Building a Brain-Healing Evening Routine

Why Sleep Detoxifies the Brain 0:00

Well, in today's video, I'm talking about my evening routine, my personal routine for optimal sleep and brain detoxification. You see, when we sleep, we activate something called our lymphatic system that is basically the immune and lymphatic system of the brain. This is where we actually sweep away metabolic debris, trash in the brain, and drain it from our brain into our blood stream, into through the lymphatic ducts and really out of our body. It's part of our natural elimination system. If we're not sleeping well, we're going to end up with a lot of metabolic debris, a lot of trash accumulating in our brain, driving up more oxidative stress, more inflammation in our brain, and literally degenerating our brain faster.

Research has shown that people who do not sleep well have maybe insomnia or, maybe they, you know, for a long period of time, they work, different types of shift jobs where they're not sleeping overnight. They end up with more brain generation and higher risk of neurodegenerative conditions like dementia and Alzheimer's disease. So really good sleep is critical for preventing against neurodegenerative conditions and optimizing your overall brain function. So you can have great memory so you can feel sharp and quick with your thoughts.

Good cognitive acceleration, really healthy, stable mood. If you're noticing anxiety, depression, kind of more, of a lethargy and sadness, it's probably a sign you're not. Your brain is not detoxifying effectively and you end up with more inflammation in the brain. So a good evening routine is really critical for great sleep. So you can wake up the next day and have tons of energy. So this is what I do. So let's start with my evening meal. My evening meal is always a very blood sugar stabilizing meal.

A lot of times when people wake up at night, it's because they're having blood sugar issues.

Blood Sugar-Stabilizing Evening Meal 2:00

They're having hypoglycemia, which causes a stress response in the body and in the brain, which will wake them up at night. So my blood sugar stabilizing meal is focused around good protein. I'm getting at least 30g of protein. For me personally, I'm usually consuming 60, 70, 80, maybe even 100g of protein in my evening meal. Now my wife will eat less. She might get 30 to 40g of protein, but we always make sure we're getting at least 30g of protein. That protein helps stabilize your blood sugar, helps take away cravings, and also provides amino acids for good recovery.

Right? For good muscle building and lean body tissue development and fat burning. And that's so critical. So we make sure we've got the the protein. We also make sure we have healthy fats. We're either getting the healthy fats from grass fed organic animal products or from something like high polyphenol extra virgin olive oil, or maybe avocado or grass fed butter. Something along those lines. Maybe pasture raised eggs. We always have healthy fats, we always have protein, and we have lots of colorful fruits and vegetables in that meal as well, making sure that we have a very nutrient dense meal that helps stabilize our blood sugar.

That's critical. We try to eat 3 to 4 hours before we go to sleep. So, you know, we're typically trying to go to bed by ten. So we want to finish our meal ideally by 7 p.m. that way we have time to digest our food and process the nutrients that are in there while getting the blood sugar stabilizing effect that's going to set us up for great sleep. If you eat right before you go to bed, that food is you're sitting in your stomach. It's going to rot and petrify because everything shuts down, including your digestive system when you're sleeping.

And if your digestive system is shut down and food is sitting in your stomach, it's going to rot and petrify, and it's going to provide a breeding ground for bacteria that you don't want, like H. Pylori, which will end up causing nutrient deficiencies in your body, will end up causing higher amounts of inflammation in your system. A higher risk of acid reflux. Gastroesophageal reflux disease, and different issues like that. And so we want to make sure we're consuming our food, have time to digest it before we end up going to bed.

So the meal is where it starts. Then after the meal, we like to get out and get movement in and usually we're playing with our kids. I might go out and play basketball with my kids, we might take a family walk. Something along those lines. I always recommend walking for at least five minutes after every meal. That will help bring down blood sugar. That will help to improve oxygenation throughout your body. It will help stimulate your lymphatic system for better detoxification and drainage, and again, has a really good, blood sugar stabilizing a fat burning effect for the body.

So make sure you're getting at least five minutes of movement. We try to get more like 20 to 30 minutes of movement after dinner. So we're getting movement. And also it's right around sunset. And so we're getting red light infrared naturally from the sun as it's setting. It's in the kind of light spectrum that is associated with reducing inflammation, and also actually helping set our circadian rhythm up for good sleep at night. You see, if we're getting a lot of UV light or blue light, like for example, if we have lights on throughout our house, which is what I'm going to get to next, that's going to tell us it's daytime.

But when we're outside around sunset, that actually has certain frequencies of light that tell the brain, okay, it's time to start producing melatonin, which is our master sleep hormone, it's time to start getting ready to go to bed. You see our ancestors at night. If they were exposed to anything, it would be sunset and then it would be fire, which is more of like an orangish red light and that orangish red light that doesn't block melatonin like blue light, which we get from, you know, our typical LEDs, our typical, you know, daytime light bulbs that we're using.

