Sleep: The Foundation of Health
For most of my life, sleep has been a nuisance. I yearned for all that I could accomplish in that time spent in slumber. As I’ve aged (and come to respect the value of 40 winks) my sleep quality has become a non-negotiable in my routine. That night time, melatonin-fueled semi-coma carries it’s weight in value for our lives. To avoid getting too in-the-weeds with the jargony bits of sleep science, consider this a high level understanding of all the systems invested in your good night’s sleep.
Digestive Health
You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it right here: your tummy is your brain’s brain. Our gut plays host to more microbes than the earth does humans. Each of our microbiomes is like a fingerprint, made up of a unique assortment of organisms specifically related to our current lifestyle and genetic factors. Digestion is a star player in the regularity of our circadian rhythms. As such, when our sleep is disturbed, our gut senses that and starts to make plans to adjust accordingly. Additionally, when
Our gut influences our sleep influences our guts in a lot of ways (see more here). Suffice it to say, though, that there are a few easy-peasy ways you can cultivate mindful habits that support sleep health through diet. These include:
Eating within the same time blocks throughout the day.
Avoiding eating within two hours before sleep time.
Following the 1-2-3 rule for fruits and (especially) veggies: 1 with breakfast, 2 with lunch, 3 with dinner.
Minimizing consumption of overly shelf-stable foods or highly processed, densely saturated foods.
Cognitive Function, Stress, and Regeneration
We need adequate sleep in order to replenish our brain stuffs after a day of being “things that think”. Our brains utilizes upwards of 20% of our energy resources to continue to conduct all of our bodily processes day-in and day-out. The byproducts of thinking get flushed out through the “glymphatic system” (the lymph of the central nervous system). This is an incredible feature and a high value mechanism that sleep enacts. Life without proper sleep is a lot like continuing to drive your car without an oil change. Its inefficient and sludges up the engine, rendering the vehicle a risk. Speaking of vehicles, scientists have studied the effects of poor (or no) sleep on cognition and have equated sleepless driving to driving while under the influence.
When we are stressed, though, our relationship with sleep gets even more complex. For instance, the stress hormone, cortisol, mobilizes stored glucose into the circulatory system to provide working muscles more readily available energy resources. If you’re into this shit, you’re into it and already know it. If you’re not into it, or you’re not interested in knowing more about it, don’t worry. Again, the bottom line is that sleep is intended to be a regenerative moment for our bodies to process out it’s waste. The efficacy of those processes is dependent on our circumstances. Because we exist in a hyper-active, hyper-productive world, that’s not always easy. When push comes to shove, if sleep is becoming a problem due to stress, there are a few measures we can take before calling our primary. These include:
Having a bed time routine. We are not immune to Pavlovian response. Put a few key actions into sequence to trigger your brain into “power down” mode.
Reduce or eliminate blue light after 8pm. Blue light stimulates receptors in the eyes to produce more cortisol.
Be observant of the effects that fluctuations on your emotions have on your relationship with sleep. Anxiety begets anxiety, how can you notice those feelings arise without feeding their flames?
The Short of It
We are not exempt from the natural law. Without adequate, quality regenerative time, our bodies run on fumes eventually breaking down from lack of resources. Prioritize that rest time, lean into feeling recovered, and live better for it!
Sleep Science: It’s Nothing to Snore About
Sleep- we see it happen to others, but we’re unconscious when it happens to us. What exactly is going on with and while we sleep? Knowledge is power, and a brief overview of the chemistry of sleep might be just what the doctor ordered to drive the value of sleep home for those of you who leave your sleep health wanting.
Gut and Neurotransmitters
The gut is often referred to as our primitive brain because, before we had a brain, we were simply an anus. When embryos develop, the first thing to form is tube that runs from mouth to anus. While the brain has clearly presented itself and evolved into who it is today, the gut continues to be the man-behind-the-curtain, shouting cues, directing the whole operation. Our stomachs are the primary production site of several neurotransmitters and the home to gazillions of microbes.
The neurotransmitter, serotonin, is one of these aforementioned transmitters that heavily influence the cadence and quality of our sleep. Serotonin is most well known as a “happy hormone”, mostly produced in the gut (90%), that plays a role in temperature regulation and sleep health. Serotonin is a byproduct of essential amino acid tryptophan (popularized by the post-thanksgiving siesta), only accessible through the foods we eat. When we’re not eating right, our sleep quality diminishes as well. This contributes to lower immune health and increased vulnerability to all sorts of dis-ease.
Glymphatic System
Sleep is so important for us to get in proper amounts because we “thinking things”. The act of thinking is an effortful process (for some more than others) that results in waste byproducts that need to be cleared out of the brain. In Ayurveda, this waste elimination system is called “ambu vaha strotas”- it is the waterways of the body that clarify the waste, circulate the vitality, and keep us operating on all cylinders. Of the fluid systems in our bodyes, the “lymphatic system”is our liquidy-juiciness that transports nutrients, immune response, and nuerotransmitters.
Our central nervous system has it’s own specialized lymph to clarify built up waste product- called the Cerebro-spinal Fluid, part of the “glymphatic system”. At night, when we sleep, this system awakens and flushes our brain and nervous tissue so that we can wake up fresh and ready to go the next day. Long term, low quality sleep contributes to neurodegenerative diseases and cardiovascular disease.
The Pineal & Adrenals
Finally, the enigmatic pineal gland and the energetic adrenals, our internal metronomes. Through sensory input processing of light received via the visual cortex, our pineal gland excretes sleep promoting hormones. Low spectrum to no light, soft sounds, neutral temperature, satiated gut are all signals. These send a cascade of messages out to downshift the system, we are fed and safe, prepare for sleep mode. Blood pressure drops along with body temperature, excretory functioning slows down, and our body goes into phases semi-paralysis.
In the morning, wake-promoting hormones begin to pour into our blood. Digestive processes are energized back into life, the heart beats with a little more razzle-dazzle, and our sense perception eagerly receives the world around it. In stressful times, that energy spike is exacerbated, spiraling into persistent states of unrest while crowding out deep, regenerative rest opportunities.
Heavily stimulating activities in the hours just before sleep are a recipe for underwhelming sleep. Shocking a system in need of repair is burning the candle at both ends, unwittingly taking years away from your life.
Learning and Consolidation
There’s too much reality to face before expecting perfection in any wellness ritual. Systemic and systematic disruption to access to basic needs will always be part of our lives. That said, why wave the white flag and succumb to those habits when you do have those glimmers of “you” time? In the name of true self care, any effort toward your healthiest future is a worthwhile endeavor. Each choice to do so is a vote in favor of your life.