A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky -
I’ve thought of all by turns, and still I lie
Sleepless…
~William Wordsworth, “To Sleep”.
I’m continuing with the concept of 7 daily modifiable factors that we can control to bring about health and wellbeing this month by discussing number Four – Sleep and our Natural Rhythms.
Spring is nature’s way of waking up from its Winter hibernation and we too can feel an awakening in our energy around this time. Everything in life cycles between expansion and contraction, ebb and flow, holding and releasing, and activity and resting.
In Taoist Chinese terms this can be seen as a balance of Yin and Yang – each needing and serving the other. Health and wellbeing come about when these are in balance, but often in today’s society, activity often takes precedence over resting.
Moving and resting will be covered later on as this includes what we do when we are awake, so I’ll concentrate on resting through sleep here.
How many of us can say that our sleep cycles are in balance with our cycle of being awake? So many demands eat into the time that should naturally be given to sleep – stressful jobs, commuting, young children, fretful thinking, socialising, eating and drinking, late night tv……Our sleep time is what we often give up in order to meet all of these demands.
I have 2 young children and used to commute to London so can sympathise only too well, and in today’s society it is hard to afford the luxury of ample sleep every night. However, the importance of sleep cannot be underestimated so what can we do to help redress this balance, or perhaps to help with experiences of poor sleep and insomnia?
First it’s worth appreciating why sleep is important. Our physiology is still the same as our ancient sun-driven ancestors. Despite the availability of artificial 24hour light, we’re still tuned to the natural rhythm of daily and seasonal light/dark cycles.
This affects all of life – during the solar eclipse on August 11th 1999, birds, horses and many other creatures went to sleep in the middle of the day when the sun was eclipsed!
Whenever light stimulates your eyes or skin, regardless of the source, your body releases the activating (and stress) hormone cortisol, preparing it for movement and work. As light levels drop, the cortisol is replaced by the release of melatonin and other growth and repair hormones.
If we follow our natural sleep/wake cycles, we start winding down as the sun sets and should fall asleep by about 10pm. Physical repairs mostly take place when the body is asleep, between about 10pm and 2am. After 2am the immune and repair energies are more focused on psychogenic (mental) repair, which lasts until we awaken.
So the first area to consider is your sleep ‘hygiene’. What time do you go to bed and are you missing out on the physical repair time? What is your sleep ‘environment’ like? Ideally your bedroom should be a little cooler than the rest of the house, as dark as possible, calming and quiet, uncluttered and clean. Also, any electromagnetic disturbances such as computers, mobiles and tv’s should be removed.
In preparing for sleep, look to exercise in some way earlier in the day, stop drinking fluids by about 8pm so you don’t have to get up in the night, stay off stimulants such as tea, coffee, chocolate and alcohol in the evening and only have a light wholegrain carbohydrate snack instead.
Foods such as oats, mushrooms, celery, lettuce, brown rice, apples and herbs such as basil and dill all have a calming sedative effect as do herbal teas like valerian and camomile. Supplements such as B vitamins, magnesium and Vitamin C can also help.
Body relaxation (parasympathetic response) can be encouraged in the evening with calming breathing exercises, meditation, reading, chi gung or gentle stretching as opposed to the common ‘relaxing’ stimulant – television.
And perhaps most importantly, removing mental stressors by planning the next day’s activities a couple of hours before you go to bed, identifying the things that might be troubling you and committing to take action the next day then letting it go, and of course not worrying too much about getting too sleep!
We have and are affected by a multitude of natural rhythms, and awareness of these can bring about balance and harmony in our life. Redressing our basic sleep based circadian rhythm might then allow us to focus on other more subtle rhythms in our lives.
Contemporary Coaching can help raise awareness and build a tailored programme to bring about balance in these various rhythms of our lives, addressing the many physical and mental symptoms that disharmony can cause.
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