Sleep: Why it’s Crucial

Nothing is worse than a bad night’s sleep. The tossing and turning, when your brain just won’t shut off. You can’t get comfortable…too hot, too cold, or your body hurts. What about waking up every few hours to go to the bathroom? How about when your brain and body feel like it’s 3 am…time to get up!! Ugh! It’s the worst!

Ever wonder how that lack of sleep really affects your health and longevity? Is it that big a deal? Does it matter more in menopause? Hint: The answer is yes. Let’s explore why…

Sleep is a natural and essential state of rest for the body and mind. It’s characterized by altered consciousness, reduced sensory activity, inhibition of nearly all voluntary muscles, and reduced environmental interaction. It is a complex biological process that involves various stages and serves multiple vital physiological and psychological functions such as restoration and recovery, brain function and memory, emotional well-being, immune function, metabolic health, cardiovascular health, and hormone balance.

Lack of sleep is associated with adverse health outcomes. These outcomes include total mortality, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, respiratory disorders, obesity, and poor health.

To add to the concern of less sleep, is women going through menopause. In this phase of life women experience sleep disturbances due to vasomotor symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats. Adjusting their sleep environment or habits can ensure better sleep quality. Sleep is fundamental to your health and longevity. In fact, The National Sleep Foundation recommends that all adults between the ages of 18 and 64 get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night.

To better understand how to improve sleep, we really need to understand what happens during the stages of sleep and how those stages impact our health.

5 Key Stages of Sleep

There are the five critical stages of sleep your brain and body go through to ensure you are fully recovered and rested for the following day:

1. NREM Stage One: transitioning to sleep (light sleep), where the body transitions from wakefulness to deeper stages of sleep. Adults spend about 5 to 10% of total sleep time in stage one.
2. NREM Stage Two is a slightly deeper sleep in which the heart rate slows and body temperature decreases. This step is vital to preparing for deep sleep in stages three and four. The body spends more time in NREM stage two than any other stage throughout the night. This stages accounts for about 45 to 55% of total sleep time in adults.
3. NREM Stage Three: (This is one of the two delta or deep sleep stages). Stages 3 and 4 are the most restorative sleep periods. In Stage Three, the body releases HGH (Human growth hormone), which repairs muscles and cells. In stages three and four, we see muscle growth, metabolic efficiency (how the body converts food into energy through digestion, absorption, and the metabolism of nutrients), the processing of carbs and fats, and bone remodeling. Stage three generally takes up about 20 to 25% of your night’s sleep in younger adults. But as we age, this decreases. Your body gets less responsive and more intuned to the external environment. Interruptions in these stages can lead to grogginess and disorientation upon waking. Poor sleep in these stages usually makes you tired when you wake up.
4. NREM Stage Four: (second stage of Delta sleep). This is the deepest stage of NREM sleep, making it the most challenging stage to wake from. It accounts for 13 to 23% of total sleep.
5. REM Stage or rapid eye movement: In this stage, the most vivid dreaming occurs due to heightened brain activity. Brainwaves are similar to when you’re awake, so dreams in this stage can be very elaborate and emotional. Patterns observed on an EEG during REM can resemble wakefulness. In this stage, your body also goes through what is called atonia. Atonia is where the body is in a temporary state of muscle paralysis, which prevents the body from moving during this phase. The REM stage is crucial for cognitive functioning, memory, learning, and problem-solving. Emotional regulation also occurs in this stage, affecting stress and mood. Adults sleep about 20-25% of their sleep through the REM stages at night.

Why We Need Sleep and How It Impacts Health

Sleep impacts cognitive function, emotional well-being, mental health, physical health, cardiovascular health, weight management, performance and productivity, and hormonal balance. Let’s examine each one of these just a bit closer. 

Cognitive Function

Cognitive Function refers to mental processes and the abilities to acquire, process, store, and use information. So, it encompasses a wide range of mental skills and capabilities. These skills contribute to how we perceive, understand, remember, and interact with the world. Cognitive function is essential for daily tasks, problem-solving, decision-making, learning, and overall adaptive deprivation (adjusting to a state of deprivation over time), which has been shown to impair memory and attention. Studies using tasks like the psychomotor diligence test demonstrate significant performance decrements between 20 and 50% with moderate sleep deprivation. 

