Sleep and Hormones
Whenever your body is out of balance and in need of healing, you need to address your sleep. Our hormones are regulated by an internal timekeeping mechanism known as the circadian clock. The circadian clock or rhythm is a 24 hour sleep/wake cycle that governs a huge amount of processes in the body. Disruption of this internal clock due to unregulated sleep/wake cycles, can lead to hormonal imbalance, appetite dysregulation, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes. Some of our hormones are able to go through their oscillations independent of the sleep/wake cycle, but many can’t. This means that unless you are at the right stage of sleep when these hormones peak you are missing out.
Some hormones that are reliant on us being asleep at the right time are growth hormone, melatonin, leptin and ghrelin. Below you can see some of the consequences of not being at the right stage of sleep at the right time:
Consequences of Sleep Loss
Lack of sleep has been linked to a whooping 4-times increased cancer incidence. A single night of poor sleep can impair natural killer cell activity by as much as 70 percent. In the short term, this can put us at risk for developing acute illnesses like colds and flu, but in the long term, it increases our risk for much more serious threats, such as cancer.
The brain is not cleared of toxic aggregates, plaques and debris that accumulate during the day. These are washed away during sleep by cerebral spinal fluid that gets pushed into the brain. The build up from inadequate sleep plays a role in Alzheimer’s disease.
Our brain function is compromised particularly our memory and recall.
Sleep deprivation causes our emotions and pain sensitivity to be heightened.
Sleep deprivation really messes with our blood sugar levels. It disrupts hormones that regulate satiety (leptin) and hunger (ghrelin) and you are twice as likely to be overweight if you sleep less then 6 hours a night.
Best Practices for a Good Nights Sleep
Think about how you can keep your body in a natural rhythm. What would you be exposed to and when, if there was no electricity and you were in a pre modern era? Do not expect long term insomnia to be corrected overnight, it takes time and commitment but it is absolutely essential to your health. Let’s get serious here and set some real boundaries!
- Get half an hour of sun first thing in the morning if you can. If not make sure you get some sun exposure during the day. Yes even in Winter. If you work inside take your full lunch break outside and walk to work. Your health depends on it.
- Avoid blue light in the evening. No screens after dinner and if you absolutely must make sure you have a blue light filter on your computer and do not use in the hour prior to bed. Read below thought, if this is you, you will need to be more strict.
- Most people with insomnia have a hyperactive stress system and certain situations can impede sleep by making the brain stressed. If this is you do not read emails etc outside of set hours (if work keep them to working hours – do not get notifications to your phone – set your boundaries and enforce them!). Instead of sitting at your computer at night, grab pen and paper and brain dump – write down everything you need to tackle the next day/week/month – be realistic though. List pro’s and con’s if concerned. The key is to get it out of the head and onto paper. Orange light is ok at this time of night.
- Get enough movement into your day. Schedule it in. It is as important as everything else. Take frequent breaks if working a sedentary job to get up and move. You may find insomnia is temporarily worse but the key here is that this is temporary. Research backs this up and it will work if you give it time.
- Set a strict bed time and be in bed by this time. Ideally aim for pre 10pm. Allow yourself 30 mins to be in bed more then you want to be asleep for. Go to bed half an hour before your desired ‘sleep’ time.
- Optimise your sleep schedule so you wake up before you really need to – getting to bed early enough is key here. You will be more relaxed and productive in the morning and it will benefit your sleep cycle.
Other things you can do – Book in for a consultation so we can get your nervous system primed for restful and restorative sleep. I can give you supplements as well to correct any deficiencies, like for example magnesium which is commonly associated with insomnia. We can get the neurotransmitters in your brain optimal. I use therapeutic grade practitioner only supplements and can prescribe them. You always get a full Holistic plan though as it goes beyond food and supplement’s as you can see. I can also make you a personalised first light flower essence remedy – this is for emotional support, there are some fabulous flower essences to help with sleep like Matata which is used for unwanted repetitive thoughts. You can also practice meditation. Meditation helps you to let distressing thoughts that pop into your head, leave quicker. Stress is a normal and even necessary part of life. The problem is when we stay stuck there. You can read more about Stress here.
Sources – Further Reading and the research
Role of Sleep and Sleep Loss in Hormonal Release and Metabolism – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3065172/
Reduced cancer incidence among the blind – (Melatonin) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9730026/
Melatonin in cancer management: progress and promise – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17047036/
If you would like links to any research to support any claims made that I have missed let me know and I will pop them up 🙂
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