Free Your Life By Getting More Sleep

Thankful Thursday.

What are we going to be thankful for today?

Sleep

We have been finding that sleep's been quite important for us. And in fact, sleep's quite important for everybody, isn't it?

Oh, absolutely. Well, it's the time that we rest and recover and we repair and we integrate and we process. It's such an important part of the human experience.

That's right. It's like the trash cans get emptied overnight. Don't they? All the stuff that we don't need. Like you say, integration. All the things that swirl around our brains while we're awake, they get sorted out and stored properly or trashed or whatever while we sleep. While we sleep. Yeah!

So one of the best things ... because I'm not sure if you have problems sleeping cos I’ve definitely have had problems sleeping, but one of the best things to help you with sleep is to exercise. Exercise regularly, that is really going to be something that will help you sleep. Definitely wears out the body. Be active during the day and rest up at night!

And so much of the talk today about not getting or needing much sleep ... I don't know. There’s such a thing made of not getting much sleep. Yeah. It's almost like a badge of honour, “Oh, I can get by on six hours or something.” You can't actually. People say that and you think, "Oh, actually I really need to have eight or nine for me to feel good.” And generally you’d be right.

So I wonder why that is. Why do people think that they don't need to sleep?

I think we just turned it into such a big thing. And also too, probably because it is so hard for them to wind down. Because we have really stressful days now, we are not getting the exercise that we need, we are overstimulating our brain just before bedtime with our computers and our iPhones and everything else.It's that blue light thing, isn't it?

We're just not getting the sleep that we need, but lack of sleep is probably the ... it's the cause of a whole lot of disease.

So definitely heart attacks and strokes it's a contributing factor to that. yeah. High blood pressure. Yeah. Probably even ... I'm not sure about this, but we can check it out later, but maybe stomach complaints and things because actually you don't have that time for rest and digest. So yeah, so the exercise part of being able to sleep well is partly ... is actually your body's functioning well if you're exercising because your body needs to exercise, that's what it's made for. It's made for movement. How many of us move nowadays?

That's right. And so actually encouraging and incorporating movement into your life helps you sleep. Yes, absolutely. It does. And it helps in a whole lot of other things too. It just makes your life a whole lot better if you are actually moving. Yeah. And it's that whole movement, the 10,000 steps a day. And actually it’s gone down to seven  thousand.

So regular exercise helps with sleep.

Now, you mentioned it too about screen time, close to bedtime. and actually you need a routine yeah to turn those things off and have a quiet time without the TV, without your screens. I've been known to read a book, like a book, book with pages and things, paper and things. I know, retro. I know. I’ve got a pile of books beside my bed.

That's right. And that's part of your routine, which is the other thing, isn't it? So you have a nighttime routine. Like kids. Those of you who have brought up kids or have got kids or thinking about kids, for them to function well, you need to have that routine of bath and tea and bedtime stories and clean your teeth and whatever it else. But it needs to be in a routine way because you know, as I do the times when you haven't been able to achieve that, it's disaster. And not just for that day because it's got a cumulative effect of not getting a good night's sleep that night.

And you know what? There's actually some really interesting research ... So there’s basically, that whole, we need eight to nine hours sleep and I know that's the bell shape curve. So there's 64% of us that are in the middle of the bell shape curve. That's what we need. And then there's some people who need more and there's some people who need less. So-we need that amount of time, but most of us are living on about six to seven hours of sleep. So this whole sleep deprivation thing, they've done some research because the you how they turn the clocks back and you lose an hour of sleep. That’s the change so that everybody is being subjected to a change in their Circadian rhythms. Living here in New Zealand, we get long summer days and shorter winter days. So that if you are able to wake with the sun, in the summertime, but in the wintertime, you're only waking up at quarter to eight in the morning, which can be a bit late. So that's part of knowing that you have a routine, isn't it?

And getting some sunlight, just thinking about that as well. You need some sunlight, getting light into your eyes, natural light into your eyes so that your brain can take on the time of the day. "It's a bright sunny day.” Well, it triggers the melatonin and melatonin's essential for calming you down and getting you to sleep, but also waking you up in the morning, so it's that hormonal trigger.

That's right. So I do know some people take a supplement. So, if that's something that you're thinking about, you go and find a health professional to talk about it a little bit more.

So, that’s the idea of being attuned to nature, isn't it? And attuned to your own rhythms. And I think that's the other thing about modern living is we get out of sync with our own rhythms because we have to be up at a certain time, whatever all these things are that we have to do. And we don't eat when we are hungry anymore. We don't rest when we are tired anymore. We don't go to bed and go to sleep when we are tired.

In Ayurveda, which is a branch of yoga, they'd teach that 9:30 is when the body is settling down and going into the kapha phase, which is the sleep phase. And if you miss that window-it’s really hard to settle to sleep.

Yeah. I've done that myself because usually at 9:30, 10:00, that's around the time I usually go to bed. And I know that sometimes I have pushed on through and you're still awake at 10:30. Well, actually then you're awake till 2:30 almost because you've missed that, you've missed the bus stop and it's a express, and so you've got to hang on till the end.

