In recent years, researchers have discovered that we have a glymphatic system that acts as a self-cleaning oven for our brains. The catch is, it only works when we’re sleeping, and if you can’t sleep, you’re at risk of mental health problems.
Dr. Martin shares recent studies on chronic stress and depression, highlighting the role of cortisol and its effect on the brain's autophagy process. He discusses natural remedies like sunshine and probiotics that improve mood and overall mental health.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
Announcer: You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.
Dr. Martin: Well, good morning everyone, and once again, welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day, and we certainly are and we're thrilled to have you come on when you can come on live. We understand not everybody can. Okay, we're going to go over some studies. Here they are. Here's one, it's an article, but backed up with some studies. Netflix binging will kill you. These modern disorders, Netflix binging will kill you. And what they're saying is because you're not sleeping properly, you're not moving enough and you're not sleeping properly. We got to be careful, okay? You can get onto a series and you really like it and you want to watch it and just make sure you're not losing any sleep over it. Okay? And let me bring you this one because it sort of ties in a little bit to this article on Netflix. And the article actually read, Netflix Can Kill You, Netflix Binging.
But here's something here. Here's a new mental health study done in 2025. So hot off the presses, guys, how chronic stress causes depression and what they're finding. It's really interesting because what they're finding is when your cortisol is high, you don't go into autophagy. Okay? So don't you love big words, okay? It means, okay, exactly what I've told you before. But anyway, it's in new study and it says when your cortisol is high, so cortisol, remember now everybody has cortisol. And cortisol follows what they call their circadian rhythm. Just means cortisol is involved to get you up in the morning, to get your heart rate up, to get your blood sugar up, to wake you up. And then as the day goes along, your cortisol sinks, or at least it should, and it sinks like the Titanic. And by the time you're ready for beddy bye your cortisol down to very, very, very little, and that's the way it should be.
But we live in a day and age. Netflix, no, we live in a world full of stress, environmental food, relationships, family dynamics. We live in a crazy world and we know environmentally there's a lot of stress on the body because our bodies weren't made for the amount of toxins that are in the soil, that are in the air, the plastics, the xenoestrogens, yada, yada, yada. So your body stresses by that because they're foreign invaders. So what happens is that people are in high level alert of cortisol all the time. That's not meant to be, again, the circadian rhythm, okay? So what they're showing, and this is on the neuroscience of depression, they studied depression patients and they found that they had high cortisol. And when their cortisol wasn't following that circadian rhythm like it should, they had less autophagy.
Now guys, you and I have talked about this so many times, but I go over it again because it's something that we didn't know. I'm always amazed of what we didn't know when I was in school and I never really stopped going to school. But what we didn't know, autophagy. We knew about the lymphatic system and how it cleared out your toxins. And by the way, it's one of the reasons I hate when they take out lymph nodes when it comes to cancer. I don't like that. I don't think it's right. I know that people would argue with me, and that's all right. You can argue, but I don't like the idea of taking out lymph nodes because cancer is in the lymph nodes. See, doctors think when cancer's in lymph nodes, it's spreading. I say, when cancer's in your lymph nodes, that's where it should be because that's your drainage system. That is your system doing its job. That's part of your immune system. It's part of your detoxification.
Now, I think I'm right, okay? Does that mean they listen to me? No, they don't listen, but I think I'm right about that. I've been saying that for a many, many moons, okay? Now back to not the lymphatic system, but the glymphatic system. We didn't know about the glymphatic system when I was in school. We didn't know that the brain had its own autophagy, that it was able to take out all the toxins out of the brain. You have a self-cleaning oven in the brain, okay? Amazing. Again, I say it fearfully and wonderfully made. I don't apologize for believing in a creator God, like I just don't. Okay? Because when I study the human body and study it more and more and more and more and more, it amazes me, me, and it's called the glymphatic system. The brain drains itself.
But what they're saying here, if you have high cortisol and it's not following the circadian rhythm, you're in trouble in your brain because you're not getting into that self-cleaning oven. Think of stress, think of cortisol. Stress pours gasoline on the fire of inflammation. I said that when I was in practice. I said that when I was in the radio business of 20 years having my own radio program. I used to say that cortisol is pouring gasoline on the fire of inflammation. It pours gasoline on it, and inflammation damages the body tissue, but especially blood vessels. So what they're saying in depression is that when cortisol is high, of course, when cortisol is high, guess what? You're not sleeping properly. You don't sleep properly. Your cortisol is high. It's a vicious cycle. But not only that, when cortisol is high, when you don't get into a good sleep, you don't get into that REM, the five stages of sleep, and you don't get into especially the self-cleaning oven stage of that REM sleep. The self-cleaning doesn't go on and then you have these toxin in your brain.
And what they're saying in this new study and the neuroscience of depression, it can be a big factor in depression. Now, guys, you know this because I've talked about this and that is leaky gut, leaky brain, okay? We know that there's a huge correlation between having leaky gut and the blood brain barrier and leaky brain, depression, okay? Big factors. Cortisol pours gasoline on the fire. It does not allow proper autophagy of the brain, meaning the self-cleaning oven of the brain. The glymphatic system is hindered by high levels of cortisol. Let me give you another one. Brought to you by Sun, Steak and Steel. I talk about this in this book, the importance of sunlight and depression. I tell you, depression isn't a lack of Prozac. That's always bothered me and SSRIs, it's always bothered me, you guys, if you followed me for any length of time, you know this, it bothers me because it's a bandaid.
