Sleep is something that is super important to my husband. He is very disciplined and has always been one to go to bed early and makes every effort to get enough sleep. He has cranked through countless books this year as he sits in bed waiting for me to get ready for bed. We all need time to wind down from the day and I find that I wind down through quietly getting ready for bed and taking forever to do so. My husband winds down by reading. I was a little envious of how many books he has been able to get through this year. I realized that I too could finish a book if I eliminated screen time at night and didn't take so long to get ready for bed.
My most productive time is at night when the house is still and the babes are all tucked in their beds. It is the time when I like to review what is on tap for the next day, take care of any to-do items that require planning and uninterrupted thinking. Although I enjoy this evening time to do the aforementioned items, I found that it wasn't helping me to calm my body and still my mind. In fact, it was doing the opposite. My mind would start racing and getting into productive mode and then when I would hop into bed I would have a billion things to talk about to my husband who had already stilled his mind.
In an effort to try to sleep better, I decided to re-arrange some of my routines and prioritize getting into bed early enough to read before I actually go to sleep. This meant a large decrease in screen time, which is something that I had put into practice last week and really enjoyed. Making this one change, really helped me to have better focus during the day and get done everything that I needed to do which enabled me to do the things that I was prioritizing this week, one of which was to read before bed.
Screens and other activities right before bed that rev our minds up, make it difficult for our bodies to fall asleep. The light from computers, phones, TVs, and tablets suppress the production of melatonin which is the hormone that controls your sleep/wake cycle, also known as your circadian rhythm or your body clock. If you start dimming the lights around bedtime, it will jump start the production of melatonin. This is something that we have started doing with our little boys, in an effort to try to make our nighttime routine better. Reading for six minutes eases the tension of stress in the human body and is a better stress reliever than walking or listening to music.
There is a lot of research which shows that getting enough sleep is critical to living a healthy life. I read an article that talked about how reading a book at night calms your mind 68% better than having a cup of tea at night, which is totally something I was doing to try to improve my sleep. There are also numerous studies which show that sleep is a way for your body to do some housekeeping. While we sleep, our body goes to work cleaning out the toxins from our brains. This housekeeping is tough work and can only be done while we are sleeping and our bodies are in a state of rest. Researchers explained that the reason our minds feel foggy in the morning after we haven't gotten enough sleep is because the body has not had enough time to clean out all the toxins in our brain. One of the benefits of good sleep is a boost in brain power along with more creativity, and a decrease in Alzheimer's. Sounds good right. Sign me up.
Overall, reading before bed was a nice addition to my nighttime routine. I don't feel like it made a huge change in how I felt when I woke up, but I did notice that I had less tossing and turning while I slept and more dreams which I suppose is a good sign that I was in a deeper sleep. I also slept with a face mask and ear plugs all week which I think helped a lot.
The fun thing about doing these Better7 challenges, is that sometimes you have to do things that pull you out of your normal routine and hopefully out of your comfort zones at times. This is how we grow, by stretching ourselves and doing things that we don't normally do.
Comments
Post a Comment