How to Get the Best Sleep of Your Life Starting Now

Note: South Orange Chiropractic Center recorded this webinar of which is one episode. The webinar is produced and recorded for the ear and they were designed to be either watched live on video or listened to via audio. If you are able to, we strongly recommend listening to/watching this episode which will include emotion and emphasis that isn’t obvious when reading a transcript. Our transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and humans. They may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. This is not meant to be chiropractic advice.

Welcome, everyone to the webinar, this webinar is being recorded. South Orange Chiropractic Center is pleased to present How to Get the Best Sleep of Your Life Starting Now.

In this 30-minute presentation, Dr. Roczey will share valuable research and tips on how to improve your sleep. There will be time for some questions at the end of the presentation. And we’ll be taking questions through the chat feature only, that’s located at the bottom of your screen. Feel free to post your questions there throughout the presentation. And we’ll ask your questions at the end of the session. We do have a few questions already that were emailed in from folks that couldn’t make it today. During this live presentation. Please keep your microphones on mute. So that our presentation does not pick up any background noise. And with that, Dr. Roczey, please take it away.

Hello, everybody.
It’s really important when we’re talking about our health and wellness that we consider sleep. But there truly are six health factors that need to be considered in order to get the best healthy lifestyle and optimize your well being. And those are exercise, good mental attitude, proper nutrition, spinal health, posture, and most importantly, sleep. And most people think, you know what, if I sleep more, I’m going to be able to have a healthier quality of life. Now, the verb reverses. If you sleep less, I could just go without it. And it’s no big deal. And I can make it up the next day. But that’s not true. You have to sleep every night six to eight hours. Because if you sleep more, there’s consequences for your health, your brain, your your heart. Also, if you sleep less, there’s studies that show that it’s more related to stroke. So our approach today is getting you the best information in order to get the best night’s sleep.

So let’s talk about REM sleep, because that’s an important question that comes up quite often. And patients are always asked me what is. So REM sleep is extremely important because it helps to enhance your mood regulation, and more importantly, your mental concentration. And it helps your brain consolidate all the information that’s coming in and going out throughout the day. Now, REM sleep is also a stage in which most frequently you’re going to be dreaming vividly. If you’ve had a dream last night, guess what you hit your REM cycle. So how much of the night should you be in REM sleep, so out of your full eight hours, typically only about two of those hours are spent in REM. And again, Rem is when your body is repeating the healing process, the learning process for your brain connecting those neural pathways that have been used all day. So you’re ready to regurgitate, retain and give out the best information possible.

So out of your night’s sleep, five cycles are spent going in and out of different circadian rhythms. And only 25% of those 45% Is your REM cycle. So what happens when you have lack of REM sleep? Well, you might have one of those co workers that constantly comes in and they’re like saying, Hey, I’ve never slept well. I’m so tired today. Give me another cup of coffee. Well, yeah, that that can happen. You can be tired. But also, lack of REM sleep gives you an emotional roller coaster throughout the day. You’re able to, you know, come in do your job. But are you moody? Are you tired? Are you responding negatively? Those are some of the responses or results of patients not sleeping well enough. Other physical effects of not sleeping are migraines, all right, weight gain, obesity, some other things that patients don’t know about her immunity deficiencies. Lack of sleep can definitely lead to that. Also, there’s blockage of new and improved health tissue that’s supposed to rejuvenate after you’ve used and abused your body all day long. And remember, it can come mentally, it could come physically, it could come chemically, your body is undergoing oxidation all day long, and it needs that time to repair and recycle. So REM sleep. Absolutely important.

How many hours should we sleep every night? Six to eight hours. Can you make it up? No. And is it good to sleep? More than eight hours? Absolutely not in less than six hours? No way. So let’s start off by some better tips for better sleep. And that starts basically Throughout the day, during your sleep routine, your bedroom environment, those could all be improved in order to get you the best night’s rest. So let’s talk about daily Well, wellness. What can you do during the day that can affect your sleep? Well, one is exercise. Everyone should be getting exercise at least 30 minutes a day, it’s so important for the body to be used and become vitalistic. Because unless you use it, you lose it. The other thing is exposure to the daylight, most people don’t realize that our circadian rhythm is directly related to how we fall asleep. And early exposure to that light is going to help your body start to align with your sleep wake patterns. Alright, so get at least 30 minutes a day. How can you do it? Well, one is roll down the window of your car, have your coffee in front of your you know, your breakfast, or your coffee in front of your window each morning. It’s simple as that, but 30 minutes during the sunlight.

And one of the thing is you can combine it you can exercise, go for walk ins still get that sunlight throughout your day to start to get your rhythms back in pattern. Now, another tip is go to bed and wake up the same time every day. A suit consistent schedule is definitely linked to improved sleep, and the timing of every day activities such as meals, and sleep meals can impact your sleep patterns. So what can we do one set of consistent wakeup time. Alright, so if your wakeup time is 4am, it should be 4am. Every day, start your day with the same routine is it get up, get out, brush your teeth, take a shower. It’s telling your body what to expect throughout the day. Have breakfast and lunch and dinner around the same time. And if you’re eating dinner late at night, it should be very light. All right, each day. Now how about if you’re tired? Should you take a nap throughout the day? Absolutely. You can nap once or twice a day, but the only the only state that it should be about 15 to 20 minutes, because anything longer than 20 minutes can ultimately interrupt your your night pattern. So if it’s 20 minutes, perfect. It’s called a power nap get up power three the rest of your day.

But then again, go back to your evening routine. Now, what can we do for diet? How is our diet going to affect us? Well, one is you can imagine heavy greasy foods that’s not going to put you to sleep, it’s going to ultimately cause your body to process. I don’t know how many times you’ve gone to a family event or barbecue and you have a horrible night sleeping? Well, that’s because your body’s doing something called metabolizing. It’s breaking down that food you might wake up thought irritated, you’re going through a sweat. That’s because you overeat. So before you go to sleep, you should limit how much you eat. And you should also do it no later than 6pm every night. And they’re recommending that it’s a lighter quality food, more fruits, more vegetables so that your body has an easier time breaking that down.

Ultimately, your largest meal should be throughout the afternoon. Our most people go home and celebrate that their home with their family and friends. So just keep that in mind. Fruits and vegetables, whole grains, vitamins and nutrients that allow the body to function optimally and that are able to break down pretty well do not interrupt your sleep patterns and health. Great a better night’s rest. All right. The big thing I like is we have stress all day and just remember stress comes from you, not to you and it’s how you respond and react to the environment that’s bringing the stress towards you. But you can actually fight off your stress and you can fight it off through different techniques such as, you know, deep breathing visualizations exercise, but learning these relaxation techniques can ultimately improve your ability to sleep or if you’re woken up in the middle of the night, you can do some pattern interruptions.

So I figured we might talk about one which is diaphragmatic breathing. And that’s shown to improve your mood, your anxiety, your sleep, and slow down your heart rate and even lower cortisol because when you’re not sleeping and your body’s in a panic mode, flight or fight it’s honestly releasing too much cortisol which is causing more anxiety, more stress and more detriment to your your your bones, your tissues and organs. So let’s talk about a breathing technique that can help you sleep better calm your mind down, and it starts off by the 478 cycle. So it’s breathing in through your nose for four seconds, and then holding it for seven seconds. After seven seconds, you want to open your mouth, and exhale all the way out for about eight seconds. So remember, diaphragmatic breathing means you’re not breathing from the chest, breathing from the diaphragm, which is deep. So you want to suck in as much air as you can for four seconds for your nose. Hold it for seven seconds. And after seven seconds, release that for eight seconds.

