How To Sleep Better
You know what it feels like, right? Listlessness, lack of concentration, low motivation, maybe a lack of appetite or libido problems, poor motivation, irritability, impatience and even depression.
These are all common effects of poor sleep or insomnia. As I read recently, “Without Enough Sleep We All Become Very Tall Two Year Olds.”
If, like me, you’ve had enough of feeling like this all the time, then you could do a lot worse than follow these ten strategies. After years of going to bed not knowing whether I would sleep through or not, I can honestly say my life has been turned around. I’ve gone from night after night of being awake for two hours or more, to sleeping through for eight hours almost every night (the reason why I say almost will be revealed below!).
I’ve now got more energy and more concentration. I’m more productive and quite simply, there’s more joy to be had in life. I’m buzzing! And the credit is largely due to a podcast I listened to quite recently called Feel Better, Live More hosted by Dr Rangan Chatterjee. His guest on Episode 70 was Professor Matthew Walker and I would urge you to listen to it.
Here is my summary of what I learned along with a couple of other techniques which also work for me.
1. Alcohol Holiday
Alcohol is a drug. In small quantities it’s regarded as a stimulant. In larger quantities, a depressant. It will disrupt your sleep especially in the second half of the night. I said I’d slept through almost every night since changing my habits. The one night I didn’t, guess what? That was a night after a large amount of alcohol. I’m not ruling out ever drinking alcohol again but I am confining it to once at the weekend at the most. The benefits of good sleep are more important. Try coming off alcohol for an alcohol holiday of two weeks and combined with these other strategies, see what happens.
2. Caffeine Holiday
Caffeine is a drug. It has a half-life of six hours. That means that six hours after drinking a cup of coffee, half the caffeine will still be in your system. If you have, say three cups of coffee at 6am, 12pm and 6pm, with one other during the afternoon, at midnight, you will still have more than one cup of coffee’s worth of caffeine in your system at midnight. Would you drink a cup of coffee every night just before going to bed?
3. A Cool Bedroom
According to Professor Walker, we need to get our core body temperature to cool down to fall asleep faster. A simple way is to cool the room down as much as possible before going to bed. Counter-intuitively, if you feel warm because of exercise, having a hot shower or bath before going to bed will bring your blood to the surface of the skin and bring down your core body temperature.
4. Reduce Anxiety
For many people, this is the main reason why they can’t get to sleep or wake up in the night. Thoughts swirling through our minds are very common. Mostly, they’re unpleasant and cause fear. Try this instead. Before going to sleep, consider this – in bed, at home with the doors locked is when you are at your safest. Tell yourself, “I am safe. We are safe.” Combine it with deep breathing below.
5. Deep Breathing
Scientific American reported this year that deep breathing exercises will help you go to sleep and stay asleep. 20 minutes of slow, deep breathing at six respiration cycles per minute i.e. breathe in for five seconds and out for five seconds, helped participants in a research project to go to sleep faster, stay asleep longer and go back to sleep faster if they did wake up. I do it while reading but it may be better to do it without distractions if you’re not used to it.
6. Morning Light
The following strategies are to help you re-set or maintain your circadian rhythm or body clock, especially important if your sleep pattern has been disrupted over a long period of time. Professor Walker recommends getting 20-30 minutes of natural light every morning before 10am in order to give your body the signal that you’re properly awake. This is especially important for those of us who work inside most of the day. Note, sunlight isn’t so important here, it just has to be light.
7. Regularity
Get used to getting up and going to bed at the same time. Do this at weekends too if your sleep has been disrupted for a long time. Your circadian rhythm will improve (as it will by your eating meals at regular times).
8. No Blue Light
One of the biggest modern sleep-killers is blue light, the light emitted by our TVs, phones, laptops and tablets. All artificial light is a problem for sleep, blue light especially so since it inhibits the production of melatonin, the hormone which the body produces to regulate sleep. The wavelength of blue light is more easily absorbed by the body, hence it is more disruptive than other artificial light. Scientists recommend no blue light 60 minutes before bedtime.
9. Turn Down The Lights
Since artificial light of all kinds will affect the production of melatonin, start dimming your lights 30 minutes before bedtime to help your circadian rhythm get you to sleep.
10. Bedtime Routine
Your body will also respond well to a routine of going to bed. Especially if you stick to the same bedtime, putting the cat out, locking up, cleaning your teeth, reading for twenty minutes etc. will also contribute to re-setting and maintaining your circadian rhythm.
My advice, especially if you’ve got to the stage of being at your wit’s end with your insomnia, is talk to your doctor first but if you find nothing else helps, then implementing these strategies all at once, can do no harm and at best, could transform your life!
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