Health & Wellbeing Podcast #20

There’s been a bit of a gap since my last podcast and blog post, but never fear, I am still here! I didn’t fall off the side of the planet, I’ve been spending some wonderful, blissful, quality time with my little cherub Ash. He’s now 5 months old, can you believe how fast that has gone?

This podcast was one that I recorded with Laura Yen from Burton Health back when I was in my last weeks of pregnancy. It’s taken me a good while to get this out, but it’s worth the wait because this podcast is jam-packed with helpful information about sleep and insomnia.

Sleep is a very important part of your health to get right. Alongside things like stress levels, diet and exercise, sleep is one of the basics that need to be addressed in order to be healthy.

In Australia, 13-33% of adults have regular difficulty in either getting to sleep or staying asleep. In NSW alone, almost one-fifth of the population are chronically sleep restricted. That really sucks.

Conventional sleeping medications will certainly get you to sleep, but many people are hesitant to use them because of their side effects and addictive nature.

In this podcast Laura and I talk about the importance of sleep, sleep cycles, what sleep deprivation does to us, and how to improve our sleep.

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Video

Part 1

0:00 Intro and disclaimer.

1:07 Some sleep statistics and the connection between sleep problems and depression.

2:04 What is insomnia?

3:02 Sleep cycles

06:04 Why sleep is important

07:00 Biphasic sleep, or segmented sleep.

7:50 How can sleep problems affect health?

9:57 Lack of sleep can affect your ability to think clearly, and getting a good night sleep is very important for students.

10:30 Are phones in the bedroom affecting sleep health?

12:28 Sleep deprivation can worsen inflammation and affect gut flora

13:00 Causes of sleep issues: light, shift work, artificial light, noise, temperature, sleeping environment

17:04 Earthing

17:55 Light affects dopamine which can affect insulin signalling and cortisol, and how cortisol can affect sleep

Part 2

0:20 Get into a good routine and start improving sleep hygiene

1:30 How your dinner can affect your sleep

2:10 Sleep routine, and training yourself to sleep

03:10 The blue light from electrical gadgets can affect sleep. F.lux is an app you can get tochange the colour of your computer screen, or you can get orange/amber coloured glasses.

04: 10  Stimulants and sleep

04:50 More on food and sleep: carbohydrates and low-carb diet for sleep; amino acids in foods to help sleep hormones; alcohol

06:15  What time should you go to bed?

08:05 Mindfulness, meditation and journaling

10:45  Sleep debt

11: 45  Address stress in the day, cortisol test and herbs for stress

12:46  Have a nice bedroom

13:47  Supplements and herbs for sleep

Audio

About Laura

Laura is a clinical naturopath practicing in St Leonards and Dural. Her key areas of interest are female hormone disorders, digestive health, stress & adrenal fatigue. Through her clinical experience Laura has identified the prevalence of stress in our everyday lives and sees it as the most common cause or exacerbating factor of her patients health conditions. Laura believes that we need to get back to basics and work on our ability to release and manage stress in order to prevent and treat disease.

Last year Laura set herself the mission to reach beyond the walls of her clinics and send her de-stress message out to Australian and New Zealand households through the Burton Health Tea Club. Each month she sends love letters and tea packages to her members to inject joy and excitement into their days and to remind them to slow down, relax and reconnect while sipping on a cup of organic herbal tea.

You can connect with Laura via her website www.burtonhealth.com.au, on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.

The post Sleep and Insomnia – Podcast #20 appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.

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Health & Wellbeing Podcast #2

This is my second podcast and this time it’s all me. Today I’m talking about reasons for fatigue. Energy problems can be caused by a huge range of issues, so I wanted to discuss some of the most common ones. While it’s not a 100% conclusive list, I hope that this gives people a good place to start when they’re trying to work out why they’re so tired.

Want to subscribe to get podcasts automatically? You can do that here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/health-wellbeing-podcast/id1006574743

Podcast breakdown:

2:30 Mitochondria – The powerhouse of your cells, where energy is made. The health and quantity of our mitochrondria determine our ability to make energy, and they can they are susceptible to oxidative damage, and can be depleted by certain nutritional deficiencies.

5:22 Inflammation, particularly chronic inflammation can affect energy and cause other imbalance.

7:40 Andropause, also known as male menopause

8:16 Some tips on reducing chronic inflammation

9:14 Stress is a major cause of fatigue, usually presenting in the form of adrenal exhaustion of HPA Axis dysfunction.

11:28 Thyroid problems are another major cause of fatigue, especially hypothyroidism.

13:36 Nutritional deficiencies that can cause fatigue, Iron, B vitamins, magnesium, zinc

16:12 Certain medications can affect energy levels

16:46 Inadequate exercise can cause fatigue, but this isn’t always straightforward

18:27 The wrong diet – not enough food, too much food, or the wrong type of food for you.

20:39 Sleep. Most of us aren’t getting enough, or it can be an issue with the quality of sleep. I discuss some tips on sleep hygiene.

23:00 Sleep apnoea

23:40 Shift work

26:30 Obesity and fatigue

28:57 The importance of gut health; gut problems can cause fatigue as well.

30:00 Toxicity affects the mitochrondria- what is toxicity, where does it come from, how can you identify if you’re toxic?

31:13 What do you do if you’ve been tired for a long time and you don’t know why? Start by working out a timeline. If you can’t do this because the fatigue has been going on for such a long time then testing may be helpful. There are several different types of testing available, but you may not need to do all of them.

33:00 Some tips for reducing inflammation and improving energy through diet

34:30 Depression is a common cause of fatigue.

35:29 My favourite herbs for energy

The post Reasons for Fatigue appeared first on Alison Mitchell Naturopath.