Ultimately, you’re going to feel more relaxed, tired. And after four cycles of doing this, you might just fall back to sleep. Right? Now, with your sleep routine. It’s so important that you get that six to eight hours of sleep, the National Sleep Foundation stated it’s an absolute, it’s an absolute. And why it matters is because at night, all your body’s job to do is to heal itself. And the only time it has to do it is during those REM cycles that we spoke about. So most people don’t know if they’re sleeping properly, or how much they’re sleeping. So what we’re recommending is that everyone, if you’re waking up tired, and you’re not so sure, get a smartwatch or smart ring and start to calculate how much you’re sleeping. It’s amazing. Because then you can ultimately do increments of 30 minutes of when you should fall asleep. Or maybe you should go to sleep a little bit earlier. But figure out where exactly in, in, in your timeframe is your sleep affected the most. So for me, I used to fall asleep around 930. Well, according to my sleep watch, it stated that if I just fall asleep around 930 10 o’clock, I actually have a lot more deeper REM cycles, but I didn’t know that until the technology existed. So I would highly invest, go out there, get a watch that works for you. But figure out are you getting the right amount of sleep and recovery. And that’s usually done through a smartwatch.

Now, other techniques that we can talk about for reducing stress and calming activities are deep breathing, which we spoke about. But how about if you wake up at night, maybe journaling? speaking, writing down what happened during your day, getting out of your bed briefly and stretching, reading, meditating, listening to ambient music or a light podcast with rain and thunderstorms. It’s a different way to get your body to relax. Now, the other thing is, how do you use your bed. While most people sometimes watch TV, I’ve known couples to eat in their bed. It’s true beds are for just two things, one for sleeping and possibly sex. All right. So keep that in mind when you’re using your bed. It’s for those two things. Otherwise, your body gets used to too much time spending on awakeness. And it starts to stimulate bed with watching TV or a bed with checking out the news. So think about that next time.

Now one of the things is I never knew this. But if I had a bad night sleep, and I meditated and I stretch, and I read in a journal, and I still couldn’t go back to bed. I toss and I turn. But there is a study out there that says after 20 minutes, tossing and turning in bed can lead to frustration which we ultimately know and can create more habits of sleeplessness. So they say get out of your bed, go and do something different. And try those other tips that we spoke about to relax your mind. And then when you feel tired, get back into your bed. And hopefully your body will too will result in going to rest. All right. Now, before you go to bed, it’s really important. We have so many electronic devices around us and this is a big one is you should never use your electronic device right before you go to bed. Put it on silent mode, put it on airplane mode because a lot of people are using it for their alarm clocks. You want to get rid of that radio frequency that’s constantly being transmitted, sent back and forth and put your phone into those modes.

One it’s been shown to interrupt your pattern. Also the light from your screens at night also has an effect on the brain and creates a an ambient light that will actually trigger the brain to become more active. So you want to shut that off. Also LED lights in your home such as your alarm clock, your TV In the cable box, all of those have been shown to interrupt your sleep patterns. How do you avoid that is one is you can turn them off, we’re just get a little black electrical tape and put it over any of the light sources. And let me tell you after dimming down your room is best as possible, you’re going to notice a profound effect on how well you sleep, fall asleep, and stay asleep with just a dim, dark black room. And if you have to get curtains, that would be another thing to just black out those windows. And studies show a dark pool room is going to give you the best night’s sleep. And what would be the best temperature every night, they recommend about 68 to 65 degrees. So go down your room and dim out those lights.

Now the other thing we recommend for our patients is definitely you want to sleep on a comfortable mattress. If you notice every day that you wake up, and your back hurts or your neck hurts, you’re possibly not investing in your health. So it’s time to ask us one of your greatest resources on some of the mattresses that we definitely love and our chiropractic approved. Also a neck pillow that’s comforting. Supporting has support for your neck and your curvatures. That’s also highly recommended. Because if you’re in a position that’s relaxing, supportive, chances are you’re not going to wake up. Now, let’s talk about more of our sleep environment. Definitely you want to reduce the amount of noise. So if you have noisy neighbors, I can’t do anything about that. But you can always use earplugs. Because I’m a very sensitive sleeper. If I hear a car go by waking up so you have noisy neighbors or maybe a spouse that is a snore. You can always use earplugs to just damper that down. And again, that’s going to help you sleep a better night’s rest. We already talked about making everything as dark as possible. We talked about keeping the room cool. And between 65 and 68 degrees, right.

