We all know how important sleep is but do we invest enough in ensuring we get the ‘best’ sleep we can?
We spend approximately one third of our lives asleep - so far that’s about 15 years for me - and yet when we sleep badly rarely do we do much about it.
Sleep allows our bodies to grow (when we are young), repair, replenish, reboot and optimally enhance all major organs and brain processes. Conversely, lack of sleep detrimentally impairs these same things, leaving us with a weakened immune system, less able to cope with stress, more susceptible to weight gain, less able to learn and memorise information…the list goes on.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes the problem to be so bad that it has declared a sleep loss epidemic throughout industrialized nations* and it is not a coincidence that these countries, where sleep has reduced dramatically over the last century, are the same countries that have seen a significant increase in physical diseases (diabetes, obesity, dementia, cancer…) and mental health difficulties and disorders (depression and low mood and anxiety).
So how much sleep do we actually need?
The WHO and the National Sleep Foundation stipulate an average of eight hours of sleep per night for adults, 9 for teenagers (14-17) and 10 for children (6-13)**. It is estimated that two thirds of the population fails to get this amount of sleep resulting in difficulties concentrating at work, difficulties in relationships, feelings of hunger which may result in over-eating, and over time impacting upon our overall wellbeing.
How can sleep transform my life?
Having more sleep will enable your brain and body to ‘reboot’ and optimise itself. Having more sleep will improve your ability to think rationally, innovatively and also hold back when the time is right! Creativity and productivity come from well-rested minds.
Maybe you are trying to lose weight and not managing? Weight-loss in sleep-deficient children and adults is difficult; differences in the chemical balance when tired can make us feel hungry; worse, weight lost when sleep deprived can result in loss of lean body mass rather than fat. So improving your sleep will improve your ability to loose weight.
I want to sleep better, I am trying - I just wake up!
Lack of sleep can be a vicious circle: stress (including bereavement, anxiety, workload or change) can result in poor sleep; repeated poor sleep results in sleep deprivation; sleep deprivation can result in feelings of anxiety and that anxiety can in turn result in poor sleep, night-time waking and at times night terrors or worse, panic attacks.
We need to break the cycle. This might mean making some simple changes to your approach to sleep and bedtime - your sleep hygiene and perhaps some hypnotherapy.
7 easy bedtime habits to get into:
- Restrict screen time before bed - looking closely at a TV, tablet or phone before bed means your brain is exposed to ‘blue light’ which ‘tricks’ your brain into thinking that it is daytime - and time to be awake! Leave phones and tablets downstairs and invest in an alarm clock - better still, a silent alarm (just be sure that it wakes you!).
- Set a bedtime - we like routine, our bodies respond to routine. Having the same bedtime routine allows our bodies to recognise that it is time to go to sleep.
- Bedtime routine - whether this is reading for a short while or having a relaxing bath perhaps - the last 30 minutes of your day should be relaxing, training your body and mind to recognise it is time for sleep.
- Watch what you eat and drink before bed - sleeping on an empty stomach is difficult, but eating a heavy meal is also not helpful for a restful night. Be mindful of alcohol and caffeine also…
- Be active during the day and this will help your body relax at night.
- Manage the temperature in your bedroom - deal bedroom temperature is between 15-20 degrees - though this can be different at different times in our lives. Several layers of thinner bedding may be more easily managed, especially for those prone to hot flushes or night sweats.
- Manage the light in your bedroom - especially in the summer months when the sun rises before you want to!
What can hypnotherapy do to help me sleep better?
Some people have healthy sleep hygiene but can still struggle to sleep, usually this is because something else is going on for them. Change, stress, loss or simply day to day worries can all keep us from getting a sound nights sleep from time to time.
Sleeplessness is often caused by the minds inability to let go of worries and concerns - over thinking and planning, perhaps looking at the clock leading to more worries about how little sleep you are getting and the impact that might have… When this mounts up, it’s time to do something about it.
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy combines a talking therapy with deep relaxation (trance or hypnosis). It can help you re-teach your body the skill of relaxation, ‘letting go’ or ‘parking’ those worries for a time, leading to improved sleep and therefore improved capacity to think, change and cope with the demands of day-to-day living as well as when life throws us a curved ball.
Hypnotherapy can help you develop a good and natural sleep pattern, by getting a good nights sleep, falling back to sleep easily when you wake, helping you feel refreshed and in tune with the world.
If you need some help ‘rebooting’ your sleep patterns - please get in touch and we can take that first step toward a better sleep pattern…and help you transform your life.
*Sleepless in America, National Geographic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti20okupT6U
** National Sleep Foundation, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/press-release/national-sleep-foundation-recommends-new-sleep-times
