A Serving Of Sleep Coming Right Up
We all know the importance of sleep (and the pains of lack of) so I am here to give you some short and sweet tips that I have picked up over the years. After a diagnosis of a delayed phase sleep disorder, and more sleep clinics than I can count these are the things that have helped my sleep the most. I hope you enjoy and I hope you can get some good quality zzzzzz's tonight :)
1. Know the importance of light and dark. Your body's natural rhythm is used to pitch black at night and bright sun in the morning. But now with technology, street lamps and Netflix streaming all night our bodies are getting too much light at night time. I get around this by putting orange glasses on at 10pm every night. I also black out my room as much as possible with fabric and curtains. In the morning I sit with an energy light to wake up my body clock and open my curtains right away. I also aim to get out in the natural daylight at least once a day so my body knows that it is time to be awake and full of energy.
2. Block out the sound. If you are like me you unfortunately have to listen to traffic 24 hours a day. I block this out by sleeping with a fan and with ear plugs. I am also looking into a sleep band to go around my ears at night and a white noise machine.
3. Kick the caffeine (ouch I know). I have recently started drinking coffee again and it has kept me up until the wee hours of the morning. Tea, green tea, coffee, chocolate and coke are all things you need to be avoiding if you are sensitive to caffeine, but if you have to have one of these things, the earlier in the day the better.
4. Sleep restriction. This tip helped my sleep the most. I would go to bed at my ideal time of sleep and lay there for hours. People would tell me it gets your body used to what time you want to be asleep. After participating in a sleep study I found out this is actually the opposite of true. The longer you lay in bed frustrated the more negative associations you have with bed. You only want your bed to be used for sleep and sex. Yup not even phone time. This was really hard for me at first but now 90% of the time I use my phone, read and meditate in the lounge room before going to bed. I also only go to bed when I am tired, even if I am not tired until 3am, I will aim to remain out of the bedroom until then.
5. Find something that helps you become mildly drowsy at night. The orange glasses will help with this but some nights I need something a little extra. Sleep teas can help me relax (remember to drink them a few hours before so you don't need to get up and use the toilet) and I find that calcium tablets make me drowsy. I will often have half of a tablet so I can drift off to sleep and not wake up groggy in the morning.
So let me know in the comments below how you are going with sleep and how you are going to use these tips to upgrade your sleep :)
Until next time, remember to stay committed to your wellness
Shalee xoxo
