Are you counting sheep more than sleeping? : Sleep with Autoimmune Disease Are you counting sheep more than sleeping? : Learn about sleep with autoimmune disease. Discover how to get good sleep with an autoimmune disease. Sleep can be challenging without autoiummune challenges, and when you have an autoimmune disease, then sleep can be even more difficult. Learn about some of my prior challenges with sleep, how I sleep now and what I do and recommend that you do to get good high quality sleep each and every night.
Sleep for Autoimmune Transcript
?Hello ladies, and welcome to another episode of the Autoimmune Rehab Podcast. Today’s podcast is sponsored by doTERRA Essential Oils. Whether you’ve tried essential oils before or not, if you’ve never tried doTERRA, I really invite you to give them a try. And if you live within the United States, I do offer samples.
So if you’re listening to this and wanna try out to sample and you live in the United States, you can reach out and let me. And there’s a little bit of a qualification process, but I can definitely get some for you. And essential oils as we will be discussing later on in this episode, can be one of the powerful tools in your toolbox to make sure that you actually sleep well with an autoimmune condition.
So with no further ado, let’s get it started with today’s episode Taco, about how to stop counting cheap and actually get some sleep. The art of sleeping well with an autoimmune condition. So the first thing I wanna start off by talking about is the importance of sleep. Now you probably know that sleep is important just because when you don’t get good sleep consecutively for a couple of nights, then.
The side effect is that you feel really, really horrible. You have no energy. You’re tired all the time, and it starts to affect other aspects of your life. But the reality is that sleep is a must. for a lot of reasons. For one thing, any doctor or professional or anybody that really knows what they’re talking about will tell you that if you don’t get good high quality sleep on a regular basis, then you probably will.
Well, more than probably you won’t ever actually heal from your autoimmune condition, because one of the things that you absolutely must do, From Autoimmune healing is that you absolutely must get good high quality sleep each and every night, and that is just something that you have to do. And if you don’t get good high quality sleep, then you know you’re just not going to experience the kind of healing that you are probably looking for.
So what can you do? If you know that sleep is a problem, what are some of the different steps that you should take? So what I’m gonna do in this episode is I’m gonna talk about the different things that you should do if you know you’re not getting good, high quality sleep, and then share with you some of the different tips and things that I have done to make sure that I always get good high quality sleep and.
I do have to say that getting good high quality sleep each and every night has not been something that has always come natural to me, especially throughout my autoimmune healing journey. I have had moments where I have really struggled to get good, high quality and accurate sleep. That said, I am blessed at the moment that while I may occasionally have a night where I don’t sleep as well as I had liked, for the most part, I do currently sleep really, really well.
And so, you know, let’s talk about that. So the first thing, now that you know that sleeping well is a must for your body and not just for autoimmune for other things, they’ve actually even done studies that have said that it can increase metabolic health issues, can increase diabetes, can cause heart attacks, even cancer, all kinds of things.
If you really don’t get good high quality. So the first thing that I always recommend that you wanna do is to track your sleep and to determine how much sleep you are really getting or not getting. So, you know, if you’ve been awake from almost all night and haven’t really ever actually fallen asleep, then in that case you’re probably gonna know that you didn’t get goods.
Sleep. But I know a lot of us have a tendency to fall somewhere in the middle. And I know this was me for quite some time where we’re not really conscious or aware of how much sleep we’re actually getting. And you know, there are sleep studies out there that you can do. You can go to a center, you can get fancy devices, all kinds of things.
What I recommend is that you start with something simple like for example, an Aura Ring, and I did a previous podcast episode on Aura Ring. So if you go to my website that is connected to this podcast, autoimmune rehab.com and do a search for Aura Ring, you will find my podcast about Aura Rings. Which is what I personally recommend.
Or you could also try an Apple watch or something else that helps track what an aura ring does. Just to summarize a little bit of some of what was in that episode so that you know you can get the benefit from it, as we’re talking about sleep, is it actually tracks your sleep and gives you a score between one to a hundred and actually tells you how much REM sleep you got, how much deep sleep you got, how much overall sleep you got, all that kind of thing, and.
Personally, my sleep score these days is usually somewhere between 85 and 95. I don’t know that I’ve ever had an actual one hundred sleep score, but you know, that’s actually in general, that’s pretty good. So that gives you an idea of where you’re at and then you can work on improving, because what the ordering does is it will track your sleep, like I said, every single night.
And at the end of each week, it will give you a summary and tell you where. You know your averages are for the entire week. Then it tracks it over the course of months and even over the course of years, as long as you continue to wear that aura ring. Personally, I’m coming up on almost a one year anniversary when I first got an Aura ring.
I actually bought it a Black Friday sale last November. So if you’re listening to this on or near the day that. That comes out, you know, will be about a week to two weeks out from when I originally got my OR ring. And so, you know, I have those stats now for going on almost a year to track and see where my sleep is and where my sleep has improved, that kind of thing.
