(Breather) In this show, on the heels of the 21 insights around the circadian clock, you’ll learn just how destructive excess artificial light is to your health and your overnight restoration, and you’ll also gain a better understanding of the complex interplay between your hormones and your lifestyle habits.

Before we begin, if you happened to miss part 1 or just want to refresh what we covered last week, click here to listen to that episode first. Now, onto part 2! Here are some key points we’ll go over during this episode:

Many postmenopausal women find exercise training extremely frustrating due to the fact that hormone response alters as they age. In contrast, men usually don’t lose their Growth Hormone (GH) levels until they’ve reached 50-55 years of age. They’re also protected by their testosterone levels, which persist throughout life (that is, if they’re not already suffering from inflammation, as that directly lowers testosterone levels), and GH and testosterone are the key players that work to keep a man’s heart and muscles in shape.

But what happens when step 20, the surge of prolactin, is broken in modern humans? This used to be a more frequent occurrence among diabetics, but, because of our very common tendency to indulge in excessive technology usage after the sun sets, it’s started to pop up in all people, not just diabetics. And it’s no wonder, considering just how bright artificial lights tend to be! They’re so bright that they disrupt the usual circadian signals that come from the hormone response, which is why post-sunset light exposure reduces/blocks that surge in prolactin that our body is supposed to experience. This ties into sleep issues, as chronic lowered prolactin surges are associated with lower growth hormone secretion during the anabolic phases of sleep. (Note: since prolactin shows up a lot here, check out this great resource for everything you need to know about it, in case you want to learn more or gain a better understanding of how it functions.)

One thing that will have an affect on your cardiac and skeletal muscle function is lowered chronic GH secretion. This is because it directly affects the process of autophagy. When GH is not released in normal amounts, it decreases lean muscle mass and increases fat percentage, not just in your body, but in all your organs! This is something to take extremely seriously, as it leads to slowly declining organ dysfunction and poor body composition. 

But what happens in normal aging in step 21?

According to Dr. Kruse, “Aging is among the most common features found in studies on modern humans when DHEA and GH craters on hormone panels.” He also notes that the loss of the prolactin surge is noticeably frequent among postmenopausal women. Now, most women who are in the 35-40 age range are still in peri-menopause. And the higher their HS-CRP levels are, the faster they will enter peri-menopause, and the quicker they enter menopause. Unfortunately, they also age more quickly on a cellular level due to the fact that their circadian chemical clocks are sped up! Dr. Kruse also notes that women are more likely to face issues with leptin resistance than men because they already have higher leptin levels.

Many older women face challenges like cognitive haze, loss of body composition, poor sleep, and increased levels of heart disease after menopause. It’s also quite common for doctors to blame these issues on the loss of estrogen (from ovarian failure), but the culprit actually lies with the loss of growth hormone and progesterone production. Think of progesterone as the “off switch” with anything that is pro-growth. Interestingly, modern women are often estrogen dominant…yes, even after menopause, because of “mismatches” in circadian biology. Unfortunately, many post-menopausal women struggle with cognitive loss, as well as a loss of (on average) 1% of their bone mineral density per year. This is largely because of the lack of progesterone, which corresponds to sleep issues in women. But taking the step to replace progesterone in women is something that causes a major effect on their sleep and bone density, as well as improving their memories and boosting cognitive function.

Another habit to watch out for is snacking after dinner. Eating within four hours of sleep means you won’t receive that prolactin surge your body needs. 

The three most important hours in all human biology are 12-3 AM. These are “critical” hours at night for rebuilding our proteins and recycling our cellular contents. Dr. Kruse even goes so far to say that, “If you miss them, you can bet you have several neolithic diseases for sure,” because if these three hours are not reached enough during your sleep cycle, autophagy is never optimized and cellular repair does not occur in our cells. This means that the next day, by the time 6 AM rolls around and cortisol once again rises to wake us up, we are still using old, broken-down parts in our cells. Not exactly ideal for optimal health…

If you haven’t already started to wear blue-light blocking glasses at night, check out my man Matt Maruca’s awesome shades at Raoptics.com for some amazing, high-quality frames, and don’t forget to add my discount code too! Another crucial element of my night-time routine are Himalayan salt lamps. I really enjoy using these in the evening as they give off a really nice, mellow, orange hue that most people find really calming (plus, it doesn’t mess with your circadian cycle!). 

When you get ready for your evening tonight, instead of blasting your eyeballs with screen technology for hours, why not try reading a book, playing a board game or puzzle, taking a walk, or doing some stretching/light yoga movements? You really can’t go wrong as long as you simply find activities that you enjoy doing as a way of winding down and aligning yourself with your circadian rhythm. 

