Tag: sleep

Cortisol and Melatonin: The Yin and Yang of Your Circadian Rhythm

by JMReflex, posted in Acupuncture

In the quiet rhythm of day and night, two powerful hormones guide our daily flow: cortisol and melatonin. These hormones play a crucial role in maintaining our body’s natural rhythm; you could think of them as the Yin and Yang of our circadian cycle: distinct in nature but working in harmony to help us feel balanced, focused, and rested.

Understanding their roles can help you align with your body’s natural flow, fostering better health and more restful sleep.

Cortisol: The Active Yang of the Day

Often labelled as the stress hormone, cortisol is essential for us to function properly, especially in the morning. It naturally rises when we wake up, helping to energize the body, sharpen focus, and prepare us for the day ahead. This is the Yang energy: active, outward, and purposeful.

Cortisol levels peak shortly after we wake up and begin to decline as the day progresses, supporting our ability to stay alert, handle stress, and perform tasks efficiently. Without sufficient cortisol, we may feel sluggish and less motivated in the morning; it’s as if we can’t quite get going.

Melatonin: The Restful Yin

As the sun begins to set, melatonin enters the scene: the Yin to cortisol’s Yang. Melatonin is often called the sleep hormone, but its job goes beyond just helping us fall asleep. It’s about inviting the body to slow down, repair, and rejuvenate during the night. When melatonin is released as daylight fades, it encourages us to rest, reduce our mental chatter, and prepare for the restorative sleep our bodies need to stay healthy.

Just as cortisol rises with daylight, melatonin rises when it gets dark. It acts as a signal that it’s time to let go and settle into rest, nurturing our recovery and internal restoration.

The Delicate Balance: Why It Matters

The relationship between cortisol and melatonin is delicate. These two hormones need to remain in a balanced dance throughout the day for you to feel your best. If cortisol remains high into the evening – perhaps due to stress, artificial light, or late-night stimulation – melatonin struggles to rise, and sleep may be disrupted. Over time, this throws the entire rhythm off course.

When this happens, it can interfere with your body’s natural recovery during sleep; affecting your energy, mood, and overall health.

Supporting Your Natural Cycle: Simple Practices for Balance

To maintain the delicate balance between cortisol and melatonin, it’s important to align your daily habits with the natural rhythms of your body. Here are a few practices to help keep your hormones in harmony:

  • Seek natural morning light: Exposure to sunlight in the morning helps signal your body that it’s time to rise and activate cortisol naturally. This simple habit can help improve your focus and alertness during the day.
  • Support rising cortisol with a healthy breakfast: Eat a balanced meal around 7am to give your body the nourishment it needs to maintain energy and focus throughout the day.
  • Avoid bright screens, intense exercise, and stimulants in the evening: These can keep cortisol levels elevated and interfere with melatonin production. Instead, opt for calming activities such as reading, meditation, or light stretching in the evening to help your body transition into rest mode.
  • Aim for regular sleep and wake times: Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day helps support your circadian rhythm and ensures your body knows when it’s time to rest.
  • Allow your digestive system to fast between 6pm and 7am: This simple practice allows your body to reset overnight, promoting better sleep and hormonal balance.
  • Get regular reflexology or acupuncture: These holistic therapies can support your body’s natural rhythm by reducing stress, improving circulation, and helping your body relax, making it easier for cortisol and melatonin to maintain balance.

Embracing the Quiet Wisdom of Yin

In a culture that often celebrates the energy of Yang – doing, pushing, and striving – we can sometimes forget the quiet wisdom of Yin. But it’s in the balance of these two forces that true health, clarity, and calm reside. When you nurture both your active and restorative energies, you create a foundation for lasting well-being and peace.

If you’re struggling to find balance in your circadian rhythm or need support with sleep, hormonal health, or stress management, reflexology and acupuncture can be powerful tools in restoring your body’s natural flow. Reach out for personalised guidance and care – together, I can help you nurture your Yin and Yang for a more vibrant and balanced life.

Thoughts on Sleep

by JMReflex, posted in Acupuncture, Breath, Health & Wellbeing, Meditation, Reflexology, Sleep, TCM, Yin and Yang
Woman sleeping peacefully.

