Here are Space to Breathe, we are big believers in the impact of sleep and rest for our wellbeing.
Although we take time to teach lots of techniques and tools to her individuals, we know that without good sleep - alongside good diet and exercise, healthy relationships & good routines - it’s hard to build good wellbeing practices. These are our basic five pillars of wellbeing.
On the whole, adults need 7 hours sleep a night, yet surveys suggest one third of adults sleep less than that (Sleep Foundation, 2024.)
25% of adults in the UK cite money worries as negatively impacting their sleep.
Matthew Walker (“Why We Sleep”) suggests five basic reasons why we struggle with sleep:
Blue light from devices
Temperature changes
Alcohol
Caffeine
Our rhythms e.g. night owls or morning larks.
Understanding some basic dynamics about problems with sleep can really help us. Check out this article below for example.
We wanted to share three short videos that give some perspectives and ideas on wellbeing and better sleep.
Wakefulness and Sleep
Firstly Andy shares some basic ideas to help deal with wakefulness at night. Often we can wake in the early hours with anxious thoughts and this can stop us getting back to sleep. Watch this video and try these two ideas.
TAKING THE PULSE OF OUR SLEEP
We can’t always figure out why our sleep is good or bad, but taking a quick audit of our sleep habits and practices can help us notice things we might not otherwise see.
Take five minutes now to honestly answer these questions and take a quick audit of your sleep. We’ve created a download you can use to answer these questions, or just use something you have to hand:
How would you rate your quality of sleep from 1 – 5 [1 = poor, 5 = great]?
Have I been able to fall asleep quickly or do I take a while to unwind?
If you’re taking a while to unwind, what might be the cause of this?
If you have a bedtime routine : What has my bedtime routine been like over the past week?
If you don’t have a bedtime routine : would having a bedtime routine be helpful for me? What could it look like?
Do I have regular sleep hours i.e. go to bed/fall asleep around the same time each day, or do they change from day to day?
Celebrate your successes! And if there are parts of this that don’t look like what you would want, that’s ok. Changing habits takes work and time but starting with accepting where we are now allows us to grow. Now that you have a realistic picture of your sleep habits, you can create a plan to either continue what you’re doing or make changes that will impact on your wellbeing.
WHY WE SLEEP
We’ve mentioned that we’ve found Matthew Walker’s book ‘Why We Sleep’ really helpful. You might appreciate this excellent eight minute summary of sleep challenges and things you can do from Matthew. This is produced by Penguin Books.
USING MEDITATION TO HELP WITH OUR SLEEP
Lastly we have found that meditation can be a really helpful tool when preparing us for sleep. We have two Sleep related Mindfulness MP3’s that you can download too. Check these out.
We hope these resources and ideas are really helpful and help you to look at improving your own sleep and rest. If you’re struggling to sleep each night, and aren’t able to find a solution, we strongly suggest you contact your GP and have a chat about it. Sleep is crucial to our health and wellbeing and provides a key way that we recover.