We know the saying that it's important to get your "beauty sleep" but is there more behind sleep than just making you look and feel rested? YES -- a lot more.
While you might not think of sleep as lifesaving in the same sense you would an epipen per se, for someone with severe allergies, it does impact all the life sustaining mechanisms in your body and plays a huge role is your overall health. Sleep is where you recover, repair and restore your body and mind. Adequate sleep is necessary for optimal health, including improved mood, cognitive function, digestion, hormone balancing, cardiovascular health and healthy weight management.
Last night, as I was thinking about what I was going to write in this piece, I was also planning out my day. I planned I would wake up at x time, getting 8 hours of sleep, spend x amount of hours writing, head to yoga and then go to work. Sleep has been a top priority in my life, a non-negotiable you could say, for the past few years now but it wasn't always that way. As some of you know, I used to work overnight shifts at a hotel where I would start work at 11pm and get off early the next morning. I had such a hard time sleeping during the day, I often only slept 4 hours max and then got ready for work again. On my days off, I would sleep about 14-16 hours straight. It's safe to say that my circadian rhythm was off. This is when I started noticing a drastic changes in my health - my weight was fluctuating, my cycle became irregular, I was experiencing pelvic pain for the first time and I was exhausted.
Sleep normally functions on a circadian rhythm (a 24-hour daily rhythm) which applies to both behavior and physiology. A region in the brain called the hypothalamus, regulates the circadian rhythm by integrating multiple types of information including light cycles, eating times, hormones, stress, and temperature. The hypothalamus also regulates the secretion of melatonin from the pineal gland in response to light and dark environments. Basically it tells the body when it is dark or time to sleep. In 2007, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a body that is part of the World Health Organization, classified shift work (overnight work) with circadian disruption as a probable human carcinogen. Specifically they found it resulted in colon, prostate and breast cancer. Therefore, short sleep = a short life and I was over it.
When I realized how much my body was being affected by my lack of sleep, I started making some new rules for myself. Even when I was working two jobs and going to school, I never let myself stay up past midnight even if I had to get some something done but I knew how important sleep was to my overall health. That being said -- I understand that often it is easier said than done.
This morning, for example, my day was already planned out but I was waken earlier than scheduled by the loud garbage trucks outside, the unusually bright light coming into my room, (also, so very thankful that my neighbors had moved out last week because they were always extra noisy when I needed sleep). As for tonight, I won't be getting off work until 11:00pm and then have to be back at 7:00am the following morning. So even though I know it will not be possible to get in my full 8 hours, I will stick to my rule about not being up past midnight and get as much sleep as I can. There are always ways you can make little adjustments when you need to.
So, what, specifically is affected when your body isn't getting enough sleep?
1. Fertility
Not getting enough sleep can affect fertility. The body produces melatonin when you sleep, which is an important antioxidant for the ovaries and sperm. When your melatonin production is poor, so is your egg and sperm quality. You can supplement melatonin but too much supplementation can lead to your body limiting its own production or stopping it completely. Lack of sleep can create other hormone imbalances in the body. For example, men who get only 4-5 hours of sleep per night have testosterone levels of someone 10 yrs their senior.
2. Memory
Sleep is needed for proper development of cognitive functions such as learning, memory, and concentration. There are several phases of NREM (non-rapid eye movement) in your sleep cycle, and the final stages (known as stages 3 and 4) are the most important. You reach this stage of sleep about an hour after you fall asleep. During stage 3 of NREM, your growth hormone is released, and the body and brain restores, regenerates, and repairs organs and tissues. Stage 4 of NREM sleep promotes the deepest restorative functions on the body and brain. In a study, they found a 40% decrease in making new memories when they compared students who had slept 0 hours vs. 8 hours.
3. Weight
Leptin is a hormone that, among other things, helps regulate how much you eat and how much fat you store by sending a signal to your brain that you’re full. Leptin also has other functions relating to fertility, brain function, and immunity. Less sleep can = reduced leptin, which can result in weight gain and further hormonal imbalance. Your weight is so connected to sleep that if you’re having trouble shedding a few pounds, fixing your sleep may be all you need to do!
4. Inflammation/Gut health
Circadian rhythms also regulate our immune system, and with it, our levels of inflammation. When circadian rhythms are disrupted, so is normal immune function, which makes us more prone to inflammation. We know that inflammation is the cause of all diseases and that most diseases start in the gut. Poor and insufficient sleep appear to change the composition of our natural microbiota, decreasing beneficial bacteria and increasing bacteria associated with disease. Our natural killer cells which help fight against cancer cells drop 70% in activity just by cutting your sleep by 4 hours.
5. Heart disease
Lack of sleep can cause your cortisol levels to spike and activate your sympathetic nervous system which is your “fight or flight response”. Increased blood pressure, weight gain and hormone dysfunction are all results are high cortisol levels. Even a difference of one hour of sleep can affect us. Each year during the spring when we lose an hour of sleep we see a 24% increase of heart attacks that next day. Similarly in the fall when we gain an hour of sleep we see a 21% reduction in heart attacks.
6. Depression
All of these issues above not only affect our physical health but also our mental. We know that there is a strong connection between the gut and the brain so if sleep deprivation is causing inflammation in the gut where most of our serotonin is produced, we can be sure that it's affecting our feelings of being happy. Additionally when our circadian rhythm is disrupted our cortisol levels spike, which puts stress on the body and mind which can result is anxiety and depression. It has been estimated that 90% of patients with depression complain about sleep quality.
So how can we make sure our bodies are getting enough sleep?
1. Regularity - go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time gets your body in a natural rhythm. Again, sometimes easier said than done when outside factors are involved but setting a goal for yourself can be helpful.
2. Keeping it cool and quiet - the optimal temperature for your body to sleep is between 60-65 degrees. If you live in a noisy area, grab yourself some earplugs.
3. Keeping it dark - sleeping in a completely dark room is essential to a good night’s sleep. Blackout curtains are ideal and you can always invest in a sleeping mask. It is also encouraged that you to put away all screens at least two hours before bedtime and dim the lights in your house.
4. Regulating your blood sugar - regular balanced meals with plenty of protein and healthy fats will help to balance blood sugar. Ditch the sugar, soda, and excess processed carbohydrates for high-quality animal proteins and legumes (if your gut can handle them!).
5. Meditating - meditation improve sleep quality and a growing body of evidence shows that mindfulness is a preferred intervention for chronic insomnia. Essential oils can also help with mediation so I personally recommend purchasing a diffuser that you can use at night.
6. Get moving! - regular exercise have positive effects on sleep quality and quantity. Try to move at least 30 minutes a day.
What not to do? Take sleeping pills! Check out what natural remedies can help you sleep!
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