Health Intensive #10

Each year I talk about what affects sleep, and while I will touch on that a bit again, even in at least one later post, we can take a look at how sleep and stress are related.

The two suggestions I requested you add to your regimen last year were as follows:

Turn your phone to airplane mode when going to bed.📱
Turn off the internet for while you sleep and end your computer/internet use at a reasonable time of the evening. 💻
Let me know if you did those in 2020!! This was the advice that I trailed off on by the end of the year, especially trying to get rid of certain platforms!

Now for this year....

Stress can affect your amount of sleep, and your amount of sleep can affect your stress level and how the stress is affecting your body. Sounds a bit like a catch 22. 🧐

The answer is to attack this from both ends....figuring out any factors other than stress that affect your sleep and fix them, and then to continue to work on how you handle stress so that you can minimize its affects on your sleep!

First take a look at some of what sleep does for the body. I could give you the many articles that talk about the detriment of lack of sleep to the body, but I want to give you some hope for life here and what improvements can happen when you get proper sleep, both in amount and depth....both of which I achieve pretty much every night now!!!! 👇 👇 👇

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mind-benefits-of-sleep_n_56828d51e4b014efe0d92b6d

Now for this year's suggestions:

Continue with the suggestions from last year, which I will take time to explain again in the technology post.
This may sound too easy, but especially when your mind is whirling before you get into bed....you have something big the next day, or you are trying to remember a number of things, WRITE IT DOWN. Your brain is desperately trying to keep the info at the forefront so that you "don't forget", but when you write it down then your brain knows that you have the info in a safe place. I know this sounds crazy but just try it ,ok? 🗒
Last for this year....if you are having trouble sleeping, there are some natural things that you can add. The one I will suggest now is chamomile tea, which has an antioxidant called apigenin which may be the element that helps with sleep ☕
Not too much to add to your regimen for this year....in a subject that is miles wide and deep!!