Making Sleep your Superpower
Making Sleep your Superpower!
Sleep is an active, dynamic state.
Getting abundant, restful sleep is one of the best ways to improve your physical health and emotional well-being.
As you slumber, your body may seem inert, but in fact it’s actively engaging in many processes to repair and renew itself, such as:
Eliminating accumulated stress and physical toxins, including the amyloid that can build up in the brain and lead to Alzheimer’s disease
Repairing and regenerating cells and tissues
Strengthening immune function
Balancing your hormones, particularly leptin and ghrelin, which regulate your metabolism and appetite and help you maintain your ideal weight
Consolidating short-term memories into your long-term memory
If you are perpetually sleep deprived, you are more likely to have a weakened immune system and chronic inflammation, which is associated with many diseases, including Alzheimer’s, obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, digestive disorders, and some kinds of cancer. A lack of sleep also contributes to accelerated aging, including premature aging of the skin.
Recent studies of sleep and genes are finding that even just a few days of sleep deprivation can have a profound effect on your genes. For example, one study by U.K. researchers found that after only one week of getting fewer than six hours of sleep a night, study participants experienced changes in the expression of more than 700 genes that affect metabolism and inflammatory, immune, and stress responses.
Sleep deprivation can also impact your mood, causing you to feel irritable and emotionally reactive. In fact, a recent study published in The Lancet suggests that inadequate sleep may be an underlying cause of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.
Ways to get a Good Night’s Sleep
1. Align with nature's rhythms.
You can get the highest quality sleep by aligning your sleeping times with your circadian rhythms, which are your body’s own natural rhythms of physical and mental activity. Governed by your body’s internal clock, your circadian rhythms regulate feelings of sleepiness and wakefulness, as well as body temperature and various hormonal changes, over a period of approximately 24 hours.
Our circadian rhythms are aligned with nature’s cycle of light and dark, which is why our body is naturally alert and awake when the sun rises. As the day wanes and it becomes dark, our body naturally slows down, increasing its production of natural chemicals such as melatonin in preparation for sleep.
If you’re used to staying up through the wee hours, getting to bed by 10 p.m. and waking early may be a challenge, but is one of the most beneficial habits you can adopt.
2. Move your body.
An important part of following nature’s rhythms is moving your body and getting physical exercise on a regular basis. Physical activity enhances the flow of energy and information throughout your body and releases the stress that can keep you awake at night.
Your body was designed to move, breathe, and stretch, and when you do so on a regular basis, you’ll find it easier to fall—and stay—asleep.
Keep in mind that it might take a few weeks to notice the benefits of exercise on your sleep patterns.
For example, in one study of sleep and exercise, researchers found that when adults with insomnia engage in moderate aerobic exercise for 30 minutes for three or four times per week, after 16 weeks their sleep quality and duration improved significantly, and they experienced a decrease in daytime sleepiness.
3. Meditate to calm your mind and body.
One of the leading causes of disturbed sleep is stress. Even though our body is tired and craves rest, we lie in bed ruminating about something that happened earlier in the day, or worrying about something that might happen in the future.
Whenever we perceive physical or psychological threats, we activate our body’s stress response. Our blood pressure rises, our heart beats faster, and we release stress hormones such as cortisol. These symptoms of stress can keep us awake.
In meditation you reduce your heart rate and breath slow, and you activate the body’s parasympathetic system, releasing accumulated stress. After your meditation session, you carry this sense of greater calm with you into your activities, allowing you to stay more centered in the face of life’s inevitable stresses—and helping you to drift peacefully to sleep when it’s time for bed.
Keep in mind that you don’t need to meditate for hours to benefit from the practice. Even if you meditate for just five to ten minutes each day, you will receive many healing benefits.
4. Do Breathwork
4-7-8 Breathing, Empty your lungs completely by audibly exhaling through your mouth. Keeping yoru mouth closed, inhale quietly through your nose while counting to 4, hold your breath for a count of 7, exhale slowly through your mouth for a count of 8. Repeat 6 times.
5. Use your 5 senses to calm your body
Foot massage with calming/sleepy oil. Use visualization by closing your eyes and seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling you’re calm, happy place.