WEBVTT

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 Ok, well welcome to the Get Fit with Jodell podcast.

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 I am as usual Jodell and I am happy to have once again Dr. Pete with me.

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 It's wonderful to have you, Dr. Pete, how are you?

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 Awesome.

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 Well, you are so generous with your time, so I have to ask you a question.

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 What drives you to be so passionate in helping people understand their bodies?

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 I want to understand how bodies work and you never understand everything and hearing people's

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 perspective gives me information.

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 I agree, we can never stop learning, so I am passionate to learn from you as we keep

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 moving forward.

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 I think everybody is going to really love the show today, it's all about sleep.

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 I've compiled quite a few questions from listeners for you, Dr. Pete, related to sleep, insomnia,

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 and possibly the anxiety around sleep.

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 We appreciate all that you are going to share with us today, but before we jump in, I highly

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 encourage you guys to sign up for his newsletter and you can either get that by regular mail

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 or through email and I literally get excited like a toddler given a new toy, Dr. Pete, when

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 I see your newsletter in my mail, so I'm always like, "Oh my gosh, there it is."

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 I just really want to encourage people with as generous as you are, we can give back to

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 you and learn from you at the same time.

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 Do you want to briefly just share with them how they can sign up for your newsletter?

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 Oh, the email address for doing it is repeatsnewsletter@gmail.com and together by email, it's $28 for 12

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 bi-monthly issues covering two years.

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 Awesome, and I so think that is worth it for the amount of knowledge that you give us in

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 those newsletters, so I highly encourage it you guys.

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 Let's jump right in, Dr. Pete.

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 The first question is mine, "Is there one main root cause behind most sleep issues or

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 is it a potpourri of reasons when it comes to someone having trouble sleeping?"

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 What's your thoughts?

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 Often, the immediate thing is fatigue that has depleted your glycogen stores, making

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 your detesting system overactive, and then the immediate thing is irritation from your

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 intestine bothering you during the night and causing your adrenaline to keep you awake.

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 But behind all of that, it's almost always a problem of energy metabolism, specifically

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 low thyroid function.

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 Your liver needs thyroid chemically in the local cells to activate the enzymes that convert

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 glucose into glycogen, and your body in the liver, muscles, brain mostly, your body stores

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 more than half a pound of glucose in the form of glycogen, and in good health, that's enough

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 to keep your system going through easily eight to 12 hours, but if something is especially

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 fatiguing or irritating or if your thyroid function is blocked in some way, then you

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 don't have enough stored glycogen to get you through the night, and that means that your

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 adrenaline has to increase to squeeze out any remaining glucose from your tissues, and

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 when that fails and your cortisol rises, and everyone has a normally high peak of cortisol

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 around dawn, because by the end of the night, most people are having some depletion of their

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 glycogen.

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 That part about digestion is really fascinating, so these people eating heavy meals before

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 they go to bed and expecting to get a good night's sleep, that's probably not going

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 to happen, right?

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 So, too much fat along with carbohydrates that are hard to digest, vegetables, beans,

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 grains, nuts, are especially irritating because they're slow to digest and promote the formation

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 of endotoxins when the bacteria grow on them.

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 So, then the endotoxin, I would assume, is increasing serotonin and elevated serotonin

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 is increasing cortisol, or is cortisol coming first, and how is that kind of agitating the

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 body?

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 Right.

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 Serotonin and histamine are released first in the intestine, but then if the endotoxin

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 starts poisoning other tissues, every tissue in your body can produce serotonin and histamine

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 when they're under energy distress, and then the serotonin is probably the main activator

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 of cortisol production.

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 I think people are going to really like this podcast because some of these questions that

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 they've asked are going to pertain to what you're talking about, but also just to jump

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 in about the timing of meals before you go to bed.

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 What's your thoughts on how soon someone should be done eating before they go to bed to help

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 with that problem?

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 Keeping, all day, keeping your carbohydrate intake at least moderate, and later in the

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 day going heavier on the carbohydrate, it's similar to athletes preparing for an endurance

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 contest.

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 They stuff themselves on carbohydrates, doing something like that, like having more carbohydrate

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 in relation to your protein in your last meal of the day prepares you for the endurance,

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 getting you through the night asleep.

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 People who are having a particular problem, if they haven't eaten anything that is really

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 causing inflammation in their intestine, if they just feel that they've been doing too

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 many exciting things during the day and have depleted their energy stores, sometimes just

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 having a big bowl of ice cream or maybe a whole plate full of marshmallows, some really

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 big load of sugar just before going to bed that will sometimes put a person to sleep.

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 Since you need sodium to absorb sugar, sometimes sodium is the limiting nutrient.

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 A friend of mine had a little kid that never wanted to go to sleep at a proper time.

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 I told him about the function of salt.

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 He prepared some very salty water and at bedtime had his four-year-old daughter take a sip

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 of it.

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 He said, "Daddy, why is it so salt?"

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 Before he finished her sentence, she was asleep.

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 Wow.

