Beauty Sleep
- Christina C Wilson
- Jan 17, 2021
- 2 min read
"Without enough sleep, we all become tall, two-year-olds." ~JoJo Jensen, Dirt Farmer Wisdom
You can eat your greens, exercise, and take all the right supplements, but if you're not managing your stress and getting enough quality sleep, it may not matter. Sleep is essential for our basic physiological functions, neurological performance, endocrine balance, and immune system. Getting too little sleep across the adult lifespan will significantly raise your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
Did you know that not getting enough sleep is associated with being overweight? Appetite is governed in large part by the hormones ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin tells you when you're hungry, and leptin tells you when to put your fork down because you've had enough to eat. Insufficient sleep negatively affects the fine-tuning of these two appetite hormones. Sleep-deprivation makes you feel hungrier and compromises your willpower, making it more challenging to resist reaching for sugar and caffeine. Additionally, lack of sleep also disrupts glucose and insulin metabolism. Optimal sleep will activate growth hormone so that you are less likely to gain belly fat and better able to repair your muscles at night
Tips to improve your sleep hygiene:
Make your bedroom a comfortable temperature for sleep (colder is better).
Take a hot Epsom bath at night for 20 minutes. Add a few drops of lavender essential oil to the bathwater if you're feeling fancy.
Take 200 to 400 mg of magnesium glycinate before bed, which relaxes the nervous system and muscles. Some people find CBD oil to be helpful.
Unplug. Avoid any stimulating activities for two hours before bed, such as watching TV and using your iPhone (yep, Facebook, and Pinterest, I'm looking at you!).
Set a bedtime (and rise time). Go to bed (preferably before 10 or 11 p.m.) and wake up at the same time every day.
Cut the lights. Keep your bedroom very dark or use eyeshades.
Turn off all digital devices that give off any light.
Pro tip: Buy a cute eye mask like Audrey Hepburn’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s!
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