Getting a full night’s sleep is no different than plugging in your smart phone and leaving it to charge over night – it can help you get back to 100%. Recent research suggests that sleep plays a cleansing role that removes toxins in your brain that build up while you are awake. This may help to partially explain why sleeping allows for the formation of new memories and influences how our nerve cells – neurons – communicate with each other. In fact, sleep affects almost every type of tissue and system in the body – from the brain, heart, and lungs to metabolism, immune function, mood, and disease resistance. After all, we do spend about one-third of our life-time sleeping. Chronic lack of sleep, or getting poor quality sleep, increases the risk of disorders including high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, colorectal cancer, and obesity. All-cause mortality is also increased in men with sleep disturbances. NHLBI-funded research helped determine that adults who report regularly sleeping seven to eight hours a night have a lower risk of obesity and high blood pressure. If you have trouble sleeping, here are a few tips to aid you in improving your sleep-wake cycle:
1. Set a schedule – go to bed and wake up at the same time each day.
2. Exercise twenty to thirty minutes a day but no later than a few hours before going to bed.
3. Avoid caffeine and nicotine late in the day and alcoholic drinks before bed.
4. Relax before bed – try a warm bath, reading, or another relaxing routine.
5. Create a room for sleep – avoid bright lights and loud sounds, keep the room at a comfortable temperature, and don’t watch TV or have a computer in your bedroom.
6. Don’t lie in bed awake. If you can’t get to sleep, do something else, like reading or listening to music, until you feel tired.
With that said, let’s make the intentions to be more mindful of our sleep cycles this week.
Written by: Navpreet Singh Badesha
©05/21/2018 All Rights Reserved.
This research was published in the National Library of Medicine.
