Poor sleep has been linked with just about every disease and illness going. Understanding why we sleep and how to improve it then becomes a matter of imperative for all of us. Especially if you struggle with sleep or wake up not feeling rested (which you should by the way.)
Evolutionarily speaking we sleep because of our eyesight. It would cost too much energy and genetic real estate to evolve the capabilities to see during the day and at night, so we had ourselves an evolutionary conundrum.
To see at night or during the day? Whichever way you go it is then more effective to sleep during the other period. The metabolic output needed for the brain/body to operate day and night would have been impossible, so we sleep.
For humans we are of course awake during the day and as we don’t see well at night we take the survival risk of sleeping then. As a precaution we have developed sleep cycles meaning we are not completely unaware of our surroundings whilst we sleep, lest a predator should happen upon us.
It makes sense then that light information should govern our circadian (day/night) rhythm. We can only observe light from our eyes (there may be therapeutic effects of having the light on skin but it does not effect your sleep/wake cycle).
So by opening your eyes in the morning and observing sun light we trigger a cortisol spike, which has us up and about in the morning. This same mechanism starts an internal clock, which will then start the hormonal process of us falling asleep roughly 12-14 hrs later.
Melatonin, the hormone responsible for us feeling sleepy (which is made in the pineal gland located behind one of the retinas,) is on the other end of your morning cortisol spike. It has a symbiotic relationship with the sun going down and an over-exposure to light in the evening can leave stores of it depleted and lay the foundation for a restless night.
So from the moment you wake up you are setting yourself up to go back to sleep.
In the morning then it important you get outside and allow the sunlight to hit your eyes. Not directly of course but even behind the clouds there are thousands of reflected photons available to hit your eyes.
Inside even in bright light we are talking about 100’s of photons. Not nearly enough to stimulate the cortisol spike and our internal sleep clock in order that you should sleep that night.
Coffee and other stimulants can have health benefits, but some of us are sensitive to the up and go effect they have on the body. Adenosine is a chemical that drives the sleep hunger that you feel. When it is at a high level we are feeling sleepy. Coffee and other stimulants work by adopting the place of adenosine in your receptors, so keeping levels low and making you feel awake. When the coffee wears off this is when you might feel that crash as adenosine comes rushing back in.
Working out how coffee can work for you and not against you is therefore very important. Some people can tolerate a lot of it and late in the day, some people are better off only using it intermittently.
Creating healthy sleep hygiene is important. Planning for when you need to be awake and starting your sleep ritual accordingly. This might involve dimming the lights, switching off electronics, doing a brain dump of things that need to be done the next day and doing some meditation. Your room should be as dark as possible, I even use a face mask to make sure. This helps keep you asleep all night especially in summer when it can get light a lot earlier.
This information has been amazing for me and when allowed by my children I now sleep very well. Waking up in the morning fully rested, with my energy levels lasting all day.
This makes training, recovery and lifestyle decisions like nutrition so much more palpable.
We will come to learn that sleep is the universal health care provider; whatever the physical or mental ailment, sleep has a prescription it can dispense.” – Matthew Walker
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