sleep Archives - Carson Natural

Are You Living Your Life to the Fullest?

September 14, 2017 by Phil Carson 1 Comment

Are You Living Your Life to the Fullest?

No matter what occupation you have, there are daily stresses with which you deal. The only difference is that some of us are better at dealing with stress than others. Letting stress get to you can be one of the biggest obstacles to truly enjoying your life. Another big obstacle is feeling like you don’t have enough time for enjoyable things.

Being a hard worker is both an admirable and necessary trait for reaching new levels in business. But in order to live life to its fullest, we need to find a healthy balance. As an entrepreneur, I am constantly striving for success. As a result of that, there were times when I worked around the clock without so much as a thought about exercise or sleep. Those were not good times.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, rest and relaxation actually enable us to be more productive during the hours that we work. Working around the clock doesn’t increase your efficiency. Proper sleep enhances your memory and improves your cognitive processes. Although it may seem like we don’t have time for sleep, proper rest is essential to a productive day. To get proper sleep, we must respect our circadian rhythms.

In my book How to Live Until You Die I explain that we all sleep in 90-minute cycles that repeat themselves throughout the night, alternating between REM, (rapid-eye-movement) and NREM (non-rapid-eye-movement) sleep. I give further details on REM and NREM sleep and how to get the best sleep for waking up energized and being productive, using sources from the Mayo Clinic, National Sleep Foundation, and Harvard Business Review to corroborate my advice.

If you aren’t getting proper sleep, you are going to be more susceptible to illness, and you are going to be weary all the time. Pretty soon, you’ll literally become sick and tired of being sick and tired. That’s certainly not living life to its fullest. To truly enjoy your life, you need to get regular rest and not feel guilty about sleeping.

In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport talks about the necessary balance between work and other activities, like exercise. He encourages people to take a break during the day to go for a walk or run in order to re-energize and balance exercise and work. He especially encourages people to spend time outdoors, saying “Spending time in nature can improve your ability to concentrate.” Newport elaborates on how spending time walking through nature can help you focus on solving problems. I myself have often walked my problems out and it has greatly helped to ease the daily stresses of being an entrepreneur.

The thing that matters most in living your life to the fullest is balance. There is nothing wrong with hard work, but you can’t allow your work to take the place of spending time with your family, sleeping, or exercising. There is a balance you can achieve which allows you to enjoy activities that you love and still accomplish the things you need to do to make money.

Don’t believe big pharma’s lies. This pill will leave you feeling worse than before. I would shake and cry when I panicked before. Now I just stare off into space. At least before, people would comfort me. People knew what I was going through. Now I just look like a zombie.

In fact, there are seven keys to living happy, healthy, and whole. Each of these plays an important part in living life to its fullest and finding satisfaction along the way. To learn more about the seven keys, get your copy of How to Live Until You Die today.

I take every other night. I was instructed to take it every night, but that started to make me drowsy and miserable, so the doctor gave me the go-ahead to slow my dosage down. I have slept way better since then.
Xanax isn’t a sleep aid, but it will help you sleep well, especially if you experience anxiety while going to sleep.

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

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How to Live Happy, Healthy, and Whole

July 31, 2017 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

Many people understand that having a diet focused on clean, whole, organic foods will increase their health and well-being significantly. A good diet helps control your weight, provides the energy you need to thrive, and uses the nutrients in that food to fight against harmful toxins and diseases. What a large number of people aren’t as familiar with is to be truly happy, healthy, and whole in all aspects and to sincerely enjoy the life you live, there are six additional components that are just as important as nutrition.

My book, How to Live Until You Die, provides an in-depth look at each of these critical areas (I call them The Seven Keys to Living Happy, Healthy, and Whole) and explains the importance and uniqueness of each. This information is imperative to anyone who is seeking a complete life, full of vitality and joy. When your mind, body, and spirit are all well-taken care of, you can really live a happy and abundant life.

