Search

Why Sleep is just as important as your diet



Sleep is one of the best things you can do from a self care perspective but it's also one of the areas that is most likely to be neglected.

The recommended amount of shut eye is eight hours a night (preferably more!) but lots of us are falling far short of this and it's having a massive impact on almost every aspect of wellbeing, from health to weight. You can live healthily in every other area of your life but unfortunately, it's probably not going to do much to counteract the damaging effects of poor sleep habits.

Here's a lack at why getting enough sleep is so crucial for your health and wellbeing, and why diet alone can't undo the effects of not sleeping well.

Sleep Duration Versus Sleep Quality

We're always being told how many hours we should be sleeping each night but is it definitely enough even if we can manage to achieve it?

Sleep quality refers to how well we sleep and is a completely different prospect to how long we sleep. It's pretty easy to tell how long you sleep but the quality of it is a bit harder to determine.

Poor sleep quality means that you're not sleeping in line with your circadian rhythm or going through all of the important sleep phases (particularly with REM sleep).

Some of the signs that your sleep quality isn't as good as it could be include:

Waking up during the night
Not waking up naturally e.g. you have to be abruptly awoken by your alarm clock most mornings

Sleep and Health

What exactly does your body experience when you don't get enough sleep? Pretty much everything is affected but here are some of the more serious effects that poor
sleep patterns can have on your health:

Lower immunity. If you seem to get every cough and cold going, your sleep habits may be to blame. In one study, researchers deliberately exposed people to the common cold virus to see how likely they were to go onto develop a cold. Participants who had been sleeping for less than 7 hours per night had lower immunity and were almost 3 times more likely to be impacted. Even a small sleep debt has been linked to lower immunity.

Higher risk of heart disease and stroke. Studies have looked at the link between lack of sleep and developing heart disease and stroke and it's a scary connection. Getting less than 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night means a higher chance of developing Coronary Heart Disease or having a stroke - and dying from it.

Higher risk of diabetes. A sleep debt can pave the way for developing Type 2 diabetes. In this study, just a week of not sleeping well reduced insulin sensitivity and raised concerns about whether consistently sleeping badly might open the door to developing health issues linked to insulin resistance.

Increased inflammation. Inflammation is now linked to lots of different health problems and can be increased by sleep loss.

Sleep and Cognition

You've no doubt heard that eating the right foods can boost your brain health but it's not just diet can affect your memory and concentration.

Sleep is an important factor too, and lack of sleep has been shown to impair them. In fact, one study has suggested that even moderate sleep issues can be as damaging as alcohol in affecting performance!

The deeper stages of sleep are particularly vital when it comes to clear thinking, focus, memory and learning. This is when your brain does a lot of its mental 'sorting', such as filtering out information that isn't really needed right now. It doesn't sound a lot but it all adds up to better cognition and performance.

Sleep and Weight Gain



If you don't sleep well, it can be a lot harder to maintain a healthy weight. The main problem? It sends your metabolism a little bit crazy and can ruin your good intentions for eating well.

Lack of sleep has a big effect on hormones that are linked to appetite - namely leptin and ghrelin. Leptin helps to keep your appetite in check while ghrelin does the opposite.

Ideally, you want to have more leptin and less ghrelin but not getting enough sleep throws this balance out and effectively switches them around. This means you're a lot more likely to overeat, even when you're technically full. And you'll find it harder to shift stubborn fat on your stomach, as sleep deprivation encourages fat to build up in this area in particular.

Improving Your Sleep Quality

Some of the things you can do to try to get better quality sleep each night include:

Making your room as dark as possible to support your circadian rhythm. Pitch black (or as close to it as you can get) is best.

Setting a bedtime routine that involves going to bed at the same time every night and getting up at a specific time each morning.

Switching off electronic devices at least an hour before bed (even your phone!) to reduce the amount of 'blue light' you're exposed to just before bedtime. This 'blue light' means your body finds it harder to produce enough of the sleep hormone, melatonin, to help you sleep well.

If you haven't been seeing sleep as a key part of your wellness routine, it's definitely time to change that! How well do you sleep?

