S3 E9: Caring for Your Body: Exercise, Recovery, & Sleep

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• EPISODE RESOURCES

  Barry A. Spiering, Ph.D., has a wide-range of experiences in sports & exercise science, while serving populations ranging from Olympic & professional athletes to soldiers & astronauts.  Barry is currently the Lead Physiologist in the New Balance Sports Research Lab in Boston.  Prior to joining New Balance, Barry held positions at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, the Nike Sport Research Lab, California State University – Fullerton, and NASA – Johnson Space Center.  Additional professional experiences include serving as a Sports Physiologist at the U.S. Olympic Training Center, managing the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University, and interning with the New Orleans Saints strength & conditioning staff.  Ultimately, these experiences have led to numerous peer-reviewed scientific publications, as well as presentations at regional, national, and international meetings. 

  Nicole Moyen, Ph.D. is the Director of Science & Clinical Research at Eight Sleep, where she leads a team that conducts all of the company's human research studies for new feature generation and validation. She obtained her Ph.D. from Stanford University in Physiology, and has over a decade of research experience in both academia & industry. Nicole has enjoyed utilizing her research expertise in thermoregulation and exercise physiology at the various health tech companies she's worked at, including Fitbit, Kenzen, Whoop, and now Eight Sleep. She is also a former D1 athlete. 

• EPISODE TAKEAWAYS

  Please do not make changes in your exercise, nutritional, or other physiological aspects of your body and life without consulting a medical professional who knows you and your body. Everyone is different and these suggestions should not replace medical care that is tailored to you as an individual. 

  • If you live a sedentary lifestyle (little movement and exercise), your body will gain large benefits in terms of strength and health benefits in the early stages of starting an exercise routine.

  • After gaining strength and performance from exercise routines (which takes time to build a foundation of strength and performance) your body can then maintain that level relatively easily so long as you maintain the intensity with which you exercised to get to that level. For example, working out less often but still with the same intensity can help you maintain the strength and performance gains you made. However, maintaining the health benefits of exercise would require consistency in terms of time spent, even if done with low intensity movements like a walk. 

  • Making gains (progress) in strength and performance may come in much smaller doses once you become more fit and stronger. It requires pushing slightly more when your body (and/or metrics) tell you that you can push harder. 

  • If you need motivation to exercise more, use the feel good experience that comes during and/or after exercise as a motivator given exercise is “medicine” for feeling better. See the book “Exercise for Mood” by Michael Otto, Ph.D. 

  • “Anything is better than nothing” is a reminder of how important physical activity and movement is crucial to our physical and mental health. Society has become so much about sitting way more than ever. Sitting too much may be bad for our health even if we exercise a little bit.

  • Exercise seems to improve “gut health” which in turn can help a lot of physiological functions.

  • Exercise can help you to live more in the moment and quiet your mind If done in a mindful way.

  • For athletes who no longer play structured sports, it can help to re-find what kind of exercise you find joy in.

  • Foam rolling is sort of a form of massage to your muscles that can be used before and after exercise. Stretching helps to elongate your muscle and connected tissue to extend further and give a wider range of motion. Foam rolling can help relax the muscle and tissue to extend the way its capable of, as if to release the tissue binding/tension.

  • Being a “weekend warrior” by way of jumping into high intensity exercise without any build up or foundational exercise routine leading up to it can put you at risk for injuries and severe soreness. Give about 12 weeks to prepare and build up for that type of intensity and stress so your body can adapt.

  • The “pre-workout drink” has caffeine (which may boost exercise effort) can be a risk if used with the idea of “more is better”. High levels of caffeine can have negative consequences, such as anxiety, insomnia (especially of taken in later times of the day), and potentially impact on the heart.

  • Athletes, male and female, require higher levels of energy (caloric intake) compared to non-athletes due to the energy they consume during their training and performances. The risk is when athletes internalize a “thin ideal” and develop disordered eating, which can lead to energy deficiency in the body. This is very dangerous and has a lot of long-term consequences like injuries, low energy levels, impaired menstrual cycle, cardiovascular issues, hormonal imbalances, diminished bone density, psychological issues, difficulty growing muscle due to using up protein as energy (rather than carbohydrates), etc. RED-S is the term being used to describe this phenomenon.

  • Healthier eating can come from ideas such as eating whole nutritional foods, listening to our body and eating until we are 80% full, and listening to our bodily cues for hunger, etc.

  • People have a resting metabolic weight, which is like a baseline weight, tending to require about 1,500 calories per day.

  • Women experiencing menstruation during the first 4-7 days, all hormones are lowest. This may lead to working out harder and increases in strength and fitness. In the later stages, leading up to having a period, progesterone increases (among other hormones) which can make you more sleepy, heart rate can increase, and contribute to disruptions in sleep. During this phase, it may help to just maintain strength and fitness gains.

  • Women's hips are wider than men's and so some, like in soccer, need to be tested for a box test to see if the knees go in when landing. Strengthening muscles may help to reduce risk for knee injuries. 

  • Grip strength may be a proxy indicator for a lot of muscular and bodily functions as people age. 

  • Recovery after exercise is actually what builds strength and performance. Without recovery the exercise will not lead to the same amount of gains. Even more, working exceedingly harder and longer may not even lead to the gains you are hoping for (more is not always better), and can lead to burnout, injuries, and other complications. 

  • Muscle protein synthesis (which goes up in making new proteins when exercising), which is how the muscle gains strength after exercising (during recovery), can be helped by nutrition (protein and carbohydrates), avoiding alcohol, and sleeping enough.

  • Sleep is when our bodies experiences a lot of repair, muscle growth, hormonal release, brain cleaning, memory consolidating, processing of emotions, etc.

  • Early stages of sleep, blood goes to your hands and feet dropping your core body temperature (around your organs). It's lowest around 4-6am the core temperature gets higher. This is around REM sleep, where your muscles are paralyzed, as well as your body's ability to regulate temperature. This means your body may be much warmer especially if you have a lot of layers/sheets on that felt good when your body was cooler earlier in the night.

  • Sleep environment can impact sleep like temperature, light, humidity, poor ventilation leading to higher C02 levels if someone else is sleeping in the room. Hotter temperatures like around 80 degrees can make it harder to sleep. Much colder temperatures may not impact sleep if having layers and/or sheets to balance out the temperature. In deep sleep, it's preferred to have cooler temperatures. 

  • Women have slightly cooler skin temperatures (lower metabolic rate) and so they may prefer the room slightly warmer than men. Women and men prefer the same body temperature.

  • When you travel and living on a new time zone, or if you stay out later than usual, you may feel cold because your body is used to reducing core body temperature at the same time as it's used to. 

  • Getting consistent sleep at routine times is very important. If you sleep at a different times (even if you get the same amount of sleep hours), your body will act as if it's on a different time zone. This leads to changes in body temperature (the body cools down) and other issues that affect the benefits of sleep because your body acts as if it was supposed to be sleeping when it's used to.

  • Night shift working, and general sleep deprivation, can lead to metabolic changes like making the person hungrier potentially leading to craving sugary foods.

  • Eating later at night can impact your circadian rhythm and stimulate your body when it's time to sleep. Not eating 2-3 hours before bed can help.

• TRANSCRIPTION

  Gerald Reid  00:20

  Welcome back to the Reid Connect-ED Podcast. Today we are so grateful to share the studio with two experts in the field of exercise physiology and sleep science. Alexis and I are going to ask questions about how we can take care of our bodies as it relates to exercise, recovering from exercise, and restorative sleep. This episode is meant for a wide variety of people. Whether you're simply interested in taking better care of your bodies, whether you are someone who is already exercising in a routine. Whether you're an athlete or even an elite athlete, you know, this episode is for you. So this information that you're going to learn today from the episode, it's going to be useful in your journey. So as someone who works with athletes in the field of sports psychology, I gathered several questions from athletes I work with sort of like a Frequently Asked Questions FAQs portion. So I'm going to integrate some of those questions into the interview today. And just for a wider context, season three of the podcast is all about taking care of yourself. And so I'm so excited to learn more about the human body today. And so without further ado, let me introduce our guests for today. First, we have Dr. Barry Spiering PhD. He has a wide range of experiences in Sport and Exercise Science, while serving populations ranging from Olympic and professional athletes to soldiers and astronauts. And Barry is currently the lead physiologist in the New Balance sports research lab in Boston. So he works for new balance. And Barry real quick, can you just give us like an elevator speech about what you do with new balance? You've explained it to me a few times, but it's always nice to get that little elevator speech.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  01:56

  Yeah, happy to so the goal for any sports product, be it footwear apparel, is to improve performance perception and protection. So we have a wide range of scientists and my background is in physiology, but we also have people have the background and perception, science and biomechanics, and we all collaborate together to help make footwear and apparel that gives you a better experience while you exercise and training compete.

  Gerald Reid  02:20

  Wow, I think my stick called it the Willy Wonka of sports apparel.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  02:27

  I've called it the Disneyland for athletes, but the Willy Wonka for athletes also works.

  Gerald Reid  02:32

  That's great love it. Prior to New Balance Barry held positions at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, the Nike sport Research Lab, California State University Fullerton and NASA Johnson Space Center. Additional professional experiences include serving as sports physiologist at the US Olympic Training Center, managing the Human Performance Laboratory at Marywood University and interning with the New Orleans Saints strength and conditioning staff while ultimately these experiences have led to numerous peer reviewed scientific publications, as well as presentations at regional, national and international meetings.

  Gerald Reid  03:16

  Our next guest is Dr. Nicole Moyen, Ph.D. and she is the director of science and clinical research at Eight Sleep, where she leads a team that conducts all the company's human research studies for new feature generation and validation. She obtained her Ph.D. from Stanford University in physiology, and has over a decade of research experience in both academia and industry. Nicole has enjoyed utilizing her research experience in thermo regulation, and Exercise Physiology at various health tech companies. She's worked out including Fitbit Kenzan, Whoop, which is in Boston and now Eight Sleep. And by the way, she's a former division one athlete as a soccer player. So happy to have you both here today. And of course, I'm here with my sister, Alexis, and we are going to dive in today.