Good nutrition is very important to your overall well-being, and brings enormous rewards to your life in conjunction with the other six keys. To receive proper nutrition and manage your diet effectively you need to make sure you are avoiding products that contain deadly toxins. Target non-processed whole foods and try to consume a protein, a carbohydrate, and a good fat as part of every meal. In addition to proper nutrition through natural foods, I always recommend adding certain supplements to your diet in order to increase your daily nutrient intake. The most important supplements to take include multivitamins, CoQ10, fish oil, probiotics, and Vitamin D. (more blogs on nutrition)

Along with proper nutrition, two other things that go hand-in-hand with your physical health are exercise and water. Daily exercise is essential for feeling good and avoiding obesity. Most of the highly-promoted exercise programs today tout outlandish promises and extremely rigorous routines that can discourage many people from even getting started on the exercise plan. The best thing to do is start simple. Incorporate more movement into your day today than you did yesterday. When you exercise regularly, it’s important to drink plenty of water. Our bodies are comprised mainly of water and it’s crucial to consume the amount of water necessary to maintain your natural levels. Dehydration will cause you to be sluggish and can be the root of serious negative effects on your mood and your health. You should be drinking a half ounce of water for every pound you weigh, everyday. (more blogs on water)

Once you’ve covered nutrition, exercise, and water, you need to make sure you’re getting enough sleep. In 350 BC, Aristotle wrote an essay titled Sleep and Sleeplessness to promote the importance of sleep. He did a great job of detailing the ways that proper sleep benefits the body, and the points he made are all still true today. One thing that has changed since Aristotle’s essay is the exposure to blue light people receive from devices like smartphones, tablets, and TV screens. This light interferes with your natural melatonin production and can prohibit restfulness. I recommend not using these devices in your bed, and shutting them off about one hour before you want to fall asleep. Are you getting enough sleep at night? According to the National Sleep Foundation, you should be targeting between seven and nine hours per night. (more blogs on sleep)

Sleep can provide tremendous physical and mental health benefits, rejuvenating your body and your mind. Brain health is just as important to your vitality as physical health. Two other areas of equal importance are your spirit and your soul. In How to Live Until You Die, I devote one chapter to each of these, explaining why your spirit and soul are critical to your overall well-being. Using positivity, prayer, and meditation can greatly reduce the impact of stress in your life. When you invest in the health of your spirit and soul you can live peacefully without anxiety and truly enjoy your happy, healthy, and whole life.

I’ve always been afraid that a panic attack will kick in and ruin an otherwise nice evening, but with Ativan I don’t need to worry about that any more. I can always have a dosage at the proper time and that keeps me worry free for the https://dietitianlavleen.com/where-to-get-ativan/ next several hours!

To live a happy, healthy, and whole life until the day you die, make sure you balance the seven keys to living and keep your focus on establishing good habits in each area. For more tips on proper nutrition, building your own food and exercise plans, the importance of water, sleep, supplements, and effectively balancing your mind, body, spirit, and soul—get your copy of How to Live Until You Die today.

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

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Is Sleep Really That Important?

July 31, 2017 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

The songs played on the radio today often glorify passing up sleep to participate in other activities, questioning sleep importance. You’ve probably even read stories about your favorite entrepreneurs pulling all-nighters in their quest to rise to the top of the business world. With all this emphasis on sacrificing sleep for other things, it may seem like sleep importance isn’t necessary—or that sleep could even be an obstacle—to achieve long-lived success. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin said it best with the now famous phrase “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute published an article in June of 2017 that emphasises the sleep importance and explains the benefits that the correct amount of sleep provides to all different parts of the body, as well as performance, brain function, and emotional well-being.

The American Psychological Association, National Sleep Foundation, and Health.com all plead with their audiences not to dismiss the importance of sleep, and caution them against sleep deprivation and the negative effect it has on physical health, cognitive performance, and general mood. The American Psychological Association’s website states that more than 40% of adults routinely battle with daytime drowsiness that significantly impacts their performance and that the drowsiness is caused by improper sleep patterns.

In the book How to Live Until You Die Dr. Phil Carson identifies sleep deficit as a performance killer, and explains how to avoid the consequences of sleep deprivation by getting good, quality sleep. Using his three guidelines for getting ideal sleep, he shows readers how to create their own sleep plan and overcome common obstacles that prohibit millions of people from getting proper sleep each night.

