Sleep is your most important best friend, I promise!
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When it comes to health, sleep is at the forefront alongside nutrition and exercise. Why is this? Sleep is not just for rest and recovery, although they are still very important benefits of sleep, but it also enables us to 'reset', to filter through all of the information we have received in any given day. Without these things we are unable to process new information accordingly, regulate mood and hormones, recall memories and just perform optimally. We all know the feeling of running off too little sleep, so what can we do?
No two people are the same and the amount of sleep any person will need will be unique to them. Generally though women need more sleep then men, roughly about 2 hours more, with everyone needing somewhere between 7-9 hours. And unsurprisingly to some, we all need more sleep in the winter months research suggests, so this is your reminder to stop beating yourself up for struggling to get out of bed during the dark mornings! This makes a lot of sense when you consider that our sleeping patterns are determined by our circadian rhythm which uses light to determine our body clock. Interesting right?
And not all sleep is the same, in fact there are 5 different stages :
wake
N1 (non rapid eye movement)
N2
N3 (non rapid eye movement)
REM
The most restorative sleep is when you are in N3 as this is when the body repairs, regrows tissues, builds bone and muscle, and strengthens the immune system.
So here are my 8 top tips to help you sleep better.
No screen time 1 hour before bed (minimum) as our bodies respond to light so using your phone before bed confuses our bodies and says "stay awake"!
Exercise regularly to ensure mental and physical fatigue.
Spend time outside as not only is this beneficial for other areas or health but it also helps to regulate the circadian rhythm through sunlight.
Eat to balance blood sugar and avoid large amount of sugar and caffeine within 8 hours of going to sleep.
Create the perfect calming environment for sleep and try to avoid working in your bedroom as this can cause neurological road blocks in your brain i.e should I sleep or should I work.
Create a bed time routine - this tells your body that once you start this routine it need to wind down and get ready for sleep.
Wake up and go to bed at the same time - again this trains our circadian rhythm to know when our bodies need to be awake and go to sleep.
Try sleep meditation or any meditation as this helps to begin the wind down/slow down process.
If you struggle with sleep either because of a restless mind, a busy lifestyle of a lack of discipline in this area then start slow - 1% improvements add up!
Abi x
