The Foundation of Wellbeing starts with Sleep
While I have developed the 8 Pillars of Wellbeing from my life experiences, I find sleep to be the most foundational of all the wellbeing pillars. Amidst the COVID pandemic, I feel even more called to share how sleep is foundational to our physical and mental health, and how it is the best medicine one can ever take that is available to all of us for free.
Research has shown that sleep is more important than food or exercise in maintaining physical and mental health. Both the quantity and quality of sleep are not just important, but necessary, to be a mentally and physically functioning person.
How much sleep do adults need? The Center for Disease Control (CDC) stipulates that adults need seven hours of sleep or more per twenty-four hours. According to the American National Sleep Foundation, adults between the ages of sixteen and sixty-four should be getting between seven to nine hours of sleep per night.
Yet more than a third of adults in many developed nations struggle to obtain the recommended seven to nine hours of nightly sleep, according to a 2013 survey by the National Sleep Foundation.
This note has two parts. The first part talks about why it is so important we sleep (most of this has been informed by reading Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep book, which I highly recommend if you want more details). The second part invites you to consider some best practices on how to optimize your sleep.
Part One – Why Sleep is so Important
Let’s start with the basic benefits of sleep.
Infused by NREM sleep, which is more predominant in the earlier part of the night, sleep enriches your ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions and choices. It basically helps to clean out old memories and move information to a safe storage space, so you can learn new information easily. Sleep also helps to strengthen and seal this new information, which is called consolidation, helping to combat forgetfulness. Therefore, for students, getting a good night’s sleep before and after learning is so important. This also applies to learning of any new motor skills. Ever wondered why sometimes after a good night’s sleep, some activity that you were practicing, like playing the piano or your tennis forehand, improved? It was the magic solution of sleep.
Infused by REM sleep, which is more predominant in the early morning, sleep services your psychological health and helps you to make sense of all that has happened in your memory — integrating everything so you can recalibrate and navigate your next day social and psychological challenges with cool-headed composure. REM sleep is also the state when dreaming takes place, healing painful memories without a key stress-related chemical - noradrenaline. And furthermore, it is the state where problem solving and creativity is nurtured, and non-obvious connections and distantly related links are enabled.
Companies that encourage flexible schedules allowing employees to work in ways that best suit their own sleep rhythms, taking naps and breaks as needed during the day, and even recording the number of hours they sleep at night and receiving a monetary benefit for achieving the recommended amount, are demonstrating that honoring sleep makes smart business sense and helps to engage and retain employees.
What are the disadvantages of not routinely sleeping seven or more hours at night?
Sleep deprivation weakens immunity
Lack of sleep weakens your immune system, so you are at a higher risk of catching any disease that is prevalent like COVID. Sleep deprivation substantially increases your risk of certain forms of cancer. It is a key lifestyle factor linked to your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease; it disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly you would be classified as pre-diabetic, and increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.
Sleep deprivation negatively impacts mental health
Sleep deprivation contributes to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety and suicidality. It increases your emotional reactivity by 60 percent, triggering strong emotions like anger, rage, and despair, as the amygdala part of your brain outbalances the prefrontal cortex part.
Sleep deprivation leads to weight gain
A particular note on the link between lack of sleep and hunger. Lack of sleep swells concentrations of a hormone that makes you feel hungry while suppressing a companion hormone that otherwise signals food satisfaction. Despite feeling full, you want to eat more. You are tempted to choose more fatty, high sugar, and non-nutritious foods when you have not slept enough as there is a breakdown in the impulse-controlled regions that normally keep your food desires in check. It is therefore a proven recipe for weight gain in sleep-deficient adults. Should you attempt to diet, it is less beneficial since most of the weight you lose will come from lean body mass not fat. Lack of sleep will also instigate your fight or flight system, which in turn triggers an excess of circulating cortisol that cultivates bad bacteria. As a result, your ability to digest food will be impacted, causing gastrointestinal problems.
Sleep deprivation decreases workplace performance
In the workplace, lack of sleep directly impacts a company’s bottom line. Research has shown that shorter sleep rates predict lower productivity, less accuracy, creativity and motivation, more unethical employees. Research also points to sleep deprived managers, who are likely to exhibit poor self-control and display a more abusive nature towards their employees. This in turn leads to employees, even those who are well rested, to become less engaged in their jobs.
Part Two – 18 Tips to Optimize your Sleep
Below are some tips for you to consider to help you prepare for a good night’s sleep. Many of these practices are taken from the books Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, Thrive by Arianna Huffington and The Mind of a Leader by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter. Some of these practices have been shared with me by numerous experts I have been fortunate enough to meet like Dr. Melissa Milanak. Many ideas have also been informed by my training in mindfulness.
