Digestion and Sleep, Two Peas in a Pod

In general, you should try to stay away from saturated fats and simple carbohydrates. These foods, for the most part, lead to heavy digestion. Sleep requires the opposite.  When discussing the day’s final digestion, sleep quality must fall closely behind. Today we will discuss a few of those things that carry the greatest impact on digestion. 

Sleep is paramount to growth. Too much meat protein and/or complex carbohydrates (whole grains) can make it difficult for your body to process the food it’s been given. The same can be said for foods high in fat. Anything that takes longer than necessary to digest can have serious consequences to finding better sleep. 

For healthy sleep to occur, your body must be able to rest without any heavy digestion. 

Have you ever eaten a heavy dinner late in the evening, then found yourself waking in the middle of the night, perhaps in a hot sweat following an intense nightmare?. 

These sleeping problems have occurred mainly for two reasons.  For one, your body is working overtime in the department of digestion. Sleep isn’t easy when your body is managing piles of  heavy food.  For easy digestion to take place, much of your blood descend down to your stomach.  This circulation robs the rest of your body from the necessary oxygen and needed nutrients.  These bodily recourses are needed to aid in your ability to achieve deep sleep and thereby rendering you unable to do so.  

Make sure you provide your body with smooth digestion, sleep will naturally follow.

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Sleeping Problems

In my last post in this series on my journey to sleep better, I talked about making a list and getting to the root of the problem.  I found that my eating habits had a lot to do with the way my body was able to shut down each evening.  Poor diet led to sleeping problems nearly every single time.

The fact is, what you put into your body has an exacting effect on how well it functions.  If you want to ditch your sleeping problems, you must be aware of what you’re eating.  When you eat a heavy meal, dripping with grease, you end up feeling tired for the remainder of the day.  If you eat too much sugar, you will see a spike in energy before feeling the inevitable crash and even the idea of healthy sleep is just a dream. 

Your body is a machine, unable to ignore the quality of the food it’s given.

Avoiding sleep problems is no different. You may think that as you sleep, your body just lies listless, but nothing could be further from the truth. Thousands of functions take place while we rest. When your body is able to engage in essential functions, sleeping problems fade like afternoon fog.  It is only at rest when our bodies are digesting, producing new cells, breathing, and even doing some of our deepest thinking.  Your body is still, efficiently working.

The fewer sleeping problems you have, the healthier you’ll feel.  

As in daytime, either your body will function well, or struggle to process the many chemicals its absorbed.  

When you eat a load of sugar before bed, your body must crash at some point during the night.  

Sleeping problems ensue. 

When I use the word crash, it is in reference to a drastic drop in blood sugar (a topic we will explore in an upcoming post).  This crash causes parts of your body to work extra hard to correct the problem; fixing the imbalance caused by an unhealthy diet.

If you long to lose sleeping problems to the past, you must understand your body.  Plane, train, or automobile, your body is the vessel that carries you everywhere.  No one knows you better than you, so only you can make the best decisions.  

Are you extra sensitive to sugar or other simple carbohydrates?  If so, you may be hypoglycemic.  Do you have a difficult time digesting meat protein?  You might want to look into other ways of getting your allotment.  Do you feel tired after a large meal?  Perhaps you should consider consuming a series of smaller meals scattered throughout the day to avoid sleeping problems.

These are just a few examples.  The point is to make sure you know what works for you.  No two people are alike, and though there are some universal truths, you must make your own adjustments to suit your specific needs for sleeping.

Problems can always be solved.  In the next post, we’ll look at some examples of what, when, and how much you should eat to help you avoid sleeping problems all together.

If I can sleep better, so can you!

Eric

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On My Way to Healthy Sleep

In the last post, I started to lay down the path of how I learned to sleep better.  I knew I had to look into my recent past to discover what had changed.  What was different, how could I fix it?  If I could find that, I would surely find some healthy sleep.

I made a list.

1. Higher stress 

2. Less exercise. 

3. More responsibility. 

4. Better diet.  (Healthy Diet = Healthy Sleep)

Of course there were more, but those were the highlights; four pillars of darkness keeping my mind’s eye unfocused and prohibiting my best rest.  If was going to sleep better, I needed to focus. 

What did I do? 

I forced myself into a regular exercise routine. This helped tremendously.  I was so encouraged by my progress, I actually believed it might be enough for me to get the healthy sleep I needed without a lot added.  

It wasn’t. 

I had merely placed my heel against the first step of a long road in front of me; a path filled with roadblocks that only ended  a in a horizon humming with healthy sleep. 

