Watch this video to Discover:
- How sleep affects overall health and body weight
- The connection between obesity epidemic and sleep epidemic
- Simple tips on how to achieve restful, nourishing sleep that can transform your life
As many of you know, back in 2004 I lost 220 pounds and I've been the same weight since. I've now dedicated my life to teaching the theory, art, and practice of permanent sustainable weight loss.
What I want to talk about today is how to get a proper night’s sleep to support weight loss and overall well being.
Sleep is so important for weight loss. When you’re not getting enough sleep it elevates your cortisol levels, which causes insulin resistance. Insulin is the fat making hormone. So when you have elevated levels of insulin, your body goes into perpetual fat making mode and after a period of time you begin to lose the ability to burn fat.
In my work and experience I’ve heard a lot of clients complain about not being able to fall at sleep at night or waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep. So here are some tips that can help you fall asleep easily and naturally.
Natural Remedies for Quality Sleep
1. Avoid Stimulation Before Bedtime:
If you can’t fall asleep at night, the first thing I want to suggest is that you develop a ritual at night to help get you into a relaxed state. Typically when we can’t fall asleep at night, or when we wake up in the middle of the night and we can’t fall back to sleep, we’re in our heads and our minds are highly stimulated.
I want to take you out of your head and out of your mind and out of your thought patterns and into a relaxed state. So before you go to sleep try not to look at any screens such as TVs, phones, laptops, or tablets for at least 2 hours prior to going to bed. When you’re stimulated and looking at screens you are in your mind and not in your body and it interrupts your brain’s ability to produce melatonins and melanocortins which are a group of hormones that facilitate and help you fall asleep at night.
2. Enjoy a Hot and Cold Shower or Bath
A bath or shower before bed is a great way to relax your body, especially if you change the temperature from hot to cold.
If you take a shower, make the water progressively warmer and warmer until it’s as hot as you can stand it, then start making it colder and colder until it’s so cold you can’t stand it. Go back and forth a few times from the hot to cold. This combination of hot water then cold water, acts as a pump for your lymphatic system and expands and contracts your blood vessels which brings your awareness and consciousness and all your energy into your body and out of your mind. Try it at least once and see for yourself. Once you’re out, you’ll feel tingly and super relaxed.
3. Stretch Your Body
Perform a mild stretch before bed. Try getting into child’s pose by kneeling on your knees and placing your hands in front of your head and touching your forehead to the ground or bed. Stay in this pose for about 20 seconds to a minute and just focus on your breathing.
4. Listen to the Gabriel Method Evening Visualization
Lie down on your bed and listen to our evening visualization because it’s specifically designed to put you into the alpha, theta and then the delta states of deep sleep. You don’t have to listen to what it’s saying, you can tune out and let your subconscious listen. This guided visualization has lots of positive suggestions about having a successful life and about losing weight so it’s a great visualization to listen to before bed. It’s okay if you fall asleep even if you haven’t completed the visualization, that’s the point 🙂
Free Evening Visualization
How to Fall Asleep After Waking Up
If you wake up in the middle of the night, I suggest you try doing the same stretch, child’s pose, hold this pose for 30 seconds to a minute and then sit up and meditate. If you don’t have any experience with meditating, you just want to sit up, try to have your back straight, close your eyes and imagine a ball of light in your navel rolling around and focus on breathing in and out of that ball of light.
Keep your tongue touching the roof of your mouth. Just breathe in and out and sit there for a while. What I find when I do this is one of two things happens. Either, I get a really great meditation which has some amazing benefits for weight loss, creativity, productivity, stress reduction and many other health benefits or I get really tired and fall right back to sleep. Either scenario is great.
If that doesn’t work, repeat all 4 steps above, just as you would before bed. But don’t simply lay there letting your mind become more and more active. Even though you’re tired, make the effort to get up and take these simple relaxing steps and you’ll transition back to sleep much easier.
Give these strategies a try and you’ll be well on your way to getting a natural, healthy, deep rejuvenating night’s sleep and maybe even a great meditation too.
