Why we need to optimise our sleep
On the down side – lack of sleep produces a similar reaction to too much stress in the brain.
- Brain function declines.
- The stress hormones, adrenaline & cortisol increase.
- Inflammatory markers go up.
- We become resistant to insulin.
- The fullness and appetite hormones change making us gain weight.
- We find it harder to resist sugary, high carb foods.
- Eventually lack of sleep (ie less than 7 good hours a night) can lead to many chronic diseases as your genes start to express themselves differently, and to early death.
On the up side – getting plenty of high-quality sleep is a great medicine for the body to heal itself.
- The brain repairs and detoxes itself, to improve memory and concentration.
- The body repairs cells and restores energy.
- The muscles repair themselves and tissues grow.
- The body fights off infection.
- and much much more!
How to Create a Bedtime Routine
Studies have shown that insomnia is one of the most common sleep disorders. Stress from a busy workday and active personal life can cause sleep anxiety. Creating a bedtime routine puts your body in a relaxed state. By the time you’re finished, your body should feel relaxed and ready to drift off to slumberland!
Whilst everybody will respond uniquely to different cues. Here are a few for you to try and why. Experiment with what suits your personality and home environment best.
- Avoid eating within 2-3 hours of your bedtime. This allows your body to digest the food properly, stops you needing a pee in the night, avoids acid reflux.
- Avoid alcohol totally if you can but definitely after eating. Alcohol seriously disrupts your sleep. It can lower your blood sugar levels and cause you to wake up interrupting the vital deep or REM sleep.
- Have a bath or hot shower 2 hours before bed. This mimics what happens when you go to sleep as your body temperature starts to cool down to help induce sleepiness.
- Turn the lights down low, light a candle. The key thing here is to avoid blue light which makes your body wake up. Use blue light blocking glasses if you really must watch TV or use a screen.
- Put on some relaxing music. This is very personal! Choose something you’d use when getting romantic.
- Read a book or listen to an audio book. This relaxes the mind and alters our state as we must fully engage with the story to visualise it in our brain. Kindle’s do omit blue light, but it is better than a phone screen.
- Avoid stressful inputs from news or people. Catch up with this in the morning.
- Go to bed at least 30 mins before the time you want to sleep from. The minimum 7 hours for optimal sleep is time actually asleep not just the time you’re in your bed for.
- Sleep in a quiet and dark room. Having a non-cluttered, non-smelly, cool bedroom offers the most relaxing space for your brain to sleep in.
- Aim for 7-9 hours of actual sleeping time. We may need slightly less as we age but no less than 7 apparently.
Five tips to get your circadian rhythm in sync
It’s not just the few hours before bed which are important. What you do for the rest of the day can also have an impact on how you sleep. Here’s a few more things to try if you’re not feeling refreshed when you wake up.
- Got outside to get natural daylight for 15-30 mins each morning. Or turn on your brightest lights at home if you can’t manage that.
- Reduce your stress levels. We all get stressed, we are so used to it we don’t even notice it anymore. It effects the hormones which control waking and sleeping. Meditation, yoga, breathwork and walking in nature are all good stress reducers.
- Exercise in the first half of the day or if it is closer to bedtime avoid cardio and do flexibility workouts.
- Breath slower, lighter and deeper through your nose. See Patrick McKeown – Oxygen Advantage for more details or the Buteyko method app.
- Try mouth tape at night to make sure you breath through your nose. Again, see Patrick McKeown and Buteyko method for how to do this.
If you’d like to know more about the Buteyko breathing method, please get in touch as I’m an Oxygen Advantage Instructor and will be running some online courses soon😊
We still have our ancient clock ticking inside us even though we live in the modern world. This is most aligned with the rising of the sun for waking and for sleep with the setting of the sun. So, you can see how misaligned we are these days, especially if we work late night shifts.
But there are hacks we can use whatever our shift pattern (apart from mixed shifts, very tricky, sorry).
Going outside to get some blue light soon after you get up can be very beneficial. Even on a cloudy day we get more light outside than in. If being outside isn’t an option turn on the brightest lights you have. This is a key habit to help reset your circadian clock. Don’t stress if you can’t do this every day, just as often as you can manage 😊
The other light tip is to get some red light, either at sunrise or sunset, or with red light bulbs. Cue Roxanne listen here
What are you inspired to change now?
Set your intention to see if you can get a better nights sleep.
Remember when habit changing start small and change one thing at a time.
Once you’ve added in some changes and they are automatic then move on to the next step.
What do you think you could change which might help improve your sleep?
Do you use any wearables to monitor your sleep quality?
Leave a comment below or get in touch with me on social media @the_nourishing_space or on email: lesley@thenourishingspace.co.uk
