Sleep is an antioxidant? What?

Kinda, yeah. Well, it's melatonin, really.

Melatonin is a hormone that our bodies produce and it's a powerful antioxidant. You may know that it helps us fall asleep. Here are the ins and outs of that: Our bodies produce serotonin, the precursor to melatonin. When the light becomes dim, our body is stimulated to convert serotonin into melatonin. And hopefully we feel sleepy and then we enjoy a good night's sleep. This explains why the experts on sleep hygiene say to keep the room dark.

Why do we need a good night's sleep? So everything else in life can be good. Seriously. You know if you've had a rotten sleep that everything seems to suck. We're crabby, we don't feel well. But our health really suffers too.

Melatonin is an antioxidant. That means that it helps clean up the oxidative damage from free radicals that damage our cells. As our brain releases these repair chemicals at night, it allows our brain to remodel, restructure and rebuild. In fact many studies have been done on athletes learning new skills and once refreshed in the morning, they can achieve easily what they couldn't the previous day despite repeated practice. The brain is quite active with repair and processing information at night.

So if we can't seem to get a good night's sleep, just take a melatonin supplement, right? Here's why I don't recommend that: When you take a supplement form of melatonin, it signals your body to stop producing it's own. Simply, not a great idea. Save it for recovering on occasion from jet lag. Otherwise, there are better ways to encourage the body to relax for bedtime. Magnesium glycinate is an essential trace mineral that people are often deficient in and will help create a relaxing state before bed. It performs many other critical functions in the body. If you ever get muscle cramping, you're likely deficient. It's incredibly safe to supplement with - always look for a good quality source.

Valerian root is also very good for helping one to get a restful sleep and reduces anxiety. Neither of these will interrupt your regular circadian cycle or suppress your body from producing it's own melatonin. If you are taking a central nervous system medication, use caution with adding any supplements. Talk to a trusted health care practitioner if this is the case for you.

You can also stop snacking before bed. Your body will increase insulin, another hormone, to process this glucose and this will interrupt the sleep cycle. If you really really need something, make it a high protein food (a piece of cheese is a great example), not a carb or sugar. This is probably one of the best tips I can give that will really make a difference.