Learning to get by on less sleep is not an uncommon goal. Some people claim that sleep gets in the way of life — more time awake means more productivity, and more time to work on goals and hobbies.

Although I often stand by the mantra of “Listen to Your Body”, I understand the frustration people feel when they oversleep, or when they spend 10 hours a day in bed without feeling refreshed.

Due to my history of excessive sleeping (and often feeling guilty about it), I’ve become interested in various lifestyle tricks that appear to naturally reduce your body’s sleep need.

Thanks to the volume of email I receive, I’ve come across many anecdotal stories of how one lifestyle “trick” can reduce your brain’s sleep need by 1 to 4 hours per night. That trick is Ketosis.

What is Ketosis?

Ketosis simply refers to when your body uses fat for fuel instead of glucose.

Generally speaking, your body uses two types of energy: fat and sugar. Fat energy come in the form of “ketones”. Sugar fuel in the form of glucose.

Glucose is the “high octane” fuel. It’s efficient and powerful.

The majority of glucose fuel comes straight from the carbohydrates you eat. Since all carbohydrates are either simple sugars (e.g. glucose) or starches (which are just long chains of glucose), the amount of carbohydrates in your diet determines how much glucose you are feeding to your body.

Ketones come from either dietary fat (e.g. olive oil, bacon) or body fat. When glucose supply is high, however, your body switches off the majority of ketone production.

Technically, your body is always producing ketones. So you’re always “in ketosis”. But the phrase “ketosis” is usually used to refer to extreme cases of glucose deprivation, when your body drastically ramps up its ketone production.

If you eat less than 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, for example, your body will have no other option but to enter ketosis.

Ketosis and Sleep

I’ve received a few e-mails from people who, when they follow a low-carb diet, experience a reduced need for sleep. One reader writes:

I have found over the years that my mental acuity is MUCH better when I am IN ketosis vs. when I am not ketosis.

…

On sleeping and ketosis: my natural sleeping cycle while glycogenic is 6hrs @night with one or two  20min naps during the day, my natural sleeping cycle while ketogenic is just over 5hrs @night with one slightly longer nap during the day (30 mins).

Another reader writes:

I sleep probably 5.5 hours a night, without an alarm clock, and sometimes (if I can get away with it) take a 45 minute nap during the day. I’ve not been eating well lately, but when I was doing Atkins, my energy shot up even more and daytime naps were not needed at all.

My fiancé on the other hand, *needs* to sleep 10 hours a day (according to her), often takes naps at any hour and for any reason, and is in general pretty lazy. When she was trying out the Atkins diet with me a few months ago, she was shocked at how she was only needing 6 hours of sleep, and had solid energy from 6AM to Midnight, every day!

Atkins, of course, refers to the popular low-carb, ketogenic diet.

My personal experiences have the same results: When I am more ketogenic, I sleep less — like I mention in The Power Sleep Program, I generally need 6 hours or less per day, quite different from the 10+ I needed several years ago when I was less concerned about what I put in my body. Given that I don’t use an alarm clock (except on occasions) I can only assume that this is a natural decrease in sleep need.

You can also read my other article, Do Grains and Sugar Affect Sleep Duration?

I did some searches on various low-carb online forums and found that the experience of sleep reduction is quite common while on ketosis. This appeared to be either good news or bad news to some people. Some like the idea of having a couple extra hours of alertness per day. Others felt it exacerbated their already-present difficulty in falling asleep. I’m not judging either response, but both were present.

Why Does Ketosis Reduce Sleep Need?

Unfortunately, not much scientific research has been done on the connection between ketosis and sleep (if any — I found nothing in my search). So I can only speculate as to why ketosis might reduce sleep need.

My best guess comes from the idea that brain health is sleep health.

When your brain has lots of available energy, it can conduct the sleep process more efficiently. If you obtain the most important stages of sleep (stage 3, stage 4, and REM) more efficiently, then your brain might need less sleep time overall.

As it turns out, ketosis can be a great way to feed your brain lots of sustained energy.

Ketosis => More Energy for the Brain?

As I mentioned earlier, glucose is the “high octane” fuel when compared to ketones.

Evolutionarily speaking, there was just enough glucose available each day for the brain and muscles. The brain, being a powerhouse of energy consumption (20% of the calories you eat are used by the brain, while weighing just 2% of the total body mass), took up most of the glucose available from plant sources. The rest went to muscles. Remember, humans went 2.5 million years without grains, legumes, or sugary dairy products. Ketones fueled the heart, kidneys, etc.

In today’s world it’s not uncommon to consume large amounts of carbohydrates per day. The typical American averages around 400 grams (though often more). This overload of high octane fuel can burn out cells, including brain cells, leading to poor glucose metabolism.

(That is: The insulin roller coaster caused by the modern diet eventually forces brain cells to become resistant to insulin, thus allowing less glucose to be used.)

Poor glucose metabolism will leave some brain cells unable to fire.

The good news is that the brain can use both ketones and glucose for fuel. The availability of ketones can reduce the brain’s daily glucose requirement down by 60%, or down to about 25 or 30 grams.

The only problem is that ketones have to be present (in large enough amounts) for this benefit to occur, and they can only be present when you’re in ketosis.

This might be why many people experience improved mental clarity (and reduced sleep due to improved sleep quality) while on a low carb diet.

The presence of ketones will help more brain cells fire --> more mental energy and better sleep.

How Much For Ketosis?

How many carbs per day are you allowed for your body to enter ketosis?

It depends.

0 – 50 grams per day will put you in ketosis. 50 – 100 grams will put you in partial ketosis. 100 – 150 grams is a nice balance, where most glucose is used for the brain and muscles, but the remaining organs use ketones (as per their preference).

The actual numbers change depending on your activity level. Lots of exercise will use whatever glucose/glycogen available, which means more ketones must be produced for the brain.

All the foods you’ve eaten in your lifetime also affect the numbers. Has a high-grain/sugar diet in your upbringing caused a severe level of insulin resistence?

And, of course, genetics and your overall “metabolism” affect the numbers. Some experts believe that some people have “carb-type” metabolisms, perhaps from ancestry ranging back to locations near the equator, where plants were available year round; others might have “protein-type” metabolisms — their ancestors might have lived in northern tundras, where meat was the only option for survival during winter months. I’m not 100% sold on this theory, but it might have validity.

And lastly, the type of carbohydrate matters. Carbs from fibrious fruits and veggies affect the body differently than, say, the sugar found in Coca-cola’s latest health gimmick, “Vitamin Water”.

The Catch

Entering ketosis isn’t exactly easy for the first week or two. You may experience headaches, irritibility, or even anxiety. Your body has to adapt to a new metabolic mode, and it doesn’t come without its share of growing pains. During the first week or two of ketosis, your gene expression is changing, your brain cells are adapting to a second source of fuel, and your hormone and neurotransmitter levels are re-stabilizing (serotonin levels, in particular, go through a rehaul when you change carbohydrate consumption).

(Oh, and did I mention that fighting those sugar cravings isn’t exactly easy?)

Some people might say that ketosis is therefore dangerous, that you should listen to your body and bring back the sugar. But keep in mind your body doesn’t always know what’s right for it. The symptoms associated with nicotine withdrawl don’t suggest that you should listen to your body and start smoking again. Same goes for sugar.

Is Ketosis Worth It?

The ketogenic state is advantageous for some people, but not for all.

Ketosis is useful for those who are looking for aggressive weight loss; It might be temporarily necessary for those with diabetes; And it might be a good short-term dietary choice for those looking to fix poor glucose metabolism.

Overall, however, there’s one huge, unavoidable caveat: to enter ketosis you must limit the nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables, which I believe should be the base of any healthy diet.

That’s why I believe you should eat 100-150 grams of carbohdryates per day from plant sources — get the nutrients from plants without overloading your body with high-octane glucuse. For me, the occasional ketogenic diet is used to lose a bit of fat if I’ve fallen off the wagon.

Other Benefits of Ketosis

Ketosis might be worth trying if you want a bit of extra mental clarity and/or reduced sleep need. Of course, these benefits might only appear after a week on the diet.

To end this article, here are a couple other ketosis benefits I’ve picked up from various sources:

• One of the primary indicators of Alzheimer’s Disease is poor glucose metabolism. Feed your brain some ketones and you may be protecting yourself from cognitive decline.
• The most obvious benefit is massive amounts of fat loss. Great for getting rid of belly flab and letting your muscles show.
• It’s a great way to overcome a sugar/carb addiction. Living free of addiction is extraordinary, and sugar is perhaps the most addictive substance in the common diet. Sugar cravings are controllable, but only if you train your body to function without it. (I’ve got nothing against the occasional treat. I’ll gladly take a slice of gluten-free cake on my birthday.)
• It’s also a great way to train your body to function on less frequent meals. Food cravings ever 3-5 hours is really your body screaming to replenish its glucose supply — it’s not so much the food you crave, but the carbs. It’s strangely convenient to live life without the next meal constantly on your mind.

But, of course, your mileage may vary.

Insomnia itself is not a disorder. Insomnia is a symptom of some other root problem (or problems).

By understanding the numerous factors that cause insomnia, you can take a more integrative approach to getting better sleep at night.

Insomnia cause 1: Light after sundown

Before the invention of the light bulb, people rarely if ever experienced insomnia.

The exposure to light at night (or light after sundown) inhibits the production of melatonin, which is a key hormone is getting us to sleep and helping us stay asleep.

It turns out that the body takes a couple hours of darkness to produce significant amounts of melatonin. Turning the lights off right immediately before bedtime does not give the body enough time to sedate your body in a bath of melatonin.

Insomnia cause 2: Circadian rhythm is out of sync

Your body has an internal clock (called your circadian rhythm). The rotation of the earth can also be considered a clock, defined by the rising and setting of the sun.

For the 2.5 million years of human existence, the body’s internal clock stayed in sync with the clock of the earth. The body’s internal clock always knew what time it was because humans lived outside. The sun would indicate when it was time to be alert and awake. The darkness would indicate when it was time to rest and be asleep.

In our modern world, we trick our internal clocks to become out of sync with nature’s clock. By use of artificial light, we are tricking our clocks into thinking that it’s daytime when it’s really nighttime.

We are also waking up later and going to bed later. Our clocks become confused as we always play “catch up” — we sleep in on the weekend, but wake up early on Monday morning.

This circadian rhythm “dance” we force our bodies through is perhaps the single most prominent cause of insomnia.

When your internal clock is out of sync, you may be going to bed at a time when the body still thinks its daytime. In this case, it may see frustrating that you “lack the skill” to fall asleep, when really it’s nothing more than an out of sync circadian rhythm.

Insomnia cause 3: Caffeine

It amazes me how many insomniacs drink caffeine. Caffeine inhibits the activity of a neurotransmitter called adenosine. Adenosine is one of your brain’s natural tranquilizers. It puts you to sleep when levels are high enough. By inhibiting adenosine activity, caffeine keeps you awake and unable to fall asleep (it also decreases the sleep quality once you manage to fall asleep).

