Sleep Better and
More Soundly
Think about a time when you didn’t get enough sleep—either you went to bed way too late or you just couldn’t fall or stay asleep. The next day you were tired and groggy and probably reaching for more sugar and caffeine to keep your eyes open and your energy levels up. Maybe you were too tired to exercise. And most likely your skin had a dullness to it as well. Your spirit and sense of self possibly even felt worn down too.
All the healthy habits you’ve put into place thus far are usually the first things out the window after a sleepless night. We’ve all been there.
One or two sleepless nights here or there is to be expected with all that we’re juggling today. But what’s becoming all too common is the overwhelming insomnia and consistent lack of quality, restful sleep night after night that people are experiencing today. In fact, an estimated fifty to seventy million people in the US today experience what’s called a “sleep or wakefulness disorder,” according to the National Institutes of Health. (Colton et al, 2006)
Researchers spend millions of dollars trying to figure out why people can’t sleep and how to fix the pervasive insomnia in our society. The main reason, however, that people can’t get enough sleep has everything to do with our lifestyle. Think back to the simple Ikarian lifestyles we’ve talked about throughout this book. Every day, these centenarians get plenty of fresh air, nutritious food, regular exercise outdoors, and daily companionship through friends and family. They also don’t have a lot of stress and if they do get stressed, it’s pretty short lived. They’re not “glued” to their phones 24/7, checking work emails or sitting in offices until late in the evening, anxious about meeting a work deadline.
Their simple lives may not be realistic with the rhythms or dictates of a modern work-oriented society, but their lives work synergistically with the natural rhythms of the human body. They nap during the day if they’re tired, and when night comes, they eat a light dinner (something that’s directly opposed to an American style of eating) and go to bed. And when they go to bed, they sleep easily and soundly with little interruption.
Our work-life patterns are competing with the natural rhythms of our bodies, keeping us awake at night and groggy during the day. And even if you say you function great on just four hours of sleep a night, your body is keeping track when it comes to your health. Long-term, you may pay the price in terms of chronic disease and longevity. This is not meant to scare you. It’s only meant to give you the information you need to create the life and the health you want and that your body craves. You need sleep to keep your body, your brain, and your skin healthy. Sleep is also essential for our spiritual selves. In a society where the need to sleep is seen almost as a weakness, relinquishing our bodies to slumber is surrendering to its natural rhythms. Honoring that and getting the rest we need allows us to see things more clearly and to be more in tune with our spirits.
If you’re taking a pill to help you fall, and stay, asleep (as almost nine million Americans do), you’re not relinquishing control of your body. You are controlling when the body sleeps and wakes, which is not good for your health or your spirit. Allowing your body’s natural day-night rhythm (referred to as circadian rhythm) to get into sync on its own is so important. It’s your circadian rhythm that acts as your internal sleep/wake clock. It controls when you feel sleepy and when you feel energized and awake. It cycles based on the twenty-four-hour rhythms of nature; when the eyes see light after the sun rises and dark after the sun sets. It works most efficiently when you have regular sleep/wake habits. The hypothalamus in the brain controls this clock, and therefore controls the release of the sleep hormone melatonin. Having enough of this hormone makes you fall asleep.
Your circadian rhythm does more than just affect your sleep, however. It affects the release of hormones in the body, body temperature, eating habits, and digestion. This is why having a circadian rhythm that’s out of sync has been linked to chronic health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and depression. Having a regular sleep/wake cycle can help prevent these conditions and keep you healthy.
Take a sleeping pill and you’re forcing your body into slumber without fixing the reasons why it can’t sleep in the first place. Short term, it seems great: you’re sleeping and you feel energized during the day. But long term, these pills, both prescription and non-prescription, can wreak havoc on your natural circadian rhythm as well as your body and your mind. Researchers from Canada and France found that over-the-counter sleep aids and certain antihistamines used to promote sleep increase a person’s risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. (DailyNews, 2013; Time, 2014; Medical News Today, 2015)
Why Your Body Needs Sleep
There’s a reason it’s nicknamed “beauty sleep.” Restful sleep makes a huge difference in the health of the body, as well as in the health and radiance of the skin. Matthew is a patient of mine who is prone to outbreaks of the herpes simplex virus around his lips, which causes cold sores. I know immediately when he comes in with an outbreak that he’s been working around the clock and hasn’t been sleeping. Then there’s Alyson, another patient of mine. She has eczema, something we’re able to keep under control when she’s eating right, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep. As soon as her lifestyle gets hectic, as it often does for this financial executive, the eczema flares up. Ditto for my patients with alopecia areata (hair loss), psoriasis, and acne.
