Restorative Sleep – part 2

October 9, 2025

Good Sleep is Your Foundation

updated 11-16-25

How you rested and recovered the night before sets you up for everything: your mood, your appetite, your energy level, your cognition, and your creativity.

The field of neuroscience is rich with new research on sleep and it is so enlightening. I had definitely taken this metabolic process for granted in the past, pushing it to the back like it was the lest important when it needed to be in the front as primary. If you feel this way too, it can be corrected more easily than other things and is a great place to begin your reset with yourself.

A Bad Night’s Sleep

Many clients share how their mood, focus, energy, and hunger cues are affected by last night’s sleep. We all experience interrupted and lost sleep sometimes and the body can manage it occasionally but not regularly. Even one hour less of your normal sleep amount can make you cranky, weepy, crave carbohydrates, and make staying on task painful.

Last night, I slept really poorly. I had a lot of family stuff on my mind. I was struggling to quiet my body, even after a body scan (see last post for body scan links). The moonlight was strong. The winds were howling. I could have laid their activating my stress response, worrying about how bad I might feel tomorrow, which only keeps you from falling asleep and staying asleep.

Instead, I surrendered to the night. I know that we can endure a bad night’s sleep from time to time. We can. Consider parents of newborns all over the world who naturally experience interrupted sleep until their newborn sleeps through the night. The key is knowing how you respond to a bad night’s sleep the next day and be responsive to those cues. For instance, I typically have stronger cravings for carbohydrate and over eat when I am short on sleep. This is common. Lack of sleep interrupts leptin and ghrelin, your hunger hormones. I might also get anxious over the to-do or the future. So in response, I plan my meals for the day, edit my to-do list to the basics, and schedule a power nap after lunch. I know I will get the week’s list done on other day this week. I know I feel refreshed after a 25 minute nap. I know hitting the gym, even if I am foggy, will improve my focus and mood for the evening. I know this about myself because I have tested it. This is why being in tune with yourself is so critical.

Reaching for caffeine as feels natural however that caffeine you ingest today can negatively affect your sleep tonight. Caffeine does not clear your bloodstream for up to 10 hours. Caffeine can be used affectively but we build a tolerance to it so more is needed. It is best used intermittently and not past noontime.

When we are emotionally burdened and suffering, sleep can be extra difficult because we struggle to stop trying to solve our problems in bed. Having a sleep routine and your circadian rhythm set helps because even during trying times, the sleep rituals cue your brain that it is the to sleep no matter what. You will find yourself yawning around the same time in your sleep prep protocol. And that is the message you want to be sending to your body and mind, “there is nothing more to do today. We will think about this in the morning.” You will manage life’s transitions and pains so much more effectively if you can maintain the basics of regular sleep.

Crap sleep happens. It’s ok. Accept that it happens from time to time. Surrender to the night. Start your bedtime prep a bit earlier tonight. Plan to watch the sunset and look forward to it. You get a fresh chance every morning to get your personal sleep experiment right.

Beyond the Circadian Rhythm

In ‘Restorative Sleep’ part 1, we defined the human circadian rhythm as our brain taking red light at sunrise, blue light all day, and red light again at sunset, setting us up for sleep.

However something I recently found in the research is that humans also attune to the moon cycles and the seasons. Sleep patterns adjust to the Earth cycles. Even more reason to be not only in tune with yourself, but with your awareness of the plant you live on.

The synchronization of human sleep to the moon phases is documented and research indicates it can negatively affect your circadian rhythms. Closing curtains during the nights up to and after a full moon can assist your brain to stay on it’s desired sleep track. Enjoying a full moon rise is irresistible to me personally, I just don’t spend a lot of time staring at it and let it make it’s journey across the night sky while we sleep.

In the western hemisphere, we are in the Fall Equinox. The sun is rising a bit later each morning. Many of us are very aware that two months ago in high summer, we were rising at 6am without a problem and now we notice that it is more like 6:30am or 7am that we are awaking naturally.

I am currently testing out sunrise alarm clocks. If you have not heard of these, they gently wake you up with slow gradual light that mimics the sun. It would be lovely to awake with the sun and go to sleep with the moon, but in most of the modern world, we need all the hours in a day whether it is light or not. This is the sunrise clock I am currently testing out.

I have had so many clients who reveal in Fall and the coziness of the approaching winter and some who dread it and yearn for the long warm days of summer. Regardless of our desired season, we still need the same amount of sleep each night, so using artificial lighting or darkening eye masks or curtains to counter the loss or gain of natural day light is necessary to stay optimal.

Sleep Cycles

All through the night, you are on a river of sleep phases, in and out, up and down, rolling along until morning. It looks different for everyone, but it looks something like this:

A 4 minute listen from leading sleep expert, Dr. Matthew Walker on the stages of sleep,

I highly recommend getting a sleep tracker and tracking your sleep. This is the one I use and I love it. It was affordable and has a simple, low-profile design, My fitbit inspire 3 on Amazon. Be curious on how much sleep you need to feel focused and balanced all day. Everyone is different. You have to discover your optimal sleep duration for you.

Day Time Sleep – Napping

There is a lot of controversy about napping, with some saying that day time sleeping disrupts the circadian rhythm and will negatively impact your night time sleep. There is also a good deal of data that says the opposite. When you are in tune with yourself, you know what works for you and what doesn’t. Day time sleep has it’s purpose. You just have to know what is optimal for you.

Cultures all over the world partake in a nap after the midday meal. A key take away from that tradition is the nap is short, under 1/2 hour. A brief rest, even if you don’t totally fall into a deeper sleep cycle, can improve alertness, reaction time, memory and over-all mood. Napping too long into a deeper sleep cycle can interrupt your circadian rhythm, make you feel groggy, give you a headache, or worse, you wake up feeling irritable. Harvard health