How to support your mood #1: getting to sleep.

Nothing in this diagram will be news to anyone who doesn’t wake up feeling refreshed in the morning…

If you do just one thing to support your sleep, I’d suggest being consistent with when you go to bed and when you get up. Our bodies respond well to a consistent, predictable schedule.

We are aiming for a minimum of 7 hours’ sleep per night. Start from when you have to get up and count backwards and include a realistic settling down buffer.

If you want to go deeper, let’s think about what can go wrong:

-        Can you get to sleep easily?

-        Can you stay asleep successfully?

-        Do you wake up feeling refreshed?

Sleep hygiene is an essential part of getting off to sleep easily. You know the drill:

-        No caffeine after 12pm.

-        Using a blue light filter or blue light blocking glasses for electronics.

-        Avoiding stimulating activities such as eating and exercising in the run up to sleep time (ideally two hours).

-        Using a sleep mask to block out all sources of light.

-        Making sure the temperature in your bedroom is comfortable.

But what about if you are tired & wired? Many mechanisms can stimulate the release of cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline which switch on the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS controls sleep versus waking and the fight or flight response.  If the RAS is activated, you will struggle to fall asleep.

Although a brain injury may inappropriately activate the RAS or bring with it the inability to dampen the RAS, perhaps the most common ways to activate the RAS are:

-        Light,

-        Impaired blood sugar stability up to and including diabetes,

-        Anything that triggers a stress response.

So if you are tired and wired at bedtime, be rigorous about turning down the lights in the evening and blocking out all light during the night.

I will return to the impact of blood sugar stability on sleep next time, when I discuss how to stay asleep, once you have managed to get off to sleep in the first place.

If you come home raging about an injustice at work, or you come home to a battlefield, you will be in real danger of activating the RAS and tacking a sleepless night on to a hideous day.

You will need to work out how best to shake off your stress hormones before you attempt to get to sleep. Consider:

-        Building more physical activity during your day,

-        Breathwork (have a look at @breathgal’s YouTube channel to get you started),

-        Putting in place a sacrosanct period of time before you get in to bed to allow yourself to wind down by doing things which bring you joy.

A final word about supplements. Yes, there are supplements which may help you to get off to sleep. Not everything suits everyone, nor is suitable for everyone (for example, supplements may interact with prescription medication or may adversely impact your blood pressure). There may be trial and error involved in finding what works for you. If you’d like to find out more about using supplements to support sleep, you are most welcome to book a Zoom call and we can discuss working together. But remember that supplements are not anaesthetics, there is real power in sorting out the basics set out above first.

Sources

Diagram adapted from Chattu, V.K. et. al. (2019) “The global problem of insufficient sleep and its serious public health implications”, Healthcare, 7(1).

Jones, B.E. (2020) “Arousal and sleep circuits”, Neuropsychopharmacology, 45(6-20).

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