One of the things that’s new out is aromatherapy. There’s a I think it’s called Essential Oils, lavender oil, you can rub it on your your palms, the back of your ears, it’s just a natural relaxing, that’s definitely calming. I’ve tried it before in the past. And that’s the thing with sleep, if you’re having issues, falling asleep, all these tips that we just spoke about. We’re not going to be able to do them all but there might be one or two that you’re forgetting, or one or two that you said hey, I just haven’t tried yet. Give this a try. Aromatherapy definitely does help. But I also found something that’s really interesting is nutrient nutrition. There’s so much nutrition out there. And we supply to our patients ongoing to help them sleep.

But I wrote down seven of the vitamins that are out there for better sleep. And I’ll just give you the list right off the top. Well, what is magnesium, melatonin? There’s GABA, there’s l theanine, Valerian root, and chamomile tea. And a lot of people probably heard about chamomile, chamomile tea. But they state that the chamomile tea mixed with the valerian root is really really a good strong sleep inducer. And more importantly, if you do wake up, it’s known to also be a calming factor so that your body doesn’t go into a fight or fight stance, it goes right back to sleep. So that’s important. And the last one was vitamin D. Some of the things that we’ve found that have worked for our patients are CBD oils, the 750 milligrams, which is a dosage of a dropper underneath the tongue that’s helped patients tremendously. So these are just tips that we see that have helped people. And again, it’s not perfect for everybody. But we’re always here for you if you have a question or concern. All right. Now let’s talk about alcohol and caffeine because I love my caffeine. I love my espresso, but I know that if I have a espresso at five o’clock, there is no way I’m going to sleep at 930 to 10 o’clock. All right. Studies show that your last caffeine fix should be at 2pm. So if you go to bed at 839 o’clock, you give your body the hours it needs in order to expel all that stimulant so you want to give it about eight hours otherwise that caffeine might just keep you up some caffeine and also watch out for products that you may not know that have caffeine So, some people don’t realize that caffeine is in sodas. Caffeine is in chocolates, it’s a stimulant, it keeps you up. So just be wary of that. So if you’re gonna have your last coffee, make it at least eight hours before you fall asleep. All right.

The other thing is, we talked about alcohol. Well, alcohol, people go home at night, and they, they find that it relaxes them after a hard working day. But the alcohol has been shown to yes put you to sleep, but disrupt your sleep patterns, eliminating your REM cycles. And ultimately, that leaves you in a state of being tired. And again, mentally and physically exhausted for the next day. So limit your alcohol. So if you have two or three or four glasses of wine at night, start to do a reduction of one or two of those, and sooner or later, you’re going to notice that you may not need it. One of my suggestions for people who love wine or a beverage at night, get a club soda with a little bit of a spritz or a flavor in it.

And a lot of times it’s just that sipping technique that calms the body down. It’s a habit. And if we can break that habit, you could ultimately sleep a little bit better than Alright, so avoid your caffeine, avoid your alcohol as much as possible. And if you have to, you want to limit so that’s the rest of our tips. I did want to tell you guys like this week, we’ve been actually this month, we’ve been just hitting home how important sleep is it was one of our articles of the week, it’s on our whiteboards, and it’s that important. And just to sum it up. In just a couple of tidbits here, remember, set a sleep schedule, and stick it out for better sleep. Create a relaxing bedtime routine, you know, start your night early, get into bed, stop the news an hour beforehand. Anything that’s stressful a movie, a thought a conversation, just put it aside. And know that you know what it’s time to rest. And it’s time to close your eyes and get ready for the next day. exercise daily, at least a half an hour, make your bedroom a sanctuary from all the stresses of the day.

Keep it cool, keep it dark, keep it quiet, keep it comfortable. Use pillows that conform to your spine, support your head, neck and shoulders and use a pillow that also won’t go flat and stays cool. You don’t want anything warming you up at night, especially your sheets and your covers. There’s so many blankets out there that have comfort, cooling technology, invest in your health, invest in your wellness, because ultimately, you’re your most important person at the end of the day. Get out of your bed, if you’re not sleeping, and then returned after you’re ready. Avoid large meals towards the evening, and alcoholic beverages right before you go to sleep. And we spoke earlier about it was get that sun exposure at least 30 minutes a day. And in order to get your circadian rhythms in check. So I hope this helps everyone was just tidbits that we find successful for our patients. And I hope it’s successful for you.

