The 6 Pillars Of Wellbeing: Sleep

To celebrate our recent partnership with Betterspace, we are going to be sharing ways in which you can improve your mental health and wellbeing using some of the tools and resources available through their platform. Betterspace give you personalised recommendations based on 6 pillars – Sleep, Stress Management, Social Connections, Exercise, Helping Others or Meaningful Activity, and Nutrition. Each week we’ll dive into one of the pillars, exploring why it’s important alongside some ideas for what you can do to ensure you are managing it as well as you can. This week we’ll be investigating a common affliction for every city slicker - better sleep.

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Sacred Science Of Sleep

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When wellbeing entrepreneur and Thrive Global founder Ariana Huffington released her first book: The Sleep Revolution - Transforming Your Life One Night At A Time, it quickly went on to become a best seller. Declaring that we are in the midst of a sleep deprivation crisis, with profound consequences to our health, performance and relationships, it explored the latest science behind rebuilding our dreams.

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While Margaret Thatcher may have boasted just four hours a night, thankfully few of us are tasked with directly running the country. Meaning that we really have no excuses when it comes to kicking the late night habits to the curb. Compared to the trade-offs, the science indicates that the benefits could be immense.

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Although it’s most easily neglected, sleep is a fundamental part of our overall wellbeing. It allows the body to venture into a rare state of rest and repair. Given that we are already so stimulated in an increasingly connected world, ensuring that we give ourselves enough space to recharge our batteries is one of the fastest ways to positively impacting our health, mood and relationships.

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This includes an enhanced ability to boost your immune system, preventing weight gain, strengthening your heart, increasing productivity and memory. While an on-going sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. Most of us have heard that the National Sleep Foundation Guidelines recommend at least 8 hours a night. However quality is just as important as quantity.

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Quality Or Quantity

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Sleep quantity refers to averaging a certain amount of sleep every night - this is just one aspect of sleep quality. The other aspects that determine how good the quality of your sleep is include:

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• Onset Latency: how quickly and easily you are able to fall asleep. On average, most adults are able to fall asleep within 20 minutes of going to bed. While good sleep hygiene recommends that technology be limited before bed, it’s really all about personalisation and context. Sleep apps are becoming increasingly popular for those that feel they need a little help. This can involve playing soothing stories that engage activity in parts of the brain involved in dreaming, gentle nature sounds that allow you to get out of your head, or a brief sleep meditation that helps you feel more present.
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• Sleep Continuity: refers to the ability to stay asleep once you fall asleep. High quality sleep should be continuous, whereas disrupted sleep is associated with less refreshing sleep overall. This is because it affects the bodies ability to fall into a deep state of REM. What’s frustrating for many city dwellers is that disrupted sleep often happens for reasons beyond their control - from noisy neighbours to being located by a roadside, it can be hard to fully tune out the world. However simple measures such as wax ear plugs, blackout blinds, and possibly changing the location of the bedroom can make a world of difference.
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• Sleep Efficiency: this compares the amount of time you spend sleeping, to the amount of time you spend trying to sleep. Some researchers consider spending at least 85% of your total time in bed trying to sleep as a minimum benchmark for sleep quality.
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• Sleep Timing: timing refers to when you sleep in a given 24-hour period. Our circadian rhythm dictates our internal clock and makes us feel alert at certain times (daytime) and sleepy at other times (night-time). High-quality sleep is in alignment with the body’s circadian rhythms. This often means sleeping and waking at regular times every day. In the past, we would have risen and set ourselves off to bed with the sun. The advent of street lights, travel and night shifts changed this. However establishing a more regular routine overall can help, as can supplements such as melatonin.
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• Alertness And Focus During Waking Hours: another indicator of quality sleep is your body’s ability to maintain wakefulness during the day, which includes being able to stay awake, as well as being able to function with your full cognitive and physical capacity. While there are many factors that affect this (coffee), a good nights rest lays the foundations and sets the overall baseline.
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• Sleep Satisfaction: Satisfaction is measured by how well-rested you feel both upon waking and throughout the day. As a subjective measurement, it indicates how changes to your overall sleep routine and habits is impacting your mood and wellbeing.
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Sleep Poverty

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There are many reasons for poor sleep. This can include underlying health and psychiatric issues such as depression, bipolar and anxiety, sleep disorders like insomnia or sleep apnea, or lifestyle factors such as young children, alcohol and substance misuse, over stimulation or being over-worked.

