Ever struggled to hit the hay and wake up feeling fully refreshed? You’re not alone, and that’s exactly what wellness expert David Delrahim and Roland Perez discussed in their latest conversation on the essential role of sleep in our health regimen. They navigate the complexities of our body’s need for quality shut-eye, exposing how modern habits are often the culprits behind restless nights. Together, they tackle the misconceptions that lead to poor sleep and provide actionable strategies for integrating sleep-promoting practices into your routine. From the science behind how sleep bolsters our immune function to the art of crafting a serene sleep sanctuary, this episode is brimming with insights to transform your nights into a wellspring of rejuvenation.
Listen to their conversation here.
Read their conversation below (with time stamps from the podcast recording):
Roland Perez: 0:02
You know, sleep is a major issue for many of us. Not getting enough sleep or not enough restful sleep. Your body, your mind and your wellness requires that you get good sleep to help you function throughout the day. Welcome to Better Wellness, a podcast that explores the newest innovations in true wellness. I’m your host, roland Perez, as the executive producer of the American Health Journal for more than 25 years and produced over 530-minute award-winning healthcare television shows and aired nationally on PBS with an audience of over 100 million viewers. But Better Wellness is more than that Not only keeping your body healthy, but developing the mindset and balance that prevents illness. Our guests are experienced experts in the world of staying healthy, young and well. Our guest is David Delrahim, wellness expert and noted visionary. David discusses the ways we miss the importance of sleep and suggests ways to discover that mindset to achieve consistent, refreshing sleep. So, david, what is sleep and what is the importance of sleep?
David Delrahim: 1:17
Sleep is a natural phenomenon for the body, just like breathing air, drinking water. Just like breathing air, drinking water, eating. Sleeping is just another natural phenomenon. Many things that we know that comes out of sleep boosting the immune system, rebooting the body, the mind these are the things that we know about it. But getting the quality sleep is what a lot of people are struggling with. So we are tired, we won’t sleep, because that will rejuvenate our body, and rejuvenation comes from rebooting the system. That’s what the body does the repairing, maintenance, all of these physical attributes of the sleep.
David Delrahim: 2:35
But there’s more to sleep than what we have considered or known about it. So let’s just go back to the natural phenomenon. We get hungry. What do we do? We eat, we get thirsty, we drink, we want oxygen. We don’t even think about it, we just breathe.
David Delrahim: 2:54
But when it comes to sleep, it’s a completely different story. Sleepy, we have more coffee or the energy drinks, anything that keeps us up. We are fighting it, we are dismissing the body’s urge and thinking about the sleep that we think. Well, perhaps I don’t need seven hours of sleep, or six and a half hours, or, in terms of the females, maybe eight hours. Maybe I can condense. Well, I’m too busy, you know well, five hours is enough for me, or I am young, only four hours, I just don’t have time.
David Delrahim: 3:53
We never say I don’t have time to breathe, I don’t have time to drink. We sometimes say I don’t have time to eat, and then our energy goes down. But when it comes to the sleep, it’s just what if I have time, I sleep, and what a huge mistake that is. Breathing, drinking, eating, sleeping the first three naturally done the sleep. Many times we force, we augment, we manipulate Something that has to be natural and we always try to find an excuse for that. We are not taking responsibility If we are not sleeping. Well, just go back to the basics. It is just like breathing. And if you cannot sleep, that is the byproduct of what you have done in the past 16 hours. Go back and try to fix well, identify what they are and go back fixing it, and the sleep happens naturally.
Roland Perez: 5:30
It’s so simple, just like breathing. We don’t sleep. We fight sleep because we want to either do something watch another television show at night, write another couple of emails, be sharp when we arrive at work, drown, get as many cups of coffee in you that you can so that you look sharp when you’re. You’re doing the morning meeting. So, yeah, what we’re doing is fighting sleep. But what can we do if we do get tired? I we can’t fall asleep an hour before the meeting. So if we’re fighting it, what should we do?
David Delrahim: 6:14
You know, to arrive at what the body is supposed to be doing while we are sleeping the natural phenomenon we need to be in resonance with our body. We need to allow the body to do its job. So quality of sleep it all depends upon what do we do during the day to support that quality of sleep, the sleep, just for the sake of argument, if you are sleeping for seven hours and then we have another 16 hours of being active, perhaps there is no wall between them. One is a continuation of the other. If we get seven hours of good sleep, then we have 16 hours of great active hours and vice versa. So how can we support a good night’s sleep, hydration, good diet, meditations?
Roland Perez: 7:53
so there are multiple bodies that will be impacted during the sleep so basically, what you’re saying is you’re spending those 16 hours sort of getting ready to welcome sleep.
David Delrahim: 8:11
Absolutely. So you know what one leads to another and another leads to the first one. It’s just a continuation, there is no stopping. So you want to have a great 16 hours of active life, then you better get a good sleep, because if you don’t, those 16 hours will be impaired.
Roland Perez: 8:37
Let me ask you that I learned it in the military and it was that you can’t sleep because you’re in an environment where you can’t sleep, so that you nap, and I learned that an hour nap when I take an hour nap I wake up and I’m refreshed as if I was asleep for eight hours. It’s amazing what a nap can do and it just basically what you say it refreshes you, it’s a healing time.
David Delrahim: 9:16
See the body, our body is very smart, Highest intelligence it has. But we often think we know better. So when the body needs to shut down, needs to rest, whether it is for 20 minutes of we call it power nap, or an hour of nap or seven hours of sleep the body gives a signal. Hour of nap or seven hours of sleep, the body gives a signal. So it is time for the body to shut down, to rejuvenate itself, to process everything it has. And if we take that advice, the body’s advice, which is very intelligent, Now we are in resonance with the body. We wake up rejuvenated, we have a better focus, we have a better mindset, Our emotions are more in balance. Everything is working. Now, on the other hand, when we are fighting it, we are a little bit drowsy, we’re a little bit sleepy, maybe we had too much information that our brain had to process and we decide not to take that nap, but we’re going to have two cups of coffee to augment, to overpower that body’s urge, that body’s intelligence. That is how we get on the other side of the fence with the body. We are fighting our own body. It’s just like you’re hungry. The body needs calories, the body needs nutrition. I say no, no, I know better, you don’t need that. You know what. I’m just going to have something else. So what happens Later on? We find we are out of energy, we cannot move around, we cannot think Our blood sugar could drop, A lot of other things.
David Delrahim: 11:42
One of the functions of the sleep definitely is to process what we have been gathering, all the informations During an active day and I’m talking about that 16 hours, because we’re going to be sleeping for about 7-8 hours, so the active days are 16-17. Those are the active days that our eyes are open and we’re looking at things, we’re gathering information. We could be hearing, we could be talking, we could be smelling. All of our senses are working. We would gather up an average of about 37 gigabytes of information that goes to our brain. Well, some of the informations are good because they are life experiences and we need to retain. Some of them are junk. Brain needs time to go through all of those information, sorting it out and sorting it out, filing it. The ones that are no good, they’re junk out. The ones that are good, they’re saying so. That’s, that’s another reason we need the sleep. The same thing with the emotions we gather up. We could get emotional for the situations, for the incidents, for anything any experience the body needs to go through all of those information.
David Delrahim: 13:24
So this importance of sleep is being ignored by the mass, discounted by the mass, and nowadays that we have a lot of distractions like social media, our phone, then TV, that will impact us, at our energetic body, the EMFs that are coming, that it makes our body imbalance, then we cannot sleep. And what do we do? Sleep and what do we do? We go to our medicine cabinet and try to find as the body deems it necessary. We are influencing that natural phenomenon.
Roland Perez: 14:25
Let me ask you. There was a psychologist that I was interviewing once that I was interviewing once and he says sleep, your mind at sleep does not conjure up and make up nightmares. Your nightmares came from the other 16 hours that you experienced, things that didn’t sort out in your mind. So one of the things he suggested was preparation to sleep. You set the table to eat, you mix it, you mix your get a glass, you get water. You get a drink, you mix it. You’re prepared to eat, you’re prepared to drink, but you don’t prepare to go to sleep.
Roland Perez: 15:08
So he says if you have a difficulty falling asleep and I did have it one time he says it’s time to go to sleep. You really it’s, you’re getting a little sleepy, but you have to prepare yourself. So he was at. He said meditation would be very good before you go to sleep, breathing before you go to sleep and going to bed. If you can’t sleep, he tells me to get up and do something. Don’t lay there. That will just make it worse and make you think you have insomnia, which you don’t. You’re just not ready. Your body isn’t ready for that yet. So his important thing was that you have to prepare for sleep. What do you think about that?
David Delrahim: 15:50
Absolutely. I believe I’ve expanded the concept of the preparation for the sleep. I believe I’m preparing for sleep 16 hours a day. Actually, as a man, I found the threshold of six and a half hours which would be the perfect amount of time, because too much sleep is not good either, and our body has intelligence, has this time clock, so I try to not to alter that. For example, I go to bed at 9.30 to 10 o’clock and I wake up at 4 o’clock. That gives me about 6 to 6 1⁄2 hours and I try to be very consistent with that. Now, our entire body working together. You know what we think.
David Delrahim: 16:43
What is the sleeping thing? It really comes from the brain. Well, yes, but your digestion system works in tandem with your brain and every other organs and every part of your body. So if we eat heavy and eat late, then this, our digestion system, is trying to catch up. You have a lot of blood flowing into there and now you’re trying to sleep, there’s not enough oxygen and blood into your brain and they are not in alignment. So getting prepared for the sleep just like brushing your teeth. You know what Some people like to take a warm shower.
David Delrahim: 17:33
The same thing with the eating. My advice is not to eat three hours before the sleep. Water is good, but nothing heavy, nothing solid. Then, while we are sleeping, we need oxygen. So we have to make sure that there’s a good flow of air. Number one. Number two is the temperature. Too warm, no good, because our body when we put our clothes on and we go to bed and there’s a heavy blanket that increases our body temperature. What’s the temperature in your room before you go to bed and they’re a heavy blanket that increases our body temperature.
Roland Perez: 18:13
What’s the temperature in your room before you go to bed?
David Delrahim: 18:16
I would like to keep it at 68 degrees.
Roland Perez: 18:20
It’s a little chilly.
David Delrahim: 18:22
Yeah, it is better to be a little bit chilly than a little bit warmer. Your body just works better. Our body maintains the temperature inside, no matter what. But having a little bit chillier is better because, you know, I like to have a little bit more blanket, a little bit heavy blanket on me, so I will compensate it by a little bit chillier ambient temperature. But even that one degree makes a huge difference for the quality of the sleep. So sleeping should be a ritual process. You are getting ready, you’re brushing your teeth, some people even comb their hair. It’s just like they’re going to an event, but they’re actually going to sleep. They’re honoring God. Meditation would be wonderful to calm your mind.
Roland Perez: 19:29
Yeah, meditation, this is something that I do If I’m having a little bit of trouble getting to sleep by the room I keep. I watch TV. This is crazy, but I watch TV and I fall asleep watching TV. My wife, on the other hand, she has a room completely dark, totally dark, and that’s the way she goes to sleep. We both sleep about the same time. It doesn’t really matter. But I find that if I go to bed, and at basically the same time, I never sleep past a certain hour by 6 o’clock in the morning. No matter what I’m awake, my body just wakes me up, whether I got 4 hours sleep or I got eight hours sleep at six o’clock in the morning, there’s some clock in there. Do you wake up with an alarm or do you get up naturally?
