Sleep smarter and transform your life

Sleep deprivation is one of the more serious health problems in the world today. It has deep cultural roots where robbing yourself of sleep is seen as a strength and not as one of the unhealthiest habits that you might develop. Until recently research was almost non-existent but over the last couple of years, more and more papers are being published that show serious consequences such as immune system failure, diabetes, cancer, obesity, depression, and memory loss just to name a few.

It’s in our culture to think that working more and sleeping less will somehow make us more successful, but nothing can be further from the truth. Actually, it’s completely the opposite. Lack of sleep makes us more slow, less creative, more stressed and quite a bit dumber. The big prize sleep gives us is a complete rejuvenation of the immune, skeletal, and muscular systems. It rebuilds us and keeps us youthful. In the nutshell, being awake is catabolic (breaks us down) and sleep is anabolic (builds us up).

Shawn Stevenson ‘s “Sleep Smarter: 21 Essential Strategies to Sleep Your Way to a Better Body, Better Health, and Bigger Success” will equip you with information to regain those benefits and direct you to healthier and happier life.

Shawn Stevenson is the creator of The Model Health Show podcast and a leading health expert, keynote speaker and businessman who’s transformed the lives of thousands of people around the world.

We bring you a summary of the tips to improve your sleep. For more info pick up the book at https://sleepsmarterbook.com/

Get more sunlight during the day

Light exposure, specifically sunlight exposure, triggers your body to produce optimal levels of daytime hormones and regulates your biological clock. Too little light exposure during the day and too much light exposure in the evening will negatively impact your ability to sleep well at night. One of the most vital hormones affected by light exposure is the powerful antioxidant hormone melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that is produced by the pineal gland in humans and animals and regulates sleep and wakefulness. Light stimulates the production of melatonin and dark suppresses it. So be sure to get a lot of sunlight during the day.

Avoid screens before bedtime

The artificial blue light emitted by electronic screens triggers the body to produce more daytime hormones (like cortisol) and disorient your body’s natural preparation for sleep. It’s important to remember that our cultural use of these electronic devices has only been possible for the last few decades; first with the advent of television, and then really exploding with the advent of laptops, tablets, and smartphones in just the last 10 years. Millions of years of evolution versus 10 years of late-night light exposure don’t favor our ability to adapt to this anytime soon. If you want to give your body the deep sleep it needs, make it a mandate to turn off all screens at least 90 minutes before bedtime, or use a blue light blocker such as f.lux – https://justgetflux.com/

Regulate caffeine

Having a cup of coffee or caffeinated tea even as much as six hours before bed can cause sleep troubles. Caffeine has a half-life of around five to eight hours. Half-life essentially means that after a specific amount of time half of the substance is still active in your system. So, using the eight-hour half-life as an example, if you consumed 200mg of caffeine, after eight hours you’d have half of it in your system. Set an unbreakable caffeine curfew to make sure your body has time to remove the majority of it from your system. For most people, it’s generally going to be before 2 p.m.

Keep yourself cool

Thermoregulation heavily influences your body’s sleep cycles. If the temperature in your environment stays too high, then it can be a bit of a physiological challenge for your body to get into the ideal state for restful sleep. Studies have found that the ideal room temperature for sleep is really quite cool at around 60-68 F or 15-20 C.

Sleep at the right hours

Human beings get the most beneficial hormonal secretions and recovery by sleeping during the hours of 10 PM and 2 AM. You get the most rejuvenating effects during this period, and any sleep that you get in addition is a bonus. Humans are a part of nature, and when the lights go out on the planet, that’s a cue from the universe that it’s time for us to turn down too.

Magnesium, the miracle mineral

Magnesium deficiency is the number one mineral deficiency in our world today. Chances are, you’re not getting enough magnesium into your system, and getting your magnesium levels up can almost instantly reduce your body’s stress load and improve the quality of your sleep. Research shows that one of the central symptoms of magnesium deficiency is chronic insomnia. This is valuable information to know because simply getting your magnesium levels up can have a huge impact on your sleep quality very quickly. In addition to supplementation incorporate magnesium-rich foods in your diet. Green leafy veggies, seeds like pumpkin and sesame, and superfoods like spirulina and brazil nuts can provide very concentrated sources of magnesium for you.

Make your room a sleep sanctuary

Stop making your bedroom the entertainment room or an office. Both of these stimulate your brain and makes it harder to fall asleep. In addition, working in bed creates a negative association with sleep. Get at least one house plant to improve the quality of air in your bedroom.

Have sex

During orgasm, both women and men release a cocktail of chemicals, including norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, and the pituitary hormone prolactin. Oxytocin, for example, triggers a cascade of bodily events including the release of other feel-good hormones called endorphins. This rush of endorphins and relaxing hormones when you release can be just the thing to set you up for a great night’s sleep. Good news single people, you don’t need anyone else to achieve this.

Have a black-out

It’s a well-established fact that we sleep better in a dark room. Having light sources of any type in your bedroom can disrupt your sleep patterns. Did you know that your skin actually has receptors that can pick up light? These photoreceptors are similar to those found in your retina, so your skin can literally see. If there’s light in your bedroom, your body is picking it up and sending messages to your brain and organs that can interfere with your sleep. Studies show that exposure to room light during usual hours of sleep suppresses melatonin levels by more than 50 percent.

Exercise

You actually don’t get in shape at the gym while you’re exercising. You’re literally tearing down your body while working out, increasing inflammatory biomarkers and creating thousands of micro-tears in your muscle fibers. When you leave the gym, you’re actually in worse shape than when you came in. The secret is that your body transforms from your workout while you’re asleep. This is when your body releases all of the beneficial hormones and elicits repair programs to build you up better than before. Morning workouts are ideal if you want to get the best sleep at night. One of the big issues with working out late in the evening is that it significantly raises your core body temperature, and it can take upwards of five to six hours for it to come down again. By artificially raising your core temperature with a workout too close to bedtime, you can prevent yourself from getting the best sleep possible. So exercise in the morning if possible.

