YES!! This is one of my fundamental pillars in my Explore & Transform Programme. Without enough quality sleep, our body will eventually start falling apart.

I believe when we all stop and check in to see how our body is holding up, we can all relate to how a loss of sleep can take its toll on our energy, mood, decision-making and ability to handle stress. In the beginning, it can be subtle symptoms and over time these can become more noticeable and lead to chronic issues.

So let’s take it back to the beginning…

It is accepted that everything within the animal kingdom must sleep, yet the exact purpose and mechanism of sleep are only partly understood.

Understanding sleep, the power of it and how to get as much high-quality sleep as possible, is one of the healthiest things we can do. But alas, many people don’t realise the importance and end up sleeping as little as possible. Just as exercise and nutrition are essential for optimal health and happiness, so is sleep.

No other activity delivers so many benefits with so little effort and it has a direct correlation to the quality of our waking life.

The Role Of Sleep

Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, and the inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. Sleep timing is controlled naturally by a circadian clock. This clock (also known as circadian oscillator) allows us to coordinate our biology and behaviour with daily and seasonal changes in the day – night cycle. It operates over a 24-hour period and receives daily corrective signals from the environment, primarily daylight and darkness. Circadian clocks are the central mechanisms which drive circadian rhythms.

This diagram shows us what how our body naturally works in a circadian rhythm :

This is quite fundamental to understand as when we disrupt this, we are messing around with what our body naturally knows what to do. This is when we experience poor quality sleep.

You will probably have already read that our hormones are an integral part of our sleep cycle. They can change our circadian rhythm and vice versa. It is therefore essential to keep both our hormones and circadian rhythm in balance.

So what does sleep really do for us ?

1. Restoration

Sleep is restorative, and without it we are not able to work, learn, create and communicate at our highest level. With time, lack of sleep can lead to mental and physical breakdown.

Sleep has also been shown to be linked to the immune system. Sleep loss can impair our immune function, so by sleeping longer we can invest in strengthening our immune system.

Our sleeping brains have been shown to help remove metabolic waste products at a faster rate than during active state, further enhancing the restorative function of sleep. You can think of it as our brain taking out the daily trash.

2. Memory Processing

There have been numerous studies conducted to show the correlation between sleep and memory. Furthermore, sleep deprivation has been linked to a reduction of ‘working memory’. This is important because it keeps information active for further processing and supports higher-level cognition functions such as decision-making, reasoning and memory.

3. Preservation

It’s been suggested that sleep can serve as a ‘preservation and protection’ system to reserve energy and reduce risk.

There are a lot more studies around the importance of sleep but I hope that this gives you a taster for why it is so important and how easily we can impact and disturb this natural cycle.

Knowing this, what are some tricks to get better sleep ?

How To Sleep Better

There are a number of sleep promoting techniques and considerations that can be easily integrated into your evening routine. Here are only some that you can explore and see how they support you.

1. Get a routine

Syncing with the bodies natural clock, the circadian rhythm, is one of the most effective methods we have to getting a good night’s sleep.

Getting into a strict and consistent routine of going and getting out of bed at the same time each day can have huge benefits.

It’s also important to experiment with different sleep and wake times, as various set ups will benefit people differently. So not only find the ideal length of sleep, but also the times this sleep should start and finish.

2. Control the surroundings

On top of finding the best sleeping routine, we can naturally encourage the body to feel more alert or relaxed. A hormone known as melatonin is released when we are in dark surroundings, as it helps the body regulate the sleep- wake cycle.

If we are exposed to little to no sunlight during the day, we can release melatonin making us sleepy during the day.

In a bright environment, melatonin production is stopped. The same occurs at night when we do want a release of melatonin to induce sleep. If we are exposed to bright light or electrical equipment just before bed, it can slow down the release.

The goal should be to spend more time in daylight during the day, with less exposure to it (including artificial light) at night.

3. Keep the bedroom for sleep

Ensuring the bedroom is optimized for relaxing, unwinding and sleeping is essential. The bedroom should therefore become a place to be associated for sleep which will send a powerful signal to help us nod off.

Other important factors here are:

Eliminating any noises that may disturb our sleep
Keeping the bedroom at the right temperature
Removing any electronic equipment
Ensuring the room is dark enough
Ensuring the bed is comfortable enough

4. Improve Nutrition and Exercise Habits

Good nutrition habits can drastically improve sleep quality, particularly in the last hours before bed. Some important considerations are: -

Avoid eating large meals before bed
Avoid drinking too much liquid
Avoid caffeine in the latter part of the day
Avoid alcohol before bed
Daily exercise can also lead to improved sleep, while exercising too late may disturb the body’s natural wake-sleep cycle as it can act as a heavy stimulus on the body.

I hope that this has given you some insight to the importance of good quality sleep and some changes that you can make to improve this. As you know these things take time to implement and if you need more support please feel free to reach out to me.

Is Sleep really that important?