Sleep, Longevity, and the ROOT of Disease with Jason Prall
👉 Get Jason’s Film Series ‘The Human Longevity Project’ HERE
As a former engineer, among many other titles, Jason Prall is a sleep expert. Back in 2018 he did an independent research study as a practitioner that led him to create The Human Longevity project – a 9 part film series – that uncovers the true nature of chronic disease. This is what made Jason stand out to me. When it comes to disease, it’s not just what we see on the surface. It’s not always “hormones” or “aging” or “insert whatever here”. There is a WHOLE range of contributing factors that we have to uncover and discover that feed into our equation of “health”.
The traditional system that we have grown up knowing often fails us. Doctor’s typically do NOT dive deep enough to find the reasons WHY things are happening. Western Medicine is amazing for crisis care, sick care, and emergency absolutely. But the problem we run into is that we start leaning into medications, drugs, and surgeries as the ONLY option without thinking about lifestyle and natural therapies to help SOLVE the problem. Western medicine is simply NOT the answer to preventative medicine and health. This is what led Jason to start diving deep into what HE was uncovering not only for himself, but for many others as an integrative health practitioner and health educator.
The traditional medical system is simply NOT taught research proven methods to solve a lot of our chronic issues.
What Preventative Health Measures Should We Be Taking?
Preventative measures should revolve around natural remedies – things like exercise, nutrition, herbs, turmeric, garlic, grapefruit seed extract, etc. They should NOT revolve around pharmaceuticals. Using pharmaceuticals as preventative care is not doing you any favors and is actually making things worse in 99.9999 cases. They kill off the microbes and good bacteria that our bodies NEED in order to properly fuel our cells and power our systems the way they were designed to run. BUT it doesn’t matter if you’re just eating 100% healthy…what matters is what you are able to metabolize and what your gut microbiota are able to metabolize.
While the gut microbiome is one critical factor of health, so is sleep! (and yes, there is a connection).
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Why is Sleep So Important in the Bigger Picture of Health?
The types of bacteria in your body will actually shift depending on the quality of your sleep! Everything inside of us is dynamic and everything we do, think, and believe is impacting the function of our bodies. The stages of sleep are really important for us – in terms of rest and restoration – and equally important, is our circadian rhythm. At different times of the day, as well as our sleep, we have different things happening in our body. This is why getting really great sleep in the middle of the day is NOT the same as getting really great sleep in the middle of the night.
Sleep is actually SO important that when we lose an hour of sleep to daylight savings, we see an increase in ALL chronic issues – from death to car accidents to lower performance, etc.
How Important is Circadian Rhythm?
I personally want to be in bed by 8pm lol. But my husband on the other hand, comes alive around 10pm and wants to work and is most productive until about 2am. We all have different “sleep types” based on how we feel (night owl vs. early bird, etc.) BUT the reality is that studies show night owls are night owls because their circadian rhythms are OFF. Our bodies are trainable…but it doesn’t mean it’s OPTIMAL
In a natural, healthy rhythm (imagine going camping), you naturally get tired much earlier…and much more in line with the natural cycle of the sun. You go to bed earlier and wake up earlier and this is because of the light cycle. The light in the morning is much different than the wavelength of light in the evening and your body reacts differently to both wavelengths. Your body actually REACTS biologically to our environment based on these lights. Different systems inside of our body fire differently depending on the light they need to be stimulated.
Light is arguably the most powerful drug in the world. It’s very important that you should go with the cycle of the sun. As soon as you wake up, get in the sun (or natural daylight). Doing this for several weeks will absolutely train your circadian rhythm.
Should I Take Melatonin?
Our bodies should naturally make melatonin as part of our sleep/wake cycle. Melatonin is the most powerful antioxidant that the body makes – it’s an amazing detoxifier. It’s the only molecule in the body that is capable of defending against reactive oxygen species (free radicals) in three different ways. It’s important to the sleep cycle AND the gut. You can take large doses of melatonin without any negative effects, but there are a lot of misconceptions about it (from fraudulent or skewed research). Some people are against it, but studies actually show that there are no negative effects of it (unless you’re taking it around the age of puberty). You can improve your natural melatonin production by eating well and getting on track with a good circadian rhythm.
What About REM and Deep Sleep Cycles?
There are a lot of aspects of sleep cycles left to be studied and understood, as sleep is much more complicated than we know. What we do know is that deep sleep is definitely more restorative for the body and REM is more related to the mind. A lot of our sleep cycle and patterns have to do with our genetic constitution. Some of us are deeper sleepers, while some of us are long dreamers. What’s MOST important is that we study how WE react to different things we do in our life and how we and our sleep are impacted by it.
There is sooooo much more to learn on sleep.
Check out Jason’s book Beyond Longevity AND you can join a 9 part video series on the depths of sleep with Jason at Midlifeconversations.com/humanlongevity
About Jason Prall
Jason Prall is a health educator, practitioner, author, speaker, & filmmaker. At 13 years old, Jason began dealing with his own chronic health conditions and for the last 21 years, he’s dedicated his life to researching and sharing the wisdom he’s gathered from all over the globe.
In 2018, Jason traveled to over 10 countries to create “The Human Longevity Project”, a 9-part film series that uncovers the true nature of chronic disease in our modern world. Jason loves to explore the intersection of ancient methods of healing and the latest, cutting-edge, scientific research.
In this episode, you will learn:
- The importance of gut microbiome and it’s effects on overall health
- Effectiveness of western medicine on emergency vs preventative health
- Importance of good sleep and the phases of sleep
- What you can do to enhance your sleep
- Why is sleep so complex