Dr. Phil uses several examples of well-researched studies to explain the importance of quality sleep, with sources including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Harvard Business Review, European Society of Cardiology, the Mayo Clinic, and the National Sleep Foundation. He also points out that the Bible references sleep several times, and that it even tells a story that begins with Jesus sleeping. (Mark 4:35-41)

How to Live Until You Die covers the many aspects of sleep, answering many frequently-asked questions and

explaining the intricacies of REM and NREM sleep cycles. In addition to helping you build your own sleep plan, Dr. Phil offers insight on the body’s natural melatonin production, why it’s important to us, and how the blue light from the devices we constantly use is causing us to sleep poorly. He tells readers that “By structuring your evenings to take advantage of your body’s natural melatonin production and the circadian rhythms, you will put yourself in a position to fall asleep more easily and stay asleep for the right amount of time.”

Unless you’re Jack Bauer from the hit TV show 24, you need proper sleep in order to function to the best of your ability. To learn more about how to get the right amount of restful sleep, and to discover the seven keys to living happy, healthy, and whole, order your copy of How to Live Until You Die today.

Check out Dr. Phil’s free resources to download his Simple Sleep Plan and more FREE resources! You can also check out more blogs about sleep!

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Looking for a Good Book to Read this Summer

June 2, 2017 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

Looking for a good book to read? It’s summer time, and that’s an awesome time to enjoy reading a good book. Don’t you love laying around at the pool or the beach while enjoying a good book? I’ve got a great new book out called “How to Live Until You Die, the 7 Keys to Living Happy, Healthy, and Whole.” If you want a good book to read for the summer, this is it! We will be doing book promotions all summer, so get ready for some really fun giveaways and posts on our Feeling Good Podcast, Instagram and Facebook pages.

If you are looking for fun, free activities for your kids or grand kids this summer, I encourage you to go to your local library and let the kids check out books to read or books you can read to your kids. Kids need to learn how to live happy, healthy, and whole too. Look for a few books that teach them about nutrition, health, and life. Keeping your kids and grand kids active and doing fun things this summer is a great way to promote healthy living.

Another fun thing to do at any age is to find a Little Free Library, where you can take a book and return a book. Have you seen one of these yet? Check out their map to find locations near you, or maybe even build your own Little Free Library in your community. Our staff loved reading their recent blog post, DIY Little Free Library (Adorable AND Affordable!) And if you ever happen to leave my book in a Little Free Library, send me a picture! I would love to see that happen!

I have an important question to ask you on this Feeling Good Friday. What could you do if you had a simple plan to increase energy, get in better shape, and improve your mental and emotional health? How to Live Until You Die makes it simpler than ever to unlock a healthier, happier, and more whole you, so today can mark a new beginning for your total health! You have more pressure on you than ever before, with competing demands for work, family and friends and our communities, it’s no wonder so many people are stressed, overweight, unhealthy, and exhausted. In my book, I developed a simple plan anyone can use with their healthcare providers to find balance in those seven key areas, which follow the acronym N.E.W.S.S.S.S., to improve:

Nutrition, to finally get rid of fad diets and expensive programs
Exercise, to help you start feeling and looking more fit
Water, to help you lose weight, improve your health, and feel better than ever
Sleep, to help you finally rest and recover
Supplements, to resolve nutritional deficiencies in your body
Soul, to help you find true inner peace, and
Spirit, to help you plug into a higher power needed for lasting happiness

Visit howtoliveuntilyoudie.com for more information, free book resources and more!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

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Too Stressed to Sleep

April 25, 2017 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

Are you too stressed to sleep? During the month of April, we have been focusing on sleep and ways to get more of it. Hopefully you have been following along and have implemented Dr. Phil’s Simple Sleep Plan! If not click here to find out more information!

We hear a lot of people say they are too stressed to sleep. Stress is a real thing. We get it. We all experience stress in some way in our lives. It is what we do with that stress that makes the difference. Did you know that you can take that stress you are experiencing and turn it into a positive thing? The stressful situation you find yourself in can actually be a growing and learning experience in your life.

We recently read a great article entitled, Harnessing the Upside of Stress by Harvard Health Publications Harvard Medical School. Check it out for yourself and see how you can harness the upside of stress. We particularly like the suggestion it gives to do something nice for someone else when you are experiencing high levels of stress at work or at home. Doing something kind for someone will immediately trigger a positive response in your brain, giving you a mental reward. Try it out for yourself and let us know how it works!

If you’d like to hear more about this then you can also listen to the latest episode of The Feeling Good Podcast by clicking here!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

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Is Your Memory Slip Slip Slipping Away?

September 24, 2016 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

Have you lost your keys lately? When is the last time you could have swore you put that thing right there, but it’s nowhere to be found? Raise your hand if you’ve hit your car alarm in a crowded parking lot recently because your car was “lost!” These scenarios lead me to a question that I hear pretty regularly… “Dr. Phil, what can I do to improve my memory?

I’ve even had some patients tell me that they can feel their memory fading. That can be a scary feeling. Their next question, most of the time, is if I have any good supplement recommendations that can help them. I know a lot of people this day and time are scared of developing Alzheimer’s or dementia. I understand their concern about these conditions as it hits home with me as well. I’m not fearful of it, but I am fully aware of what it can do to a person, because I watched my grandfather suffer and die from the complications of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, I personally take a lot of preventative measures to keep myself from following the same path that my grandfather did. So today I want to share some of those with you.

Raise your hand if you’ve hit your car alarm in a parking lot recently b/c your car was lost

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Take These Preventive Measures Now…

The easiest and most essential way to prevent memory loss is to keep your brain active, or in other words exercising your brain. One of the best things you can do is to read daily. I suggest you read things that challenge your thinking and stimulate your brain. There are all different types of things that you can read out there, but be selective in what you choose to read because you want something that will stimulate your brain. Another thing you can do to keep your brain active is to have some type of hobby where you have to use your brain skills. Crosswords, sudoku, word puzzles, strategy games, and I can go on and on with these types of suggestions, but I think you get the point here. Stay active and keep your brain active!

Secondly, in contrast to exercising your brain, you must also rest your brain daily. Just like your body, you push it and work it, but at the end of the day you have to rest your body! In other words, you have to get sleep, not just any kind of sleep, but restful sleep. There was a recent study done at the University of California at Berkley that tied Alzheimer’s to lack of sleep. Scientists at UC Berkley found compelling evidence that poor sleep, particularly a deficit of the deep restorative sleep, causes a buildup of the beta amyloid protein which is believed to trigger Alzheimer’s Disease attacks the brain’s longterm memory.

If you’re interested in learning more about that study, then I encourage you to click here and read for yourself!

Let me tell you that proper sleep and quality sleep are topics that I have talked about in previous episodes of The Feeling Good Podcast and I have also blogged about, as well. If you want to learn more about the importance of sleep in connection to your overall health, then check out this blog and listen to episode 19 of The Feeling Good Podcast.

3 of My Favorite Supplements…..

I have also devoted a whole chapter to the subject of sleep in my new book that will be coming out later this year. Be on the lookout for updates about that!

Thirdly, there are some wonderful supplements that studies have shown to be helpful in improving our memory and keeping our brains healthy. There are 3 particular supplements that I use personally.

One of those is phosphatidylserine or phosphatidyl complex. This particular supplement, for some people, can have a two-fold action. The first thing it can help improve is short-term memory and the second is to our ability to get to sleep, as well as improving the quality of our sleep.

The second supplement I take is called Pro DHA. It is a Nordic natural fish oil supplement that has a high concentration of DHA. DHA is necessary for brain support and brain health, as well as brain development. As a pharmacist, I have noticed that now all prenatal manufactures are now adding DHA to the prenatal supplements because all the studies coming out showing the importance of the fetus and mother getting this DHA for brain development. I highly recommend DHA to patients of all ages because of the importance of brain development, unless you are eating fish 3-4 times a week.

The third supplement I take is Co-Enzyme Q10. This supplement is important for heart health. There have been quite a few studies done with this supplement that show that it is very healthy for brain health and memory. Co-Enzyme Q10 is needed for our muscle cells, but is also helpful for our brain cells. According to these studies, I think it’s a good idea to take Co-Enzyme Q10 if you are having any kind of memory problems!

You can find all of these supplements on our website, and if someone you know is having memory issues, then please share this information with them. If you have any other questions regarding memory and brain health please get in touch with me by emailing [email protected]!

If you’d like to hear more about this then you can also listen to the latest episode of The Feeling Good Podcast by clicking here!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

Don’t Let Your Sleep Become a Nightmare!

May 12, 2016 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

Proper sleep habits are vital to our health! With the ever increasing business of our everyday lives, we have to get serious about our sleep habits. You spend roughly 1/3 of your life sleeping, and it’s important for the other 2/3 of your life that you get the most out of your sleep. So today we’re answering a couple of questions on sleep!

