Sleep is something few of us get enough of. In fact in today’s society, it’s considered a badge of honor to exist on as little sleep as possible. To be able to work long hours into the night is seen as strong and heroic. To party like crazy into the wee hours is cool, proving that you are a stayer and not a quitter. But here’s a couple of scary facts about sleep:
Up until one hundred years ago, before electricity was common place, we slept almost half of our lives. Think about it - across the course of the year, it’s half daylight and half night time. And with the advent of electricity and constant battering from light sources, we are sleeping only 1/3 to even 1/4 of our lives. Whether we like it or not, this is not what we are biologically programmed to do!
The amount of sleep we get, to a certain extent, determines our life expectancy. If we don’t get enough sleep, we wear out quicker. We drain our hormones and wear out important parts of our body so that they no longer function. In other words, we age faster. Sleep keeps you younger for longer.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that if you are prepared to do something about your sleeping situation, it’s a relatively easy part of your health routine to fix.
I’m writing this in the true depths of winter here in Melbourne Australia. It’s cold, it’s damp and it’s mostly dark. On the other side of the world it’s high summer. It’s likely to be hot or at least warm, dry (or maybe wet, you can’t trust the rain these days can you!) and mostly light. We are animals (yes we are!) who evolved without electricity and without artificial light. There were no Televisions, no laptops, no iPads or smart phones or 24 hour supermarkets or night clubs for that matter and clocks were much later on the scene.. When the sun went down, we would sit around the fire for a while telling stories of the day or of the past and then, we would hit the hay! We would wake when the sun came up. That meant earlier rising in Summer and “sleep ins” in Winter. That’s how our body clocks and our hormones and our ability to ustilise available nutrients evolved. We lived in sync with the seasons.
Here are 6 ways to get more sleep. You have a choice here. You don’t have to do this. But you have been warned - if you don’t, there will be repercussions and no one is immune. To get more sleep you need to:
1. Go to bed earlier!
We are designed to go to bed when the sun goes down. That means early in winter but we can stay up and party a little more in summer. Try and be in bed by 9.30 in winter and you can stretch it out a little in summer. By the same token, we are designed to get up when the sun comes up. That means earlier in the summer and later in the winter.
2. Switch off the electronics at least 3 hours before going to bed.
If you are watching TV, keep the lights low and make sure you are not too close to the telly. And keep your bedroom for sleeping, a little reading ( a hard copy book not a tablet) if you like and sex (toyed around with some cute way of putting that but couldn’t come up with anything that worked for me!). No TV’s in the bedroom, no tablets and phones should not come into your bedroom unless they are on flight mode because of the signals they are constantly emitting. If you are using your phone as an alarm clock, please put it on airplane mode!!!
3. Make sure your room is totally dark.
That’s how we are meant to sleep, in total dark.
4. Stay off the stimulants
Obvious I know but no coffee after 2pm and tea too if it affects you. Cola and energy drinks are obvious ones to avoid and some people have a low tolerance to cocoa and chocolate too although others find it a relaxant.
5. Keep the lights low after dark.
Try to avoid using full strength lighting in any of your rooms at night time. Low voltage lamps and candles are good options and dimmer switches turned down low are good too.
6. Take a quality Vitamin C before going to bed.
The highest concentration of Vitamin C is found in your adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are where cortisol and other important adrenal hormones are made. Cortisol is very important in maintaining a quality sleep throughout the night. For more detailed information, have a look at this article. I love to use whole food supplements and Camu camu is a great food source of vitamin C as opposed to a chemical manufactured in a laboratory. Here is the one I use and trust. (no affiliation)
T S Wiley, author of the amazing book “Lights Out. Sleep, Sugar and Survival” says we all need a minimum of 9.5 hours sleep per night. She also talks at length in a no nonsense way about how getting more sleep will make you loose weight, balance your blood sugar and be generally healthier in so many ways. If you don’t want to read the book, have a listen to a couple of podcasts she has done with my favourite health man - Sean Croxton from Underground Wellness. Have a listen here to his first interview with TS, or download it in the iTunes store.
On a personal note…..I have a beautiful child who is now 7 years of age and for at least 6 of those 7 years has had enormous difficulty sleeping through the night waking at least once and often up to 5 times. I have tried every natural and not so natural cure under the sun (except hard drugs!) and it’s only recently that her sleep cycles have started to normalise. Mothers (and fathers who share the responsibility of getting up to their kids in the night) of children with sleep issues, you are exempt from all of the above. I hope that one day very soon you are able to put the advice outlined above into practice (said with all the love and sympathy in the world xxxx). All I can say is that I look forward to making up for 6 years of lost sleep now.
What are some of your recommendations for getting to sleep and staying asleep and feeling truly refreshed the next day? Please share with us in the comments below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Ros
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