Be Well with Dr. M

Sleep Yourself Well

Maintaining adequate amounts of quality sleep is essential to optimize health and well-being.

What if you could wake up every morning feeling refreshed, focused, and excited to move through the day?

Quality sleep allows:

Internal organs to rest and recover, tissue repair, muscle growth, and protein synthesis
Release of hormones that help regulate appetite control, stress, growth, metabolism, etc.
Memory consolidation to occur, allowing for the formation and storage of new memories, essential for learning new information.

Improve your quality of life through the benefits of sleep:

Increase energy to make beneficial lifestyle choices
Strengthened immune system
Heightened alertness, focus, and creativity
Improved mood by reducing anxiety, irritability, and mental exhaustion
Increased libido.

Prepare your body and mind for a full night of restorative rest:

Replace alcohol with water several hours before bed. Studies have shown alcohol intake can decrease physiological recovery from sleep by about 9%.
Eat your last meal several hours before bed. If you're still hungry have a small snack 30 to 60 minutes before bed, such as a carbohydrate i.e., fresh fruit and a protein or heart healthy fat, i.e., nuts.
Create a serene, cool, clutter free sleep space, incorporate calming scents, i.e., lavender.
Decrease exposure to artificial light before and during sleep. We absorb light energy even while we sleep, which can disrupt the body's natural circadian rhythms and alter mood, physical strength, digestion, and hormones including melatonin which is important for sleep regulation. Blackout drapes help promote total darkness as you sleep.
Set that circadian rhythm clock, view the sunrise and watch the sunset.

Sleep and Health. (2021). Harvard Medical School. Retrieved from sleep.hms. harvard.edu/education-training/public-education/sleep-and-health-educationprogram/sleep-health-education-86

Mead, M. N. (2008). Benefits of sunlight: A bright spot for human health. Environ Health Perspect 116(4), A160–A167. Retrieved from pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18414615

The Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee. (2020). Caffeine and sleep. Coffee and Health. Retrieved from coffeeandhealth.org/topic-overview/caffeine-and-sleep

He, S., Hasler, B. P., & Chakravorty, S. (2019). Alcohol and sleep-related problems. Curr Open

Psychol 30, 117–122. Retrieved from pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31128400

Pietilä, J., Helander, E., Korhonen, I., Myllymäki, T., Kujala, U. M., & Lindholm, H. (2018). Acute effect of alcohol intake on cardiovascular autonomic regulation during the first hours of sleep in a large real-world sample of finnish employees: Observational study. JMIR Ment Health 5(1), e23. Retrieved from pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29549064

WebMD Medical Reference. (2019). What happens to your body when you sleep? WebMD. Retrieved from webmd.com/sleep-disorders/what-happens-body-during-sleep

National Sleep Foundation. (2020). What temperature should your bedroom be? Retrieved from sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment/touch/what-temperature-shouldyour-bedroom-be

Suni, E. (2020). Melatonin and sleep. National Sleep Foundation. Retrieved from sleepfoundation.org/articles/melatonin-and-sleep

McFadden, E., Jones, M. E., Schoemaker, M. J., Ashworth, A., & Swerdlow, A. J. (2014). The

relationship between obesity and exposure to light at night: Crosssectional analyses of over 100,000 women in the Breakthrough Generations Study. Am J Epidemiol (3), 245–250. Retrieved from pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24875371

A Glimpse into Be Well with Dr. M's Serene Wellness Haven

This website uses cookies.