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 Okay, so adding salt a little bit just before bed might be beneficial then too.

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 Yeah, a lot like a bowl of very salty chicken broth is a good bedtime sleep inducer.

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 A gelatin itself, even without the salt and other tasty things, a gelatin helps to bring

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 on sleep because it tends to support your blood sugar.

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 Maybe that's why I feel so calm right now because right before this call, I had some

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 chicken bone broth that I made.

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 Okay, then the first question I have from a listener is from Betty.

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 She asks, "I have trouble every night waking around 2 p.m., why is this and what can I

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 do about it?"

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 In one set of experiments, people had a tube put in their veins so that they could sample

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 the blood every 15 minutes and they found that as soon as the lights returned out, the

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 adrenaline started rising and it was the darkness itself because if the people were still awake,

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 the adrenaline rose quickly but if they had gone to sleep quickly, when the lights went

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 out, the adrenaline still increased so the darkness itself is the major cause of the

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 problem that leads to the high cortisol in the morning.

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 One of the things that prepares you for keeping your blood sugar up during the night is make

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 sure that you get bright light all day because that is helping to stabilize your blood sugar

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 and helping to destroy the glycogen.

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 In that experiment, it only took 15 minutes for darkness to cause the stress rise of adrenaline.

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 So interesting, so it's maybe a cortisol imbalance through the day.

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 If she's not getting out into sunshine and stuff like that, that could be the reason

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 why she's having that constant wake-up in the night.

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 And vitamin D which is cumulative in the summer, at the end of the summer, people tend to sleep

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 better than in late winter.

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 The cumulative effect of short days and long nights reaches its peak about this time, 1st

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 of March is a very bad time because of the cumulative long nights but also the vitamin

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 D level tends to be lowest this time of year and vitamin D and good calcium intake work

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 to keep your glycogen up just the same way the thyroid does.

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 Other vitamin D and a good supply of calcium inhibit the parathyroid hormone and one of

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 the things that the salt does is to inhibit the adrenal aldosterone salt regulating hormone

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 and inhibiting the aldosterone also inhibits the parathyroid hormone and those two hormones,

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 aldosterone and parathyroid hormone, interfere with the mitochondria energy producing system.

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 They knock it down and when those are inhibited, it's the same as being hypothyroid and that

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 means that you use your sugar wastefully forming lactic acid instead of carbon dioxide and

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 if you measure the nighttime lactic acid, you would find that it rises along with stress

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 hormones.

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 It's one of the signals for increasing the pituitary stress hormones and cortisol.

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 All of these things work together but vitamin D is one of the crucial things that chronically

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 will improve your sleep if you keep it up at least in the middle of the range.

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 One doctor who has some videos on the subject found that I think it was 60 to 70 nanograms

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 per milliliter of vitamin D in the blood that improved the sleep slightly above the middle

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 of the range.

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 I think she would really benefit from some vitamin P and then getting out in the sun

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 during the day and I can vouch for that.

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 On these dreary days that we have here in the Midwest, I tend to find out that I wake

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 a little bit more frequently in the night because I think of the lack of sun during

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 the day but it doesn't tend to happen that much in the summer so I think you're spot

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 on there.

00:14:11.760 --> 00:14:19.640
 Jim G asks, "What do you recommend for feeling groggy upon waking and yet I also seem to

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 have issues falling asleep at bedtime?"

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 So it sounds like he's staying awake when he should be going to sleep and he's feeling

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 sleepy when he should be waking up.

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 That's a typical low thyroid pattern when your thyroid or vitamin D or anything is impairing

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 your oxidative metabolism, your sleep stays in the superficial, they call it second phase

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 of sleep rather than the deep slow-wave sleep and it's the slow-wave sleep that repairs

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 your tissues and so hypothyroid people might sleep 10 or 11 hours and still not be rested.

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 So when you're well supplied with energy, thyroid, vitamin D, calcium, then your sleep

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 can quickly get into the deep slow phase and repair your tissues quickly and so in 7 or

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 8 hours you can be fully restored, wake up, alert, but when you don't wake up feeling

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 fresh and ready to do things, coffee and milk is a safe way to get going.

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 The coffee, if it's backed up with milk and orange juice, the caffeine turns off the stress

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 hormones.

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 And with regard to coffee for people that do have sleep issues, are you a fan if they

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 have a lot of insomnia or a lot of sleep issues going on, should they stop the coffee altogether

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 or just keep it to the earlier part of the day?

00:16:10.040 --> 00:16:11.040
 What's your thoughts?

00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:20.040
 If your liver is very hypothyroid and slow to metabolize things, you might have to stop

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 your coffee in the early afternoon because it will keep circulating the caffeine.

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 But when your liver is able to store glycogen, coffee right up to bedtime can improve the

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 depths of your sleep because one of the anti-stress things it does is to act as an aromatase inhibitor

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 and since estrogen turns on serotonin and histamine and other stress hormones, caffeine

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 by taking down estrogen will let your deep sleep come on.

00:17:08.360 --> 00:17:10.760
 Okay, very good.

