When Quality Sleep Is Just
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Sleep Profile

 

Did you know that sleep is so important to our body’s wellbeing that given enough time, sleep deprivation can kill you? Sleep is when we repair, reset and resuscitate but getting a good night sleep is an increasingly illusive phenomenon for people today. If you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or both, there might be an explanation that goes beyond the basic explanations.

A persistent lack of adequate quality sleep is incredibly common and can make functioning at our optimum very difficult day to day. It can also lead to serious health conditions if not treated. When you have tried without result, the regular solutions of maintaining a regular bedtime, limiting the consumption of stimulants like coffee to the first half of your day, ceasing your screen time an hour or so before bed time, creating a calm, temperate and mostly dark environment for sleep, you may want to investigate whether there are metabolic causes for your insomnia.

This test two major causes for insomnia:  imbalances in melatonin and cortisol.

Test Details:

Sleep Profile – Saliva

Turn Around Time:  5 Business Days

Too little sleep or poor-quality sleep can have far reaching implications, including fatigue, poor concentration, impaired performance, high stress and irritability and increased hunger and cravings.

Adequate sleep is known to be vital for good health and two key elements to achieving this is a balance in our melatonin and cortisol.  Melatonin is a peptide hormone which rises at night to peak in the early hours of the morning and helps to control normal sleep patterns.  Cortisol rises and peaks about 30 minutes to an hour after rising.

Deficiencies in melatonin can lead to insomnia. It is known as the anti-ageing hormone of sleep, is a potent anti-oxidant, regulates your immune system, inhibits formation and growth of tumours such as breast and prostate cancers and helps regulate your sex hormones.  Melatonin is stimulated by darkness and suppressed by light. Melatonin supplementation has been used for assisting sleep in insomniacs, shift-workers and those suffering from jetlag.

Cortisol is known as the stress hormone as it is raised by stress and involved in your body’s response to it.  If cortisol levels are high in the evening, rather than the morning and symptoms are problematic, then it is important to identify and eliminate or reduce stressors and anxiety.

Common Conditions:

  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Headaches
  • Insomnia
  • Anxiety
  • Hair loss
  • Depression
  • Fatigue

 

I may recommend this test after a health assessment that reveals a prolonged period of insomnia, your personal circumstances and current lifestyle habits.  If we decide to order this test, it will identify any hormone-related imbalances occurring between your production of melatonin and cortisol and allow us to formulate some strategies to help you achieve optimal sleep.