Are you getting enough sleep?

And it is not glamorous, exciting or in some way superior to live on only 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. In the end this takes it’s toll on the body and mind. 

From a holistic macrobiotic point of view, there are definite internal causes of poor sleep, that can be remedied. Let’s look at the most common causes.

Low Kidney Energy, the most common cause

In Asian medicine, the Kidneys store our deep internal energy, which nourishes our bones and nervous systems, including our brains! They also ‘anchor’ our energy lower down in our body. This helps keep us connected to our body sensations and needs, like hunger, tiredness and the need for sleep.

When our inner stores of energy stored here become low, our energy easily rises up, making our head overactive with lots of busy thoughts, and we lose touch with what our body is telling us. Then when it comes to sleeping, we know we are tired, but just don’t connect well with the feeling of needing sleep, and our busy heads just keep us awake, or wake us up through the night. 

How can our Kidney energy become weak? By anything that depletes our internal energy store such as overwork, lack of sleep and rest (when our energies recover) prolonged stress, cold, emotional fear and insecurity, too many foods that deplete us including sugar and artificial sweeteners, excessive alcohol, ultra-processed foods which are so processed that they contain little life energy, recreational drugs, and caffeine e.g. energy drinks and coffee. 

But coffee gives us energy you might say! Unfortunately not, the energy rush we can get after a caffeine boost is coming from our internal supply, so frequent use depletes our Kidney energy over time. 

Are you caught in the vicious cycle of over-activity and too many demands in life, turning to coffee through the day to keep going, which then weakens your Kidney energy, possibly creating poorer sleep, and getting more tired, and therefore needing more coffee? Surveys show that more than half of people feel constantly tired or exhausted! And something like 10% have chronic fatigue or ‘burnout’.

Part of this energy trap is reducing Kidney energy, leading to poorer sleep, frequently having to get up to pee multiple times, which further depletes our energy, as our sleep during the night is a big time for replenishing the energy in our Kidneys.  You may also suffer night sweats, and excessively hot feet in the night.

So the way out is to strengthen our Kidney energy, which takes time to rebuild, but can definitely be done. I have guided many clients deeply exhausted and with chronic fatigue back to a normal active energetic life. This can be a tough process, as it means greatly cutting down on energy output, for example reducing work hours, spending more time resting and much less time out socialising etc. 

What also helps enormously is stopping all stimulants (coffee, black tea, energy drinks, sugary foods) smoking weed or taking other recreational drugs, and instead eating real foods, that is whole foods that still contain lots of life energy. Yes we get not only nutrients from our food like vitamins, protein etc. but also life energy. If we eat ‘dead food’ lacking life energy, then we become dead too!

The best foods for nourishing our deep energy reserves are broth soups, such as vegetable miso soup or shoyu broth, or fish soup. The traditional recommendation in Chinese medicine is for chicken soup. These soups need to include a sea vegetable such as wakame or kelp, vegetables and a salty seasoning like miso, shoyu or sea salt. They are basically hot liquid with lots of minerals in – this is what our kidneys love! So twice a day have broth soup!

Other foods containing lots of life energy are whole grains (brown rice, millet, wheat, quinoa etc.) whole beans (aduki, black, chickpeas, kidney etc.) and root vegetables like carrots, parsnips, swede and if you can find it the king is burdock or the similar salsify. Plus some greens, seeds, nuts, a small amount of locally growing fruits etc. to make a varied and balanced diet. Drink herb teas, twig tea, or grain coffees. 

Main Tips For Improving Sleep

• Go to bed early, if you are tired at 8 or 9pm, go to bed and get some sleep! Even if you wake up later, you have got ahead with getting more sleep.

• Create a calming and embodying routine in the 1 or 2 hours before going to bed. Find what works for you, doing 20 or 30 minutes stretching and other exercises can help a lot with ‘getting into your body’ which can definitely improve sleep. Some people find reading, meditation, or having a hot shower can help too.

• Don’t do anything too ‘heady’ in this sacred calming routine time – no time on electronic devices, work, intense reading or films. You want to be bringing your energy down in your body.

• If your mind is busy with things you have to do next day, write them down in a list so your mind can relax. If you have a lot of emotions going on, try writing them down in a journal, to help get them out of your body.

• Stop drinking coffee, black tea or energy drinks.

• If you are lacking sleep at night, if you can take a siesta after lunch, for a little fill up of energy.

• Work on reducing sources of stress in your life, that take a lot of your energy.

Tips If You Wake in the Night

• Firstly, don’t start worrying about how a lack of sleep is going to wreak you next day – this worry just causes more tension and anxiety, taking more of your energy and getting you more stuck in your head. 

• Reconnect with your body, bring your energy down from head to body. A very good way of doing this is to consciously use your breath to move your body energy, taking long deep in breaths and visualising the breath going into your lower belly or lower back vertebrae and kidneys. Just relax on the outbreath. Try this for 5 minutes, it often helps with dropping back to sleep. 

• If not get back to sleep in 10-15 minutes, get up and do something useful to use up the restless energy. This might take an hour or more. Don’t get into worrying about how long this takes, and you can do some useful things to save you time during the day, cleaning or tidying your home, listing activities for the day to come etc. 

• Some people find having a hot drink or a small amount of food helps to bring them back into their body, and helps to get back to sleep.

Other Causes of Poor Sleep

Tension in your liver

If your main problem is waking up at 3, 4 or 5am and feeling ‘wired’ with a very active mind and feeling restless, then as well as possible low Kidney energy, you are probably holding a lot of tension in your Liver, which is seen as storing and moving our energy for daily use. You may wake feeling angry, frustrated, or from having bloody or violent dreams. 

We hold too much tension in our livers when we are continuously busy in the daytime without rests, holding a lot of emotional frustrations or anger or other strong emotions inside, or eating a lot of heavy difficult to digest and metabolise foods like meat, chicken, eggs and cheese, and not enough grains, vegetables, beans and lighter foods. 

Tips to Help

• Take time to look at your life, if you are really frustrated, this is telling you something needs to change in your life, at home, at work, in relationships etc. Work out what you need to do to feel happier and more satisfied with your life.

• Take some breaks in the day to move your body – a walk in your lunch break, or do some simple stretches several times a day and relax yourself (stretching is particularly good at moving your Liver energy).

• Eat a plant based diet, which is more easily digested, and don’t eat anything substantial for 3 hours before going to bed, or else your liver will be working hard while you are trying to sleep, which does not help restful sleep!

• Do some stretching and breathing exercises before going to bed, to move your Liver energy, so you feel calmer, and maybe it is not going to wake you up in the night!

Exhausted Heart 

In Asian medicine our hearts are seen as the place where our consciousness or ‘inner mind’ resides. When our Heart energy is strong we feel in touch with who we are, what we feel, and what we deeply want. Our hearts are creating a strong home for our consciousness, which will settle at night, so we sleep deeply.

However our Heart energy can become depleted, often due to a lot of emotions happening in relationships etc, a lot of grief from losing loved ones, and big difficult to digest shocks in life. It is also depleted by too much mental work, so common today with so many of us spending half our life on computers and phones.

When are Heart energy becomes depleted we often crave quiet time on our own, where we can rest, re-gather ourselves, and get back in touch with ourselves and what we want.

And low Heart energy can make it difficult to get to sleep, and sleep can be light and easily disturbed. On waking we can feel particularly anxious and fearful.

Tips to help

• Low Heart energy often goes along with low Kidney energy, so take a look through those tips and see which feel right for you.

• If you can, take more time during the day to ‘come back into yourself’, take some deep breathes into your heart to raise the energy there, ask yourself ‘what do I want today?’

• Take a quiet weekend or holiday break, where you can spend time with yourself, feeling what you and your heart needs. 

• Avoid strong heart stimulants, that can end up depleting your heart energy, such as coffee and other sources of caffeine, alcohol. sugary foods and tropical fruits and fruit juices in general (yes this can include smoothies that include fruits!).

• Eat more warming ‘hearty’ foods like bean stews, sweet root vegetables and whole grains, and some bitter foods like dark leafy green vegetables, roasted sesame seeds, walnuts and grain coffees like Yannoh, Chicory Drink or Barleycup. 

• If you are holding a lot of sadness, grief or other emotions in your heart, let yourself feel them, express them to trusted friends or family, write them down, or get professional help from a psychotherapist or other emotional healer, who has skills in helping you listen and feel the emotions you are holding, and let them out and heal. 

What To Do Now

That’s a whole lot of information! If it feels a bit much for you, just take a look through the Tips, and see which feel right for you to start doing.

Write them down, work out the life changes you want to make, and then practice them consistently week by week, to get the improvements you want in better sleep.

This can take time, but is the most effective way as you are addressing the fundamental causes of poor sleep in your life. And you will get all sorts of other benefits to your health as well!