The Art of Sleeping 

In our fast-paced, always-on society, sleep can feel like an enormous waste of time. With so much pressure to get ahead, work hard, and put in as many productive hours as humanly possible, it might feel hard to justify spending an entire third of every single day lying in bed doing nothing.

As it turns out, sleeping is the furthest thing from doing nothing: it’s actually an important and valuable activity that scientists claim is at least as important to our survival as eating or drinking.

If you can build a healthy sleep habit and know how to get the most out of your sleeping cycles, you will see enormous benefits in every area of your life which will more than make up for the time you “wasted” in bed.

This newsletter looks at various aspects of sleep management.

 Tips for a better night's sleep

• Maintain a regular sleep schedule. Instead of sleeping in on weekends to compensate for lost sleep, try going to bed an hour or two earlier at night and keeping this schedule all week long.
• Create a sleep ritual. Do not watch TV, use electronic devices, eat or worry in bed. This will help train your body to fall asleep quickly when you tuck in for the night.
• Keep your room dark.
• Don’t exercise too close to bedtime. The resulting endorphin release will energise you and keep you awake.
• Use “white noise” such as a fan to dampen outside noise.
•  Lower the thermostat. Studies show that a cooler temperature helps create more restful sleep. 
• Avoid caffeine in the evening. Half the caffeine you consume will still be in your body six hours later.
• Don’t use alcohol to excess. Having a few drinks may help you go to sleep, but it will also disrupt your sleep cycle, leaving you tired in the morning.
•  Invest in a good mattress. Mattresses stop offering the right amount of support after about ten years.

• Shut out negativity. If television news causes you stress and worry, then turn it off and. listen to your favourite music instead.

•  If you do not fall asleep within about 30 minutes after turning out the light, get up, go to another room, and do something that is not too arousing (for example, read a magazine, watch TV). Stay up as long as you need to, and then return to your bedroom to sleep. The goal is to associate your bed with falling asleep QUICKLY.

Understanding Sleep Cycles

Sleep is broadly divided into REM sleep and non-REM sleep, which is further divided into three distinct stages.

The conventional wisdom is that REM sleep is the sleep that really matters, but healthy sleeping cycles actually consist of every stage in the right amount.

•  Stage one non-REM sleep is very light and it is easy to wake up from this stage. The body begins to relax and muscles move more slowly.

•  Roughly half the night should be spent in stage two non-REM sleep, in which brain waves begin to slow.

•  Stage three non-REM sleep is extremely deep and difficult to awaken from. This is the restorative stage of sleep, and you must get enough of it to feel rested.

•  REM sleep should occur about 90 minutes after you fall asleep. Your eyes move quickly and your body is paralyzed as you begin to dream. REM sleep is when your brain sorts and stores information acquired throughout the day, and sufficient REM sleep is absolutely essential to learning and memory.

See the effects sleep derivation.....

Most of the thinking and worrying that we do in bed needs to be done – it just does not need to be done in bed. Therefore, make sure that you devote some time during the day (for example, 5 to 60 minutes) for thinking and sorting through what is going through your mind. This should end at least a couple of hours before you go to bed. Then, when the thoughts come when you are in bed, say to yourself gently: “Stop, I thought about this today. I will think about it again tomorrow. Now is the time to sleep.” This will not work every time, but even if it only works half the time, that is a lot better than not at all. 

Relaxation breathing exercise

4x4 breathing
- Slows the heart rate, lowers blood pressure
- Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds
- Hold your breath for 4 seconds
- Exhale through your mouth for 4 seconds
- Wait for 4 seconds
- Repeat this 4 times

Watch this video on the impact of sleep loss on work performance