Sleep well
How to sleep well
Getting the right amount of good quality sleep is important for your good mental health. Optimum levels of sleep differ for everyone, but most people need around 6-8 hours of sleep each night. About 25% of this sleep time (in a young adult) is spent in stress relieving REM sleep, the other 75% is deep slow wave sleep, in which your body repairs itself and replenishes energy supplies. The levels of REM sleep that we need decrease throughout our lives, and babies have the most REM sleep. Too much dream sleep can leave you exhausted, drained and depressed, too little dream sleep keeps your stress levels high and, if continued, results in episodes of mania.
A useful fact to know about waking up is that a few minutes after we physically get out of bed and start moving around, a burst of cortical (a stress hormone) is released in the brain. This release of cortical happens to give you the effort to get some food to eat and thereby replenish glucose supplies. So if you're lying in bed thinking you feel terrible and tired and need to sleep more, try getting up, walking around, making a cup of tea, having breakfast, popping to the shops to get the paper or something similar and then see if you feel you need more sleep.
Alcohol, or the 'nightcap', is a false friend when it comes to sleep. It might seem like a good idea to drink alcohol to help you get to sleep but alcohol significantly disrupts the sequence, depth and duration of sleep states. Once the alcohol metabolizes in your body, the imbalance is likely to wake you up. This is why, when you have drunk a lot of alcohol, you may find yourself waking up very early in the morning.
But whatever your age, there are a few things you can do to make a good night's sleep more likely.
- Tame your tea habit
Do you have a cup of tea before bed? Even a small amount of caffeine can affect the quality of your sleep for hours after you drink it. Sleep experts advise you cut out all caffeine after lunch, so swap tea for a milky drink.
- No more naps
Your post-lunch sleep could be what’s keeping you awake at night. "You may nap in the day and wonder why you don’t sleep at night and Try cutting out the nap.
- Eat earlier
"Your digestive system likes to go to sleep at seven o’clock," So try to have your main meal in the middle of the day and eat lightly at night. Some foods - raw fruit, salad, high fat, spicy and rich foods - aren’t good for sleep, while steamed veggies, fish, pasta and stir-fries are easier to digest. You avoid food containing fats called Trans fats, contained in cakes and biscuits (look for the words ‘hydrogenated fat’ on the label) as they raise the acid levels in your stomach, and stop you sleeping so well.
- Check your snoring
Snoring often gets worse with age. Loud snoring can also be a symptom of sleep apnea, where your airways become blocked and you stop breathing, which wakes you up. See your GP if you or your partner thinks this may be happening to you.
- Drink less
Alcohol may make you drop off quickly, but it also can leave you wide awake at two o'clock in the morning, as breaking down alcohol produces chemicals that stimulate you. Booze also relaxes your muscles, making you more likely to snore, which can make your sleep lighter and less refreshing. It's easy to drink more than you should. You can check how much you’re drinking with out interactive drinks calculator (see useful links).
- (Don't) see the light
the hormone that helps you sleep, melatonin, is produced when it’s dark, but as we age we produce less of it. Not going straight from bright lights or a TV screen to bed can help you sleep when your head hits the pillow. Try spending some time in dim lights before you turn in. Also, make sure your bedroom is very dark, and not too cold or warm.
- Wake up, get up
"If you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t lie in bed gritting your teeth, hoping to get back to sleep," Instead, get up and read in a low light until you feel sleepy again. Then go to bed, wait 10 minutes, and if you’re not asleep by then, get up again.
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