Sleep and Immunity
Sleep and Immunity
When it comes to your well-being, functioning with too little sleep is not something to brag about. While more sleep won’t necessarily prevent you from getting sick, a lack of sleep could adversely affect your immune system, leaving you susceptible to a bad cold or case of the flu.
Without sufficient sleep, your body makes fewer cytokines, a type of protein that targets infection and inflammation, effectively creating an immune response. Cytokines are both produced and released during sleep. If you skimp on shut-eye, you miss out on both. Chronic sleep loss even makes the flu vaccine less effective by reducing your body’s ability to respond.*
Below are some strategies to help you get the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep at night and keep you at your 100% this season:
- Have a relaxing nightly bedtime ritual
- Go to sleep and wake up at consistent times.
- Limit caffeine
- Optimize your bedroom for sleep
- Limit blue light exposure before bed
- Cultivate your body’s innate capacity to heal and find sleep
Have a relaxing nightly bedtime ritual
Set an alarm on your phone 30 mins prior to the time you want to go to bed to make time for whatever ritual works best for you (i.e. meditation/breathing exercises, reading, daily gratitude’s)
Go to sleep and wake up at consistent times.
If you need to catch up on sleep you should take a nap, as it will impact your sleep-wake cycle less than sleeping in.
Limit caffeine
Caffeine should be limited to the first few hours of the day, none within 12 hours of sleep.
Optimize your bedroom for sleep
Make sure that temperature is cool (mid 60’s) and the room is fully dark as light interferes with sleep cycles.
Limit blue light exposure before bed
Instead of winding down on a screen, try listening to music or reading a book – Research has found that exposure to blue light suppresses the production of melatonin more than any other type of light.
Cultivate your body’s innate capacity to heal and find sleep
Investigate natural sleep solutions such as our Healist Advanced Natural Sleep Drops that support your body’s natural processes – not hijack them. Healist Sleep Drops contain U.S. grown organic broad spectrum CBD + clinically backed active natural ingredients such as Valerian Root, L-Theanine, lavender and chamomile to promote a healthy sleep cycle.** We do not include any synthetic ingredients, such as the melatonin found in many sleep aids, as this can disrupt your body’s natural melatonin production, leading to future restless nights.