Transcript Of Today's Episode
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Dr. Martin: Well, good morning, everyone and once again, welcome to another live this morning and we're going to talk about the importance of good sleep. [00:00:30] Like an epidemic today, it really is. It's reported 70% of the population, two-thirds of people, they just don't get a good sleep and that's important because sleep isn't overrated. I used to have a few friends that it seemed that they ran 24/7 and never needed sleep. And you know, I don't know if they coined that phrase or somebody else did, but they said sleep is [00:01:00] overrated. Didn't need to sleep. Look, there's a lot of things that happen when you sleep. There was a new study out. That's why I'm talking about it this morning. Poor sleep decreases your immune system and we'll talk about how that happens. But I think it's important to talk about what happens when you do sleep.
Some people need less sleep than others. I know that. We all got different fingerprints. We're all different. [00:01:30] But at the end of the day, I think it's important to understand that some people sleep and repair and some people sleep out of exhaustion, but they sort of hibernate and they really don't feel refreshed when they get up. I think that's a key. So, subjectively, you get a four or five hours of sleep and you [00:02:00] get up and you feel real good, but if you're tired all the time and some are still sleeping, but I call that hibernation. You're sort of sleeping, but you're not going through all the cycles of sleep. So there's four cycles of sleep, but I just want to do a little bit of teaching on that, but I'm not going to get into a lot of detail just to give you some. A lot of people know about REM, [00:02:30] that's rapid eye movement sleep.
That's a part of sleep that's important, by the way, to get a REM, but there's really four cycles and you cycle through those things a few times a night, but there's four. Of course, we know a lot more about sleep than we used to and the repair part is the deepest part of your sleep just before you go into [00:03:00] a REM and REM is when you're dreaming. I don't put too much stock into remembering your dreams or anything like that. Eh, the things that I do remember my dreams, they're all crazy, but you want to get into that deep sleep where your body repairs, so it's really important to look at what happens when you're sleeping. Now, you [00:03:30] guys remember this, anybody that's been on with me for a little bit will remember what I talked about several times in the brain is what we call glial cells.
So one of the significant findings, probably in 2019, it might've been 2018, I can't remember exactly, is that we found out that the brain had its own repair system separate from the [00:04:00] rest of the body. It had its own sort of lymphatic system, drainage system in the brain, but you needed to be asleep for it to work. Now, we didn't know that before. These glial cells, G-L-I-A-L, glial cells, they go to work and do the night shift when you're sleeping and especially when you got into that deep sleep, [00:04:30] glial cells repair. Think of it as repair.
Think of an office building. The building's empty except for the janitors, right? Schools, right? The schools are empty. The janitors go in and clean it. Well, you got that in your brain, but it only happens when you're sleeping. By the way, I think this is equally [00:05:00] as significant. When you do artificial sleep, meaning you take a sleeping pill, glial cells don't work. I know people that have been on sleeping pills for 20, 30 years and they get hooked and they're hooked in the sense that they can't sleep without it, but you're not sleeping. You're sedated. You're hibernating. [00:05:30] The nights are long when you're not sleeping. I'm a good sleeper by the way, but every once in a while, I get a night that I don't sleep so well. I can't turn that brain off, right? I understand that it's long. My word and 70% the population not getting into a good sleep so the number one thing you want to do, why sleep is important? Number one, [00:06:00] is repair.
You want to repair the brain, take out the garbage, clean it up, get rid of the dead cells and regenerate, repair and regenerate the night chip. Interesting how your body works, eh? Can I ask you have you ever put your phone into the airplane [00:06:30] mode? No data's coming in. You get on an airplane. They say, "Turn it off or put it in airplane mode." Well, your body does that. Obviously, your heart is working, but as you get into a deeper sleep, your heart rate is going down. It's going into airplane mode. Your kidneys, your gut, don't eat. Don't [00:07:00] eat too late because now your gut can't go into airplane mode and it's working and you don't want that. A lot of people, they got acid reflux because they eat too late. Somebody that has Barrett's or hiatus hernia, or whatever. I always tell them, "Stop eating, 5:00, 6:00 latest. Give your body three, four, five hours to completely [00:07:30] digest." I know we like our little snacks watching DV. Hmm. That's not good for you.
