If you want to improve your sleep, change how and when you eat.

We now know that our circadian rhythm is as influenced, if not more so, by our daily eating habits as it is light exposure.

Food is not fuel. Food is information.

Food tells your body details about your life. Food indicates where you live, the season, the temperature, the time of year, and much more. Food also seems to indicate the time of day.

When and what we eat in the second half of the day also sets up our hormonal cascade for each night.

The later we eat, the longer the day is perceived by the body, and the later the hormonal changes that allow us to fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake in the morning are pushed back.

Hormones like melatonin, serotonin, cortisol, and adrenaline play a role in a restful night’s sleep and an energetic waking and day full of energy. 

This symphonic interaction of these hormones also regulates the 4 phases of sleep we need to cycle through each night for quality sleep and energy for the next day. Part of this cycle is called R.E.M. sleep, where we dream.

We stir awake multiple times each night throughout these cycles, usually not even registering that we did so. These waking moments are part of the cycle and promote rather than deter our overall sleep quality.

When the hormonal cascade for evening sleep is pushed back and doesn’t align with our light cycles, we see disharmony in this symphony. 

What also can start to happen is during the normally unrecognized wakeful moments, you do recognize them and wake up, causing sleep disruption, which over time will magnify this whole process as well.

The master hormone insulin is the driver of this process.

The hormone insulin, in simple terms, determines if we use energy or store it at any given moment. This energy use or storage balance is called our metabolism.

By magnifying the insulin response to unnatural levels by what and how we eat, we will interfere with the interaction of our sleep hormones to play nicely together and hinder our potential for much-needed rejuvenating sleep.

When we eat is the third factor causing a pushing back of the whole process if we eat too late in the day.

Suppose we magnify the insulin response to unnatural levels and eat later in the day. In that case, the combination is more than enough to terrorize our sleep patterns, quality of sleep, and circadian rhythms, leading to wavering energy during our wakeful day.

10 Hidden inulin Magnifiers are behaviorally based that can magnify our insulin secretion by 50-500% with any given snack or meal.

Now calculate the insulin increase from the unnatural levels secreted at those meals and snacks by mainly processed foods and starches, including all flours, protein powders, and highly cooked foods like potatoes and beans, and your overall insulin daily (and nightly) exposure can raise thousands of percent and compound throughout the day and into the next. 

These high insulin levels and the excessively high ongoing insulin exposure push back and interfere with our energy production, sleep cycles, health, and ability to heal.

7 Ways to Improve Your Sleep

• Starting steps to sleeping better through what and when you eat.

• Finish eating by 6:30 PM each night

• Eliminate any foods made from a powder

• Don’t allow your last meal to be the largest of the day

• Take a 10-minute walk following each meal

• Give it a try, stick to it for a week, and tell me how much better you sleep.

• Keep following and join the “Insulin Friendly Fasting Secrets” Facebook group for ongoing discussions on this topic and much more.

We can do better!
Dr. Don