  Gerald Reid  04:08

  We're gonna start with exercise. You know, exercise is the topic that, you know, clients that I work with patients I work with, it definitely comes up whether they're athletes or not right exercise is something that people have been doing for awhile as human beings, right, we've been exercising in one way or another forever. And we do know that it's a it's an important part of health, when we're taking care of ourselves. So let's start by just in general thinking about what it is about exercise that is so important for the human body, you know, to kind of think of it scientifically, what is it that exercise does for the human body, both physically and mentally that people should be aware of as a starting point because everybody wants to change on some degree, right? We all want to improve in therapy… for me working with patients is about making changes but change is hard. And a big part of change is understanding the benefits of change. You know, we call it the contemplative stage of change. And you know, people think, is it worth it to change where the pros and cons and so I want to start by asking you what are the benefits so people can consider, you know, the benefits of exercise, if people are considering it for themselves.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  05:16

  Yeah, so, Nicole and I are part of an organization called the American College of Sports Medicine. And one of their themes is, exercise is medicine. So imagine there was like a pill. And if you took this pill, it made you perform better, it made your bones stronger, and made your heart better. And if you do it in the right way, it also makes you feel better alleviates depression, it does a lot of things. And all the side effects are generally pretty positive. So if you had this pill that did that thing, doctors would prescribe it to pretty much everybody and everybody would want to take it. And the only thing is that pill is actually just exercise. So people kind of lose sight of the fact that exercise does so many wide ranging things. That's great for your health, great for your performance, great for your mental well being. And so if we can educate the public on all the benefits of exercise, and also educate healthcare providers about all the positive effects of exercise, but hopefully that is a good way to get people on board with exercising and just being more physically active in general.

  Gerald Reid  06:21

  Yeah, I love that. And Alexis, I know you want to make a point here, I'll just say, because exercise is so universal to people. And it's like that magic pill for everybody. I think something I've seen with patients is you just got to kind of find what fits you. Right? Because it's such a, it's a lot of work to get yourself to get into an exercise routine. So finding what works for you what you enjoy, and what fits into your schedule, and your life is important. And even the schools, it's kind of sad that schools are taking away physical education from the kids and how important that is. So thank you for the plug exercise is medicine. Newsflash.

  Alexis Reid  06:58

  Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm so glad you brought up the idea of exercising as a prescription. And especially related to depression, I'm so glad to see more of those studies more in the popular media, talking about how really being able to move your body can help and heal from mental health perspective on so many great levels. And I think that we miss the point of sometimes the answers are right within ourselves. And we don't actually have to even put much into our body to be able to try to practice and heal ourselves, we can just try to move ourselves. I'm glad you said that. And Barry, by the way, glad you're here on the show, finally, Barry's been a huge advocate and supporter of the podcast from the very beginning. So we're glad to have you here and to talk about this too.

  Alexis Reid  07:41

  But you know, can we dive a little bit more into thinking about exercise as medicine, because we talk a lot here, we've had two episodes this season on anxiety and depression specifically. And those themes keep coming up of, you know, how do we actually get out of the stuck points in our life, you know, Jerry and I have clients all day long, that sometimes report being stuck and not know how to get out of it. And we're grateful to be able to work with them. But oftentimes my joke, not being a medical professional, being in the executive function realm of things. You know, I said, you know, my brother will always prescribe, you know, a little bit of movement, a little bit of exercise to be able to help you get out of that stuck point, wondering if either of you want to dive a little deeper into that, too.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  08:25

  So I'll tell a quick story. So a few years ago, I was a college professor at Cal State Fullerton. And I taught a class on intro to Kinesiology. And usually the class ended up being like the first thing in the morning. So after several weeks of the class, where the routine is kind of settled in, I had all the students show up and on their desk was what's called a profile of mood states. And you just fill out this little profile and ask questions about anxiety and energy and like all the good things you're feeling and all the bad things that you're feeling. And it just takes a couple of minutes, they filled it out. And then when they were done, I grabbed my backpack, and I unloaded frisbees and balls and all these things. And I said I go play for 20 minutes.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  09:16

  And then they looked at me and like, are you serious? I was like, yeah, just go play. Come back in 20 minutes. So everybody are sprinted outside, grabbed all the frisbees and the balls and everything out that some went for a walk some had a good time play games. Then they came back and said already, turn your paper over. And so they turn their paper over. And it was the exact same profile of mood states. And so they filled it out again, I was like, now look at the two sides. Does anybody feel more positive things and everybody raised their hand. Does everybody feel less negative things and everybody raised their hand. And I said, just remember the only thing that I want you to remember about today's lecture is how does exercise make you feel because we focus so much on like, performance cardiovascular benefits and diabetes, that's all critical stuff. But sometimes the thing that gets lost is how energizing and positive exercise can be as an experience. So I don't know how much they learned from that whole semester. But I hope that was maybe one thing they just took away from that class.

  Gerald Reid  10:18

  I love that. You learned from experience though, right? I mean, the things you remember, sometimes I'll teach, I'm like, what are they going to remember from what I'm saying? But you really learn from experience, what a beautiful story. In my supervision class, we have eight people, eight students, and it's a three hour class nearly three hours. And I'm like, you know, at some point, spontaneously, I just checked in with myself mindfully and like, my body isn't feel right. I'm like, Hey, everybody, you want to stand up and talk? And they're like, yeah, we're just like, all stood up and just continue the conversation about what we're talking about. Makes a big difference.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  10:50

  Yeah, I'll add to that. And just say, I think the other point of what Barry was saying is like, you don't have to overcomplicate what exercise is, and I think that's a barrier for a lot of people. Like I used to work as a personal trainer, too. And it's like, well, I have to do 30 minutes. And I have to do like this many circuits of weights, and I have to lift this weight, or else, it's not worth it. And I think time and time again, even from a mood and health perspective, like even if you just get out and do something like we tend to say anything is better than nothing. So even just getting out for a 10 minute walk, like you're already gonna feel better. Your eyes are focusing on a bigger perspective, you're out in nature, hopefully out in nature, or seeing some sunlight, right. And all of that is going to trigger different things in the body and help you feel better too, so I think like, just remembering anything is better than nothing. And that's kind of how you start. And then over time, you're like, actually, I could walk for 20 minutes, or I feel like I could jog for a mile instead of half a mile. So I think it's like, just start small.

  Gerald Reid: I love that

  Alexis Reid  11:44

  Such great reminders, you know, one of my favorite things to do is literally just to put music on and dance around. And I just share this because there's so many like neuroscience research studies that show that some of them is better than no movement. And thinking about the mind body connection and being able to get things going. And you know, sometimes it is as easy as just like moving your body around in some way. So I love the idea of starting small. Thank you for that reminder.

  Gerald Reid  12:08

  Yeah, and so when we think about mood to write, I mean, we're so technological now. So we go to our phones, we get that instant dopamine boost that we talked about last episode. And Alexis made such a good point, last episode that, you know, if you do other things, you're gonna get a longer lasting feel good effect. It's not that spike like oh, you saw something stimulating spike, you feel good. And then you feel terrible, like right after it. And so exercise and maybe you can quickly talk about this, we'll move on to another topic. But you know, the physiological, what happens in the body when you exercise what you know, in the brain chemistry and stuff like that, that allows that good feeling to last a long time, you know, there as opposed to that spike in dopamine. Can you guys say a little bit about like what happens in, in the body in the brain that allows for that feel good to last longer? And because there's a book actually called Exercise for Mood, by Michael Otto, who's that BU and he, his whole premise is exactly what Barry said, exercise because it's going to make you feel good. That's such a good motivator. It's a guarantee almost that you're going to feel better afterwards. So if anything's gonna motivate you should be that.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  13:13

  Yeah, I think I don't know the exact mechanisms. But I think that there's depending on the exercise that you're doing, they call it the runner's high, right, and so you're gonna get that boost of endorphins. But I also over time your body gets used to it. And so it's harder and harder to get that high. But it also becomes something that you're just used to, and you kind of need, so you feel kind of antsy, or you're like, I need to get out and do something. There's also a lot of recent research more on you guys probably aware, the gut microbiome. And exercise has been shown to improve the bacteria that you have in your gut, which regulate serotonin, which is important for mood, depression, sleep. And then you also have the gut microbiome, which is regulating a host of other things, immune function, gut barrier integrity, so you don't have leaky gut. So there's a lot of other things that I think exercise is a byproduct, like, as a byproduct is modifying other parts of the body.

  Gerald Reid  14:07

  And at the very least, it's gonna help you sleep better and better sleep is better mental health. So indirectly, it'll help that way too. Yeah, great, cool. I mean, the patients I work with, they always say like, oh, that's not gonna help me feel better. And then they do it. They're like, Oh, it definitely does. Or, or let's say at least they worked out at the end of the day, I felt productive. When you get into the routine, you're like, at least you know, if you're depressed or something, at least I did that it's something that's always there. So yeah, great.

  Alexis Reid  14:32

  I think to just being able to find that mental clarity like when you exert your body, it kind of just releases all the stress and tensions that you're holding on to some of the overthinking the conscious thought that maybe you're replaying in your mind over and over again, it's almost like and maybe you could talk more about the mechanisms behind this because that runner's high idea, and being able to just exert your body often just quiets your mind and I always attribute that to, you're focusing on something else. Not just your thoughts, you're not just focusing on the thing that you're worried about, or the thing that you feel like you have to do, or you need to perform in a certain way. But when you get out there, and you just put it out there, it leads to this mental clarity that I think, in relation to the body mind components and putting all the pieces together, I think it just like settles things a little bit, and allows your body to do what it does best.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  15:24

  Yeah, I'd agree.

  Gerald Reid  15:25

  And, by the way, even if you're an athlete, and you're like, Oh, I work out every day, like, this doesn't relate to me, you both Barry and Nicole, you're both, you know, former athletes in college.

  Alexis Reid  15:34

  I would say they are still athletes. Maybe they don’t compete anymore, but are still athletes.

