How To Improve Your Sleep - from the Team at Hampden Sports Clinic

There are several ways to improve the quality of your sleep. However, being aware of your present sleep hygiene routine is essential if any simple changes are needed.

Some suggestions are:

• Set Your Sleep Schedule
  
  
• Have a Fixed Wake-Up Time
  
  
• Prioritise Sleep
  
  
• Make Gradual Adjustments
  
  
• Don’t Overdo It With Naps:
  
  
  • Naps can be a handy way to regain energy during the day, but they can throw off sleep at night. To avoid this, try to keep naps relatively short and limited to the early afternoon.

Follow a nightly routine:

• Keep Your Routine Consistent
  
  
• Budget 30 Minutes For Winding Down
  
  
• Dim Your Lights: Try to keep away from bright lights because they can hinder the production of melatonin, a hormone that the body creates to facilitate sleep.
  
  
• Unplug From Electronics: Ideally keep electronics out of the bedroom. Build in a 30-60 minute pre-bed buffer time that is device-free. Phones, tablets, and laptops cause mental stimulation that is hard to shut off and also generate blue light that may decrease melatonin production.
  
  
• Test Methods of Relaxation to see what helps you the most
  
  
• Don’t Toss and Turn: It helps to have a healthy mental connection between being in bed and actually being asleep. For that reason, if after 20 minutes you haven’t gotten to sleep, get up and stretch, read, or do something else calming in low light before trying to fall asleep again.

The Sleep Council (7) also promote a ‘7 Step To A Better Night’s Sleep’...

The Sleep Council (8) also provide some very useful information on mattresses and beds, very helpful to know before buying a new bed.

Click here to Download their guide to their Sleep Tools PDF...

There are many free resources on-line and some you have to purchase, such as Sleepio App (9) that gives you a personal programme. Heads Up! This is free to NHS and Social Care staff and unpaid carers during the pandemic.

Big Health has partnered with NHS England, NHS Scotland, Social Care Wales & The Care Provider Alliance to protect the mental health of staff in the NHS and the Social Care sector (including unpaid carers). Sleepio and Daylight are now available at no cost for all staff throughout the outbreak response.

Anyone having significant problems with their sleep should discuss this with their GP.

To Summarise:

Take It Easy & Sleep Well, from the Team at Hampden Sports Clinic...

References:

• http://worldsleepday.org/

• Fast Asleep by Dr Michael Mosely 2020 Short Books

• https://thesleepcharity.org.uk/information-support/adults/

• https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need

• https://www.news-medical.net/health/Spoon-Test-for-Sleep-Deprivation.aspx#:~:text=The%20spoon%20test%20or%20the,%E2%80%9Cfather%20of%20sleep%20research.%E2%80%9D

• https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene

• https://sleepcouncil.org.uk/advice-support/sleep-advice/7-steps-to-a-better-nights-sleep/

• https://sleepcouncil.org.uk/advice-support/sleep-tools/helpful-leaflets/

• https://onboarding.sleepio.com/sleepio/nhs/77#1/1

• https://www.sleep.org/5-companies-encourage-power-napping/

• https://www.bighealth.com/en-gb/nhs-2020

• https://medlineplus.gov/healthysleep.html