Sleep assessment - how to sleep better

SLEEP is an essential pillar of good health, just like exercise and nutrition.

Unfortunately, our ability to exercise and prepare nutritious fresh food has been impacted by sedentary jobs and lack of time..

And these busy stressful lifestyles mean poor sleep is now familiar to most of us.

Luckily there’s a lot you can do, starting today, to get better quality sleep more often!

Assess your sleep quality

I’m not personally a fan of smart watches and phones for tracking sleep. I think we sleep better when not using screens immediately before bed and again on waking.

Fixating on the data during times of poor sleep might worsen stress - a driver of poor sleep!

You need to pinpoint what’s going wrong with your sleep in order to implement effective solutions.

So first, assess where your sleep is suffering with this breakdown:

TIMING: when do you sleep? Do you have consistent bed and wake times?

DURATION: how much sleep do you get per day?

QUALITY: do you fall and stay asleep easily?

DO YOU FEEL RESTED? Are you alert and energised in the daytime?

 

Now, how do we improve these dimensions of sleep?

 

Timing: when’s best to sleep?

Your circadian rhythm doesn’t like varying bed times!

Did you know that even your bacteria live on a schedule?

So getting into a routine to the best of your ability (jobs and babies permitting!) is your first task.

And then make sure you’re not doing anything to disrupt your rhythm - it feeds off cues in your schedule such as meal times, and also the light/dark which is why blue light is to be avoided at night.

Below I’ll share another article with more tips on this.

Duration

Ignore workaholics that say 4 hours is fine. Your body has more important work to do during sleep and you need to make time for it:

• tissue repair
• liver regeneration
• Clearing waste from the brain
• immune system maintenance
• regulation of appetite hormones and blood sugar levels

Quality

Can’t fall asleep for ages

If you go to bed on time but your mind is too busy to fall asleep, there’s a lot to do in terms of long term stress management.

In the short term, we can help you get to sleep more easily with Night Support.

This is important because lack of sleep is a stressor in itself - it’s a vicious cycle that will prevent you from taking healthy actions to counter stress!

Unlike other pills that knock you out but leave you just as foggy and tired in the morning, Night Support simply calms that busy brain, allowing a natural good night’s sleep.

It’s much easier to deal with stressful work and home situations when rested.

Waking in the night

It's normal to wake occasionally; it’s bad when stress wakes us fully and prevents us from falling back into deep sleep.

When the cause is an anxious busy brain, our Night Support supplement will also help here. However, there may also be lifestyle errors to address.

Check out our other blog on sleep for advice on:

• How to eat in the evening
• The impact of exercise
• Caffeine mistakes
• The issue with lighting and screens.

Do you feel rested in the morning?

If waking is a constant battle, consider whether you’re getting enough hours of rest - everyone is unique and the standard advice of 7-8 hours may not be right for you!

Eating for energy

If you feel good in the morning but struggle with low energy in the day, what you eat likely plays a part.

You’ve probably seen the home glucose monitoring offered by Zoe app. Honestly I wouldn’t advise you to pay for this! For most people, learning how to balance meals with protein and fat to slow the release of carbohydrate energy will resolve post meal sugar crashes.

If you eat sugary snacks on an empty stomach, you will feel awful and tired later.

 

Supplements for energy

In our modern diets, we can lack key nutrients for energy including B Vitamins, CoQ10 and Magnesium.

That’s where our nutrition safety net combination comes in :

• your premium multivitamin with CoQ10 and active B Vitamins
• plus separate magnesium (you’ll never get enough of this in a multivitamin).

 

If you feel your sleep has been good but you still struggle with daytime sleepiness or fatigue, please consult your doctor.

There could be medical causes including nutrient deficiencies, it's best to check.