Your hormones help you fall asleep fast — here’s how If you’ve ever wondered why you sleep better some nights rather than others, your hormones might be the culprit. From renowned sleep hormones such as melatonin to lesser known ones, our sleep hormones help us to thrive and reset at the right times each day. They play a crucial role in the sleep-wake cycle, helping us wind down in the evening and wake feeling refreshed and ready to go. While we’re all familiar with melatonin and cortisol, there are other hormones that can influence how well we sleep too including estrogens, progesterone and testosterone. We all work on a 24 hour internal clock, this is known as our circadian rhythm, and this is regulated by our hormones. Your hormones play a crucial role in preparing your body to wind down for sleep and rev up the next morning as part of the sleep/wake cycle. This means they’re responsible for how fast we fall asleep and whether we can sleep through the night. When they fluctuate from time to time due to periods of stress or illness or during the menstrual cycle, for example, it can disrupt how well you sleep “Melatonin is the main sleep hormone and it’s produced by the pineal gland in the brain,” explains Dr Olalekan Otulana, a GP and addictions physician at Cassiobury Court. It helps to regulate our body’s internal clock and it usually starts rising in the evening as it gets dark. This helps to make us feel sleepy,” Melatonin levels then fall in the morning as light exposure increases.” This is what helps us wake up naturally in the mornings. Testosterone tends to promote deeper and more restorative sleep, particularly in terms of slow-wave sleep,” explains Dr Otulana. Its levels follow a diurnal rhythm where they peak in the early morning (roughly between 6am and 8am) and then gradually decline throughout the day. But testosterone levels are a balancing act for sleep. “Too little testosterone can significantly impact the circadian rhythm and lead to insomnia,” Too much can disrupt sleep patterns and cause frequent awakening through the night This kind of sleep disruption makes it difficult to achieve the full sleep cycle, which ultimately helps our body’s cells to regenerate, enables us to dream, create memories and wake up feeling refreshed.
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