Sleep is just one of the many ways you can get your brain and body healthier. Schedule a Free Ignite your Health Discovery call for more useful tips at https://bit.ly/3c4EKog

Small Wins for Creating a Chaos-Free Family Home

If your home is less organized than you'd like, it can have a knock on effect for other areas of your life. Creating a life that is free from mess and chaos isn't as difficult as you might think, even if you have little ones to factor into the equation. Decluttering is a must for a calmer, less stressful life. These tips should help to declutter your life!

Go For Small, Quick Wins

Think of decluttering as a work in progress. Sure, you want everything to be streamlined and organized but it doesn't have to happen today. Focus on small wins that you can tackle each day. Over time, they add up to a less cluttered, calmer and more organized home and life. Adopting this mindset can be super important for making decluttering a big part of your life going forwards and creating a life that is calmer and less chaotic.

Bin the Trash

Some of what looks like clutter is actually trash that no one has gotten around to throwing away or recycling yet. If you move around your home looking for items that fall into this category, you'll probably be surprised to see how quickly you fill a trash bag.

Once your home is clear of trash, you can swap this tip to filling a trash bag full of items that can be recycled or donated.

Set Up a Central Communications Point

In a cluttered home, lots of things can slip through the cracks and get lost. Prime candidates? Important bits of paperwork that you can never seem to find amongst general clutter.

Keeping paperwork together in a central place that can be a game changer for keeping stress to a minimum. When you know you need to access this kind of paperwork, just head for the place you've chosen to store it. This can be as simple as a basket or collapsible folder.


Store Clutter in Hampers

Not got enough storage in your home for bed linen, blankets, toys and other items that just seem to take over? Store them in hampers.

Do the 12-12-12 Challenge

For every 36 items you come across, aim to throw out 12 of them, donate 12 of them and put the other 12 where they “should" live in your home. Not sure what should fall into each category? Think about how much you really love and need a particular item. What do you actually gain for keeping it in your life and would it make any difference to your life if you parted with it? Asking these kind of questions can help you to see if you're holding onto items because of past attachments or because of genuine need.

Another trick is to think about how much you'd be willing to pay if you were you bought that same item today.

This challenge has been known to add a very competitive element to decluttering and you can even get the rest of the family involved to get organized in super quick time!

Decluttering Your Life

Your home may be the main thing that springs to mind when you think about decluttering but what about streamlining the rest of your life too? Decluttering your life is another smart move for keeping chaos to a minimum.

Reducing your non-essential commitments: Struggling to get any free time with a super hectic social diary? Take a step back and think about how many of your social commitments are actually essential. Do they all bring you happiness or do you find some of them stressful? Streamline your commitments to ones that are either essential or pleasurable. Anything else can go!

Decluttering your day-to-day routine: When it comes to the average day, how much of a structure do you tend to have? Lots of people tackle their to-do list at random and this can affect how productive you are. It's also a surefire way to add more stress and uncertainty. Having more structure around your to-do list can make a huge amount of difference. Write down everything you need to do during the week and allocate it to specific windows in your schedule. This way, you know everything will be done and that can bring a sense of calmness in itself.

Decluttering your friendships: Even your friendships can be decluttered, especially if you feel that there are people in your life who are draining you, rather than providing positive energy and support. It can sometimes feel like any type of friendship is better than nothing but toxic friendships can be hugely stressful. Decluttering your friendships can be super liberating and free up unnecessary stress and negativity from your life.

We all have negative thoughts? You know…the running dialogue in our heads, that keeps playing over and over again. Or the messages we stuff in there that we are not good enough….rich enough, pretty enough…funny enough…

But how do we get rid of it…Simple!

We talk back to it…Take away its power.

Write down the negative thought as soon as you get it. Talk back to it.
Write a positive response to it. This will take away the power from the negative thought and will make you feel better.

There are 4 questions you need to ask yourself:

1. Is this negative thoughts true? (
2. Can I absolutely know that it is true?
3. How do I react when I believe that thought?
4. Who would I be without that thought? OR How would I feel if I didn't have the thought?

NOW… take the original thought and completely turn it around to its opposite, and ask yourself…
Is this new version of the thought that is causing your suffering is not true;
Or is it even truer than the original thought.

October special!

Click link below to get your $100 off coupon toward our Memory Rescue Program!

Contact us for details.

Receive $100 off Memory Rescue Program at http://shoplocal.ly/11xpYP

Radically Transformed Coaching updated their profile page in the Business Directory