Top 5 Tips for Sleeping like a Baby

Sleep is a funny thing. It’s the one thing we spend one third of our lives doing, yet know the least about. Top sleep scientists speak of this mysterious wonderland of sleep, and confess that we still have a long way to go in understanding what happens when we sleep. The more we research, the more it seems that there are aspects of sleep we do not understand. It’s a world unto itself - a bit like the underwater world of the oceans.

It seems clear that we each have a slightly different sleep ‘palate’, as far as our frequency, duration and necessity for sleep hygiene is concerned. We do appear to require less sleep as we get older, and our sleep patterns do shift over time, and for many, as life gets busier, sleep begins to fall more into the ‘luxury’ bracket rather than the ‘necessity’ bracket.

Sleep is a key factor for our skin health clients, due to the vicious cycle of itching causing insomnia, but needing sleep in order to detoxify and heal. Many of us feel that we need dramatically more sleep than others in order to function properly. But how much of this is just adaptation to having lived with less sleep? Is this adaptation a good thing? How much stimulation is being relied on to cope with such little sleep?

What we can say for certain, is that sleep optimization is necessary for everyone to achieve great health. It’s a topic almost as controversial as nutrition to raise in a group of health enthusiasts. In this post, I’d like to share the 5 most powerful lessons I’ve learnt through coaching you folks over the past 7 years.

1. Sleep is Equal to Food

If you’re familiar with our DRESS for Health Success framework, you’ll know that Rest is a key part of the equation. If you’re fairly new here, DRESS stands for Diet, Rest, Exercise, Stress reduction & Supplementation.

If the body is not given adequate rest, including the needed depth and duration, the whole health equation is thrown off balance. Digestion slows down, due to the body having less vitality to work with. Motivation to exercise and eat well drops, often triggering a downward health spiral. Why eat well if you’re not providing the conditions to assimilate all that wonderful nutrition?

2. Night Owls are a Myth!

Okay, this is definitely a controversial point. But, the labs don’t lie. When we run the DUTCH test, we get an insight into circadian rhythm, i.e. the rise and fall of cortisol levels throughout the day and night. In any healthy body, cortisol peaks in the morning, and drops gradually through the day. This indicates that a healthy body has maximum potential for work and activity in the morning, and more tendency for rest, digestion and sleep later in the day.

Sure, there will be nuances within this, and the overall pattern may be skewed earlier or later for some. But if someone is experiencing their best energy late at night, it’s a red flag to me that there is some form of dysfunction preventing better energy earlier in the day. Cross-referencing a hormone panel like the DUTCH with a food sensitivities panel and stool analysis like the GI-MAP, can reveal more of what this dysfunction might be.

3. The Sleep-Wake Dance

Dancing is all about rhythm, and the sleep-wake dance is no different. When your sleeping and waking times are regular, guess what? Your digestive system picks up on the cue, and will also become more regular. Remember that early morning cortisol peak? Do your best to work with this, i.e. get some sun exposure early in the day to reassure your body that it is indeed morning and time to be up and doing.

Likewise, at the end of the day, help your body to trust that nightfall is coming, and sleep is on the cards. Avoid heavy foods right before bedtime, wind down with natural hobbies, laughter, relaxation, and avoid blue light and any form of confrontation.

4. My Favourite Sleep Drinks

There is a tea from Twinings’ Superblends range called ‘Sleep’. It contains passionflower, amongst other things, and really helps wind the body down towards sleep. It’s also widely available in supermarkets here in the UK.

Another great bedtime drink is banana peel tea. A warming drink, rich in magnesium and potassium and very helpful for the evening shutdown. If you’re not familiar, have a quick Google - it’s unbelievably simple to make, and when you do, you’ll wonder why you ever threw away banana skins.

5. Fine-Tuning Minerals & Calories

If you’re falling asleep fine, but waking up in the early hours, unable to fall back to sleep (Type 2 insomnia) this may be due to a drop in blood sugar. The innate intelligence of your body has decided that it would be safer for you to be conscious at this point. If you’re curious, you could even measure your blood sugar at this time using a blood glucometer.

If you find that eating helps you to fall back to sleep, pay attention to what foods seem to help. If it’s something salty, you may be lacking in certain minerals, and as such, including mineral rich foods like potassium broth, or banana peel tea in your diet might help. If it’s just anything junky like chocolate, cookies etc., it might be a sign that you’re running at a caloric deficit. Simply, you didn’t eat enough that day. Eating enough is important for robust functioning of the circadian rhythm, digestive system and many others.

Bonus Point 6. Test, Don't Guess

If you have reached the point where you need to dig deeper into your sleep problems, we can help by running a full functional lab-based health investigation on you - wherever you are in the world. Symptoms you're experiencing may be linked to your detoxification ability, the state of your gut and hormones, your digestive function or foods you may be sensitive to.

Running a lab-based health investigation is the only sure-fire way to find out what's really going on. Get in touch with us on the contact page to find out how we can help you.