9 easy ways to improve your sleep (and your health!)🌙💤

By now you know that getting enough quality sleep is not only crucial for staying healthy, it’s essential for healthy hormones and weight management. 

Yet various studies worldwide indicate insomnia in 10%–30% of the population, some even as high as 50%–60%…and it’s most common in older adults and females.

Not sleeping well puts a LOT of stress on the body and can lead to issues like weight gain, insulin and blood sugar problems, high cortisol, anxiety, heart disease, brain fog and lack of focus. 

It doesn’t matter how dialled in your nutrition and exercise are; if you don’t get enough sleep, your health will suffer.

SO OFTEN, I speak with women who are desperately trying to lose weight and improve their health, and they’re focused almost entirely on nutrition and exercise, and their sleep is rubbish…

And even when it IS a priority, many people struggle with sleep—whether it's falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early. 

Good thing there are lots of outside-the-box things you can do to improve your sleep…

Here are 9 of my favourite ways to improve sleep quality:

1. Care for your hormones, especially progesterone and estrogen…and especially if you are a women over ~35! (How did you know I was going to say that?!) Progesterone is generally the first hormone to fall in perimenopause and she tends to make for wonky sleep and icky moods in the week leading up to your period. (Talk about adding insult to injury!) Estrogen fluctuates wildly starting a bit later in peri, and she also plays an important role in sleep. Supporting both to be healthy through a hormone-healthy lifestyle is critical, whether or not you’re on hormone replacement therapy. (This is the lifestyle I teach women in the Better Beyond 40 Formula that helps them beat their symptoms and soar!)
   
   

2. Eat More Complex Carbs at Dinner. (Surprise!) Particularly if you’re on a low-carb diet, adding some carbs at dinner could be an easy and effective way to improve your sleep. Carbohydrates can boost tryptophan levels, aiding melatonin and serotonin production, both of which are important for sleep. Studies suggest that having a carb-rich meal a few hours before bed can help you fall asleep faster. Many experts suggest women eat at least 30 g of carbs at night to reduce cortisol and allow for better sleep.
   
   On the other hand, high-protein meals can decrease the availability of tryptophan because other amino acids compete for transport across the blood-brain barrier and into the pineal gland.  However, the glycine-rich proteins found in skin and gelatinous cuts of meat don’t have this effect, and studies have shown that gelatin consumption before bedtime (say, a mug of bone broth or my “bedtime Jell-O” recipe) can improve sleep quality.
   
   

3. Limit Artificial Light at Night: You’ve heard this before, but I have to say it again - because soooo many people ignore it in favour of scrolling or email-checking in bed and it. is. SO. important! Exposure to screens and indoor lighting, especially blue light, even for just a few SECONDS, can seriously mess with your melatonin production, making it harder to sleep! Consider using nightshift or apps like f.lux to reduce blue light on your devices, or wear orange-tinted glasses after dark to block it out. (I wear BonCharge’s awesome quality, stylish glasses.) 
   
   

4. Keep Your Bedroom Cool and Dark: A drop in core body temperature helps signal that it's time to sleep. A cool room can facilitate this process, whereas a room that’s too warm has been shown to impact sleep quality. Additionally, keeping your bedroom as dark as possible supports your body's natural sleep-wake cycle. If you can’t eliminate ambient light, consider a sleep mask or simply draping a nice light shawl over your eyes.
   
   

5. Align your spine! Make sure your pillow maintains your neck in a neutral position and side sleep with a pillow between your knees as much as possible with a pillow between your knees. This helps keep you comfy all night, preventing neck, knee and low back pain. This is a big one for me personally - now I struggle to sleep without my ‘support pillow!’
   
   Avoid sleeping on your back - it’s not as healthy because it impedes cerebrospinal fluid circulation, which bathes the brain and spinal cord while you sleep to both clear away the day's waste and circulate molecules that promote repair during the night. Back sleeping also makes it easy for your airway to close, and is a major contributing factor to snoring and sleep apnea. Using a pillow between your knees to prevent knee + hip pain and for healthy spinal alignment.
   
   If you really want to go the distance, try sleeping with your head on a slight incline - like just a few degrees - using bricks or wooden blocks under the head of the bed. Animals in nature often sleep with their heads on a slight incline, presumably because it helps the circulation of those fluids, but it also helps keep airways open.
   
   

6. Manage pre-bedtime (and daytime) mental load: One of the most common issues I hear from clients is that they can’t “turn off their brain at night.” Is this really a surprise, considering how busy and scattered most of us are during the day? (Myself included.) If we’re in “fight or flight” mode and consistently activated during the day, it’s unrealistic to expect that we’ll be able to switch to “rest and digest” sleepy time mode the instant our heads hit the pillow.
   
   And on top of this, perhaps a less obvious player in the situation includes the media MANY of us consume in the evening: violent, thrilling or action-packed TV and books can really mess with our heads! Same goes for leaving brain-heavy tasks (like planning for the next day, or even checking those pesky emails) until just before bed.
   
