Sleep is one of the big elephants in the room when it comes to health, fitness, and just everyday life. So many times people are not achieving their goals and feeling like garbage,crap when these problems are quickly remedied by just improving sleep. There are three easy actions you can take immediately to improve your sleep and start feeling better, functioning better, and reaching your health and fitness goals.
1. Raise Your Body Temperature
Raising your body temperature, either through some high intensity exercise or a sauna session a few hours before bed will help you fall asleep much faster. Reason #1 is that you’ll be fatigued from your body exerting itself. Reason #2 is that having been at a high temperature, your body will cool itself down (a big contrast to being hot) and a cooler core body temperature at bedtime has been shown to drive better sleep. Get in a quick workout or trip to the sauna a few hours before bed for best results, since raising your body temperature too close to bedtime may keep you hot and awake.
2. Fuel Your Brain
During the night as you sleep, toxins are expelled from your brain. Providing your brain some fuel will help expel the toxins and help you wake up feeling more refreshed. Since your brain will be running off of two energy sources, glucose and ketones, throughout the night for these processes, it’s best to provide a small bit just before bed. For glucose, organic raw honey and plantains work great because they both have high glucose-to-fructose ratios. Raw honey particularly tends to be stored in the liver rather than muscle sites for easy access for the brain.
MCT (medium chain triglyceride) oil, composed of C-8 and C-10 fats only, will get converted to ketones quickly for your brain to use immediately and throughout the night. I personally have experienced best results by having a combination of the two: a teaspoon of raw organic honey plus a teaspoon of MCT oil.
3. Block Blue Light
White light, the spectrum of light we humans see, is made of all colors of the rainbow, but what wakes us up most is the blue light. There’s a ton of blue light in sunlight, flourescent lights and incandescent lights. Blue light also inhibits melatonin production (the hormone that makes you sleepy) so being exposed to it at night can easily disrupt your sleep. Block blue light with orange glasses 1-2 hours before bedtime. This will help you fall asleep much more readily by allowing your body to make melatonin to its heart's content.
These are quick recommendations to improve your sleep--a very important part of your health--but there are many more. We created an all inclusive food and exercise program to not only help you achieve your body composition goals but dramatically improve your health as well. Jump on board now to get more tips for improving your sleep and give these recommendations a try. Let us know in the comments how they work out for you!