Sleep Management

While we sleep, many important functions take place that allow the body to recover and repair. For most people their sleep cycle satisfies their sleep needs and causes few problems. However, factors such as lifestyle commitments, stressful events, nutritional deficiencies and many physical conditions can alter the balance.

An insufficient amount of quality sleep can lead to mood shifts, hormonal imbalances, anxiety, attention lapses, reduced cognition and increased risk for certain diseases and medical conditions.

Natural Clinic Clinical Guide for your sleepless nights

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Work with you to discover imbalances in your neurotransmitters and barriers to quality sleep

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Reveal nutrient deficiencies contributing to your sleepless nights

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Access to functional testing for clear and concise answers to your sleep questions

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Provide expert dietary and lifestyle coaching to optimize your sleep

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Give you access to practitioner-grade nutritional and herbal medicine and compounded medicines tailored specifically for you

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To learn more about how to optimise your sleep and reduce risks associated with poor sleep,
read on for our Natural Clinic clinical guide for your sleepless nights!

Natural Clinic Sleep Management Consult: $75

Book a Consult
  • icon time 30-minute naturopathic consult to assess what is driving your sleepless nights and identify any nutritional deficiencies
  • icon test Facilitation of further testing, where appropriate
  • icon pill Access to practitioner-grade products
  • icon script Prescriptions for custom-made products designed especially for you
    • icon tick Liquid herbal formulas
    • icon tick Compounded nutritionals
  • icon plan Written treatment plan, including dietary and lifestyle advice, to help you stay on track

Natural Clinic Clinical Guide for your sleepless nights

WHAT IS CONSTIPATION?

WHY IS SLEEP SO IMPORTANT?

This guide provides general advice on how to optimize your sleep. For more complex and chronic sleep disorders, we advise booking in with one of our clinical Naturopaths for a more tailored, individualized approach.

The way you feel when you are awake depends in part on what happens while you are sleeping. Sleep is an essential function that allows the body and mind to recharge, leaving you refreshed and alert. Our sleep is regulated by the body’s circadian rhythm, with the natural light and dark cycles maintaining regulatory control of our sleep-wake cycles.

In the context of a normal circadian rhythm your sleep architecture consists of 80-to-120-minute sleep cycles that repeat three to five times across the night. This will normally result in 7-8 hours of sleep per night in healthy adults.

ACROSS THE NIGHT, THERE ARE FOUR PROGRESSIVE STAGES OF SLEEP THAT ALL PLAY AN IMPORTANT AND UNIQUE ROLE IN YOUR HEALTH:

This is the lightest of all stages, where one transitions from wakefulness to sleep.

Rhythmic brain waves begin. Heart rate and body temperature begin to drop. This stage is thought to play an important role in memory consolidation.

A deeper level of sleep comprised of slow-wave sleep (SWS). This stage is where the body begins to regrow tissue, repair and build bone and muscle and strengthen the immune system.

This is the deepest level of sleep, also known as REM sleep, where the majority of cerebral repair and restoration occurs. REM is where dreaming begins and usually starts 90 minutes after falling asleep and lasts up to 10 minutes initially with each REM cycle increasing in duration across the night. REM sleep is also where the majority of male testosterone is synthesized, proving important in male health.

Spending adequate time in all sleep cycles ensures optimal health.

Sleep stages

Symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation

Memory loss
Insulin resistance
Increased blood sugar
Elevated cortisol
Systemic inflammation
Disrupted immunity
Impaired thyroid hormone profile
Increased blood pressure
Elevated lipids
Elevated homocysteine
Mood imbalances
Hormone imbalances

BARRIERS TO GOOD SLEEP

Creating an environment that is conducive to sleep is important, whether that be externally or biochemically:

  • Reducing exposure to blue light, iPhone, iPad and computers to avoid blocking the synthesis of melatonin (important in your circadian rhythm).
  • Addressing nutritional deficiencies which may be affecting the neurotransmitters important for your sleep-wake cycles.

Identifying your key barriers to a good night's sleep is an important step towards rest.

  • Chronic / severe stress
  • Circadian rhythm disruption
  • Pain
  • Blue light
  • Coffee / alcohol
  • Anxiety
  • Thyroid function
  • Restless legs
  • Poor sleep hygiene practices
  • Nutritional deficiencies
  • Mood disorders
  • Certain medications
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How your diet plays a role

Increasing variety in your diet is key to ensuring you're getting all the necessary nutrients and minerals to facilitate healthy biochemical processes for sleep.

