Sleep Issues

Struggling with Sleep? Then here are some tips on how to sleep well

Struggling to sleep, or to stay asleep during the night?  As well as the use of hypnotherapy for insomnia, here are some tips on how to sleep well.

Temperature

Firstly, temperature in the bedroom is key.  The room temperature should be no lower than 18C and no higher than 20C to provide the ideal environment for a comfortable night’s sleep.

Body temperature can also fluctuate in the night, particularly if you are menopausal.  Whilst there isn’t much you can do about these fluctuations, having bedding layers that you can remove or add to can help to keep you comfortable. Some people use a cool pad. If the cause is menopause, then HRT can also help to reduce or eliminate hot flushes and night sweats.

Eating

The second tip relates to what and when you last eat before retiring to bed.  Eating too late into the evening means that your body is still working on digesting your food when you are going to bed.  Instead of focussing on preparing to sleep it is hard at work on your food instead.  If you have eaten very sugary foods you could also be experiencing a sugar spike further adding to energy levels and difficulty in relaxing and feeling ready to sleep.  Ideally you should leave at least a 4 hour gap between the last thing you eat and going to bed.  

Drinking

As importantly as what you eat, there is also what you drink.  The main things you want to avoid to enable a good night’s sleep are caffeine and alcohol.  Caffeine has a half life of around 7 hours on average.  What that means is 7 hours after you have last drunk caffeine it still has half of it’s original strength. It will remain in your system even after this time at a gradually reducing amount over a further number of hours. So why does that impact on sleep? Caffeine blocks the brain’s ability to sense adenosine. Adenosine is a chemical that gradually builds up in your system during the day and creates sleep pressure, the feeling of sleepiness that will send you off to sleep. It reaches a high enough level to send you to sleep normally in the late evening. However, with caffeine blocking the sensors that recognise adenosine levels you don’t feel sleepy when you should. This means that your body is not preparing itself for sleep whilst the caffeine remains in your system.  Therefore, drinking coffee, cola, energy drinks such as Red Bull, and anything else that contains caffeine, should be avoided for several hours before going to bed.

Alcohol also interferes with sleep.  When you sleep with alcohol in your system you are not actually sleeping restorative, restful sleep. Rather, alcohol works in the same way as an anesthetic, putting you into an unconscious state rather than a true sleep state.  Sleep is also interrupted frequently through the night, whether that is because you need to empty your bladder, your stomach, or to drink water due to dehydration.  Not to mention the inevitable hangover the next day, which, combined with a lack of restful sleep, is going to make you feel absolutely dreadful.

Make your bedroom your sanctuary

Woman lying face down on bed asleep - sleeping tips kendall hypnotherapy

Finally the bedroom should be for sleeping and for sex and not for anything else.  This means getting rid of any other distractions such as the TV, tablet or I-Pad, phone and even any books or magazines.  What you want to create is a feeling of a sanctuary away from all distractions that has a single purpose that your brain instantly connects with and recognises as the place where you relax and sleep.  Not only that but getting rid of your devices means you are not immersing yourself in blue light that is emitted from them.  Blue light is very similar to daylight which tricks your brain into thinking that it is not yet time to sleep. It does this by delaying the release of melatonin, a chemical that tells us it is time to sleep. It is activated by the lack of blue light or daylight, and starts to be released normally a couple of hours after sunset. Using devices that emit blue light means delaying the release of melatonin and, therefore, delaying your mind’s preparation for sleep.

Providing the ideal environment to encourage you to sleep may not guarantee that you will sleep well, there may be other things disturbing your sleep, however, the absence of these things certainly could interfere with your ability to get to, and stay, asleep.

Hypnotherapy For Insomnia

If you are experiencing poor sleep or insomnia, and you feel the cause is psychological, then using relaxation techniques, or having help from a hypnotherapist could be really beneficial in dealing with those causes.  If you are interested in finding out more about how hypnotherapy can help with sleep issues please contact me on 07577202702 or via the website contact page.

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