We close part 2 with two practices that go hand in hand with healthy eating. God commands us to focus on the health of our triune being, as we saw at the beginning of part 2, and this includes healthy sleeping patterns and regular physical activity. Sleep is needed to regenerate and protect the proper biological function of both our bodies and minds and to consolidate memory.1 We cannot think good food thoughts without sleep, and we can’t digest the food we eat well without sleep. Likewise, exercise is equally important. Not only does it make our blood circulate more efficiently through our bodies, bringing the chemicals of life to the cells and removing the debris of metabolism, but regular exercise also benefits the mind.
Sleep Less, Eat More
A lack of sleep has actually been associated with junk food cravings, confused food desires, and weight gain. In one study, people who were deprived of just one night’s sleep spent more money on MAD food-like products loaded with empty calories and bought more grams of food, in a mock supermarket, the following day. The researchers also found higher levels of a hormone that increases hunger, ghrelin, in the blood of the participants who lost one night’s sleep.2 Thus a lack of sleep can potentially make you hungrier, increasing your risk of unhealthy weight gain. Other studies have supported this finding, with a significant correlation between sleep deprivation and obesity.3
Indeed, scientists widely acknowledge that sleep deprivation impairs self-control and higher levels of self-reflection, self-control, and decision making.4 For instance, evidence from fMRI scans shows how a lack of sleep impacts higher-order thinking by specifically reducing activity in the frontal lobe region of the brain, an area that is important for controlling thinking and making complex choices.5 In fact, when you worship, pray, and meditate, this area fires up.6 And just as worship feeds our spirits, so food feeds our brains and bodies. The more we focus on God and the more we sleep, the more we will be inclined to follow a healthy diet, have healthy thinking, and have bodies and brains that work as they ought to work.
We need to be still and know that God is God (Ps. 46:10). Indeed, social jet lag—a syndrome related to the mismatch between the body’s internal clock and the harsh realities of our daily schedules—is also believed to be a contributing factor to today’s obesity epidemic by upsetting our sleeping patterns.7 Although our brains like the speedy rush of modern-day life, as we saw earlier, we need to learn to do busy well, which means sleeping well, not just for our digestion but for our mental and physical health in general.
There is also mounting evidence that sleep issues disturb neuroendocrine control of appetite, leading to overeating, which can decrease insulin and/or increase insulin resistance, both pathways to type 2 diabetes.8 Our brains change after chronic sleep deprivation, which in turn influences how much we eat and how well our metabolism functions to digest and use the food we eat—it affects the whole body.9
Ultimately, the combination of hunger and poor decision making can create the “perfect storm” when it comes to our daily food choices.10 Keeping a regular sleep pattern is therefore really important for good thinking habits and good food choices.
Get off Your Bottom
We all know we need to move. We are designed to move, for the sake of both the brain and body. Exercise potentially improves all areas of cognitive function, including thinking, learning, and memory, especially with age. In children, exercise is incredibly important for memory development. Yet the older you get, the more you need to move on a daily basis, even if it is in short bursts or power walking up those stairs instead of going in the elevator.11 Add worship, prayer, and constant internal dialogue with the Holy Spirit, and you have the winning formula: you get better and wiser with age!12
Our overall ability to think and understand through intellectualizing and shifting through our thoughts is improved with exercise, regardless of our age. Physical activity increases blood flow to the anterior cingulate cortex (deep inside the middle of the brain), which is activated when we shift between thoughts in a flexible manner.13 Not only are we better able to form memories when we move but we also improve communication between these memories, facilitating deep understanding. Adding to these benefits, certain hormones, which are increased during exercise, help improve memory and thinking. These hormones are growth factors called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1).14 In fact, people who exercised often improved their memory performance and showed greater increase in brain blood flow to the hippocampus, the key brain region that deals with converting short- to long-term memory and is particularly affected by Alzheimer’s disease.15 In short, your brain loves exercise!
A growing body of research indicates that it is aerobic exercise such as power walking and cardio, not just physical activity in general, which specifically leads to improved and flexible cognition.16 Unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as the MAD diet with little or no exercise, will actually speed up the process of senescence (cell death), and, in turn, the release of damaging substances from dying cells. These substances unfortunately increase the toxic load in the body and brain and are responsible for early aging.17 Exercise, on the other hand, can help prevent or delay cell death.18
Physical activity essentially changes our DNA for the better. The epigenetic pattern of genes that affect fat storage in the body actually changes with exercise—the more we move, the better our bodies get at using and storing fat. Remember, from chapter 15, how the methyl groups on genes can be influenced in various ways, through exercise, diet, and lifestyle, in a process known as DNA methylation? Researchers have found that when we exercise, epigenetic changes occur in 7,000 of the 20,000 to 25,000 genes, with positive changes in genes linked to type 2 diabetes and obesity!19 Other studies have shown that when we exercise, our body almost immediately experiences genetic activation that increases the production of fat-busting proteins.20 So thinking well, eating well, and physical exercise are therefore necessary to maintain a healthy body weight and lifestyle.
Although exercise fads come and go, the main thing to remember is to stay off your bottom as much as possible!21 Find out what works well for your body type, and maintain a disciplined exercise schedule. The mind dominates over everything, as I have mentioned throughout this book. So when you exercise, put your mind behind it.
You are more than your biology. You have the mind of Christ and are a conqueror in him. You can renew your mind. You can change your life, including your eating patterns, so that you are a good steward of not only your own body but the rest of creation too.
Yet with all the information presented in the past two sections, what does this change look like in real, everyday life? Where do you even begin? Part 3 is filled with practical tips, both physical and mental, to help you start your journey to health—spirit, soul, and body. I’ve also provided twenty-one of my family’s favorite recipes to get you back into the kitchen and reignite your love affair with real, whole foods. Bon appétit!