Sleep. A strategy for healthy hormones, detoxification and anti-ageing.
Your body has a plan. It has an elegant rejuvenation system that boosts hormones, eliminates toxins, and improves immune function. The system activates each and every 24 hours, and it is most active while you sleep.
The wonderful thing is that you do not have to actually DO anything to promote this wonderful innate regeneration system. It is the opposite. Stop doing. Stop working on the computer. Please, please lie down and let your body get on with it's job. Let your body sleep.
If health is on your priority list, then sleep is on your priority list. It should come before nutritional supplements, and I will say that it should come before exercise (blasphemy!). Yes, exercise is important, but if you're stealing from sleep in order to find time to exercise, then you will come out behind.
What is sleep for?
All animals, including humans, sleep. We literally cannot survive without it, and will die more quickly from lack of sleep than we will from lack of food. And yet, strangely, we do not yet understand what it actually is. Sleep is as inevitable as gravity and (like gravity) we do not know why it exists.
Let us just accept for now sleep as one of Nature's mysteries, and consider what we DO know:
Lack of sleep causes immune dysfunction, insulin resistance, leptin resistance, obesity, carbohydrate craving, depression, poor cognitive function, cancer, accidental death and more.
What physiological changes occur with sleep?
- Dramatically improved immune function. With lack of sleep, your white blood cell count will plunge, leaving you vulnerable to infections.
- Improved insulin sensitivity. Insulin-resistance can be induced in sleep deprived young adults. "[When] restricted to four hours [of sleep] a night, within a couple of weeks, you could make an 18-year-old look like a 60-year-old in terms of their ability to metabolize glucose," says Harvard sleep researcher Charles Czeisler. This is important information for PCOS sufferers.
- Secretion of the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin. Sleep is when your appetite 'resets' itself. Lack of sleep will result in abnormal appetite and over-eating.
- Enhanced release of the anabolic hormones testosterone, DHEA and growth hormone. Sleep is important to build muscle mass and to prevent ageing. It's not called "beauty sleep" for nothing.
- Reduction of the stress hormone cortisol and which allows critical regeneration of tissue and cells.
- Synchronises the release of female hormones.
- Improved memory and concentration.
- Improved mood.
- Cellular detoxification. Sleep permits the removal of inflammatory waste products such as interleukin and adenosine. It recycles glutathione (an important antioxidant) into its active form.
Can you name any nutritional supplement or diet that does all that?
Why do you avoid sleep?
Without exception, adults need an average of 7 or 8 hours sleep. Children and teenagers need substantially more.
Sleep is a physiological requirement, like oxygen, so there is not really much wiggle room. It is not a sliding scale where some people need more than others. Your requirement cannot be decreased by the right supplement or the right meditation practice.
Your evening should be spent in low light, gradually relaxing and moving towards sleep that comes over you like a wave. If, instead, you are trying to grab a few more hours of work time on your computer, you may not be gaining as much as you think. According to Harvard professor of psychiatry Robert Stickgold: "[People getting by on four hours per night] are not gaining anything, but are losing a huge amount: you'll see it in their health, their social interactions, their ability to learn and think clearly. And I cannot believe they are not losing at least 20 percent in their efficiency."
Think of it this way, if you sleep less now, you will die earlier. Any waking working hours that you gain now, will be taken away from you eventually.
Also, if you sleep less, you will enjoy life less. You may not even realise how badly you're doing. You don't have to suffer irritability and difficulty concentrating. Again from Professor Stickgold: "When you live on four hours a night, you forget what it's like to really be awake."
How to improve your sleep.
Your body needs to be healthy to be able to sleep.
You may want to start by addressing any underlying medical issues that might be interfering with sleep, such as:
- Sleep apnea is frequent waking due to restricted breathing. Is associated with obesity and insulin resistance, and most sufferers are not even aware that they wake through the night. The primary symptoms are snoring and severe morning fatigue.
- Thyroid problems
- Pain
- Big shifts in female hormones such as PMS or menopause
- Restless legs (consider treatment with magnesium, iron or vitamin E)
- Depression
Bladder waking you up?