This quote from Thomas Dekker says it all: “Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.” Sleep keeps us healthy and keeps our minds sharp. In children and teens, it’s during sleep that growth and development primarily occurs. It’s during sleep that the body does its repair work. It’s when the body’s energy supplies, depleted during the day, are restored. It’s during sleep when muscle tissue is rebuilt and restored. And it’s also during sleep that growth hormones, critical for rebuilding tissue, are secreted.
As one preeminent sleep expert, Neil B. Kavey, has said, “Think of the body as a car. No car can keep going and going and going without a tune-up or oil change. If it’s not tuned, the car may keep running, but not as smoothly as it did when it was maintained properly. You can think of sleep as your body’s daily tune-up.
“Human beings can function without a full tune-up, but they will be in a state of relative sleep deprivation and won’t be able to work or to think as well as they do when they are fully rested. It’s like an engine that gets only four out of eight spark plugs replaced and then runs sluggishly.”
Sleep is essential for just about every single process that occurs in the body. More specifically, it does the following:
• Sleep keeps your brain sharp. Sleep is critical for normal functioning of the brain, says research from Oxford University. According to sleep scientists, sleep serves as the “brain’s housekeeper,” helping to restore and repair the brain. Poor sleep over time, they found, causes brain shrinkage and problems with reasoning, planning, memory, and problem-solving. In fact, one study published in the journal Sleep found that losing just half a night of shut-eye makes memories less accessible in stressful situations. (Haelle, 2014; Cedernaes et al, 2015)
This all makes perfect sense. It’s during sleep that your brain forms new pathways to help you learn and absorb new information. (This is why it’s often recommended that you rest after you’ve learned something new, in school or after learning a new skill.) European researchers found that sleep helps us focus and remember information often by the strengthening of neural connections that form our memories.
But all aspects of sleep are important for the brain. Researchers at the University of California found that rapid eye movement sleep, or REM sleep (a stage of sleep during which dreaming most frequently occurs) plays an important role in learning new information. Deep, restorative sleep is also important because this is when the brain processes and consolidates newly acquired information. (Rasch et al, 2013; ScienceDaily, 2015; Harvard Medical School, 2007; McDevitt et al, 2015; Barry, 2011)
• Enough sleep also helps us make better decisions (our judgment is impaired without enough restful slumber). We’re better able to assess a situation, plan accordingly, and choose the correct behavior. Without enough sleep, we’re not focused, we’re less attentive, and we’re less likely to learn and process facts. These are all good reasons to get more zzzs.
• Sleep keeps your heart healthy. Lack of sleep is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, along with a poor diet, lack of exercise, and smoking. Research published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology found that not getting enough shut-eye is linked to heart attacks and strokes. In fact, the researchers found that nearly 63 percent of their study participants who had a heart attack also had a sleeping disorder. They found that those with sleeping disorders had up to four times higher risk of stroke than those who got enough sleep. (Godman, 2014; European Society of Cardiology, 2015; ScienceDaily, 2017)
• Sleep makes you happier. Not getting enough sleep can affect your mood, making you more tense, more nervous, and more irritable. Chronic insomnia may also increase the risk of developing depression or an anxiety disorder. Having a negative mood can impact relationships at work, at home, and with friends and family, contributing to stress and unhappiness. (Oginska et al, 2006)
In fact, a group of researchers in Sweden found that not getting enough sleep contributes to higher job stress levels, a feeling of loss of control at work, and more emotional overreactions on the job. I would venture a guess that these results hold true for everything in our lives outside of work, too. If you’re not sleeping and not loving your job, your relationships, or other aspects of your life, it’s important to try to solve your sleep issues before making any big decisions. Getting enough sleep can help you see things more clearly, something you can’t do when you’re fatigued day in and day out. (Akerstedt et al, 2015)
The sleep-stress cycle can go round and round, as I see with so many of my patients. Having more tension and anxiety (often from work) can keep you up at night, creating a never-ending cycle of sleep loss. Get enough sleep on a regular basis and your feelings and mood will stabilize, as will your outlook on life.
