Today on the Yogahealer podcast, Dr. Gary Kaplan, D.O. joins me to chat about the various impacts of stress and sleep deprivation on the brain and overall health.

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• What is Mast Cell Activation Syndrome
• What causes brain inflammation and how it impacts our quality of life
• Why sleep is so crucial for long-term health
• How Yoga treats pain
• Why meditation is so effective for sleep and pain disorders 
• Why sleep apnea is so dangerous for your overall health 
• What really causes Lyme disease
• What is EDS and how does it impact the body on a deeper level

Links Mentioned in Episode:

• Have a conversation
• The Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine
• Total Recovery: Breaking the Cycle of Chronic Pain and Depression
• Epworth Sleepiness Scale
• Order Cate Stillman’s new book “Master of You”
• Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach
• Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma by Elizabeth A. Stanley PhD
• May Cause Happiness: A Gratitude Journal by David Steindl-Rast

Show Highlights:

• Dr. Gary explains how to determine if you have brain inflammation
• Cate and Dr. Gary discuss what optimal sleep is, and give advice on how to get it.  
• Cate and Dr. Gary rap on the many benefits of meditation for physical and mental health. 
• Dr. Gary spells out the different forms of Lyme Disease and how to treat them.

Timestamps: 

• 4:00 – 9:00 Stress and inflammation in the brain 
• 9:00 – 17:00 Optimal sleep and sleep disorders
• 17:00 – 24:20 Sleep Apnea
• 25:30 – 29:30 Disease in adolescents and belief systems
• 29:30 – 36:00 Meditation, processing emotions and gratitude
• 36:00 – 40:30 The benefits of habits on overall health
• 40:30 – 46:00 Lyme disease and EDS

Favorite Quotes:

• “Deep sleep is essential because that is when the brain detoxifies” – Dr. Gary 
• “As you start to get sleep deprived (less than 6 hours), after a week of that, your performance level is the same as being drunk” – Dr. Gary
• “If you wake up feeling behind, there is something wrong, and it’s lifestyle based” – Cate Stillman
• “Deep sleep and deep meditation have a lot of similar abilities to detoxify the mental and emotional buildup of activities (the thinking and emotions) that get packed into our day.” – Cate Stillman
• “Our habits are creating the disease” – Cate Stillman
• “Taking care of ourselves should be our first, second, and third priority, then we are much more effective at everything else we want to do.” – Dr. Gary
• “Meditation, we can’t start early enough. We should be teaching meditation in grade schools. We should be teaching yoga in the grade schools.” -Dr. Gary
• “What are our belief systems that are driving our habits? What are our belief systems that are forming our lives? That’s when doing things like meditation where you are really sitting and listening to yourself, you are aware of what is going on that you begin to understand where you can get better.” – Dr. Gary
• “Meditation is a pain in the ass. Because meditation is sitting and being with what is and not judging it. Sometimes with what is is painful. Fear. It’s about what else is there.” – Dr. Gary 
• “Building these habits, these habits that help us be healthy changes us physiologically. They change our brain, they change our immune system, they change our health.” – Dr. Gary

Guest BIO: 

Gary Kaplan, D.O., is the founder and medical director of the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine, and author of Total Recovery: A Revolutionary New Approach to Breaking the Cycle of Pain and Depression. A pioneer and leader in the field of integrative medicine, Dr. Kaplan is one of only 19 physicians in the country to be board-certified in both Family Medicine and Pain Medicine. He is board-certified in Medical Acupuncture and has studied and practiced Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Herbal Medicine. In response to growing numbers of patients presenting with heavy metal toxicity, Dr. Kaplan received certification in the science and practice of chelation therapy, by The American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM).

A clinical associate professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Kaplan was one of the directors of a $1.7 million NIH grant that funded an educational initiative to incorporate complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine into Georgetown’s medical curriculum.

In 2013, Dr. Kaplan was appointed by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Kathleen Sebelius, to the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee (CFSAC). The Committee provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary of HHS through the Assistant Secretary for Health on issues related to ME/CFS.

In 2015 Dr. Kaplan established the Foundation for Total Recovery in order to provide support and find a cure for all who suffer with chronic pain and depression by educating patients, building an online community of patients, doctors and researchers, partnering with leading researchers, academics and innovators, and studying data to find a baseline approach to diagnosing and curing neuroinflammation.