses itssterility after it exits the
body with a constant flow ofrunning water to wash it down
(18:25):
the drain, it's extremelyunlikely to cause infection,
even if it comes in contact withbroken skin. Dr brompot says it
won't damage your shower tray ordrain either. And urine is
cleaner than what you wash offyour skin after a workout, the
bottom line is that peeing inthe shower is unlikely to harm
you, so whether it's part ofyour water saving efforts or the
(18:46):
urge just strikes, it is fine topee in the shower. And according
to a survey by Shape magazine,80% of people do. Thank you for
your email. Sarah, I hope thishelps. Okay, listen to this. Why
does everything taste terribleafter we've brushed our teeth?
You can thank the chemicalsodium lauryl sulfate. It's
added to toothpaste to createfoam and make the paste easier
(19:09):
to spread around our mouth, butit messes with our taste buds,
suppressing the receptors thatperceive sweetness, while at the
same time, it breaks up fattymolecules on our tongue, and we
need those fatty molecules tokeep bitter taste from
overwhelming us, so anything youeat or drink after you brush is
going to have less sweetness andmore bitterness than it normally
(19:30):
would, unless you use atoothpaste without sodium lauryl
sulfate, something like Arm andHammer or Sensodyne. Parents,
grandparents. You know this tobe true, kids start lying around
age three. And it's not thatkids have some sort of moral
failing. It is perfectlynatural. In fact, the younger
kids are when they start lying,the smarter they are. That's
(19:53):
according to the Journal ofparenting science, because lying
is actually an importantmilestone. Of cognitive
development, kids have to besmart enough to know that the
person they're lying to may notknow the truth. That's what
psychologists call theory ofmind. Another thing about kids
who lie, a study in the Journalof Experimental Child Psychology
found that kids who are goodliars, meaning they can really
(20:16):
fool people, have better workingmemories. That's because it
takes a lot of mental effort tokeep a lie straight, to remember
what you said or the order ofevents. So lying is a sign of a
clever little brain, and kidswho are good liars also have
more emotional control. They canstay cool under pressure. Oh
boy. So although you may have togive your kids the it's wrong to
(20:40):
lie talk a few times, you cansecretly know your kid is smart
and has good thinking and memoryskills, more intelligence for
your health. From neurologistand sleep specialist Dr
Christopher winter, if you'dlike to know more about him or
his popular sleep unpluggedpodcast, check out W Chris
winter.com and in a recentepisode of his podcast, Dr
(21:03):
winter explored this debate,what's better for helping us
fall asleep, wearing PJs to bedor Sleeping Naked. So I asked Dr
winter what he recommends.
You know, I generally recommendmy patients sleep in very light
clothing, or, you know, wearnothing, if that's something
they want to do, and regulatetheir temperature with sheets,
(21:26):
blankets, pillows, duvets,comforters and things of that
nature, because you can movethem on and off. And what we
want to try to avoid is wearingthe flannel pajamas that zip up
in the back and have feet onthem because you're a little
cool before you go to bed atnight. You know, we talk about
temperature dropping in thattime before we go to sleep as
being a natural phenomenon. Soit's not uncommon for people to
(21:48):
feel pretty cold when they go tobed. So if you're making
clothing choices based upon thatfeeling and then your
temperature changes during thenight, you're kind of locked
into these, you know, warmpajamas all through the night.
So I think that choosing what wewear when we sleep properly can
really affect the nature of oursleep in very fundamental ways.
(22:09):
I've had patients who say, youknow, I sweat a lot at night,
and they've switched justwearing a pair of shorts when
they go to bed or something, andit really makes a big
difference. So I don't thinkthere's a tremendous amount of
research that says SleepingNaked is better than sleeping in
a tank top and shorts. But I dothink that giving yourself that
easy control of kicking ablanket off when you get hot,
(22:29):
pulling it up to your neck whenyou get cold, can make a
difference for a lot of peoplewith their sleep.
That's it for our show today,our special intelligence for
your health with Connie Selig.
Edition of the podcast, I'm GibGerard. Don't forget to rate
comment and subscribe on Applepodcast. Spotify, wherever you
get your podcast. It helps usout a lot, and also, you can
reach out to us on social media.