  Gerald Reid  15:43

  But once that structure is over, you know, you're not exercising as much as it used to, it's, you know, life changes. So again, if you're an athlete, don't think this doesn't apply to you, it will come down, you know, at some point, this is gonna come back to you, you know, you're gonna have to structure your life around this because you're not going to have a coach or someone telling you to exercise every day anymore.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  16:00

  It's true. I think that's like freeing in one way, or at least I felt I was like, No, I can go on a run, I don't have to tie myself, this is amazing. And it took me a little bit to be like, I can walk during this run. I'm not gonna get in trouble. But you're right, that structure is gone. And so then I think you just have to find what works best, which is true for anyone other not just athletes, right? It's like, what do I like to do? It's almost like I had to refine what I enjoy doing. And I was like, I actually don't like running that much, even though I played. So I had to find the other activities that I found, enjoy, like joy and right. And otherwise, it just felt like something I had to do every day. And I think athletes feel like it's a job. And so then trying to find enjoyment out of exercise is like a whole mindset shift.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  16:46

  I'll just totally echo what Nicole said, like, I took a little a step back once athletics ended, and then kind of got back into it and realized, oh, man, I kind of miss this training phase of things. So like, I don't lift as much or as often as I did when I played football, but I still really enjoy lifting now, because I had a little time to like, reset and stretch it for myself, kind of like what Nicole said,

  Alexis Reid  17:10

  I think that's so important. And I love that you guys are talking about like these different parts of our life. And I feel really fortunate to be able to work with people across the lifespan, I have, you know, students who are like eight or nine years old, and then I work with adults, you know, into their 70s and 80s, sometimes too and at all these different parts and points of their life where they're, oftentimes they're working with me because there's a transition somewhere or something new that they want to learn and improve. So all these different points in their life, they're like, Well, I've been doing it this way forever. You know, I don't understand why it's not working or doesn't feel good, or I'm not finding enjoyment in it anymore. And I think that's such a good reminder for the listeners, and just everybody in the world really, is that sometimes we need to take a step back and to reflect on: Okay, what works for me right now? And what's my access point to getting there? So from an exercise perspective, I mean, what would you recommend to folks to be able to, you know, take stock and take inventory, and like, this is how I used to do it. And this is what maybe I need now?

  Gerald Reid  18:10

  let me rephrase that a little bit. Like how much exercise is really needed, you know, from the physical? Oh, that's, that's another great add on. People are like, what are you start? I mean, there's so much information out there so much.

  Alexis Reid  18:21

  And everybody's an expert, by the way, especially with social media.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  18:27

  I've literally like I'm a certified trainer, I've had people come up in the gym to me and like, correct me. And I'm like, no, no, I'm the expert here.

  Alexis Reid  18:36

  Yeah, it’s not always what we hear on Tik Tok.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  18:39

  There's a lot of research that looks at the dose response between how much exercise you do on a daily basis. And then like the health and performance benefits. And by far and away, when you transition from being the most sedentary to just slightly physically active, you're on that steep part of the curve. So you get huge health and performance benefits just by transitioning from nothing to a little bit. And then as you progressively go more and more up that curve, the curve starts to flatten out. So your health and performance benefits, you still get more health and performance benefits by exercising a little bit more, but it gets to a point of diminishing returns. And then once you get on the extreme end of that curve, your benefits are much much smaller, if anything, and then also the risk for injury starts to creep up. So the I would say if you could imagine kind of like an upside down U, you want to transition from doing you know, a little or something to moderately physically active, and you get all these huge health and performance benefits and you enjoy it. But as you start to like really grind away at your training, trying to eke out every last little piece percentage point, you might get that, but you also might get burnout. And you might also increase your risk of getting some sort of injury down the road. So I think, unless you're an elite athlete, I say, like, focus on the peak of that upside down you, which is just get from like, doing nothing to doing something and maybe eventually getting moderately physically active,

  Alexis Reid  20:21

  I'm going to double down on that for a second, because this is something I had to learn, because I've gone from, you know, being, I would never call myself an elite athlete at all. But from feeling like I'm really strong and exercising at a certain level consistently, to having an injury or something else happen in my life, that kind of like moves me backwards, and then restarting again, oftentimes, my mindset would be like, oh, I need to get back to that level, like right away. And slowly progressing was really difficult for me to like, slow it down and take those smaller bites. So I kind of want to emphasize this, not just because it was difficult for me to relearn. But I think a lot of people could relate to that. Because if you have been able to perform or exercise at a certain level, like taking a whole new approach is really difficult, especially psychologically, let alone physically, because your body might still be like rehearsing the things you used to do, but you need to relearn it differently. I wonder if you have any advice or suggestions for that, too. I know you already kind of said it, Barry. But anything to add on or emphasize there?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  21:25

  Well, I don't know if this is taking us off onto a tangent, but you kind of mentioned the point of training yourself up to a certain level, and then kind of rethinking things. One just kind of little nugget is, once you've trained yourself up to a certain level of performance, the amount of exercise that it takes to maintain where you're at is much, much smaller than the amount of exercise that needs to take to get better. So another way of saying that is like, if you look at the literature, and you want to get stronger, for example, two to three days a week, two to three sets per exercise, those are kind of like the recommended doses. But once you've achieved that level of fitness that you're just trying to maintain, you can maintain that level of performance, with one day a week of lifting and one set per exercise. And so it's like, again, just to emphasize like the amount of exercise needed to maintain is much less than the amount of exercise needed to get better. And then one other just little nugget, is, if you want to maintain what you have that really the one key variable is maintaining your exercise intensity. So it when it comes to lifting weights, you want to maintain how much weight you have on the bar, that's how you measure intensity. And when it comes to running, it's either you know, your running speed, or your exercising heart rate, or some sort of metric that says this is how hard I'm going. And I'm going to maintain how hard I go, I'm just going to do it less frequently. And for shorter durations of time,

  Alexis Reid  22:56

  Can you say a little bit more about like the metrics that people should be using to try to determine what works best for them, because outside of Willy Wonka's lab at New Balance, I don't know if people really have a sense of what they need, or even the tools to be able to identify that.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  23:13

  And so just to make sure I understand the metrics to like

  Alexis Reid  23:17

  in terms of heart rate or intensity, and you know, like how to get there outside of hiring a trainer and having somebody who really knows what they're talking about and doing to guide you.

  Gerald Reid  23:27

  Because you said the word maintain, right. And I think that's the key word because we don't want people thinking like, oh, like I gotta get to this really high level and maintain it. But you're not even close to getting there yet. So I think Lex is kind of saying, how do you monitor your progress to get to a point where you then begin to maintain? And how do you kind of chart that progress of the intensity level to maintain?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  23:48

  So I guess in my world, keep it a little bit of a journal to get a sense for like, what, what are you using for your running metrics and your lifting metrics, and are those things getting better over time, so like, even in my world, I'm just do a mild little bit of journaling for my daily exercise, and I can still see me getting better in some lifts. As far as like either the number of times I can move away, or the amount of weight that I do move. And then just the point that I was trying to make was, once you achieve a certain performance level, the amount of exercise that you need is just much smaller to maintain that. And I also want to emphasize that like that's to focus on performance. You still need to, to maintain your physical activity, go for walks, do other things to maintain the health benefits as far as just performance benefits, which is how much weight can I lift? How fast can I run? How far can I run? Those are the things that can be maintained pretty well following just a small dose of exercise on a weekly basis. That is your question. Sorry,

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  25:00

  oh no, I was gonna say I can add to that of just like giving people general guidelines and feel free to jump in here too is like, generally, if you were to start a running program, or as we call it aerobic training, right, like so swimming, biking, running, it's going to take at least two weeks before you start to see some sort of changes, whether your heart rates gonna start to go down. So if you do the same exact mile, at the same speed, your heart rate should be lower over time as you get more fit. And that will allow you to feel like you can run faster. So you'll start to notice like, that route gets easier, or you can run further. The same thing is true for strength training, generally, people just starting out, it's going to take like 12 to 16 weeks. And that a lot of that beginning part is just like building the muscle movement and trying to understand like, how do I do this lift, and your body's trying to coordinate that signal from the brain to the muscle. And then once you get that movement pattern down, now you can start to increase weight. And that's when you'll start to notice more strength gains, as we call it, where your muscles might start to get bigger, etc. And you can do heavier weight, more reps. And so like to Barry's point, if you are doing an exercise, and you say I always do three sets of 10. And at the end of those 10 reps, it still feels like you could do more, you got to go up in weight. And that's one way to know you're improving. So I think that's that's an easy gauge versus like, definitely journaling is great. But if people don't want to track things, I think we're always tracking so many things today is just kind of like tuning in with yourself. Like can I push myself harder? Can I run faster? Did this feel easy when I finished this set? If so, like let's go up and wait for Let's push harder.

  Alexis Reid  26:41

  I think that's so important. And just monitoring the progress, being able to check in with yourself and to remember, you know, one of the biggest themes that we have on this podcast says that it's not always about the end goal. It's really about the journey. It's really about the process. And the process, you know, sometimes depending on the day, and we'll talk a little bit more about this in a minute. Depending on how much sleep you get, depending on other resources or any other inputs of energy sources that allow for you to work harder at different stages of your day or your week. I think all of that is really important for us to take stock in. Yeah, yeah. Thanks both for both of you would say that.

  Gerald Reid  27:15

  Great. Okay, so So we're talking about getting to a higher level of intensity with exercise and maintaining that. So what are some things that people can do? Just to take care of their bodies as they're doing this? You know, rolling certainly has become a thing, by the way, was rolling a thing when we grew up?

  Alexis Reid  27:31

  Can you explain rolling for a second?

  Gerald Reid  27:35

  No, like roll foam rolling? Yeah. So foam rolling, I really don't remember that being a thing when we, when we were growing. Yeah. So

  Dr. Barry Spiering  27:43

  foam rolling for the listeners is, usually it involves like a cylinder of foam, and you lay on it and put your body weight on it and start to roll along certain muscle groups. So like your hamstrings or your lower back. And it's like, it's like your own personal massage. So if, like, when we were young, you'd see research studies on Hey, does giving you just getting a massage between workouts, like enhance your recovery and help you get back to training more quickly. And massages are very time and financially intensive. So not everybody can afford a massage. But most people can afford a $10 piece of foam. And so if you can use that foam, like your own personal massage, then does it provide a bit of an advantage. I haven't looked too closely at the numbers, the science behind it. But just anecdotally, it just seems to be a very popular trend like us. If you go into a fitness place, you'll see people rolling before and after exercise. That's kind of a way to prepare their body to lift to loosen up kind of like as a supplement or a surrogate for stretching. And then after they left us there's like a cooldown kind of recovery process. And then in between days of training that also use it as a way to hopefully expedite the recovery process. So lots of people use it very popular. I just can't tell you. I haven't looked to see if there's like numbers behind whether or not it works.