Examples of how Cognitive Function can be impacted by sleep deprivation:

• Memory Impairment: Sleep deprivation can affect short-term and long-term memory, making it difficult to remember facts and events.
• Reduced Attention and Concentration: Lack of sleep can impair attention, alertness, and concentration, leading to decreased productivity and an increased risk of accidents.
• Decision Making: Poor sleep affects the brain’s ability to make complex decisions, solve problems, and exhibit creativity.

Emotional Well-being and Mental Health

Emotional well-being and Mental Health:  lack of sleep can show signs similar to depression. It can even manifest and be diagnosed as depression. This happened to me. My MD at the time had decided, “oh my goodness, you just had a baby a little while ago. You’re very weepy…you’re just depressed” (even though I kept telling him I just felt exhausted). Years later, I had a better doctor who recommended a sleep study be done. During this sleep study they found out that I had issues that were contributing to my inability to get a deep, restful sleep, which, in turn, rendered this constant wired but tired state. That high-stress-wired state impacted my emotional well-being. 

The ability to understand and manage one’s emotions effectively, cope with stress, build positive relationships, and experience a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in life are all based on your feelings and emotions. Most of us are mothers, so picture a toddler who doesn’t get a nap. That’s essentially the sort of emotional state that you’re in.

Neuroimaging studies have shown that sleep deprivation can result in an overactive amygdala. This area of the brain is responsible for your emotions. Sleep disturbances are associated with an increased risk of mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. I’ve already shared my story of being misdiagnosed, but actually it can lead to mental health issues if you spend a long enough time sleep-deprived. 

Examples of how Emotional well-being can be affected by sleep deprivation: 

• Mood Changes: Insufficient sleep can lead to mood swings, irritability, and increased stress levels. Stress hormones like cortisol can impact essential hormones like growth hormones, which are vital for cell and muscle growth. 
• Increased Risk of Mental Health Disorders: Chronic sleep deprivation is linked to higher risks of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders.
• Emotional Instability: Lack of sleep can cause enhanced emotional reactions and difficulty managing emotions.
• Increased Stress Levels: Ongoing sleep deprivation can increase the production of stress hormones, contributing to higher overall stress levels.
• Risk of Mental Illness: Poor sleep can negatively affect social interactions and relationships, as mood swings and irritability make it challenging to engage positively with others.

Physical and Cardiovascular Health

Physical and Cardiovascular Health: the proper functioning of bodily systems, the ability to perform daily activities without exhaustion or fatigue, without illness or impairment. 

Lack of quality sleep affects your immune function, metabolism, and overall physical well-being. Those weakened immune system functions make you more susceptible to infections and illnesses. So, if you are getting sick more often, there’s a strong correlation between that and lack of sleep. Additionally, insufficient sleep can lead to metabolic imbalances. These imbalances can result in weight gain and an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Examples of how physical & Cardiovascular Health can be impacted by sleep deprivation: 

• ​​Weakened Immune System: Sleep is crucial for a robust immune system. Lack of sleep weakens immune function, making one more prone to infections and illnesses.
• Weight Gain and Obesity: Sleep deprivation affects hormones regulating hunger (ghrelin) and fullness (leptin), increasing appetite and weight gain.
• Chronic Diseases: Poor sleep is associated with an increased risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension.
• Heart Disease: Inadequate sleep is a risk factor for heart disease and hypertension. It affects processes that keep the heart and blood vessels healthy.
• Stroke: There’s an increased risk of stroke in individuals who consistently sleep less than the recommended amount.

Weight Management

Weight Management is not just about the number on the scale. It’s about adopting a healthy lifestyle that promotes overall well-being. Sleep loss can disrupt that by influencing the hormones that regulate hunger and appetite (ghrelin & leptin). Anyone who’s ever had a stormy night’s sleep knows that the whole next day, they are snacky. Your body is trying to compensate by having you eat carbs or sugar to give you that much-needed energy to get you through the day. 

Examples of how weight management can be impacted by sleep deprivation:

• Hormone Regulation: Sleep helps regulate various hormones. These hormones include stress hormones like cortisol and growth hormones important for muscle and cell growth.
• Appetite and Metabolism: Sleep disruption affects the hormones related to hunger and metabolism. This can potentially leading to weight gain and metabolic issues.

