Improve Your Sleep! 8 Ways to Fix Sleep Naturally

Do you want to improve your sleep? If good health habits and sleep hygiene aren’t enough for you to achieve better sleep, try these natural sleep tips to start sleeping better quickly! You can sleep even better than a baby…

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Anyone who has ever struggled with sleep knows how frustrating it can be to lie awake. If you have had insomnia for more than the occasional night or two, you know that lack of sleep quickly becomes debilitating, discouraging, and downright dangerous.

I am not any sort of health professional. This is not medical advice, and you should get professional help to identify and resolve the root of a sleep difficulty. There are many possible causes, so if common sense measures aren’t working, you might benefit from some digging into your health status to figure out why you are stuck.

What I will tell you is that I have gotten significantly better after years of sleep problems, mostly using natural strategies that I found and implemented myself. I am not you– surprise!– so what helped me might not help you.

Then again, it might. There is a lot to know about sleep, and all I can tell you for sure is what consistently helps me. This is my experience.

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Image by Trương Hoàng Huy Ngân from Pixabay

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What Happened to Me

I used to sleep like a log. Right through my 20’s and well into my 30’s, sleep was rarely a problem, except for an occasional off night. I could easily sleep 8-9 hours, often without waking up at all, and go right back to sleep if I got up for a bathroom trip. Even with my babies getting me up, I could usually sleep.

My sleep fell apart when my health crashed in 2009. I still don’t know the whole story for sure, but here is the timeline:

• 2007– sharp decline in health and iron levels
• 2008– celiac diagnosis and rapid recovery of iron level and energy
• 2009– shingles in January
• 2009– probable mosquito bite with bullseye rash in July
• 2009– late summer– malaise followed by crash– exhaustion, pain, brain fog, flu-like feeling, dizziness, muscle spasms, low mood, and more… including insomnia

I won’t go into the years of doctors, blood tests, and so on. Every test looked great. But I wasn’t well at all. There was a little help from a functional doctor and a chiropractor, and none at all from the many specialists I saw, except to rule out a lot of things. Mostly scary ones.

Finally, in the fall of 2020, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, hypothyroid, and a whole bunch of related stuff. Treatment helped, but I still had a ton to learn about fixing my sleep.

You may have none of my exact problems, but still have sleep challenges. Everyone is different, and a lot of things can mess up your sleep. Some of what I will share that helped me may not be what you need, but some of it is likely to help you improve your sleep.

Basics to Improve Your Sleep

I’m not going to go into any depth about the usual sleep advice. You probably know you should eat a clean, nourishing diet, exercise, and manage stress to improve sleep. Odds are that you are aware that emotional, spiritual, and social factors affect sleep. If you aren’t addressing those, maybe do that first?

Very likely, you have also heard about “sleep hygiene”. Maintaining sensible sleep habits is a wise idea. Establish foundational habits like:

• keep a fairly regular sleep schedule
• have a calm, predictable bedtime routine– short and simple is great!
• make your bed comfortable
• set up a dark, quiet, and cool bedroom as best you can
• stop using electronics/screens well before bed (try blue-light-blocking glasses if you watch a movie or something restful in the evening– like these)

If sleep hygiene is new to you, learn more here. To improve your sleep, set yourself up for success!

But what if that isn’t enough?

Next-Level Strategies to Improve Your Sleep

Even really good sleep practices didn’t help me that much. Better than bad habits, I guess. The lack of sleep certainly didn’t help my health or my daytime functioning. Like you, I needed to function well.

Like many people, I tried a lot of things, and most of them didn’t help. However, some did! Here are the ones I know helped significantly:

Magnesium

Magnesium is the only supplement I will mention, and it is the one I have used most consistently for years. I need less now, but I still take it. I sleep better with magnesium glycinate before bed.

Some good ones include:

• this one with 3 calming forms of magnesium
• this plain and simple magnesium glycinate
• this one with other things to help sleep
• this broad spectrum magnesium supplement with 7 forms of magnesium.

Magnesium affects every cell and many physical and mental processes. Most modern people are deficient in magnesium due to both dietary choices and poor magnesium content in good food today, as well as other factors. Learn more here and consider getting tested.

Epsom salts

Magnesium again… Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate. I started taking Epsom salt baths early on to ease muscle aches. This was during the years doctors told me I had fibromyalgia, and the baths helped a little.

Only later did I learn that the magnesium does more than ease muscle aches. Epsom salts are detoxifying and also help us replenish magnesium through the skin. If your gut is not in the best of shape, getting magnesium through the skin can help; your gut doesn’t need to do the absorbing.