All of our links are listed downin the show notes. We try to
(22:51):
respond to every DM, everymention of the show, because
ultimately, we do the show foryou guys. So thank you so much
for listening. You.
Gib, hello and welcome to another episode of the
podcast. I'm Gib Gerard herewith you today with another
special intelligence for yourhealth with Connie Celica.
Edition of the podcast. Ourguest today is none other than
neurologist and sleepspecialist, Dr Christopher
winter, all kinds of great infoabout your sleep coming right at
you. So here, without furtherado, is intelligence for your
(00:28):
health. With Connie Celica,do you have trouble following
the conversation in a noisy,crowded room, leaning in with
your right ear could make asignificant difference. The
Association of Britishneurologist says that's because
the words picked up by the rightear are mostly processed in the
left hemisphere of the brain,the side linked to deciphering
language, and overall, thatmakes our right ear 18% better
(00:51):
at keeping up with rapid fireconversations and picking out
the one voice in the crowd wewant to Listen to compared to
the left ear. When it comes toperfumes, Cologne and home
fragrances, the hottest trend isnature. People want themselves
and their homes to smell woodsyor like the ocean or green
meadow. It's part of the overallback to nature trend that's
(01:15):
taken off over the last fewyears. They're being called
functional fragrances becausethey have therapeutic benefits.
They enhance our mood andrelieve stress, the same
benefits you can get from beingoutside. And this is nothing
new. The idea of usingfunctional fragrances goes back
to 3500 BC, when plant extractswere used in ancient Indian,
(01:35):
Chinese and Egyptian healingceremonies, and today, essential
oils from plants are being usedagain. For example, lavender
promotes relaxation. The scentof cedar can produce the feeling
of being grounded. Citrus andlemon are energizing and wake up
the brain. There's even afragrance called forest lungs,
which is an anti stress perfumecoming up. We'll talk to sleep
(01:58):
specialist, Dr Christopherwinter, host of the sleep
unplugged podcast, he'll help usunderstand the difference
between feeling tired or sleepyand feeling seriously fatigued,
and why knowing the differencematters. But first, if you have
a tough day ahead, you canconquer it better with
blueberries. Eat a cup ofblueberries or drink a glass of
(02:19):
blueberry juice. According tothe National Institute of Mental
Health, the plant pigments thatGib blueberries, their color,
also stimulate the growth of newneurons in the section of the
brain that regulates your stressresponse. In plain English,
you'll be better able to handlehigh pressure situations without
losing your cool when you use astationary bike, are you only
(02:41):
pushing the pedals down as yougo? If so, you're making one of
the most common cardio mistakes.
That's according to Shapemagazine. They say pedaling
exercises offer a powerful wayto strengthen the hamstrings in
your legs and the glutealmuscles in your rear end, but
only pushing down gives themhalf a workout, and you'll give
(03:02):
your lower body muscles a biggerworkout if you also use them to
pull up. In fact, that's whatthe straps on a stationary bikes
pedals are for. Ideally, youshould secure them around your
shoes and then alternate usingone leg to push down while the
other leg pulls up. You'llprobably feel a lot more burn in
your muscles, but that's thepoint. It means you're getting
(03:23):
twice as much exercise as yournormal workout. Okay, listen to
this. Constipation is one of themost common digestive problems,
so what can you do about it? Oneof the most effective cures,
according to the DigestiveHealth Center at Augusta
University, is to drinksomething hot a hot beverage
stimulates your digestivesystem, making intestinal
(03:45):
muscles contract. Any hotbeverage will do even plain hot
water, but Augusta Universitydiscovered that caffeinated
coffee sparked contractions inthe gut that were 60% stronger
than hot water and 23% moreintense than decaffeinated
coffee, so try drinking hotcoffee for constipation. Today,
(04:07):
our guest is neurologist andsleep specialist. Dr Christopher
winter and when it comes tosleep, we often talk about the
importance of sticking to aschedule where you aim to go to
bed and wake up around the sametime every day. But Dr winter
says some people get concernedwhen they try to go to bed and
just can't fall asleep. Here'swhy. He says that's okay.