Performance and Productivity

Performance and Productivity: quality sleep is essential for optimal performance and productivity in daily activities. It can determine how well you execute an activity, task, or duty. It’s a measure of how well one achieves those objectives and goals they’re trying to accomplish. 

Sleep deprivation can slow reaction times to nearly the equivalent of being intoxicated with alcohol. Sleep-deprived individuals tend to choose higher-risk options, and they have a diminished ability to assess situations. Functional MRI studies show decreased activation in the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions involved in decision-making, problem-solving, creativity, and risk assessment. And all of that, when sleep deprived, helps regulate various hormones like stress, such as cortisol. Your human growth hormone is how you develop your muscles and cell growth. We have already discussed ghrelin and leptin, appetite, and satiety signals. 

Sleep significantly impacts cognitive function, emotional well-being, mental health, physical health, cardiovascular health, weight management, performance and productivity, and hormonal balance. To ensure health and longevity, you must give sleep the priority it deserves in your wellness plan. 

Examples of how performance and productivity can be impacted by sleep deprivation:

• Reduced Efficiency: Lack of sleep can impair work efficiency, cognitive performance, and safety, resulting in lower productivity and a higher risk of accidents and errors.
• Slower Reaction Times: Poor sleep can slow down reaction times, making activities that require quick responses, such as driving, more dangerous.

3 Steps to Improve Sleep

Alright. Now that you know why sleeping is important for health, let’s talk about how to get better sleep. So, there are three things that you can focus on to get a better quality of sleep. 

1. You can focus on improving your sleep environment
2. You can improve your sleep hygiene
3. You can temporarily use supplementation to help your body regulate. 

What to Focus on to Improve Your Sleep Environment

• Set the room to the proper temperature: First, a cold room. It helps you stay asleep. It activates your brown fat, which helps your body stay warm. This activates your body’s ability to burn off fat. The ideal temperature is somewhere between 60 and 65. If you struggle with sleep, temperature is where I recommend you start.
• Keeping your sleep space dark: A dark room triggers the release of melatonin, which signals wind-down, to prepare for sleep. Exposure to any type of light can disrupt this circadian rhythm, especially blue light emitted from screens, devices, etc. Blue light inhibits the production of melatonin, so you want to eliminate it or decrease it as much as possible.
• Improve noise reduction. Even low noise levels can interfere with sleep. This can put you in lighter stages of sleep or interfering with the continuity of sleep. It can prevent you from progressing to deeper sleep stages. These deeper stages are essential for physical reaction, memory consolidation, and emotional regulation. Persistent noise can activate the body’s stress response. This stress response can increase cortisol and adrenaline levels and making it harder to fall and stay asleep. Noise can increase the time it takes to fall asleep, known as sleep latency, leading to shorter sleep duration. A great way to deal with noise is to use a noise machine, a fan, or noise-canceling headphones. Another suggestion would be to play a very soft ambient noise or music. 
• Minimize pain & pain regulation. You want a comfortable bed with quality mattresses and pillows that support your specific needs. An example might be one designed for people with back or joint pain. Pain regulation, in general, is critical to getting a good night’s sleep. Managing pain to improve sleep involves lifestyle changes, medical treatments, and behavioral strategies. Pain can significantly disrupt sleep, leading to a vicious cycle where poor sleep exacerbates pain. Stretching and mobility work can improve range of motion and decrease tight muscles and body parts, relieving tension, inflammation, and pain. 
• Light regulation. You want to get natural light within 30 minutes of waking up, which will help you reset that circadian rhythm. So, think sky before screen. And, no sunglasses if you can for a short period. Now, it doesn’t mean you necessarily have to go outside, but you want to get in or see natural light. So, maybe sit in front of a window and have your blinds open for some time, especially in the mornings. Reducing blue light exposure at night is important because it impacts melatonin production. Block any artificial light in your room, such as alarm clocks, street lights, devices, TVs, etc. You want your room to be as dark as possible—no ambient light. If you don’t feel a blackout curtain suits your space, you can try a sleep mask if that appeals to you. One last suggestion would be to set all your devices to auto-shift,. Auto-shift will automatically shift your device out of the blue light use at sundown. If you want to use auto-shift on your device for a better night’s sleep, then we have included directions here.

