Steps to build an effortless sleep lifestyle
- Wake up with the sunrise
- Delay your coffee by two hours
- Meditate first, check email after
- If possible move your workouts to morning
- Front load your stressful activities earlier in the day.
- Take a 20 minute walk to catch midday light
- Take short 5 minute walks when stress hits in the afternoon
- Eat dinner earlier to maximize insulin sensitivity
- Be sure your eyes register the red hues of sunset
- Wear blue blockers after dark
- Get your body temperature to drop five degrees
- Add in a weighted blanket
- Add a magnesium supplement
- Try phosphorylated serine at night to calm cortisol (little fatty acid)
- Test for melatonin deficiencies and add a supplement appropriately
Read more about these steps in detail to understand why they are on the list…
- Get up with the sunrise – red hues of morning sunrise shuts off melatonin production, when you miss the opportunity for your eyes to see the red light early, melatonin will shut off abruptly upon waking and cortisol will spike quickly.
Menopause brain is adapting with the loss of hormones, a smooth gentle shift with hormones is imperative, abrupt changes can cause bad night’s sleep, and take out of natural flow placing us into a state of fight-or-flight.
- Don’t check your phone or email upon waking – you expose yourself to blue light, this shuts off melatonin abruptly, and cortisol is activated. It throws off two major hormones first thing in the day.
- Wait for your morning coffee – leave for two hours after waking to align with natural cortisol levels (start by prolonging half an hour, then a bit more until you reach the two hour delay, you’ll feel a mot better).
- Workouts – to be done when cortisol is at its peak, two hours after waking. Cortisol wants you to move, making your morning workouts a powerful regulator of cortisol. If you workout first thing in the morning, ease into the session, don’t put your brain into fight-or-flight by attempting HIIT style workouts upon waking.
- Use midday light as a guide – morning light starts the timer, midday light tells your brain how many hours are left before sleep happens. Get outside for a 20 minute walk during the middle of the day. It helps activate serotonin receptor sites in your eyes. Serotonin is your feel good hormone, it lifts your mood.
- Afternoon crash – this is a time when your feel good hormone starts to decline, cortisol hits new lows around 3pm, and your crash often happens due to hormonally the cortisol plummeting. Instead of coffee, get up and move around.
- Front load your day – neurochemicals that are times to our circadian cycle is that we have more energizing chemicals in the morning, and in the afternoon these chemicals naturally disappear as our body prepares for sleep. Try to get those higher stressed projects done prior to midday, and finished before 4pm, and then later in the day, do things you enjoy, chat to loved ones, read a book, cook (if that’s your thing), this should help you get better sleep.
- Dial in proper evening light – two major hormones to consider as your day ends: melatonin and insulin. You want melatonin to be high and insulin to be low. If you have them the other way around you will struggle to sleep. Be mindful of the light you are exposed to. Red light in the sky at sunset signals to melatonin that it is her time to make her appearance. Take a walk after dinner and watch the sunset as an incredible melatonin boost, once the sun has set minimize your exposure to blue light (blue light shuts off melatonin). Invest in filters for your devices if you need to use them, salt lamps for the house, turn the LED lights off.
- Eat dinner early– insulin and melatonin work inversely. When melatonin goes up, you become more insulin resistant. When melatonin goes down, your insulin sensitivity is restored. If dinner is eaten close to bedtime it can shut off melatonin. Consume most of your food in daylight hours to have a better insulin sensitivity, creating a more balanced glucose response, plus melatonin will then shine at the right moments of the day.
Menopausal women lose hormones that help her get a good night’s sleep. Blue light exposure in your home at night might not have affected your sleep in your 30’s, but now it can be impacting your sleep.
If you want to know more and help to get your sleep back on track, get the energy back in your day. Check out our new program The Change of Life
