Tag: sleep

6 ways to improve your sleep

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

I am going to start with a bold statement: sleep is more important than exercise and nutrition combined. Whether or not you are one of the 50 to 70 million Americans that suffer from some type of sleep disorder, snoring, waking up feeling not well-rested, trouble falling asleep, or staying asleep, then this is definitely for you.

What are some indications that you may not be getting the most optimal sleep that you can? You could have memory issues, mood changes, yawning during the day, irritability, heart disease, or high blood pressure. All of these can be associated with poor sleep, both quality and/or quantity.

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Sleep is a naturally reoccurring state of the mind and body. We have decreased use of our voluntary muscles, inhibition of sensory activity, and ultimately reduced interactions with our surroundings.

Here’s the take-home – sleep is one of the most overlooked and undervalued methods to recovery, overall health, and well-being.

We want to think about sleep as our time to rest, restore, and recover. If we are not doing those things, how could we possibly have a great workout? How can we have the energy to go work out? How can we have the desire to want to eat healthily and not crave carbohydrates or sugar-rich foods?

We have to sleep well in order to make optimal health decisions. Additionally, all of our systems are restored when we sleep. Our immune system, skeletal system, and hormonal system are all affected. If you’re dealing with chronic pain, memory and mood issues, depression, and/or anxiety then sleep is imperative. This is when all of our tanks are filled. While your REM sleep is helping with your brain, think of your deep sleep as helping with your body. 

Now let’s talk about six of my favorite sleep hacks. 

1. Blue Light Blockers

Put these on at seven o’clock if you are using any type of electronics: TV, phone, or iPad. Make sure to turn your electronics off at a minimum of 30 minutes before you go to bed if not an hour. Also, when you go to bed if your phone is in your room, put it on airplane mode, Wi-Fi off, and place it at least eight feet from you. Here’s a link to my favorite blue light blocker.

2. Foot Recovery

Check out Naboso technology for their splays or socks to stimulate and help recover your feet. These will stimulate the small nerves in the feet and optimize circulation, which is a great way to restore and recover before bed. 

3. Develop a Routine

You’ll want to focus on downregulating the nervous system and preparing for sleep. If you’re not doing anything, start with five minutes of a pre-bed routine. Diaphragmatic breathing is a great start. If you’re already meditating, that’s fantastic. If you’re not meditating, try breathwork. Start at one minute and then gradually move up until a longer period of time. You could also try taking a bath or reading a book. There are lots of ways that you can begin to downregulate your nervous system and prepare for sleep. 

4. Optimize Your Airway

Whether you snore, wake up with your mouth open, or have a dry mouth in the morning, then you can consider nasal dilators. You can use Mute nasal dilators which is one of my favorite brands. This will help to open up your airway and makes it easier to breathe diaphragmatically. Additionally, if this is appropriate for you and if you are a mouth breather, you could consider mouth taping. There are lots of different tape brands that you could use, I like the Nexcare tape because it is gentle. Mouth taping forces you to breathe in through your nose. If you have some type of structural airway dysfunction, then you might want to start during the day just for a short amount of time such as 30 minutes to test it before you try to go sleep with it. 

5. Not Eating Three Hours Before Bed

Think of digestion as a very complex metabolic reaction. Think of sleep as our time to restore and recover. We can’t do both of those well at the same time, so you want to stop eating and drinking alcohol within that three-hour window. Alcohol is something that destroys the quality of your sleep. You will sleep through the night for sure, but the quality will definitely be affected. This is one of the biggest things to consider if you’re trying to optimize your sleep.

6. Setting up Your Environment 

We want to think about your sleep environment as clean, without distractions, electronics, a dark room, black shades if possible, and hypoallergenic sheets. Make sure that everything is set up to provide a nice environment for you to rest and restore. 

Although there are many different sleep hacks, I would suggest just picking one of these things that might be appropriate for you that you could work on. If you don’t have a routine, start there. If you are not wearing blue light blockers, start there. Find out what resonates with you and give it a shot. Then week after week as your sleep hopefully continues to improve, you can begin to add another layer to your sleep regime. 

We want to try to optimize everything about sleep so that we can heal, recover, and perform at our best. If this was helpful, please give it share with a friend or family member. As always make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel The Movement Paradigm for weekly tips on mindset, nutrition, and movement. Sleep well!

