Why Sleep Matters
And What you can do about it
We all have heard the saying, "I slept like a baby." That statement, for some, can feel like a long shot. So why is sleep so important? More importantly, what can you do to help impact your sleep?
I wanted to write a simple blog post on this today as many have been asking about sleep and struggle with it.
According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute,
"Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
Sleep deficiency also increases the risk of obesity. For example, one study of teenagers showed that with each hour of sleep lost, the odds of becoming obese went up. Sleep deficiency increases the risk of obesity in other age groups as well.
Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). When you don't get enough sleep, your level of ghrelin goes up and your level of leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier than when you're well-rested."
Long story short, Sleep impacts a lot. So how do we impact this?
Here are three simple things you can do.
Courtesy Google Images
1. Get the room as dark as possible. Research has shown if you can limit light intake you have a fighting chance at getting more restful sleep. Light in the room influences certain chemical pathways in your body that will keep your body in an alert state, rather than getting it into a sleepier state as needed for rest.
Courtesy Google Images and DigitalTrends.com
2.Limit Cell Phone Usage 1-2 hours before bed. Most days, including myself in this one, it is so easy to get hooked into social media until we are minutes before bed. Studies have shown how blue light (the typical light from a phone) has influence over our sleep patterns and our alert state. If you have late night work to do, try turning you Night Mode switch on on your phone. If you are on a computer, there is a great app called Flux you can use. It is a simple application that lets you determine how dark you want the screen to still get work done.
Courtesy Lizzy Hall @YouTube
3.Using yoga nidra. As a yoga teacher and yoga practitioner, this one is a little known gem that is finally getting some notice. Some say that half an hour of yoga nidra is equal to hour of true rem sleep. Yoga nidra is a type of practice that allows you to float between an "alert" state and a "sleep" state. It is usually instructed via an audio guide, like the one above. Some will guide you simply through the body, while others will sometimes guide you through visualization practices as well.
I hope this little post helps you to tackle your sleep and in the process helps your daily living and lifestyle.
Have any questions or comments? Comment below. I would love to hear from you.
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Happy Sleeping!