Consider experimenting with a couple of tips at a time and seeing if they benefit you, rather than trying to change all your behaviors at one time.
Sleep and get up at the same time every day, even on a weekend. If you sleep late, your body clock generally wakes up at the same time, so you compromise sleep.
Set an alarm for bedtime as you would for sleep time. Avoid using your phone as an alarm clock. Instead, you could purchase an analog, battery operated, silent alarm clock, without LED light.
Avoid hitting the snooze button repeatedly when you wake up as it gives your system a shock, putting it into fight or flight. This increases your heart rate and blood pressure every time the alarm goes off.
Cut down on caffeine; if you must drink it, drink it in the morning. Caffeine has an average half-life of five to seven hours. This means that if you have a cup of coffee at around 2:00 p.m., only by midnight will you be caffeine-free. Sleep will not come easily the later you drink caffeine, as your brain continues its battle against the opposing force of caffeine. Caffeine is not only prevalent in coffee, certain teas, and many energy drinks, but also foods such as dark chocolate and ice cream, and drugs such as weight-loss pills and pain relievers.
Avoid alcohol right before bedtime for three reasons. Alcohol’s impact is not to induce natural sleep, rather it is like a light form of anesthesia. It sedates the part of the brain - the prefrontal cortex, which increases our sociability, but also impairs our logical functioning. Second, when you drink alcohol, your sleep is fragmented, and therefore your sleep cycle is interrupted. Lastly, REM sleep - needed to heal, integrate, and make sense of everything - is suppressed.
Avoid large meals and a lot of fluids two hours before bed. Eating activates the flow of blood and sugar in the body, keeping your body and mind alert and awake. Drinking may cause frequent awakenings.
Exercise or at least walk every day, so you are tired when you fall asleep. However, don’t exercise too late in the day and not more than 3 hours before bedtime. Try to get outside in natural sunlight for at least 30 minutes in the day.
Avoid naps after 3 p.m. Naps can help make up for lost sleep, but late afternoon naps can make it harder to fall asleep at night.
Take a hot bath before bed. The drop in body temperatures after getting out of the bath may help you feel sleepy and more relaxed. Hot baths can also induce 10 to 15 percent more NREM sleep in adults.
Make your bedroom darker, removing all devices, and keeping it cool. Banish all LCD screens (laptops, tablets, smartphones, TVs) at least 60 minutes before sleeping. These screens emit high levels of blue light rays, which suppress your pineal gland and in turn the production of melatonin, which messages to your brain that it is time to sleep. Consider keeping all your devices to charge in a room other than your bedroom, so you are not tempted to check them should you wake up in the middle of the night.
Avoid conceptual activities. Don’t read newspapers or books that cause you to think before sleeping. Avoid watching the news or watching shows on cable. Avoid intense conversations, replying to emails, creating a to-do list before sleeping. You want to slow down thinking before sleeping.
Engage in perceptual activities. Routine activities like doing the dishes, going for a walk, listening to music, writing in your gratitude journal. Anything you can do without thinking too much and analyzing.
Practice gratitude. Recount 3 things you are grateful for before sleeping – maybe write them down in a journal. Have positive thoughts about yourself and others before sleeping.
Practice deep breathing and/or a few moments of watching your breath mindfully before sleeping. You can do this first by sitting up and then by lying down. You can also practice alternate nostril breathing if you know how.
Practice love and kindness toward yourself before sleeping. You can lie down, close your eyes, and choose a set of phrases that you find most helpful and say them to yourself. You may direct these phrases to your loved ones too and send them love and kindness.
If you do get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, try not to turn on the lights or check your alarm clock. Come straight back to bed and do some gentle breathing lying down. You can count your breaths till 100 or until you fall asleep again, or practice love and kindness toward yourself by repeating the phrases. Try not to check any messages or do any work just because you are up.
If you can’t fall back asleep easily, try sitting up and meditating as it is easier to go into thinking/planning mode in a loop when lying down. Break the cycle by sitting up and meditating just for a few minutes.
Lastly, don’t judge yourself. If you don’t have a good night’s sleep, don’t beat yourself up about it. Curiously ask yourself “What did I learn about myself? What may help me sleep better tomorrow?” Be kind to yourself and make needed changes so you will be able to fall asleep peacefully tomorrow.
As you read this post, I invite you to consider three questions - (1) Why is sleep important to you? (2) What is one step (or more) that you can take for the next week that you would like to experiment with? (3) Who or what will help you be accountable?
I would love to hear your insights on any of the themes that resonate with you. Feel free to send an email to lalita@invitingintegration.com if you would like to share with me.