Supplement Hacks for Deep Rejuvenating Sleep
Last week I wrote about sleep and how important it is to maximising your performance and some easy first steps to really optimise your sleep. Missed that post? Check it out HERE.
This week is part 2 where I share with you some of my favourite supplements to really hack your sleep and make sure you are waking up energized ready to start the day!
Need a reminder on why sleep is important?
Well according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), sleep is essential for a person’s health and wellbeing. Not getting adequate sleep can lead to:
- lack of energy & fatigue
- sugar cravings
- energy crashes in the afternoon
- overeating & binging
It has also been shown that getting less than 8 hours of sleep per night can lead to cognitive function decline later in life. And for those suffering from insomnia actually have three times the risk of all diseases. That’s right, insomnia triples the risk of death from all diseases.
Want more evidence on why sleep hacks can totally skyrocket your performance? Check out the latest studies on sleep in last weeks post HERE
Supplement Hacks for Deep Rejuvenating Sleep
Here are some supplements that you could try to completely hack your sleep. However don’t take any of these with alcohol, and I would rotate the use of different sleep aids until you get your body into a proper circadian rhythm. Read this article to learn even more sleep hacks for optimal brain and body performance.
Fill Up On Fat For Dinner
Fat burns like diesel fuel. It creates sustained energy for the mind and body for ultimate healing and rejuvenation from a days work. Animal fat, grass-fed butter, avocados and coconut oil are things you could have with your evening meal to help your body heal and recuperate as you sleep. Eating health fats also help to reduce sugar cravings at the same time as promoting fat burning throughout your body. Yep fat actually helps to burn fat. It’s actually not possible to store fat as adipose tissue unless you’re consuming heavy amounts of sugars and carbohydrates. So reduce the sugar and up the healthy fats to get better nights sleep, increase energy levels and switch your body over into fat burning mode.
Fish Oil or Krill Oil
These days’ people often struggle to get enough Omega 3 fats from their diet. However it’s so important and can really help with your sleep. Omega 3 can help to reduce anxiety and depression, optimize brain function, improve insulin sensitivity and increase muscle growth. It also aids in the production of relaxing neurotransmitter production that helps to melt stress off the body, ideal for sleep. Check out our recommended Omega 3 Supplement HERE.
Raw Honey
The brain keeps working all through night and so putting a little raw honey in your tea before bed can actually give power to the brain for all it’s needed functions while you sleep. You want to make sure it’s raw honey however because conventional honey stores as fat and isn’t used as well for energy.
According to Honey expert Nathaniel Altman, author of The Honey Prescription, raw honey before bed can actually help you get into deeper states of sleep.
Where possible however take the raw honey with other healthy fats or right after the consumption of healthy fats & proteins to prevent you from kicking your body out of fat burning mode.
Active PQQ For Optimal Rejuvenation
This is a cousin of coenzyme Q10, which helps the mitochondria in your cells work much better. The active form of PQQ has been shown to have a powerful impact on the quality of your sleep with as little as 10mg per night. Because the energy power plants of your cells are performing at a higher level, there is more energy output and your body repairs and detoxes faster. When the body repairs and detoxes faster, it starts replacing the body of essential anti-oxidants and nutrients to prepare you for your next day.
Glutathione For Deep Sleeps & All-Day-Energy
Glutathione is a Superhuman Entrepreneurs best high-performance anti-oxidant. If you want an increase in brain function, and deeper more rejuvenating sleeps, then you’ll want to maximize the production of this anti-oxidant in your body.
Most glutathione products on the market only work to increase glutathione on a gut level. It never impacts the cells of the body. GCell works to give the cells all the building blocks they need in order to skyrocket glutathione inside of the body. Check it out HERE.
When you do this, you will remove toxins out of the cells more rapidly and enable the mitochondria to work more efficiently. Glutathione also protects your genes from damage while helping to reduce your risk factor for all disease. By keeping your body pure of toxins, your sleep will be much better and you can get into the stage of sleep where your body is creating sufficiencies for the next day. Again the majority of us wake up feeling tired because the junk that has bio-accumulated from the days and weeks before have never been properly removed from the body. With just two pills two times per day, you can skyrocket your ability to remove toxins out of the body.
