Sleep disturbances can occur due to difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, when you’re sleeping and how deep you are sleeping. Adequate sleep - both time and quality - is needed for our bodies to repair properly. Our body uses sleep to balance hormones and cortisol to improve your immune system, decrease inflammation and clean up. If you are working on no sleep or inadequate sleep, your body will become less resilient. 

- Cardiovascular implications: Sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Lack of sleep can cause a state of high alert, increasing the production of stress hormones and driving up blood pressure, leading to strokes

- Immune health:  If you have ongoing sleep deficiency, it can change the way in which your immune system responds. You may have trouble and increased difficulty fighting common infections

- Mental health: Sleep helps your brain work properly. It's cleaning up and forming new pathways to help you learn and remember information. Studies show that while you're sleeping, your brain is preparing for the next day. A good night's sleep improves learning. Lack of sleep will leave you feeling drowsy and irritable, you may have trouble making decisions, solving problems, controlling your emotions and behaviour, and coping with change. Sleep deficiency also has been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behaviour.

Getting into a proper sleep hygiene: 

More time in bed doesn’t mean more sleep, it can simply mean more time awake feeling worried or frustrated at being unable to sleep. This can make the problem worse. Spreading a night’s sleep over too long a period of time will lead to sleep that is shallow and fragmented, resulting in negative feelings and more alertness at night and fatigue during the day. This fatigue is possibly a result of body tension and mental stress brought on by the worry and frustration of poor sleep. This cycle of sleeplessness continues and strengthens the association of the bed environment and attempt to sleep with alertness and worry. This results in the development of conditioned insomnia, an involuntary response of becoming alert in bed. It is important to associate your bed with sleeping -we use a routine called Sleep Restriction therapy to help 

Sleep Restriction Therapy:



Step 1

Work out your average amount of actual sleep per night. Be sure not to include the hours you spent lying in bed awake. Plan to stay in bed for only the length of your calculated average sleep time.

Step 2

Choose a regular wake-up time (to suit your own personal circumstances), and try to stick to it seven days a week.

Step 3

Set your bedtime. To do this, start from your wake-up time and subtract the number of sleep hours you calculated in Step 1

Step 4

After a week, assess how well you are sleeping. If you are now falling asleep sooner and sleep more soundly through the night than before and if you are starting to feel very sleepy before your bedtime (struggling to stay awake), you can increase your time in bed by 15-30 minutes, by going to bed 15- 30 minutes earlier. As a guide, if you are now awake in bed for less than 30 minutes (this includes both the time taken to fall asleep and time spent awake during the night), then you can extend your total time in bed. However, if you are awake for more than 30 minutes, do not extend your time in bed just yet. Continue the initial time in bed routine for another week.

Step 5

After the second week, if you are falling asleep easily and staying asleep, increase your bedtime by 15- 30 minutes by going to bed 15-30 minutes earlier. If you find that excessive wakefulness in bed has returned, you have extended your bed period too long, too quickly. Reduce the time to step 4 again.

Helpful tips: 

• Fluorescent lights decrease the hormone melatonin which is necessary for sleeping.Change to full spectrum lights, or spend more time outside.
• Avoid bedtime snacks that are high in sugar or simple carbohydrates such as breads, cereals, muffins, cookies, or other baked goods. These can prompt a short-term spike in blood sugar, followed by a sugar crash later on.
• Stimulants are the worst offenders. After 11 a.m. eliminate coffee, tea, cola, chocolate and over the counter medications with caffeine.
• Alcohol initially can be sedating, as the night goes on it will lighten and fragment sleep.
• Sugar, fruit or a large meal too close to bedtime increases blood sugar and makes it more difficult for the body to relax. Try to avoid eating for at least 2 hours before going to bed and if you do need to eat, go for something protein-rich (this provides a source of tryptophan that will be converted to serotonin and melatonin). High-fibre snacks like a few almonds and half an apple are also good options as the sugar from the fruit may help the tryptophan reach your brain and take effect more readily.
• Spicy, fatty or gas-producing foods can cause pain or discomfort that affects sleep.
• If you work the night shift, keep to a regular schedule and sleep in a blacked-out room.
• Smoking causes the mind to be more active and can prevent sleep.
• Consult your Naturopathic Doctor regarding supplements, acupuncture or Botanical Remedies to help promote better sleep