What Happens in Your Body While You Sleep

What Happens in Your Body While You Sleep

Why a Night Ritual Matters (and why Reishi belongs in it)

If your days feel “always on”, your nights are where recovery happens. A consistent night routine helps your nervous system downshift into the parasympathetic state—the body’s rest-and-digest mode—so that sleep can do its deepest repair work. Creating that downshift is the job of your evening ritual: lights dimmed, screens parked, a warm Reishi  tea, and simple breathing. It’s not about perfection; it’s about signals. Reliable cues tell your brain, “It’s safe to power down.”

Two quick realities underline why this matters:

  • According to Aviva, around half of UK adults report not getting enough sleep, with financial stress a major factor.
  • Studies show that roughly 30% of adults sleep outside the recommended 7–9 hours, and even people who average 7–9 hours often have irregular patterns that blunt benefits.

Your ritual helps reclaim control—nudging biology back toward calm and consistency.


 

Inside the Night: A Tour of Your Body’s Repair Cycle

1) The parasympathetic “calm switch” clicks on

As you drift from wakefulness into deeper sleep, your parasympathetic system takes charge—your heart rate slows, breathing becomes steady, and the body switches from action to repair. Studies show this calming activity is strongest during non-REM sleep, especially deep sleep, when most restoration happens. Think of it as your body’s nightly maintenance mode.

2) Deep sleep = anabolic rebuild

In healthy adults, a major pulse of growth hormone (GH) occurs shortly after sleep onset, tightly linked to the first bout of slow-wave sleep. GH is one of the signals that drives protein synthesis, tissue repair and metabolic reset—the backstage crew changing the set between acts. Fragment late nights or SWS deprivation, and this GH rhythm is blunted.

3) Brain clean-up: the glymphatic rinse

During sleep, the brain’s glymphatic system ramps up the clearance of metabolic by-products (including amyloid-β), aided by an increase in interstitial space and cerebrospinal fluid flow. In short: sleep is when your brain takes the bins out.

4) Immune orchestration and memory filing

As the nervous system tips parasympathetic, immune coordination and synaptic consolidation can proceed with less interference from daytime stress chemistry. Non-REM stabilises facts and skills; REM weaves the emotion and meaning. The take-home: what you learned and lived today gets “saved” tonight—if you let it.


 

Reishi’s Role: The Calming Nightcap Ritual

Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi) has been used for centuries in evening tonics. Modern research—while still early and often preclinical—suggests sleep-supportive, calming potential via gut-brain and serotonergic pathways in animals, and small human trials/reviews that point to improved subjective sleep quality. DIRTEA’s take is ritual-first, claims-careful: we spotlight how a Reishi sleep tea can be the cue that helps your nervous system shift gears—without promising medical outcomes.

  • Mechanistic hints: In mice, specific Reishi polysaccharides improved sleep via gut microbiota–serotonin pathways. This doesn’t equal a clinical claim in humans, but it’s a plausible route for the calming feeling many people report from an evening Reishi ritual.
  • Human evidence (emerging): Reviews note small RCTs reporting improved subjective sleep/insomnia scores with Ganoderma preparations; evidence quality remains limited and more robust trials are needed.


 

Building Your Night Routine (in 20–40 minutes)

Goal: reduce physiological “noise” so parasympathetic tone rises, paving the way for SWS (deep sleep) and all the benefits that follow.

T-40 min – Dim & disarm

  • Switch house lights to warm/low.
  • Park blue-light devices or enable night-shift; ideally, stop scrolling.

T-30 min – Brew your Reishi sleep tea

  • Prepare DIRTEA Reishi (Calm Powder) as a simple tea or in cacao.
  • Treat the mug as a sensory anchor: warm hands, slow sips, longer exhales. (Tip: 4–6 gentle breaths, exhale slightly longer than inhale, cues vagal tone.)

T-20 min – Release & reset

  • Two choices:
    • Body option: 5–8 minutes of floor stretches or a warm shower.
    • Mind option: 5 minutes of breathwork (box breathing 4-4-4-4) or a light journal brain-dump.

T-10 min – Sleep environment pass

  • Cool, dark, quiet: crack a window or set AC, draw blackout curtains, clear the floor.
  • Lay out tomorrow’s essentials—tomorrow-you will thank you.

Lights out

  • If thoughts loop, try a 1–10 count-back on your exhales. If you’re still awake after ~20 minutes, rise briefly, read paper pages in low light, and return.


Why This Works (the biology in plain English)

  1. Ritual = prediction. Repeating the same steps at the same time teaches your brain that safety + sleep follows. The autonomic nervous system follows your cues.
  2. Warm sip, slow breath = vagal nudge. Warm liquids and longer exhales help tilt parasympathetic—the doorway to non-REM. HRV research supports higher vagal tone in deep sleep, which is when GH pulses and cellular repair peak.
  3. Regularity beats perfection. Even if your total sleep time varies, consistent timing improves sleep architecture and makes the most of restorative phases. (Large population data and guidelines increasingly emphasise timing regularity and sufficient duration.)



Final Thoughts

Your night is your most powerful recovery tool. The science is clear: when you slide into parasympathetic gear, your body uses deep sleep to release growth hormone, clean cellular waste in the brain, and reset for tomorrow. An unhurried night routine—anchored by a calming Reishi sleep tea—is a simple, enjoyable way to signal safety, stabilise timing, and let biology do the rest. Keep the ritual repeatable, keep the lights warm and low, and let your body take it from there.


FAQs

Is Reishi a sedative?
No. Reishi is not a sedative medication. Early research and traditional use suggest calming potential, but evidence in humans is still developing. Use it as part of a soothing night routine, not as a drug.

How long until I notice benefits from a night routine?
Many people feel calmer within days due to consistent cues; greater improvements in sleep timing and quality often build over 2–4 weeks—the time it takes to retrain habits and stabilise circadian signals. (Supportive population data highlight the importance of regularity over time.)

Can I use Reishi with my current medication?
If you take medication or have a health condition, consult your healthcare professional before introducing any supplement.

Do I need 8 hours exactly?
Adults generally do well between 7–9 hours. Aim for a consistent window most nights.




References

Back to Our Journal

Best Sellers

Get the best of DIRTEA by shopping our best selling mushroom products. Shop the most popular mushroom powders and organic super blends.