HGH: The Biology-Based Best Sleep Hack

Trouble sleeping? You’re in good company. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), 50 –70 million Americans have a sleep disorder, and one third of adults aren’t getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep they need each night to protect their health.^[1]

There are lots of reasons for this: stress, screens, medical issues. But whatever the root cause, a lack of sleep can lead to serious health issues. The NHLBI says, “Sleep deficiency can lead to physical and mental health problems, injuries, loss of productivity, and even a greater likelihood of death.”^[2]

Clearly, losing sleep is bad. Really bad. Let’s talk about why it happens, and what you can do about it. 

WHY CAN’T I SLEEP?

1. Sleep and Lifestyle Factors

You’ve heard it all before: caffeine late in the day, eating right before bedtime, taking long naps… It all negatively impacts our sleep patterns.

When you can’t sleep, do you turn to a nightcap? True, it might help you feel more relaxed as you drift off to dreamland. The problem comes later, because alcohol has been shown to interrupt sleep, which can make your sleep quality even worse than if you hadn’t had that drink.^[3]

An inconsistent bedtime can also throw off your sleep. Your body likes routine. Going to bed and waking up at the same time can help train it to sleep better. As enjoyable as it might be, staying up late on Friday night and sleeping in the next day can wreak havoc on your body’s ability to rest well.^[4]

2. Sleep and Medical Issues

Sleep-related disorders, like sleep apnea, can of course affect both your sleep quality and your health. But other issues can also make it harder for you to get a good night’s rest.

Chronic pain can keep you from falling asleep, or it can wake you up frequently throughout the night. Anxiety and depression also both impact sleep. An enlarged prostate gland is a fairly common issue for men; it makes you feel like you have to urinate frequently, which wakes you up.^[5]

3. Sleep and Aging

Getting older definitely impacts your sleep. Illnesses, medications, the enlarged prostate gland we just talked about—these are all more common with age. This can make resting well more of a challenge.

Your hormones are also changing. With age, your body produces less human growth hormone, or HGH. According to the study ”Growth Hormone Aging,” it drops as much as 15% per decade after our 30s.

HGH plays a critical role in many of our body’s processes (learn more here), including sleep. Not only is it tied to deeper, more restorative sleep, but it’s also released in large surges—especially for men—while you sleep. It can feel a bit like a catch-22: You need to sleep to produce HGH, but you need HGH to sleep better. When your natural HGH production declines, you can feel stuck in an exhausting loop. 

HOW TO STOP WAKING UP TIRED

1. Adjust Your Lifestyle

Let’s start with the obvious: Cut back on caffeine, especially after early afternoon. No eating heavy snacks or drinking alcohol right before bed. Follow a consistent bedtime routine.

2. Reset Your Circadian Rhythm

You can also work on resetting your body’s biological clock. It regulates when you feel sleepy and when you feel awake. When it gets interrupted, you sleep like garbage.

How do you do this? Start with making sure you get some sunlight early in the morning. This helps signal to your brain that it’s time to wake up, and research shows it can improve overall sleep quality.^[6] Dimming your house lights an hour or two before bed can also help reset your circadian rhythm and encourage your brain to start producing melatonin, a sleep-regulating hormone.^[7]

Another biggie? Staying off your screens. Blue light has been vilified when it comes to sleep, but recent research by Dr. Matt Walker, a psychologist and neuroscientist who’s widely considered one of the world’s leading sleep experts, says it may not be the light exposure so much as the content.

In a recent Instagram post, Dr. Walker referenced 12 studies which showed “the sleep onset delay attributable to screen light alone was merely 10 minutes.” But Dr. Walker adds, “The real thief of sleep is behavioral: engaging content that compresses your biological night.”

Translation? Blue light does affect the time it takes you to fall asleep, but only by about 10 minutes. The real problem with doom scrolling at bedtime is getting sucked into content that keeps you awake when you should be sleeping.

3. Boost Your HGH

Boosting your body’s natural HGH production can give you a real leg up on better sleep. And you don’t have to turn to expensive, synthetic HGH injections. There are a few things you can do to encourage your pituitary gland—which manufactures HGH—to increase its output.

Reduce your stress: While you may not be able to STOP stress in your life, you can help your body react to stressors in a healthier way. Meditation, deep breathing, and yoga can help reduce the effects of stress on your body.^[8]

Exercise regularly: Strength training especially has been shown to boost HGH production.^[9]

Avoid heavy meals right before bed: This gives you the double bonus of avoiding late-night heartburn and reducing insulin spikes. When you eat—especially carbs and sugars—your body produces insulin to counteract the spike in blood sugar. Insulin can inhibit HGH secretion at night, so avoiding those nighttime spikes is important.

Boost your HGH with GF-9: In separate double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials, GF-9 has been shown to increase human growth hormone levels up to 682%, and to reduce the amount of time study participants spent awake at night by 65%.* This patented formula can be an absolute gamechanger when it comes to getting better sleep.

Boost your HGH and your performance: GF-9 Black Label contains the patented, clinically validated HGH booster, plus a Performance Amp complex for accelerated results. It increases strength, energy, focus, and GLP-1 levels, along with boosting your body’s natural production of HGH and improving sleep.*