UPDATE July 11th, 2023:

It takes energy to fall asleep. You must mesmerize the brain to fall asleep. This is why I will do an energy medicine ‘session’ on someone I know and love who is willing to receive energy healing. This silent-imagery activity calms the chatter in the brain (that to-do list that didn’t get finished today) and allows me to lull, mesmerize, myself to sleep.

However… When a person is already too exhausted, falling asleep takes more energy than is available and creating this brain imagery mesmerizing takes more energy than an exhausted person can muster up. This seems ridiculous to say, but many of us have probably experienced this: too tired to fall asleep.

When we are exhausted, physically-mentally-spiritually, the spirit of the heart must be nourished. Here is where I would recommend traditional healing methods of rebalancing the body-mind-spirit: herbs, yoga, acupuncture, ayurveda, TCM (traditional chinese medicine which may be practiced by your acupuncturist), meditation, mindful living (ending the multi-tasking lifestyle and over scheduling everything)… etc.

Here’s the challenge for many: these new habits take practice. Showing up for acupuncture or a yoga class, as two examples, must be paired with making lifestyle changes in every moment to rebuild your vitality. It is a process you must actively engage in to be able to heal, not a show up and have someone place acupuncture needles in you but return to your same unhealthy lifestyle. Health is in your hands, every single moment and every single choice.

Original Post _______________________

Attention readers, we interrupt your regularly schedule program of highlighting the nourishing properties of a local, seasonal food to bring you this very important segment on sleep.

Sleep, deep relaxing sleep, is when our body heals. There is much interesting information around the biological healing that happens during sleep. I suspect the ‘interesting’ part might be subjective. So, if you are one fascinated by these biological things, like me, I invite you to dive into it.

Sleep and rest are areas of self-care we often push aside:

“If I stay up just one more hour, I can get this accomplished or that finished.”

Doing so may just get these things accomplished; however, your body eventually pays in the subsequent decline in health and wellness. Chronic sleep deprivation ages us faster and sets us up for weight gain, anxiety, depression, adrenal gland and other hormonal issues, inflammatory diseases including cancer, and a whole host of other dis-ease problems. Dis-ease = the body is no longer at ease.

Sleep is imperative for energetic days, efficient body cell function and replication, detoxing, healing, vibrant longevity, and just good all-around health. When we are in good sleep cycles our body is healing our DNA. Sleep is nature’s power healing mode.

When we get plenty of sleep, we wake up energized and ready to meet the day’s challenges. Not enough sleep? We then stagger out of bed feeling foggy in the head; looking for that pot of coffee, cup of tea, chunk of dark chocolate, or sugary breakfast foods. Using these drink and food items to rev ourselves up does seem to work in the short term but actually exacerbates the ‘lack of sleep’ health issues over the long haul.

Sleep enhances body cell function. Your cell’s internal organelles, the tiny machinery inside each cell, work more efficiently when you are well rested. Your body metabolism functions at a normal level because of adequate sleep. Good metabolism also means you digest and process food and calories efficiently.

Add an hour of sleep per night, and you could drop 10 to 20 pounds this year. Adding extra sleep time can assist appetite control among many other things. Getting to sleep before 10 PM and getting a solid 8 hours of good sleep stabilizes endocrine function (stress response), glucose control, insulin levels, and glucose tolerance and reduces your risk for digestive tract distress and disease, obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, cancer… Our body cells function best when we care for them within the flow of nature.

When the sun comes up our body’s adrenal hormones are kicking in to create energy to get up and go. Over the course of the day our adrenal hormones naturally wane, like the sun, so we can sleep at night. As it gets darker out, we release other hormones that support healthy sleep cycles. When we live in harmony with the rising and setting sun our sleep cycles, body’s hormones, biology, and chemistry works as nature intended. The rhythm of the Earth slows down at night as does most life, except of course, nocturnal creatures.

Evaluate what in your life is interfering with living in rhythm with the cycles of the day, interfering with your sleep and then gently work to heal, repair, those lifestyle medicine areas of your life. My first book, Hands On Health, was about taking health back into your own hands and working to repair one’s lifestyle medicine.

Invitations to Enhance Your Sleep Experience: (I save my latest find for #19)

1. Eat whole foods. Your body cells function optimally with real food. You will sleep better.

2. Decrease or eliminate caffeine intake. Be mindful of your body’s needs. You can buy both regular and decaf beans and then grind to the proportions of caffeine you sleep best at.

3. Decrease or eliminate *refined sugar intake. Sugar stimulates your nerves, think hyperactivity, and can prevent good sleep. Refined sugars interfere with good sleep, depletes the body’s magnesium which further interferes with sleep, and disrupts healthy gut microbes contributing to more health problems that interfere with sleep.  *white cane sugar, corn syrups, dextrose, maltose, etc.

4. Eliminate artificial sweeteners. Key word here: artificial. I refer you back to #1, Real Food.

5. Exercise every day. Keep it as simple as you want but move your body as nature intended.

6. Get outside every day. Your body needs fresh air and natural sunlight to function at its best, including the ability to sleep. Your body and all its organs, every cell, work in rhythm with the circadian rhythm of Nature.

7. Play every day. Play and joy keeps our body, heart, and soul light, refreshed, and ready for sleep at night.

8. Drink pure water avoiding chlorine and fluoride, both are hard on thyroid health. All glands work together to ensure sleep and whole body health.

9. Alcohol in very moderate amounts. Alcohol and drugs can interfere with your body’s ability to enter a healthy sleep cycle and stay sleeping all night.

