Sleep

Sleep

Your body’s natural reset

ELEMENT 4.4: SLEEP

“Sleep is the best meditation.”
–The Dalai Lama

YOUR REJUVENATION

Sleep is crucial to our overall health and well-being. Studies have shown that the vast majority of people suffer from a chronic lack of regular, restorative sleep.

Why is sleep so important? During the day, while we are active, the body uses all the resources at its disposal to help us function. It is only when we sleep that the body can repair and restore itself. That’s why, if we don’t sleep for two days, all our systems start to shut down.

If we were to continue to stay awake, eventually the body would force us to shut down and we would pass out so that the body could heal itself.

YOUR CIRCADIAN RHYTHM

We may think we’re running our body, but we’re not. Our body is running us. So we have to work with our body, rather than against it, to stay effective in the long run.

Whenever possible, we should sleep at night between 9pm and 5am. This timing allows us to stay in sync with the body’s circadian rhythm, which is the natural internal process that regulates our sleep–wake cycle. This rhythm is based on sunlight (the body likes to sleep when it is dark outside and wake when it is light), and its cycle repeats roughly every 24 hours.

Commonly called our body clock, our circadian rhythm regulates the body’s hormone production, its cellular regeneration, and a range of other biological activities that are essential for optimum health.

The quality of our sleep—and therefore the quality of our cellular regeneration—is largely controlled by the sleep hormone melatonin. During daylight hours, our body produces very little melatonin. Production starts at 9pm, peaks at 1:30am, and bottoms out again at 6am. Similarly, our body’s production of the waking hormone cortisol starts at 3am, peaks just after 9am (when we need the most energy to really get stuck into our day), and then slowly tapers off until it bottoms out at 9pm.

YOUR MELATONIN HOURS

If we sleep during daylight hours while our system is flooded with cortisol, our body won’t rest and regenerate properly. Similarly, if we work at night while our body is flooded with melatonin, our mental and physical capacities become diminished. Studies have shown that night-shift workers have significantly worse health than day workers.

Another surprising reason we should sleep at night during the “melatonin hours” is that, during the night, our body uses the left nostril more than the right to inhale. During the day, it favours the right nostril. There are specific neural and biological reasons for this, and the “nostril switch” is controlled by the same intelligence that helps our heart beat and our digestive system function. So, again, we are better off sleeping in sync with this breathing cycle so we can ensure efficient cellular regeneration at night and maximum energy and alertness during the day.

YOUR SLEEP QUALITY

How can you improve the quality of your sleep? Even if you can’t get a full eight hours of deep, restorative sleep each night, starting at 9pm and waking at 5am, there are plenty of ways in which you can improve the quality of the sleep that you do manage to get:

  1. Adopt a regular sleeping and waking time.

Keeping to a regular schedule is crucial for our body’s hormones to do their job and for us to sleep in accordance with our body clock.

  1. Avoid screen-time before bed.

Turn off all your screens an hour before you go to bed. Screens emit blue light, which blocks the body’s production of melatonin. Therefore, even watching a movie, writing emails, or checking your social media will decrease the quality of your sleep. Instead of staying transfixed by your screens, take a warm shower. Relax. Meditate. And if you do have to look at a screen in the hour before bed, make sure the device is in night mode—or, better still, buy a pair of glasses that blocks blue light (these are available online).

  1. Don’t work out in the evening.

Exercise releases testosterone and adrenaline, both of which suppress melatonin. If you’re currently squeezing in a workout after you leave the office and before dinner, change your routine so that you eat dinner earlier, go to bed at 9pm, and work out early in the morning instead.

  1. Avoid carbs for three hours before bed.

Eating carbohydrates raises your blood sugar levels, causing your pancreas to release insulin to counteract the sugar. However, insulin also wipes out the amino acids that are used for producing melatonin. So stick to protein and low-carb vegetables for dinner, and avoid sweet desserts. Try to eat your evening meal at least two hours before bed. 

  1. Avoid caffeine for 10 hours before bed.

Caffeine is a stimulant that stays in our system for 10 hours. So, if you go to bed at 9pm, your last coffee or caffeinated tea should be at 11am for optimal sleep. Herbal teas, especially relaxing or sleep-promoting teas, are fine. However, chocolate and cocoa are also full of caffeine, so you’ll want to avoid them in the afternoon and evening. 

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