Restful healing sleep for Lyme – Why?

It is not a big jump to say that restful healing sleep helps you feel better with Lyme Disease.  “Make sure you get enough sleep” is common advice.  Doctors tell you to plenty of rest as part of the healing journey, but they don’t tell you why it is worth the effort.

Restful healing sleep means enough uninterrupted sleep to wake up energized and ready to go.  This is not easy or automatic with Lyme Disease, it can be downright difficult to sleep through the night and wake up refreshed when itches anxiety aches and pains are the norm.   Sleep habits and routines can help. Sleep rituals like lowering the lights and getting to bed before 10 pm, promote a reset to parasympathetic nervous system response, which is optimum for healing. Click for tips on simple ways to improve your sleep habits

How Restful Healing Sleep helps

Sleep is 

• Healing time.
• Detox time
• Processing time
• Nervous System Reset time
• Experience processing time

Honor  Your Body’s natural  sleep cycles to help your healing journey.

The circadian rhythms keep you on schedule   These rhythms regulate the release of hormones in the body like melatonin to promote sleep.  The suprachiasmatic nucleus located near the eye manages melatonin concentration based in part on light levels.  Too many late nights, disruptions or even late night light can throw rhythms  and sleep off.  Jet lag occurs when you travel and throw things off a lot.  You know how that feels.

Restful healing sleep is a great gift.  Sleep when dark, wake when light, resets circadian rhythms over time to our optimal and most natural, hormonal environment.  This promotes accuracy and resilience in our immune system critical to help deal with Lyme and co-infections.

Sleep is fundamental for mental and physical health.   The research is in.   Adults need to sleep 7 to 8 hours a night to support normalized glucose response, inflammation management and all kinds of important stuff.   Kids and Teenagers need more.  For example less than 6 hours of sleep a night increases obesity and double your risk for diabetes and stroke.  Sleep deprivation increases anxiety, depression, decreases hand to eye coordination and makes you cranky.

Without a baseline of rest our natural cycles and rhythms go out of sink, potentially followed by hormones and immune system integrity.  A Yale school of Medicine study links circadian clocks in mice with proper function of an immune system genes.  (Mercola)  A number of health conditions are linked to lack of sleep including non 24 and fatal familial insomnia.

Restful Healing Sleep and Recovery

So in a healthy person sleep is critical to stay that way.  Disease puts the body under deep stress.    Don’t overlook the importance of sleep as part of your healing and recovery.

Sleep is the time the body does much of its healing and repair.  Sleep disruption increases chronic inflammation as measured by c-reactive protein. (Okun)  A well rested body is crucial to minimize the ongoing damage that can accompany Lyme disease.

The body and brain detox, flush out the trash during sleep. When you have Lyme disease as a tenant it creates a ton of trash. For more information on the health effects from lack of sleep click here.

So you just don’t want to be burning the midnight oil.  If you are a night owl you need to consider becoming an early bird.  Asleep by 10pm and up by 6am establishes that the habit of consistent adequate rest critical to both healthy hormones and a healthy immune response. In recovery mode 9:30 to 6 might even be better.   Rest is necessary for sustained wellness.  If you have Lyme Disease you really need to rebuild baseline strength and wellness.

References:

1. Mercola, “Ignore the essential habit and your health will eventually decline”, 2012 June, 6, http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/06/02/can-sleeping-affect-immune-system.aspx.
2. Okun Michele L, PhD.”Biological Consequences of Disturbed Sleep: Important Mediators of Health?” Jpn Psychol Res, 2011 May 1; 53(2): 163-176.

The information provided on this website is not a substitute for professional medical care, treatment or advice. All the material here is for information purposes only. Always share strategy and work with your health care team.