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Sunday, December 27, 2015

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast #119 Sleep to get Lean and Healthy!

pjsc 119  Sleep Yourself Lean and Healthy

The notion of getting enough sleep seems so corny, and so simple that it can’t really be that important, can it?  

“I am so busy, both at work and at home, that I can’t sleep more than 6 hours a night!” say most people nowadays!

But if you are waking up early to work out, and then working out again after work to “burn calories” and get thinner, you are doing things very wrong...If you don’t get at least 8 hours of real sleep per night, you are raising your stress hormone levels of cortisol, and increasing your chances of becoming diabetic, hypertensive, and obese.

Your risk of heart disease and mental disorders increase dramatically as well!  So, the notion of getting a good night’s sleep seems too “inconvenient”, you’d better reconsider.  Good, restful sleep is more important than exercise, and even more important than a proper, paleo type of diet!  

For one thing, if you stay up late and get up early, you will simply have more time to eat.  Also, when sleep deprived, the ghrelin and leptin hormones will get out of whack, and 
Ghrelin and leptin are hormones that hold the key to your appetite and weight loss. They signal hunger and the feeling of fullness. If these hormones are out of balance, your ability to lose weight is nearly impossible because it is very difficult to fight a strong urge to eat. You cannot overcome biology.

Doesn’t that sound ominous?  Well, it is!  So, I hope I have convinced you that late nights out or watching TV aren’t “harmless” to your health goals.  

So, you have become convinced, by the badgering of PaleoJay, to start getting a good 8-9 hours of sleep per night.  Good for you!  This will be a game-changer, a life changer really.  Not only will your body become a much more efficient fat burner, your appetite will decrease, and your mood and energy level will increase.  A desire for productive exercise will follow as sleep restores your mind and bodily processes.  Most people don’t even realize how much better they could feel on a daily basis, if they only got enough sleep!  

It’s like the paleo diet and lifestyle itself- once you really thing about it, it is so common sense that it is undeniable:

Processed foods, loaded with sugar and artificial fats are not healthy

Altered grains, loaded with tons of gluten are toxic

Produce sprayed with toxic chemicals is not good for us

Never walking or exercising leads to a sick, debilitated and weak body

Nutrient rich foods will make a strong, healthy, lean body

Who would argue with any of these statements??  The only ones who do are those with a moneymaking agenda:

The Federal Government, which is in the business of selling grains, worldwide, and so has a vested interest in ignoring the health implications of consuming such a toxic foodstuff.

Big Pharmaceutical and Medicine, which is in the position of making huge profits by making us all sick (from eating these toxic grains, vegetable oil grains, processed foods (loaded with grain products like high fructose corn syrup), and other sugars.

And Big Food corporations, which make billions selling substandard, nutrient poor processed foods like breakfast cereals and snack foods made from... grains and sugars and vegetable oil crap!)

And so, add one more onto the paleo, ancestral list:  

8-9 hours of sleep per night is a NECESSITY!

So, follow the advice of me, and your great grandparents- Eat real food, natural God made food, exercise in nature, and get a good night’s sleep each night!  

“But Jay, Jay- how do I do that- get a good night’s sleep I mean?  I just can’t sleep that long, or that soundly!”

Well, grasshopper, I have an some answers to that, and some will sound unconventional to you, but they are all true, and proven, so please do them for your own sake:

Get the television and any other electronics out of your bedroom!  NEVER watch TV in bed- the bed is for sleeping, it is sacrosanct.  If you have night lights, make sure they are RED, as that does not signal with the blue light spectrum that it is daytime, and you should be awake!

Download and install the https://justgetflux.com/ app onto your computer.  It’s a free app, and switches off the blue light spectrum gradually as it becomes later, readying you for sleep in spite of looking at your computer screen.  

Black out your bedroom!  If you live in an urban or suburban type of environment, you probably need blackout types of curtains.  NO light should be intruding on your sleeping space!

And last, probably most important (even though you’ve probably never heard of it before)-
Raise the head of your bed by 4-6 inches!!

Really.  This accomplishes a number of positive things, like eliminating sleep apnea, snoring, varicose veins,along with many other benefits!  It does this by greatly enhancing the circulation in the body; this results in better sleep, more vivid dreams, and numerous bodily improvements which are enhanced by improved sleep.  

Just put blocks of wood, or bricks, or even old books under the posts of your headboard, or get risers made to raise beds commercially, and only use them on the top end of the bed- you want the legs to be lower than the head!  

The positive effects of this simple, free fix have impacted my own life dramatically- I no longer snore, I no longer have sleep apnea, and I don’t have to get up at night to use the bathroom!  There are detailed scientific reasons as to why this slight elevation works, and why it is so important, but the bottom line is that it does work.  If you want to explore it more, go here- 

But, from my point of view, I just want you to start getting a good night’s sleep!  Each and every night.  8-9 hours...

Your body will start to burn fat, because it’s not stressing out about the crisis it thinks you’re in, since you aren’t sleeping enough.  In a crisis mode, your body starts to store fat!

You will start to feel great, like you do after a long vacation, where you just relax for long days, and sleep your fill day after day...

Your skin will rejuvenate (it does that during sleep), and you will start to feel and look younger, day by day.  

Now, look at my watch:  You are getting sleepy...