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Other things that may interest you:

Leaky Gut: The Root of Chronic Disease

Jaw-Emotion Link

10 Best Health Hacks for the New Year

GUT-BRAIN CONNECTION 101

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

The gut-brain connection is so powerful in your immune health, hormonal health, and nervous system. If you’ve ever had a gut feeling then you know exactly what the gut-brain connection is.

The gut-brain connection is bi-directional communication between the gut and the brain. The gut, meaning our second nervous system or our enteric nervous system, and our brain, our first nervous system. This bi-directional communication happens through multiple pathways, including hormonal, immune, and our nervous system.  The objective of the gut-brain connection is to maintain normal gut function, as well as appropriate behavior.

The first brain has 100 billion neurons, and our second brain, our gut has about 500 million neurons. You can see how powerful this neural connection is, and this neural connection happens primarily through the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve originates in the brainstem and then wanders down to the gut. It signals in both directions. For example, if you are getting anxious about a presentation that you have to give you might feel that in your stomach, but if you are eating some kind of inflammatory foods, then that can cause you to potentially feel anxious.

Now, the next connection is hormonal, and this is based on the neurotransmitters or the chemical messengers that we have that communicate between the gut and the brain. Ninety percent of our serotonin is located in the gut that is produced by gut bacteria. Serotonin provides us with a sense of happiness. We also produce 50 percent of our dopamine, our feel-good hormone, in our gut. Another hormone we produce is called GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid), which decreases feelings of stress and anxiety.

Last but not least, our gut-brain is connected via immune pathways. Seventy percent of our immune system is in our gut. So, when we have any kind of gut issue, we typically have an immune or inflammatory issue. In the case of a leaky gut, for example, when you begin to have pathogens and toxins that are crossing the epithelial lining and moving into the bloodstream, this is going to cause an immune reaction. If this continues, this can cause a leaky brain because those pathogens and potentially undigested food can cross the blood-brain barrier causing inflammation in the brain feeling things like brain fog. So, as you can see there is a very strong immune system connection as well.

You may be asking, what can I do to optimize my gut-brain connection? The first thing you can do is try to eat an anti-inflammatory diet, which simply means whole food, natural, clean diet. Make sure that there are lean proteins, healthy fats, and lots of vegetables and fruits. If you are experiencing any specific gut or health issues, please make sure to reach out to us we’d be more than happy to help you.  We can see you virtually or in person.

The next thing is to manage stress. Stress is one of the biggest things that can impact the gut-brain connection on both levels. You can help to decrease your stress through mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, yoga, journaling, reading, or whatever is helpful for you, perhaps even speaking with someone.

Next, is making sure you’re getting enough sleep. Also, make sure that you’re getting an optimal amount of sleep as well as quality sleep.

Lastly is movement. Instead of thinking of exercising 30 minutes a day, try to just move as frequently as you can throughout the day. This will help to optimize your immune system, nervous system, as well as your hormonal system by getting in regular quality movement.

I hope this helps you become more successful and achieve what you want in your life and your health.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Other things that may interest you:

5 STEPS TO HEAL YOUR GUT

Vagus Nerve Hack | Breathing Before Eating

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7 Ways to Improve Your Sleep

Posted on by Arianne Missimer

Do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? Do you have trouble losing weight or feel groggy in the morning? If you do, you should definitely read this.

Here are seven important tips on how to improve your sleep habits.

  1. Minimizing or Avoiding Stimulants

Do you want to take a guess of what the biggest offender is?… drumroll… alcohol. It’s important to limit alcohol within three hours of going to bed because it is something that will negatively impact the quality of your sleep. Even though you might be asleep for seven hours, it doesn’t mean that you are getting the proper REM and deep sleep that you need. Have you ever woken up after a night drinking and felt a little crappy, under the weather, with a little brain fog? That’s the effects of alcohol.

Decrease TV and phone time! If you are using blue light, please consider wearing blue light blockers after 7 pm. Otherwise, this can be a huge stimulant. See number three for planning and preparation.

Third, consuming caffeinated beverages after two o’clock such as soda, coffee, or iced tea can contribute to restless nights. You also want to limit any type of decongestants or other cold medicines because they act as stimulants.

