I want to talk a little about sleep. We all love it, we all need it, but not all of us can actually get it or have it be as effective as we'd like it to be, or that it needs to be.
Sleep hygiene is a phrase that links to all things nighttime routine. Whether that's physical hygiene, brain activity levels, melatonin being produced, how much strain there is on your eyes, or even your mind. There's so much that contributes to getting a good night's sleep, and if you're one of the lucky ones that can instantly go to bed and have a great night's sleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, despite you having been playing video games or watching a screen twenty seconds before that happens, then I salute you and wish you well on your great sleepy times.
People generally like to ask people who suffer from mental illness why we are tired all the time, especially if we don't seem to be doing anything. The answer, my oblivious friends, is depression. That's literally it. It may be the catalyst for other things to be affecting sleep but depression in itself is absolutely exhausting. It can also lead to things like antidepressants which can cause fatigue, some people like to sleep more to try and hide from life, and that causes problems to a sleeping pattern which can actually contribute to the constant tiredness so I have some top tips to improve sleep hygiene, whether you're depressed, just generally unable to have a good night's sleep or just want to read this post to better understand your fatigued friends.
Lights and colours
Light is one of the most obvious ones in my opinion. It's common knowledge that using our phones while in bed is bad for our sleep. The main reason for that is the blue light screens emit which decreases our brains production of melatonin which is our sleepy hormone. Most phones now (along with laptops, and tablets) come with a blue light filter. It decreases the blue and kind of helps with the melatonin production, but be aware that it's still a strain on your eyes to look at a light screen in a dark room, blue light filter or not, it's not healthy for your eyes.
One tip I would say is if you have a colour changing light bulb, or want to get one (I definitely recommend them) then when it's your wind down time, switch the colour to red. Red light is melatonin's best friend and it will help very much in those important minutes you spend winding down before going to sleep. No matter how tempting it might be to look at your phone once you're in that deep red room, it's important to try and fight the temptation and embrace all of that beautiful melatonin that's going to send you into a peaceful night's sleep.
Personal Hygiene
I also feel like this one is pretty common knowledge. How much better do we feel mentally after a shower or a bath? It's a pretty productive thing to do for so many reasons. It's very rare that I'll shower before bed, I usually use those to try and get me motivated for the day but baths however, are just what you need to help you get in a sleepy mood, especially if you've just changed your bed sheets and have some freshly washed pyjamas to crawl into. Making sure you've peed before you go to sleep is also a must (I don't know if that counts as personal hygiene..?) If you don't need to pee through the night, your sleeping brain has one less thing to worry about, that being holding your pee in until the morning. Plus you really don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and have to make a mad rush for the toilet? Or waking up with a horrible stomach ache because you've held in a pee for eight hours?
Music/noise
I don't know many people who can sleep in complete silence. I have to have a fan on making some white noise, or I have some LoFi playlist going on YouTube or Spotify to help me relax, although that usually gets turned off as I'm about to commit to the shut-eye. White noise is proven to help people get to sleep. It's used in so many apps to help with insomnia or inability to sleep every once in a while where you can choose from rain, forest sounds, beach sounds... There are so many different noises to choose from that will help you relax. For me it's always just been the noise of my fan. When I was little my dad would often put on the classical radio station to try and help me sleep because there were no lyrics for me to focus on, and I often drifted off with ballet dancers floating around with pink ribbons in my head.
The world can be very distracting. As someone with anxiety I always worry about every little noise I hear during the night, especially if I'm home on my own. It's nice to have my fan creating noise so I don't always hear tiny little things clicking or tapping during the night otherwise I don't think I would ever sleep.
Down Time
It's easy to get caught up in the mad rush of technology today, and to be fair, that's completely understandable - where would any of us be if we didn't embrace that technology? It doesn't mean it's good for our brain activity levels when we're about to go to sleep though, and it can often lead to either difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep if you try and close your eyes while your brain is still whirring because it was having to focus on video games no less than five minutes ago.
Going back to the whole lights and colours it's really nice for our brain to have time to slowly shut itself down with something that doesn't require it to work that much. That could be reading, or colouring, maybe you do Cross Stitch or you knit. Anything you can do that's relatively absent-minded and doesn't require looking at a screen is always a good idea to do before committing to the pillow.
The Bed
We all love our beds. However, their main purpose is sleep (and sex, but that's irrelevant). If you're using your bed for anything other than it's intended purpose it can be easy to become detached and see it as something other than a bed. If you're sitting on something as comfy as your bed all day, is it going to feel as nice getting into it at the end of it if there's a nice little butt indentation from where you've sat all day? It's not going to be as appreciated as much, that's for sure. If you're on your bed, you're also inclined to lay down as well, which is not good for us as it means we're pretty much accepting of a snooze, and while that's not always a bad thing, naps should be kept at a minimum unless you're sick. Naps can be good in short bursts, and that's been proven. But always being on your bed, either sitting or laying always creates the danger of you just wanting to slide down and sleep, and if you're trying to lessen the amount you sleep, this probably isn't a good idea.
Food and drink
This is the last section and one of the most important, I feel. I love having cups of tea before bed. I like being in bed late at night watching Netflix with a bag of popcorn or Doritos and a cup of tea. This shouldn't be the case! Most food we have as midnight snacks contain sugar which is just going to wake us up again. The rest of it engages our brain so it can actually work on digestion, which isn't something it needs to be doing when it's time to go to bed. Going to bed just after eating can also cause terrible acid reflux and heartburn from being horizontal and needing to be vertical so gravity can help a little in the first stages of digestion.
Anything you'd like to say you sit in bed and drink at night probably shouldn't be drank unless it's water. Hot chocolate would be one I do, but again - it has that high sugar content which is just going to keep us awake. Tea, Coffee, energy drinks... All have an amount of caffeine in them (as well as sugar if that's how you have it) so are definitely bad things to have at least 2-3 hours before bed time. Plus once you're in bed, I'm assuming you've already brushed your teeth, and I can't imagine any drink tastes divine with a minty breath anyway.
In conclusion just try and think about all of the things your brain does during the day, and think about how it needs to slow down in order for you to fully benefit from a night's sleep. Obviously if you're working on your sleep hygiene it doesn't have to be instant, it takes practice to make a habit of it. I'm sure even if you start implementing just two or three things from this post it will start to make a difference.
I'll be back to posting on my scheduled days on Wednesday
Until then,
-M x
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