Sleeping your way to better health

Sleep is one of the essential pillars of health alongside diet and exercise, it is at the heart of physical and mental health. It is essential for tissue repair, cell regeneration, immune functioning, memory consolidation, and for the regulation of daytime emotion. These things are particularly important during adolescence, indeed across the entire lifespan.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, difficulty getting to sleep, difficulty staying asleep and vivid dreaming have been widely reported globally across the general population. Depending on your personal circumstances, you might have found yourself struggling with your sleep, or you might have found that your sleep improved without the commute to work or school. Some people may already have had sleep problems and these might have improved or deteriorated. Screen time certainly increased and screen time in bedrooms certainly increased. Whatever your experience has been over the past weeks and months this is an important time to not let temporary disruption turn into an ongoing, chronic sleep problem.

The Sleep Health Foundation has over 80 fact sheets and handy hints on how to improve your sleep https://www.sleephealthfoundation.org.au/fact-sheets.html. Getting back into an earlier wake up time right now might be difficult, especially with the very short days and limited light exposure. The good news is our days are about to become lighter and longer after June 21. Exposure to natural daylight as close as possible to our waking time is a very important part of our sleep health.

Follow these steps to improve and maintain your sleep:

• Be aware that the bright screen light from devices can cause increased alertness
• Activities on such devices can be stimulating and make us less ready to sleep
• People can become absorbed and continue using technology beyond their usual bedtime, and miss the usual sleepiness signs
• At night, try to stop using technology earlier (1 hour before sleep), dim the lights earlier, and start to relax earlier
• Charge your device outside of the bedroom or at least across the other side of your room
• Dim the screen as much as possible for evening use. Many free software programs are available for devices that decrease the amount of blue light (which affects melatonin levels) in computer/phone screens during the evening and increases orange tones instead. Most are in-built into devices now, ensure you activate these features.
• Of course, a certain level of acceptance of evening technology use is needed as it has been found that more than 90% of both teenagers and adults (13 to 64 years old) in the USA use technology before bed. Practice what you preach. It’s merely about providing a buffer between screen time and bedtime.
• Only be in bed for sleeping- don’t bring the devices into your bed.
• Going to bed at a set time on school nights can help improve sleep and sleep quality but you need to be sleepy and ready for sleep, so start winding down earlier.
• An unwinding period at least an hour before bed is recommended in which it’s a ‘work free’ zone and a technology free zone (screens not facing you). Reading, listening to music or podcasts, doing gentle stretches or yoga, having a bath/shower and/or playing music are recommended.
• Get up at the same time on school mornings and get into the natural daylight as soon as you can
• On weekend mornings, try not to sleep in for too long. When you do get out of bed on weekends, try to get a bit more outdoor light, and try to be a bit more active (e.g., get dressed earlier, have breakfast earlier, get moving earlier)
• Remember mostly sleep problems resolve when the stressful period has resolved. But worry and dread about not sleeping well can maintain the problem for longer and turn it into a chronic problem.
• It’s very important to not struggle with sleep problems. Don’t try to pin sleep down; allow it to come to you. For it to come to you the conditions need to be right: mind settled, body settled, appropriate timing, body clock aligned, and being in a quiet, safe, comfortable environment.
• If you are concerned about any sleeping problems please talk to your wellbeing team who can direct you to some resources. They can listen to you and help you to work out a plan to improve sleep.

Likewise, another important issue over the past months is health anxiety, specifically the fear of contracting COVID-19, or a loved one catching the virus. You are not alone if you are still finding this fear overwhelming. It might even be a contributing factor for you in terms of some restless nights and reduced sleep, which in turn can make us more anxious. Here are some handy hints from local Melbourne health expert Dr Russ Harris to help manage fear of COVID-19. He has simply named it ‘FACE COVID’ and a detailed and simple approach is outlined here https://www.actmindfully.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/FACE-COVID-eBook-by-Russ-Harris-March-2020.pdf

F = Focus on what’s in your control

A = Acknowledge your thoughts & feelings 

C = Come back into your body

E = Engage in what you’re doing 

C = Committed action

O = Opening up

V = Values

I = Identify resources

D = Disinfect & distance