SENIOR LIVING
Get a good nights sleep When’s your bedtime? All over the shop? Join the club… We all know that for people of any age having a healthy, consistent sleep routine is important. What time should people sleep for their heart health? It turns out, it shouldn’t be too late but not too early, either. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the “most significant cause of mortality” across the world, the researchers of a new study published Tuesday in European Heart Journal - Digital Health said. There has also been evidence linking poor sleep and cardiovascular risk. For their study, the researchers collected data on 88,026 people in the U.K. Biobank who were recruited from 2006 to 2010. Instead of getting data via self-report, the researchers collected data on the participants’ sleep onset and waking times by making them wear a wrist-worn accelerometer for seven days. During a mean followup of 5.7 years, researchers identified 3,172 cases of cardiovascular diseases among the participants. Interestingly, the risk was lowest for those whose sleep onset was between 10:00 and 10:59pm. Compared to them, those who went to bed between 11 to 11:59 had a 12% higher risk for cardiovascular disease while those who hit the sack at midnight or even later had a 25% higher risk. But those who fell asleep earlier than 10pm. also had a 24% greater risk. When the researchers analyzed the data by sex, they found that the risk was particularly strong among women. In fact, only the sleep onset risk for those who fell asleep earlier than 10pm. was considered “significant” in men. Take the pressure off Perfect sleep? It doesn’t exist. So while you may really want to nail your sleep routine, taking the pressure off is important – especially if you’re feeling trapped in a cycle of insomnia. “If you take a ‘normal’ person’s sleep, it’s not perfect all the time,” says Dr Guy Meadows of Sleep School the UK’s leading expert (sleepschool.org). It’s very easy [for an insomniac] to think the grass is always greener and it must be perfect all the time, but the reality is that normal sleep is disturbed for a multitude of reasons, whether that’s a stressful day, aches and pains, whatever it is.” Being told things like ‘just relax’ and ‘you’re over-thinking this’ can be immensely frustrating. But the harder we try to sleep and the more we worry about it, the further away that peaceful slumber can seem (thanks brains!). Meadows reassures though, this is not about blaming yourself. Human brains are designed to identify sources of worry and getting into an anxious cycle with it is very normal. The trouble is, this can put is in a state of hyper-arousal – aka our own personal sleep-blocker. We can also begin to obsess about it. Time to ACT The Sleep School pros are pioneers of a system called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – a more evolved version of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), in a sense. “It’s about taking the struggle out of sleep. Putting your effort into the things you care about in your life, rather than putting it into the struggle [to sleep],” explains Meadows (they launched a Sleep School app earlier in 2021 where users can tap into this). This isn’t about avoidance or not n 24 | Warwickshire Now | Issue 59 | December 2021/January 2022
letting yourself admit that struggling to sleep is impacting you (it’s hard!). It’s about slowly, slowly shifting the focus away from fixating on the sleep struggle, giving that space to grow, and taking the power back. Another key element in ACT is to focus on your values and stay connected with those – even when you’re knackered. And self-kindness/compassion are very powerful tools when it comes to breaking any sort of anxiety cycle; Meadows notes there’s even research on how self-compassion can aid sleep. Little acts of selfkindness during the day – like a 10-minute walk, making a nourishing lunch and watching a movie – “might seem relatively mundane and small, [but] they actually help to promote a better mental environment from which sleep can emerge”, says Meadows. Put that phone away (or at least try) Lost count of the times you’ve vowed to stop looking at your phone before bed, only to find yourself engrossed in a lamb-herding video two hours later? Yes, we know these dopamine-triggering devices trap us into sleep-sapping spirals and mess with our melatonin (sleep hormone). But, well, we’re still doing it. n
ANSWERS You’ve found the answers! The puzzles are on page 38