Thank you very much, Doctor, we have four questions that have come in. Two of them are from folks that haven’t heard the presentation they were sent in ahead of time. Folks in the audience, please keep your questions coming in. But we’ll start with the ones we have right now.

Question number one, I feel fine with four hours sleep. Is that just what my body requires? Or should I really aim to get more sleep?

You definitely should. Because one of the things is four hours asleep. There was a study out there by the Health Institute for sleep. And it was on firemen and they ultimately have to get up and down throughout their entire shift. And they found that the firemen who had the most interrupted patterns, it led to on long term health issues for their heart, heart disease being the number one all right, it’s shorten their life expectancy. So yeah, you might be able to function but ultimately on the inside the organs and the body are not getting the nutrients and the repairing that they should get with six to eight hours. So yes, you should be sleeping a little bit more.

Next question. I like to sleep in on the weekends and they say you can’t catch up on sleep. But isn’t there any benefit to sleeping in?

You know what? It’s relaxing. It’s soothing. So guess what? Do it that’s the benefit. You’re not going to catch up for are what you lost, you’re just helping your body, relax. It’s calming. There’s nothing that says it’s going to do any harm to the body. So a sleep and enjoy it. It’s called the weekend.

Third question. If I have a particularly mentally challenging job, could that be why I feel so tired? The rest of my life is pretty good with my nutrition and exercise. But can thinking hard all day really require more sleep?

You’re absolutely right, any type of stress, we talked about it earlier, there’s physical, there’s chemical, and then there’s emotional. Now emotional is you can’t feel it until it’s an abundance. So if you’re going through that six to eight hours, with your boss or your work, and it’s emotional, yes, your body’s going to be fatigued because you’re releasing cortisol, all that cortisol is an anti A is a inflammatory to the body, it requires more of your energy to break it down. Alright. So when your patterns are always stressed, your your body’s always stressed, you’re going to be tired. And the second part of the question I believe, was, am I going to be tired? Throughout the day? What was the second part of the question?

They say that my life is pretty good with my nutrition and exercise. Could it be that thinking hard all day does require more sleep?

Ultimately, yeah, you’re using your brain, your brain is one of the biggest Oregon’s and it requires the most amount of energy. And you’re absolutely right.

And we’ve got a last question here. If I feel fine, I don’t have any aches or pains or injuries, but could some kind of general maintenance session with a chiropractor, could that help me sleep better?

You have to remember we talked about six facets of health. And I’ll just go over those. Again. The six facets of health are exercise, good mental attitude, proper nutrition, posture, sleep and spinal health is spinal health is your nervous system. And you have to remember if your nervous system is stressed out, because it’s being abused, or you’re in poor posture, or physically always stressed or lack of stress, lack of sleep. Yeah, your nervous system is not going to communicate as optimally as it should to the rest of your body. So if chiropractic is all about your nervous system, and your nervous system is all about communicating to the entire body to allow it to perform better, sleep better, move better, and think better. Absolutely. Routine adjustments are going to be beneficial. And I’m going to tell you, I have families that have noticed it. I have athletes that have excelled from it. And it’s not because they’re, they’re in pain or suffering. They just found the secret that most patients don’t know about. And that’s called chiropractic and nervous system care. So yes, absolutely. routine care is beneficial.

Those are all the questions that have come in today. Thank you very much, Dr. Roczey, for your presentation today. Thank you for everyone, for joining us. If you would like to make an appointment, please call us at 908-845-4047 or book online at Seth orange chiropractic comm and go to the book and Appointment button at the top of the page. A recording of this presentation and transcript will be available on the blog within a couple of weeks. Thank you very much for joining us have a great rest of the day and this presentation is over.