The importance of sleep quality to our health & how to create a sleep hygiene routine

Sleep is often the first element of daily life to be sacrificed when you are feeling stressed or become time poor. Adequate sleep, along with food, water and oxygen are the most important basic necessities for survival. While we’re sleeping our entire body repairs and regenerates. In fact, during sleep we make human growth hormone, a powerful anti-ageing hormone.¹⁰ Human growth hormone stimulates tissue repair, liver regeneration, muscle growth, and the breakdown and conversion of fat to muscle.¹ 

While we sleep, our bodies remove free radicals and metabolic waste from the brain.¹ Sleep also heals and repairs the heart and blood vessels, plays a vital role in reproductive hormone production, especially in puberty and fertility, and maintains a healthy balance of hormones that regulate appetite.³ Quality sleep also makes you smarter! While you’re sleeping your body is working to support healthy brain function, enabling the brain to form new pathways to help you learn and remember information.³So just how much sleep should we all be getting? The recommendation by age group is:⁹

As a nation, not enough sleep is a major concern in Australia, with lack of sleep reported to affect up to 45% of the population at any given time.² A lack of adequate sleep can affect many aspects of physical wellbeing including energy, appetite, loss of productivity and increased risk of issues with weight.

Our bodies work on a circadian rhythm, often referred to as a ‘body clock’. When we wake up and expose ourselves to the morning light our body starts producing cortisol to give us energy and alertness throughout the day. As the day progresses our cortisol production declines and as it gets dark we start to release melatonin instead. Melatonin signals to your body that it’s time to prepare for rest and helps you to feel sleepy. Exposure to bright, artificial light such as fluorescent lights, TV, computer screens, and devices in the late evening can disrupt this process, making it harder to fall asleep.²Sleep hygiene is a collection of practices or behaviours around sleep that help to promote melatonin production. Improving our sleep hygiene helps prepare our body for good quality, restorative sleep.

Some herbs and nutrients can also help to promote restful and restorative sleep. For example, magnesium is useful for helping your muscles relax and supporting your body’s ability to repair while you sleep. Finally, herbs such as zizyphus, passionflower, valerian, and hops help your body relax and wind down for a calm evening and good quality sleep.^7-8