Sleep Your Way to a Healthy Brain (Ep 344)
Your brain is a masterpiece — the most complex organ in the universe, using up to 25% of your body’s energy. But by day’s end, it’s cluttered with waste. Sleep isn’t just rest. It’s divine design for deep renewal.
In this episode, discover why sleep is your secret weapon for brain health and spiritual clarity. We’ll explore the power of the glymphatic system (your brain’s “night crew”) and why consistent sleep is more vital than even diet and exercise.
Focus points include:
- The brain’s need to detox daily
- How sleep deprivation hijacks your health
- What the glymphatic system does while you rest
- God's smart design for body, mind, and spirit
----------
See the full episode transcript below.
👉 Enhanced show notes: JesusSmart/344
👉 Explore more episodes: JesusSmart.com/podcast
If this episode woke something up in you (pun intended 😄), share it with someone who’s ready to live clearer, healthier, and more aligned with God’s best.
Be sure to follow the podcast. Each episode is designed to help you think more clearly and pursue the kind of life only Jesus makes possible.
Stay current via The Smart Edit newsletter—Elevate your faith. Live smart. Make an impact. Free. Weekly. 5 minutes to grow. Unsubscribe anytime. Sign up at JesusSmart.com.
----------
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hey there, my friend. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Brian Del Turco with the Jesus Smart X Podcast, episode 344.
First, an apology—it’s been about three weeks since the last episode. Life has been a little crazy, but we’re back on track. This weekly podcast is meant to release consistently, and we’re tightening that up moving forward.
Today’s episode is a little different. I’m sharing a little research I did and a short article I wrote on JesusSmart.com: Sleeping Our Way to a Better Brain.
I truly believe God gives us wisdom for every dimension of life.
When Solomon asked for wisdom in the Old Testament, it wasn’t abstract philosophy. It was practical, skillful wisdom for living—how to make judgments, how to govern, even insights into nature and the created order. That same kind of wisdom is available to us today.
The Most Complex Matter in the Universe
Your brain is the most complex matter in the universe. At just 2–3 pounds, it consumes 20–25% of your total energy—oxygen, nutrients, and fuel. But with such high energy use comes waste.
By the end of a busy day filled with thousands of thoughts, conversations, and decisions, your brain literally accumulates waste products. If that waste isn’t cleared, your brain underperforms. Over time, it can even open the door to serious issues like dementia or Alzheimer’s.
This is why protecting and cleansing your brain is critical—not only for long-term health, but so you can think sharply and finish strong in your calling.
Three Keys to a Cleaner, Stronger Brain
Researchers highlight three lifestyle habits that help your brain clear waste and stay healthy:
Regular exercise. Walking, running, aerobic movement, resistance training—all of these support brain health.
Maintaining healthy blood pressure. High blood pressure harms the brain. Medication may be necessary at times, but lifestyle shifts like diet and exercise can also make a difference.
A brain-friendly diet. Vegetables, healthy fats, and antioxidants are key. Think olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, nuts. Avoid seed oils like canola or soybean oil, which damage the body and brain.
But the biggest factor may surprise you ...
Quality Sleep: Your Brain's Secret Weapon
Sleep is your brain’s hidden advantage. Yet in the U.S., 30% of adults and two-thirds of adolescents are chronically sleep-deprived. This impacts memory, learning, mood, and overall health.
Adults need 7–8 hours of sleep a night. Adolescents may need up to 10. Anything less risks not only cognitive decline but also inflammation, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.
Why is sleep so essential? Because that’s when your body’s glymphatic system kicks in.
Think of it as the overnight cleaning crew God designed for your brain. This system flushes out toxins, metabolic waste, and damaged proteins, replacing dirty fluid with clean.
When you shortchange your sleep, you shortchange your brain’s cleansing cycle. Over time, toxicity builds, performance drops, and disease risk increases.
Spiritual Warfare and Rest
This isn’t just biology—it’s spiritual too.
Sleep deprivation can be a form of spiritual warfare. Psalm 127 reminds us that unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain. It also promises that God gives his beloved sleep. Or even gives to his beloved in their sleep.
Good sleep is a gift, but we must steward it with practical habits:
- Consistent sleep and wake times
- Minimizing screen time before bed
- A cool, dark room (or white noise, if needed)
- Prayer and meditation before sleep
Do these things, and ask the Lord to bless your rest.
Shalom and Holistic Well-Being
Experts say sleep is the single most important factor in total well-being. On top of that foundation, you can build exercise, nutrition, and stress management.
The Old Testament word shalom goes beyond “peace.” It means wholeness, flourishing, nothing missing, nothing broken.
That’s what God desires for you ... full well-being, including your brain health.
A Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for fearfully and wonderfully making us. You’ve designed our bodies with recovery systems and cleansing capacities. We ask for the discipline to live wisely—eating well, moving our bodies, managing stress, and protecting our sleep. Grant us strong, clear minds to serve You for the long haul. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Share This Episode
This is episode 344 of the Jesus Smart X Podcast. You can read the companion article on the site here: Sleeping Our Way to a Better Brain.
Do you know someone who struggles with sleep or is passionate about wellness? Share this episode with them. Sleep is one of the most overlooked yet essential keys to brain health, spiritual vitality, and overall well-being.
Remember, Jesus knows how human flourishing works. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to the right resources, people, and practices for your next steps. He will guide you into greater wisdom.
Until next time, stay Jesus smart.
Transcript
Hey there, my friend.
Speaker A:Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker A:This is Brian del Turco, episode 344, Jesus Smart X podcast.
Speaker A:Listen, my apologies.
Speaker A:It's been three weeks since an episode was released.
Speaker A:It's been a crazy time.
Speaker A:I won't go into details, but this is a weekly podcast, so we're meant to release weekly.
Speaker A:And we're going to be doing some, you know, better moving forward.
Speaker A:We normally are good with that, but I wanted to release an episode today.
Speaker A:This is a little bit different.
Speaker A:Some research I did and a small article that I wrote on the website jesussmart.com sleeping our way to a better brain.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:And I do believe that God gives us wisdom.
Speaker A:I think that when we read about Solomon in the Old Testament, he asked for wisdom for the sake of God's people, that he would be able to rule well as a king and render good sound judgments for the sake of God's people.
Speaker A:God really liked that, by the way.
Speaker A:And he promised blessings and rewards to Solomon because of his prioritization of God's people.
Speaker A:That right there just tells us something.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's a.
Speaker A:It's a God hack, a holy hack.
Speaker A:That when we prioritize God's people, whom he loves so dearly, there are blessings and rewards that come to our life.
Speaker A:But God also gave him wisdom about trees, about nature, about all kinds of practical issues.
Speaker A:The Hebraic Old Testament understanding of wisdom, to my.
Speaker A:My understanding, it's not just like the Greek abstract wisdom, philosophizing, but it's very concrete, it's very practical, skillful.
Speaker A:How to live skillfully, how to live artfully, how things work best.
Speaker A:The Hebraic understanding of wisdom.
Speaker A:I'm really drawn to that.
Speaker A:Well, sleeping our way to a better brain.
Speaker A:I want to share something with you.
Speaker A:I think it's very important.
Speaker A:Let me just say this.
Speaker A:To begin with, our brain is the most complex matter in the universe.
Speaker A:There is no matter more complex than what's between your ears.
Speaker A:The most powerful computers that we can develop don't come close to competing with it.
Speaker A:Do you know that your brain is the busiest organ in your body?
Speaker A:It only weighs 2 to 3 pounds, but it consumes 20 to 25% of your total energy.
Speaker A:Oxygen and nutrients and energy.
Speaker A:Here's the thing, though, when that much energy is consumed, there's going to be waste products.
Speaker A:You're saying, wait a minute, we're talking about the brain.
Speaker A:Why are we talking about waste products and sleeping our way to a better brain?
Speaker A:Well, I'm glad you've asked that.
Speaker A:Question.
Speaker A:Each day, these waste products build up throughout our body, including our brain.
Speaker A:And by the end of the day, after we've made all these decisions and worked and thought all day and made conversation and generated thoughts, I don't know how they measure, measure these things.
Speaker A:They say that our brain can think something like 50, 60, 70,000 thoughts per day.
Speaker A:Some of us have more thoughts than others.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Some of us, our minds run too hot.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:But by the end of the day, our brain is dirty.
Speaker A:What do we mean?
Speaker A:Just from being busy all day.
Speaker A:And it produces, literally in our brains, waste products.
Speaker A:Just like throughout our body, waste products are, are produced.
Speaker A:This is an important key to brain health.
Speaker A:You know, we want to do things in our 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 20s even, that mitigate against dementia, Alzheimer's, against cognitive decline later in life.
Speaker A:God wants you to have a strong brain.
Speaker A:He wants you to finish strong.
Speaker A:We need you to think hard and long and strong throughout the course of your life.
Speaker A:So our brains have to have this opportunity to remove the waste, because there is a real effect if this doesn't happen.
Speaker A:A dirty brain performs low and eventually can open itself to disease.
Speaker A:And this is where the importance of sleep comes in.
Speaker A:Okay, if we mess up our sleep, we can mess up our brain.
Speaker A:Now we know that these three things have a positive impact on cleaning our brains.
Speaker A:Number one, this is not going to be surprising.
Speaker A:Regular exercise, I'm talking about walking, movement, you have to move, running, other aerobic exercise, even weightlifting and resistance training.
Speaker A:Even body resistance training helps our brains.
Speaker A:But regular, consistent exercise, here's another one that can creep up on people.
Speaker A:We've got to be diligent about this.
Speaker A:Maintaining healthy blood pressure.
Speaker A:High blood pressure works against the well being of our brain.
Speaker A:You may have to be on medication.
Speaker A:I'm currently on a medication for it, but I'm also doing other things in terms of eating, exercising.
Speaker A:The last medical visit I had, I was told, well, if you keep it up, possibly this med can be eliminated from your life.
Speaker A:So we'll see.
Speaker A:But at any rate, maintaining healthy blood pressure.
Speaker A:And then thirdly, a diet rich in vegetables, healthy fats and antioxidants.
Speaker A:Okay, vegetables, healthy fats.
Speaker A:You want like olive oil, coconut oil, what's that other oil that's good to cook with?
Speaker A:It's escaping me at the moment.
Speaker A:You want to stay away from seed oils like canola oil, soybean oil and other seed oils.
Speaker A:They're bad for our bodies, they're bad for our brains.
Speaker A:We want to have healthy oils, healthy fats in our diet.
Speaker A:Fat, healthy fat is very important to our brain.
Speaker A:Now, the most important thing, though, in addition to exercise, healthy blood pressure, a diet rich in vegetables, healthy fats and antioxidants, the most important thing, according to research, may be.
Speaker A:You got it.
Speaker A:Sleep.
Speaker A:In The United States, 30% of adults and 66% of adolescents are regularly sleep deprived.
Speaker A:And this affects our learning.
Speaker A:Sleep deprivation affects memory and even our mood.
Speaker A:Sleep deprivation contributes to inflammation in our body.
Speaker A:It's a silent killer.
Speaker A:High blood pressure, and it's linked to diabetes and obesity.
Speaker A:Sleep deprivation, adults, how many hours of sleep do we need for optimal Brain Health?
Speaker A:About seven to eight.
Speaker A:About seven to eight hours.
Speaker A:And adolescents, unsurprisingly, may need 10 hours.
Speaker A:Okay, now sleep deprivation can cause serious brain and bodily harm.
Speaker A:Now here's our secret weapon to maintain a clean brain.
