Let's talk about SLEEP
Why is it that when we are kids we didn't want to nap and going to bed early, ya right!! We wanted to stay up as late as we can and avoid all forms of sleep. My 8 year old just tried to stay up until midnight for New Years, she only made it to 11 pm, and we all know how the next time went right!! Now almost in my 40's how good does a nap sound. Or what about going to bed early and having all the dinner dishes and lunches made for you when you got up from a good nights sleep. Am I right?
But here is the scary thing 60% of adults have some kind of sleep issue. And if you don't have a sleep issue you probably aren't getting enough sleep. When we add these sleep issues to our already busy and stressful life lives it is no wonder why autoimmune disease are on the raise. When do we even give the body time to rest and detox?
Ok let me break this down for you, when we sleep we only get 90-110 minutes of good deep sleep, that's detoxing sleep. And that number depends on how much sleep your getting as a whole.
In order to get the good juicy detoxing sleep you need 7-9 hours of sleep. How much sleep are you getting?
If your getting up at 6 am you need to go to bed between 9-10 pm. So set those bed time alarms, so that you don't watch that one more Netflix show and stay up too late. And just so I am being honest, I am the queen at just one more, or even worst, lets just watch the first 5 minutes of the next episodes. That one has gotten me into trouble with staying up way to late way too many times.
For me the more important question is how do you feel when you wake up? Are you dragging your butt out of bed or you throwing the covers off and excited to start your day? Is this even an option?? Do you think birds wake up looking to hit the snooze button, heck no they wake up and singing about it. When was the last time you woke up and wanted to sign about it?
So why do we wake up and still feel sleepy? So many factors here, but I want to talk about two. One reason your still feel sleepy is because you didn't get enough sleep. Also the sleep that you get before midnight will actually before 10:30 is the prime sleep time. Lots of amazing stuff is happening internally at this time. Around 9 pm our body starts secreting melatonin, this signals to the body that we are getting close to sleep. But if your house is lit up like the Griswold's house at Christmas time, your body may get confused and may not start this process or may reduces melatonin production. So dim your lights when the sun goes down, yes that will change with the season. Also lets talk about screen time, we are pretty easy going around our house, but we have started to limited before bed because we were finding it having affects on our daughter and her inability to fall asleep. We all just started wearing blue blockers, glasses that block out the blue light from the screens.
Let's get back to the sleep part so at 10 pm with good production of melatonin, there is an internal shift, and for this to occur you need lights low, low physical activity otherwise you'll get that "second wind" and miss the internal process. There is actually an increase in metabolic activity, its your body starting to repair and restore your body, that increase is what can cause that "second wind". So if your still wake you miss that good old cleaning out. This is when your body begins to remove the free radicals that have been produced by stress throughout the day. So if you miss this super cool neurochemistry wave, that extra metabolic activity is wasted on mental energy watching, reading or playing on a screen and you have missed the important removal of free radicals and they stay in your system. Boooo to that and that's when we wake up hitting the snooze button and feeling groggy. This is why it is important to go to bed early and get enough sleep.
Which brings to to the second thing I wanted to talk about, if your still digesting your food at this time it too will cause you to miss this big cleaning out. Our digestion get's weaker as the day progresses. And if we are eating to close to bed time, our body is contending between two different processes trying to prepare for sleep and managing undigested food in the stomach.
So if your wanting to feel more energized in the morning, make sure your not eating too late and getting some sleep before midnight and even better before 10 pm.
xo
Tanya