  Gerald Reid  29:20

  What’s the difference between rolling and stretching?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  29:24

  Yeah, like so stretching

  Gerald Reid  29:27

  it physiology. Yeah. What does it do that's different.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  29:31

  Stretching would be like intended if your, your muscles are like bundles of tissue. Some of it is muscle itself, and some of that is connective tissue. So connective tissue is what connects your muscles to the bone. So when your muscles contract, that connective tissue pulls on your bones and that's what causes your joints to move. That's how human motion works. So stretching is intended to elongate so to make longer, the muscle in connective tissue to give you more range of motion. The massage last foam rolling, I think what people anecdotally report is like, maybe there's a little bit of binding around the connective tissue in the muscle. Without diving too deep into the anatomy, it's tended to maybe relieve that binding so that the muscle and connective tissue can operate a little bit more efficiently. So it might not another way of saying that just when people go to get a massage, if somebody starts rubbing on your back, they might notice you have a big knot. So that knot is like binding of the connective tissue in the muscle. So the massage is intended to relieve that not foam rolling is intended to do the exact same thing kind of relieved those knots. So it might might not actually elongate your muscles. But by relieving that knot, it allows your muscles to kind of go through their natural range of motion a little easier, a little bit more pain free.

  Gerald Reid  30:58

  Love it. It has definitely has helped me, particularly hip flexors, it's the hip flexor has been like an issue for me. So rolling has been great. So can you tell us a little bit about more about just recovery from exercise after? I mean, I guess, you know, stretching and rolling is something you do. Tell us about that. And before I ask you that question, I had a quick question from a parent that I work with wants to know, what are some things that you should do after 40 that are good for exercise? Like what are the health benefits or things that would be like maximizing your time for exercise?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  31:33

  Well, since I'm well above 40. So if I compare, like my training now versus my training when I was in my 20s, I think, for me, I still like to train hard. And training hard, definitely improves performance. But I just do that less frequently. So if I want to maintain or even get better if I can, then really a key is just being able to train hard. But I think what I find is either I can't, or I don't want to train really hard on back to back days or many times over the course of the week. So I just got to be kind to my body and give myself some space to recover. And that doesn't mean that on my off days, I'm doing nothing and just sitting around, I'm still being active, like like Nicole said, like, I go for more walks now as opposed to hard runs. I just do things that are keeping me physically active, but at a lower level. And in general, like being active and between strangers strenuous training bouts that does help with the recovery process. So it just, I'd say just summarize, I train, I tried to train just as hard, but just not as often. And I like to do lower intensity stuff in between hard training bouts to kind of help with that recovery process.

  Gerald Reid  33:01

  Okay, quick question. The term weekend warrior. Right? Is that healthy for people that just like on the weekend just like go real hard playing like basket pickup basketball when they're, like 50 years old or something? But they don't do anything else during the week?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  33:20

  Yeah, I think there's good data to say that you need to prepare your body for those types of things. So if you're a weekend warrior, and you've been sedentary for a while, and you jump straight into a rough game of basketball, or what choose your sport, the chances of getting injured are higher. And then also you're going to be even if you don't get injured, you're going to be really sore. And I can say that from personal experience. Like if I go play like flag football, all of a sudden, I'm using muscles that I've never used or haven't been using for a long time. So I just get very sore. So I would say even if your goal is to be a quote, weekend warrior, meaning that you do intense physical stuff on the weekends, I would my two pieces of advice would be like give yourself about 12 weeks to prepare up for that because that gives your not only your muscles and your bones, but also your connective tissue some time to adapt to that stress. So that way when you jump right in, your chances of injury have maybe decreased slightly. And then another thing that we'll do is the by preparing your body, that severe soreness will be alleviated a little bit. And then the other thing would be it's not just showing up on the weekends, but it's doing a little something during the week to maintain and prepare your body for those intense bouts of training or exercise or competition or whatever.

  Alexis Reid  34:49

  Sure. I feel like you're speaking to so many of our family members in asking that question. Because we have like a very like athletic family who loves to play basketball and all these things, but sometimes it's like Once a month during the summer when everybody's around, and it scares me. Not everybody's in the best shape all the time. But I'm wondering if you guys could talk a little bit to like the cardiovascular implications of that to not just on like, you're gonna be sore. I don't know if you are familiar with that data and research, but.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  35:19

  I don’t know about the weekend warrior like they are. But in general, like, like I mentioned, it takes like two weeks to start seeing improvements in cardiovascular changes. And it can take even longer to see, you know, long term changes, and sadly, we lose it pretty quickly. So if you start to get and I think that's the frustrating thing about exercise for most people is like, varies, right? That you can easily maintain it. But even if you take a week off, like within three to four days, you're already starting to lose, like a lot of adaptations that you had, where you had this lower resting heart rate, your muscles are stronger, right? You have all these, like adaptations that your body goes through, when you start training, and those are lost pretty quickly. You can get them back faster if you've already had that foundation, but it is frustrating. And it can ebb and flow pretty quickly. And it takes longer to gain it than to lose it. So I think if people are losing it, like are not consistent and trying to maintain it, it's going to be really difficult. I don't know if you're implying like people could have a heart attack or something.

  Alexis Reid  36:19

  Actually, yeah, I'm thinking about people who maybe are not exercising at all. And then yeah, it was sad and just jumping right back into it.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  36:26

  Yeah, I don't, I don't know if that I hopefully they would rate limit themselves. I would notice that they're not feeling well, and their heart's pounding, and they they need to take a break.

  Alexis Reid  36:36

  I would say that if you have the athletic mindset where people are like, Well, I used to be an athlete like this. So I could just jump right back into it. And yeah, perform at that level again.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  36:43

  Yeah, totally. Totally.

  Gerald Reid  36:45

  You heard it here. So if you're gonna be weekend, warriors, stick the Wii Sports.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  36:51

  One thing I'll add, though, over 40 is like really important for women and bone density. So osteoporosis, osteopenia is really prevalent. And so keep continuing to strength train. And I think there's one study that showed like just doing 10 squat jumps a day was beneficial in maintaining bone density for women, not I don't think a lot of people like to squat jump. But you need that kind of like loading on your bone in order to keep that that bone density maintained. And so that's really important.

  Alexis Reid  37:21

  I imagine that's also helpful with like, balance, and, you know, being able to catch yourself or get back up if, yeah,

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  37:27

  something like that. Yeah. And that's something they really mentioned a lot with, like aging research, if you read that, it's, it's like they call it activities of daily living, like, do you have the cardiovascular fitness level or muscular strength to be able to do just activities around your house, like, reach up like a lot of overhead movement gets lost as you age. And so you can't reach up in the top cabinet to get something used to be able to get you can't open a jar, you can't lift your groceries, I mean, that's further down the road, right. But if you think about also just maintaining fitness to do your normal activities in life that you want to do, I think that's also a good perspective to take.

  Alexis Reid  38:03

  I know, you want to get into the recovery portion of it. And I know you have another question, Jared. But I want to talk a little bit about like, not just for people who are getting older, we see so many young people, especially having more of a sedentary lifestyle, especially with COVID A lot of people kind of gravitated to the couch or working from home and sitting at their desk and video gaming, like all these different things that are so prevalent in our society, we're very much in a seated or laying down position. I mean, we see it all the time with our clients, especially not to judge or knock on it. But just to think about the physiological implications of that. I wonder if you guys can speak a little bit more to that specifically.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  38:42

  Yeah, there's there's research showing that there's some research calling sitting the new smoking. Yes, I heard. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of truth to that. And there's some recent research even showing, like if you go out and do like 30 minutes of intense exercise, but then you sit the rest of the day, that's equally bad. So it's best to just kind of maintain some movement throughout the day, right. And so I think that's where a lot of these wearable trackers will have like reminders to move every hour, and kind of get you moving around. But I think I like to think of the example of like our grandparents, where they didn't do these like regimented exercise programs, like I can't think of very many older adults in their 80s, who like grew up like doing exercise everyday, right, but they're generally moving and doing things. They're not like sitting for eight hours a day. And they I feel like for the most part are generally aging fairly well and physically healthy. So I think that's kind of the model I think of sometimes it's just like trying to move as Barry was saying, like, just move throughout your day. And it doesn't always have to be this structured routine.

  Alexis Reid  39:42

  Yeah. And if you are in the Netflix mindset, there are some really great documentaries on like the blue zones where they talk about, you know, people who are gardening and they're just getting out in their community and they're moving their bodies. Yeah, it leads to longevity, whether or not there's a direct correlation just with that, but there's a lot of health benefits to it too. so, yeah,

  Gerald Reid  40:00

  yeah, whenever I retire, I'm definitely having a garden.

  Alexis Reid  40:04

  So it's one of my favorite things to do, I consider gardening my exercise sometimes.

  Gerald Reid  40:10

  And a basketball hoop, Nicole, and Barry, can you real quick just comment on this phenomenon of the pre drink. So I want to kind of say it lightly. But it's also a very serious topic that like kids are really getting really like there's really huge risks to doing it in certain ways. Can you share a little bit about it?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  40:34

  Sure. So pre drinks are usually drinks that are highly caffeinated. And that may have some other ingredients that may or may not even do much like high doses of like B vitamins as an example. So in the sport supplement world, it's been a while since I've read this, but there are some supplements that legitimately work. So like, if you take a little bit of caffeine, before you exercise, you can exercise a little bit longer a little bit harder, if you take a little bit of creatine after before after you exercise, your gains and performance or muscle mass might be a little bit better. And there might be some other supplements that maybe do something but like nutrition, general nutrition, creatine, caffeine, pretty good information to say that they're, they're relevant. But the concern, I think, that you're driving towards is getting massively high doses. So instead of taking, like, one scoop of their pre drink supplement, or one can have their pre drink, their pre competition supplement, they're doing multiple cans or multiple scoops. And now they're, they're taking this mindset that, hey, if if a little bit is good, more is better. And I don't have the numbers in front of me to talk about that. But just the there are so many things in this world where that is not accurate. So more can definitely be have some negative consequences. So like, I think, like psychological indicators can get like anxiety, specifically, like, if you're taking way too much caffeine, like you can feel anxious. And then I think there's also some reports of people getting, you know, sued or whatever, because all of a sudden, when people are taking a supplement that a little is good, but more is worse. That can have some negative consequences. So another way of saying that is a little bit of caffeine can make you exercise a little bit longer. But there is a risk by going too far beyond that a little bit of caffeine approach

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  42:45

  And a lot of those aren't regulated either. Yeah, like a lot of the drinks you just buy from a gym or wherever they're like, there's no regulatory anything on them.

