In the 80's the ability to live with very little sleep was held up as some kind of badge of honour. The less sleep you needed, the more intelligent you were, and the more highly regarded you were.
Modern scientific research shows that not only were those "sleep rejectors" behaving unintelligently and producing lower-grade, lower levels of work, but they were setting themselves up for serious mental and physical disease.
Regardless of whether sleep dysfunction is self-inflicted or foisted on us by circumstance, the end result is the same. We suffer because all of the body's systems are compromised, including our all-important metabolic rate. And it's our metabolism that is the number 1 factor in whether or not we lose weight, and then keep it off.
For instance many diet companies will tell you that weight loss is simple, just a matter of "energy in/energy out". This is a particularly stupid lie, because the state of your metabolism is more important than either.
Although there are an array of lifestyle factors that also affect metabolism and therefore affect weight loss, sleep is one of the most important, is crucial to your weight loss program, and crucial for permanent weight loss. Everyone has slightly different sleep needs, but most adults need between 7 and 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, while children (including older teenagers, no matter how loudly they protest) need more like 12 or 13.
When it comes to recovery from serious illness, quality sleep becomes even more important.
9 Ways to Improve Your Sleep
1 Sleep time is as precious as the air you breathe, so guard it well. Who cares if the house is a mess! It's far more important that every member of the family get their sleep time.
Sometimes our family responsibilities mean that our sleep is necessarily interrupted and every parent is very familiar with that! But make sure you catch up the next day, and that at least on some nights someone else takes turns being the "nightwalker".
2 Have a routine. A time for slowing down in the evening, a time for going to bed, a time for waking up, a time for all of the activities you need to do in the day. Although you'll obviously vary your routine from time to time, your regular routine will help to train your brain for efficient "shut down".
3 Slow Down Before Bed. Keep away from alcohol or stimulants for at least an hour before bed, and avoid stimulating books or television programs. Dim the lights, play some nice music, and relax.
4 Dump stress. When people tolerate unacceptable levels of stress in their lives, they can then suffer from intrusive, worried thoughts when they should be sleeping and this can be very distressing. Two powerful techniques, Logotherapy and NeuroStim, can stop these thoughts in their tracks and allow a quick path to the land of nod. You can learn more about these on TopLifeSolutions.com.
5 Make sure the environment in the bedroom is comfortable and supportive of great sleep. You want your bedroom to be nice and dark, and to be at least a little cool, with sufficient air flow. Check your bed and pillows to make sure they invite sleep rather than annoy you!
6 Stay in Bed. Some sleep experts advise you to get up if you can't fall to sleep within 30 minutes, so that in your mind bed is linked only to sleeping. I find this rather silly, since bed can be linked to having sex, reading, resting, daydreaming, and even being ill. Instead I recommend staying in bed so that you train your mind that this is the correct place to be at this time.
There is quite good evidence for my recommendation to stay in your bed. For example if we're helping a new baby to get into a good sleep routine, one of the things we do is try to keep them in their cot and provide as little stimulation as possible even if we have to give an extra bottle or change a nappy. The last thing we'd do is pick them up and go and sit in a bright room with a television on. That'd be teaching them to wake up!
This means that you can be confident that staying in bed is the best thing you can do to build better sleep habits.
7 A physically active day is important to good sleep. If you don't get enough activity through the day, your body won't achieve the chemical state it requires to produce adequate melatonin, the "sleep hormone".
8 Ensure you have great relationships with others: family, friends, colleagues, your neighbourhood. Quality relationships are essential to our wellbeing and we sleep so much better when our relationships are in a good state.
9 Ensure your nutrition is adequate. Our body can produce the right hormones at the right time only if we take in the right nutrients. For example the extre low-carb diet that is being touted around the internet (and unfortunately even by some doctors who should know better!) is a recipe for lousy sleep, because it interferes with the production of melatonin. Enjoy a good, healthy diet with lots of variety and you'll increase your ability to sleep well.
