Tired of tossing and turning throughout the night? Sleep aids such as counting sheep or meditation no longer effective?
We’ve all been there!
Not sleeping well can have a direct impact on our mental and physical health. Falling short of adequate sleep can take a massive toll on our daytime energy, productivity, mood, and even our weight.
While we can all have a poor night’s sleep sometimes, regularly being unable to catch a good quality night’s sleep can be detrimental to our health and wellbeing.
There are many remedies to help us get a better sleep, whether that be from a nutrition, lifestyle, habitual, or supplementation viewpoint.
However, we may be overlooking one particular trace mineral that can assist with achieving a restful slumber!
Keep reading to find out all you need to know about how zinc may help with getting a better night’s sleep!
What is Zinc?
Zinc is an essential nutrient that has many important roles in the body. Our bodies cannot naturally produce or store zinc, which means we must supply it through our dietary intake and, sometimes, supplementation.
Zinc is responsible for many important processes in the body, including:
- Gene expression
- Immune function
- Wound healing
- DNA synthesis
- Growth and development
- Protein synthesis
After iron, zinc is the second most abundant trace mineral in your body and is present in every cell. Zinc is necessary for the activity of countless enzymes responsible for metabolism, digestion, and nerve function.
It is also crucial for immune system function, skin health, DNA synthesis, and protein production, being heavily relied on for cell growth and development.
Zinc is found naturally in many plant and animal food sources, such as oysters, red meat, beans, nuts, and whole grains fortified with zinc.
You’ll know if you’re deficient in zinc if you experience a loss of taste and smell, loss of appetite, and impaired immune function.
The Health Benefits of Zinc Supplementation
- Zinc for boosting immunity
Zinc is one of the key nutrients involved in keeping our immune system healthy and functioning.
Due to its role in immune cell function and cell signaling, low levels of zinc can lead to impaired immunity. This is often why zinc is a recommended supplement for when you have a common cold!
Studies have actually shown that consumption of a zinc supplement reduces the duration of a common cold.
- Zinc for wound healing
Zinc is a commonly used mineral in hospitals when treating conditions and injuries such as burns and ulcers.
This mineral plays a vital role in collagen synthesis, immune function, and inflammatory response, which are all necessary for proper healing.
It appears that supplementing with zinc may speed up the recovery of wounds!
- Zinc for reducing inflammation
Zinc is known to decrease oxidative stress and reduce levels of some inflammatory substances in your body.
Oxidative stress can often lead to chronic inflammation, which is a contributing factor to a number of chronic illnesses and conditions, such as heart disease and cancer.
So, zinc appears to be quite an important nutrient. But does it help sleep?
How Does Zinc Help Sleep?
It appears so! Recent studies have shown that zinc can help improve sleep quality.1
One particular study looked at the sleep issues of ICU nurses and found that the nurses who suffered with the poorest sleep had the lowest zinc levels.
Upon one month of zinc supplementation, better sleep quality was reported among the group of nurses who supplemented with zinc compared to a placebo group.1
Our body has a natural, internal body clock installed which regulates our sleep-wake cycle, otherwise known as our circadian rhythm. This is what controls our sleepiness in the evening in response to darkness, and what keeps us awake during the day in response to daylight.
In recent years, there are many environmental and lifestyle factors which affect this natural sleep pattern. For example, staying up late at night on our phones can disrupt our circadian rhythm due to the light emitted from our phones signaling to our brain that it’s daylight.
Additionally, individuals who travel often or work night shifts can also experience much disruption with their body clocks.
Zinc is thought to act as a circadian rhythm regulator, in other words, it may help adjust our internal clock, which may sometimes be telling the wrong time! It has actually been found that people who sleep less than 5 hours a night have a lower zinc intake than those who sleep for a longer time.2
So, next time you’re suffering with your sleep, ask yourself if you’re consuming enough zinc and whether you may need a supplement!
Final Take-Home
Zinc is one of the most essential minerals for our health and normal bodily function. Without zinc, we run the risk of poor cell growth, impaired immunity, and potentially a poor sleep cycle!It has been found that zinc may help regulate our sleep-wake cycle (circadian rhythm), as well as help us get a better-quality slumber. So, next time you’re tossing and turning, examine your dietary zinc intake and potentally consider a supplement.Our top pick is Performance Lab NutriGenesis Multi, containing zinc alongside 16 other essential vitamins and minerals that help us restore nutrients that we may be missing from our diet, thus supporting a healthy cell performance across all body systems!
References
- Gholipour Baradari, A., Alipour, A., Mahdavi, A., Sharifi, H., Nouraei, S.M. and Emami Zeydi, A., 2018. The effect of zinc supplementation on sleep quality of ICU nurses: a double blinded randomized controlled trial. Workplace health & safety, 66(4), pp.191-200.
- Cherasse, Y., & Urade, Y. (2017). Dietary Zinc Acts as a Sleep Modulator. International journal of molecular sciences, 18(11), 2334.
