insideKENT Magazine Issue 33 - December 2014 | Page 116

HEALTH+WELLNESS

HOW TO GET

a good night’s sleep

With all the excitement (and sometimes stress) over Christmas, perhaps it’s not surprising
that even those who can normally nod off as soon as their head hits the pillow have trouble
sleeping at this time of year. But for some, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling, feeling
too tired to get up and be productive, yet too awake to get any shuteye, is a normal state
of affairs. Insomnia is a terrible thing, and its causes are wide ranging. BY LISAMARIE LAMB

And it’s not just that you will spend
the next day(s) feeling incredibly
tired and generally unwell. Lack of
sleep has been linked to strokes
and heart disease, so it’s even more
important to be rested than you
might have first thought.
The reasons
You may not realise it, but you could
well be suffering from insomnia.
There are, in fact, three different
types of insomnia including not
being able to get to sleep, waking
up in the night, and waking up far
too early. If any of these problems
sound familiar, then insomnia could
well be the answer.
What are the underlying causes
of insomnia?
It could well be your sleeping
environment. The body regulates
its own temperature, keeping warm
throughout the day and then cooling
during the night. Anything that stops
that nighttime cooling process will
either wake us up or give us a
restless night. It could be that the

central heating is on too high, or
that your duvet is too thick. Warm
pyjamas are great for settling down
to relax after your bath, but might
be too much for your body to cope
with when it is time to sleep.
Reducing (or turning off) the central
heating, getting a thinner duvet, or
sleeping in lighter nightwear will
certainly help. The ideal temperature
for your bedroom is around 16C,
which should be around 29C under
the covers.

getting into bed and
falling asleep.

Your bedtime routine (or lack of)
could be another insomnia trigger.
Your body needs to understand
that it is time for it to wind down,
so rather than racing around later
on in the day, it’s best to do chores
and jobs in the morning. A good
evening routine is to eat before 7pm,
enjoy a warm bath or shower, and
switch off any work-related
machines such as your laptop or
phone. You need, so the experts
say, at least two hours of downtime
before you go to bed; and this can
include the 20 minutes you should
allow yourself between

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You may not realise
it, but your bedroom
could be too bright.
By changing your
curtains to thick,
blackout ones, or by
using an eye mask at
night, you can cut out
almost all of the extra
light that may well be
affecting your sleep
patterns. Despite millions of years of evolution, humans are still programmed
to wake when the sun rises and sleep when it sets, so any shift in light (a
car passing, a street lamp flickering on and off) can cause you to wake at
the wrong time, which will then mean your sleep pattern is off kilter.
Your bedroom could also be too noisy. Even the slightest noise in the night
could be enough to disturb your sleep. If you sleep with your mobile phone
next to the bed, or like to drift off to the sound of music, a sudden noise
will send the brain into alert mode, and your body will follow. If that happens,
it can take hours to get back into a restful state, and sometimes it doesn’t
happen at all. Earplugs can certainly help, although if you require an alarm
to wake up in the morning, then they may not be the best solution for you.
Other ways to ensure peace and quiet are to switch your phone off, keep
the window closed, and invest in a music player that automatically shuts
off after a predetermined amount of time. You can even have ‘white noise’
playing through the night, as this will blank out other noises.