So after you get some evening light exposure,

Post-Dinner Movement and Sunset Light 6:00

make sure you dim all the lights in your house. You can also use things like red light bulbs, for example, that are great. You can just kind of plug in, in your light bulb and it will have more of a red. It's kind of a red orangish tint. So it's like fire and you can sit and read or, you know, have a great conversation with your spouse or partner while you're, you know, still getting some light in the house. But it's not melatonin blocking light. And so that's key. So this is what we do. We wear blue light blocking.

We dim all the lights in our house right. So we come in after we're playing with our kids. We dim all the lights in our house. We put our children to bed. We try to get them in bed by 830 at night. And then at that point we dim all the lights if they're not already dimmed, which I had just mentioned, but we make sure the lights are dimmed. And then we put on our blue light blocking glasses. So blue light blocking glasses, they look like this right here. They make everything kind of orangish or red.

We also put in some red light bulbs as well. We want to make sure we're doing everything we can to protect our brain from basically getting melatonin blocked. We want to make sure we're optimizing melatonin production to set us up for really, really good sleep. So we do that. And then of course we, you know, we do our nighttime routine of brushing our teeth, flossing, making sure we're taking good care of our oral health, maybe using some moisturizer on our face, you know, some anti-aging creams, things like that.

One thing I actually like to do is red light face mask. So I'll actually put on a red light face mask, either in the morning as part of my morning routine or sometimes in the evening as well. And then what we do is we go ahead and we sit down and we'll either have a conversation or will read. My wife and I, we have an electronics curfew at 930 at night. So at 930 we make sure we're off of our phones, that electronics are off. Like, you know, we're not watching TV unless maybe once a week or so on a movie movie night, on a weekend.

Dimming Lights and Cutting Electronics 8:00

But very rarely. Most of the time we've got an electronics curfew, and I would recommend that in your house, having an electronics curfew is a really good idea. We also make sure that we have an automatic timer on our Wi-Fi that turns off at 10 p.m., so even if we were on or something like that, our Wi-Fi ends up turning off. There's a lot more research coming out about electromagnetic frequencies and how they impact our ability to sleep well, and they impact our body's natural electromagnetic frequency.

And all of us are exposed to Wi-Fi and different types of electromagnetic frequency. And it's almost like, you know, it's it's it's a form of dirt and dander. It's it's almost like a pollutant on our body. A toxin on our system. And so at night, while we're sleeping is a really good time to turn all of that off and make sure that you are in a, you know, a really pure environment that allows you to sleep really, really well. So electronics curfew at 930. Our Wi-Fi goes off by 10 p.m., so around 930 we make sure that we've got all of our electronics off.

And we also make some warm herbal tea. And those herbal teas are going to be things like passionflower, valerian root, lavender. So some different herbs like that. They're all Gaba agonists. And Gaba is an inhibitory neurotransmitter in your brain. That means that it helps quiet your brain, helps kind of allows. It allows for you to kind of turn off the constant movement of your brain. The anxiety, the hypervigilance in your brain, which sets you up for really, really good sleep. So we like these Gaba agonists, these different types of herbs.

Passionflower. Chamomile is a really good once popular tea. So usually the blends we're using are bedtime teas. In a sense they have valerian, they have camomile, they have passionflower, lavender, different herbs like that that are all Gaba agonists. And warm beverages help relax your body, helps stimulate your vagal vagus nerve, which helps relax and calm your mind, calm your brain and of course, the Gaba agonist herbs also help support that as well. So we drink herbal tea, we'll sit down, we'll read, or we'll have a light conversation with each other.

And reading actually has been shown in different studies to really help support good sleep. In fact, there was one big study. It's called the Reading Trial, and it was done in 2021. And they showed that 42% of participants reported better sleep when they read before bed. Now, of course, when you read, you don't want to make sure that you're in blue light, right? So you want to make sure again, the lights are damned. You're using blue light blocking glasses, you have a fireplace on or you've got red light in your bulbs.

Something along those lines where you get enough light to read, but not enough to suppress melatonin release. And so sitting down and reading a book that you enjoy can be a great part of a nighttime routine to help set you up for great sleep. So this is something that my wife and I both enjoy. And then by 10:00, we make sure all the lights are off and we actually lay down on our PML mat.

Herbal Tea, Reading, and Relaxation 11:00

This is the our pulsed electromagnetic frequency mat. Now, I talked about how emfs electromagnetic frequencies can have a really hazardous effect on our overall body, almost like a toxin. But there are also electromagnetic frequencies that our physiology we've been around since the beginning of time. And that is the same frequency as the Earth. In fact, they call it Schumann's resonance, a Schumann's residence. This 7.83Hz is the frequency of our theta waves in our brain, which sets us into a very calming state.

It's part of this extremely low electromagnetic frequency that is very healing and grounding for our body, and calming and supports our parasympathetic nervous system and sets us up for really good sleep. So you can actually get a really good PMF. Matt. Mine is from a company called Higher Dose and you can actually set it for these particular frequencies that set you up for great sleep. And that's what my wife and I do, is we set it on that. There's also infrared coming out of it as well. So it's has a heating effect.

And that infrared of course also is very anti-inflammatory on the body can help reduce pain, improve joint health. A lot of great benefits improve overall blood flow and oxygenation. So we'll lay on that for 15 or 20 minutes. Meanwhile we sit and we kind of talk gradually and we also pray during that period of time. So we pray always before we go to bed. And then from there we go right to our bed and we fall asleep. Now in bed we make sure that our room is completely dark, and on top of that, we make sure that the temperature in our room is set at 65 degrees.

65 degrees has been shown to be the most well researched temperature frequency for optimal sleep, and we find that 65 degrees is kind of cool when you know you're up and you're not under your blanket, but when you're under a blanket actually feels really, really good. We also turn on our overhead fan.

PMF Mat, Prayer, and Bedtime Setup 13:00

So we've got circulating air, and that really helps with good sleep as well. And then we make sure that we've got a eye mask on. And these eye masks are great. So they block out any sort of ambient light that might be coming in. Maybe there's a clock in your room, maybe, you know, a little bit of light can squeeze through the blinds. Whatever it is, it's going to block all of that out. And research has shown that when you're using eye masks, it actually improves your overall sleep quality and improves your ability to to think sharply and quickly the next day.

So sleep masks are really good thing to be using at night. You know, whenever you're traveling, especially going to hotels and different things like that's harder to control the light in the environment. So using a sleep mask, wearing a sleep mask with you can help block out any sort of ambient light getting into your eyes and blocking melatonin release so you get the best possible brain detoxification benefits. So we always make sure we've got our eye mask on. Now, one thing I used to do for a while was, was mouth tape and mouth taping forced me to breathe from my nose.

And so now I've patterned my my brain and my physiology to be a nose breather. But for a while, most of my life I was a mouth breather. And I just started doing this maybe ten years ago, and now I'm a nose breather. However, from time to time, if I feel like I'm waking up with a dry mouth or if I feel like, I was breathing a lot out of my mouth, I will go back to mouth taping for a few days to reset my nervous system and make sure that I'm breathing from my nose. So most of the time now, my physiology has adapted to nose breathing at night.

But from time to time I'll reset my system with mouth taping. Just putting a little bit of micro pore tape over my mouth and making sure that forces me to breathe through my nose. When you breathe through your nose, it increases nasal nitric oxide levels, which increases vasodilation and brings more oxygen up into the brain and enhances lymphatic function.

Sleep Position, Mouth Taping, and Final Tips 15:00

For good brain detoxification. Now, when I'm sleeping, your sleep posture really matters as well. You get the best brain detoxification when you lay on your side, and kind of a fetal position on your side, ideally actually on the right side. And I make sure that I've got a really good supportive pillow in between my legs. What happens for a lot of people is they're sleeping on their side and their leg. You know, if you're if you're on your right side, your left leg curls over your right and it can talk your pelvis and twerk your side joint, your sacral iliac joint, causing more ligament laxity and more instability in your lower back, which can cause more, obviously more injury.

More pain, issues with your discs and your lumbar spine, as well as sacroiliac joint subluxation and cause a lot of issues. And so, you know, as a trained chiropractor, I've realized it's so critical to make sure I've got that pillow spacing my hips out just right. So I'm not twerking one leg over the other. And I think that's really critical. So make sure you're doing that. Make sure your pillow also is supporting your neck so your head isn't flopping in one direction or being pushed up in the other direction too much.

It should be nice and neutral and balanced. And that's going to set you up for the best possible sleep. So we make sure that we're all we're in the right postural position. You can sleep on your right and on your left, and I'll roll over from side to side, my right on my left. But I tend to sleep a little bit more on my right than I do on my left. And so make sure and I think really ultimately the lymphatic drainage is going to be optimal either way, the left or the right. Some people say right, some people say left hasn't really been, thoroughly vetted in the research.

But we do know that sleeping on your side in that kind of fetal position is the best position for optimal lymphatic drainage, lymphatic drainage to to to detoxify your brain and to support your body's overall healing and regenerative capacity. So we make sure that we take that evening routine, my wife and I, really seriously because that sets us up for great energy, great mental clarity, so we can be the best we can be the following day. If you don't have a really good evening routine, now is the time to start because a good evening routine can make all the world of difference in your memory, your mood, your overall performance the next day, and of course, in helping to lower your risk of neurodegenerative conditions like dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and ultimately allow you to perform at your very best and whatever it is that you're doing.

So hopefully you guys enjoyed this evening routine. Start making your evening ritual your routine. Start setting that up and creating really good patterns and habits so you can have great sleep and all day energy the next day.