Sleep is not a luxury, it's foundational infrastructure for your health. Usually, the argument for getting better sleep rests on things we all can feel: mood, focus, patience, energy. But this past September, researchers at UCLA Health published findings in The Lancet Healthy Longevity journal, showing that treating insomnia with cognitive behavioral therapy didn't just improve how people slept. In their researcher, it appeared to slow down how fast their bodies were aging at the cellular level.

Eight hours was never meant to be a universal prescription. It's a loose average drawn from a wide range factors. And treating it as a hard and fast rule to meet every single night can actually work against your sleep (no matter the amount) rather than for it…
…Hitting the bullseye for our personal best sleep amount is tough. If we wanted to be a bit cliche, we might say that it’s more of an art than a science. Not just because it’s necessarily difficult to pin point, but because it changes over time—both as we progress through life, but also from day to day based on activity, health, stress, and more.

We've been told, over and over, that a good night’s sleep is a single, solid, unbroken block of eight hours—from lights out to alarm clock, no interruptions. So when our body or mind doesn't do that, it feels like proof of a problem. We’ve failed, and we’re not good sleepers.

But here's the thing. That’s just not true.

Ultraprocessed time is the time you spend on something that feels compelling in the moment but leaves you with nothing real to show for it afterward, no rest, no connection, no growth, no learning, just a faint, sugar-crash-esque sort of emptiness. And much like ultraprocessed food, ultraprocessed time is everywhere.

The appeal of cannabis as a sleep aid is understandable and, to a degree, pharmacologically grounded. Before we fully get into it, however, there’s a few things that you need to know.

When everything is just too much—when your emotions, fear, and stress feel overwhelming—it’s easy to feel lost at sea. The sheer volume of modern life can be crushing, and it often feels like we need a complex, multi-step plan to regain control. But what if the solution was simpler, more fundamental?

Overall, every indicator that I have seen shows that sex can positively impact sleep by triggering the release of hormones like oxytocin and prolactin, which promote relaxation and sleepiness, and also by reducing levels of a primary stress hormone called cortisol.

Last year, the world spent around 7 billion dollars on over-the-counter sleep aids.  And I’m going to be honest, most of them are a mixed bag.  Some may work for you, others don’t really work for anyone, and the rest are pretty variable in that they may not work like you are hoping they will. 

What is sleep?  Sounds like a silly question, but in reality, it isn’t. While we know its crucial for health and cognitive function, we still don't fully understand why we sleep, the precise mechanisms of sleep, and the full extent of its impact on the brain and body.

…while we might think that good sleep is a solid, deep 8 hours, good sleep actually looks different for almost everyone.  Good wellness—sleep included is never one-size fits all…ultimately, your best sleep solutions will be as unique as you are…