   Calming your brain WELL before you plan to sleep is SO much more important than people generally realize. Incorporating stress-reduction techniques like yoga, deep breathing or meditation at night before bed, or just reading a super mellow book (paper or e-reader, not on a phone/iPad) can be huge for improving your sleep quality. 
   
   

7. Get daytime light exposure and exercise: Supporting your circadian rhythm by avoiding artificial light at night is important, but don’t forget to do it during the day, too!
   
   The MOST important environmental factor regulating your circadian rhythm (which includes your sleep rhythms) is natural light entering the eye, so it’s important to let your body know that it’s daytime by exposing yourself to plenty of bright light. Compared to outdoor light, which usually ranges from 10,000 to 30,000 lux on a clear day, ordinary indoor light is a lame 10 to 300 lux - not nearly bright enough to have the strong circadian-entrenching effect we want. 
   
   Exercise during the day has also been shown to improve sleep quality at night. Several studies have found exercise to be effective at reducing symptoms of insomnia, and some evidence indicates that exercise may be as effective as sleeping pills.
   
   So, try to spend some time outside every day, in the morning or around lunchtime if possible, and get at least 10,000 steps in. Using a wearable to track your steps can help you get an idea of what this feels like.
   
   
   

8. Address Sleep Conditions: It’s also possible that you can’t sleep due to a health condition such as sleep apnea or restless legs syndrome. While restless legs is usually easy to identify, people can suffer from sleep apnea without even realizing it. If you have excessive daytime sleepiness that you can’t figure out or you wake up frequently at night, it’s worth having a sleep study done to rule out sleep apnea as a cause. This is especially true if you are obese, have high blood pressure or diabetes, or have a history of snoring, all of which are risk factors for sleep apnea. You don’t need to be overweight to develop sleep apnea, so see a sleep specialist to get tested for this common condition.
   
   
   

9. Try Some Natural Remedies: Finally, there are several nutrients that can be helpful for relieving insomnia and improving sleep. These are the supplements I’ve found helpful in my practice and are safe for most people to try, listed in descending order of what to try first. (Please check with your medical provider before starting any supplement.)

• Magnesium - Has calming effects on the nervous system, and several studies have found magnesium to be effective in treating insomnia and improving sleep. There are lots of forms, but I like magnesium bisglycinate, which is less likely to cause some of the unpleasant GI side effects associated with some forms of magnesium. 2 x 200mg / day is often the sweet spot, but everyone is different: some people get loose bowels over 200mg, and others do better with up to 1000mg/day. You can experiment with increasing your dose until you experience loose stool, then back it off 1 capsule.
  

• L-Theanine (or just Theanine) - An amino acid found in green tea that has been shown to have calming effects on the brain.  The recommended dose for improving sleep is 200-400 mg, taken an hour before bed if you have trouble falling asleep, or just before bed if you have trouble staying asleep.
  

• Taurine - An amino acid that reduces cortisol levels and increases production of GABA, a major “inhibitory” neurotransmitter - AKA our bodies’ natural “off” switch. Try taking 500 mg before bed. Using magnesium taurate allows you to get both magnesium and taurine with a single pill.
  

• Melatonin - Consider taking a LOW dose (0.3-1mg) of melatonin. It’s worth pointing out that many people find lower doses more sedating than higher doses, yet most products have a LOT of melatonin in them - much more than would match our natural physiology…many are 3, 5 and even 10mg! What you want is closer to 0.3mg.
  This is more likely to help if your melatonin levels are low and you may have to try it for at least a week to see an effect.
  
  Note: People often expect it to be a magic sleep aid - it’s not, but it can really help you have healthier sleep architecture…as in more quality sleep, including increase deep and REM. Using a wearable can reveal this.)
  

• 5-HTP - The precursor to melatonin. The recommended dose is 50-100 mg an hour before bed. (Please DO NOT take 5-HTP if you are taking SSRIs or other antidepressants.)
  
  
  …One of my favourite natural sleep aids - which I call my ‘sleep candies’ - is called SomnoPro from BioClinic. It’s blend of low dose melatonin, 5 HTP and L-Theanine and it really helped my partner and I over the years. (I know have low melatonin based on DUTCH testing.) If you want to try it, it’s on my Fullscript page under the “Women’s Hormone Health” plan. (Just make an account and you’ll see products I often recommend. There’s a lot there, but don’t worry, you won’t need all of them - personalization is key. Contact me if you want help!)
  
  

OK, I hope that helps you secure those quality Z’s as we roll into 2025 so you wake up rested, full of juju and ready to conquer the world!

Please share this with your family, friends and anyone who you think could benefit. Free help is always a good thing!

If you want to go deeper and get my personal help to transform your health, balance your hormones, ignite your metabolism and lose weight the healthy, lasting way, check out my Better Beyond 40 Formula program - watch this video and book a free call so we can chat about what’s holding you back and come up with a winning plan for your success moving forward.

❤️