Sleep Better: Unlock Nightly Bliss

Sleep and Thyroid Health Overview 0:00

Hi, everyone, it's Dr. Jen. I want to do a little talk about sleep and your thyroid. This is so important. Sleep is so important for our health. And a lot of times it's not spoken about. So there is a lot of different reasons why we're not sleeping well. Some of it could be medical problems, such as sleep apnea.

Common Causes of Poor Sleep 0:31

You could have insomnia. Narcolepsy. Shift work disorder is big in the medical field, and anyone that is has their sleep window, they're sleeping during the day and not at night. That can really affect your hormones. Things like restless leg syndrome can cause poor sleep also. And then we go. And other reasons that you're not getting good sleep. Your partner's snoring. That's me. That's my husband. A new baby. And a lot of times we do see Hashimoto's and thyroid problems flare after a new baby because you're not sleeping in that stressful on the body.

If you're urinating a lot at night due to maybe drinking a lot of tea or water right before bed or because of certain medications, if you're having excessive caffeine or if you're having alcohol before bed. So all of these things can affect our sleep and it's difficult. Like, where do we start? Well, let's give you a few tips for this. So first, with having you at the bathroom a lot in the middle of the night, avoid caffeine, limit it to the mornings. Also, the caffeine is not keeping you up at night.

You want to make sure you're avoiding a lot of liquids right before bed.

Lifestyle Triggers and Sleep Disruptors 1:49

For alcohol. So alcohol is a problem for many reasons. One, you keep waking up in the middle of the night. The other, it reduces our REM sleep, which is our very restorative, important sleep. So alcohol, some people have a nightcap or a drink before bed to help put them to sleep. Well, maybe initiating your sleep. Well, but it's not maintaining the proper sleep and the REM sleep at night. You're not getting as quality of sleep. Certain medications like antihistamines can make you drowsy, so you go to sleep.

But they have a poor negative effect on sleep. Beta blockers have been known to cause insomnia. Diuretics. We've spoken about increased urination and SS. Our eyes can cause daytime sleepiness. So then your sleep during the day, you're not sleeping well at night. Another big problem can be in apps or electromagnetic fields. So you might suggest for this is pretty easy. Put your wi fi on a Christmas light timer. Okay. You can buy them very inexpensive. Put it on a timer. Turn it off at night.

Sleep Hygiene and Bedroom Environment 2:56

Put your phone in airplane mode. Make sure it's also apart from your bed far away on the other side. Okay. Any alarm clocks, any of that light that you can see in your light, that in your room, turn those lights up and have your room completely dark. Then you're going to you're going to have high melatonin, which is our sleep mode, and you're going to get a good night's sleep. So speaking of melatonin, that is something that you can take it to help go to sleep. It's something that I'd rather have good habits, like turning off blue light at night, as opposed to just taking melatonin.

But it is an option. I really like L-Theanine for initiation of sleep. Or you can take L-Theanine in the middle of the night. It's actually found in green tea. This is why when you drink like matcha to you, you don't get that jittery feeling that l-theanine smooths that out. Lavender is great. This is an essential oil that you can diffuse.

Supplements and Herbal Sleep Aids 3:56

You can put a little bit of drops on your pillow or next to your bed stand. This has been studied to show that is helpful with sleep and actually anxiety too. So it helps that initiation of sleep. Valerian is really helpful for a positive improvement in insomnia. You can have it as a tea or a tincture. I really like Passionflower. I really like to make it a good passionflower and lemon bond tea before bed. It just kind of relaxes you. Skullcap is also great. It's a sedative. It's a nerve. Relaxing and tonic, and that helps activate GABA receptors.

So speaking of gather receptors, another thing that can be helpful as oral progesterone. So a lot of women that are starting to have that perimenopause and menopausal sleep disturbances will put them on oral progesterone at night and that helps activate that GABA receptors when you take it early and can help women just cruise on through sleep so they're not waking up all the time. You can make yourself a mocktail with some tart cherry juice and make sure you use them.

Hormonal Support and Bedtime Drinks 5:02

Montse Morsy Tart cherries that actually contains an enzyme that inhibits tryptophan breakdown and that helps with increased sleep time. So I hope these tips and tricks for sleep were helpful for you because getting good sleep is helpful for optimal thyroid health. Hope you're enjoying the summit. Thank you so much for being here and share this summit if you find it helpful and want to help others with their help.