Healing and achieving optimal health requires finding healthy ways to get better sleep. Medical experts are deeming sleep as one of if not THE key factors to our health. It ranks alongside nutrition and physical activity. It’s during sleep that our bodies do most of the cleaning and repairing. So especially with mold illness being as relentless and complex as it is, you need to make quality sleep a priority to become and stay well.
How Mold Can Mess With Your Sleep
Many years ago I lived in a house that was over 100 years old, which had a dirt floor basement. Outside, about 20 or 30 feet away, a creek ran near our yard. One year that creek flooded our basement right up to the top step. Other than not liking it, I didn’t think too much about it since it was a dirt floor basement.
But not long after that incident, I became unable to sleep at night. I spent one hour from 8pm to 9pm every evening sleeping in my recliner. For the rest of the night, I could not even lay still, much less sleep. I was in a very stressful relationship at the time though, so I thought that (stress) was the problem.
The advice at the time that I could find on Dr. Google was to get up and do something else rather than toss and turn. So I did that. But what I usually did was get on the computer and do work. Now I know why this didn’t work but without more knowledge at the time, I spent many more years unable to lay still or sleep.
That was really the beginning of my journey to finding out that I had mold illness and understanding how my lack of sleep only allowed the mold illness to get worse. Yet I also learned that mold illness can disrupt your sleep.
The “Poor Sleep Makes Your Mold Illness Worse but Mold Illness Disturbs Your Sleep” Cycle
Understanding Your Circadian Rhythm
Did you know that your sleep cycle is based on a circadian rhythm in your body that runs on a cycle? The circadian rhythm uses light from the sun (mostly the blue light) to regulate your sleep cycle.
Meanwhile computers and all other screens project the same type of light. So when I stayed up all night on my computer, I was telling my body that it was daytime. And then of course the sun came up, which signaled the circadian rhythm in my body that it was daytime (again). My body never received a signal for nighttime! No wonder I couldn’t sleep. All the while, I didn’t know that I was becoming sicker.
This is why you see the blue light-blocking glasses becoming more popular, and why you hear how you should disconnect from your screens 1-2 hours before bedtime. You need to let your body recognize signals to shut down, repair and restore for the night so you can feel more energized and ready for the next day.
How Mold Inhibits Your Sleep
Unfortunately mold illness invites disaster when it comes to your sleep. It can disturb your sleep in so many ways – nasal congestion or asthma, acid reflux, low thyroid, racing heart, migraines, hormone deficiencies, and inflammation. These are just a few “symptoms” of mold illness that can be mistaken for separate health issues all which can inhibit your sleep, often making you sicker!
Also in mold illness, your brain can produce an excessive amount of excitatory neurotransmitters such as glutamate and PEA (Palmitoylethanolamide) in your brain. This excess causes a nervous system overload, anxiety, and insomnia. Plus it puts you in fight or flight mode. So not only are you not sleeping, but your body is working overtime.
To be clear, poor sleep doesn’t just mean you can’t sleep at all. You may have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep instead. I had all of the above at different times. When I could sleep, every little noise woke me up. My husband and I could not even sleep near each other because everything woke me.
The mold that developed in my basement after the flood was stealing years of sleep, my health and my relationships from me.
Today, we have lots more medical research about mold illness and you don’t have to let mold have this power over you and your life.
Ways to Get Better Sleep as You Heal From Mold Illness
If your body needs to clean and repair from mold exposure, use these helpful ways to get better sleep before your lack of quality sleep makes you sicker.
- First of all, get out of the moldy environment. As daunting as it may seem, this is the most important thing you can do to get well. You cannot get well in the environment that made you sick. If you are filling up as fast as you clean out, you are not getting anywhere.
- Keep your bedroom clean.
- Avoid chemicals, dust, scents, or animals (or their things).
- Use a good HEPA vacuum to clean everywhere at least once per week.
- Once or twice per week wash all your bedding in borax (kills mold) and laundry soap.
- Keep you and your bed clothes clean (Shower before bed, don’t wear pajamas in dirty environments or outdoors and then to bed.)
- Use a good HEPA air purifier like the Intellipure, Molekule or IQ Air in your bedroom.
- Remove all smart or wireless devices from your bedroom and turn them off when not in use. Remember, blue lights indicate daytime. Plus, mold grows exponentially in EMFs (electromagnetic fields).
- Go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Settle down 2 hours before going to bed. Try to go to bed no later than 10 pm, preferably by 9 pm. Your best rest happens between 10pm and 2am.
- Wear blue blocker glasses for 1-2 hours before bedtime to help signal nighttime to your body.
- Exercise 20-30 minutes a day, preferably in the morning and not within 4 hours of bedtime.
- Keep the temperature in your bedroom below 70 degrees as your natural circadian rhythm wants to cool down at night. If you need to, wear socks to keep your feet warm.
- One half to one hour before bed, take good quality supplements such as liposomal melatonin, non-THC liposomal CBD, GABA, magnesium, or L-Tryptophan. If one doesn’t work try a combo. Don’t use over-the-counter sleep aids as they are addictive.
- Drink the right amount of water every day – not too much or too little. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water every day.
Now you know how mold disrupts your sleep and why disrupted sleep can make you sicker. You can also better understand why you really need to be sleeping well every night – so you can have energy not only for life but also for healing. I hope and pray that you will get some relief with these key ways to get better sleep!
If you are ready to work with someone to heal and get your life back, Click here to set up a complimentary Breakthrough call to see if we could work together.
