The All-Day Fat-Burning Diet: The 5-Day Food-Cycling Formula That Resets Your Metabolism To Lose Up to 5 Pounds a Week (30 page)

A 2010 review of the literature in the journal
Obesity Reviews
scoured 79 studies on this topic and found that the “. . . studies showed that short sleep duration is consistently associated with development of obesity in children and young adults.”
¹²
These findings are illuminating. You might think that packing on a few pounds in 6 years as a result of too little or too much sleep is no big deal, but when you compound that weight gain with the other lifestyle factors mentioned throughout this book, you can start piecing together this weight-gain puzzle that you and millions of others are trying to solve.

So what are we going to do about it? We’re going to start sleeping much better. That’s all there is to it. Here, I’m going to unleash some powerful sleep wisdom on you that you should apply, starting tonight. Deal?

Set
Consistent Sleep and Wake Times

You know the deal here: Figure out what time you need to wake up each morning. And then, based on the 7 to 9 hours of sleep required for good health and a lean body, determine what time to go to bed each night. Your goal should be to maintain this schedule every day of the week, so find a way to make this work for you. I’m telling you, it’s the single most powerful way to reset your circadian rhythm and reestablish healthy hormone levels in your body—both of which directly impact your ability to lose weight.

Turn Down the Lights

To recap: Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone controlled by light exposure that helps regulate your sleep-wake cycle. Because its production is controlled by light exposure, your brain should secrete more in the evening when it’s dark, to make you sleepy, and less during the day when it’s light and you want to stay awake and alert. Melatonin is what makes you feel sleepy and ready for bed, so you want to minimize anything that disrupts its natural secretion cycle. That includes:

•
Spending long days in an office away from natural light

•
Basking in too many bright lights at night, especially from your TV, computer, or mobile device screens

Ideally, you want to eliminate any source of unnatural light at night. Thus, at least an hour before bed, I challenge you to turn off your TV, shut down your computer, and power off your smartphone. I know it sounds difficult, but give it a try. Spend more time in the darkness before going to bed. If you want to read, then do so with a reading lamp that uses a red-light bulb, since red-light wavelength does not disrupt our melatonin and sleep cycle like blue light does.

In fact, check this out: In a 2006 study, researchers looked at brain activity during sleep in eight young men after 2 hours of evening exposure to light. The findings revealed that after blue-light exposure, the amount of deep sleep was reduced in the first stage and increased during the latter stages of the sleep cycle. This is the opposite of what
should
normally happen during high-quality sleep. Moreover, blue light significantly shortened rapid eye movement (REM) sleep duration during the various sleep cycles.
¹³

If you need to be on your computer at night (okay, okay, I admit I do it myself sometimes), then at least install a free app called f.lux (get it at
justgetflux.com),
which dims your computer screen and reduces its blue-light emission. Alternatively, you can use a pair of BluBlocker sunglasses around the house at night. Yes, you’ll look like a maniac, but it’ll allow you to get your TV, cell phone, and computer fix without compromising the quality of your sleep. (Just don’t let anyone see you.)

Create a Relaxing Bedtime Routine

Given how hard you work, you deserve to be pampered. It serves a real purpose, too: If you make a consistent effort to relax and unwind before bed, you will sleep easier and more deeply. A peaceful bedtime routine sends a powerful signal to your brain that it’s time to wind down and let go of the day’s stresses. We often create a bedtime routine with our kids but fail to do so for ourselves. If reading our kids a bedtime story and recounting moments of gratitude can work for them, it can surely work for us, too.

Here are a few relaxing bedtime rituals to try.

•
Read an inspiring book by a soft light (red light is best).

•
Take an Epsom salt bath.

•
Meditate and/or visualize.

•
Engage in gratitude journaling.

•
Listen to soft music or guided meditation/visualization.

•
Do some easy stretches or foam rolling.

•
Listen to books on tape.

•
Script your upcoming day.

I personally use a combination of these techniques every night (other than the bath, which is rare for me), and here’s why: First, by writing down what you’re grateful for, you train your mind to focus on
what
is great in your life instead of what is negative. That’s way more uplifting than watching the news before going to bed, which is a terrible idea if having a positive outlook on life is important to you. Along with giving and contributing, feeling grateful is one of the only sustainable ways to feel happy and fulfilled in life. And when you feel this way, you’re more likely to engage in activities that are in line with your higher self and your major goals. When you feel crappy and focus on what’s wrong with your life, you end up making decisions that make you feel good in the moment, like eating a bag of greasy, fattening chips.

Second, by meditating and visualizing what you want your life to be like, you program your subconscious mind to find ways to make that a reality in the physical world. Never forget the power of your mind. Everything in the external world started in someone’s internal world. This book was once a mere idea of mine; now it’s in your hands. You wouldn’t have a car if Henry Ford hadn’t dreamt up the mass-market automobile. Every single material object on this planet started as an esoteric idea in someone’s mind. You have that same ability to create whatever you want—whether that’s a strong, lean body or the business of your dreams.

I know this may sound “airy-fairy” and “woo woo,” but you’re missing the boat if you’re not mentally scripting your life. I don’t know a single high-level athlete who does not use visualization. Athletes do it because the brain does not know the difference between something it vividly imagines and something it actually experiences. That’s why meditation is one of the most powerful practices you can add to your daily life. There really is no right or wrong way to meditate. Were you to just sit on your couch and breathe deeply for a few minutes each day, you’d start experiencing some of its amazing benefits. Countless studies have shown the health and de-stressing benefits of meditation, and considering how chronic stress forces the body to hold on to weight, I’m sure you can understand why I’m recommending it.