This sleep-inhibiting factor of caffeine stays in effect well after the buzz wears off. So although it may feel like the effect of caffeine has worn off, it’s still there on a more subtle level.

What you need to know about caffeine is that it stays in your system for a very long time. Typically, the body is capable of removing half of the caffeine in your system in about 5 hours.

This means that if you drink 200mg of caffeine (one cup of coffee), then 5 hours later there will be 100 mg left in your system.

And…

10 hours after drinking there will be 50mg left…

15 hours after drinking there will be 25mg left…

20 hours after drinking there will be 12.5mg left.

The caffeine continues to decrease in this manner. Technically speaking, it takes several days for caffeine to be completely removed from the system.

The problem is that many people appear to metabolize caffeine much more slowly than others. While the “half-life” of caffeine is 5 hours for most people, it’s been shown to be as long as 30 hours for others.

It’s possible that some insomniacs are simply slow caffeine metabolizers. Even drinking caffeine in the morning can make it difficult to fall asleep at night.

Insomnia cause 4: Stress hormones

Stress hormones like cortisol act as brain stimulants. Too much cortisol in your system at bedtime and it can become difficult to fall asleep — even if you do fall asleep, the cortisol will ruin the quality of deep sleep that normally occurs in the early hours of the night.

Our modern lifestyle imposes a significant amount of psychological stress, causing our bodies to run on cortisol, never giving our brain’s a chance to slow down and enjoy restful sleep.

Insomnia cause 5: Hypoglycemia

Hypoglycemia is a fancy word for “low blood sugar”.

A modern diet high in processed carbohydrates can throw off the body’s insulin response — insulin is a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels –which can cause blood sugar highs and lows throughout the day and into the night.

When blood sugar levels become too low the body must secrete cortisol to regulate levels back to normal (cortisol has many functions in the body, so it is not purely a “stress hormone”).

Most people who follow a standard modern diet have poor glucose metabolism, which often means they must eat continually throughout the day to keep blood sugar levels up. At bedtime, they may fall asleep easily, but wake up several times throughout the night.

In this case, the cause of insomnia may be because their blood sugar levels are dropping too low while the person is asleep due to lack of food — thus the body secretes high levels of cortisol in the early night and the person is never able to get a good night’s sleep.

A healthy diet will prime the body to hold bood sugar levels steady throughout the night, leading to high quality sleep.

Insomnia cause 6: Adrenal Fatigue / Thyroid Problems

Both the adrenal and thyroid glands produce hormones that help regulate energy levels and alertness. When either gland stops functioning properly, hormone levels become imbalanced and the body is unable to properly regulate the sleep-wake cycle.

Both adrenal fatigue and thyroid problems can be cause by a poor diet, lifestyle stress, excessive caffeine, and a lack of exercise.

Finding a Cure for Insomnia

Now that you know the main causes you can work on finding cures for insomnia.

Generally speaking, some of the hormonal imbalances caused by adrenal fatigue and thyroid problems can take anywhere from a few days to a few years to fix, depending on the damage. This is why insomnia can be so frustrating for some individuals — the hormonal imbalances that are likely contributing to chronic insomnia will not go away unless major lifestyle changes are made.

However, people who only experience occasional insomnia may find it easier to cure their sleeplessness, as the cause is most often attributed to caffeine or an out-of-sync circadian rhythm.

Insomnia can be tackled from many directions. Depending on your own lifestyle and goals, here are some “cures” to consider:

1. Quite caffeine. Or switch to green tea and drink it only in the morning.

2. Add an exercise routine to your day.

3. Eliminate refined sugars and carbohydrates from your diet.

4. Stop taking synthetic sleep drugs such as Ambien, Lunesta, and Sonata. All of these synthetic drugs use chemical knockout mechanisms to stop the brain in its tracks — this is not a long-term solution to insomnia and when taken habitually will inevitably make insomnia worse. To put it bluntly, the sleeping pill industry cares more about your money than your health — sad, but very true.

Consider switching to natural sleep aids that work with your body’s natural sleep mechanisms if you still need help with occasional insomnia. These include natural supplements such as 5-HTP (a precursor to serotonin) and melatonin, as well as natural herbs such as Valerian root extract. You can research further on natural sleep aids, buy each ingredient separately, or consider an all-in-one natural insomnia solution such as this one.

5. Consider a brainwave entrainment CD — Although this last solution may not work for everyone, and certainly won’t appeal to everyone, there is some proven efficacy in using brainwave entrainment for improving sleep quality. For example, the sleeptracks website offers audio CDs that use specific “pulses” to entrain the brainwave state to lower, sleep-inductive frequencies. In the case of SleepTracks, headphones are not needed.

One pet peeve I have is when people use the word “brain waves” without really knowing what they are. A lot of people into meditation talk about “brainwaves”, but probably couldn’t answer the question “what in the brain is actually waving?”.

Most people understand that brainwaves have something to do with the electrical activity of the brain, but that’s usually as far as the comprehension goes.

Reading this article thoroughly might be more important than you think. Understanding some of the basics of your brain and brain wave states is very useful to you and how you choose to manage your day.

By understanding how your brain goes in and out of certain brainwave states, you can learn to take advantage of each state — you’ll know when to be productive, when to be creative, and you’ll know the basics behind restful sleep.

Nevertheless, it never ceases to amaze me how some people prefer to go through life without understanding some of the most basic functions of their own body, let alone their consciousness. But I digress…

What are brain waves?

When I first heard the term “brainwave” I assumed that it had something to do with the electrical signals in the brain, but I never gave a second thought as to what was actually waving.

All brain cells communicate via electrical signals. Your brain contains about 100 billion neurons, well over the number of stars in our galaxy. Each neuron is connected to about 10,000 other neurons, making for about 100 to 500 trillion neuron-to-neuron connections in the brain.

Our current technology cannot see what’s happening at the neuron level. They’re just too small, and there’s just too many of them. However, our technology can see overall patterns of brain activity.

We can get a sense of how many neurons inside the skull are firing at any given moment.

And what we find is that the overall brain activity has a pulse, a beat — just like your heart. Except unlike your heart, the brain pulses very quickly — anywhere from 3 times per second to 100 times per second.

Think of your brain activity like a flickering light bulb. That “flicker” is what is meant by the term “brainwaves”.

Brainwave Frequency

These brain pulses, or brainwaves, happen at a variety of speeds. During deep sleep, for example, the brain pulses about 3 times per second. During high-focused thinking, the brain might pulse as much as 50 times a second.

Different brainwave frequencies have been shown to correspond to different “states of mind”. Brainwave frequency seems to correspond to a spectrum of subjective experience.

Slow brainwaves feel more relaxing and introspective. Fast brainwaves can be a sign of concentration or stress.

Although brainwave frequencies exist across a wide range, we generally classify them into 5 groups (from slow to fast): delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma.

The x-axis is time. The y-axis is a measure of brain activity. The peaks correspond to a high number of neurons firing in the brain. The troughs correspond to fewer neurons firing. That's it -- brain waves aren't so mysterious now, are they?

Delta Brainwaves

Delta brainwaves have a frequency of about 4 pulses or less per second, as if the brain is breathing slowly and heavily.

The brain generally only enters the delta state during the deepest stages of sleep, appropriately known as “slow-wave sleep”.

Theta brainwaves

Theta brainwaves are associated with dreaming and REM-stage sleep and sometimes light sleep. This is where brain activity pulses anywhere from 4 to 7 times per second.

But theta also occurs several times throughout the day.

If you’ve ever “zoned out” while driving or otherwise went on mental “auto pilot”, that means you entered theta.

Likewise, if you’ve ever gotten into the “flow” while jogging, that’s also theta. Deep meditation is another example.

Theta can be used for creative flow states, where ideas seem to come effortlessly. Theta is also exploited in hypnosis as well as several accelerated learning programs.

Alpha Brainwave

Alpha brainwaves have a frequency of 7 to 13 pulses per second.

The alpha wave state is a sign of deep relaxation while awake. Like theta, it can be used in hypnosis and accelerated learning.

Simply by closing your eyes, your brain starts to generate more alpha brain waves.

Beta Brainwaves

Beta brainwaves have a frequency of 13 to 40 pulses per second. The beta wave state is considered the most normal state of mind. It’s probably the state you’re in right now. As you read these words, your brain activity is “pulsing” at a rate of around 20 pulses per second.

If you’ve ever felt a lack of energy you couldn’t quite control, it may be due to insufficient beta activity. Although the beta state is considered “normal”, it’s fundamentally important for everyday mental focus and energy levels.

Depression and insomnia have been linked to insufficient beta states.

Gamma Brainwaves

Gamma brainwaves have a frequency of over 40 pulses per second. It’s a rarer state of mind, and occurs during problem solving or even fear. It’s associated with enhanced perception and a high level of consciousness. Obtaining a stress-free gamma state is perhaps one of the greatest feelings imaginable. It’s a state of crystal-clear mental lucidity.

Altered States of Consciousness

It is often said that any of the brainwave states outside of beta are considered “altered states of consciousness.” Intentionally changing your brainwave frequency out of beta is a practice that’s over a thousand years old.

Your brainwave frequency can be changed in many different ways. Deep meditation can lower your frequency to the alpha and theta states, and sometimes even increase the frequency to beta states. Many drugs such as alcohol also alter the frequency.

Brainwave Entrainment

In recent years, brainwave entrainment, or brainwave synchronization, has become popular. You’ve probably heard of it, but do you really understand how it works?

Entrainment is a fairly simple concept to comprehend. Entrainment is seen everywhere in physics.

For example, imagine you and a friend are on a standing on a trampoline. Imagine that both of you start bobbing up and down without your feet leaving the trampoline. Naturally at first, your up and down motions will occur either faster or slower than your friend’s. Yet because you are both on the same trampoline, it will only be a matter of seconds that both of you are bobbing up and down at exactly the same rate in perfect sync with each other.

Why does this happen? According to the laws of physics, it’s sometimes too much work for two “waves” to be out of sync. On the trampoline it requires extra force on your part to bob up and down at a different frequency than your friend. So naturally, you both sync up without even thinking about it.

That’s entrainment.

This happens often in nature. Here are more examples:

1. When several women live together for a while their periods start to happen at the same time. For whatever reason, it appears that the menstrual cycle is capable of being entrained.
2. A species of firefly found in China has been shown to gather in huge groups and blink in sync. While each firefly has its own “natural” blinking frequency, it can be influenced by the blinking frequency of nearby fireflies. When thousands of fireflies gather in one location, it only takes a few seconds for all of the blinking to become entrained. It then looks like one big blinking organism.
3. One study showed that when two people are in the same room, their brainwaves and heartbeats become entrained — that is, their brainwaves become matched up in frequency

So now that you understand the concept of entrainment, we can begin to understand the basic premise behind brainwave entrainment technology.

Binaural Beats

Binaural beats are the most popular form of brainwave entrainment. Many meditation CDs have them in the background.

Say you wanted to enter the alpha state for some relaxation. Could you just create a 7 Hz audio tone and listen to it on headphones? Nope. The lowest key on the piano is 27.5 Hz. Your ear can’t hear audio tones below about 20 Hz.

