Sleep Hygeine
As many as 16 million UK adults are suffering from sleepless nights. A third of these have insomnia, two thirds say they have disrupted sleep, and nearly a quarter manage no more than 5 hours a night.
A good night’s sleep is as important to your health as a nourishing diet or getting enough exercise and sleep problems are often an indication that you’re out of balance.
Nine basic steps for improving sleep:
Try to establish a regular sleep schedule
If you regularly go to sleep at 11 pm on weekdays, try to continue this into the weekend. Going to bed late on weekends can create a disturbance to the our internal body clock, so try to maintain a consistent bedtime throughout the week. Additionally, try to ensure you wake up at a regular time, even on the weekends. Even if you missed out on a couple of hours sleep the night before, resist the urge to lie in. The following night, you will have increased sleep drive, which will enable you to sleep easier. Try to get around 7-8 hours sleep a night, this is optimal for our body to rest and recharge.
Lower your bedroom temperature
Your body temperature helps to regulate your internal clock. The optimal temperature is 15.5-19.4 degrees Celsius, which is relatively cool. A bedroom temperature that is too hot or cold can cause restlessness. If you find you have cold hands and feet, placing a hot water bottle at your feet. A lower core temperature will help you sleep, but cold hands and feet may cause sleeplessness.
Take a warm shower or bath before bed
This is another helpful way to lower your core body temperature and induce sleep. Research has shown that the area of the brain known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) acts as the “master clock.” When evening approaches, the SCN sends out neural signals to lower your core temperature. A warm shower will warm your core body temperature but once you step out into a cool room, your body temperature will drop and will induce feelings of sleepiness. Taking a shower or bath will also help you unwind after a long or stressful day, and using calming essential oils in your products such as lavender will help to shift your body into a relaxed state.
Eliminate sources of light from your bedroom
Our bodies produce melatonin at night to regulate our sleep-wake cycle. This hormone is secreted by the pineal gland in our brain, and is easily disrupted by light. Even the smallest amount of light in a bedroom can disrupt this cycle and impact the quality of our sleep. Try to eliminate all sources of light from the bedroom, with blinds or by using an eye mask. This will help to regulate your sleep-wake cycle.
Practice a relaxing bedtime ritual
Try winding down in the evening with some simple yoga routines, reading a book, having a calming herbal tea and meditating. Light scented candles or use diffusers with calming scents such as lavender, bergamot, chamomile and cedarwood oil can help to sooth you into sleep. Try to avoid scents like peppermint and lemon at night, as they can be quite stimulating. Avoid using technology one hour before bedtime. The blue light from electronics can disrupt the melatonin pathway and therefore the natural sleep rhythm, and is overly stimulating at a time when your mind should be winding down along with your body. Try keeping phones out of the bedroom, purchasing an alarm clock to wake you in the morning instead of your phone alarm. This helps to avoid the temptation to check our phones last thing at night and first thing in the morning.
Exercise wisely
Vigorous exercise too close to your bedtime can disrupt your sleep. Whether its running, biking or lifting weights, these exercises are better done in the morning or early afternoon when the body is naturally producing more of the stress hormone cortisol. At night, putting the body under stress can disrupt the release of melatonin and lead to poor sleep. Therefore, try more gentle forms of exercise such as yin-yoga, tai qi or qi gong.
Save the bedroom for sleep
Don’t take food, social media, work or television into your bedroom. If your body associates these activities with your bed, it will be harder to fall asleep. Save the bed for activities such as reading, journalling, having sex and sleeping. If you are unable to fall asleep in 20 minutes, take yourself to another room and do a soothing activity until you start to get sleepy.
Set aside a “worry time”
It’s very common for us to bring the daily stresses of life to bed with us, and it’s often hard to switch off from these thoughts as we try to go to sleep. With so much stimulation and distraction throughout the day, sometimes this is the only time we have with our thoughts, and this can often make it hard to fall asleep. Set aside a “worry time” each evening. Try offloading your worries and to do lists onto a piece of paper or journal. Once your mind is empty and you’ve let go of thoughts, you can go to sleep peacefully and take care of all of your worries tomorrow. Worries and fears can be magnified at night, and often feel much easier to cope with during the day.
Regular acupuncture
Acupuncture has been helping people get to sleep for thousands of years. In Chinese medicine, insomnia can be interpreted in many different ways, and no one type of insomnia will be treated in exactly the same way. Your acupuncturist will spend time before the treatment distilling the nature of your insomnia, in order to understand the specific imbalance that could be at the root of the disturbance. In order to make a real difference to insomnia, it is usually required that patients attend around 6 regular sessions, followed by maintenance treatments to keep the symptoms at bay. Many patients report a calmness and relaxation they’ve not experienced in a long while in an acupuncture session, while others report an almost involuntary release of emotions.