Sleep Hygiene
Sleep hygiene is basically just good sleep practices. This starts from the moment you wake up, right through the sleep cycle.
Why sleep is so important
They use sleep deprivation as a form of torture! Brutal but it immediately shows the how important sleep is.
It’s a chance for body to process what has happened to your mentally and physically. It’s an essential body function. Your body is incredible and runs so many important ‘offline’ processes while you’re sleeping, including restoring your muscles, converting memory from short to long term, growing and managing hormones.
Phases of sleep
There is REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and NREM (Non Rapid Eye Movement).
Tips for getting a good nights sleep
Avoid screens for at least an hour before bed. The blue light stops your body from releasing your sleep hormone, melatonin which is essential for getting to sleep.
Do gentle exercise regularly in the late afternoon or early morning, avoid vigourous exercise in the evening as it can produce a lot of adrenaline making it hard to sleep.
Set aside time in the evening to mull over your day and process what happened.
Relax in the evening, do something you enjoy like playing music, drawing, doing puzzles, games, meditation, talking to your family (I know right!)
Do a sleep meditation - there are heaps on various apps like Calm, Headspace, Balance or just search on YouTube.
Have a herbal tea or glass of warm milk. Milk contains tryptophan a sleep inducing chemical. Avoid caffeine and sugar in the late afternoon and evening.
100% Cherry juice is full of Melatonin, or you can get a melatonin prescription from your doc. (This isn’t subsidised in NZ).
Check your room temperature, 18 degrees is the ideal sleep temperature (so they say)
Turn you main lights off and use candles or low light lamps so your body is signaled to start preparing your body for sleep.
Have a routine for going to bed - write it down even so you don’t have to remember. You can just look at your list until it becomes habit.
Each evening I wash my face, moisturise with nice moisteriser, light a candle, do my gratitude journal, gentle stretches, meditate and then head to bed and listen to a podcast. This has been a major shift because I spent so much of my life falling asleep watching TV.
Get up the same time everyday and don’t nap during the day for longer than 20 mins. On this point i’ll add that sometimes life is insanely intense and I need an extra lie in if I am up through the night. (And TBH, I totally do understand the alarm snoozing thing, I never got it. I had a boyf once who snoozed his alarm 4-5 times, drove me insane!!!)
Try not to go to bed until you’re sleepy.
Practice a sleep affirmation;
I know I did my very best today.
I can feel myself relaxing.
I choose calmness at this moment.
I will sleep restfully and dream beautiful, nurturing dreams tonight.
I am worthy of rest.
I deserve a good night's sleep.
Another one they say in heaps of sleep literature is to keep your bedroom for resting, sleeping and adult recreation time. But this is totally dependent on your living situation.
Chinese sleep cycle
I just found this really interesting when someone told me about it to understand what is happening throughout my body during the day. Interesting I go through phases when I’m stressed waking up from 2-3am thinking about things I need to do. Check it out below.
There is so much stuff about how to get a good nights sleep online. Happy resting!