TIMESTAMPS:

Brad reviews the first 21 insights from the first show. He looks at what is happening with your circadian rhythm throughout the day. [01:39]

Melatonin is of great importance. [06:52]

Post-menopausal women often have problems with sleeping and gaining weight. [09:20]

Cold therapy for post-menopausal women is of great benefit. [10:01]

Men are protected by their testosterone levels which persist throughout life provided they are not suffering from inflammation. Dysfunctional relationship dynamics can destroy your testosterone. [11:25] 

Men do not lose their growth hormone levels until 50 to 55 years of age. [13:47]

There is no reason for men to slow down on their athlete goals as they age. [14:31]

In Dr. Kruse’s practice, he sees many young males whose inflammation has damaged their sex hormone levels. [17:10]

Most women begin to suffer from falling D H E A and growth hormone levels around age 35 to 40. Replacing progesterone is very helpful for women. [20:13]

How does snacking after dinner affect your circadian cycles? [24:15]

It appears that 12 to 3:00 AM are the critical hours at night are where the remnants of mammalian hibernation lie for our species. Dr. Kruse says they are the most important three hours in all of human biology. [26:39]

The implications for the growth hormone are huge for the warm adapted human. [29:14]

If you’re going to go keto or do cycles throughout the year, the wintertime is a great time to completely avoid carbs for a 30-day restriction or experimental period. [31:10]

As you age, you will have a higher body fat percentage, lower muscle mass if autophagy is not optimized by great sleep. [33:60]

It is highly recommended that your nighttime activities include softer lights and less technology. [36:19]

LINKS:

• Brad’s Shopping Page
• Dr. Jack Kruse
• 1st Dr. Kruse Show
• Brad’s Cold Therapy Video
• Brad’s Cold therapy Podcast
• BradKearns.com/MOFO
• John Gray Podcast
• Mark Sisson Instagram
• Charles Allie
• Dr. Michael Platt Podcast
• Meatrx.com
• Carnivoremd.com
• RAOptics.com
• Prolactin information

