How to increase sleeping hormones

When you think of “being hormonal,” you may think of the stereotypical: mood swings, irritability, irrationality, acne, etc. But the reality is that we need hormones for many important bodily functions --- including sleep --- and too-low levels can be bad news.

Due to stereotypes, you might not have considered increasing your hormones, but if you have deficiencies, doing so could actually be positive for your health and help you to feel more stable, mentally acute, and energetic. This is especially true if your sleep-related hormones are low, since sleep is foundational to wellness in general.

There are a handful of hormones associated with sleep. While melatonin is probably the most-talked about, there are also a variety of others that help your body sleep or that are produced while you’re sleeping. All of them are necessary for your overall wellbeing. And even just one hormone being out of whack can create a chain reaction for the others, potentially snowballing into a larger health problem.

The levels of a few hormones fluctuate based on the day/night cycle and your body’s sleep/wake rhythm. Sleep isn’t the only consideration in the production of these hormones --- other factors like lifestyle, stress, and diet have an effect --- but sleep does have a significant influence on the body’s overall hormonal balance. In fact, nearly every hormone in the body is connected to your body’s circadian rhythm.

There are a variety of hormones related to sleep that do a variety of things; some that your body needs in order to achieve quality and quantity slumber, and some that are produced during sleep that your body needs for other critical functions.

The following are some of the main hormones related to sleep:

This small list of hormones is responsible for a lot of big processes beyond sleep, including metabolism, appetite, body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, fertility/reproduction, sex drive, and growth. “Hormone” is just the word for the body’s many chemical messengers that send information to cells and organs around the body, so it’s a pretty all-encompassing term for many different bodily functions.

There are several hormones that help your body sleep, but let’s start at the most obvious place: with melatonin, of course.

Melatonin: Melatonin helps regulate your circadian rhythm, creating the sleep/wake cycle that determines when you fall asleep, how long you stay asleep, and the stages of sleep you experience. Melatonin is even often referred to as the “sleep hormone.”

Darkness prompts melatonin production, while light causes production to stop. This hormone also plays other important roles in the body besides sleep, like regulating immune response, cortisol levels, and blood pressure.

Cortisol: The next hormone that helps your body sleep may surprise you: cortisol. Though this is known as the “stress hormone,” it performs many critical functions, one of which is helping you feel awake and alert during the day then relaxed and tired at night. This daytime-centered hormone is related closely to melatonin, as the two need to harmonize in order to create your sleep/wake cycle.

Sufficient sleep is needed for cortisol levels to remain healthy, and unlike many other hormones, most people are more likely to have too-high levels than too-low. This is related to the high stress levels of modern life, which stimulate cortisol production. Similar to melatonin, cortisol helps regulate immune function and blood pressure. It also influences metabolism and blood sugar levels.

Estrogen and progesterone: All people have estrogen and progesterone in different levels, and a healthy balance of sex hormones is necessary for everyone. Estrogen helps your body use serotonin, which is actually a precursor to melatonin that helps develop your sleep/wake cycle. Progesterone tends to cause a calm, sleep-inducing feeling that may help you fall asleep at night.

People experiencing menopause, however, may have sleep disturbances related to the rapid decrease in these two hormones. Levels of estrogen and progesterone also fluctuate during menstruation or pregnancy, and all of this has an effect on your overall sleep quality. 

As for the hormones your body produces while you’re asleep, you need to get enough high-quality ZZZs in order to maintain healthy levels.

Growth hormone: Growth hormone secretion occurs in stages three and four of the sleep cycle, and it’s necessary for all people from childhood through late adulthood. When you’re younger, this hormone helps you grow, but over your lifetime it’s also responsible for important functions like muscle development and cell growth/repair.

Thyroid hormones: Your thyroid produces two hormones that help regulate metabolism, digestion, and cognitive function. The thyroid can either be over- or under-active, but both disorders are linked to poor sleep, either related to too much restlessness (hyperthyroidism) or too much fatigue (hypothyroidism). Due to resulting effects on your appetite and metabolism, imbalance thyroid hormones can lead to weight gain.

Hunger hormones: Sleep helps your body regulate metabolism and hunger signals, which are controlled by three hormones: insulin, leptin, and ghrelin. Insufficient sleep can have a number of negative effects on these particular hormones, which can lead to not feeling full when you eat, feeling overly hungry, irregular blood sugar levels, and increased fat storage, especially in your midsection.

This can create a negative cycle because even one night of poor sleep can affect the body’s hunger hormones, which can lead to overeating and too-high blood sugar levels, which can, in turn, disturb your sleep further.

Testosterone: Testosterone production happens while you’re asleep, and sleep restrictions can result in significantly lowered testosterone production. These levels also fluctuate in sync with your circadian rhythm, and similar to cortisol, testosterone is highest in the mornings and lowest in the evenings. Low T can disrupt sleep and can also lead to fatigue, mood swings, irritability, low sex drive, increased body fat, brain fog, and other undesirable symptoms. 

If your sleep-related hormones are low, you could experience a range of side effects including weight gain or increased appetite, fatigue, more frequent infections, stress, insomnia, or low libido.

Adding a melatonin supplement can be a relatively easy and safe way to increase at least one sleep hormone, but if you don’t know which of your hormones might be low or what might be causing your fatigue, weight gain, mood swings, sleep disturbances, or any other symptoms you’re experiencing, then getting your hormone and vitamin levels tested can provide answers.

Base’s at-home sleep testing plan can give you information about hormonal biomarkers like melatonin, cortisol, and testosterone, while the energy testing plan can measure your thyroid hormones, cortisol, and testosterone. But the most important component of Base is that it offers you easy-to-interpret explanations of what these levels actually mean --- as well as actionable, realistic recommendations for solutions that will help you address your sleep issues.

Beyond that, developing healthy sleep habits can only help you in the long run, even if you just make a few minor changes. Decreasing blue light exposure before bed, cutting down on alcohol and caffeine consumption, finding small ways to reduce stress, limiting daytime naps, not going to sleep on an empty stomach: all of these small efforts can push the dial toward better slumber and improved health.