Now, while I am much better off than I used to be, I still notice that an Epsom salt bath before bed usually is followed by a sound sleep. I don’t bother with it nearly every night, but it is a thing to try in a pinch.

Some people wear sleep tracking devices and find that they do indeed get more REM sleep after Epsom salt baths, so there is data showing that Epsom salts can improve your sleep.

If baths aren’t your thing, you can simply soak your feet. Our feet are good at absorbing and releasing toxins, so an Epsom salt foot bath is a second best if a full bath isn’t going to happen.

Lifting Weights

This one doesn’t often appear on lists of ways to improve sleep, and it isn’t exactly intuitive. At least not to me…

Years ago, my daughter’s occupational therapists had her do “heavy work” for neurological reasons, and maybe this is similar. It’s good for more than your muscles! Learn more about neurology and strength training here.

One of my family members (not the cold shower one I will mention soon) turns to weight lifting to remedy poor sleep. He finds benefit after one session, even with light weights. This is such a consistent result for him that is is one of his top choices if he sleeps badly, even more so than taking walks.

I don’t notice a dramatic difference in sleep when I lift weights, but I include it because of my family member’s success. Maybe it will improve your sleep!

Light weights are just fine; if one pound is what you can manage, do that. Maybe do what you can and don’t hurt yourself? Proceed slowly. Getting advice from a good chiropractor, physical therapist, etc., and doing the exercises correctly is a good plan.

Ladies, you don’t need to be afraid of suddenly looking like a body builder. That won’t happen, but you may feel better in other ways. Find out more here!

Liver Support

I didn’t think much about my liver in the past. Gut health was on my radar, and I worked hard to improve it. That is good to do, but your liver matters, too!

When I was first diagnosed with Lyme, the doctor told me my labs showed normal liver function, but that my liver could still be stressed. One of many things our livers do for us involves detoxifying. Due to toxins, food, medicines, and supplements, our livers work hard to protect us.

Anyone who has been through Lyme disease and treatment has experienced “die-off” symptoms, which are just awful. Part of what happens is that toxins released by dying spirochetes need to leave the body, and the liver plays a role in making that happen. Symptoms persist if your liver is sluggish.

Other microbes can also cause this sort of thing as your immune system cleans them out, so you may experience it now and then even without a Lyme illness. Sometimes this is called a Herxheimer reaction.

Then the doctor asked if I often wake up around 3 am. and can’t get back to sleep. What?! How did she know? This was a frequent plague upon my nights, but I hadn’t brought it up because there was so much else I needed help with more.

It turns out, the Chinese have an explanation. It sounds weird. I still don’t know what to make of it, but those ancient Chinese (and other old folk) knew things that are plenty real. Some of their ideas, like the Chinese body clock, are now being explained, or at least somewhat accepted, by Western medicine. Check out this integrated explanation.

So my allopathically-trained doctor explained to me that my basically-healthy liver was probably the culprit, and that there was lots I could do about it. And that I really should do those things, since I could expect increased symptoms as I began Lyme treatment.

She had me take a blend of herbs. Well, that was easy enough, but I confess I had low expectations. I was more than a little skeptical about this whole Chinese organ clock thing. And back then I lacked confidence in herbs.

Well, for many reasons, I no longer lack confidence in medicinal herbs. One reason is that after about 3 weeks on the liver blend, I noticed I had slept clean through 3 a.m. for several nights, in spite of the miserable symptoms I had from Lyme treatment.

If you suspect you need liver support, I suggest working with a well-trained professional who can evaluate your specifics and recommend good herbs for you. Quality matters!

A little dandelion or milk thistle tea, a squeeze of lemon juice in your morning glass of water, or a castor oil pack might be OK to do on your own. Try one thing at a time, go slowly, and pay attention to how you feel. Back off if it is too much and slow down! Your body is designed to tell you things via symptoms; listen and learn.

Castor Oil Packs

Castor oil is made by pressing the seeds of castor beans. It has nothing to do with beavers; no beavers are harmed in the making of castor oil! (El castor means beaver in Spanish; this bothered me a bit until I figured it out.)

You may have heard of castor oil as a laxative. Dosed orally, it has been used for centuries for that purpose. I haven’t tried it, and I’m not recommending it. For what it is worth, the FDA recommends it…

Leaving aside the laxative use, castor oil has other purposes; read more here.

Here is how it may improve your sleep:

If you are plagued with waking around 1-3 a.m. and not going right back to sleep, your liver may be struggling. A castor oil pack over the liver is thought to be supportive, easing that particular wake-up while also working for you in other ways.

