WHAT DOES SLEEP DO FOR YOU?

According to Chinese medicine, achieving a state of true health and well-being (balance) or homeostasis involves the balance of yin and yang.  Yin is related to stillness, calmness, and contemplation.  Yang is related to movement, accomplishment, and function.  One of the underlying causes of sleep deprivation and restless sleep is due to living in a fast-paced high achieving stressful environment.  From the perspective of Chinese medicine, the typical modern American is depleted of yin.  When we are yin deficient, we easily become restless, irritable, and excessively busy.   We compromise our ability to rest and restore due to difficulty in shutting our minds off when we need to.  We are stuck in fight or flight mode (hyperactive sympathetic nervous system – yin deficiency) living in constant stress while struggling to keep up with our hectic schedules and myriad of responsibilities.

Do you know if you are getting less than 8 hours of sleep a night?  If so, chances are you are sleep deprived.  Sleep deprivation affects our bodies in various ways, such as:

• Fatigue, lethargy, and lack of motivation
• Anxiety, moodiness and irritability
• Reduced creativity and problem-solving skills
• Difficulty dealing or coping with stress
• Poor immunity – frequent colds and flus
• Memory problems
• Weight gain
• Difficulty making decisions
• Increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems

How Much Sleep Do You Need?

According to the National Institutes on Health, the average adult sleeps less than 7 hours a night. The recommended amount of sleep for adults necessary to function at their best is 7.5-9 hours per night.

Not only are the quantity of hours of sleep important, but the quality of sleep as well.  If you are giving yourself plenty of time for sleep, but find yourself waking frequently through the night, you are not getting enough DEEP sleep.

Understanding Your Sleep Cycle

Your biological clock or circadian rhythm is regulated by processes in the brain that respond to how long you’ve been awake and the changes between light and dark.  At night, your body responds to the dark or loss of daylight by producing melatonin – a hormone that makes you sleepy.  During the day, sunlight triggers the brain to inhibit melatonin production to help you feel awake and alert.

This cycle can be disrupted by various factors causing chronic sleep deprivation.  Such factors include nightshift work, frequent travel across various time zones, or irregular sleeping patterns such as exposure to too much artificial light at night (i.e. watching TV, reading on an IPad or working on the computer).

Specifically, sleep is divided into 2 types – Non-REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and REM sleep.  Each stage of sleep provides benefits to the individual.  Specifically, Deep Sleep and REM provide significant health benefits to renew the body (Deep Sleep) and mind (REM).  These stages do the following:

1. Builds up energy reserves to prepare for the day ahead
2. Maintains health and prevention – boosts immunity
3. Repairs muscles and tissues
4. Enhances and strengthens learning and memory
5. Boosts your mood by replenishing supply of neurotransmitters (i.e. dopamine and serotonin)

Paying Off Your Sleep Debt Naturally

• Make Sleep A Priority.  Just like you schedule time for work, play, and other commitments, you can schedule time for sleep.  Sleep is highly important in order to function at your best.

• Aim For At Least 7.5 Hours of Sleep Per Night. _ Reduce your sleep debt now before other symptoms of sleep deprivation continue to persist.

• Go To Bed And Wake Up The Same Time Every Day.  The body likes regularity.  The more consistent you are, the body will eventually balance itself, thus creating increased quality of deep sleep that you need to function optimally.

• Keep A Sleep Diary.  Keep a journal on when you go to bed, wake up, your total hours of sleep, and how you feel during the day.  This can help identify your sleep deprivation patterns and get to know your sleep needs.

• Fight After Dinner Sleepiness.  If you find yourself getting sleepy right after dinner (before bedtime), get off the couch and do something somewhat stimulating to the body such as washing the dishes, household chores, etc.  This can help facilitate digestion as well as prevent indigestion during sleep causing restlessness and bad dreams.

• See The Light During The Day.  Increase light exposure during the day by spending more time outside during daylight and open curtains in your home and workplace.  Spending long days indoor with lack of natural light can impact your daytime wakefulness and make your brain sleepy.

• Turn Off Your TV and Computer At Night.  Light suppresses melatonin production to induce sleep.  Additionally reading from a backlit device – from a cell phone to an IPad also inhibits or prevents you from falling asleep naturally.

• Get A Balanced Nutrition.  Eating more plant-based foods such as fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains help improve sleep.  These produce a slow rise in blood insulin that helps the amino acid tryptophan enter the brain.  Tryptophan is used to make serotonin – a neurotransmitter that helps induce sleepiness and improves mood.

• Get Acupuncture and Chinese medicine.  This discipline helps to restore balance to the central nervous system and harmonize Qi – a functional energy that underlies our general state of health.  In addition, herbs, meditation, yoga, and qi gong can significantly improve the quality of your sleep.

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