12 Ways to Improve Your Sleep Hygiene

We all know deep down the importance of sleep. We hear it all the time. Yet, we also hear from hustle culture that if we want to be in the 1% success rate, that we must get up early and grind all hours of the day, because your official working hours are only 8/24! Who needs sleep?!

Not to mention the pressure that women are under to keep up with the working world, which is based off a man’s natural cycle of 24 hours, and totally gaslights our own cycle (typically 28 days).

Many of us push through our limitations and ignore our bodies signals for the hustle culture, working motherhood, additional studies, or whatever circumstances we are in that pulls us to meet the level society places on us. Sleep can easily fall to the bottom of our priority list and yet we cannot function without it.

So what is so important about sleep? Should we exchange sleep for success?

Being clear on your goals and your values will help you determine whether you want to sacrifice sleep for success but keep reading you want the facts first.

Benefits of Sleep:

1.     Mental stability: sleep enables us to destress and naturally empty out that stress bucket held in our subconscious. Within our sleep cycle, we have a REM (Rapid Eye Movement) which is essential for processing recent events. If this cycle doesn’t complete due to broken or lack of sleep, it means that we haven’t processed what we require in order to maintain a calm, clear, and destressed mind. We are prone to snapping with a bad night’s sleep, because the stress bucket hasn’t been emptied during the night.

2.      Hormone Regulation: The hypothalamus (in our primal/ primitive mind) is responsible for hormone regulation. When sleep deprived, your mind is not able to fully function to optimal performance. This disturbs the regulation of hormones, which impacts our mood, other areas of health and can in turn also impact our sleep.

3.  Physical Recovery: REM sleep creates the perfect environment for your body to  breakdown and rebuild damaged muscles cells. Sleep is required for recovery and is what promotes muscle growth. As well as the ability to perform.

4. Immunity: Again, when sick there is a lack of REM sleep, which we know now is essential for recovery. Studies have shown that being sleep deprived makes us more vulnerable to getting sick. It reduced the Natural Killer (NK) cell activity, which makes it harder for us to fight off infection. This is also linked to an increase in cancer.

It’s important to get into a good practice with our sleep, as well as self-awareness to nurture the best of ourselves and give the best of ourselves.

What can we do to get our sleep in order?

1.     Reduce blue screens, and ideally none at least an hour before sleep

2.     Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, including weekends and holidays (lie-in have been compared to similar effects and symptoms of jetlag)

3.     Cool, dark room

4.     Keeping with the circadian rhythm as closely as possible

5.     Eating before dark

6.     Exposure to light (particularly daylight as opposed to artificial where possible) for the first 30 minutes from waking.

7.     Fixed mealtimes, including a light dinner around three hours prior to bed.

8.     No coffee during the afternoon (and minimizing caffeine intake throughout the day)

9.     No Alcohol two hours before sleep

10.  Avoid using your bedroom for anything else other than sleep, sex and getting dressed

11.  Implementing a good bedtime routine

12.  Regular exercise

It takes discipline, but sleep is one of the most impactful contributors to our health and self-care.

If you suffer from insomnia, or sleep dysregulation, hypnotherapy can help.