We spend about 1/3 of our lives asleep, it’s a design solution for some of the brains most basic needs. When we sleep, our cerebral spinal fluid channels open up and metabolic waste is rinsed from our brain, flushing toxins down to the liver.
In the UK 23% of us are getting less than 7 hours sleep a night and only 15% of us are waking up feeling refreshed. Sleep problems take a metabolic toll and apart from reduced immunity and mental health struggles, can contribute to the onset of metabolic disorders such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. There are even links to some cancers with the WHO classifying night time shift work as ‘probably carcinogenic.’
Research from the University of Bonn found that after 24 hours of sleep deprivation in healthy patients, numerous symptoms were noted which are typically attributed to psychosis or schizophrenia.
We need between 4 and 6 sleep cycles every night for our brain and body maintenance, with one cycle being approximately 90 minutes. For 5 cycles we need at least 7.5 hours sleep every night.
For many people sleep is difficult and they turn to pills to help them, but chemically induced sleep is not the same kind of sleep. There is typically less REM sleep, fewer dreams, and the body doesn’t carry out essential maintenance.
Sleep often gets worse as we get older and poor sleep, combined with high levels of stress and elevated cortisol levels, increases the risks of poor mental health and dementia. Fortunately, there are things we can do to improve our sleep no matter what our age, improving cognitive and mental health, and reducing the risks of metabolic disorders.
The obvious interventions – don’t drink alcohol before bed, make sure your room is dark and not too hot, keep bedtimes and wake up times consistent and keep screens away from the bedroom, are well documented and have helped many people.
A less well-known consideration is brain prediction. The brain’s job is to regulate the body, running a budget of energy in, energy out to keep us alive. In order to do this efficiently, it predicts, or ‘guesses’ what the body will need, based on previous experience. Your brain doesn’t care how you feel, it’s totally unmoved by your desperate need to sleep before a 5am alarm and an important meeting tomorrow. If your usual habit is to go to bed, raise your cortisol levels by looking at your phone and then toss and turn for 3 hours overthinking every bad decision you’ve ever made, then that is what your brain will predict you want to do every night. It will ensure your body is flooded with the appropriate chemicals and hormones to enable you to carry out this bedtime performance.
If this is not the bedtime performance you were hoping for and you’re looking for something different, then you have to do something different to get different predictions.
If it’s sleep you’re after, then you need to start early. Eat dinner at least 3 hours before you want to go to sleep, and about 2 hours before you want to sleep do everything you need to do to be ready for bed, but then make sure you leave the bedroom. About an hour before you go to bed slow everything down; dim lights, watch boring TV or even better, read a book. Turn off your phone or put it in another room. When you go to bed, go straight to bed, and try to sleep. If you can’t sleep (give it 30 – 40 minutes), get up again; it’s important that your brain gets the message that going to bed means going to sleep. Go into another room (I have one client who sat on the stairs on a cushion) and read, then try to go back to bed when you feel sleepy. You may have to do this a couple of times for several nights, but you are changing your brain’s predictions and teaching it that going to bed does not require a surge of cortisol or adrenaline.
Even if you have slept badly for years, there are lots of other interventions that can help this important factor in our quest for better health.
If you want to improve your sleep and explore other ways to improve your physical, mental, and cognitive health, book a call to discuss how we can help you to live longer, well.
Modern life is seriously bad for our metabolism, leaving many of us struggling with our physical, mental, and cognitive health. But we can take back control and reverse much of the damage that has been done to our bodies and minds. We can also learn how to protect our children from the detrimental effects of metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunction, so they never need to embark on this journey of recovery.
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