One trick to get your brain to “hear” 10 audio pulses per second or lower is to use a trick called “binaural beats”.

The above picture explains binaural beats perfectly: The left headphone plays a 500 Hz tone, the right a 510 Hz tone. By mixing the two together your brain perceives the difference — a 10 Hz tone. Viola — now you have an audio pulse going at “alpha frequency” and your brainwaves will try to slow down to match up.

Result: you feel calm and relaxed.

Brainwave entrainment CDs don’t just use alpha — different programs will use a variety of frequencies.

Brainwave entrainment programs that help you fall asleep, for example, will start off with alpha entrainment and slowly dip down to theta and then delta.

Other programs might promise improved concentration and focus, meaning they probably use beta frequencies.

Brainwave Synchrony

One last fact worth mentioning. Although this is a bit of a “side note” it’s very interesting.

Your brain is never wholly in a single state at any given time. Different parts of your brain might be firing faster than others. While working on a math problem, the “problem solving region” of your brain will enter fast beta and possibly gamma states while the rest of the brain paces along at a steady alpha/beta rate.

The left and right hemispheres as well tend to march to different drummers.

Brainwave synchrony measures just how well coordinated the different parts of your brain are. A brain in which all its neurons tend to fire at the same frequency would be highly synchronous.

Highly synchronous brains have been shown to correspond to states of well-being and happiness.

Asynchronous brains have been shown to correspond to ADD, schizophrenia, depression and other conditions.

Others studies have shown that as the brain ages, its neural activity becomes less synchronous.

Interesting Facts About Brainwaves

1. Trained musicians experience states of gamma while listening to music. While non-musicians do not.

2. Although delta waves usually correspond to the unconscious state of deep sleep, highly experienced mediators have been shown to attain conscious awareness during the delta state.

3. Using a cell phone increases alpha activity in the brain. Studies have even shown that using a cell phone on, say, your left ear, will increase alpha activity most predominately in the brain regions on the left side.

4. Cell phone usage close to bedtime has been linked to mild insomnia.

5. Doing brain exercises during the day has been shown to increase delta brainwave synchrony during slow-wave sleep at night.

6. Delta frequencies have been shown to increase production of the hormones DHEA and melatonin. DHEA is a precursor to testosterone, perhaps your body’s most potent energizer hormone (for both men and women). This is one of the many reasons why high quality deep sleep increases feelings of natural energy and vitality during the day.

7. Your brain naturally cycles through the brainwave states during the day. Every 90 minutes or so, your brain will require a break and slow down its activity, possibly entering alpha or even theta states. This cycle is known as the ultradian rhythm, or basic rest and activity cycle (BRAC).

8. Alpha and theta states help reset sodium/potassium balance in the brain — without proper sodium/potassium balance, neurons can’t fire.

Tips to Making the Most of Your Brain

Now that you understand brainwaves, how they work, and how they affect our states of consciousness, you can follow these tips to make the most of your daily routine:

1. Listen to your body and take mental breaks when your mind starts to wander or daydream. This is often a sign that your brain is reaching the end of the BRAC and simply needs a quick break in alpha before returning to beta. By forcing your brain to stay in beta without a break, you will run into a mental burnout.

2. Avoid cell phone usage before bedtime. Also, turn off cell phones while you sleep. Your brain needs to enter delta states, and cell phones will encourage your brain to stay in alpha. With a cell phone on in the room, your sleep quality will be dampened, even if by just a tiny amount.

3. To maintain high levels of focus and concentration (beta & gamma) during the day, your brain needs rejuvenating periods of delta and theta at night. Be sure to get high quality sleep.

4. Consider using pzizz for daytime naps or mental breaks — it contains binaural beats to help your brain dip into the rejuvinating alpha and theta states, which helps reset the sodium/potassium balance in the brain, priming your mind for creativity and focus.

Looking for a good night's sleep? Try changing your diet.

What constitutes “healthy eating”, and how can a healthy diet improve sleep quality?

A healthy diet is an often neglected component of insomnia-free, high-quality sleep. Foods affect sleep more than most people think.

Imagine for a moment a life where:

• You never feel tired or fatigued.
• You never yawn.
• You mind is always clear as water.
• You feel energetic and happy all day long.
• Feelings of ecstatic bliss are not uncommon.
• And you get by just fine on 4-6 hours of sleep.

All of the above are attainable. The “secrets” to this type of lifestyle are right in front of you. They’re right in front of everybody. But for some reason no one is looking.

The “secrets” are not new. They’re over 2 million years old. Only in recent times have people become blind to them.

As you will find out in this article, two major “secrets” to an energetic, happy lifestyle are:

1. Fuel
2. Rest

By fuel I mean the food we put in our mouths each day. The fuel our bodies go to great lengths digesting and extracting nutrients.

By rest I mean sleep. The nightly process that heals us from within and energizes us physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Understand how food and sleep interact — how one affects the other — and you’re well on your way to boosting your energy levels well beyond what you ever though imaginable.

In this article, I’ll let you in on some of the “secrets”.

But before we get into the general question “How does food affect sleep quality?” let’s take a look at some case studies.

Raw Food Sleepers

Anthony Anderson was your typical vegan — no meat or dairy products, but plants, grains, and the wide assortment of packaged food substitutes were fair game.

Since grains are (obviously) a “health food”, one would expect that a grain and plant-based diet could do no harm to energy levels and sleep quality.

In recent years, however, Anthony joined the raw food movement — a dieting philosophy that supports eating uncooked foods only. Uncooked veggies, fruits, and a side of nuts were still in, but grains and just about everything packaged in a bottle, wrapper, or cardboard box had to go.

How did the raw food diet change affect his sleep? It cut it in half:

Before going raw, even while I was a vegan, I needed around 8 hours of sleep. I figured that this was perfectly acceptable, and according to popular literature, quite healthy and normal.

“Healthy” and “Normal” should not be grouped in the same sentence. Normal is nowhere near healthy.

So when my eating habits became anything but normal, so did my sleeping habits. I consumed massive amounts of green smoothies and lots of water, and within two weeks, I was waking up completely alert and rested after only 4 hours. I read very little literature on raw foods before this, so I had no clue what was going on. It hit me like a ray of light through the clouds.

Source: The Joy of (Less) Sleep from We Like It Raw.

Anthony isn’t the only one experiencing the mysterious reduction in sleep need. A 2006 study of over 500 raw foodists reflected his results.

The study showed that 56% of 500 people needed 8 hours of sleep or more before going raw. After going raw, only 16% remained 8-hour sleepers. Just about everyone in the study dropped an hour or two from their sleep need based on dietary change alone.

That’s not to belittle the other benefits reported by participants of the study (and other raw foodists):

• fat loss
• better eyesight
• increased energy
• improved feeling of intelligence
• deeper meditation
• and increased feelings of “ecstatic bliss”

(Just to name a few at random — I didn’t make these up, they’re straight from the publication).

So what’s going on here? What’s their secret? And more importantly, what have we been missing out on?

The Dietary Secrets to Better Sleep

In this article I will present 4 dietary secrets to better sleep:

• Secret 1: Stepping off the roller coaster.
• Secret 2: Light meals
• Secret 3: Alkalize
• Secret 4: Sensitivity-Free

Secret 1: Stepping off the insulin roller coaster

If you had to sum up the entirety of modern health problems — cancer, diabetes, obesity, depression, anxiety — in one word, it’d probably be: insulin. Or, more specifically, the blood-sugar and insulin roller coasters that our bodies take every day in response to modern foods.

Stepping off the insulin roller coaster will change you from the inside out. And it will do wonders to your sleep.

Insulin is a hormone your body secretes in response to carbohydrates (sugar). After a carbohydrate meal, insulin is released to prevent blood sugar levels from becoming too high (otherwise you would die from glucose toxicity). It prevents this by forcing sugar to enter cells, either to be immediately used as fuel or to be stored as body fat.

It’s a time-tested process fine-tuned over 2 million years of evolution. But our modern diet really screws the process up. In the words of (sleep researcher) Dr Rubin Naiman:

Sugar is the basic source of fuel for our bodies and brains. Most natural forms of sugar break down gradually in the body, releasing a fairly even flow of energy. Like throwing a piece of hardwood on the fire, natural sugars burn more steadily. Our diets today, however, are rich in refined sugars, which are absorbed rapidly, resulting in a burst of energy. This is more like throwing newspaper on the fire. Our energies flare up but then die down just as rapidly.

I like the campfire analogy. Foods that our ancestors ate are like firewood — slow burning. Most modern foods are like newspaper — burns fast and doesn’t last.

Most modern foods cause blood sugar levels to spike too high and too fast. After eating a large bowl of white rice, for example, your body goes into “oh shit” mode and releases excessive amounts of insulin.

The body “overshoots” the insulin secretion and within several minutes, blood sugar levels actually become too low because of too much insulin.

Now you know what I mean by “roller coaster”:

• High carb/sugar meal
• –> High blood sugar levels
• –> High insulin levels
• –> Low blood sugar levels

Remember, your body and brain (but the brain especially) use sugar as basic fuel. When blood sugar is low, your brain is on a low energy supply. You will feel tired, sluggish, fatigued — we call this brain fog or mental fuzziness. This is the “sugar crash,” and it happens 30-90 minutes after a high-carb meal.

Ironically, this is also when your body screams for more carbohydrates (sugar), in a naive attempt to restore balance. This is how eating becomes addictive — hunger pangs, and all the rest.

Why is the Roller Coaster Bad For Sleep?

The sugar/insulin roller coaster is bad for sleep for primarily two reasons.

Reason 1: For your brain to conduct the sleep process, it needs a steady supply of energy.

Back to the campfire analogy above. If you use firewood as fuel, your fire will be able to burn nice and steady throughout the day and night. No “crashes”, no need to tend the fire.

When you give your body slow-burning fuel, it allows your body and brain to conduct processes more efficiently. During sleep, your brain will have enough energy to conduct its nocturnal maintenance.

You can start to see how high-quality, slow-burning fuel might reduce the amount of sleep you need, as well as improving overall sleep quality.

If you eat a diet that puts you on the blood-sugar/insulin roller coaster, then throughout the night your body will be in low-blood sugar mode. You’ll have “brain fog” while asleep. Hence, less refreshing sleep and possibly more sleep needed.

Being on the “roller coaster” is like using newspaper as fuel for a campfire. If you eat a sugary/starchy snack before bedtime, that fuel goes up in flames too quickly. Since the resulting low blood sugar levels can last for 3-5 hours after the meal, your brain spends the whole night without adequate fuel.

Low blood sugar impairs sleep quality. Fast burning fuel sources put your body on the insulin “roller coaster”, which often puts your body in a position of low blood sugar during sleep.

Another interesting point is that studies have shown that nighttime memory consolidation is impaired by low blood sugar (source). If you’re interested in brain fitness and the various brain-enhancing properties of sleep, one way to maximize your results is to avoid low blood sugar while asleep.

Reason 2: There’s a second, perhaps more important, reason why the “roller coaster” is bad for sleep.

