Sleep holds the key to your brain’s full potential. Imagine unlocking deeper sleep — not with pills — but with natural, science-backed strategies designed to help your brain recover, repair, and thrive. In this episode, Dr. Fab Mancini talks with Rick Anson about the often-overlooked connection between quality sleep and cognitive health. They dive into the root causes of sleep issues, the surprising role of hormones, and how better sleep can lead to better brain function and overall wellness.

Highlights:

00:10 - The Sleep Crisis Impacting Millions

Over 70 million Americans suffer from sleep issues, affecting all age groups and fueling chronic health problems.

02:20 - REM Sleep: The Ultimate Performance Booster

How reaching REM sleep can push you into the top 5% of performers — enhancing cognitive function and even reversing chronic illnesses.

06:00 - A Breakthrough Restorative Sleep Solution

An innovative vegan sleep gummy, packed with melatonin, L-theanine, and chamomile — designed to help you fall asleep in 15 minutes and support brain health naturally.

10:20 - The Dangerous Health Risks of Sleep Deprivation

Alarming stats: sleep deprivation raises heart disease risk by 48% and Alzheimer’s risk by 30%, proving that quality sleep is essential for long-term health.

14:15 - Transforming Your Lifestyle for Better Sleep

Practical tips — from cutting screen time to boosting physical activity and even creating family sleep challenges — to help you build healthier, lasting sleep habits.

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Learn More about BrainIQ: https://brainiqhealth.com/

Connect with Dr. Fab Mancini

www.endingchronicdisease.com

https://drfabmancini.com/

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https://www.youtube.com/@DrFabMancini 

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Dr. Fab Mancini: Hi. This is Dr Fauci Mancini. I'm super excited to be bringing to you this topic of sleep with Rick Anson, Rick, you are one of the greatest innovators in nutrition that I've ever met, and we know that over 70 millions of Americans have reported that they're not able to sleep properly. That's actually one out of five in the whole country. I want you to know that's just not your children. That's you and me, that's our parents, that's our grandparents, and we need to do something about it. See, the brain needs to rest in order to recover, to repair all the challenges that you've gone through the day, it's the time of the evening that your body detoxes from all the pollutants that we breathe in the air, all the pollutants that are in our drinks, in our water, all the pollutants that are in our foods. So you need to have sleep. Now, actually, the lack of sleep has caused one of the biggest challenges, and that is the increase in a hormone called cortisol. Now, cortisol is one of the most destructive stress hormones because it breaks down the body. It breaks down the cells, it breaks down the organs. It breaks down the systems where your body cannot function the way it was designed to function. Now, Rick, here you are sitting looking at the challenge of chronic disease when it comes to sleep is one of our biggest challenges right now in today's world. It has to stop. It has to be dealt with. It can no longer be ignored. You cannot just satisfy yourself with over having 500 challenges on TV, and you're going to be flipping the channels throughout the whole night. In fact, recently I heard one of the best times to put a commercial where it's cheap but you get returning your investment is in the middle of the night, because most people are not sleeping now, the majority of the people are sitting up all night trying to figure out what to do when I can't sleep. That's breaking our bodies down, that's causing a tremendous amount of inflammation that's leading to one of the biggest root causes for chronic disease. You're looking at all these problems, you're sitting with all these incredible labs, you're seeing ingredients, you're reading the science. How is it that you're thinking that you're going to tackle this problem?

Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a global problem, and I didn't even know when I five Americans have chronic sleep issues and children, right? Which is even worse, right? Because they're developing their minds and their bodies. When you take a look at tackling a subject like chronic sleep deprivation, you look again, you look at innovation, and you look at all try to to understand and incorporate all the factors of why people are not having great sleep or losing sleep. And so it always starts, for me, it always starts with the innovation and sourcing the finest, safest ingredients that work naturally in your body so that you actually can produce REM sleep. That REM sleep for our everyone out there is rapid eye movement. If you can put your body into a state of REM, rapid eye movement, that's the best deepest sleep. And in many cases, people actually dream in color. And if you can get into REM, and you can dream in color, and remember those dreams, you're going to be at the top 5% your performance, your health, your ability to reverse or eliminate many of these chronic diseases are in your power, right? I think the choice is yours, right? And we are providing through years of research, through years of the obtaining and studying the finest ingredients that are safe, that are natural, that work in the body, that are non addictive, only in terms of how well you feel. I think we've come up with an amazing product set, and we're actually calling it restorative sleep. Dr, fab, where it's more than just sleep, right? It's more than getting the six or seven hours. We've created a product line that helps put you into that REM sleep that with the perfect amount of melatonin l theanine, which is an amino acid, and chamomile, which is a derivative from T, it's been it's a perfect formulation for people to take at night within the you better have your pajamas on within 15 minutes, wherever you're at, because you're going to be falling asleep, right? That's that's our innovation promise to you with these three carefully formulated and perfected amounts of ingredients. But when we talk about restorative sleep, right? We want you to go into that REM sleep. We want you to have those dreams. We want you to wake up refresh. But we've added a component, which is part of the cognitive support that we talked about earlier. It's a capsule that has brain ingredients, that's caffeine free, that you take with. Both are dream sleep, vegan, sugar free, gummy so that while you're sleeping, while you're restoring your body, like you mentioned that we're providing these vital brain nutrients for cognitive support. So there's no better time than those six to seven to eight hours of this regenerative, restorative sleep to provide these vital brain nutrients so you wake up refreshed. You wake up ready to tackle anything. Imagine, as you said, restoring your brain, your energy, a bank with sound, safe, great sleep, and incorporating these vital brain nutrients, so when you wake up, you have all this energy you have, you're ready to go out there and conquer the day, physically, mentally, and you just got an amazing, nice sleep from these simple to use products.