Normally, bladder activity slows through the night, but many people report problems, especially with age.
- If you're a man over 40, you may suffer from an enlarged prostate. Prostate symptoms are diminished urine stream, incomplete voiding, and frequent urging. Enlarged prostate responds well to natural treatments such as zinc and saw palmetto.
- If you're a menopausal woman, oestrogen deficiency can thin the bladder wall, and result in bladder irritation and frequency. Natural treatments such as an oestriol pessary can help.
- Other problems that women may experience are fibroid or ovarian cysts putting pressure on the bladder.
- Other medical problems such as cystitis or diabetes can cause urinary frequency.
Is it really your bladder waking you, or do you notice your bladder more because you're awake? It may be stress hormone and the agitation of your nervous system at night that is causing bladder symptoms. If you reduce your stress response, and stabilise your nervous system, then your bladder may settle down.
A check list for sleep
- Reduce caffeine consumption
- Dark room
- Reduce electromagnetic fields in the bedroom or on the walls adjoining the bed. (Sleep a couple of meters away from WiFi, cordless phone base, appliances, power points or electrical/breaker boxes.)
- Schedule a "work-free" pre-sleep time. You may need a couple of hours to wind down. Stay in low light such as reading lamp or TV
- If noise is a problem, wear earplugs
- If partner disturbance is a problem, negotiate a separate room at least some of the time
Natural treatments that can aid sleep
- Deep breathing, meditation and yoga
- Melatonin supplement at bedtime
- Magnesium supplement
- Glutamine, which converts to the sleep-promoting neurotransmitter GABA
- 5-HTP and vitamin B6, which are important for the release of melatonin
- Sedative herbs Zizyphus, Kava, Valerian, Hops, or Passion Flower
- Anti-inflammatory treatments such as fish oil and turmeric. Chronic inflammation causes elevated cortisol, and agitation of the nervous system.
- Natural progesterone cream cream at bedtime.
- Alkalising minerals such as potassium citrate at bedtime. The nervous system needs to be alkaline to initiate sleep. Something as simple as this can make a big difference for some people.
Segmented sleep
We do need 8 hours of sleep in 24 hours, but there may be some variation in the exact timing of that sleep.
Our modern expectation of a healthy sleep is 8 hours without awakening, but that is not the sleep pattern that our ancestors had. Records show that the normal sleep pattern for Medieval Europeans was a segmented sleep, or divided sleep. In other words, the night was divided by one or more periods of wakefulness. Some modern non-industrialised societies also sleep this way.
After the first period of heavy sleep, people would wake into a semi-conscious peaceful state for a couple of hours. It was a highly valued time to pray, reflect, write, talk or make love. It would then be followed by a second, lighter sleep until morning. It was often balanced by a daytime sleep, or siesta.
This sounds wonderful, really. And it's perfectly doable if one spends 12 hours in bed. But that means turning off the lights, the TV, the computer, and living half our life in bed. Possibly not a sustainable practice in our modern world.
Understanding segmented sleep sheds some light on why night-time waking is such a common form of insomnia. Maybe it's not insomnia at all. It's merely an expression of our body's natural rhythm. Maybe it's fine to wake as long as you can then enjoy a second sleep and a siesta to make up the hours.
Appointments at Sensible-Alternative
For professional advice regarding your health issues, please make an appointment with one of our Naturopaths.
Locations in Crowsnest Pass, Canada and Sydney, Australia.
1) Dr Lara Grinevitch - Crowsnest Pass, Canada
Lara sees patients on Mondays.
Text message or leave a voicemail on Lara's cell: 1 587 880 4436
Phone Crowsnest Clinic: 1 403 563 3334. (Clinic phone is attended Tuesday-Friday)
2) Biljana Koga or Deborah Gibson - Sydney, Australia
Two Sydney locations: Chatswood - Cronulla
Sydney phone number: 02 8011 1994
To email our Sydney head office: click here.