I kept exercising, every day increasingly conscious of what I was putting in my body.  I ate lighter foods and less sugar.  I was willing to do just about anything, so long as it helped me have healthy sleep.

My diet helped.  Again I believed I was just about there. 

I wasn’t, and I had a long hallway to walk before I felt healthy. 

Sleep was still a struggle.  I wasn’t falling to sleep late at night and rising far too early in the morning.  I felt anxious before bed because I knew what was waiting.  Days grew increasingly frustrating; I was exhausted, had trouble concentrating, and felt like my ADHD (which I’ve had since I was a child) was growing worse.  

Worst of all was the horrible depression I felt whenever I went wrestled through too many sleepless nights trying to find just a heartbeat’s worth of healthy sleep. 

I was confused, annoyed, and desperate for a solution. 

I never gave up.  You might remember the rest of the list; things such as rising responsibility and an increase in stress.  I took note and started searching my mind for the effect on my rest. 

When your mental state is in shambles, you cannot expect to feel healthy; sleep will suffer, night after night.  

That isn’t how our bodies work. 

I started tending to the stress areas in my life.  I wanted to see if I could change things around; perhaps go to bed with inflated peace of mind. 

I was somewhat successful, but failed to produce the significant changes I needed.  It’s not how much stress you have, but how you handle what comes that matters. 

Unfortunately, my sleep issues went nowhere, and I was still far from finding a way to have a normal healthy sleep routine. 

I re-examined my diet, digging deeper into what might be producing the results.  I was staggered when I finally realized how much I was affected by the smallest degrees of change in my diet. 

I used to believe eating healthy meant eating things like whole grains, fruits and veggies, and drinking lots of water.  This is all great for a healthy diet, but there is also much more to consider. 

I finally pieced the evidence together and developed a solution. My search was not only to sleep better, but to find resulting success in all my endeavors. 

In my next post, I’ll tell you what I found, and how it led me to healthy sleep.

If I can find healthy sleep, so can you!

Eric

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It’s Time to Sleep Better!

That’s what I told myself for the longest time before I finally decided to actually sleep better instead of just discussing it.

I’m Eric Hamm, a computer consultant living in the United States, born and raised in a university town on the East Coast.  I have many interests to keep my busy mind bouncing (other than my quest to sleep better, of course).  I grew up playing with gadgets, flying radio control airplanes, and watching MacGyver every chance I got.

It’s easy to see why I ended up with tinkering as my trade.

My other passion is health and wellness. I was a wild teenager, never giving my body the respect it deserved.  Over time, neglect took its toll and trying to sleep better was nothing more than an exercise in futility.  

After a few definitive moments in my life, I knew I needed to make some different decisions.  I made a 180 degree turn and focused on treating my body right.

I would sleep better no matter what!

I grew acutely aware of how everything I did had an effect on my body, mind and spirit.

I knew that if I wanted to sleep better, I must also put attention into my diet and physical activity.

It’s difficult to exercise without the desire to eat healthy falling immediately behind.  As soon as you see results in one area, you desperately wish to see them in another.  Often, a positive result in one aspect of your life will lead to a positive result somewhere else as well.  

Your body loves to return little favors.  Treat it well, it treats you well right back.  Neglect it, and…well, you get the idea.  If you want to sleep better, you should treat your body like a temple.

When I first got married, my wife and I were spending money fast and bringing unneeded stress into our lives.  Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t much I would have changed much.  Learning to do things better is what growing up is all about. 

What did I learn?

If I want to sleep better, I needed to think different.

It isn’t about how much stress you have, it’s about how well you handle what’s coming.  We were doing well, but the stress of my business, mortgage, and mounting responsibility began to narrow the walls around me.

I wasn’t exercising nearly as much and my diet was rolling downhill.  I didn’t have the time I was used to and when I got home at night I only wanted to sit comatose in front of TV.  My body was tired and my mind was exhausted.  

When would I ever be able to sleep better?

When I first started my struggle to sleep better, I would rise from bed in the middle of the night, wide awake and certain it would be hours before my lids would close, if they would close again at all. 

If I didn’t wake in the middle of the night, I would rise hours before the alarm, tossing and turning until finally fleeing the bed.  

On the occasions when I could force myself to lay there, often exhausted but still unable to sleep better, I would wonder what was wrong. 

I used to be a able to fall to sleep. 

Better I accept that my problems were real.  Real problems required real solutions.

The first thing I did was look behind me.  What had changed?  What in my life was different from the yesterday when getting a great night’s sleep was as easy as closing my eyes.

Tomorrow, I’ll continue writing of my journey.  

If I can sleep better, so can you!

Eric

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