Sleep for Good Health

I remember even as a teenager not being able to fall asleep, needing to watch Johnny Carson or wanting to read books or whatever to 'lull me to sleep'. Sleep has always been something I have needed to consciously work on over the years. After becoming a naturopathic doctor I realized how important sleep actually is to keep all hormones working efficiently.

I'm definitely not the person that can do work until the last minute before going to bed. I need to have some relaxation time to wind down..... and that is something I have to consistently work at and be conscious of, otherwise forget it - I'm not falling asleep for a couple of hours. So recently I've been excited about my detox cookbook getting closer to being finished and launching plant2body organics Nourishing Serum among other little projects on the go; and sure enough the last two weeks my sleep has been awful. I've hit my point - action must be taken. Back to my restful hour before bed, reading (maybe I'll finally finish that Hillary Clinton biography!), dry skin brushing, castor oil packs, taking my cal/mag before bed etc.

Funny enough yesterday I read a study from the Archives of Internal Medicine that concluded people who sleep well and long enough are less susceptible to viral infections. People who got 8 hours or sleep were approximately 2.94 times less likely to catch colds than those who slept for 7 hours or less AND even more interesting was that people with a 92% sleep efficiency (actual sleep time as a percentage of total time in bed) or less were 5.5 times more likely to develop a cold. Something we all know but now there is one more study to prove it!

Good night!