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In addition, there are many other conditions that interfere with healthy sleep, either as a primary symptom (like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s) or as an effect of symptoms like chronic pain, indigestion, or the need to urinate frequently. Eventually many of these contributors can lead to a vicious cycle - where a condition causes sleep loss, and sleep loss then aggravates the condition and causes more sleep loss.

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Recent studies have also suggested that sleep quality and quantity may be reduced by the impact of technology on our lives. This includes developments such as the extension of work time into the evening, as well as being increasingly plugged into the 24-hour digital world through various devices.

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Modern Management

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There are healthy and unhealthy ways to manage longer sleep. Solutions such as prescriptive sleeping pills are a short-term fix and should only be used in emergencies, due to their heavy sedative effects, and addictive side-effects. More holistic, longer-term solutions start by directly addressing the underlying issues, as opposed to simply masking the symptoms.

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If you believe you may have a medical issue that is impacting your sleep, you should discuss it with your doctor as soon as possible. Many of the most common medically-induced sleep issues are treatable. If you’re struggling with racing thoughts and an inability to switch off, this could be an early sign of stress, overburden, or mental health issues such as anxiety.

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However the issue most people have, is identifying this as a problem early-on. Conditions are always easier to prevent than cure, and our ‘stiff upper lip’ culture often prevents us from seeking the help we need before it’s too late. On top of this, stress and anxiety have almost become the norm, making the scale of relativity even harder to decipher. But when symptoms start to impact your relationships, work and output, this is a major red flag that needs to be nipped in the bud. Making your health a priority is the best long-term solution you can choose.

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While doctors may be able to diagnose and prescribe, important lifestyle changes are largely in your hands. This includes changing your diet to include fewer processed sugars and carbohydrates, which can paradoxically make you feel hungry during the post-prandial insulin crash before bed, or make you feel drowsy at work. We are what we eat, and this affects how we sleep! So cutting out cigarettes, alcohol and caffeine in the hours before bed will also make a big difference.

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While certain parts of your life may be harder to change than others, there are a few steps you can take that are likely within your power and may drastically improve your sleep. Getting regular exercise doesn’t have to mean an expensive new gym subscription - it could include walking or cycling to work, taking the stairs and adopting a pedometer.

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Sleep hygiene is another important lifestyle adjustment. This often takes a little research and education, and platforms such as Betterspace are the perfect platform to accommodate. For example, through access to TED talks recommendations such as Sleep Is Your SuperPower, you can gain deeper wisdom into the science behind how sleep is your life-support system and Mother Nature's best effort at immortality. You’ll also get tried and tested recommendations and discounts on holistic aids such as Scentered’s aromatherapy sticks.

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When inhaled, the scent molecules in essential oils travel from the olfactory nerves in the nose directly to the brain, impacting the amygdala in particular. This is the emotional centre of the brain, and the release of feel-good chemicals here can stimulate our parasympathetic nervous systems, helping us to shift out of the daily ‘flight or fight’, and into ‘rest and digest’ mode.

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Most people underestimate the importance of their sleep environment. Though everyone has their own preferences, people generally tend to get the best sleep in dark, comfortable rooms - so its worth investing in better bedding if you have to. Though it may seem daunting to disconnect, studies have shown that bedtime phone use is also associated with poorer sleep. Using phones and other devices in bed also makes it more likely that you may lose track of time and can delay your actual bedtime significantly.

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If you’re keen on using an app to help you track your sleep patterns or send you off to sleep, then make sure the screen settings are switched to ‘night time mode’, which will reduce the impact of the blue light, reducing melatonin disruption. In addition to practices like having a nightly routine, maintaining the same bedtime whenever possible and winding down in the hour before bed with a relaxing activity like reading, taking a bath, or meditating can make all the difference.

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The bottom line is that knowledge is power. The more you know about sleep quantity, sleep quality, and sleep health in general, the more tools you have to build better habits that improve your sleep.

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Betterspace is a science-based wellbeing platform, which curates a personalised set of wellbeing recommendations including apps, services, and activities.  It helps employers understand the state of wellbeing within their company, and employees stay in control of their mental health.

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x+why give every member free access to Betterspace. Find out how you can join today.

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