The blood-sugar “roller coaster” absolutely destroys a healthy cortisol rhythm — your cortisol rhythm is one of the greatest determinants of your sleep quality.

Cortisol, the “stress hormone” a.k.a. the “alertness hormone”, spikes in the morning and then decreases gradually throughout the day. At bedtime and for the first half of sleep cortisol should be as low as feasibly possible. That’s one of the key secrets to high-quality sleep.

In fact, if you wake up from sleep unrefreshed no matter how many hours you got, one of the common culprits is high cortisol levels at night. High cortisol levels have been shown to inhibit deep sleep and REM sleep, due to cortisol being a natural brain stimulant.

How does diet come into play? Cortisol levels are highly dependent on what foods you eat. Foods that result in a drop in blood sugar cause an increase in cortisol.

One of cortisol’s functions is to pull protein from muscle cells so that the body can turn that protein into glucose (which it can). If glucose levels are stable, then the body won’t have a need to release cortisol. If glucose levels are low (such as from eating a high-sugar/high-carb meal), then your body will release cortisol to raise blood sugar back up

In other words, being on the blood-sugar/insulin roller coaster causes an adrenal response and releases extra stress hormones (e.g. cortisol) into the blood to remedy the situation.

This cortisol response can last up to 5 hours after a meal.

In summary, if you’re using “newspaper” for fuel (e.g. refined sugar and starches), then your body has to deal with two competing forces: low blood sugar and high cortisol levels. This is very bad for sleep quality.

Signs that You’re on the “Roller Coaster”

Some people are on the roller coaster, some aren’t. I’d guess that the good majority of adult Americans (90%-99%) are on it. Here are some signs to determine if you’re part of the crowd:

1. You feel tired, fatigued, or sleepy after meals, particularly high-carb meals.
2. You have wavering alertness levels throughout the day.
3. You have uncontrollable cravings for food. (note: one of the side-affects of stepping off the roller coaster is the ability go skip a meal or two without worry. Sometimes you simply forget to eat.)
4. You feel that controlling your diet takes will power.
5. You get cranky or irritable, and you feel the only way to cure it is with a meal.
6. You crave midnight snacks or pre-bedtime snacks. (Take note at how your snack cravings are always for something sweet or starchy. You never crave a hard boiled egg, for example.)
7. You gain weight easily, particularly in the abdominal region.

How to Get Off the “Roller Coaster”

Stepping off the roller coaster means eating foods that are metabolized steadily by the body. This gives your brain a constant supply of energy and avoids the blood sugar ups and downs as well as the cortisol response associated with fast-burning foods.

You may notice that once you’re off, you’ll feel increased levels of mental focus throughout the day. Your overall energy levels will feel more sustained.

Back to the campfire example, we want to focus more on “firewood” foods.

What foods act like firewood?

Short answer: The way I approach this problem is simple — the foods that our ancestors ate for over 2 million years are all “firewood” fuels. These are the foods our genes were designed for.

Long answer: The long answer gets complicated.

For the most part, protein and fat are considered “slow-burning fuel”. Your body can, and will, use both protein and fat for fuel, since your body is capable of turning both into glucose (sugar), as well as using certain fats (ketones) directly for alternative fuel. Eating either protein or fat is like throwing a log onto the fire; it will burn slowly at the pace nature desires.

Carbohydrates are a little more complicated, since carbs are your body’s most usable form of energy. Carbohydrates come in essentially two forms: simple sugars, and starches. Starches are simply chains of simple sugars connected together and are sometimes called “complex carbohydrates”. Your body will break down starches into simple sugars, which is why some people use the term “carbohydrates” synonymously with “sugar” — once in the body, starches turn into sugar eventually.

The most common wisdom is that refined starches and refined sugars should be avoided. These foods include:

• Bread
• Cereal
• Bagels
• Potatoes
• Tortilla chips
• Rice
• Sweets
• etc.

All of these foods are high in refined carbohydrates and spike blood sugar levels notoriously fast, which creates a strong insulin response.

For 2.5 million years, humans never consumed grains, which might explain why the above foods have been shown to be so harmful to our health.

Foods that tend to act more like “firewood” — the slow-burning carbohydrate foods — include:

• Nonstarchy vegetables
• Some legumes
• Some fruits
• Most nuts

The energy from these foods are released more slowly. This is the digestive process by which our bodies evolved.

But there’s still quite some debate over fruits and whole grains.

Some fruits are very high in simple sugars, such as bananas, mangoes, and pineapple. Diabetics are asked to avoid them. But for non-diabetics, fruits are far better than refined grains. Raw foodists base a large part of their diet on fruit and they don’t show signs of “roller coaster” problems.

Whole grains are a different story. From an evolutionary standpoint, whole grains aren’t a human food. Whole grains tend to contribute to the “roller coaster” more than most people think. Brown rice, for example, contains astronomical amounts of starch. Unless you’re an athlete, brown rice will spike blood sugar and produce a large insulin response. Whole grains are better than refined grains, but not by much.

Nevertheless, by switching to “firewood fuels” — fats, protein, and slow-releasing carbs — you’ll effectively step off the insulin roller coaster. No more brain fog. No more weight gain. Less stress. More sustained energy. And better sleep.

Points to Consider

Before we move on to Secret #2, here are some basic points to keep in mind when it comes to keeping energy levels sustained:

1. Going carb-free isn’t the solution (although it’s a quick way to lose weight and do some quick reversal to insulin resistance damage). Getting about 100-150 grams of carbohydrates/sugar from natural sources per day is plenty for your brain (which needs it the most). Going completely carb-free will reduce serotonin levels, which might make you feel even worse.
2. Milk is very high in sugar. In fact, milk is more like juice than anything. There’s no need to drink it. All mammals quit drinking mother’s milk after infancy — it’s a baby’s beverage. Dairy products from other animals only entered the human diet about 6,000 years ago.
3. Fruit juice is generally unhealthy. “Tropicana Orange Juice”, for example, is simply orange flavored sugar-water. Most of the fiber and nutrients found in real fruit is stripped away in the processing. If you like juice, then consider making your own with a Vitamix.
4. Sodas are very unhealthy. They’re very high in refined sugar (high-fructose corn syrup).
5. Wheat bread is made from refined flour. A lot of people switch to wheat bread in an attempt to eat healthy. Regardless of the fact that whole grains are only marginally better than refined grains, wheat bread is actually made from refined flour, so it’s essentially as unhealthy as white bread.
6. Cereal is not a health food. Some cereals in particular are marketed as health foods (Special K), when they’re quite far from it.

Secret 2: Eat Light Meals

Another secret of good sleepers is light meals.

What many people don’t realize is just how metabolically expensive the digestive process is. A heavy meal requires lots of energy to digest. Your body will take bloodflow and direct it to the digestion system. Because that bloodflow is “stolen” from the brain and muscles, a heavy meal can often induce fatigue.

As the theory goes, a good way to maximize sleep quality is to maximize bloodflow to the brain. Eating a heavy meal close to bedtime can sap the blood from the brain, since your body has to focus on digestion.

A “heavy meal” is hard to define. A meal high in toxins might require more energy to digest. A meal high in artificial ingredients as well. A meal simply too high in calories might also sap your energy. Raw foodists believe that raw foods are easier on the digestion system, since the cooking process breaks down many of the enzymes found in living food — which I believe has some truth to it.

A light meal does not mean light in calories. Many raw foodists, for example, eat upwards 2,500 calories per day in mostly fruits and vegetables. Yet their meals are still “light” due to the natural, unprocessed nature of their diet.

To my knowledge, not many (or any) studies have been done on the “heaviness” factor of foods. There is speculation, however, that liquid foods are certainly “lighter” — a fruit smoothie has the same nutrients of fruit, but one step of the digestion process is already taken care of.

This is why green smoothies have adopted a somewhat religious following (of which I’m a proud member). Lots of green smoothies throughout the day can really boost your energy levels by providing you with ample nutrients without too much digestive cost.

I personally believe that a light meal may also include clean animal products. The problem arises when you coat your meat with sugar (BBQ sauce, etc) or deep fry it in trans-fatty oils.

In terms of sleep, it appears to be best to avoid heavy meals within 2 hours of bedtime, as anyone who’s experimented with this can tell you. A relatively relax digestion system during sleep will maximize bloodflow to the brain, and thus maximize sleep quality.

Secret 3: Alkalize for Improved Sleep

You may have heard that your body works best when its tissues are slightly alkaline. The acid-alkaline balance of your body (as measured by pH), may have huge implications on your overall health as well as energy levels.

The acid-alkaline issue reached popularity with Robert and Shelley Young’s book, The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health.

The theory says that slightly alkaline tissues can contain up to 20 times more oxygen than acidic tissue. Each cell can transport and use energy more effectively in a slightly alkaline environment.

Some foods are more alkaline-forming, and some are more acid-forming. The majority of modern foods are of the latter, which may help explain the variety of modern health problems.

Although the idea has its fair share of unmerited criticism, it only takes a 30 day trial of eating more alkaline-forming foods to experience the newfound energy. I truly believe that alkaline-forming foods can improve all-around energy levels, as I’ve experienced this myself.

In terms of sleep quality, I’m not the first to suggest that a slightly alkaline body sleeps better. After all, sleep quality and energy levels go hand in hand. I believe that part of the reason why raw-foodists like the ones at the start of this article experience better sleep is their inclusion of several alkaline-forming foods in their diet.

Some foods are acid-forming. Some are alkaline-forming. Aim to include more alkaline-forming foods for better energy. Download the chart by clicking the picture.

To get a sense of which foods are more alkaline-forming and which foods are more acid-forming, you can click the chart above. It’s not my chart. It requires e-mail opt-in from the site http://www.acidalkalinediet.com. But it’s a good resource to have.

Secret 4: Avoid Sensitive Foods

One last dietary secret to better sleep is the exclusion of allergenic foods. This topic receives much, much less attention than it should.

Foods like wheat and dairy were not part of the human diet for 99.5% of our history. It’s by unfortunate coincidence that some of the molecules in those foods can be mistaken by our bodies as a toxin that needs to be destroyed.

The protein gluten found in wheat and the sugar molecule lactose in milk fall into this category. 35-50% of the human population is gluten sensitive, while about 70% is lactose sensitive.

I consumed wheat products for years without knowing that I was gluten sensitive. By eating gluten, my body was stuck in “heal mode” a.k.a. “sick mode — always trying to repair damage from my immune response to gluten.

Removing wheat boosted my energy beyond what I though possible. I slept better too. It’s like on my wheat-based diet I just thought tiredness and fatigue were part of the normal human experience.

Your body uses a lot of energy to deal with allergenic foods, which really diverts your bodies attention away from rejuvenating sleep. The problem is that way more people are gluten sensitive and/or lactose sensitive than most people think.

If you feel “bloated” after meals, have lots of gas, and often feel fatigued, a gluten-free diet is well worth a 30-day experiment.

For more information you can read our article The Health Dangers of Bread, Pasta, and Rice.