I don’t know how accurate this is, and I was skeptical at first. However, I have had hundreds of 3 a.m. waking episodes (usually involving distress for no obvious reason), but it rarely happens the nights I use a castor oil pack. Either I sleep straight from 10-7, or I wake up and slip right back into sleep.

The theory is that ricinoleic acid in castor oil stimulates lymphatic flow, reduces inflammation, and gently opens up detox pathways, making the liver’s job easier, and maybe reducing the likelihood of the dreaded liver-wake-up. Learn more here.

Castor oil packs have other uses besides liver support, such as relieving joint pain, inflammation and other aches and pains, plus supporting neurotransmitters that calm the nervous system. Read more here for general uses and here for liver-related information.

For those working on thyroid health, it is worth knowing that T4 (the form the thyroid produces) is converted to T3 (the form our cells can use) largely in the liver. Show some love to your liver, and maybe your thyroid will be happy too!

Here is what I do:

I buy a good brand of castor oil, since it is going to go through my skin. Glass bottle, organic, hexane free, etc; look for sales. I like this one, and buy it from Thrive Market, Sprouts, or Amazon. This is a time when quality matters! A bottle lasts months.

Over clean skin– no toxic lotions or anything!– spread about a tablespoon of oil over the liver area. This is on the right side just under the rib cage. For good measure (and maybe digestive support), get a bit on your tummy as well.

Cover that well with a clean cotton cloth to protect clothing, sheets, etc. Then put a hot pack, heating pad, or other source of warmth on top. I usually lie in bed and read a bit, then fall asleep with it on.

It would be a good idea to start with a shorter time at first. Too much detoxing too fast is unpleasant, and it can happen easily. Start with a few minutes and work up. 40 minutes is good to aim for. Once you can tolerate that, you may be fine going to sleep with it.

Some people have more elaborate ways of doing a castor oil pack. I don’t know if they are superior. I am unlikely to perform messier, more fussy processes, but maybe it would work better. The ultimate source for castor oil products or info would be this one. (She isn’t paying me to say that.)

Morning Sun Exposure

I saved the best for last! This tip applies to any person, regardless of the reasons you aren’t sleeping easily. Morning sun exposure is my first go-to if I have a couple rough nights, and often fixes my sleep in a day or maybe two.

TL;DR: Go outside in the morning when the sun is coming up. Don’t wear sunglasses and don’t look at the sun. Try to get 30 minutes, but even just a few minutes is good, even if you are in the shade or it is cloudy out.

Pre-treatment, a friend told me that morning sun would help my thyroid. I tried it. I don’t have numbers on how exactly my thyroid was affected, but I noticed within a few days that my sleep was much improved! Enough so that I didn’t want to quit the habit.

This was shortly before my Lyme and thyroid diagnosis/treatment, and not much was helping me sleep at the time. Back then, I didn’t think about light much at all. We have been taught to avoid the sun, protect ourselves, etc. That isn’t all wrong– a sunburn or looking right at the sun are harmful– but it’s far from complete advice.

Now I have learned more about light. Similarly to food, some light helps us and some types of light hurt us. We can probably do fine with a little “junk food” here and there when we are well nourished. But we need a steady diet of nourishing food, and we may not do so well if we go overboard with the junk.

Light is a nutrient, in a sense. The blue light from our electronics is “junk food” that does damage. Red light, especially from the sun, nourishes and even heals. If we are getting adequate sunlight, we can handle the stress from things like electronics and LED lights that are hard to avoid.

(Didn’t know LED lights can hurt? I was surprised, too. It really shouldn’t be this hard… Learn more here.)

In fact, sensible sun exposure may correlate with lower mortality rates. Read more here. Our mitochondria (energy producers) in every cell need sunlight.

So how does light exposure improve sleep?

Light at different times of day provides different benefits. You are probably aware of the vitamin D your body makes in response to midday sun. Midday sun helps in other ways, too.

Light around the time of sunset may help you sleep, along with other benefits. There is a lot of healing red in that low sunlight, so being outside then with no sunglasses may help you with all sorts of things.

Being outside with no sunglasses in the morning sets you up for better sleep, hormone health, immune response, mood/mental function, and more.

So, my friend was right– morning sun is good for the thyroid, as my current doctor confirms. With so much of the population having hormone problems now, this is useful information.

As far as sleep goes, another hormone, melatonin, affects our getting to sleep and staying there at night.

