When we talk about sleep, we usually talk about it as either quantity or quality. “I only got three hours last night!” “I slept and slept but still feel tired!”. You know it’s really bad when you mention both: “I could barely sleep, and when I did, it was awful!”
How do you manage getting both enough sleep, and good sleep?
Enough sleep:
Start by making sure you’ve blocked out 7-9 hours. You might already know where in that range you fall, or you might need to experiment. Quality doesn’t substitute for quantity (and vice versa). Science says you should be within that range, and your genes determine if it’s the high or low end. Too little, and you might fake it for a little while, but it will impact your body, and make measurable differences in your performance.
Too much? That’s sort of OK, meaning you should go with it—your body is working on something, and needs the sleep, but you should look into some immune support against what might be a minor infection, and see your doctor if you’re sleeping more than 9 hours for weeks.
Then, remember that quantity and quality are intertwined. Things that interfere with quantity, often impact quality, too
Like sleep disruptions. Minimize disruptions by thinking about beeping lights, sounds, and even exterior noises. Ideally, turn all the screens in your house off an hour before bed. At least, keep all screens out of your bedroom. Bright screens tell your body to stay awake, and offer a distraction from sleep.
And make sure your bedroom is sleep oriented—you may have heard it said not to use your bed for TV or other distractions that make it easy to reduce the quantity of sleep you get and potentially cut into the quality (like if you fall asleep with the TV or light on). Then go bigger, and consider ALL 5 senses—from taste (clean teeth!) to sleeping posture/texture/temperature, to silence or white noise, to no light, to calming scents like lavender. Sounds obvious, but it’s worth going down the checklist before overdiagnosing yourself!
And don’t overlook a good nutritional pick-me up before bed. Culturally, food before bed tends toward dessert. Often, people slow down eating and drinking before bed because a full stomach can mean strain on your heart, too much liquid could mean disruptive bathroom trips, and alcohol, caffeine, and other drugs. That means people often go to sleep with few or empty calories.
But, your body is going through a lot while you’re sleeping maintaining and repairing itself (again, you sleep more when you’re sick or injured, and this is why). Before bed, give yourself some supportive nutrients, especially the ones you’ll be using the most, like calcium and melatonin.
Our Sleep Support Pack is designed for just this purpose, to be a tool in helping you sleep better and longer.
The nutrients in Sleep Support pack are carefully formulated for maximum absorption and use, and because it’s a natural approach to supporting sleep, the typical sleeping pill side-effects aren’t there.
If you’re struggling with sleep, give it a try.
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