I'm going to show you something. I probably will go on the private Facebook group because I've tried something with sleep. I'll talk about it, but I'm going to show it to you after. It's a little drink you can take. For people that are not sleeping well, I want to show you something. I want to show you a little trick. So what happens [00:08:00] in sleep is repair and regenerate. Why is that important? Well, it's part of keeping that brain regenerated. Alzheimer's, we've talked about that many, many a time, but part of it is repairing the brain. People that don't sleep are much more susceptible to cognitive damage, so it's important, repair, [00:08:30] regenerate. Here's another factor, the immune system and this is where the study came out. The study showed that when you don't sleep even one night's sleep, miss one night's sleep, your immune system doesn't work as well. They're showing because it lowers your lymphocytes. T-cells. Remember what T-cells are.
They're your Navy [00:09:00] Seals and Navy Seals, when your other white blood cells, just think of ships in the ocean of your blood and they see a bacteria, they see a virus, they see a parasite. They call in the Navy Seals, the T-cells and the T-cells will go right at them and they'd come out of your lymphatic system [00:09:30] and you make up these T-cells. But if you miss a night's sleep, wow, you don't make as many T-cells. The study was showing that people that usually get a cold, and now we're talking COVID. There haven't been enough time, I think, to look at this in terms of COVID, but remember, the coronavirus is just an offshoot of a cold, of [00:10:00] the flu and people who get that, usually, they've missed some sleep. It's one of the factors. So that's really important, isn't it? What it does to the immune system. So what it does to repair, regenerate, what it does to the immune system, here's another thing that they found with sleep. It increases your inflammation.
[00:10:30] Now, if you look behind me, you'll see some of the books that I've written here and one of them is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: The Modern Woman's Curse and I talked about that book and the other one is Energy Robbers and the Fatigue Cure. What I did in those books, I was talking about chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, which is, if you take a coin, it's just a two- [00:11:00] headed coin. Chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia go together. I always said it, that fibromyalgia was not a separate disorder from chronic fatigue. They go together and I always talked about adrenal exhaustion, the stress hormone over a period of time. It was a perfect storm, but one of the things I talked about in fibromyalgia was one of the symptoms and chronic fatigue [00:11:30] is you're exhausted, but you don't sleep well.
Even if you feel like you've went to bed early and you slept, you were exhausted and you get up the next day and you're still exhausted. Well, you hibernated, you weren't sleeping. So I talked about pain of fibromyalgia. That book's 25 years old, one of them. I did a second edition. That was the Energy Robbers [00:12:00] and so it's 20 years old. But what I said in those books is that the reason fibromyalgia, chronic pain is due to inflammation and I talked about food and insulin, but I also talked about the lack of sleep in a repair state. You really weren't sleeping. You weren't getting into that deep recuperative sleep and your [00:12:30] pain threshold goes way up. Why? Inflammation. So immunity, repair, regeneration, all effective. Inflammation, your pain sensitivity goes up when you're not getting a good sleep. One of the things that happens too, is the inflammation immunity and your metabolism. [00:13:00] Ladies, hard to lose weight when you don't sleep because your metabolism gets messed up.
Your body operates on the circadian rhythm and when that's upside down, your metabolism slows down. It affects your clock. It affects your thyroid, the gas pedal in your car and the furnace. It can affect your [00:13:30] body temperature, but it's your metabolism in a lot of women, it's more women than men. You're complicated, but how many women that get even menopausal or whatever are peri-menopause? They get close to men and their sleep is not as good. They got hot flashes and they're, "Oh." Men, we don't get that. The odd, weird one does, but men don't get that. [00:14:00] Ladies have horror moments. That's an effect too, can be an effect on sleep. So metabolism, and by the way, what I didn't tell you about inflammation is you guys know this. Inflammation, we always say it at the Martin Clinic. It's not Houdini, but if you don't sleep, your inflammation goes up.
