 Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos, and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. I'd like to welcome everybody to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes, practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. In this presentation, we're going to continue talking about the causes of depressive symptoms and ways to address them. In the previous two podcasts, we started talking about depressive symptoms, and I really want you to look at these symptoms as just that symptoms. Yes, when you see several of them together, they can mean depression, but they also can mean something different, like hypothyroid or hormone imbalances. So it's important to look at your symptoms, figure out what makes them worse or better, and try to identify what will help a particular symptom. A lot of times, if one symptom starts remitting, starts going away, you'll find that a lot of the other symptoms have a positive response to that as well. So picking some of the symptoms that you have that are most bothersome, starting to address those, may give you a faster progression toward happiness than choosing something global like depression and going, well, I want my depression to go away. Well, everybody's depression is a little different, and if you start getting enough sleep and aren't fatigued and foggy-headed all the time, you're probably not going to feel quite as depressed. So we're going to continue with that line of thought right now. We've done other presentations on sleep disturbances, and this one's probably going to be a shorter one, but I think it's important to recognize how important quality sleep is to everybody, not just to a couple of people or not just to children. It is really important for everyone to get quality sleep almost every single night. So what causes sleep disruption? Caffeine will stay in your system for 12 hours. So if you're drinking caffeine, and you know I drink caffeine, is it the best for you? Well, the cherry's out on that, but if you do drink caffeine and you're not willing to give it up, be aware that it stays in your body for 12 hours. I go to bed, well, really early, but I try to stop drinking caffeine by 10.30 or 11 o'clock in the morning. That way it gets out of my system by 10.30 or 11 o'clock at night. I've already gone to bed by then, but at least my sleep after that point is theoretically less interrupted or less bothered by stimulants in my system. Nicotine lasts for, you know, one or two hours in your system. So if you are someone who uses nicotine products, you don't want to use those within one to two hours of bedtime. Decongestants, and you know, when you have a cold, it's kind of a toss-up. Do you want to sleep and be able to breathe? Or do you want to avoid the decongestants and then not be able to breathe and not sleep? Either way, your sleep is probably going to get disrupted, but do be aware. When you're taking decongestants, they can last in your system for three to six hours. So if you're taking them, you may not be getting the best sleep, which is another reason why when we're sick, we typically feel kind of worn down and fatigued and weary all the time because for one reason or another, our sleep is getting disrupted. Alcohol is another thing that disrupts your sleep, plus or minus one hour per drink. It takes your body about an hour to metabolize an ounce of alcohol. So, you know, if you drink six shots right before bed, that's going to take at least six hours to get out of your system, plus a whole other host of problems that drinking that much alcohol close to bedtime can cause, including sleep apnea. So pay attention to what you're drinking and eating within a few hours of bed. And your caffeine, unfortunately, that's one of those long run things. Try to at least cut down your caffeine after about 10 or 11 in the morning. Anihistamines and sleep aids can help you get to sleep faster, but they don't necessarily help you get quality sleep. You can judge for yourself when you take, if you take sleep aids, when you take them, when you wake up, maybe you slept 10 hours. Well, that's wonderful. But do you feel rested, revived and ready to go? Stress disrupts sleep. So, you know, get rid of stress, you'll sleep like a baby. And if we could do that, we would all sleep like a baby, but it doesn't work that way. I want you to understand the importance of stress management, at least, on your sleep, though, because stress increases cortisol. Cortisol is your stress hormone. It's your fight-or-flight hormone, which reduces serotonin. Why? Well, serotonin is your calming hormone. So, you can't be calm and ready to fight-or-flea at the same time. So, serotonin goes down, norepinephrine goes up, you get ready for that fight-or-flea. When serotonin goes down, we know that melatonin, which is the hormone responsible for helping you get sleep, also goes down. So, if your cortisol's up, your serotonin's down, you're not going to sleep really well. Think about like a soldier in a foxhole or a new parent. I know when I was a new parent for both of my children, even the second one, it didn't get any better. When she would sleep, every time she would turn over in her bed, I would wake up and I would check on her in her cradle next to me. I was not sleeping as well. Was I stressed? Yeah, I was a little bit stressed, but I think part of that just goes along with being a new mommy. However, I was not getting good sleep during that period of time. Stress management means trying