Bottom Line

To reiterate, the 4 dietary secrets to better sleep:

• Secret 1: Stepping off the roller coaster.
• Secret 2: Light meals
• Secret 3: Alkalize
• Secret 4: Sensitivity-Free

It’s all too clear that diet plays a huge rule in sleep quality. Just search online for testimonials of people who recently switched to healthier diets. From raw food blogs and message boards, to paleolithic websites, you’ll often find people reporting much better sleep after switching from a modern diet to an ancient one.

Oftentimes, these people also report needing 1-2 hours less sleep each night.

But let’s not forget the other countless benefits of a healthy diet: fat loss, more energy, less disease, and a general feeling of purity and happiness.

A few last points to keep in mind to sum things up:

1. Most people’s understanding of a “healthy diet” isn’t necessarily healthy. Remember that dairy and grain products, as well as anything artificial, were not part of the human diet for 99.5-99.9% of our history. Personally, I find that a red flag, and strive to avoid those foods (with great results).

2. Making a drastic change in your diet is as much about inclusion as it is about exclusion. It’s easy to get in the mindset of thinking in negatives: no x, no y, no z. But don’t forget that half of the struggle is finding new food to fill the void. If anything, most people are awkwardly uncomfortable eating reckless amounts of vegetables each day. I eat more spinach in one day than most people do in a year. That’s not a typo.

3. If there’s one single recommendation, it would be to remove refined sugar and refined starches from your diet. Your energy will skyrocket. And if they are included, keep portions small. A few grains of rice obviously won’t kill you. A daily soda or “juice” habit might (slowly).

4. If you decide to try a “raw food diet” (a.k.a. raw vegan diet), then seek some sort of guidance, whether it’s a book or blog or whatever. The raw food movement is picking up momentum. And while many are experiencing the benefits, many others are wading in and out, unable to fully break their addiction to refined sugars and starches. I recommend Frederic Patenaude’s book Raw Secrets.

5. Sleep as much as your body needs. Although the promise of 4-hour sleep is enticing, a change in sleep need doesn’t happen overnight (and 4 hours is fairly rare). By giving your body high-quality fuel, you may find that you naturally need less sleep, but this process might take 2-3 weeks as your body “switches gears” and catches up on sleep debt. Typically on a super-healthy diet you might expect to get by on 6 hours very easily without an alarm clock.

Some say dreaming has become a lost art in our modern world. The fascination and religious fervor associated with fantasy and mythology of ancient cultures is lost to our technological society. But who says science and technology can’t teach us how to re-tap into this bottomless pool of creativity?

While dreaming can occur in all stages of sleep, it’s REM sleep that tends to produce the most colorful and memorable dreams. REM occurs in higher propensity in the morning hours, or during the last half of sleep. By understanding REM sleep we can find ways to maximize its duration and intensity.

So here are 3 “dream hacks” to maximize REM sleep, thus improving dream vividness and recall.

Suppress REM for a Rebound

Your brain holds REM in very high regard (though not quite as high as slow-wave sleep). So when you suppress REM sleep for one night, your brain will give you a double dosage the next night to compensate.

There are many ways to suppress REM — alcohol, marijuana and anti-depressants are all known to knock out REM. But if drugs aren’t your thing, simply waking up a couple hours before your natural wake-up time will rob you of REM, meaning next time you go to bed REM intensity will increase, making dreams longer and more vivid.

In general, a 30 minute decrease in REM one night will lead to a 35% increase in REM length the next. Studies have also suggested that REM rebound dreams are subjectively much more intense and vivid.

REM rebound might not be the most sustainable — or recommended — dream hack at your disposal, but it does work.

Take 5-HTP

5-HTP is a popular supplement among avid lucid dreamers, used to promote more vivid dreams.

5-HTP is the immediate precursor to serotonin. Serotonin levels in the brain promote deep sleep. At a 100mg dose, 5-HTP is out of the system within 5-6 hours. So during the last couple hours of sleep your brain will go into REM rebound. This is why many people report “wild” and “crazy” dreams while taking 5-HTP — it promotes deep sleep in the first half of the night so that REM in the second half is more intense.

Do research on the possible side-effects, including “Seratonin Syndrom” before popping a 5-HTP supplement. For healthy people not taking anti-depressants, a 100-150mg dose before bedtime most likely will not induce side-effects.

Take Galantamine

Galantamine can cause extremely vivid and long dreams, making it probably the most popular supplement for lucid dreamers. My first galantamine dream was radiantly colorful, alive, and animated — perhaps the most memorable dream I’ve ever had. Galantamine works by inhibiting the breakdown of acetylcholine in the brain. Whereas high serotonin levels promote deep sleep, it’s high acetylcholine levels that promote REM sleep (to use a simplified neurotransmitter explanation of sleep stages). Galantamine keeps acetylcholine levels up, making REM longer and more intense.

To improve dream vividness, galantamine must be taken half-way through the night. One method is to wake up after 4-5 hours of deep sleep, take 8mg or less of galantamine, then fall back asleep and let the dreams commence.

Do research before taking galantamine. You shouldn’t use it on consecutive nights, and you shouldn’t take it before a full night of sleep since it will suppress deep sleep in the first half.

Further Reading (books)

• Advanced Lucid Dreaming – The Power of Supplements, by Thomas Yuschak. This is a great resource for anyone looking to use supplements to improve lucid dreams. It’s the only resource I know of that gathers all dream supplement information into one place.

Grok is smiling because he slept well last night.

Cavemen slept well.

Or at least I think they did. They must have. They had no artificial lighting, no central heating, no junk food…

They exercised, ate lots of vegetables, got lots of sunlight. Their stress spikes came in 10-minute bouts with tigers instead of 10-hour bouts with office work.

Yup, cavemen slept very well, and I’m not the first to suggest that every sleep disorder — from insomnia to narcolepsy — is of modern origin.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love modern life. I love modern medicine, airplanes, and iPods. But we can learn a lot about how our bodies work by looking at how they were designed to work. I’m not suggesting we all become cavemen. But let’s take a trip back 20,000 years and see what Grok the Caveman can teach us about getting a good night’s rest.

Grok’s Guide to Phenomenal Sleep

Take in loads of sunlight. Grok spent his time outdoors, soaking in nature’s ultimate energy stimulant — the sun. Sunlight is better than Red Bull for energy, and it’s better than Prozac in fighting depression. The limited spectrum and intensity of incandescent lights you find indoors simply don’t hold up to the power of the sun.

Modern Solution: We can all take little steps to get more sunlight. Go for a walk, open the blinds, etc. But when we simply can’t escape the confines to indoor lighting, there is a modern solution for this modern problem: wide-spectrum lightbulbs, which closely mimic the sun’s natural, vitamin-D producing rays.

Limit light sources past sundown. Light exposure after sundown inhibits melatonin production (that’s bad). It also advances your body clock to run on a 25 or 26 hour day, making it difficult for people to wake up in the morning. We’re getting too much light when we’re not supposed to (after sunset) and too little light when we are supposed to (during the day).

Modern Solution: Dawn simulation. An hour before bedtime turn down your lights. If you’re working on the computer turn down the monitor brightness all the way and put on some sunglasses. Sounds silly, but apparently some people swear by this.

Sleep in cool temperatures. The cooler your bedroom the better. Cool temperatures promote deep sleep. Grok slept outside where it’s cool and our bodies evolved to take advantage of that temperature.

Modern Solution: Turn down the heat at night or open the window. The purpose is to be a bit on the cold side without being uncomfortable.

Eat primal. Meat, fish, fowl, vegetables, fruit, and nuts. That is what was on the caveman dinner menu. Despite conventional wisdom, foods like grains, rice, legumes, and refined sugar are not human foods and are certainly not necessary for good health. If the primal diet can protect against cancer, diabetes, obesity, poor energy, poor teeth, poor eyesight, depression, and schizophrenia, then surely it might be the key to optimal sleep. Call it a hunch, but yes… I think so.

Modern Solution: Going primal can be difficult in our modern world, but it’s possible. A good start is to remove refined sugars from your diet. Countless times people have reported better sleep after removing refined sugars.

Fill in the gaps. Did cavemen take nutritional supplements? No. But their meat was higher in omega-3s and their fruit free of pesticides. This is why I’m pro-supplements — fill in the nutritional void caused by modern food preparation.

Modern Solution: I can (and will) write a whole article on supplements and sleep, but let me just list one for now: Magnesium. Take 200-400mg of chelated magnesium before bed and you’ll notice two things: you’ll wake up easier and you’ll have more vivid dreams.

Sleep in segments. If you sleep in one consolidated block at night, you have one guy to thank: Thomas Edison. Our paleolithic ancestors most likely had a more fluid sleeping pattern. Artificial lighting seems to have forced us to sleep in one 8-hour block each night, while our bodies are naturally wired to sleeping in two or three blocks each day.

Modern research and studies of pre-industrial diaries suggest that humans are built to wake up in the middle of the night for 1-3 hours, splitting the nocturnal slumber into two blocks. Daytime naps are also wired into our genes. Hunter-gatherers living in the tropics likely held daytime naps as a mandatory habit.

Modern Solution: It is possible to simulate pre-indsustrial lighting by turning off all lights at sundown — in the winter this amounts to 14 hours of total darkness and 10 hours of light. That’s an extreme measure to take, but one study showed that when subjects did this, they slept in two blocks just like our ancestors probably did. The subjects reported having “crystal-clear consciousness” — hmm… kinda makes me want to try it. Well, I have’t tried it (yet), but I will say this: our bodies are wired to nap. Take an energizer nap when you can (typically in the afternoon), not just because Grok did, but because it feels good and is healthy for you.

Relax: Cortisol was a life-saver. This “alertness hormone” spiked in times of panic, perhaps when a predator was nearby, giving humans the extra juice and focus to fight or run (there are other hormones involved, too).

Despite cortisol’s life-saving effect, it’s been given a bad rap in today’s world. It’s now “the stress hormone” because our modern-day predators are bosses, rush hour traffic, exams, and deadlines. Our cortisol levels are running amok, which has been shown to greatly inhibit deep sleep.

Modern Solution: There are a hundred ways to reduce cortisol levels. How about meditation? I’ve been using holosync nightly before bedtime for about a month, and I have been noticing better sleep and curiously high dream recall (this is for someone who considers himself relatively “stress free”).

Play: Grok was active during the day. He played, ran, walked for miles. Some experts say that your sleep quality will be only as good as the quality of your day. Moving about and enjoying yourself during the day can improve sleep at night.

Modern Solution: Hitting up the gym never hurts, but what seems to be more beneficial is to really get outside and play around for a longer period of time. If possible, never skip out on an opportunity to go hiking, camping, snowboarding, etc.

Avoid Caffeine: Grok didn’t consume caffeine — maybe a few of our ancestors enjoyed nimbling on tea leaves, but Grok didn’t have triple grande cappuccinos (or whatever they’re called) from Starbucks. Caffeine suppresses deep sleep. The less you have in your system at bedtime the better.

