Your Sleep Quality Sucks and You Know It Does. Here’s What to Do About It
Sleep is absolutely critical for all aspects of health from recovery and physical health, to mental, emotional, and relational health.
You’re a danger driving a vehicle when you’re super tired and you’re fractionally productive at work too.
If sleep is so important, why are so many people struggling with consistent sleep quality and/or duration?
Well, most people subconsciously believe sleep just takes care of itself and that when sleep quality is down, there’s not much you can do about it.
The truth is sleep quality is related to sleep discipline. Yes, there are disciplines you must remain committed to in order to consistently get high quality sleep.
Here are a few:
1. Have a bedtime routine. Routine signals to your brain “we’re going to sleep soon” and allows it to initiate the brain wave and metabolic changes that mark the transition from awake to asleep. So, get your bedtime routine going around the same time each night. Switch off the lights, let the dog out for a pee, lock the door, brush your teeth, etc and you’ll start to fall asleep more easily.
2. Food! Stop eating all together 2 hours before you want to be asleep, and stop carby, sugary stuff 3 hours before bed. Eating causes your body to go into a state that is the OPPOSITE of what you want for sleep. There are certain hormones released after eating that put your metabolism into “awake” mode. And carby, sugary food makes that even worse.
3. Electronics! You have probably heard or even just figured out for yourself that social media companies are BRILLIANT at getting you to read or watch “just one more”. In fact, online content is engineered to ping the “pleasure centre” of your brain much the way addictive substances or formulated foods do. It’s all designed to get you to consume more than you would choose to. So, put down the electronics an hour before bed and just read. That is much better for your brain overall and for sleep quality.
As always, with love.
Dr. Colin