17 Life-Changing Sleep Solutions You Need To Build Your Healing & Wellness Foundation

Light information into the eye receptors and relayed to your internal clock allows your brain to determine the time of day via specific characteristics of light from sunrise and sunset. Therefore, light from sunrise and sunset are potent signals that help your brain and body establish a healthy circadian rhythm that activates energizing systems during the day and promotes restfulness at night. 

• Please avoid painful light viewing as this signals retina damage. 
• There is no need to stare directly into the sun; looking in the direction of the sun is an adequate viewing behavior to get photons into eye receptors. 
• If you can not get light into the eyes at these times, light viewing is still helpful; just aim to get as close to these times as possible. 

The absence of light activates your internal source of melatonin to enable healthy sleep onset. As it gets darker outside, eye sensitivity to light increases. Therefore, even small amounts of light at night will suppress melatonin, making it difficult to fall asleep. Lights on the blue spectrum such as LEDS, bright lights, and overhead lights are the most detrimental as light receptors in the eye view the upper visual field. 

• You can wear a hat or sunglasses in places with bright lights at night. 😎
• Utilize blue light-blocking glasses. Red-tinted lenses block more blue light than non-tinted.

Light from fire, such as candlelight, and red lights that are very dim will not disrupt melatonin.

• You can change your device screens to red using your device’s color filter settings and turn brightness to a minimum if you need to utilize them after dark.
• Use candlelight, red bulbs, and dim lights low in the visual field such as outlet plug-in lamps as light sources at night.

Once light information is communicated to your internal clock, also known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus(SCN), the SCN signals the rest of your body to align its circadian system. Your core temperature, a key component of your circadian system, then aligns accordingly with the time of day.  This generates a temperature rhythm that generally rises in the morning, peaks in the afternoon, and falls as night approaches reaching its minimum in the early morning hours. When body temperature rises, we tend to feel more awake, while a decrease in body temperature tends to make us feel sleepy. 

• We can increase wakefulness by increasing core temperature more rapidly. 
• Influencing core temperature to drop more rapidly can increase sleepiness.
• Exposing your body to hot or cold conditions can influence these temperature fluctuations.

Promoting an early rise in core temperature can be energizing and sets in motion an ideal temperature rhythm that will support healthy sleep later on.

• Significantly increase core temperature with any heart-rate-elevating exercise. 
• Eating slightly elevates core temperature by activating your metabolism. 
• Try a few minutes of cold exposure such as a cold shower, dipping your face in ice water, or a cold plunge. Once removed from cold your core temperature will heat to compensate. 

*Prolonged cold exposure can lower core temperature and stress the body. Any extreme cold exposure is potentially harmful to those predisposed to stress conditions. Listen to your body, consult a healthcare practitioner, and experiment with caution. *

Your body’s thermostat mechanism also works with heat. Because external heat exposure brings blood to the skin’s surface, your core temperature will drop. Accelerating this drop in temperature promotes sleepiness.

• Take a hot bath or shower.
• Use a low emf heating pad.
• Do a sauna session.

To fall asleep, your body temperature must drop by 2-3 degrees Fahrenheit and maintain a cool temperature to stay asleep throughout the night. An increase in body temperature across the night will result in conscious or unconscious waking, preventing deep sleep. 

• Keep your room cold, studies show around 67 degrees Fahrenheit is generally ideal.
• Wear breathable sleepwear.
• Use breathable bedding such as bamboo sheets & muslin cotton blankets in layers that can be easily removed as needed.
• Try cooling devices such as a cooling fan or a cooling mattress pad.

If you are meeting your sleep need duration and still feel tired it may be because you are unknowingly experiencing respiratory disturbances (RDI) throughout the night and thus not getting quality sleep. I went through treatment with a dental device called Vivos in conjunction with myofunctional therapy which opened up airways and reduced my RDIs greatly. I used to sleep 12 hours a night and still wake up tired, since doing this treatment I now need less sleep and wake up feeling rested & energized. 

• Find a practitioner by searching for craniofacial dental sleep medicine in your area or using the Vivos website.
• Conduct a sleep study to check your RDI, these can now be done at home with a simple ring device.
• Utilize an air purifier.
• Clean your mattress & bedding with a HEPA bed vacuum.
• Use mouth tape, breathe right strips, or microbiome-friendly nasal spray to aid healthy nasal breathing. 
• Try this non-toxic version of Vicks – Eucalyptus chest rub.

Caffeine has a long half-life, meaning that half the amount of caffeine you consume will still circulate in your brain and body up to 6 hours after consumption. Caffeine makes us feel awake by blocking adenosine, a compound in our brain that signals our need for sleep. By consuming caffeine early in the day & lowering caffeine intake, we can give our brain and body enough time to completely clear out caffeine so that adenosine can signal our need for sleep and allow us to fall asleep easily. Even if you are the type of person who can drink caffeine in the evening and still have no trouble falling asleep, high amounts of caffeine in your system will harm sleep quality.

