Five tips for better sleep
You may:
Have difficulty falling asleep
Wake up and have difficulty getting back to sleep
Wake up multiple times to urinate
No matter how much sleep you get, you still feel tired
It may seem utterly boring, but good food and a good nights sleep are the best medicine you can have, so let’s get into a few simple things you can do for a restful sleep.
1. Remove as much light as possible
You’ve heard of circadian rhythms – simply speaking, this is our body’s natural 24 hour cyclical clock. When people refer to their body clock, this is what they’re referring to.
Even low levels of light can reeeaaallly mess with it. This includes phones, computers, kindles and the annoying street light outside your window.
Avoid blue light exposure from screens for AT LEAST one hour before bed. This is where your trusty book comes in handy or a shower before bed. An eye mask worn in bed will be a dream if you struggle to remove light from your surroundings.
2. Go to sleep and wake up at the same time everyday
Following the same logic of the circadian rhythm, your body likes order and routine. Roughly following the same sleep/wake schedule will do wonders.
Which leads us to our next tip…
3. Exercise / movement for a good night’s sleep
You don’t need to run a marathon or do a high intensity work out for it to be called exercise. Even a 30 minute moderately paced walk will cut the mustard. If you can leave the house for a breath of fresh air, I encourage you to do so – even if it’s just around the block.
Other forms of movement that will get the blood pumping:
Gardening
Cleaning
Stretching
Skipping rope
Yoga (there is so much online!)
4. Manage stress and calm the mind
When we are stressed, our incredibly clever hormones MAKE US FEEL GOOD, so that we can get through the stress! This phenomenon is shown when we finally have down time from our busy schedule and completely crash and feel awful, but feel good when we’re in the thick of things.
Stressors are many and varied, but in order to reduce a cortisol spike at night that will disrupt your sleep, try the following:
Leave work thoughts for work hours
Place a drop of lavender oil on your wrists or on your pillow
Listen to a yoga nidra or sleep meditation in bed
Have a shower or bath before bed
5. What to do when there is not enough sleep in the world
This is the time to contact your GP or preferred health professional. If you are sleeping long hours and not feeling rested, it may be time speak with your GP to organize a mental health plan as this can be a sign of depression.
If upon waking, you feel groggy and it takes a while to get going this can also be a sign that your gut is having a hard time! Sub out the black coffee first thing for a hot water with lemon as a first step and aim for regularity with meals. In Chinese medicine we refer to this excessive morning fatigue as Spleen Qi deficiency with Dampness. I use a snow globe analogy when describing this to my patients. Imagine that you are a snow globe. You’re walking around all day, shaking up the snow. In bed, all the snow settles to the bottom of the globe, so when you wake up, you spend the first hour getting all that snow up off the bottom of the globe, then you feel fresh again.
You may have similar lethargy after eating.
The tips you already know, but need someone to tell you
Don’t drink coffee or caffeinated drinks from mid-late afternoon onwards. Know your sensitivity: some people can’t have a coffee after 11am, others 3pm.
Avoid sugary foods and drinks close to bed (!!!!)
Don’t work where you sleep and if you must, do what you can to make it feel separate
Go to bed at a reasonable hour; before midnight unless you’re a shift worker, and aim for 10pm
Happy sleeping everyone.