Basis for good everyday life – Sleeping

Daytime Activities Affect Sleeping

How we sleep and what we do when awake affect each other. It’s easy to notice the effect sleep amount and quality has on our energy levels, but it rarely occurs to us how our daytime activities might impact our sleep.

Practicing good sleep hygiene gives us the chance to improve our sleep quality. This means following tips for lifestyle, sleeping arrangements, and sleeping habits. Enough exercise, a healthy, balanced diet, and supportive relationships promote good sleep.

If you eat too little or are fasting, you might keep waking up and feel cold. On the other hand, eating a full meal before going to bed might start a digestion process that keeps you awake and worsens sleep quality.

Some foods are pro sleep, and some keep us awake. A small amount of carbohydrates before bedtime might help you go to sleep. Solid food and chewing could also be better for falling asleep than drinking liquids. Greasy food can also disrupt sleep. Exercising regularly improves sleep quality, going to sleep and feeling energetic during the day. The pro sleep effects of doing sports are likely due to tiring muscles, exercise-induced hormonal and body temperature changes and psychological relaxing related to them.

The way we process our thoughts and feelings during the day might affect our sleeping. Often, we start ruminating in bed, even though it would be beneficial to stop and take time to think about our problems during the day. It’s not the right time to go through everything that went on during the day when going to bed. If you ignore your thoughts during the day, they will fill your mind at nighttime. You can practice your skills to process your thoughts and feelings.

It’s crucial to have relaxing moments and fun things in your day without constant overachieving. Good sleep amount and quality are not enough for daily recovering but it’s important to have shorter periods of mental unwinding in your everyday life. Sometimes you need to stop and calm down and let your mind and body recover. Our bodies need recovering after physical exercise as well as our minds need recovering after demanding thought processes. When you remember to have restorative breaks during the day, your will also sleep better.

Respect your sleep!

Sleeping is vital for our everyday wellbeing, so you should cherish it. Getting enough good-quality sleep plays an important part in learning and creative thinking. Sleep is state of a brain function, where conscious connection to existing is disconnected. Being asleep isn’t just the opposite of being awake, but instead it’s an activity which gives you the possibility to recover from the stresses of the day.

During sleep:
• The body restores its energy after physical exertion. Several tissues’ growth, protein synthesis and healing from injuries is the quickest during sleep.
• Sleeping also gives you higher resistance to infection. Sleep is a healer, so when you’re ill, you need to sleep a lot.
• The brain gets recharged and process the events of the day.
• New things and skills you learn while awake are refined.

Finding Your Sleep Rhythm

The recommended amount of sleep depends on your age, genetics, and activity. It also varies from person to person, so there’s no one right amount for everyone. The average amount of sleep adults need is 7 to 9 hours per night. Some people are fine with less sleep, some feel they need more than 9 hours per night. The most important thing is to feel rested and energetic during the day. Health-wise it would be ideal to have as regular sleep-wake cycle as possible. Then your sleep-wake cycle and the 24-hour schedule determined by your inner biological clock are in sync.

Basically, regular rhythm means that you make yourself time to sleep 7 to 9 hours per night. Going to bed and waking up should also happen at roughly the same time both during weekdays and weekend. If you do sleep later on the weekends, you shouldn’t deviate from the original rhythm more than one hour.

Our inner biological clocks that control the sleep-wake cycle are individual, which makes us morning or evening persons. These are hereditary traits. Morning persons are tired early in the evening, and they wake up early in the morning, whereas evening persons start feeling active in the evening and they might keep busy until early hours. Evening persons often feel more tired during the day or suffer from insomnia than morning persons. Genetics are involved in our circadian rhythm, but it’s possible to change your natural sleep-wake cycle. It’s not an easy or quick task though.

It’s easier to change your sleep-wake cycle so that you wake up early and go to bed earlier at night. If you have slept late in the morning, it’s harder to change your rhythm by going to bed earlier first. An early bird could try changing their early cycle by going to bed later and sleeping later in the morning. You could also use light to adjust your sleep-wake cycle. As early birds spend time in a bright environment in the evening, night owls try to get more light during mornings, using a light therapy lamp for instance.

Goals help me live according to my values

Needs and values are central motivators in what we find worth striving for in life. One of the best ways to get organised in your life is to become more aware of your goals.

Goals related to your own thinking and action can be related to

• lifestyle and life philosophy
• professional goals
• educational goals
• financial goals
• physical activity
• free-time
• spirituality
• religiousness
• creativity
• Goals related to relationships can be related to, for example,
• family
• friendships
• romantic relationships
• group commitments etc.

You can practice working on your goals – it’s worth it. A good way to tackle this is to divide your goals into smaller parts and track your journey. You can draft a written plan for small steps and reward yourself after each trial and success. Being aware of your goals and creating new ones is meant to help you. Be patient, honest and gentle towards yourself, especially when the goals you set are related to your thoughts and operating methods or habits. You’re the expert on your own life, but it’s OK to ask and get help. Good support can be provided by a person who has had similar problems. You can find more energy for creativity and change from various groups rather than by working alone.

Pay attention to your successes and positive changes. Keep an open mind towards your life, even if things don’t always go according to plan. Take setbacks as learning experiences. Remind yourself that you are good enough as you are right now. You have the right to be seen, heard and accepted exactly as you are right now.

Planning first, then action

You can plan life even though you know that everything won’t go as you thought. Plans help you in situations where you have to make a choice. Planning brings you a sense of safety and control. It will also encourage you to continue with the goals you set.

Time management and planning are good for you. It’s worth it to try to solve things one problem at a time, one step at a time. When you make a start with one thing, some other problem might start to resolve. Perhaps you’re changing your daily rhythm and you notice that many other things start fixing themselves. Making plans and setting meaningful goals helps you make life look like it’s yours. You will get a stronger feeling of control in your life and that you are not directed by other people. For instance, by setting small goals and writing them down in your calendar with other tasks you are making time for things that matter to you. This way you are also telling yourself that you matter and that it’s worth it to invest in your well-being.

When you take charge of your life:

• you will feel the consequences of your actions
• you will take care of yourself
• you will take care of the flow of your daily life
• you can choose from many action options in various situations
• you make plans to reach your goals

Please remember: setbacks are also a part of life. When setbacks occur, remember that there are many things you can impact with your own actions. Don’t try to manage everything all the time: we don’t have control over everything. It’s enough to take note of something, accept it, and move on.

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