Wealden Times | WT200 | October 2018 | Kitchen & Bathroom supplement inside

Wellbeing
A Year of Wellness
We are all born knowing how to do it, but can get worse at
it as we age – Eminé Rushton takes a look at the all-important
function of sleep and how to improve it
October: Pillow talk
We’ve all been there, desperate
to fall asleep, knowing that
we need to be up early for
something immensely important – yet
wholly unable to drift off. For many of
us it’s fortunately a fleeting experience,
perhaps ahead of a stressful event – but
for 30% of people in the UK, the odd
sleepless night has slipped over into
debilitating chronic insomnia.
The National Sleep Foundation has
highlighted the link between stress and
insomnia. With stress levels in this
country at an all-time high (a poll by
YouGov found that in 2018, 74% of
Britons have felt so stressed as to no
longer be able to cope with daily life),
the parity between our waking and lackof-sleep-ing
lives is crystal clear.
It is, admittedly, not a pretty or restful
picture but thankfully, when it comes to
sleep, there are several simple steps that
each of us can take to make enormously
positive differences.
Firstly, we must wake up to how
much our modern-day lives are
affecting our body’s ancient sleep-smart
programming. When once we would
have woken at sunrise and retired at
sunset, we are now able to power on
as early and late as we wish – phones,
laptops, tablets keep us plugged in
unnaturally often, and the blue light
emitted from their screens has been
shown to be one of the biggest health
concerns of our time. Blue light
suppresses melatonin
– the hormone
that takes us off
to sleep – twice
as long as other
light wavelengths
and alters
circadian rhythms by twice as much
again. This affects more than just sleep.
“Interference with the body’s circadian
rhythms can have a significant effect
on health, creating problems with
the cardiovascular, metabolic, and
immune systems, disturbing mood, and
compromising cognitive function,” says
sleep doctor Michael J Breus PhD.
I recommend setting all devices to
switch automatically to night mode
at sunset. Also stay clear of all screens
– television included – for up to two
hours before you wish to sleep.
Other sleep-supporting activities
I have found to be most successful
are linked to lowering
stress levels. Meditation
is being shown to be
something of a golden
bullet when it comes to
improving sleep issues.
I’d highly recommend
Will Williams’ brilliant
book, The Effortless
Mind, which breaks down exactly why
this practice is so effective. If a daily
studio visit is out of the question, try
movementformodernlife.com.
Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep
Research Centre at Loughborough
University advocates two simple, yet
highly effective, choices for a better
night’s sleep. Firstly, a long walk outside
in nature, which allows the brain to
‘rest’ and focus on things beyond the
internal paraphernalia, is incomparably
stress relieving. This also douses the
body with natural daylight which helps
maintain the correct day/night balance
of our internal body clock.
A seminal 2016 study in the US
found that low vitamin D levels often
“Stay clear of all
devices - television
included - for up to
two hours before you
wish to go to sleep”
resulted in insomnia, so that daily walk
with all of its natural light benefits,
wherein we get to top up our vitamin
D stores too, has yet another benefit
to herald. When the days begin to dim
significantly, do ensure you top up daily
– Wild Nutrition Food-Grown Vitamin
D, £10 (wildnutrition.com) is my
supplement of choice.
Professor Horne’s second sleep tip is
no less enjoyable: a long hot bath, taken
an hour before bedtime, which raises
the core body temperature, only to then
have it drop, rather rapidly, as we step
out of the bath and towel dry.
This drop in body temperature
perfectly mimics the
body’s own drop in
core temperature as
we begin to prepare
for sleep (ever stayed
up too late and started
to shiver?). When our
core body temperature
drops, it creates optimal
conditions for melatonin production,
promoting good healthy sleep.
Getting too hot at night is indeed one
of the chief causes of waking and fitful
sleep, so keep the bedroom cool, stick to
breathable bedclothes and PJs, and leave
the window open for as long as you
feasibly can for fresh and cooling air.
Yes, there are innumerable gadgets,
gizmos, pills and teas to try too, but in
keeping with sleep’s innate and simple
nature, I shan’t expand on them here.
The fact is, the more we can simplify
and re-naturalise our waking lives, the
more likely we are to sleep well at night.
And if that, perchance, isn’t the stuff
of the sweetest, easiest dreams, I really
don’t know what is.
Eminé Rushton is Wellbeing Director-at-Large at Psychologies magazine, and
co-founder of the conscious living blog, The Balance Plan, balanceplan.co.uk
Credit: Freeimages.com/Danny de Bruyne