8 tips to improve your sleep naturally

I have been interested in the healing power of sleep for a long time. One of the first assignments I can remember doing for my Introduction to Naturopathy course was actually all about sleep.

I love to sleep and I rarely have problems in this area but on those few occasions where I find myself staring at the ceiling I am lucky that I have all this knowledge stored away in my brain to help undo the dreaded insomnia. I like to share my sleep knowledge as much as I can and my clients often leave the clinic with handouts explaining the importance of good quality sleep and how they can improve their sleep which in turn improves their health.  Now I am spreading the love further and sharing some of my sleep tips with you :)

Insomnia, tossing and turning, watching the minutes tick by on the clock, thinking the same thoughts over and over, waking up every hour, nightmares, sleep talking, sleep walking, sleep eating, I'm exhausted just thinking about it all! If you wake up feeling tired and frustrated because you just can't get the good quality sleep that you used to, then read on and please put some of my tips into practice.

1. Good sleep hygiene is essential!

Do you like your bedroom? Is it pretty and peaceful and relaxing? If your bedroom is cluttered and dirty and ugly you're probably not going to enjoy being in it. So the first step in your sleep transformation is to create a sleep environment that you love. Get rid of any clutter in the bedroom and under the bed.

2. Use soft lamps 

Instead of bright lights as a dark environment is essential for melatonin production which is the hormone that regulates your sleep/wake cycles.

Relaaaaaax......

You can't realistically expect to come home from a crazy day at the office, scoff down your dinner, go for a run, watch the news and then fall into a peaceful slumber.

3. Eat your dinner at least 2 hours before you go to bed.

This gives your body time to digest your food before you go to sleep. If you're still trying to break down your dinner when you go to bed your body can't focus on rest and repair and you probably won't have a very sound sleep.

4. Try to exercise in the morning.

Some people find that exercising at night amps them up too much but exercising in the morning helps to give you energy to get through the day.

5. Take time to wind down before bed.

Watching the news and reading the paper are likely to stimulate your mind too much to be able to have a restful sleep so are best avoided in the evening. This rule also applies to work. If you must bring work home from the office, finish up one hour before bed time so that you can release all of the work clutter from your brain before you retire.

6. Try to spend the hour before bed relaxing.

Dim the lights, have a bath, meditate, do yoga, listen to calming music, write your journal (to get rid of those circling thoughts), and remember to breath deeply.

Sleep Routine

7. Go to bed at 10pm

or as close to 10pm as possible (this advice is for people who go to bed late. If you already go to bed at 9 or 9.30pm and have a great sleep, please continue!).

Studies have shown that the optimum sleep/wake times are sleep at 10pm, wake at 6am. Getting up early often allows you time to do your morning exercise, have a good breakfast and generally be more productive. Going to bed at 10pm allows your body enough time to get into the deep stages of sleep and repair and restore your body effectively. Did you know that your adrenal glad does its repair between 11pm and 1am? If you aren't deeply asleep between these hours your adrenal glad never gets a chance to restore itself which can lead to fatigue, anxiety and burn out.

Naturopathy for Insomnia

Naturopathic medicine such as herbal medicines, vitamins and minerals can help. These are best prescribed by your practitioner as there isn't one herb or nutrient that is guaranteed to be the answer so a trained naturopath is needed to determine what will work best for you. You may require magnesium to help relax your nervous system and muscles. Maybe you need a vitamin B complex in the day time or herbs for stress and anxiety. There is even a bach flower remedy specifically for 'unresolved circling thoughts' which I often put in my sleep mixes to help switch the worry off at night.

8. Drink herbal teas

to help relax your nervous system and induce a restful sleep. These may include Lavender, Passionflower, Chamomile and Lemon Balm. Try my TeaStress blend or Rest and Digest Blend, enjoy half an hour before bed. 

Sleep is very important for mental and physical health. If you can get yourself into a healthy sleep routine you will feel more energetic, you will get sick less often and your days will be more productive.

Happy sleeping :)

Laura x

ANZAC Cookies - Healthy ones of course!

ANZAC day is coming up fast so its time to start thinking about getting your ingredients together for your ANZAC cookies.

These cookies are a hit in my house, really easy to make and totally delicious!

You will need:

• 1 cup almond meal
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• ½ cup coconut sugar
• ¼ cup coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons raw honey
• ½ teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1 tablespoon water

Method:

1. Combine almond meal, coconut, sugar and oats in a bowl.
2. In a small saucepan slowly heat and stir the oil and honey until melted.
3. Mix the bicarb soda and water in a small bowl, remove saucepan from heat and add the bicarb mixture to the saucepan. The mix will froth.
4. Pour the liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients and combine well.
5. I rolled mine into 20 cookies but could’ve made 2-3 more if my partner hadn’t been hovering around eating the raw mix!
6. Place on a cookie tray or baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake on 150 degrees C for 13-15 minutes or until golden.
7. Allow to cool

About the ingredients:

I've used Almond meal instead of flour to make these cookies a great wheat free option (please note they are not gluten-free due to the oats). It also makes them a fairly good protein snack - Yay!