So we are talking in the big picture, so like in a month. but sometimes from night to night, you can be more wakeful and you have to just go with it. Do your best, do things you might need to do. Great option from yoga is to rest with your legs at the wall. 10 minutes or something like that. Have a warm, milky, drink, all those things that your grandma might have said to you when you're going to bed.

But sometimes there are just nights and I know myself, just nights when I am not getting to sleep when I think I should. And I don't have a clock that I can see, so I don't ever look at the time, so I'm not bothered about, "Oh my God, it's only 10 minutes later" or whatever, which is good because there's no extra light in my bedroom. And I've been out in the lounge again, putting my legs up the wall. And I've had a drink, a calming drink and I'm still not going to sleep. Well, that's just the way it is because that's the other thing is you can't stress about it on a night ... you stress about it if it's happening for the month, but if randomly you're just not sleeping that well, that's just the way it is. It's how I take it anyway.

Yeah, same. I think that's a good way to take it too. And I think also too, over the course of the month, if you start attuning ... and a huge part of the yoga practice is actually teaching you to really attune into yourself and into your body and into your rhythms and start to understand them. So I know over the course of the month, my hormones change and that affects my sleep patterns. Right. And on, ... so there's a whole lot of things where it's like, "Oh actually, this is normal for me to be wide awake this day. And two days in a row." That's that's normal for me to struggle and to be awake at that time. And as part of that, just knowing who I am and the more you pay attention to who you are and what your rhythms are, because some people will be like, " Yeah, I need eight hours sleep." And you might only need six.

Yeah. So it’s about living an intentional life, noticing your life. Just don't let it pass you by. If you are thinking about something and you're wondering, well, make a note in your diary or beside your bed or in your phone or something. And over a month or two months or six months, you'll start to see your own patterns. Won't you?

And you think, "Oh, actually I did a really big yoga practice that day and I slept really well. Yes. And a lot of people do say  after they come to yoga for the first time, ”Well, I never slept so well that night as I did that night,”, We’re not surprised because yoga calms and soothes the nervous system. So we're getting you out of “fight or flight” mode and we're getting you into “rest and repair and relaxation”. And we work here quite hard. Like I just taught a yoga class an hour ago or so and the woman was like, "I was cold and then I was sweating and I'm so hot and my muscles were shaking." I was like, "Yeah, I know no one tells you about that bit" when you're a yoga practice, but then we settle you down as well at the end.

So we're talking about how yoga can help you sleep. It teaches you to attune into your rhythms and to start paying attention to the things that are triggering you. And what serves you and what doesn't serve you. So there's a whole lot of things that I've eliminated from my life, from my diet.

For example I do quite like coffee, but I'm in the “two-before-two” camp. So when I learned about that, I thought, "Oh yeah. Okay. I'll try." So I'll have two cups of coffee, some mornings or sometimes only one, but I definitely have no more coffee after 2:00pm.

I don't drink coffee at all. Well I do drink coffee, but it's so stimulating for me, that ... and even I found ...and this is the learning to pay attention. I found, even if I had it at 7:30 at a client meeting, I'd be awake at midnight. Right. Because it's a bit like uranium. There's a half life. Yeah. And that half life is ... yeah for that bell curve, maybe the middle people, by 2:00, if you've had your last coffee by 2:00, you can get into sleep by about 9:30. So what's that? Seven and a half hours. Obviously for you, 12, 13, 15 hours is still too much.

Alcohol, you see, that's the another thing that you can find is a stimulant for you. And so that can sometimes put your sleep really quickly, but then actually get that 2:00 wake up. Because the liver starts kicking in at about 2:00 or 3:00am. So that's processing and will heat up and then that'll cause you to wake up because it's working really hard to purify all those toxins that you've put in. And again, some of us are very sensitive and some of us can drink a bottle of wine and be fine. I'm not one of those people.

And so I found actually ... because I'd had Glandular fever and that really ruined my liver, taking liver detox tea and a sleep tea before I went to sleep would help me get through that wake up point. Yeah.

So investigate it and find out a bit more. We'd love to hear about your experiences because often, it's the day to day things that you might be doing just like the day to day things that we do help with sleep, but we've got to be ever so thankful for sleep really, don't we? Because it does really rejuvenate every single part of our body. All our cells get a good brushing up. And the wrinkles on your face and your liver is working hard and all the other parts of your body that are doing the sort of the detox overnight.

Make sure that you are not sitting firmly in the camp of, "I'm a hero because I don't get much sleep and I don't need much sleep" because you mightn’t realise the impact it might be having on your life. Are you someone who gets agitated easily and all of those things, because maybe it's because you need seven hours, not six hours of sleep? And actually you're going to add years to your life by sleeping well!

Live an intentional life and intentionally have some more sleep. Make it a routine. So go forth, get your sleep diary, find out what's affecting your sleep and improve it and have a good night’s sleep. Namaste.