Author Cathy Biase Categories Media, Podcasts, The Health Hub Posted on 0 Comments

This Week On TheHealthHub…Right Sleep Part 2 With Dr. Stasha Gominak

Dr. Gominak attended college in California and  medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, receiving her MD degree in 1983. She completed a Neurology residency in 1989 at the Harvard affiliated, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. From 1991-2004 she practiced as general neurologist in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2004 Dr. Gominak moved with her husband to Tyler, Texas and began to concentrate on treating neurological illness by improving sleep. She published a pivotal article in 2012 proposing that the global struggle with worsening sleep was linked to reduced sun exposure.  In 2016 she followed with a second article linking the change in the intestinal microbiome to the epidemic of poor sleep, and described a simple process for normalizing sleep and the intestinal bacterial population, called RightSleep®.  In 2016 she retired from office practice to have more time to teach. She currently divides her time between teaching individuals, through virtual coaching sessions and teaching clinicians from a wide variety of medical and dental fields. Her popular courses and lectures help clinicians improve their patients’ health and wellbeing by improving their sleep.
Learning points:
  • Why do we sleep?
  • How can mom set baby up for a lifetime of good sleep?
  • Why does the science of sleep often lead back to lifestyle choices?
Social Media:

 

Listen live or catch the podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud!

Every Tuesday from 11am -12pm I host The Health Hub, an interactive, forward thinking talk show on Radio Maria Canada.   Call, tweet or email your questions as together we explore health issues that are relevant to you from new and innovative points of view.

TheHealthHub is now on iTunes!

Subscribe and don’t miss a single episode!

Follow us on Social Media

We are @thehealthhubrmc on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

How To Listen Live

Visit our website and learn how to listen live to our show each week. http://www.radiomaria.ca/how-to-listen

Let us know!

If you have a health topic that you would like us to discuss or are a health care specialist who wants to be a guest on our show let us know!

Here is our email.  We would love to hear from you! thh@radiomaria.ca

 

 

Author Cathy Biase Categories Media, Podcasts, The Health Hub Posted on 0 Comments

This Week On TheHealthHub…Right Sleep Part 1 With Dr. Stasha Gominak

Dr. Gominak attended college in California and  medical school at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, receiving her MD degree in 1983. She completed a Neurology residency in 1989 at the Harvard affiliated, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. From 1991-2004 she practiced as general neurologist in the San Francisco Bay area. In 2004 Dr. Gominak moved with her husband to Tyler, Texas and began to concentrate on treating neurological illness by improving sleep. She published a pivotal article in 2012 proposing that the global struggle with worsening sleep was linked to reduced sun exposure.  In 2016 she followed with a second article linking the change in the intestinal microbiome to the epidemic of poor sleep, and described a simple process for normalizing sleep and the intestinal bacterial population, called RightSleep®.  In 2016 she retired from office practice to have more time to teach. She currently divides her time between teaching individuals, through virtual coaching sessions and teaching clinicians from a wide variety of medical and dental fields. Her popular courses and lectures help clinicians improve their patients’ health and wellbeing by improving their sleep.
Learning points:
  • Is poor sleep just the new normal?
  • How is vitamin D linked to sleep?
  • Why is it imperative to know our serum D levels?
Social Media:

 

Listen live or catch the podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud!

Every Tuesday from 11am -12pm I host The Health Hub, an interactive, forward thinking talk show on Radio Maria Canada.   Call, tweet or email your questions as together we explore health issues that are relevant to you from new and innovative points of view.

TheHealthHub is now on iTunes!

Subscribe and don’t miss a single episode!

Follow us on Social Media

We are @thehealthhubrmc on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

How To Listen Live

Visit our website and learn how to listen live to our show each week. http://www.radiomaria.ca/how-to-listen

Let us know!

If you have a health topic that you would like us to discuss or are a health care specialist who wants to be a guest on our show let us know!