Coconut oil is used instead of butter as it is high in medium chain fatty acids and will not raise blood cholesterol. In fact, it is good for heart health.

Coconut sugar has twice the iron, four times the magnesium and over ten times the zinc of brown sugar. It’s a great low GI alternative to cane sugar.

Honey is used instead of golden syrup. Golden syrup is made in the process of refining sugar cane juice into sugar, or by treatment of a sugar solution with acid. Honey is made by bees so is naturally a better choice and is full of antioxidants. I've used raw honey as its even more antibacterial and healthful!

These cookies are such a great Low GI, healthy oil, protein-full snack and they are very difficult to stop eating! Enjoy them on ANZAC day or any time of year!

Vegetarian Nepalese Curry

love this curry. It’s very easy to prepare and I use it as my mid-week fall back if I need something quick to make after work.

I serve it with brown rice which combined with the chickpeas provides all of the amino acids to make a complete protein so this is the ideal vegetarian meal.

Ingredients:
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 Brown onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1.5 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
• 1.5 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 teaspoons curry powder

• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1.5 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
• 1.5 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
 

Method:
1. Heat oil in large pan and sauté onion, garlic and ginger until soft. Add spices and sauté.
2. Add cauliflower to pan and combine. Then add tomatoes and bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer until the cauliflower is tender.
3. Add the peas, chickpeas and coconut milk. Simmer to thicken.
4. Serve on brown rice and squeeze ¼ fresh lime juice over the top.

Is your work place making you fat?

A friend emailed me this week telling me that this was happening to her. She said that she felt like people in her office were always pushing food on her like team lunches, birthday cakes etc. And that when she declines she feels like people are judging her when they say “Ohh you’re so good”.

It seems that this is a pretty common problem. You go to work and your colleagues are eating biscuits (the work place biscuit jar is a temptation I often hear about), drinking soft drink, having fast food lunches and trying to take you along for the ride. Well it’s time for it to stop! And I’m going to help you.

This is not just for people who are trying to lose weight or maintain their weight loss. This is for people who want to be healthy and nourish their bodies with high quality fuel that makes them feel vital and alive instead of filling it with rubbish that makes them feel tired and flat. But, it’s important to do this in a way that doesn’t make you the office outcast or make you feel deprived.

Here are some of my tips to help you along the way:

1. Educate yourself. If you know why you want to eat good food it makes eating good food a lot easier. Do some research into what goes into junk food and then read up on the health benefits of natural food. A good place to start are the DVD’s called Food Matters or Hungry for Change these movies will help to cement what food is all about. It’s meant to be our fuel but we’re generally guilty of using really poor quality fuel instead of what our bodies really need and want.

2. Accept that just because you are now enlightened and have a pretty good understanding of the evils of junk food, not everyone cares or is ready to change their eating habits. If you want to keep friends at work, don’t try and push your new habits on them. If they enquire or show interest then YES definitely tell them what you know and help them to achieve better health. But if they’re not interested, don’t waste your time. You’ll just end up feeling frustrated and disappointed.

3. Be prepared. This is such an important part of maintaining a healthy diet. If you prepare your lunch and snacks and take them to work with you then you will have everything you need to eat for the day and it is easy to eat well. If you get to work with no packed lunch then you will most likely forget to have your morning snack, feel hungry and tired by lunch time and reach for a ‘convenience’ food because your brain is too starved of nutrients to be able to clearly think of something nourishing to eat. Make yourself a nut and seed mix for morning snack or useharvest box and have a different mix delivered every week. Make salads the night before and put your dressing in a separate container so you don’t have to endure a soggy salad. And if you want a treat in the afternoon make a cake/biscuit/slice at home so that you can eat something that is preservative, additive and nasty free. There are a lot of yummy recipes available online.

4. If there is a work lunch or morning tea where everyone brings a plate bring something that is healthy but doesn’t look it. Like a raw cacao chocolate slice, or a beetroot chocolate cake or homemade hommous with MSG free rice crackers and vegetable sticks. Healthy doesn’t have to be boring and you don’t have to miss out.

5. Remember that people will always try to sabotage you but you don’t have to sabotage yourself. Like my friend who said that “ohh you’re so good” sounds like judgement to her rather than a true compliment. This is not your green light to stuff a cheese burger down your throat. If you have followed step one and educated yourself then hopefully you’ll be able to think ‘Yes, I am good’ and you’ll hear your body saying “THANK YOU!”