(04:27):
When I talk to my patients aboutsetting a sleep schedule, it's
really about allotting time forsleep to happen with the
understanding that there will betimes when it doesn't. It's sort
of like saying I'm going to eatbreakfast, lunch and dinner
every day at these times, buteverybody has the experience of
arriving at lunchtime and notbeing particularly hungry, so
(04:50):
you skip it. So when we talkabout a consistent bed and wait,
let's say an individual'sbedtime is 11pm and their wake
up time is 7am I'm much moreFauci. Focused on the wake time,
meaning I need you to be up at7am every day, even if you went
to bed at 11 o'clock last nightand it took you an hour to fall
asleep, that's okay. In fact, wealways tell patients when 11
(05:12):
o'clock rolls around or yourbedtime rolls around, ask
yourself a very simple question,Are you sleepy? Do you think
sleep will happen when you go tobed? If the answer is yes, go to
bed. If the answer is no, stayup. It's perfectly fine. There's
going to be ebbs and flows inour sleepiness. That's perfectly
normal, but that ebb and flowreally shouldn't change your
wake up time, because when thatstarts to change the wake up
(05:35):
time. Took me a while to fallasleep last night, so I skipped
work and slept in until 10o'clock. That's when temporary
little hiccups in your sleep canbecome long term problems.
Today,we're talking to neurologist, Dr
Christopher winter, also knownas the sleep whisperer, and if
you're among the estimated onein three adults who struggle to
fall asleep on a regular basis,Dr winter says there's a common
(05:56):
misunderstanding among patientsand many doctors as to exactly
how to diagnose your issues. Inother words, are you just tired
and sleepy, or are you seriouslyfatigued? So I asked Dr winter
to clear up the confusion andexplain why it matters.
The word tired is kind of aloaded word in the English
(06:17):
language, because some peopleuse it to mean I'm having
trouble staying awake listeningto this radio show. I keep
falling asleep. So I woulddescribe that individual as
being sleepy versus I don't haveenough energy to carry this
laundry upstairs and put it awayin my kid's room. Like I just
feel like I don't have theenergy to I feel like I've run
(06:39):
20 miles, I would consider thatindividual to be fatigued. They
have low energy. And when westart crossing those signals, we
get a lot of problems, meaningthat the fatigued individual is
going to bed believing if theycould just sleep more or sleep
better, they wouldn't feelfatigued. If that fatigue is
(07:00):
coming from a tick borne illnessor a vitamin deficiency, or some
other illness, like long COVID.
It has nothing to do with sleep,even though there might be the
belief that my sleep is bad,that's the reason why I feel so
poorly during the day. So Ithink understanding the nature
of fatigue and the nature ofsleepiness and how we determine
(07:20):
who has what could you have bothabsolutely can really send you
down a path of solving yourproblem in a much faster way,
and it might mean that you'reeducating people that are taking
care of you along the way.
Eating red meat can make youhungrier. Researchers at Wake
(07:42):
Forest Baptist Medical Centerfound that eating foods high in
iron, like red meat, increasesappetite because iron suppresses
production of leptin, the I'mfull hormone leptin also slows
our metabolism. And know this,iron is the one mineral that
your body cannot eliminatenaturally. So the more iron you
ingest, the lower your leptinlevels, and the more likely you
(08:06):
are to overeat. So if you'remysteriously gaining weight, try
cutting back on red meat.