00:17:10.760 --> 00:17:16.400
 Carrie asks, "What is Dr. Pete's opinion on blue light exposure before bed?

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 I tend to use my phone in bed, before bed, and should I be concerned about the health

00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:23.560
 effects of this?"

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 It isn't a very serious amount from a telephone, but the amount in daylight, it is next to

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 ultraviolet light for toxicity.

00:17:41.080 --> 00:17:51.480
 In plant physiology, since plants habitually are exposed to daylight for the full extent

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 of the day, they looked at the effects of the different colors and they found that even

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 blue light, not to mention the ultraviolet, but the blue light knocks out plant mitochondria

00:18:04.320 --> 00:18:13.920
 if it's just a matter of the blue light exposure and it's the red light which detoxifies the

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 blue light so plants, because the sun is rich in red light as well as blue, the red prevents

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 the toxicity of the blue and ultraviolet.

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 Other experiments show that it even detoxifies gamma ray poisoning, but the amount of blue

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 light in a phone isn't going to damage your retina unless you look directly at it for

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 hours at a time.

00:18:42.200 --> 00:18:47.760
 That would be an interesting experiment, just to shine a tablet or a phone on a plant in

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 our house for a length of time and see how well it flourishes, because like you said,

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 if it doesn't get that full spectrum light, then it's probably the main reason why people

00:18:58.800 --> 00:19:02.200
 have trouble with house plants and things like that, because now we have so many LED

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 and fluorescent lights in our home that maybe it's affecting the plants too.

00:19:07.800 --> 00:19:14.960
 With plant experiments in college, I did a botany experiment with that and red light

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 alone stimulates photosynthesis and exuberant growth, but it doesn't stimulate the stiffening

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 and defense reactions, and so the plant grows up and falls over at length, but if it gets

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 blue light and ultraviolet, that irritates it enough that it produces the defensive structural

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 cellulose.

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 If you get too much blue and ultraviolet, the plant gets very stiff and wire-end and

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 not very exuberant, so it needs some of the irritation to produce the toughened skeletal

00:20:00.800 --> 00:20:01.800
 growth.

00:20:01.800 --> 00:20:06.840
 Renee S. asks, "I would like to sleep deeper and I was wondering if Dr. Pete could touch

00:20:06.840 --> 00:20:10.040
 on what to do about frequent urination at night.

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 I don't necessarily have a full bladder, but it seems when I wake at night I tend to

00:20:14.520 --> 00:20:20.520
 have to get up and relieve myself, and sometimes it seems like 2 to 4 times per night.

00:20:20.520 --> 00:20:23.520
 How can I help this?"

00:20:23.520 --> 00:20:31.520
 The increase of estrogen under stress is one of the things that does that.

00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:40.520
 It changes the thresholds for the bladder, makes it more irritable, and by histamines,

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 aspirin and benadryl, for example, will give immediate relief on that by changing the estrogen-induced

00:20:51.360 --> 00:20:58.600
 irritability of the bladder, but vitamin G and thyroid are probably the basic thing to

00:20:58.600 --> 00:21:10.400
 make your antirhetic hormone come on during the night on schedule and then back off at

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 dawn in the morning.

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 Healthy kids and old people will have a cyclic antirhetic hormone during the night that simply

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 turns off your kidneys' urine production almost 100%, and if that doesn't increase during

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 the night, then your kidneys, because you're lying down, the circulation of your kidneys

00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:48.600
 tends to increase, and if you don't have the hormone shutting down your urine formation,

00:21:48.600 --> 00:21:55.800
 then you're actually going to produce more urine during the night than during the daytime.

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 Vitamin D and thyroid are part of the process of getting your pituitary to release the antirhetic

00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:07.080
 hormone.

00:22:07.080 --> 00:22:12.680
 I'm picking up a trend on thyroid and vitamin D, how important those two are, so I hope

00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:17.240
 other people are picking up on those too while you're listening to this.

00:22:17.240 --> 00:22:22.360
 Fenny asks, "Are there specific supplements," speaking of, "that Dr. Pete recommends to

00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:25.160
 help someone sleep deeper?"

00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:30.960
 One I would like to specifically ask about is a smart drug called Fenny-Butt or Fenny-Boot.

00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:44.680
 The drugs do work, and that's a fairly harmless one, but caffeine will do the job if you use

00:22:44.680 --> 00:22:50.020
 it properly and integrated in your schedule.

00:22:50.020 --> 00:22:57.680
 It activates the kidneys, and if you start off breakfast with some coffee and milk and

00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:11.020
 orange juice, that will help to get your kidneys active and reinforce the cycle in which they're

00:23:11.020 --> 00:23:17.640
 very active during the daytime and less active during the night.

00:23:17.640 --> 00:23:28.720
 The particular drugs that act only to regulate sleep are effective for reinforcing the whole

00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:39.000
 energy cycle of high energy during the daytime and stored energy used during the night.

00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:44.400
 You said Fenny-Butt was relatively a harmless drug that you knew of?

00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:53.840
 Yeah, but I think the antihistamines are better because they work on the mechanism rather

00:23:53.840 --> 00:23:57.120
 than just acting as a sedative.

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 Benadryl and the aspirin or teriactin, the real name is Ciproheptidine.

00:24:08.320 --> 00:24:18.180
 These lower the histamine and serotonin and stop improper excitation so that the stress

00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:23.360
 hormones are normalized during the night.

00:24:23.360 --> 00:24:28.380
 What do you think about certain supplements like taking magnesium before bed or ashwagandha,

00:24:28.380 --> 00:24:32.700
 like adaptogenic herbs and things like that?

00:24:32.700 --> 00:24:45.300
 The reason thyroid is so effective for bringing on instant sleep is that it allows the cells

00:24:45.300 --> 00:24:49.160
 to retain magnesium.

00:24:49.160 --> 00:24:57.800
 Magnesium supplements will only work for an hour or two unless your thyroid is up to where

00:24:57.800 --> 00:25:05.760
 it should be, a doctor friend was experimenting on his allergy patients.

00:25:05.760 --> 00:25:14.640
 He found that their symptoms subsided briefly when he gave them intravenous magnesium.

00:25:14.640 --> 00:25:22.560
 But very shortly after the hour of infusion, their symptoms would come back.

00:25:22.560 --> 00:25:33.040
 But he gave them a little quick acting thyroid along with the intravenous magnesium and it

00:25:33.040 --> 00:25:35.200
 cured the allergies.

00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:41.920
 He lost all his patients because they didn't have any more symptoms and it's the same with

00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:42.920
 sleep.

00:25:42.920 --> 00:25:50.120
 You get a temporary, you can even anesthetize yourself with a big dose of magnesium, but

00:25:50.120 --> 00:25:59.280
 it doesn't cure the problem if the problem is low vitamin D and low thyroid causing your

00:25:59.280 --> 00:26:03.940
 cells to be unable to retain the magnesium.

00:26:03.940 --> 00:26:15.720
 That's one of the things the salt at bedtime does is to lower the alblasterone making you

00:26:15.720 --> 00:26:23.740
 able to retain your magnesium instead of losing it and you're under the night.

00:26:23.740 --> 00:26:30.060
 When I was traveling, driving all day, I would have trouble going to sleep and I found that

00:26:30.060 --> 00:26:40.160
 if I chewed up a 5 or 10 microgram tablet of Cytome L, I would be asleep in about five

00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:41.160
 minutes.

00:26:41.160 --> 00:26:53.200
 And on one of my trips, I arrived for the doctor who was going to, he was organizing

00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:59.360
 the talk and I arrived the day before and he was in terrible condition.

00:26:59.360 --> 00:27:05.680
 He hadn't been able to sleep, he said, for three or four days and I happened to have

00:27:05.680 --> 00:27:12.760
 my cytome L in my pocket, I gave him, I told him to take a 10 microgram tablet at bedtime.

00:27:12.760 --> 00:27:21.120
 The next day as I went in, the place where the talk was, he was giving an introduction,

00:27:21.120 --> 00:27:30.320
 but before he let me talk, he pulled me aside and said, that stuff is better than the opium.

00:27:30.320 --> 00:27:31.320
 Okay.

00:27:31.320 --> 00:27:35.280
 So the next question is from Victoria.

00:27:35.280 --> 00:27:40.720
 Victoria asks, "As for a healthy lifestyle, is Dr. Peter Kay with sleeping in sometimes

00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:43.760
 or should we always wake at the same schedule?"

00:27:43.760 --> 00:27:57.120
 Some people do fine with extra sleep, but it can, and many people, it lets the nervous

00:27:57.120 --> 00:28:09.240
 system shift over to emphasize the parasympathetic rather than the adrenergic sympathetic side

00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:18.280
 and insensitive people that can hold blood sugar down all day, making you feel groggy

00:28:18.280 --> 00:28:29.880
 and even headache pain, but if it doesn't have that effect, if you are fully alert after

00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:33.360
 an extra hour or so of sleep, then it's fine.

00:28:33.360 --> 00:28:37.680
 So can a patient know thyself if you feel fine after sleeping in, then go for it.

00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:40.320
 If you don't, you might want to rethink it.

00:28:40.320 --> 00:28:41.320
 Yeah.

00:28:41.320 --> 00:28:42.320
 Okay.

00:28:42.320 --> 00:28:46.840
 So Olga says, "Is it true we need seven to eight hours of sleep every night?

00:28:46.840 --> 00:28:49.680
 What if I feel fine on five to six hours of sleep?

00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:55.080
 Is it really harming my health if I have no symptoms of it doing so?"

00:28:55.080 --> 00:29:08.040
 The statistics suggest, yes, that it is doing damage because the people who, I think it's

00:29:08.040 --> 00:29:14.720
 between seven to eight and a half hours per night, if they do that, they have the longest

00:29:14.720 --> 00:29:17.680
 lifespan and the lowest symptoms.