to eliminate as many unnecessary stressors as possible. There is going to be stress in life. That's just part of adulting, understanding that. So, once you have all the unnecessary stuff eliminated, then you've got the unavoidable stressors. Okay, how do you deal with those? Well, guided imagery can help. Basically, you're saying I have these unavoidable stressors but there's nothing I can do about them and if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm going to be even less able to deal with them tomorrow. So, using guided imagery going to an imaginary island or vacation place or whatever it is can help. For me, guided imagery is a little bit different. I find that I sleep like a baby if I lay down and I imagine how to plan out my garden, how I'm going to plant the plant in my garden the next season and kind of seeing what that's going to look like and getting involved in that. Mentally, I'm occupied in that activity so I'm not thinking about these other stressors. So, whatever works for you, you're going to need to find your little trick. Meditation works really well for some people, not so well for others. It's something worth trying. And remember, meditation is different than mindfulness. Meditation is really focusing on your breathing and engaging in very thoughtful activities. Progressive muscular relaxation and the great thing about PMR is you can find a lot of YouTube videos that will walk you through a progressive muscular relaxation script. So, you don't have to do it on your own. You can put it on your mobile device, you can set that video to play. So, it plays, it walks you through progressively relaxing each and every muscle in your body. And generally, it goes from top to bottom, but there is a method to the madness and you start noticing the difference between tense muscles and relaxed muscles. And again, you're focusing on your breath and your muscles. If you're focusing on that, you're not focusing on the project that you got to do at work tomorrow. So, to deal with stress in summary, in short, get rid of the unnecessary stressors as best as you can, delegate, eliminate, prioritize. Then, with whatever's left over, know that it has to be there, know that something has to be done with it, but also know that if you don't get a good night's sleep, you're going to be worn down and you're gonna be less able to deal with it. So, find ways to help you get sleep. Another thing that impairs sleep is sleeping too much or taking long naps during the day. When you sleep too much, your circadian rhythms get out of whack. The same thing with taking naps during the day. Your body has this rhythm where your cortisol goes up and down throughout the day. At a certain point, it knows it's time to release melatonin so you can start to get sleeping. If you're sleeping too much, it's not sure when it's supposed to release what. Your hunger hormones also get all out of whack so you're probably not sure if you're supposed to be eating or sleeping or whatever. So, set a sleep schedule. No, and if you're like me, I need my sleep and I love my sleep. I usually try to schedule in nine hours for sleep even to this very day. So, set a sleep schedule. Try to keep pretty close to it. Now, does that mean you can't ever go out with your friends until midnight or two in the morning or whatever works for you? No, you don't do that every once in a while because that's part of living life and having fun. In general, try to go to sleep even on the weekends about the same time every night and wake up about the same time. Give or take an hour or two. Sometimes on the weekend, you may sleep in an extra hour and that's okay. If your body needs it, great. Create a sleep routine. Within an hour and a half of going to bed each night. You should do roughly the same three or four things. When you have children at home or when you were a child, your parents probably got you from preschool or wherever it was, brought you home, you had playtime, you ate dinner, you took a bath, you read a story and they tucked you into bed. That's generally the path it goes when children have a set sleep schedule. You may do things slightly differently but the body begins to expect that. So when the child starts taking their bath, their body goes, okay, we're getting ready to go into sleep routine, into sleep mode. So the brain starts secreting melatonin and everything it needs to so the child can go to sleep. You'll notice that children who have a steady sleep routine tend to go to sleep easier because their body's ready for it. If you have a child who doesn't have a set sleep routine, it usually is harder to get them to go to bed because they sort of quote set their own bedtime whenever they're sleeping. A sleep routine will kind of guarantee that you're gonna get sleepy about the same time every night. You wanna try to avoid naps longer than 45 minutes during the day if you have problems getting quality sleep because once you pass that 45 minute threshold they've found that you start going into deep sleep and once you start going into deep sleep that's when your circadian rhythms start getting thrown off. Now does an afternoon nap help? Yeah, they've actually found research that says a short afternoon nap 20 to 30 minutes actually increases norepinephrine levels which helps you increase your focus and your energy for the rest of the day. So a short nap in the afternoon is great if you can get it but don't take one where you are zonked out, zed out and you kind of can't get your