• Sleep keeps you at a healthy weight. There have been numer-ous studies done on the effects of the lack of sleep on weight. One study, conducted by researchers in Qatar, found that losing just thirty minutes of sleep per night can cause you to gain weight and affect both insulin resistance and your metabolism, slowing it down. Other research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or PNAS, found that sleeping less than five hours a night is associated with cravings for more and higher-calorie, carbohydrate-rich foods, triggering weight gain. In fact, research has shown that people eat, on average, about 300 calories more per day when they’re tired. Anyone who’s ever been tired doesn’t need research to confirm this. (Patel et al, 2006; Markwald et al, 2013)
But why do you gain weight when you’re tired, besides the fact that you’re eating more sweets and treats? Research shows that fatigue-triggered weight gain has everything to do with hormones, which seem to go haywire when you don’t get enough shut-eye. Remember it’s your circadian rhythm that controls the release of hormones. Losing just a few hours of sleep a few nights in a row is enough to trigger immediate weight gain. This sleep deprivation increases levels of a hormone called ghrelin, which intensifies cravings and hunger, and lowers levels of a hormone called leptin, which is the hormone that tells you to stop eating because you’re full or satiated. What this means: when you’re sleep deprived, you’re less likely to resist the urge to eat unhealthy junk food.
Getting enough sleep also keeps your metabolism—your fat-burning furnace—stoked, which can help you from gaining weight. A team of researchers at the University of South Carolina and Arizona State University found that metabolism can be slowed even when you lose just two critical hours of sleep three nights in a row. Add this to your carbohydrate cravings and you’ve got a surefire recipe for weight gain. (Hellmich, 2014; Newswise, 2015)
• Sleep helps you live longer. Sleep deprivation (even just one night) has been linked to biological aging. Research from the University of California-San Diego found that women who get five hours or less of sleep a night don’t live as long as women who get, on average, 6.5 to 7.5 hours of sleep a night. Keep in mind that every body is different. What may work for some (i.e., five hours a night) won’t work for others. (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2015)
One study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, also found that too much sleep, particularly for people with weight problems, could be a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. This makes sense. Spend too much time in bed and not enough time moving around and you could be at risk for even more health problems than just diabetes. The key is moderation, as it is with eating, exercise, work, and just about everything in life, and finding what works best for your body. (MPR, 2015)
• Sleep helps curb inflammation. Inflammation, as I mentioned earlier in this book, is linked to everything from heart disease to premature aging. But studies show that lack of sleep, specifically six or fewer hours a night, triggers high blood levels of inflammatory proteins. A team of Boston-based doctors also reported, in one study, that one marker of inflammation, called C-reactive protein, is actually higher in people who get six or fewer hours of sleep every night. This is the protein that’s linked to a greater risk of heart problems. (Mullington et al, 2010)
• Sleep helps you perform better physically. A Stanford University School of Medicine study found that college basketball players who slept at least ten hours a night for five to seven weeks ran faster, improved shooting accuracy, and improved overall game performance. But you don’t have to be a star basketball player to reap the benefits of sleep. These same study findings can be extrapolated to your everyday physical performance, even if it’s just how far you’re able to walk in the morning or how you perform in a local 5K. (Stanford Medicine News Center, 2011)
• Sleep reduces stress. Get enough sleep and whatever is triggering your anxiety just won’t seem that insurmountable anymore. Sleeping gives the body a chance to relax and rest without being overwhelmed by worry. The opposite is true, too. Lack of sleep increases anxiety and stress. One study, published in the journal Sleep, found that tossing and turning just one night was enough to increase levels of stress hormones like cortisol by the very next evening. And after just one night of sleep deprivation, people also had an increase in levels of norepinephrine, a key hormone and neurotransmitter that increases the body’s heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar in response to stress. Prolonged periods of shortened sleep increase a person’s blood pressure and heart rate at night, two major risk factors for heart disease. Experience sleep loss night after night and your stress levels—including levels of stress hormones and ACTH, the chemical messenger in the body that tells the adrenal gland to release even more stress hormones—skyrocket. (Woolston, 2015; Leproult et al, 1997)
I’ve found that just the thought of not sleeping is all it takes to cause patients to develop enough anxiety to not sleep again the following night. And the cycle repeats itself over and over until patients come in to see me about a particular skin condition that’s gotten worse and I find out they haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in weeks or sometimes months! In these cases, I give my patients this mantra to repeat to reduce the stress they’re feeling: “I can get plenty of sleep every night and my body appreciates how I take care of it.”