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Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad (1m 39s): Greetings and welcome to part two of our 24 hour tour around the circadian clock inspired by insights from Dr. Jack Kruse.com, D R J A C K K R U S E. So please listen to the entertaining and informative and pretty scientific first show. And then we will get into what to do when your circadian rhythm and your lifestyle habits. Aren’t quite dialed in. How we can make some positive changes and get all that great stuff. Working your leptin, sensitivity, your prolactin spike in the middle of the night, that leads to all kinds of downstream benefits or causes major problems. Brad (2m 23s): If things aren’t working out for you. So quickly, quickly through the first 21 insights that we covered on the first show. 6:00 AM the cortisol spikes and you wake up. Ghrelin is also high at that time if you are metabolically healthy. 6:45 we see our blood pressure rise to get us up and ready to go perform. It’s also time for heart attacks, if you’re unhealthy, when that rise a blood pressure and cortisol occur early in the morning. Then when the sun hits the retina at daybreak, we have the melatonin turns off and converts into serotonin the mood elevating hormone. And we also get that wonderful natural energizing boost from the identizine cortisol and serotonin effect in conjunction with real sunlight. Brad (3m 10s): So getting out there in the morning, getting your eyeballs directly exposed to sunlight, as well as your skin. 7:30 AM is insight number four melatonin shuts off in the brain and we’re ready to go. 8:30 is when the gut wakes up, Paracelsus becomes more vigorous and bowel movements are likely also a good time to eat food and stimulate the gastrocolic reflex. We also have cortisol, aldosterone and ghrelin all raised at this time, along with blood pressure, and that is a good time to be active, eat and digest food. We’re insulin sensitive. Here we come with number six is 9:00 to 10:00 AM. These are the highest secretions of sex steroid hormones in humans, pulsatile crescendos leading to our highest alertness and receptivity to sexual activity at 10:00 AM. Brad (4m 1s): Ha Ha. Number seven, 2:30 PM is when our ideal muscle coordination occurs. So this window from 2:30 to 5:00. Number eight is that 5:00 PM is the greatest cardiovascular efficiency. So that afternoon period is the best time for exercising. It’s also the best time for protein synthesis. So working out, getting a recovery meal in that is peaking in the afternoon. 6:00 PM changes occur with the sunset. We see a major change in cardiovascular system in conjunction with the sunsetting. 30 minutes later, we have higher blood pressure due to changes in ANF and ADH. Brad (4m 43s): So just kind of settling down and into a time period where we start to get hungry and want to slow down, eat food. So that’s number 11. At 7:00 PM we see a rise in body temperature as leptin and interleukin six are released from our fat stores with agouti, a neuropeptide that has a signaling effect to increase appetite, decrease metabolism, and energy expenditure. Time to sit around the fire, enjoy some food and kind of recover slow down from all the heightened, hormonal and metabolic activities during the day. Number 12 for the next two to three hours, leptin levels slowly rise and insulin levels fall. Brad (5m 24s): Adenopectin levels also fall during this timeframe. These fat hormone signals are what activate adenosine systems in the body adenosine is the neurotransmitter that over the course of the day rises and rises and rises and makes you feel sleepy. Eventually. Number 13, adenosine peaks at 10:00 PM. And this allows for the melatonin secretion three to four hours of total darkness. Ideal before you can really get maximum melatonin secretion and set yourself up for a good night’s sleep. Also serum leptin is rising quickly with a agouti’s help as it’s released from the fat cells to enter the brain. Number 14, these trends continue. Brad (6m 5s): The gastrointestinal track is slowly shut down and by 11:30 PM. It is adios bowel movements are shut down for the night. Absolutely don’t want any food near the late evening hours. So we want to be three to four hours clear of eating before it’s time for bed. Ideally at midnight, leptin begins to enter the hypothalamus to bind to its receptor and it signals energy reserves. So you’re going to burn stored energy through the night, if you’re metabolically healthy, that means that you’re going to be burning fat nicely throughout the night and getting rid of excess body fat with heat dissipation in the body. Number 16, the circadian rhythm determines the ideal timing of a correctly structured and restorative sleep episode. Brad (6m 52s): Melatonin is of great importance, and that is what hits the super ciasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus. That’s our light sensor and basically the control tower for all manner of metabolic and human activity. So the most important target of melatonin is the super cosmetic nucleus S C N. That’s why we use it to treat jet lag. It helps blind individuals, patients with dementia and shift workers kind of get back on schedule by taking supplemental melatonin. Okay. Number 17, after four hours of darkness, melatonin, secretion increases and allows plasma leptin to enter the hypothalamus If we are sensitive to its receptor, If we’re leptin resistant, this process can no longer occur and that’s super bad deal for restoration fat burning and all kinds of metabolic health, depending upon that melatonin, secretion being healthy, and then the leptin entering the hypothalamus. Brad (7m 55s): So once leptin enters and binds to its receptors, it affects the lateral hypothalamus tracks immediately and sends a second messenger signal to the thyroid to signal it to up regulate thyroid function and efficiency. This is how we raise our basal metabolic rate when we are leptin sensitive. So we’re sleeping at