Sleep is the new kale!

Sleep is a hot topic. So you’re going to be hearing alot about it and hopefully making more room for it (or at least doing it better!) just like you make room for all that kale!

You may have a vague sense that your sleep isn’t the greatest and you’d like to get more or better sleep, but the research is out on just exactly how poor sleep is affecting us.

As we could expect, the consensus is that poor sleep quality is not doing us any favors as we try to reach our goals, and in fact, is doing way more damage than we thought possible.

Sleep affects every aspect of our mental, emotional and physical performance and has both short term and long term effects.

It can make or break our ability to lose weight, perform at a high level, prevent disease, age slowly and basically improve any other function of our mind and body. High quality sleep strengthens our immune system, balances our hormones, improves the function of our brain and metabolism and increases our energy.

Great sleep gives us the crucial leverage we need to change our health and body, and magnifies the results of the changes we are making in other aspects of our lifestyle. If we’re working with less than quality sleep, the deck is stacked against us in trying to reach any other health or personal goal.

Newsflash: sleep quality is heavily influenced by our diet, exercise, stress levels and many other lifestyle factors!

I recently read the book “Sleep Smarter” by Shawn Stevenson which has an abundance of fascinating insights and strategies when it comes to sleep. He has about 200 pages worth of things to say on this topic, which I can’t begin to cover here, so I’ll just give some highlights and you can delve into the book yourself for the research and the rest! It won’t be wasted time if you’re trying to improve your life (just don’t read it after 10 pm :))!

Here are 12 facts (among many) that I found interesting:

1. Studies have shown that just one night of sleep deprivation can make you as insulin resistant as a person with type 2 diabetes, which causes you to age faster and store more fat. Stretch that out over weeks, months, and years and its pretty obvious that might cause some problems.

2. The quality (and timing, more on that later) of your sleep actually matters more than the quantity. The wisdom of sleep more, isn’t quite as valid as sleep better.

3. Your sleep cycle is influenced by how much sunlight you receive during the day, especially between the hours of 6-8:30 am, when your body is expecting to wake up and get busy. (Oh, so many reasons to be an early riser!) There are a bunch of hormones involved, including cortisol, serotonin and melatonin, and how they all work to regulate your sleep cycles, but I’m not going to get into all that here. Just know that escaping to the great outdoors when you can during the day, will give you a better sleep at night.

4. Harsh reality alert: Beware the Netflix binge, internet black hole or late night work session too close to bedtime. That blue light emanating from your cell phone, computer, iPad and TV? Really bad for sleep. It triggers your body to produce more of the daytime hormones (cortisol) and represses it’s ability to produce melatonin (the sleep hormone). Basically it disorients your body’s natural preparation for sleep and that’s not good.

5. Harsh reality alert, continued: Along those lines, cellphones and Facebook friends don’t belong in your bedroom. This one is so big because even assuming you have all alerts turned OFF, there is still…
   1. The blue light thing from #4.
   2. The temptation to scroll through social media or check email in bed (leading to all the emotions/stresses that implies) when you should be relaxing into sleep.
   3. The temptation to check it first thing in the am, which will completely derail any attempt at a peaceful start to the day with a healthy mindset and morning routine (a non-negotiable for me personally).
   4. Delta brain wave patterns (which are the most reliable marker of deep sleep) remain depressed a full hour after your phone is turned off. Interference with these brain waves obviously has a big effect on your sleep, and not in a good way.
   5. EMF’s emitted from cell phones have been linked to all kinds of disease, so it’s best not to keep it near you 24/7. Your body needs a break from EMF’s.
   6. How you begin and end your day has a huge impact on the results you see in your life in many ways.

Bottom line: If you care about your sleep and your life, you will keep your cell phone far, far away from your bedroom.

6. Having a caffeinated beverage even as much as 6 hours before bed will disrupt your sleep, as will drinking too much caffeine. This seems pretty common sense, but according to Starbucks, most of us tend to ignore it 🙂

7. Your body wants to be cool for the best sleep. Studies show the optimal room temp for sleep between 60 degrees to 68 degrees. If you’re prone to dressing in layers to go to bed, and find yourself waking in a sweat, ditch a few!

8. It’s not just how you sleep, but when you sleep! What is the perfect bedtime? Somewhere between 9 pm-11 pm for most people. 10 pm seems to be the magic number, because according to Stevenson the hours between 10 pm -2 am are the most important hours of the sleep cycle. (This has something to do with hormone regulation/production again) You will get a higher quality sleep between 10pm-2am than say 12am-4am, and apparently, any hour you lose between 10pm-2am affects the quality of your sleep negatively. (Who knew??) Since humans aren’t nocturnal, syncing your body clock with the earth’s natural circadian rhythms gives you more restorative sleep.
9. As with caffeine, consider a booze curfew if you want a good sleep. Alcohol is a really bad sleep aid. Again, something most of us already know but tend to ignore. It’s great for knocking you out quickly, but for sleep quality it is terrible. The fact is REM sleep as well as slow-wave (deep) sleep are seriously impacted by alcohol in your system. There was a chart in the book that showed a typical sleep cycle when alcohol is present and it was really wacky and all over the place. With this wacky cycle, your brain and body aren’t able to rejuvenate, which means you feel awful the next day!

10. Exercise in the morning or early afternoon for the best sleep. Exercising late at night raises your core body temperature and supresses melatonin production. Plus, we already learned that your body wants to be cool for sleep.

11. Create a sleep sanctuary with an environment that encourages sleep. This includes comfy, cozy surroundings and also black out curtains. Any light coming in, even streetlight seeping in through the curtains, or any kind of nightlight, will impact your sleep.

12. The food you eat dramatically influences every area of your life including sleep. (You knew we’d get here eventually!) Eat foods that support gut health, as close to 95% of serotonin (the “happy” hormone which is the building block for the “sleep hormone” melatonin) is produced there. If you’ve ever noticed that when you’re eating better, you’re sleeping better, this is one of the reasons why! Incorporate foods which help regulate sleep into your diet, like magnesium rich foods including green leafy veggies (especially spinach and chard), pumpkin and sesame seeds, Brazil nuts, almonds, cashews, mackerel, quinoa, black beans, avocado, dark chocolate and bananas. Avoid the obvious: refined foods and sugar.

To quote Stevenson, “Sleep is not an obstacle. It’s a catalyst. Sleep is a force multiplier.”

Also, clearly all sleep is not created equal. If you want to improve your lifestyle, you can’t afford not to take steps to try to improve your sleep! A good night’s sleep multiplies all of the other efforts you are putting into your healthy lifestyle, in a powerful way. Don’t throw good effort down the drain.

What sleep challenges do you face? Did any of this resonate with you? Let me know in the comments!

Happy and sweet dreams!

Heather

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