Please note: Transcript not 100% accurate.
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Here’s a secret that doctors don’t tell you.
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This is Dr. Meenal and welcome to Uncover Your Eyes, where we uncover reality. As a mom and eye doctor, I want to know it all. Here’s a secret that doctors don’t tell you. The most important thing in life that we need is sleep. And we don’t tell you that enough. Or at all.
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Sleep is that time where there’s that natural state of rest or reduced responsiveness to external stimuli. In more casual terms, it’s when our brain hits that pause button, that reset button, and we wake up rejuvenated, restored, and relaxed. But why is it so important? Think of sleep as your personal maintenance system. It’s when your body heals,
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Your brain processes information and your memories solidify. It’s such an important process that we need to go through effectively. Do you ever notice after a really good night of sleep, you wake up so refreshed, so rejuvenated, and those of you that get headaches, we get less headaches when we wake up, it’s that good night of sleep or that REM sleep that has made it so important.
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What is REM sleep? REM sleep is a stage of sleep that occurs about 90 minutes after falling asleep. And it’s when most of your dreaming occurs. This is very essential for cognitive function and memories. It should comprise about 25% of your total sleeping hours. It’s kind of like saving that document on your computer. If you don’t save it all,
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That period of REM sleep is so important for your memories and your brain function to really consolidate and be settled in your brain. Insufficient sleep can lead to stress, anxiety, and weaken your defenses against illnesses. And this is why sleep is so important. And doctors don’t tell you this, but that can solve a lot of issues.
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at least the initial stages of a lot of issues. So when we get insufficient sleep, we not only get cranky, but it actually affects our health. Let’s talk about insulin. With insufficient sleep, our body goes into a disarray and our hormones go crazy, and it affects one of our key hormones, insulin. Therefore, our body cannot process the insulin appropriately.
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And so we get more prone to type two diabetes. We’re also more prone to other illnesses such as PCOS. So that’s just one example of how lack of sleep can cause a hormonal imbalance. And a lot of illnesses stem from that. Think of it like this. Every car needs fuel to function. And our body is like that. We need fuel. And a lot of us think that fuel is only food.
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But that is not true. Sleep is a very important form of energy or fuel that we need to keep going. And fuel is what our cars need to keep going. So what do you do to sleep better? Remove technology is the number one most important thing at least one to two hours before bedtime. We all, including myself, have that tendency where we’ll reach over at our nightstand and keep…
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you know, pulling our phone to see if there’s a new Instagram update or a TikTok update, but putting that phone there and clearing your head or leaving your phone somewhere else such that you can’t access it is so important and very important for our children. Room lights off or as dim as possible is also very important to reset our body and have our body almost tricked knowing that even if it’s 9 PM, it’s really late and we need to sleep.
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And then other important things are, you know, if you’re someone who likes to meditate or stretch, something to relax your body before sleeping is very important. So for me, I like listening to music. So I’m not someone who can meditate, you know, at least can’t do it for a long period of time, but listening to music really calms me down for some reason. So just listening to music or whatever can make you feel relaxed is so important before.
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you get to sleep because if you’re hyper, your sleep will not be effective. So prioritize your sleep. Sleeping effectively for seven to nine hours is the most important thing you can do for yourself and sleeping before midnight. Think of sleep as a luxury. It’s a luxury to drive a car and have fuel. It’s a luxury to be able to sleep. We used to value sleep so much in the past and now we don’t.
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You know, even with our children, I see them get up in the morning, want to be on their phone. They get up early just to be on that phone or that iPad. But we need to go back to the basics. And I want to almost say it’s part of holistic medicine where you just want to have enough sleep to balance your body, balance your hormones. Don’t only think of it as your dietary intake. Sleep is also a…
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key aspect of fuel for our bodies. So next time, you know, just like myself, if you’re tempted to binge watch that show, which I love doing, set yourself up such that you give yourself a time limit and then you’re up and sleeping because I know how easy it is to fall into the trap while you’re binge watched till midnight. For myself, I give myself kind of a 10 or an 11 cutoff, depending on when I’m actually starting to binge watch.
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And, you know, I hold myself to it where I just shut the TV off and I go up and I sleep. And I have to say that it has given me more energy. It has balanced my body, my hormones, and I’ve seen the improvement within weeks of getting more effective and longer sleep. So sleep well tonight. Thank you, listeners and viewers, for tuning in. If you want to catch more episodes of Uncover Your Eyes,
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make sure to Follow or Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube. To learn more about me, follow me on Instagram @Dr.MeenalAgarwal Until next time, keep those eyes uncovered!