• Switch to non-caffeinated beverages 10-12 hours before your desired sleep time. 
• Try no-caffeine alternatives such as teccinos, this chai blend, or dandy blend. 
• Drink lower-caffeine beverages such as matcha, cacao, chai lattes, london fog, low-caffeine coffee, decaf coffee, green tea, or black tea.

Studies show that compounds such as alcohol & THC, can greatly impact our sleep quality and have harmful effects on health. However, there are plenty of healthy alternatives that do not disrupt sleep quality. In place of weed and alcohol, you can try mood-enhancing mocktails, tinctures, and even herbal smoke blends. 

• Experiment with botanical concentrates such as this euphoria elixir, the social elixir, or mood juice & mix with your favorite mixers. 
• Try pre-made mocktails like kin euphorics. I like the spritz, bloom, and lightwave drinks (be sure to check caffeine content).
• Make the switch to healthier herbal smoking blends like this relaxing botanical smoking blend.
• Check out different options from companies like Kin Euphorics, Three Spirit, Apothekary, Little Saints, Ghia, and Anima Mundi.

Implementing healthy habits such as the ones in this post can significantly reduce the need for sleeping pills. If you still need additional help studies have found supplements & compounds in foods that are both helpful sleeping aids & have not been shown to disrupt sleep quality. While these options are safer to experiment with, consult your healthcare practitioner to figure out what’s safe for you as all compounds can have side effects which you can check on examine.com.

• Try different bioavailable forms of magnesium such as threonate or glycinate until you find one that works best for you. Liquid forms work best for me and I get good results with this magnesium glycinate.
• Drink tart cherry juice which has been shown to increase sleep time by 60-90 minutes in studies and reduce time awake in bed. 
• Make a sleepy girl mocktail using tart cherry juice, magnesium powder, and sparkling water. 
• Eat whole kiwis with the skin to decrease the time it takes to fall asleep. One study showed participants who ate two kiwis before bed improved their sleep quality & duration, with a 35% reduction in time to fall asleep. 

Cathartic activities help you release emotions & relieve stress by activating your parasympathetic nervous system & lowering cortisol. When done in the evening, they can reduce overthinking & anxiety to help you more easily unwind & go into relaxation mode to prepare for a good night’s sleep. When we engage in mentally stimulating activities like watching TV, working, or phone scrolling, we can increase stress & anxiety and spike adrenaline & cortisol, making it difficult to relax and disrupting sleep quality.

• Write down all your thoughts or worries an hour or two before bed as it can decrease the time it takes to fall asleep by 50%.
• Try Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) or “tapping” such as the 9 EFT tapping points or natural bio-destressing. EFT can be highly effective for stress as shown in one study where PTSD diagnosis was removed from 86% of participants after just six sessions.
• Practice sleep-inducing breathwork such as the 4-7-8 method (in for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, out for 8 seconds) or the 4-6 method (in for 4 seconds, out for 6 seconds) to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. 
• Listen to relaxing guided meditations such as yoga nidra (yogic sleep) or sleep hypnosis audio tracks.
• Try different types of somatic therapy like EMDR or HBLU to release any blocks around sleep. 
• Create a wind-down routine to send signals to your brain and body to decompress, like playing relaxing music or sounds, lighting candles, taking a hot bath, and putting on comfy pajamas.

Our bodies optimally hydrate during the first 10 hours of the day which you can learn all about in my post on hydration. After this, we want to reduce liquid consumption to prevent nighttime bathroom trips for uninterrupted deep sleep. 

• Try to drink only 5oz of liquid or less after the first 10 hours of your day or a couple of hours before bed.

Everybody reacts to periods of fasting differently depending on age, gender, health status, etc. Fasting long periods such as overnight can result in stress on the body or low blood sugar and cause sleep disruptions from spikes in cortisol. If you wake up throughout the night in a stressed state it may be a sign your body needs some extra glucose before bed. 

• Have a snack before bed with glucose & protein combined to blunt blood sugar spikes. 
• Try snacks like Greek yogurt with berries, chia seed pudding, apples & cheese, or banana & nut butter.

Your chronotype is your genetically engrained sleep pattern which ranges from being an early bird to a night owl. Knowing your most natural sleep pattern will outline your optimal sleep window. The more we align with this window, the more we can improve sleep quality and boost daytime productivity. 

• You can take an online quiz to reveal your chronotype.
• Try to match your sleep & wake times according to your chronotype.

Gathering your sleep data will help you more easily identify variables that affect your sleep quality. By having the data in front of us we give ourselves the proof needed to stick to the habits that help us get the best sleep.

• Use sleep trackers like an ultrahuman ring, oura ring, whoop, or other smart devices that show your sleep statistics.

CBT-I is the most effective behavioral therapy that implements lifestyle habits such as the ones mentioned above with the help of a therapist to improve sleep quality. Numerous clinical studies done all around the globe have shown CBT-I to be consistently successful and even more effective than sleeping pills. Some of the popular techniques used in this method are limiting or cutting out caffeine, training the mind and body to wind down, and purging the sleep environment of screens. 

• Visit sleepfoundation.org to find resources for CBT-I.