How many hours of sleep did you get last night?

Was it easy to drift off to sleep or did you toss and turn for hours?  Did you sleep peacefully through the night or find yourself wide awake and unable to fall back asleep around 2 a.m.?

I have long held that sleep is the cornerstone of health, impacting both the quality of your health and your ability to heal.  One of my favorite fellow bloggers, Paleo Mom Sarah Ballantyne completely validated this belief this past weekend at the Nutritional Therapy Association conference with some amazing concentrate scientific evidence on the correlations between poor sleep – less than 6 hours per night – and the increased risk of health conditions, including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer and autoimmune disease. Fix your sleep with Essential Oils and learn how in this article.

Sarah looked at correlations in mortality rates to sleep to better determine how sleep affects health and found that sleeping less than 6 hours per night increased risk of all-cause mortality by 12%. In other words, those who continually slept less than 6 hours per night were 12% more likely to die than those who got more than 6 hours of sleep per night.  Some other highlights of her research include:

• Sleep disorders increase the risk of developing an auto immune condition by 50%
• Sleeping less than 6 hours per night increases risk of obesity by 55% in adults (90% in children!).
• Sleeping less than 6 hours per night increases risk of type 2 diabetes by 50%.
• Routinely sleeping less than 6 hours per night doubles risk of stroke, doubles risk of myocardial infarction, increases risk of congestive heart failure by 67%, and increases risk of coronary heart disease by 48%.
• The amount of sleep you get upon and after breast cancer diagnosis is a predictor of survival, and getting less than 6 hours of sleep increases risk of death by 46%.

We know that sleep is critical for health, but that may not help you when you are wide awake at 1:00 a.m.  So how do you fall asleep?

Fix Your Sleep with Essential Oils

Essential Oils can help balance the body to both fall asleep and stay asleep for 7-8 hours per night.  This allows the body to rest, regenerate, repair, detoxify, balance blood sugar levels, burn calories, support immune activity and reset our energy reserves.

Vibrant Blue Oils offers several other blends to help calm the mind and the body before bed.  Sleep™ blend contains Spikenard which is known for its relaxing qualities.  The Calm™ blend and Lavender™ are also very relaxing and work well on small children, especially when added to a Healing bath before bed.  Different oils can also be used to support your body’s ability to fall asleep and stay asleep.  This article goes into great detail on specific sleep challenges and this checklist can help you identify which oil is best for your situation.

For Help Falling Asleep: Our body’s natural sleep/wake cycle known as the circadian rhythms are regulated by the sleep hormone, melatonin which has an antagonistic relationship with the stress hormone, cortisol.  Chronic and prolonged stress triggers the release of excess cortisol at night, driving down melatonin and making it difficult to fall asleep.  If you struggle to fall asleep due to stress or racing thoughts, consider Circadian Rhythm®, which triggers the pineal gland to naturally release melatonin.

For Help with Night Waking:  Waking up in the middle of the night can be attributed to detoxification, blood sugar or hormonal issues.

Blood Sugar Wake Ups:  Waking up and feeling so wide awake that you could go clean the kitchen can suggest blood sugar issues.  If blood sugar plummets during the night, the adrenal glands release adrenalin as an emergency blood sugar raising tactic. This adrenalin surge is what wakes you up.  The pancreas then has to kick into high gear to return blood sugar levels to normal.  Supporting the pancreas in this effort with Vibrant Blue Oils Pancreas™ blend helps  return the body to balance so you can fall back asleep.

Detoxification Wake Ups:   When you wake up between 1 a.m. – 3 a.m. but are still groggy enough to fall back to sleep, that is often because the Liver is overloaded.  During the night, the liver is busy rebuilding the body and cleansing it of accumulated toxins.  The liver is most active between 1 – 3 AM, often peaking at 3 AM.  When you awaken at this time, it is often a signal that the liver needs a little support.  Vibrant Blue Oils Liver™ blend applied before bed and during night waking can help you return to a restful slumber.

Hormonal Wake Ups: For Hormonal related sleep issues, Vibrant Blue Oils Gall Bladder™ can help detoxify excess estrogen to support optimal sleep and Hormone Balance™ can help support optimal balance for optimal rest and relaxation.

Hope this blog helps you get better sleep.  Please feel free to share this post with anyone who might benefit from restful sleep or share your thoughts on our Facebook Discussion Group.

P.S. To get more of Sarah’s great information on Sleep check out her sleep book here!

Resources

Ready to get started? Click the links below to order today:

• Calm™ available here
• Circadian Rhythm® available here
• Gall Bladder™ available here
• Hormone Balance™ available here
• Lavender™ available here
• Liver™ available here
• Pancreas™ available here
• Sleep™ available here