Sleeping Secrets: Tips for a good night's sleep

We all know what life is like if we don’t get enough sleep …shocking!
It reflects on our ability to concentrate, and reflects on our ability to seamlessly interact with others around. In other words it’s a pretty miserable existence to be sleep deprived!

There’s a number of factors that we need to address if we are to get a good night’s sleep, and these include the right bed and pillow; no stimulants prior to bed; no food, particularly spicy prior to sleep; and regular routine bedtimes.

Should you consume food, fluids, or alcohol in the hours leading up to sleep?

Absolutely not! Where food is concerned particularly no grains and sugars as these raise blood sugar and inhibit sleep. Dairy foods also are prone to producing mucous and this may inhibit breathing and induce snoring ….and that can wake you or your partner and that’s not good! And don’t drink beyond two hours to bedtime because bathroom get-ups interrupt your sleep pattern.

Alcohol? Short term stimulant, it wears off after a few hours and it will also prevent you from entering deeper sleep patterns. And on the issue of drink or stimulants, caffeine in some people doesn’t metabolize efficiently and can take many hours to kick in and this means it will delay you from falling into a deep restful sleep. And last but not least – medication: Talk to your pharmacist or medical practitioner to see if the individual medication is compatible with deep sleep.

Preparing your body & mind for a sound sleep:

Start winding down a few hours prior to going to bed. Put your work away.
Take a soothing bath or shower. Sing in the shower!
Limit exposure to television in these final hours. Relax the mind in bed by listening to white noise or even relaxation CDs. Create a ritual/routine. Your subconscious loves routine, it’s calming.

Keep your bedroom dark, and don’t have a loud alarm. Awake to a soothing alarm and this avoids your mind being on edge during the night in expectation of a jolting awakening from a too-loud alarm. Wear cotton to bed. It ‘breathes’ and you won’t perspire. Sleep cool rather than hot. Go to bed at the same time each evening.

Your pillow - …what should it be made of and should it be shaped or simply conventional?

It is now commonly acknowledged among health professionals throughout the world that a contoured pillow is the way to go because it helps naturally align the spine by supporting the neck and cradling the head. A conventionally shaped pillow in say polyfill or down or feathers might be nice to snuggle into, but its filling will move and flatten or lump through the night and you will invariably find your head being supported, but not your neck as well ….and your neck is the key to desirable spinal alignment.

Out there in the marketplace there’s a complicated and confusing array of contoured pillows. Some in memory foam, some conventional foam, some even in polyfill or feathers and shaped into a contour. So how do you know which one is right for your comfort and support needs? You won’t until you try it on your own bed. Perhaps to minimize the risk of wrong selection, you can always go to an adjustable memory foam pillow such as the CompleteSleeprrr Pillow which is a one-size-suits-all pillow featuring removable inserts to change the height and configuration, or alternatively you can simply try other brands in-store but even then you’re at the mercy of the mattress you’re trying it on and because it’s not yours then it won’t truly reflect the end ‘feel’.

Your mattress: Your body reacts favourably if there are few or no pressure points.

Zero gravity. Your body should sink into your mattress, and be evenly supported. Physical stick-outs like shoulders and buttocks in particular should be under no pressure, because if they are then your spine will be thrown out. If you don’t achieve reasonable spinal alignment (where the natural curvature of your spine is encouraged) then you will, quite simply, experience a restless sleep as you wriggle and turn through the night trying to find a pressure-free position.

So, to get a good night’s sleep you need a mattress that is not too firm, not too soft, and which submits under the pressure areas mentioned. Another option is a mattress topper or mattress pad under your bottom sheet. This can be in eggfoam or memory foam or even latex, and is usually around 5 centimetres or 2 to 2.5 inches thick. These toppers or pads have the affect of distributing pressure evenly and are a wonderful alternative to having to shell out a fortune for a new mattress!