By getting enough sleep at night, the body is able to take a break from the stress hormones of the day, giving it a chance to relax and rejuvenate itself.
• Sleep increases pain tolerance. It turns out that people who have insomnia or other sleep disturbances also have increased sensitivity to pain. A team of Norwegian researchers found that a reduced tolerance to pain was 52 percent higher in those people who report having insomnia more than once weekly. They’re not sure the reason why, but these sleep scientists theorize that a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which plays a role in many functions including movement, memory, attention/focus, problem-solving, anxiety, and pain processing, may be affected by the lack of sleep. (Newswise, 2015; Sivertsen et al, 2015)
• Sleep boosts the immune system. Getting adequate amounts of sleep keeps the immune system functioning properly. In one study, researchers from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom found that a lack of sleep caused a reduction in the number of white blood cells called granulocytes, which are critical to immune function. Just one night of sleep deprivation also lowers levels of something called interleukin-6, an antiviral protein that’s critical to immune system functioning. These are two reasons, researchers theorize, why a lack of sleep contributes to illness and chronic diseases like diabetes. (Medical News Today, 2012; Newswise, 2019)
Another study, published in the journal Sleep, found that those people who averaged between seven and eight hours of sleep a night were sick less often. What this means: when you get enough sleep, along with eating healthy, meditating, and exercising, you’ll rarely get sick. But lose a couple nights of sleep to a busy schedule and you can easily catch the cold that’s being passed around. (Medical News Today, 2012; Newswise, 2019; ScienceDaily, 2014)
• Sleep also improves your skin. Not only do you feel and think better after getting a restful night of sleep, you also look better. Sleep scientists at the University of California-Irvine found that when your circadian clock is out of sync, skin aging, including fine lines and wrinkles, roughness and dryness, and dull skin is accelerated, as is your risk of skin cancer. This is a pretty compelling argument to get enough shut-eye every night. (ScienceDaily, 2015)
How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
You know all the reasons why sleep is so critical for the body, but now how do you get to sleep, particularly when you’ve got so much going on during the day and in your mind at night? This is a topic I regularly discuss with my patients, as it’s such a critical part of a balanced lifestyle. Here are some of the sleep-better tips that get results for my patients.
• Move your body every day. Study after study shows that physical activity during the day helps you fall asleep more quickly at night, sleep longer, and have overall better sleep quality. This research comes as no surprise to me. Moving the body, which is what we’re biologically designed to do, helps tire us out, particularly if we’re outdoors in the fresh air. One group of researchers found that 150 minutes of exercise every week (about twenty minutes of exercise per day) helps people sleep more soundly at night and feel more alert during the day. Another group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that certain types of exercise, what they call “purposeful” activity—that is, activity that promotes an end goal—promote sleep better than others. This includes walking, biking, yoga, running, weight lifting, and even gardening. This is the type of activity that the Ikarians make a point to do every day. (National Sleep Foundation, 2019; Mental Health and Physical Activity, 2011; Newswise, 2015)
Be cautious about exercising right before bedtime, however, unless you’re doing gentle, relaxing yoga stretches or rhythmic tai chi. Vigorous aerobic exercise before bedtime boosts circulation and could end up revving you up and keeping you awake at night.
