Sleep is an immensely complex mechanism that impacts all our bodily systems. Our physical, mental, and emotional health are all tied to our sleep.
Not sleeping well contributes to every chronic disease, especially neurological disorders, because the brain can only detox during deep sleep.
The quality of our sleep is just as important as, if not more important than, how much sleep we get.
In this article, we’ll examine what sleep is, how it works, the different systems it affects, and what it means to get “good quality sleep.” We’ll also look at ways to improve sleep quality, including powerful herbal supplements that can help bridge the gap between poor sleep until persistent lifestyle changes and root cause resolution take their effect.
Why Sleep?
Good health requires balance. Sleep is the restful yin to the activity-filled yang of our waking life.
Just like exercise breaks down muscle tissue to stimulate growth and requires rest for that growth to occur; sleep is required to benefit from the activity of the day.
We need it to help fully process and benefit from everything we have taken in during the day, including food, sunlight, and information. Part of that process includes the pruning of old cells via autophagy and the elimination of the waste products of digestion and metabolism. Part of it includes building and rebuilding what has been damaged by exposure to all the stressors of life.
How Does Sleep Work?
There are four distinct stages of sleep. The first three stages fall under the category of non-REM (NREM) sleep.
NREM Stage 1 or N1 usually lasts about 1-5 minutes. In this stage, our heart rate, breathing, and brain activity begin to slow down. Our body temperature also drops during this stage of sleep.
NREM Stage 2 or N2 lasts anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. In this stage, your muscles become more relaxed, and delta-wave brain activity can begin.
Delta waves are the slowest brain waves that have been observed in human beings. Delta waves are associated with immune health, natural rejuvenation, and healing.
It is much easier to be awoken during these first two stages of sleep.
NREM Stage 3 or N3 is a deeper stage of sleep that usually lasts around 20-40 minutes. Delta wave activity increases during this stage, and you become much harder to wake. This stage is the most restorative phase of sleep.
Finally, REM sleep is the stage of sleep where we experience dreams. Most of the muscles in our body become temporarily paralyzed during REM sleep.
The purpose of this paralyzation is to protect us from acting out our dreams during sleep. We can see the dangers of acting out dreams in cases of people who suffer from disorders like sleepwalking. The two exceptions are the muscles that control our breathing and eye movement. REM sleep is understood to be essential to cognitive functions such as memory, learning, and creativity. REM sleep lasts from 10-60 minutes per cycle.
We typically cycle between these four stages between 4 to 6 times per night.
How Our Bodies Regulate Sleep
Our bodies regulate sleep using two main systems-
Sleep-wake homeostasis: The basic principle is that the longer you remain awake, the more tired you become. In contrast, the better you sleep, the more energy you have, especially immediately after waking, with your energy levels steadily tapering off towards the end of the day. Consequently, the more sleep we lose, the more our body tries to compensate with a longer sleep cycle the next time we do fall asleep. This concept may seem obvious, but it is actually a rather elegant homeostatic system.
Circadian Rhythm: This is our body’s inner clock. It operates on a roughly 24-hour cycle. It’s what makes us want to sleep when it’s dark and wake up when it’s light. Many different factors can dysregulate our circadian rhythm. These include:
- Irregular Work Schedules
- Travel
- Excessive Exposure to any color of Bright light or even dim Blue Light, Especially Right Before Bedtime (present in LEDs, fluorescent lights, and electronic screens)
- Illness
- Mental or Emotional Distress
- Pregnancy
-
Environmental Toxins
Consequences of Poor Sleep
When we don’t get enough sleep, or the sleep we do get is of low quality, it can seriously affect our health and well-being. Some consequences include:
- Compromised Immune System
- Weight Gain or Loss
- Increased Risk of Diabetes
- Heart disease
- Mental Health Problems
- Hormone Imbalances
- Impaired Mental Function
- Mood Changes
These are just to name a few. Since sleep is tied to every system in our body, the list could go on and on. The bottom line is that getting enough good quality sleep is crucial to our overall health.
What Constitutes Good Quality Sleep?
By now, you may be asking yourself what exactly “good sleep” means. Let’s examine that.
Even if you get a full 8-10 hours of sleep, but you’re tossing and turning all night, you may have been better off with a shorter sleep cycle that included more restful sleep.
Spending enough time in each of the previously discussed four stages of sleep is key to getting a good night’s rest. The following are the main characteristics of high-quality sleep:
- You typically fall asleep within 30 minutes of getting into bed.
- Throughout the night, you generally sleep without interruption, waking up no more than once.
- Your sleep duration aligns with the recommended hours for your age group.
- If you do happen to wake up during the night, you can usually fall back asleep within 20 minutes.
- Upon waking in the morning, you feel refreshed, revitalized, and ready for the day ahead.
- You remain energetic throughout the day, though some people may naturally need a brief midday nap.
Lacking any one of these may mean something is disrupting your sleep quality.
Good Sleep Hygiene
Now that we understand what quality sleep is and why it’s so important to get enough sleep let's look at some simple practices we can follow to improve our sleep quality.
Experts call this Sleep Hygiene, and just like a normal hygiene routine, it’s hard to stress just how essential it is to follow these guidelines as closely as possible.
Make your bed a place for sleep and rest.
This means not eating in bed, watching TV, using your phone, or playing video games. Even reading a book can send the wrong message to your brain. Humans are creatures of habit, and it’s important to train our brains to think that getting into bed means sleeping! This also means that if you don’t fall asleep within 15 minutes, you get out of bed and go sit somewhere else until you feel tired again. Then, you go back and give it another try.
Maintain a cool, dark, and quiet environment in your bedroom.
