Many people struggle to get the sleep that they really need.
Common reasons include stress and anxiety, raising young children, noise disturbance, sleep disorders, and medical conditions. But there are other factors, perhaps seemingly minor or insignificant, that also impact our sleep such as too much caffeine, alcohol, light exposure, and irregular sleeping patterns.
Sleep is a process that is crucial for life and optimal health and wellbeing and if we’re not sleeping well, we will suffer beyond feeling tired and foggy-headed…
Just one night of poor sleep can affect your mood, memory, hunger hormones, immune system, blood sugar, and stress levels – each of which then has an additional negative impact on your health and wellbeing.
Over the long-term, sleep disruption has been linked to many chronic health problems such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, weight-related issues, and diabetes type 2.
There are many biological processes happening while we sleep. The brain and body get rid of toxic waste, nerve cells reorganise to support healthy brain function and store new memories, and the body repairs cells, restores energy, and detoxifies.
Essentially, sleep allows the body and brain to engage in a process of recovery. Think of it like taking your car for a service – what happens if you don’t regularly maintain your car? It has problems, things don’t get fixed, they break, wear out and the car won’t perform well or live up to its full potential.
Given that sleep is so vital to our overall health and wellbeing it’s really important that we set ourselves up for the best quality sleep possible.
Personally, I’d never really struggled with my sleep, until a couple of years ago when some new neighbours moved in who were noisy, anti-social, and keeping irregular hours. This resulted in me developing insomnia that lasted for over a year, which was an awful and fairly traumatic experience.
I now have such a profound awareness of how important sleep is and how terrible you feel when you aren’t getting enough sleep. I also experienced first-hand the impact that long-term sleep disruption has on our general health and wellbeing.
I’m pleased to say that I have 99% resolved the situation and I’m generally sleeping very well now, but it took a lot of research and trial and error on my part to get things back on track.
Whether you have insomnia or not, here are the key areas I suggest you focus on when trying to improve your sleep:
Keep to a routine
The body loves and thrives on routines, especially so with sleep. If you’re sensitive to sleep disturbances, then this will be even more important for you – aim to go to bed at the same time, fall asleep at the same time and wake at the same time.
This creates a proactive hormone cycle response because your body knows what to expect, whereas if your sleep/wake timings vary your body will have to keep reacting, which throws out your hormones and internal body clock.
Wind down time
At least a couple of hours before you want to be asleep, start winding down. Relax, decompress, and do everything at a slow pace. Don’t do any intense exercise too close to bedtime. Try not to watch, read, or listen to anything that spikes your adrenaline – this could be a film, series, or the news. Do the opposite – watch, read, and listen to things that make you feel calm.
I appreciate that sometimes there are chores you need to take care of like hanging out laundry, food prep for the next day, loading the dishwasher, etc – but if you must do these things, try not to leave them until just before you go to bed or at the least, do them in a slow, relaxed manner.
The importance of light
Science now tells us that what’s just as important as avoiding blue and bright artificial lights in the evening is the opposite – exposing ourselves to bright daylight sun during the day. Both relate directly back to our circadian rhythm, the internal process that dictates the biological clock of almost every cell in our body.
In simple terms; get outside overhead daylight sun soon after waking and ideally again at some point during the day. Avoid bright overhead, artificial, blue light in the evenings – have low-level, warm-toned light, and don’t look at screens close to bedtime. If you must look at screens, make sure the screen is as dim as possible.
Don’t eat too late
It’s ideal to eat your last meal a few hours before your bedtime. Food entering the body causes a slight stress response, which makes us more alert and awake.
The other reason you want to avoid eating close to sleeping is that your body will then be focused on digestion and has less ability to focus on what it should be doing while you sleep – repairing, regenerating, and detoxifying.
Avoid caffeine & alcohol
Both substances impact sleep. Even if someone seems to sleep well no matter how much coffee or alcohol they’ve had, studies show that the depth and quality of their sleep are lessened. Some people can tolerate caffeine better than others, but this doesn’t mean that the caffeine isn’t having a negative impact on their sleep.
Rather than use caffeine to help you feel less tired, aim to resolve your sleep issues so that you don’t need caffeine in the first place. For anyone who struggles with their sleep, especially if you also experience some degree of anxiety, I would highly suggest cutting caffeine and alcohol for a couple of weeks and it’s likely you’ll notice significant improvements.
Manage your blood sugar
I talk about blood sugar regulation a lot – because it plays such an important role in our overall health and wellbeing, including our sleep.
People who struggle with sleep and waking up during the night often have blood sugar issues. This is typically caused by skipping meals or not eating enough and regularly enough. Blood sugar dysregulation causes stress for the body, so your body then won’t switch off to sleep, and/or the stress hormones wake you up in the middle of the night.
Eating three decent meals at regular intervals, with the potential addition of snacks, often resolves these sleep issues within a week or two. If this is your problem, you’ll likely also find you feel less anxious, and any hot sweats will stop.
One last note on fasting – this can cause the stress spike I’m talking about here. If you’re regularly fasting and also struggle with your sleep, keep track of the days you can’t sleep and see if there is a pattern that relates back to your fasting days.
These recommendations are for anyone looking to improve their sleep. If you have insomnia, which is a sleep disorder categorised as sleep disruption for at least one month, then you may need to seek professional help, but if you recognise that you can make improvements in any of these areas then they could make all the difference.
If you’re having trouble with your sleep and would like to find out if I can help you, email info@katehorwood.com or CLICK HERE to schedule a consultation.
Kate x
