218 | Dr. Kirk Parsley: Sleep, Stress Hormones & Recovery for Optimal Mental Health

Dr. Kirk Parsley is a physician, sleep expert, and former Navy SEAL who is dedicated to helping high performers optimize their health, particularly through better sleep. This episode takes a deep dive into why Dr. Parsley believes sleep is the most misunderstood and underutilized tool for optimizing health.

This episode covers:

• The Importance of Sleep: Learn how sleep impacts everything from performance to longevity, and why sleep is the ultimate elixir for health and well-being.
• Sleep Deprivation in the Military: Learn why military culture does not value sleep, and how the negative impact of chronic sleep deprivation leads to a diminished capacity for repair, affecting concentration, motivation, focus, emotional control, and physical performance.
• The Impact of Trauma: Trauma significantly affects the ability to sleep and develop a stable nervous system. Learn how the brain categorizes emotional memories during REM sleep, and how a lack of sleep can lead to inappropriately categorized emotions, often causing anxiety and frenetic thoughts.
• The Fight or Flight Response: Dr. Parsley details the fight or flight response, where the body mobilizes resources to deal with a perceived threat. He describes how chronic sleep deprivation leads to a downward spiral of increasing stress hormones.
• The Brain Never Stops: Learn how the brain never truly sleeps, but rather transitions its focus. During deep sleep, the body flushes out waste products and restores the body, preparing it for the next day. In REM sleep, the brain categorises new information and attaches it to old information. If sleep is not sufficient, the body increases stress hormones to get through the day.
• Learned Responses to Stress: Experienced Seals can lower their heart rate and increase their heart rate variability before going into combat, indicating a learned response to stress, and conversely, some combat veterans can be stressed in environments that lack stimulation.
• Psychedelics & Purpose: Psychedelic treatments can decrease the amygdala's activity, which reduces anxiety and helps individuals visualize a future they want, and then take steps towards that future.
• The Sleep Remedy Formula: The sleep remedy product was created to provide the body with the nutrients it needs to initiate and maintain sleep processes. It includes tryptophan, 5-HTP, vitamin D3, magnesium,  phosphatidylserine (to help reduce cortisol production), a small dose of melatonin, GABA, and L-Theanine. The product is designed to support natural sleep processes by providing the necessary building blocks, rather than forcing sleep.

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