Are you sleeping
When the temps are hot outside, I’ve noticed a lot of my patients aren’t sleeping as well. Why is that? We really are programmed to sleep best in cooler temps. Best would be in the 60’s.
Now I get it, AC isn’t cheap, some people don’t have AC and the heat I swear is impeding any creative ideas about how to get cooler at night.
We will chat about other ways to access that sweet spot when it comes to sleep. Read on my friends.
Stay cool
Your core body temperature should naturally drop every night, unfortunately for lots of people and for lots of reasons it doesn’t. When you regulate your temperature to sleep cooler at night - all sorts of neat things happen:
Turns out that staying cooler at night stimulates melatonin - which is our crucial sleep hormone and signals all sorts of amazing things.
Your deep sleep will improve and length with cooler temps.
Muscle repair and growth occur during deep sleep and REM sleep stages due to the natural release of growth hormones.
We all know that sleep is huge for recovery but we need to hit those deep sleep states - achieving cooler temps will help!
How can we get cooler at night
Alright I’m going to attempt to give you some ideas of how to cool down your space while you sleep.
If its getting cold enough at night - open those winds! Create a cross breeze if possible which will help cool off faster. Throw a fan in the window to drag that breeze in.
Get a AC unit just for your bedroom so the entire house doesn’t have to be set to a lower temp.
Check out the chili sleep - this is a mat that you can sleep on that will naturally cool you down in the comfort of your bed. The studies are amazing. Check it out here
Sleep naked! All the benefits.
Use specific supplements to enhance sleep
Lets chat about some of my favorite supplements for sleep.
Phosphatidylserine naturally lower cortisol and for MANY of us our cortisol is still too high when we are trying to get to sleep. PS will help to detox cortisol and lull you to sleep.
Magnesium Glycinate is a form of magnesium that will help to produce more GABA which is super helpful for the brain to relax so you can fall asleep.
B6 will help with those pesky middle of the night wake ups.
L Theanine is an amino acid that can also help immensely when it comes to sleep.
All of these are available in my online pharmacy under favorites.. under sleep. click here
Cover your eyes and make that room dark
Melatonin is the name of the game when it comes to deep sleep and not just supplementing with it either.
As mentioned above cooler temps will trigger melatonin - but so will the dark.
Thats why everyone talks about turning off those pesky blue lights, putting your phone down, turning off the TV etc. All this light actually works against your natural melatonin production.
Take it a step further and make your room extra dark. Buy some cheap black out curtains, cover all those annoying lights on your clock, your TV you shouldn’t have in your room anyways etc
Use an eye mask - yes it will make everything super dark which is super helpful for melatonin production and those deep zzz’s.