45% of the population struggles with sleep.
The right amount of high-quality sleep – once thought to be unimportant in your life – has been properly elevated to an essential role in our health and wellbeing. Sleep is your body’s way of restoring organ function, stabilizing chemical imbalance, refreshing areas of the brain that control mood and behavior, and improving performance.
You need water. You need healthy fuelings. You need motion. You need sleep. It’s a cornerstone of optimal wellbeing.
Without sleep, the rest of the picture of health cracks and fades, but with it, the energy of life is yours to spend as you wish.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about how your surroundings can support or undermine your Habits of Health, and we have the same opportunities with Habits of Healthy Sleep. If we surround ourselves with an environment that is conducive to falling asleep on time and staying asleep, we can overcome many of the obstacles that typically disrupt our rest.
Here are 3 changes to your surroundings that you can make today (yes, today!) to improve your sleep:
- Take the television out of the bedroom. The light from digital displays disrupt our natural circadian rhythms (how our body knows when to sleep) and the rapid deluge of stimulation and information from watching television can over-stimulate our minds when we should be winding down.
- Sleep in a cool, dark room. Set the thermostat to a low temperature and block out all light sources by closing the blinds and covering up the LEDs on electronics that may be in the room. Our bodies use light and temperature as signals that it’s time to sleep, and these adjustments make your bedroom a sleep oasis.
- Implement a digital sunset. An hour or two before you go to bed, put away your phone (and all other screens). Run a bath. Read a book. Write in your journal. Meditate. Get away from doom-scrolling through social media and let your mind disconnect from the day.
For more guidance on Habits of Healthy Sleep, open up your copy of Dr. A’s Habits of Health or Your LifeBook, but these simple tips should help you start improving your sleep today.