night and we’re burning off excess body fat insight. Number 19, the timing of the leptin action is critical. It usually occurs between 12 to 3:00 AM tied to when you last ate, how much darkness of your retina is seen, et cetera. This generally occurs soon after our hypothalamus releases a another hormone called prolactin from the pituitary gland in the brain. Brad (8m 41s): Leptin and prolactin key players in the story, along with melatonin. And of course the energizing hormones that we described in the morning, the adenosine a serotonin cortisol effect. So this number 20, the surge of prolactin is normally quite large in normal darkness, but it’s significantly diminished and artificially lit environments after sunset. And when you don’t get that surge, you mess up your growth hormone. You mess up your DHA levels and you have higher levels of inflammatory markers called cytokines, especially I L six, which you might read about a lot. If you’re reading science-y stuff, interleukin six. Brad (9m 20s): So bad sleep habits, too much light at night. You miss the prolactin surge, you mess up growth, hormone, mess up DHEA, mess up thyroid function and all no bueno. Number 21, the normal, large prolactin surge. We should see around midnight after leptin enters. The brain does not happen. If the patient has leptin resistant sleep apnea or is eaten food too close to bedtime, this is all blocked due to insulin spikes. This is also usually impaired if you’re a post-menopausal female. That’s why older women have problems with sleeping and gaining weight. Surprisingly, even though they’re dialed in with their exercise habits and their dietary choices. Brad (10m 1s): So the way to overcome or to counter this metabolic dysfunction, common in post-menopausal females is to become cold adapted post-menopausal women who are cold adapted, tend to do amazingly well clinically in most disease parameters from my experience. The main problem they face is vanity and dogma keeping them from using the magical cold pathways to become rock stars as they age. Okay, that’s the summary. And now we’re teed up to continue where we left off with a wonderful part two. And what were we talking about? Oh yeah. Post-menopausal female seeing if we can get them to jump into the chest freezer as the highest category demographic to benefit tremendously from that. Brad (10m 45s): Exercise training tends to frustrate post-menopausal women because if their hormone response is altered, they have a lot of trouble as they age. Men. on the other hand, do not lose their growth hormone levels until 50 to 55 years old, usually, Oh, I guess I better get in the cold tub. Oh, I am in the cold tub. Men are also protected by their testosterone levels, which persist throughout life provided they are not suffering from inflammation, which directly lowers their free and total testosterone levels. Growth hormone, and testosterone keep a man’s heart and muscles in tiptop shape. If inflammation destroys these levels earlier in life, it can show up. Brad (11m 25s): Even in younger people, I’m finding this clinical result is an epidemic in my own practice. Oh man, that’s sad. And that goes with the MOFO statistics that I cite Brad kearns.com/MOFO. Check it out. One prominent study indicating that the average male testosterone level is declining at a rate of 1% per year, dating back to the 1980s. That’s right. Grandpa had way more than you did and listening today. And that is a bad deal. It’s because of a whole bunch of factors, but we’re going to put the new stuff up there and to focus too, which are the plastics, the environmental estrogens found in plastics and in certain bad food choices, as well as the non-stop hyper-connectivity digital technology, no rest or downtime for the brain, too much artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. Brad (12m 19s): These are all slamming testosterone, as well as the hectic pace of high stress, modern life in every way, including the workplace, including interpersonal relationships. I have three shows with John Gray. I’d love for you to listen to how he talks about the rapidly changing cultural roles of males and females have created a lot of relationship tension that wasn’t there back in the day, when relationship roles were more distinct and defined. So the man on out and earn the money and came home, popped open a beer, sat on the couch, the woman made dinner and et cetera, et cetera. Now everything crossed up and it requires some adjustments and some strategies and techniques. Otherwise you’re going to trash your testosterone with a dysfunctional relationship dynamics that are so common today. Brad (13m 4s): And one way to tell if you are suffering from systemic or chronic inflammation, is that spare tire checkpoint because the accumulation of that special kind of fat called visceral fat around the midsection around the organs is an indication that your inflammation processes are messed up. And so to try to get rid of that belly fat as a lifelong goal, because it directly counters your sex hormone levels, your testosterone and growth hormone. So looking at that spare tire, I know it’s no fun. I know it’s so commonplace that you got a little one at age 37, a bigger one at age 47, and then you’re full on at age 57, 67, whatever. Brad (13m 47s): We got to fight that battle really hard. And that’s what the MOFO mission is all about. So back to this story. Dr. Kruse wonderfully identifying just how important that is to stay away from inflammation from inflammatory lifestyle practices, crappy food, excess exercise, poor sleep habits, too much stress. Then we can optimize those male hormone levels because we do have the potential and listen to him. This is so important. Men do not lose their grip growth hormone levels until 50 to 55. Then it starts to decline slowly and gradually if you’re a healthy person and they are also protected by their testosterone levels, which persists throughout life, unless you become inflamed. Brad (14m 31s): So