Can You Eat Your Way to Better Sleep?
You’ve heard that, “You are what you eat,” but did you know that there’s some truth to, “You sleep how you eat?” There are many ways to promote better sleep, and diet is one of them.
The Benefits of a Seeing a Healthy Lifestyle Specialist
Athletes, actors, entrepreneurs, and others who want to excel in their fields enlist the help of coaches to take their games or businesses to the next level. A coach focuses their intentions on your individual needs and customizes workouts or plans to help you reach your goals.
Of course, the most important game or business you have is your own good health. A healthy lifestyle specialist acts like a one-on-one coach to help you attain your fitness and health goals, including maintaining your results over the long term.
Dana J. Rockey, DMD — our expert dentist, sleep doctor, and health specialist — guides you toward the choices that work best for your body, fitness level, and lifestyle. Here’s how to take your game of life to the next level.
Fuel your body with the right foods
Most of what you find on your local grocery store shelves is designed to please the palate, not to nourish the body. Dr. Rockey weans you off addictive foods that keep your body in a high state of inflammation, which puts you at risk for weight gain and chronic diseases, including heart disease and dementia.
His approach to diet isn’t just about getting to your goal weight. It’s about keeping those extra pounds off for the long term. It’s also about nourishing your body with fresh, natural, vibrant foods.
A healthy diet doesn’t just help you lose weight and look better, it can help also you:
- Feel more alert
- Have more energy
- Sleep better
- Build more muscle
- Lose excess fat
- Maintain bone strength
You may be reluctant to give up processed or junk foods that you’ve enjoyed for your entire life. But once you feel how much more energized and focused you are when you give your body the nutrients it needs, you won’t miss or crave those old “comfort foods” anymore.
Lose fat and build muscle
Did you know that having more muscle mass not only makes you look and feel buff and fit, it actually helps you burn calories? Muscle tissue burns more energy than fat tissue does. As you shed excess inches of fat and build muscles, your body uses food for fuel more efficiently.
Strong muscles keep you healthy as you age, too. The pressure of muscle mass on bone helps to maintain bone density and avoid age-related osteopenia and osteoporosis, which raise your risk for fractures. One of the prime causes of debilitation in elderly people, in fact, is a condition called sarcopenia, which literally refers to loss of muscle mass.
You don’t have to become a 100-year-old weight-lifting champion great-great-great-grandma like Edith Murway-Traina, either. Start with resistance bands or the weight of your own body to keep or build your muscles. Add more weight as you get stronger.
Improve focus and eliminate stress
While many people in our culture love to brag about how little sleep they need or how much stress they endure, if you want a brain and a body that functions well, you have to treat them well. That means managing stress and getting enough sleep.
Sleeping isn’t a sign of laziness. When you sleep, your body and brain are hard at work eliminating toxins, consolidating memories, and building new cells.
Dr. Rockey helps you find the stress-management techniques that let you face your busy day without being overwhelmed by it. From mindfulness to deep breathing to meditation, you learn how to be in control of your stress instead of letting it control you.
In addition to being a healthy lifestyle specialist, Dr. Rockey is a sleep doctor. If you have an undiagnosed sleep breathing disorder, such as sleep apnea, he prescribes a customized oral appliance that lets you breathe freely and fully all night long.
For all ages, levels, families, and groups
You don’t have to be coached alone, either. If you’d like to achieve health and wellness with your family, friends, or coworkers, we design plans for that, too. We even offer work wellness programs for employers who want to ensure the health of their workers (which, of course, affects the health of their business).
Health and wellness coaching works, no matter what your situation. You can improve the way you look and feel if you’re:
- Pregnant
- A kid or a teen
- An active adult
- An athlete
- An older adult
- Overweight or obese
- Underweight
A lifestyle specialist helps you stay healthy as you age, and helps prevent degenerative diseases that drastically reduce your quality of life. On the other side of the age spectrum, you can help build your baby’s brain and fitness from the womb with programs designed specifically for pregnant women.
Become a pro at the game of life by teaming up with a healthy lifestyle specialist today. Give our office in Newport Beach, California, a call at 949-558-0554.
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