Modern Solution: Be caffeine smart. I believe there’s benefit to going completely caffeine free, but I’m not there yet. If you can’t give up caffeine yet (like me) then the better solution is to understand how caffeine affects sleep and how you can minimize the impact. The earlier in the day you drink caffeine, the better. Also, try switching to better sources of caffeine, like Matcha green tea.

But Should We Really Go Caveman?

Let’s all thank Grok for that wonderful sleeping guide.

Now, is it really worth the effort to adopt the caveman lifestyle? There’s no answer to that question: it’s a decision you have to make.

Our modern lifestyle has many advantages — longer lifespan due to modern medicine being one. But it has disadvantages as well. I believe there are modern solutions to modern problems. Maybe Grok never went snowboarding, but snowboarding recreates the playfully active lifestyle of our ancestors. Maybe Grok never meditated with holosync, but meditation can perfectly well reduce cortisol levels similar to Grok’s. Maybe Grok never took an omega-3 supplement, but a fish oil capsule delivers the same brain-critical fats once found in long-gone grass-fed meat.

In other words…

We can have our cake and eat it too.

Further Reading (other websites):

• Introduction to the Paleoithic Diet — A good read for those interested in how our bodies were designed to eat.
• Full Spectrum Lightbulbs — These lightbulbs simulate the sun. So if you work indoors, full-spectrum lightbulbs can help reset your body clock and give you more energy and better sleep.

If you’re still drinking regular green tea, then you’re missing out. So pay close attention. This article will unveil the wonderful secrets of Matcha.

Matcha Health Benefits

Better to be deprived of food for three days than tea for one – Ancient Chinese Proverb

Let’s start from the top: The health benefits of Matcha green tea.

In a 2006 study, 1003 Japanese adults showed just how healthy green tea can be. The study showed that of all the Japanese subjects, those who drank one cup of green tea a day lowered their risk of cognitive decline (Alzheimer’s, etc) by 38%. Those who drank two cups a day lowered their risk by 54%!

Other research confirms that green tea has brain-friendly properties — a 2004 study in Journal of Immunology suggests that green tea can help treat and prevent multiple sclerosis by protecting brain cells.

So green tea is healthy for the brain. This health benefits appear to be the due to the superstar antioxidants found in green tea called EGCGs.

EGCGs are found in all green teas, but recent research shows that not all green teas are created equal. This is where Matcha comes in: Studies have shown that the EGCG amount in Matcha green tea is 137 times the amount in normal green tea. Wow…

In terms of EGCG content, you would have to drink 137 cups of normal green tea to get the same brain-health benefits from just one cup of Matcha!

Matcha Tea and Weight Loss

Yes, brain health is good, but that’s not the best part.

Research indicates that the various ingredients found in green tea can help eliminate abdominal fat. Many clinical trials, including this 2007 study, have shown that green tea extract reduces body fat and waist circumference.

What causes the weight loss? You guessed it — the EGCGs. EGCGs belong to a group of antioxidants called “catechins,” which are not only found in tea, but in cocoa as well. Catechins speed up metabolism, thus aiding in weight loss, among providing the usual antioxidant benefits.

Since the EGCGs in Matcha green tea are 137 times more abundant than in regular green tea, it’s a no-brainer to reach for the Matcha in your quest for a flat stomach.

(Almost forget… do I dare add that green tea can help suppress hunger cravings as well? see here)

Other Matcha Health Benefits

I could stop here with all the health benefits of (Matcha) green tea, but I won’t.

The EGCGs found in Matcha tea have also been shown to be powerfully effective at fighting certain cancer cells, while keeping normal cells healthy (see this study). Large-scale Japanese studies have shown that drinking green tea significantly delays the onset of cancer as well as reducing risk of cardiovascular disease.

And yet another study showed that EGCG protects against harmful bacteria, while promoting the growth of good intestinal bacteria, like Lactobacillus and Bifodobacteria (the stuff you find in yogurt).

If all of this sounds too good to be true… well, let’s go back to the basics: EGCG is an antioxidant, a potent antioxidant. Like all antioixidants, EGCG inhibits the aging process of tissue and reduces inflammation. The anti-inflammatory properties of EGCG are not just for a better immune system, but also for less acne, more radiant skin, whiter eyes, and just about any other outward sign of good health.

It’s no surprise that EGCGs promotes good health all across the board. That’s exactly what antioxidants are for!

Japan is the leading country in green tea consumption, and they also enjoy one of the highest life expectancies of any nation. Some experts believe that it’s the green tea that promotes their impressive longevity.

Why Matcha?

As mentioned before, not all green teas are equal. Matcha green tea contains 137 times more EGCGs than normal green tea. Why is that?

The answer is from how Matcha tea is made. Unlike normal tea leaves, Matcha tea is prepared by grinding full tea leaves into a fine powder. When you drink a cup of Matcha tea, you’re drinking the entire nutrient-rich leaf. In other words, you’re getting ALL of the health benefits that tea leaves have to offer.

Matcha green tea is THE healthiest tea on the planet. You can’t surpass the health benefits of consuming the entire tea leaf.

Matcha and Caffeine

One cup of Matcha tea has about half the caffeine of one cup of coffee.

I’ll admit, I like caffeine. It improves alertness, productivity, and mood. There’s no shame in going for that morning pick-me-up.

Nevertheless, there’s a huge difference between the caffeine found in coffee and the caffeine found in green tea.

Green tea contains a compound called tannin. Tannin slows down the absorption of caffeine into the blood. This means that the caffeine from green tea is gradually released over the course of 6-8 hours, unlike the short burst from coffee.

On top of that, green tea also contains L-theanine, which as a relaxing effect that reduces stress. L-theanine has been shown to promote alpha brain-wave activity, a sign of relaxation (see here).

Thanks to the combined effects of caffeine, tannin, and L-theanine, Matcha tea provides:

• Improved alertness and focus.
• Improved mood.
• Relaxation and reduced stress.
• Increased feeling of well-being.

Japanese Zen Buddhists have been using Matcha green tea for centuries for meditation. In fact, I drink a cup before I meditate, which noticably improves both the focus and relaxation needed for long meditation sessions.

Say goodbye to coffee jitters and caffeine crashes — grab some Matcha tea instead.

Matcha Recipes

OK, here’s the fun part….

Matcha is so versatile because it comes in a powder form. You can toss Matcha into anything.

While there’s a whole bunch of awesome Matcha recipes out there. I go for simplicity, because I’m lazy.

Matcha Recipe #1: The Dasani Shake

Add a spoonful of Matcha to a cold water bottle, shake, and enjoy. Instant iced green tea.

Note: I drink my iced tea straight and unsweetened. But if you prefer a bit of sugar with your iced tea, use natural sugars.

Matcha Recipe #2: The Matcha-Powered Smoothie

A blueberry, banana, Matcha smoothie I made this morning. Yum.

Matcha Recipe #3: Green Tea Ice Cream

Throw some Matcha powder into vanilla ice cream. Mix it up a bit and voila! Green tea ice cream! Who said dessert can't be healthy?

OK, so I seem to be forgetting the “normal” way to drink Matcha — hot, and whisked with some ceremonial bamboo whisk thing. You can do that too, I guess.

Where to Buy Matcha

Given Matcha’s health benefits, it’s subtle, exotic taste, and it’s easy-to-use powder form, having at least some Matcha in the kitchen is a no-brainer.

So where do you find this stuff? And more importantly, is it affordable? I get my Matcha from Amazon. I pay about $19 for 300 grams of Matcha. Each serving is about 2 grams… so that’s $19 for about 150 servings of Matcha. That should last about half a year if you use it religiously (which I do). Not a bad deal if you ask me.

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Click Here to get some Matcha from Amazon

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Here’s my Vita Life Matcha box.

Vita Life Matcha!

The Vita Life Matcha box comes with a small spoon to measure your 2 grams of powder. This box contains about 150 spoonfuls of Matcha.

Enjoy!

In my Sleep Hacks eBook I talked a lot about euphoric music. If you haven’t read the eBook, you might wonder how music is in any way related to sleep. Well, here’s the basic theory:

1. When you first wake up, you start with a blank mental slate.
2. In those first few moments, you’re not happy, sad, frustrated, or stressed. You just are.
3. Therefore, your state of mind is more impressionable during this time, and will more effectively soak up emotions based on internal or external triggers.
4. Therefore, if you listen to euphoric music right when you wake up, you will transition into a state of euphoria and well-being before other negative triggers can influence your state of mind.

So here’s what I do: I use alarm clock software to play an mp3 as the alarm. So instead of waking up to beeps or bzzts of a typical alarm clock I get a dose of my favorite music. I try to pick euphoric or uplifting music for the best effect.

What I experience is quite cool. As my alarm clock software starts playing euphoric music, it feels like the emotional centers of my brain soak the euphoria up like a sponge. As you transition out of sleep, your mind is clear and wiped of short-term memory. There’s a short window of opportunity upon waking up — those first few moments when you don’t remember what was stressing you the night before, or what tedious tasks await in the day. You can take advantage of that window and influence your state of mind with euphoric music.

When I do this, the positivity lingers for several minutes, sometimes several hours, and sometimes for the rest of the day!

In rare cases, if you’re lucky to hear the music in the half-asleep state of hypnagogia, you might experience a floating sensation accompanied by euphoria that is nothing short of spiritual.

I admit that the above “theory” is unscientific to some extent. It’s all just based on my experiences.

In this article, I will explain how I use euphoric music to instantly give me that “on top of the world” feeling after waking up.

Euphoric Music Defined

I have a list of 20 or so songs that elicit a strong psychological response (in me, at least). For a couple years I’ve been cycling these songs on my speakers during my morning routine. I’ve become addicted to the feeling of well-being I get from these tunes.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines euphoric as a feeling of well-being or elation. Therefore, euphoric music can be any tune that just makes you feel good… really good.

Euphoric music supposedly helps produce the “feel good” hormones and neurotransmitters, like serotonin, which have an instantaneous effect on your mood.

My personal selection of euphoric music tends to exhibit one of two qualities: a chillout quality and/or an energetic quality.

Chillout euphoric music has a calming effect. It eases tension and puts you in a good mood. Energetic euphoric music, on the other hand, can give you that “on top of the world” feeling. It’s kinetic, lively, colorful, electric, and if nothing else it will make you want to dance… or at least just smile.

My Selection

I might regret this later, but I’ll go ahead a share a few tracks from my euphoric music collection — these are all great songs to wake up to, giving you an immediate sensation of positivity and energy to start your day!

The following 6 tracks are ordered by where they stand on the chillout/energetic spectrum: the chillout euphoric tracks first, energetic last.

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Röyksopp – Only This Moment
Chillout score: 5/5
Energetic score: 1/5

Calm, relaxing, yet still uplifting.

[See post to listen to audio]
Buy from Amazon ($0.99) | YouTube Link

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Solarstone – Solar Coaster
Chillout score: 5/5
Energetic score: 3/5

Ethereal melody. I just love this tune.