bearings as soon as you wake up. Seasonal effective disorder also will disrupt your sleep. And this isn't necessarily just because of a season. I know here in Tennessee this year it has rained so much. It seems like it is always overcast and it's always dreary outside or at least it is for days on end which can start making people feel a little bit cranky. They speculate that's partly because your brain isn't getting these signals for when it's supposed to be awake and when it's supposed to be asleep but they're also speculating that vitamin D has something to do with it and we know that vitamin D is our sunlight hormone. So anyway, what can you do about it? You can't change the weather. You can't change the season. Daylight replacement lights are helpful. Now that is not the same as light therapy. Light therapy are really bright lights that are directed at you and you have to get very specific for those. But it does help if you are indoors, try to get an office with a window. Try to go outside periodically. Try to keep the bulbs in your office, the daylight spectrum lights and keep it bright so your brain knows, okay, we're awake. It's time to do whatever we do. If you have allergies, that will also disrupt sleep. So air purifiers running in your room. I keep an air purifier running in my room. I shut the bedroom door when I leave during the day. So when I go in theoretically, all the air in there has recirculated several times while I've been gone. Changing your sheets. I am bad about letting the dogs sleep on the bed. So I have to change my sheets every couple of days because they shed, they're a little shed in monsters and I'm allergic to dog dander. Go figure. Now ideally, if you're allergic to animals, you wouldn't let them in the bed, but do what I say, not as I do, I guess. So allergies are another thing to consider and this is true of pollen and any other kind of allergies. Anything you can do to make your sleeping area hypoallergenic is going to help. Pain and hot spots will also keep you up. Your body perceives pain as a stressor or as a threat. If it feels pain, it's saying something's wrong here and you are vulnerable. So you're going to secrete some cortisol which is gonna keep you from sleeping as well. It's also probably gonna wake you up. I have chronic shoulder pain and my shoulder wakes me up a lot. So I know that on the days that my shoulder's bothering me more, I'm probably not gonna sleep as well at night. So I need to take some action to try to minimize that. In general, you wanna invest in a good pillow and a cooling mattress topper. The old mattress toppers that were the memory foam, well, they were really soft and squishy and you may have liked them. They conform to your body through heat. As the mattress topper heated up, it would conform to your body but then it would hold the heat. So a lot of people found that they were getting sweaty and they were getting uncomfortable on those mattress toppers. The newer generation doesn't hold the heat the same way. So it might be worth investing in one of the newer mattress toppers that has the cooling technology in it. Same thing for the pillows. They have the memory foam pillows that will stay cool and help you stay cooler or at least regulate your temperature a little bit better. Those are all really important, keeping your spine so it's not cranked up and you're not waking up with a kink in your neck will help you not only get better sleep but probably be in a better mood and more pain free throughout the day. If there's noise in your sleeping area, whether it's a noisy neighbor or you live in the city or you have a spouse that snores earplugs or wireless headphones can be helpful. If you put on wireless headphones, you're gonna wanna be listening to something like the sounds of the ocean or not something that's gonna keep you up. White noise is obviously best. Light, your body perceives light. Even with your eyes shut, you can tell whether there's light in the room or not light in the room and your brain can tell that too. So you want to make sure that you get as much light out of your sleeping area as possible. You can do this with an eye mask if you can't get it completely darkened in your room, darkening blinds if you have to sleep during the day. It's also very helpful to use blue blockers on your television, computer and mobile devices an hour to an hour and a half before bed. It puts like a red hue over everything, which can be a little annoying if you're into colors and everything, but it helps your body get more into that sleep state because it's blocking the blue light that tells your brain it's daytime. If you're one of those that gets up and goes to the bathroom during the night, that will also disrupt your sleep. Even if you only get up once, use a red light, night light, if you need to have some sort of illumination to get to the bathroom, which most of us do, it is a lot better at not destroying your night vision and not waking you up. Get most of your hydration before 6 p.m. Or probably a lot of people probably have a glass of water by the bed. Sipping on it is one thing. Chugging 64 ounces an hour before bed, pretty much guarantees you're gonna have to get up and go to the bathroom. So try to space out your hydration during the day so you stay hydrated, but you're not having to get up and go to the bathroom multiple times. Nutrition, nutrition is important. You wanna have quality proteins that include tryptophan. Tryptophan is the protein that your body uses