PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
Rest, Repair, Renew: How Quality Sleep Protects Your Kidneys and Brain
Hi friends, it's Kimberly here, registered Nurse and Business Development Director with Specialty Care Management. Hey, so are you aware of the huge benefits for your kidneys, your brain, your weight, your overall health and well wellbeing that come with sleep? I know sleep sometimes gets a lot of buzz, a lot of press, but sometimes we don't really understand the magnificent ways and all the work that our body does at night when we sleep. So we really don't understand why it's so important Um years ago. Uh, you know it's so important Years ago. You know, I think we all have crunch zones.
Speaker 1:Years ago, when I was in military, I actually got a commendation for I call it my no sleep award, right, we had a period where we just didn't have the staff and underway and having to maintain you know the work in the radio shack. Back then I was in telecommunications and, uh, I'd average three hours of sleep a night. I do not recommend it. I know a lot of folks talk about hey, outline needs five hours. You know that's really not true. Don't short yourself with sleep. It's soon, unles you're wartime, right, but super, super important. Your body does a lot of work at night when you sleep, one of the most important aspects and ways that sleep can impact your kidneys in particular is with sleep apnea. Did you know? If you have untreated sleep apnea, what happens then is that, basically, you're not. You're really not able to breathe and sleep at the same time. You might feel like you're sleeping right. Really, what you're doing is dozing in and out, and when you rouse to breathe, you know you're in and out. You don't get any quality sleep. So there's that impact. The other aspect, and the way that this hurts your kidneys in particular, is that you know our bodies are designed to pick up the slack for other body parts when they're not pulling their weight right. If you have a knee problem, you're going to ginger that a little bit. The one side is going to compensate for the other side. It's no different with the kidneys or with the heart and the lungs, and so what happens here is that if you have untreated sleep apnea and you're not breathing, the heart says don't worry about it, I got your lungs, I'm just going to pick up and I'm going to work a little harder for you, right? So what happens then is the heart, like any muscle. The heart is a muscle and, just like any muscle that gets worked, it's going to grow.
Speaker 1:People who have untreated sleep apnea develop cardiomegaly and congestive heart failure. All that means is you got an oversized heart that's not able to pump effectively and efficiently, and so what happens in congestive heart failure is we end up with fluid volume overload, and that's just because the heart, it, can't do the work that's required to pump effectively and the blood backs up into the lungs. That's why people with congestive heart failure have a hard time breathing. Basically, they have heartburn. They're basically drowning in their own fluids, right, you also get it back up into the body.
Speaker 1:Now that can manifest in terms of swelling in your legs. Do you have swelling or puffiness in your legs? Some people don't, some people they hold it all in their bellies, and so it can be a little bit deceiving If your practitioner, your nurse or physician asks you ever get swelling in your legs and you think no, so I don't have any trouble. That's not necessarily true. How about your abdomen? Does your abdomen feel tight? Sometimes we'll actually measure abdominal girth, because all that extra fluid is being stored in the abdomen. That extra fluid, fluid volume overload, puts a lot of pressure on the kidneys. That extra pressure does a lot of damage to the delicate structures that make up the kidneys, your glomeruli, right, and that's how sleep apnea leads to kidney disease, as those nephrons and the glomeruli are destroyed. Then people lose their kidney function. Super duper important Now also, sleep has a lot of other factors there's.
Speaker 1:So that's when the road crews come out here. Well, I don't live in North Idaho anymore, but in North Idaho we basically have two seasons, right, we have road construction and winter. So when the weather's good, it's road construction. A lot of road construction happens at night, right, that's when the night crews come out and they chew up debris that they don't want there anymore. Dump trucks come in and haul the debris away. New materials brought in.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of work that happens at night and it's the same process in your body. Your body's doing a lot of sloughing, getting rid of cellular debris and waste, particularly in our brains. Did you know that there's a lot of sloughing that happens at night? Your body's letting go of things that no longer serve you, and we really shortchange that process when we don't have enough adequate sleep. It's super important Also with maintaining your weight. When you think about that, we put our bodies under severe stress. That happens when we're sleep deprived, right, our adrenals kick in, steroid levels go up. That obviously has an implication in blood sugars and inflammation in general.
Speaker 1:Your body needs sleep. It's super important. If you don't have a good sleep habit right now, you might think about what you might need to do to develop good sleep habits. A lot of times, matter of fact, I was just talking with this with my our 18 year old son, who's having a hard time navigating getting enough sleep and being able to get up on time for things. It's super important. He wants to be an early riser, but it's so hard. So if that's you, or if your sleep is disturbed, I'm going to encourage you to be curious about that. What's getting in the way of your sleep? Is it pain? Is pain keeping you up? If so, you want to make sure that you talk to your nurse, your doctor, your practitioner about that. There's a lot of things that you can do to mitigate pain without medications, which is fantastic. One of the great ways to be able to do that and feel comfortable is gentle stretching and gentle exercises, as approved by your provider, to help lubricate the joints and melt away any tension that's happened during the day.
