Think Thursday: The Power of Sleep and Neuroplasticity
Hey. Welcome to think Thursday from the alcohol minimalist podcast. Think Thursday is all about your beautiful, brilliant human brain. We're talking neuroscience. We're talking behavior change.
Molly Watts:We are talking about your mindset. Are you ready to get started? Let's go. Well, hello, and welcome or welcome back to Think Thursday from Alcohol Minimalist. I'm Molly Watts, and excited to have you here to talk all about neuroscience and brain health and mindset and how these impact positive behavior change.
Molly Watts:We are looking for ways to create sustainable change in our lives and to really understand how our brains work so that we can work with them, not against them when we're trying to do this stuff. Because, you know, at the end of our lives, the life story that we're gonna have is what we have done consistently over time. That's why habits are so important, and that's why I want you to get as fascinated about your beautiful, brilliant human brain as I am. I am I love learning about this stuff, and it's exciting because it really means that no matter how old you are, no matter how ingrained your habits are, you can create a new set of behaviors for yourself. You can become someone who does things differently than you're doing them right now.
Molly Watts:And I think that I think that's pretty cool. Today, we're gonna dive into a critical topic that really impacts and affects the brain and definitely affects brain health and behavior change, and that is sleep. Specifically, we're going to explore how sleep impacts neuroplasticity. And that neuroplasticity, we talked about it on both the first and second episodes of think Thursday. That is all about the brain's ability to adapt and reorganize itself, which is absolutely essential in making lasting changes in your habits.
Molly Watts:And now if you've been following along with us, you'll remember that in the first two episodes, when we talked about neuroplasticity. In episode number 1, we discussed how your mindset can actually physically reshape your brain, which is pretty cool. Right? Just like having a different attitude about your ability to change your habits, believing that you can change actually helps change your brain physically, which is so so great. In episode number 2, we introduced the iterative mindset and we talked there about progress over perfection, but really what's important about the iterative mindset when it comes to neuroplasticity is the fact that you it what as you struggle to do things, as things don't go exactly to plan, that's actually when your brain is the most active and when neuroplasticity is increased.
Molly Watts:So it's a good thing that we struggle and that is again how, you know, where we've come in terms of where we've been for these last two episodes talking about neuroplasticity. Now, today, we're gonna talk about sleep because it plays such a key role in supporting neuroplasticity. It makes both habit breaking and habit building possible. And, of course, when you're trying to reduce alcohol consumption or establish new positive behaviors, sleep is absolutely fundamental to your success. And, obviously, I talk about it.
Molly Watts:I've talked about it on the podcast a couple of times in terms of how alcohol, impacts sleep. But sleep is so critical that I I wanted to talk about it with regards to neuroplasticity so that maybe you understand why I am so passionate about getting you to change your drinking habits in terms of how it's impacting your sleep. It's just one of these things that we cannot cannot deemphasize in terms of how important sleep is for us and our overall health. So here's the thing. The the sleep, how this happens during sleep, your brain actually is doing a lot of neuroplasticity, a lot of that rewiring.
Molly Watts:It's happening when you sleep. It's during sleep that your brain consolidates new information. It strengthens those new neural connections, and it prunes away old ones. And without enough quality sleep, your brain struggles to make these changes, which is why sleep is so essential for behavior change. Now what exactly happens?
Molly Watts:Let's dig into that a little bit. So, you know, I love the science. And, hopefully, again, it'll make you understand how important sleep is for neuroplasticity and therefore, for behavior change. So we talked about it. I just mentioned it, memory consolidation.
Molly Watts:During sleep, particularly deep sleep and REM sleep, your brain consolidates memories. It processes the information that you've learned throughout the day, and it transfers it from short term memory to long term storage. This process is crucial for learning new behaviors and skills because it strengthens the neural connections needed to support them. Without sleep, the brain can't solidify these new pathways. Number 2, synaptic pruning.