to make serotonin, which is used to make melatonin. So you need this. You can get tryptophan from vegetarian proteins as well as animal proteins, but it's important to make sure you're getting it. Although it is dangerous to supplement with supplemental like pill form tryptophan because that's coming in a much stronger dose and unopposed, which is not how it occurs in nature. So I caution people against using supplements most of the time. It's better to get your amino acids and your nutrition that you need through actual real foods. And make sure to get sufficient hydration. I know I just said don't over hydrate so you're peeing all the time, but if you're dehydrated, you're also gonna wake up with a dry mouth and scratchy throat possibly, you may wake up and feel thirsty. It's all about moderation and some timing. If you don't have sufficient serotonin or melatonin, you're probably not gonna get enough sleep. Stress reduces serotonin, which reduces melatonin. So we wanna get rid of as much stress as possible. We already covered that. We also produce less melatonin as we age. So if you are older and you think that your sleep quality has gone down, talk with your physician. They may or may not think that you need additional melatonin. Some people, especially those with depression and anxiety symptoms may not have enough serotonin in their system. Now serotonin is generally associated with as an anti-anxiety sort of neurotransmitter, but if you have symptoms of depression or anxiety and you're not getting enough sleep, you may wanna talk to your doctor. They may try putting you on a SSRI or a similar antidepressant medication to see if that helps you get more sleep and relieves your symptoms of depression. I will note that antidepressants do not work for everybody. They don't work even for 50% of the people, but they do work for a percentage. So it's worth noting your symptoms and talking with your doctor. Sleep apnea disrupts your sleep and you may not even realize it. So if you are one who tends to snore yourself awake, and I think we've all done it occasionally, if you're one who snores yourself awake a lot or if your spouse says that you snore so loud you're peeling the paint off the walls, worth talking to your doctor, because sleep apnea will prevent you from getting quality sleep. Other things you can do to minimize the effects of sleep apnea, don't drink alcohol before bed, talk with your doctor about a CPAP machine, and potentially look at certain supplements with your doctor to see if they might be useful in helping reduce some of the apnea symptoms. Lack of quality sleep impacts your energy, which impacts your desire to nap and alter your sleep schedule. If you don't get enough sleep, you're gonna feel kind of, which may make you want to take naps, maybe lots of naps. If you're doing that, then you may alter your circadian rhythms and then your body doesn't know when it's supposed to sleep, which will make it harder to get quality sleep. When you don't get enough quality sleep, your eating hormones get out of whack. So it's hard to tell when you're hungry and when you're not. So a lot of people tend to graze more when they're sleep deprived. Your ability to tolerate stress goes down when you're sleep deprived. That's not brain surgery. I think most of us tend to be a little bit more impatient when we're exhausted. And your pain tolerance also goes down as your sleep goes down. Serotonin is involved in pain tolerance. So if your cortisol's up, your serotonin's down, your pain tolerance may also go down. If you're feeling more pain, you're not gonna get as much sleep. So it's a vicious downward cycle. Recovery and overall happiness require that you get sufficient quality sleep for you. And I say for you, because maybe you need six hours where I need nine. You know what level, what amount you need in order to function optimally. Caffeine fueled awakeness propels you into a state of burnout. You can only use caffeine to keep the motor going for so long before it doesn't work anymore. And I can tell you from experience, when I was in high school actually and early college, I used so much caffeine and so many pre-workout supplements and so many stimulants that it got to the point where I would drink caffeine. It would actually make me sleepy. There was no get up and go left in that engine. That is not healthy. That's not healthy at all. So understanding that even though it feels like it gives you a boost in the long term, you're going to run out of energy at some point if you just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. So caffeine's not really the be all end all answer. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe on your favorite podcast app, join our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or you can join our community at docsnipes.com. Thanks for tuning into Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. Our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life, affordable and accessible to everyone. We record the podcast during a Facebook live broadcast each week. Join us free at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast player. And remember docsnipes.com has even more resources, members only videos, handouts and workbooks to help you apply what you learn. If you like this podcast and want to support the work we are doing for as little as 399 per month, you can become a supporter at docsnipes.com slash join. Again, thank you for joining us and let us know how we can help you.