look at those, a flag bearers in the older age groups, guys who are still performing amazing athletic feats, looking great. Look at Sisson on his Instagram. Mark Sisson primal, flashing that six pack. No Photoshop necessary. He is in peak athletic condition. It looks just as good as he did 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And he’s what 67, 68 years old. This guy on YouTube, Charles Allie, A L L I E running the 400 meters in the masters track and field in 60 seconds. Under 60 seconds at the age of 70 in the 70 to 75 age group. Brad (15m 11s): That’s decent enough to qualify for the high school varsity team as an old man. So watch out you young high school runners because there’s an old man out there that can give you a run for your money. Same with David Pitts. Who’s in my age group, 55 to 59 dropping a 54 second 400 meters. So very healthy hormonally. Doing fantastic job, preserving that male essence and competitive intensity throughout life, right, and myself, Oh my gosh. With my high jumping goals and things that are continuing on into my mid fifties here, I feel like I’m in better shape in so many ways on so many checkpoints than I was when I was a professional triathlete competing on the circuit between the ages of 21 and 30. Brad (15m 55s): No, I can’t keep up with my former self swimming and biking and running in an endurance competition, but I can sprint just as fast, possibly faster. I can high jump better than I could when I was in high school, fooling around with the high jump. And, Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to be able to haul off a set of pull-ups that was better than I did in the junior high presidential fitness contest. And so none of this stuff is necessary to be sitting on the sideline and weeping and crying because you just turned 45 or 55, or what have you. All right. That was like a commercial for MOFO. This show is brought to you by a MOFO male optimization formula with organs. Yes, the supplementation, the diet, the whole picture, keeping active throughout the day, rather than sitting around for hours at a time and all the other 10 items on the MOFO mission. Brad (16m 42s): And you can download it absolutely free ebook. Just click on that MOFO link@bradkearns.com becoming a modern day MOFO and giving you the 10 assignments of the MOFO mission. It’s so much fun. It’s comprehensive. You’re going to love it. And back to the show of the circadian clock with Dr. Jack Kruse, but we have to hit those high points when we’re talking about optimizing sex hormones, super duper important. All right. He’s so sad to see Dr. Kruse Is so sad to see young males coming in and having this inflammation destroying their sex hormone levels and all the negative aspects of that. He was citing some stats from the erectile dysfunction drugs are now dispensed. Brad (17m 27s): 40% of them are dispensed to males in their forties. So stuff that was unheard of just a couple generations ago when we didn’t have all these invaders. Okay. So here’s a new heading for Dr. Kruse in the article to dive. In what happens when step 20, that midnight surge of prolactin is broken in modern humans? This commonly happens in diabetics, but is now becoming a very common finding in modern humans because of the excessive use of technology after sunset. These artificial lights also tend to be quite bright and completely unyoke the normal circadian signals from the hormone response. Brad (18m 8s): I’m going to say yoke means synchronize in this context, we know what it’s like to be yoked in the weight room. So anyway, light after sunset reduces the prolactin surge we normally see in humans. When we see chronic lowered prolactin surges, we also see lower growth hormone secretion during the anabolic phases of sleep. Lowered chronic growth hormone secretion directly affects cardiac and skeletal muscle function because the process of autophagy, that’s the natural internal cellular detoxification process. Auto phagy the two words mean a self eating. So that means cleaning up the damaged dysfunctional cells, rather than allowing them to proliferate and become precancerous and cancerous. Brad (18m 54s): We need to clean up shop. That’s what’s so great about fasting. So you’ve heard that term a lot, probably that the benefits of being in a fasted state is you accelerate autophagy as well as getting good night’s sleep and cycling efficiently through all the phases of sleep and having the hormone secretions be optimal. Okay. So lowered growth hormone and the sex steroid hormones at sleep lead to a loss of cardiac function. This is why heart failure is strongly associated with low IGF one and sex steroid hormone levels. When growth hormone is not released in normal amounts, it also decreases our lean muscle mass and increases our fat percentage in all of the organs throughout the body. Brad (19m 36s): This leads to slowly declining organ dysfunction and poor body composition. We can measure this process clinically by looking for falling D H E A and growth hormone and dopamine levels as we age. Now, what happens in normal aging in step 21? Aging is among the most common features found in studies on modern humans, when D H E A and growth hormone craters on hormone panels. The loss of prolactin surge is especially prominent in post-menopausal women who refuse to jump into the chest freezer, cold tub, or take cold showers at the very least. Most women begin to suffer from falling D H E A and growth hormone levels around age 35 to 40 while they’re still in Peri-menopause. Brad (20m 22s): The higher, their HS CRP levels. That’s high sensitivity, C-reactive protein. That’s a common inflammatory marker that you can get on a routine blood test or ask for it if it’s not there. It indicates acute inflammation. So the higher their CRP levels, the faster they enter perimenopause and the quicker they enter menopause. They also age faster on a cellular level because their circadian chemical clocks are sped up. As a consequence, their