Consistent sleep quality and duration are cornerstones of both health and quality of life. Humans require appropriate sleep, each night, in order to synthesize hormones, repair tissues, grow tissues, and maintain cognitive function, memory, and mood.1 Thus, disruptions in sleep quality and duration can induce aberrations in health and homeostasis, demanding interventions to help restore normal sleeping patterns. In the following sections, this author will explore sleep hygiene, the effects of inadequate sleep, as well as simple and cost-effective botanicals, such as ashwagandha, to improve the same.
Inadequate sleep, defined as 7 hours or less, has been primarily attributed to longer work schedules and greater time associated with leisure activities.2 Such reductions in sleep duration has been associated with coronary heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, dementia, and depression.2(148),3 Furthermore, it has been suggested that approximately 45% of the global population suffer from sleep disorders, while 10% of the population suffer from non-restorative sleep; statistics that demand attention, and solutions.4 As such, the following will explore sleep issues in greater detail in addition to methods which can facilitate improvements of sleep hygiene.
Sleep problems can be defined as one, or a combination of, acute and chronic problems such as: sleep onset latency, excessive wake after sleep onset, short total sleep time, low sleep efficiency, or poor sleep quality.5 Sleep hygiene can be defined as a set of environmental and behavioral suggestions intended to facilitate healthy sleep; a protocol initially developed to treat mild/moderate insomnia.5(1-2) Typically sleep hygiene education teaches individuals a set of recommendations to improve sleep such as (but not limited to) avoiding caffeine, eliminating noise from the sleep environment, maintaining a regular sleep schedule, as well as exercising regularly.5(2) However, sleep hygiene can also include the use of botanicals, such as ashwagandha.
Ashwagandha has been proposed as a method of improving non-restorative sleep (NRS); a clinical endpoint for inadequate sleep.6 NRS is commonly associated with a lack of restful sleep, insomnia, fatigue, compromised cognitive function, anxiety, and a lowered quality of life.6(4) Despande et al6(3) explored the utility of using an extract of ashwagandha as a means of improving NRS. Ashwagandha is a shrub plant (Withania somnifera) which has been used by traditional Indian Ayurvadic medicine over many centuries to support improvements in nerve damage, sexual performance, inflammation, sleep, insomnia, and anxiety.6(5) The following sections will discuss the same further.
150 healthy participants (144 participants completed the study) were recruited who scored high on non-restorative sleep measures.6(3) The study design was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in which participants received 120 mg of standardized ashwagandha extract once daily for 6 weeks.6(3) Over the trial period, individuals who received 120 mg/day of standardized ashwagandha (treatment group) self-reported a 72% improvement in sleep quality compared to a 29% improvement within the placebo group.6(11) Furthermore, the treatment group exhibited an improvement in sleep efficiency, sleep latency, total sleep time, and wake after sleep onset (versus the placebo group).6(3) Such results suggest ashwagandha as a promising cheap, safe, and effective dietary supplement to aid in sleep.
In conclusion, consistent sleep quality and duration are cornerstones of both health and quality of life. Humans require appropriate sleep, each night, in order to synthesize hormones, repair tissues, grow tissues, and maintain cognitive function, memory, and mood. Thus, disruptions in sleep can induce aberrations in health and homeostasis. Ultimately, improving sleep hygiene is paramount, and ashwagandha could support, as part of a larger and more inclusive approach, individuals seeking consistent and restorative sleep.
References
1. Chen WL, Chen JH. Consequences of inadequate sleep during the college years: Sleep deprivation, grade point average, and college graduation. Prev Med. 2019:124:23-28. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2019.04.017.
2. Gallicchio L, Kalesan B. Sleep duration and mortality: A systematic review and meta-analysis. J Sleep Res. 2009;18(2):148-158. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2869.2008.00732.x.
3. Simpson N. Sleep and Inflammation. Nutr Rev. 2007;65(12):S244-S252. doi: 10.1111/j.1753-4887.2007.tb00371.x.
4. Chehri A, Parsa L, Khazaie S, et al. Validation of the sleep hygiene index for the elderly.J Public Health. 2019;1-7. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-019-01180-3.
5. Irish LA, Kline CE, Gunn HE, et al. The role of sleep hygiene in promoting public health: A review of empirical evidence. Sleep Med Rev. 2015;22:1-31. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2014.10.001.6.
6. Despande A, Irani N, Balkrishnan R, et al. A randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study to evaluate the effects of ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) extract on sleep quality in healthy adults. Sleep Med. 2020:1-32. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2020.03.012.
-Michael McIsaac