Feeling sluggish, feeling brain fog, feeling irritated, is your resilience low, are your nerves heightened? Are you sleeping properly?
I’m sure that you have heard that sleep is important for optimal health, but why? Sleep is vital as it is required for physical and mental function, immune system function and energy support. It is said that 40-50% of Australians have been affected by Insomnia- this is crazy right but also not surprising! The demand for almost 24/7 modern life has created the belief that there is simply not enough hours in the day to complete work and sadly sleep is often sacrificed for meeting deadlines.
Having suffered from insomnia in my early 20s and have previously for years endured noise issues in condensed living spaces in Sydney where ear plugs have just not cut it, I completely understand how debilitating lack of sleep is!
Lets begin looking at the short term implications of sleep loss:
-Impaired cognitive performance
-Mood disturbance
-Low emotional resilience
Now lets look at the consequences of Long-term sleep deprivation:
-Lowered resilience to stress response
-Insomnia is linked to with early mortality
-Increased risk of depression
-Increased risk of hypertension
-Increased risk of obesity
-Increased risk of impaired fasting glucose
-Increased risk of type 2 diabetes
-Lowered immune function and susceptibility to infections and potentially cancer
I think we can all agree that sleep is paramount to our health, right?!
Your sleep hygiene and night routines play a strong foundational importance with improving your sleep quality.
Here are some big no no’s when it comes to improving sleep quality:
-Scrolling on your phone late at night
-Watching TV late at night
-Having the TV on while you are sleeping
Try eliminating your screen time in the evening as much as possible to get better zzz!
What does your evening sleep routine look like? Do you currently have any routines in the evening set in place? Here is a simple Sleep Routine Recipe that I often integrate into my day to day life that has helped me immensely ⬇️
Now I am going to spill the tea when it comes to sleep!
Herbal teas are a beautiful way to slow down your sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) into your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) so that you can have a more peaceful sleep.
My personal favourites are:
-Chamomile
-Passiflora
-Valerian Root
-Lemon Balm
-Lavender
Tip:
Try not to drink your teas to close to bed otherwise you may need to get up a couple of times in the evening to go to the bathroom! A good rule of thumb is to drink your cuppa 1hr before bedtime!
My approach to sleep disturbances as a Naturopath is to holistically understand and target the underlying causes, with the support of nutrition, lifestyle changes, herbal medicines and nutraceutical supplementation to rapidly improve sleep quality.
Please reach out and make a booking if you are needing help with improving your sleep quality!
Written by Bianca Sheedy (Naturopath)