Why is Sleep So Important?
As I navigate the hormonal highs and lows in my 40s, one of the most powerful tools I rely on is SLEEP.
Many of my clients say this is the one area they have the most issues with.
Why is it so important? Let’s break it down below…
The body has a BIOLOGICAL CLOCK (the circadian rhythm)
Our hormones are largely controlled by our exposure to daylight and darkness.
Historically our bodies work like this…
We wake up to an increase in cortisol – our stress hormone. The higher this is the lower the melatonin – the sleep hormone (allowing us to not feel sleepy during the day)
As the day progresses, our cortisol lowers and our melatonin rises -helping us get ready for a good night’s sleep.
Simple right?
Until Modern-day craziness kicks in…
Now we have light all the time, blue and green light all day long from our phones, from our TV screens, from our computers, from our room lighting etc
We also have highly palatable and inflammatory (cardboard) food available to us all the time, we eat late into the evenings and this increases our insulin levels at that 3am point – keeping us awake whilst our insulin is attempting to digest all that refined carby food.
What can we do?
Here’s a routine I encourage ALL my clients:
To realign our waking day to the body’s natural biological clock.
1. Wake up as close to morning’s daybreak and honour the cycles of the daylight.
3. Within an hour of waking up go for a morning walk so you can use that cortisol and not store it.
4. Leave it 60-90 mins before you have that first cup of coffee
6. In the evenings take another look at the night sky and as the light goes down your melatonin will start increasing setting you up for a good night’s sleep
7. Keep your bedtime and morning wake time consistent within 1 hour.
8. Have all your meals and snacks when it is light outside. Remember as Melatonin goes up, so does our Insulin Resistance, making us more prone to store anything we eat as fat in the body.
How many of these do you currently do? What could you add?
Sleep is one of the pillars of good health in Lifestyle Medicine. I help people in their 40s reset their health for a healthier, longer life of vitality using all the principles of Lifestyle Medicine.
If you have a health-related challenge right now and you would like to work through it, let’s jump on a call.
