Morning sunshine is good for your sleep

Sleep is something that we all need for physical, mental and emotional health. The problem is that not all of us can get that essential amount of quality sleep we need. If you are one of those people who have trouble sleeping you may need to give yourself a sleep reboot.  

What you may not realise is that the key to getting a good night’s sleep starts first thing in the morning. Basically, what you do during the day will help determine weather you fall asleep fast, or toss and turn all night. This is when getting outside within your first hour of waking can lead to a better day and ultimately better sleep as well.

Morning sunlight and your health

Morning sunlight not only sets you up for a better day, by boosting your wellbeing and your mood it sets you up for better sleep. It is also good for producing vitamin D. This is vital for many aspects of your health. Sunlight is also crucial for regulating your body’s normal functions such as your hormone levels and your metabolism. Getting some sunshine in the morning can also improve your productivity.

Hormones: cortisol, melatonin and serotonin

The reason sunlight is important for your health is because when you get some early sun it wakes up your nervous system and the chemical reactions needed to reinforces your natural body clock which then produces cortisol, melatonin, and serotonin.

Serotonin

This hormone is responsible for regulating moods, appetite, memory and sleep. If you expose your body, face and eyes to sunlight, it will increase the production of serotonin in your body and reduce Seasonal Affective Disorder as well as anxiety and depression. Serotonin helps our sleep as it is a precursor to melatonin.

Melatonin

Morning sunlight will boost the amount of raw material needed to make the sleep hormone melatonin which is a central part of your body’s sleep-wake cycle. The morning sunlight exposure will help your serotonin cycles stay aligned with day and night cycles. It will peak mid-afternoon and will drop off after dark. This is what makes you feel tired. When these hormones are not working properly it can result in a bad night’s sleep.

Cortisol

This is your stress hormone and works opposite to melatonin. If your melatonin is high, your cortisol should be low and vice versa. The problem with these being out of balance is that your sleep gets affected. Cortisol in the morning is important as when the cortisol rises early on waking it has a greater positive benefits. This serves to lower your blood pressure and improving mental health while helping you feel alert.

What to do

If you sleep in a dark room there isn’t enough light to trigger the correct timing of the cortisol and melatonin rhythms. At day break there’s a particular contrast between yellows and blues, this triggers the activation of cortisol and it’s important to have cortisol firing during the day so that it doesn’t keep you awake at night. So if you have trouble sleeping, toss and turn take a look at your serotonin, melatonin and cortisol levels. Discuss it with your naturopath and let them help you get into a good sleep rhythm with herbs, Bach and shell essence remedies, aromatherapy oils, meditation and a few lifestyle changes. Soon your rhythms will be working as they should and you will be healthier on all levels.

Why women need more sleep than men

Women need more sleep than men during the night due to the complexity of their brain. Studies have shown that women generally need an extra 20 minutes sleep every night so their brain can do all the extra processing that a women’s brain needs to do.

Although 20 minutes may not seem like a lot of extra sleep it impacts the brain in a very positive way. A women’s brain is structured in a way that they are able to juggle a few tasks at a time where as the male brain can struggle with this, however we are not saying that all men cannot multi task or that all women can, this is just the findings of a study on the average brain.

One of the most important reasons we all need sleep is to repair the brain and give it time to recover and sort through all the thoughts, memories and issues from the day just gone. This is why women tend to need more sleep because multi-tasking tends to use more of the brain, which in turn requires the brain longer time to repair. A man who does a lot of decision making and thinking at work through the day may also need to sleep longer than the average man.

If you happen to be a poor sleeper and a woman than you may find that you struggle with your emotions and experience greater psychological distress such as hostility, depression, and anger which can cause you restlessness but these same findings were not found in men who slept poorly.

Usually we need around 6 to 8 ours sleep a night for the brain to complete its restoration process however you, as an individual, may find you need a little more to keep you feeling fresh and relaxed. Regardless of whether you are male or female if you are having trouble sleeping you can try setting yourself a routine just as we would for a young child so that the body and mind know that it is sleep time now and start to help you wind down from the day. Also, meditation and yoga can be helpful for relaxation and helping give your body that nudge it needs to fall asleep quicker. Try some aromatherapy oils, some natural sleep supplements in the short term only or simply a cup of chamomile tea may do the trick.

So, if you are finding that you are not getting enough sleep it could be simply because your brain has not had enough time to restore itself. When you are having troubles getting to sleep try the above-mentioned relaxation strategies and see if they help or you could talk to your health care practitioner who could recommend a natural melatonin tablet to help get your sleep pattern back on track.