If you've been following my recent blogs, you will know that this is the final edition of my series on the Science of Sleep. In the first and second articles I covered general information on the neurology and physical impacts of sleep, as well as the types of sleep.
This final article will address "sleeping tips” and a special section from Rod Eller a good friend and client. Also, remember to check out the "Two Myths of Sleep" at the end of each article.
Sleeping Tips
This sleeping tips have been adapted from When You Can't Sleep: The ABCs of ZZZs, by the National Sleep Foundation.
Set a schedule. Go to bed at a set time each night and get up at the same time each morning. Disrupting this schedule may lead to insomnia. "Sleeping in" on weekends also makes it harder to wake up early on Monday morning because it re-sets your sleep cycles for a later awakening.
Exercise: Try to exercise 20 to 30 minutes a day. Daily exercise often helps people sleep, although a workout soon before bedtime may interfere with sleep. For maximum benefit, try to get your exercise about 5 to 6 hours before going to bed.
Avoid caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol: Avoid drinks that contain caffeine, which acts as a stimulant and keeps people awake. Sources of caffeine include coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, non-herbal teas, diet drugs, and some pain relievers. Smokers tend to sleep very lightly and often wake up in the early morning due to nicotine withdrawal. Alcohol robs people of deep sleep and REM sleep and keeps them in the lighter stages of sleep.
Relax before bed: A warm bath, reading, or another relaxing routine can make it easier to fall sleep. You can train yourself to associate certain restful activities with sleep and make them part of your bedtime ritual.
Sleep until sunlight: If possible, wake up with the sun, or use very bright lights in the morning. Sunlight helps the body's internal biological clock reset itself each day. Sleep experts recommend exposure to an hour of morning sunlight for people having problems falling asleep.
Don't lie in bed awake: If you can't get to sleep, don't just lie in bed. Do something else, like reading, watching television, or listening to music, until you feel tired. The anxiety of being unable to fall asleep can actually contribute to insomnia.
Control your room temperature: Maintain a comfortable temperature in the bedroom. Extreme temperatures may disrupt sleep or prevent you from falling asleep.
See a doctor if your sleeping problem continues: If you have trouble falling asleep night after night, or if you always feel tired the next day, then you may have a sleep disorder and should see a physician. Your primary care physician may be able to help you; if not, you can probably find a sleep specialist at a major hospital near you. Most sleep disorders can be treated effectively, so you can finally get that good night's sleep you need.
Some of you may know Rod Eller, Senior Vice President of Sales at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Carolinas Realty. Rod has become a good friend over the years and chimed in via email during this blog series on sleep. Here are some thoughts from Rod:
"I’ve been doing a lot of reading about sleep over the last year. I have never slept much...six hours tops most of my life.
I have developed new beliefs and I’ve convinced myself that it is a trained habit so I have been in the process of retraining my sleep habits. When I concentrate on it, I sleep more. When I allow normal behavior to take over again, I fall back into the 6 hour or less habit.
Take a look at Tom Rath’s book Eat, Move, Sleep – Tom is a Gallop researcher that did tons of research for his own health reasons. One of the eye openers for me was the chemical issues on the brain related to sleep and more importantly Ericsson’s 1993 study on sleep and performance.
While I knew about Ericsson’s research on the 10,000 hours of deliberate practice as it related to greatness, I was not aware that the study also revealed that the best performers slept an average of 8 hours 36 minutes. What is great about Rath is that he cites scientific data on everything he describes in the book."
When I asked Rod, how does he “practice better sleep”, he answered:
"The bottom-line is you set goals and measure. When I was having the most success was when I had rituals, prepared, and eliminated stimulus that reportedly makes deep sleep troublesome.
Rituals: Shut everything off 1 hour before going to bed – no books, no TV and no electronics (although I do use a bluetooth speaker for playing sleeping noise). I use that time to stretch and breath for relaxation. In bed, it must be dark – no light at all – clocks and such with no display.
Measure: I measured effective sleep. I wore a device that measured my sleep and I used that to try to beat my numbers from the previous night. When I was diligent I added an hour on average to my sleep. I went from an average of 5.75 hours to 6.75 . I even recorded some 7.5 hour nights. The problem is that I had to stay focused on the ritual. I recently lost the habits on an out of town stay and have fallen back into watching ESPN or reading before bed. What Rath wrote in his book is that the hour before you go to sleep frames the rest of the night. He calls it "protecting the final hour."
Thanks to Rod for your insight and personal experience.
Here are your final two sleep myths:
You need prescription drugs if you have insomnia every night. Sleep meds are designed for short-term sleep problems, caused by stressful events like the loss of a job or taking a transatlantic flight.
People with longer-term problems benefit more from cognitive behavioral therapy — essentially, retraining your perceptions of sleep and learning better sleep habits, such as going to bed at the same time every night, avoiding TVs and computers before bed, staying away from caffeine at least six hours before sleep, and other lifestyle changes.
In fact, in 2005, the National Institutes of Health concluded that this type of therapy is as effective as prescription drugs for short-term treatment of chronic insomnia. In many cases, a sleeping pill may not even solve your sleep problem. "About half the people who think they have insomnia may have anxiety or depression," says Daniel Kripke, M.D., a University of California at San Diego sleep expert.
You can make up for lost sleep on weekends. Bingeing on Zs over the weekend and not sleeping during the week — what Harvard sleep expert Robert Stickgold, Ph.D., calls "sleep bulimia" — upsets your circadian rhythms and makes it even harder to get refreshing sleep.
Sleeping until noon on Sunday generally prevents you from hitting the sheets by 10 that night. So instead of correcting your deficit from the week before, you set up a no-sleep cycle for the week to come. "The body loves consistency," says Donna Arand, Ph.D., spokeswoman for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Best to rise around the same time every day, even on weekends.
Sleep myths source: http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/7-myths-about-sleep
Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.
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