Having trouble sleeping?
A change of season can leave us feeling thrown off kilter in all sorts of ways – and if you’ve noticed you haven’t been sleeping as well since autumn started to arrive, you really haven’t been imagining it.
During the winter, when the daylight hours are less than during summer, the brain is exposed to less light in the evenings – and this means that our body makes more melatonin (the sleep hormone), which affects us by making us feel tired.
With less sunlight, there is also less opportunity for the body to make vitamin D. Charlie Morley, a lucid dreaming teacher and author of Wake To Sleep (charliemorley.com), notes that the “time we want to go to bed and rise is [linked to] our serotonin levels and melatonin”. Towards this time of the year, “our serotonin is reducing earlier because it is darker, and that then changes our internal desire to sleep and makes us feel less rejuvenated when we wake up”.
So, if your body’s natural response to the shift in seasons seems to be a bout of grogginess, what can we do to help feel more rested and revived this autumn?
GET OUTDOORS
“Exposure to natural light is really good for switching on your serotonin receptors. If you wake up feeling groggy, get outside and move your body,” Morley suggests.
KEEP YOUR BEDROOM COOL
At it gets cooler, you may be tempted to wrap yourself in extra blankets. But as Morley explains: “You always want a slightly cooler bedroom, ideal conditions for sleep are quite cool. Don’t make your room too warm just because it is getting cooler.”
BE MINDFUL OF YOUR GUT
Curling up with a warming bowl of casserole is one of the joys of autumn and winter. But an unhappy gut can be bad news for sleep, so it’s something to keep an eye on if you’re prone to digestion issues. We also have cravings to eat more stodgy foods when the weather is colder, and that can affect our digestion, especially if foods are fatty and highly calorific.
TAKE VITAMIN D SUPPLEMENTS
Vitamin D was the big buzzword vitamin during the pandemic but it is just as important now, especially as the nights draw in and there isn’t enough sunlight for our bodies to make enough of it (which is why daily vitamin D supplements are recommended during the colder months). And as Morley notes, having sufficient “vitamin D can really help you sleep better”.