Sleep
When it comes to sleep, it is important to make a distinction between quality and quantity. As far as this article is concerned, quantity refers to the length of time spent asleep. And quality refers to the amount of work the body performs during sleep, especially towards healing. You might find this understanding of sleep to be unorthodox or contrary to what you would normally find elsewhere. Clearly, how much time you spend asleep is not as important as the quality of sleep; though, quantity has its own role to play.
In this article we will not be entertaining certain aspects of sleep hygiene (e.g. blue light, radio frequencies, sun exposure, etc), melatonin, circadian rhythm, etc, etc, and how they might affect your sleep. I have found these things to play no significant role in achieving quality sleep (though they might be useful in obtaining deep sleep). The goal, however, is not necessarily deep sleep but quality sleep.
Quality sleep.
Some people measure quality by arbitrary measures, like rapid vs non-rapid eye movement or some notion of “deep” sleep. This is sufficient to satisfy many, but this in itself offers no real measurement—hence arbitrary. Indeed, this does not describe the amount of work the body performed during sleep. We need something that we can measure ourselves and for ourselves. Even if it is asserted that deep sleep is necessary for healing, this in itself does not guarantee that significant healing will occur. Allowing or permitting for healing is not to be confused with actual healing.
We’re also in need of something that can’t also be the result of the placebo effect. And think of all the times that people have experienced deep sleep, yet have continued on to suffer health problems. After following the advice of sleep experts, if you still end up getting worse, then it is clear that the experts don’t know what they’re talking about or are themselves relying on junk science. We need something that is measureable, and implement a protocol that we can be certain will lead to an increase in quality of life. Wishful thinking is not a valid form of treatment.
Sleep is not some magical thing that causes resources to appear out of nowhere that healing might occur. If the body lacks the resources needed to perform healing, it wouldn’t matter if you manage to achieve “deep” sleep every night. Granted, a lack of resources may even prevent any possibility of deep sleep. Nevertheless, since deep sleep is not a true measurement of quality sleep, simply entering into a deep sleep is not evidence of experiencing quality sleep.
As such, a distinction should likewise be made between deep sleep and quality sleep. All truth is logical, but not all logical things are true. In the same way, deep sleep may be necesasry to experience quality sleep, but not all forms of deep sleep is quality sleep. We know for a fact that sleep creates an opening for the body to take care of things that it otherwise would not be able to do while awake. So, then, we have opportunity to lay a foundation prior to going to sleep to significantly increase the chances of experiencing quality sleep—and I am not alluding to sleep hygiene.
Laying a good foundation: liver, gut and mitochondria.
During the times that you are awake the body is preoccupied with meeting your demands. You are a careless and an inconsiderate jerk, and so resources are forced to be wasted and directed towards making it possible to fulfill your desires. It appears that the only real chance your body has at undoing the damage you’ve brought upon your body is in your sleep. Yet, how many resources did you manage to waste before going to sleep? So you enter into deep sleep. But what does that matter if you’re low on or out of resources?
So, then, it becomes necessary to understand that the body cannot perform significant work when it has little to work with. Clearly, therefore, a nutrient-rich diet is necessary. When speaking of conducting repairs it is clear that proteins are part of the conversation. When speaking of removing waste, water is often part of the process and that the liver is significantly involved. In fact, if your liver finds itself overworked, it may induce sweating to assist in cleansing and detoxing, leading to “night sweats.” Indeed, the liver is more than capable of regulating body temperature.1
Of course, anything that would assist the mitochondria is useful here. That would include trace minerals (including electrolytes), antioxidants, B vitamins, amino acids (especially Glutamine), etc2—all of which a nutrient-rich diet would provide. It is also a good idea to assure that the small intestine is not housing any food prior to sleep. While I don’t necessarily follow the “eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper” protocol, it is somewhat useful in assuring an empty small intestine before sleep. Otherwise, you can just wait at least 6 hours before going to sleep, which is around the time that “sweeping motions” occur or have been occurring.
Covering the liver, mitochondria and gut will significantly improve your quality of sleep. Indeed, there’s a reason why people with poor sleep quality have an increased risk of liver disease and why people with liver disease have poor sleep quality.3 4 The liver is the main organ for cleasing the blood and plays an important role in the healing process during sleep. The liver also metabolizes and constructs proteins, and plays a role in ATP recycling. There’s a reason why your liver is a fairly large organ, so that it can perform its duties efficiently. After all, there’s a lot of blood to filter.
Anything that enters through the gut goes directly to the liver.5 Therefore, to reduce the work performed by the liver it is necessary to have a healthy gut, full of microbes that work in your favor. In fact, some bacteria have been known to help treat liver diseases.6 Since the gut requires a lot of energy to function (more energy than you realize), it is important to wait till the food reaches the large intestine before going to sleep. In the large intestine food can spend days before exiting, since the large intestine processes food significantly slower than the small intestine, and gets much of its energy from SCFAs produced by the gut microbiome. It is good to have the microbiome be preoccupied prior to sleep.7
And, of course, without the mitochondria none of the above would be possible. If you have poor digestion or absorption, you may be in need of supplementation in order to provide the mitochondria with what it needs to function during your sleep. I don’t normally recommend nutritional supplements since they are capable of causing nutritional imbalances8 (because some nutrients require other nutrients in order to be put to use and because of overdose) and may even cause harm to the body9, but sometimes they are the only way to get what you need. Exercise caution when using nutritional supplements, and always favor whole foods for your dietary and nutritional needs.
Sleeping position.
To help assist the gut, a loose version of the fetal position is the recommended way to sleep. The fetal position may help improve circulation, provide structural support to your intestines, and reduce the energy requirements of the gut, allowing that energy to be used elsewhere. So long as the knees are elevated slightly above your waist, you should experience some of the benefits of the fetal position. The knees do not need to be elevated higher than the belly button to notice any benefits.
Signs of deep sleep.
There are a few signs given by your body that you’ve managed to enter a deep sleep, and some that don’t require any specialized testing or tools. One of these signs are dreams. Knowing that you’ve had a dream does not require any equipment or staging. If you’ve had a dream during your sleep, chances are you’ve had a moment of deep sleep. While this may not be the most reliable form of determining if you had experienced deep sleep, dreams are still a fairly good sign that your sleep is improving.
One thing that people do is record themselves during their sleep and review the video some time after waking up. Full body and close-up shots of their face assist in determining what stages of sleep you’ve entered. Differences in body movement and breathing and rapid eye movement are common signs of the kind of sleep stage you’re in. Thermal cameras may also help detect changes in body temperature.
Signs of quality sleep.
As I’ve said before, deep sleep is not equivalent to quality sleep. Therefore, the same measurements for measuring deep sleep cannot be used to measure quality sleep. Unlike deep sleep, quality sleep has tangible measurements which even you can measure yourself. Improved energy levels, physical wounds showing signs of healing, health problems improving, and other kinds of measureable improvements. This is to say, an improved quality of life that results from sleep is a sign of quality sleep.