Lastly, you want to try to limit aerobic exercise after six o’clock, or at least three hours before bed time.

These are all things that can keep you awake or prevent you from going to sleep in the first place.

2. Decrease Nighttime Tension and Anxiety

First, avoid any anxiety-provoking or stimulating activities before bed. Some examples of these activities are watching the news, having an argument with your child or spouse, doing financials, reading the stocks, etc.

The more you perseverate on what you need to do the next day, the more stressed you become, followed by a rise in cortisol levels.  Also, try to limit negative judgments associated with not being able to go to sleep. If you feel like you can’t go to sleep, and you keep having thoughts about why you can’t go to sleep, then that will also feed into the inability to fall or stay asleep. When you start to have those thoughts, try taking some diaphragmatic breaths and remind yourself that there is nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.

3. Planning and Preparation

The most important aspect of preparing for sleep is developing some type of ritual before bed. We know that the amount of sleep is really important and it’s a little bit different for each person. However, you do want to think about allotting for eight to nine hours of time in bed, although all of that will not be actual sleep time. So, when you are preparing your schedule keep that in mind so you can strive to prepare for that amount of time in bed.

Another thing to plan for is preparing for sleep about 30 minutes before bed with something that will relax your nervous system. This could be done by breathing, meditation, yoga, reading, essential oils, taking a bath with Epsom salt, etc. So, there’s lots of options and you just need to figure out what is best for you.

You also want to think about finishing eating within three hours of bed time. The late-night snacking is not ideal because your body is trying to digest, which is a huge metabolic process, while you’re trying to rest, regenerate, and repair. It’s really challenging to do both of those things at the same time.

Overall, just think about preparing your body to relax, so you can calm your nervous system. Epsom salt baths and lavender can be really powerful for that.

4. Strategies to Use with Trouble Falling Asleep or Staying Asleep

These strategies can be very beneficial and it doesn’t matter who you are, what age you are, or the reason for your ability to not be sleeping. These are all universal.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re up for 20 to 30 minutes, then you want to actually get out of bed. Go into another room, perhaps a relaxing room and do something calming. That could be breathing, meditating, journaling, or write down what you’re experiencing in that moment. Try to down-regulate (i.e. relax) your system and then return back to sleep.

If your beloved partner is snoring, consider ear plugs to prevent you from awakening.

Drinking water before bed is almost a sure way to wake up in the middle of the night to urinate. Try to limit within an hour of bed.

Another strategy is to make don’t have any EMF within eight feet of you, which includes your phone, tv, etc. This will help you get good quality sleep.

5. Light, Noise, Temperature, and the Environment

Try to keep your room as dark as you possibly can. You can use dark window shades and block out any lights that are showing in your room. Also, keep your room cool. Electric blankets, for example, can cause you to wake up very hot and frequently during the night.

6. Bedding and Pillows

As it relates to bedding, think hypoallergenic. Also, the appropriate amount of pillows is important.  If you’re a side sleeper, for example, make sure you have enough support for your neck so that you’re not in an uncomfortable position that causes pain. If you have bursitis in your hip and it’s difficult to lay on your hip, roll away from the hip so there’s not as much contact there. And of course, if you have pain anywhere, see a physical therapist!

7. Supplements

Melatonin is the most commonly prescribed over-the-counter sleep supplement. One to five milligrams can be taken to fall asleep, and/or you could take five to 20 milligrams of time-release melatonin to stay asleep. Taurine and magnesium can also be beneficial. There are calming herbs like ashwagandha that can help decrease cortisol. Also, drinking herbal teas before bed can be very beneficial.

Summary

These are seven tips that can really help you get that quality sleep you deserve. Just like anything else, start small. Choose one or two things out of this list and work on them until they become a habit.  

If you are interested in feeling your best and you need help, reach out to schedule an appointment to get you started on your journey.

Reach out for a 15-minute FREE discovery session to see how we can help you on your journey.

For more content, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

Other things that may interest you:

Top 5 Vagus Nerve Hacks to Help You Relax and Restore

How to Map Your Own Nervous System: The Polyvagal Theory

Photo by Vladislav Muslakov on Unsplash