• Eat a light dinner. The Ikarians, and even Mediterranean people today, eat their heaviest meals early in the day, saving their lightest meals for evening. Soup, vegetables, and salads with a slice of whole grain bread are common meals in the evening, not the large-portioned heavy dinners that are so common in America. If you eat too much, your body spends most of its energy digesting food at night when it should be relaxing. These heavy meals can interfere with restful sleep.
• Create a consistent sleep schedule that works for your life. A set bedtime, when you can realistically go to bed every night based on your work, your family, and your life, is a must. Consistency is important for proper functioning of your circadian rhythm. It helps your body to understand when it’s time for sleep.
Your sleep schedule might even include nighttime rituals like meditation to help relax you and your thoughts, reading a paper (not electronic) book, giving yourself a gentle massage, and/or having a cup of herbal (not caffeinated) tea. Rituals are important because they help prepare the body and mind for sleep.
For this reason, it’s also important to have a set wake time every day even on weekends. Regularly sleeping in or catching up on sleep on weekends throws off your circadian rhythm and may affect how well you sleep as you get back into your work week.
• Keep your room cool. Rooms that are too hot or too cold can make you feel uncomfortable and can disturb your sleep. The ideal temperature, say experts, is 65°F, but what’s important is to find a temperature that’s most comfortable for you. I find that a temperature around 70°F is best for me. Having the right humidity levels in your bedroom is also important, particularly during cold weather months. If a room is too dry, you won’t breathe as easily, which can interfere with your slumber. Buying a simple humidifier and running it until humidity levels reach between 40 and 50 percent can help. Just remember to regularly clean and disinfect it with distilled white vinegar so bacteria don’t build up inside the water reservoir. (Heid, 2014)
• Shut down electronics at night. Don’t leave your phone or your computer by your bed. (If you need an alarm clock, use a battery-powered one instead.) Set your screensaver to “night shift,” “night time,” or “night light” (there are various names for the same type of settings). These will change the color of your screen at certain times of the day to help you sleep better at night. (Stonybrook University, 2014)
Study after study has found that the blue light that emanates from electronics, your TV, your computer, your smartphone, and your e-reader can affect your circadian rhythms. Every one of us has something called photoreceptors in our eyes that register and process light before sending it to the brain. The brain reacts to blue light by suppressing the production of melatonin because this light mimics the wavelengths of natural daylight. It’s melatonin that’s released as darkness sets in at night. The more melatonin we have in our system, the sleepier we get. Our body starts to repress the production of melatonin once the sun starts to rise in the morning, so we can wake up and not feel groggy. It’s melatonin that controls sleep and wake cycles and is essential to our circadian rhythm. (de la Iglesia et al, 2015)
Blue light, which is omnipresent in our households and work environments, is confusing the brain and our circadian rhythm about whether we should be awake or asleep. The result is persistent sleeplessness and insomnia, which many people try to “fix” by taking sleep medications. (Holzman, 2010)
By shutting off your devices before bed, you may find that you fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep longer. One University of Colorado study, done with campers out in the wilderness with no exposure to any artificial light including the blue light emanating from electronics, found that the campers slept longer and more soundly without exposure to lights than they did when not camping. And we don’t need a study to know that the Ikarians don’t use smartphones and computers all day long. The bottom line is this: health starts with maintaining a synchronized circadian rhythm.
• Find ways to relax. Stress and anxiety are pervasive in our modern society and are key reasons people have trouble sleeping. Meditation, sitting quietly at night and just deeply breathing, taking a short nighttime stroll outdoors, and/or avoiding the news right before bedtime (which is a big source of stress) are all good ways to power down the body and the mind before sleep. Everyone is different, so experiment to see what works best for you and put it into regular practice.
• Take a power nap, if you can. One thing the people of Ikaria know is the benefits of an afternoon nap. This is part of their daily lives and may be just one reason why they tend to live so long. It turns out that the Ikarians are on to something. Taking just a short “power” nap during the day, particularly when you’re sleepy, has the power to restore you and your health. One study, conducted in Paris, found that a short, thirty-minute nap can restore hormones to their normal levels, reducing stress and boosting the immune system. Napping, say the researchers, gives the body a chance to recover from the effects of sleeplessness, which is key to maintaining health.
