Introduction
FINALLY, the world is starting to catch on and pay attention to the importance of sleep. Having worked in sleep medicine fields for many years, I have witnessed first hand the impact from poor sleep on a person's life. Sleep is a key pillar to creating the foundations for a quality life. It's a simple fact that if you rob yourself of a good night’s sleep on a regular basis, it will have significant negative repercussions on your health, relationships, career, social world and the list goes on.
Sleep provides us with energy, is vital to our overall health, helps us cope with everyday demands, assists us with managing our stress levels and helps maintain a healthy body weight.
Now more than ever, more and more people are incorporating regular sleep hours into their diet and exercise programs. It shouldn’t take an expert in sleep to tell you that if you get a good night’s sleep, you feel good and if you don’t, you won’t. It is alarming how many people report sleep problems and yet never correlate their sleep habits with their complaint.
The modern world has created this theory that if an individual admits they need more than 6 hours sleep a night it is somehow seen as a weakness and you hear many people brag how they survive very well on only 5 hours sleep a night like a badge of honour. However, If they were honest with themselves they would have to concede that they suffer recurrent periods of cognitive impairment and fatigue during their day. Sleep deprivation prevents us from functioning optimally as well as physiological activity.
The section below on Sleep Physiology is an introduction to the work that takes place whilst we sleep. Learning this was a huge wake up call and provided a strong argument to pay attention to what was occurring in my own health and appearance.
The sleep strategies section is a list of approaches you can try to aid you on regulating your sleep. Some of these will be familiar and others are practices I have introduced to my own regime as well as clients to become more disciplined with our own sleep habits.
Hope they help
