HEALTH
Sleeping Your Way To Good Health
by Karen Geary, a Registered Nutritional Therapist DipION, mBANT, CNHC at Amplify
How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Was it uninterrupted? Did you struggle getting off to sleep? These are the questions I ask clients when they see me. You may ask – what has this got to do with nutrition?
Sleep is the first step towards great health. What we eat and drink, how much we exercise, how much exposure to natural daylight we have, all have an impact on our sleep. Poor sleep makes us vulnerable to infections and illnesses, increases inflammation, lowers our immunity and stops us from losing weight. Prolonged sleep deficiency or disturbance can lead to chronic, systemic
low-grade inflammation and is associated with various diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and neuro degeneration. How much sleep do we need? We still don’t really know how much sleep is ideal for our specific bodies. The recommended time I read about is 7-8 hours sleep a night but studies vary.
How to improve your sleep Preparation: • • • • •
No clutter in the bedroom. Get the room as dark as you can. No unnecessary electrical equipment in the bedroom. Bedroom temperature ideally needs to be below 20 deg C. If you sleep with someone who is always cold and you are always hot, buy two single duvets with different tog ratings.
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During the day: •
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Exercise. If you didn’t sleep well the night before, choose something to stress your body, eg. go for a run instead of yoga. Get high quality light by spending time outside before noon to increase the production of serotonin. Serotonin is a precursor to melatonin which is needed for deep sleep. Stop caffeine by noon Practice mindfulness or some form of meditation Reduce high sugar foods Before bed time – remember the two hour rule: Try to adopt a ritual to wind down the mind before bed.
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It might be a soothing bath, music, reading, family chat time, chamomile tea. Stop eating and drinking alcohol at least two hours before bedtime. Have cherry juice with dinner. It has the highest food source of melatonin (our sleep hormone). Cherry Active Concentrate is available in health stores or on Amazon. No devices two hours before, or if that is not possible, reduce ‘blue’ light from TV’s, computers, tablets, smartphones, energy efficient light bulbs. Wear blue blocking glasses, switch to ‘night mode’ or red screen on devices, use dimmer switches.
At bed time:
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Go to bed at the same time. Unplug all unnecessary electricals. Ban devices from the bedroom. If you have noise, deploy earplugs or a white noise machine. If you do allow a device into your room, use an app that has a background noise such as lapping waves. If you can’t get the room dark, try an eye mask. If you wake up in the night, try belling breathing or box breathing and counting until you drift off again. Get up at the same time every day.
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