David Delrahim: 20:21
Yeah, interestingly, I always set my alarm for 4 am but hardly ever the alarm goes off because I’m up by five minutes to four automatically. But I do that as a you know cautionary means because I have yoga at 5.30 in the morning. I need that hour and a half to do my morning rituals and meditations and prayer and getting ready for my yoga meditations and prayer and getting ready for my yoga. So, you know, sleeping is extremely important. But and there’s a huge but quality of sleep is very important, not just closing your eyes and crashing. He’s got his name. Do you want to crash or do you want to sleep? Sleep is healing. Crashing might not be. You just have to honor all of these natural phenomenals with the body. Your body is here for you. You want to be on the same side. You want to be in resonance with your body, not against that. If you’re sleepy, you’re sleepy because your body needs that. Your body gives you signal.
Roland Perez: 21:45
When I meditate or do mindfulness maybe not so much, I don’t know what the difference is, but I do a lot of mindfulness. Before I do breathing, I have REM sleep, which is, you know, rapid eye movement, and that is the gold of sleep. That is. You get that and I do get that. I get that because I prepare for sleep. I lie in bed and I just start slowly getting sleepy. I’m tired of watching the television anymore. Then I sort of shut off the audio, it goes into sections with me and then I shut the TV off and then I sort of go into a little bit of mindfulness, a little meditation, and I’m asleep.
David Delrahim: 22:32
A little bit of mindfulness, a little meditation and I’m asleep. So let’s talk about different segmentation of the sleep, one of the areas that you can hardly ever hear that it is happening, but it is happening. Let’s just go through the areas of impact. Physical, of course, you know what we are tired All of a sudden. We’re not. The body repairs, maintain, the immune system goes off. Those are all physical attributes. Those are all physical attributes. The mental you know what. You’re just clearing all of those junks out of your head that you have collected during the day and bringing your mind to balance. Emotions, of course, it’s the same thing. You know you have collected a lot of emotional values that your body needs to go through and sort it out, because some people are emotional and they say well, you know, let me just sleep on it, I’m sure I’m going to feel better tomorrow. So something will happen. We all know it. We might not put a lot of importance to it, but we know something happens. Sleep helps. Then the energetic value Because of our exposure to a lot of electronics and out there, picking up all these EMFs that build up, charge up our body, causes inflammations.
David Delrahim: 24:23
Now we are trying to be away from that, but what do we normally do? Well, we try to have the cell phones, our phones, on the bed stand really close to us and even charge it up, ouch, while you’re sleeping, which really impacts the quality of the sleep. So I would advise not to have your phone around Now. I said that I would set my alarm on my phone. I do that. First of all, I put my phone on the airplane mode. First of all, I put my phone on the airplane mode. I will try to have it at least five feet away from my head, and that is how I have it. Now there is One other thing that happens at the spiritual level. You’re sleeping, things happens with your soul. Soul comes out and brings down information. So it’s for releasing the soul and calling the soul back into the body. That phenomenon has to happen for us to receive information and to be in touch with divine.
Roland Perez: 26:02
A friend of mine once told me. I said every time I have a problem, just before I go to bed, I say to myself I have this deal with A and B. Should I take A or should I take B? Doesn’t answer the question, just goes to bed, gets up in the morning and he says I feel like B might be the answer. I think that’s what you were just talking about. All night, your brain is processing the information and for some reason you wake up and the answer is there.
David Delrahim: 26:32
You just know it. You wake up and you have a better clarity, better certainty and something that you perhaps couldn’t make a decision on the night before. All of a sudden is so much easier to make that decision because you just know it. So this sleep is a natural phenomenon that needs to be honored. It’s a ritual and it’s a process. It is as you are getting prepared for sleep. You are looking forward to that few hours of tranquility, rejuvenation, repair, consciousness, all of it and you want to be in resonance with your body. As your body is inviting you to this natural phenomenon. You want to be on the same side of your body. You are helping your body, so your body can help you.
Roland Perez: 27:55
Well, so much for sleep. That was great, David, thank you.