Holistic Keto for Gut Health by Kristin Grayce McGary

Author:Kristin Grayce McGary
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Health / Nutrition
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2019-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

The Importance of Sleep

The way you sleep affects how you feel during waking hours. Quantity and quality matter! Loss of sleep can slowly impact your health over time, or it can hit you in an instant.

Ongoing sleep deprivation has been linked to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and diabetes. Sleep helps your brain work properly and therefore improves learning, attention, and creativity.104 Chronic lack of sleep can slow metabolism, alter hormones that regulate appetite, and make you gain weight. As some of you have already experienced, sleep loss can cause irritability and mood swings. Sleep deprivation decreases immune function and can even contribute to certain kinds of cancers.

You also need adequate quality sleep every night. For most adults, 8–10 hours of sleep is about right. Children need more: 11–12 hours per night; while teenagers require 9–11 hours of good sleep every night. Limited or poor-quality sleep can impact your health without your initial awareness. Unless they’re chronic insomniacs, most people don’t even recognize they have sleep deficiencies.

What time of night you fall asleep is also important. Working a swing shift or a graveyard shift negatively affects your body’s circadian rhythms, possibly leading to cognitive impairment over time.105 If you’re on such a schedule, do your best to have it changed or get support to stay balanced.

It’s best to get to sleep no later than 10 p.m., except for teenagers, whose internal clocks are actually different during their developmental years. They tend to stay up later and need to sleep in longer. Unfortunately, schools have not yet embraced the science behind this phenomenon.

Create healthy sleep attitudes (aka “sleep hygiene”) by taking time to slow down in the evenings. Relaxing and down-regulating your nervous system is important. Find whatever helps you to de-stress, and practice it. Meditation, prayer, deep breathing, music, yoga, art, reading, sipping herbal tea, a walk out in nature, cuddling with a loved one, giving and receiving massages and foot rubs, playing with a pet, and journaling are a few ideas to get you started. Avoid overly stimulating activities, such as gossiping on the phone or internet, video games, intense exercise, or watching violent movies or television shows, including the news.

If you’re a party-goer, consider staying home more often and away from loud bars, concerts, and heated political debates. There are certainly times to let your hair down and have fun, but plan accordingly, so that your needs for relaxation, rest, and rejuvenation are met first. People who tend to chronically overdo it are more likely to have digestive and immune dysfunction.

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