Nutrient-rich, wholefoods

Opt. for a nutrient-rich, wholefood diet

Increase intake of fruits and vegetables

Include a high intake of fruits and vegetables – variety is key!

Choose lean protein

  • beef
  • chicken
  • fish
  • kangaroo

Quality essential fatty acids

  • avocados
  • coconut
  • milks
  • nuts & seeds

Avoid foods that are highly refined

  • Refined sugars
  • Cakes / biscuits
  • Fast food
  • Inflammatory vegetable oils
  • Refined, white carbohydrates

Avoid stimulants before bed

  • Caffeine, at least 5-6 hours before bed
  • Nicotine
  • Cold and flu tablets (some are stimulating)

Limit alcohol consumption

Limit alcohol consumption

How your lifestyle plays a role

Stressful, busy lives are often the greatest barrier to restful sleep. If anxiety and stress are high, your nervous system may be in overdrive which can lead to a dysregulated circadian rhythm. Constant activation of your sympathetic nervous system can hinder your ability to rest. Implementing some key lifestyle adjustments and routine changes can help your body find better sleep.

Support a healthy circadian rhythm by addressing excessive blue light exposure and increasing natural light exposure

  • Avoid screens at least 1 hour before bed
  • Use black out curtains while sleeping
  • Purchase a natural light alarm clock to wake naturally with the sunrise
  • Morning/ daytime exposure to natural light - at least 30 minutes of sunshine on your skin each morning.

Increase daytime activity, but avoid excessive exercise 3-4 hours before bed.

Consider sleep sounds – binaural beats help facilitate slow brain waves to increase deeper sleep cycles.

Reduce / limit napping throughout the day

The addition of herbal tea including lemon balm, lavender, chamomile or skullcap to your nighttime routine can gently nudge your nervous system into a restful state.

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Click below to find out what can promote and prevent sleep

What promotes sleep? What prevents sleep?

Pharmaceutical & conventional treatment for poor sleep

  • Melatonin
  • Benzodiazepine receptor agonists
  • Benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics
  • Dopamine agonists
  • Tri-cyclic Anti-depressants

Natural treatments to optimize your sleep

Important in several neurobiological mechanisms, magnesium has a major influence on our stress response. Mg assists by modulating the effects on GABA receptor transmissions – an inhibitory neurotransmitter helpful in calming down the nervous system and promoting sleep.

Inhibitory neurotransmitter. Reduces feelings of anxiety, stress and promotes the initiation of the sleep cycle via its ability to encourage relaxation.

Improves sleep quality as well as reducing stress markers through regulating stress hormones, such as cortisol.

For neuromuscular pain support, PEA (palmitoylethanolamine) downregulates pain receptors helping aid sleep. Useful in individuals with chronic pain conditions interrupting sleep quality.

A herb useful in reducing anxiety, depression and insomnia. Stimulates the release of relaxing neurotransmitters promoting the ability to initiate and enhance sleep quality.

Reduces the body’s flight or fight response, calming the nervous system and the mind. Great for individuals who have a racing mind before bed. Stimulates the release of GABA ,an inhibitory neurotransmitter mentioned above.

Reduces feelings of anxiety, pain and acts as a sedative. California poppy is great for individuals who experience muscle tension and pain.

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If you suspect your sleep challenges are secondary to an underlying health condition, we recommend speaking to your doctor and booking in a full consultation with our clinical naturopath to ensure thorough investigation takes place for safe and effective prescribing.

Nutritional Compound for Sleep

Tired of taking multiple supplements for good sleep?
Let us narrow it down to one that works. A custom-made, compounded product formulated only for you.

Insomnia and poor sleep can have multiple causes and that’s why you often need to use multiple products.

We can compound ONE product that contains all the ingredients you need for healthy sleep, at therapeutic dosages specific to your health needs.

The benefits:

  • Ease & convenience of taking only one supplement
  • Your body is unique to you. Your medicine should also be unique to you.
  • Avoid the inconcenience of supplements in your protocol running out at different times.
  • Dosing is specific to your metabolic needs & deficiencies.
  • Formula can be adjusted over time to support each stage of the healing process.

Speak to one of our practitioners.

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Discover your underlying drivers of poor sleep

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Georgia Fugar
Georgia Fugar

Georgia Fugar

Clinical Naturopath

Book a Consult with Georgia

Areas of interest

  • Women’s health
  • Skin disorders
  • SIBO
  • Gut health
  • Mental health

Georgia is a passionate naturopath with particular clinical focus on supporting mental health, hormonal disorders, gut health and auto-immunity. With a long-standing interest in human biochemistry and its interplay with nutritional and herbal medicines, Georgia uses a range of standard and functional testing to determine the root cause of patient symptoms and provide treatment that is highly tailored and clinical.

