It may not be the first thing that occurs to you when you think about health and fitness, but sleep is far more important then we tend to think. Many of us, myself included for many years, seem to try and operate on as little sleep as possible. It’s like we are trying to squeeze more hours out of the day. As much as we may want to get more done or try and get by with less sleep, it doesn’t do us any favors. In a recent post I discussed how sleep affects weight loss, so today I am discussing how you can establish a good sleep routine, so you can get better results.
I am a natural born night owl. For years it seemed that I came to life at night. Not surprisingly I am not a natural morning person. Up until a little over a year ago, I would stay up until anywhere from 11 PM to midnight during the work week and even later on weekends. I would drink wine in the evenings to calm my stress and anxiety and help me fall asleep easier when I did go to bed. I’d drink countless cups of coffee from the time I woke up until about one in the afternoon. Because I had adapted to it, I thought it was fine. I thought I struggled to get up in the morning because I just wasn’t a morning person, not because I wasn’t getting enough or quality sleep. Thankfully I eventually learned about the ways this was affecting me. I cover this in more detail in my post How Sleep Affects Weight Loss. When I learned how my bad habits around sleep were countering my weight loss efforts, I got serious about establishing a better sleep routine. So, what comprises a good sleep routine and how do you set one up?
- Establish a consistent bedtime (and stick to it).
The first thing you need to do is set a bedtime that ensures you get at least seven hours of sleep before you need to get up in the morning. The ideal is no later than 10 PM – as in you are in bed ready to sleep by that time. There is lots of research around why 10 PM is the sweet spot, and I encourage you to look into it. Regardless what time you land one, make sure you are getting a minimum of 7 hours of sleep every night. Stick to the same bedtime as much as possible, including on weekends. - Stay off phone, tablet, laptops, and TV within an hour of bedtime.
Get off the phone, tablet, TV, or laptops at least an hour before your bedtime. This is another one where there is a lot of research around how this affects your sleep quality. It disrupts your sleep cycles and ability to fall asleep, in a nutshell. At the very least, while you’re working to change this habit, change your phone setting at night to turn off the blue light, or turn on your eye comfort shield to help mitigate the effects of the phone/devices on your sleep. - Avoid (or cut out) alcohol.
As I mentioned earlier, I used to rely on wine to calm me down in the evenings and help me sleep because I couldn’t fall asleep. I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the reasons I was always tired and struggled to wake up in the mornings was because of the wine. Alcohol may seem to help you fall asleep, but it has a negative affect on your sleep cycles. To put is simply, you don’t go into REM or deep sleep when you drink alcohol, which is why you don’t feel rested in the morning. When I first cut it out, it was hard. It was a good month or more before I was able to fall asleep without it, and now I am so glad I made myself go through that because I sleep better now and I have more energy through the day. - Avoid caffeine after 10 AM.
This is another tricky one. Many of us rely on caffeine, particularly coffee to get us going in the morning. While one or two cups is probably fine, countless cups of coffee like I was drinking, is not. Like anything you develop a tolerance and you can then drink more and more and eventually you are only making it even harder for yourself to get good sleep later. I have completely cut coffee out and now drink very little caffeine compared to what I used to. If you aren’t ready to give up the coffee, then at least set some limits to help improve your sleep. Before I cut coffee out completely, I found that not drinking any caffeine after 10 AM makes a world of difference in my sleep. - Establish a consistent wake up time.
Like most things we talk about here, consistency is key. Just as you want to have a consistent bedtime, you also want to have a consistent wake up time. Yes, even on weekends. That said, we all like to sleep in a bit on our days off, so a good rule of thumb is to keep yourself within a max range of sleep, up to nine hours. You can oversleep just as you can under sleep; either one affects your sleep cycles and quality of sleep overall. - Stop hitting snooze.
This is one I learned about recently and am still working to do consistently. Research has shown that hitting snooze in the morning actually makes you feel tired throughout the day. It has to do with the sleep cycle you are in when the alarm goes off. When you snooze, you’re going back into a deeper cycle and then when you get up when the alarm goes off again, you basically get stuck in this sleepier state. So, as challenging as it is, you are actually doing yourself a favor to turn the snooze option off and get up when the alarm goes off.
So, that, my friends is how you set yourself up with a sleep routine that will ensure you get enough sleep and quality sleep, which will in turn help you feel better overall and also get better results from your health and fitness efforts.
I would love to hear from you, so please share your thoughts in the comments. If you find this helpful and want to continue the pursuit of faith, fitness, and joy with me, please like and subscribe. You can also find Faith Fitness Joy on Facebook and Instagram or check out the Podcast. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you in the comments and on the socials!