Question 1

“If I need to catch up on sleep, how do I do it? Sleep in? Take naps? Go to bed early? I’ve heard you should wake up at the same time everyday. So, im thinking about taking a nap, but im not sure about the ideal way that I can keep my body on track.”

This is an awesome question and I think its very important that you get the proper amount of sleep everyday. New studies are being done all the time about the importance of getting sleep and getting the correct amount of sleep. Let’s see what the expert sleep researchers are saying about this.

Christopher Winter of the Charlottesville Neurology of Sleep Medicine Clinic explains it this way. He says “You can catch up on short term sleep debt if you do it within a few days. If you slept poorly last night, then go to bed early tonight and you’ll probably make up for the sleep you lost. But you can’t make up for the sleep you’ve lost over a long period of time. Trying to catch up on all those all-nighters you had in college with better shut-eye now, isn’t going to repair any of the damage already done.”

That is depressing for a guy like me who had a lot of all nighters in college and a lot of all-nighters since college too! Another researcher named Joyce Walsleben, an associate professor at the New York School of Medicine, says “While this still might tempt you to short change yourself during the week, making up for lost sleep on the weekend is really too late. You’ve probably already been irritable, possibly already experienced some poor reaction times that may have even caused some accidents. Snoozing late on the weekend can also disrupt your sleep rhythm and can make it difficult to go to bed Sunday night so you’ll be starting the next week already in the hole.”

Considering these expert opinions, I think the best way to catch up on any sleep you’ve lost is to make it up in the next 24 hours. For example, if you got less hours of sleep last night, then taking that nap sometime the next day is probably a good idea. If you’re not able to do that, going to bed earlier the next night is a much better idea than trying to catch up on it on the weekends. These studies are encouraging because I’ve actually heard it said that you can’t recover lost sleep, but according to these new studies if you do it quickly, then you can recover.

The rhythm that Dr. Walsleben mentions is called the circadian rhythm. This is a rhythm of our daylight and nighttime hours. As we wake and during the day, our bodies produce hormones called cortisol and melatonin. Those hormone levels peak throughout the day and then begin to decline and level off at night to their lowest point. This is the circadian rhythm!

Question 2

“I like to read before going to sleep. Knowing I should limit my light exposure before I go to sleep to get better sleep, what kind of light should I use while reading before bedtime?”

This question is fantastic! I just attended a conference in Florida that was on ADD, autism, and addictions, but I learned a lot about the importance of quality of sleep in people with these health issues and the effects of the different types of lighting on their brains, especially blue light. Blue light is a light that has a direct effect on melatonin production. Melatonin is a hormone produced by a gland in our brain called the pineal gland, which is a tiny little gland that sits at the base of our brain. The main job of melatonin is to regulate our body clock, or the circadian rhythm. As a said earlier, this rhythm tells us when to wake up, when we are tired, and when we need to go to bed. When the sun comes up, the production of melatonin naturally drops, and when the sun goes down the production of melatonin naturally increases. The light that we are exposed to is what effects the circadian rhythm. So, exposure to blue light can really be a problem and can have a direct effect on our ability to get to sleep and sleep well through the night.

This is something that our parents and grandparents never had to worry about, but as our society has increased it’s dependence on devices like our televisions, iPads, tablets, phones, and computers it has become a real problem. All those gadgets produce blue light! Not only that, but a lot of people are switching to LED lights in their homes, and these LED lights also produce blue light.

If you like to read before bed, then I would suggest you revert back to a hard copy book and be sure to use a lamp that has a soft light bulb in that produces what is called yellow light. This yellow light will have less effect on the production of melatonin in your body.

If you are using a iPad or tablet to read before you go to bed, there are a few solutions to reducing your exposure to this blue light. One that I recently downloaded myself is called FLUX. FLUX is a program that makes the color of your computers display adapt to the time of day. Once this program is installed, it may have a significant affect on the melatonin production, if you are using these devices to read at night. The best part about this program is that it adjusts automatically to the daylight in your particular time zone. So there is no need to remember to adjust your screen before reading at night. You can download the program for free at www.justgetflux.com.