How, though, do you fit in a nap in a busy day? It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either. If you have an office, shut the door and your eyes during your lunch hour, but set the timer on your computer or phone so you wake up after thirty minutes. You may not even really sleep. You may just be in a state of resting wakefulness, which is relaxing too. If you don’t have an office or a lounge, take your lunch hour a little later and just get outside to walk in nature for thirty minutes. The fresh air and quiet will rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit as well, and help you sleep better at night. (Newswise, 2019)
• Be sure you’re getting enough vitamin D. If you’re having trouble sleeping, it might be a good idea to have your vitamin D levels checked by your primary care doctor. A deficiency of this vitamin has been linked to sleep problems. If you’re deficient, you can try eating more vitamin D-rich foods like fatty fish (such as salmon), fortified milk or orange juice, or certain types of mushrooms that have been exposed to ultraviolet light (mushrooms produce vitamin D when exposed to light). These mushrooms are usually labeled as such on their packaging. Or, on the advice of your doctor, you may want to take a vitamin D3 supplement. (Sleep, 2019)
Melatonin and Your Skin
The sleep hormone melatonin also turns out to have beneficial effects on the skin. Have enough of it in your body (one benefit of having a healthy sleep-wake cycle) and you may experience added protection from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Melatonin acts as an antioxidant, helping to suppress UV damage to exposed skin cells. This doesn’t mean that getting enough sleep or having enough melatonin in your body eliminates your need for daily sunscreen (more on this in the next chapter). It just means that melatonin offers additional protection for your skin.
Having enough melatonin in your body also allows the skin to have a healthier stress response. Because melatonin is a free-radical scavenger and a broad-spectrum antioxidant it seems to help moderate the effects of stress, both external and internal, on the skin. This could, in turn, help reduce the skin problems that develop as a result of stress, like rough, dry skin and fine lines and wrinkles.
One downside of melatonin, however, is that in some people, it seems to activate the skin’s pigment-producing cells called melanocytes, which can darken the skin. This is a reason why I don’t recommend taking melatonin supplements to help you get to sleep. (Slominski et al, 2005)
The Five Healthy Stages of Sleep
In ancient times, darkness came and people went to sleep. They woke with the dawn to start their days. Doing so helped them honor their internal body clock, which ensured the proper production of the sleep hormone melatonin. Production of the stress hormone cortisol naturally lowers at night, gradually increasing throughout the night to help promote alertness in the morning.
Aligning our body clocks to modern society is hard to do. Many people are just getting out of work when it’s dark and others work night shifts, which is wreaking havoc on our sleep patterns and our health. Getting enough melatonin, however, allows for the five healthy stages of sleep. Going through all five stages (one full sleep cycle) four to six times a night allows for truly restful, health-promoting sleep.
These five stages of healthy sleep are:
Stage 1: the lightest stage of sleep, when you feel yourself drifting off. It usually lasts for five to ten minutes. This is also typically the last stage of sleep before you wake up, if you wake up naturally (without an alarm clock).
Stage 2: the stage when brain activity slows down, as does body temperature. It lasts for about twenty minutes.
Stage 3: the start of deep sleep and typically when blood pressure drops, breathing slows down, and muscles become relaxed. (It’s sometimes combined with stage 4 in discussions of sleep.) Stages 3 and 4 can last, together, for about an hour, though it takes up less time as you move through the cycles throughout the night.
