How to... Sleep Soundly

We all know that quality of sleep the night before can have a huge influence of how we feel and behave the next day. On average, humans spend nearly two-thirds of their lives asleep and this is time well spent. The rejuvenating effects of sleep are not so much about time with eyes closed in bed, but the quality spent there.

Sleep is a state of altered consciousness, where we drop into brain cycles where we have a relatively low sensory relationship with the external world. Nearly all of our voluntary muscles – the ones we can control to move around – are inhibited and we move between two distinct states; REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and non-REM sleep.

During both waking and sleeping, our brains run through 90 minute cycles – these are similar, but obviously the night-time ones involve dropping down deeper into unconsciousness. In sleep, within this period, there are four stages of non-REM sleep (about 75% of the night), followed by REM, which gets longer each time throughout the night, with the longest period lasting an hour.

NREM stages:

• Stage 1 - between being awake and falling asleep, if you wake here you can feel like you weren’t asleep; lasts about 5-10 minutes.
• Stage 2 – light sleep where the heart slows and temperature drops to prepare us for deep sleep. Here we disengage from our surroundings and breathing becomes irregular.
• Stages 3 and 4 – deep sleep phases, with 4 being the deepest; where brainwaves slow down (delta waves), blood pressure drops, muscles fully relax and blood supply to them increases; this is where tissue growth and repair happens. Hormones for growth and development are released and energy stores are replenished – here is where restoration occurs..

REM (25% of night):

• First occurs about 90 minutes after falling asleep and then reached every 90 minutes – the brain is active dreaming, but the body is immobilised (muscles switched off) to stop us acting out our dreams as if they were real, although the face, fingers and legs may twitch. This state gives the body energy and has a correlation with how well we are able to perform during the day.

REM asleep is unique to mammals and uses up more energy than when we are awake. Non-REM sleep uses 11-40% less, so is where we rest and recover. In REM, some researchers believe that the quick eye motions are not following what we see in dreams, but are an external manifestation of memory processing. REM is where we dream and emotion centres in the brain light up in this state, whereas dampen down during non-REM.

Sleep is all about recovery – physical, emotional and energetic. To be able to function optimally whilst awake, we rely on the immune clear-up, detoxification, tissue healing and emotional processing that occur during the wee small hours. If this downtime isn’t respected, we may quickly see symptoms like fatigue, irritability, poor concentration and poor recovery from stress, injury and skin complaints.

Researchers believe that part of the role of sleep is simply to conserve energy, a kind of daily hibernation and this does correlate with studies that people sleep longer in the winter, when we need more energy in the day simply to keep warm. Other studies show that our brains prune away unused neural pathways during sleep, leaving us with clearer memories and less stress-inducing ‘background noise’. Unlike the intermittent napping of your cat or dog, primates tend to sleep in one long chunk per day where all of these processes take place.

Issues that can affect sleep

Low sunlight

In winter, when sunlight levels are lower or if your job or lifestyle doesn’t allow you to get much outside time, the balance of the neurotransmitters serotonin and melatonin can become skewed. These two oppose each other in a see-saw action, between wakefulness and drowsiness. Sunlight triggers serotonin, for being awake and using energy during the day, whilst darkness signals melatonin for sleep. Getting out into sunlight helps regulate these cycles and allow better quality sleep.

Stress

The state of sleep is at the opposite end of the spectrum to the excitation of the stress response. Ideally we produce the stress hormone cortisol on waking to provide motivation and energy for the coming day. This production then reduces throughout the day, to drop down (particularly after 4pm) to allow sleep. When stress tends us to create more cortisol than this natural cycle, this can affect quality of sleep.

Sedentary habits

It is usual for many of us to spend much of our days sitting and only move in periods designated for exercise. This can mean we become tense, inflexible and even with excess energy left at the end of the day. Regular exercise and spontaneous movement during the day and both keeps down stress hormones, allows our muscles to be able to relax later for sleep.

Foods to help sleep

Lack of sleep, even at a small accumulative level can lead to craving sugar and stimulants as our bodies try to fuel up in the face of less vitally built-up energy. Too little sleep and we can struggle to regulate levels of the hormones ghrelin and leptin, which are responsible for feeling of fullness and satisfaction. Insomnia has been associated with incremental weight gain through increased appetite for this very reason.

Sustained sleep throughout the night relies on the very mechanism that also helps to regulate appetite in the day. Balanced blood sugar levels throughout the day mean that we can sustain body energy levels through the long sleep period. But when we are lurching from highs to lows of blood sugar, we are more likely to drop more suddenly during the night, when this hypoglycaemia can cause us to wake with a sudden jolt. As our bodies’ survival mechanism to prevent us slipping in a low blood sugar coma is adrenaline, this waking can come with a sudden awareness of our environment, fear and racing thoughts. This is the root cause of many an unpleasant time spent going over worries, anxieties and negative projections of reality.

For those with this tendency, starting with a bedtime snack to provide energy through the night can help; try oatcakes, half a banana or celery with nut butter – each of these provides different chemicals to help promote sleep too.

Drinking camomile tea or sleep teas including this herb, help to keep us asleep by raising levels of the neurotransmitter glycine. This is effective not just before bed, but has an accumulative effect when camomile is regularly ingested, reducing anxiety and allowing us to

To raise levels of another soothing neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid) eat foods high in the amino acid with dinner:

• bananas
• broccoli
• citrus fruits
• halibut
• lentils
• nuts

Sleep supplements:

Magnesium is a key mineral for the calming parasympathetic nervous system aka ‘rest and digest’ – the opposite tone to the ‘fight or flight’ sympathetic nervous system stress response. We can use up magnesium quickly when stressed, yet need it to be able to calm, self-soothe and sleep. You can safely take a supplement of 300–400mg magnesium citrate with dinner to promote sleep, such as Lamberts Magasorb (link here).

