Fall Asleep In 2 Minutes (Doctor Explains)

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Beyond “sleep hygiene”, Dr. Siobhan Deshauer has insights to share:

Rest for your body and mind

First, do still do the basics. That means dimming/filtering lights for an hour before bed, lowering the room temperature a little, ensuring you have nice fresh sheets, not having alcohol or caffeine before bed, and getting out of bed if you’re not asleep within half an hour, to avoid associating being in bed with wakefulness.

Next, the extra tips:

  • Progressive relaxation: tense and relax each muscle group from toes to head
  • Box breathing: inhale, hold, exhale, and hold for 4 seconds each; helps calm the nervous system (it’s called “box breathing” because of the 4:4:4:4 setup)
  • Diaphragmatic breathing: focus on belly breathing, with longer exhalation to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (note that this can, and even ideally should, be done at the same time as the previous)
  • Cognitive shuffling: think of words starting with each letter of a chosen word while visualizing them (this is like “counting sheep”, but does the job better—the job in question being preventing your brain from moving to anything more strenuous or stressful)

For more on all of these plus some extra side-along advice, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take ← a way to get many of the benefits of sleep, while awake

Take care!

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    How can I get the benefits of green tea…without drinking green tea? Find out the answer, and more, within!

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  • Why do I poo in the morning? A gut expert explains

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    No, you’re not imagining it. People really are more likely to poo in the morning, shortly after breakfast. Researchers have actually studied this.

    But why mornings? What if you tend to poo later in the day? And is it worth training yourself to be a morning pooper?

    To understand what makes us poo when we do, we need to consider a range of factors including our body clock, gut muscles and what we have for breakfast.

    Here’s what the science says.

    H_Ko/Shutterstock

    So morning poos are real?

    In a UK study from the early 1990s, researchers asked nearly 2,000 men and women in Bristol about their bowel habits.

    The most common time to poo was in the early morning. The peak time was 7-8am for men and about an hour later for women. The researchers speculated that the earlier time for men was because they woke up earlier for work.

    About a decade later, a Chinese study found a similar pattern. Some 77% of the almost 2,500 participants said they did a poo in the morning.

    But why the morning?

    There are a few reasons. The first involves our circadian rhythm – our 24-hour internal clock that helps regulate bodily processes, such as digestion.

    For healthy people, our internal clock means the muscular contractions in our colon follow a distinct rhythm.

    There’s minimal activity in the night. The deeper and more restful our sleep, the fewer of these muscle contractions we have. It’s one reason why we don’t tend to poo in our sleep.

    Diagram of digestive system including colon and rectum
    Your lower gut is a muscular tube that contracts more strongly at certain times of day. Vectomart/Shutterstock

    But there’s increasing activity during the day. Contractions in our colon are most active in the morning after waking up and after any meal.

    One particular type of colon contraction partly controlled by our internal clock are known as “mass movements”. These are powerful contractions that push poo down to the rectum to prepare for the poo to be expelled from the body, but don’t always result in a bowel movement. In healthy people, these contractions occur a few times a day. They are more frequent in the morning than in the evening, and after meals.

    Breakfast is also a trigger for us to poo. When we eat and drink our stomach stretches, which triggers the “gastrocolic reflex”. This reflex stimulates the colon to forcefully contract and can lead you to push existing poo in the colon out of the body. We know the gastrocolic reflex is strongest in the morning. So that explains why breakfast can be such a powerful trigger for a bowel motion.

    Then there’s our morning coffee. This is a very powerful stimulant of contractions in the sigmoid colon (the last part of the colon before the rectum) and of the rectum itself. This leads to a bowel motion.

    How important are morning poos?

    Large international surveys show the vast majority of people will poo between three times a day and three times a week.

    This still leaves a lot of people who don’t have regular bowel habits, are regular but poo at different frequencies, or who don’t always poo in the morning.

    So if you’re healthy, it’s much more important that your bowel habits are comfortable and regular for you. Bowel motions do not have to occur once a day in the morning.

    Morning poos are also not a good thing for everyone. Some people with irritable bowel syndrome feel the urgent need to poo in the morning – often several times after getting up, during and after breakfast. This can be quite distressing. It appears this early-morning rush to poo is due to overstimulation of colon contractions in the morning.

