Why Sleep Is As Important As Your Diet

Sleep is one of the best things you can do from a self care perspective but as a mum it’s also one of the areas that is most likely to be neglected, certainly not by choice but because your children’s sleep patterns guide yours. 

The recommended amount of shut eye is eight hours a night (preferably more!) but lots of us are falling far short of this and it’s having a massive impact on almost every aspect of wellbeing, from health to weight. You can live healthily in every other area of your life but unfortunately, it’s probably not going to do much to counteract the damaging effects of poor sleep habits.

Here’s a lack at why getting enough sleep is so crucial for your health and wellbeing, and why diet alone can’t undo the effects of not sleeping well.

Sleep Duration Versus Sleep Quality

We’re always being told how many hours we should be sleeping each night but is it definitely enough even if we can manage to achieve it?

Sleep quality refers to how well we sleep and is a completely different prospect to how long we sleep.  It’s pretty easy to tell how long you sleep but the quality of it is a bit harder to determine.

Poor sleep quality means that you’re not sleeping in line with your circadian rhythm or going through all of the important sleep phases (particularly with REM sleep).

Some of the signs that your sleep quality isn’t as good as it could be include:

• Waking up during the night.
• Not waking up naturally e.g. you have to be abruptly awoken by your alarm clock or kids most mornings.

Sleep and Health

What exactly does your body experience when you don’t get enough sleep? Pretty much everything is affected but here are some of the more serious effects that poor

sleep patterns can have on your health:

• Lower immunity. If you seem to get every cough and cold going, your sleep habits may be to blame. In one study, researchers deliberately exposed people to the common cold virus to see how likely they were to go onto develop a cold. Participants who had been sleeping for less than 7 hours per night had lower immunity and were almost 3 times more likely to be impacted. Even a small sleep debt has been linked to lower immunity.

• Higher risk of heart disease and stroke. Studies have looked at the link between lack of sleep and developing heart disease and stroke and it’s a scary connection. Getting less than 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night means a higher chance of developing Coronary Heart Disease or having a stroke – and dying from it.

• Higher risk of diabetes. A sleep debt can pave the way for developing  Type 2 diabetes.  In this study, just a week of not sleeping well reduced insulin sensitivity and raised concerns about whether consistently sleeping badly might open the door to developing health issues linked to insulin resistance.

• Increased inflammation. Inflammation is now linked to lots of different health problems and can be increased by sleep loss.

Sleep and Cognition

You’ve no doubt heard that eating the right foods can boost your brain health but it’s not just diet can affect your memory and concentration.

Sleep is an important factor too, and lack of sleep has been shown to impair them. In fact, one study has suggested that even moderate sleep issues can be as damaging as alcohol in affecting performance!

The deeper stages of sleep are particularly vital when it comes to clear thinking, focus, memory and learning. This is when your brain does a lot of its mental ‘sorting’, such as filtering out information that isn’t really needed right now. It doesn’t sound a lot but it all adds up to better cognition and performance.

Sleep and Weight Gain

If you don’t sleep well, it can be a lot harder to maintain a healthy weight. The main problem? It sends your metabolism a little bit crazy and can ruin your good intentions for eating well.

Lack of sleep has a big effect on hormones that are linked to appetite – namely leptin and ghrelin. Leptin helps to keep your appetite in check while ghrelin does the opposite.

Ideally, you want to have more leptin and less ghrelin but not getting enough sleep throws this balance out and effectively switches them around. This means you’re a lot more likely to overeat, even when you’re technically full. And you’ll find it harder to shift stubborn fat on your stomach, as sleep deprivation encourages fat to build up in this area in particular.

Improving Your Sleep Quality

Some of the things you can do to try to get better quality sleep each night include:

• Making your room as dark as possible to support your circadian rhythm. Pitch black (or as close to it as you can get) is best.

• Get outside and get some sunshine during the day. Natural sunlight or bright light throughout the day helps keep your circadian rhythm healthy. This improves daytime energy and nighttime sleep quality.

• Setting a bedtime routine that involves going to bed at the same time every night and getting up at a specific time each morning.

• Switching off electronic devices at least an hour before bed (even your phone!) to reduce the amount of ‘blue light’ you’re exposed to just before bedtime.  This ‘blue light’ means your body finds it harder to produce enough of the sleep hormone, melatonin, to help you sleep well.

• Listen to a guided meditation in bed to relax your body and calm your mind.

• Use an aromatherapy diffuser in your room. Lavender and jasmine oils are scientifically proven to make you fall asleep faster and sleep deeper.

• Limit caffeine in the afternoon. Although it can be tempting to have that extra coffee during the afternoon slump the burst it provides you just isn’t worth the effect it can have on your falling asleep.

• If you are getting up through the night to feed or comfort your child and 7-8 hours per night just isn’t an option, please know that this will change in time, even though it may not feel like it now. Be kind to yourself, if you need and are able to, allow yourself that 20-minute power nap to re-charge and re-energise. The washing, the bills, the emails, that phone call… they can all wait, but your wellbeing cannot. If you want to be the best version of yourself for your family, it is a necessity.

If you haven’t been seeing sleep as a key part of your wellness routine, it’s definitely time to change that! How well do you sleep?

Comment below I’d love to know more about your situation.