  Alexis Reid  42:54

  I was gonna say that too, because Dr. Wu on our previous episode, talked about how melatonin isn't FDA approved really regulated, right? So you never know how much of the thing you're putting in your body really you're getting, because even in a package or a pill form, like it might say it's one amount, but it really might be a different amount, because there is no regular. I'm glad you mentioned that. And the other thing too, is like caffeine, it could function as a stimulant, which can help you to kind of like zone in and focus a little bit differently. But to your point, too much of it can really kind of dis regulate you in different ways and lead to other potential implications that could work in the opposite direction, what you're trying to achieve.

  Gerald Reid  43:37

  So stimulants, right? I mean, in psychiatry, like Adderall and different ADHD supplement or medications are stimulants. But before you get prescribed that, and by the way, there's a lot of people who take this like when they're not even prescribed, it is dangerous. Yes, too much caffeine can be dangerous because and you get screened because it could be bad for your heart. And you have to know if your heart is able to take it or how much you should take for your heart. So they they do testing for that. So you know, I'm concerned about the impacts of the heart with something that could still have be a stimulant in that way.

  Alexis Reid  44:08

  And also the psychological factors like Barry was mentioning, like if you're going to hyper focus on something same goes with ADHD medications I hear all the time from my clients that, you know, it will help you focus it doesn't necessarily tell you what you're going to focus on. So you might be focused on like, these worry thoughts of like, how am I gonna do am I going to do well, and that can get in the way of your performance and you actually working towards your physiological goals too.

  Gerald Reid  44:33

  Alright, so we covered a lot of ground. And I, you know, I do want to talk about energy. So, in the sports psychology world and working with athletes, you know, there's a risk of eating disorders. It's not just for females, it also can be for males, though. I do want to just point this out in terms of energy, right, and so much of exercise requires energy. So I'm hoping you can talk a little bit Artist or something that a term that has been called relative energy deficiency in sport RED S, which essentially is what happens when athletes, especially elite athletes, you know, are not fueling their bodies enough. And unfortunately, you know, people can come down with an eating disorder where they restrict how many calories that are getting in their bodies. And it could lead to poor health, lack of energy, it could have reproductive health issues, bone density issues, immunity issues, metabolism issues, cardiovascular health issues, psychological issues, and so forth. And so this is really particularly in sports like that, that kind of idealized this particular thin ideal, which is societally you come up with an ideal meaning that, you know, particularly as women, like you know, the perfect body shape is very thin, which is, you know, first of all, it's, it's completely biased, and it's not accurate. But some sports like gymnastics, figure skating, diving, lightweight, rowing, wrestling, where the body is manipulated through calories, right. And so maybe you can share a little bit about, you know, the importance of energy and calories as it relates to exercising, you know, even for the movement, if you're not an athlete, you know, someone who's just exercising.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  46:16

  Yeah, so all great points. So, to take a step back, historically, there was this phenomenon that scientists observed, and they called it the female athlete triad. And so it was triad meaning there are three things that happen first, a female would eat less calories than her body required, because you have a, your body just at rest requires a certain amount of calories. And then as you train harder and harder, and more and more, you need more and more calories that are energy to support that. So pillar number one of the Triad was low energy intake or low energy availability. Then pillar number two is the consequence of that, which is disruptions in female reproductive hormones. Estrogen is one example. And because that takes you straight to pillar number three, estrogen has a really critical impact on bone function. So pillar number three was diminished bone mineral density or bone strength. And it was kind of like this downward spiral that as people exercise, the more and more and restricted they're eating is more and more, all of a sudden, you have this deficiency of energy. And then that has negative impact on rebuilt reproductive hormones. And that takes you into bone and performance and other physiological problems. So that that's been something that's been studied for decades now. And then just to expand our aperture a little bit that that that the female athlete, triad has been kind of changed to red s, as you just described, the relative energy deficiency. And part of the reason I believe, is because they wanted to capture that this is not just a problem in females, but the same consequences can hold true in males as well. So they just wanted to remove that and then a female and just say, Hey, this is a problem for every athlete who trains very hard, or anybody who restricts the amount of energy in relationship to their energy output, which is exercise. So that's, that's kind of my perspective on that. Yeah,

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  48:28

  I can just talk from like a high level. So when you're, when you're exercising, if you're doing something that requires energy really quickly, like say, you start going for a run or a sprint, your body is going to use what it has readily available, which is mostly the glucose or carbohydrates and your body in your bloodstream. And then it's going to try to mobilize the carbohydrates from your muscles that we store in there, right. And then if you're doing some low intensity exercise, like fat, walking, for example, or cycling at a decent like a moderate pace, your body has more time to pull fat. Fat takes a long time to mobilize. And then protein is usually like the very last thing that we'll use. But imagine that these athletes aren't eating much, right, they don't really have much carbohydrate reserve. So their body is trying to compete or trying to do these things at these really intense levels, and they don't have the energy to do that. So it's going to lead to injuries. Number one, right number two, they just can't meet that same performance level because they don't have anything to pull from. And then when they're recovering and our bodies also in this deficit, so it's starting to use the protein or the muscle itself for energy, which is never a state we want to be in if you want to perform at your best and and grow muscle.

  Gerald Reid  49:41

  You know, I've seen in the literature one, one article at least a while back and it hit me it said you know, eating disorders is kind of like an addiction. It's like a short term, quote unquote benefit with very long term, poor consequences. You know, the way that people use a substance that makes them may perhaps feel good in In the moment, but his long term really detrimental. Yeah. And it does remind me of that what you're saying like maybe like you're a gymnast, and you can perform really well that night. Yeah. But over the long run, even like months or years, like you do for your future, right, it's gonna be very detrimental. So it doesn't really make sense logically, if you think about it that way.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  50:17

  Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the spiral a lot of athletes get into, right? It's like a runner. They're like, Oh, if I lost five pounds, and I made my speed was faster, right, there is a certain benefit to being a certain weight for a lot of competitive sports. But then if you have this mentality of like, Oh, I just need to lose five more, because then I'll shave another couple seconds off my time. And then I think that's where it becomes dangerous, right? And it's really, really having the coaches or other people help them realize, like, No, this is your optimal weight. And this is the energy that you need to maintain this performance, and all the other gains that we're gonna get are through training and other ways, right?

  Gerald Reid  50:51

  And then you got to factor in the psychological. Yeah, they're just gonna make everything else worse. Really? True.

  Alexis Reid  50:57

  Year, I think that's a good point. But even taking it outside of the sport world. And as you mentioned before, Jer, like when you don't have the structure of practice and coaches around you, there are still so many people who are taking this on their own to say, like, oh, I need to lose as much weight to be able to, to look this way, or to perform at this level of whatever you're doing just leisurely, which I think is really dangerous. I wonder if you can speak a little bit to that, too?

  Gerald Reid  51:25

  Yeah. Do people have like a base? Like fundamental? What's the word for it? Like, a resting weight …

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  51:32

  resting metabolic rate? Yeah, yeah. So weight

  Gerald Reid  51:35

  that their body is supposed to be? Yeah, um,

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  51:38

  yes, they do. And then generally, you have a typical calorie intake that you should have for that metabolic rate. So they say the average is around 1500 calories a day. When I was training people, I realized really quickly, like, people don't have a good estimate of how many calories are in things, right? So it's like, I would have people log their, their nutrition, and they'd be like, Oh, I only ate 1000 calories for breakfast. So I'm like, Okay, well, we need to, you know, there are some people who are overeating for example, right and have the opposite problem where they're not sure how many calories are in things, but then I think it can become problematic, where people, once they learn the calories, they become obsessed, and then they start trying to dial back and dial back. And all they're thinking about is like reaching this number in order to lose weight. So I think there's been a lot of big movement recently. And we'd love to hear your thoughts too, very of, of trying to just focus on eating whole foods, eating until you're, like 80%, fully, I think the Japanese have that saying right, eat until you're 80%, full, eating whole foods, nothing processed. And usually, if you're doing that, you're going to be healthier, and be at an optimal. Wait,

  Gerald Reid  52:43

  is that called intuitive eating?

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  52:44

  Yeah, I think something like

  Dr. Barry Spiering  52:47

  Something like that Whole Foods is like yeah, for example, for the listeners out there that have Netflix, they're really good. Short, abbreviated series, I think it was called you are what you eat between experiment. And so they took identical twins. And they gave them both very good diets. It's just one was like all vegan vegetarian. And one also had lots of vegetables in it, but also had some processed meats and processed foods. And then they, they measure a whole bunch of health indicators along the way. And I'll let you watch it to get your own insights. But I think the points that some of the scientists were trying to make is like, they mentioned some studies saying that, like, processed foods are like a known carcinogen. So they talk about that a little bit. But then, going back to the original point, the people that were in the Vegetarian Group, some of them were just not keeping up with the calories they needed. Because when you're eliminating a lot of the processed foods and meat products, you're also eliminating a lot of calories. And if you're just not eating enough, some of the subjects actually they they maintained their body fat, but they lost muscle mass just because to Nicole's point, like if you're not providing enough calories, not providing enough carbohydrates, not providing enough fat, and now your body is just forced to rely on metabolizing and using muscle to fuel energy. And that's, that's not a place that you want to be. So two points, one, eating whole nutritious foods is critical to getting enough energy is also critical.

  Gerald Reid  54:28

  Great. This is so useful. Thank you for sharing all this. And so, I do want to take this in a little bit of a direction that was asked by one of my clients who was interested in, you know, training and exercising the differences between male and female bodies, you know, as it pertains to what you might want to be thinking about differently or doing differently. Is there any advice on that? Is there anything just that kind of stands out on the top of your head, just kind of quick hits there.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  55:00

  Yeah, I think this is like an ongoing debate, right? Where like, some people are like women are not little men. And then other people are like, no, they're the same. So I think there's like different opinions. But I think objectively, with the hormones that are in women versus men, they are different. And there's going to be different phases that are going on. So if you look at the menstrual cycle, which is typically 28, to 32 days roughly depends on the person. When you're menstruating that first four to seven days, all your hormones are lowest. And so that's when you're most similar to a man from that perspective. And so that's why a lot of research studies will only test women during that period when they compare them to men. And that's generally like when people say they're going to train based on the menstrual cycle, they push themselves the hardest during that first week, when they're menstruating. And they'll do like workouts that will be really high intensity, they'll do stuff that would try to promote improvements in performance. And then as estrogen starts to go up, and you ovulate, and then after that your progesterone is gonna rise and progesterone salon that can make you feel a little bit sleepy, it can throw off your sleep a little bit you some women complain that they don't get as good asleep leading up to the start of their, their menstrual their period. And they're your heart rates higher and your respiratory rates higher as well from progesterone, and so your workouts tend to feel harder. And so it's thought and there's good research showing this that during that phase, you should just try to maintain and so just do things that are you know that that would just keep your exercise level the same and not try to push it or go too hard. Not you shouldn't be doing any hit activity, think more like yoga, cardio, etc. And just kind of maintain the fitness gains that you hopefully got in the beginning of your of your menstrual cycle.

  Gerald Reid  56:49

  Wow, fascinating. isn't it also true that the hips of women are more wide? Meaning that there's more of an angle on the knee? Is that? Is there some research on that?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  56:59

  Yes, scientists call it a cue angle. So women have a little bit wider pelvis. So the the angle between your hips to your knees a little bit wider. Whereas men, it's like more vertical, their femurs are more vertically up and down. And so there's biomechanical problems. And it's also possible that when you combine a cueing that steeper cueing go with maybe some muscular imbalances that might predispose women to certain types of injuries. Yeah, there's a, the short answer is yes, there's a wider hip angle.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  57:38

  ACL injuries are like the main main thing

  Alexis Reid  57:41

  I was gonna say, even like during pronation, and your feet can impact depending on you know what your anatomical positioning is. And I think when you're running and doing more intensive exercise, you just have to be mindful of like your gear, your equipment, your form, right, building up muscles in the right way. You guys are the experts on this, not me. But that's what I know. Yeah.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  58:04

  Back in the day, when I was playing soccer, they had us literally do a box test where they would have us jump off a box. Because because of that angle, women's knees tend to go in and that's what causes the ACL. So like, if you go up cause an ACL injury. So if you go up for a header, right, you jump on and then you come down and land if you land with your knees in and someone's next to you could hit you etc. So the athletic trainers would have that just jump off a box, see if your knees go in? If they did, they'd put you on a training program to like work on strengthening the muscles so that you wouldn't have an ACL injury. But I would say very often the women that they flagged ended up with an ACL entry later in the season, sadly, yeah. So I don't know if they're still doing that test or not.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  58:45

  I think yeah, I think it's called the landing error scoring system, the LESS. I think that is being used quite often. And, in fact, I think the military is investigating whether or not there's relevance for soldiers as well.

  Alexis Reid  58:59

  I'm gonna bring this back to the thing that you said before. And Joe, you mentioned, it's such a shame that a lot of physical education programs in schools are getting, like filtered out because I would imagine that things like that would be so helpful for kids to do, right learning more about concussion and the impact of like different injuries, especially head injuries, thinking about how your body is shaped and formed and what muscle muscle exercises would be helpful to support you whether you're going to become an athlete or not. Like just thinking about your body in a certain way would be so important, better posture,

  Gerald Reid  59:36

  We’re always leaned over on the computer. Sometimes I say to him, like he kind of like hunched over my character so much in

  Dr. Barry Spiering  59:42

  In the science world. grip strength, which is so easy to measure is such a powerful predictor of because your grip strength is proportional to the strength of other muscles throughout the body. And so if you can just bring in somebody and measure grip strength throughout their lifespan, grip strength can predict Things like poor function, or I could totally be wrong on this. But I think there's been some links also to like mortality, like your grip strength degrades. Yeah. As you're trying to gauge your risk of death increases.

  Alexis Reid  1:00:13

  But yeah, I've read. I've read that a little bit. That's great that you mentioned that, thank you. But like little things like that I don't think they're doing in physical education programs, like I hear my students, especially the younger ones are like, oh, yeah, we played dodgeball. I'm like, Okay, you're moving your body. And it's hopefully fun, or more often than not anxiety provoking for a lot of kids. But, you know, these these simple exercises that would teach us so much about our bodies, I think at a young age would be so important.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:00:43

  The only comment that I would add is like, making it like a holistic way of educating somebody not only about physical activity, but health. So like, teaching somebody skills, how to play a sport that gets them excited, making sure people have fun when they play sport that keeps them to be a lifelong exerciser. But educating somebody on nutrition and maybe a little bit of exercise physiology. You don't you don't need a PhD on it, but like a lecture or two, at certain ways along your lifespan that can be really powerful to like, just know, like, like Nicole mentioned, working with people in a fitness facility, like knowing like, how many calories that you need, and knowing what what is the difference between carbohydrate and protein and fat. And like these basic questions that not only does the general public not have the people that work, some people that work in healthcare also don't have that education. So I think just maybe there's just a general plug to say like teaching people to be lifelong physical exercises, but also understanding the basic building blocks behind it, I think, could go a long way for building a healthier society.

  Alexis Reid  1:01:51

  That's such a great point, one of the things that I found really fascinating, I was listening to a podcast with with Chris Paul. And he's like, you know, when I was younger, I just was so naturally talented, I didn't really think about what a and I was eating like all the wrong things. And once I learned about nutrition, and he has a really very intense health journey that he's been on that he talks about, and it's like, a lot of elite athletes sometimes have these natural talents, and they build up their skills, but they're not thinking about those other components, which I think are so important and such a big part of the bigger picture of it all.

  Gerald Reid  1:02:24

  okay, I'm gonna, we're gonna eventually get to sleep, because Nicole is an incredible expert on sleep. And we're really excited. So I'm gonna like slowly segue gradually to there. So I'm going to ask you a question that one of my athlete clients asked Is college athlete at a very high level, and he's wondering, you know, these college athletes particular, you know, you can, you can perform at such a high level, and have such intensity. It's like such an intense experience. And so what advice would you give about kind of like, kind of letting your body recover from that, and not stay in that high state, right, you kind of have to like travel and like, you have this high intensity game going on. And you have to, like, show up in class the next day. Or like, you have this intense practice and like, you know, next time you're like, sitting in a lecture, and you're just, you know, your body is just so activated. And so what what can you say about that?

  Alexis Reid  1:03:22

  I'm going to tag on before you answer, because we also have a lot of clients who are adolescents and young adults who have practices until like, eight, nine o'clock at night. Oh, my God. Yeah. be late or four or five in the morning, which is unbelievable to me.

  Gerald Reid  1:03:38

  Yeah. Okay, real quick. The high school students I work with, they're like, I'm like, well, like, Okay, you get home, you have dinner for like, five minutes. And then you gotta, you gotta do your homework. And then you got to practice it like a PM, you get back in at 10pm. Then you actually have real dinner. Yeah. And

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:03:53

  then you're awake.

  Gerald Reid  1:03:56

  Then you need time to have fun. Yes, you can have fun all day. So you're on the computer, doing whatever you're doing.

  Alexis Reid  1:04:02

  Constant intensity. Yeah.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:04:05

  So I'll tell a couple of stories just to nail the point, hopefully. So we're gonna do balance. We get some great speakers along the way. And we, we had the senior physiologist at from the US Olympic training centers. Randy over, it came to visit and he talked to our professional runners and our lab staff. And he gave a really great analogy. And he said, if you're trying to grow a garden, exercise is like planting the seed. Nutrition is like fertilizing the garden. But sleep and recovery is when the garden grows. So if you're not sleeping and you're not recovering, you can plant all the seeds you want. The garden is just not going to grow. And maybe another way of saying the same thing is this is gonna sound ridiculous, but exercise doesn't make you perform better. Recovery from exercise makes you perform better. So now The way to like as a thought experiment, like Jerry, let's say we measured how high you could jump, and you can jump like 24 inches. And then we put you through a really tough workout. Can you jump higher or lower? Now right at the very like, right, when you finish exercising, or jumping higher, you jump in lower

  Gerald Reid  1:05:21

  I feel like this is a trick question, I'm gonna guess, linear is lower, because I'm more tired. Exactly,

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:05:25

  yeah, you're gonna just look like if I, if I measure how high you can jump, I put you through a strenuous workout, you're gonna jump lower. Exercise just made you worse. But if we give you 2448, whatever hours to recover, good diet, good sleep, good everything else. Now, when we re measure how you can jump, maybe it's 24.2 inches. So recovery from exercise has made you jump higher. Exercise itself actually just makes it worse. So just just a simple, silly little thought experiment, to kind of emphasize the point that like, recovering from exercise is where the garden grows. That's how you get better.

  Gerald Reid  1:06:03

  Two analogies of the garden. One episode. Let's go. Let's go. And by the way, you heard it from Dr. Barry Spiering more is not always better than twice in so many words.

  Alexis Reid  1:06:18

  I'm gonna actually double down on that too, because I talk to a lot of college athletes and hear from them. And they say that, okay, I'm recovering. But sometimes that means like going out, like they'll say, like, I'm just not exercising. And I think you've already mentioned this before, but you know, that time in between intense exercise needs to be well spent, it needs to be intentional, versus just not exercising. Go ahead.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:06:47

  Maybe just another just one study to kind of emphasize what you said, yeah, there was a study published maybe like 10, or 15 years ago. And it was a bunch of college students in a college one credit class where they strength train. And so they measured everybody's strength, put them through a college strength training program for a whole semester, measured everybody's strength at the end, but they also gave them a life survey. And they measured all sorts of aspects of life. And what they found was the students that experienced a high level of self reported life stress, their strength gains are significantly diminished compared to the students that had low life stress. So I use that as just one example to say that like, lots of things influence recovery, Nicole is going to talk about sleep. And maybe we'll talk about diet, stress is another thing. alcohol intake, like all of these things, can really draw out what is your recovery pattern? And are you really recovering? Because there's no doubt about it, like, recovery, sleep, diet, they all play a big role in whether or not you're going to get better over time.

  Alexis Reid  1:07:58

  Can I also add in like a little bit of like, mindful, quiet to like, focus on the quiet of your mind to, to help in that processes?

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:08:08

  Yeah, that's what I was gonna say as like, an aid to the athletes who are, like, amped up all the time, right? And I think like meditation, mindfulness, those kinds of things, or like even just focusing on your breath, is going to help kind of calms the nervous system. So that might be a good technique.

