Wednesday, June 12, 2013

SHARPEN up your wellbeing! - Sleep

To help both mine, and my clients' progress towards feeling and looking better all the time - superhealth - there's a range of areas we'll develop:

Sleep
Hygiene
Awareness
Relaxation
Posture
Exercise, and
Nutrition.

These are all under your control and dramatically influence your current and future health - how you look, feel and function! We use a more detailed system for each element but here’s a brief run down of the idea behind developing your own superhealth.

Sleep

Want to burn fat, reduce blood pressure and stress, remember more, learn better, have more energy, control you appetite, live longer and feel more alert and alive? All you need to do is ... sleep! We live such complicated lives, and actually have such complicated metabolisms, that we need to get recuperative downtime each and every day. If we get too little, your mind, body and emotions can't restore fully day to day. 
The ideal sleep for adults is 7-8 hours a night. Sleep is one of the most valuable allies you have for amazing health, and is totally the easiest thing you can do to improve so many aspects of your health and wellbeing! It's not just about the quantity either - 8 hours of sleep interrupted by mobile phones, stress before bed or bright light can leave you feeling groggy and unrested. 
Some tips for getting enough quality shut-eye:
 * Treat your sleeping area like a sanctuary. This is where you go to recharge, so keep it free from clutter, lights and noise where possible. 
 * Close all blinds. 
 * If you get erratic noises at night (traffic, dogs howling etc) then try a white-noise generator like an air filter or radio tuned between stations. 
 * Opt out of mobiles, LED alarm clocks, TV standby switches that remain on, or anything else that will cast light into your room. At the least, turn any of these small sources of light around so that when lying down, you can't see them alight.
 * Mobiles are some of the worst sleep quality offenders. Turn it to airplane mode, or at the very least onto silent and have it face down. Whilst you might not physically wake up to it chiming, or the arrival of an email/facebook status update/random SMS, part of your mind will pay attention, meaning you will limit how deeply you sleep.
 * Checking news or emails before bed is a no-no too. Your last hour or so before bed should be all about pleasant reflection and relaxation! This will help your mind wind down too. Emails before bed can have an equivalent effect to caffeine.
 * Get into a bedtime ritual. It might be : chamomile tea - shower - brush teeth - get into pyjamas - read a book for 10 minutes in bed - beside lamp off.
Any process that you do regularly just before bed that helps you wind down, will let your body and mind know it's sleepy time. 
 * Likewise going to bed and rising at the same time each day will work wonders for your energy levels, sleep quality, hormone levels and stress. In fact, this is probably the most powerful recommendation I could make for sleeping your way towards superhealth



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