Wellness Spotlight: Sleep

Wellness Spotlight: Sleep

Apr 16, 2019Jordyn Cormier

Do you ever have trouble sleeping? Even once in a while?         

Sleep is a major pillar of wellness, and yet a whopping 68 percent of adults struggle with sleep at least once a week. Whether it’s falling asleep, poor sleep quality, or low energy, we’ve become pretty bad sleepers—and it’s not good for our health.

If you’re not getting at least a solid 7 winks a night, you’ll probably experience side effects like:

SHORT TERM

  • Poor focus
  • Foggy thinking
  • Moodiness
  • Increased stress
LONG TERM
  • Depression
  • Lowered immunity
  • Obesity  

Sleep is crazy important! That’s why Americans are projected to spend over $50 billion on sleep aids in the year 2020. Unfortunately, most of these remedies don’t work all that well—they come with serious side effects, can be habit-forming, are easily misused, and can be potentially harmful. (Yikes.)               

More than two-thirds of us shouldn’t feel the need to turn to risky OTC drugs to get a solid night of shut-eye. Luckily, we’ve found some natural solutions to help you cross over into dreamland.

THE HIVE SOLUTIONS...

Raw Honey

Lots of wellness professionals, including biohacker Tim Ferriss, use raw honey as their go-to solution for better sleep. It really works, and the science behind it is fascinating. (Nerd alert.)  

Thanks to the presence of nutrient-rich bee pollen, raw honey naturally contains small amounts of tryptophan, the sleepytime amino acid. (Lots of other foods do, too.) But trypto can’t help you sleep on its own—it has a tough time crossing into the brain. That’s where honey comes in. A mere tablespoon of raw honey at bedtime gently raises insulin levels, which allows the trypto to float more easily into your noggin! Even cooler, if it’s nighttime, the brain converts that trypto into the hormone melatonin—which you probably recognize as a popular natural sleep aid.  

That’s right, raw honey helps your body more effectively produce its own natural sleep dust—safely and naturally. #hivepower   

Hemp

But let’s not forget about hemp, the relaxation superstar which has been used for centuries to promote sleep. The beneficial compounds in hemp are renown for promoting overall balance in the body, making it a powerful ally in crushing stress and anxiety. Since these guys often lurk behind insomnia, a little hemp extract can help you toss and turn a lot less when it’s time for ‘lights out’.                 

Together, raw honey and hemp are THE sleep dream team. If you want to stop wasting your money on risky conventional remedies, they deserve a spot on your bedside table. That is, unless you actually enjoy counting sheep… 



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