Most people don’t realize the massive impact sleep has on on your health and over all well being. Lack of sleep has been shown to affect not only the quality of your life, but tends to shorten that life as well.
Research has recently shown that lack of sleep can significantly contribute to the development of alzheimers by altering essential healing responses in the brain. It also significantly impacts weight gain by changing hormone levels in the body. Perhaps the most telling research has shown that sleep deprived people do worse on cognitive and motor tasks than intoxicated / drunk people.
In fact, 1 out of 2 people are not getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep, and 1 out of 3 are trying to survive on 6 hours or less of sleep! As a society we seem to be valuing it less and less! In 1942 the average nights sleep was 7.9 hours, now it has dropped to 6.5 hours per night on average.
In a society that puts less value on sleep and the saying “I will sleep when I am dead” is becoming more and more common place, it may become a self fulfilling prophecy. Lack of sleep increases mortality rates (we die younger), never mind affecting the QUALITY of your days that you have.
It is time for change. It is time to prioritize sleep. Here is how:
We tend to take sleep for granted as something that will just happen when we lie down at night, however we are programmed to have certain conditions and cues that will improve our sleep. These are often termed sleep habits – and most of us have bad habits.
There are a lot of sleep habits you can do or change to improve your sleep; here are our top 4 Good Sleep Habits:
1 – Regular Sleep Timing and Routine: Going to sleep at the same time, and waking up at the same time is one of the most important sleep habits you can create. It programs the body, making it easy to wake up refreshed before the alarm. Creating a pre-sleep routine also starts to condition the body just like Pavlov’s dog to expect and prepare for sleep.
2 – No screen time before bed: This one you must have heard before, but it is unbelievably important. 1 hour of screen time (TV, phone, tablet) before bed can delay the release of Melatonin (the sleep hormone) by 3 hours, thus decreasing REM sleep and reducing the QUALITY of your sleep causing you to wake up tired.
3 – Keep it cool: Our bodies are programmed to sleep at night when it cools down. Make sure your bedroom is cool. Drop the thermostat at night in the winter, and sleep with the windows open in the summer.
4 – Hot bath: For those people with hot tubs they can testify to the nights sleep you get after a hot tub before bed. A good hot bath is no different. The rise and fall of the body temperature after a hot bath dramatically improves sleep. If you have trouble sleeping – this is where I would start!
These are just some of our favourites. There are many more ways to improve sleep, but if you are looking for change start with these habits first.
Do not take your sleep for granted. Prioritize it. Practice it. Get good at it!
Once you change your habits, you change your sleep. Once you change your sleep, you change your energy. Once you change your energy, you change your quality of life.