Meditation has also been shown to provide many of the same benefits as sleep. On top of that, it’s also been shown to improve the quality of our sleep, especially when done prior to bedtime. Here are just a few ways that it helps your brain, your body, and the quality of your sleep.

•
Studies of long-term transcendental meditation (TM) practitioners have shown that TM slowed breathing and decreased heart rate, both responses of deepened relaxation.
¹⁴

•
Slow-wave sleep (deep sleep) and REM sleep have both been shown to be enhanced in those who practice meditation. An increased number of sleep cycles (indicating better-quality sleep) has been observed, along with the fact that older meditators can restore deep-sleep states that normally lessen with age while retaining the sleep pattern of younger nonmeditating people.
¹⁵

•
Meditation calms the nervous system, allowing for parasympathetic predominance (which creates relaxation) among both experienced meditators and novice meditators with less practice.
¹⁶

•
Meditation has also been shown to regulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and thereby the release of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine, while increasing favorable hormones like growth hormone, thyroid-stimulating hormone, melatonin, and serotonin.
^17
,
18
,
19

Need more proof that regular meditation is good for you? I didn’t think so.

Research tells us that insomniacs are distinguished from those who sleep easily by high levels of anxiety and physiological arousal. If this sounds like you, in addition to the mental relaxation techniques described above, you may want to incorporate muscle relaxation before bedtime. A study of 18 insomniacs found that just six half-hour muscle relaxation training sessions helped them fall asleep 23 minutes faster than those who did no muscle relaxation before bed.
²⁰
And the cool part is that muscle relaxation can be built into your meditation or visualization practice. Here’s a simple way to do it.

•
Lie in bed and get comfortable.

•
Forcefully contract your muscles and hold that contraction for a few seconds.

•
Then, relax your muscles.

•
Repeat.

The
contrast of the contraction and relaxation brings greater awareness of what your body should feel like when it’s relaxed and what it feels like when it is tense and stressed. Give it a shot tonight.

Make Your Bedroom Sleep-Friendly

Light, temperature, noise, and sleeping surface. These are the external variables you want to control to the best of your ability. A cold “tomb” is what you want for the best sleep. Based on what you now know about melatonin, hopefully you realize that complete darkness is the name of the game for good sleep.

Here are a few tips to help you darken your room.

•
Cover electrical displays (such as alarm clocks and phone lights).

•
Use heavy curtains or shades to block light from windows.

•
Try a sleep mask to cover your eyes.

•
Use a flashlight to go to the bathroom at night. That will keep the light to a minimum so it will be easier to go back to sleep.

You want your room to be relatively cool. Typically, a temperature between 60°F and 67°F makes for the best sleep. Your bedroom should also be free of any noise. This is easier said than done, especially if you have a baby or live on a busy street. If that’s the case, try using earplugs that can block out the noise.

Make sure your mattress is comfortable and supportive. The one you have been using for years may have exceeded its life expectancy—about 9 or 10 years for most good-quality mattresses. Have comfortable pillows and make the room attractive and inviting for sleep, but also free of allergens and objects that might cause you to slip or fall if you have to get up during the night. Whether you want a hard or soft mattress and pillows is up to you so long as your choice is conducive to better, deeper sleep.

Wake Up to Natural Light
(or Simulated Natural Light)

You’ve been sleeping deeply for 7 hours when, all of a sudden, you hear a loud, annoying beeping. It sounds like it’s drilling itself into
your
brain! You leap up to smash the off switch on your alarm clock and sit on the side of the bed, feeling like you’ve just been clobbered in the face with a frying pan. Is that a relaxing way to wake up, or is your body’s fight-or-flight stress response firing on all cylinders? I think you know the answer.

I’m not a fan of these scare-you-out-of-bed alarm clocks. I hide them in the closet whenever I’m in a hotel room. Naturally, the best solution is to wake up with the rising sun, but if you’re sleeping in a very dark room, you won’t know when the sun is up. The other option you have, and the one I’ve used for quite some time now, is a sunlight-simulating alarm clock. These alarm clocks emit a light that gets progressively brighter over 15 to 20 minutes, reaching their brightest by the time you want to get out of bed. Many also feature nature sounds like chirping birds or ocean waves to make you feel like you’re sleeping outside. It’s such a better way to wake up in the morning, as you can imagine. No matter what time you set your alarm for, you feel so much more at peace as you get out of bed to start your day. I personally use the Philips Wake-Up Light. It has single-handedly transformed my mornings and made waking early so much easier.

Once you’re up, be sure to get outside. Few things will wake you up as well as the warm, bright sun. Unfortunately, that’s not an option if it’s wintertime, but there’s a solution for that. When I realized that my body didn’t cope well in the long, dark days of winter—especially
when
I wake up at 5:00 a.m.—I started using bright light therapy every morning upon waking. For me, this involves using a 10,000-lux bright light for 2 to 3 hours each morning. As of this writing, I’ve been using NatureBright’s SunTouch Plus light for 18 months, and I can tell you that it makes a huge difference. I feel more awake in the morning, since bright light supports the natural morning surge in cortisol. And by nightfall, my body is much better prepared to sleep.

Here are a few more ways to reestablish your body’s natural circadian rhythm.

•
Remove your sunglasses in the morning and let light into your eyes.

•
Spend more time outside during daylight. Try to take your work breaks outside in sunlight, exercise outside, or walk your dog during the day instead of at night.

•
Let as much light into your home or workspace as possible. Keep curtains and blinds open during the day, and try to move your desk closer to the window.