And I was there, I was there. I was on the planet and in practice when SSRIs and Prozac came into being and there was a black box warning on them that got dismissed over time, and that was, this is a bandaid. They literally said, this is a short term aid. Do not use over six months. Oh, but the big pharma that got their teeth into the FDA. Boy, the corruption at that level is beyond belief. And guess what? People have been on antidepressants for 25, 30 years or more. Never was meant to be. It doesn't get to the root problem. And studies have shown this that if you just put people in the sun, it's more effective than Prozac. The problem is when you get depressed, guess what? You don't feel like doing nothing. And you don't want to get in the sun. You don't want to go outside. You don't want to just get that melatonin in your eyeballs and the vitamin D on your skin that goes directly to the brain. It's unfortunate.
If you could give a vitamin, I give them vitamin D. Of course, once depression is in, like if doctors are not prescribing it, if doctors, I'm telling you, the studies have been done, guys, you can take antidepressants and you can put a group on antidepressants and a group on sunshine. And I'm telling you, studies have been done. Sunshine better than the anti. Now do I tell anybody to get off an antidepressant? No. I try and give people information. Even when I was in practice, guys, I gave people information so that they could make choices so they would be armed to talk to their doctors. High cortisol decreases autophagy in brain depression. Headline, Dr. Martin, this is me. Depression is not from low Prozac levels, but low sunshine levels the sun. Okay?
I know I brought to you studies, right? If you have low levels of vitamin D, it's worse than smoking. If you have low levels of vitamin D, and unfortunately the vast majority of people have low levels of vitamin D, and here's the tragedy of it. They don't even know it. They don't know it. Why? Because the D hydroxy 25 vitamin D, it's one of the least ordered blood tests in research. Research has told us that. Doctors are not trained to look at vitamin D. All they can think of is your bone, but you don't have osteoporosis. Why are you worried about your vitamin D levels? Because of all cause mortality, including depression. I've been talking about that as long as I've had a venue to talk publicly. I did it in my practice for years, but I did it on my radio show for years. I talked about vitamin D and chronic fatigue syndrome 35, 40 years ago. The importance of the sun. When do you feel better?
Here's a question. When do you feel better? Guys, look at me. Who was screaming blue murder during covid about staying indoors? Oh, the virus. It may be outside. There were a bunch of idiots. They should have sent us, us Canadians, send us all to Florida to sit on the beach. It would've cost them less money. We would've killed less people. Or how about a supplement of vitamin D at the time? Did I talk to you guys about that? I sure did. All cause mortality. Okay, here's another one. Okay? And just to show you the connection, okay? Probiotics. Okay? This is another study. I read it last week, I think it was a little bit earlier than that. Probiotics reduce negative mood over a period of time. Okay? Probiotics, what? Reduce negative mood over a period of time. The gut brain connection. Amazing. Hello? Leaky gut. Leaky brain. Incredible.
So here we are, guys. Okay, we're talking about depression, and by the way, there was something that I picked up this morning here. Let me see if I can get it for you. 15 signs. I'm going to post this, okay, I'll post it afterwards. 15 signs that my mental health is getting bad again. I kind of like this because it's stuff that we talk about, but alright, let me go through it. There's 15 signs, irritable, suicidal thinking, zoning out, crying all the time, unable to focus, feeling not good enough, loss of appetite, unable to get out of bed, racing thoughts and mood changes. Okay? Feeling unwanted like a burden. Intrusive thoughts, unable to sleep. That's a big one. Endless scrolling. I better watch. Easy to anger, physical tension and headaches. You stop cleaning up, extreme anxiety, feeling numb, inability to cope with daily problems or stress, never ending to-do list. I would've never put that one there, but they have it there. This is from mental health awareness. Okay, I kind of like that.
Okay, so what I'll do is, I'll put this when I wrote my book on chronic fatigue, let me see, I'll get it for you. Chronic fatigue syndrome. See the guy up here? That's me. It don't look like me, but it's me. Okay? Okay, so I'll post this here, but when I wrote my book on chronic fatigue syndrome, okay, how many years ago is that now? 35 years ago? Yeah, that I wrote this book. Steps to Fight Chronic Fatigue syndrome. I actually did my thesis. I have my thesis. Okay. Anyway, I will find, okay, I know I have it. I kept it. I found it the other day because I never really worried about the actual thesis that I wrote. I actually published it in a book. Okay? Steps to fight chronic fatigue syndrome for the modern woman. Okay? It was about 95% women, but a lot of these symptoms were in there for chronic fatigue. Exhausted, okay? Irritable, suicidal, yeah, there was crying all the time. Unable to get out of bed. Well they are exhausted. Headaches, big time. Inability to cope with daily problems or stress, feeling numb. Okay. Extreme anxiety. I saw a lot of that, guys, I saw a lot of that. You're going back even into the eighties. I saw a lot of that.
Anyway, Netflix binge can kill you. Keep that in mind, okay? Don't binge. How chronic stress causes depression through a process of lack of autophagy. Depression is not from low Prozac levels, but from low sunshine levels. Okay guys, we've got a great week coming up. Now, apparently I missed a couple of questions last week. Now I didn't see them on my list, but people went back and when I was scrolling the other day, I realized that some people, can you send those back to me please? And I will answer those questions. I didn't do it on purpose. Okay? I'm a senior, maybe I missed it. I love pulling that senior card. It works. I pull it every day.
Okay guys, we love you dearly and sincerely. We thank you for making. Listen, The Doctor Is In podcast, the number one podcast on health in Canada, number one, okay? And what our goal is to make it number one in the US of A too. Okay? Not number two. Number one, that's you guys. And on Facebook, it ain't even close. It ain't even close. Number one. And guys, that's you guys. That's my audience. That's why I'm always telling you that you are the ones that make this show what it is. Okay? Not me. You. Okay? We love you, talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!