Sleep Restoration

Deep sleep is one of the most important factors in wellbeing. It ranks up there with staying well hydrated and breathing air. Restore deep sleep and you are reducing long term disease risk factors across the board, from Alzheimer’s to heart disease to musculoskeletal decline, or any form of premature aging or deterioration you can name. If you are already someone who can sleep deeply and feel well rested in the morning, count your blessings! Also, do not feel guilty about sleeping in or sleeping a lot, if you can. You are not wasting your life. You are ensuring that you will live a long life.

It’s not easy to sleep well. Most people need help, especially with our busy lives, connections to our computers and phones, and exposure to light and EMFs into and through the night. Do what you can and use common sense to avoid the lifestyle pitfalls that are going to make it harder for you to sleep. When you are tired, go to sleep! Don’t push it or make extra efforts to get things done unless you absolutely have to. Get good sleep and tomorrow will be a better, more productive day.

Besides the lifestyle choices you can make, consider that there are many other factors that we can help you with in the realm of sleep. Hormones in both men and women play a big role. Not just melatonin, though certainly that is the hormone involved in circadian rhythms, and important to nurture. But adrenal hormones, thyroid, and estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone all need to be balanced for good sleep. In menopause for women, or “andropause” for men, bioidentical hormones can be literally a sleep lifesaver.

Supplements can make a huge difference as well. There are a number of supplements that are gentle and tolerable and don’t knock you out or make you groggy the next day, but can make a huge difference, such as theanine, GABA, botanicals (such as lemon balm, lavender, and passionflower), magnesium, melatonin, and more. When needed, it is important to find the right one, or combination, that fits for you.

As with all other things, diet also plays an important role. When you are living on sugar, carbs, or junk food, or drinking too much alcohol, sleep will suffer. We have seen patients who were waking up reliably at 2 am every morning, sometimes in a cold sweat, proceed to be shocked when they sleep through the night once they give up sugar for example.

Sometimes pharmaceuticals are necessary of course. Sleep is just too important to not be able to sleep at all. We can recommend the best choices when needed. But not only are there many natural options to restore deep authentic sleep, these natural approaches also can often help reduce the need for pharmaceuticals or allow you to wean off.

We are experts at sleep here at MD Integrative and place the utmost importance in helping you with it, so if this is one of your issues, you are coming to the right place!