Tips on Getting Better Sleep

Transcription

Hello, everyone. This is Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place. In today's video, we are talking about something that a lot of people need, and that is "Better sleep." There's a lot of things that we see that can be triggering this in people. Sometimes it's stressful events in their life. Sometimes it can just be things that throw them out of whack and out of their normal routine. But there are some two big categories, two main categories that I wanted to talk about today regarding our sleep, and how this can help. So understanding where you're having trouble is very important, 'cause there's a lot of things out there people will try to sell you to help you sleep better, a lot of pills, maybe melatonin, whatever it is. So it's important for us to understand where we're having trouble sleep, and what we can do naturally to improve that. What behaviors can we change to make that better, rather than always looking for a pill. So trouble falling asleep is usually an indication that the person is having something to do with their melatonin. That doesn't mean they have to go start taking melatonin, but trouble falling asleep is usually linked to melatonin not cycling up to help you get into sleep.

A lot of the times, these are people who are getting way too much screen time, especially in the evening hours. And that screen time can affect your melatonin release by a lot. Also, lights in your home. A lot of people are switching to very bright LED lighting, and that lighting alone can affect your melatonin release by as much as 50%. So if you have the wrong lights at night going, that means you could be getting up to 50% less natural melatonin production, so making it very hard for you to fall asleep. So hopefully, that starts to make sense on some things that we could do if you're having difficulty falling asleep. How do we start making some of these changes? These two by far are your biggest things to be looking at addressing in your life if you're having trouble falling asleep. Now, number two. Another big one. Honestly, I see more of this than I do of this. People say that they have trouble staying asleep. "Doc, I fall asleep no problem. I wake up a few hours later, and then I am up." And a lot of the times, this is actually triggered from high blood sugar when I went to bed. Body made a bunch of insulin, brought the sugar levels down. I get low blood sugar, and I wake up.

That's a lot of the times what is going on when you have somebody who's having trouble falling... Or staying asleep, trouble staying asleep. So blood sugar is a big thing we need to look at there. So one thing I'd discuss with these patients is, "Please consider taking the carbs out of your dinner meal." Have salads, have your veggies, have your protein, your meats, but let's not be adding potatoes, rice, bread, a lot of starches. Let's take the carbs out of your evening meal. And something else, if the patients... When we're interviewing these patients talking about this, "Are you hungry every two to three hours? Do you feel like you constantly need... " So then we start having a bigger discussion on, "Okay, we need to start talking about things about your overall blood sugar levels throughout the day, and we need to be discussing ideas such as introducing some, maybe some intermittent fasting to help normalize those blood sugars." Intermittent fasting is just simply, we're gonna set a certain amount of hours per day that you eat, maybe it's a six-hour window, an eight-hour window. And then the other 16 to 18 hours of the day, we are not consuming calories. We're just gonna give your body and your digestion a break.

This type of fasting not only helps boost our immune function, helps us repair our cells, but can also really help normalize blood sugar, which is something that can really help patients who are having trouble staying asleep. And another thing to consider here, which one of the things I hear from patients who are getting under chiropractic care, one of the first things I hear from them after they start their care is, "Doc, I haven't slept that good in years." Getting adjusted affects your sleep-wake cycles. Because when you're getting adjusted and we're normalizing the function of your spine, that maximizes the function of your nerve system, and your nerve system is what governs every single thing your body does. So chiropractic can also have an impact. You have any questions on this, about how to get a better night's sleep, give us a call. I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place.

Call our office today to schedule an appointment to kickstart your healthy life: 530-221-8443