By: Sydney Shorb, RN-BSN, Certified Functional Nutrition Counselor
Sleeping trouble is widespread in America. In fact, the Center for Disease Control describes insufficient sleep as a public health epidemic. Insufficient sleep reduces your body’s ability to repair and ultimately leads to wide ranging health problems including heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Here are some tips to help you get the best rest:
1. Stop Eating 2-3 Hours Before Bed
Eating right before bed can actually make it harder to fall asleep since you’ll be producing more energy for digestion. Plus you want your body to focus on rejuvenation, repair, and detoxification - not on digesting the last meal in your stomach.
2. Make Your Room Pitch Black
Lights make it difficult to produce enough melatonin since it’s triggered by the sun setting. Light interference will lead to the optic nerve shutting down the melatonin production. That’s why black-out shades and covering any glowing lights you look at when you wake up in the middle of the night (thermostat, TV, a clock, etc) makes such a huge difference. A dark room ensures you will be setting yourself up for adequate sleep hormones to be produced.
3. Wake Up to Light
Darkness helps produce more melatonin whereas light forces it to decrease. This is exactly what you want in order to wake up naturally without the grogginess. The problem is that if you’re using black-out shades to block light from coming in, you’re also going to inhibit the morning sunrise light from coming in. A “wake-light” alarm clock will help combat this dilemma and help you wake up naturally.
4. Cool Down
The ideal temperature in a room for the best sleeping conditions is 67-69 degrees (Fahrenheit). Cooler is okay, warmer is not recommended. Your body temperature should naturally decrease as you go to sleep and lying in a hot room can disrupt sleep.
5. Breathable Sheets & Covers
Stay away from sheets that have been dyed with toxic chemicals and sprayed with flame retardants. These toxins can seep right into our bloodstream through contact with the skin. Look for natural fabrics like organic cotton, bamboo, or wool. These fabrics will also allow your skin to breathe at night, which is essential for proper detoxification through your skin.
6. White Noise
Sometimes city noise or even just complete quiet can keep you awake or lying there restless at night. White noise machines can drown out ambient sounds and help you doze off faster. Smartphone apps and other devices typically include nature sounds like rain falling, or a running stream. Experiment with a few white noise sounds until you find one that just serves as gentle background noise that you don’t even notice when it’s time to sleep.
7. Electronic-Free Zone
One of the issues we’ve run into in our modern-day tech-focused culture is that we’re constantly being stimulated by screens beaming light into our eyes. Your bedroom should really be electronics-free. No TV, laptops, phone, tablets, etc. You must begin to associate your bed with sleep- not work or TV time, which will stimulate your brain wave activity. The reason this is important is because this association will begin to create mental anchors within your brain that will trigger conditioned responses when you get into bed. It will ultimately allow you to fall asleep faster and get into a deeper, more restorative sleep.
8. Wind Down
About 30 minutes before bed, I recommend beginning to wind down. This means, turn off the electronics and get yourself ready for bed. Another recommendation is doing 5-minutes of stretching or meditation combined with relaxed belly breathing before bed. It can be as simple as dimming the lights, sitting on the floor, closing your eyes, breathing deeply into your belly (not chest), and completing a few seated stretches for your hips and hamstrings. This will calm your brain and nervous system enabling you to shut down your “engine” and turn off your racing mind.
9. No Napping
Napping can help or hurt depending on what stage of health you’ve found yourself in. If you’re not a great sleeper and haven’t gotten into a natural 8-hour rhythm then I can’t recommend a mid-afternoon nap at this point. Although you may be tired, napping can throw off your circadian rhythm and downgrade your sleep at night when it's most needed for repair. However, if your sleep pattern has been established and you’re resting well at night, then an after-lunch nap (40 minutes or less) can help calm the sympathetic nervous system, improve digestion, and rejuvenate the body.
10. Supplements
Good quality nutritional supplements can improve most aspects of your life, and sleep is no exception. People often resort to melatonin which is a hormone and therefore not recommended for long term use. Valerian can help the body relax and result in more restful sleep. If you have tried those options without success, a Biomerdian Scan can determine which remedy is just right for you to help you fall or stay asleep!
Sydney Shorb, RN-BSN, CFNC
Sydney aims to look through a preventive lens and is passionate that people proactively prevent issues from arising instead of only tending to their health when they have a symptom or diagnosis.