Speaker A:This is really what it's about.
Speaker A:Sleeping our way to a better brain.
Speaker A:Is sleeping our way to a cleaner brain?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:We have something in our body that God has designed called the glymphatic system.
Speaker A:And it's much more active when we sleep.
Speaker A:And what does it do?
Speaker A:It flushes away.
Speaker A:This system in our body is like a, like a, a vacuum system or something.
Speaker A:It's a cleaning system.
Speaker A:It flushes away toxic substances between the cells in our bodies and between the cells, the neurons in our brains, the glymphatic system.
Speaker A:You got CHAT GPT, look it up.
Speaker A:G L Y M P H A T I C Ask it what it does.
Speaker A:Ask AI how the glymphatic system helps your brain.
Speaker A:I when I researched this originally, I AI really wasn't a thing.
Speaker A:I know it's going to be there, though.
Speaker A:CHAT GPT has become a thought partner for me, if you know what I mean.
Speaker A:So the glymphatic system is sort of like this overnight cleaning crew that comes in and cleans the building.
Speaker A:It's a cycle.
Speaker A:It's a system.
Speaker A:Okay, so here's a breakdown of how it works.
Speaker A:Your brain cells perform autophagy, which means self eating.
Speaker A:It mops up diseased and damaged bits of protein and metabolic waste.
Speaker A:Then a special nervous system, special nervous system cells.
Speaker A:This is the whole cycle of the cleanup process.
Speaker A:These nervous system cells, they sweep in and they scavenge additional waste.
Speaker A:And the glymphatic system flushes out dirty fluid and molecules from inside your brain tissue through a network of pathways, and clean fluid replaces it.
Speaker A:These lymphatic vessels surrounding your brain deliver the waste to your lymphatic system, which rids the body of toxins, waste, and other unwanted material.
Speaker A:So because this, this super important system, this glymphatic system is much more active when we sleep, we don't want to short change this process over time.
Speaker A:Our brains can age and deteriorate in their performance and become vulnerable to disease because of this not sufficiently clean toxicity.
Speaker A:So you see, I'm going to be honest with you.
Speaker A:Let's talk about spiritual warfare for a second.
Speaker A:This podcast believes in spiritual warfare, the unseen battle.
Speaker A:It manifests in many ways.
Speaker A:And spiritual warfare against you can manifest very practically, very concretely, like sleep deprivation.
Speaker A:You have a right to a good night's sleep.
Speaker A:Psalms 127 says, Unless the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain, who build it.
Speaker A:Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
Speaker A:It also says in that short psalm that depending on the translation you read, the Lord gives his beloved sleep, or it could be translated, he gives to his beloved in their sleep.
Speaker A:So pray for good sleep, you know, keep a clear relationship with the Lord.
Speaker A:Do the things, you know, the sleep hygiene things before you go to sleep, minimize screen time, try to go to bed and wake up at the same time all the time.
Speaker A:I think the experts say do it seven days a week, even the weekends can disrupt that cycle apparently, but certainly do it for the work week, five days a week.
Speaker A:And do the things with sleep hygiene, a cooler room if you need to, use white noise, if you need to pray and meditate before you go to sleep.
Speaker A:Okay, anything to help you sleep better and ask the Lord for better sleep because this system, this cycle works optimally as we sleep.
Speaker A:So what do you think?
Speaker A:We want to ask the Lord for better brain health.
Speaker A:We want to ask the Lord for discipline.
Speaker A:And we're going to pray about this in just a moment, if you don't mind.
Speaker A:We want to ask the Lord for discipline, to live well, eat well, drink enough, hydrate well, exercise, manage stress, sleep better.
Speaker A:And, and we want to do the things, you know, maintain healthy blood pressure levels.
Speaker A:And we want to do these things that, that help us, empower us to have better brain health and then ask the Lord for better brain health.
Speaker A:The Lord blesses your activity.
Speaker A:He blesses what you build, he blesses what you work on.
Speaker A:Okay, don't.
Speaker A:Let's not just try to ask the Lord for something.
Speaker A:And then all the practical things we do work against that.
Speaker A:He blesses what's in order.
Speaker A:And so I hope this is interesting to you.
Speaker A:I hope it's helpful.
Speaker A:I've heard experts say the number one thing we can do for our total well being.
Speaker A:The baseline thing is sleep, healthy, sufficient sleep.
Speaker A:On top of that, you can stack exercise, nutrition, stress reduction, all of those elements.
Speaker A:But sleep is foundational to better well being.
Speaker A:I love the Old Testament word shalom.
Speaker A:If you've been around the Bible or been around teaching, you've probably heard that word and you probably know that it's, it means peace.
Speaker A:It does mean peace, but it's a bigger word than that.
Speaker A:It's a very pregnant Hebrew word which means well being.
Speaker A:Nothing missing, prosperity, just total well being.
Speaker A:It's, it's a word which is like homeostasis.
Speaker A:Shalom in our life releases the full potential of the human being, the complete well being.
Speaker A:And so let's pray for that now.
Speaker A:And we just want to do those practical things which are in alignment with our prayer, things that God can bless.
Speaker A:Father, we thank you for the way you've made our bodies.
Speaker A:We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that our soul knows very well.
Speaker A:Psalm 139.
Speaker A:You have made us with recuperative capacities.
Speaker A:You have made us with rebound ability in our bodies, in our, in our brain.
Speaker A:You have designed systems of protection, immunity, cleansing.
Speaker A:We live in a dirty world.
Speaker A:We live in a polluted world, Father.
Speaker A:Even in the thought realm, we live in a dirty world.
Speaker A:And we just, even physically we need the rest that we need so that the hours we are awake are optimal.
Speaker A:We have better mood, better hormonal balance, better functioning, and we're preserving our brain for the long term.
Speaker A:Help us to sleep.
Speaker A:We pray that you would help us to sleep well, that we would do the things we know we need to do to sleep well.
Speaker A:And we also pray your added blessing on all of our works of our hands and what we apply ourselves to in terms of health and wellness.
Speaker A:In Jesus name, Amen.
Speaker A:If you'd like to take a look at a short article I've written about this, you can go to jesussmart.com Sleep Better Brain.
Speaker A:It's like sleep hyphen, better hyphen brain.
Speaker A:This is episode 344 on the podcast.
Speaker A:We will have a show notes page for this episode coming up@jesusmart.com maybe you know somebody who would value this.
Speaker A:Can you think of somebody who needs this?
Speaker A:I'm sure you can because there's such a problem with sleep today and there's such a quest for wellness that people need and some are pursuing.
Speaker A:Share this episode with them.
Speaker A:They may enjoy it.
Speaker A:And I think there's many things we can talk about related to brain health and perhaps we will will do that here.
Speaker A:I mean my thinking about being Jesus smart, you know, it's like get Jesus smart.
Speaker A:Jesus knows how human flourishing works.
Speaker A:My thinking about Jesus smart includes the practical physical, mental, well being as well as other practical areas.
Speaker A:So we, we, we're grateful for God's wisdom and God's information.
Speaker A:We have access to the word of God can ask the Holy Spirit to teach you.
Speaker A:Yes you can.
Speaker A:Holy Spirit is the greatest AI in the universe, the greatest search engine.
Speaker A:Holy Spirit knows everything.
Speaker A:And you can ask him.
Speaker A:Lead me, Holy Spirit, to a book I need right now or lead me to the right videos to watch.
Speaker A:Lead me to articles, you know, Lead me to the right people in my life that can motivate me in this and that can share ideas with me.
Speaker A:Ask the Holy Spirit to do that and keep asking him and watch what happens.
Speaker A:He will lead you.
Speaker A:You will grow in understanding.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:I appreciate you my friend.
Speaker A:We'll catch you next time.
