44 Sleep Hygiene and Cancer.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

44 Sleep Hygiene and Cancer.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
Hi and welcome to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I am your host and guide, Dr. Jonathan Stegall. Cancer is like a thief who has come to steal, kill and destroy. I have personally seen it wreak havoc on patients, friends and even my own family. But I am on a mission to change the cancer paradigm. Who? The practice of integrative oncology cancer treatment that integrates the best of conventional medicine with the best of alternative therapies backed by science and personalized to each patient. You need a positive voice you can trust. This podcast will share valuable information to give you practical hope for a better outcome. So I invite you to join me on this journey as we seek to change the cancer paradigm together. Hello and welcome back to the Cancer Secrets podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Jonathan Seagal. This is season three and episode number 44. In today’s episode, we’ll be discussing a very important topic sleep. As always, we encourage you to listen with a loved one or friend. Learning and enjoying this show with a community will be more impactful than doing so alone. Today’s show is going to be a great one as we talk about sleep and how important it really is. Sleep is something you do every day. But do you know why? Up until fairly recently in human history, it was assumed that sleep was merely a passive activity designed to give the brain and body a rest.

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However, researchers uncovered many new details about sleep. It turns out that a lot is going on while we sleep every night. I’m going to talk first about the science of sleep and what happens while we’re snoozing. Then I will talk about the many benefits of sleep, as well as problems which occur when we don’t get enough sleep. Finally, I’m going to talk about sleep hygiene and why it’s so important. I will also provide some of my recommendations for sleeping better. When we sleep, we cycle between what is known as REM sleep and non REM sleep. The acronym REM or REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement. We’ll talk more about what REM is shortly. When you first fall asleep, you’re in what is known as a non REM sleep. During non REM sleep, there are three main stages. The first stage is when you first fall asleep. This stage of the transition between being awake and asleep. This first stage of sleep is brief and constitutes approximately 5% of your total sleep time. This is also the stage when you might experience sudden quick muscle jerks known as hypnotic jerks. You might have been awakened by these in the past. You soon move into the second stage of non-REM sleep, at which time the body temperature decreases and breathing becomes more regulated. Your muscles relax and your heart rate and brain waves both slow.

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This stage of sleep lasts between 10 minutes and 30 minutes. It is estimated that this stage comprises approximately half of your sleep each night. The third stage of non REM sleep is your deep sleep. This stage lasts between 20 and 40 minutes. Further decreases in heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature and muscle activity are seen during this stage. The brain waves also slow down further, which is why this stage of sleep is also known as slow wave sleep. This third stage of non-REM sleep is thought to be the most restful and restorative sleep. Most adults spend about 15% of their sleep time in this stage. If you’re awakened from this stage, you are likely to feel very groggy about an hour and a half into your nightly sleep. You enter REM sleep. This is the phase of sleep where the eyes move rapidly. Hence the name Rapid Eye Movement. Your first REM sleep each night lasts about 10 minutes, with each REM stage thereafter getting progressively longer as the night continues. Now, scientists aren’t certain as to why the eyes move rapidly during this phase, but one guess is that it’s related to our dreams. Rem sleep is important for processing information and helping us form memories. Dreams occur during this phase. For this reason, heart rate increases. Interestingly, muscles in the extremities relax even more during REM sleep, and researchers have wondered if this is actually to protect us from acting out our dreams.

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Newborns spend the most time in REM sleep, about 75% of their total sleep time. For infants, it’s about 50% of total sleep time. Meanwhile, adults spend about 25% of total sleep time in REM sleep. This often starts to decrease further in adults over age 65. This entire cycle is repeated 4 to 5 times during the night. You might be asking yourself what creates the desire for sleep? It turns out that it’s governed by what is known as a circadian rhythm. Deep inside the brain, in what is known as the hypothalamus, is a master clock that governs sleep. A key part of this cycle is a hormone produced by the pineal gland called melatonin. You might be familiar with melatonin as a supplement to help with sleep, and that’s because melatonin regulates the sleep wake cycle. But in ideal circumstances, the body produces the proper amount of melatonin. So you’re sleepy at the right time and are able to fall asleep easily and stay asleep until time to wake up the next morning. Unfortunately, sleep problems are ubiquitous today. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine notes that roughly one third of the population struggles with insomnia. For some, this is a temporary problem lasting less than three months. But for roughly 10% of the population, insomnia is a chronic condition, occurring at least three nights per week for at least three months.

