How To Sleep Less And Do More: Change Your Lazy Routine
I love sleeping. I wanted to start with this statement because sleeping is actually amazing. The feeling when you lay on your bed after a work day it’s unpriceable. Who doesn’t it? I can sleep 9 hours straight without waking up once and I am not ashamed of it. But it doesn’t mean it is right or I do it all the time.
How Does It Work?
Our body and brain like a habit; breaking that habit will result in a total upside-down of your day. There is this funny and interesting thing called body clock – trust me you don’t want to mess with it because once your body clock is broken your whole body will feel awake or tired at weird times. For instance, each of use operates on a biological schedule that has a big role in our everyday routine.
When this schedule works fine, it sends signals to our body to sleep during the evening and to be awake in the morning. However, sometimes, life gets in between and we mess up with our sleeping patterns. It might be that you are working until late, you are a student trying to meet a deadline or you just like to stay up late at night.
All of these factors can make difficult for us to fall asleep and wake up at the right times and we end up sleeping in the morning and be always up in the evening as if we were in a constant ‘jetlag’.
If you are tired (LOL) of this and you want to get back to be in control of your own body there are few strategies you can adapt to get your body clock back on track.
Manipulating Lighting
Our bodies have been set up to react to the light by waking up when is too bright and by falling asleep when is dark. For example, as soon as the sunlight hit my curtains, I open my eyes and cannot get back to sleep until I don’t cover my eyes with a t-shirt (pretty sad, I know). Given that my example is one of the best ones, you may give more credit to the word of experts. Research suggests that manipulating light exposure can help you to reset the clock. According to the experts, the light remains the key element and often a point of treatment for sleep phase disorders.
Said it in words everyone will understand, you should follow the earth’s natural cues, meaning exposing yourself to natural sunlight in the morning and dimming light in the evening.
What time do you eat?
Before you say it, yes, digestion and metabolism play a big role in wakefulness and sleepiness. What you eat and when you eat it can help you to reset your body clock.
Researchers found that eating an early dinner and not eating anything before breakfast will help with your disturbance. Once your sleeping patterns are back to normal, try to stick to regular breakfast, lunch and dinner times to help your body maintain a regular rhythm.
Daily Plan
To wrap it up to my girlies, remember to follow these easy 5 steps plan:
1. Give yourself enough time to sleep. Usually, our body needs 8-9 hours of sleep per day.
2. Don’t vary by more than one hour during the weekend. We all love to go out dancing but try to keep it down to one day. By doing this you will have the time, on the second day, to get back to your sleeping routine.
3. Naps. Napping is something that everyone does. Now, there are two people in these words: people that can take a 20-min nap and people (ME) that don’t consider it napping unless it is a 2-hour nap. Of course, I am on the wrong side of the ship here, because we should all limit our nap to 20-30 minutes.
4. Coffee. Researchers found out that 16 hours need to pass between our last cup of coffee/tea and our night time.
5. No phone. Big distraction if you are trying to get some sleep is to use your phone when you are in bed. The amount of time we spend on Instagram just scrolling down or looking at someone’s story is HUGE. Try to not use your phone at least one hour before you go to bed and for one hour when you wake up in the morning.
Having the right sleeping patterns is really important for our body and brain, so good luck and DON’T FU*K IT UP (Soz Ru!).
