The importance of a good night’s sleep
born2move fitness expert reveals the top 8 tips to achieving a good night’s sleep, by Matt Kay
One thing that many people neglect in their pursuit of a healthy lifestyle is the importance of going to bed on time. In our modern world of artificial light it is easy to forget that we used to live in harmony with the light and dark cycles (Circadian Rhythms). However, it is only in relatively modern times that artificial light technologies have been widely available. However, our internal body clocks are still running on times when we relied solely on the sun and the moon to tell us when to sleep and when to wake. This is playing havoc with our bodies, our health and also our ability to lose weight!
If we follow our natural sleep/wake cycles, we start winding down as the sun sets and should fall asleep around 10:00pm. Physical repairs mostly take place when the body is asleep, between about 10:00pm and 2:00am. After 2:00am the immune and repair energies are more focused on psychological (mental) repair, which lasts until we awaken (Health Diagnostics, 2002). You should start to wake between 6:00am and 9:00am at sun rise.
This is why you can go to sleep at 1am and sleep for 8 hours and wake up at 9am exhausted. However, if you go to sleep at 10:30pm and sleep for the same length of time, 8 hours, you feel ready for the day.
There are three main factors that can disrupt your sleep/wake cycles:
1. Stimulants – tea, coffee, alcohol, drugs, sugar, nicotine etc
2. Electromagnetic pollution – power lines, currents, electrical appliances (e.g. electrical blankets and TV’s)
3. Entrainment – It takes as little a 7-21 days to trick the body into a dysfunctional schedule. This is known as entrainment. This means if your body has been going to sleep at mid night for 1-3 weeks in a row your internal body clock will wait until mid night to start reduce cortisol levels and settle down to sleep. However, your subconscious body rhythms will automatically begin the psychological repair around 2:00am, thus robbing your body of two good hours of physiological repair. When this occurs you will wake up feeling tired (Chek, 2005)!
born2move's 8 top tips for a better nights sleep:
1. Go to sleep by 10:00pm.
2. Minimise your exposure to bright lights for at least two hours before going to bed (TV is one of the worst as the average screen flickers artificial light 120 times per second, which the body thinks is day light, effecting cortisol levels).
3. Sleep in a room that is completely dark.
4. Avoid the consumption of stimulants (as listed above) after lunch
5. Eat a large breakfast, small healthy snack mid morning, medium lunch, small healthy snack mid afternoon and a small evening meal that is balanced between carb’s, proteins and fats. Eat organic foods wherever possible. Do not go to bed on a full stomach.
6. Drink 2-3 litres of water daily.
7. Exercise consistently through the week but do not do any intense exercise to late in the day. This will increase your cortisol levels and release various hormones making it hard to sleep and lose weight.
8. Unplug all electrical appliances in your bedroom, including clocks, TV’s and lights. If this helps try positioning all the electrical appliances as far away from your bed as you can.