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Functional Medicine and Women’s Sleep

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In this article Dr, Weymouth, a practitioner of Functional Medicine discusses the connection between the need need for Women to stay well fed and thus get optimal sleep. She discusses some of her experiences with patients. In specific situations in which the patient claims to not feel  feel hungry but  on a nutritional level they are lacking fuel  to create the cortisol  needed by the body. Below is an excerpt from the article entitled: Why Can’t Women Sleep? Part I: Building Better Sleep Basics 

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Feed Your Brain

Dr. Weymouth, a chiropractor and ex-insomniac, practices “Functional Medicine” whose aim is to answer the why’s, what’s and how’s of health. When a woman appears in her office complaining of poor sleep – and most do – she asks what they’re eating.

“If you’re not sleeping well at night, you’re probably not eating as well as you think you are,” she says.

Women who wake during the night may not feel hungry. But they may well be starved for nourishment their brain needs to make it calmly through the night.

“If we don’t have enough fuel, the body asks the adrenal glands to make cortisol,” Dr. Weymouth explains. Which, as I understand it, is like making fight-or-flight in a bottle that just happens to be your trying-to-sleep body.

To up your odds of sleeping well, Dr. Weymouth suggests eating breakfast within an hour of waking, have lunch within four hours of breakfast (and if you can’t, have a snack, and then your meal).

If three to four hours pass between dinner and bedtime, eat a snack before bed made up of fat, protein and carbohydrate – part of an apple with a small amount of nut butter, cheese and crackers, a fork-or-two of dinner leftovers.

Orgasms can be a great natural sleep aid for women who find them relaxing. (“If you want to run around cleaning your closet afterward, then you have your sex in the morning,” Weymouth says.)

Lemon balm, lavender and linden teas can have a calming effect on the nervous system, as can 2-3 minute rounds of slow deep breathing.

Insomnia, of course, is very real. So, where is the line between sleeping badly and sleep disorders?”

Read More…

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Originally Published: Huffington Post
Article Title:
Why Can’t Women Sleep? Part I: Building Better Sleep Basics
Author:
Sharon Glassman



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