Lifestyle & Entertainment

Natural Sleep Vital for 'Rebooting' Your Body in the Information Age, Claims Doctor

Internet Wire - June 6th, 2001

With more than two-thirds of adults now reporting problems with getting sufficient amounts of sleep, a leading expert on stress and nutrition says it's time to take a new look at the factors that have turned the "Internet Age" into the "Insomnia Age" for millions of us.

"Nutrition and sleep are closely related, and over the last twenty years we've seen a rapid decline in the quality of both," says Dr. Michael Pinkus, one of America's leading spokespersons for Alternative Health Care.

Dr. Pinkus, a consultant to dietary supplement manufacturer Nulab, Inc., says the function sleep performs for the human body is analogous to the 'Reboot' function many of us perform on our computers to keep them running at optimum speeds.

"Sleep is the body's 'Control-Alt-Delete' function, but due to nutritional deficiencies in the modern diet, and the body's internal reaction to new living patterns unique to the 21st century, too few of us are properly rebooting our systems," says Dr. Pinkus.

"We all know what happens to our computers when too many files are open -- computation becomes slow and tasks become difficult to perform. This is what happens to the body when there is a lack of sleep," says Dr. Pinkus. "Sleep deprivation slows the nervous system activity, which is the body's 'computing system' that interacts with the environment to send and receive data.

Dr. Pinkus says that insufficient sleep also causes the body's repair process to slow. Aches and pains not only do not resolve, but they become accentuated. Persons with arthritis who lack sleep often find their symptoms get worse, because the joints are unable to repair.

While the traditional approach to sleeplessness is the consumption of sleeping pills, Dr. Pinkus says such medications don't really produce true sleep.

"Sleeping medications result in unconsciousness, not sleep," says Dr. Pinkus. "Using the computer analogy, sleep medications put the body on 'Standby'. There is no Control-Alt-Delete function occurring, so the body doesn't get a chance to repair itself."

Dr. Pinkus also says that sleeping pills do not address the actual reasons a person is unable to sleep.

"Giving an insomniac sleeping pills is like a mechanic giving a customer earplugs to fix a rattle in the engine," says Dr. Pinkus. "It's masking a symptom rather than fixing the cause."

Dr. Pinkus says that to understand the current insomnia epidemic, one should realize how much civilization has changed over the recent decades - a change that has occurred too rapidly for man's physical bodies to become completely adapted.

"Technology has evolved more in the last 20 years than it has in the last 20 million years, but 21st Century technology wasn't developed with much consideration of how it impacts the more slowly evolved human body," says Dr. Pinkus. "Our bodies are machines that have been evolving over millions of years. Since man first walked the planet, these machines have been involved with some form of physical labor -- whether hunting, building shelters, or farming the land. Suddenly, in a relative blink of an eye, Man began using his mind and the exchange of information rather than relying on physical activity to survive. The result is an overabundance of certain hormones manufactured by the body to assist in daytime labor that no longer are burned off through physical activity. These hormonal excesses are responsible for much of the sleeplessness plaguing us in the Internet Age."

Dr. Pinkus says problems with sleeplessness in the 21st century are not only triggered by excess levels of hormones like adrenaline, but also by an insufficient intake of nutrients needed to interact with the body's sleep producing hormones.

"Coenzymes are nutrients needed by the body to assist in certain chemical reactions. They act as catalysts, often working with hormones to activate or deactivate biological activities. It's my experience over the past twenty years that most sleep problems can be resolved through the introduction of the proper coenzyme into the body to enable the sleep hormones to properly execute their function."

Dr. Pinkus says that restful, health-promoting sleep can only be ensured through a proper nutritional approach, and the first action to be taken by anyone experiencing sleep problems should be a complete analysis of their diet.

"Monitoring food intake is critical," says Dr. Pinkus. "The typical hamburger & fries lunch not only introduces an assortment of hormones from the animal into your body, such food lacks many of the nutrients essential to ensure your body can carry out the biochemical activity needed for proper rest."

Dr. Pinkus says that sleep medications are also to be avoided. "There are many natural herbal insomnia remedies available, but if your nutritional program is correct, if your vitamin and mineral intake is sufficient and properly balanced, and you manage some daily physical activity to burn off any excess adrenaline, you shouldn't need any sleep remedies at all," says Dr. Pinkus.