Set the AC or thermostat at or around 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit. Use blackout curtains and eliminate any flashing lights or LED indicators. Use a fan or white noise machine.
Maintain a consistent sleep schedule.
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, whether it's a weekday or not. Moreover, sleep time should be within 1-2 hrs of sunset. Wake time should be between dawn and sunrise. If you need more sleep, it’s best to get it in the early afternoon if possible. If not, then try to move your sleep time earlier and wake time a bit later, but you need to wake up in time to get bright outdoor light exposure for 30 minutes before 10 am.
Spend at least 30 minutes to an hour outdoors in the sun each day
This is especially good early in the morning before 10 am, but it is best to also do so midday and late afternoon (this is the bare minimum, and more is better). This will help maintain your circadian rhythm even if your job, illness, or other factors usually keep you indoors.
Develop a relaxing bedtime routine after sunset
This should not include “consumption” of light, food, music, information, etc. Instead, take a warm bath, stretch, meditate, pray, etc.
Avoid alcohol and caffeine
First, do this until your sleep is rock solid, and then limit intake to levels that do not interfere with optimal sleep quality, and avoid exposure to bright or blue lights after sunset, or if that’s impossible, then at least for an hour before bedtime. Once again, this means no phones, tablets, computers, video games, or TV in bed. Ideally, you should shut off and put away all electronics before you even begin your bedtime routine.
Sleep on grounded bed sheets that are pure cotton, preferably organic (e.g., groundluxe.com)
Grounding improves sleep quality, and natural fibers do as well. Polyester and other unnatural fibers lead to increased positive charges on the skin and in the airways that interfere with the body’s zeta potential and cause inflammation.
Recenter and rebalance yourself throughout the day so that stress doesn’t get the better of you.
This can mean different things to different people, e.g., breathwork, meditation, stretching, and other relaxing and stress-relieving activities. It's best to link these to something you already do, like waking up, having a meal, coming home from work, and getting ready for bed.
Research shows that following these guidelines strictly for a few weeks will fix 99% of sleep problems, especially the lighting rules.
All-Natural Sleep Aids
Finally, let’s look at some powerful natural sleep aids that can help bridge the divide between disordered and healthy sleep when there is a predisposing medical condition that creates insomnia particularly resistant to the above lifestyle changes. It’s important to note that tasting the herbs is the most effective way of stimulating their effects, rather than swallowing them in capsules. And if they aren’t helping, it’s either because the dose is too low or they aren’t potent enough.
Mulungu Bark
Mulungu Bark is the single most powerful sleep supplement I have ever come across. Its effect is as strong as prescription sleep medications. Mulungu is an ornamental tree native to Brazil. It is known for its attractive red flowers. The seeds are very toxic— even deadly. In fact, indigenous Amazon tribes use the seeds as insecticides and fish poisons. On the other hand, the leaves and bark of the Mulungu tree are safe to consume, have a strong sedative effect, and can be used to lower blood pressure and powerfully treat insomnia, anxiety, and depression. You can boil the bark directly in water to make a tea that tastes somewhat like aniseed.
Like all herbs, tasting it in this way (rather than swallowing it in a capsule) is the most effective route of administration. The bark is not usually readily available in North America. It is more commonly sold in South America and Europe, but we’ve managed to source a highly concentrated 20:1 extract now available at mygotostack.com.
mygotostack TRANQUILITY [mulungu max] is made from a highly purified and concentrated extract of mulungu bark. This supplement is among the first of its kind in the U.S. Our 20:1 extract condenses 20 parts of raw mulungu bark into 1 part powder concentrate for maximum potency. We pack 700 milligrams of the concentrated powder into veggie capsules for easy and convenient uptake and dosing. However, we recommend emptying the capsules into 4-8 ounces of hot water to brew a tea with even more potent effects.
Valerian Root
Valerian Root is a flowering herb native to Europe and parts of Asia. It can grow over six feet tall and has a strong odor that some find unpleasant. Its use as a sedative dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times. Valerian can be consumed as a tea, which is the most effective route of administration, but many prefer to take it in capsule form due to the odor.
Chamomile
Chamomile is a flowering herb in the daisy family. It has been used in traditional medicine since as early as 1550 B.C.E. by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks. It is well known for its nerve-calming and sedative effects. Most people take it as a tea. It has a slightly floral and honey-like flavor.
Melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone. The Human brain normally produces melatonin in response to darkness. It helps regulate our circadian rhythm so we can sleep at night. Melatonin affects more than just our sleep cycle. At high doses, it has a powerful anti-inflammatory effect, and interestingly, there does not appear to be any toxicity at any dose in humans. Further research is needed to define its role fully. Certain factors, such as exposure to too much blue light at night, can disrupt our brain’s natural melatonin production. Melatonin supplements are available in tablet, capsule, and gummy forms. These supplements are usually synthesized in a lab from tryptophan. However, it can also be derived from microorganisms and animals.
The highest quality melatonin supplements are typically derived from tart cherry juice. Some other natural sources of melatonin include nuts, fish, milk, eggs, and Goji berries. As with all hormones, caution is advised for long-term use.
Putting It All Together
In conclusion, getting enough good quality sleep is essential to your overall health. To that end, developing and maintaining good sleep hygiene is the best place to begin to improve your sleep. However, even the best sleep hygiene won’t necessarily be enough if you suffer from a medically induced sleep disorder.
Consult a professional if necessary (look for one who addresses the root causes, e.g., mygotodoc.com/hakim), and be sure to ask about which natural sleep aids may be best suited to you. Finally, don’t let getting enough good sleep become an afterthought or something you don’t prioritize.
Ultimately, ensuring quality sleep will make a huge difference in your health, longevity, mood, and overall quality of life.