  Gerald Reid  1:08:24

  Yeah. Last episode, we talked about being in the present moment. And one of the things I pointed out too, is like, sometimes we just need calm people around us. Like, maybe develop a community of people have a roommate who's calm. Okay, and by the way, alcohol is really bad for muscles and exercise, right, and recovery and sleep. So it's something I actually didn't know about until like, you know, till I learned about it, but it legit has negative effects, right?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:08:57

  So, there's one way that scientists like try to precisely measure recovery. And so your muscles are made out of proteins. And so when you exercise, if I measure your synthesis or your creation of new muscle proteins, when you exercise, that number goes up, because that's your body's way of repairing damage and also making new proteins so your muscles are now stronger and have more mitochondria to fuel, cardiovascular exercise, so they use changes in muscle protein synthesis as like a metric for how well your body is recovering. Sleep. One night of sleep deprivation diminishes muscle protein synthesis. alcohol intake, diminishes muscle protein synthesis, protein and carbohydrate ingestion after exercise accentuates or elevates muscle proteins. So it helps you recover. So all that to say is those basic things that we all kind of know intuitively, getting a good day sleeping enough, avoiding alcohol, those kinds of things. Not only do we intuitively know that they make a difference, but scientifically, we can show you that it does make a difference.

  Alexis Reid  1:10:11

  Thank you. I think there's a lot of clients of ours and listeners who will really benefit from hearing that or just as a reminder, I think we all like intuitively know what's good and bad for us. But sometimes we need that reminder to say, Yeah, okay,

  Gerald Reid  1:10:24

  Just real quick… What's the amount? This is like me just geeking out? What is the amount of protein that you need after you exercise because some people would be like, give me like your body weight. And I'm like, that sounds like a lot of protein.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:10:36

  So, I'd say as I'm just gonna say, a rough rule of thumb, it's not exactly this number. But over the course of 24 hours, roughly aiming for one gram of protein per gram of bodyweight. Wow, is about right. So if you weigh 150 pounds, over the course of a day, getting about 150 grams, yeah, the number of actual numbers, maybe just a little bit less than that of maybe like 125. But one gram per one pound is just like a good rule of thumb. But protein can come in a number of ways like glass and milk, 10 grams of protein, you just, you know, take a quick peek at like the nutrition label, or do a quick search. Like, if you have one chicken breast that might be like 30 grams, that's like a huge chunk just off of that. There's, there's vegan sources of protein that that will work. Beans and things like that lagumes. So there, you can get protein from a lot of different food sources. But just making sure that you're roughly getting about a gram per pound of body weight is just a rough rule of thumb.

  Gerald Reid  1:11:43

  Cool. Awesome. Okay, anything else about recovery? Before we move on to the hot topic of sleep?

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:11:49

  I’m good on my end. Okay.

  Gerald Reid  1:11:52

  All right. Where do we start? What happens when we sleep? Nicole?

  Alexis Reid: Such a broad question. That's an easy one.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:11:57

  It’s a lot of things. Yeah. So it's very mentioned, you're gonna have muscle repair, recovery, right? Muscle growth, we release hormones like growth hormone that helps in that muscle recovery repair. We also have improvements in our brain, it's like we have cleaning in our brain that's going to help us we also consolidate memories, we process emotions, so a lot of different things. And it gives our our cardiovascular system has a chance to recover as well. Our metabolic rate is gonna go down. And our temperature, body temperature is gonna go down as well.

  Gerald Reid  1:12:34

  I have a really specific question for you. Sure. From really broad, specific. I was talking to my patient about this, she experiences the same thing. How come? Sometimes I go to sleep, and I'm cold, which is kind of nice, because you put the sheets on you get warmer, yeah. But later in the morning, like as hours go on, I wake up and I'm hot. What is that? It wakes me up.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:12:57

  That's your circadian rhythm. Yeah, so that's perfectly normal. So when you when you start to go to sleep, you might start to feel cold. And that's because your core temperature is starting to go down. And your hands basically you're sending blood to your hands and feet. So your body's trying to drop your core temperature even further. And melatonin is going to help this but even if they've put people just like even during the day, if you stimulate somebody's skin temperature, like if you warm their hands and feet, you can induce sleep. So yeah, so there's some really cool stuff going on. And they're kind of tease apart, like the impact of skin temperature versus melatonin and core temperature and how they're all related. But your core temperature is going to drop down throughout the night, it's going to be lowest around four to 6am depends on the person, and then it starts to go up again before you wake up. And that's probably when you start to feel hot. The other thing I'll say with that is in the first half of the night, as your core temperature is dropping, and just so in case, nobody knows what core temperature is, it's like the core body temperature around your organs. So it's like that deep internal temperature. And then skin temperature is like what would be the temperature of your hands feet, if you were to just put a thermometer against your skin. So in the first half of the night, when your core temperature is dropping, that's when you're gonna get most of your deep sleep. In the second half of the night, as your body temperature is getting warmer, that's when you get all of your REM sleep. There's a difference in how your body can regulate temperature during those sleep stages. So in REM sleep, as you probably know it, that's when you have more dreaming. And if you've ever had those dreams where like somebody's chasing you, you can't run and it's like terrifying, right? You can't get away and that's because your muscles are paralyzed. Well, what else is essentially paralyzed is your body's ability to regulate temperature. Wow. So you can't sweat as well. You can't send blood to the periphery, which is another way we get rid of heat. And so as your body's warming up, if you're already hot from like having extra blankets or your rooms warm, you're going to wake up even hotter because you can't regulate your temperature as well during REM whereas on the first half of the night if there's temperature Your fluctuations in your room, you're unlikely to probably wake up from it because your body is able to regulate temperature better.

  Gerald Reid  1:15:06

  Wow, that's fascinating. Where do I go with that? You know, you're talking about temperature in sleep and that's your your, your big specialty now with eight sleep, the company that you're working for so, so so maybe you can just tell us a little bit about how that relates to getting better sleep. I think one of the things our audience definitely wants to learn about is, how can we get better sleep last two episodes ago, we met with Dr. Wu, we talked about kind of the psychological, some of the physiological aspects of it. But tell us about this, like temperature aspect and the environment. We didn't talk too much about the environment and setting up an environment to sleep well, in the physiological aspects of getting better sleep. So maybe, you know, wherever you want to go with that, but very interested to hear from you about this.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:15:49

  Yeah, sure. So there's a lot of different things that can impact your sleep, other than alcohol, exercise, etc, right? There's external things. So like you mentioned, the environment of your room. And that can range from the temperature, the humidity, it can also be the co2. So if people have sleep with their door closed, and it's not well ventilated, and there's say there's two people in the room, and there's not a lot of oxygen flow, co2 levels can increase. And that can also lead to more awakening. But generally, there's certain temperatures that are optimal for sleep right and keeping your room temperature slightly cooler. We've probably heard you guys have heard about that. Generally, hotter temperatures, like above 80 Fahrenheit will lead to more sleep disturbances. On the flip side, really cold temperatures aren't as problematic. As long as you have like bedding clothing to put a bunch of layers on, you're generally going to be okay. So it's more of those hotter temperatures that will will bother people.

  Alexis Reid  1:16:45

  Is there's something to be said about like when it's colder in the room, your body has to work harder to keep your core temperature at a certain level.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:16:53

  yeah. So you can have shivering, right, which is a way for your body to keep yourself warm. But interestingly, you can only shiver when you're in light sleep. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So that's only the only way you can essentially keep yourself warm. Like, the way that your body would normally do it is during light sleep, you could shiver deep and REM you're not really able to do that. So you might wake up to cold. But in deep sleep, you prefer colder temperatures.

  Alexis Reid  1:17:19

  Is there a way to figure out like what temperature works best? Like what's like the sweet spot for you? Like, yeah, individual to figure out like what temperature it should be for them when they sleep?

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:17:28

  Yeah, so two things along those lines. One is that women and men prefer the same temp, like body temperature when they sleep. However, women have slightly cooler skin temperatures than men because they have a lower metabolic rate. And so women, this is why they prefer the room slightly warmer than men, and hence a lot of fights between, oh, I want the room warmer and the other person wants it colder, right? The the guy’s usually like I'm sweating, like I can't handle this and the woman's like, well, I'm freezing. So that's why and that's where like our company's product base. A lot of partners say like this saved our marriage. can be programmed separately. Yeah. So yeah, so that's one of the things. The other thing I'll say is like when you're awake, the temperatures that you prefer, are actually a lot cooler than what you need when you're asleep. And so I think a lot of people get into trouble. And this is true for like our product to people like happily set all these like really cold temperatures while they're awake, because they're like, Oh, this feels great. And your body actually needs temperatures a couple of degrees warmer when you're sleeping. And so then they wake up to cold, right? And so kind of think about, it's kind of like thinking about your future self. Like when you're going to bed, oh, I actually might want an extra blanket nearby or I might want something a different clothing than how I'm feeling now.

  Alexis Reid  1:18:48

  That's great. That's a good plug for some of the other episodes we talked about is thinking about your future self, right? Sometimes being too simple. And in the moment actually gets in our way.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:18:58

  Yeah. And with you starting to feel cold before you fall asleep. So that's like, a lot of people don't think about with jetlag. But if you've experienced jetlag, often you'll be awake and start to get the chills or you feel cold. Or if you like, stay up past your normal bedtime by a couple hours, you start to feel cold and lost because your core temperature is starting to drop. Wow. So you're not adjusted to that new time zone. Right, your body's still on that old time zone. And your core temperature is doing its normal, like I'm gonna go down and then come back up again. And it's on its old time zone. And so when you're on a new time zone, your core temperature is doing its thing, it's dropping down, and you're like, I'm freezing, and now I'm really tired, actually. And that's your cue to go to sleep. And so that's one of the reasons you feel that coldness and same thing if you stay out late or stay up later than normal, you'll start to feel cold.

  Alexis Reid  1:19:48

  Is that similar to the idea of like the consistency in your sleep time like getting to bed and then why your body tends to like wake up at the same time even if you don't have to.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:19:57

  Yep, yeah, and that's exactly why Yeah, and women tend to have a slightly earlier circadian rhythm meaning they should go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier than men. Generally.

  Alexis Reid  1:20:06

  I see Barry and Jerry looking at me. Yes, I'm very big on being vulnerable, and especially with my clients and yeah, it's no secret that I'm, I'm working on my sleep every night. We're getting better.

  Gerald Reid  1:20:28

  Apparently, most people in the country are not most but like a good amount. Yeah. Okay, so. So I think I had another question for one of my clients. He said, If you get eight hours of sleep, but you go to bed at different times during the week, does that affect anything? Question mark?

