Hello there,
I hope this finds you well?
Each week I share 3 ideas related to Body, Mind, and Life — things that have helped me, and that might help you too. Today: Sleep, reflect on balance and share a simple breathwork routine to try.
1. Body: Sleep
While travelling in SE Asia and on my commute to work, I’ve been listening to a lot of wellbeing podcasts. Sleep hygiene is consistently mentioned as one of the key things to focus on when optimising your health and wellbeing.
Sleep is crucial as it has a role in cognitive functioning, mood, mental and physical health. Poor sleep quality impacts these areas and is also linked to an increased risk of death via health issues such as obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes as well as an increased risk of accidents and injuries due to fatigue. Click here for the full study.
To improve sleep hygiene, this study reviewing Sleep physiology, pathophysiology, and sleep hygiene provided the below recommendations. If you’re anything like me, trying to do it all at the same time will probably cause stress, bad sleep and you will give up before you’ve started! Start small and build from there.
- Get 7-9 hours sleep a night
Look at the time you want to get up and work it back from there, i.e 6am, you want to be asleep at 10pm, so aim to be in bed by 9:30pm to settle down and be asleep by 10pm.
- Maintain a consistent sleep/wake schedule
This comes up a lot, regardless of what time you go to bed, get up at the same time as often as possible. I’ve been doing this recently and I am now finding that I start to wake up naturally 20-30 minutes before the alarm.
- Maintain a regular bedtime routine
Back to comment 1, build a routine. Put that phone away (away from the bed works for me) minimise light, brush your teeth and read a book instead).
- Engaging in regular exercise
This doesn’t need to be Olympian effort, but something you can commit to and enjoy. NHS guidelines (UK) recommend each week to do a base level of 150 mins of moderate (out of breath) exercise, 2 x full body strength workouts week and to break up periods of inactivity with movement (star jumps x coffee breaks anyone?)
- Adopting a contemplative practice
Meditation, journaling, breathwork (check out the simple routine under section 2).
- Avoiding certain substances later in the day can help improve sleep: Caffeine, alcohol, heavy meals
Work in progress for me, modern life is set up in such a way that I find it difficult to not eat my main meal in the evening close to bed. Coffee is one that I do aim to minimise after 2pm. Start with one of these areas then work from there.
- Minimise light exposure later in the day are associated with fragmented poor-quality sleep.
I’ve been focusing on building a better sleep routine recently and now put my phone away from the bed so it is out of reach. I’ve also bought a sleep mask to completely cut out light, they are linked to improving cognitive function and alertness levels, so watch this space to see how I get on.
2. Mind: Balance
This week on my commute home, instead of a podcast, I put one of my favourite bands on: Royal Blood (Rock). I’d forgotten how much of a mood and energy boost music can give you. It has been a good reminder that it is okay to listen to things for fun as that has benefits too.
It’s all about balance.
3. Life: Out of control
It’s a been a bit of a bumpy week this week. While living in Australia, our UK home has been rented out, but our tenants are now leaving and we don’t have anyone in place yet with two weeks to go. Stressful.
I have been reminding myself that all I can do is focus on what I can control, acknowledge what is out of my control and to trust the process. Accepting what is out of my control reduces wasting energy on unnecessary stress.
Use box breathing to help: Breathe slowly in for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, then out slowly for 4 seconds, repeat a few times.
Thanks for reading,
Nick