Sleep Hygeine

Snooze fest:  How  your mental health could be determined by Your Sleep Hygeine (or lack thereof)

 Today I’d like to address a very important yet rarely talked about issue:  SLEEP!  Poor sleep is frequently a complaint I hear about from patients when they first come to see me.  Whether they’re having too much because of depression, too little secondary to anxiety, nightmares from PTSD, or problems getting to sleep or staying there, issues with sleep are almost universal. 

 Maybe your mind is constantly racing and it’s hard to quiet it down even with breathing or meditation exercises.  Maybe you do just fine during the day when you’re distracted with working or busy with childcare but once you lie down for the night, memories haunt you.  Maybe you toss and turn constantly and can’t even knock yourself out with over-the-counter meds or alcohol.  Perhaps you have a physiological issue in that excess weight or hypermobility causes the tissues around your throat to collapse, literally strangling you awake from lack of oxygen.

 Maybe you don’t suffer from a mental illness, but your life is a constant stress ball.  You work too much, you don’t have enough help at home, you don’t get enough down time, and you’re constantly grinding.  Stress increases cortisol levels, increases belly fat, changes your insulin levels, which then increases your desire for carbohydrate-laden foods.  If you’ve been eating healthfully, exercising religiously, had all your hormone levels checked and you STILL can’t seem to lose that stubborn belly fat, cortisol may be to blame.  And one of the biggest causes of consistently high cortisol (outside of obvious environmental stressors or certain rare medical issues) is lack of proper sleep!

 Something so basic should be easily addressed, right?  Think again.  Life tends to get in the way.

 So let’s get back to THE BASICS and start with some of the things we know but don’t put into practice and let’s also add some things you may not have heard of!

 1.      No caffeine or chocolate after 4pm.  If you’re sensitive, none after noon.  It increases your glucose and cortisol levels.

2.   No big or spicy meals right before bed.  It increases your risk for reflux and bad dreams.

3.    No strenuous exercise 2 hours prior to bed.  It gets the blood pumping and wakes up adrenaline.  Save that for mornings or early afternoons.  But just FYI, 30” of gentle exercise every single day, even if it’s just walking, will also help reduce your stress levels and allow you to sleep easier.

4.   The bed should be reserved for sleep and sex ONLY.  No checking emails, paying bills, doing homework, or watching TV.  Your brain will start to associate wakefulness with being in bed otherwise.

5.    No alcohol before bed.  Yes, it can relax you but it decreases your REM or dreaming sleep.  Your brain needs this to restore itself for the next day.  So if you do drink, you may get to bed sooner because you’re relaxed, but your quality of sleep is going to suck.

6.   Blue light between 6-9am for at least 30”—we as humans NEED sunlight in order to maintain our appropriate Circadian rhythms, one of which is cortisol release.  Blue light also suppresses our endogenous (or inside) release of melatonin for another 10-12 hours.  We need sunlight in the am…sans glasses, contacts, or windows…it needs to be able to hit our retinas directly.  Walk the dog around the neighborhood.  Or, if you live in a mostly cloudy place like Seattle or Cincinnati, grab a happy light box.  You can get one on Amazon for like 30/40 bucks.  You just need to make sure that it registers 10,000 lux, or a unit measurement of light.  That’s how you know you’re getting a medical grade of sunlight in order to make a difference.  And while it’s on, it needs to be within arm’s distance for about 30”.  I tell people the easiest way to get it is to place it on the bathroom vanity and turn it on the minute you step out of the shower so it’s near you while you dry off, moisturize, do your hair, get dressed, do your makeup, and brush your teeth and it’s mostly done!

7.    NO BLUE LIGHT AT NIGHT.  Remember the previous statement?  We need blue light in the morning because it simulates sunshine.  If we get it at night, it will continue to suppress our innate production of melatonin.  In other words, we won’t go sleepy-bye.  Anything electronic produces blue light, even with a filter on there’s still some that gets through.  Phones, TVs, iPads, Kindles, Computers, all of it.  You need a break from them for at least two hours prior to bedtime.

8.   Your room environment matters.  It should be an ambient temp of 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit.  That sounds chilly, doesn’t it?  But studies have shown we have a lot easier time falling asleep in a slightly chilly room than a too-warm room.  Turn down the lights before bed, turn down the thermostat, and read a good book or journal.  You’ll be amazed at how sleepy you become just by these ambient changes.  Turn on some white noise if you can’t tolerate a completely silent room.  You can also take a warm bath to relax your muscles, increasing your temperature, so the room you’ve turned down the thermostat in feels even chillier!  Makes it more cozy to burrow in the covers.

9.   Same bat time, same bat channel—you want to try to get up and go to bed around the same time, yes, even on the weekends!  So if you get up at 7am on weekdays, try not to sleep any later than 8am on weekends.  If you go to bed around 10pm during the week, attempt to get into bed no later than 11pm on the weekends.  This allows your brain to create a regular routine and rhythm, where your brain can start to expect certain times meaning certain things.  Which where the brain believes, the happy neurochemicals follow!

10.    Set an alarm approximately 2 hours prior to when you WANT to get to bed, turn down the lights and the thermostat, take a warm bath or shower, and create a bedtime routine where you read a book, journal, do breathing or meditation techniques, or make a gratitude practice of everything good that happened during the day.  Everything you’re thankful or glad for.  It changes your filter.  Then visualize everything good you WANT to have happen the following day, everything you’re looking forward to.  It floods your system with feel-good hormones and literally changes your vibe.

11.                        Some people like to use “grounding” as a way to reconnect to the earth, just by walking barefoot outside on the grass, soil, or sand.  It’s a way to discharge excess energy and a way to increase blood flow and decrease inflammation, as some studies show.

12.    If doing all these things consistently for a month still aren’t helping, it’s time to reach out to your doctor to either A) get a sleep study B) get your hormones tested C) work with a therapist to use some coping skills to either create a sleep routine or work through trauma, or D) talk to a trusted psychiatrist in order to see if you may need an antidepressant or sleep aid in order to help you sleep.

 So, if you found this information helpful, please like, subscribe, and follow us!  We’re @AndersonClinicCincy on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. And you can find our Psych Waves podcast on Apple and Spotify.  Tell your friends.  And if you happen to be in the Cincinnati area and are looking for assistance with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, PTSD, or concussions, give us a call at (513) 321-1753.  Start feeling better faster!