What is Sleep Hygiene?
Sleep hygiene simply refers to your sleeping habits. Like regular hygiene it can be good or bad and it has a tremendous impact on your overall health and well-being. In my opinion and experience sleep hygiene is one of the most misunderstood and/or overlooked aspects of health and well-being so I hope to provide some useful information on this topic.
Let’s start with the bad. Bad sleep hygiene decreases the quality and quantity of sleep you get. Poor and low amounts of sleep can have a host of negative effects on your body including but not limited to depression, irritability, anxiety, headaches, mood swings, lack of ability to focus, fatigue, increased risk of diabetes, increased risk of heart disease, increased risk of alzheimer's, highly reduced physical and mental performance, poor recovery from training and inability to change physically!
What causes bad sleep hygiene? Things that negatively affect your sleep hygiene include:
Using electronic devices too close to bed time
Lack of physical activity throughout the day
Stimulants too late in the day (caffeine, nicotine, alcohol)
Not sleeping in a dark enough space
Poor diet
Erratic sleep schedule
Napping too much throughout the day
Anger
Fear
Worrying
Getting good sleep is crucial to all aspects of your health so if you are currently struggling with poor sleep you can try some of the following things. (I have and still use these things myself and with my clients):
Having a meditative practice before bed
Not using electronics an hour before bed
Eliminating or reducing light exposure an hour before bed
Taking a magnesium supplement in the evening
Not consuming caffeine after a certain time of day
Skullcap flower for anxiety (tea or tincture)
Passionflower for relaxation (tea or tincture)
High quality sleep is a crucial component of overall human well-being so please try your best to practice good sleep hygiene.
