Ways to Sleep Better

We are all very busy here in WA trying to balance our professional lives, family responsibilities, maybe starting a new business, writing blogs, and taking care of everything else.

It is very tempting to take hours away from sleep to invest them in our business. One word (OK, maybe two) for those who have fallen into this trap:

Don't

If you want to live out your days in health, one of the most important things you can do is to get enough sleep. It turns out sleep deprivation increases your odds of getting everything from diabetes or hypertension to cancer (yes, cancer).

The CDC noted studies showing,

"Sleep is increasingly recognized as important to public health with sleep insufficiency linked to motor vehicle crashes, industrial disasters, and medical and other occupational errors. ... Persons experiencing sleep insufficiency are also more likely to suffer from chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, depression, and obesity, as well as from cancer, increased mortality, and reduced quality of life and productivity"

So not only do you perform poorly, get depressed, and die young, you also feel tired and exhausted all day. I have learned to question whether that bit of extra work I did the night before was worth feeling bad the next day.

Ways to Sleep Better

Regular sleep schedule. In counseling patients about getting better sleep, I find people almost invariably have an irregular sleep schedule. This is particularly true in teenagers, but it is also the case in over-achievers.

We tend to "sleep in" on the weekends and go to bed when the work is done and not when the clock says it is time.

The first rule of good sleep is to get regular sleep. It turns out that many of our hormones are tied to sleep - especially things like your steroid (cortisol) level, growth hormone, thyroid hormone. When people get irregular sleep, all these hormones get irregular and that's one reason why you feel bad and why health gets adversely affected.

Get Enough Sleep. Sorry folks, but adults need about 8 hours of largely uninterrupted sleep at night. Ignore those who try to "train themselves" to "get along" with less sleep. They will pay for less sleep with their health.

So how do you get enough sleep?

There's a lot we can do to make our sleep better. Unfortunately, as we get older, it gets harder to get enough good sleep. Our circadian rhythm becomes more shallow, and we lost most of our "deep" delta or stage three sleep that we had when younger.

But there are definitely things we can do to improve the chances of better sleep!

The Rules

1. Exercise. Try not to exercise within two to four hours of sleep time, but exercise is a great way to improve sleep. The Sleep Foundation has a nice article about exercise and sleep here => https://www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-activity/exercise-a...

That site discusses the Sleep In America poll which in 2013 examined adults about sleep and exercise. Briefly, they found that those who did light to vigorous exercise reported better sleep than those who did not.

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/R...

2. Turn off all your devices. Watching television or staring at a bright computer screen are bad for sleep. The bright light tells the brain that it is daytime instead of nighttime. Blue light turns out to be particularly bad for sleep, Also, having a smartphone in the room turned on can be disturbing to your sleep with it making sounds from social media or email.

Put your smartphone in another room and use another way to get yourself up in the morning (like an alarm clock).

3. Watch the caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine is a potent stimulant, and you should not drink any caffeine within about six hours of going to bed. Alcohol affects your sleep another way. Alcohol is a sedative that might help you fall asleep. But when the alcohol wears off in 4 - 6 hours, your brain will likely become even more active than when you are not drinking. This "rebound" effect will tend to limit your sleep at night.

4. Get a good sleep environment. Find out what works for you; usually, a low room temperature, comfortable mattress, no lights on, no television on (no television should be in the bedroom), feel of the bedsheets, head elevated, etc. All these factors will affect how you sleep at night.

5. Regular sleeping hours. Get into a regular bedtime and get-up time every day - even on the weekends. If you can't fall asleep within 20 - 30 minutes don't just lay there in bed; get up and do something quietly in a dark environment until you feel sleepy, then go back to bed.

You do not want to associate going to bed with having a hard time sleeping.

Summary

These are just a few of the rules about sleeping better - one of the most important things you do every day.

If you are really having a problem sleeping well at night, then see your primary care physician for help. Sometimes there are other factors at work such as sleep apnea.

But a lot of the reasons why we do not sleep well are within our control.

We need to take care of ourselves, or we will not be around to take care of others.

Let me know what you think!

Dave.