Stage 4: the stage when you experience the deepest and most refreshing sleep. This is when the brain is the most relaxed, when the body does its repair work and rejuvenation, and when blood supply to the muscles increases and growth hormones are released. It’s also a time when our conscious mind and our body are resting and our spiritual self is undergoing a restorative awakening and renewal. In India’s ancient Upanishads, a collection of fundamental spiritual teachings that are central to Hinduism, it’s this stage of deep sleep that offers “a deep state of utter peace wherein Awareness rests unto Awareness, without any egoic sense of body, mind, or world.” This stage of sleep is when we let go of the body, mind, ego, plans, and concerns and are free in deeply peaceful contentedness. This may be why the Dalai Lama calls sleep “the best form of meditation.” In fact, some believe that it’s during deep sleep that our conscious selves leave the body to reconnect with our higher selves. It’s why this stage of restorative sleep some people believe is the most important for body, mind, and spiritual restoration each night. (Enlightened Spirituality, 2019)
Stage 5: called active sleep or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This is when you dream. It’s during this stage of sleep (which occurs about ninety minutes after you first fall asleep and recurs every ninety minutes throughout the night) that your blood flow, brain activity, and breathing increases and muscles become fully relaxed and immobilized. Some experts believe this happens so we can’t act out our dreams.
If any of these stages are cut short, or if the overall number of cycles is reduced, the body doesn’t have time to repair and restore itself. Over time, this repeated sleeplessness wreaks havoc on every aspect of your body, including on your spirit. (Better Sleep, Better Life, 2015; National Sleep Foundation, 2019)
Create a Bedroom Conducive to Sleep
The ancient Chinese art of feng shui or arranging your home for better health, has some helpful ideas on how to design and arrange your sleep space for better slumber. Try these tips. They may work for you.
• Choose the right paint color. Paints with soft, neutral tones, from soft white and spa blue to warm chocolate brown, help you relax better than vibrant, energetic colors like orange, red, or yellow.
• Clean up. Excess stuff, particularly in the bedroom, can contribute to sleeplessness. According to feng shui, clutter in the bedroom and particularly under the bed can make you anxious.
• Skip mirrors in your immediate bedroom. Mirrors, say feng shui practitioners, indicate movement, which creates restless energy and may inhibit restful sleep.
• Be careful where you place chandeliers or ceiling fans. These shouldn’t be right above your bed. According to feng shui, it’s a threat to you and bad for your health (and sleep) to have anything hanging over your head as you sleep. (Tchi, 2019; Wong, 2019)
• Ditch the TV in your bedroom. I’ve already discussed how using electronics around bedtime can interfere with sleep, but feng shui believes that a TV set gives off restless energy even when it’s not on, which can trigger insomnia. If you have to have a TV in your bedroom, place it in an armoire or cabinet that you can close off when you go to sleep. And try not to watch it for at least one to two hours before bed.
• Have a few plants, but not too many. One is fine, but too many plants, says feng shui, symbolize growth and movement, interfering with the peaceful energy you want in the bedroom. (Tchi, 2018)
• Place a crystal or two in your bedroom. Selenite is a good option for a crystal if you can only have one in your bedroom. This crystal helps to clear away emotional clutter so you can get a good night’s sleep. Black tourmaline is another good option. It is grounding and helps absorb and neutralize negative energy. Keep it on your bedside table if you’re prone to waking up from bad dreams. Rose quartz is always a great option in the bedroom because of the loving, soothing energy that it gives off. Other good options include howlite, which helps absorb anxiety, and turquoise, which is cleansing and protective.
When using crystals in the bedroom, it’s important not to use overly large crystals (they give off too much energy, which can disrupt sleep) and to never store crystals under your bed. They work better by the head of the bed, particularly if it’s against a solid wall, which helps support you, or under your pillow, though this may be too much energy for some people.
• Use scents to help calm the body, mind, and spirit. The right essential oils have the power to help you relax. Try them in a candle or a diffuser. Top of the relaxation list is calming lavender, but others that can help soothe you at night include neroli, Roman chamomile, clary sage, ylang ylang, bergamot, sandalwood, and vetiver.
Where Do You Go from Here?
A healthy body, robust spirit, and youthful radiant skin depend so much on your internal state of health and well-being. What you eat, how you manage stress, how you move, how you care for your spiritual self, and how you sleep are all critical components of your health and the state of your skin.
Follow as many of the tips that I include in the previous chapters as you can and you’re on your way to living a healthier life. Even if you just change one or two things for now, you’ll still notice and feel a difference. When it comes to mindful beauty, the last component is what you do to your skin physically, from the outside. This is what I’m going to address in the next chapter.