Today's medical term after eventamnesia. It refers to when you
attend a highly emotional eventlike your wedding or a concert
by your all time favoriteartist, and even though you were
there, you can't remember manydetails about the event. So what
(08:27):
is going on? Dr Ewen Mcnay is apsychology professor at the
State University of New York,and he says after event amnesia
comes from emotional overload,because when you're overly
excited, your body enters fightor flight mode, just like when
you're really stressed, andstress is a memory eraser. When
(08:48):
we're in the heightenedemotional state, our memory
neurons start firingerratically, plus the more
details and information we haveto process, the more trouble we
have absorbing all of it. But DrMcnay says not remembering an
emotional event can be a goodthing, because when we're wholly
immersed in something, weremember fewer details than when
(09:11):
we're observing something as anoutsider. But what if you want
to remember a hugely excitingevent? Stand still and do a
check in where you think aboutwhere you are, what you're
feeling, smelling, hearing andseeing. Those sense memories
help solidify the moment in yourmind. And that's today's medical
(09:31):
term after event amnesia comingup. We'll hear more from sleep
specialist, Dr Christopherwinter, whose latest book is
called The rested child, he'lltalk about some of the dangers
associated with children who gettoo much rest and actually have
excessive sleep disorder. Butfirst, if you have difficulty
meditating because you can'tclear your mind of distracting
(09:54):
thoughts, try this trick. EmilyFletcher wrote stress. Less
accomplish more. And she says,instead of battling your
thoughts, think of them asguests at a party you're
hosting. Greet them, listen fora minute, then excuse yourself
at a party you wouldn't spendthe whole time talking to one or
two people. So don't entertaintroubled thoughts for too long
(10:17):
while you're meditating thatwill help you stay present in
the moment and reap the benefitsof taking a mental break. What
do ankle sprains, bone fracturesand major head injuries have in
common for a growing number ofpeople, they're the painful
result of just walking the dog.
According to new data from JohnsHopkins University School of
(10:39):
Medicine, emergency roominjuries linked to dog walking
have quadrupled, and whilesprains are the most common
injuries, there are many caseswhere a fall while dog walking
is severe enough to cause armand leg fractures, concussions
and even internal brain bleeds.
So why are these injurieshappening more often? Well, one
explanation is that more of ushave adopted dogs, especially
(11:01):
since the pandemic, so there arefar more opportunities for dog
walking related accidents. A lotof injuries occur when people
have the leash wrapped aroundtheir hand or wrist and the dog
pulls, which can lead to tendoninjuries, bone fractures in
hands and arms and dislocatedshoulders. Experts say most of
these injuries can be avoided bysimply using shorter leashes,
(11:23):
which are less likely to getwrapped around your legs and
trip you up, and by trainingyour dog. Okay, listen to this.
Do you ever yawn in the middleof your workout? Here's why you
do it. Yawning is your body'sway of cooling down your
temperature rises duringexercise, heating up your blood
and brain. Yawning brings inoutside air, which regulates
(11:44):
your body's thermostat, coolingyour brain so you can think more
clearly back with more healthintelligence from neurologist
and sleep medicine specialist,Dr Christopher winter, his
latest book is called The restedchild. Why your tired, wired or
irritable child may have a sleepdisorder, and how to help. And I
asked Dr Winter How we can tellif our child or grandchild is
(12:06):
well rested or if they'reshowing signs of a sleep
disorder.
I think healthy sleep looks likea child that's getting an
adequate amount of rest, andthat certainly changes as
children mature, but mostimportantly, leaves them feeling
refreshed, not sleepy the nextday. So we inherently start to
(12:29):
create problems sometimes whenwe focus on getting a child to
fall asleep quickly making surethat they never wake up during
the night, because when childrenstart to express disorders of
excessive sleepiness, which weoften see that can often be
misinterpreted as a child whosleeps wonderfully, meaning the
(12:50):
child who puts himself down fora nap and sleeps 12 hours a day.
That looks good, until they hithigh school and then they're
falling asleep in class andfalling asleep doing homework.
So we want an individual who'sgetting a normal amount of
sleep, and that amount of sleepis making that child feel
refreshed and not sleepy thenext day, back with more health
(13:11):
intelligence from sleepspecialist, Dr Christopher
winter. He was just saying thatchildren and teens who get, say,
10 or 12 hours of sleep a daycould have a problem with
excessive sleepiness, also knownas excessive sleep disorder. So
I asked Dr winter to share somesigns that a kid who sleeps all
day may have a problem that goesbeyond just being really tired.
(13:33):
One of the things that we dealwith a lot with children is
differentiating what is a normalamount of sleep from what's
excessive. In fact, we did apodcast episode on our sleep
unplugged podcast. It wasepisode seven. Why? No one
cares? Your child is sleepy.