00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:27.880
 The short sleepers and the very long sleepers tend to have higher sickness problems.

00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:28.880
 Makes sense.

00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:29.880
 Okay.

00:29:29.880 --> 00:29:33.960
 I think you're going to like the next question because you have a teeny tiny listener that

00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:37.640
 always loves to listen to you, and that's my five-year-old daughter, and she asked a

00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:39.240
 question to you.

00:29:39.240 --> 00:29:44.800
 You said, "Dr. Pete, how do you get rid of nightmares?"

00:29:44.800 --> 00:29:56.040
 Avoiding foods that are disturbing is the most common thing.

00:29:56.040 --> 00:30:07.600
 People who eat, for example, a big bowl of overspiced chili con carne with beans, that

00:30:07.600 --> 00:30:16.280
 will often cause nightmares in a person who otherwise wouldn't have them.

00:30:16.280 --> 00:30:17.600
 Yes.

00:30:17.600 --> 00:30:23.080
 So something like a food, like maybe if it's a big heavy meal before bed?

00:30:23.080 --> 00:30:24.080
 Yeah.

00:30:24.080 --> 00:30:36.240
 If it's very, very detestable, there's no problem, but often there are spicy things

00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:38.360
 or hard to detest things.

00:30:38.360 --> 00:30:46.960
 If you get gas during the night, the pressure from the gas is enough to bring on a nightmare.

00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:47.960
 Okay.

00:30:47.960 --> 00:30:52.880
 Are there any vitamin or mineral deficiencies that would cause nightmares?

00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:54.840
 Many.

00:30:54.840 --> 00:31:06.540
 Many serious deficiencies, starting in the 1930s, one group of experimenters, in particular,

00:31:06.540 --> 00:31:17.600
 was finding that the liver regulates the hormones, especially estrogen and the stress hormones.

00:31:17.600 --> 00:31:26.840
 In 1939-1946, they did a series of studies showing that any of the B vitamins, but especially

00:31:26.840 --> 00:31:35.360
 thiamine and riboflavin deficiencies, keep the liver from eliminating estrogen.

00:31:35.360 --> 00:31:44.280
 They looked at the men coming back from the Second World War at prison camps where they

00:31:44.280 --> 00:31:52.400
 had been very malnourished, and a lot of the men had developed breasts when they were given

00:31:52.400 --> 00:32:02.080
 an abundant diet when they got out, and they found that that was because their livers had

00:32:02.080 --> 00:32:13.400
 become unable to excrete estrogen, and men, as well as women, are always forming estrogen.

00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:24.520
 Men almost as much as women, but men's livers are much more able to excrete estrogen, and

00:32:24.520 --> 00:32:34.360
 estrogen activates histamine, serotonin, cortisol, all of the stress hormones that will increase

00:32:34.360 --> 00:32:43.040
 symptoms, including nightmares, night terrors, even seizures.

00:32:43.040 --> 00:32:49.880
 Night terrors are like a light version of night terrors, and night terrors are very

00:32:49.880 --> 00:32:57.760
 closely related to nocturnal epileptic seizures, very low blood sugar, very high estrogen,

00:32:57.760 --> 00:33:00.760
 serotonin, and cortisol.

00:33:00.760 --> 00:33:07.760
 Insomnia is just the first stage of those more serious things.

00:33:07.760 --> 00:33:11.360
 It was interesting because she wanted to know that this morning, because she had a nightmare

00:33:11.360 --> 00:33:12.360
 last night.

00:33:12.360 --> 00:33:17.360
 She normally doesn't have them, but she woke up with a nightmare, and she was like, "Ask

00:33:17.360 --> 00:33:19.360
 Dr. Pete."

00:33:19.360 --> 00:33:25.040
 Paul asks, "I have sleep apnea, and I've been on a CPAP for over three years.

00:33:25.040 --> 00:33:29.680
 What is Dr. Pete's take on the possibility of coming off my CPAP, and can you reverse

00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:30.680
 sleep apnea?"

00:33:30.680 --> 00:33:31.680
 Oh, definitely.

00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:40.560
 I've had two newsletters related to that, one on sleep and one on progesterone, and

00:33:40.560 --> 00:33:54.200
 I'll probably be doing more, but I first got interested in that over 50 years ago when

00:33:54.200 --> 00:34:10.600
 I was seeing studies that progesterone regulates breathing, and for newborn babies that aren't

00:34:10.600 --> 00:34:19.000
 properly starting to breathe normally, they found caffeine was one thing, progesterone

00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:27.000
 was the other, and so they tried that on adults who were having breathing irregularities,

00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:35.120
 including sleep apnea, and found that they were low in progesterone, and that supplementing

00:34:35.120 --> 00:34:45.240
 progesterone or caffeine would restore their breathing reflexes.

