Sleep is one of the biggest contributors to how we feel, think and perform. But it seems that it’s the first thing to neglect when we’re in high stress periods of times.
A few key points and tricks about sleep to make sure you get the best result!
REMEMBER sleep is your biggest weapon to feel great and everything else in your life (brain function, weight, performance and general mood) will be influenced by how well you sleep!
Regulation – Try to be waking up and going to sleep within 15mins of the previous nights sleep. This will keep your systems regulated and make your body more comfortable with patterns. If you’re jumping your routine around too much, this can affect your function considerably.
Alarms – Set an alarm that isn’t disruptive. Gentle and calm is the way to come out of your sleep cycles! You can put the more distressing sirens on 10-15mins after the gentle ones to get you up quickly!
Environment – Dark and cold! Make your bedroom an ideal environment. It’s only for sleeping!! Prepare that room for sleeping!
Sleep Cycles – We sleep in 90min cycles as mentioned in a previous post. So you need 5-7 sleep cycles to be in an optimal state! Do some maths before bed to make sure you don’t have an alarm that’s right in the middle of sleep cycle.
Alcohol – We know it’s not good for us……and sleep knows it too!
Evening Routine – It doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated – however it does have to become a habit. This is a method that your body can use to recognise when to go to bed! If you’re always changing your routine, the body doesn’t know what to do! Be a creature of habit with your sleep!
General Considerations –
Don’t eat too close to sleep time
Put the screen down and turn the tv off an hour before bed
Do some breathing exercises or read for half an hour
A light stretch/flow can prepare the mind and body for bed
Drink water (but not too much)
Sleep tight!