Let's Improve Your Sleep Habits!

Improving Sleep Habits

Sleeping is vital to our health & well-being as food and water is.  Sleeping affects us physically, mentally, & emotionally. It can affect our mood, memory, energy levels, concentration levels, health & safety, our jobs, relationships etc. 

Sleep Deprivation

• A common condition that affects 47 million American adults!

How much sleep do adults need?

• 7 - 9 hours of sleep per night

What Causes Sleep Deprivation?

• Not enough time to sleep: “cheating” on the amount of sleep you need. Increasing your sleep debt.
• Excessive worry: Not being able to shut off your thoughts at bedtime.
• Stress, anxiety, depression: Stress, Anxiety, and Depression can prevent sleep but can also diminish the quality of sleep.
  • If taking medication for these disorders they may interfere with sleep
• Repeated Awakenings: sleeping in an environment that is noisy, too light, uncomfortable.
• Working at night throws off your sleep pattern.
  • This individual must sleep during the day so in a sense they are fighting their natural sleep pattern which is sleeping in the dark vs. light.
• Travel: Traveling across time zones can interrupt sleep patterns
• Medical Illness: If a medical illness causes pain, difficulty breathing, medications, etc.

What Are Symptoms of Sleep Deprivation?

• Fatigue during the day: could take a nap if the opportunity was there
• Lack of energy: lack of sleep tends to deplete our usual energy stores.
• Mood changes: fatigue can affect our emotions such as causing pessimism, negativity, sadness, increased stress, and anger.
• Social problems: fatigue can affect our relationships with co-workers. It can shorten our fuse and hinder our people skills.  Example: road rage, waiting too long in a grocery line, someone bumps into you.
• Lack of concentration: cannot focus, hold your attention for very long.
• Fatigue while driving: open your window or stick your head out the window to stay awake., dozing off, neck snap

What Are the Consequences?

• Increased risk of accident & injury
• Physical health change
• Job Performance

Fighting Fatigue

• Your Personal Habits
  • Determine a set bedtime and awakening time.
  • Avoid napping during the day.
  • Avoid alcohol & caffeine 4 – 6 hours before bedtime.
  • Exercise regularly.
    • relaxing tense muscles helping you sleep better releasing endorphins, adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine -- chemicals that give you a sense of well-being.
    • Think of exercise as "recess." Children need play time, and so do adults. We need to stretch our muscles, get our hearts pumping, breathe fresh air and take a break from our responsibilities.
    • Keep it varied.
  • Consume a healthy diet.
• Your Sleeping Environment
  • Use bedding that is comfortable and will reduce risk of back pain.
  • Find a comfortable room temperature.
  • Eliminate noise and light (ear plugs, rugs, heavy curtain/drapes, double-pane windows, relaxing music)
  • Reserve the bed for sleeping and intimacy.
• Getting Ready for Bed
  • Establish a ritual before bed.
  • Practice relaxation techniques.
  • Consume a light snack before bed.
  • Practice a comfortable sleeping position.
  • Don’t take your worries to bed.

Herbs that may help with sleep

• Chamomile
• Passionflower
• Valerian

Other supplements

• 5-HTP
• Melatonin
• GABA

[ The following is the full transcript from this week's post. This is a health blog with a focus on weight loss. Please consider that all episodes are unscripted, direct to camera, with focused talking points. ]

Hello.

Today, I want to talk to you about sleep and the importance of sleep.

Now, in a previous broadcast, I had talked about the effects of sleep on weight loss, and your sleep does have a great impact on your weight, but today, I am talking about your sleep health.

So, sleep is one of those things that we need every day, But the quality and the quantity is different, amongst individuals.

Sleep has a huge impact on our overall well-being, not just our weight, but it has an impact on many other areas of our physical health, such as: our mental health, our immune system other functioning things in the body.

Sleep is essential.

So, I want to talk a little bit about sleep.

Sleep is really something we all need. Unfortunately, in today's world, it is kind of a badge of honor to talk about how much little sleep I get. And it is unfortunate, because this is detrimental to your, your overall health and your productivity.

The average adult needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep and you really should try to get that.

Secondarily, we sleep in cycles so, it is really five stages, if you will. That's kind of over 90-minute period.

That is one of the reasons that when you wake up, sometimes you feel different depending on, if you are woken up during one of these different cycles. But the important thing is trying to get first, the 7 to 9 hours of sleep. And then what can you do to improve the quality that sleep?

Well, the first thing I want to talk about sleep deprivation.

So why would do we even care?

Well, sleep deprivation is really when we do not have enough sleep and there is lots of reasons that impact how often we do not get a lot of sleep during the work week and then we will say we are going to catch up on the weekend.

And that is not how it works. Your body needs consistent repetitive sleep habits and it is not like you you are spending it from a bank and then on the weekend you are going to make a bigger deposit to replenish your sleep.

It does not work that way; you cannot catch up on sleep. So, having a plan of sleep on the weekend and things like that really is not a good plan.

Another thing that affects your sleep is worrying. If you are worrying all the time, it is going to cause you to interfere with your sleep.

You need to develop some habits that help decrease the amount of worrying in your daily routines.

Illnesses such as simple stress, anxiety, and depression themselves have a great impact of sleep. That impact has a negative repercussion on your sleep. But in addition to that, a lot of the medications used to treat those things, also negatively impacts your sleep.

So, there's things you need to do to work on managing your sleep. Minimizing your anxiety and depression and stress, that will help maximize sleep.

