Optimize Your Sleep

June 6, 2022 Stephanie Selinger

Sleep is easily one of the most critical components of our health. It plays a vital role in our physical and mental well-being. Getting enough sleep gives your body more time to heal and repair from today so you perform better and are revitalized for tomorrow. It can also support your brain, allowing your brain to form new pathways and perform better the following day. Sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and more. To help you get to sleep earlier, try cutting your screen time short and unwinding with light stretching or yoga, a warm bath (try adding Epsom salts or magnesium flakes - I like to add both!), meditation, or a good book. If there is just no way that you can get 7 – 8 hours of sleep in a night, aim to take a 10-20 minute nap during the day. Studies show that a short rest can provide similar benefits to a longer one. You also don’t want to disrupt your nighttime sleep by sleeping too much during the day so keep it to 20 minutes if possible.

An inability to fall or stay asleep can mean that something in your body is out of balance or your diet or lifestyle needs some tweaking. Having trouble sleeping is a very common complaint of my clients and often times working on digestion, rebalancing the gut microbiome, and blood sugar regulation (i.e. energy, mood, and stress) can really move the needle on getting their sleep back on track.

Here are my top strategies for improving your sleep.

Keep a consistent routine. Help your body find its natural sleep rhythm by going to bed at the same time every night (or most nights), ideally by 10:00 pm (especially in the darker seasons), and waking up at the same time every morning. Aim for seven to eight hours a night. Individual needs vary some and you can decide how much sleep makes you feel your best, but eight hours is a good rule of thumb. Avoid staying up too late because you can end up spiking your cortisol to give your body energy which will affect your sleep when you finally get into bed.
Try a bedtime snack. I like the idea of eating your last meal at least two to three hours before bed to allow your body to digest your last meal before you sleep, but many people struggle with stable blood sugar throughout the day which can affect you at night as well making it harder to sleep well. Experiment with trying a small, balanced bedtime snack consisting of some carbs, fat, and a bit of protein (some yogurt and fruit, fruit and a piece of cheese or handful of nuts are some of my favorites)
Leave technology out of your bedroom. EMFs (electromagnetic fields) are all around us, night and day and we do not yet know the long-term effects of their exposure. Reducing your exposure overnight not only can improve the quality of your sleep but can also give your body a break from the constant exposure. Try putting your Wi-Fi on a timer in order to turn it off a night. At my house, Wi-Fi goes off at 11 p.m. and comes back on at 7 a.m. You can also put your cell phone in airplane mode, turning it off or keeping it out of your room entirely. Use a battery-operated analog or LCD alarm clock instead. Keep other EMF-emitting things like laptops, televisions, etc., out of your bedroom altogether.
Keep your room as dark and as cool as possible. Our bodies like cooler temperatures for sleep. Try letting your thermostat go down to 54 degrees in the winter months and 74 degrees in the summer months. Outside of this range is not optimal for your body. If you can’t regulate the temperature in your room very well, try sleeping in light, breathable clothing. Additionally, aim to keep your room as dark as possible, even small amounts of light can disrupt your sleep. Blackout shades are great for bedrooms.
Stop drinking caffeine after 11:00 a.m. If you are having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep and are a big coffee or caffeinated beverage drinker, consider reducing or eliminating caffeine to see if that helps. The link between caffeine and sleep is two-fold. For one, in some people, caffeine can raise cortisol levels and keep them elevated throughout the day which will affect sleep in the evening. Additionally, people who are slow metabolizers of caffeine (possibly up to half of the population) can still have caffeine in their system by bedtime which may cause problems falling or staying asleep.
Drink less alcohol. Sorry folks. While it may appear that alcohol helps you to get to sleep, it actually negatively affects your sleep quality. It lessens the amount of time you are in the REM (deepest) cycle. This can cause you to wake up more frequently and you’ll likely feel more tired the morning after a night of drinking. If you do have a few drinks in the evening, aim for it to be at least a few hours before bed if possible, and make sure you hydrate properly before heading to bed.
Move your body every day. Exercise is known to lift mood and reduce stress. It can strengthen our circadian rhythms which will promote daytime alertness and help bring on sleepiness at night. Research has also shown that exercise can help to improve not only the quantity of sleep but also the quality. Physical activity may stimulate longer periods of the deepest and most restorative stages of sleep. Try working out at different times of the day to see what works best for your circadian rhythm. For many, physical activity first thing or sometime before the early evening can be the sweet spot for optimal sleep. If you do need to work out late in the day, make sure that it is something on the gentle side, like walking or yoga.
Get outside within an hour of waking. Our circadian rhythms are pretty dis-regulated these days, partially due to our lack of sun exposure. We are biologically wired to sync with the sun. Try going for a walk first thing in the morning (without sunglasses!) even if it is cloudy. Bright morning light tells your body to suppress melatonin production and increase cortisol and serotonin production. Eventually, our pineal gland metabolizes serotonin into melatonin which supports our evening sleep. Even 15 minutes outside before 10:00 am can help to regulate your circadian rhythm and get your signaling on track
Avoid evening blue light. In the evenings, blue light exposure from screens or the TV is not great for sleep. Try to avoid screen time within 1-2 hours of bedtime if possible and if you can’t give that time up, consider purchasing some blue-light-blocking glasses. While light of any kind can suppress the secretion of melatonin, blue light at night is the worst culprit. Harvard researchers and their colleagues conducted an experiment comparing the effects of 6.5 hours of exposure to blue light to exposure to green light of comparable brightness. The blue light suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green light and shifted circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours vs. 1.5 hours). There are many blue light-blocking glasses on the market now that are relatively inexpensive.

If these strategies are not working for you, it may be time to seek out help from a practitioner. Sleep issues are a symptom of something deeper going on. Let’s figure out the root cause of this symptom so you can get sleep better and feel better!

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