[See post to listen to audio]
YouTube Link

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Rachmaninoff – Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini – 18th Variation
Chillout score: 3/5
Energetic score: 3/5

If there’s such a thing as “emo” classical music, Rachmaninoff was the main contributor. He, like many other musical geniuses, spent much of his life in depression. This is surprising given that he wrote one of the most tear-jerkingly beautiful melodies in existence — the 18th variation of the Paginini Rhapsody. In a word: Orgasmic.

[See post to listen to audio]
Buy from Amazon ($3.96) | YouTube Link

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Jean Sibelius – Karelia Suite – Intermezzo
Chillout score: 1/5
Energetic score: 4/5

An intensely colorful classical march. A great wake-up piece, since the horns are nice and loud.

[See post to listen to audio]
Buy from Amazon ($0.99) | YouTube Link

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Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen
Chillout score: 1/5
Energetic score: 4/5

80’s music… too corny for its own good. That’s why I like it.

[See post to listen to audio]
Buy from Amazon ($0.99) | YouTube Link

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Gouryella – Walhalla
Chillout score: 2/5
Energetic score: 5/5

Walhalla is my favorite euphoric piece. The energy sends chills down my spine every time. The build-up… the climax… ahhhhhh… life is good.

[See post to listen to audio]
YouTube Link

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Alarm Clocks

Several alarm clocks allow you to choose a piece of music for the alarm. If you sleep in the same room as your computer, you can download alarm clock software, which will allow you to choose an mp3 as an alarm.

Alarm Software for the Mac: Alarm Clock 2 – Free, and appears to be the most popular option for Macs.

Alarm Software for the PC: Citrus Alarm Clock – This is what I use. The trial is free, but it’s a small fee to register. I have not been able to find a free alternative for the PC.

Custom Nap MP3s

If you’re on-the-go and want to wake up to music following an afternoon power nap, then grab an iPod, some good headphones, and download my nap mp3s.

I use those nap mp3s almost every day.

What’s Your Euphoric Music?

In the comments, I’d love to hear your suggestions for good wake-up music. I am currently looking for song suggestions to include in future nap mp3 updates.

This graph shows my total sleep time (including naps) over the past several weeks. Yes, I keep a sleep log.

On August 10 I started to follow 2 new rules:

1. No grains (bread, rice, pasta, etc).
2. No refined sugar.

If you look at the graph again, you’ll notice that before August 10 I was sleeping about 7.5 to 8.0 hours. After August 10 my sleep duration started to decrease, hovering around 6.5 hours. At the moment I don’t use an alarm clock, so the change in diet seems to have caused a natural reduction in sleep need.

In my Sleep Hacks eBook I had a couple sections on how diet affects sleep. I am no doubt convinced that what you eat is a big determinant in sleep quality.

The reason I made this diet change is because of an experience I had several years ago. I was reading about how excess sugar in our diets can sap our energy, leading to general tiredness and fatigue. So I decided to spend a week sugar-free. I also gave up most grain-based foods since the “complex” carbohydrates from grain foods are quickly converted into sugar in our bodies.

The first two days of the experiment were normal, but on the third morning I woke up from the best sleep I’ve had in years. I got out of bed quickly and was actually excited about what I had on my to-do list for the day. To say I had more energy on this sugar-free diet would have been an understatement.

As all good stories come to an end, mine came to an end after only one week. Sugar is just too convenient.

Nevertheless, in the following years I ran other sugar-free experiments, all with great success, but none lasting longer than one month.

I decided to try going sugar-free again and post the results here, with particular emphasis on sleep quality.

Here are some of the changes I’ve noted from current sugar-free experiment. It’s been 20 days (and counting).

Sleep Quality

Waking up every morning is easier. I feel more rejuvenated than usual, most likely indicating a deeper sleep. I’ve also been having terrific dream recall, but I can’t tell if that’s from diet or something else.

As noted above, I’ve also been sleeping less. One night I might sleep 8 hours, the next I might sleep as little as 5. But it tends to average around 6 or 7. I use sunlight in the morning to help reset my circadian rhythm so that my sleep schedule doesn’t go out of sync with the 24-hour day (I’ve had that happen many times before; it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but something I don’t prefer right now).

Energy Levels

Going sugar free has put me closer in touch with my own circadian rhythm. I’m more aware of my alertness levels, and more aware of my body’s “time for bed” signal. I usually have a 4-hour window in the morning where I have high creative output. I’ve been using this time for writing, reading, piano, and work-related projects.

In the afternoon I have maybe an hour or two where my brain needs a break. So I use this time for routine tasks, or something enjoyable like a fiction book or movie. I usually follow up with a power nap, which I use as a springboard into the evening’s wave of alertness.

In the evening I have about a 5-hour window of high creative output. If it’s a work day then I’ll continue the projects I worked on in the morning. If I don’t feel like working then I’ll go to the gym or be with friends. I feel antsy and restless if I try to watch TV or surf the Internet in the evening. It’s like I have a creative energy in me that is begging to be put to use.

This used to not happen before. On my previous diet, I was not lazy and tired, but it took effort to refrain from humdrum activities like TV or surfing YouTube — sometimes a minuscule amount of effort, sometimes a lot, but there was always effort. Now I tend to get a bit anxious if I’m not expressing this newfound energy in some way.

Aside from that, I also have a better sense of when it’s time to go to bed. Our bodies send “go to sleep” signals that help us dose off. Staying up at night in front of a bright computer monitor (which I often do) can mask these signals, so do stress and other factors. Studies have shown the body’s “go to sleep” signal occurs at a time that — if you were to go to sleep then — provides a shortcut into deep sleep.

There’s something nutritionists like to call the “insulin roller coaster” — the constant high-low change of blood sugar and insulin levels caused by too much sugar in the diet. Aside from other problems, the insulin roller coaster takes your energy levels along for the ride, meaning unpredictable waves of alertness and drowsiness throughout the day.

I believe one of the reasons I’ve experienced these changes is because I’ve stepped off the insulin roller coaster. Your body can (and in some cases, prefers to) use protein and fat for energy. It doesn’t need the overabundance of carbohydrates and the subsequent highs and lows in alertness.

The Diet

My current diet rules are simple. I can eat as much of the following as I want:

• Nonstarchy vegetables
• Lean meats
• Fish
• Nuts
• Berries
• Olive oil or similar healthy fats
• Eggs

I don’t eat:

• Refined sugar
• Bread
• Rice
• Pasta

I limit cheese and milk, and limit high-sugar fruits like bananas, mangoes, and pineapple. My previous diet was approximately the same, except I ate “healthy” grains like brown rice, and I drank sugar drinks marketed as “healthy.”

I’m not claiming it’s a perfect diet. For one, I don’t follow it perfectly. For another, maybe I shouldn’t worry about high-sugar fruits bananas. But maybe I should. I don’t know. That’s why I experiment. Maybe I’ll try adding high-sugar fruits back in to see how I feel.

I still have some sugar intake, especially from berries. But the point isn’t to remove carbohydrates and sugar completely. The point is to remove the sources of carbs and sugar that our genes did not evolve to handle. Humans went for over 2 million years without grains such as wheat or rice. Humans didn’t eat refined sugar either. Both of these foods, in my opinion, are little more than unnecessary for optimal health.

I have been uncovering more connections lately between sleep, brain health, and diet. My recent change to remove grains inspired not only this article, but my previous one: Health Dangers of Bread, Pasta, and Rice (which might ruffle some feathers).

If you have any experiences with improved sleep quality or energy accompanying some dietary change, please let everyone know in the comments! Or you can contact me directly through email. I’m not an expert on nutrition, so I need help from my readers to share their experiences.

We have all been programmed to believe that grains are a health food. From whole wheat bread to pasta to the rice in sushi, we think we’re staying healthy by eating grains—in particular, large amounts of them.

Grains include wheat, oats, rice, and corn (yes, corn), which we eat in the form of bread, pasta, bagels, and Captain Crunch. They provide 56% of the calories consumed on earth. Yet if you were to go out in a field and chew on a stalk of wheat, you would find it tough and indigestible. So why do we eat them? The answer, from an evolutionary perspective, is that humans don’t eat grains—or didn’t, as the case is.

The first human species sprung up around 2.5 million years ago, starting with Homo habilis. Our ancestors were hunter-gatherers. Roaming from place to place, they ate fish, vegetables, meat, and occasionally nuts or berries. They consumed no grains, dairy, legumes, and certainly no refined sugars (okay, so honey was a hard-to-come-by treat).

Yet around 10,000 years ago something happened. Somewhere in the Middle East, people found a way to make wild wheat and barley digestible–grind it then cook it.

The addition of grains in the human diet both was good and bad. The good news is that the Agricultural Revolution allowed for the sustainability of large populations. We moved out of the hunter-gatherer niche and into the realm of big cities, which paved the way for further monumental advancements like the Industrial Revolution, modern science & medicine, and the iPod.

But grains have a dark side. Our genetic makeup, and the subsequent process of gene expression, is stuck in the past. Genetically speaking, we’re identical to our ancestors of at least 40,000 years ago. We’re hunter-gatherers, and our bodies don’t take kindly to the newfangled grains that were nonexistent in our primal diet.

It took about 5,000 years for grain cultivation to move from the Middle East to the outskirts of Europe. By looking at the archeological record, scientists have found that when a culture switched to eating grains, it was accompanied by a reduction in stature, an increase in bone abnormalities, an increase in infectious diseases, and a shorter life span.

Interestingly, if your close relatives are from Scandinavia—a late adopter to the grain diet—you’re at higher risk of being sensitive or outright allergic to wheat. In other words, it looks like as wheat cultivation spread across Europe it accidentally wiped out a good portion of the gene pool in its wake. Oops.

Why Grains are Unhealthy

So why are bread, pasta, rice and other grain-based foods bad?

(Skip this section if you don’t like nitty-gritty science).

Well, the health dangers of grains depend on your dietary context, lifestyle context, and your genetics, but for now let’s just explore their evil side.

1. Grains contain gobs of carbohydrates. I don’t care where you stand on the pro-Atkins-anti-Atkins scale. For more than 99.5% of human history, humans got ALL their carbs from veggies and fruits. That should raise a red flag, no?
2. Grain foods spike blood sugar. Carbohydrates from refined grains get broken down into glucose so fast that there’s little difference between eating 10g of sugar and eating 10g of refined grains. Lots of glucose in the blood generates free radicals and damages proteins (via Advanced Glycation End-Products) — translation: white bread makes your tissues age faster.
3. Grain foods also spike insulin levels. To counteract the excess glucose in the blood, your pancreas secretes large amounts of insulin, which is designed to allow glucose to enter cells. Too much insulin, however, and those cells become insulin resistant — to say this is a bad thing is an understatement. High insulin levels and insulin resistance are associated with obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and several cancers. Your brain, for example, loves to use glucose for fuel, but some neurons involved with complex thinking and memory can become insulin resistant. Brain fog, anyone?
4. Grains contain poor amounts of nutrients and fiber per calorie. Refined grains contain only trace amounts of nutrients and are quite barren in terms of fiber. Whole grains contain some vitamins/minerals, but also antinutrients (what the hell are those?! — see 6 and 7).
5. Wheat contains gluten. Gluten = allergic reaction = bad. More on this little bugger later.
6. Whole grains contain phytates. To put it simply: phytates block the absorption of certain nutrients like zinc and magnesium, which by the way are important for sleep quality.
7. Whole grains contain lectins. Lectins increase gut-permeability, which allow various junk into the blood. Your immune system gets confused, since some of that junk looks like body proteins, and starts attacking both the junk and the body proteins it resembles. The result ranges from acne to multiple sclerosis. Lectins are bad, mmkay?

