The Morning Myth

by Frank J. Rumbauskas, Jr.

  Marijuana (Cannabis)

  With marijuana legalization sweeping the country, I felt it necessary to include it here because the marijuana industry works hard to perpetuate the myth that it’s a “medical” sleep aid. (According to them, marijuana is a cure-all for everything and we can just shut down the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, right.) In reality, it’s yet another substance that will wreck the restorative phases of your sleep just like alcohol does. Wait, let me correct myself—marijuana affects all five phases of sleep, some good, some bad.

  Stage 1 sleep is the initial stage and lasts usually about 10 minutes. Cannabis actually helps with this by providing a relaxing sensation that assists with entering Stage 1 sleep, in part by increasing adenosine activity.

  Stage 2 sleep is still light sleep, albeit for a longer duration, and here, cannabis has minimal negative impact.

  Stage 3 and Stage 4 sleep, the more restful and restorative stages, particularly Stage 4, have a complex relationship with cannabis. Depending on what type of strain you’re consuming, these stages can be interrupted or they can be prolonged.

  The problem is with its most popularly known constituent, 9-delta-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which tends to produce an activating or excitatory response during sleep; however, in very low doses, this does not occur.

  The other most commonly known of the over 100 chemicals found in cannabis, cannabidiol or CBD, is known for countering the effects of THC. That’s why so many medical marijuana strains are high in CBD; the idea is to get the benefits to the user without the “high” and its associated cognitive impairment.

  Having said that, growers in the recreational marijuana industry, which is rapidly outgrowing the medical marijuana industry, have been working hard to completely breed CBD out of their products and get the THC level to insanely high amounts, guaranteeing that the user will get a very intense high, very quickly.

  Even with consuming CBD only, research has produced conflicting results and it appears that the timing of administration and dosage of CBD is crucial as to whether it will help or hurt your sleep, and if you’re consuming the plant/flower and not a pill produced by a pharm company, there’s literally no way of knowing how many milligrams you have consumed, making such calculations impossible.

  Finally, there’s REM sleep, sometimes referred to as Stage 5. REM sleep is when dreaming occurs, which many research scientists believe is the brain’s way of releasing old, useless, and random memories, freeing up space for new ones. Other aspects of dreaming are not understood, other than the fact that it’s a necessary and required phase of sleep for maintaining good health as well as sanity.

  Cannabis absolutely interferes with REM sleep, and this is where it fails as a sleep aid. Cannabis use decreases REM sleep and dreaming, primarily due to its blunting of dopamine. Dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter, is what floods your brain when you’re highly aroused and about to have sex with someone. It also floods your brain in response to drugs that produce a high, and as such it’s also known as the “addiction” neurotransmitter since it’s the dopamine response people get psychologically addicted to, and not the drug itself. (This of course is not the case with drugs that cause physical addiction, although psychological addiction frequently precedes it.)

  The reason why recreational drug users have to take higher and higher doses over time to get the same effect is because the dopamine response becomes blunted. This is particularly true with drugs like cocaine, which so deplete dopamine that it’s common for recovering addicts to become severely depressed. That is, in part, why antidepressants that increase dopamine levels have been developed. One of these is bupropion, commonly prescribed for smoking cessation.

  Finally, frequency and duration of cannabis use also determine its effects on sleep quality. A study published in the Journal of Addictive Diseases found that daily cannabis users had significantly higher rates of insomnia when compared with occasional users. If you enjoy cannabis, or take it medically, a periodic tolerance break will help with this.

  Morning Madness

  While millions of people manage to get hooked on prescription sleep aids, there are a myriad of herbal and nutritional supplements that can do the job just as well without the addiction and side effects, albeit not instantly. In addition, most people seem unaware that commonly consumed substances can have extremely detrimental effects on the quality of your sleep. Finally, being a night owl forced to comply with society’s morning-centric schedule doesn’t have to be impossible; following the nighttime and morning suggestions found in this chapter are a great way to make life easier for owls.

  Note

  1A note on UVB-only tanning beds: Although these beds are generally considered safe with moderate use, such as five minutes twice a week, they can be hard to find due to the fact that they don’t produce much of a tan, if any at all. Tanning and burning come from UVA rays, while UVB rays in particular will stimulate D3 synthesis. Call around before going to a tanning salon to make sure they have these beds, and if you’re in any doubt, consult with a healthcare professional and/or check out the book I just recommended.

  CHAPTER 14

  Mitigating the Health Risks of Early Rising: Stay Healthy and Let the Early Birds “Sleep When They’re Dead”

  In this chapter I’m going to cover one thing, and one thing only, and how to reduce and modulate its effects: cortisol.

  Cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, is found to be chronically elevated in early risers as well as night owls forced to get up early. While cortisol is essential for normal functioning and you’d die a very fast death without it, having too much of it will absolutely, positively put you in an early grave. And our morning-obsessed society is killing people by forcing them to get up early and therefore keep their cortisol levels chronically elevated.