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Now, these statistics are conservative. In my experience, poor sleep is a problem for most patients. Many people either have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or both. And many more people who sleep regularly don’t have restful sleep. Now there are many negative outcomes associated with poor sleep, including fatigue, poor memory, brain fog, irritability, decreased motivation, increased errors and even mood disturbances such as depression and anxiety. I want to discuss what is known as sleep hygiene. This can be thought of as a set of best practices for sleeping well. And as you can imagine, most people don’t do these things, or at least not all of them. Setting the stage for good sleep actually starts during the day. If you’re having trouble falling asleep at night, the solution might be as simple as eliminating or at least minimizing your afternoon nap. For many people napping during the day, even a short catnap is enough to throw off their sleep at night. For others, a short power nap in the afternoon is okay as long as it doesn’t occur too late in the afternoon or evening. This might require some trial and error if you are a habitual napper, but for most patients I recommend making sure you’re up from your nap by 4 p.m.. Now what you eat can also impact your sleep. I advise cutting off caffeine consumption after four or 5 p.m.

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each day. Consuming caffeine after this point can negatively impact sleep. Alcohol can also reduce sleep quality. So be careful not to consume alcohol, especially in the evening. Finally, eating too close to bedtime, especially if it’s a big meal, can make it more difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. I recommend avoiding food for at least 2 hours before bedtime. Not surprisingly, sugary meals can cause sleep issues as well, so it’s best to avoid that big serving of ice cream or cake too close to bedtime. Exercise during the day has been shown to improve sleep at night, and this is true for both aerobic training, such as walking, running or riding a bike, as well as for aerobic training such as lifting weights. Don’t exercise too close to bedtime, though. It’s been shown to disrupt sleep. If you work out in the evening, I recommend allowing at least several hours between completing your workout and going to bed. Now that we’ve discussed your pre bedtime routine, let’s discuss your bedroom. It should be dark. As dark as possible. One theory is that we’re supposed to be awake when the sun is up and asleep when the sun is down. If you think about the world before electricity, it was extremely dark inside and outside. And this was very conducive to good sleep. Keep your bedroom as dark as possible. If light is coming in through a window, make sure you have blinds, shades or curtains which allow as little light as possible to come through.

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Please turn off the TV as it creates a lot of artificial light in your bedroom. Also, be careful that light from other sources such as night lights, alarm clocks and other electronics isn’t creating too much light. Finally, I recommend leaving laptop computers, tablets and phones in another room. There are some studies now suggesting that use of these devices at night hinders good sleep. It’s also important to keep your bedroom cold. Many experts recommend between 60 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Again, thinking back to the stone ages before indoor heating, the temperature naturally drops at night. I believe this is due to the fact that our bodies are designed to sleep in colder temperatures and we’re exposed to during the day. Your bedroom should also be free from obtrusive noise. I’m a big fan of noise machine you can turn on prior to going to sleep. If you’re finding that background noise is an issue, something like white noise or ocean waves can be very calming while also blocking out background noise. If you live in a particularly noisy area, so much so that even a noise machine isn’t enough to block out sound. Consider using earplugs while you sleep. Another cause of poor sleep is an uncomfortable bed. Is it time to change your mattress? Are your pillows comfortable? Invest in high quality mattress, box springs and pillows.

Speaker1:
Considering the fact that you spend about a third of your life sleeping in bed. It’s worth the investment to have a comfortable bed. As a side note, please look for mattresses and pillows that are organic natural ingredients rather than typical chemically laden variety. I have real concerns about these chemicals leaching out and entering your body. We don’t know for sure what some of these chemicals do to our bodies, but preliminary science on these is not good. Again, you’ll pay more for high quality, but I do believe it’s worth it. In addition to blue light exposure from electronics, we must also consider electromagnetic fields or EMFs. There is a growing concern about the impact of EMFs on our health. We’ll discuss this in detail in a future podcast episode, but for now, please know that EMFs are potentially quite dangerous and can certainly hinder your ability to sleep well. This is one reason why I recommend not using electronics in the bedroom. If you must keep a mobile phone in your room. Turn into airplane mode to reduce the EMF exposure. I also recommend turning off your wi fi in your home as this will greatly reduce the EMF exposure while you sleep. In my house I use a timer so that my wi fi goes off at bedtime and doesn’t come on again until I wake the next morning.

Speaker1:
These outlet timers can easily be purchased very inexpensively online. As you can see, sleep is very important and when it comes to cancer, sleep is not only an important time to rest, recover and rejuvenate, but also an important time to help strengthen the body. The immune system works best when you’re getting adequate sleep, and that brings up an important point. How much sleep should you be getting? I feel that 7 hours of sleep each night should be an absolute minimum. Some people can get by with this amount or slightly less, but at what cost? Even if you sleep less than that and have no noticeable effects, what is that doing to your body over the long term? Ideally, 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night is best. Some people might need more than this maybe 10 hours or even more if your cancer is particularly advanced or you are receiving a lot of cancer treatment. However much sleep you find that you need make it a priority to get it every night. Now, we briefly discussed melatonin earlier. You might be wondering if I recommend it for sleep. The answer is yes, I do, especially in cases when the aforementioned sleep hygiene tactics aren’t enough. However, I typically recommend melatonin for another reason. It has significant anticancer properties. It turns out that melatonin has anticancer activity in several ways. Specifically, it blocks angiogenesis, which is the formation of new blood vessels to supply nutrients and other substances to cancer.

Speaker1:
Melatonin also boost the immune system. Interestingly, the dose is needed for a robust anticancer effect are much higher than those typically used for sleep. Most melatonin supplements designed to help with sleep are one mg, three mg, maybe five mg. Anticancer doses of melatonin start at ten milligrams and often increase to 20, 30 or even 40 milligrams per night. Now, this might sound like a lot, and for some people you do have to build up to this dose. But I found it to be very well tolerated. Now, depending on patient tolerance, the dose can be taken even higher than 40 milligrams a night. Some researchers are exploring melatonin at doses in excess of 100 milligrams per night. As always, this does not constitute medical advice. I can’t possibly advise you on what to take as you aren’t my patient. Please discuss this with your oncologist regarding its possible inclusion in your protocol. If he or she isn’t aware of the benefits of melatonin, you should consider getting a new oncologist. There’s a lot of good research out there about melatonin. I will say that I found it to be a really good addition to most of my protocols. I put most every patient on melatonin, certainly the ones who aren’t sleeping well. But as long as the protocol allows for it, then I put pretty much everyone on melatonin.

Speaker1:
Again, I start about ten milligrams per night and increase that to at least 20 milligrams and sometimes higher. Some patients can get a little groggy at first when we when we start out with the dosing. And so that’s why I like to make sure they get used to it before I increase it much. But I do feel like it’s an important part of our anti cancer protocol, certainly along with other appropriate treatments, is not a standalone treatment as nothing really is in when it comes to cancer. But so I want you to know that’s really how I use it. And I have found it to be a good addition to the protocol. So I hope you found this information to be helpful. Getting good sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your health. And this is especially true if you have cancer. Please make sleep a priority if you aren’t already. It’s a very important. As a reminder, please subscribe to the Cancer Secrets podcast to be notified when new episodes are released. If you’re enjoying these podcasts, please take a moment and provide a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Finally, please share this podcast with your family and friends. All previous episodes are available for free on our website at Cancer Secrets dot com. Thanks so much. Until next time. Bye bye.

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