The Benefits of Sleep: Quality Rest Improves Health

Note: This transcript is abridged. For the complete episode, click "play" on the podcast link above.

Dr. Mike: Hey, Dr. Mike here. So, you want to live forever...ish? Well, then you [have to] know what's in and what's not. Stay tuned to find out.

Live Foreverish Introduction: You're listening to Live Foreverish, a show dedicated to helping you live just a little longer. Here are your hosts, Drs. Mike Smith and Crystal Gossard.

Dr. Mike: All right. Welcome to Live Foreverish. Our in and out, Dr. Crystal.

Dr. Crystal: My favorite of the month.

Dr. Mike: You know, our fans really like these shows, too.

Dr. Crystal: This is a well-performing episode.

Dr. Mike: Series. I guess it's a series.

The ins and outs of living forever, strong [and] vibrant. A little longer years, maybe, but mostly, it's about healthspan.

Dr. Crystal: It is. It's really about what's new in the world of wellness research.

Dr. Mike: And there's so much coming out all the time.

Dr. Crystal: Oh, it's hard to keep up.

Dr. Mike: It is. It takes a team to really do that.

All right. So, let's get into this. The three ins: these are the things that you want to do if you're going to live forever…ish.

In number one—I love it—sleep! I get excited to go to bed. I love it.

Why Is Sleep Important for Overall Health? 00:01:05

Dr. Crystal: Me too. I get so excited. I put on my pajamas as fast as I possibly can in the evening.

Dr. Mike: Well, I feel bad if I put my pajamas on too early.

Dr. Crystal: I don't. No.

Dr. Mike: I do, so I have to wait. But once I hit that time, I'm like, yeah!

Dr. Crystal: Oh, it's great.

Dr. Mike: I love it. Okay, so we know sleep's important. We know that. What's going on now?

Dr. Crystal: We do know. And more and more, research is just pointing to sleep for overall health. And now we're seeing sleep for brain health, particularly the aging brain.

There’s a study published in the journal Neurology in October 2024.

Dr. Mike: Woohoo!

Dr. Crystal: I almost said 2025.

Dr. Mike: It is October 2024.

Dr. Crystal: I know! Hot off the press.

Dr. Mike: I just realized that.

Dr. Crystal: That's why people love the ins and outs of living foreverish. Because we're bringing you hot-off-the-press research.

Is a Good Night’s Sleep Beneficial for Brain Health? 00:02:10

Dr. Mike: This is important, too.

As we age, it's well known [that] you don't sleep as well. Deep sleep is not as long in aging people. And now we're linking that to some brain issues.

Dr. Crystal: What's unique about this is that these are younger people. That's why this study was unique, because they used a younger cohort.

Dr. Mike: Early midlife.

Dr. Crystal: If you [are] between 18 and 30 years old, [and] you experienced sleep issues…The researchers [gathered sleep data at baseline] and then five years later.

So, between your initial assessment and five years later, [were you] still experiencing sleep issues? And it's a combination of short sleep duration, bad sleep quality, difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep, early morning awakening and daytime sleepiness.

What Are the Long-Term Effects of Sleep Issues? 00:03:13

Dr. Crystal: So, those [were] what was analyzed. Then, the participants were put in groups, like zero to one, two to three, or three or more “poor sleep” characteristics.

If you had poor sleep characteristics at baseline [and] five years later you had poor sleep characteristics, then you were put into these groups. Then—this is the beauty—15 years later…

Dr. Mike: Oh, okay. This is long.

Dr. Crystal: Yes. This was a cohort of people who were previously in a different study.

Now, these researchers are analyzing the data that was collected back then. So now we look 15 years later, the researchers looked at brain MRIs.

Dr. Mike: Ooh, that's up my alley.

Dr. Crystal: Now they're comparing these brain MRIs [and looking] at the people who had sleep issues early on when they were younger. What are their brains looking like now?

Dr. Mike: I bet older.

Dr. Crystal: That was it.

How Does Poor Sleep Affect Brain Aging? 00:04:14

Dr. Mike: Ding, ding, ding, ding!

Dr. Crystal: That’s the point. Poor sleep was associated with advanced brain age in midlife.

So, if you're not sleeping well when you're younger—when you are in your midlife, at the height of your professional career, you've got the family, and you've got everything that's going on in life—now you have an accelerated-aging brain.

Dr. Mike: Yeah. MRIs are really good at doing that, too, because you can look at the atrophy of the brain and the gray matter [and] white matter ratio. It's well-documented as you age.

And so, these people were fitting those patterns of older [individuals].

Dr. Crystal: They were. Just to give you specifics, participants with more poor sleep—so again, the ones who had multiple poor sleep characteristics—had brains that appeared 1.6 to 2.6 years older than those with fewer sleep issues.

Dr. Mike: [You have to] get your sleep. You [have to] figure out what to do. I mean, obviously, key takeaway for this: You [have] to fix your sleep issues right away.

How Can You Improve Your Sleep Quality? 00:05:24

Dr. Mike: And the big one for a lot of people [is] sleep apnea. If you're snoring loud and waking people up, get checked out. It’s [really] simple to do.

And a lot of those machines are getting better to use now, and [there are] different options. So, definitely something you want to check out.

Then, you [have] to just experiment. I do melatonin and a couple of different adaptogenic herbs, and I love it.

Dr. Crystal: That's nice.

I do a combination [of] chamomile, lemon balm [and] hinoki oil. And I just added glycine last week, 1,000 mg of glycine. That's my new addition.

Dr. Mike: Is that helping?

Dr. Crystal: I'm dreaming.

Dr. Mike: Good dreams?

Dr. Crystal: Good dreams, but I don't know if I'm remembering my dream. So, I don't know, but that's the latest update.

Dr. Mike: Okay, well that's good. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, so I do ashwagandha. I do black cumin.

Now, the ashwagandha I do is the sleepy one. It's the sleepy version. People always think of ashwagandha—maybe not as sleeping, but there's a there's a version of it that is.

So, it's a sleepy version. And then melatonin every night. Love it.

Dr. Crystal: That's a nice workup.

I guess the point is, even if you're young, sometimes you feel like the next day, [even if] you're not sleeping well, you are a little more resilient. So, I don't think it impacts your day-to-day life.

Dr. Mike: Just wait!

Dr. Crystal: You need to still ensure [that] you address any sleep issues.