00:34:45.240 --> 00:35:01.060
 The official dogma of doctors is that the carbon dioxide rises too high, but in fact very detailed

00:35:01.060 --> 00:35:09.680
 measurements have found that these people are hyperventilating, blowing out so much carbon

00:35:09.680 --> 00:35:16.440
 dioxide that there is not enough carbon dioxide to stimulate their breathing reflex, and so

00:35:16.440 --> 00:35:23.080
 they will stop breathing until the carbon dioxide builds up, and what progesterone and

00:35:23.080 --> 00:35:32.800
 caffeine are doing is to activate the metabolism so that more carbon dioxide and less lactic

00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:46.560
 acid is formed, and for about, I think, 70 years now, doctors have had great success chemically

00:35:46.560 --> 00:35:58.720
 using a pharmaceutical called acetazolamide, a patent named Diamox, that blocks the carbonic

00:35:58.720 --> 00:36:08.600
 anhydrase enzyme. That has been a traditional, perfect cure for sleep apnea, showing that

00:36:08.600 --> 00:36:18.920
 it's a carbon dioxide deficiency that fails, causes the failure of the breathing reflex.

00:36:18.920 --> 00:36:26.960
 But behind the progesterone deficiency and the carbon dioxide deficiency, there is a

00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:36.700
 basic deficiency of thyroid and vitamin D. So people, everyone that I have personally

00:36:36.700 --> 00:36:42.480
 known who had sleep apnea problems, are corrected just by taking thyroid.

00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:47.760
 Awesome, and so he would probably maybe benefit from a little bit of natural progesterone as

00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:56.920
 well, just a little supplementation. Yeah, the progesterone works immediately, so that

00:36:56.920 --> 00:37:05.760
 one dose of bedtime, the person will breathe through the night, but the low thyroid means

00:37:05.760 --> 00:37:12.840
 that you're going to have elevated estrogen making the need for progesterone higher because

00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:22.560
 it's supposed by high estrogen. So the thyroid and vitamin D and aspirin and caffeine are

00:37:22.560 --> 00:37:29.680
 things that hold your estrogen under control, so that the amount of progesterone you produce

00:37:29.680 --> 00:37:36.240
 normally is usually enough. That is so interesting. When I was in my toxic

00:37:36.240 --> 00:37:41.360
 mold time of life that was not very fun, I was having trouble breathing, and that was

00:37:41.360 --> 00:37:47.040
 the time when my progesterone was at its all-time lowest due to the stress my body was under.

00:37:47.040 --> 00:37:51.200
 So I figured that out and was able to start supplementing with progesterone, but that

00:37:51.200 --> 00:37:56.280
 actually does help your breathing. It gets rid of that catch in your breath that starts

00:37:56.280 --> 00:38:03.880
 to show up whenever you're low on progesterone. Yeah, that was discovered in babies over 50

00:38:03.880 --> 00:38:10.960
 years ago that progesterone makes them breathe normally.

00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:16.080
 We have an anonymous question asker, and they said, "I have a sleep disorder that is aided

00:38:16.080 --> 00:38:21.960
 by medication, but I don't want to be on sleep meds. How does Dr. Pete recommend one going

00:38:21.960 --> 00:38:29.960
 off their sleep medication safely?" Some of sleep drugs are a dictate, so you

00:38:29.960 --> 00:38:39.360
 have to take that into account. Progesterone has been used for withdrawing

00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:49.720
 from several different kinds of addictive drugs, opiates, and a variety of stimulating

00:38:49.720 --> 00:39:03.720
 pharmaceuticals, but progesterone supplements are really just another crutch that is safer

00:39:03.720 --> 00:39:15.720
 until you get your own physiology working, which usually requires supplementing, changing

00:39:15.720 --> 00:39:26.120
 your diet so that there's enough protein and calcium and vitamin T and then taking a thyroid

00:39:26.120 --> 00:39:31.840
 supplement if that's deficient. Yeah, sort of going to the root cause, which

00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:36.120
 is generally the thyroid, which is why you needed the sleep medication in the first place

00:39:36.120 --> 00:39:43.000
 usually because of the disorder. Okay, June asks, "I wake every morning with

00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:49.720
 bags under my eyes, but yet when I go to bed at night, they're generally flatter," I guess

00:39:49.720 --> 00:39:56.520
 she wrote. So what to do about bags under the eyes in the morning?

00:39:56.520 --> 00:40:14.920
 The water regulation involves the antidiuretic hormone and several other hormones, aldosterone

00:40:14.920 --> 00:40:26.600
 and parathyroid hormone, and prolactin are other things that are involved in that disposition

00:40:26.600 --> 00:40:33.480
 of water. When you get horizontal, the water that tended to be in your legs redistributes

00:40:33.480 --> 00:40:39.080
 and will show up in your face. And then when you're vertical for several hours, it drains

00:40:39.080 --> 00:40:48.120
 out of your face and into your feet. And getting all of these hormones so that they're on a

00:40:48.120 --> 00:41:01.400
 proper cycle, albumin and sodium work together to carry excess water from your tissues to

00:41:01.400 --> 00:41:09.520
 delivering the water to your kidneys. And that should be very active during the daytime.

