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A refreshing deep sleep is nature’s inbuilt stress-reduction mechanism, something that we could all tap into more.
Most of will have nights where we struggle to fall asleep, and often this corresponds to our stress levels. Right now, many of us have been impacted by Covid-19, causing stress, anxiety, and difficulty falling asleep.
While poor sleep and stress often go hand in hand, there are ways we can learn to manage it and get a better night's rest.
How are sleep and stress related?
Stress triggers a range of reactions in our body (this is called the “stress response”) including the release of the stress hormone, "cortisol". Stress puts us into a state of hyperarousal, as if the brain and body is on high alert. Our reaction to stress is part of our survival instinct, in the wild we would want to be on high alert to survive.
To make matters worse, when we are sleep deprived our body makes more cortisol. This is because lack of sleep is perceived by our brain as a "stressor". Stressors fall into two categories: physical stressors and psychological stressors. Physical stressors include sleep deprivation, low blood sugar levels, physical injury and overly intense exercise. Psychological stressors are what we more typically associate with stress such as worrying about something. So sleep deprivation is a physical stressor, triggering the stress response and causing our body to produce more cortisol. It's a vicious circle where psychological stress causes us to be on "high alert" and therefore no sleep, and then our sleep deprivation causes us to be more stressed. High levels of cortisol also drives inflammation - too much can be bad news for our health in many ways, including our skin.
When our stress is related to modern day problems rather than true survival challenges, (e.g. a tight deadline at work vs being chased by a lion), a state of “high alert” is not useful - especially when it impacts our ability to get a good night's sleep. Looking at ways to dial the stress down, especially in the evenings, is essential for our beauty sleep and overall health.
What does stress do to our skin?
None of us want to be stuck in the stress-sleep cycle. So, what can we do to end this?
First, assess how well you are sleeping
Ask yourself the following three questions to assess your current sleep health:
1. Do you wake up feeling refreshed and energised
2. Do you wake up and the same time every day, give or take 30 minutes, without an alarm?
3. Are you able to drop off within 30 minutes of trying?
Ascribe the following points to each answer:
Never – 0 points
Occasionally – 1 points
Almost always – 2 points
A score of 0 indicates poor sleep health, whereas as a score of 6 is excellent.
How did you do?
Considering these questions gives a great snapshot of your current sleep health. It is helpful to do this before and after making any sleep enhancing lifestyle tweaks to assess your progress.
Now you know how you're doing, time to make some changes to your…
Bedtime routine:
Diet:
Nurture your adrenal and thyroid glands (hormone glands most affected by stress) by eating plenty of foods rich in these nutrients:
Sweet dreams…⚡️
Jessica Ferrari-Wells
Jessica is a London-based qualified nutritionist specialising in women's health. Having first studied psychology and neuroscience at the University of Oxford she became fascinated with how our wider health, diet and lifestyle impact our mental and physical wellbeing. Going on to work in a highly pressured corporate law environment, she experienced a deterioration in her own health and the health of her colleagues, in particular hormonal health and resilience. She went on to study and train in nutritional therapy and since qualifying has specialised in women's health, primarily hormone balance, energy, immunity, resilience, and mental wellbeing. Jessica unravels exactly what it takes to be well in the modern day - supporting her clients with clear, practical and educated advice and debunking common myths along the way.
Learn more about Jessica or get in touch with her for some personalised tips here.
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