But first of all, here's my personal opinion on the issue of sleep...
Lack of sleep doesn't just leave you tired and irritable, If you are trying to lose a bit of weight, then getting good quality sleep is absolutely essential.
I need my sleep, and I get very grouchy if I don't get my 8 hours. And the next day I am bloody starving! It always seems like I'm hungry ALL day, and not for salad. I want carbs. Lots and lots of carbs.
The only way to stop the craving for food for me is to get an early night, which luckily I want anyway if I'm still feeling tired from the night before.
Basically, when you are asleep and dreaming of chocolate cake, your body is busy repairing itself. Lack of sleep can affect certain hormone production, in particular ghrelin which stimulates your appetite, and leptin which tells you when you are full. Get these hormones out of balance and you can see where things start to go wrong!
Now, there are lots more sciency reasons why you should make sure you are getting enough good quality sleep, but since I'm not a scientist I won't go into too much detail just now - that's what Google is for.
What I will share with you is 5 tips to getting a good nights sleep!
1. Turn off the tech.
Stop checking your Facebook, email, or other websites immediately before going to bed! I can pretty much guarantee you won't miss anything by staying away from tech for an hour before bed, and it might help you get a better night's sleep. And that includes turning off the TV!
Try reading a book instead, preferably fiction, to quiet your mind and start you on a journey to dreamland.
2. Eat earlier.
A heavy meal right before bed can leave you feeling uncomfortable and cause difficulties in dropping off. Try to bring your meal time forward, and stick to meat or fish with lots of veggies. If you need carbs, try adding sweet potato instead of pasta or bread. While carbs may make you sleepy they are harder for your body to digest, taking up resources that could be better used on repairing your body while you sleep.
3. Stay off the booze.
While you might think a drink in the evening helps you to fall asleep, you don't sleep as well. Think about it. How did you feel the last time you had a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. Did you drop of to sleep really quickly, only to wake up a few hours later? Or even worse, did you drop into a heavy sleep only for the alarm to sound a few seconds later, leaving you feeling like you had no sleep at all?
While we're at it, stay off the caffeine too in the evening. Try Tulsi tea instead.
4. Open a window.
Being too hot at night can make you restless as you toss and turn and try to find a cool patch on your pillow. While you don't want to go too far the other days and be shivering under your duvet, try turning the heating down and opening a window for some fresh air.
5. Control the lights.
Even the glow from your digital alarm clock can disrupt your sleep patterns. For a good nights sleep try to get rid of as many of those glowy led's as possible. Cover them with a tshirt, turn them off, or remove them altogether. Get black-out curtains of the glow from streetlights is an issue. The darker it is the better, allowing your body to react as it's supposed to and send you off into a deep restorative sleep.
And for waking up in the morning? When I had horribly early mornings for work I used an alarm clock that simulated a sunrise, and right from the first day using it I found I was wide awake and full of energy about 10 minutes before the alarm would go off. Much better than being dragged out of a deep sleep by an alarm clock blasting at you in the dark on a cold winters morning!
Samantha Goodwin is the author of the popular Nutritional
Responsibility Guide. This is a nutritional program for the real world
where you want to look great but at the same time not feel handcuffed by
an overly strict regime that you'll never see the end of. You can read
more about the program at http://www.nutritionalresponsibility.com/
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