The Power Of Sleep
The functional medicine model of care offers a patient-centered approach to finding out the root cause of illness.
Have questions about functional medicine?
Is sleep really that important?
So many patients complain of not being able to sleep and that is NOT NORMAL. Sleep is vital to everyone's healing. It seems like we just lay there, but it is the time where the body is quite busy. We restock our supply of hormones, process significant toxins, repair damaged tissue, generate white blood cells for immunity, eliminate effects of stress, and process heavy emotions. Your brain has a lymphatic system that focuses on cleaning and repairing itself at night. If you’re not sleeping, you will have a buildup of metabolic waste and toxins.
I'm sure you have heard of the supplement called melatonin. This hormone is secreted by the pineal gland in the brain. Melatonin helps to calm the neurotransmitters in the brain preparing for rest. For ideal sleep, melatonin should be steadily rising and cortisol, the stress hormone, should be rock bottom. There is a caveat to all of this: the pineal gland gives us melatonin in response to DARKNESS. Cortisol is lowest with low noise. With our TVs, tablets, and phones giving way to light before we go to sleep, this interrupts our body's pro-chemical nighttime shifts.
If you have trouble sleeping, you can start with basic sleep hygiene. This may not be enough for some of us, but always a good place to start.
don’t eat before bed
use your bedroom for sleep and intimacy only
turn off all bright lights, electronics, tablets, & phones one hour before bed. Sometimes this involves blue light which can disrupt melatonin secretion.
do something that generally makes you sleepy: read a book, take a hot bath, & meditate
keep your room temperature ~65 degrees if you can: research says this is the temperature when we get the most restful sleep
avoid stressful conversations, checking email, arguing, etc. before bed as this ramps up your stress response and then you can't calm down
eliminate all caffeine or stop caffeine after 12pm
The more you regulate your rhythm, the easier it will be to get better sleep. Not following the suggestions above will disrupt your biorhythms which can be very difficult to re-align.
If sleep hygiene isn’t enough, you might need some of the below for short term relief.
Start with melatonin 30 minutes before bedtime. This is safe to use short term and can help you get your body into a natural rhythm. The typical dose can range from 0.5 mg to 5mg.
If you fall asleep fine, but wake up in the middle of the night, it is likely that the body is not producing enough melatonin. You can consider using 5-HTP (precursor to serotonin, which is needed to make melatonin). You should not use 5-HTP if you are on SSRIs or SNRIs.
Commonly overlooked issues that come with bad sleep:
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The following points can cause sleep to be poor quality.
When you wake up you should get 20 minutes of sunlight without glasses on. This helps your body to recognize circadian rhythm, or the cycle of your waking and sleeping every day.
When someone is eating a high starch and carbohydrate diet, it can cause hypoglycemia and disrupt sugar balance, leading to poor sleep.
Consuming alcohol and caffeine, along with sugar can disrupt your body’s natural rhythm.
When someone has chronic stress, it stresses the adrenal glands, (small glands on top of the kidneys that secrete stress hormones and other hormones) which doesn’t allow enough time to reset.
Exercising too late in the day can excite your body too much and leave you wide awake.
Lack of magnesium is a huge cause of irritability, tension, and stress, which then leads to trouble with sleep.
How should I feel if I get good sleep?
Good sleep should feel like you go to sleep well, you for the most part stay asleep, and wake up feeling refreshed, head clear, and with energy! Not getting adequate sleep is like being drunk- you get impaired. You need deep, REM sleep. There are trackers available for this now. There are consequences of not getting good sleep on a chronic basis. We’re just now recognizing the dangers of chronic sleep deprivation
How many hours of sleep should you get?
This is very individualized depending on the person, but you want to sleep to where you can feel good. You must gauge based on what your body is telling you. Typically, this is between 7-9 hours a night.
Conventional medicine diagnosis and treatment for sleep disorders
The most common sleep disorders from conventional medicine is sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, and insomnia. Typically you will go through a sleep study, perhaps some cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat the mental aspects of insomnia, and there may still be a lot of other causes functionally. Sleep medication is often prescribed, but the providers don’t say “why is your sleep disturbed in the first place?”.
Functional medicine diagnosis and treatment for sleep disorders
Some of the most common causes of sleep issues from the functional medicine view is chronic stress and adrenal burnout, the microbiome being out of balance and causing inflammation, thyroid disorders, bad sleep environment or habits, and so much more. When you are evaluated by a functional medicine practitioner, they look at all aspects of what could be causing the sleep disturbance and try to reverse it.
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Written by Virginia Conner, PA-C