If you have long-term insomnia you may also find supplementation of 500–1,000mg of the amino acid taurine helpful alongside magnesium and often found in calm or sleep supplement formulas. This is found in fish, meat and milk so vegetarians may need to supplement it; the body can produce some but this may suffer in times of stress or low vitamin B6 levels. Taurine and magnesium act like GABA, our brain’s natural ‘braking system’, acting to help us switch off and fall asleep. This may be particularly helpful if overthinking or recurrent thoughts are getting in the way of sleep.

L-Theanine is an extract of tea, known to have calming effects on body and mind. Taken in concentrated form in supplements, it may help reduce mental and physical stress and increase mental focus. It is often found in sleep formulas, but can also be taken – as all the supplements in this section – to help promote a calm attitude and body responses throughout the day. They will not make you sleepy, but simply allow your nervous system to come down again after feeling on ‘constant alert’; where you can feel more clarity, safety and perspective.

One supplement that includes magnesium, taurine and L-Theanine is Nutri Calmeze (link here).

Preparing yourself for sleep:

Sleep isn’t something that just comes upon us, our bodies are preparing metabolically from about 4pm onwards and some people are particularly susceptible to over-stimulation in the evening. Paying attention to your nervous system needs helps smooth the path to slumber-land:

• Wind down for bed from 9pm – we can tend to ‘do’ rather than ‘undo’ late evening, often with a fear of coming down from stimulation like TVs and constant noise. Nourish a calm brain state ready for bed with a bath, reading non-thrilling books, listening to soothing music or a calm yoga practise or meditation.
• If worries keep you awake at night, write them down – accept that your brain may be on ‘constant alert’ from daytime stress and realistically ask yourself if there is really anything you can do to resolve the problem at that time. Rather than gnaw at things you cannot change, write them down so you don’t feel the need to hold on to them.
• Try an Epsom salt bath before bed for immediate calm to your muscles and mind, but let yourself cool down before sleep or the temperature change can cause waking in the night.
• Consistent bedtimes and length of sleep optimise sleep patterns best – aim to always get up at the same time, however poor your sleep in the night.
• Keep the bed for sleeping in only (and making love). Create a safe, cosy haven for sleep - make sure the bedroom is quiet and restful and enjoy fresh clean sheets. Keep this space free from clutter and mess to encourage a clear, calm mind.
• Invest in heavy curtains - dark bedrooms create better sleep, as our pineal gland only produces the sleep hormone melatonin when it senses low light levels.
• Don’t have the heating on – we need cool air to be able to drop into deeper sleep cycles.
• Keep technology out of the bedroom – go old skool with a book, screen watching can disrupt production of the sleep hormone melatonin.
• Keep a regular sleep routine – erratic sleep patterns disrupt the hormone serotonin, crucial for regulating sleep/wake cycles and how well we wake in the morning.
• Wear ear plugs if you are easily disturbed or your partner snores!

Simple Evening Yoga Practise:

Yoga practice is linked to raised levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and GABA, vital for healthy sleep. See How to Stay Calm for how yoga increases vagal tone, the self-soothing mechanism that allows us to fall asleep. Several studies have shown that a regular yoga practice over a period of at least 8 weeks showed benefits to sleep efficiency, total sleep time, the amount of time it takes to fall asleep and sustaining sleep (J Clin Nurs. 2015; Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2017).

Simple Moon Salutation

There are many variations on a moon salutation, this is a very simple version to focus close to the ground and moving around the belly to bring us down out of our heads at the end of the day. The movement fully moves through fascia to release stored tension and allow us to fully relax for sleep.

• From all fours, drop into noticing your breath in your belly and move through shoulders and hips in any way that feels organic.
• Then draw back from your belly to round the back and take the weight off the hands.
• With a fluid motion, then draw upright through the inner thighs, to open the arms out to the side.
• Sweep the arms up over the head as you open the whole front body, only looking up if there’s no compression at the back of the neck.
• Then drop the bottom back and open the arms back out, engaging the belly to support lowering down to come back to all-fours.

Repeat the motion as whatever pace your body tissues feel is right, dropping back into a child pose at any point you need to come into a quiet place.

Restorative forward bend

Opening the back body induces the parasympathetics, allowing full calming of mind-body. Forward bends also promote a quality of surrender and letting go, as we let the weight of the head and thoughts drop away. This version of paschimottanasana, with a bolster under the knees, takes the hamstrings out of the equation to allow the lower back to fully soften before bed.

Restorative twist

Yoga teacher and research scientist Roger Cole PhD showed reclining and restorative postures like promote sleep by relaxing the baroreflex, a reflex known to maintain constant blood pressure. This twisted version of a child pose, supported over a bolster (or other lift) has the feeling of wringing out the last stresses of the day.

A long savasana at the end ensures we bring everything back to symmetry in the mid-line to give the brain and body full rest from continually processing change. Focussing on a full and spacious out-breath allows tension to fully release. Move straight from here to bed if you can.

Focussed Breathing Practise

This version of mindfulness of breathing gives your brain something to focus on, taking it away from thoughts going round your head that make interfere with falling asleep or dominate of you wake in the night.

Spend a few moments moving your jaw to soften your face and eyes. Then begin counting ‘one’ on the inhalation, ‘one’ on the exhalation. Continue counting the full breath cycle like this up to ten and then start again. If your mind wanders or you lose count, simply start again at one.

Sweet dreams!

Listen to Charlotte's Podcast on 'Tips to Sleep Soundly' here