00:41:09.520 --> 00:41:22.520
 But you don't retain the sodium properly if you're deficient in calcium, magnesium, and

00:41:22.520 --> 00:41:35.720
 low thyroid function is constantly losing both sodium and magnesium in their urine.

00:41:35.720 --> 00:41:42.520
 Sometimes I'm aware that water retention has to do with low progesterone. Could she benefit

00:41:42.520 --> 00:41:48.120
 from the water retention around the face with supplementation of progesterone?

00:41:48.120 --> 00:42:00.600
 Yeah, it's, a progenetalone and progesterone are the quickest acting things. The lungs are

00:42:00.600 --> 00:42:09.240
 the most dangerous place for water regulating problems to occur. When you're in shock or

00:42:09.240 --> 00:42:19.480
 under extreme stress, the lungs take up water and become water logs so that the oxygen has

00:42:19.480 --> 00:42:27.960
 a thicker pathway to get to the blood. And estrogen in animal experiments it was found

00:42:27.960 --> 00:42:38.960
 that estrogen in less than an hour would increase the water content of rats lungs so that 90%

00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:48.960
 of the ability of oxygen to reach the blood disappeared 90 to 95% in less than an hour

00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:59.160
 after big infection of estrogen. And lots of people poorly nourish low thyroid or under

00:42:59.160 --> 00:43:09.960
 stress will have this high ratio of estrogen to progesterone. And I've seen people in just

00:43:09.960 --> 00:43:19.120
 about an hour shift their water balances when they took a good supplement of progesterone

00:43:19.120 --> 00:43:30.720
 so that their breathing improved, they started forming urine because their blood started

00:43:30.720 --> 00:43:34.200
 carrying water out of their tissues delivering it to their bladder.

00:43:34.200 --> 00:43:38.840
 Okay, so that's something that definitely would be beneficial is again we're looking

00:43:38.840 --> 00:43:44.160
 at thyroid help and then also progesterone and probably vitamin D would help her as well,

00:43:44.160 --> 00:43:45.160
 right?

00:43:45.160 --> 00:43:55.000
 Yeah, vitamin A is really central for all of these things for making progesterone and

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:56.000
 DHEA.

00:43:56.000 --> 00:44:02.840
 Okay, Glenn asks, so I think he's talking about not food or supplements but environmentally.

00:44:02.840 --> 00:44:07.000
 He said environmentally speaking I would like to know what Dr. Pete recommends to help improve

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:13.680
 sleep such as what kinds of things should we should have or not have I think he meant

00:44:13.680 --> 00:44:18.960
 should we have. We're not having our bedroom and also are there habits we are doing during

00:44:18.960 --> 00:44:21.520
 the day that can affect our sleep at night?

00:44:21.520 --> 00:44:34.160
 Muscular activity, some kind of physical exertion during the afternoon raises your body temperature.

00:44:34.160 --> 00:44:46.600
 It can be weight lifting or just doing squats to make your muscles produce some heat. Keeping

00:44:46.600 --> 00:44:55.760
 your body temperature up in the cell spares your glucose for the night and having bright

00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:05.160
 lights up during all of your daylight hours when you're working and then dimming the lights

00:45:05.160 --> 00:45:13.240
 when you're starting to prepare for sleep like maybe half an hour before sleep, dimming

00:45:13.240 --> 00:45:18.280
 the lights starts turning down your nervous system.

00:45:18.280 --> 00:45:26.080
 Glenn, anything that you would say he should have or not have in the bedroom?

00:45:26.080 --> 00:45:35.560
 Advice that ionizes the air. It increases your lungs ability to remove the serotonin

00:45:35.560 --> 00:45:44.600
 which is circulating in everyone's blood and air ionizer can make a big difference for

00:45:44.600 --> 00:45:51.320
 some people keeping it right by your close plus your head of the bed.

00:45:51.320 --> 00:45:57.160
 Okay, what about an ozone machine? I've seen people buy ozone machines for their bedroom.

00:45:57.160 --> 00:46:05.840
 If there's any benefit from those it's the negative air ions but the ozone itself is

00:46:05.840 --> 00:46:17.800
 toxic to your lungs and with an overexposure of ozone that will have this effect similar

00:46:17.800 --> 00:46:29.160
 to estrogen inflaming your lungs causing impaired oxygen absorption.

00:46:29.160 --> 00:46:34.160
 So those are all of the questions I have. Now I wanted to ask something more towards

00:46:34.160 --> 00:46:39.120
 you like as far as like you mentioned how important thyroid is and I'm assuming thyroid

00:46:39.120 --> 00:46:45.320
 supplementation since there are so many things that affect our thyroid. Do you still take

00:46:45.320 --> 00:46:48.400
 a thyroid supplement and what do you recommend?

