Introduction: Rethinking Sleep in a Sleepless World
We’ve all heard the basics about better sleep—dark room, cool temperature, no screens before bed, maintain a routine—but what if there’s more to unlocking truly restorative sleep? What if you are doing all of that and you still haven’t conquered great sleep. Sleep isn’t just downtime and an annoyance for people trying to get stuff done. Sleep is an active process that shapes every aspect of our lives. In this article I will dive into the science, the signs of great sleep and indicators that you need more sleep, and some lesser-known strategies to unlock your deeper rest. It isn’t a whole book (then neither of us would get great sleep, right?) but you might learn a thing or two here about why sleep matters, how to gauge your quality of sleep and some innovative ways to enhance your sleep.
Why is Sleep Foundational to Health?
We spend nearly one-third of our time in this state of sleep. You can get less of it, for a time, but maybe you’ve heard the idiom about burning the candle on both ends—“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night;” Magnificent radiance, but only for a short time. It that what you really want?
“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night;”
Sleep isn’t a luxury—it’s the cornerstone of physical, mental, and emotional resilience. It’s when your body repairs, your brain processes, and your immune system recharges. In another recent article I introduced the glymphatic system and the cleansing process that your brain undergoes during deep sleep, flushing out old metabolites, garbage, and preparing the brain for a new day of processing. Without the nightly janitorial work of the glymphatic system our risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases soars.
Sleep is tied deeply and directly to hormone balance, inflammation reduction and even gut microbiome health.
Hormone Balance
Cortisol, the stress hormone, levels go down while you sleep. Ideally, they have gone down quite a bit during the last half of your day. So, it reaches a minimum during the night until a surge of cortisol gets you ready to bounce out of bed, ready to attack a new day. Meanwhile, growth hormone surges during deep sleep, especially in the first few hours. Growth hormone is the key for tissue repair, muscle growth, longevity, and even better looking skin. Melatonin, the antioxidant hormone produced by your pineal gland, is triggered by dark. It helps repair and reset your mitochondrial metabolism to the very efficient burning of glucose via the oxidative phosphorylation pathway rather than fermentative glycolysis (fast, but inefficient, preferred by cancer cells). Suppressing melatonin may very likely increase your risk of cancer and your metabolism going awry.
Inflammation
Then there is inflammation, which is very close to the root cause of almost all diseases. Quality sleep down-regulates inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein, giving your immune system a chance to reset rather than remaining on high alert. Your immune system gets ahead of the competition while you sleep, so sickness doesn’t get the best of you. A good night’s sleep is always helpful when you feel a cold coming on.
Gut Microbiome
Even your gut microbiome is affected by your sleep, or lack of it. Studies show that consistent sleep patterns help a diverse and healthy gut flora to thrive, while erratic sleep disrupts that gut flora. And your immune system is tied to the health of your gut flora, which affects hormone production as well. So, the systems are deeply connected.
How Do I Know I’m Getting Enough Sleep?
OK. It’s time for some self-inventory. Don’t just go by the clock. Some people need more, and some people get by (well) with less. Here are some assessment tools:
Mid-Morning Energy Level
Do you wake up groggy or feeling refreshed? What is your energy like mid-morning? (That gives time for slow waking-folks to really get going.) Initial scores are not as important as mid-morning scores.
Cognitive Capacity
Can you focus, recall details, or solve problems without feeling like you are in a fog? Clear thinking is a great sign of adequate sleep. Brain fog can come from a variety of sources, like mold or other toxicities, too. So, by itself it doesn’t pinpoint sleep as the main problem.
Mood Meter
Are you irritable or calm? Sleep regulates your emotional bandwidth. After a short night (you’ve probably noticed this once or twice) you cannot handle your emotions nearly as well as when you are well rested. But if you are chronically sleep deprived, you may have gone beyond just being “sensitive” once in a while to always being on edge.
Tech Assist
Wearables (like the Oura Ring that I have used for over 6 years, or Samsung’s Galaxy watch, or Apple Watch, FitBit, Whoop), or the Withins Sleep mat can help you understand the details of your sleep stages, how long you actually slept, your pulse rate at night, your heart rate variability while sleeping, and a measure of recovery from your previous day’s activities. Some wearables also measure body temperature and warn you of impending infections knocking at your immune system’s cage. Wearable devices can also help you discover what interventions are making a difference in your sleep. For example, the Oura ring helped me identify B12, magnesium, and melatonin as helpful sleep aids for my particular case. And it has helped rule out countless other things that people say make a difference for them, like eating right before going to bed—makes no difference to me.
But some people can’t stand tech devices or things on their wrists while sleeping, so the basics of mid-morning energy, clear thinking, and emotional resilience can help these sorts of people become more self-aware of how well they are sleeping.
Signs That I’m Getting Too Little Sleep
You may not want to do this, but take a look at this list and see if you see yourself anywhere here:
- Increased cravings (especially for sugar and refined carbs).
