![]() Sleeping is a precious, sacred end to your day. Work on gradually decreasing your caffeine intake and cut out all caffeine after 3 p.m.Ħ. Remember, caffeine at any time of the day can cause sleep problems. ![]() Over time, this cycle leads to greater fatigue, loss of organ reserve and even disease. ![]() And then you can’t sleep again because you’re keyed up. Write down anything else you added to your sleep routine, and you’ll begin to see what is working for you and what isn’t.Ĭaffeine locks you into a vicious cycle: You sleep poorly so you crave caffeine in the morning, then you feel tired in the afternoon and crave more caffeine. Then, rate your quality of sleep on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being terrible and 10 being totally restorative. Each day, write down what time you went to bed the night before, approximately how long it took you to fall asleep, whether you woke up during the night, and what time you woke up in the morning. In order to see what might be affecting your sleep quality, both positively and negatively, keep track of how you’re sleeping. Remember that you didn’t develop a poor sleep pattern overnight, so developing a healthy one won’t happen in a day, either. For example: “There are lots of ways of improving my sleep and I’m going to figure out which ones work best for me.” It may take a while, but you’ll eventually adopt a routine that works for you. Instead of telling yourself, “My sleep is not good I’m just a bad sleeper and I always will be,” shift your mindset. If taking melatonin, be sure to check the dosage carefully.Īs you work on improving your sleep quality, it’s important that you change your approach. If you must have your phone next to your bed, turn it upside-down to keep the light on the screen from disturbing your sleep.įor my patients, I sometimes recommend supplements to help improve sleep quality: either 300-600 mg of valerian root extract before bed (2-3 g soaked in hot water if dried) or 0.5-3.0 mg of melatonin. If you can, leave electronics, including phones, out of the bedroom. ![]() So instead of winding down and preparing your body for sleep, your brain increases electrical activity and keeps you wired. Technology can affect your sleep by keeping you cognitively stimulated – and even the small amount of light from the screen delays production of the sleep hormone melatonin. Shut down your smartphone, laptop or television at least an hour before you head to bed. By implementing some diet and lifestyle changes that will balance your hormones and change unhealthy patterns, you can be well on your way to a calm, restorative night’s sleep. Given the data, it’s easy to see why getting better shuteye without the help of drugs is such a crucial part of overall health and well-being. Trouble with sleeping is so common that there were 60 million prescriptions for sleeping pills given in 2010 – most of them for women! Yet in addition to being potentially addictive and causing brain fog, sleeping pills have been linked in several studies to higher mortality rates and cancer – even in people only taking them less than 20 times a year. Yet not having healthy sleep patterns can contribute to a host of health problems: accelerated aging, high cortisol, weight gain and depression, just to name a few. Poor sleep quality is an epidemic that so many people simply take for granted as part of a busy lifestyle. Or worse, you may clock a solid eight hours and wake up still feeling tired. You feel like you’ve run a marathon at the end of each day, but a good night’s rest still eludes you – you’re tired but wired. It’s a double whammy all too common for the average stressed-out, hormonally imbalanced, run-ragged woman. Do you feel tired, stressed, and exhausted, but still can’t seem to fall asleep at night?
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