Bitesize Biohacks Sleep & Natural Ways To Enhance Melatonin Production

8:57AM Aug 26, 2022

Speakers:

Angela Foster

Intro

Keywords:

melatonin production

melatonin

evening

red light therapy

cortisol

light

magnesium

tryptophan

important

angela

episode

sleep

device

early

carbohydrates

optimizers

love

body

recommend

blue light blocking

When cortisol is high, melatonin is going to be lower, and vice versa. And that's why it's so important to manage your stress because if you're highly stressed in the evening that will also inhibit melatonin production.

Welcome to the high performance health podcast with your host Angela Foster. The show where we talk about everything you need to break through limits and achieve a high performance, mind, body and lifestyle.

Hi, friends, welcome to another episode of Bite Size bio hacks. This week on the podcast, I'm going to be talking about another hormone and that is melatonin. Now, melatonin is very important for helping you sleep. It's not a sleep initiator, but it is a powerful sleep regulator. So it's very important that you are producing sufficient levels of melatonin naturally If you want to be able to have a good night's sleep, the biggest thing that you can do in terms of biohacking your sleep, as far as melatonin is concerned is to get two key things under control. The first is stress And the second is a light, not necessarily in that order, I would say light actually is probably the most powerful thing in terms of like a melatonin production. So with that, what you want to be doing is getting outside in the natural light as early as you can in the morning. Now it isn't

as effective to look through a window. So you might be thinking, well, if I you know, if I'm kind of at my desk and close to the window, is that going to give me the what I need in terms of melatonin and cortisol production. And it isn't because actually that window is going to be filtering out a lot of the blue light. So what I would say to you is get outside as early as you can into the natural light, even if it's only a few minutes. And what that does is actually enhance your body's production of cortisol in the morning, and help with that cortisol awakening response. It also helps with the production of serotonin. And that serotonin is what is going to be later converted into melatonin in the evening. Serotonin also gives you a fantastic boost in mood. So it's really important neurotransmitter as well. So the first thing is get outside early in the morning, even if it's only for a few minutes, and give your eyes access to that natural blue light. Now with cortisol, we want that cortisol in the morning, because it's quite stimulating, it helps us get going. But then we want the cortisol to be tapering off during the day, because cortisol and melatonin actually have an inverse relationship. So when cortisol is high, melatonin is going to be lower, and vice versa. And that's why it's so important to manage your stress because if you're highly stressed in the evening, that will also inhibit melatonin production. So when it comes to the evening, you want to be book ending your day. If you go and listen to the other Bitesize Biohacks episode I did about my evening routine, it will give you some helpful tips on how to do that. But in the evening, I recommend bookending your day going through a relaxing evening routine. And then dimming the lights down and putting on your blue light blocking lens wear. Now in terms of blue light blocking glasses, my favourite are by Red Light Rising, they do some fantastic lens where I tend to use the yellow ones in the afternoon and then I'll transition to the red glasses in the evening, which really pretty much block all of the blue light. And that's a really good way of helping your body naturally produce more melatonin. They also have fantastic red light therapy devices which I use. And these can be helpful, particularly in certain seasons. When you know here in the UK, we're not really aligned with the kind of Equatorial rhythm where we have 12 hours of darkness and 12 hours of light, sometimes is you know, it can be really, really light in sort of late June, July well into sort of 9:30 - 10 in the evening, and a lot of people find it difficult to go to sleep. And then sadly in the afternoons, it can be getting dark by about 4pm in sort of late November, early December. And that's where you're using something like a red light therapy device to help regulate your circadian rhythm can be quite powerful. You've heard me talk in the past about the benefits of red light therapy for things like energy and mitochondria and collagen production and all of those things. But actually they can really help in terms of biohacking your sleep routine as well. And so I will tend to simulate sunrise with my red light therapy device when the sun is rising much later in the month in the winter months. And then I simulate sunset in the summer months by using the red light therapy device in the evening. So that's something you can do as well. And in terms of the red light therapy devices and the blue light blocking lens were using get 10% off over at Redlightrising.com with code Angela, that's code Angela to get 10% off. And totally the other things that you can do to enhance melatonin production is to have some carbohydrates with your evening meal. One of the precursors to both serotonin and melatonin is an amino acid called tryptophan. And when you have carbohydrates, it actually helps to passport that tryptophan across the blood brain barrier. It's kind of like a taxi that shuttles that across which is very cool, kind of cool biohack. So having some carbohydrates with ideally protein rich foods that are rich interactive. And so things like turkey and tuna, for example can be really helpful. And that tryptophan gets converted into 5-HTP, which then gets converted into serotonin, which helps with your mood, and then that gets converted into melatonin. The other reason that I recommend having carbohydrates in the evening is that if you're on a very low carbohydrate diet, this can interfere with melatonin production. And this is because your body will start to produce its own glucose through a process known as gluconeogenesis. And that process actually requires the production of cortisol. And as you'll remember, from what I was saying earlier, we don't want to be raising cortisol in the evening, if we really want to be getting a good night's sleep, you can also incorporate some foods that are naturally high in melatonin. And that would be things like cherries or tart cherry juice, a lot of people take that before bed. Also, things like bananas and almonds and walnuts can be helpful as well. And then other things that can really help is to make sure you're replete in certain vitamins and minerals. So making sure you've got really good levels of B vitamins. I wouldn't take B vitamins if you're supplementing in the evening because they can be quite stimulatory. So you'd want to take those earlier in the day with some food either with breakfast or lunch. But making sure you are replete. And B vitamins is important. Making sure that you're getting enough protein in your diet to produce melatonin is important as well. And then also making sure you've got sufficient levels of omega three and also magnesium. Now you can take different forms of magnesium to help with sleep on its own things like magnesium glycinate, or magnesium threonate. I personally love the magnesium by Boo Optimizers. Pretty much everyone, I recommended

I think everyone in fact, I've recommended it to absolutely loves it. And again, you can get 10% off Bio Optimizers Magnesium Breakthrough by using code Angela10. Just head over to biooptimizers.com/Angela and enter code Angela10 at checkout. And I tend to take that magnesium in the evening about an hour or so before bed. And then if I'm having kind of under a stressful period, I'll also take it in the mornings as well. And I find that it really does help to sleep. If you have any things like dust issues, for example, it's worth getting those checked out because things like parasites can interfere with melatonin production. And the other thing to think about as well is just turning off your Wifiat night, making sure you Power down your phone, these EMS or electronic devices can actually interfere with things like deep slow wave sleep and melatonin production as well. So those are my top tips for really enhancing melatonin production naturally. As you know, sleep is the foundation of my shift protocol. It's super important. And melatonin itself actually interesting is a powerful antioxidant, which is what you want to be producing to help your body reduce oxidative stress. I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode. If you're not already a member of my Facebook group, Female Biohacker then head over to Facebook and search for Female Biohacker. And come and join us over there is a wonderful community of women. And we'd love to see you in there back in September. Now I'll be going back to my weekly Facebook Lives where you can ask Q&A of me as well and interact with everyone in the group who just loves to optimise their health too. Thanks again for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, and you're enjoying the podcast, please don't forget to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. And also if you can leave a review, I would absolutely love that, as the reviews do matter and they really help me to get the message out to a wider audience. Thanks so much and thanks for listening. I will see you again next week for another episode of Bitesize Biohacks

Please know that while I try to cover as much information to help you as I can on these bite sized episodes, none of the things I mentioned should be taken as a substitute for medical advice and before taking any supplements or anything else. Please consult first with your medical doctor.

Thanks for listening. Remember to review and subscribe. You can grab the show notes, the resources and highlights of everything Angela mentioned over at Angela Foster performance.com You can also snatch up plenty of other goodies including the highly helpful Angela recommends page which is a list of everything she personally recommend to optimise your mind, body and lifestyle