6 Tips to Help You Sleep Better — Total Soulful Journey

During stressful times it can be challenging to get a good night sleep. Racing thoughts and worries keep us in a state of alarm causing our bodies to be agitated by stress hormones. It is especially important for us to get good sleep during stressful times like the ones that we are all going through around the world right now thanks to fear over the COVID-19 virus and the impact that it is having on our jobs and on the world economy as a whole.

My intention for this blog is to give you useful information to help you sleep better. We cannot control what is going on in the world, but with some basic tools we can learn how to master our minds and set up routines that will help us sleep soundly.

We all have sleeping cycles that are regulated by light, darkness and the hormones that they stimulate within our brains to wake us up or make us sleepy. The chief waking hormone is serotonin, which is also know as a neurotransmitter. It helps electrical impulses be transmitted between cells in the brain and throughout the body. Serotonin is also a mood regulator, which gives us that feeling of happiness and well being. Serotonin is derive from the amino acid, tryptophan. At night time our pineal glad, which is located in the center of the brain and is also known as the third eye, releases melatonin. This important hormone is responsible for making us sleepy. Understanding these waking and sleeping cycles along with the following tips will likely help you get better sleep:

1. Set Up A Sleep Routine

To get good sleep it is important to set up a consistent sleep routine. This means that you should go to bed at the same time and roughly wake up at the same time every day. This conditions our bodies to automatically follow these cycles. The ideal time to go to bed is between 9 pm and 10:30 pm. This is the time when the pineal gland typically secretes melatonin and if you pay attention you will realize that you start feeling tired during this time. You will also notice that if you stay up later, you will get a second wind as your body starts producing stress hormones, which make it harder for your mind to settle down when you finally want to go to sleep. By understanding your sleep cycles you can set up a routine that benefits from your body’s circadian rhythms.

2. The Affect of Blue Light on Our Sleep Patterns

Computers, cell phones and TV’s tend to put out blue light, which the brain associates with daylight. Staring at blue screens at night will, as a result, make it more difficult for you to settle your mind and fall asleep because it will signal your pineal gland that it is still day time. On an iPhone, you can set your device to automatically go into “Night Shift” mode at the time that you want it to shift to warmer light from blue light. This will help your body to get sleepy. Better yet, turn off your screen devices two hours before you want to go to bed. Also dim the lights around your home to help you relax and prepare for bed time. In the morning open your shades and let the daylight help you to wake up.

3. The Importance of Exercise

Exercise is very important for our overall health. It gets our blood flowing and strengthens our bodies. It also plays a beneficial role for making us sleepy at night. Think about how sleepy you get after a day of playing at the beach, doing a long run outside or hiking up in the mountains. Exercise helps us feel grounded, helps us release stress and burns off excess energy. Exercising outside in daylight also helps our brains stay alert. Avoid, however, exercising at night. A big workout speeds up our metabolism and makes it hard to wind down and go to sleep.

4. Food and Its Impact on Sleep

Avoid eating heavy meals (high in fat) and anything that can cause you to have indigestion (if you have indigestion it may help you to sleep on your left side). This will give you discomfort and make it hard to sleep at night. As I always say, eat a variety of nutrient dense foods during the day and perhaps have a light healthy snack in the evening so that you are not hungry before bed time. While we are sleeping our bodies clean and heal themselves. Going to sleep full diverts energy and blood away from these important functions and draws it to our digestive system. In addition, although it is important to stay hydrated, avoid drinking fluids during the two hours prior to bedtime. Having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom is disruptive to our sleeping patterns. Alcohol is also not helpful to our sleeping patterns. Although a glass of red wine may relax you and make you sleepy, the alcohol in it can keep disrupt your REM sleep, which is the deepest and most restorative level of sleep.

5. Natural Supplements for Good Sleep

Many people use melatonin supplements to help them fall asleep, after all this is the hormone that our bodies naturally produce to help us get sleepy. I have personally used melatonin as a sleep aid in the past and it worked quite well. I no longer use this supplement, however, because it started causing me to have vertigo. Another popular supplement is magnesium, which help to calm the body and regulate the production of melatonin. I’ve been taking 400 mg of magnesium glycinate in the evening and after about a month started noticing that I was sleeping more soundly. Another sleep aid that I like is CBD. Not all CBDs are equal so you may have to try a few brands to find one that works best for you. The one that I like the most is specially formulated to help me relax and fall asleep.

5. Lower the Temperature in Your Bedroom

Our body temperature tends to go down when we sleep. By lowering the temperature of your bedroom you help your body lower its temperature, too. I know that I sleep much better when my bedroom is cold than I do when it is hot. An added benefit of the cold is that it will stimulate your body to burn more calories while you are sleeping, which is great if you are trying to lose weight.

6. Meditation

Having a regular meditation practice can help you to master your thoughts and calm your mind. Consider adding meditation to your nightly routine if you often deal with racing thoughts while you are trying to fall asleep. There are apps such as, Headspace, Calm and Insight Timer that provide guided meditations and calming music to help you sleep.

As we journey through unchartered territory with the COVID-19 crisis, avoid stressful activities like watching the news. As I have often stated in my blogs, the mainstream media pedals fear and misinformation. Instead, learn to trust your intuition when it comes to what is going on in the world and do your own research. Also deepen your spiritual practices to give you faith that everything is going to work out OK in the end. In the meanwhile, eat nutrient dense food, exercise, get sunshine, have fun, enjoy having time to rest and think, and get plenty of quality sleep to keep yourself healthy and happy.

Sweet dreams,

Paul

P.S. - Thanks so much for reading this blog. If you have additional sleep tips, I’d love to read them in the comments below or have you connect with me on Instagram at @totalsoulfuljourney. Also click on the heart below if you enjoyed this post.

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