MENTAL HEALTH: Improving your sleep routine can help your overall health.

Improving sleep routine can help your overall health

By Sudie Crouch | Health & wellness columnist

Sleep. Something we all do every night but probably take for granted its importance until we find ourselves not getting enough of it. When we’re younger, we probably relished the thought of burning the midnight oil and staying up as long as we could, until we realized that sleep — or the lack thereof — can have a profound effect on our health and well-being.

As children, we were often put to bed early, sometimes around 8 p.m., to make sure we had adequate sleep. This was important for our developing brains and growth! But, sleep is still just as important as we age.

The average recommended amount of sleep for adults is between seven and nine hours. Sleep quality can make a big difference in how those hours of sleep feel, too. When we wake up still feeling tired and groggy, we know that we’re not getting restorative sleep.

What happens when we don’t get enough sleep?

We often think not getting enough sleep can just make us tired and lethargic, but lack of proper sleep can impact our overall health and wellness in many ways. Studies have found that not getting adequate sleep can contribute to memory issues (think of the brain fog you experience when you’re tired!); decreased immunity; weight gain/difficulty losing weight; and an increase in heart disease and diabetes. Hard to believe that sleep can impact so many areas of our lives, but it’s true.

Sleep allows our body to kind of ‘re-set’ each night on a cellular level, and can even help improve our brain function. Think of how much better your phone or laptop performs after restarting. On a much bigger level, sleep does that for our bodies.

Things that disrupt sleep

Many things can disrupt our sleep, but some of the primary ones include:

Screen time — studies have found that looking at our phones for long periods of time can actually disrupt our bodies ability to produce melatonin, a hormone our bodies naturally produces to help us sleep.

Stress — this is something that can be one of the biggest disruptors on our health, and it can greatly affect our sleep routines. When we are stressed, we experience higher levels of cortisol and

anxiety, which can make it difficult for our bodies to get out of ‘fight or flight’ mode so we can truly rest.

Diet — eating large meals can make it uncomfortable for us to sleep, and too much caffeine can affect us as well. (Plus, when we’re tired, we tend to reach for one more cup of coffee, which creates a cycle that makes the situation worse.) Sometimes spicy foods can disrupt our sleep, causing indigestion that makes it difficult to sleep; same goes for eating too close to bedtime. Giving ourselves enough time for our stomach to digest our last meal can help tremendously.

How to improve your sleep?

Recent studies have found that taking melatonin is not as helpful as previously thought. Other sleep inducing aids also run the risk of creating a cycle of dependency. (Always consult your medical professional before taking any supplements as well, as even things that are natural and sold over-the-counter may have adverse effects.)

So what’s the best approach?

Creating a sleep routine can help. This means having a set schedule you do that helps your body recognize that it’s preparing for sleep.

Reducing screen-time at least 30 minutes prior to sleep helps our bodies to naturally get in the rhythm of sleep. A bit ironically, there’s several apps on our Smart phones that can help us put these routines in place. If you do find that reading helps your brain shift from the stressors of the day and into a more restful state, switching to a regular book versus e-book can make a difference.

Making the room as dark as possible can also help prevent anything that may disrupt our sleep cycle; this can also be so important for nightshift workers who have to sleep during the day. Black out curtains and sleep masks can help keep the environment dark enough to be conducive for sleep.

Light stretching and meditation have been found to be helpful as well, as it can help loosen tight muscles and release worries. Another way to help get better sleep is to limit beverages closer to bedtime; when we don’t have to wake up to go the bathroom, we can avoid the struggle of falling back to sleep.

Keeping a sleep journal can also help find patterns of what helps you get good rest, too.

I’m very pro-journaling to help discover what affects any aspect of your health, and being able to see what helped you get good sleep versus what interrupted it can help you take steps towards finding what works best for you.

Getting a good sleep routine in place can take some time and effort, but the overall benefits are definitely worth it.

Sudie Crouch is a health & wellness coach, helping clients create healthy, attainable changes using positive psychology and cognitive behavior approaches.

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