Dr. Fab Mancini: Well, you know, most people don't realize that sleeping less than six hours a night can lead and increase your chances of getting heart disease by over 48% 48% and another study showed that the lack of sleep can actually increase your chances of developing Alzheimer's by 30% now Rick talked a little bit about the restoration of the body. We know that sleep is essential. It's one of those essential things that your body needs. We are constantly acting and pushing our bodies beyond their comfort zone. The stress levels alone are enough to keep your brain activate, active in such a way that you may feel completely exhausted. You know, one of the biggest challenges that we have right now is that we have what is called the sedentary syndrome. That means that people are not moving. People are so tired by the time they get home, all they want to do is they want to eat their fast food. They want to get in front of the TV and they want to vegetate. They need to recover. What we're offering you, instead of that, is the opportunity to begin to change your lifestyle choices, that instead of getting home and sitting on the couch, why not go for a walk, why not go for a run? Why not take your bicycle out and move your body before you go to sleep. Do something. It doesn't have to be strong, but do something to acti, activate your body and your brain. Number two, make sure that you put all of your technology aside at least one hour before you go to bed. The worst thing you can do is be looking at your phone, scrolling down all of the social media, watching TV, right? Those are the things that activate your brain and prevent it from sleep. But what I love about Rick is that he's looking beyond the lifestyle choices that you can make. He's trying to give you the ingredients that have already been proven to support your restorative sleep, to not only give you the opportunity to have it, is not six or seven hours. Studies have shown that it should be nine to 10 hours now, that you should have sleep. And I know sometimes I have patients of mine that brag about I only need three hours of sleep, and all I keep saying to myself, yeah, I'll see you when you're 60 or when you're 70, and you're going to tell me, Well, how did that work out for you? Because I have always been taught the more I get into the brain and the nerve function of the body that the body and the brain need to rest, they need to restore, they need to repair. They need to be able to assimilate all of the challenges and all of the activities that you had that day, because your organs go to work while you sleep. Your organs are the ones functioning, trying to duties that they did not have the time to do during the day, because your stress levels pull them in all different directions, right? It's like if you are working on a project and you have a team of people, right? So think of the team of people as your organs. And all of a sudden, hey guys, we got this deadline in a week. We got to complete this. But then all of a sudden, you start pulling people into other side, things that are distracting from that center. Do you think that by any chance you're going to complete that project in a week? You're not well, that's the way the body is the body is got is designed with organs and 12 systems that are supposed to be working throughout the day to keep you in a state of balance. The problem is our stresses every single day, and we all have them pull us in a distraction that don't allow our bodies to function the way they're meant to function. So what do you have? You have the nine to 10 hours of sleep that actually is your Savior. It's actually the time that you can repair better than ever, but you need that deep sleep. What do you think that people as you study this, what are some of the individuals or the studies that you've shown have taught you about why. These ingredients are so effective. You mentioned that three, right? There's a lot of ingredients out there that I see in products that I'm like. How did they come up with that? How did you come up with those three to be the most effective product in the market when it comes to sleeping better?

Well, again, you source the finest, the safest and the most effective ingredients. And that is a deep dive into, you know, pharmaceutical companies or bioscience companies, nutraceutical companies, and studying those and then pulling those ingredients out and putting them into a form factor, a delivery method like these vegan, sugar free gummies, right? Is, it's a beautiful thing to be able to eat a gummy 15 minutes before you go to sleep and get all these benefits, the many, many products contain melatonin. But what many people don't understand is they take a it's five milligrams. All the clinical studies have shown this a perfect amount, not six, not seven. Five milligrams is a perfect amount to take before you go to sleep. Many people, as you mentioned, they turn on the TV, they're doing work late at night, and they take a product that has melatonin. They're still studying. They're still working. They're still stimulated, so they feel it doesn't work, so they take another product that has melatonin. It's the worst thing you can do. It's counter active to take more than five milligrams of melatonin. So we start there. Then you take what's natural in your body, which is your amino acids, l theanine is shown to help put your body into that REM, that rapid eye movement, and then lowers your stress levels. And it's naturally found in your body and foods this amazing amino acid, and then the chamomile is this outlier, right? This chamomile ingredient is derivative from a tea contains zero caffeine, but it's soothing and calming, and it has this amazing synergistic effect with the with the melatonin and the amino acid. So that's why we chose those three ingredients, and we chose to put them into this amazing vegan, sugar free gummy as the delivery form, again, 15 minutes before it goes sleep. But you mentioned something that's so important. We are reclassifying we're educating people on the benefits of restorative sleep. So you mentioned Dr fab, the brain, second largest organ in the body, next to your skin, when you take our cognitive support, caffeine free capsule with the dream sleep gummy now you are nourishing that brain. While you're sleeping, you're feeding, nourishing it. All the ingredients are vital for brain function, brain support, Vision support, and we've added that all important, that almost a miracle ingredient now, Dr faub, everyone's talking about is NAD. We've incorporated the NAD into the capsule that you take at night with the dream sleep gummy. So you're getting cellular energy. You're getting anti aging benefits. So many people wake up groggy, maybe you know they're taking a drug to help them sleep, which is addictive. Causes these side effects. And then you're tired, and you drink an energy drink, you drink three or four cups of coffee, right? Because you're trying to wake your body up, because you're really feeding it artificial energy, this caffeine that stimulates you for a little bit and then makes you crash later. How about taking this restorative brain product while you're sleeping that when you wake up, you don't need any of those things, because we've given you those vital minerals, nutrients like NAD that helps your body have natural energy, both mentally and physically, with this great night, with this great sleep, that's what we're educating and teaching people, that they have a better alternative And a whole nother category called restorative sleep that's available to everybody. Dr Fab

Dr. Fab Mancini: Well, you heard it first here, restorative sleep. Pay attention to this term, because you're going to hear more about it and maybe even people writing about it and lecturing about it. And it's something that is critical, because many times, most people don't realize that a big factor of the obesity and the weight gain that you may be experiencing right now is the lack of sleep. Also, when you have a lack of energy in your body, is a lack of sleep. These are things that we notice ourselves. But then when you go into the physiological impact that lack of sleep has the increase of cortisol levels, all of the distress that goes into the body when it cannot rest. Your body is a human being. It's an engine, but it can wear out. The more that we can help it be able to sustain aging. Longevity comes from what choices do we make today? And one of the biggest choices. That I can tell you, and I'll repeat it again and again and again, is you got to have enough sleep every single day for your body to leave its ultimate position in health. If you want to live longer, if you want to live healthier past 70 and 80 years old, you have to get plenty of sleep. We see that in our children, right? And we praise and celebrate when our children take naps. We spray and celebrate when our children sleep nine to 10 hours, even though I know sometimes they're late because they didn't get up on time, and you're rushing them through the bed, but at the same time, you notice that your body is constantly regenerating. There's a new science that started a few years ago called regenerative medicine. And regenerative medicine talks about how our bodies are constantly regenerating themselves. Our cells are constantly regenerating your bone regenerates every 17 years. Your lining in your stomach is every six hours. So you have all of this regeneration going on in the body, but sleep is at the center of it, and experts have actually taught us that when people sleep enough hours, they have a much better chance to reducing their chronic diseases at this time, we're on a mission to end chronic disease. We want you to be a part of that. The only way that I can get you to do that with me is for you to start making better choices every single day. So I want you right now to make a point and make a commitment to yourself that I'm going to try to sleep at least nine to 10 hours tonight and start with one day, and maybe, if that worked for you, and you felt incredible the next day, right? If you take these products the night before, you're going to pretty much ensure that that's going to happen, but then you wake up with a restore brain, a restore body. Why? Because all of those ingredients are working throughout the night to help support the recovery of that body from that stress during that day. So I hope that this was inspiring. I hope that we gave you plenty of value to think about, and, more importantly, talk to your family members about their sleep most of the time, we don't realize that our children are not sleeping. Based on what they tell us. Is that many of times they tell you they went to bed, but they end up watching TV, playing video games, doing something in their computer, like social media in the middle of the night, and you have no idea, except you notice the next morning, they don't act the same. They're tired, they're groggy, they may be even a little edgy in their temperament. Well, that's typically the very early signs of lack of sleep. So make sure that you're paying attention. Make sure that sleep becomes a celebratory thing. Make sure that the whole family gets into it. Create a 30 day challenge. We're gonna sleep nine to 10 hours every day, and we're gonna be the healthiest family in our neighborhood. I hope you enjoy this, and I'll see you next time. Thank you, Rick

Thank you. Dr Fab