Healthy Sleep Habits

If you are one of the few very majestic and unicorn-y people that has never had any issues with sleep, congratulations! The truth is, most people struggle with sleep to some degree at some point in their lives.

Whether it is a situational stressor, or chronic insomnia, everyone could use to learn more about how sleep impacts their health, and create healthy habits to get the full 8 plus hours of sleep (or as close to it as possible) I recommend.

This room seems very zen, no?

Get movement each day

Getting good movement (at least an hour) in during the day is important, but avoid strenuous physical activity after 5 pm if you are having issues sleeping.

Soothing activities only before bed

An hour, if not more, before bed, no screens! Enjoy calming activities such as a warm bath or teas. Chamomile, ginger, lemon balm, rose, hawthorn, hibiscus holy basil and lavender, and holy basil are great choices. Listen to peaceful music or stories. The Calm app has soothing stories that are meant to literally, put you to sleep. You could also try a guided meditation through Apps. Doing some light stretching or journaling is ok, but no news or anything else that is stressful. That means no news!

Create a sleep oasis

Try to make sure your bedroom a sleep oasis. It should be cool, dark and quiet. Remove excess clutter, distractions, and noise. Some people find a white noise machine, or nature soothing sounds are helpful, others find this distracting. If noise is tolerated, an air filter is a great option to decrease allergen and toxin exposure as you sleep.

Keep a Worry Journal

Are you someone who replays every conversation or new theoretical conversations in your head while you should be sleeping? Or maybe scrutinizing your to-do list keeps you from falling asleep.

Some people find that writing their worries down in a specific worry journal can be helpful for allowing the brain to stop reminding you of them. Write down the top things your brain is replaying over and over. Once you have written them down, you can remind yourself you already are aware of that worry and it is ok to release it, you won' forget because it is in the journal, which you can keep by your bed. Working with positive affirmations around the things that consistently come up can be helpful as well.

Which of these could you reasonably start to make a habit now? Most people know that screens are bad, mmmkay...BUT starting with just not looking at your phone in bed may be a good first step to get to no screens a whole hour or more before bed.

Nighty night and sweet dreams my dear,

Dr. Bethany