  With that in mind, here are some easy and simple ways to lower your body’s cortisol levels. (Note: You should check your levels first using a diurnal saliva cortisol test kit, which can be obtained from your doctor, or online, including Amazon, with all lab fees included. I consider the occasional test a bargain in exchange for knowing where my levels are and the ability to take corrective action when they’re off.)

  Eat Healthy

  This probably sounds simplistic, but think about it: How often do you eat foods that are not particularly good for you?

  By “healthy” I’m referring to “cortisol lowering.” This includes avoiding a high-sugar diet or simple carbs in general, avoiding trans fats and refined fats, avoiding or limiting caffeine and alcohol (duh!), making sure your nutritional needs are met with quality vitamins and supplements, and eating enough healthy fats and protein.

  Now, when most people think of a “healthy” fat, they think of something like olive oil, which is indeed good for you. However, with the cover blown off the lipid hypothesis, medical science has found that saturated fats are actually good for you. Yes, you heard me right: Saturated fats are healthy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run something by my doctor and his response was, “Eat more fat!” (It’s good to have a young doctor who is actually up to date on this stuff; it seems like most of my older relatives are taking statin drugs, known to cause dementia, because their doctors went to med school an eternity ago and don’t keep current. Or maybe they’re just beholden to their pharm rep. Who knows.)

  Check out the book Eat Fat, Get Thin: Why the Fat We East Is the Key to Sustained Weight Loss and Vibrant Health by Mark Hyman, MD (Little, Brown and Company, 2016). As you may have deduced, it was my own doctor who recommended the book, and I can indeed state that once I put it into practice, I lost fat, put on muscle, and just generally feel better eating a diet rich in saturated fats. The author also has an accompanying cookbook in print to make the journey easier.

  Relax, Relax, Relax!

  When I’m stressed, my wife tells me to go shooting. Spending an hour or so at a shooting range with some of my favorite guns is extremely therapeutic for me and I walk out happy,
upbeat, and relaxed. However, you don’t have to be a gun slut like me to achieve relaxation. There are many ways to do that, some of which you already know work for you, so here are some of the more effective ones I’ve found.

  Meditation

  For a long time I struggled with the idea of meditation, and wrote it off as new-age bullshit. However, I went back to it, persisted, tried out a different meditation app on my iPhone (also recommended by my doctor), and found myself taking to it like a fish to water. What made the change for me was learning that everyone fails at meditation. Everyone. In mindfulness practice, only an enlightened person can literally clear his or her mind and eliminate all thoughts, and the only known enlightened person in history was the Buddha himself. Even Buddhist monks who have practiced 20 years or more openly admit they always “fail” at meditation.

  Fail or no fail—well, fail—I can tell you that it works. And I don’t mean grabbing the phone and earbuds when I’m stressed or can’t sleep or whatever. I’m talking about how meditating 10 minutes a day, which I split into two five-minute sessions, has a dramatic and positive effect on my relaxation and even my overall happiness.

  The app I use is called Simple Habit, and there are now many apps available, including the industry leader, Headspace. Try one or more by using the free versions and find which one works best for you, then set a daily reminder to meditate for five minutes a day to start. You’ll be amazed at the changes in yourself, especially after you understand and accept that just about everyone “fails” at it. With that internal pressure to keep all thoughts out of my head gone, meditation suddenly changed from a challenge into a gift for me.

  Deep Breathing

  There are many deep-breathing exercises, far too many to count; however, a steady practice of deep breathing will have amazing therapeutic effects on your stress and therefore cortisol levels, regardless of which you choose.

  Perhaps the most well-known deep-breathing exercise is the “4 × 4” method, taught to U.S. military troops to use in the heat of battle to reduce stress. It consists of inhaling deeply for four seconds, holding it for four seconds, breathing out and emptying your lungs for four seconds, then another four-second hold before breathing in again.

  What I found to be very effective is the Yogic 4–7–8 technique popularized by Dr. Andrew Weil, who learned it while visiting India. It consists of taking a rapid, deep breath in through your nose for four seconds, holding it for seven, breathing out forcefully through your mouth to make a “whoosh” sound for eight seconds, and then repeating the process. He and his associate at the University of Arizona Medical School, Dr. Steven Gurgevich, have both reported seeing dramatic improvements in anxiety patients through the use of this technique.

  At home, when one of the kids gets all upset and worked up, my wife or I will ask them to take some deep breaths, and if necessary, we’ll do it with them so they can follow along.

  Trust me, it works. If you’re the parent of young children, you’ll thank me after you try it!

  Self-hypnosis

  This should fall under the “Relax” category but I broke it out separately because of the incredible, positive effects it had in alleviating my stress and anxiety during a grueling 18-month IRS audit covering two years of both business and personal tax returns.

  That’s also how I know of Dr. Steven Gurgevich—I used his “Relieve Anxiety with Medical Hypnosis” on a daily basis to achieve that outcome. He has many others, such as RelaxRx and dozens more on his website, with many available at Audible.

  Unlike meditation, which, while guided with an app, is still something you actually do on your own, with medical hypnotherapy you mostly just relax and listen. You’ll be asked to do some breathing exercises to become deeply relaxed, as well as some guided imagery. All I know is that it works. For me, anyway.

  I say “for me” because medical hypnosis is only effective if you believe it will be. If you’re a naysayer, or believe that all hypnosis is the equivalent of a Las Vegas hypnotist comedy show, you’ll block your mind from going into trance, either consciously or unconsciously. Either way, I recommend giving it a try. For me it’s my first-line treatment when I’m especially stressed or anxious.

  Exercise—Within Reason

  If you’re like most people who go to a gym to work out, you can’t help but notice the regulars who carry around gallon jugs of water and intently watch themselves doing bicep curls in the mirror.

  When I say exercise within reason, what I’m saying is that you don’t have to become one of these self-absorbed muscle-head types. In fact, that’s one of the worst things you can do for your stress levels! My gym expressly prohibits gallon jugs of water, loud grunting, and tank tops. Be dignified or GTFO is their modus operandi.

  Heavy lifting like that increases cortisol levels. This is why professional bodybuilders and their trainers learn so much about how to delicately balance lifting hard with maintaining healthy cortisol levels, since cortisol is muscle-destroying, or catabolic. What most men, and some women, do in the gym is to lift and lift until they can’t lift anymore. However, past a certain point, the benefits disappear and cortisol takes over. It not only negates the benefits that more moderate lifting would have provided, it also wrecks your health in general, as you already know.

  I learned the pitfalls of typical weight training from a friend who is himself a bodybuilder. (And no, he’s not like those regulars at all.) He limits his workouts to a surprisingly short amount of time each day—as in under 10 minutes—and the man is huge. He wasn’t always that way, either; we were also friends about 10 years ago when he let himself go, lost muscle, and put on a belly. He got back to all his bodybuilding hugeness with those surprisingly short workouts!

  So, whether you do cardio, weights, Pilates, barre, or anything else, do it in moderation. Excessive exercise raises cortisol levels, which in turn raise your stress level and damage your health.

  Use Adaptogens

  Remember when I said my low cortisol, and subsequently high cortisol, was cured through the use of adaptogens? There are several that have particular benefit for your adrenal glands and your cortisol levels in turn.

  Those that I have used are ashwaganda (probably the best of the bunch in my experience), astragalus, licorice root (be aware that this can be stimulating—avoid at night), holy basil, and rhodiola. And of course magnesium glycinate, which does wonders for stress whenever it rears its ugly head.

  Again, I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on television, so please, consult with your own healthcare provider prior to heading over to Amazon and ordering any of these!

  Spend Enough Time Outdoors

  We humans weren’t evolved to live inside man-made houses with artificial lighting.

  Humans have spent nearly all of their time on earth living outdoors. When you consider that evolution lags by about 100,000 years, it’s easy to see why artificial lights and blue screens trash our sleep so badly. We simply haven’t evolved and adapted to them yet.

  Getting outdoors doesn’t mean you have to spend a weekend camping in the woods. It can be a 20-minute walk on your lunch break. It can be getting outside the moment you get out of bed, which has the added benefit of helping your body to adapt to waking at that time. It can be a daily morning walk on the beach, which my wife and I did almost every day while living in Southern California prior to escaping to Texas.

  Use Essential Oils

  I’m not the expert in this department—my wife is. She has a nice collection of essential oils she uses for herself as well as for our girls. If one is having trouble sleeping, or has a night terror, she’ll grab just the right oil and the problem is magically solved.

  I don’t think this is a placebo effect, either. One day at the drugstore I grabbed a vial of lavender essential oil for myself, and boy, does it truly promote relaxation.

  I’ve gotten into the habit of putting a couple of drops on my pillow (remember, this stuff is concentrated) and a little dab on my upper chest. I
really do get relaxed and sleep much more quickly than without it.

  Like I said, I’m not an expert on essential oils and there are a myriad of books, websites, and articles dedicated to them. However, lavender is best known as the relaxing essential oil, so I’d start there.

  Sleep!

  This one is BIG, because insufficient sleep has a direct and very dramatic effect on cortisol levels. The bottom line is if you don’t get enough sleep, you’re going to have chronically elevated cortisol levels, will be at risk for a very long list of serious diseases, and will literally shorten your life, and I mean in terms of a decade or more, not just a few months.

  Also, since this chapter is about how to mitigate the risks of early rising if you’re forced to do so, it’s worth mentioning again that virtually all naturally early risers, who are not forced to get up early but just wake up at that time, also have chronically elevated cortisol levels and shorter life expectancies.

  I’m not going to go into specifics on how to get a good night’s sleep since that was covered in the previous chapter. What I want to emphasize is getting enough sleep.

  For a night owl like me, the trick isn’t getting up, it’s getting to sleep on time. And I misused alcohol for years to achieve this, not realizing that I wasn’t actually getting enough sleep although I thought I did. That would certainly explain my ongoing fatigue and the need for large amounts of coffee throughout the day. And that’s another reason I advocate neither alcohol nor caffeine consumption; it creates a vicious downward spiral of stimulant-then-depressant, over and over, every day, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad mortem.