You can have a very healthy life regarding eating and exercising, you may not even drink coffee, you have completely stopped eating whole-grain flours and refined flours like for good, you don’t consume sugar and have a balanced diet… But if you don’t sleep enough your body isn’t at its best!
It is quite common to see adults so focused on their jobs, social lives, economics, etc… who can’t get some sleep, or they just postpone it to work on their laptops, watch television or play on the tablet.
Been there! I finally got home from a very exhausting day, but when I go to bed I can’t help checking my feed on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram until late at night. Next thing I know midnight was long gone.
Our body’s health needs a good night’s sleep, we need to get either 7 or 9 hours of rest to avoid future consequences. Sleeping shouldn’t be something optional but imperative if we want to be healthy, effective and happy.
Not sleeping enough affects stress levels. It makes you gain weight, increases anxiety and more. This is why Arianna Huffington came up with 5 easy-to-follow tips to help you improve your sleep:
- Start by going to bed: you need to make you settle a fixed hour to sleep (like me, at 10pm I’m already sleeping). Don’t go to bed overexcited. Take a hot bath, fill up your glass with water, put some relaxing music. Disconnect yourself from work and connect to “rest”.
- Drop your cell phone: Your cell phone is your nemesis! It makes you waste the time you should take to sleep and keeps you trapped in its social networks. Turn all devices off before going to bed.
- Choose the most comfortable way to sleep: with spongy pillows, silky PJs, no PJ, underwear, in a padded bed or a cold room. The same way you get ready to go to the gym, you need to get ready to go to bed. If it becomes difficult for you to sleep, make your body “feel” the need to do it.
- Careful with what you eat before sleeping: There is food that help you get some sleep (high in fiber and low on sugar), tea and more. Don’t eat a heavy dinner before going to bed because you aren’t going to rest properly. Sip camomile or lavender tea to ease yourself into sleep mode.
- Less light more sleep: Turn off all devices with bright screens (yes, your cell phone is one of them) let your room be a sanctuary to worship sleeping. A dark room will help you sleep a lot and for more time.