I’ve recorded this email as a video as well. You can find it on Facebook or Instagram.
Sleep is too often underrated, yet it is very often a missing piece of the health and fitness jigsaw.
You might not realise it, but often a lack of sleep is the thing which pulls you off your healthy eating course since your body sends you looking for pick-me-ups to keep you going all day.
Likewise, it is pretty likely that the reason you can’t drag yourself out of bed to get a workout done before work is nothing to do with motivation, it’s simply that you haven’t had enough sleep.
So, with this in mind, let’s look through the key ways to get better sleep with the aim of feeling full of energy and on the ball all day, without having to rely on caffeine or sugary snacks.
First up, instead of thinking of sleep as the time you’re asleep, try to think about it as part of your bodies circadian rhythm – the pattern your body follows every day. Day and night are linked in a constant loop – if you don’t sleep well, the next day is impacted. Perhaps you’ll nap in the afternoon and that will affect your nights sleep, and the next day too. And so on….
They say that a good night’s sleep tonight begins as soon you got up this morning.
This is because the signals that our body receives in the morning are key to the signals our body will give at night time.
If we wake up at whatever time we wake up, look at our computer screen and go about our usual day, moving a bit, eating when we’re hungry and perhaps spending a lot of time under bright artificial light and with not much time outside, then, in the evening we stare at our TV screens before going to bed…. Is it any wonder our bodies don’t know which way is up and we struggle to nod off?
Instead, giving our body a constant daily signal of ‘this is the time we wake up’ , followed by a good dose of natural light (even on a miserable day!), creating a need for sleep with plenty of activity, and perhaps eating at the same consistent times too. Then, as we get later in the day, gradually slowing and calming ourselves down and reducing the light levels we’re exposed to before going to bed at a consistent time…. It becomes obvious when we’re expecting to be able to sleep, and our bodies are in a position to fall easily easily.
Even if you’re able to manage your circadian rhythm pretty effectively and in theory should be sleeping well, we do tend to experience two common things:
Feeling sleepy after lunch
Around 8-9 hours after our bodies usual wake up time, the signals our body gives to say it is time to be awake and alert start to quieten down. This can allow our sleep drive to overpower our wake up signals, causing that mid-afternoon energy slump. It is also worth noting however, that your sleep drive here will be stronger if you are low on sleep.
Getting a second wind just before bedtime
Most people will stay awake for about 16 hours before feeling sleepy, but as we near that amount of time our bodies are working hard to keep us awake, and strangely our wake up signal is actually the loudest in the last couple of hours before bedtime. You’ve felt this if you’ve ever come home at the end of the day feeling quite worn out, but then feel a bit more energetic later in the evening. Don’t be fooled though, given the right signals, your wake up signal will quieten down and you will fall asleep.
It is well worth putting the effort in to improve your sleep quality, for overall health if not for the potential assistance to your weight loss quest. I’d really love to hear how you get on with putting these ideas into action.