Molly Watts:Throughout the day, your brain forms new synaptic connections in response to experiences. And during deep sleep, the brain actually prunes or weakens unnecessary synapses, ensuring that only the strongest and most important connections are maintained. And this pruning helps optimize your brain's efficiency, allowing it to focus on reinforcing the behaviors that matter most to you. It's like cleaning out clutter so your brain can work on building new healthier habits. The glimp number 3 is the glymphatic system activation.
Molly Watts:Sleep activates the brain's glymphatic system, and the glymphatic system is what clears out toxins and metabolic waste that accumulate during the day. And this includes substances like beta amyloid, which is a protein that has been linked to diseases like Alzheimer's. And by clearing out these toxins, the brain creates a healthier healthier environment for neurons to communicate and build those new pathways, and that is essential for neuroplasticity. During sleep, we also have the release of BDNF. And BDNF stands for brain derived neurotrophic factor brain derived neurotrophic factor.
Molly Watts:And it's a protein that promotes the growth and repair and the repair of neurons. BDNF plays a vital role in neuroplasticity. It encourages the formation of those new synapses, and it enhances cognitive function. And this is key for adapting those new behaviors and improving your ability to change. So it's during sleep that your brain actually releases BDNF.
Molly Watts:Number 5, emotional regulation during REM sleep. So REM sleep is what we believe helps process our brain helps us our brains process emotions, and it basically strips away the emotional charge from memories while retaining the factual content. And this emotional regulation is critical for neuroplasticity as it allows the brain to respond more flexibly to emotional triggers. And this can help you manage stress better and avoid emotional triggers that might lead to old habits like over drinking. Right?
Molly Watts:Number 6 is glial cell activity. Now glial cells also support neurons. There's these are cells inside the brain, and they are more active during sleep. These cells help reorganize synaptic connections and assist with brain repair, making sleep a crucial period for brain recovery and growth. And last, number 7, the brain during sleep has helps regulate cortisol.
Molly Watts:You get lower cortisol levels during sleep. Sleep helps regulate cortisol and as if you obviously, you probably know this. You've heard it. That cortisol is also known as the stress hormone. High cortisol levels due to stress or lack of sleep can damage neurons and impair neuroplasticity.
Molly Watts:So getting adequate sleep reduces, lowers cortisol, and allows your brain to repair and grow more effectively. So that's just what's going on inside your brain during sleep that, you know, just a few. And I'm sure that's just a short list because we all know the brain is really complex, and there's probably a lot more happening. But these processes make sleep not just a passive activity, but an active period of brain maintenance, repair, and growth. Without quality sleep, your brain struggles to form the new pathways that you need for habit change.
Molly Watts:Okay? And and, you know, it's not really like, you probably even fundamentally kind of understand that because if you've ever been sleep deprived, you you know that it feels your brain you just feel kind of fuzzy. Right? And it's been shown scientifically that sleep deprivation severely impacts your brain's ability to rewire itself. One study from the University of Pennsylvania found that just one night of sleep deprivation significantly reduced neuroplasticity, making it harder for the brain to form new connections.
Molly Watts:That was a that was a study done in mice, I believe. So just so it's clear, but, I mean, we're not talking humans. They're talking about mice there. But the that impact, that seeing that and being able to see that in mice even after just one night makes us realize how important sleep is for neuroplasticity. And sleep deprivation impairs also impairs the prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for decision making and impulse control.
Molly Watts:I'm sure all of us have experienced being overtired and how that feels when we are trying to, you know, stick to good good decisions. And that's especially when this you know, they call it decision fatigue. But when you are overtired, decision fatigue is definitely a real thing, and it makes it much harder to stick to our goals, and avoid falling back into those old behavior patterns like drinking to manage stress. Right? Lack of sleep also elevates cortisol levels, which increases emotional right reactivity and makes it more difficult to manage cravings or triggers.
Molly Watts:So if you're serious about changing your habits, whether it's reducing alcohol or building new positive routines and habits, getting enough sleep isn't optional. It's absolutely essential. And I know being a woman of a certain age that sleep doesn't always come easily to me. So I hear you, and I understand how hard this can be. And I wanna give you some ideas for tracking and improving sleep because it's something that, again, like the iterative mindset.
