How to improve your sleep
/Insomnia is a pig! No offense to those adorable creatures. But I’ve suffered on and off with insomnia for a decade now. It’s debilitating and worrying. There are many causes; the main one being mental disturbances, but menopause steps in here too, waking you up with hot flushes or night sweats.
I want to take you step by step through your day and give you some tips and tricks to help ease you into a good night’s sleep. I can’t promise anything because we are complex creatures and all different. But read to the end to hear alternative advice that might surprise you!
First let’s discuss your circadian rhythm. In basic terms, this is the rhythm that takes you from day to night. At around 4 a.m, the stress hormone cortisol is secreted to rouse you gently from sleep. The pineal gland is stimulated by light, waking us up fully. The best steps to take to reset your circadian rhythm are as follows:
Get outside in the early morning, without sunglasses to stimulate the pineal gland via the eyes. Andrew Huberman, an American neuroscientist and podcaster recommends getting daylight within one hour of waking which is a lot easier in California than in the UK, but do the best you can! This is the ideal time to exercise. If you suffer from stress, this is particularly helpful as you will likely have an excess of Cortisol already in your system. Once cortisol begins to be secreted, you may find yourself waking suddenly. Get up, get out and exercise to metabolise the excess cortisol!
Melatonin is the hormone secreted by the pineal gland to induce sleepiness. This occurs from around 4 in the afternoon. Wear sunglasses outside in the afternoon to trick your pineal gland into doing its job. If you have to look at a screen after 4 p.m, consider wearing blue light blocking glasses. The blue light emitted by our screens signals daytime to the pineal gland and therefore inhibits the production of melatonin. Dimming your screens is also helpful. F.lux is software that can be downloaded to automatically alter the light of your computer throughout the day. Modern T.V’s have a setting to alter the brightness of the light. If you have any blue light bulbs, change them for yellow ones. Consider fitting dimmer switches and get used to moving around your house in dim light or no light. (Disclaimer: you do so at your own risk)!
Melatonin is produced from serotonin which is produced in the brain and made from tryptophan. Tryptophan cannot be produced by our body, instead it is obtained through diet. To improve serotonin production, eat foods containing tryptophan such as chicken, turkey, tuna, milk, cheese, cottage cheese, oats, nuts and seeds. The further you go along this list, the lesser the amount of tryptophan is contained within these foods. It is possible to supplement with tryptophan if you are vegetarian or vegan, but it is worth getting advice from your GP or a nutritional therapist.
Do slow, gentle, meditative exercise in the evening like Yoga or Tai Chi. Meditation is helpful but too late in the evening and it can stimulate some people. Try it at different times to see what helps.
Take a warm bath two hours before bed.
Drink relaxing herbal teas in the evening like chamomile, lemon balm and valerian but stop drinking after 6 p.m if you tend to pee in the night. In Ayurveda, nutmeg is considered a relaxant. Adding freshly grated nutmeg (a quarter) to warm milk of your choice (ideally dairy or oat) might help relax you.
Set a sleep wake cycle and stick to it.
Sleep in a cool room; 18 degrees is the ideal temperature.
If you suffer from anxiety, try sleeping under a weighted blanket or with something heavy on your belly or chest (so long as you can still breathe with ease).
Practice Ujayii breathing before bed and elongate your exhalation. If you are chest breathing, your body will assume you are stressed and will do what it can to keep you alert to whatever danger it perceives you should be running from rather than allowing you to sleep.
Finally let’s talk about caffeine! Caffeine has a half life; this means that if you have a cup of coffee at 8 a.m, you will still have half the amount in your body at 2 p.m and half again at 8 p.m. See the pattern? Caffeine could be the reason you struggle to get to sleep, wake in the night or feel palpitations and put it down to anxiety. It is a good idea to limit caffeine intake to before 10 a.m.
Scientific research changes all the time. We are told one thing today and another tomorrow but one piece of advice that I think is particularly useful, came from a Yogi named Sadhguru when in conversation with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee on the podcast Feel Better Live More; Sadhguru suggested that rather than worry about sleeping more, we should instead be concerned with living! More importantly, he proposed living through our senses. Sadguru believes that we spend too much time in our heads rather than experiencing the world proprioceptively. Being in touch with the world via our senses causes us to slow down, take things in and have an actual experience rather than it passing us by.
When you think of how much time we spend on our phones, it is no wonder we miss what is happening right under our noses. Today, people walk along looking at a screen, they sit on the train looking at a screen, they sit at work looking at a screen, they go home and look at a screen, they eat out and look at a screen while photographing their food etc…
If we can remember to live in the real world, let go of the need to photograph everything but rather take in our surroundings through the senses and tune into how we feel in our bodies, we will experience life greater joy and with that, alertness, awe and pleasant feelings rather than the constant negativity that comes to us via our screens which only serves to cause feelings of stress and anxiety, lower our mood and dull the senses. This in turn leads us to live a life of pure cerebral activity, seeking constant stimulation so our brain never gets a chance to rest.
So try making some lifestyle changes by all means, but ultimately, live more in the moment through your senses, spend less time on your screen, engage in conversation with friends or activities that cultivate mindfulness and you may well find that your sleep improves naturally or even, that you can thrive on less sleep than you are told you ‘should’ have!