If you're eating too many carbohydrates, your inflammation goes [00:14:30] up because of insulin. Insulin is a growth hormone. It's an inflammatory hormone. Estrogen is a growth hormone. Too Much of it can be an inflammatory hormone that can affect you because inflammation is involved. It's not the root cause, but inflammation affects your heart, affects your brain, affects your joints. [00:15:00] It has an effect on diabetes, autoimmune, Alzheimer's, inflammation. They find it all the time. But remember, it's not Houdini. It came from somewhere, but when you don't sleep, you're creating an inflammatory response in the body. So, really important to understand all [00:15:30] that. So now we looked at some of the effects of not sleeping. Let's look at some of the reasons you're not sleeping. Their legion. I'm a guy that spent many, many, many, many years clinically in practice so I look for deficiencies in sleep or factors.
I look for factors and deficiency. [00:16:00] What did I see? One, we talked about it already, insulin. Often, often, often, people that don't sleep are insulin-resistant. It's part of the package often. A lot of people that change their diets, a lot of people even on reset. It's amazing. Read the testimonies. "Auntie, I'm sleeping better." Yeah, because when you lowered [00:16:30] your insulin, you were lowering your inflammation. Here's what I saw. So elevated insulin, not always, but a lot of times. Low levels of vitamin D, name the disorder and vitamin D is involved, guys. You go back, and there's been studies, there used to be some tremendous studies coming out of The Vitamin [00:17:00] D Council and they talked about vitamin D and sleep. So vitamin D is not a vitamin. It's a hormone. You know what we see here at the Martin Clinic all the time? You're a human solar panel. It's true, though, by the way.
A lot of people realize this. They get a sunny day and you're outside and you're active and even when you're sunbathing, [00:17:30] you find that you usually sleep a lot better. Why is that? Well, because obviously vitamin D, but you're getting melatonin. People ask me about taking melatonin as a supplement. Meh, if you find it works for you, I am bigger on getting your vitamin D levels up because that'll get your melatonin levels up. I got no problem with people taking melatonin, but you make [00:18:00] melatonin when you get in the sun and one of the ways you get sun is don't put sunglasses on, not right away. I know some people are tremendously sensitive to the sun, but if you can let your eyes, I know, go look in the sun directly, but it's amazing. Those rays, they get into your eyeballs.
Vitamin D is everywhere. It's good for everything. Even your eyeballs have [00:18:30] a solar panel, but when you get that sun, you're making melatonin. Your body makes melatonin. What is another time your body makes melatonin? One in the sun, two, when? In pitch black. When they tell you to wear a mask, a better mask to wear is one around your eyes, cover up, no light. [00:19:00] None. If there's any light at all, guess what? You're not making melatonin at night. Pitch black. I wear a mask to bed. I want to make melatonin. That's really important, isn't it? Vitamin D, people are low on levels of vitamin D. What are they saying? 80%, yesterday I read. 80% of the African-American population, the darker your skin, [00:19:30] the more vitamin D you need. I'm pretty fair. I love the sun, but I'm pretty fair. I get a tan, but people with dark skin, that dark pigment, you need more sun. You need more vitamin D.
I took this morning, for me, I took about 12,000 ius. We've had a couple of nice days of sun. Did you see the picture I posted out for a walk? We had two [00:20:00] gorgeous days, fall days. I was sort of saying in my head, "If we had that weather all winter like that, I wouldn't have to go to Florida." So melatonin, vitamin D, like I said, low levels of melatonin are because of low levels of sunshine or you're not getting that dark. You're used to sleeping in a room, you got some light on. Don't do that. Don't do that with your kids [00:20:30] either. Grandchildren, get them used to a very, very dark room. It's better for them. Keep your room cool at night too. It's better. So deficiencies, here's another one I would see consistently and sleep low levels of B12. Low levels of B12. B12 is an important vitamin, isn't it?