So that’s the first thing you need to do. The second thing that you need to do is you need to eliminate distractions. And I know this can be really difficult, but in some cases you may need to make some really extreme decisions. So for example, if you’re married and part of the reason that you are not getting sleep, is that your spouse or you know, maybe you’re not married, you know, just if you have a partner, anybody else that’s maybe sleeping in bed with you, if it’s affecting.
Quality of sleep you may have to actually separate and have different beds and bedrooms at night while you sleep because it’s just really, really important that you sleep and or get some professional help, whether your spouse, partner, or other person that’s sleeping in the room with you and. You know, obviously there can be situations like if you have young children, babies, that kind of thing, you temporarily may not sleep.
But if this is a problem that’s been going on for a long time and or if you have an autoimmune disorder, which I’m assuming if you’re listening to this that you do, then it’s really, really gonna be of utmost importance that you get that. Sleep and you do what it takes to make sure you get that sleep. So you also want to have environmental things prepared, things like positively even using white noise, making sure there’s no lights, things beeping.
I recommend a lot of times turning off completely your cell phone, if there’s any way that you can. The other, I’ll turn it option is that if you can’t feel like you can’t turn it off completely, you can put it on airplane mold. Or, you know, turn it on like a focus setting where maybe only the few key people that you think might potentially call, there’s an emergency or something that they would call.
But you can’t just get phone calls from just any or texts from anybody and everybody I know in this day and age with all the spam and everything else, I’ve actually had to block any phone calls that aren’t on my contact list from coming through on my phone even during the day. Because otherwise it’s gotten ridiculous.
Sometimes there’s 20 or 30 spam calls in one day on my phone. So, you know, you just wanna think about that. Think about maybe even disconnecting your internet at night, because I know for some people the, um, radioactive waves and some of the things that come from the internet connections, things like that can cause issues.
So, you know, you just wanna repair your body. To be able to sleep really well. And then of course it goes without saying that. If you have done everything that you feel like you can do and have tried a lot of the recommendations that are gonna be on this podcast and hopefully coming up here soon, I’m gonna try and recommend a few things that maybe you haven’t thought of.
You may need to get some professional help. You know, you may need to go see an actual sleep doctor. Sleep therapist, get evaluated. Some cases you may even need to go really extreme with the PAT machine. Different things like. But you don’t wanna just let your lack of sleep become a lifestyle and a hat because it’s just really, really not good for you.
So, you know, I just have to say that there. And then of course, the other thing you also gotta look at is if you’re not sleeping, because you’re in a lot of. Pain or other things like that, then you wanna try to get to the root cause of why you’re having that pain and why it’s affecting your sleep.
Because I know for me personally, for a couple months this year, I didn’t sleep very well because I had really severe knee pain that was shooting all the way down to my legs and my feet, and that was really affecting my ability to sleep. And now that I’ve gotten that pain taken care, And I’m blessed that at the moment that, you know, it started getting colder here in the winter in Utah where I live, that I, you know, occasionally the cold few other things, if I go on a really long walk, might cause me to have a little bit of knee pain.
But for the most part, I’m pretty much pain free now, and so I’m definitely able to sleep a lot better than when I was back. You know, before my surgery and my plasma injection treatments and things that have helped me not have pain. So, you know, that’s the other thing too, if you may have to get to the root cause of the pain so that then you can sleep.
Because helping you to heal and actually in fact have less pain is dependent on your sleep. So, you know, there’s kind of the irony there that if you have the pain, you struggle with sleep, but yet you can’t heal from the pain completely unless you are sleeping. So, you know, there’s always. . Okay, so then the next thing you also want to consider is your diet and the role that it can play in your sleep.
A lot of us are not really fully aware that our diet and our health needs lifestyle or lack thereof, can and do really impact how well you sleep. So you know, things like too much sugar fried foods. Even gluten, dairy, anything that you may have a food sensitivity or intolerance to. Like for example, I went, fortunately this doesn’t happen to me anymore, but I went through a time phrase where I actually wasn’t able to sleep if I ate blueberries.
And I know that sounds really weird, but for some reason my body had just developed a temporary intolerance to them. And if I had blueberries I couldn’t sleep at night. So, you know, you really wanna think about that, and especially if you have a lot of heartburn or acid ref. This is something that a lot of western medicine doctors don’t focus on or will just give you medicines to cover it up.
But if you have a lot of that happening, that can really impact your sleep along with other areas and quality of your life. And so you really, really wanna get to the root cause of your food and diet and make sure that you’re really on target with that, because that really does impact your sleep among other things.
The other thing you also wanna do is stop eating beef at least two hours before bed. This is probably not news to you, but this impacts not only your sleep, but also your metabolic, healthier metabolism, your weight, other things like that, and consider trying intermittent fasting. This is something that I’ve actually been doing.
For probably about six months now, and it’s definitely held with my weight because that’s the other thing too, is if you’re significantly overweight, then that can count against you and make sleep difficult as well. And intermittent fasting, you know, there’s a lot of people doing a really extreme way.
Maybe they only eat for four or five hour windows of the day. That’s actually not what I do. I personally am following more of a, you know, like a 12 to 14 hour window where typically , I will stop eating by 6:00 PM and I go to bed between nine and 10. So that’s, you know, at least a full three hours before I go to bed that I’ve stopped eating.
