256. 7 Ways Poor Sleep Affects Your 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 maybe it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.

Dr. Martin: Well, good morning everyone. I want to do teaching this morning on sleep and what happens when you don't get a [00:00:30] good sleep. I think it's important to go over some of these points. First of all, it's estimated that 70% of the population today don't get a good sleep and the number one reason for poor sleep is cortisol. And cortisol is a stress hormone that your adrenal glands secrete and if you don't get a good sleep, your cortisol goes up. If your cortisol goes up, [00:01:00] you don't get a good sleep. So sleep is essential and I want to tell you what happens inside the body when you don't get a good sleep. Seven things that I want to talk to you about.

Dr. Martin: One obviously we just talked about it is cortisol. So if you're stressed and your brain won't go to sleep, cortisol is like inside like that, the fight or flight, [00:01:30] and it will not allow your body to shut down and to sleep properly and the brain stays awake. You might fall asleep because you're exhausted, but it'll wake you up. Cortisol has a tendency to wake you up. And again, if your cortisol keeps you from sleep, it will also go up and that affects your circadian rhythm, your clock, your internal clock, [00:02:00] and that really messes up your hormones. Here's another thing that happens, because your cortisol is elevated, it also elevates your insulin because the fight or flight automatically elevates insulin and therefore creates insulin resistance in your body. So guess what that does? Even without changing your diet, you're going to start storing more fat. [00:02:30] And of course that becomes very very frustrating. You see, so a good night's sleep is essential even in weight loss because insulin resistance, and of course we know that high circulating insulin and insulin resistance is one of the root causes of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes obviously, dementia and Alzheimer's. And all these [00:03:00] are always some root of it is elevated insulin.

Dr. Martin: Now the other thing that happens is a hormone that your body secretes called leptin. Now, leptin is a hormone that's secretes. Leptin tells you you're full. If you don't get a good night's sleep, leptin and ghrelin, ghrelin is spelled G-R-E-H-L-I-N, [00:03:30] ghrelin. Ghrelin. So leptin tells you that you're full and ghrelin tells you that you're hungry. Both of those hormones get messed up if you don't sleep property. You see how you can gain weight and mess up your whole metabolism just by not getting a good night's sleep.

Dr. Martin: The other one that is affected is your human growth hormone, [00:04:00] HGH. Your human growth hormone is affected so you're not building as much muscle. Your human growth hormone is secreted when you are sleeping.

Dr. Martin: Here's another one. Your liver works the night shift. Okay. So when the rest of your body, it's like my cell phone here, okay. You get on the plane and you put your phone in airplane [00:04:30] mode. That means while your phone is still, the power is still on, you're not getting any data coming in. Well your body has that at night. As you sleep, you go into airplane mode, there's no data coming into your body and your body starts to detox. Your liver works the night shift. It cleans your blood. That's when your blood gets cleaned the most by your liver and your kidneys. [00:05:00] They're working the night shift while you're sleeping and you're detoxing. Do you know that your brain has its own drainage? It's called the glymphatic system. We didn't even know that existed. We know your brain detox but we didn't know how until they discovered the glymphatic, not the lymphatic, but the glymphatic system that drains your brain of toxins [00:05:30] while you sleep. What if you're not sleeping? Yeah. Then even your brain and the toxins, heavy metals can be the yeast fungus that gets across the blood brain barrier that we've talked about in other live videos like this. Your brain doesn't even do a detox at night.

Dr. Martin: Here's another one. So it's leaky gut. You know that it's interesting, isn't it? That leaky gut, [00:06:00] your body's gut, your gut is made up of a blood gut barrier. It's little one lining thin cells, bacteria that the lining repair in your gut gets repaired when you're sleeping. So your liver, your brain, and your gut repair while [00:06:30] you're sleeping. Isn't that incredible? See the importance of a good night's sleep?

Dr. Martin: And the number one reason. Remember the number one reason that people don't sleep properly is because of high levels of cortisol. So get your cortisol down, check your B12 levels. If you don't have good levels of B12, you won't get a good night's sleep. Another factor in sleep is vitamin D because [00:07:00] guess how melatonin is made. You've all heard of melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that your body makes so that you sleep properly. Guess how you get melatonin? Forget the supplement, although you can take one. Your body makes melatonin with the sun, Vitamin D, that's right. Get out in the sun because that's how your body makes [00:07:30] melatonin. So when you get a good day a sunshine and like it is here in Florida today, you're going to get a better night's sleep. You need melatonin to get a good night's sleep. Now sometimes the hormone itself you can take as a supplement. I usually find just for me that it works only part time, the first time you take melatonin and for the first month or two it works and then your body gets used to it. It's better [00:08:00] that you get natural melatonin from the sun and from the vitamin D that your body makes from the sun.

Dr. Martin: So those are all things that you need to take into consideration to get a good night's sleep. You check your magnesium levels. Oftentimes with low levels of magnesium, low levels of B12, high elevated cortisol, high elevated insulin, you won't get a good night's [00:08:30] sleep. So that's why your diet is very important.

Dr. Martin: One factor too in sleep for a lot of people is stop eating early enough. Like if you finish your supper around six o'clock or whatever, it's better that you give your body a good four hours before going to sleep to let your digestion, let your gut rest. Because if it's not, if you're trying going to sleep and your gut is still digesting food, then [00:09:00] that can be a factor in a poor sleep quality. So thanks for watching this morning.

Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.

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