Nature’s Way To Get A Good Night’s Sleep
Having trouble sleeping?
If so, do not ignore it.
Taking steps to get the proper sleep you need will make your life more enjoyable and your body healthier. What may surprise you is that many of the best ways to get better sleep are straightforward and quite easy for most people.
1. Darkness in your Bedroom, bright light during the Day
Since the advent of the light bulb, people have become increasingly “darkness deficient” at night, while simultaneously getting too little light during the day, thanks to working indoors.
Light intensity is measured in lux units, and on any given day, the outdoor lux units will be around 100,000 at Noon. Indoors, the typical average is somewhere between 100 to 2,000 lux units , that is about 2 orders of magnitude less.
The brightness of the light matters, because your pineal gland produces melatonin roughly in approximation to the contrast of bright Sun exposure in the Day and complete darkness at Night.
If you are in relative darkness all day long, it cannot appreciate the difference and will not optimize your melatonin production, and that can have some rather significant ramifications for your health and sleep.
The light – and the dark – are important signals for the cycle. This circadian rhythm has developed over three billion years as life evolved on Earth in the context of the Sun’s day/night cycle. It is built deeply into our genetic makeup.
During the night, in the dark, body temperature drops, metabolism slows, and the hormone melatonin rises dramatically. When the Sun comes up in the morning, melatonin has already started falling, and you wake up.
This natural physiological transition into and out of Night is of ancient origin, and melatonin is crucial for the process to proceed as it should.
Aside from lowering body temperature, slowing metabolism, and raising melatonin, your body also undergoes a number of other changes when in the dark.
For example, levels of the hunger hormone leptin rises, which decreases feelings of hunger.
Gene expression is also affected by your endogenous circadian clock, as is cellular growth and repair, and hormone production. Exposing yourself to light at night even briefly leads to the disruption of all of these processes, setting the stage for diseases like obesity, diabetes, cancer, and depression.
2. Nap wisely, short naps are beneficial
Regularly napping during the day, particularly for longer periods, may disrupt your circadian rhythm: the 24-hour cycles known as your internal body clock.
In one study, daytime sleepers, including regular nappers, showed decreased gene expression, with up to 33% of participants’ genes measurably altered by the disrupted sleep cycles.
There is evidence that short naps may be beneficial, as we are biologically programmed to nap during the daytime, typically in the middle of the afternoon.
Some European countries still adhere to the daily Siesta and close shop for a couple of hours in the middle of the day.
When the natural tendency to get drowsy sets in, you may try to alleviate it with Coffee, or simply fight the urge to take a nap. But, if you feel the urge to nap in the afternoon, and you can safely do so, it is best not to fight it.
The ideal nap time for adults appears to be around 20 mins any longer and you’ll enter the deeper stages of sleep and may feel groggy when you wake up.
According to the National Sleep Foundation: Sleeping for a short time can make you more alert and energetic, this might be critical to your work or school productivity, or to your ability to take care of a child during the day. Most people feel refreshed after a nap that lasts approximately 20 mins.
3. Aim for Eight Hours of Sleep
Most adults really need about 8 hours of sleep every night, meaning not just 8 hours spent in bed but 8 hours actually sleeping. To accomplish this, many people need to 1st set this goal of 8 hours in their mind and then make practical, logistic changes.
If you have a set wake time, and you are not able to squeeze in enough hours, you will need to adjust your schedule so you are going to bed earlier.
Tips: turn off the TV, the computer, and your phone, and commit to sleeping from a set bedtime that gives you a solid 8 hours before you need to wake up. If you are unsure how many hours of sleep you’re getting each night, try a wearable fitness tracker. It will monitor your actual time spent asleep so you can adjust your schedule accordingly.
4. Exercise
One of the benefits of exercise is better sleep at night, and this appears to be true regardless of the time of day the exercise happens. A study published in Y 2011, found that when people exercised vigorously for 35 mins right before bed they slept just as well as on nights when they did not exercise.
In a poll by the National Sleep Foundation, it found that 83% of people said they slept better when they exercised even late at night than when they did not. More than 50% of those who exercised moderately or vigorously said they slept better on workout days than non-workout days, and just 3% of late-day exercisers said their sleep quality was worse when they exercised than when they did not.
The National Sleep Foundation concluded that exercise is good for sleep, noting: While some believe exercising near bedtime can adversely affect sleep and sleep quality, no major differences were found between the data for individuals who say they have done vigorous and/or moderate activity within four hours of bedtime compared to their counterparts (those who did vigorous or moderate activity more than four hours before bedtime). According to the 2013 Sleep in America® poll, the conclusion can be drawn that exercise, or physical activity in general, is generally good for sleep, regardless of the time of day the activity is performed.”
5. Get the Temperature Right
Thermoregulation aka your body’s heat distribution system, is strongly linked to sleep cycles. Even lying down increases sleepiness by redistributing heat in your body from the core to the periphery. When we sleep, out body’s internal temperature actually drops to its lowest level, generally about 4 hours after you fall asleep. Scientists believe a cooler bedroom may therefore be most conducive to sleep, since it mimics your body’s natural temperature drop.
This is also why taking a warm bath 90 to 120 mins before bedtime may also help you sleep, as it increases your core body temperature, and when it abruptly drops when you get out of the bath, it signals your body that you are ready for sleep. While there is no set consensus as to what temperature will help you sleep the best, in most cases any temperature above 75 degrees Fahrenheit and below 54 degrees will interfere with your sleep.
Once within that range, many factors can influence which temperature is best for you including your choice of sleepwear and bedding. Many people keep their homes too warm. Studies show that the optimal room temperature for sleep is actually between 60 to 68F, so adjust your thermostat accordingly.
While a cool room and a lower core temperature may help you sleep better, cold hands and feet will not. Because blood flow is a prime method of distributing heat evenly throughout your body, if your extremities are cold it could be a sign of poor blood flow, which results in sleeplessness. The solution for this is simple: put on a pair of warm socks or place a hot water bottle near your feet.
Sleeping pills are not an answer
The natural sleep aids described above will work with your body’s natural circadian rhythm to help you get truly restful sleep. This is not the case with Rx (prescription) sleeping pills, which may actually put your life in danger. A startling study in Y 2012 revealed that people who take sleeping pills are not only at higher risk for certain cancers (35% higher), but they are also nearly 4X as likely to die as people who do not take them.
The list of health risks from sleeping pills is growing all the time, including the following:
1. Higher risk of death, including from accidents
2. Increased risk of cancer
3. Increased insulin resistance, food cravings, weight gain, and diabetes
4. Complete amnesia, even from events that occurred during the day
5. Depression, confusion, disorientation, and hallucinations
Research involving data from more than 10,500 people who received drugs for poor sleep (including benzodiazepines) showed that “as predicted, patients prescribed any hypnotic had substantially elevated hazards of dying compared to those prescribed no hypnotics,” and the association held true even when patients with poor health were taken into account, and even if the patients took fewer than 18 pills in a year.
Eat healthy, Sleep well, Be healthy, Live lively.
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
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