Speaker 1:Now, also keep in mind that our sleep, if you go back to like if you've had little children, or if you imagine if you have little children. Usually mamas and daddies take some time to help their kids get ready for bed. Right, bedtime just doesn't look like okay, you know, lay down and go to sleep right. Typically there's a bath and there's story time and there's a little, maybe a little cheese, a little, a little snack, a light snack, something like that, and this is important. This sets a ritual to help prepare the child for sleep. Well, you and I are much different than our little children friends, right? Making sure that we have a nice routine to help facilitate sleep is also really helpful. You might set a little alarm or reminder that, hey, it's time to get ready for bed. One of my favorite triggers is a cup of warm chamomile tea. Sometimes I don't even drink it, but the act of even making that warm drink is very soothing and it signals to me that, hey, it's time to stop working, or it's time to stop, it's time to turn off the TV.
Speaker 1:Reading is another wonderful activity A lot of people enjoy. I'm going to encourage you, though, to ditch the blue light reading in your bed. Right, blue light. We know that impacts the back of the retina and kind of tricks your brain to thinking that it should be active and more like it would be during the daytime. Sometimes people put on a blue light blocker. I like old-fashioned books. Call me a renaissance chick, but give me an old-fashioned book at bedtime and that's my perfect go-to to help me slide into a nice little slumber. A nice warm bath is also very relaxing and refreshing and, believe it or not, science shows that when we hop into a hot bath before bed, we actually help our body cool down for sleep much faster. Interesting phenomenon Having your bedroom at a nice sleeping temperature, where it's not overly hot a cool sleeping temperature is really helpful.
Speaker 1:Some people need a soothing sounds like. Maybe a sound block or a fan or some pink noise can be really helpful for sleep. If sleep is difficult, I'm also going to encourage you to get the TV out of your bedroom. Don't fall asleep with the TV on. We trick ourselves. A lot of people think, well, I put that on and that helps me go to sleep. I promise you it doesn't. It's going to interfere with your sleep. We need to get that out of the bedroom. These are some techniques that we call sleep hygiene. Sleep hygiene are things that we do to set up an environment such that it's conducive to help us achieve and maintain optimal sleep.
Speaker 1:And when you wake up, it's super important Make sure that you're allowing the space for yourself to get at least seven to eight hours of sleep at night. That absolutely is going to help your night crew to come out and do a lot of the restoring and regenerative work that your body's begging you for. It's so important. Now we haven't talked about exercise yet, but keep in mind that exercise first thing in the morning does so much for your brain, right, that exercise first thing in the morning does so much for your brain, right? Matter of fact, we know that exercise early morning, getting a little sweat on early morning, helps your brain secrete brain derived neurotropic factor. This is basically like a juice, a restorative juice for your brain that really helps regenerate the nerve cells in your brain. Super important. How'd you like to be a little sharper, a little quicker, make better decisions during the day? We can do a lot of that when we have proper sleep the night before. Wake up ready to go, get a little bit of a little bit of sweat on, get some juice in the joints, get moving your joints and I promise you you will see an overall uptick in your energy throughout the day.
Speaker 1:If you snore, or if your partner ever thumps you in the middle of the night telling you to stop snoring or to wake up and breathe, might be time to talk to your provider. Ask them about a sleep study. It's so important. Remember, if you have untreated sleep apnea, you are developing congestive heart failure and that absolutely has an impact on your kidneys. Now a lot of folks are kind of concerned about that. They think that, well, if I get diagnosed, I'm going to have to wear that thing on my face. Right, feels like a jockstrap on my face and that is not appealing. I can't sleep with that. Well, keep right, feels like a jockstrap on my face and that is not appealing. I can't sleep with that.
Speaker 1:Well, keep in mind there are a lot of options today. Matter of fact, sleep studies have changed. You no longer have to go into an inpatient or a facility or the hospital to have an in-center sleep study. A lot of times you can do your sleep study at home and it costs less. There should be less out of pocket for you want to check with your insurance and ask them what's covered and how that's covered. Ask them about a home sleep study and who in your network provides that. But the sleep study, matter of fact, my husband did that some years ago. They sent out a little box. He put the little device on his head, a little oximeter on this finger, had a peaceful night's sleep, woke up, put it all in the box, put it out on the porch and it was gone Easy peasy. So you know, don't worry about you, know I have to take time off to go into this center. You don't have to do that, it's really easy. Ask your provider about a home sleep study. The other thing too, to keep in mind if you are diagnosed with sleep apnea.
Speaker 1:Cpaps have come a long way. As a matter of fact, now my husband still has a mask that he wears over his face. Now my mom, on the other hand, has cute little nasal pillows, and they're pink. Who doesn't get excited about that Little bitty nasal pillows? They're super soft and they just fit over the nose. Very small, very comfortable and easy to acclimate to.
Speaker 1:Many people find that getting used to the sleep app, to their CPAP is made a little bit more comfortable when they put that on just when they're reading or relaxing, maybe when you're watching some TV and you don't have to do much and you can kind of let yourself relax. Newer models also have a ramp up feature where it's very gentle until you drift off and then it will pick up for you. There's the newer models and the newer CPAPs are very intuitive and keep in mind, if you don't like your CPAP or your mask, your DME company the company that supplies your equipment is absolutely motivated to help make sure that they get a device and a mask for you that's comfortable, right? They're not going to make money if you're not using it, so it behooves them to make sure that they get you a setup that you're going to be comfortable with.
Speaker 1:So please, if you do start on the CPAP and you're not happy with it, don't just tuck it away or don't suck it up. Make sure that you speak up and get some help with that. Your nurse coach here is happy to help as well If you have questions or concerns. It's one of our favorite things to talk about and we're here to help you have greater energy, greater well-being and reach your goals. And a lot of that starts at night, while you sleep. Make it a great day.