There are also people that recommend using amber lense goggles, which help reduce the affects of blue light exposure. They have been shown to help reduce sleep quality as well as mood by simply blocking this blue light. I know how easy and tempting it is to pick up your device and scroll through your timelines or play that silly game before bed, but it is throwing your melatonin production out of whack, and is bad for your health.

I want to invite you to join us for Feeling Good Friday over at the Carson Natural Facebook Page! Every Friday during the noonday hour (central time) I go live on Facebook to discuss natural health topics and take your questions! To join us, like our Facebook page and you’ll receive a notification when I go live! Hope to see you there!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

Can Taking an Afternoon Nap Help Get Rid of Your Allergy Nightmare?

April 1, 2016 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

Could something as simple as a nap help you reduce your seasonal allergy issues? Maybe it could!

This idea came to my mind recently when a listener of The Feeling Good Podcast emailed me a question about how to optimize their afternoon nap. While researching that question I learned some interesting things about naps that I’ll touch on a little later in this blog, but first I want to explore the…

Sleep and Allergy Connection

One of the most important contributing factors when it comes to fighting allergies is the strength of your immune system. If you have a strong immune system then you are less likely to be sneezing, coughing, sniffling, and crying. One of the best ways to keep your immune system strong is by getting adequate rest. If you’re anything like me, then sometimes you might occasionally have some very late nights followed by very early mornings. Several years ago it was a regular practice for me to go to bed after midnight and wake up before 7 AM, getting anywhere from four to six hours of rest. As you probably know, that’s at least a couple hours short of the recommended eight hours. Recently I have been much more diligent in going to bed earlier to allow my body to rest and replenish, but if you are living like I previously did, then an occasional 20-30 minute afternoon nap would do nothing but help you! Now lets talk more about…

Napping 101

Are you one of those people that HAVE to take a nap in the middle of the day to get through each day? Or maybe you take a nap because you believe it is good for you. Perhaps you hate naps and somehow they always leave you feeling even more tired than before. Whatever the case I want to help you understand naps a little better, so here is the question that I received from a podcast listener named JC, that I mentioned above…

“Do you have any insight into how coffee in the morning impacts naps? I use the “Nap Wheel” to try to get to the closest ideal time when I can, but I also drink two cups of coffee in the morning. For example I wake up at 4:00 AM and have two cups of coffee around 8:30 AM. I’m not sure how this impacts my napping cycle, can you help?”

Now I have to admit, I am not a napper. On the other hand my wife loves to take naps, and when she suggests that I take one, my response is usually, “No, I don’t have time for a nap!” I have always had an aversion to naps, but JC’s question prompted me to look a little closer into the possible health benefits and to learn more about the “Nap Wheel” he uses to schedule them. I found out that the “Nap Wheel” was invented by Dr. Sara Mednick, who also wrote the book Take a Nap, Change Your Life. On her website she states:

“Imagine a product that increases alertness, boosts creativity, reduces stress, improves perception, stamina, motor skills, and accuracy, enhances your sex life, helps you make better decisions, keeps you looking younger, aides in weight loss, reduces the risk of heart attack, elevates your mood, and strengthens your memory. Now imagine that this product is also non-toxic, has no side effects, and best of all it is absolutely free. This miracle drug is nothing more than the right nap at the right time.”

Now being a natural pharmacist, this bold statement by Dr. Mednick had me hooked! I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t want to experience these health benefits that she describes. I have since ordered her book and am rethinking my long time aversion to nap time. Reading this about naps brought back a memory of something I had read in a book several years ago. It reminded me that the science and health recommendations of taking a nap aren’t anything new. This book that I had read was published almost 70 years ago, and the doctor who wrote the book stated that a rest period immediately after meals will add years to your life as well as comfort to those years. This doctor did not use the term nap, but rather rest period. He went on to say with modern living as it is, that rest is very hard to arrange for those in business, but where there is a will there is a way. Now that is a philosophy I’ve tried to live by all my life! He said that we can accomplish far more in the day by resting immediately after meals. Now that seems a little odd to me, but he says that it can be done, it has been done, and it is being done even under the most difficult of circumstances and always with a great reward. Now this doctor recommended that when you rest to lie down on your right side, because if your stomach is slow to empty, lying in this position will help. He also said digestive juice perform better during rest than rush and hurry, and this is why we always feel better when we rest after we eat. He finished his thoughts on rest with this thought provoking statement: Our domestic animals follow this nature’s law of rest. Just watch your dog or cat.

