The ‘How to Guide’
to Better Sleep
Kristy Curtis
One of the biggest obstacles I come across
when I am coaching clients, particularly
corporate or executive level clients is
getting them to understand the importance
and impact of sleep on their health. We
live in our world of rapidly changing
technologies, cities that never sleep and
an increasing reliance on devices such
as phones, laptops and ipads. All of this
has resulted in our bodies natural sleep
patterns being interrupted and for most
of us, not getting enough good quality
sleep that has an enormous impact on our
overall health.
Case Study:
The best way to demonstrate the impact of not enough
sleep or poor quality sleep is to share the experience
of one of my clients named Amanda*.
Amanda had been a client of mine for over 10 years,
during this time she had given birth to 2 boys and got
back into the workforce. Amanda started working for
a large Corporate and quickly moved up the ladder,
which resulted in more travel, more responsibility and
thus more hours being dedicated to her job. Amanda
started taking work home in an attempt to stay on top
of her workload and would find herself often on her
laptop until 1am in the morning. What started out as a
‘one off’ became a common place theme most nights
of the week. When the alarm would go off at 6am
Amanda would feel like she had been hit by a bus the
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fog was that bad in her head.
During our sessions, Amanda would discuss how she
was starting to feel anxious and overwhelmed with
everything, she felt she was always cranky and moody
with her husband and kids. She was having a hard
time ‘holding it together’ at work and she felt she had
no patience with her staff. Physically her body reacted
thru a 10kg weight gain, her skin broke out in rashes
and hives and she started suffering from headaches.
Amanda was getting approximately 5 hours sleep a
night and waking up exhausted and tired. I explained
to Amanda that it didn’t matter what she did, unless
she got to bed by 10.30pm each night she was wasting
her time and her money.
Whilst at first, these changes were overwhelming
and hard, Amanda followed my advice and started
changing her schedule by going to bed by 10pm. The
changes in how she felt were dramatic, the headaches
abated, her concentration and focus returned and
she lost 2.5kg in the first week. From this experience
Amanda started to pay attention to her sleep/wake
cycles and her health improved dramatically.
Sleep/Wake Cycles and Hormones:
Our natural sleep/wake cycles are influenced by our
environment and the movements of the sun, this
hasn’t changed from ancient times. Animals as well
as humans are designed to go to sleep when it is dark
and wake when the sun comes out. Whenever light
stimulates your skin or eyes, regardless of the source,
your brain and hormonal system think it is morning. As