Herb Profile: Passionflower

This week I’m profiling Passiflora incarnata commonly known as Passionflower.

This is such a beautiful, calming herb that I commonly use in sleep formulas or anxiety mixes.

Its actions include reducing anxiety, reducing muscle spasms, decreasing nervous tension, and inducing sleep.

We naturopaths and herbalists use passionflower to help people get to sleep and stay asleep, reduce irritability or anxiety, reduce headaches and period pain, to help support people withdrawing from drugs and alcohol, to aid asthma and coughing, as well as for people who get an upset stomach when nervous.

I find that passionflower works wonderfully in sleep mixes for both adults and children and it can also be taken as a tea.

Passionflower should not be used in pregnancy (unless under the close supervision of your herbalist or naturopath). And as with all herbal medicines and supplements it is always best to get advice and recommendations from your Naturopath if you think passionflower might be the herb for you

Choc-Mint Brain Power Bites

These balls are a really great way to take fish oil. Especially for kids. You can get a full therapeutic dose of fish oil in one ball for children and two balls for adults which definitely beats swallowing six capsules!

In my clinic, I use a high potency fish oil for children with ADD, ADHD, asbergers and learning difficulties. The oil I use has quite a strong peppermint flavour and some children are happy to take it straight off the spoon while others won’t touch it! So, these choc mint balls are the perfect disguise and they are now one of my favourite treats to eat!

I also have an adult version of the mint flavour which is used to prevent age related cognitive decline and is great for boosting brain power!

And of course they work well with orange flavoured fish oil for an anti-inflammatory and anti-aging Jaffa Bite.

Ingredients (Organic)

• 2 tablespoons coconut oil

• 3 tablespoons raw honey

• 3 tablespoons raw cocao

• 1.5 cup rolled oats

• 30ml mint flavoured fish oil

• Desiccated coconut (no added sugar)

Method

1. In a blender or stick mixer, blend the oats to make a fine powder

2. Add the cocao, coconut oil and honey and blend to combine

3. Mix in fish oil near the end – don’t blend too hard.

4. Roll into 12 balls and roll each ball in desiccated coconut.

5. Refrigerate to set. Store in fridge

*Each Brain Power Bite will provide approx. 2.5ml fish oil

If you don’t want to use fish oil in this recipe, just add more coconut oil or honey to get the right consistence and taste.

A note on fish oils

I use particular practitioner only oils as they are of a very high quality and are tested for heavy metals as well as rancidity. It is important when buying fish oils, to go for quality. Cheap fish oils often cause reflux or fishy burps – this is because the oil is rancid. Rancid fish oil is very bad for your health. When it comes to fish oil, avoid the bargain bulk tubs that seem too good to be true as they are probably, rancid, high in heavy metals and from fish caught by unethical and unsustainable practices.

Healthy Banana Muffins

These muffins are great as a snack or breakfast on the run.

They are gluten free, wheat free, dairy free.
The nut meal gives them a good amount of protein to help balance your blood sugar and keep you satisfied between meals and the flaxseeds help put a little extra omega 3 in your diet.

•   2 cups nut meal (I used half almond and half hazelnut)
•   2 ripe bananas
•   2 tbsp. honey
•   1 tsp. ground cinnamon
•   2 tbsp. flaxseed
•   3 eggs
•   2 teaspoons baking powder
•   2 tablespoon macadamia oil

Method: Combine all ingredients (I blended everything but the nuts in my stick mixer then combined with the nut meal). Makes quite a wet batter. Divide into muffin tins and bake at 170 for 25-30minutes.

 Enjoy!

A Naturopaths breakfast

I love my shakes for Breakfast and I've recently been asked what I put in them. Well, this changes every day but I thought I'd share a few of my standard favourites.

My Detox Smoothie above was delicious (don't be put off by the colour, you can't really taste the spirulina). It was made from:

• 250ml Coconut milk
• 1/2 frozen banana (peel before freezing)
• 1 teaspoon enterocare powder (a probiotic and slippery elm supplement)
• 1.5 scoops Thermophase detox powder (a protein powder which also helps with liver detoxification)
• 1 teaspoon spirulina powder
• Cinnamon on top

It was so yummy and kept me full until lunch time.

Sometimes if I'm in a rush I'll just have protein powder (at the moment I'm using rice protein) with almond, hazelnut or coconut milk or sometimes just with water.

This morning I skipped the protein powder and just had a Green Banana Smoothie:

• 250ml Almond milk
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 teaspoon enterocare
• 1 teaspoon spirulina
• 1/2 tablespoon flaxseeds
• 1 teaspoon avocado (makes it really creamy)
• Cinnamon

Sometimes I'll add berries too but I pretty much always have frozen banana because it tastes yum and makes it nice and cold.

Feel free to share with me some of your favourite smoothie ingredients.