00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:59.400
 For about, I didn't start taking it until I think I was 38 or something like that but

00:46:59.400 --> 00:47:08.640
 since I was about 10 years old I had suspected that I was hypothyroid but I couldn't accept

00:47:08.640 --> 00:47:17.640
 the idea because measuring my metabolic rate I sometimes ate five times as many calories

00:47:17.640 --> 00:47:26.400
 as other people. In a physiology class I measured my oxygen consumption. The professor thought

00:47:26.400 --> 00:47:32.600
 the machine was broken or something because I was using five times more oxygen per minute

00:47:32.600 --> 00:47:43.040
 than proper. So I had trouble convincing myself that I could be hypothyroid. When I finally

00:47:43.040 --> 00:47:52.040
 tried it within a week or two I was sleeping more deeply and able to relax and my caloric

00:47:52.040 --> 00:48:02.600
 requirement dropped by about 50% and I've seen since then several people mostly males

00:48:02.600 --> 00:48:08.960
 who no matter how much they ate couldn't gain weight and as soon as they took a thyroid

00:48:08.960 --> 00:48:18.320
 supplement their metabolism quieted down and became more efficient so that they could put

00:48:18.320 --> 00:48:19.720
 on muscle.

00:48:19.720 --> 00:48:24.480
 And as far as the one that you personally take, what is that?

00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:35.920
 At that time, our armor had been standardized. They made it from both pork and beef and tested

00:48:35.920 --> 00:48:45.200
 every batch for potency on mice so it was an absolutely ideal product that had been

00:48:45.200 --> 00:48:54.960
 existing for almost 100 years. Then the company was sold and immediately the new companies

00:48:54.960 --> 00:49:06.200
 altered the formula taking out part of the substance and the tablet just wasn't behaving

00:49:06.200 --> 00:49:13.880
 the same so I looked around and I found a first synthetic made by the armor company called

00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:26.000
 Thyrolar which chemically imitated their standardized product. And then the new companies stopped

00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:36.800
 distributing that so I found a Mexican product called Cino Plus had imitated the Thyrolar

00:49:36.800 --> 00:49:47.400
 formula and ever since the 90s when I started using this product which at that time cost

00:49:47.400 --> 00:49:53.040
 less than a dollar a bottle and the armor thyroid didn't incidentally cost a penny a

00:49:53.040 --> 00:50:03.120
 tablet but it was the re-sales. The pharmaceutical industry isn't satisfied with a 50% markup.

00:50:03.120 --> 00:50:15.400
 They wanted a 100 fold markup and so the Mexican tablets had less drastic increase from one

00:50:15.400 --> 00:50:24.400
 dollar 20 years later they have increased to $15 a bottle but that's still much more

00:50:24.400 --> 00:50:29.040
 economical and it's a very reliable product.

00:50:29.040 --> 00:50:34.560
 Okay, very good to know. And do you supplement a vitamin D too or are you able to get sun

00:50:34.560 --> 00:50:35.560
 where you are?

00:50:35.560 --> 00:50:46.760
 I'm in Mexico. It's the only time I don't need it but in Oregon I always take 5,000

00:50:46.760 --> 00:50:47.760
 units a day.

00:50:47.760 --> 00:50:52.280
 Wonderful, okay. So good to know. And then a little personal question, what time do you

00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:53.280
 go to bed?

00:50:53.280 --> 00:50:54.280
 What was that?

00:50:54.280 --> 00:50:55.280
 What time do you go to bed?

00:50:55.280 --> 00:50:56.280
 Oh, what time?

00:50:56.280 --> 00:50:57.280
 Yeah.

00:50:57.280 --> 00:51:10.960
 Oh, I try to make it close to 10.30. The regularity is very important. When I was teaching school

00:51:10.960 --> 00:51:21.720
 and had to be absolutely on time I found that during a vacation at my normal bedtime 10.30

00:51:21.720 --> 00:51:29.560
 if I was trying to do something else my metabolism would shut down and I would get cold.

00:51:29.560 --> 00:51:30.560
 Oh yeah.

00:51:30.560 --> 00:51:34.360
 That happens to me. I try to go to bed by 9 and if I don't I get cold too so that's

00:51:34.360 --> 00:51:40.160
 interesting. And then are you an early riser or do you like to sleep in a little bit?

00:51:40.160 --> 00:51:45.000
 I try to get 8.5 hours every night.

00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:50.320
 Okay, well you have answered so many questions. I'm sure everybody will love this podcast

00:51:50.320 --> 00:51:54.200
 because sleep is such a major issue that so many people are dealing with so I hope you

00:51:54.200 --> 00:52:00.120
 guys found this valuable. Once again, make sure and sign up for Dr. Pete's newsletter

00:52:00.120 --> 00:52:04.720
 and stay tuned for more of these. I love when you do this with me, Dr. Pete. I really appreciate

00:52:04.720 --> 00:52:08.640
 this and it's fun for me to learn so much from you so I appreciate it.

00:52:08.640 --> 00:52:09.640
 Okay.

00:52:09.640 --> 00:52:15.640
 All right, well I'll say goodbye for now and we will reconvene at another time. Thank you

00:52:15.640 --> 00:52:16.640
 so much, Dr. Pete.

00:52:16.640 --> 00:52:17.640
 Okay, bye.

00:52:17.640 --> 00:52:17.640
 Bye-bye.

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