Sleeping plays a vital role in your health and well being, ensuring you get enough sleep can help your physical and mental health. Sleep deprivation can result in poor thinking, reacting, learning and working all of which are skills we need to use on a daily basis.
Having a busy schedule can sometimes result in not getting enough good quality sleep. We have started to incorporate the below into our lives to ensure we are getting the best quality sleep we possibly can.
Cut the caffeine- Each person’s tolerance to caffeine is different, but it is a known fact caffeine gets your body geared up for activity and leaves you feeling energised. We tend to stop drinking caffeine after lunch time unless we are really struggling to stay awake. Drinking caffeine too late in the day will more than likely disrupt your night’s sleep. If you are used to drinking caffeine in the evening why not try swapping it for a decaf coffee or a herbal tea.
Put down the Technology- This one can be really tough especially if you are so used to getting into bed and catching up on social media etc. Checking your phone or watching TV is probably part of your night time routine but studies have shown that the light emitted from electoral devices can disturb our sleep. Try and put your phone down 30 minutes before going to sleep and make sure you don’t sleep with your phone too close to you.
Stick to a routine- Try to give yourself a ‘bed time’, we all set alarms to wake up in the morning so why don’t we give ourselves a time to go to bed. Our bodies love routine and sticking to a similar routine each night should help you wind down. We love getting into bed early but we do find it a lot easier in the winter months, we try and get a minimum of 8 hours of sleep a night.
Avoid drinking too much before bed- There is nothing cosier than sitting in front of the fire on a cold autumnal evening, sipping on a hot beverage. Although it may be lush at the time you may not thank yourself when you are woken for the toilet on several occasions. We would suggest having your hot evening drink a little bit earlier to reduce the risk of this happening.
Limit napping- Daytime naps might be tempting (if you have the time) but they can make it harder for you to go to sleep at night. We would suggest limiting your naps to 15 minutes and setting an alarm so you don’t sleep any longer.