Aside from nutrition, getting good quality sleep is probably the most important aspect for health and longevity. It is the cornerstone to good health,vitality, living longer and feeling well.

As basic as it sounds, we are designed to live with the diurnal rhythm; we wake with the light, and we sleep in the dark.

From around 5-6pm in the evening, our cortisol levels naturally start to drop, and the natural light starts to dim, and melatonin levels begin to rise. Melatonin is the hormone that makes us feel drowsy and gets us ready for a good night’s sleep.

I love to look at the Yin/Yang aspect of everything, and we can see here we have the dark night time which is Yin, and the light daytime which is Yang. We can also see that cortisol is the Yang to it’s counterpart melatonin, which is Yin. Our Yin and Yang aspects are always ebbing and flowing gently, gradually and naturally. Therefore its a really good idea to get into a winding down routine in the evening to allow our Yin to naturally deepen and do its work for a good night’s rest.

Its a great idea to adjust your daily activities (as much as is possible) to support this natural daily rhythm. Eating breakfast and your main meal, taking physical exercise and doing the main bulk of your work during the morning and earlier part of the day is best as this is when cortisol is at its highest.

As cortisol starts to drop early evening, its better to eat a smaller evening meal at least 3-4 hours before bedtime. The ‘321’ idea is an easy concept to follow:

  • Eat no later than 3 hours before bed
  • Drink no later than 2 hours before bed (any fluids)
  • No screens no later than 1 hour before bed.

If you can’t switch off your mind, meditation is helpful, as is Valerian, chamomile and magnesium. A bath with Epsom salts will give you a great boost of magnesium, and as your body temperature starts to drop afterwards, it will naturally help to make you feel sleepy. A cup of night time tea might also be useful. Try different things and see what helps you – we are all different!

We should be getting around 90 minutes of deep sleep every night and this usually happens earlier into the night. Its during the deep sleep where our body replenishes, heals and rejuvenates.

We should be getting around 2-3 hours of REM sleep a bit later on in the night, after deep sleep, and this is the type of sleep where our mind sifts, sorts through and processes everything that’s happened during the day. I believe this is why meditation can be so useful because sitting quietly and observing our thoughts for a few minutes before bed will get ahead of the sifting and sorting process that happens during REM.

We can disrupt our deep sleep by exercising too much. It’s a bit like taking a car on a very long drive; the engine will have been revved up and used a lot of oil. It will take longer to cool down and get back to normal. It’s the same with our body and mind. It can leave you wired even if you have done a lot and think you should be tired.

If you are a snorer then this will disrupt your sleep patterns, particularly if it causes apnea and wakes you everytime you’re snoring too loudly or gasping for air. It also means that you are not breathing through your nose as much. Nasal breathing increases the gas nitric oxide which is a molecule produced naturally in the body and is important for relaxing blood vessels and allowing them to widen and increase circulation (and so increasing oxygen and nutrient circulation around the body). It also helps us to feel relaxed and switch from ‘fight or flight’ to ‘rest and digest’ i.e. switching off the sympathetic nervous system and switching on the parasympathetic nervous system. Again these are the Yin and Yang aspects of health. Nasal breathing helps us to move out of Yang and into Yin.

Humming on the outbreath creates vibration which will open up the airways and increase nitric oxide, again making us feel relaxed and able to sleep better. So do some “Oms” with your evening meditation and see if you notice the difference!

Going back to snoring; snoring is usually down to raised inflammation making the airways swollen and restricted. Reducing inflammation is something to really work on if you are a snorer; losing weight, eating the rainbow, cutting down on refined carbs and sugars, processed foods, alcohol, smoking, caffeine, upping your omega 3s by eating oily fish, nuts and seeds, olive oil etc.

Working with a practitioner like myself with regular reflexology and/or acupuncture can be so useful in taking care of your overall health and wellbeing, and we can usually pinpoint areas that might be disturbing your ability to get a good night’s sleep.

Overall, getting into good habits by creating a bedtime routine or ritual that you follow each night, tailored particularly to those things that work for you, is the best way to set the stage for a good night’s sleep.

If you are interested in working with me please get in touch.

Links to carefully selected affiliates.

Reflexology for Sports

by JMReflex, posted in Fitness, Health & Wellbeing, Pain management, Reflexology, Sleep, Sports, Stress, Stress

Sports people of any level or ability are highly motivated to perform at their best and to achieve optimum results; often they look to holistic therapies to complement treatment received for injuries.

Reflexology for optimal performance

The psychology of sport encourages individual athletes and team players to look for ways to achieve that extra one or two percent that can give them the edge on their opponents. Consequently, many now use reflexology as part of their overall regime.

What can reflexology offer?

Reflexology may help to provide increased mobility, reduced pain and support or accelerate the recovery period after an injury.  Many athletes use reflexology in a preventative capacity to encourage balance in the body and improved health in general, such as improved sleep quality, reduced anxiety and improved mood.

How does it work?

Reflexology helps to increase blood flow and encourage lymphatic drainage. Research studies show that it can remove lactic acid from the legs four times faster than massage, helping post event recovery. Increased blood circulation helps remove toxins and increase the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the tissues, helping to support the body’s natural healing process and promote recovery from injuries. It may also assist in preventing common complaints and niggles from extended muscle exertion such as aches, pains, cramps and spasms.

What else?

The effect of stress has a very detrimental effect on the body, reducing blood flow and oxygen, causing energy to be depleted and thus functioning at a sub-optimal level. Reflexology helps to manage this by promoting deep relaxation, easing tension, giving the body time to rest and heal and it often improves sleep. It may also help with pain relief or reducing pain associated with injury.

Contact me for more information or to book an appointment.

Jackie Marsden MAR is a qualified reflexologist, acupuncturist, promoter of healthy living and independent consultant (Group Leader) for Neal’s Yard Remedies Organic.

Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Reflexology for sleep problems – a perspective

by JMReflex, posted in Health & Wellbeing, Reflexology, Sleep, Stress

Sleep is such an important part of our lives, but what actually is sleep and what does it do for us?

During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health. In children and teens, sleep also helps support growth and development.

What happens when we don’t sleep?

The damage from sleep deficiency can harm you over time. For example, ongoing sleep deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic health problems. It also can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and get along with others. [1] Researchers have linked poor sleep to a number of ailments, from short-term memory loss and behavioural problems, to weight gain, diabetes, and even increased risk of cancer, just to mention a few. [2]

sleep

If we spend too much time indoors, in a windowless office during the day and in front of the TV, computer screens and mobile phones in the evenings, insomnia can soon set in because our brains struggle to determine what time it is. 

The combination of light deficiency during the day and excessive light exposure at night causes your biological clocks to get out of sync.

A 30-60 minute exposure to outdoor light every day helps to anchor our circadian rhythm. [2] This means that our master clock is set to be awake and alert during the day and to rest and sleep during the night.

After sustained periods of sleep disruption, we can be left feeling agitated, grumpy, stressed and on high alert. It then becomes ever more difficult to get to sleep, and thus becomes a stress in itself, and the cycle continues.

How can I sleep naturally?

Reflexology can also help with problems like this, as it allows a time and place for deep relaxation to occur. The appointment is in your diary. You are expected to lay back. You are expected to maybe close your eyes. You are expected to relax. Once in a state of deep relaxation, the body can begin to switch off the “high alert” and allow the parasympathetic nervous system to do its work, increasing digestion, immunity, libido, and most importantly here, providing a good environment for resetting the master clock to promote a healthy sleep pattern.

Combine regular reflexology with reduced time spent in front of TV and computer screens, particularly in the evenings, reduced consumption of stimulants during the evenings (such as alcohol and caffeine), and a good dose of outdoor light during the day, and you should be well on your way to a better night’s sleep. Fabulous natural remedies for sleep!

To summarise 3 things to help you sleep:

  • Get some reflexology
  • Reduce screen time and stimulants
  • Go outside during the day

For more of me on sleep, melatonin and circadian rhythm see my other blog post on the Winter Blues.

All views are my own.

independent-consultant-long-logo
Growyourbusiness
unnamed2

[1] http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/sdd/why

[2] http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/12/10/dangers-sleeping-too-much.aspx?e_cid=20151210Z2_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20151210Z2&et_cid=DM92051&et_rid=1256832826

Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net