I don’t know about you, but I’m on various health and wellbeing groups on social media and the topic of sleep comes up over and over. It feels as if nobody in the modern world is sleeping well, and everyone seems to be looking for the perfect quick fix. Like we do for everything!
‘I swear by ashwaghanda.’ ‘What about L-theanine?’ ‘What about magnesium?’ ‘My grounding mattress cover has transformed my sleep.’
The trouble with sleep is that it’s really quite complex. All sorts of processes and circumstances need to align for our bodies and brains to feel safe to let us surrender into sleep. And stay there.
So let’s have a look at the mechanisms of sleep a bit first.
This is super-simplified, but a sleep state relies on the interplay between a wide range of hormones and neurotransmitters in the body, including melatonin, adenosine, adrenaline, cortisol, GABA and serotonin. Sympathetic / parasympathetic nervous system control and your own natural circadian rhythm also play their part.
And of course all of these interconnecting pathways are influenced by, and therefore can be dysregulated by, diet, lifestyle, mental state, physical environment and even your menstrual cycle, if that’s applicable to you.
So you can’t just pop a pill and think that’s going to sort you out…
Sleep is so important. The 4am wide awake club is a bloody lonely place to be when you’ve got to cope with the following day sleep-deprived. It really takes the shine off life all round. And that’s not surprising, as sleep is critical for a whole range of functions and processes in the body like repair, detox, memory consolidation and so many others.
When everything’s working beautifully in harmony, it looks a bit like this –
During the early morning, you’ll get lots of lovely outdoor daylight, which triggers a nice cortisol release for energy and motivation, so you get lots done, and it tells your body it’s going to need to rustle up melatonin in about 12 hours to get you ready for sleep.
You’ll be eating lots of good quality tryptophan-rich foods, which converts to 5-HTP in the gut as a precursor to serotonin, which means that serotonin, the cosy comfy hormone, will build up nicely during the day, setting you up for a relaxing evening after all your hard work and exercise. Here’s Dr Axe talking about the links between tryptophan and better sleep.
You’ll be eating lots of other nutrient-rich food which also supports your gut microbiome, such as fermented foods, vegetables, nuts & seeds, good fats like omega 3s found in oily fish, and high quality protein, which in turn also supports the conversion process to serotonin.
Once the sun goes down, you’ll be making sure the lights are dim and that you’re not looking at any screens without blue light blocking glasses, since the blue light from screens mimics daylight and confuses the body & brain into thinking it should still be revving up.
Around this time, the conversion of serotonin into melatonin is happening, triggered by the reduced light, as it tells the body that it needs to start winding down for sleep.
You’ve done what you need to do for the day, and your cortisol levels have massively dropped now. You might have some nice carbs as part of your evening meal, as the insulin response to carbs also tends to further reduce your cortisol levels. But not so much as to massively spike your blood sugar, because if it then drops very low in the night, it will trigger a surge in cortisol that will absolutely wake you up.
GABA, a nice anxiety-inhibiting neurotransmitter, also starts to be released, and joins the chill party.
Your body has been using energy all day. ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is your body’s cellular energy, and as it’s broken down to release energy, the byproduct is adenosine, a neurotransmitter that promotes the body’s sleep drive. So essentially adenosine is slowly building up in the body all day, as you’re using energy.
You slope off calmly for a nice warm bath, get into your PJs and have a read or listen to some gentle music. You can throw a bit of sex into the process if you fancy – the oxytocin and prolactin released during orgasm will further add to the relaxation cocktail.
Then adenosine, melatonin and GABA levels all come together as some kind of marvelous threesome and you drift off into a lovely balanced sleep.
In the morning, after you’ve slept, your melatonin levels have dropped back down during the night and your adenosine has been largely converted back to cellular energy ATP by your brain, and the daylight will trigger a lovely new cortisol surge that will have you bouncing out of bed and ready to face the day.
Ah, modern life is so going to throw some of that out of whack isn’t it?!
Perhaps you’re working from home and you haven’t been out all day, so your body’s a bit clueless about what time of day it is and what it’s supposed to be doing.
Or you’ve been sitting at your desk and done no exercise so you’ve not produced enough adenosine from your ATP.
Maybe you’ve eaten a load of processed food because you’ve been too busy to cook from scratch and that’s all you can get the picky kids to eat, so you’ve not really had the right nutrients and everyone’s serotonin production is down.
Evenings are either a constant round of homework, cooking, laundry and corralling of over-stimulated kids, punctuated by stress-inducing work emails, or you’re out living the high life when you should ideally be winding down.
You had a massive piece of leftover birthday cake and a glass of wine after dinner because frankly life’s too short and you’ve had a stressful day.
Your cortisol levels are all over the place because you’re juggling a very demanding job with raising a family and looking after elderly parents, so you’re in perma-stress and you never switch off.
I could go on…
So, what do you do? What are the most important things when you can’t get everything right?
Here’s my top 5 –
1 If you can, try and sneak outside with your early morning brew, even if it’s just for 2 mins, even if you have to put your coat on over your PJs. Get that outdoor daylight, it will lift your mood and set you up for the day.
2 Eat as healthily as you can to support all your body’s functions but importantly your gut (serotonin production). Stick things like kombucha, kimchi and 85%+ dark chocolate into your online shop in place of fizzy pop, coleslaw and Fruit & Nut. Make easy swaps without making your life hard.
3 If you’re on screens in the evening, definitely switch on night mode on your devices and get some blue light blocking glasses. I hate the ones that turn the world orange, but you can get clear ones. No point confusing your brain for no reason.
4 Try and build some exercise into the day, whatever form that takes, even if you’re really busy.
5 Do everything in your power to give yourself an hour at the end of the day to relax and wind down before bed. Whatever helps you relax the best. Get that cortisol down!
How about handy hacks? My favourite ones are –
1 L-theanine – it’s just an amino acid (one of the building blocks of proteins) so it can’t do you any harm, but it’s quite good at dialling down a whirring mind
2 Magnesium glycinate – a lot of us are a bit deficient in magnesium as we get older, and it’s vital for many functions in the body, not least muscle relaxation and I find magnesium glycinate quite relaxing when taken at bedtime
4 I never have any caffeine first thing. Caffeine uses the same receptors in the body as adenosine. As you’re waking up properly, you’re clearing the last of the sleepy adenosine from your system, and if you throw caffeine at that, the caffeine uses those receptors, so you’re essentially just kicking the tyre down the track and you’re going to feel dozy every time that caffeine wears off. Leave it an hour first.
5 Don’t exercise too close to bedtime, unless it’s just relaxing stretches. Exercise temporarily raises your cortisol levels and that’s the opposite of what your aiming for.
6 Avoid sleeping next to your phone unless it’s on airplane mode. EMF exposure has been shown to reduce sleep quality and a recent study found that it also reduces melatonin production. I’ve always left mine downstairs and use an old fashioned alarm clock radio.
Of all the areas of modern life that interfere with sleep, I’d say chronic stress is probably the worst culprit. Here there are no easy answers, but working on this with a coach, alongside getting your nutrition and movement working for you, can make a huge difference. If you’d like to explore whether this is for you, book a Discovery Call here.
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