Molly Watts:Alright? I'm not telling you have to have perfect sleep every night. You have to, you know, like, put that kind of pressure on yourself because if you do that, I guarantee you, you won't get to be you won't be able to sleep. So I want you to make small incremental changes towards improving your overall sleep quality. We're gonna start with small steps and we're gonna make, you know, small iterations and decide that it's important to us.
Molly Watts:We wanna prioritize getting good sleep to the best of to the best of our ability, and we wanna try to make that happen for ourselves. So here are some practical tips. Number 1, track your sleep. Use sleep trackers. I wear a Fitbit.
Molly Watts:There's the Oura Ring. There's apps like sleep cycles, and these can help you monitor your sleep quality and identify patterns. Consistency is key, so you really want to aim for regular bedtimes and regular wake up times. To the extent that you can go to bed every night at the same time and wake up every morning at the same time, that is a huge a huge great step towards progress in terms of improving quality sleep. And in the beginning, don't even worry about how much sleep is going on in between.
Molly Watts:Just aim for the same time going to bed and the same time waking up. Number 2, create a a relaxing sleep environment. Well, you know, this should be I I would hope that everybody kinda already thinks that way, but you want to keep your room cool. You wanna keep your room dark, and you wanna get yourself into a rhythm and a pattern and a just kind of a, routine that emphasizes to your brain in a quiet way that it's time to rest. So just like you, you know, when you were a kid and or maybe as a parent, you read to your children.
Molly Watts:Right? And maybe you read your I used to read to my kids, wrap their backs. That was kind of a thing that got them ready for bed. Many people do the bath time then to bedtime. Right?
Molly Watts:We want to set up those kinds of routines for ourselves, And one of my favorite ones is a night, a cup of tea. I I typically drink, sleepy time tea. This is not in any way some sort of affiliation or advertisement, but I like a sleepy, a sleepy time. That's the the literally the what it's called, sleepy time tea. There are others.
Molly Watts:Some people, drink a warm magnesium drink. That's that's also a good option, but I like to have a cup of warm tea, and I try to drink one every night before I go to bed. You also want to limit alcohol and caffeine. These are both substances that can interfere with sleep quality. We talked about alcohol many times on the podcast, but you really want to the key with alcohol, especially if you are going to drink alcohol on a given evening, you want to stop drinking alcohol 3 to 4 hours before bed, which I know, obviously, contradicts many of you that are using alcohol as a nightcap to try to help yourself get to sleep faster.
Molly Watts:It disrupts and and does not allow your brain to enter deep restorative sleep, so you want to avoid it before you right before you go to bed. Caffeine, they say the cutoff is, like, 2 PM. I I I personally, I don't know. I I feel like I still have caffeine and I can still get to sleep, but, that's what the what the experts tell us. Number 4, you wanna practice relaxation techniques, mindfulness meditation, deep breathing before bed can help reduce kind of those stress feelings and improve more quality sleep, which, of course, will support better neuroplasticity.
Molly Watts:So sleep is a fundamental port a fundamental part of supporting neuroplasticity and behavior change. Whether you're trying to break old habits or build new ones, quality sleep is what allows your brain to heal, adapt, and rewire itself for long term success. It is more than just feeling well rested. It's about giving your brain the best possible environment to create the changes that you want. That is all I got for you today on Think Thursday.
Molly Watts:I would love to hear how you are liking these Think Thursday episodes. If you're enjoying them, please leave a review, share them with a friend. Remember, supporting your brain health with great things like your mindset, with things that are like your brain health, like hap good sleep. These are things that can help us achieve any habit change that we are trying to create, whether it's a positive habit that we're trying to build, break a habit that's no longer serving us, of course, including a peaceful relationship with alcohol, having our brains, our brilliant, beautiful human brains operating at their highest levels, that is really what what makes all the difference in the world. Understanding this science, understanding how much agency you have in helping your brain and working with it is something that I really hope you're getting from this.
Molly Watts:Until next time. Take care of your brain. Get a good night's sleep, and I will catch you with a regular episode from Alcohol Minimalist on Monday.
