The power of sleep

I love my sleep and I really notice the difference on the (fortunately) few occasions when I don’t sleep well.

We can all recognise the signs of being tired: being snappy and irritable with little energy.  This can affect our health in many ways.  If we are tired our body craves sweet food or carb based savoury foods as this helps to boost our energy levels.  Unfortunately, it does this through giving a big boost to blood sugar levels which then come crashing back down an hour or two later, leaving us wanting more to eat - not a good pattern to get into.  When we are tired we can also turn to coffee to keep us going which works in the short term by kicking our blood sugar again.  But in the long term this is also not a great habit.

So what can be done to help our sleep which will then help us to make healthier choices the following day? That depends on why you are tired.

If you simply are not getting enough sleep because you don’t get to bed early enough then you probably already know the answer!  Seeing sleep as an investment in both your physical and mental health can help. Maybe try going to bed half an hour earlier (give that extra episode on Netflix a miss tonight) and see how you feel.

Or maybe you wake up during the night?  That might be because of drinking too much before you go to sleep.  Too much coffee, alcohol or even water before bed can all disturb sleep for different reasons.

Or is your head spinning with the stresses of the day. In which case you might find reading or relaxing in a warm bath helpful.  Or try writing down your thoughts so you don’t have to keep going over the same thing in your mind.

Trying to identify the cause of poor sleep can often help to find a solution so if sleep is something you struggle with, take a moment to think about why, and you might just feel better for it.