What is Healthy Sleep?
Getting good quality sleep can help you feel like your best self. Healthy sleep patterns improve learning, memory, creativity, and mood. Healthy sleep also strengthens the immune system and makes it easier to maintain a healthy diet.
In contrast, if you aren’t getting healthy sleep, you might feel slow, foggy, depressed, and have low-energy. Sometimes, it is obvious when you are not sleeping well. In other cases, poor sleep and its adverse effects accumulate gradually, so it’s possible to become accustomed to them without recognizing the impact they are having on your health and life. Take a step back and consider your sleep habits and your nightly experience of sleep.
The Science of Sleep
Science has shown that sleep allows your brain to do some basic housecleaning. While you sleep, your brain takes out the trash and carefully puts away your memories. Enough sleep also keeps the rest of your body running in tiptop shape, helping you to burn fat and rejuvenate tissue. In fact, sleep is an important daily medicine for your brain and body.
Building a Better Bedtime Routine
Creating a bedtime routine is one of the easiest steps you can take to enjoy better sleep. A bedtime routine is a set of activities you perform in the same order, every night, in the 30 to 60 minutes before you go to bed. Bedtime routines can vary, but often include calming activities like taking a warm bath, reading, journaling, or meditation. This will help your brain recognize when it's time to sleep as well as help you avoid insomnia.
What's a Good Routine?
Decide on a Set Bedtime - first, decide on your bed and wake-up times, and stick to them every day. Not only does healthy sleep require successfully sleeping for a certain number of hours, it also means getting quality, uninterrupted sleep over the course of those hours and doing so with consistency. Following a consistent sleep routine helps train your brain to naturally feel tired when it’s bedtime. Next, schedule a time to begin your bedtime routine every night, anywhere between 30 minutes to 60 minutes before bed. Set an alarm if you need to.
Leave the Electronics Alone - don't play tricks on your brain. Electronic devices emit strong blue light, and when you use these devices, that blue light floods your brain, tricking it into thinking it's daytime. As a result, your brain suppresses melatonin production (a hormone that controls sleep cycles), and works to stay awake. Say goodnight to your electronics and avoid using them in the evening as much as possible.
Hide the Clock - if you are a ‘clock watcher’ at night, hide the clock or put it on the other side of the room. Avoid the urge to constantly check the time. Concentrating on how many hours and minutes you slept (or haven't slept) only increases anxiety, which doesn't serve your sleep.
Stretch, Breathe, Meditate - some light stretching and breathing exercises can go a long way toward relaxing you into sleep. See what works for you and add it to your bedtime routine. A regular meditation practice can also improve your sleep quality. Meditation teaches people to allow their thoughts and manage emotions, enabling sleep onset, rather than stressing about not falling asleep.
Write Down a To-Do List or Journal - many people find it restorative to journal, and doing so in the evening lets them sort out their thoughts and feelings before going to bed. Or consider starting with a simple to-do list. One study found that taking 5 minutes before bed to jot down a quick to-do list of tasks that needed to be done in the following days significantly sped up sleep onset.
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Can't Sleep? Do this, not that |
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Can't Sleep?
One of the first things sleep physicians tell insomnia patients is to get out of bed if you can’t sleep. The worst thing you can do when you can’t fall asleep is lie in bed and attempt to force yourself to sleep. But you can't do anything that’s stimulating. Learn what to do, and what to avoid:
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Working Night Shifts
People who work overnight shifts, early morning shifts, or rotating shifts (both day shifts and night shifts) may develop something called shift work disorder (SWD). Studies show that those with SWD have poorer sleep quality than day workers. To find some relief, request to work the same shift several nights in a row, to avoid flipping between day and night shift schedules on consecutive days. This helps to regulate the circadian system.
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Top 10 Foods
to Help you Sleep
Changing your diet is an easy, natural way to help cure your insomnia. Learn which foods help your body make serotonin (a relaxing mood hormone) which then helps your body make melatonin (a hormone that controls sleep cycles). Here are the top 10:
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Sleep Diaries
A sleep diary is a useful way to track your sleep. A typical sleep diary covers a two-week period and is most effective when you complete it daily.
This will help you understand your sleep pattern and how much sleep you’re getting. It will also show how often you have disrupted sleep. There are many apps and sleep trackers, or you can download the sleep diary tool below:
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COVID-19 Updates
Stay up-to-date on the latest COVID-19 info to help keep you and your family safe.
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Please Join Our Mailing List
If you are an AMO sailing member and would like to receive our monthly newsletter directly to your email inbox; please click below "Join Our Mailing List" to receive news on upcoming campus health events, medical benefits news, as well as the latest in research and trends to optimize a healthy lifestyle.
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Sources: www.cdc.gov; www.sleepeducation.org; www.sleepassociation.org; www.sleepfoundation.org; www.bettersleep.org; www.hsph.harvard.edu; www.insomnia.sleep-disorders.net |
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Members & Employees, Care for Your Health
Currently, we are not conducting Health & Wellness Screenings
at the AMO Plans Medical Clinic. However, we look forward to establishing this important AMO Plans benefit again in the future.
Sailing Members:
As with all AMO Plans Health & Wellness Initiatives, any health information obtained is private and not shared with any required merchant mariner physical exam process. This information is strictly for your betterment and may be shared with your physician at your discretion
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Connect with us to learn more about your Health & Wellness Benefits
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