Because for a lot of parents,that's what they want. They want
the child that can fall asleepeasily and sleep through the
night, and at some point thatcan become problematic. And this
(13:56):
is where you really start tolean on a parental instinct, if
you feel like your child isshowing signs of excessive
sleepiness, and it's not becausethey're staying up late playing
video games, then I think that'sa very reasonable referral to
either your primary care doctoror a sleep clinic, because one
thing that we have seen explodein the last five years is the
(14:18):
number of children dealing withissues related to fatigue and
excessive sleepiness. So ifyou're noticing this, if your
child's noticing this, if yourschool is letting you know that
your child seems excessivelysleepy, a lot of times, there's
sort of a blame of, well, yourchild needs to get more sleep,
and it's the parent that knows.
No, my child comes home, takes atwo hour nap, tries to do some
(14:43):
homework, goes right back tosleep, sleeps entire weekends
away. It's not from aninadequate amount of sleep.
There's something that's makingtheir sleep not make them feel
fully rested the next day, andthat always needs to be
investigatedto quickly get a creative boost.
Blink, according to the Gerard.
Internal psychonomic bulletin,momentarily closing your eyes,
(15:03):
even by blinking a few times,can help you come up with ideas
or solve problems, because eventhat short moment of blocking
out the world reduces the amountof information your brain is
processing, allowing it to focuson the problem at hand. And that
can be enough to spark creativeinsight, more intelligence for
your health. From neurologistand sleep specialist Dr
(15:25):
Christopher winter and in recentyears, we've heard a lot about
machines and apps that promiseto help us fall asleep with
soothing white noise or pinknoise, for example, or nature
sounds. So I asked Dr winter ifany of that sleep sound
technology actually works.
I don't think we need any soundto help us fall asleep. I don't
think that there's anycompelling research that any of
(15:47):
these things, Pink Noise, whitenoise, brown noise, really does
anything above and beyondsilence. I don't have a problem
with these types of noise. Infact, we did a whole podcast.
Episode Four was on white noiseand sleep that. Look, if you
live live near loud traffic, oryou've got a partner who snores,
who will not address his or hersnoring, yeah, maybe white noise
(16:10):
is a great way to sort ofcondition the environment, but I
don't think these noise machinesare offering us anything beyond
silence, which I feel, stillthink is a is a great way to
sleep. So, you know, when yousee that the ad on your social
media about how this color noiseis going to put you to sleep in
30 seconds, it's it's all bunk.
I mean, so it's just differentnoise. It's like the equalizer
(16:34):
we used to have on our stereo.
You can push up the mid levelsor push up the bass or the
treble. That's essentially whatall these different noises are.
They're different frequenciesthat are enhanced over others.
But there's been no compellingresearch that shows that any of
these things are dramaticallyimproving people's sleep, and
it's impossible not to sleep. Sothe idea that we need pink noise
(16:57):
or green noise in order to sleepis really not a real thing.
Do you have a favorite food youfind yourself eating day in and
day out? According to TuftsUniversity, as long as the food
you're eating is healthy, it'sperfectly fine to eat the same
thing over and over. Theresearchers looked at the eating
habits of nearly 7000 people andfound that those who ate the
(17:18):
widest variety of foods tendedto eat the most unhealthy foods.
They also had the worstmetabolic health, which means
having less than ideal levels ofblood sugar, triglycerides,
cholesterol, blood pressure andwaist circumference, and those
factors directly relate to aperson's risk for heart disease,
diabetes and stroke. Meanwhile,the people with the healthiest
(17:41):
diets actually ate a prettysmall range of foods. So the
researchers concluded that thesaying everything in moderation
is not the best advice. It'sbetter to eat fewer foods for
the most part, as long asthey're healthy. Here's an email
I received at Connie atintelligence for your
health.com. It comes from SarahTyne, who writes, is it bad to
(18:02):
pee in the shower? My husbanddoes it, and I told him, it's
germy. Who is right. Well,Sarah, it's not as unhygienic as
it seems. According to urologistDr Yamin brombach, about 90% of
urine is water. The rest is madeup of salts and compounds that
are filtered out of your body.