telomeres shortened faster as well. The telomeres are the, the little shoelace extensions on the end of cells that have a certain length to them that has been associated now with your rate of aging. Brad (21m 3s): So the longer the telomeres, the more chances your cells have to divide and continue to survive. And if your telomeres shorten due to adverse lifestyle practices, the cells are going to not live as long. And remember cells that cells in the body can divide a finite number of times, and then they die. And that is the senescence. That’s the aging of cells or the death of aging cells. And that is basically aging in a nutshell, in a scientific terminology, okay. Women have higher levels of leptin for childbearing. So they are more prone to leptin resistant issues than men are. Brad (21m 43s): This helps explain why older women struggle with ( here’s some symptoms. Get ready): cognitive haze, loss of body composition, poor sleep, and increased levels of heart disease after menopause. Many physicians think that the losses they suffer are due to the loss of estrogen from ovarian failure. But the loss of growth hormone and progesterone production are far more significant in their physiology. Progesterone is the off switch for anything that’s pro growth. Modern women are usually estrogen dominant even after menopause because of mismatches in circadian biology. Cognitive loss is especially common in post-menopausal women. They also lose an average of 1% of their bone density per year from menopause in large part, due to the loss of progesterone, not estrogen. Brad (22m 32s): Loss of progesterone, also corresponds to poor sleep in these women too. Replacing progesterone in women has a major effect on their sleep and their bone stock. It also dramatically improves their memories and cognitive function as well. I did a great show with Dr. Michael Platt. So go listen to that one where he’s also talking about the extremely important and high beneficial effects of taking a simple progesterone cream, a 5% progesterone cream. He also recommends it for men as well, but this context especially important for women. So you might want to look into that and probably not ask your mainstream physician because they’re not in on this game, but if you can talk to a functional medicine expert or at least educate yourself, listen to the podcast with Dr. Brad (23m 18s): Platt. He explained it very, very well. And I’ve been trying some progesterone cream at his behest. I can’t say it’s been a life changer, but it’s just something that I’ve been trying. So I’m telling you about it. And boy, if you have those symptoms, cognitive haze, you know, losing your previously impressive body composition quickly as a post-menopausal female, poor sleep interrupted, sleep, and increased levels of heart disease, or you have heart attack, risk factors, like an elevated CRP comes up on one of your blood tests or the triglycerides have gone up from previous baseline levels. Boy, wouldn’t hurt to try it, right? So it’s Dr. Brad (23m 60s): Michael Platt makes his own progesterone cream. You can find it on Amazon or on his website. Okay. Replacing progesterone has a major effect on their sleep and bone stock. Hey, all right. Improving mood memories, cognitive function. Okay. Next heading in the Kruse article is snacking after dinner. How does it affect your circadian cycles? Oh, it’s no big deal. Keep snacking all the way through your Netflix binge. Not quite not. Okay. If you choose to eat within four hours of sleep, gulp, raise your hand. If you’re not getting outside of that window, if you choose to eat within four hours of sleep, you will never see the prolactin surge you need, because any spike in insulin turns off this critical sleep time-release that corresponds to the cellular maximums of the autophagic process for humans. Brad (24m 54s): In plain speak I think you can pull that out there. We want that autophagy to happen in the middle of the night and insulin is going to mess that up. I’m going to editorialize and wonder if a high fat snack that doesn’t spike insulin is less offensive, but we also know that the digestive system needs a break. The gut needs to repopulate and nourish the healthy bacteria in there. And we want that all to happen at night. So we definitely want to give our digestive system a break, absolutely mandatory, essential to consume calories within a 12 hour eating window. That is the, the minimum expectation and probably a very, very good health practice to try to tighten up that window into let’s say an eight hour windows. Brad (25m 41s): That would be a routine 16 hours fasted. Eight hours eating window for every 24 hour period. Tremendous health benefits await. If you can make that happen. And as Brian McAndrew, my main man at Primal Blueprint, the sound engineer and videographer, he also offered a great insight whereby if you like to eat breakfast in the morning, if you’re running off to a busy day where you don’t have a good chance for lunch, and that’s not a 16 hour fast window, right? Cause you eat dinner the previous night have breakfast in the morning. But if you can, let’s say achieve a 10 hour fasting window during a busy active day. That’s arguably just as impressive as being able to fast while you’re sleeping at night, because those hours are pretty much a free pass, right? Brad (26m 28s): That the eight hours that you’re fasting when you’re asleep big deal, but eight hours faster during a busy day, that’s building some really good metabolic efficiency. Okay. So back to agouti, the gut hormone. This also rises in the blood to higher than normal to block leptin from entering the brain. So it appears, and this is one of my favorite pullouts from the entire lengthy article. And I think I mentioned this in another breather show as a tidbit, Jack Kruse says it appears that 12 to 3:00 AM are the critical hours at night are where the remnants of mammalian hibernation lie for our species. Brad (27m 10s): These are the anabolic times for