SLEEP

“Good sleep requires fairly vigorous metabolism and a normal body temperature. In old age, the metabolic rate is decreased, and sleep becomes defective.” -Ray Peat

Sleep issues have become a big health problem in America and now a big business never to cure the problem. I know so many people on sleeping pills and so many that have been in sleep studies and plenty now sleeping hooked up to machines. I had suffered in silence since my early twenties, even having sleepwalking issues back then. Back then it took hours to get to sleep, and in my later years I could fall asleep easy, but then I would be wide awake not too many hours later. I never snored, but in my early years I was underweight and never ate sugar, honey or fruit. In my later years I was still not eating any sugar sources and had a few pounds to lose.

“This view of sleep is consistent with observations that disturbed sleep is associated with obesity, and that the torpor-hibernation chemical, serotonin, powerfully interferes with learning.” -Ray Peat

I never really knew what to do about my sleep issues, but I sure wasn’t signing up for the domino effect of sleeping pills and the new set of issues those bring. My sleep was at it’s worst when I was dealing with histamine intolerance. I would would wake energetic in the middle of the night. In my early days of reading Ray Peats articles I read that caffeine, sugar and salt are natural antihistamines. So one of those energetic middle of the nights I tried a sweetened FORTO coffee shot and  it put me back to sleep!

“Salty and sugary foods taken at bedtime, or during the night, help to improve the quality and duration of sleep. Both salt and sugar lower the adrenalin level, and both tend to raise the body temperature.“ -Ray Peat

Though the caffeine and sugar helped me many nights I finally decided to get to the bottom of why I couldn’t stay asleep or sleep long enough. So I conducted an experiment a couple of years ago on the Ray Peat Forum and found answers to what I was doing wrong or what I could be doing right to fix my sleep issue.

“I suspect that nocturnal sleep has the special function of minimizing the stress of darkness itself, and that it has subsidiary functions, including its now well confirmed role in the consolidation and organization of memory.” -Ray Peat

By the end of my experiment I was sleeping a straight uninterrupted eight hours and waking up refreshed. Here is the important thing I do now…

1. Do not eat meat in the evening meal, 5 to 6 hours before sleep. The liver is important in regulating sleep and it shuts down for sleep when it’s job digesting is done. Meat takes on the average 5 to 6 hours to digest, and even longer for some with poor digestion. Eat carbs and fats at night for sleep, eggs, cheese, and other dairy. I find shellfish to be good too for sleep, like crab legs and butter, shrimp and scallops too. Zinc is very good for deep sleep.

2. I leave a nightlight on, so if I wake in the night the darkness doesn’t prompts a stress response.

3. I prepare myself for sleep taking a spoonful of raw honey before bed to keep my liver from waking if it’s glycogen stores happen to run out before my eight hours of sleep are in.

4. I run my bedroom air filter at night. The light hum of the machine covers the stark stillness of the night where every little slight sound was capturing my attention. Also I would wake in the mornings and sometimes in the night with congestion before I started using an air filter while sleeping. The congestion alone was a reason for me not sleeping well the last stretch of the early morning hours. I don’t have any congestion in the mornings anymore now.

5. I quit watching television before bedtime in September of 2022. Most of us know that the television and computer screens are interruptive to our brain waves. If I do happen on a rare occasion to watch a tv program at night I make sure to turn off the television an hour before going to sleep and read instead, or busy myself with little tasks or talk on my telephone landline to a friend.

6. Lastly I have found a 5 minute warm foot soak, with me sitting on the side of the bathtub with my feet in a little tub of warm water works wonders. I don’t take a bath because I am allergic to fluoride and skin is good at soaking anything and everything into the blood stream. Adding some Epsom salt to my foot soak is even better because of the magnesium.

“Increased body temperature improves sleep, especially the deep slow wave sleep. A hot bath, or even warming the feet, has the same effect as thyroid in improving sleep.” -Ray Peat