Activated Charcoal from Europe Optimizes Sleep Through Optimizing Gut Function
When you have good gut flora you get much more powerful and deeper sleeps as has been proven by various research studies. Activated charged charcoal from Europe has a 2x greater power than the BEST coconut charcoal or other charcoals found in America. Check out the one we recommend HERE
When you boost glutathione, you remove toxins from the cells. Your body will then dispel the toxins through your liver and into your gastrointestinal system. European charged charcoal can bind up to 400x its weight in toxins and will remove the toxins out of your system preventing a “retox” effect. This creates an ideal environment for the healthy bacteria to thrive and also helps to reduce inflammation within the body. Two to four capsules of bind at night can be very helpful in removing the toxins that your body detoxes through its sleep, out of the body.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D deficiencies can also lead to sleep disorders and vitamin D deficiency is becoming more and more common. In fact more than half of the worlds population is Vitamin D deficient!
To correct these deficiencies however you need to be careful about the amount of vitamin D that you take and when you take it. Vitamin D is inversely related to Melatonin, which I talk about next and therefore you don’t want to be taking vitamin D too late in the day. Taking Vitamin D in the morning has been shown to work best to help you have great nights sleep. Want to find out specifically what your body may be deficient in? Click here to find out more about our customised analytical programs.
Melatonin
Melatonin is an antioxidant found in the body that we talked about in this article about how to maximize its secretion naturally. I don’t think people should be supplementing with melatonin every night as you can develop a dependency. Like taking steroids, your body will naturally produce less of the hormone your supplementing with. The times that I do use melatonin is the first 1-2 nights I enter into a new time zone such as when I travel to Tokyo, Japan or London, England. Other times you may want to take it is if you had a traumatic life experience and are having trouble getting to sleep. In these cases recommend 200-600 mcg for men and 400 mcg’s for women 1.5-2.5 hours before you go to sleep. It’s essential that you don’t become dependant on it. Remember to read this article that highlights what you can do to naturally optimize melatonin secretion.
GABA
Unlike norepinephrine and epinephrine, which are excitatory neurotransmitters, GABA inhibits the function of these neurotransmitters to create more peace and quiet in the body. Hence, why it’s so good for sleep. It’s also good for people that need to clam down in the middle of the day if they are stressed out. I often recommend executives and entrepreneurs I work with to do this if using something like the calm app or MUSE isn’t working (make sure you check out Part 3 where we talk about technology to find out more).
For some people that wake up in the middle of the night for no reason and can’t get back to bed, increasing GABA through a passion flower extract can be helpful to get back to sleep. As a supplement start at 500mg’s and see how it works for you. There are anti-aging benefits as well, as it’s been shown to moderately boost High Growth Hormone secretion at 1000-3000 mg’s.
Phenyl-Gaba (phenibut)
This is a supplement that was discovered by the Russians that is much stronger than GABA. It doesn’t just help sleep but it acts as a nootropic to help your brain perform at higher levels and increase focus. You want to make sure you get liposomal phenibut if you want to get awesome deep sleep as it will get to your brain in this form. Other forms of phenibut are really just a waste of your money. Start with a 600mg dose and use this one intermittently.
L-Tryptophan
This works well when you take it with GABA at a dose starting at 500mg’s per night. Its powerful stuff so only use intermittently if you need it to fall asleep.
L-Theanine
When I’m over in Japan, many people will have green tea after their dinner. I would assume that it would keep them up at night, but green tea has an amino acid call l-theonine that reduces stress. It also inhibits the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate which enables you to relax more. Suntheanine is a brand that has a specific form of L-theanin that you can use.
Magnesium
Most people that I work with at Designer Health Centers that have tested their micronutrient deficient are deficient in magnesium (click here if you’re interested in performance testing yourself). My favourite forms are magnesium citrate, malate, and aspartate. You should take 400-800 mg’s per day. If you take too much you could cause a blow out, so be careful. 😉 If you are constipated and want to loosen your stools, magnesium can also help with that.
Potassium
Many of the supplements I carry work synergistically with potassium. Magnesium and potassium work very well together in the forms of potassium citrate and bicarbonate.
Your nervous system needs potassium to thrive. Take 400mg’s at bedtime starting at 200mg’s.
Body Hacks
Want to learn more body hacks for busy people that can help you burn fat, increase energy & skyrocket your productivity? We have put together a super easy resource for you to get all our best strategies so you can maximise your health and performance!
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