Welcome to the Phoenix Helix podcast dedicated to maximizing autoimmune health through the paleo diet and lifestyle.

While there is no cure for autoimmune disease, the choices we make every day can have a powerful impact on how we feel.

I'm Eileen Laird, your host from PhoenixHelix.com, and I reduced my rheumatoid arthritis pain by 95% which took me from a life of excruciating

pain and disability back to a full and beautiful life. A short disclaimer, I'm neither a doctor

nor a nutritionist and the opinions expressed here are personal. Always consult with your

health care team before making medical decisions. Now let's get

on to the show. Welcome to episode 94. Today we're going to be troubleshooting problems sleeping.

Sleep deprivation increases inflammation and puts the immune system into a defensive mode,

neither of which is good for autoimmune health. Many of us have experienced a flare triggered by lack of sleep,

yet autoimmune disease itself often causes or compounds our sleep challenges. So what do we do?

My guest is Dan Pardy, a sleep expert and researcher at Stanford University in California and

Leiden University in the Netherlands. He studies how lifestyle factors like sleep impact our

mental and physical health. He's going to be sharing lots of tips for overcoming sleep challenges

and allowing our bodies to heal on a nightly basis. Welcome to the show, Dan. Thank you so much for

having me on. I'm really happy to be here. I'm really looking forward to

this conversation today. Before we dive into our interview, I want to welcome a new podcast

sponsor, Real Plans. They are a meal planning app that can use on your smartphone or a desktop,

and it just makes meal planning easy. So one obstacle to sleep for a lot of people actually

is simply making the time for it.

There often seems to be not enough hours in the day

to get done everything we want to get done.

And meal planning makes all the food preparation

...