If you have ever slept poorly in the night, you may have found yourself losing your focus, alertness, appetite, mood, and energy the following day. When your mind goes blank, you start being forgetful, reacting poorly to different situations.
If you suffer from insomnia, these side effects do not stop there. There is a more serious metabolic and cardiovascular effect when insomnia becomes chronic. Often, these conditions are harder to notice or be traced back to poor sleep because they tend to develop over a long period.
Quality sleep is essential for one’s well-being. If you are concerned that you are not getting enough or quality sleep, there are natural remedies and tools that can help you get back on track.
Here is a list of what’s at stake when you don’t get enough sleep.
Your blood sugar levels are greatly affected by your sleep. It has been observed that adults who reported to only have about five hours of sleep or less during the night regularly are 2.5 times more likely to have diabetes, compared to those who get the seven to eight hours every night.
The link between poor sleep and diabetes may not be 100% clear yet, but being sleep-deprived increases the activity of the sympathetic nervous system in charge of the fight-or-flight response, that in turn, negatively influences other hormonal pathways that control the metabolism.
The fight-or-flight response being linked to cardiovascular diseases is also why sleep deprivation can increase the risks of high blood pressure and heart attack. The body will start to produce higher levels of stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, as it is subjected to physical stress due to poor sleep. This then increases blood pressure, heart rate, and contraction, and may lead to heart diseases.
Dysfunctional sleep is proven to increase your appetite levels. The less sleep you get, the more you increase your risk of becoming overweight or worse, obese. Sleep deprivation is found to cause dips in appetite-supressing hormone, leptin, and increases the levels of appetite-stimulating compound, ghrelin. This reaction makes you desire more food, and makes it difficult to stop eating.
The three major health risks stated above do sound scary, but understanding how they are all connected and taking action is a step closer to getting healthier. Getting a full, quality sleep nightly already reduces all these risks. Couple it with a healthy diet and healthy lifestyle, then you will be in great shape.
These nutrients are tried and tested to help restore your sleep:
1. Magnesium helps reduce tightness in the muscles, relaxing the whole body so you can get a more restful sleep. This essential mineral lowers cortisol and ups melatonin levels, supporting deep-sleep cycles so you can have a restorative and healing slumber.
2. Lutein and zeaxanthin are antioxidant nutrients that are found in the eye. Supplementing with these two carotenoids can help your eyes filter and decrease the negative effects of blue light, common in gadgets with screens such as monitors, TVs, smartphones, and tablets. Furthermore, these two nutrients increases melatonin production in the eyes, improving sleep quality.
3. California poppy is an herb that has been used as a sedative in traditional herbal medicine throughout history. Modern research was able to prove its potency and how it works. It increases the activity of the calming neurotransmitter called gamma-aminobutyric acid or GABA. It helps calm your mind and body, and is best taken when you feel too stimulated or stressed to sleep.
For do’s and don’ts to get quality sleep, click here.
In order to get a personalised approach to getting back your needed snooze, talk to a registered naturopath now.
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Koji is a less known superfood found in a variety of macrobiotic foods. Containing Aspergillus oryzae, koji is used to make foods such as miso, amazaki and tamari.
Studies spanning decades investigate several Japanese staple foods as being potentially responsible for lower cases of CVD in Japan when compared with CVD in other countries such as Australia
The Japanese macrobiotic diet has a fascinating history that dates back several centuries. Its roots can be traced to the teachings of George Ohsawa, a Japanese philosopher, who believed that food plays a critical role in achieving physical and spiritual balance.