Modern scientific research shows that not only were those "sleep rejectors" behaving unintelligently and producing lower-grade, lower levels of work, but they were setting themselves up for serious mental and physical disease.
Regardless of whether sleep dysfunction is self-inflicted or foisted on us by circumstance, the end result is the same. We suffer because all of the body's systems are compromised, including our all-important metabolic rate. And it's our metabolism that is the number 1 factor in whether or not we lose weight, and then keep it off.
For instance many diet companies will tell you that weight loss is simple, just a matter of "energy in/energy out". This is a particularly stupid lie, because the state of your metabolism is more important than either.
Although there are an array of lifestyle factors that also affect metabolism and therefore affect weight loss, sleep is one of the most important, is crucial to your weight loss program, and crucial for permanent weight loss. Everyone has slightly different sleep needs, but most adults need between 7 and 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, while children (including older teenagers, no matter how loudly they protest) need more like 12 or 13.
When it comes to recovery from serious illness, quality sleep becomes even more important.
9 Ways to Improve Your Sleep
1 Sleep time is as precious as the air you breathe, so guard it well. Who cares if the house is a mess! It's far more important that every member of the family get their sleep time.
Sometimes our family responsibilities mean that our sleep is necessarily interrupted and every parent is very familiar with that! But make sure you catch up the next day, and that at least on some nights someone else takes turns being the "nightwalker".
2 Have a routine. A time for slowing down in the evening, a time for going to bed, a time for waking up, a time for all of the activities you need to do in the day. Although you'll obviously vary your routine from time to time, your regular routine will help to train your brain for efficient "shut down".
3 Slow Down Before Bed. Keep away from alcohol or stimulants for at least an hour before bed, and avoid stimulating books or television programs. Dim the lights, play some nice music, and relax.
4 Dump stress. When people tolerate unacceptable levels of stress in their lives, they can then suffer from intrusive, worried thoughts when they should be sleeping and this can be very distressing. Two powerful techniques, Logotherapy and NeuroStim, can stop these thoughts in their tracks and allow a quick path to the land of nod. You can learn more about these on TopLifeSolutions.com.
5 Make sure the environment in the bedroom is comfortable and supportive of great sleep. You want your bedroom to be nice and dark, and to be at least a little cool, with sufficient air flow. Check your bed and pillows to make sure they invite sleep rather than annoy you!
6 Stay in Bed. Some sleep experts advise you to get up if you can't fall to sleep within 30 minutes, so that in your mind bed is linked only to sleeping. I find this rather silly, since bed can be linked to having sex, reading, resting, daydreaming, and even being ill. Instead I recommend staying in bed so that you train your mind that this is the correct place to be at this time.
There is quite good evidence for my recommendation to stay in your bed. For example if we're helping a new baby to get into a good sleep routine, one of the things we do is try to keep them in their cot and provide as little stimulation as possible even if we have to give an extra bottle or change a nappy. The last thing we'd do is pick them up and go and sit in a bright room with a television on. That'd be teaching them to wake up!
This means that you can be confident that staying in bed is the best thing you can do to build better sleep habits.
7 A physically active day is important to good sleep. If you don't get enough activity through the day, your body won't achieve the chemical state it requires to produce adequate melatonin, the "sleep hormone".
8 Ensure you have great relationships with others: family, friends, colleagues, your neighbourhood. Quality relationships are essential to our wellbeing and we sleep so much better when our relationships are in a good state.
9 Ensure your nutrition is adequate. Our body can produce the right hormones at the right time only if we take in the right nutrients. For example the extre low-carb diet that is being touted around the internet (and unfortunately even by some doctors who should know better!) is a recipe for lousy sleep, because it interferes with the production of melatonin. Enjoy a good, healthy diet with lots of variety and you'll increase your ability to sleep well.
About the Author:
There are 17 lifestyle factors which have a important impact on weight loss, and quality sleep is just one of them. Christine Sutherland's free book "17 Solutions" spells out each of them and tells you how to get them right! Available courtesy of the Kind Communities Initiative.
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