Here is our email.  We would love to hear from you! thh@radiomaria.ca

 

 

Author Cathy Biase Categories Blog, Cancer Coaching, Food & Nutrition, Lifestyle Posted on 0 Comments

Not Sleeping Well? Maybe You Need To Eat More!

Consider this: We sleep for about 1/3 of our life.  That, my friends, is a significant amount of time!

So, what happens when we sleep?

Have you ever thought about it?

Well I’m here to tell you that there is a world of action going on as we lay supine bridging one day to the next.

Brain Action

While we sleep our brain is working hard to process what we’ve learned during the day. Research also shows that sleep may promote the removal of waste products from brain cells.  Effectively this means that while we sleep our brains are detoxifying.brain

Detoxifying and Repairing

While we sleep our body is also hard at work detoxifying other areas of our body, as well as repairing it.

Our liver is at its peak detox stage between 1 and 3 am and our lungs around 4am.

And during sleep our body repairs cells, tissues and muscles. It synthesizes proteins and releases hormones.

Immune System

While we sleep our immune system is hard at work defending us.  It releases cytokines (proteins that fight inflammation and infection) as well as antibodies and immune cells that work to fight off harmful germs and infection.

So, as I am sure you can surmise, sleep is not a passive passage of time.  It’s an essential piece of our health puzzle.

Sleep Disruptors

There are many things to take a look at when you are trying to figure out why you may not be getting a good night’s sleep:

  • Poor sleep habits like not going to bed at a consistent time each night
  • Stress
  • Certain medications
  • External light
  • Room Temperaturesleep

And I am going to offer up one more.  A reason not often considered.

Are you consuming enough good quality food each and every day?  If not, this could be a contributing factor to poor sleep.

You need to provide your body with enough of the essential nutrients that it requires to have the energy it needs to perform all of those tasks that I mentioned above.  It’s vital for a restful sleep.

Our activity level, metabolism, body weight and how much we sleep each night are key factors in determining how many calories we burn while we sleep.

You can turn to calculators like https://captaincalculator.com/health/calorie/calories-burned-sleeping-calculator/ to help you determine more precisely how many calories you burn while sleeping but to put things into a bit of perspective here, a person weighing 150lbs may burn 400 calories during 8 hours of sleep while someone who is 185lbs may in the area of 500 calories.

It’s significant isn’t it?

I’m seeing this issue pop up more and more, especially in people who are experimenting with some form of fasting.  Fasting can be a great tool if done properly.  But it is not for everyone and definitely should be discussed with a practitioner who has experience in this area.

So here is a parting tip for you if you are trying to improve your sleep.

Keep a daily food journal.  Record what and how much you eat every day.

What you learn from it may surprise you!

References

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-sleep-clears-brain

https://www.healthline.com/health/why-do-we-sleep#restoration

https://www.healthline.com/health/calories-burned-sleeping

 

Author avisha Categories Blog, Lifestyle Posted on 0 Comments

White Noise is My Colour of Choice

In my blog entitled Health Care Trends I Am Watching in the New Decade from my February 2020 Newsletter, I mentioned that I believe that one of the greatest health trends to continue in to this new decade will be the ongoing study of both the quality and quantity of sleep and its impact on our overall health.

To reiterate from earlier writings, beneficial habits to incorporate when working towards good sleep hygiene include:

  • Maintaining a consistent bedtime routine
  • Turning all electronics off 1 hour before bedtime
  • Not eating 3 hours before bedtime
  • Sleeping in a cool room
  • Sleeping in darkness
  • Removing electronics from your bedroom, or at the very least, keeping them 2 feet away from your bed
  • Trying to get to be around 10pm

 

Something New!

I wanted to let you in on another tool that I have added to my arsenal of sleep strategies.

White noise.

Let’s set the stage here of my reality.

My hearing seems to be the only one of my senses that continues to increase in sensitivity as time goes by.

I wake to children roaming, doors closing and dogs snoring.  Darkness, coolness and time of retiring to my room just don’t stand up to the sound challenges that I face nightly.