sleep. When we are rebuilding our proteins and recycling our cellular contents, we are cleaning house. They are three of the most important hours in all of human biology. If you miss them, you can bet you have several neolithic diseases. For sure. Why do you ask? If these three hours are not reached enough during our sleep cycle, autophagy is never optimized. And so celular repair does not occur in ourselves. This means we are using old, broken down parts in ours cells as the next day arrives at 6:00 AM and cortisol rises again to wake us up. We can measure this efficiency, the efficiency of this process by checking D H E A and interleukin six novels. Brad (27m 57s): I also like to measure hormone panels to see if the inflammation has destroyed any other hormone cascades in aging, men or women. This is vital and taking care of older people and treating their longevity. Interleukin six levels correspond to leptin resistant states as well. This makes sleep and metabolic coupling tightly controlled by circadian biology at all times of our life. It is magnified because sleep gets worse as we age and our D H E A, H D L and high sensitivity C-reactive protein rise. This is where doing a biohack, we can see why circadian mismatches can cause neolythic diseases in humans. Brad (28m 37s): Oftentimes we can find the same issues develop much earlier in a young paleo person who has a lot of mismatches in their circadian biology. I test them the same way I would an older person. Growth hormone is released in a pulsatile fashion from 12 to 3:00 AM during restorative sleep cycles, three and four. And this hormone facilitates autophagy and the recycling of proteins. In essence growth hormone keeps us younger and in great shape when we sleep like a rockstar. The problem is a modern man does not sleep well because of his brains technology and screen creations. The next section is more about prolactin. You must be asking why is this prolactin hormone so important in a warm adapted human? Brad (29m 22s): Prolactin is not just a hormone that secretes human milk. That’s the best known action of prolactin, but not the most important. Immediately after prolactin is released during sleep, another signal is sent to the anterior pituitary to release the largest amount of growth hormone as we sleep. Growth, hormone is stimulated only during autophagic sleep cycles in stage three and four. I’m sure we can learn what those are on his articles on his website, but we’re going to assume this is the deep sleep periods in the middle of the night, 12 to 3:00 AM released to increase protein synthesis for muscle growth while you’re dissipating heat via the uncoupling proteins. Brad (30m 4s): This is where the major release of growth hormone occurs in humans. Post puberty, when they’re warm adapted. 99% of the people reading this blog are warm adapted. If you choose to become cold adapted the growth hormone story, radically changes, then you’re going to get a bunch of those benefits we mentioned briefly and being less likely to have, have the, the dysfunctional story that we heard when the prolactin surge doesn’t occur. Okay? So the implications here are huge for the warm adapted human. If this prolactin surge is not adequate to allow us to enter the anabolic stages of sleep. Prolactin surge is diminished by both artificial lights at night and by foods that stimulate MPY, namely carbs and protein. Brad (30m 48s): When they’re eaten in the fall and the winter, when biology says they should not be available, I’ve heard some other people like Dr. David Perlmutter, discuss this too, where he recommends eating no fruit at all in the winter, because we are not adapted to consume those high carbohydrate calories during the winter. So if you’re going to go keto or do cycles throughout the year, the winter time is a great time to, for example, completely avoid carbs for a 30 day restriction or experimental period. It might be a good time to experiment with a carnivore eating pattern and so many people at meatrx.com, carnivoremd.com. Brad (31m 28s): Those are Saladino and Baker, the leaders in the movement. People are writing in showing a tremendous turnaround in chronic health conditions. When they engage in a 30 day carnivore experiment. No better time to do that than winter when you shouldn’t be eating carbs anyway, or a body’s not adapted to consume carbs anyway. Okay. And we’re getting to the finish line people. Pretty good stuff. If you’re leptin resistant, for any reason have sleep apnea, you will always have an altered body composition because of a low growth hormone level and altered sex steroid profiles on testing. The reason is that D H E A is the immediate precursor for these sex hormones and is always low in people with bad sleep efficiency, .Most, very low carb eaters who are warm, adapted face this very problem today. Brad (32m 20s): Very low carb diet is best used in a cold adapted mammal and not the modern warm adapted lifestyle. In essence, this diet is a mismatch for our modern lifestyle. This is why so many bloggers think ketosis is a dirty word for performance and body composition. Wow. Trip out people that is a wild and radical insight, isn’t it? So very low carb lifestyle. All these benefits we’ve been reading and being touted are best achieved are best experienced when you’re cold adapted, right? When we have the long cold, dark winters of our ancestral past, and those periods of low or no carbohydrate intake, those went hand in hand throughout our genetic history, right? Brad (33m 6s): The carbohydrates were plentiful in the summertime and humans evolved interesting ways to be able to consume excess calories. Yes, we have a genetic sweet tooth and store those excess calories as fat in preparation for the long dark cold winters free from carbohydrate intake. Now, if we’re only going halfway there, in other words, we’re cutting back our carbs, like a dutiful Keto, ancestral, primal paleo enthusiast, but we’re not getting cold adapted. We’re staying warm, adapted because we don’t expose ourselves to cold and we mess up the sleep cycles with excess artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. We not only don’t experience maximum benefits as touted as promised on the cover, it also could be a negative, a downer. Brad (33m 52s): Yeah, very low carb roots who are at warm adapted face this very problem. It’s best used in a cold adapted mammal, not the modern warm, adapted lifestyle. It’s a mismatch for our modern lifestyle. This all implies that as you age, you will have a higher body fat percentage, lower muscle mass if autophagy is not optimized by great sleep, this is precisely what we see today in most modern humans as they age. Invariably their sleep cycles and sleep durations are poor and decreased from their childhood levels. As they age, there’s a chronic insidious erosion of circadian biology by decisions made by modern humans over and over again. Brad (34m 34s): Whew, I’m still tripping on that final insight that a low carb lifestyle is really best contemplated when you become cold adapted with a today, obviously a devoted cold therapy practice, right? Unless you are really, really do face a long dark cold winter. So if you’re above the Arctic circle or you’re up there in the high latitudes, and you have an outdoor job where you’re working in cold conditions all day long, maybe slightly under dressed, then you’re a cold adapted human , but otherwise we’re going to have to hack this with a cold therapy practice. Start with that cold shower and transition, hopefully someday to the ultimate experience of the 24/7 accessibility of home therapy. Brad (35m 18s): That is the chest freezer. I have an entire show. You can search the archives. It came early on in the, get over yourself, a podcast feed about cold exposure. Or if you want to just jump to YouTube and check out that video, Brad Kearns, chest freezer, cold therapy, this becomes more urgent than ever to implement a cold therapy practice, especially if you’re eating low carb. So wow. People lots to think about here with these two episodes. And I know we kind of ended on a downer with Kruse’s final comments that, you know, we’re going to age and get more body fat, lower muscle mass, and a high risk of all kinds of diseases, including cancer, because we’re not sleeping well because that light is introduced after dark. Brad (36m 2s): But what an easy lifestyle modification to just make a resolve to have a quiet, dark mellow evenings, and just get that light down to minimal standard. You can now obtain the very popular tungsten light bulbs. They’re kind of back in fashion. You know, the old style Thomas Edison look and light bulbs that give out an orange hue, not that bright white hue, that’s so offensive to your, your melatonin and your other hormone functions at night. And just generally try to tone down the intensity of the light in your home. I just recently acquired a fantastic a hundred pound Himalayan salt lamp because I love the little ones so much. Brad (36m 43s): You know, those little guys that it looks like a, a rock sculpture, or they sometimes design them into a bowl with balls in the bowl. And those give off a really nice orange hue admitting through the Himalayan salt, and that can replace the bright, offensive white light bulb, as well as using the, the glasses at night, the UV protected orange or yellow lenses in the home. They let in plenty of lights so you can see around, but they block the offensive blue line spectrum that throws off all the hormonal function go to my main man, Matt Maruca his website, RA optics.com R A O P T I C S. Brad (37m 23s): And you can pick up some very fashionable, extremely high quality pairs of blue light blocking lenses. Oh, I have a discount for my listeners. Just go to Brad kearns.com and hit shop. And you can click on the raw optics button there and enjoy a wonderful discount. And if you don’t want to invest in a, a nice pair of fashionable pair, you can go on to Amazon and find those Uvex glasses for 10 bucks. And those are really highly rated. They block out like 99% of the blue light. So get those glasses on at night tone things down, choose mellow activities like socializing, actually talking to other humans, playing a board games, drawing, reading, instead of blasting your eyeballs with screen technology and the offensive light that’s emitted there. Brad (38m 9s): So that’s the easy one to tackle here from all these Jack Kruse insights, as he just wants you to get more aligned with your circadian rhythm. Thank you so much for listening to these two shows. I look forward to your comments, questions, feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com. And one thing I’ve been doing lately, that’s really fun is on my wonderful podcast app called overcast. You can push one button and wherever you’re listening to the, you can share that clip with someone else, even if they don’t have that particular player, it will play as a sound file if you text it over to them. So with the push of a button, you can acquaint your friends, loved ones, people you care about with a little clip from the show. Brad (38m 50s): I think it can go up to like one and a half or two minutes clip, and then that’ll inspire them to listen to the entire thing and go over and check out the, get over yourself podcast channel. I know some good things are going on because we can look at our stats and looking at the old shows, they continue to backfill with more listeners. So new people are finding the podcasts every day. I’m very grateful to you guys, listening to spread the word and hope you continue to do so. And we’ll try to put out awesome content that you asked for and appreciate. So I’m looking forward to your feedback too. All right Thank you for listening to the show. Brad (39m 31s): We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com. And we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to thanks for doing it.

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