OK… whew. Let’s summarize the above 7 points:

• Points 1-4 implicate that the grains put a huge sugar load on the body while providing little nutrients — something our genes weren’t designed to handle well. This is thought to be primarily responsible for the slew of modern diseases absent in pre-agriculture times. In other words, Grok the caveman never had diabetes.
• Points 5-7 simply state that grains contain crap our bodies don’t know how to handle. It’s no surprise that lectins, phytates, and gluten aren’t handled well by our bodies — for 99.5% of human history, those chemicals didn’t enter the gastrointestinal tract. By contrast, cows can metabolize phytates, but their ancestors fed on grains.

Myth: Whole Wheat is Healthy

Points 1-7 above help dispel the myth that whole wheat is a healthy alternative to refined grains (healthier, yes, but not necessarily healthy in its own right). Let’s drill in a few more points (Sorry, I can’t stop… I’m on a roll.)

1. The idea is that whole grains contain more “complex carbohydrates” than refined grains. Whole wheat flour (as found in whole wheat bread) will affect the blood sugar just as much as refined flour. True whole grains (like brown rice or oats) do affect blood sugar levels less so than refined grains, but their glycemic load is still very high.
2. In other words: Regardless of how “complex” a carbohydrate is, it still becomes glucose and it will still raise insulin levels, even if over a longer time scale. Large amounts of whole wheat can put a strain on a body that has adapted to vegetables and fruit as carbohydrate sources.
3. Whole grains are a good source of fiber. They are a source of fiber, but so are bananas. One banana has twice as much fiber as a slice of whole wheat bread.
4. Whole grains contain vital nutrients. But they also contain antinutrients (like phytates) which block the absorption of those nutrients. Pick the right veggies or fruit and not only get those same nutrients, but also flavenoids, phytonutrients, and anti-inflammatories.

Whole grains are still grains. There’s no nutrient in a whole grain that can’t be better delivered by any nonstarchy vegetable. Nonstarchy vegetables simply deliver a stronger nutrient punch than whole grains, but without the insulin roller coaster.

Grains are Drug-Like

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. Grains are like drugs?

Studies have revealed that cereal grains, especially wheat, maize, and barley, and dairy products contain opioid substances called exorphins. Opioid substances have a very similar sequence of amino acids to thsoe in our natural endorphins and apparently can bind to endorphin receptors in the brain… In simple terms, exorphnis produce narcotic-like and mood-altering affects and can be addictive.

While I wouldn’t compare grains to cocaine, think of how most hunger cravings are for grain-based foods. Ever had tuna fish or broccoli for a midnight snack? Probably not.

It is believed that the exorphins in grains play a large part in addictive eating behavior, particularly in those people who (ironically) are more allergic to grains.

Since the majority of people have some level of wheat (gluten) or dairy allergy, this becomes a very interesting point. When you eat allergenic foods, your body releases “feel good” endorphins to alleviate the allergy symptoms. The endorphins give you a “high,” which can turn to constant food cravings and an addiction to the very foods you’re allergic to.

Since the allergic response to gluten in wheat grains is so much more prevalent than people realize, let’s now give it a closer look…

Gluten

What if I told you there was a little protein that could cause…

• fatigue
• depression
• joint aches
• bone pain
• abdominal pain
• bloating
• diarrhea
• low nutrient absorption
• short stature
• infertility
• premature balding
• cancer

Well… let me introduce my friend gluten. Everyone say “hi gluten!”

Gluten is a troublesome protein that appears to be doing more damage to our healths than we initially thought. This little guy is found in wheat, barley, and rye — pretty much any bread or pasta product has it. (But rice and corn are safe.)

A certain percentage of us contain genes that see gluten for the foreign substance that it truly is. Our immune system reacts to it, but that immune response itself can become toxic. As we load up on bagels over the years, the immune reaction to gluten can be toxic enough to cause a whole buffet of problems. (Depression thought to be the most common, along with other vague symptoms like fatigue.)

Those of us who have an immune response to gluten are labeled gluten sensitive.

So how many of us contain genes that see gluten as toxic? (How many of us are gluten sensitive?) According to some research it might be 50% or more. But there are other genes that determine whether a toxic immune response will occur and to what extent that response damages our tissue. It’s confusing, but it boils down to this:

It is believed that 30-50% or more of the population is gluten sensitive, thus are deteriorating their health by eating wheat.

You know what they say about not shooting the messenger, right?

So gluten’s bad. But how bad? It depends on where you fall in the gluten sensitivity spectrum.

Sensitivity Spectrum

Grains affect people differently. Gluten might be harmless to one person, while giving the next an autoimmune disease. The carb content of grains also affect have a varied effect.

So when it comes to eating grains, there are two sensitivities to think about: carbohydrate sensitivity and gluten sensitivity. You fall somewhere on both of these spectrums.

Carbohydrate Sensitivity Spectrum

The above graph chart shows the carbohydrate sensitivity spectrum. Being on the left end of the spectrum is ideal, but the modern diet places most of us somewhere in the middle.

Carbohydrate sensitivity is caused by excessive intake of carbohydrates, especially refined grains and sugar. How far to the right you fall on the spectrum partly depends on how many refined grains and sugars you’ve eaten in your lifetime. There are other factors, like genetics, but your diet history is a big one.

I’ve always thought brown rice was a superior health food, but it has always given me brain fog. When you experience brain fog after a “healthy” meal of brown rice, you refuse to make the connection (out of allegiance to the idea that rice is healthy).

Even brown rice is very high in carbohydrates, which are broken down into sugar faster than we’ve been led to believe. I now realize that my brain fog was probably due to some level of glucose intolerance.

Gluten Sensitivity Spectrum

The gluten sensitivity spectrum is also something to consider. It is believed that about 1% of the population has classic celiac disease, which puts them at the far right of the spectrum. (Note: only about 2.5% of those cases are currently diagnosed. Eeek!) Celiac disease, by the way, is when your immune response to gluten is so bad (or occurs over such a long time) that it destroys the small intestine walls to the point where all nutrients are insufficiently absorbed — that can lead to a whole range of health problems.

Silent celiac disease is the same as classic celiac disease, except there are little or no symptoms. This is a bad place to be if you still eat gluten.

But like I said, research suggests that 30-50% or more of us fall somewhere on the gluten sensitivity spectrum, even if it hasn’t resulted in full-blown celiac disease.

Where you fall on the spectrum depends largely on two factors:

1. Genetics
2. The amount of gluten you’ve eaten in your lifetime.

The way I understand it is this: A person with a mild genetic disposition to gluten sensitivity can push himself farther to the right by continuing to eat more and more gluten grains.

Most research indicates, however, that still some people simply don’t react to gluten, or don’t react badly enough for the mild reactions to cause health problems. This could be from 50% to 70% of the population. What’s interesting is that much more people are sensitive to gluten than most people think. And worse, this gluten sensitivity is essentially undiagnosed in the general population.

If you’re sensitive to gluten, eating wheat can lead to a gamut of health problems. The common ones are vague issues like depression or fatigue. The good news is there’s a cure: a gluten-free diet.

Finding out whether or not you’re gluten sensitive is difficult. Go to your doctor and he’ll perform a blood test which can give false negatives. For the most part you’re on your own. Do more research, and more importantly, do a grain-free experiment to see how you feel.

A gluten-free diet is essential for anyone with celiac disease. Those with gluten sensitivity, though, should certainly look into it.

Melissa’s Story

There are numerous inspirational stories of people overcoming life-long fatigue, depression, or more serious illnesses by removing grains.

Anecdotal evidence provides a good backdrop for all the scientific reasons why grains can be harmful. Let’s take a look at story of Melissa Diane Smith, author of Going Against the Grain.

Fifteen years ago, I worked at a world-famous health resort known for its ability to transform overweight guests into slimmer and presumably healthier people. … I wrote stories that educated and inspired guests and employees about the value of the low-fat, high carbohydrate, grain-rich diet. This was a health prescription I believed was beneficial for everyone…

In retrospect, I should have recognized the signs warning me I didn’t thrive on a high-grain diet. For one thing, I was just plain hungry much of the time. I didn’t want to lose my trim figure though, so I tried to ignore my hunger pangs and kept a tight rein on what I ate. Other warning signs appeared. Less than a year into my job at the spa, I came down with a series of viruses and strp throat infections…

It never occurred to me that my diet could be contributing to my health problems. I paid severely for this naivete. Labor Day weekend of 1987 I developed a very severe, mysterious, flulike illness (much later diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome) that I could not shake. I then began a five-year odyssey in which I desparately searched for answers and solutions for my health problems …

At first I tried eating what I thought were healthful foods, especially vegetarian, macrobiotic, and other meals centered around grains. But the more I ate light foods … the more my health worsened. I experienced an aggravation of my sore throats, increased digestive discomfort and bloating, depression, and greater difficulty getting out of bed each morning…

Frustrated beyond belief, I delved further into nutrition books and health magazines and decided to try a radical new strategy: a wheat-free, hypoallergenic diet rich in lean animal protein and lots of vegetables… A strange–and wonderul–thing happened during my experiment: I started to gradually, effortlessly lose fat. i didn’t understand why but was elated with this development and stuck with the diet, difficult as it seemed. After about six months, I lost all the weight I had gained and was back to 115 pounds.

…

The seriousness of chronic fatigue syndrome forced me to persist on a diet that went against the grain (at least the gluten grains), and this was a blessing in disguise. My diet not only allowed me to regain my health but to maintain it ever since.

The Bigger Picture

Like I said above, the health dangers of grains depend on your dietary context, lifestyle context, and your genetics. For some genetic profiles, grains aren’t terribly harmful. At best, however, grains are simply unnecessary. Never will a grain replace a good, nonstarchy vegetable.

As you can tell, I like picking on grains. Humans survived over 2 million years without them. They can be harmful if they contain gluten. They put you on an insulin roller coaster that sets you up for poor energy, poor sleep, and future health problems.

But it’s true — grains taste good. They’re everywhere. They’re convenient. And going grain-free puts you in that fine category of social freak.

But if being in the social norm sets me up for obesity, diabetes, heart-disease, stroke, dementia, cancer, depression, and fatigue… then go ahead and sign me up for freak.

Further Reading (other websites)

• The Definitive Guide to Grains — Read more about the amber waves of pain at Mark’s Daily Apple. That blog is like RSS candy (or fruit) — worth the subscription.

Further Reading (books)

• Going Against the Grain, by Melissa Diane Smith — A wonderful starting point for anyone interested in the role of grain in our diets. The quotes and charts from this article were adapted from this book.