3 Habits That Hijack Sleep

You can eat well, exercise regularly, take supplements, and drink plenty of water.

But if your sleep is suffering because of a few everyday habits, your body never gets the opportunity to do what it was designed to do: repair itself.

Sleep is when your brain organizes memories, your immune system gets to work, your muscles recover, and countless repair processes take place. When those processes are interrupted night after night, the effects eventually begin to show up throughout your body.

Here are three common habits that may be preventing you from getting truly restorative sleep.

1. Eating Too Close to Bedtime

Your body has two important jobs.

One is digesting food.

Every time you eat, you turn on your digestive system. If you eat just before bed, your body is digesting food when it should be focused on repair and recovery. Digestion takes priority, sleep quality declines, REM and deep sleep are reduced, and you'll feel the difference in your energy the next day.

2. That Nightly Glass of Wine

Many people believe alcohol helps them sleep because it makes them feel drowsy.

Falling asleep is not the same as getting quality sleep.

Alcohol reduces REM sleep, the stage associated with memory, learning, emotional processing, and many of the restorative functions that help you wake up feeling refreshed. It also increases awakening during the night, even if you don't remember them the next morning.

You may sleep through the night and still wake up feeling tired because the quality of your sleep has been compromised.

If better sleep is your goal, reducing or eliminating alcohol in the evening is one of the most effective changes you can make.

One a side note, listen I get it. Nobody loves a glass of wine backdrop France. Let's get to a higher level and revisit how it can better fit into your healthier lifestyle. First things First.

3. Marijuana Before Bed

Marijuana makes it easy to fall asleep, and many people enjoy the feeling of nighttime sedation. But sedation is not the same as restorative sleep. Marijuana alters your normal sleep architecture. REM sleep is suppressed, and your brain misses some of its most important overnight work. The result is less recovery, less repair, and less restoration. Nighttime sleep is the only time your body can do this work.

Ask yourself one simple question.

Are you simply sleeping with a strange sense of being awake also, or are you getting restorative sleep?

There is a difference.

Your Body Was Designed to Repair Itself

No supplement can replace poor sleep.

Every night your body has another opportunity to repair, recover, regulate hormones, strengthen your immune system, and prepare you for the day ahead.

Sometimes improving your health isn't about adding something new.

Sometimes it's about removing the habits that quietly interfere with your body's ability to do what it already knows how to do.

Reflect on this: Which one of these habits could you change tonight to give your body a better opportunity to recover while you sleep? And then simply do it :)