No I am not asking about your sex life.  But the question does have your bed in mind. I am curious how well you are sleeping these days.  As I mentioned in my personal note,  I spent 7 days last week at a wonderful hiking lodge called “Mountain Trek”  located near Nelson BC,  by the Ainsworth Hot springs.   I had 6 days of hiking, yoga, core training, detox saunas and no coffee, sugar, salt or WINE!  Needless to say the food was awesome and with all that exercise,  I slept like a baby.   One of the several workshops we attended was about quality sleep and how important sleep is for our overall well being, and, if it matters to you weight loss and optimum health.

Here are a few tips to help you get better quality sleep and why we all need at least 8 hours of it a night.

While the rest of the world runs full speed, we still live in a very primitive body, within which resides a biological clock that influences the activity of every single cell. Blood sugar, hormone levels, metabolic rates, body temperature, sodium/potassium levels, and immune function are just a few of the things directly linked to the body’s internal clock. Altering your biological clock can have a drastic impact on your health.

Poor sleeping habits can have a direct influence, not only on the quality, but also on the length of your life. There is a direct link between sleep and problems like heart disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, viral infections, ulcers, indigestion, muscular pain, strokes, asthma, headaches, and even fatal car crashes. Our own National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that over 100,000 automobile crashes each year are related to drowsy driving. Even more shocking are their latest figures showing that traffic accidents caused by drowsy driving now kill more young people than alcohol-related accidents.

It’s is important to try and get to sleep around 10pm and create a beautiful place to fall into sleep.  From 10pm to midnight is where your body does the work to restore and repair itself.  If you don’t fall asleep well here,  this will start to age you.   Between midnight to about 3am,  this is when you have loads of dreams.  And from 3am onward is when your subconscious mind does a download of information about memories and thoughts etc.  Each of these parts of our sleep are important.  So here are a few tips to help you get to sleep and stay asleep.

  1. If you exercise after dinner, do it as close to eating as possible.  Your want to burn off the dinner and level out your insulin levels
  2. Avoid evening snacks to keep those insulin levels down and not spiking
  3. Make your bedroom a cave, well make it as dark as you can, unplug clocks by  your head and keep all electrical outlets close to your head not in use. They give off an electric current that stimulates your brain waves.
  4. Make sure your bed is VERY comfortable for you.  Spend some money on good linen and pillows. Your deserve it.
  5. NO TV, or computer just before bed, turn your mind off.
  6. No caffeine after lunch,  let it get out of your system.  Note the highest amount of caffeine in a soda is Mountain Dew!
  7. Allow yourself to surrender to bed, use some “heart-felt” meditations of gratitude to change the pattern of nervous systems that run from your brain to your heart.  This will change the stress response and will align all of your body’s systems.  Eg: Just take a deep breath into your lungs and from your heart, as you breathe out, think of something you’re grateful for from your day.  Repeat about 6 times.   You will be asleep.
  8. If you want to use a supplement then chat with your doctor about taking melatonin. Which works to regulate your own melatonin hormones?  Some studies about sleeping pills have proven that you only get an extra 40 minutes of sleep by using them and they wipe out your memory of the dreams you have. 

Well there you have it.  So practice just a couple of these for the next few nights, and just see if you get a better nights sleep.

Nighty, night!

Linda

Linda Edgecombe

www.lindaedgecombe.com