If you struggle falling asleep or staying asleep, it’s a sure bet to say you’ve already tried many strategies that haven’t worked.

Since you’re reading this, you’re probably hoping to find out where you went wrong in your efforts. I will give you more than that: I will provide you with insights into sleep and a solution that worked for me. Read on.

I promise to tell you about the #1 strategy that worked for me and my clients, but first I want to show you how easily we give up when something doesn’t work right away.

Emily is one of my clients. Just like me, she had given up finding relief for her sleep issues, thinking she had already tried everything and insomnia was going to be a permanent condition for her.

After trying the usual relaxation techniques, meditation, baths and soothing music, she had given up in frustration. Little did she know the solution to her problems was just around the corner.

Is this you, my friend? Most people who start a new habit go through this process of frustration and defeat. We get excited and hopeful and when the initial effort is met with disappointment, we give up and decide it’s not worth it. Let me ask you: “Are you still trying to improve your sleep or have you already given up”?

Whether you’re still trying different techniques or you’ve already resigned yourself to sleepless nights, this is for you. I will give you my #1 therapy for sleeping soundly, last.

Let’s begin by talking about the standard foundational strategy for helping you fall asleep and stay asleep: It’s light from the sun and the light your body emits as energy. Stick with me and I’ll explain how you can use both to improve not only your sleep, but your blood sugar, weight, muscle mass, moods and pain, among many symptoms.

Improving sleep begins with re-setting your circadian rhythm first thing in the morning. It’s all about the hormones in your body that communicate with each other to create balance. I’m talking about cortisol, the stress hormone, insulin, the key hormone for blood sugar regulation and melatonin, the sleep hormone.

These three hormones work in concert to regulate your stress, blood sugar and sleep. When I say they work in concert, it means that all three of these processes are affected at the same time when any of these is out of balance.

Have you noticed how when you don’t get enough sleep, somehow you also crave sweets and your stress and anxiety go through the roof? Similarly, when you’re anxious you can’t sleep and either you crave sweets or your gut shuts down and you can’t eat anything. It’s all connected. Give it some thought and start paying attention.

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To make it simple, regulating these hormones is key for sleep and regulating the sleep/wake cycle. Anything that affects your blood sugar, stress or sleep, will affect your ability to fall asleep and stay asleep.

So, where do you start? First, you start at night, by:

1. Turning off all blue light after sunset. Turn on yellow or warm lights instead. Read from a real book, instead of your phone or computer.

2. Using amber lights at night. We’re supposed to be exposed only to yellow and orange/red light at night. Our ancestors sat by the fire. We sit by our computers.

3. Covering all blinking lights in your bedroom to make the room pitch black. Every single one of them.

4. Getting at least 15 minutes of light exposure first thing in the morning to reset your circadian rhythm. This works wonders for sleep at night.

5. Going to bed early enough to get at least 7 hours of sleep before sunrise. As soon as you feel tired, go to bed. This is your signal that melatonin is at its highest and cortisol at its lowest. The ideal time for bed.

These strategies will all help you reset your sleep/wake cycle and regulate your blood sugar and stress. The one piece missing from all these amazing strategies is phototherapy in a patch. This is the #1 therapy that changed everything for me. Click here for more information or contact me at monica@nourishedfn.com