A good night's sleep begins the moment you wake up. What you do during the day has a direct impact on how you will sleep. Good quality sleep is the ultimate game changer that often gets overlooked.
Reassess your Sleep Hygiene
If you have trouble getting into deep sleep, maybe it's time to re-assess your sleep hygiene. Do you have a wind down routine? Is your bedroom set to emanate tranquility to help you fall asleep easier? What are you having in the day that keeps you from having a good night's sleep?
Here are the 4 key pillars to getting into deeper sleep:
1. Optimise your bedroom
(temperature, bedding, black-out curtains, soothing scents, white noise)
The ideal sleeping temperature for a good night's sleep is between 22-25 degrees Celcius. Consider changing up your bedding (we love organic cotton, linen, or Tencel), installing blackout curtains, and having a portable white noise machine especially if you are a light sleeper.
And with technology being so portable it’s easy to turn your bed into a full-on workstation. It’s really important to create a separation between what happens in your bedroom and what happens elsewhere.
Try to keep phones/ laptops and watching TV out of your bedroom. Choose nice linen, get the right cushions, play with dim lighting, use calming essential oils, set a timer to play relaxing music. Find what works for you.
2. Set a wind-down routine
(dim the lights, unplug from electronics, your own relaxing ritual)
These should be things that are enjoyable in their own right, rather than activities you think will make you fall asleep. Try brain dumping if you haven't.
3. Set your sleep schedule
(waking and going to sleep at the same time every day even on weekends, prioritizing sleep)
Sleep thrives on a regular routine. Studies show that being asleep between 10 pm and 2 am has the most impact in terms of hormonal secretions and recovery.
Remember we are designed to go to sleep when the sun goes down and wake up when it rises. Advanced technology means we can stay up way beyond this with the invention of electricity but fundamentally our biochemistry has not changed much.
If you currently go to bed at 2 am, it’s a good idea to slowly start clawing back time until you reach the 10:00/ 10:30 bedtime for ultimate recovery.
4. Cultivate good habits in the day
(caffeine curfew, not eating too late, limiting screen time)
As a general guideline, make sure you have your last meal at least 2-4 hours before bedtime. And to help your body regulate its natural sleep-wake cycle, be asleep by 10 pm. Having a wind-down routine such as dimming the lights one hour before bedtime and switching on relaxing music.
We are all in front of our screens a lot more. Some clients have been getting really bad headaches. Wherever you can do work away from the screen, do! Some calls do not need to be video, and combining walking outside with a meeting call can be a great way to get a break.
A lot of our clients were struggling with separation between work and home, working late into the night. We helped them set up a clear boundary between work and home. Logging off their computers so it would not be easy to just quickly check on that e-mail. We also suggest installing the program F.lux. This program removes the blue light from your screen which disrupts melatonin, the hormone that makes us sleep.
Supplementing for a good night's sleep
One of the key ingredients in our Deep Sleep product is inositol -- a compound that has been found to reduce anxiety by stimulating the production of the "feel-good" neurotramsmitters serotonin and dopamine.
When taken before bedtime, it can significantly improve sleep quality. Studies show it can ameliorate a wide range of mental health disorders including depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. This supplement blends inositol with melatonin, 5HTP, and theanine -- all of which promote restful sleep.