Mm-hmm. . And then I don’t eat till usually about eight, sometimes even nine in the morning. Sometimes, you know, depending on where I’m at, like in my menstrual cycle, a few other things I might occasionally eat a little bit, you know, by about seven or so. But I really try to. a minimum of 13 to 14 hours without eating.
And the other thing too that you also have to consider is that during those first few hours after you start eating your body and your stomach everything starts digesting your food and it can disrupt your sleep and make it really hard for you to. Sleep during that time frame. So that’s something you think about.
Then the next thing is exercise, and I know you’re probably, some of you may be rolling your eyeballs at me and saying, oh geez, we’ve heard this all before. But the reality is that exercising really can have an impact on the quality of your sleep and personally, I recommend it. Exercising first thing in the morning, at least some, if there’s any way you can, and then potentially even maybe exercising after dinner.
In some cases, you know, if you feel like you’re maybe just not feeling quite as tired when it’s time to go to bed, have a harder time going to sleep. Some kinds of exercise like swimming or maybe even doing yoga or like a Zumba class or something that really gets you, you know, your energy. Up and then, you know, really makes your energy drop a little bit because you’re kind of tired from the exercise, maybe able to actually help you fall asleep better.
But personally, my experience has been that it’s better for me to stop the exercise at least an hour to an hour and a half before I go to bed. And I really do feel a difference when I exercise consistently in my sleep levels and my immunity, health, all kinds of things. So it just really is good for you whether you, you know, are worried about weight or not.
Just gotta do it. Okay. Then the next thing, and this is something that people sometimes get a lot of confusion over, there are a lot of supplements, medications, essential oils, things like that out there for sleep. So I’d like to talk to you a little bit about that. So, Medications for sleep can be, you know, a temporary solution.
But my personal experience and opinion is that you really don’t wanna be on them forever. And ideally you wanna try to avoid them if you can and try to sleep naturally without the medications. Um, however, if you do need some support, there are some things you can try, like I know Melatonin and something a lot of people will try.
However, it isn’t necessarily. the best solution. And I know personally, years ago, I haven’t taken melatonin in a while. When I used to take melatonin, it would do things like have a big, you know, kind of like almost even a hangover effect when I woke up in the morning and maybe I was taking too much. I don’t know.
But there’s also other things like, for example, camomile tea can actually do a pretty good job of helping you fall asleep. Personally. What I do now is I usually take a capsule or sometimes will rub on myself a blend of doTERRA essential oils called Serenity, and this is one of the ones that I can get you as a sample if you live within the United States.
States, if you live outside the United States, you can buy some, as we’re open for business in more than 30 countries, including launched in India pretty recently. So you know, you can have access to purchase it in other countries. I just, for customs and shipping reasons, can’t ship a sample if you live outside the United States.
But anyhow, what I do is it’s just this little capsule that has some different essential oils and herbs and I swallow it usually about 30 minutes before bed and or you know, will rub some of the serenity oil on. Put it even in a diffuser sometimes. And that really, really helps the system, my sleep. And there are other essential oils out there that you can use as well.
Some people like things like Bergamo or uh, Roman camomile essential oil in place of the tea that can be a little bit stronger. You can also use things like cedar wood vinegar, you know, if you really wanna try this avenue, reach out and let’s have a consultation. Let’s talk about it. . And then of course you know there are other medication or supplement blends that you can find out there for sleep.
And in most cases, it’s probably gonna be a matter of experimentation a little bit On this one, you may have to try some different essential oils and supplements and things and then track your sleep so that you’re aware of how. , these things are impacting your sleep. And you know, because like I said, in a perfect world, we would all fall asleep and sleep, get great deep sleep and get all the sleep we need without ever having to take any kind of supplement medication or essential oil.
But the reality is that most of us can benefit from some kind of support there. So then last but certainly not least, you can consider either getting some kind of hypnotherapy treatment to help you fall asleep. This is. More, but along the lines of a professional training to help assist you or. . You can also consider playing different kinds of music.
Personally, I would recommend something like classical music, like maybe handel’s water music. I’ve used that to fall asleep before. Or there are some music tracks out there that have some hypnotherapy and hypnosis. Things built into it that you can listen to to help you sleep. In fact, I have one called Sleep Well for Kids that you can look up and research that actually is designed with some hypnotherapy to help kids sleep.
But personally, you know, when I’ve had a few challenges with sleep in the past, I’ve used it for myself, even though I’m an adult and I’ve actually had some really. Pretty good luck with it. So hopefully this episode has given you some ideas and helped support you in helping you to stop counting sheep and actually get some sleep, and sleep well with you, regardless of your challenges that you may have with your autoimmunity.
Like I said, if you do really need some more assistance with. Sleep, reach out to me. Uh, there will be a link with this episode that will have my free consultation and let’s talk about your specific situation. I can also give you some recommendations on other therapies and professionals, things that you could try, um, because sleep really is a must and really, really important and I really want you to get that sleep.
So take care, and I will talk to you soon on another episode of the Autoimmune Rehab Podcast.
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