Get Some Sleep!

Ahhh sleep. Just the word “sleep” makes you feel all cozy, doesn’t it? A good night’s sleep is something we all need but for many of us it feels like more of a privilege than a right. Not sure if you’re getting enough? Here are some signs that you are sleep deprived:

• Absolutely need an alarm to get up
• Difficulty waking up in the morning
• Poor performance at work or school
• Clumsiness
• Difficult decision making
• Moody or irritable

Just because you go to bed every night does it mean you’re really getting the kind of sleep that your body depends on? What many of us don’t realize is that it’s the quality and the timing of our sleep that really make a difference.

What is a good night’s sleep? You many know that your sleep cycles are made up of stages. In the first two stages you become drowsy and your body prepares itself for deep sleep – your body temperature goes down and heart rate slows. The next two stages are considered deep sleep. At these stages, the blood flow to the brain decreases as it redirects to the muscles to restore physical energy and immune functions. About 70-90 minutes after falling asleep we go into rapid eye movement (“REM”) or dream sleep and then hit this phase three to five times during the night. This stage is responsible for processing emotions, retaining memories, and relieving stress. If you are constantly being woken up by a snoring bed partner, the TV, or nature calling, you will have trouble getting to this stage – where the real restoration happens.

What time is bedtime? Every creature within nature, including human beings, operates according to what are known as circadian rhythms – patterns of physiological functioning that repeat every 24 hours. Think about it: animals wake up with the sun and sleep when it sets. Some flowers open their petals in daylight and close them at dusk. It is no different for us, though the changes in our bodies are harder for us to notice. For example, the production of the stress-fighting hormone cortisol increases early in the morning to help us fight through the stress of our day and the decreases at night. As mentioned earlier, when we sleep our blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature decrease and then rise again in the morning. Unfortunately things like electric light and the graveyard shift have created a disconnection between us and these natural cycles.

After the sun sets, digestion and cortisol levels go down, making us feel lethargic. This is our natural time to go to bed. Sounds ridiculously early, right? Think of all the other creatures that go to sleep at this time. Feel like you could stay up all night? Take a look at what you had for dinner. If you have a huge meal at this time, you may end up staying up late because your body will struggle to digest your dinner. Or you may feel too bloated and full to go to sleep.

Just as cortisol production increases when we get up, certain things happen when we go to bed at night. Between the hours of 10PM – 2AM, our bodies do amazing things. Our gallbladder, our liver and our blood begin go into detoxification mode and the adrenals do the majority of their recharging and recovering. Also at this time our blood flow redirects to the muscles to repair damaged tissue and restore physical energy and immune functions.

So if you’re constantly staying up at this time or eating huge or late dinners and snacks, your energy is being used up to catch up on emails or digest a meal rather than detoxify you. Doing this on a consistent basis can cause your body begin to break down.

Give it a shot: be lame and go to bed a few hours after the sun sets and get up when it rises. Try it for a week and see how you feel.

Here are some great ways to improve sleep:

• Listen to relaxation cd’s or white noise
• Avoid eating a big dinner or right before bed, especially sugars and grains
• Sleep in complete darkness
• Don’t drink too many fluids a few hours before bed
• Don’t watch TV before bed or while in bed – it disrupts sleep
• Don’t read something too stimulating before bed, like my newsletters
• Write in a journal to get all your crazy thoughts out
• Avoid caffeine, especially in the afternoon
• Take a hot bath or shower before bed, try adding lavender
• Drink chamomile or lavender tea

Food Rules

My hero, Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food", has just come out with a new book "Food Rules - An Eater's Manual". It's a mini-manual of 64 eating rules that he gathered from not only doctors and scientists but also chefs and his own readers. I know you might be thinking, "please no more rules!", but from what I have already heard about it, these are straightforward, intuitive, and rather amusing rules that will certainly stick in your memory, such as "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of your milk". My absolute favorite so far is "The whiter the bread, the sooner you will be dead."

I haven't gotten my own copy yet, but I'm sure when I do I will certainly have more favorites to share with you. Until then, I'll leave you with Michael Pollan's definition of the recurring message of his fabulous book, "In Defense of Food" which is simply this: "eat food." Sounds obvious right? What he means is eat real food rather than edible food-like substances; what the majority of the Standard American Diet (SAD) is made up of. At the end of the book he gives some additional clues on how he further defines "eat food."

Take a look at them below. I'd love your comments on what makes sense to you and if you have your own "eating rules":

• Don't Eat Anything Your Great Grandmother Wouldn't Recognize as Food. Think yogurt versus "Go-Gurt" (which still makes me cringe by the way).
• Avoid Food Products Containing Ingredients that are a) Unfamiliar, b) Unpronounceable, c) More than five in number or that include d) High fructose corn syrup. Take a look at what's in your refrigerator. What passes the test?
• Avoid Food Products that Make Health Claims. Sounds counter intuitive, but does a carrot really need to convince you that its good for you? Of course not! According to Pollan, margarine was one of the first industrial foods to claim it was healthier than the traditional food it replaced and what did it turn out to do? Give people heart attacks!
• Shop the Peripheries of the Supermarket and Stay Out of the Middle. You are much more likely to get real food by shopping this way as the peripheries tend to contain the fruits, vegetables, meats, and some quality dairy and the middle aisles contain overly processed food-like substances. However, this is not entirely fool-proof.
• Get out of the Supermarket Whenever Possible. This means get as much as possible from the Farmer's Market or join a CSA. By doing this you are guaranteed to eat in season and will be supporting your local community. I know, I know, for those of you who live in the Northeast there isn't much available but there are certainly some winter farmer's markets and just get yourself pumped for the abundance of them once Spring and Summer hits!