Then the next item that really affects your sleep is you keep getting woken up. Such as your, your sleeping environment is very noisy, it is disruptive, things like that. You want to get into these cycles and let your body complete the sleep cycles. That is really essential to your health so, if you're living in a very noisy environment, you need to do something to help reduce that distraction.

Then, if you travel a lot. If specifically, you are traveling across time zones, that can be disruptive to your sleep pattern, because your body does not really know what it is supposed to be doing in relation to sleep.

Then, various medical conditions impact your sleep, so you have breathing problems. It can make it, so you do not sleep well. If you have pain every time you roll over, you wake up because of the pain.

So, medical conditions affect your sleep, but in addition to that, a lot of the medications people get put on, have a negative impact on their sleep.

What does it look like if you are having sleep deprivation or you are not getting enough sleep will, obviously, you are tired all the time.

So that is a big red flag if throughout the day you are just tired, or you need stimulants to be awake such as caffeine or something like that.

Another big red flag is mood changes. If your mood fluctuates significantly, one minute, you are in a great mood, and the next you're in a horrible mood. That can be an indication of poor sleep, then obviously, that can affect your, your social life, too.

Social problems are another indicator of fatigue or sleep deprivation.

If you just cannot concentrate, if you find yourself drifting away, unable to focus, and do tasks you want to do, and get done, But cannot seem to get the mental focus to do that would be another indication you are probably not getting enough sleep.

Then, obviously, any type of fatigue while driving.

Driving is notorious, for challenging those that are sleep deprived, simply because it is a mundane tasks, and you can easily fall asleep.

So, any type of fatigue while driving. If you find yourself rolling down the window, shaking hand out the window, things like that, you probably have a sleep problem and maybe work on getting better sleep.

Well, those are kind of the symptoms.

So, obviously, the consequences are basically you could hurt yourself or hurt others falling asleep when you should not be falling asleep.

But then also there is a huge, physical impact to your body and your health and wellness.

And then finally, if you are not sleeping well, it does affect your performance.

So, sleep is important.

If people are cutting back their hours asleep because they are high performers, the reality of it is if they got adequate sleep, your performance would probably improve.

So, what can you do to fight this?

How can you fight your sleep deprivation or fatigue?

It is broken down into different buckets.

There are your personal habits, there is the sleeping environment, and then the activity should be to get ready for bed.

In your personal habits, a good consistent schedule is very important.

Going to bed and getting up at the same time is extremely important.

And then, obviously, you want to make sure that includes 7 to 9 hours of sleep than that, that time period.

You want to also try avoiding naps, so that you are you are saving your sleep time for what you are supposed to be sleeping.

There is a difference between sleep and rest and so, you want to make sure that your time for sleep is the time for sleep.

Alcohol and caffeine should be avoided 4 to 6 hours before you go to bed.

If you exercise regularly that actually helps with your sleep, it basically relaxes you, tense muscles releases some endorphins That's going to help you really feel better.

And then it just kind of a mental break.

And exercise is great to kind of give you that mental break from life that also affects your stress and well-being.

So then obviously, eating healthy, if everyone has an individual diet. The reality of it is, eating healthy is essential to your health.

And so, I am not going to go into a big spiel. this is not a nutrition talk, but, but really you need to be eating healthy.

Now let us talk about your sleep environment itself.

So, one thing is, you must have good bedding. And what I mean by that is I am amazed at the quality of people's beds. I mean you are going to spend a third of your life in that. So have a good mattress, good bedding and things like that, something that is comfortable for you. But a quality product.

Next, you gotta have a comfortable room temperature. Typically, it has been proven that the colder the room, like, 68 degrees, promotes better sleep. So not super cold, but not warm either. So, finding that right temperatures very important.

And then do what you can to minimize or eliminate noise and light. Heavy curtains, things like that, will help.

But whatever you do to eliminate noise sunlight. Remember to reserve your bed for sleeping. So you should not be watching TV and should not be eating.

You want to program your mind when you are in the bad, that means it is time to go to sleep.

So, what are some things you can do when you are getting ready for bed, like I said, already is a ritual.

You know, you are going to bed getting up at the same time.

You may want to do something that is relaxation before bed. Meditation or mindfulness, or something you find relaxing.

You may want a very light snack. You do not want to eat heavy before bed, but good little snack might help you a little bit.

And then obviously try to really decompress and relax.

Then secondarily we hear a lot about blue light, this light generally stimulates the brain so, turn off your devices, your phones, things like that.

Try to kind of disconnect your devices an hour or two before bed, that is going to help you immensely now.

There are different things you can also use, some of the herbs like camel milk, passion, flower, valerian root, things like that, can help with, with your sleep.

And then there are some supplements.

You know, everyone knows about melatonin but there's gabba, and then called five HTP, which is a precursor melatonin, but these are some supplements that you might want to consider with helping you sleep.

But overall, the important thing here is really focus on your sleep.

We must change this mentality of, “I only got four hours of sleep, therefore I am great.” And that is really not good. It is negatively impacting your life, both in productivity, but more importantly in your health and wellness.

So, it is important to work on getting adequate sleep.

This is something that I struggle with, but I am passionate about trying to improve on myself because I know how important it is.

So, continue to kind of plug away and work on it. Do not get frustrated by the down points. Learn from the down points and celebrate the wins.

Remember, this is about your health and wellness.

You got it.

Thanks,

Kelly Cox MD, FACEP

Member, American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine