As promised in the previous post Want to support your immune system? Let’s talk basics!, we start today with our journey in the skills section of the functional nutrition matrix and explore it in relation with immune health.

The first block in the skills section is: Sleep and relaxation. And we start today from SLEEP.

Why do we need good sleep? And how to achieve that?

The interaction between sleep and the immune system is well known in traditional wisdom. When we get an infection, we are tired and need more sleep, right? When we are sleep deprived, we more easily get sick. Is this bi-directional relationship also proven scientifically? Yes, it is.

Sleep and the immune system are, in fact, reciprocally related.

While on one hand sleep deprivation modifies various components of the immune system, sleep patterns are altered during the immune response [1].

Shorter sleep durations, for instance, are associated with a rise in suffering from the common cold [1] and sleep loss has been even shown in human studies to worsen the immune response to vaccinations [2].

Loss of sleep causes an inflammatory response and an increase in an individual’s risk for both viral infection and inflammation-related disease. This happens because of the influence of sleep on two systems which shift the gene expression towards an increased pro-inflammatory state [3]:

1. the sympathetic nervous system (think fight, flight or freeze response) - the stage as well as the depth of sleep influence the shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic mode

2. the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (think stress, cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline) – while under normal conditions the activation of the HPA axis leads to the release of cortisol, which acts as a potent anti-inflammatory substance, a different pattern can emerge as a consequence of persistent or repeated activation of the HPA axis and in which the immune cells become less sensitive to the anti-inflammatory effects of cortisol.

And this connects sleep also to the aspects of relaxation, stress and resilience, which we will touch in one of the following blog posts.

Quite intuitively, when it comes to sleep, both its duration and its quality appear to help maintain immune health [2].

On the other hand, the immune system appears to modulate sleep as well, i.e. through certain inflammatory cytokines (a group of proteins which act as chemical messengers in the immune system), which influence sleep mechanisms. [2, 3]

Sleep is heavily undervalued in today’s society and often sacrificed in order to have longer working hours, social activities or more “screen time”. On top of that, unfortunately many suffer from occasional or chronic sleep difficulties and feel powerless about them.

Today, many of us, in different countries around the world, are being asked (or forced) to work from home whenever possible and refrain from social activities, or even to plainly stay home.

If we can, then, let’s use then this very special time in our lives to start (again) taking care of our wellbeing, starting from our sleep.

So what can we do about it? Here some tips. Some are even more important, now that our normal routine might have been disrupted!

Sleep routine

Establish a consistent sleep routine, if you don’t have one already:

• Catch your natural “sleep wave” and go to bed at the same time every night. Ideally, you should be able to fall asleep within 20 minutes. If you don’t, get up, go to another room and engage in a relaxation activity (i.e. deep breathing, meditating, or even reading a book under a low warm light).

• Wake up at the same time every day and if possible, expose yourself to at least 20 minutes of sunlight during the morning.

Eating and drinking

• Avoid caffeinated drinks in the afternoon. The sensitivity to caffeine is individual, find out what works for you. For some people, this might mean no coffee (or tea, sodas and even chocolate) after 12 or 2pm or none at all.

• Avoid alcoholic drinks in the evening, or at least within 3 hours of bedtime.

• Avoid eating within 3 hours of bedtime.

• For some people, such as me, dinners that are heavy in protein affect the ability of falling asleep. You need to experiment (and track!) to know what works best for you.

• Keeping your blood sugars stable is fundamental to stay asleep during the night. Waking in the middle of the night might be a sign of blood sugar imbalances. Want to know more? Ask away or get in touch directly!

Light

• Avoid exposure to blue- and green-spectrum light within 1 or better 2 hours of bedtime. No screens such as mobile phones, computer, TVs!

• To help avoiding exposure to blue light, you can install filters on your devices (i.e. f.lux), and/or wear blue-light blocking glasses.

Sleep environment

• Sleep in a pitch-dark room! Make your room a completely dark sanctuary.

• Keep the temperature of your bedroom in the correct temperature range (not too cold, not too warm).

Do you have more tips or strategies you use to support your sleep? And by doing that the balance of your immune system? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Do you need personal support with your diet and lifestyle during this particularly challenging time? Book your free 20-minute phone consultation here!

References

[1] Ibarra-Coronado, Elizabeth G et al. “The Bidirectional Relationship between Sleep and Immunity against Infections.” Journal of immunology research vol. 2015 (2015): 678164. doi:10.1155/2015/678164

[2] Besedovsky, Luciana et al. “The Sleep-Immune Crosstalk in Health and Disease.” Physiological reviews vol. 99,3 (2019): 1325-1380. doi:10.1152/physrev.00010.2018

[3] Irwin, Michael R, and Mark R Opp. “Sleep Health: Reciprocal Regulation of Sleep and Innate Immunity.” Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology vol. 42,1 (2017): 129-155. doi:10.1038/npp.2016.148