I thought to myself that I should have paid closer attention to this doctor’s ideas on rest and perhaps even taken my wife’s advice when she suggest that I take a nap. It could have potentially saved me from a lot of digestive distress and discomfort.

If you decide to try a “rest period” after you eat then I would love to hear your experience. Also if you have a health question that you want answered then email [email protected]. Be sure to click our logo to subscribe so you can get the latest episode every Thursday!

Healthy Blessings,

Dr. Phil

Why Am I So Tired All The Time?

February 21, 2016 by Phil Carson Leave a Comment

One of the most common questions I hear from patients that I coach or counsel is, “why am I so tired all the time?” They have no energy and they always want to know what they can take to get more energy or what can I do to have more energy. There is not a simple answer to that question in most cases. There are so many different reasons why people are lacking energy or feeling tired all the time.

When someone comes to see me for help with their issues with low energy or excessive fatigue I take them through a series of questions to try and determine the cause of their problem. There are multiple underlying causes but I am only going to cover a few in this blog post. There are several simple causes of low energy levels with simple solutions and most of these are behavior or lifestyle related. I believe that most people can simply correct their low energy issues by changing a couple bad habits that they may not even be aware of.

The number one problem is lack of sleep. That’s obvious right? Well a lot of people don’t realize that’s a problem until they have it pointed out to them. Of course you aren’t going to have enough energy to make it through the day if you aren’t getting enough sleep at night. Now I’m not talking about people who try to sleep but aren’t able to sleep or who go to sleep but can’t stay asleep, that’s a whole other issue that I will discuss in another blog. Sometimes we just need to go to bed at a decent hour, get that good 7 to 8 hours of sleep that our bodies require, and we’ll have the energy that we need.

Another often overlooked and underlying problem is lack of nutrition, not eating at proper times or skipping meals. One of the first questions I ask people that are suffering from low energy is “Do you eat breakfast?” I am often surprised at how many people say no. As I teach in my Fit in 49 program, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as it sets the tone for the day. It energizes you! It gets the neurons firing in your nervous system! It stimulates your brain to think and to work! It energizes your muscles! I don’t understand people that don’t eat breakfast! The simple solution is eat breakfast! However it does matter what you eat for breakfast. If you eat a high carbohydrate breakfast such as cereal, pop tarts, or high sugar pastries, like donuts and honey buns you will probably have plenty of energy for about 2 hours before you come crashing down from the rapid drop in your sugar levels. So when I say eat breakfast, I mean a good healthy balanced breakfast with the right amounts of protein, carbs, and fat. If you do that you should have all the energy you need to sustain you until lunch.

The third simple underlying cause is called nutrient depletion. This is most often caused by the medications that the patient is taking, and most of the time the patients have no idea this is happening. There are so many medications on the market that cause nutrient depletions. Thankfully this problem is easy to correct by taking the necessary supplements to restore and replace what’s being depleted by the meds. I discussed an example of one of these in a recent blog, Statin drugs which deplete Coenzyme Q10, a vital nutrient that we need for energy. In fact every cell in our body needs CoQ10 for energy! Since we’ve been talking about heart health this month in our blogs, I will tell you that there are many blood pressure medications that cause nutrient depletions as well. These meds often deplete the minerals in our body that are essential for energy and muscle function, such as potassium and magnesium. These nutrients are available in over the counter supplements and can replace what is being depleted. My advice to you though is don’t go and start buying a lot of supplements until you have been tested to see if you have a depletion or you know for sure that you are taking a medication that depletes these nutrients from your body. To find out if any of the medications you are taking may be causing nutrient depletions check out drug nutrient depletion guide from chiro.com!

Before starting any kind of supplement regimen I recommend you speak with a qualified health professional that can give you good advice on what supplement you should take and how much to take. If you’re suffering from low energy and you want to correct it, make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating balanced meals (especially breakfast), and are checking to see if any medications, prescription and over the counter, are causing nutrient depletion. We will discuss more low energy recommendations in our next blog so be sure to check back next week!

This past week we officially launched the Feeling Good Podcast! You can click here to visit the page on iTunes and download the first two episodes! Every week we’ll be answering your questions and talking about the major health issues of our day! If you want to have your question answered then please email [email protected] or click on the microphone on the side of the page!