Hello everybody! Thank you for the nice feedback from last week’s post “Eating well”. 

This week’s post is the second part of a three-part post called “The must do’s to start being healthier”.

Let’s talk today about sleeping habits.

Is it difficult for you to wake up in the morning? Do you hit snooze on your alarm clock in the morning? Do you feel cranky throughout the day? Do you find it difficult to concentrate and perform at work or school or university? 

If you have answer yes to any of these questions, you might have a sleeping problem. 

There is a bigger issue from my point of view, and it is the lack of information. When it comes to work or study, if you stay up the whole night working or studying, socially you are considered responsible, hard worker, but actually your performance decreases because of this lack of sleep. Your capacity of concentration, decision making, even perform a simple task gets troubled because you didn’t sleep well at night. I will go much deeper on the science behind our sleeping habits in the future, but today I want to bring you some tips that might help to improve your night sleep:

• Get enough sleep. Studies say that a healthy adult will need between 7 and 9 hours every night. The 8 hours sleep every night that we have always been told is just an average, some people need less, and some people need more. The best way to find out is being conscious about how we feel in the morning.

• Do not have caffeine in the afternoon. Experts say that after lunch, we shouldn’t have any caffeine. Caffeine reaches a peak level in your blood within 30 to 60 minutes and its effects last for about 3 to 5 hours. 

• Try not to have heavy meals in the last 2 to 3 hours of the day before you go to sleep. When we have a late dinner, the muscles and parts of our brain that digest and metabolise the food have to be working even though they should be resting, delaying our ability to fall asleep and our ability to get to the deep sleep phases. This unhealthy habit could also lead to weight gain.

• Avoid the blue light. That is the light that our devices emit. Experts talk about 2 hours device free before going to bed, but we all know that is impossible in the 21^st century. I recommend you have at least one hour at the end of the day. This hour can be entirely for you or for your family, partner, housemates. You can have a nice night skin routine (which I will talk about in the future), you can read that book that you always say you don’t have time to read (let me know if you’d like some recommendations), you can start meditating which you have been told is really good for the stress, or you can write a journal. Whatever works for you and keeps you away from the phone!

• Get some bright light when you wake up. If you start your day when it is still sunny, go outside and get some sunlight. This is going to regulate the production of melatonin, the hormone that helps us fall sleep at night. When we expose to light, our body understands when to start producing or reducing the melatonin levels.

• Being a morning or an evening person is a real thing. Try to find out which type you are and try to respect your sleeping necessities. If you want to find out which one you are, I recommend you visit this website and take the test! https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201209/morning-person-or-evening-person-its-time-find-out . 

• Make your bedroom a haven for sleeping. Make it dark, a little bit cool, comfortable and very important, don’t do in bed those things that you should be doing at work or school or other parts of the house, such us studying, working, organising your week, etc. 

• Do exercise regularly but avoid vigorous exercise 1 hour before going to bed. Exercises such as stretching or gentle Yoga can help you to have a nice sleep, but vigorous activities will activate the production of certain hormones that are going to keep you awake.

• Eat well. Simple as that, eat well always to make sure that your body is functioning correctly. If you need more help about eating habits, go to my previous post in this link https://sanchisayslifestyle.com/2021/03/21/the-three-must-dos-part-1/

As I mentioned before, I will share more detailed information about sleeping habits and the science behind them in future posts, I encourage you to follow these tips to start feeling better. Sleeping well has a big effect when it comes to lose weight, perform better physically and mentally, to be a more active member in society and to feel good, which is the most important thing.

Thank you so much and see you next week!

Sanchi Says Lifestyle