Tips to improve your sleep

For many who live a modern lifestyle, sleep can be one of the most difficult things to come by. Fortunately, with a bit of effort and discipline, most sleep woes can be relieved.

A good night’s sleep is an often neglected and yet vital factor in good health. Most importantly, if you aren’t getting at least seven hours’ sleep a night, your risk factors for many different diseases like heart disease or cancer increase.

Sleep also lowers stress, bolsters your memory, makes you more alert, reduces inflammation, reduces depression and gives the body the time it needs to repair itself and heal illness.
With these benefits, it’s incredible that we’re not all grabbing 40 winks whenever we can. Of course, there’s also such a thing as too much sleep, and while you shouldn’t be getting less than seven hours, you also shouldn’t be getting more than nine – or you may be suffering from some ailment more serious than just too much sleep.

Improve your sleep quality
If sleep is elusive, it can be one of the hardest things to restore. Here are a couple of tips to improve your night’s rest:

• Reduce your caffeine intake
People drink caffeine to stay awake and are then surprised to be kept awake all night. Even if you used to be able to drink ten cups of coffee a day and collapse into bed unconscious, as you age, your metabolism changes and caffeine can start to rob you of rest. As a simple test, reduce your caffeine intake to a couple of cups in the early part of the day and assess whether this makes a difference to your nights. Certain medications also have a stimulating effect, so ask your pharmacist or doctor if you are taking anything that may be interfering with your sleep.

• Go to bed at the same time
Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning. Your body has an internal clock and it needs to know that at a certain time, sleep starts and that when you’ve had enough, it ends. Wildly varying bed times will affect this – so if you’re struggling to sleep, try to avoid late nights, even on the weekends, and get up as soon as you’ve had your eight hours.

• Teach your body the difference between day and night
Try to get as much bright, natural light as possible in the day and boost melatonin production at night by using dim lighting and not reading from a backlit device like an iPad or computer before bed. You can also take a melatonin supplement before you sleep if you are really struggling.

• Create a bedtime routine
Just like babies, adults need calming down to fall asleep. Keep your room cool, turn your lights down, make your bed comfortable and allow yourself to unwind a little with a warm bath, a quiet read or gentle meditation before you turn in.

• Manage your napping schedule
If you are overtired or have lost sleep, rather nap in the afternoon than sleeping later in the morning. This means you don’t disrupt your natural sleeping and waking cycle, but still pay back your sleep debt. But be wary of napping for its own sake, especially if you are suffering from insomnia.

• Avoid sleep triggers during awake time
If you find that you get tired after meal times or in front of the television, even if you are getting enough sleep, try to engage in a stimulating activity to wake yourself up. You may fall asleep easily at the time, but early sleep or extra napping can often rob you of a good sleep in the early hours of the morning.

• Avoid liquids before bed
If your full bladder is waking you a couple of times in the night and you’re struggling to get back to sleep, the solution is to make sure you get enough fluids earlier in the day and then avoid them in the hours before bed. Set reminders to drink throughout the day, rather than downing a big glass of water when you’re brushing your teeth at night.

• Snack if you need to
While it’s never a good idea to go to sleep on a horribly full stomach, some people find that they sleep better if they go to bed after a small snack. Foods react differently with different people, so test out a few different bedtime snacks to see what works for you – but some good suggestions are bananas, yoghurt or cereal.

• Give up smoking
Nicotine is a stimulant. It disrupts sleep and if your body is used to getting a hit of this addictive substance periodically throughout the day, it may expect the same all night long.

• Get your head right
If stress or anxiety are keeping you awake, take steps to improve your situation. Try not to obsess about the things that bother you just before bed time, but rather schedule a time in the early evening to mull them over. If you really are struggling to fall back to sleep, it’s OK to wake up, read or have a small snack to relax yourself, and then try again.

• Finally, see your doctor
If you really have tried all of these approaches with no success, see your doctor, who will investigate to see if there is an underlying cause and provide you with whatever further assistance you may need.

Graham Anderson is the principal officer of Profmed.