Are you a bad sleeper? A night owl maybe? Or a snooze button addict?
Do you struggle with waking up throughout the night? Or is there too much on your mind to simply fully relax and rest?
You’re not alone, one in five adults fail to get enough sleep.
Along with good nutrition and ample exercise, quality sleep is one of the pillars of health. So if your sleep sucks, you’ll be missing your ultimate optimal health, even if you eat clean and workout like a champ.
So why should you take action and work on bettering your sleep habits?
Well according to Healthline.com, poor sleep can make you gain weight. Say what?! On top of that, good sleepers tend to eat fewer calories.
Good sleep can also improve concentration and productivity, as well as maximize athletic performance. Poor sleepers have a greater risk of heart disease and stroke. Sleep also affects glucose metabolism and type 2 diabetes risk.
Poor sleep is also linked to depression as well as inflammation. While good sleep improves your immune function. Sleep quality also affects your emotions and social interactions too. Wow! Are you sold yet?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Lack of sleep has also been associated with worsening of blood pressure and cholesterol. Basically, your heart will be healthier if you get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night.
But it’s not just a game of quantity, you also need to get quality sleep.
Stress in your daily life along with bad night time routines and habits can play a big role in preventing you from quality sleep.
So here are our 7 top tips to setting yourself up for sleep success:
1. Meditate! Once a day if you can. If you’ve never tried it, please do. If you don’t know how, that’s ok. Take a class. Or even just taking a few minutes daily to sit still in a quiet place with your eyes closed, let go of your thoughts, and focus on your breathing will help release the stress physically from your body and steady your mind.
2. Say no to screen time at night time! I know, many of us like to watch TV to unwind or veg out on social media for a bit of mind numbing. Unfortunately, the blue light the screen gives off is a big stimulus for your brain preventing you quality rest.
3. Make your phone charge in another room at night. Create some unwinding rituals you do every night (without your electronic devices). Overtime, the familiar pattern will trigger the body that it’s time to relax and prepare to sleep and the mind will follow.
4 Stack your diet with anti-inflammatory foods and sign up for a personalized Functional Nutrition plan to help your body get on the right track to minimizing inflammation.
5. Identify where stress physically manifests in your body to help you discover when you get triggered, and then interrupt that trigger from setting off stressful thoughts and worries. A great book we recommend is The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robins. It’s an excellent listen on Audible as well! She also wrote Take Control of Your Life, which we also highly recommend.
6. Identify high stress, negative environments or people in your life and prioritize limiting your time in and around them if you can help it.
7. At bed time, make your room as dark as possible and consider playing white noise or other soothing sounds.
Sweet dreams!