Health and Wellness: Are you getting enough sleep?

BY JILL LUZADDER

Sleep is one of our most important and basic needs. It’s one of the four things we need for survival in addition to nutrition, hydration and air.

Yet, most people do not put the importance on it that it deserves. They cut it short, or have habits that disrupt their sleep — especially now, with all the technology that we have at our fingertips. Getting the right amount of sleep and quality sleep is vital to our wellness and productivity throughout the day. Don’t you want to function at your best everyday? Getting a good night's sleep can help you do that.

Sleep affects our weight, our mood, our ability to cope and concentrate, our recovery and it has the biggest impact on our ability to function throughout the day. After all, we spend a third of our life sleeping. So the average 80 year old has spent almost 27 years of their life asleep. That’s a lot of sleep!

Our bodies wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t really important for our health. Are you getting enough sleep? The average adult should be getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Sometimes this can be a real chore for the busy mom or dad that is trying to get everything done at work and with their family and household obligations and carving out time for themselves.

Getting the correct amount of sleep allows our bodies to go through the five stages of sleep that we need to function. The closer we get to that eight-hour night, the more stage four and stage five sleep we experience, and for longer durations.

This is critical because this is where our bodies focus on recovery for our physical and emotional well being, which we all want and need! Stage four deep sleep focuses on our body’s growth, healing and physical restoration, while stage five focuses on restoring your mental and emotional health.

Getting enough stage-five sleep allows us to cope better and work through some of life's biggest struggles. You get the most restorative sleep the last few hours of your eight-hour sleep night. So if you are cutting yourself short on sleep, you could be depriving your body of the tools it needs to work through the personal and physical challenges that ail you.

Getting the right amount of sleep is crucial, but so is getting quality sleep. Sleeping on the right mattress for your body, and using the right pillow can make a big difference.

It’s equally important to have good sleep habits and patterns by going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day and night. With so many of us using our phones throughout the day, we are putting a lot of stress and pressure on our necks and shoulders. Roughly 25-35% of all your nerves are in the back of your neck, so this can really impact our sleep if we are straining our necks looking down at our phones all day. That’s why finding the right pillow really matters.

Having the right pillow accounts for anywhere between 20-30% of the comfort you experience in your mattress. Did you know you are supposed to replace your pillows every eighteen months to two years? Many of us keep our pillows way too long and they have absorbed oils, sweat, skin cells and other things that affect our bedroom’s air quality.

Have you ever noticed that you sleep better on nights where you have fresh clean sheets and pillow cases? Sleeping on clean sheets and pillows can help us sleep better and longer. We recommend having two sets of sheets to make swapping out clean sheets even easier.

We have seen huge technology advances in the bedding industry over the last ten years or so, creating performance-driven mattresses, adjustable bases that adjust when you snore and cooling pillows and mattress pads.

These latter items are designed to help keep you cool and comfortable at night which helps immensely with quality of sleep — since we sleep better in cooler temps.

Are you doing everything you can to contribute to your best night's sleep? If not, today’s the day to start making small changes to improve your sleep health so that you wake up rested and recharged, ready to take on whatever the day throws at you.

Here’s to your best night's sleep!

Jill Luzadder is a Sleep Expert with Furniture Distributors. She can be reached at 252-221-6400.