If you have trouble sleeping after a glass of wine or two, beer, or a cocktail or, worse yet; do you fall asleep but wake up and can’t get back to sleep after a drink? Try taurine, an amino acid supplement, 1000 mg at bedtime after having a drink or two.

10. Try getting to sleep before 10 PM. Pay attention if you sleep better and wake up more refreshed. Obviously change has to be accomplished and assessed over time.

11. Practice calming activities before bedtime. Computer and TV screens stimulate the eyes, nervous system, hypothalamus, and pineal glands making it harder to fall asleep and enjoy restful sleep.

12. Find a good pillow that supports the curve of your neck. I love a feather pillow that I can mold to support my neck at a healthy angle. Find your happy pillow and sink in.

13. Try progressive muscle relaxation and deep breathing, emptying the mind, for those nights you lie in bed with a racing mind and perhaps a racing body. If you are a reiki person, do a reiki treatment (in your mind) on yourself OR on someone else who could use the healing energy and is open to you doing this for them. This practice can focus the mind away from the unfinished to-do lists and the day’s monkey mind chatter supporting going to sleep with grace and peace.

14. Magnesium deficiency is very common and contributes to poor sleep issues. Learn about magnesium and maybe try magnesium glycinate, 400 mg at bedtime. If you have constipation problems use both magnesium glycinate and magnesium citrate. Citrate helps with constipation. Split the dose in half between the two forms of magnesium. Listen to your body and learn what it needs. Take a hot magnesium bath before bed: Use 2 full cups of magnesium salts, Epsom salts, in a bath of hot water.

15. Try calming herbs at bedtime to enhance your body’s natural sleep patterns. Chamomile, catnip, lavender, passionflower, hops are some good calming herbs to use in teas, capsules, and tinctures.

• Skullcap is an herb that relieves monkey mind, the racing thoughts

• Valerian calms the mind, less input coming in, it’s like turning down the internal stereo

• Hops and California Poppy are herbs that put you to sleep

• Passion flower is an herb that helps keep you sleeping, avoiding the “wake in the middle of the night and cannot return to sleep” issue

Most herbal tea blends for sleep support contain a blend of these herbs to help on all fronts of the sleep issue problem. Use a different tea blend each night to avoid becoming immune to one herbal combination.  

Sleep Inducing Teas: There are several wonderfully relaxing herbal teas for sleep. Yogi and Traditional Medicinals are two of the herb tea blending company name brands. Look for Bedtime Tea, Nighty Night Tea, and also Sleepy Time by Celestial Seasoning. Other calming herb blend teas are Easy Now, Calm, and Cup of Calm.

If the tea bag is glued shut, not stapled, cut the bag open and steep the tea in a glass jar, covered. If you steep “glued” tea bags, you are also steeping the glue into your tea.

Valerian may be an herb in the sleep-inducing teas. If you find the tea keeps you awake, stop using any blend with valerian. Some people are sensitive to valerian and find it keep them awake.

Lavender is a wonderful relaxation herb. Too much lavender can exacerbate anxiety. This is a case of a little is wonderful but taking more, thinking more is better, is not better.

Making medicinal strength herbal infusions is important. Simple soaking a tea bag or herbs for 3-5 minutes is not going to create a good strength sleep tea. Put the herbs r tea bag into a jar or pot and cover it. Letting it steep, covered, for 30 minutes or so will make a stronger sleep aid, medicinal tea.

Teas, tinctures, and gel caps are wonderful sleep aids. Keep in mind; if you use the same herb combination every night, that combination can become less effective. I keep different tea blends (from different companies) on hand and use them in rotation. I also do not recommend using a natural sleep aid every night. Not that they are harmful, in any way, but discovering the underlying cause of the sleep issue will help to resolve the problem for more restful sleep without an aid.

16. There are many relaxing essential oils for inducing peace, calm, and sleep: Lavender, chamomile, and blends such as Young Living’s Peace and Calm. Add the essential oils sparingly to carrier oils or an unscented lotion and rub on your feet at bedtime. Never ingest essential oils. Always buy organic EOs from a reputable company. EOs are very strong plant medicine. More is NOT better. Use with deep respect for the concentrated plant medicine they are.

17. Melatonin, taken at bedtime, can help you fall asleep. If you fall asleep without a hitch but wake up and can’t get back to sleep, try 5 HTP at bedtime instead. I am not a big fan of melatonin as it makes me feel like I took a synthetic drug to sleep. I sleep but wake up feeling groggy not refreshed. This is my physiological response to melatonin. Many of my clients love it. Pay attention to your body’s needs and reactions. I have read information from sleep studies that melatonin is best used when you have jet lag or work midnight shift; using it to create a self-induced melatonin surge.

18. CBD oil: CBD oil, cannabinoid oil, is a relaxing supplement to take to help fall asleep and stay asleep. CBD oil is made from hemp and does not contain the psychoactive component THC that is in marijuana buds.

19. My latest discovery in sleep support is Back Flower Essences Rescue Remedy Sleep. I special ordered it, in spray form, through the Co-op’s group buying club. Two quick sprays, under the tongue and hold for a minute or two before swallowing, and sleep is so blissfully peaceful. Keep in mind, lifestyle habits all day long do matter. This little magic potion, in a spray bottle, cannot repair lifestyle habits that irritate cellular health and the natural ability to fall asleep and stay asleep… sleeping well.

May you rest well, heal deeply, and wake up refreshed with vibrant health and energy every day, all day long.  Sweet Dreams.