And although urine loses itssterility after it exits the
body with a constant flow ofrunning water to wash it down
(18:25):
the drain, it's extremelyunlikely to cause infection,
even if it comes in contact withbroken skin. Dr brompot says it
won't damage your shower tray ordrain either. And urine is
cleaner than what you wash offyour skin after a workout, the
bottom line is that peeing inthe shower is unlikely to harm
you, so whether it's part ofyour water saving efforts or the
(18:46):
urge just strikes, it is fine topee in the shower. And according
to a survey by Shape magazine,80% of people do. Thank you for
your email. Sarah, I hope thishelps. Okay, listen to this. Why
does everything taste terribleafter we've brushed our teeth?
You can thank the chemicalsodium lauryl sulfate. It's
added to toothpaste to createfoam and make the paste easier
(19:09):
to spread around our mouth, butit messes with our taste buds,
suppressing the receptors thatperceive sweetness, while at the
same time, it breaks up fattymolecules on our tongue, and we
need those fatty molecules tokeep bitter taste from
overwhelming us, so anything youeat or drink after you brush is
going to have less sweetness andmore bitterness than it normally
(19:30):
would, unless you use atoothpaste without sodium lauryl
sulfate, something like Arm andHammer or Sensodyne. Parents,
grandparents. You know this tobe true, kids start lying around
age three. And it's not thatkids have some sort of moral
failing. It is perfectlynatural. In fact, the younger
kids are when they start lying,the smarter they are. That's
(19:53):
according to the Journal ofparenting science, because lying
is actually an importantmilestone. Of cognitive
development, kids have to besmart enough to know that the
person they're lying to may notknow the truth. That's what
psychologists call theory ofmind. Another thing about kids
who lie, a study in the Journalof Experimental Child Psychology
found that kids who are goodliars, meaning they can really
(20:16):
fool people, have better workingmemories. That's because it
takes a lot of mental effort tokeep a lie straight, to remember
what you said or the order ofevents. So lying is a sign of a
clever little brain, and kidswho are good liars also have
more emotional control. They canstay cool under pressure. Oh
boy. So although you may have togive your kids the it's wrong to
(20:40):
lie talk a few times, you cansecretly know your kid is smart
and has good thinking and memoryskills, more intelligence for
your health. From neurologistand sleep specialist Dr
Christopher winter, if you'dlike to know more about him or
his popular sleep unpluggedpodcast, check out W Chris
winter.com and in a recentepisode of his podcast, Dr
(21:03):
winter explored this debate,what's better for helping us
fall asleep, wearing PJs to bedor Sleeping Naked. So I asked Dr
winter what he recommends.
You know, I generally recommendmy patients sleep in very light
clothing, or, you know, wearnothing, if that's something
they want to do, and regulatetheir temperature with sheets,
(21:26):
blankets, pillows, duvets,comforters and things of that
nature, because you can movethem on and off. And what we
want to try to avoid is wearingthe flannel pajamas that zip up
in the back and have feet onthem because you're a little
cool before you go to bed atnight. You know, we talk about
temperature dropping in thattime before we go to sleep as
being a natural phenomenon. Soit's not uncommon for people to
(21:48):
feel pretty cold when they go tobed. So if you're making
clothing choices based upon thatfeeling and then your
temperature changes during thenight, you're kind of locked
into these, you know, warmpajamas all through the night.
So I think that choosing what wewear when we sleep properly can
really affect the nature of oursleep in very fundamental ways.
(22:09):
I've had patients who say, youknow, I sweat a lot at night,
and they've switched justwearing a pair of shorts when
they go to bed or something, andit really makes a big
difference. So I don't thinkthere's a tremendous amount of
research that says SleepingNaked is better than sleeping in
a tank top and shorts. But I dothink that giving yourself that
easy control of kicking ablanket off when you get hot,
(22:29):
pulling it up to your neck whenyou get cold, can make a
difference for a lot of peoplewith their sleep.
That's it for our show today,our special intelligence for
your health with Connie Selig.
Edition of the podcast, I'm GibGerard. Don't forget to rate
comment and subscribe on Applepodcast. Spotify, wherever you
get your podcast. It helps usout a lot, and also, you can
reach out to us on social media.
All of our links are listed downin the show notes. We try to
(22:51):
respond to every DM, everymention of the show, because
ultimately, we do the show foryou guys. So thank you so much
for listening. You.
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