Stress and the Importance of Sleep

Getting a good night’s rest and experiencing a profoundly deep sleep is essential to avoid stress. Your emotional and physical well-being is at risk if you do not spend the right amount of time sleeping; we recover from illness and periods of stress more effectively whilst asleep. Your cells and body regenerate while you are asleep, at the same time your mind sorts through the day-to-day mental stresses and resolves them in the form of dreams, or special images that your subconscious can easily read to make sense of the material world.

The Definition of Sleep

Sleep is a naturally occurring state of unconsciousness where your brainwave patterns are at a more steady and constant level than they are when you are awake, the brain is much less distracted by outside stimuli. There are two main types of sleep, deep sleep or none REM sleep, is when your body repairs physical injuries, tired muscles and really has a proper go at attacking infections; the other type is REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, where most of your dreaming takes place.

How long should you sleep for?

There are no right and wrong answers to this, the length of time differs from person to person; it is generally thought that as you get older, you need less sleep. Most adults function normally on 7 to 8 hours sleep, but some sleep experts say that we would do better to get more than this. Older people can get by on as little as 5 or 6 hours sleep per night.

Are you having difficulty getting to sleep?

When you are feeling stressed, anxious or worried about something; sleep is one of the first things to suffer in your life, this creates a downward spiral effect as the lack of sleep makes you irritable and increases your perception of the apparent problems you are facing. Your subconscious is not getting the chance to sort through your difficulties and, therefore, is not providing your mind with possible solutions. The more common types of sleeplessness are not being able to get to sleep, waking up frequently during the night and waking up too early in the morning.

Some ways to help you sleep better

1. In today’s environment of diets and wanting to eat less you may find yourself going to bed hungry; this is something you should avoid if you want to have better sleep, don’t eat large meals before bedtime though, just a small snack will suffice to aid peaceful sleep.
2. The type of snacks that are good to eat before bed include bananas or wholemeal cracker beads or biscuits with a glass of milk, these are all calming foods that will help you sleep.
3. Strong coffee, alcohol and cigarettes all disturb sleep. Substituting these with a warm cup of herbal tea before bedtime will induce better sleep, camomile is particularly good.
4. Exercising during the day, running, brisk walking or going to the gym or swimming will remove stress hormones from your body. Avoid excessive exercise (apart from sex) in the three hours before you want to sleep. Sex releases its own relaxing hormones that can help you sleep.
5. If you are a workaholic, or have to take work home with you; make sure you give it a rest at least one hour before bedtime, this allows your brain to unwind and stop buzzing with the need to work.
6. Taking a warm bath is always relaxing, the heat softens your tired muscles and generally relaxes the whole body; if you’ve had a particularly stressful day, take a long bath before bedtime.
7. The place you sleep needs to be relaxing too, it needs to be free from clutter, inviting and warm. A special place that you go to sleep in.
8. If, after all this, you still can’t sleep; don’t fret about it, getting all stressed out about not sleeping. Read a book instead or watch some mediocre TV with the sound down low.