Out of all the potential deterrents to sleep, figure out which is having the greatest impact. “People need to remember, you can’t change everything,” Hill says. This can be difficult, Hill says, because so many factors influence your ability to get shut-eye: screen habits, exposure to light, diet, stress, anxiety, inconsistent work hours. Once you’ve figured out the nature of your sleep issues, you’ve got to determine what’s causing them in the first place. “It’s not useful to try to optimize your sleep just for the sake of it,” Hill says. However, don’t feel pressured to download sleep tracking apps to measure and analyze your sleep data as it can feed into an unhelpful fixation. If you aren’t up for purchasing a new device, iPhones also have a white noise function, and lots of white noise apps are available to download. Hill is a proponent of blackout curtains and a white noise machine or smart speaker for keeping light and extraneous sound out of your sleep sanctuary. Again, let your body dictate the most comfortable temperature, which can be different for everyone depending on the weight of their sheets and blankets, what they wear to bed, if they sleep alone or with a partner and pets, and if they run hot or cold. When it comes to the ideal conditions for sleep, try to keep your room as dark, cool, and quiet as possible, Hill says. “Then, we give our bodies a chance to tell us, ‘Here’s what I need,’” she says, “instead of us imposing our idea of how much sleep we need.” Rather than forcing yourself into bed at a set time every night and struggling to slip into slumber, take a cue from your body and hit the sheets only when you’re sleepy, Wu says. “Going to bed might not be the answer and in fact, that might backfire,” Wu says, “because if you’re tired but not sleepy yet and you go to bed, you’re going to have insomnia.” Tiredness can be overcome by taking a break during the work day, drinking some water, spending time with friends, or going dancing - not sleeping. The cure for sleepiness, Wu says, is, simply but perhaps not obviously, to sleep. It may be because you’re depressed or bored or dehydrated.” “If you’re tired during the day, that may not be because of poor sleep. “If you’re sleepy during the day, that means you did not sleep last night or didn’t get good quality sleep,” Wu says. Tiredness can also present physically, but it often stems from a lack of mental energy, a dip in motivation or inspiration. To help evaluate how rested you feel during the day, Wu stresses the importance of knowing the difference between “sleepy” and “tired.” Sleepiness manifests in the body: droopy eyelids, an overall heaviness, the entire machine wants to shut down. Survey yourself as to why: Going to bed too late? Trouble falling asleep? Difficulty staying asleep? Fatigue during the day is a sign your body isn’t getting enough sleep. Instead, people should pay attention to how they feel when they wake up and throughout the day, says Vanessa Hill, behavioral scientist, creator of the YouTube series BrainCraft, and researcher at Central Queensland University. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night, “but the magic number is really dependent on the person,” says sleep psychologist Jade Wu, author of the forthcoming book Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications. When it comes to sleep, most quantifiers are highly subjective. Sleep deprivation is, ultimately, a systemic issue, and people shouldn’t feel broken for the societal issues impacting sleep.ĭespite all of the modern obstacles to sleep, improvement in your quality and quantity of sleep is possible - and you don’t have to lock your phone in another room to achieve it. Shift work, children’s inconsistent sleep schedules, stress, bright light in the evening (from both home lighting fixtures and tech), the pandemic, and sleep conditions like insomnia and sleep apnea can all plague a person’s ability to get adequate rest. Long-term sleep deprivation has been linked with higher likelihoods of depressive moods, anxiety, diabetes, and obesity.ĭifficulty sleeping can be attributed to a variety of factors and isn’t a reflection on how optimized or streamlined your life is. Aside from the sluggishness and lethargy, lack of sufficient shut-eye can blunt thinking and reaction time and negatively impacts judgment. If you’ve ever had a terrible, or even middling, night’s slumber - which studies and surveys suggest is a fair number of people - you’re well aware of the effects of poor sleep.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |