Not enough sleep can wreck your day. Do you toss and turn at nights? Do you wake up and feel as if your brain is filled with fog? Are you forgetful and find yourself nodding off at meetings and other important events? Not a pretty picture!
The good news is that sleep is a skill and with practice, you can master it!
According to experts, many of us have forgotten how to sleep well and now find ourselves in a nightly battle, which is often ‘won’ by waving the white flag of prescription drugs, alcohol or a potentially lethal combinations of both. Between our overly-wired up lifestyles and all kinds of work and life stressors, it’s easy to understand why few of us are resting easy these days. Working at nights make sleeping even more challenging and I find myself putting sleep on the back burner so I can accomplish more during the daytime.
Research cannot pinpoint the exact amount of sleep for each age group, so it is very important to pay attention to your own individual needs by assessing how you feel on different amounts of sleep. Are you productive, healthy and happy on seven hours of sleep? Or does it take nine hours of quality ZZZs to get you into high gear?
Recommendations For a Good Night Sleep
- Go to bed and get up around the same time, 7 nights a week.
- Practice a relaxing bedtime ritual.
- Evaluate your bedroom to ensure ideal temperature, sound, and light.
- Invest in a comfortable mattress and pillows.
- Beware of hidden sleep stealers, like caffeine.
- Turn off electronics before bed.
Most importantly, make sleep a priority. Schedule sleep like any other daily activity. But don’t make it the thing you do only after everything else is done. Stop doing other things so you can get the sleep you need. This is very important to establish good sleep habits and will reinforce a consistent sleep rhythm to remind the brain when to release those all-important sleep and wake hormones.
Control what you can control. Don’t lose sleep worrying about things that you don’t have control over because, at the end of the day, you still won’t have any control over them. – Cam Newton
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. – Victor Hugo
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To Your Success,
Althea
Althea A. McLeish Wilson, RN, MSN
Educate . Empower . Encourage
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