Game Plan to Restore Sleep with Simple Natural Rhythms and Supplements

Brian Strickland  00:06

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Nutrition Made Simple. And Nutrition Made Simple is a series where we take a look at some common or complex ideas surrounding health, and break them down into easy to understand and actionable steps that pretty much anyone can take. And on today's episode I have with me the owner, founder of Nutrition World, Mr. Ed Jones. And we're gonna take a little bit of time to talk about sleep, what causes people to lose sleep, what causes people to not be able to fall asleep and what causes people to wake up when they are asleep, and some natural remedies to help with all of those issues. So let's dive right in. Ed, I know that you personally have struggled with insomnia on and off over the years. And so that's proof that regardless of your level of health, because you're one of the healthiest people I know, this can be a real struggle for people regardless of that. So what, in your experience, and over the years, what are some of the common reasons that you've seen for people to lose sleep or unable to fall asleep?

Ed Jones  01:20

Well, thank you, Brian. And you know, I appreciate the fact that you made that statement, that actually lack of sleep doesn't have a lot to do with whether you're healthy or not. I know plenty of unhealthy people who sleep like babies. And so we don't all we shouldn't always equate that. And the problem is that lack of sleep is one of the biggest risk factors for cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, depression, anxiety, so many of us are suffering, needlessly, but suffering and then being medicated when the real cause is lack of sleep. Now, again, you said, and I am a chronic Insomniac, there's no doubt about it. I go through periods where I can do fairly well. And then I have other periods where I struggle, and I would say 60% is struggle. 40% is pretty well. Sometimes I can pinpoint why that is. And sometimes I can't, I think most people would probably agree that that's true in their life. And I will save after listening to 10s of 1000s of people's health stories since 1979, more than half and probably 70 to 80% can get to sleep, they can't stay asleep. They'll get to sleep at nine o'clock or 10, then they'll have that one o'clock awakening two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock. That's the biggest issue for most. And I have a game plan that literally I talked about a second before we started this with you that I can't fix it. But I can manage this insomnia. And if I did not have the toolkit I have had and used I think I might not be here today. So first off getting to sleep. I use the analogy of do we pull in our garage coming down the road in front of your house, you're doing 40 miles an hour, do you pull in your garage at 40 miles an hour? No, you start slowing down pretty good ways before you get to your garage. That same exact analogy with asleep. Do not expect to be wide open, doing your emails, running around getting chores done and expect to put that head on the pillow and be able to go to sleep. It has to have an unwinding process. Look at animals in nature. I love looking at wildlife because they still remember how to be healthy instinctively. They don't do it with knowledge, they do with instincts, and they always wind down. They don't just run in and flop down. And we need to do this with our lifestyle habits. I don't know if you do that or not. But many of us too busy people don't. And then secondly, the things that I'm hugely invested in is not being in front of a blue screen or blue colors three hours to five hours before. My new iPhone has settings where I can remove that and I have it set for 6pm no more blue light comes out of my iPhone, computers, iPads, TVs. We sell blue blocker glasses, that Nutrition World very inexpensive. They block those blue lights. Why would we need that? It completely alters the production of our own melatonin and other brain chemicals, not just melatonin. So many people are wearing blue blockers all day long, because it's an unhealthy wavelength of lights. And it wasn't meant to be we had lived in nature, we wouldn't worry but we're living in artificial lights which produced blue. So no more blue lights are minimizing. Secondly, I'm a huge fan of taking things to help me get to sleep and stay asleep. What are those? You know, honestly, I kind of poo pooed melatonin for many many years because I thought it made me have weird dreams. I thought it might have given me a headache. New research came out and one of my star employees Adam kind of kept putting it on my desk. I kept starting to read it. Melatonin after especially after age 40. It's declined significantly. And it's an anti aging hormone. It does so much more than just sleep. But it helps us to get to the deep levels of sleep when, when that's where the recuperative part of sleep happens is the deep part, not the light part. And I started boosting my milligrams very quickly and found 10 milligrams was amazing to help me stay asleep a little longer and get into deeper levels. Not perfect, but it helped me to get to sleep. And so I recommend experimenting with melatonin between one and 10 milligrams.

Brian Strickland  05:38

Okay, cool. In the wintertime, does that change at all? Because I know it gets darker earlier. And that's when that melatonin production really starts to kick in. So is there a specific time that you're taking it?

Ed Jones  05:49

I always do it about 30 minutes before bedtime, because I can get to sleep. I just can't stay and I want it to be lasting a little bit longer. It's all about experimenting. If you have grogginess in the morning, do it earlier, or do less milligrams. It's just about experimenting. It can't hurt you people. No way, can it hurt you.

Brian Strickland  06:08

In the wind downtime that you talked about earlier? Is there any specific time that you're starting to do that? Is it two three hours before your bedtime?

Ed Jones  06:17

The minimum is 60 minutes. I do really involve myself with a period of time to be in silence and be meditative. And of course, I don't have kids and super noisiness before my bed and with that, I don't you know, it's more of a challenge, no doubt, as you know. But I carve out that 60 minutes I and I know that I'm unusual, I really haven't watched TV now in almost six years. I have one. Finally, my daughter gave me one. And occasionally I'll watch something. But I just there's so much to do that I don't really need it. And it's helpful to me because the brain starts going. And to be honest with you, reading the news was the number one worst thing for me. And I don't want to be clueless. So if I want to read the news it's during daylight hours. I made an absolute commitment to never look on those buttons after about 6pm. Because it creates disharmony within the thinking patterns because it creates fear. Fear is why we can't usually sleep.

Brian Strickland  07:20

And the same can be said for like really intense or dramatic TV shows. You know, if you're watching those, it's there's definitely an internal response that happens and like a heightened awareness that you're not going to be able to fall asleep very quickly at all. 

Ed Jones  07:31

Yeah, because it raises cortisol stress hormone, I mean, that'd be like running around the block and then expecting to go to sleep, you can't do it and you're running around the block mentally when you watch an exciting TV show. Or even you could be reading the wrong book. But generally reading doesn't mean that to you.

Brian Strickland  07:48

Okay, so let's take a minute and talk about if you're not having trouble falling asleep, but you're waking up in the middle of the night consistently. And sometimes, I mean, that's two or three times a night or even more. What are some of the things that people can do that are natural responses to that to help them fall back asleep?

Ed Jones  08:06

Well, the one thing I'd say and I had to learn the hard way is quit expecting what happened when you were young as we age and what was that? I went to sleep at 10 o'clock and I didn't move a muscle until seven and got up and didn't even have to remember the night. That's not going to happen as we age. We have to accept the fact that we will start having early morning awakenings, animals do it in nature. It's called that wolfing hour. Why do we do it? There's all kinds of clues. Part of it is that about three o'clock in the morning if we still had the genetics that we were in the jungle, a lot of predators start really searching food about that time. Who knows we may still be wired into that we better be more alert. I don't know. I use the term cognitive popcorn though. This is what happens. It is generally not a physical disturbance. It's a mental disturbance and emotional based on thinking. So you wake up at 12:30 you know a lot of us guys we certainly get up go to the bathroom. Some women do too. Bladder is an issue in many people and we certainly have a great pill for that called SagaPro. I have to throw it out SagaPro helps you to go 50% less at night. If you take a SAGAPro, it strengthens the bladder, but that person waken and you go in you come back, you're not gonna go right back to sleep. And so unless you can somehow not have this happen, you're going to start thinking of the next day or the previous day one of those two things will happen. And then the to do list and then the what if list. The what if list is the fearful list. So I'm completely trusted and connected to the one remedy that I think has saved my life. GABA. What is GABA? It's a brain neuro chemical transmitter. We have tons of it when we're young. We start losing it when we get to be older, older meaning 40 ish, maybe even 35. What does GABA do? It acts like a filter. And it keeps all of these cognitive popcorns from popping, really, it's like putting popcorn seeds in the cooker, but you don't turn it on. You still have it, but you don't pop them. GABA at 1000 milligrams, not 500. I put two pills next to my bed every single night with a cup of water. If I come back to bed, and I have one inkling that this brain is going to start popping, I'm going to take my two GABA. So it doesn't make you sleepy, it makes you calm. The reason you can't go back to sleep is you don't have the calmness. So GABA is a miracle substance for me. And because it's already in the brain that reduces side effects to almost zilch. Now, have I done it more than once a night? Yes, there's been many nights I'll do at 12:30 and about a 3:30. What it does for me, it gets me back into the REM sleep the sleep that is nourishing and cleansing. There's actually why do we want to be in that deep sleep? I actually thought of this example years ago. We all most of us have been to Disney. And we know what a perfection that park is. Absolutely. You would never find a piece of trash. It's beautifully kept up. And can you imagine what goes on at night in that park for cleaning and straightening and removing anything that was toxic or garbage? Well, this is what the brain does if you are in deep sleep. Well imagine if that park all of a sudden for two weeks, had some really tough times and no employees came at night. The park would start getting worse and worse with every day. That's what happens when you don't cleanse the brain with deep sleep. Anxiety, depression, foggy thinking, of course, fatigue, all of those things would come to surface because you didn't cleanse the toxins from those brains. We have to have sleep. If anything ever happens to me. It's going because of my lack of sleep. But again, my GABA, melatonin, and a few other relaxing things is my lifesaver. I know it's going to make me live as long as I possibly can.

Brian Strickland  12:08

Yeah. That's awesome. Thanks, Ed. 

Ed Jones  12:10

All right, Brian. 

Brian Strickland  12:11

Hey, we really hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out, give us a call visit us in store. We're always happy to help. And also you have an Ebook on nutritionw.com that is going to list the majority of these and even a few more tips as well. So if you're interested in that, be sure to check it out. And we'll link it in the email. So thanks everyone. Hope you have a great day. We'll see you next time.