Over the Counter Natural Cures by Shane Ellison Page B

better than relying on shoddy studies bought and paid for by Big Pharma that simply study symptoms and the statistical associations that come with them.
    Like mapping the flight path of an asteroid and predicting its location years from now, monitoring cellular function helps identify big health problems years or even decades before they start. Studying cellular function under sleep deprivation, I was able to map the health consequences of not getting enough sleep far before they manifested into more detrimental outcomes, like losing my libido. I uncovered some surprising results.
    During normal waking hours, all cells are damaged, particularly the powerhouse of the cell known as the mitochondria. 73 As the cellular engine, it keeps cells operating at full capacity. It helps them produce energizing ATP molecules, neurotransmitters, hormones, and lots more. When the mitochondria are damaged, these vital cellular functions cease to operate at full capacity. When we sleep, our cells undergo repair or are replaced by newly generated, healthier ones so that the vital functions operate efficiently. If you don’t conk out for eight hours or more, this antiaging mechanism ceases to exist. Our health tailspins due to “hormonal ignorance.”
    Hormones are chemicals—made by cells—that elicit certain responses in the body. They induce sleep, alertness, fat burning, muscle growth, and anything else you could imagine. At their most basic, they teach cells how to function and communicate among each other. Ultimately, this helps guarantee proper organ function. At their most complex level, hormones are the spark of life and work by triggering receptors found on the outer membrane of cells and within them. This triggering determines how our genetic material—DNA—expresses itself. While we are graced with genetic material from both parents, our hormones play a big role in how those genes are expressed.
    Proper hormone output and function is one of the most sophisticated systems of the body. Our total health—whether we live sick, orlive young—is dependent on “hormone intelligence.” This intelligence exists only when the body is fully rested. Otherwise, we experience hormonal ignorance.
    Hormonal ignorance is characterized by rises and drops in levels of hormones that kill and those that heal. Our fat-storing hormone, insulin, rises. The hunger-inducing hormone ghrelin heightens. The libido and muscle-inducing male hormone testosterone sinks. The antiaging hormone hGH (human growth hormone) dissipates. Our brain’s chief, free-radical scavenging hormone melatonin falls rapidly. Our fat-melting hormone leptin crashes. We essentially feel as though we have one foot in the grave. We become pissed off, fat, hungry, and depressed. This is just the beginning.
    As hormonal ignorance continues, our health trajectory takes a crash course toward poor immunity, obesity, cancer, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease. Those who don’t get enough shut-eye feel the early signs of this ignorance with excess stress, anxiety, and naturally, fatigue. For some, these feelings ignite a desperate quest for rest that ends in prescription drug use.
    THE DESPERATE QUEST FOR REST
    What if you’re like the millions of Americans who actually want to sleep a healthy eight but can’t? Hopefully, you don’t fall into the prescription-drug sleep trap like Mark did. It ensnares millions. If you thought insomnia was bad, try insomnia with a drug addiction.
    Mark is a nocturnal desperado. It’s been more than nine years since he has had a decent night’s sleep. He would do anything to sleep like a drunken bum. He tried six different types of mattresses. He cut back on coffee and gulped down gallons of chamomile tea and warm milk. He underwent clinical hypnosis to “reprogram his mind.” He gulped downthe overrated 5-HTP sleep supplement. He got cracked a million wacky ways by