The Power of the Downstate

Book excerpt: Leverage your built-in rhythms of Upstates and Downstates to enhance energy, sharpen thinking, balance moods, fuel fitness, and more. If you’re like most people, the relentless daily grind of go-go-go, do-do-do, can run down your energy and deplete your resources. While most of us find our lives full of “Upstate” moments that rev up our stress engines, it doesn’t have to be this way. World-renowned sleep researcher Sara C. Mednick, PhD, shows us how we can access the most replenishing and repairing aspects of sleep through activities and moments that happen during our day by diving into our “Downstate.” Dr. Mednick shows that bringing ourselves back to the Downstate is critical for our health, well-being, and cognitive longevity. Drawing on her original findings—and those of others across many fields of medicine—Dr. Mednick creates a comprehensive picture of the Upstate/Downstate rhythms that orchestrate all of our bodies’ vital systems, along with a novel theory that aging is caused by spending less and less time in Downstate activities. The Power of the Downstate offers practical, evidence-based insight into how we can all enable those systems to work together in better harmony. You’ll learn: How our bodies and minds are guided by a natural Upstate/Downstate rhythm—and how our modern lifestyles disrupt these rhythms to our detriment; How our vital organs and systems benefit from spending more time in the Downstate – which decreases the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, chronic illness, and early death; How we can activate the Downstate through rethinking how to breathe, eat, sleep and exercise; and The practical four-week Downstate RecoveryPlus Plan. Get ready to be more alert, productive, and cognitively sharp during the day, feel greater intimacy and affection, and enjoy consolidated, restorative sleep at night . . . not to mention expand your years of mental and physical vitality.