- Increased clumsiness and awkward bumping into stuff or dropping things.
- Often forgetting why you walked into a room (happens to most people some of the time?)
- Frequent colds, slow healing wounds (beyond normal for your age). Immune system beaten down.
- Muscle stiffness—sleep deprivation stalls recovery.
- Brain fog—trouble making decisions, over-reacting to stress, dwelling on anxious thoughts.
- Dull skin or breakouts. These can signal poor cellular repair at night.
What is Sabotaging Your Sleep (Beyond the Usual Suspects)?
Hidden Stress Loops
Chronic low-grade stress (unread emails, unresolved arguments, unresolved financial shortfalls) keeps cortisol elevated. Try “brain dump” journaling before sleep to offload these worries and get them out of front-of-mind.
Nutrient Gaps
Magnesium, B6, B12 and zinc can disrupt neurotransmitter balance (like GABA for calming you down). For some people, simply not getting enough to eat makes sleep hard to catch.
Gut-Sleep Axis
Poor digestion can spike inflammation, waking you up mid-sleep. Pay attention to when and what you eat at your last meal of the day. Maybe digestive enzymes and probiotics can help. You might need a bigger reset, like using the Perfect Cleanse to give your body a break and rejuvenate.
Overtraining Trap
You can get an adrenaline spike due to training at a high intensity near bedtime. It doesn’t seem to affect me, but it might do that for you. Try shifting your intense workouts earlier in the day and see if that helps you wind down better. Just over-exertion in general makes it hard to recover in just one night. It may take several nights of high quality sleep to really get recovered from a marathon kind of workout.
Next-Level Strategies to Deepen Your Sleep
Brainwave Hacks
Binaural beats or 432 Hz music sync brainwaves to delta states (deep sleep). Try a 20-minute pre-bed session via apps like Brain.fm (which is like binaural beats 3.0).
Temperature Tricks
Beyond a cool room, use a warm bath 1-2 hours before bed—your body temperature will drop after your bath, mimicking sleep’s natural cooldown.
Breathwork Boost
Try a 4-7-8 deep breathing exercise. Inhale 4 seconds, hold 7, exhale 8. This activates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and relax versus flight or fight sympathetic nervous system). The result is a great decrease in pre-sleep adrenaline.
Herbal Supplements For Sleep
Beyond melatonin try herbs for sleep. Chamomile can help relax the central nervous system. Passionflower can increase total sleep time and decrease wakefulness in the night. Valerian has been used as a sleep aid since the 18th century. Ashwagandha may help you get to sleep faster and lower cortisol. Lavender may help you calm down. People put a drop of lavender oil in a diffuser or a drop on their pillow to help them sleep. And a hops extract has been used as well for better sleep. Explore these herbs rather than pharmaceutical remedies for better sleep.
Liposomal Sleep Supplement
There are a lot of supplements designed to help you sleep. Some are a mix of herbal remedies and nutritional supplements. One that we like at Hallelujah Diet is called Liposomal Sleep. It is a proprietary blend of GABA, glutathione, and melatonin in a liposomal delivery system, all in a pump spray bottle. It isn’t a mega-dose of melatonin like many of the products out there. You might try this one in one of your tiny experiments.
Micro-Naps
Some people thrive on a 10-20 minute power nap in the day. For those that respond to such naps, like me, it is a great boost and keeps them going for hours with better energy and focus, without stealing deep sleep at night.
Personalizing Your Sleep Blueprint
There are a lot of things to try for improving your sleep. Test just one thing at a time. I know you just want something to work well, but patience will help you really understand what is working. So, try one thing at a time, perhaps for a week for each tiny experiment. (We are allowed to experiment, right?) Track your midmorning energy, your cognitive focus, and your emotional resilience. Use data as much as you can rather than an emotional guess. Your tech might help you out here.
Figure out your chronotype and align your schedule to fit your natural rhythm. Early riser? 9pm to 5 am fits you. Late morning type? 11pm to 7am fits you better. Night owl person? 1am to 9 am might be your best schedule. And the number of hours depends on how much sleep you need to thrive. 8 hours is just a suggestion.
For women, their sleep shifts with their menstrual phases. For example, progesterone drops right before menstruation, which can fragment your rest. So, adjust expectations and your herbal and nutritional support.
Conclusion: Sleep as a Superpower
Sleep powers health via brain cleansing, hormone balance, cellular rebuilding, gut microbiome diversity, and immune system resetting. It isn’t just shut-eye. Sleep is powerful rejuvenation! Instead of trying to “burn the candle at both ends” consider life as a marathon. Your hours in the day are powered by your rest the night before. It used to be that executives were cool and hip when they could function on little sleep. Now, the really proficient executives know that sleep is their superpower and they prioritize great sleep. And so should you. Try some tiny experiments from the advanced ideas above, just one week at a time. And as you progress, you will find that sleep is not elusive, but a powerful rejuvenating superpower for you, too!