Health Check Tuesday; the average adult requires 7.5 to 9 hours sleep per night, every night. Is this you?
I’ve always thought that I was one of those lucky people who don’t need a lot of sleep. I go to bed early and fall to sleep immediately. Turns out this is my first clue to being sleep deprived.
I’ve always thought this was a good thing. I go to bed to sleep and my head hits the pillow and I’m asleep = a good thing.
Apparantly not. Seems this is one of the first “symptoms of the sleep deprived”.
The list is extensive and as I read through I ticked them off:
- falls asleep in front of tv – tick. Only when it’s boring. How can that count?
- feel the need to nap during the day – tick. Doesn’t the whole of Europe & South America survive and rely on their afternoon siesta?
- get sleepy during meetings, lectures or in warm rooms – tick. Again, only when meetings are boring and doesn’t everyone feels sleepy when cosy warm?
So, here’s the thing. If I am sleep deprived and I’m not sure that I am, except Dr Google diagnoses me so read more symptoms and other interesting information about the effects of sleep here
What am I to do?
I went back to Dr Google for solutions.
Seems there is a ton of information and seems lots of similarities:
- Create a routine. Try to go to bed at similar time and wake at similar time every day. Waking at same time seems to be more important than going to sleep.
- Limit food and beverage consumption before bedtime. That old theory about breakfast like a king and dinner like the servant, seems this is not just the solution for keeping weight under control it helps us sleep better as well.
- Make the environment sleep friendly:
- comfy bed and pillow
- clean linen
- not to hot, not too cold, just right temperature
- reduce noise and light
- no tv, iPads, iPhones, internet, FB etc etc in the bedroom
For other things we can do read this great article.
For now this is enough for me to try and see how I go