Sleep, Breathe and Live Better

By Gena Schultheis, DDS

Maryland Holistic Dentistry

. https://marylandholisticdentistryannapolis.com

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Sleep, Breathe and Live Better

Are you sleeping like a baby?  Is your spouse’s snoring waking you up at night? Are you waking up feeling rejuvenated and ready to jump out of bed to enjoy life? Or do you feel foggy, groggy, depressed, or have anxiety about the day ahead? These can be symptoms of deficient sleep. At any given time there are up to 70 million people suffering from sleep disorders, insomnia or sleep apnea. Snoring = poor quality sleep.

Sleep helps your brain work at its highest capacity. When you are asleep new pathways are formed so that you retain what you learned and improve your memory. Studies show that a good night’s sleep improves learning, so sleep is what can help you make good decisions and be creative. Proper sleep can allow your muscles, heart, and other organs to function optimally. Sleep deficiency has been linked to depression, suicide, sadness, poor problem solving skills, anger, impulsiveness, mood swings, lack of motivation, weight gain or inability to loose weight despite diet changes and exercise.

Sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Without having this time to heal with proper sleep one is at increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and stroke.

Studies have shown for each hour of sleep lost the odds of becoming obese went up. Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). The level of ghrelin goes up if you don’t sleep properly, and your level of leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier than when you’re well-rested.

The reaction of your body to insulin changes with sleep and that is what controls your blood sugar level. Sleep deficiency results in a higher than normal blood sugar level, which may increase your risk for diabetes. Poor sleep also alters cortisol and sex hormone levels making you feel depleted.

The list is endless, it has to do with the length of time you sleep, if you are breathing through your mouth or snoring, it depends on the time of day you sleep, what you eat and drink, if you are getting enough oxygen when you sleep, or are you waking up frequently. We want to get you all the answers you need to sleep better so that your life is full of energy, fun, and positivity. If an individual sleeps well they can enjoy work and experience creativity and still have energy when they get home to be happy and energetic instead of feeling run down, stressed, and short-tempered.

It all starts with sleep, breathing and decreased inflammation. The mouth is a huge source of inflammation. If dental disease exists and diet is poor it is a contributing factor in Alzheimer’s, cardiac disease, diabetes, poor immune system function and generalized sadness, lack of energy and poor health. If one is swallowing harmful bacteria and inflammatory factors all day they are at dangers of starting the foundation for life threatening conditions. The mouth, throat and skull form your airway and if there is restriction here then you will be suffocating and not getting restorative sleep at night. Oxygen is required for 90% of our body’s energy, every cell in every organ needs it to function properly. How we breathe and the quality of the air directly effects how we sleep.

Help is here and easily accessible. If you think or know you are suffering from sleep apnea and need an appliance to aid in better sleep reach out to a holistic dentist – they are there to help and heal. Do you already know you have a sleep disorder? Maybe even have a CPAP? Studies show 60% of patients that have a CPAP are not wearing it. This is life threatening. Let’s find you a more comfortable solution.