You [00:21:00] rarely ever hear me talk about other B vitamins. Not that they're not important, but if you eat eggs, meat and cheese, you get all of your B vitamins. But a lot of people are low. 70, 80% of the population do not have optimized levels of B12 and B12 makes you alert. It does. It's a brain vitamin, but it also helps in the repair of your brain. So that's one of the things I noticed. [00:21:30] People were low in B12. People were low in magnesium. You know what I like? Epsom Salts, a hot bath, not a hot shower, a hot bath, and put a cup of Epsom Salts. That's magnesium salts, one of the best ways to get your magnesium and think of magnesium as the word, relax. Magnesium [00:22:00] relaxes the body. It calms the body down. I like Epsom Salts. I really do. I've been preaching that for so many years. People with fibromyalgia and all, I used to tell them, "Take that Epsom Salt bath. Hot bath. Very, very good for you." Another one, get your cortisol down. Cortisol, the stress [00:22:30] hormone. It's such a big factor.
Let's say you go to sleep. You fall asleep and you wake up in the middle of the night, that's cortisol, your brain, woop. You know how many patients over the years used to tell me, it was almost like clockwork, bing! Three in the morning. "Oh no, I can't get back ... " That's cortisol. It'll wake you up and cortisol it's adding fuel to the fire of inflammation. Get your cortisol [00:23:00] down because people talk about melatonin in that. Eh, I always tell people like, "Look, sometimes it works for people, but it usually has a shelf life. It doesn't work after a while." I like our cortisol formula. It's just the things that I found over the years that worked the best and I put them in a combination. They take that stress level down. It's important for everything, but it's really important for a good sleep. Get the cortisol down because I found cortisol [00:23:30] level, it's one of the findings. Cortisol was through the stinking roof. We live in a crazy world, completely upside down. Honestly, I'd never seen anything like it. Somebody was saying, "Can we get rid of 2020 already?"
Wow. It's just been crazy, right? So, you know what? I was reading just yesterday, because part in the family, but a little farther away [00:24:00] from me, but the amount of opioid overdoses, young people. I got my degree in obituaryology. I look at the obituary. I'm fascinated by them. It's when I see young people in there. My word, lots of cancer, but you know what it's more of and they're telling you to donate to the mental health? Just by the way, [00:24:30] is the lockdowns worse? I always tell people, "Let's think ahead a little bit." I know. We got a virus. We got to react to it. I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is just be careful. We got millions and millions of people that are depressed. Imagine if you're in an old age home. I told my kids, "Don't put me in there, especially if there's COVID, [00:25:00] then you can't come and see me." For heaven's sakes. I've never seen craziness like this.
I tell doctors, "You're not thinking past your nose." There's stress. People need people. Are you a people person? Everybody is. You might think you're a loner, but everybody needs people. I don't want to get into that, but that's stressful. Let me just finish here. What else do I want to talk about in [00:25:30] the deficiencies? Oh, by the way, just show you what Epsom Salts do, because I pulled out a study to look at this and Epsom Salts will decrease your blood pressure and decrease your A1C, which is your blood sugar. Epsom Salts, a hot bath. There's a little teaching this morning on sleep, the importance of it, some [00:26:00] of the causes, poor sleep and it's really important, isn't it?
So tomorrow is a question and answer Friday, so if you have any questions, send them into us and I'll be happy to look at them. We've got some good teaching coming your way. Stay tuned. I think you'll really, really find it. Fascinating. Boy oh boy, the news behind the health news. That's sort of my job is to bring that stuff out [00:26:30] for you. If you're not a member of the Martin Clinic Facebook private group, please join. Get your friends to join. We appreciate that and I'm going to do a little bit of teaching in there to the private group and then, book is coming. I saw the cover yesterday. It's fantastic, so it's coming to a theater near you. [00:27:00] Okay, guys. Talk to you soon. Love you.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor is In podcast with your hosts, Dr. Martin, Jr. and Sr. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening.