Good sleep - are you getting enough

Most of us could all do with a bit more sleep.  I recently decided to go to bed at 10pm one night a week.  The result was nothing short of remarkable.  I had more energy so I could get things done quicker, I was better at prioritizing, I had more patience and generally felt a whole lot better.

But it’s just too easy to watch one more episode of that Netflix boxset!  Before you know it, it’s past midnight and you think, ah, I’ll catch up on some sleep at the weekend (or not you have young children) or have one more coffee in the morning.

So, what can we do to get more sleep and what can we do when we can’t get off to dreamland even once we’re in bed?

And what’s up with those 4 am wake up tossing and turning situations?

You know that poor or too little sleep makes you less productive and uncomfortably tired, but it can also wreak havoc on your hormones and health so getting those shuteyes every night is much more important than we like to think. 

Matthew Walker explains in his book Why we sleep "Humans are not sleeping the way nature intended. The number of sleep bouts, the duration of sleep, and when sleep occurs have all been com­prehensively distorted by modernity’

With this in mind it’s no surprise that a lack of sleep is associated with all kinds of negative health consequences including increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease.

Studies show that sleep, next to nutrition and exercise, is paramount to prevent disease and also to control your weight.   Your body has a finely tuned appetite control system governed by certain hormones that are affected by sleep. Among them include your hunger hormones ghrelin (that makes you feel hungry), cortisol (your stress hormone that stores fat) and leptin (that makes you feel full). Low-quality sleep can knock these and other hormones out of balance.

If you are not in a state of calm when it’s time for sleep, you will be releasing stress hormones and going into the fight or flight response and that will prevent you from falling asleep.  

The adrenal glands are responsible for keeping your balanced and they work hard at it. They oversee moderating your stress response, regulating your blood sugar, maintaining weight and moderating sleep and wake cycles.

Healthy and balanced adrenals mean you fall asleep and stay asleep.   This also means that your pineal gland produces melatonin that is released into the blood around 9 pm, which is when cortisol levels begin to drop off. That's when we begin to feel less sharp and sleep becomes inviting.  

When cortisol becomes unbalanced then it affects your whole body and your health, and you feel it. 

Lowering your cortisol levels come the evening is one of the most important things you can do. If the levels of cortisol stay elevated then you will feel wired but tired, or you may fall asleep and then wake up at 4 am.  But how do we do this? 

In my experience, most people who struggle with their sleep are unconsciously doing something in their everyday life that is negatively impacting their ability to sleep at night.

So, the biggest culprit for insomnia, difficulty getting to sleep or irregular sleeping patterns, are blood sugar imbalance, lack of vital nutrients and chronic stress.

Try these five hacks to make ensure you get deep and nourishing sleep.

1. Make sure you start dimming the light, turn off any devices about 60-90 minutes before your bedtime.   Melatonin can then start working its magic and help you feel sleep.  This is why melatonin has been called 'Dracula of Hormones' – it only comes out in the dark. Even if melatonin is switched on by the clock, it won't release melatonin in the presence of artificial indoor lighting and sunlight.  Blue light is particularly bad so if you have used a screen, try adding a filter like F-Lux.
   

2. Develop a sleep hygiene routine where you slow down as you get ready for bed. Make sure your bedroom is not too warm or too cold.  Rub your feet with sesame oil and put on socks before going to sleep. That will begin to calm your system and help support your thyroid function by warming up your core temperature. You could also have a footbath with Epsom salt and some lavender added before bed.
   

3. Stress-hormones are very much affected by blood-sugar balance.  Make sure you have protein with your meals and snacks. Protein may include fish, eggs, meat, pulses, nuts, and seeds.  Before bedtime, have a small snack such as warm milk and honey, or almond butter on an oatcake.  This will keep your blood sugar balanced throughout the night help you stay asleep until the morning.
   

4. Drop the caffeine after lunch as this can affect your blood sugar balance and many of us can take several hours to fully process the caffeine.  There is a considerable genetic variation on that, however.  Stick to herbal teas like chamomile and tulsi in the afternoon and evening.
   

5. Don’t forget about the morning light. Getting those early morning rays on your eyelids enforces our natural circadian rhythms.  The sun may look yellow but the light it emits is full-spectrum light. It includes the same blue wavelengths of light that our devices have, but in a much more powerful form. By exposing your eyes to this bright light your signal to your brain that it's time to suppress melatonin production. 
   

If you need convincing why early bedtime should be at the top of the list if we ant to get healthy and live longer then Matthew Walker's book Why we sleep is a game changer.

'Midnight is no longer ‘midnight’. For many of us, midnight is usually the time when we consider checking our email one last time – and we know what often happens in the protracted thereafter. Compounding the problem, we do not then sleep any longer into the morning hours to accommodate these later sleep-onset times. We cannot. Our circadian biology, and the insatiable early-morning demands of a post-industrial way of life, denies us the sleep we vitally need'.