Ways to improve your sleep

You can hear the sound of your partner softly breathing, the whirr of the fan, the tick of the clock as you slowly drift off…or does the clock sound like thunder, your partners breathing sound like a mack truck and the whirr of the fan more like a roar? And it just goes on and on and on…Maybe you drop off quickly but come 3pm there you are, wide awake wondering what you did to deserve this? Awake again, before the dawn, being tortured for all your sins. You pick over every detail of every confrontation or dispute you’ve ever had. Arrrrrggghhhh….just go to sleep!

If only it were that easy! There are so many reasons that you either can’t get to sleep or stay asleep. Stress, food and drink, health, hormones…all can disrupt our sleep.

What can we do to help get the sleep we need? Here’s 5 tips to get you snoozing!

1.       Wake up at the same time everyday! Research shows that it’s not just the time we go to bed that is important but when we wake up to ensure we finish our last 90min sleep cycle. Waking before the last sleep cycle has finished can leave us feeling even more exhausted. Check out https://sleepcalculator.com/ to see when to get to bed!

2.       Cut out tea/coffee/caffeinated drinks after 12pm. This may seem obvious but how many of us resort to an afternoon cuppa to get through the afternoon slump? Have a cup of chamomile or a mix with passionflower in it instead.

3.       Skip the alcohol. Anyone else get ‘the red wines’? It’s that anxiety riddled waking at about 3am after a glass or 3 of alcohol. This is your liver getting extra active trying to process the alcohol. If your liver is busy with alcohol it’s also too busy to metabolise your hormones leaving them even more imbalanced. Alcohol also results in a much lighter, more disturbed sleep.

4.       Turn off the screens at least 30min before bed or at the very least put a blue light filter on. We’re very basic creatures. Our bodies respond to daylight by waking up.  The blue light emitted from our screens mimics daylight. Put a filter on it, or better still turn it off!

5.       And on that note get early morning and early evening light. It helps reset your circadian rhythm by regulating melatonin. Go for a walk or do some yoga in the morning light or just have a cuppa. And in the evening have a long gulp of water or a stroll with a loved one while you bask in the last light of the day. Awesome way to reduce cortisol as well that can plague our sleep when it’s dysregulated.

6.       Build a sleep routine! Follow it religiously so your body trusts that when you start this routine you are going to bed and to sleep. Here’s an example: have a warm shower or bath, brush your teeth, put on some nice face or hand cream, read a few pages of a book, put your head on the pillow and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………….simple huh?

I’m feeling sleepy already! Hand me the pillow before I zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……Good night!