Cherie's Sleep Tips for Your Best Sleep

1. Wind down at least one hour before going to bed. Going at high speed until you drop into bed can make it difficult to fall asleep. For most of us, the mind doesn’t just shut off in seconds. Turn off the TV, internet, and loud music at least one hour before bedtime; avoid arguments, or anything else that would keep your mind chattering when the lights go out.

2. Keep slices of turkey in the refrigerator. Turkey is rich in tryptophan, which helps us sleep. It’s an amino acid that is a precursor of the sleep-inducing substances serotonin and melatonin—the raw material the brain uses to build relaxing neurotransmitters.

3. Keep your feet warm in winter. Wearing socks to bed can help. One study shows that warming your feet at night reduces nighttime awakenings.

4. Take magnesium and calcium supplements. When your calcium is low, you can have trouble falling asleep. When magnesium is too low, you can wake up in the night and not be able to go back to sleep. Magnesium supplementation has also been found to be effective therapy for restless leg syndrome. Magnesium has a sedating effect on the nervous system, and it’s one of the nutrients frequently deficient in the American diet. You should take these minerals in a 2:1 ratio of calcium to magnesium before bed. For example, if you take 300 mg of calcium, take 150 mg of magnesium. The most absorbable form is calcium citrate and magnesium citrate. See the supplement section for our recommended brand of calcium and magnesium.

5. Avoid stimulating foods and substances like nicotine, caffeine, and sweets, especially in the evening. For some people, these substances can keep them up most of the night. And though alcohol is a sedative, once the effects wear off, it can have the reverse effect during the night, causing frequent awakenings.

6. Take B Complex. The B vitamins are known to have a sedative effect on the nerves. Vitamin B6 can help to prevent insomnia. Vitamin B12 and pantothenic acid (B5) are helpful for insomnia and pantothenic acid is good for relieving stress. Inositol enhances REM sleep. See the supplement section for a recommendation for a very effective brand of B complex—Co Enzyme B Complex.

7. Mix 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of Celtic sea salt in hot water. Drink this about a half hour before going to bed; it tastes a bit like a broth. Celtic sea salt is rich in minerals that can help you sleep well.

8. Improve your adrenal function. Overreacting or malfunctioning adrenals can pump out high levels of adrenal hormones in the evening or at bedtime, just when you should be winding down and getting ready to sleep. But instead, you feel like taking on a new project. Or, they can start pumping hormones in the middle of the night and wake you up; you may not be able to return to sleep. Adrenogen is a supplement that can help restore balance to the adrenal glands. See the supplement section for more information on Adrenogen.

9. Bring balance to your life. Stress in the form of worry or anxiety, a harried schedule, or an unhealthy lifestyle can cause sleepless nights. Take the Life Balance Quiz at sleepawaythepounds.com to find out how balanced your life is.

10. Improve your thyroid function. When thyroid function is low, you can feel sleepy during the day but experience insomnia at night; you’ll also find it difficult to lose weight. Improving your thyroid function can make a world of difference in your quality of sleep as well as your ability to lose weight. Our program on Thyroid Health (The Coconut Diet) has been very useful for thousands of people in improving thyroid function as well as weight loss. Also, the supplement Thyrosol can be a helpful adjunct to our program. See the Supplement section for more information on Thyrosol.

Why Aren’t People Sleeping?

Is there is a correlation between the 65 percent of Americans that are overweight and the 63 percent, that according to the National Sleep Foundation in Washington, D.C., say they do not get the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night? A growing number of sleep researchers assert that there is.

In our frenzy to experience it all, get it all done, manage our universe, and not let a moment escape us, we’re missing out on one of life’s most important necessities—a good night’s sleep. People are the only animals to voluntarily ignore their sleep needs.

Since the mid-1960s, the rate of obesity in the United States has nearly tripled to one in three adults. Over the same period, the U.S. population has deducted, on average, more than an hour from their nightly slumber and about two hours since 1910, when the average person slept 9 hours a night. According to the National Sleep Foundation, people in the United States sleep an average of 6.9 hours on weeknights, (that’s about 2 hours less than they did a century ago), and 7.5 hours on weekends. A whopping one-third of our population sleeps 6.5 or fewer hours nightly—far less than the 8 hours that many sleep-specialists recommend.

So what’s keeping us awake?

1. Some people think sleeping is a waste of time.

2. The work ethic for some people makes sleeping appear to be a lazy person’s pastime. For others, it’s almost a badge of honor to say they got by on 5 or 6 hours sleep a night.

3. Too much to do, some say, and not enough time to do it. With good time management, many people could get the things done that are necessary in the hours allotted, and still get to bed at a healthy hour.

4. There is the belief that staying up late burns more calories. Is this true? Sleep researchers say that it’s not. Actually, we typically burn a limited number of calories (like only about 50 in several hours) in the late evening.

5. Some people have an endocrine system that’s out of whack. Stress can cause the adrenal glands to start pumping cortisol (the wake up hormone!) in the middle of the night or at bedtime, just when they should be relaxing and falling asleep.