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:20:45

  Yeah, the short answer is yes. Right. And so there's this, I think, in the last two years, maybe two or three, there's a term called Social jetlag where you're up late on the weekends. And so it's almost like you're taking a trip to a new time zone altogether. And so your body's trying to adjust, right, so you stay out till 2am. And now your body's on a new time zone, and you're waking up late, and then you try to shift it back on Monday morning again. And this gives your body just this crazy, like, out of whack feeling, right? Where it's like, I'm used to doing this, this is my rhythm. And it's in every cell of your body. Right. And this is same thing is true for nightshift workers where they're working maybe four days of the week on a certain schedule, and then the other three days, they're trying to do a normal, like everyone else schedule and their body is just all out of whack and can't figure out what time of day it is or what's going on.

  Gerald Reid  1:21:34

  Does that affect hormones, too? And kind of weight gain? Being? Yeah, that type of Yeah, is like overnight shifts workers and stuff.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:21:40

  Yeah. So it's going to increase I like it on the hormone itself. But I want to say ghrelin, so it's going to make you hungrier. And so people tend to reach for like sugary, more carbee foods, and then that can lead to weight gain eventually, and then it also causes other metabolic dysfunction. So there's a big link between lack of sleep or sleep deprivation, like continuous sleep, deprivation, obesity, diabetes, all these things are connected.

  Alexis Reid  1:22:06

  what would you suggest to folks, you know, like first responders or overnight shift workers to, you know, obviously, they don't have too much control over the hours they are sleeping, but is there anything that they can maybe keep in mind or do differently? That might help?

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:22:22

  Yeah, I think trying to maintain that night shift schedule, even on the days that you're off is helpful, but I don't think that's ideal for most people, probably because they want to see friends, family, etc, on those days. But that will help if you maintain that schedule. There's some research showing you could like, take a nap before your shift, and that would help you be more alert. But other than that, just trying to like blackout shades, keep the room quiet, right, try to just keep it somewhat have as much of a consistent schedule as you can, is really helpful. And then I think the other thing that is coming out pretty recently is just like food as a cue to your body. And that's plays a huge role in circadian rhythm too. And so there's a lot more studies now on like when you eat and the timing of when you eat and how it stimulates your body or wakes you up, or can even shift your circadian rhythm similar to how light can shift your circadian rhythm. So just being careful about the timing of when you eat before you go to sleep, too.

  Alexis Reid  1:23:18

  Can you say a little more about that? What like, what should people think about as you're just kind of thinking about these food cues in relation to that? Yeah,

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:23:26

  so like, a lot of times if I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but like, you know, if you eat late at night, it's usually like it'll prime you and you're kind of like more awake now. Versus if you generally people say to not eat two to three hours before bed, because that kind of allows your body to digest the food. Also, I don't know if you've noticed, if you have a wearable or anything to track it, you see, your heart rate might be higher if you eat right before bed when you go to sleep. And your heart rate will be higher the next day and your body's still trying to digest while doing all these other functions and repair, recovery, etc. So it really is beneficial. But yeah, recent research is showing that food is just a really strong cue and part of your circadian rhythm.

  Alexis Reid  1:24:08

  Yeah, I don't think I ever thought about this until I learned about it. And now I can't not think that like your body is working even when you're not doing anything. Yeah, if you're eating too late at night, your body's still working. So it prevents you from fully relaxing. And getting out of this overstimulated mind it does the same thing as as your stomach and all your organs working together. So, you know, it's it's so fascinating. So thank you for sharing about that.

  Gerald Reid  1:24:33

  Yeah, it sounds like that. You know, we talked with Dr. Wu a little bit about like, you know, sleep aids and how it can actually make your sleep quality worse. We don't have to get into that now. But I'm sure that has a lot to do with it that your body's doing a lot of stuff in spades in terms of like medications and different you know, substances people use. Yeah, and that could sometimes get you to sleep but it's not good for sleep quality sometimes. So, what else about sleep? I mean, just tell us some fun facts, you know, anything that would a warm glass of milk really be helpful? Should I be doing that?

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:25:08

  I don't know about that. I've seen any papers online, there are studies on. So going back to like the temperature side of things if you if you want to kind of stimulate that sleep onset or when you would fall asleep sooner, there are studies showing that if you do like a warm bath or a warm shower before bed, like 30 minutes before bed, that you can promote falling asleep faster. So there's things like that, that you that you could do

  Gerald Reid  1:25:35

  How about like not drinking anything like too late, because then you have to wake up and use the bathroom.

  Nicole Moyen: 1:25:41

  I'm sure that's helpful. I don't know if I've seen studies. I haven't tried to look for that. But yeah, well actually

  Gerald Reid  1:25:47

  relate to this. Because with enuresis, who wet the bed in the middle of the night, and they feel so embarrassed and ashamed? At times? It's like such a simple solution. It could be sometimes. Yeah, I just don't drink anything past 8pm. Yeah, yeah.

  Alexis Reid  1:26:01

  I'm going to put a plug in just for, you know, mindfulness practice, whether it is meditation, or just trying to find ways to quiet your mind, like we talked about on the episode with Dr. Wu, you know, giving yourself time and space when you're not laying down to go to sleep. Yeah, to actually let your mind wander and to kind of release some of this inner tension that we hold in our minds, right? Whether it is in you know, I'm a big proponent of you know, make a list before you go to bed, like kind of get all the stuff out of your mind, onto paper. Don't just think about it, but like release it in some way. So that you can get to a point where you're not overstimulated, especially cognitively. So like, find a way whatever it might be, to be able to just like, let it all out. I love the idea of like taking a bath or a shower. At the end of the day. I always say like, wash the day away. Yeah. So that you can go into this next portion. It's almost like chapters of your day. Yeah. And the ending chapter of your day is all about like that release and that calm and that settling your mind in your body to be ready for sleep.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:27:01

  Yeah, totally. And there's something to be said about having a routine, right. And a lot of if you talk to a lot of sleep people, they'll say like, make sure you have that routine every night, whether it's even just like, Okay, I write stuff down in a journal and get all my thoughts out right for 10 minutes, and then I go brush my teeth, and then I do this, and then I do that. And it's like the same order. And it stimulates your Oh, not stimulates. But it programs you to just say okay, now it's time for bed. Cool. Absolutely.

  Gerald Reid  1:27:24

  So we're getting towards the end here. Can you quickly just tell us about Sleep Eight, you know, just let us know what it actually is?

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:27:30

  Yeah, so Eight Sleep is essentially Yeah, no, it's okay. Eight Sleep is essentially a mattress topper. So it's like a cover like a fitted sheet that you put over your mattress. And each side can be programmed separately. So it heats and cools each side of the bed separately, throughout the night. And we actually modify the temperature of your bed based on the sleep stage you're in. So kind of like where I was talking about how during deep sleep, you need cooler temperatures and REM sleep, you need warmer temperatures. So we use that principle and then apply circadian rhythm to that as well. And then, in addition, we have sensors in the bed that also track your heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate and your sleep stages. So you it's kind of like a wearable, but you don't have to wear anything.

  Alexis Reid  1:28:10

  Let me know if you need another tester.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen: We always do. We always do.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:28:19

  I can be a big proponent, I definitely noticed.

  Gerald Reid  1:28:21

  Well, you both are, you know, research scientists and you doing research on this? Right? Yes, there's proven effects, which is nice to hear not everything. Not every product has that type of evidence behind it.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:28:32

  Yeah. And that's it. The thing that we notice over and over again, and this is similar to what Barry was saying with exercise. So it's like if you have the couch potato and the fit person, and they both do the same training program, that couch potato is gonna see the biggest gains. And it's the same thing with sleep with eight sleep. And we see this time and time again, the people with the worst sleep. So really low amounts of deep sleep really low amounts of REM sleep low total sleep time, like they're getting less than seven hours a night. They get on the pod there, though, people that are seeing the biggest improvements in their sleep. Oh, yeah. So if you already have pretty good sleep, right? It's not it. There's only a little bit we can help you right. But it's if you're if you're struggling, then this can really be helpful.

  Gerald Reid  1:29:14

  Let's just relish in how genuine that comment was. Nicole? Thank you. Honest, you know, I love honesty when we're talking about you know, what we know, you know, this the you know, that's amazing. Thank you. Yeah,

  Alexis Reid  1:29:27

  you all were incredible in sharing so much of the research, your anecdotal experiences, and the work that you've done over the years, but but also being mindful that not everything is for everybody, right? And it's all about the individual figuring that out. And I think that's the benefit of my work when I work with individuals and you too, Jerry.  Like, we help people to reflect back what's going to help the most and to pay attention to that. And I think that's really the message that we have here on the podcast most often is, you know, we can share all of this great advice all these great strategies all the research behind everything. But really when it comes down to it, it's so nuanced. And you really need to just pay attention. So if folks that are listening or anyone you encounter is interested in this information, it's like, take the information, and then take the time to reflect, you know, we're not big proponents of sound bites or a list of things to do, because it doesn't always work. But really paying attention to what you need, I think is is the key. So we offer that to you all. And we're grateful for you guys joining us today. Thank you.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen: Thanks for having us. Thank you.

  Gerald Reid  1:30:29

  Thank you so much. And by the way, with all the information you've gotten, you know, certainly speak to your doctor if you're going to make any big changes in terms of your your health, your physical health and so forth and your mental health as well. You know, we don't want this to be a substitute for you know, professional advice that you can get from someone who knows you as an individual. To Alexis point. We are so grateful for everything you guys shared. This has been amazing. Yeah.

  Dr. Barry Spiering  1:30:49

  For a lot of fun. Yeah.

  Dr. Nicole Moyen  1:30:50

  Thanks for having us.

  Alexis Reid  1:30:51

  Thank you guys. Be well.

  Gerald Reid  

  Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and we look forward to future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.

How do we care for our bodies? In this episode Alexis & Jerry are joined by two expert physiologists to discuss exercise, fitness, and how to recover well. Dr. Spiering and Dr. Moyen are both physiologists and research scientists who have decades of experience researching and identifying best practices for efficient exercise, recovering from exercise, and the importance of getting good sleep. Listeners will gain a deep understanding of both the mechanics and practicality of taking care of our bodies, which in turn can improve mental health. 

Topics discussed include understanding why physical movement/exercise is imperative to health, preparing as an athlete or anyone engaged in exercise routines, “weekend warrior” competitions, understanding our bodies via education, the many factors that can impact our bodies recovery from exercise, as well as the quantity and quality of our sleep, aging, and the importance of moving our bodies. Questions from athletes, students, and adults are filtered in to address common curiosities about these important topics.

Be curious. Be Open. Be well.

The ReidConnect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com

*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.