Sleep or lack of must be the number one thing I hear troubling people - colleagues, patients, clients, friends - it plagues our daily lives and the awful thing is people consider it to be the normal and just accept it to be that way.
But it is not normal and sleep is essential for the immune system, daily repair of the body, stress management, physical activity and cognitive function and without this essential process then we can and do get sick and life becomes much harder. In fact every organ is affected by poor sleep. Short term memory becomes long term during sleep as well.
I am always so jealous of my pets ability to sleep anywhere and be so chilled!
Approximately 1/3 of the population do not get enough sleep and there is actually lots you can do about poor sleep to make it better. I speak from personal experience as my working hours means my body clock even on days off is all skew whiff and I struggle to get to bed early as I am not tired then and tend to get a second wind at about midnight. On work days I can only get about 5 hours sleep due to daily life but I was struggling to get enough sleep as my dogs or the sunlight (or both ) wake me and I also found I was waking up during the night therefore minimising the quality of those precious 4 to 5 hours!
Poor sleep affects your ability to lose weight, your immune system, cognitive function, mental health, skin, digestion and ability of the body to repair.
We all know how awful we feel after a poor night's sleep and how great we look and feel after a good one. So why is it people don't seek help? I actually don't know the answer so please tell me below if you can? Does it just sort itself out as many people think?
It certainly didn't with me until I made a lot of changes to my sleep habits and made it better. I spent a lot of time working out what would help gathering all the information I could find. Everything helped make my sleep a bit more comfortable and blissful but it wasn't until I have the essential oils I was using with my dogs are go that things started to make more massive improvements. And the real game-changer was having a diffuser in my bedroom and a tranquil blend of essential oils whether that is keeping me asleep or the dogs is anyone's guess (although to be fair to my canine companions when I did wake they were always still and sleeping! Of course they make have been faking but I'm pretty sure they weren't lol!)
There are a number of things you can do and as I said these all contributes well and work synergistically together.
Learn more about adjusting your room and routine in my video covering this topic
Start off with a comfortable environment - clear clutter, comfy mattress, pillows and bedding. Make sure you can keep your room dark when you need to sleep - we are very sensitive to light and other environmental elements that affect sleep. No exposure to blue light as that activates the retinas and so activates the brain letting you think that it is time to wake up - so remove phones, tablets, TVs from your room and no checking them if you wake up during your sleep time.
Stop eating 3-4 hours before bed and choose low protein for your last meal, high carb is fine as it takes less energy to digest - simple carbs not refined ones! Stay away from fats because they require a lot of enzymes to digest and the energy released into the circulation keeps us away.
Add Serenity essential oils to the soles of your feet, chest and back of neck for relaxation and calming, take a Serenity Softgel capsule to further promote a restful night's sleep.
Use a diffuser at night to keep you enveloped in the tranquil aroma of Serenity Blend and your dogs or children if you co-sleep!
To learn more about how to get better sleep and put all this in to practice as well as get The Mini Sleep Kit which includes 4 essential oil products - join my online workshop -
The 7 Day Sleep Challenge