Pets Equal A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

by Blake Herzog

There’s been debate through the years over whether having your pets sleep in bed or in the bedroom with you is beneficial. But, most recent research suggests it is a good idea, making pet parents feel less lonely, more secure and strengthening their bond to their animals.

For The Dogs

The Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale said in 2017 that in most cases sleeping with your dog is just fine and actually beneficial on both ends. This finding is based on a five-month study of 40 healthy adults and their dogs, ages 6 months or older.

Both humans and canines wore monitors for seven nights during the study to gauge the quality of their sleep. As long as they slept in the same room, the humans were found to have 81% sleep efficiency while the dogs did even better at 85%. Quality of sleep for humans did decline a little if their dogs slept in bed with them.

CONTENT WITH CATS?

There doesn’t appear to be a recent study of the same scale as the Mayo’s scientifically observing how well cats and their people sleep together, but there are pluses and a few minuses to the practice.

Kitties are nocturnal by nature, so there’s a better chance your pet will be jumping up and down during the night and deciding they want to play with you at 3:30 a.m. If you have allergies or asthma, sleeping with a cat nearby may be detrimental to your health, and the same may apply in some cases with dogs.

On the other hand, there are many reasons why you and your cat could enjoy snoozing in bed together, and one survey from the American Pet Products Association found 62% of cat owners permit this, versus 50% of dog owners.

Felines run a few degrees warmer than we do at around 102 degrees and tend to seek out more heat, so cuddling up with a slightly cooler person can bring both of you more pleasure and comfort.

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Prescott LIVING: That’s awesome. So obviously we know that’s the passion of yours, jiu-jitsu, but what got you started into it?

Dr. Karissa Walton: I started in college, initially learning martial arts with Krav Maga, a self-defense training program used by the Israeli army. It was basically all martial and no art because it’s designed purely for self-defense or self-protection. I think that’s really what drew me in, just learning how to take responsibility for my own protection.

Through Krav Maga, I learned about jiu-jitsu. I went through the whole Krav Maga program and was teaching and very involved in that community. Eventually, I just decided to focus more on jiu-jitsu.

Dr. Karissa Walton: Believe it or not, I actually hated jiu-jitsu when I first learned it. I was like, “I don’t get the point.” And I think people probably think that when they watch it sometimes. They’re like, “What are you guys trying to do? It looks like you’re just rolling around in pajamas or something.” But one day it just clicked with me and felt very natural.

Prescott LIVING: How many competitions have you been in and do you plan — I know you’re going to be in the world championships here soon — but just roughly, how many competitions have you been in?

Dr. Karissa Walton: Over 10, for sure. Probably closer to, I don’t know, somewhere between 10 to 20, somewhere in there.

Prescott LIVING: You had an injury last year, right?

Dr. Karissa Walton: I had fractures in one of my eye sockets due to a training injury that happened in May of 2022. There are two world championships for Brazilian Jiu-

Jitsu. I planned to do the Adult World Championship in June but I wasn’t able to compete. The other was the Master World Championship in Las Vegas in September where I placed third in my division. Of course I wanted the gold, but pushing through my injury was quite taxing, and I’m thankful I did as well as I did.

Prescott LIVING: I know how busy you are with everything. Do you have any time for other hobbies? I’m like, “How does she do it all?”

Dr. Karissa Walton: Yeah, I’m just really big on setting time for each thing. I do my best to batch my time to compartmentalize things and just say, “OK, right now I’m just doing this. Right now.” That’s been a hard thing for me to learn because I used to try to do it all at one time and you simply can’t.

For example, Tuesday mornings I’m going to jiu-jitsu, and I block that time off on my schedule. That way, I can still take care of myself and keep myself well because if I’m not well, I'm not going to be able to help anyone else get well.

Prescott LIVING: What are the most important healthy habits you recommend to your patients? And probably a lot of these you do yourself, I would assume.

Dr. Karissa Walton: No. 1 is, I think what I just said, making time for yourself and cherishing that time the best that you can. Don’t compromise on that time that you set for yourself. If you have to unplug and focus on yourself for that time or with your loved ones, just make sure that you value that time, because we don’t know how much we’re going to get.

And then No. 2 is moving your body. Movement is medicine, movement is life. The less we move, the more we get stagnant and ultimately things go wrong. We live in a society where people are very sedentary, and I just believe in the power of movement. And you can move in so many different ways.

The third one is taking responsibility for what you put into your body. It’s very easy to just look for convenient foods to eat, and it’s so important to value your body and everything that we put into our bodies, because that is going to be a direct reflection of our health.

And you can work out and work out, but if your diet is not dialed in you’re never going to reach your full potential and your full health abilities. It’s just eating high quality, real food. Eliminate all the processed stuff, even though it’s so much more convenient.

Prescott LIVING: You’ve got to plan ahead.

Dr. Karissa Walton: Yeah, you do. I have to get meal prep or else I won’t eat regularly just because of the time aspect. So that’s one thing that I’ve done for my personal health, is that I order food prep every week so that it’s already done and I don't have to think about it.

And sleep is the final very important one. That’s one thing that I’m constantly working on—sleep.

Prevention is the best cure. There’s so much more that can be done when we’re practicing preventative medicine and having those healthy habits built into our daily life versus trying to reverse years and years of damage.

I’m not saying we can’t reverse some of those things. We can, it’s just going to be intense to try to reverse.

When people come in and they’ve already been sick for over 10 years, it’s like, “OK, you’re going to have to give me some time to help you unwind all of this.”

We need to build these daily healthy habits and start with preventative medicine and actual wellness. If we don’t just say, “Oh, it’s wellness” but put in the work to help ourselves get well, our health care is going to be so much better off in the long run.