You Can Improve Your Sleep Hygiene by Creating Sleep Rituals

 

Examples of sleep rituals:

• Consistent sleep and wake times: One of the worst things you can do is always go to bed and wake up at different times. Changing times like this affects your circadian rhythms. The best thing you can do is get into a daily routine. This allows your body to develop cues that help it know when it’s time to get ready to sleep. An example might, first taking a warm shower, then have hot tea, then going to read. Your body sees those cues, and it starts automatically preparing your central nervous system for bed. 
• No caffeine past 1 pm or alcohol before bed. The half-life of caffeine is about 6 hours from ingestion. It takes a while for the caffeine to get through your system, so it can keep you up at night. Alcohol also contributes to issues with sleep. People think that alcohol helps them fall asleep because it has sedative effects. However, its overall impact on sleep quality and the sleep cycle is mainly negative, interrupting that whole process. 
• Limit starchy carbs before bed. Starchy carbs can cause blood sugar to rise and fall for some individuals. This doesn’t affect everyone, but it’s something to be aware of. For some, this drop in blood sugar during the night can lead to sleep disturbances.
• Get enough Zzzs.  In general, you consistently want to sleep between 7 and 9 hours. Sleeping more than 9 hours consistently or oversleeping can disrupt those circadian rhythms. These disruptions can contribute to feelings of lethargy or lead to other sleep schedule issues. 

Looking for Supplementation and Additional Resources? 

• Melatonin: Melatonin is a hormone made by the pineal gland that helps control the sleep-wake cycle. This works well if you partner it with getting some natural light in the morning or as soon as possible.
• Magnesium lotion. Topical application might be the best way for the body to absorb it. I’ve linked two resources.
  • a lotion I’ve used on Amazon
  • a Pinterest pin from Bumblebee Apothecary for a homemade for magnesium lotion.
  • Lotion can be cold, so it can be less effective for some because they don’t want to put it on. If this is you, you might want to try this in capsule form.
• Magnesium Capsule: If you choose the capsule option, be aware that there are two types of magnesium found in capsule form. You will want to ensure you get the proper magnesium for sleep. 
  • Magnesium Glycinate: I recommend this for relaxation and sleep. It is one of magnesium’s most bioavailable (easily absorbed) forms, making it practical for addressing magnesium deficiency. Due to its calming effects on the nervous system, magnesium glycinate can help reduce symptoms of anxiety and stress. It can also help prevent muscle cramps and spasms. This particular magnesium is considered well-tolerated and less likely to cause gastrointestinal issues.
  • Magnesium Citrate: Magnesium citrate is often used as a laxative to relieve constipation. It draws water into the intestines, which helps to soften stools and stimulate bowel movements. It helps retain proper calcium balance in bones and muscles. The most common side effect of magnesium citrate is diarrhea or loose stools due to its laxative properties. This can benefit constipation relief but may be undesirable for those looking to supplement magnesium without these effects. Overuse of magnesium citrate as a laxative can lead to dehydration and an electrolyte imbalance, especially if not taken with adequate water.
• Blue-blocking sunglasses. Blue light, especially in the evening, can suppress the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating sleep. Blue-blocking sunglasses can help maintain natural melatonin levels, making it easier to fall asleep and improving overall sleep quality. Prolonged exposure to blue light from screens can cause digital eye strain, also known as computer vision syndrome. This can includes symptoms like dry eyes, blurred vision, headaches, and eye fatigue. Blue-blocking sunglasses can help alleviate these symptoms. You can get a cheap pair at Target, Amazon, Walmart, etc.
• Blackout curtains: Try something like this one I found on Amazon
• Sound machine: Try this highly ranked one I found on Amazon
• Desktop fan: Try something like this one. You can pick these up at Target, Walmart, and on Amazon, usually under $20
• Noise-reducing headphones or ear plugs: Try this highly ranked one I found on Amazon for under $30
• Sleep masks. I recommend this weighted sleep mask called Nod Pod because I have never slept better since using it. 

Conclusion

Sleep significantly impacts cognitive function, emotional well-being, mental health, physical health, cardiovascular health, weight management, performance and productivity, and hormonal balance. It is during sleep that the body repairs tissues, consolidates memories, and recharges for the next day. Additionally, poor sleep can lead to chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity while also weakening the immune system. To ensure health and longevity, you must give sleep the priority it deserves in your wellness plan, practicing good sleep hygiene and maintaining a regular sleep schedule.

Sleep well, ladies!