Thorough education around all symptoms, disease pathophysiology and treatment options can be expected from a consultation with Georgia, reflecting the importance of education as the first tool to achieving any health outcome. Continuous appraisal of progress throughout treatment protocols ensures that you leave feeling supported and confident in the healing process.

Georgia aims to correct imbalances on the deepest cellular and biochemical level to ensure healing occurs from the inside out.

Tayla Lovering
Tayla Lovering

Tayla Lovering

Clinical Naturopath

Book a Consult with Tayla Lovering

Areas of interest

  • Digestive
  • Skin health
  • Mental health
  • Migraines
  • General health
  • Fertility + pregnancy + post partum

Tayla is a qualified Naturopath with a passion for gut health, hormonal health (both males and females), fertility and mental health. Tayla combines clinical case taking, pathology and functional laboratory testing to get to the root cause of your symptoms. Her approach is truly wholistic and she will spend the time to uncover the uniqueness of your health.

A remarkably empathic practitioner with a real gift for making patients feel supported. Tayla understands how overwhelming it can feel to embark on a healing journey and focuses on simplifying this for you in a step-by-step manner, whilst also making changes that fit you and your lifestyle. Tayla has a particular passion for establishing a healthy foundation for her clients, so they can avoid traveling down the same path that led them here.

Tayla is happiest when amongst nature and when communicating with fellow humans. Tayla grew up on a farm on the beautiful Kangaroo Island of South Australia and quickly learnt the value of nature’s healing powers after her time at boarding school where she noticed nutrition and lifestyle choices began reflecting poor health.

Annie Stewart
Annie Stewart

Annie Stewart

Clinical Naturopath

Book a Consult with Annie Stewart

Areas of interest

  • Sports performance and recovery
  • Digestive conditions
  • Mental health
  • Men & women's health

Annie is a qualified Naturopath who considers herself a bit of a “professional generalist”. With experience treating a wide array of conditions, Annie particularly finds those more challenging multifaceted cases fulfilling. Her adventurous curiosity is what drives Annie to get to the underlying cause of disease adopting a truly holistic approach with each patient.

With 5+ years of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under her belt, Annie has a keen interest in helping athletes reach their sport performance goals and draws on her competition experience to achieve this.

Evidence based medicine underpins all of Annie’s clinical decisions. She regularly uses standard pathology and functional testing to establish base line health parameters, which are then used to refine her treatment approach for each client. Application of nutritional and herbal interventions with an emphasis on lifestyle and dietary education can be expected in a consult with Annie.

Diana Boot
Diana Boot

Diana Boot

Compounding Pharmacist & Nutritionist

Book a Consult with Diana Boot

Areas of interest

  • De-prescribing – helping you to reduce your need for prescription medications
  • Mental health
    Digestive health
    Women’s health

Diana is the Co-founder and Clinical Lead of Natural Chemist. She has practiced as a community pharmacist for over 30 years and as a Nutritionist for 12 years. She is continually learning to update her knowledge and is on track to graduate in 2023 as a Naturopath.

Diana is a rare combination of empathy, balance, maturity and knowledge. She listens and asks sensitive questions. She provides answers about what’s behind your presenting symptoms and she offers feasible, evidence-based solutions to help you regain optimal health.

Diana’s approach is truly integrative. Her training and experience put her in a unique position to advise what combination of conventional/mainstream and natural/alternative treatments are best for your situation.

Diana is also the senior partner in two independent community pharmacies in Sydney. She launched Natural Chemist in 2014 with her husband and business partner. Their goal was to work out how to take the level of service provided in their physical pharmacies and make it available for more people. Diana is supported by a wonderful and growing team of qualified professionals; all with the same dedicated focus on quality health outcomes.

Natural Clinic Sleep Management Consult: $75

Book a Consult
  • icon time 30-minute naturopathic consult to assess what is driving your sleepless nights and identify any nutritional deficiencies
  • icon test Facilitation of further testing, where appropriate
  • icon pill Access to practitioner-grade products
  • icon script Prescriptions for custom-made products designed especially for you
    • icon tick Liquid herbal formulas
    • icon tick Compounded nutritionals
  • icon plan Written treatment plan, including dietary and lifestyle advice, to help you stay on track