    Can you train yourself to be regular?

    Yes, for example, to help treat constipation using the gastrocolic reflex. Children and elderly people with constipation can use the toilet immediately after eating breakfast to relieve symptoms. And for adults with constipation, drinking coffee regularly can help stimulate the gut, particularly in the morning.

    A disturbed circadian rhythm can also lead to irregular bowel motions and people more likely to poo in the evenings. So better sleep habits can not only help people get a better night’s sleep, it can help them get into a more regular bowel routine.

    Man preparing Italian style coffee at home, adding coffee to pot
    A regular morning coffee can help relieve constipation. Caterina Trimarchi/Shutterstock

    Regular physical activity and avoiding sitting down a lot are also important in stimulating bowel movements, particularly in people with constipation.

    We know stress can contribute to irregular bowel habits. So minimising stress and focusing on relaxation can help bowel habits become more regular.

    Fibre from fruits and vegetables also helps make bowel motions more regular.

    Finally, ensuring adequate hydration helps minimise the chance of developing constipation, and helps make bowel motions more regular.

    Monitoring your bowel habits

    Most of us consider pooing in the morning to be regular. But there’s a wide variation in normal so don’t be concerned if your poos don’t follow this pattern. It’s more important your poos are comfortable and regular for you.

    If there’s a major change in the regularity of your bowel habits that’s concerning you, see your GP. The reason might be as simple as a change in diet or starting a new medication.

    But sometimes this can signify an important change in the health of your gut. So your GP may need to arrange further investigations, which could include blood tests or imaging.

    Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts!

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    Time to go nuts for nuts!

    Nuts, in popular perception, range from “basically the healthiest food anyone can eat” to “basically high calorie salty snacks”. And, they can be either!

    Some notes, then:

    • Raw is generally better that not
    • Dry roasted is generally better than the kind with added oils
    • Added salt is neither necessary nor good

    Quick tip: if “roasted salted” are the cheapest or most convenient to buy, you can at least mitigate that by soaking them in warm water for 5 minutes, before rinsing and (if you don’t want wet nuts) drying.

    You may be wondering: who does want wet nuts? And the answer is, if for example you’re making a delicious cashew and chickpea balti, the fact you didn’t dry them before throwing them in won’t make a difference.

    Now, let’s do a quick run-down; we don’t usually do “listicles” but it seemed a good format here, so we’ve picked a top 5 for nutritional potency:

    Almonds

    We may have a bias. We accept it. But almonds are also one of the healthiest nuts around, and generally considered by most popular metrics the healthiest.

    Not only are they high in protein, healthy fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but they’re even a natural prebiotic that increases the populations of healthy gut bacteria, while simultaneously keeping down the populations of gut pathogens—what more can we ask of a nut?

    Read more: Prebiotic effects of almonds and almond skins on intestinal microbiota in healthy adult humans

    Pistachios

    Not only are these super tasty and fun to eat (and mindful eating is all but guaranteed, as shelling them by hand slows us down and makes us more likely to eat them one at a time rather than by the handful), but also they contain lots of nutrients and are lower in calories than most nuts, so they’re a great option for anyone who’d like to eat more nuts but is doing a calorie-controlled diet and doesn’t want to have half a day’s calories in a tiny dish of nuts.

    See: Effects of Pistachio Consumption in a Behavioral Weight Loss Intervention on Weight Change, Cardiometabolic Factors, and Dietary Intake

    Walnuts

    Popularly associated with brain health (perhaps easy to remember because of their appearance), they really are good for the brain:

    Check it out: Beneficial Effects of Walnuts on Cognition and Brain Health

    Cashews

    A personal favorite of this writer for their versatility in cooking, food prep, or just as a snack, they also do wonders for metabolic health:

    Learn more: The Effect of Cashew Nut on Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Blood Pressure: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

    Brazil nuts

    The most exciting thing about these nuts is that they’re an incredibly potent source of selenium, which is important not just for hair/skin/nails as popularly marketed, but also for thyroid hormone production and DNA synthesis.

    But don’t eat too many, because selenium is definitely one of those “you can have too much of a good thing” nutrients, and selenium poisoning can make your hair (however beautiful and shiny it got because of the selenium) fall out if you take too much.

    Know the numbers: Brazil nuts and selenium—health benefits and risks

    Bottom line on nuts:

    • Nuts are a great and healthful part of almost anyone’s diet
      • Obviously, if you have a nut allergy, then we’re sorry; this one won’t have helped you so much
    • Almonds are one of the most healthful nuts out there
    • Brazil nuts are incredibly potent, to the point where moderation is recommended
    • A handful of mixed nuts per day is a very respectable option—when it comes to food and health, diversity is almost always good!

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  • Ageless Aging – by Maddy Dychtwald

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    Maddy Dychtwald, herself 73, has spent her career working in the field of aging. She’s not a gerontologist or even a doctor, but she’s nevertheless been up-to-the-ears in the industry for decades, mostly as an organizer, strategist, facilitator, and so forth. As such, she’s had her finger on the pulse of the healthy longevity movement for a long time.

    This book was written to address a problem, and the problem is: lifespan is increasing (especially for women), but healthspan has not been keeping up the pace.

    In other words: people (especially women) are living longer, but often with more health problems along the way than before.

    And mostly, it’s for lack of information (or sometimes: too much competing incorrect information).

    Fortunately, information is something that a woman in Dychtwald’s position has an abundance of, because she has researchers and academics in many fields on speed-dial and happy to answer her questions (we get a lot of input from such experts throughout the book—which is why this book is so science-based, despite the author not being a scientist).

    The book answers a lot of important questions beyond the obvious “what diet/exercise/sleep/supplements/etc are best for healthy aging” (spoiler: it’s quite consistent with the things we recommend here, because guess what, science is science), questions like how best to prepare for this that or the other, how to get a head start on preventative healthcare for some things, how to avoid being a burden to our families (one can argue that families are supposed to look after each other, but still, it’s a legitimate worry for many, and understandably so), and even how to balance the sometimes conflicting worlds of health and finances.

    Unlike many authors, she also talks about the different kinds of aging, and tackles each of them separately and together. We love to see it!

    Bottom line: this book is a very good one-stop-shop for all things healthy aging. It’s aimed squarely at women, but most advice goes for men the same too, aside from the section on hormones and such.

    Click here to check out Ageless Aging, and plan your future!

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Related Posts

  • Top Foods Against Neuroinflammation
  • How To Grow New Brain Cells (At Any Age)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    How To Grow New Brain Cells (At Any Age)

    It was long believed that brain growth could not occur later in life, due to expending our innate stock of pluripotent stem cells. However, this was mostly based on rodent studies.

    Rodent studies are often used for brain research, because it’s difficult to find human volunteers willing to have their brains sliced thinly (so that the cells can be viewed under a microscope) at the end of the study.

    However, neurobiologist Dr. Maura Boldrini led a team that did a lot of research by means of autopsies on the hippocampi of (previously) healthy individuals ranging in age from 14 to 79.

    What she found is that while indeed the younger subjects did predictably have more young brain cells (neural progenitors and immature neurons), even the oldest subject, at the age of 79, had been producing new brain cells up until death.

    Read her landmark study: Human Hippocampal Neurogenesis Persists throughout Aging

    There was briefly a flurry of news articles about a study by Dr. Shawn Sorrels that refuted this, however, it later came to light that Dr. Sorrels had accidentally destroyed his own evidence during the cell-fixing process—these things happen; it’s just unfortunate the mistake was not picked up until after publication.

    A later study by a Dr. Elena Moreno-Jiménez fixed this flaw by using a shorter fixation time for the cell samples they wanted to look at, and found that there were tens of thousands of newly-made brain cells in samples from adults ranging from 43 to 87.

    Now, there was still a difference: the samples from the youngest adult had 30% more newly-made braincells than the 87-year-old, but given that previous science thought brain cell generation stopped in childhood, the fact that an 87-year-old was generating new brain cells 30% less quickly than a 43-year-old is hardly much of a criticism!

    As an aside: samples from patients with Alzheimer’s also had a 30% reduction in new braincell generation, compared to samples from patients of the same age without Alzheimer’s. But again… Even patients with Alzheimer’s were still growing some new brain cells.

