Worry and anxiety may be keeping us awake during this stressful time. Dean Terri Weaver offers sleep hygiene strategies to help us fall and stay asleep and get the rest we need to feel our best.
What is Sleep?
Sleep is a reversible behavioral state of perceptual disengagement from and unresponsiveness to the environment. In other words, it's "a cyclical physiological process that alternates with longer periods of wakefulness" (Potter & Perry, "Fundamentals of Nursing"). Sleep is a very complex amalgam of physiological and behavioral processes that unlikes a coma.
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We need sleep to restore physiologically and psychologically as well as maintain biological functions. Sleeping is important for our learning, memory, and adaptation to stress.
Lack of sleep can affect our ability to think clearly and process information, and it can lead to a depressed mood and risk for chronic illnesses such as heart problems, diabetes, and weight gain. Factors important to health are the duration of sleep, the timing, regularity and quality of sleep determined by genetics and physiology, both affected by stress (J Clin Sleep Med 2015;11(8):931–952).
What can you do to improve your sleep? Keep healthy sleep hygiene!
- Before bedtime
- Avoid caffeine, alcohol, tobacco
- Avoid heavy meals within 2 hours
- Avoid energetic exercise within 3 hours of bedtime
- Getting ready to sleep
- Develop a bedtime ritual so that your body knows you are getting ready to go to sleep
- Reduce extreme light, temperature, and noise in your bedroom
- Include an hour of quiet time before bed such as reading or listening to light music
- Put your phone away
- Sleep time
- Keep your sleep regular - same bedtime, same rise time. Aim for 8 hours of sleep each night
- Bedrooms are only for sleep. How many screens do you have in your bedroom?
- If you can't sleep after 20 minutes, get up and do something boring until you feel tired, then try again
If you are interested in more sleep information here are helpful websites:
Sleep Net.Com www.sleepnet.com
NIH - National Center on Sleep Disorders Research www.nihlbi.nih.gov/health/public/sleep/index.htm
American Academy of Sleep Medicine www.asda.org
