Boost brain health: The power of deep sleep and detoxing your mind

Our Brain a remarkable organ that plays a crucial role in our everyday lives. It controls our thoughts, emotions, movements, and even bodily functions like breathing and digestion. Despite its importance, we often take it for granted because we cannot see it working. However, diseases, stress, or poor lifestyle choices can significantly impact our overall well-being when they affect the brain.

The human brain is responsible for a wide range of functions, like allowing us to learn, solve problems, and store memories; it also helps regulate mood, feelings, and reactions to different situations. Our brain controls voluntary movements like walking and involuntary functions like heartbeat and digestion, etc; helps maintain our sleep-wake cycle, essential for rest and recovery; enables speech, language comprehension, and social interactions, to name a few. With so many vital roles in the body, imagine if the brain is not functioning optimally.

If the brain doesn’t function optimally, it can lead to various symptoms like brain fog, difficulty in concentration, forgetfulness, headache, mood swings, anxiety, irritability, sleep issues, etc. All of these issues can affect our daily routine, making simple tasks seem difficult and impacting our work, relationships, and overall quality of life. To make sure our brain functions at its best all the time, it needs regular cleansing to eliminate waste and toxins, and this can happen with a deep, restorative, sound sleep. During deep sleep, the glymphatic system shrinks by 60 per cent, creating extra space for cerebrospinal fluid to flow through the brain. This fluid helps wash away toxins and waste that build up during the day. If you don’t get enough deep sleep, these toxins stay in your brain, which can lead to memory problems, various symptoms related to cognitive health, and even increase the risk of diseases like Alzheimer’s, etc.

Hence, it’s critical that we focus on getting a good quality sleep every night. Here are some tips for the same:

Left nostril deep breathing: Focus on 10 minutes of left nostril deep breathing at bedtime because that helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system , which promotes relaxation and reduces stress. This calming effect slows the heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and prepares the body for deep sleep. Leftnostril breathing also cools the body and balances emotions, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Keep your room dark: Keeping your room pitch dark at night helps your brain produce more melatonin, the sleep hormone that regulates your sleep cycle. Light, even from a phone or streetlamp, can trick your brain into thinking it’s daytime, making it harder to fall and stay asleep. Darkness also supports deep, restful sleep, allowing your body to repair and detoxify properly. Using blackout curtains, turning off screens, and covering small light sources can significantly improve sleep quality.

Tryptophan-rich foods: Tryptophan is an amino acid that helps produce serotonin and melatonin, the hormones responsible for relaxation and sleep. Eating tryptophanrich foods like a cup of warm organic good-quality milk with turmeric or a cup of almond milk with turmeric before bedtime can promote deeper, restful sleep. Moreover, turmeric contains curcumin, a powerful anti-inflammatory compound that supports brain function and reduces the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. These foods help calm the mind, reduce inflammation, stress, and regulate sleep patterns naturally.

Nutmeg: Nutmeg is a natural sleep booster due to its calming properties. It contains compounds that help reduce stress, relax the nervous system, and promote deep sleep. Adding a pinch of nutmeg powder to warm, organic, good-quality milk, almond milk, or chamomile tea before bed can improve sleep quality. It also helps regulate melatonin, the sleep hormone, making it easier to fall asleep naturally.

Circadian rhythm: Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends, because that will help you regulate your body’s internal clock and improve the sleep quality. Following a regular sleep schedule, getting morning sunlight, and avoiding screens at night help keep this clock balanced. A well-regulated circadian rhythm improves sleep quality, boosting mental clarity, cognitive health, energy and improves focus as well.