    Read it for yourself: Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is abundant in neurologically healthy subjects and drops sharply in patients with Alzheimer’s disease

    Practical advice based on this information

    Since we can do neurogenesis at any age, but the rate does drop with age (and drops sharply in the case of Alzheimer’s disease), we need to:

    Feed your brain. The brain is the most calorie-consuming organ we have, by far, and it’s also made mostly of fat* and water. So, get plenty of healthy fats, and get plenty of water.

    *Fun fact: while depictions in fiction (and/or chemically preserved brains) may lead many to believe the brain has a rubbery consistency, the untreated brain being made of mostly fat and water gives it more of a blancmange-like consistency in reality. That thing is delicate and spatters easily. There’s a reason it’s kept cushioned inside the strongest structure of our body, far more protected than anything in our torso.

    Exercise. Specifically, exercise that gets your blood pumping. This (as our earlier-featured video today referenced) is one of the biggest things we can do to boost Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, or BDNF.

    Here be science: Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, Depression, and Physical Activity: Making the Neuroplastic Connection

    However, that’s not the only way to increase BDNF; another is to enjoy a diet rich in polyphenols. These can be found in, for example, berries, tea, coffee, and chocolate. Technically those last two are also botanically berries, but given how we usually consume them, and given how rich they are in polyphenols, they merit a special mention.

    See for example: Effects of nutritional interventions on BDNF concentrations in humans: a systematic review

    Some supplements can help neuron (re)growth too, so if you haven’t already, you might want to check out our previous main feature on lion’s mane mushroom, a supplement which does exactly that.

    For those who like videos, you may also enjoy this TED talk by neuroscientist Dr. Sandrine Thuret:

    !

    Prefer text? Click here to read the transcript

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  • Pistachios vs Cashews – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing pistachios to cashews, we picked the pistachios.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, both are great sources of protein and healthy fats, and considered head-to-head:

    • pistachios have slightly more protein, but it’s close
    • pistachios have slightly more (health) fat, but it’s close
    • cashews have slightly more carbs, but it’s close
    • pistachios have a lot more fiber (more than 3x more!)

    All in all, both have a good macro balance, but pistachios win easily on account of the fiber, as well as the slight edge for protein and fats.

    When it comes to vitamins, pistachios have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, C, & E.

    Cashews do have more vitamin B5, also called pantothenic acid, pantothenic literally meaning “from everywhere”. Guess what’s not a common deficiency to have!

    So pistachios win easily on vitamins, too.

    In the category of minerals, things are more balanced, though cashews have a slight edge. Pistachios have more notably more calcium and potassium, while cashews have notably more selenium, zinc, and magnesium.

    Both of these nuts have anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, and anti-cancer benefits, often from different phytochemicals, but with similar levels of usefulness.

    Taking everything into account, however, one nut comes out in the clear lead, mostly due to its much higher fiber content and better vitamin profile, and that’s the pistachios.

    Want to learn more?

    Check out:

    Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts

    Enjoy!

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  • Goji Berries vs Cherries – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing goji berries to cherries, we picked the goji berries.

    Why?

    Looking at the macros first, goji berries have more protein, fiber, and carbs, as well as the lower glycemic index, although cherries are great too. Still, a clear and easy win here.

    In the category of vitamins, goji berries have more of vitamins A and C, while cherries have more of vitamin K; in the other vitamins these two fruits are close enough to equal that variants in what kind of cherry it is will push it slightly one way or the other. However, it’s worth noting that goji berries have 1,991% more vitamin A and 16,033% more vitamin C, while cherries have only 20% more vitamin K. So, all in all, another clear win for goji berries.

    When it comes to minerals, goji berries have more calcium and iron, while cherries have more copper. Again, the margins of difference are very much in goji berries’ favor, with 1,088% more calcium and 2,025% more iron, while cherries have 35% more copper. So, again, a win for goji berries.

    The polyphenol contents of cherries differ far too much to comment here, but as a general rule of thumb, goji berries have more antioxidant powers than cherries, but cherries are also excellent for this.

    In short, enjoy either or both, but goji berries are the more nutritionally dense!

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Take care!

    Don’t Forget…

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