Interestingly, our exposure to sunlight in the morning triggers melatonin release at night, helping us sleep. It might not seem obvious that something you do in the morning would affect you at night, but such is the design of our circadian rhythm!

So how can the sun improve your sleep?

Happily, this particular nutrient is free!

You really just need to go outside as the sun is up but not very high yet. No, sunlight through a window isn’t the same. The window doesn’t let the needed wavelengths through. Unless you open the window, which is something to consider.

No sunglasses, either! Don’t look at the sun, just be out where the light is. If it is too bright, you could wear a hat with a generous brim (I do this in summer in direct morning sun after about 8 a.m.). The light will still reach your eyes.

You can also be in the shade. The light reaches your eyes there, too! If it is cloudy, you are still getting sunlight. Even when it is raining, you can be outside in good rain gear or under a protective overhang; you will still get sunlight.

Here is what I do:

As soon as I get up (or once the sun is up, in winter), I have water with some salt and usually a little lemon juice, then head outside. I’m not big on exercise first thing, so I sit in my chair by the kitchen door. I read something I want to read, usually my Bible, for awhile. Sometimes I just sit and wake up.

Then I start the day’s tasks. That’s all! If I have just 5 minutes, I do that. I try for 20-30 minutes. In the winter, I have to bundle up heavily and usually miss a few days that are very cold or stormy.

On rainy days, I open the garage and sit just far enough inside to stay dry. Not idyllic, and the neighbors probably have questions… I have answers!

Sometimes, I plan outdoor tasks for the early morning. Pulling weeds and such is best done early (before the heat intensifies here in Georgia), so I meet multiple goals. Phone calls, emails, etc., can happen outside, too.

Your life may be totally different from mine! If it is very hot or cold, the sunrise is very late or early, work schedules don’t cooperate, etc., do what you can and don’t fret about it.

Practical tips:

• in extreme cold, bundle up and walk briskly for just a few minutes
• open a house or car window when possible to get the light in where you are
• got kids? They need sunlight, too! Try to figure out a workable routine that gets them some morning light right along with you.
• walk your dog at this time–maybe you already do
• walk, bike, run, hike– get some early exercise outside
• if you get to work before the sun is up (I have had that life at times!), try to get out for a few minutes later in the morning, or even at lunch
• move tasks outside when possible– make a phone call, answer emails, do some reading, do your stretching, etc.
• take short breaks outdoors– even 5 minutes!
• if there is just no way to soak up sunlight on days you are working, try to prioritize your “sunlight diet” on days you are off
• if you miss the morning light, try to work in a few minutes in the middle of the day and/or as the sun is going down
• there are light devices you can buy if you just can’t get enough sun– we used one when we lived near Chicago

The subject of light is fascinating, and has been overlooked as a component of health in recent decades. Should it surprise us, really, that the light God made is good for us, while the light sources invented recently, while quite useful, harm us?

If you are up for a really deep dive into the science of sunlight and our health, check out this article.

Bonus Tips to Improve Your Sleep

Progesterone

This one required a prescription, and it isn’t right for everyone. It goes without saying that men and women are different, so this one is for ladies. Though, of course, we all have many hormones that affect every process, including sleep. Hormone testing might give you answers beyond progesterone.

By the time we tried progesterone, my sleep and other symptoms had improved a great deal. Progesterone before bed has helped even more.

You need blood work and a good doctor who reads your labs (and doesn’t merely rely on lab reference ranges!). I have labs done every 4 months and we adjust as needed.

Your best bet will be an integrative or functional doctor who reads labs individually and is knowledgeable about bio-identical hormone replacement. You can also look into natural ways to improve your progesterone.

Cold Shower Before Bed

I haven’t had success with this. I do find a cold shower and dry brushing increases my energy and makes me feel better in the morning. If I can make myself do it! At night, I can hardly coax myself into it, and when I do, I don’t notice improved sleep.

However, I have a family member who swears by it. He says he falls asleep faster and sleeps more soundly after a cold bedtime shower. He has done this for a few years now, and it consistently helps him.

Perhaps a cold shower could improve your sleep. We are all different, so one person’s game changer may do nothing for another.

Keep going! It is possible to improve your sleep!

You, like me, may try things that don’t help at all. Along the way, you will find some that do improve your sleep, though. Hang onto those, and keep learning!

There may not be just one magical solution; wouldn’t we love to find one of those? If you don’t, stack the things that improve your sleep. You are wonderfully designed to heal, return to balance, recover, and thrive. Keep going!

Working on your health? You might find value in my non-sleep-focused articles:

10 free ways to improve your health

10 cheap ways to improve your health