Fewer
than seven hours a night has been linked with all sorts of health
problems yet 40 percent of the population isn't getting enough shut-eye.
Contributor, Inc.com
According to
researchers, everyone on the planet should be logging at least seven hours of sleep a night. Fewer than that has been linked with health
problems including cardiovascular disease, obesity,
depression and
injuries. Yet a lack of sleep affects about 40 percent of the
population, with roughly 20 percent of people suffering from insomnia.
It's a problem that results in 1.2 million lost work
days a year at about a $411 billion cost to the economy.
If better, more restful sleep is something you'd like to
benefit from, take some tips from University of Oxford sleep expert, Professor Colin Espie. As cofounder of
Big Health, creators of
Sleepio,
a digital sleep-improvement program featuring cognitive behavioral
therapy, here's his advice about what you can be doing to get better
quality sleep, and more of it.
1. Use afternoon naps sparingly.
They may disrupt your ability to fall asleep at night.
However, if you are behind on your sleep you'll be carrying around a
sleep debt which will make you feel fatigued. A nap of 10 to 15 minutes
can help and shouldn't overly affect your sleep pattern. Just don't
overuse this.
2. Behave as if you're on a holiday.
Are you someone who sleeps better while on vacation? If so,
it may be that on holiday you use your smartphone less and sleep in room
devoid of stress. This is a literal and mental escape which you can
recreate at home. To do it, avoid gadgets before bed, and keep the
lights down. Electronics and artificial lights emit blue light which
suppresses a person's circadian rhythm and the secretion of the sleep
hormone melatonin.
3. Practice progressive relaxation.
It's a proven method for getting to sleep easier and
involves lying in bed, slowly tensing and then relaxing each of your
muscle groups, one at a time. Do this while breathing slowly and deeply
and thinking the word "relax" with every exhalation.
4. Put the brakes on a racing mind.
To counteract insomnia caused by over-thinking, remove the
emotional context related to problems. In other words, try to look at
the situation bothering you as an outsider, or using a longer-term
perspective. Will the issue matter in a year? In five years? Chances
are, it does not require your mental energy in the middle of the night.
5. Track your sleep.
Gadgets which can do so are widely available and can help
you identify the kinds of things which may be triggering wakefulness.
From there, more high quality sleep can be achieved by changing
unhelpful thinking habits through cognitive behavioral therapy. "Sleepio
provides an entire clinically-proven course based on [it], which is
personalized to individuals using tracked sleep data."
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