Move gadgets out of the bedroom

A study sponsored by mobile companies themselves found that using cell phones before bed caused people to take longer to reach critical deep stages of sleep and they spent less time in deep sleep. side. Many people will admit to checking message alerts in the middle of the night reach for their cell phone as soon as they wake up each day. So you are starting the day addressing other people’s needs instead of taking time to care for yourself getting focused on your own goals and during the night you interrupt your sleep with notifications and message checking compulsions.

Lose fat and keep it off

Cortisol levels of overweight and obese individuals are increased by 51 percent. The biggest issue is that cortisol is as close to an anti-sleep hormone as you can get. The main problem is that this creates a vicious circle. Brain imaging scans showed that sleep deprivation caused more brain activity in the amygdala, an area associated with the motivation to eat. The amygdala is very much a more emotional, reactive, survival-based part of the brain. Study participants that these scans were taken from did, in fact, make poorer choices in food. So being overweight disrupts your sleep which causes you to eat more and gain even more weight!

Don’t drink alcohol before bed

Sleep is significantly disrupted by alcohol being in your system. Alcohol disables the ability to fall into deeper levels of sleep, and your brain and body won’t be able to fully rejuvenate. This is why people generally don’t feel that great after waking up from an alcohol-fueled sleep. Stop drinking at least four hours before bed. If you decided to have a night out to help nullify the effects of the alcohol faster, you need to drink more water before bed. One glass of water with every alcoholic drink should help ease the consequences.

Assume the position

Your sleeping position matters a lot. Blood flow to your brain, the stability of your spine, hormone production, joint and ligament integrity, oxygen supply and efficient breathing, muscular function, heart function and blood pressure, digestion and cellular metabolism are all affected by the position in which you sleep. Many experts will tell you that sleeping on your back is the ideal position to be in. Lying down face-first with your legs straight and your arms right by your side is probably a bad idea. This is compromising your back by taking away the natural curve of your spine. Add having your head to one side, smashed into a pillow for hours on end, and you’ve got a serious recipe for disaster.

Stop the chatter

“My bed is a magical place where I suddenly remember everything I was supposed to do.” is a famous anonymous quote. Stress and untamed busyness of the day can produce the significant amount of chatter in your head when you lie in bed. Numerous studies show that meditation increases “feel-good” hormones and endorphins, lowers stress hormones like cortisol, and even reduces inflammation in our body. What follows is a quick meditation that you can use to quiet your brain a bit. Lay peacefully on your back, take a deep breath, breathing in for five seconds, holding for five seconds, then breathing out for five seconds, and holding out for five seconds. Do this sequence three times. Now shift your focus to breathing and circulating that oxygen to your toes. Visualize the air coming in through your nose then traveling down to your toes, and then back out. Next, move your attention to your feet. Breathe in through your nose and circulate the air to your feet. Next, move your attention to your ankles, then your shins, then your knees, then your thighs, going all the way up your body until you gently drift away. You’ve got to experiment and find out what works best for you.

Smart drugs

If you start taking prescription drugs then you’ll just be treating a symptom and increase the likelihood that you’ll develop a dependency on something that can harm you long term. What follows is a few natural remedies that can help you with your sleep. Chamomile can help calm the nervous system, relax muscles, and set you up for a better night’s sleep when you need it. Kava kava is well known to have sedative properties and is commonly used to treat sleeplessness and fatigue. Valerian is great for individuals that have a difficult time falling asleep and also promotes uninterrupted sleep. 5-HTP, GABA, and L-Tryptophan are not the ideal choices, due to the fact that they’re not natural herbal preparations like the previous three. These can be helpful if intently monitored and used with caution. You’ve got to experiment to find out what gives best results long-term.

Get up early

Waking up in the early part of the day that sets the template for a great night’s sleep. Going to sleep early and waking early syncs the body clock with the earth’s natural circadian rhythms, which is more restorative than trying to sleep while the sun’s up. The lack of consistency may be one of the biggest issues of all. The irregular sleeping hours prevents your brain from settling into a pattern.

Dress for success

Putting on your PJ’s can be like a mental trigger to relax and wind down for the day. You’re getting out of your outer world uniform and putting clothes on your body that make you feel safe, relaxed, and at home. Another important thing is to dress lightly. As it is said before it is much harder to get the good nights sleep if your core temperature is high.

Get grounded

Today, in our industrialized world, many people go days, weeks, or even longer without coming in contact with the surface of the earth itself. We rarely touch the ground, rarely touch a tree, and rarely touch the source that creates every cell in our body. Scientists are discovering that this is having a huge impact on our health. You may not be able to see it, but you are highly conductive. You give off and receive energy every second of every day. Scientists have discovered that the earth’s surface is full of free electrons that are readily absorbed by the human body when they come in contact with each other. It’s absolutely critical to get your body in contact with the earth on a regular basis to displace the positive charge you’re carrying, absorb free electrons to improve your recovery, hormones, and heart health, and most importantly to get a great night’s sleep.

Establish rituals

Your brain loves to fall into patterns so that it can free up space to do other things. To put getting a great sleep every night on automatic pilot, it’s simply a matter of ritualizing things. Regular bedtime ritual will help you wind down and prepare your body for the best sleep possible. Our body craves routine and likes to know what’s coming. By creating a pre-sleep ritual, you’re establishing a clear association between specific activities and sleep.

Get Sleep smarter and change your life https://sleepsmarterbook.com