How to Sleep Well for Optimal Nervous System Regulation

Have you ever wondered how much your sleep—or lack thereof—could impact your brain health? A study by Harvard Medical School and Brigham Women’s Hospital, found that those who slept 5 hours or less a night had double the risk of developing dementia. According to sleep expert Matthew Walker, the brain has a 40% deficit in the areas of learning and memory when we do not sleep. This isn’t just important for students but for all of us who want to create a different outcome in our lives—whether that is having more energy, being a better parent or partner, making more money, or simply being happier. We all need our brains to be able to learn new information if we want to make changes to our lives.

When we experience healthy sleep, it allows our bodies to heal—not just from illness but from the day. Our muscles have to work, our brains are always busy, and we need to extract energy from food while detoxifying pollutants that we are surrounded by each day. Balancing our hormones and so on is crucial; our bodies do a lot of work during a normal day of being alive. So, when we sleep, our bodies get to repair. When this works well, we wake up feeling rested and ready for a new day, with a malleable brain that can learn new information and remember it.

Let’s take a look at ways to improve our sleep: creating evening routines, optimizing circadian rhythms, and sleeping in a healthy environment.

Why is Sleep Important?

During sleep, our brains store memories and help us learn new things the next day. They build new neural connections between things we have learned that day, and our glymphatic system—the brain’s very own lymphatic system—gets to work removing waste products that build up during the day.

We need four different phases of sleep for all these health benefits to occur. According to the National Sleep Foundation, these are:

  • NREM (75% of night): As we begin to fall asleep, we enter NREM sleep, which is composed of stages 1-4.

    • N1: Between being awake and falling asleep, this is light sleep.

    • N2: This is the onset of sleep, where we become disengaged from our surroundings. Our breathing and heart rate are regular, and our body temperature drops (so sleeping in a cool room is helpful).

    • N3: This is the deepest and most restorative sleep. Our blood pressure drops, breathing becomes slower, muscles relax, and blood supply to muscles increases. Tissue growth and repair occurs, energy is restored, and hormones such as growth hormone—essential for growth and development, including muscle development—are released.

  • REM (25% of night): This first occurs about 90 minutes after falling asleep and recurs every 90 minutes, getting longer later in the night. REM sleep provides energy to both the brain and body, supports daytime performance, and is when the brain is most active, leading to dreaming. During this phase, our eyes dart back and forth while the body becomes immobile and relaxed as muscles are turned off.


We cycle through a pattern of alternating REM and NREM sleep throughout a typical night in a cycle that repeats about every 90 minutes. When we get these different phases of sleep, our bodies can build a healthy immune system, clear debris from the brain, reduce inflammation, repair muscles, soft tissues, and bones, regenerate cells, and clear away hormone metabolites and used enzymes from the digestive tract. It also allows our brains to store long-term memory, reduce our stress response, boost our mood, and improve our coordination and mental focus.

Proper sleep can also balance our appetites by helping to regulate levels of the hormones ghrelin and leptin, which play a role in our feelings of hunger and fullness. The one-third of our lives that we spend sleeping—far from being “unproductive”—plays a direct role in how full, energetic, happy, and successful the other two-thirds of our lives can be.

However, most of us know that we should sleep; this doesn’t mean that we all sleep easily. In fact, this makes the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep at night even more frustrating. So let’s take a look at why we may struggle to sleep and what we can do about it.

Sleeping Environment

One way to help our bodies and brains relax into sleep is to ensure that we have an optimal environment for sleeping. This means creating darkness (eye masks and blackout blinds can be helpful here), quiet (ear plugs or white noise machines may be useful for some), and a cool-temperature room. Our ideal temperature will vary from one person to another, but research shows that the majority of us sleep well in environments that are slightly cooler than body temperature. In fact, taking a warm shower or bath before bed can help the body cool down faster, allowing us to fall asleep more quickly. Note: Cold showers in the evening often stimulate our nervous system; as the body compensates for the cold by raising its temperature, it can have the opposite effect on our ability to sleep.

However, it is not just the environment we sleep in that impacts our sleep quality but also the things we do before bed.

Evening Routines

Have you heard the phrase “Nerves that fire together, wire together?” This means that when we take actions simultaneously, our brains link them together. We can take advantage of this when preparing for sleep by creating evening routines and sticking to them at the same time each night.

For example, if we want to help our body relax and reduce its temperature, we might take a warm bath. We could also read a little before bed and maybe incorporate some meditation into our evening. If we decide to do these three things every night at the same time, in the same order, our brain will begin to predict what is coming next.

We take the bath, and it prepares the body to relax into bed with a book. We start reading, and our brain predicts that meditation is coming next. We begin to meditate, and the brain knows that sleep is next, so it does all it can to prepare for that. In fact, if we have a good evening routine that we perform almost every night, the brain will send signals to produce more melatonin as soon as we start our routine.

Melatonin, Cortisol, and Our Autonomic Nervous System

Melatonin and cortisol have a symbiotic relationship—when cortisol is high, melatonin will be low; when cortisol is low, melatonin can rise. Melatonin is our main sleep hormone, so this important relationship is often at the root of our sleep problems. No matter how much we may want to sleep, if cortisol is high, it is unlikely that we will experience good-quality sleep due to a lack of melatonin.

This brings us to examine what happens throughout our day that stimulates cortisol. If we spend all day in high-stress environments or consuming too much caffeine, we may struggle to wind down at night. That’s where healthy sleep habits come into play.

Keeping a Sleep Diary

One effective strategy for improving sleep is keeping a sleep diary. This involves tracking your sleep patterns, including when you go to bed, when you wake up, and how many times you wake up during the night. It also helps to note how you feel throughout the day—do you experience daytime sleepiness? Are you feeling fatigued or energized? By keeping track of these factors, you can identify patterns that may contribute to your sleep issues. For instance, if you notice that certain activities or foods (like caffeine or heavy meals) affect your sleep quality, you can adjust your evening routine accordingly.

Circadian Rhythms

Your body operates on a natural circadian rhythm, a 24-hour internal clock that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. This biological clock influences when you feel sleepy and when you wake up. To promote better sleep, it’s important to maintain a consistent bedtime and wake-up time, even on weekends. Exposure to natural light during the day can also help regulate your circadian rhythm and improve sleep quality.

Avoid screens in the hour before bed, as blue light emitted from devices can interfere with the production of melatonin, making it harder to fall asleep. Instead, opt for activities that promote relaxation, like reading a book or practicing mindfulness.

Incorporating Mindfulness and Meditation

Incorporating mindfulness and meditation into your evening routine can also significantly enhance your ability to sleep well. These practices help calm the mind, reduce anxiety, and promote relaxation, making it easier to drift off to sleep. Simple techniques such as deep breathing or guided meditation can be very effective in preparing your mind and body for a restful night.

Sleep Apnoea and Common Sleep Disorders

For some individuals, underlying conditions like sleep apnoea or insomnia may contribute to poor sleep. If you find that lifestyle changes aren’t sufficient, it may be worth consulting a sleep expert or medical professional. They can provide insights into any potential sleep disorders and recommend appropriate interventions, which may include sleep medicine or other therapies.

Key Takeaways

Prioritizing sleep is essential for improving your nervous system health and overall well-being. Here are some actionable steps to enhance your sleep quality:

  • Maintain a Sleep Diary: Track your sleep patterns to identify what affects your sleep habits. This can help you pinpoint triggers for poor sleep quality.

  • Create a Consistent Sleep Routine: Aim for a consistent bedtime and wake-up time, even on weekends, to support your body’s circadian rhythms.

  • Optimize Your Sleep Environment: Ensure your bedroom is dark, quiet, and cool to promote restful sleep.

  • Establish Evening Routines: Engage in calming activities like warm baths, reading, or meditation to signal to your brain that it's time to wind down.

  • Limit Stimulants: Reduce caffeine intake, especially in the afternoon, to minimize its impact on your ability to fall asleep.

  • Practice Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques: Incorporate practices like meditation to lower stress and promote a calm mind before bed.

If you’re struggling with sleep or want to optimize your sleep quality, consider exploring our programs focused on nervous system regulation and stress management. Our retreats offer a serene environment where you can focus on developing healthy sleep habits and rejuvenating your mind and body. Follow this link to learn more about our programs.

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Lucy Oliver