Previously our weekly blog featured the importance of household hygiene. This week we’re going to keep up our current cleanliness craze, we present to you our blog on Sleep Hygiene.
What Is Sleep Hygiene?
Now, if you’re as hard working as the crew at FTA, you’ll appreciate a good night’s recovery just as much as we do. Sleep Hygiene is a variety of different practices and habits that a person carries out to ensure a good night of quality sleep, in preparation for a full daytimes alertness.
NOTE: Snoozing your alarm 12 times in a morning whilst falsely promising yourself you’ll get up after two more minutes IS NOT a legitimate practice to acquire quality sleep!
So Why Is Sleep Hygiene So Important?
We all know how cranky people can get after a poor night’s sleep. Strolling into the office on a Monday morning and getting your head ripped half off by that one guy who’s always playing catch up on sleep after one too many late nights over the weekend..
Although the short-term effects are more evident, poor sleep consistency can lead to bigger problems. Depression, mood disorder, chronic stress, stoke, and memory loss to name a few. In aid of that all-important beauty sleep you most definitely need (cheeky), we’ve researched and developed a few guide lines that’ll have you rested and recovered more than that pesky Pokémon Snorlax.
I Think It’s Time For A Little Nap..
Or is it?! 20-30 minute daytime naps can certainly help improve alertness, mood and performance. However, your nap today does not make up for the poor sleep of last night. We suggest maintaining a regular sleep pattern/bed time routine, as lengthy, irregular sleeping patterns can do more damage than good. You’re not an animal, leave the cat naps to Garfield!
Watch Your Intake Close To Bedtime
Without realizing our bodies are constantly intaking different things every second. Light, oxygen, other content within the air, food, drink and more. Up to three hours before bed we recommend avoiding tea, coffee, carbonated drinks, nicotine, chocolate. These stimulants can cause a chemical imbalance, resulting in difficulty sleeping. Remember that mastermind plan you had of creeping downstairs in the middle of the night and raiding the biscuit tin for all the bourbons? Oh how it’s backfired, stimuli central!
Blue light intake from devises such as mobile phones, laptops, computers, TV's can also cause damage your night’s sleep. You can learn more on that matter in one of our earlier blogs here!
Bedtime Relaxation Techniques
Getting yourself into a relaxed state before bed time is great preparation for drifting right into the sleep zone. We recommend a form of activity to help cleanse the mind, as bad thoughts and an unclear head are the main culprits for keeping people awake. stretching, meditation and praying can help ease built up day time stress. If you pop in to see if your grandparents have drifted off yet, don’t be shocked when you walk in on them doing there new crazy “relaxing” yoga headstands in the middle of the bedroom!
Hopefully you’ve now got a general idea of sleep hygiene and the importance of it. If you have, I’m glad, if you haven't, I’m far too tired to be concerned. All this blog writing is tiring me out. Time for a little nap I think.. night night..
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..