Transcription
This supplement game changer for my health. Dose and timing of when you take it absolutely matters for sleep.
[music] It first the 95% of that 10 grams will go to my muscles and then boop it goes up to my brain. Creatine is a fuel source for your muscles. Estrogen was a stimulator of creatine.
We've got to talk about one of the greatest supplement hacks I have ever found for sleep. And if you all know me or been listening to my channel for a while, hopefully you know I'm not like a shiny object person when it comes to our health. I don't believe that there's like one thing you do and your whole health changes. But this supplement game changer for my health. And let me explain what it is, why it changed my sleep, and how you can use it properly so you get the same sleep result. Sound like a good plan? Let's dive in.
So, the supplement is creatine, and creatine is a fuel source for your muscles. So, bodybuilders, athletes have been using creatine forever as a way to get their muscles to perform at a higher rate. And your body makes creatine, so it naturally will pull it from the foods you eat. The challenge is most of the foods that you will supply you with enough creatine are animal-based. So if you're a plant-based, we may have a little bit of a challenge um in not getting enough creatine into the body. The other challenge that we have is even though your body naturally makes it if you are in a menopausal body, meaning you're a woman over 40 and estrogen has started to decline, estrogen was a stimulator of creatine. So whether you're working out really hard or you're a menopausal woman, these natural creatine resources in our body get depleted. And it's really important that we understand how to either use our food, which I put a lot in age like a girl on creatine. I even have a checklist in here on creatine. So on and how all the ways you can get creatine in. So, you're either, you know, if you're a muscle intense bodybuilder doing a ton of strength training, um, you're depleting those stores. So, you want to make sure you're adding them back in. Or if you're a menopausal woman, you're it's just naturally being depleted. So, we want to add them back in. But what do you do if you're plant-based, and this is where supplementation can come in.
The other challenge we have with creatine, I hopefully you all know that it's quite a popular supplement right now, but here's what I want to say. Dose and timing of when you take it absolutely matters for sleep. And that's why I wanted to do a specific video for you all on how do you use this incredible supplement that everybody's talking about right now specifically for sleep.
Now, with muscles, I want to go back there first because the first thing to know is that when your creatine stores start to fill up, 95% of your creatine resources will go to your muscles. That only leaves 5% for your brain, which affects your sleep. This is why timing and dose matters. And what we know creatine does for those muscles is it helps with endurance and it helps you recover faster. So really important if you're lifting heavy weights, if you're a super athlete, the creatine is incredibly helpful for this muscle performance. I will tell you, many of you know that I started surfing uh about seven months ago. And one of the things I noticed as a 56 year old woman was my paddle power. I was like, I just want better paddle power. And so this is when I first started to dive into using creatine in a very intentional way for myself. And absolutely when I took it on a daily basis, I literally noticed I was getting more movement and more paddle power, catching more waves. That's a good thing. Um, but it was really um an interesting observation for me that I needed to go higher in the dose to be able to get this muscle endurance and to be able to recover faster. So, if you're using it for muscles, pay attention to what I have to say about the dosage. And those of you who are a little unsure about creatine for muscle power, please know that there's the evidence is so powerful. In fact, there's a 25 review very recent that found creatine significantly improves muscle mass and strength and pretty much does that for everyone regardless of age and sex. That's a bold statement that I'll leave the link into that article in here for you to know.
Now, I want to say before I go into creatine and sleep that some of you that are using it for muscle power, when you first start using creatine, it it can cause your muscles to hold on to more water and give you sort of a bloated feeling. This is why if you are using creatine for muscle strength, you want to make sure you're using those creatine stores. Otherwise, they're just going to cause your muscles to swell and you might feel a little thick. You might feel a little bloated. So, it so hot using creatine to build muscle and for muscle power, you got to then put those muscles into action so that creatine gets used. Otherwise, it'll you might just feel a little puffy. That's not a fun feeling. So, okay.
But for sleep, here's what I want you to know is that if only 5% of the creatine goes to your brain, we need to get the dose up and we need to think about the timing. So, another 25 uh study in nutrition and health looked at creatine levels and sleep quality in almost 6,000 US adults. Now, this is a big deal. 6,000 is a huge sample size. And what they found is that people with the highest level of creatine intake were about 25% less likely to have sleep problems. This is what I found and I'll tell you exactly what I did here in a moment. We have other studies that here's a 24 study that found that women who took five grams of creatine a day slept longer and better than women who took a placebo. Now timing. We're coming to timing. And then there was a 24 study that found that creatine improves cognitive performance when you're sleepd deprived. This ties into the jet lag. And I actually had a really interesting interview on an incredible podcast. You all should go listen to it. It's called the neuro experience. I just had we'll put the link in here. I just went on this podcast with this neurosurgeon and we geeked out on creatine for dementia because remember it's a fuel source for the brain. But if you're not getting an intake of it and 95% of it is going to your muscles, you're losing it as a as this fuel source for the brain. So, in order to get these results, we need to make sure that you're dosing right and you're getting the best form of creatine.
Now, before you go to Amazon and you start just googling creatine and grabbing your your, you know, what you perceive as the best one, let me tell you some things you need to look for. [snorts] So, there are a lot of different types of creatine. Uh there's creatine hydrochloride, creatine ethyltor, there's liquid creatine um drinks, but the consensus both through science and in the health arena is to get creatine monohydrate. And you want it from a clean source, like a clean company. The one that I use, and again, I'm going to give you my sleep protocol here in a moment, is from Qualia, which is one of my favorite uh supplement companies. I also love their magnesium. So, I should have brought the magnesium because I'm now doing their creatine and their magnesium as a combo before I go to bed. And I am not joking. This is the first time I am sleeping consistently through the night. Specifically since over the last year was very traum I had a very traumatic year um and my nervous system just couldn't fully rest. But the minute I put creatine and magnesium from qualia in together, woo, game changer. So look for creatine mono hydrate.
Now the standard dosage, let's talk about how much you should take. The standard dosage on creatine is five grams. Everywhere you go, you're going to hear five grams. But remember those five grams are first going to your muscles. They're not going to your brain. Okay, quick pause the video. Do you know that my new book, Age Like a Girl, is out? It's a trilogy now. It's Fast Like [clears throat] a Girl, Eat Like Like a Girl, and Age Like a Girl. And I am so [music] proud of this book because I show you why menopause rewires [music] your brain for the better. It is how your brain starts to change itself so you finally put yourself [music] first. And for the science hounds, I have over 450 peer reviewed citations proving everything I wrote in this book. And I can't wait for you [music] to get it.
So, if I take five grams, which I was doing in my coffee every morning, I was putting this form of creatine in my coffee every morning, and then I go out to to exercise, I've depleted that that five grams. It's out of my system. That's not going to help me for sleep that night. So, some of you might need to take another dose before you go to bed of five grams. What I did to get my sleep working right is I did I'm doing two scoops of qualia and I do a scoop in there five grams per scoop. So I'm doing 10 grams right before bed. That's going so it first the 95% of that 10 grams will go to my muscles and then boop it goes up to my brain. And for the first time in over a year, I have not been waking up in the middle of the night. And it is I the the only thing I've changed is this creatine. So, you might need a higher dose at night.
Now, the research, if you want to speed the process up of getting both muscle power, getting great cognitive skills, um, and being able to sleep well, you might want to do what they call a loading phase. And the current research is saying that for one week you take 15 grams of creatine a day. The research says you split it into three amounts. So you would do five in the morning, five in the middle of the day, and five at night only for one week. Now, with that, remember, if you're walking around using, exercising, you're thinking, which hopefully you're thinking, um, if all of these things are going on um throughout the day and those creatine sources are being depleted, it makes sense that we would dose five grams per day or at different times throughout the day. So, you use your brain, you use your muscles, you deplete creatine, and then a couple hours later, you add it back in. So, I like that for being able to accommodate a very active lifestyle or those of you who are like on Zoom calls all day or a high cognitive performance. I like the five, five, and five. Now, what I've done is just doing 10 grams at night before I go to sleep and that is working for me. I haven't tried just I haven't split it up like that yet. So, just in full transparency, that will be my next step.
Now what's interesting is that after this weak load then you would want to switch to five grams because you don't remember whenever we take a supplement and I don't think I've ever really mentioned this. I used to say this to my patients all the time is that if you are taking a supplement for something that your body is naturally producing. If you take that supplement over and over and over again, you c you have the possibility of shutting off your body's own ability to make that supplement. This is one of my concerns honestly about hormone replacement therapy or um we I saw so many thyroid cases in my clinic. people who went on thyroid medication is that once you put an exogenous resource into your body, it can shut off your body's indogenous its own ability to make that particular nutrient. So, I love this loading. I love going in with 15 grams, splitting it up. I would tell you to get 10 before you go to bed, and then after a week, go to five. And if you're using it for sleep, do that five before you go to bed.
Now, in this interview I did on neuroexperience, um it w Dr. Louisa whose whose podcast it was, she is actually looking at creatine for cognitive decline and she said that she thinks over 10 grams for cognitive decline. If you have a relative with dementia or Alzheimer's, which I do, um the higher dose might be necessary because the brain has gone offline and it needs more of it. So, just we got to play with these dosages. I just wanted to let you know what the science was saying and what I was what I'm experiencing. So, again, this is showing up everywhere. Quality matters. I'm just going to I like Qualia. I I just know the company. I know they have clean ingredients, so and I've got experience with it and now I know it works because I'm seeing it in my sleep. So, make sure that it's quality. Make sure you do the the the the loading week. If you want it to be for sleep, make sure you're doing a higher dose before you go to bed. And I would even throw in there, you might need more of it on the days that you're working out tremendously hard. So, those of you who are really into exercise, you might when you go into the gym or you do whatever exercise lights you up, you might make a decision that I really burned my muscles out a lot today. I need to make sure that I add creatine back in. So, it's phenomenal for muscle energy, but it's imperative in my brain. It is imperative for brain function, not only for cognitive health, but for sleep.
So, if you want to know more about creatine, I there's a whole I have so much in in Fast Like a Girl. The checklist, those of you that have the book is on page 149 and 150. Um, those of you have the audio book, there is there are downloads, so you can find it there. And let me know if you're interested in knowing more about creatine because I want to do a whole master class on it. I think I'm going to do it through my podcast. I have my team of researchers right now getting me every single current research study we can find on this. I definitely will link the ones that I quoted here in these notes, but I want to do a master class because I honestly have never been so excited about a supplement for the aging person, not just the aging woman. This is a game changer on so many levels. And I'm just I just want to shout it from the rooftop. So, make sure that you have you subscribe to my resetter podcast. Stay tun uh tuned for the that class, that master class to drop. But until then, get yourself some creatine. Play with the dosage. Play with it. Let me know in the comments if it works for you. If it's already working for you, let me know. I'll leave links and discount codes for my favorite here. But most importantly, these are the kind of nuggets of information that we need to be able to decipher and say, is it right for us? Is it not right for us? What do we need to know about dosage? What do we need to know about quality? What do we need to know about timing? This is what I call critically thinking through a health trend for you because my dosage and your dosage might be very different. My timing of when to take it and your timing of when to take it might be very different because we're at different phases hormonally. We're working out differently. Our diets are different. So, we can look at the science and gleam some inspiration. Now, we got to try it on ourselves and figure out what's right for us. So, let me know if this was helpful. Let me know if you have a great experience with creatine. But most of all, I am so excited to bring you the good news on creatine. If this helped, you're not going to want to stop there. Check out this video.