I needed another bullet so I gave listening to white noise a try and it works like a charm.

What is white noise you ask?

White noise is a fuzzy sound. It’s like all of possible the sounds that you could hear melding in to one peaceful sssssss.  To be a bit more scientific though, white noise is a combination of all of the different frequencies of sound.

And this beautiful consistent noise masks other sounds that cause me anxiety at night.

 

Different Colour Noises  

White noise isn’t the only ‘colour’ noise.

There is pink noise, brown noise, blue noise and green noise just to name a few.

Basically each differs in frequencies.

Additional Benefits of White Noise

Using white noise for achieving better sleep is only one of the many benefits that people like me have noted by listening to it.

Other benefits reported include:

  1. Better concentration
  2. Better meditation
  3. Lessening of anxiety
  4. Reducing tinnitus
  5. Better sleep for babies

White noise has been a godsend for me.

“Alexa play white noise” is my new night time mantra.

 

 

 

 

 

Author avisha Categories cancer, Cancer Coaching, Lifestyle Posted on 0 Comments

Does Sleeping in on the Weekend Make Up for Lack of Sleep During the Week?

Sleep is our reward at the end of the day that allows our body to regroup, repair and restore.  But what happens if we don’t get enough sleep?

In the short term the effects of not getting adequate sleep can include:

  • Lack of alertness
  • Impaired memory
  • Moodiness

Chronic lack of sleep can have a severe impact on your health leading to serious health issues such as:

  • high blood pressure
  • diabetes
  • heart issues
  • obesity
  • depression

And research has shown that long-term sleep disruptions may raise the risk of some cancers including prostate cancers and breast cancers.

https://www.cathybiase.com/sleeping-cancer-fighting-powerhouse/

So now that we know, in broad sweeps, the importance of getting adequate sleep,  how much sleep is enough sleep?

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF), along with a multi-disciplinary expert panel recommends that adults get between 7-9 hours of sleep nightly.

So let’s do the math.  If we take the average of required sleep time to be 8 hours per night then multiply that number by 7 days a week, that works out to 56 hours of sleep a week to hit the desired target.  And when we get less than our needed amount of nightly sleep, this results in what scientists call a ‘sleep debt’.

So here is the question, if we fall short of the average 7-9 hours of sleep during the week, can we repay this sleep debt by sleeping in on the weekend?  Many of us assume yes but research suggests otherwise.

In this study researchers enlisted 36 healthy adults age 18 to 39 to stay for two weeks in a laboratory.  Their food intake, light exposure and sleep were monitored.

Volunteers were divided into groups. One group was allowed to sleep 9 hours each night for 9 nights. The second was allowed 5 hours per night over that same 9 day period. The third group slept no more than 5 hours nightly for 5 days followed by a weekend when they could sleep as much as they liked before returning to 2 days of restricted sleep.

Both of the sleep-restricted groups snacked more at night, gained weight and saw declines in insulin sensitivity during the study period. While those in the weekend recovery group saw mild improvements (including reduced nighttime snacking) during the weekend, those benefits went away when the sleep-restricted workweek resumed.  According to Christopher Depner, lead author of the study

In the end, we didn’t see any benefit in any metabolic outcome in the people who got to sleep in on the weekend

Getting a good sleep on a nightly basis is something many of us need to work on.

Here are some tips to help the Sandman come your way.

Tips for better sleep:

  1. Turn all electronics off 1 hour before bedtime
  2. Do not eat 3 hours before bedtime
  3. Sleep in a cool, dark room
  4. If you must have electronics in your room, keep them 2 feet away from your bed
  5. Be consistent with your bed time aiming to go to bed around 10pm

Sleep well friends!

Here is a very interesting and informative interview that I did with Dr. Garcia-Rill entitled “Why Do We Sleep?”

Have a listen:)

 

References:

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/press-release/national-sleep-foundation-recommends-new-sleep-times

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)30098-3

http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/22/5/872

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763417301628

 

 

 

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