Giving the Nod to Sleep
Mar 01, 2015
In his new book Effortless Healing, Dr. Joseph Mercola spotlights nine simple ways to sidestep illness, shed excess weight and help your body fix itself. My favorite is Healing Principle #7 where he underscores the vital link between sleep and health.
Here’s just a few of the health challenges sleep can heal:
- Poor memory and concentration
- Stress
- Weight gain
- Pre-diabetes
- Weakened immune system
- Accelerated aging
- Tumor growth
- Risk of heart disease
- Increased risk of dying . . . from ANY cause.
Dr. Mercola further recommends sleep to “clean the cells of the brain.” Here’s what he says:
“The rest of your body is cleansed and detoxified by the lympathic system, a series of ducts and glands that removes waste products and delivers nutrients to cells throughout the body. However, the lympathic system does not have direct access to your brain. Your brain is a closed system protected by the blood-brain barrier, which controls what can enter it and what cannot.
“The brain actually has its own, unique waste disposal system. Called the lymphatic system, it ‘piggybacks’ on the blood vessels in your brain. (The g in glymphatic is a nod to glial cells — the brain cells that manage the system.) By pumping cerebrospinal fluid through your brain’s tissues, the glymphatic system flushes the waste from your brain back into your body’s circulatory system. From there, the waste eventually reaches your liver, where it is processed for elimination.
“During sleep, the glymphathic system becomes ten times more active than during wakefulness. What is it doing? It appears to be taking out the trash . . . One particular waste product . . . is amyloid-beta — the protein that forms the notorious plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.”
Ready for bed? Me too, but before you tuck in, order Dr. Mercola’s empowering new book. And spread the word about this book by sharing any of these six memes on Facebook.
